Finding Identity

Who are you, really?

To some extent, I am "thought sharing" with @jaynie a bit; you can go read her latest post which touches on aspects of the same idea.

Anyway, identity is an interesting thing. For some, it's fairly well developed... for others it stays vague and nebulous for much of their lives.

Who am I, really?

I came out of an old-world, old family, born to old parents with the fundamental value that "Children might be SEEN, but should not be HEARD."

In addition, I had the good "fortune" to be born to a couple of highly self-involved and somewhat narcissistic parents; a father who didn't actually want children, and a mother in love with the "concept" of having a child, but somewhat appalled by the reality of raising a kid.

In looking back on my childhood, I was really more of an "asset" — like maybe a prize painting, or a rare book — than an actual human being.

To say that my parents were "emotionally unavailable" would be the understatement of the century... on top of which my dad was mostly absent, and my mom was a functional alcoholic with a prescription drug habit that left her snoring on the couch an awful lot.

I grew up in a state of benign neglect.

That is to say, there were many ways in which I had to "raise myself," at least from an emotional perspective. The "benign" part came from the fact that I never lacked anything; we always had a nice house, good food, clothes, education, toys and such. My parents didn't beat me or do abusive things... they mostly just left me alone, and were generally too wrapped up in their lives to mind me, very much.

As models for relationships... well, they didn't openly fight; they were always polite to each other, but I never saw them being openly affectionate in any way, and it wasn't until much later that I came to understand the fact that they slept in separate bedrooms at opposite ends of the house — literally — was something unusual.

But I don't really want to dwell on that, too much.

When I finally left home — at age 18 — circumstances of my upbringing had been such that I was essentially a blank slate in many aspects of life.

My "bases of experience" — particularly in the areas of emotions and relationships — were so far removed from the outer reality I walked into that I might as well have been a newborn. Or a freshly cloned adult!

Somehow, part of me "knew" that I definitely wanted something different from what I had been raised with. Ironically, I ended up having to "raise myself" for a second time, this time in the image that I actually wanted.

Thanks to some sort of miracle, I neither "went wild," nor did I "go crazy."

I suppose it was no surprise that I was almost immediately drawn to the field of psychology... as I tried to understand why my experience had been so different from what seemed to be normal, all around me.

Aside from learning about "benign neglect," I also learned about the effects of "touch deprivation," which can impact both your physical and mental health... and probably was a substantial part of why I always felt very lonely as a kid and young adult.

"Finding Identity" doesn't happen overnight!

I probably didn't get as far as to being "somewhat OK" until I reached my early to mid-30s, and had gone through several rounds of therapy and had attended dozens of self-development retreats and seminars.

If there's a positive to the way I grew up it would have to be that I didn't arrive into adulthood with a bunch of "bad habits" I needed to undo... instead, I arrived with pretty much nothing.

But I did arrive with the ability to (physically) fend for myself, cook, clean, darn my clothes, build stuff, invest, balance a checkbook, discuss the geopolitical situation in Asia and other stuff most people don't typically have till they are much older.

"Just a baby" in some ways, and "a little old man" in others.

Why am I even writing these words? Perhaps as a cautionary tale, and perhaps as an illustration that we humans have a remarkable ability to overcome and better ourselves.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

How about you? Did your parents prepare you well for adulthood? Or did you have to learn most of it for yourself? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.04.20 00:46 PDT
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