Has anyone here ever dealt with an identity crisis, if so how did you overcome it?
My identity crisis started when my mother passed away. I realized that the faith i thought i had wasn’t my own (as i have mentioned in another post) as it was really my mothers and i had assumed since i was a child that it was also mine, which turned out to not be the case. I have tried to sweep the problem under the rug trying to ignore it but i cannot ignore it any longer. I do not know how i should go about finding my identity, any advice would be much appreciated.
I was wandering for some years in my mid teens to early 20s – this is an excerpt from the latter of those: My marriage was arranged. More ‘recently’ (30 years ago this fall ; - ) was this: prostrate pleading. Even though I was seriously distraught, I was still trusting God, so that is definitely the place to start. If you don’t, you should – he is trustworthy.
You do not find your identity, you create it. This is not science. Objective observation cannot help you. Start making choices and those choices will be a part of your identity.
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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This is incredibly brave of you Kevin.
It’s a blessing that feels like a curse isn’t it? Like the tearing off of an old sticking plaster. Exercising new vulnerable skin. Ignorance is bliss we say. And it is and it isn’t. We do harm in ignorance. All identity is a story, a legend as they say in undercover work. So we have to write a new one. In our jobs for at least a third of our waking lives. And above all in our relationships. At work and at home and in the neighbourhood. Our identity is there whether we know it or not. What family relationships do you have left? Get out in the green. It’s pure therapy. Alone AND with a group.
And serve.
And, get counselling, from a highly experienced, highly qualified professional. Preferably a Rogerian psychologist.
I feel you.I had that idenity.I created it was mine.I though i could share it.I though there were still a little piece of humanity in this world ,that some people valued that some people had values. Then it all went to hell. I lost mine too.I felt and still feel empty without meaning.
So you might ask what to do?Abandon it Create a new one. Or “recreate” that one.Easier said than done i know that .
You have received really good advice from the the gentlemen earlier in this thread. And particularly as @Klax said, you are (and have been) incredibly brave to say such in the open.
I want to point out, at least from my own experience, that this will probably not be the last time you feel this way. Being confronted by enormous changes in our lives forces our hands; forces us, if we’re paying attention, to reassess what we make of our lives and how we value what we are doing. As terrifying, at least terribly unsettling, as it can be with the idea that we aren’t quite who we assumed we are, this is actually normal.
It hits people differently, and it seems like this might be your first time around. You seem like a really thoughtful, inquisitive person, who is always seeking. That very process changes you. But at the same time, you are not a slate that has been wiped clean. The You is still there, and you’re probably sorting out more than just your faith and identity. When a person close to us dies, or leaves in some other way, there’s a serious hole in the web of relationships we relied on for stability. There is nothing simple about this time in your life.
If you are feeling overwhelmed or stuck, I second @klax’s recommendation for counseling. Your family doctor, or your advisor at school should be able to help you start making those connections.
Honestly, it’s possible to come through this fine. Changed but fine.
Indeed that is true. I retired from medicine after 38 years and it was and is still difficult to separate that identity from who I am now. Sometimes you get writer’s block when trying to write the next chapter.
I particularly like Klax’s suggestion for service. Relationships made through service activities do wonders for helping see your worth.
As far as the faith aspect of it, reading good books is the best thing I know of, and talking about issues with others, either here or in person. Those of us who grew up in the faith all inherited our beliefs to some extent, and most churches do not go out their way to expose you to the world of thought outside their walls. It is good to learn of how the greater church has come to understand various issues. For me, it sort of made me irritated that no one had presented those views to me in the church, but you have to learn some things on your own.