Depersonalization, bicameral thinking, and TOM

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liamxlx
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Joined: 12 Dec 2015
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12 Dec 2015, 8:21 pm

For a long time I never felt i had a sense of self. in fact when i got to art school in my early 20's I made a personal research project into the psychology and science of how the self is constructed, as a way of coping with that level of sociality and a crude attempt to present a self.
I have always felt my personal boundary to be diffuse, cloudy, expansive, where I can sense other's boundaries as condensed, hard, often sharp, and am amazed at how effortlessly they are able to use them in social ways.
My sense of self is now quite definite but continues to remain almost gaseous, malleable, and vulnerable. But i am getting better at using these qualities well rather than them being weaknesses



Marybird
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12 Dec 2015, 11:28 pm

I never know quite what people mean when they say things like sense of self or self awareness.
I mean if you can talk about yourself you must have sense of self and self awareness. So I'm thinking it must mean a defined sense of self in a social context or sense of self as separate from everyone and everything in your world.
I have noticed people sometimes say, when they witness something like a beautiful sunset or beautiful wilderness area that it makes them feel small. I was once on a beach with one of my aunts watching a sunset and she remarked that it made her feel small and asked me if it made me feel small also and I said no, it makes me feel big.
I don't understand how it makes people feel small.
I think when people feel small in nature, they must be separating themselves from it.
Maybe that is what most people consider to be sense of self. My sense of self is not so confined.

I have a hard time defending myself when people are mean to me. It's almost like they're changing reality by saying what they say and I can't think fast enough to understand and reply.
When I was young I didn't bother to explain things to my parents. It didn't occur to me to do that.
I didn't separate myself from them enough to realize I had to tell them what was bothering me.
I have a sense of self but I think it's a little unstable in some ways or maybe just different.



Starfoxx
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13 Dec 2015, 9:45 am

I'm not sure about my sense of self. I can be almost whoever I want or need to be for a given task. As for theory of mind I didn't realise other people had such detailed thoughts, memory's and emotions until I was 15. I thought it was like how animals are alive and can think and and feel in a limited way.

Also I didn't really understand how my actions affected others till about 15. I thought whatever I do at school for exampe could be kept separate from home. I thought others wold forget things you've done easily.

Now I'm very different, almost NT



liamxlx
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Joined: 12 Dec 2015
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Location: London UK

13 Dec 2015, 10:18 am

From my conversations on this topic with NTs I get the impression that they have no idea that anything can be different and so project their own expectations of cognition onto me. They see 'ME' as having a defined Ego-self just like themselves and so judge my behaviour as such, as that is the only way they can understand the world. In this way I feel that in group social situations 'WHAT I AM' is created by others opinion and that my own truth no longer exists. Blown away in the wind. Or formed into some mould that I am ill equipped to break out of with appropriate clever behavioural tricks.