No identity/Don't know myself/Help someone utterly lost?

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I will try to keep this from being too long.
1. I am fairly certain I have had severe depression since I was a child- 7 or 8 or so. (lack of interest, apathy, amotivation, feeling of pointlessness, etc.)
-I cannot see someone about it and just have to "deal with it"/attempt to hide it, at least until I am away from family
2. When I am not depressed, although it is rare, I have another serious problem.
I have no consistent identity. I am not referring to the usual teenage "finding yourself" stage, this is extreme. As in, I have entire personality changes. I have no consistent traits, and I can convincingly take on /any/ identity role (confusing people around me.) Subsequently, I can rarely tell whether I genuinely like my special interests, a key part of recovering from depression, I assume, is having hobbies. I always form new interests which are short (can range from days to a year or two,) extremely intense, but that, at some point, I will suddenly lose all interest in. I have to hide them, because it completely bemuses people around me, and they can't understand how I can switch from fully obsessed to fully uninterested, sometimes even disliking my previous interest.
Also, it is financially draining. I will buy things related to the interest, invest a lot of time, money, etc. into it, accomplish nothing else/put other things on hold, only to drop it and realize how much I just wasted. I'll even make friends with people for each "identity" whom I drop when I change identities.
So, basically, it is like:
depression>>extreme personality stage>>depression>>totally different personality/identity>>depression
and so forth.
I even realize I am doing it, but I can't stop. When I start to be obsessed with something new, I create an entirely new identity (or take on the identity of some fictional character or real person.) I feel like I am just watching from a distance, knowing I am stuck in a cycle, but it still occurs.

Note: I cannot/ will not seek someone for help for valid reasons at the time being. In a few years, I may be able to, but I am asking for advice until then.

I think feelings of confusion about personal identity are quite a common thing for people with Aspergers. If you find that you get very depressed sometimes and then very hyper in between - spending too much, taking risks etc then you might want to consider the possibility that you are bi-polar. Otherwise I think this could just be down to Aspergers.

I was certainly like that when I was younger, I changed completely on a monthly basis and wanted to change my clothes, hair colour and even my name. Like you I would have phases or interests and then drop them and find something else. I think things improved for me when I realised that it was OK not to have an identity in the way that other people seem to do. Perhaps I've slowly grown out of it, I don't know. I'm a little more settled now but I still don't feel like a complete person but I think that is just an aspect of Aspergers that I will have to live with.

I'm sorry that this is not very helpful, I thought you might want to know that you are not alone.

Advice? Get out a pen and paper, list your interests and personalities past and present. List what you enjoy about each one and look for the common 'you'ness among each. Try to identify triggers as to what made you stop and situations that spurred the depression. Make an inventory of your character strengths that follow you from one interest and personality to the next. That ought to give you a better grounding of who YOU are. HTH

Thank you for the help. I'm glad to hear I am not the only one, and I will try that, 2wheels4ever.

There are two issues, chronic severe depression & anxiety about not having a set identity. Correct?

Donkeybuster- Fairly correct. Although, it isn't so much anxiety over lack of identity as it is the shifting identity itself- which occurs when I am not nearly as depressed (because severe depression suppresses any sort of action, interests, hobbies, etc.) I mean that even if I were not anxious over it, it still causes problems in general. I hope that was not too confusing.

Blownmind- I am seventeen now, but I cannot remember ever being different/ it isn't a recent development. I did not have a normal childhood.

Was your childhood abusive? This can hurt your ability to develop a cohesive theory of self as you are always on the stress part of the brain and that shuts down learning and creative thought. It also causes stress and anxiety issues as well as depression that can mask other problems. Your obsessive interests may be just a coping mechanism that your mind developed to keep itself occupied and not related to autism.

Donkeybuster- I'm not entirely sure. I suppose the problems from the shifting identity, as I cannot stop anxiety over it unless I solve it. Since identity affects every decision and action, it changing so frequently leaves me lost and confused, and I don't believe I can prevent the long periods of depression unless I find a stable sense of self. While I could work on the anxiety, it seems logical to be anxious upon realizing that I "lost" my personality, interests, hobbies, etc. again.

2wheels4ever- Fair point.

outofplace- That is a difficult question, because I am not always sure, and I know memory is quite unreliable (mine is particularly fuzzy.) Severe emotional and mild physical from children at my elementary school, and I think it may qualify as emotional abuse from my parents and a few teachers. I don't want to accidentally make it seem worse than it was. What I can say is that I was insulted every day- mainly for being "an embarrassment" and many other names due to my social behavior, and when I showed signs of anxiety and/or depression, as well as told several nasty things (nobody does/will love me, I should kill myself.) Some of them may be, but it is hard to tell- I know I had obsessive interests at a very young age that were long-lasting and that I enjoyed, and that a combination of those plus an inability to be "normal" around other people instigated others' anger at me in the first place. That may have worsened my social functioning, because I did not want to get in trouble or make people angry but just could not figure out what I was doing wrong or how to act the "right" way. It's hard to discuss, because I can't remember very well.

Thank you for sharing, I am glad to hear that you respect yourself now. I also had three "friends" in a row that were abusive in that sense, and managed to break away from them. Now I don't really have friends and I mainly avoid family, so I spend much time in my room.

To piggyback DBuster's question; were those things that were actually said or was it what you heard? I have trouble with that myself particularly; it's like the literal-mindedness on steroids. After the damage is done I often find the other person's words were meant with far less weight to them.

1 thing I love about being the way I am is being able to say 'I know what you are going through' and mean it, and knowing the recipient knows it. It does get better, but that's not going to happen as long as you hole yourself up. Take the rebound time you need but come back up for air.

This may sound like cheesy cliche of the century but: if it hasn't killed you it must be making you stronger. How's that list coming along?