sense of self

Post Reply New Topic

That's interesting. I'd thought you were younger, not that it matters but it makes a difference in diagnosis and what you'd have encountered. Even today you'd be likely to be missed as a female. I was being tested frequently in the 70s because there were too many "things that didn't add up." It was ADHD but girls didn't get that then so it was missed. They felt that my academic performance, which was spotty but not consistantly dismal, wasn't up to what I ought to be doing. I don't know exactly what they thought I was supposed to do that I didn't do, but they talked a lot about lack of focus and "flashes of brilliance" (their words not mine). It sounds pretty obviously ADHD today, but I wasn't hyper and tended to be more easily tired.

A diagnosis might not help you beyond working toward self understanding and happiness. I've got a friend in her 60s who we've decided has ASD. She's had two successful careers but there are things she's always questioned about how she connects to people. She was a successful Methodist Minister and later a Civil Servant, cares deeply about people, but has had other baffling issues.

I'd not seen her in a while, but had learned a lot about AS since our previous meeting. As we lingered over lunch I realized that she had an odd inflection in her voice. It'd always been there but didn't ever seem significant. I also remembered how she has certain restricted behavior and rituals, that I've always known about her, but they are just her personal foibles, no big deal. I told her about AS and said I thought she could easily have it, and she agreed. It doesn't matter, but I think she might have found some answers. She's brilliant and capable of reading more if she finds it helpful.

I'd think the fact that you ask for attention and feel angry when you don't get it implies that you do have a sense of self. I mean that anger isn't just lashing out due to a sense of your needs not being immediately met like it would be for a 2 year old. It's more a sense of personal injury at the fact that people are unaware of your existence or might not care. A self has to exist for it to feel that kind of injury. I don't think a 2 year old is capable of having this kind of existential injury because their sense of self isn't developed enough. I think for me it wasn't until near puberty where I really could have felt this way. Of course even now it's kind of a subconscious thing for me, like I don't even realize that I have a sense of self until something causes it to feel injured.

Yes, but I'm not saying I don't think I have a sense of self; only that it's incomplete or damaged.

Kiley wrote:

I'm not surprised, I've never had that comfortable sense of self autonomy that a well adjusted adult has. There was a thread a while back asking about this and a lot of people here felt childlike in a way. I've never been able to accomplish the usual things like real job, marriage,buying a new car or a house. I live like someone not long out of school.

My mom says that when i was little that when other people would wave to me, i'd wave at myself too instead of waving back at the person.. lol. I would think that was probably some kind of sense of self or theory of mind issue.
I feel like my "self" is sort of blank sometimes and that i have to kind of create the "self" that communicates with the rest of the world from parts made up of my interests or whatever. Hard to explain it.

Yea, sorry.

That's OK I'm having a hard time articulating exactly what I mean. Your first comment really hit the nail on the head though about the two definitions of self. The second definition is probably the one I feel is insubstantial and perhaps the first is the only one that feels legitimate. It's a depersonalization thing I think.

Im not sure that this was common, though maybe common enough to be mentioned.

Even at around age 5, I was acutely aware of an ethereal self existence, as a machine with an intelligence governing this ' object'. My thinking was removed from the everyday experiences. Far different than any of my peers.

The challenge has been with the "sense of the other" as it took me a long time to understand how others think , due to "a theory of what the other mind is" deficit , as I didnt have a comparable model (me) to model someone else with.

In this sense Ive been an outsider except for a few neurodiverse people have met, and could never "even feel remotely connected to another human" and would usually feel uncomfortable around people, enough to be phobic about it.

My "sense of self" is on the order of being a trans human.

That's actually very typical, and adorable. Maybe something else was going on with you, but little guys just starting to wave often wave first at themselves.

Aimless,

I think women of your generation were groomed to think of themselves as a bother. What your feeling may be at least in part cultural.

My family was/is very weird that way. My grandmother attended college in the early years of the last century, and dit it twice as fast, twice as well and at a younger age than the guys. Uppity women run in the family.