I had quite a shitty life when I was younger and I feel like it’s come to define me. Since I had no control over what my actual life looked like, I instead chose to define my identity by what I wanted it to look like, and what I would have done had I had the freedom to choose. So I based my identity on my made up story instead of my actual story.

FFW to today and I finally have a lot more say over what my life actually looks like. I feel like those past wishes are kinda burdening me now. I feel indebted to my past self to finally do those things I wished I could do back then in order to realize that story that I had always identified with. Because if I don’t, there will be nothing in my past for me to identify with me other than that shitty life that I didn’t choose.

But I’ve realized this is a mistake. I’ve realized I don’t ever plan my future without first thinking of my past. This can’t be good. By doing that, I am being held captive by my own history which I didn’t chose. Playing catch-up with the past to fulfill the plans I based my identity on might feel very right, but it would cost a lot of time. I’d never catch up with my peers who are content with their historu and living in the present.

How do I unlearn this? It feels so deeply rooted in the way I see myself that it’s gonna need some psycho shit like shrooms or something to even make my mind aware of what it’s doing

Edit: I do plan on going to counselling but I wanted to see what Lemmy thinks first

  • TwentyEight@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    12 hours ago

    tl/dr: I identiy with some of what you say. Counseling might help but don’t expect an easy panacea. I busy myself with positive things to crowd out the negative when all else fails, and although it is hard for me to sustain that effort in my current situation, when I do that stuff it does work.

    The weight of my past experiences became a burden that I haven’t been able to really manage for a long time now: traumatic childhood coupled with and exacerbated by undiagnosed ‘autism’ - in quotation marks because although it is an important part of my story, and an accurate dianosis, it is a bit of a ‘diagnosis du jour’, and nowhere near the self-image I have constructed and I struggle with how I see myself. I very much identify with your experience of having an inaccurate self-image. I came up with reasons as to why I suffered burn out that just weren’t real and need to try and deconstruct that story that I have told myself.

    I understand what has happened in my life, and why and how I have ended up where I have, but that isn’t in and of itself enough for me to manage. I personally need quite a large and regimented daily program of stuff (none of it too fancy - exercise, things that give me purpose, and ultimately crowd out the negative things) just to stay on an even keel. I am often not able to sustain the effort and struggle. I need more help than is available in my current situation, and so I am not able to contribute in the manner I can - I am normally a very high achiever.

    Counseling can help, but my experience was that finding a counselor that was good for me wasn’t straightforward. In fact after lots of trying I hardly managed it; one helped me through a particularly difficult period, but that was it. I am far from ‘cured’ in any meaningful sense at all.