Identity, and Names
A beautiful quote form a Disqus Blog post. In fact I find the quote quite aptly describes me. For example, I detest my birth name. While people I know in real life use it, when online friends refer to me by my online pseudonym, for some reason I find it less jarring.
If I had to guess, the reason for this is because the majority of friends I’ve made throughout my life, have been online, so my sense of identity online strengthened while I dissociated from my real identity more and more. I never had a strong sense of personal identity in the first place. I also don’t really remember my “childhood”. Combined with depersonalization, everything has added up and I just can’t seem to associate my real name with my identity.
Identity, and Dissociation
Depersonalization has been haunting me for years, and still is. It has heavily contributed to the breakdown of my personal identity and “numbing” of emotions. How it specifically broke down my sense of identity and emotions, I really couldn’t tell you, mostly because it was over such a period of time. The most peculiar thing (to me) though is the fact that I can still empathize with others on a level that I find most can’t. At times it does seem like a double edge sword though, while your ability to empathize is great, you’re also faced with the fact that you feel like you’re starved of your own genuine emotions and just “leech” off of the emotions of others.
Identity, Dissociation, and Intimate Relationships
For me, having intimate relationships with others is a struggle. When things are good, my partner makes me feel just a bit more “normal”, Though most of the time I find it hard to shake the feeling of numbness. The numbness becomes debilitating, eating away at me, and making it generally hard to stay positive. On top of already being a clingy person, this makes me even more high maintenance. Though the times I do feel genuinely happy, it’s the most blissful experience ever. Depersonalization usually makes me feel detached from the social environment I’m in. Within the context of day to day things this isn’t really a bother for me most of the time, and I’ve adjusted to it. However feeling distant and disconnected in the presence of my partner is something I’ve never quite adjusted to, and usually makes me feel guilty. My last major relationship never helped this feeling, as my partner always acted incredibly distant, and it felt as though we hardly interacted. I ended up mostly blaming myself for this.
Escapism: NSFW
Escapism for me has been used to a chronic degree. I’ll admit, my favorite thing to use for escapism is sex. Whether emotions are involved or not, sex for me has been my favorite way to manifest escapism. I think I’m particularly fond of sex because in addition to pleasure, it provides me with a distorted sense of emotions. While in normal day to day activities I find myself disconnected and numb, when I have sex, I find myself engaged, and happy. Sex is an easy outlet for escaping from my mental health issues. While I have had genuinely intimate sex with people in the past, I’ve probably had more meaningless sex then I’m willing to admit.