From: sasnla@shadow.unx.sas.com (Nancy Agnew)
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: Re: Identity Crisis
Date: 13 Oct 92 13:01:33 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Originator: sasnla@shadow.unx.sas.com


In article <BvGqpt.EqE.2@cs.cmu.edu>, anonymus+946@godiva.nectar.cs.cmu.edu writes:
>I have been reading this group for the last couple of months and have found
>asar to be very helpful.  I identify and relate to many of the things that are
>discussed in asar, and I'm glad it exists.

Welcome -- I hope you continue to find it helpful.

>Todays realization and exposure to reality (or at least my reality) is that I
>am having a complete (or at least it feels that way) identity crisis.  I don't
>know who I am anymore.  I don't know what I like anymore.  I feel like a
>phony.  I don't want to work anymore.  I just want to run as far away from
>myself and everything in my life.  I feel so confused.  I'm sure there is a
>reason for all of this.  I just can't put my finger on it right now.  I'm
>losing control.  I just want to shut down.  I cannot process anymore
>information.  It's just too exhausting.  I now I'm rambling, but I need to get
>out the feelings.  I have been trying to convince myself I have it together.
>I don't.  But, life goes on.  I have so much work to do, and I don't know
>where to begin.

I wish there were a magic formula to get you past this, but really 
there isn't.  The unpleasant truth is that most of us *have* to work and
can't run away as far as possible.  I figure you probably know that,
and know that running away isn't really going to change how you feel 
about yourself anyway.

Maybe it is possible to "run away from" some of the other activities in your
life, however -- only do those things that you enjoy, or at least you
don't feel too yucky about when you do them.  The exhaustion from processing
all of the stuff that is happening to you is real, and anything you can
do to eliminate non-essential activities will probably help.  Work is
another matter entirely (unless you own plenty of blue chip stocks :-) ).
I felt really awful about myself when I couldn't focus well enough to 
work and felt overwhelmed by what needed to be done.  The thing that helped
me when I was like that was to be very careful about which tasks I tackled
when -- trying to save littler tasks for moments when I was totally off
the wall, and doing bigger ones when I had more functional moments.  I
don't know whether you have that kind of control over your own work load,
but if you do, it can make a big difference.

About feeling like a phony -- I think that is not too uncommon.  Lots of
us have put on behaviors as part of our protection or part of the family
secrecy.  I have been finding out that some of the phony behaviors that
I have truly are phony, while others are really there.  It helped me a
lot to figure out that some of the things that people said they liked
about me were genuine.  Maybe there are things about you that really
aren't phony, and it's just too hard to tell that right now.  It took me
a good long while to break through that -- I had to learn to relax about
feeling phony and keep working on things to try to change my outlook.  

>Having read over this message, I feel as though I've really exposed something
>awful here.  I feel embarassed and shamed.  What I really want to do is cancel
>this post, but I'm going to take a risk and send it.  So here goes...

The exposed feeling is quite familiar to me.  For what it's worth, I didn't
find anything about what you'd written to be shameful or awful.  I think
a lot of folks have expressed some of these same feelings and thoughts
about where they are in their process; I know I have.  Please feel free
to keep writing and expressing whatever you feel a need to express.  The
writing I've done (mostly in a journal) has helped me tremendously -- either
at the time I'm writing it, or several months later when I feel kind of
discouraged about my progress -- I read stuff from months ago and can see
that I really have moved on more than I think I have.

lots of luck,
NLA
-- 
Nancy Agnew                         sasnla@unx.sas.com
SAS Institute Inc,  SAS Campus Dr,  Cary NC 27513-2414
My company's opinions are not likely mine, and vice versa.
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery