Conscious Identity Construction

[trenton]

I have been journaling about this situation lately. Several aspects of my identity have fallen apart and I am trying to create new organizing principles for my identity. The aspects which have collapsed include chess, trauma based qualities, and my family relationships. I am hoping to use a conscious identity construction to direct my focus while avoiding many of the problems with my previous identity which I am still transitioning out of.

The main issue with my previous identity is that it was too defined by trauma, although there was little I could consciously do to change these patterns suggesting that I am something other than those patterns. First of all, I was and still am seemingly defined in relationship to the dysfunctional context I was born into, hence survival shapes who you are. This is still in the process of changing as I have only recently blocked my mother to start breaking the trauma bond and I still do not have full financial independence from other relatives. I have also only just now gotten into trauma therapy for various experiences which were the root cause of my dysfunctional identity.

In many ways the trauma identity was compensatory. It involved qualities such intelligence, morality, and purity. All of these qualities became a source of unstable self-esteem in which any remote behavior which suggested the opposite attribute would feel existentially threatening. Any mistake would be amplified to look like fundamental stupidity. Any immoral thought or action would be amplified to mean that I am fundamentally a shameful and unlovable human being. Anything remotely sexual would remind me of how I am fundamentally tainted and dirty, making me irredeemable due to be broken. As it stands I am not free of these feelings of dirtiness and they do influence how I approach relationships by making sure I keep things platonic and intellectual rather than deeply emotional and intimate where sexuality feels extremely dangerous to me. The fear is comparable to the fear of death when someone is threatening to murder you except I might fear sexual relationships more than that. The fear revolves around both being harmed and causing harm in such a way that it cannot be undone and becomes permanent like a death sentence of unforgivable sin and inescapable shame and hatred like feeling permanently tainted and being unable to stop that despite rationally knowing better. Hopefully trauma therapy can change that aspect so that I would be free to seek closer relationships which I both crave and avoid simultaneously.

Using this information, I figured that if I were to define my identity in terms of any specific qualities, then it might become a source of unstable self-esteem. The way I am thinking about it now is that I can still be somebody intelligent and insightful, but it does not have to be relied upon for self-esteem as that would be unstable. I am looking for ways to define myself which do not become unstable to the point that they could easily trigger intense shame due to denying qualities within myself or by projecting shadow material onto others. I am also trying to define my qualities in a way that is independent of things like compensating for fundamental unworthiness and unlovability. Here is what I came up with, although it makes sense that it would not be perfect and would be flawed.

First of all, the reason I became more withdrawn and quiet was due to internalized shame. It is this sense that if I showed others my true colors then I would be rejected and unwanted. However, there are other aspects of myself which I was comfortable sharing with others. Socializing is much more natural for me when I feel that I am providing value in some way. It can be through teaching board games or sharing research into a variety of subjects that others might find fascinating. These were aspects which felt acceptable to share. There were other qualities such as vulnerability if I believed that others would benefit from it by relating to it or by sharing creative stories and poems. The same problem persists in that this kind of behavior could tie back to proving my worth although at the same time part of me enjoys providing value for others as it feels meaningful to me.

I tried discussing this issue with an AI, but the AI was not as agreeable as usual. The AI seems to think that I am still in late stage one of trauma recovery and I am trying to skip over processing many intense emotions which is stage two by constructing a more sophisticated identity which is still fundamentally rooted in trauma while simultaneously deliberately constructing it to not trigger the same fundamental shame and unworthiness that I have been experiencing all along. It seemed to be guiding me to the same conclusions as before, so I needed to journal on my own without AI assistance.

I ended up coming up with the same values as before with things like expertise, insightfulness, mastery, creativity, discovery, open-mindedness, and so forth. As I looked for things I would enjoy doing it included systems thinking, game creation, game theory, research, teaching, and creative writing along with peer support which I seem to be good at. I have solved some board games on my own and I have considered making my own board games. I also seem to be enthusiastic when teaching to engaged students who feel the lessons are valuable to them.

Furthermore, I would find work more meaningful if it involved improving systems rather than maintaining dysfunctional ones that harm people. I remember that this kind of attitude did emerge after a traumatic experience, but I am now looking at it like it makes complete rational sense. I have found a few organizations I could work with, although ultimately I will have to leave the country because I believe America is doomed regardless. For now I need a temporary source of income as I complete the trauma therapy and then use that money to fly to Europe and then get a proper education which would hopefully allow me to contribute to the world in the a more meaningful way then my previous job which made me want to kill myself. At the same time I would need to hold systems thinking in a way that does not make it contingent for my self-esteem.

What do you guys think about conscious identity construction? how would you do it? Am I in a position to consciously construct a new identity, or is the underlying trauma such that it prevents self-actualization even now?