What does ‘sense of self’ mean to you?
It’s really a kind of a discreet process. There are times that evidently, as somerandomguy said,
of course I do know who I am. Here I stand in front of the mirror. I do. Do I? As far as I can remember I feel rather void and if there is some self at work, it was almost entirely, if not entirely, absorbed by work and creation. That was my way of defining myself, but I did struggle to be any other kind of human being. I also could be Your Superfriend. And a few other things. But all those identities and I realise by writing this too, they heavily rely on the loyalty of being something from the outside and not really having any meaning or sense in the inside. I made myself a shell to be able to pass in the world as I thought it was right, but there wasn’t much thought to it.
I was, and up to a point I still am puzzled by my own actions or inactions. I could die wanting to do something and really, all that I needed to do was to do it, and yet it was impossible, like I can’t actually pilot and decide for myself. With time, I can narrow down the things that create that. It’s namely, developing meaningful and trusting connections with
intention, and a few house chores that do trigger things (there was a point my step dad wanted to me to clean and clean and clean again and again like a little house slave, because I was a girl). I would also randomly say mean things to people I liked but didn’t entirely trust and I alienated myself from quite a lot of people in that way.
Have you ever lost it, suffered damage to it, struggled with it, had to repair or rebuild it?
I already was chronically depersonalized even though in therapy for years, so in a sense, I didn’t understand my sense of self was more than wobbly, even if I was literally telling myself I didn’t exist. I don’t know, when you’re messed up I guess that you get that ability to maintain assertion, confusion and denial up to an astonishing point. But getting into the domestically ultraviolent relationship with my ex finished to break everything down up to the point there were days I struggled to remember my own name. If it wasn’t for someone pronouncing it I just wouldn’t have any reason. It seemed that the whole thing splintered so much I wasn’t even capable to keep track of several things at once. Everything was scrambled, a feeling that was true one day became the very reverse the day next. But all of that while trying to keep composure because that was the most important thing. Until I finally entirely crashed. That was a little before joining in here.
Has your sense of self been affected/altered by your trauma history?
Heavily. To me it feels like it’s the core problem. I only have fleeting desires and feel incomplete, not belonging to the human world. Like a ghost or something. A copy of myself. At the same time I know it cannot be true. But all these fragments and the bits and pieces as Friday said, and the faulty loops, it really looks like a jpeg file that has suffered corruption. Some parts of the image you still can discern but the rest is a hazardous jumble and you’ll get what you get. I feel like without trauma history, I’d be quite well-balanced because there is a part of me that is very reasonable and coherent, but in some circumstances that inner certitude can become unavailable, and most of the time it’s not accessible entirely, only a bit here or a part there. From the outside I think it looks like a lot of willpower, but that would be closer to the Great Reset Mode where I’m so stuck in what I’m doing to survive and build myself again it doesn’t even feel like I’m there at all.
Challenges, struggles, surprises, triumphs?
Starting to be okay in not being a single coherent being and enacting inner dialogue felt so weird at first, but it worked wonders. It really helped me formalize the amount of competing thoughts and patterns and give them a voice. Doing so well, situations where I would do something I didn’t really want to do, I can interact with that impulsion and doing it so reduces its strength, and that’s a bit how you’d actually speak to someone else. It’s eerie. But it works, and it’s definitely better than sinking in a fog.
Thoughts in general?
Not really. Perhaps just happy that I’m having more comfort in being fragmented, as feeling "whole" really sounds like a myth to me. I don’t even see what it could mean. So as I don’t know what whole could mean then I’m unsure of what fragmented could mean, and therefore mentally invalidating and dismissing everything said above then just think I’m normal and should just suck it up. Then starting another loop
brain annoying today
I was broken all the way down. I was still so fragile when it happened. 
