I don't know who I am [Personal]

It’s so hard to move forward every day. And that's not just because of the depression, anxiety, and exhaustion from emotional instability. I quite literally do not know which direction I am moving in, what I should be working towards, and if I should be trying at all.

Every day I wake up and I am a completely different person.

Sometimes I feel like I am someone else every hour of the day. Sometimes I have interests; specific topics that I would like to learn about and goals I would like to work towards.

Other times I love everything; I want to try new things, adopt new hobbies, and build new skills. I want to change my entire career trajectory because I heard about someone else’s job.

The next moment I hate everything, especially the things that I like. I suddenly despise my interests and hobbies, things that I have poured countless hours into learning about, building, improving, and perfecting. I hate the field that I work in, everyone I love, and everything I have ever worked for.

Then I realize that I have fallen behind, whether the goal is to advance in my current field or a brand new one, I am unmistakably behind. I lack the experience I need to do anything that would make me money. My resume and experiences are a jumbled mess of different whims, loves, and hobbies that sprung up over the years. They are my plans B, C, D, E, F, G… all of the backup plans for backup plans that my anxiety-fueled brain spent its energy formulating instead of focusing on achieving the task at hand.

And every day I wake up and do it all over again. I want to focus. I want to choose something and make myself stick with it; to force myself to focus on the task at hand when my desires are pulling me somewhere new again or I don’t know what to do next. At the same time, I know it won’t work, because everytime I get excited about a new direction, and that exhilaration is so convincing. Every time feels like the first time, like I’ve discovered my real passion, the thing that I’ve been looking for all this time. Something that I really love this time. But it never is.

I know it isn't an issue of impatience. I know the difference between this and lapses in passion. Lapses in passion are normal phenomena that everyone experiences when they work for something, but these sudden bursts of hatred and disgust are a different story. I yearn for at least one little thing that I can always come back to and feel some sort of care for, some sort of security, but it never comes.

With the intense emotional instability of borderline personality disorder comes personality instability. I find myself wondering who I am on days when I hate all that I’ve worked hard to become. At this point, I attempt to make the instability part of something I can call ‘me’ while I try to formulate some semblance of stability to present to others around me. I feel that I am constantly preparing myself for how this constantly revolving self will change on top of worrying about keeping down a job, maintaining relationships, and building a stable life while mentally ill.

I think most people don’t realize how much security comes from liking things consistently. Sense of self is quite reliant on liking or disliking things. Your hobbies, interests, desires, goals, friends, and even your enemies are all part of you. What if you couldn’t consistently like or dislike any of them? What if you constantly had to pretend to like the things you used to like so you could convince yourself and others that you deserve companionship, love, and a job. Then who would you be?

I do not really have a satisfying solution to this issue. For now, I lean into everything to do, hanging onto every shred of information, just trying to become the best I can be before I inevitably want something completely different and throw it all away.

Anyways, this is one of the many things I struggle with that I have had a hard time explaining to others. I hope this resonates with someone, so maybe they can feel a little less alone than I do. Be well.