Are you afraid of 'losing yourself' in your work, in other people?
 

I was reading R. D. Laing's 'the Divided Self' and he talks about how people with schizophrenia have very weak ontological security. Ontological security means having the sense of 'existing' as a seperate person, independent of other people and at the same time able to interact with other people. as an illustration he mentions how for people with healthy ontological security, the polarity is between being an independent person and being in interaction with other people, while for someone with little ontological security, that polarity is much more extreme: being completely taken over by the other person vs. being completely isolated. He goes on to explain that in certain situations, that state can progress into schizophrenia, but in many cases that doesn't have to happen.

I could definitely relate with the concept of ontological security, I think I've become much more stable than a few years ago. If I look back and I think of the existential reasons why I got so cranky from being with people for too long, I think this definitely played a factor. I wasn't able to maintain my own 'person' in the presence of other people, esp. if they're overbearing, and my 'self' got sort of swept away. as a result, I couldn't hold it out for very long, after a while my brain went into defense mode and I just got cranky and needed to isolate myself for a long time in order to recuperate, and 'find myself' again. same with work. if it isn't something I was very passionate about, I had a lot of anxiety with going through with it, because I felt that if I put in too much time, I would lose sight of myself and cease existing.

as I said, nowadays I feel more certain, relaxed, solid, whatever you wanna call it, and I also have much less of an issue being with people, because I'm much better able to maintain myself in the presence of others, so I don't get exhausted as quickly and need to isolate myself.

this also relates to self consciousness. if you're ontologically insecure, you're constantly worrying about whether you still exist, so you keep thinking about yourself. it's like constantly worrying whether the floor is gonna hold, and testing it at every step. if you are ontologically secure, you just know that you exist and there's no need to keep thinking about it, so that your energy can be directed outward. you can just jump around on the floor whenever you want because you know it's gonna hold.

anyone relate to this?

Re: Are you afraid of 'losing yourself' in your work, in other people?
 

That's really interesting. I've never heard about ontological security. I am not afraid of losing myself in other people (or anything else) but I'm always worried that other people might expect me to do that or that I might be in a position where it happens.

I need a lot of space, crazy amounts of space. Overbearing, needy or clingy people drive me absolutely crazy. I hate that feeling of not being in control of my own life and I don't deal well when I suspect that someone or something else is trying to control my life. However, I do get obsessed with things like work or to a smaller extent people (though it never lasts long, just till I get bored of them). So I'm not sure, am I ontologically secure or not? Do I worry so much about this because I'm insecure?

I don't worry but I constantly worry about whether I exist and yes, I do spend a lot of time thinking about myself. I used to think it's a philosophical problem, now I'm not so sure anymore.

Re: Are you afraid of 'losing yourself' in your work, in other people?
 

I find myself interestingly split on this question of whether or not I can relate.

I am definitely secure in the person I am. I've always had a very strong personality and never had any doubts about who I am, what I stand for, and what it means to be 'me.' I know myself well, I don't have doubts about the person I am or any fear of that person being lost when I interact closely with others. I guess you could say that there are clear defining lines, to me, between myself and other people when I interact with them. I have no concern about losing part of myself in close relations with other people.

But periodically I do wonder if I exist or not. It tends to be worse when I am in a depressive mood episode, a very strong sense of depersonalization/derealization. I don't feel real, and I don't feel like the world I'm in is real. I question my own existence, and sometimes it becomes so overwhelming and anxiety-provoking that I begin touching things in the area around me to sort of 'ground' myself and convince myself that yes, I am real, this is real, everything is solid and concrete and real right now.

I wonder if that's normal and lots of people experience it, but nobody ever talks about it because they think it sounds weird. Or maybe it's not normal, but it's a byproduct of major depressive episodes. I would say that sensation, the depersonalization, occurs almost exclusively in depressive episodes for me. In general I don't worry about my own existence, only when I become profoundly depressed.