Working through a loss of identity.
Sadie Hamilton
Sadie Hamilton is a fourth year Kinesiology student at Queen’s. Her passion for mental health advocacy sparked and has continued to grow since joining Jack.org Queen’s Chapter in her first year. She has held roles across the club in members, marketing, and summit, and now serves as the Members and Marketing Co-President. Sadie’s goal through her advocacy is to encourage self-discovery and compassion around one’s own mental health, while simultaneously creating a community where mental health is discussed as openly and freely as physical.
Identity, in the simplest of terms, is a person’s sense of self that has been established by their own unique characteristics, affiliations, and social roles. Identity has continuity, it lets you feel like the same person over time despite changes in circumstances.
An identity crisis occurs when you lose that sense of continuity. It is a point in time when you are constantly questioning things like your life purpose, core beliefs, personality, experiences, or anything along those lines. The idea of an identity crisis comes from work by psychologist Erik Erikson who believed that people undergo multiple crises while their personality is developing. Erikson viewed this as an opportunity for personal growth. That may be true, but identity crises themselves can be very confusing and damaging to those experiencing them. While they are an opportunity for growth, you still need support to get through them.
I woke up one day in my first year of university and realized that I had no idea who I was. I questioned my personality, my choice of friends, my sense of self … I had lost sight of who I really was and began to question if I had even ever known who I was. This was my experience of an identity crisis.
At that time, I was quite deep in a major depressive episode and, through mental illness, your perception of reality can be lost. It can feel like the person you once were has been replaced by a stranger. In my own experience, I started to sink into the “sick” stereotype of mental illness and began to equate my diagnosis with my identity, letting it fully consume me. I felt like my real identity had been stolen away from myself, by myself, and had been replaced by a permanent “sick” being.
Once I’d equated that “sick” self with my identity, I lost sight of the fact that my illness was only one subset of the multitude of qualities that made up who I was. Because I had fallen into this trap where I identified so strongly with my diagnosis, I developed a fear of getting help and the small pieces of my identity I still had slowly chipped away.
Of course, years later, I know now that seeking help doesn’t make your diagnosis any less valid and those thoughts should never stop you from seeking the care that you deserve. Through my mental health journey, I’ve gained a lot of perspective and learned that those negative thoughts and self-sabotage aren’t me speaking, but instead my illness. When undergoing treatment and moving into remission from a mental illness, you need to rediscover who you actually are, which in my case, made my lack of identity a little worse before it got better. Mental illness changes you. You’re not always going to be the person who you once were. What you’ve experienced can lead you to view things differently and maybe be stronger mentally, among other things.
During my own crisis and without a strong sense of identity, I was vulnerable to my illness. In those times, there’s a need for a lot of self-reflection and introspection. We have to take the time to ask ourselves grounding questions. It took a lot of work and patience for me to figure out what made me unique and me, but I found it and can confirm that the process was absolutely worth it.
I strongly encourage anyone reading this to take the time to reflect on the following questions before or during a time of stress. This method can be a great way to just see where you’re at currently and help with growth.
What qualities and characteristics define you?
What are your values? Is anything working in opposition to them?
What grounds you? What helps you cope when you’re struggling?
What are your interests, passions, and hobbies? Are you doing what you like to do, and if not, why not?
What’s important to you regarding your values, purpose in life, or sense of identity?
While some of these questions may seem blatantly obvious or basic when you’re clear-headed, in times where you may be questioning your sense of self, we need to go back to the basics.
Identity crises can attack anyone, be it someone who is quite mentally healthy, someone going through a big life change, someone experiencing mental illness, or someone taking the steps toward recovery from an illness. It can hit us all the same. It wasn’t clear in the moment to me, but it did lead to growth- just like Erik Erikson theorized- and I’m now more secure in my identity than ever. I still hold a place for my diagnosis, and the experiences that it has left and continues to leave me with.
Questioning your sense of self, your purpose, and your values will help you gain a better sense of who you are and who you want to be. Always remember that change is a part of life, and looking back, you will see that you’ve been changing all along and it’s so important to embrace that.