48. Identity Crisis!

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everyone, welcome back to a new episode of the show. Thank you for tuning in, Thanks for joining us today as we talk about another interesting topic. Like I say every week, every topic I kind of like to cover is one that I personally feel a lot of feelings, I feel a lot of truth to, or is something that as a person in their twenties I have been through. I've been experiencing or discussing with friends, with family, with people around me. This is obviously no different, and it's also a really big and rucial one and one that has a lot of ties to our mental health, not just our overall psychological perspectives and well being. I think a lot of the times when people hear like psychology, they often think mental illness. I try and stay away from that because I really want to be able to expand people's knowledge of this topic and this discipline and understand that it covers a lot more than just some kind of illness that's going on on, some kind of mental unwellness. But this week I really wanted to talk about something that might be related to some kind of mental distress or discomfort that you're feeling, especially in our twenties. So this week we're talking about identity crises. An identity crisis that might come along in our twenties later on or earlier. It might be something that you're going through, and I want to really approach it from a growth mindset, from a growing perspective, rather than one that is negative. There are a lot of studies that I did, a lot of studies that I looked at when I was researching this, all of them saying the same thing. This kind of event is kind of impossible to avoid and something that all of us have to go through in our early adulthood, which is probably for most of you right now. Maybe you're finding yourself experiencing an identity crisis where you really are looking deeply at yourself, or you know, kind of assessing your life and your surroundings and not really knowing who you are. It's not so much about not knowing where you're going or not knowing what the future holds. I do have some episodes on that, but more really not knowing who you are at your core and how that kind of bleeds into the rest of our life. So I'm really really keen for today's episode. Like I said, a lot of these a lot of this content is things that I personally am finding interesting at the moment. This is no different and when I was looking into it, I found so many interesting things. I was saying to my housemate. He was asking me, oh, you know, like, what episode are you doing this week? And I was like, Oh, I'm going to do an episode on an identity crisis. And he was like, oh, do you think that's what you're going through right now? And I was like no. And the reason why I don't think that is because I did all this research and it's made me better able to identify, you know, what I'm feeling. But if you are going through some kind of massive or major change or shift in your life and you don't really know where you stand, you don't really have a clear sense of identity, then this episode is for you. First, I just want to kind of define what we're talking about today. So an identity crisis, it's a developmental event and it involves a person, maybe yourself, questioning their sense of self and their place in the world and the concept it originates in the work of this developmental psychologist. If you are a psychology student, I hope you recognize the name. It's his name is Eric Ericson, an acute name, Eric Ericsson. He was a psychoanalyst in the nineteen hundreds and he believed that the formation of identity was one of the most important conflicts that people face. It's a challenge, it's a developmental event that we have to overcome in order to kind of recognize our true self. And according to Ericson, an identity crisis is a time of really intensive analysis and self discovery and exploration of different ways of perceiving and looking at ourselves. And he noted that developing a sense of identity is really important during our early adulthood, beginning obviously in our teenage years, but also our early in late twenties, and our identity it's not a stagnant thing that we create over a day and we're loyal to for the rest of our lives. Who we were five years ago is not who we are now. I would hope so. And it's highly likely that your identity and your sense of self concept is going to be hugely different in a lot of major ways five years from now, let alone ten or twenty, and that is such an incredible thing. It's an incredible blessing that we can develop and be different people across our lives, and that our brains and our minds and our overall self concept allows us to do this and allows up allows us to develop based on what's going on in our lives. So today we're going to break down this discussion of identity crisis into four sections. So we're going to talk about identity first. That seems like a pretty good building block. What is identity we all seem to have, but what are its contents? What is it specifically? You know, I don't think we can necessarily point to a collection of items, or our jobs, or our friends and families and say, well, this is me summed up, this is who I am. It's something a lot deeper and nuanced and quite frankly, sometimes intangible. Then we're going to discuss why does a crisis of identity occur and what does it symbolize internally for our psychology and what does it feel like mentally, socially, emotionally, and importantly For the last kind of section of the podcast. We're going to talk about what comes after. How do we push through this hard and sometimes very dark period where we're questioning ourselves and our identity and emerge at the other end, hopefully better and brighter and representing our true selves. Okay, so let's jump straight in. We're going to talk about identity. What is identity? A huge massive question I know to kind of pose to us, but the idea and conception of identity is such an incredibly complex topic. Identity is really concerned with this question of who am I and what does it mean to be me? And that might seem like a pretty easy answer for some, but for others it can be a lot more difficult. And how we view ourselves as a huge combination of so many factors, and because our identity is constantly shifting, particularly in young adulthood, one element of our identity is likely to be more prominent at any given time. And where we kind of see ourselves in relation to others and how we view ourselves is likely to be undergoing a lot of major changes during this decade. So let's start by breaking this down into some kind of sizable categories, and as we go through these I really want you to take some time to contemplate exactly what these categories mean for you, especially if you're listening to this episode today, because you might be experiencing an identity crisis. So identity it includes quite a few elements. Firstly, our personal qualities that we have little to no control over us, so our family, our cultural background, skin color, sexuality, where we were born. You know, if someone is particularly nationalistic and that's important for their identity, they may place a really great emphasis on their identity as a member of a certain country. For example, you know their Australian. They're like a barbecue, They're like the beach, and kind of the assumptions that comes along with that. Identity also relates to our basic values, and these dictate the choices that we make in our relationship, ships, in our career, in our daily lives, towards really important things like our health, like where we live, and all of these choices they reflect who we are and what we value and our values. They might include things like honesty or authenticity, dependability, gratitude, trustworthiness. The list goes on and on, and I think a really great exercise to do when you're feeling somewhat unstable in your self perception and what you stand for is to take a few minutes pause this podcast. I'm not going anywhere, but take a few minutes and think about your five most important values, whatever they may be. What are the five values that truly represent who you are? And be honest with yourself about how you might embody these values and what you can do to reinforce this value system within yourself. If you're someone who doesn't see I don't know trustworthiness as particularly important, maybe that's a bad example, maybe like a value for you as freedom. But if you're someone who's happy to kind of live within constraints and it's happy to be kind of a follower rather than a leader, be really honest with yourself about whether that's a value. I want you to take time to identify five five of the most important and these values they inform our moral character as well, which guide us through this world and any kind of cross words we may come across. And they also, as is stated in this episode, really important for our identity. They are those deep fundamental building blocks on which we build a lot of our self concept, our identity. It also relates to our social roles, which we hold or we might inhabit. For example, when I might look at myself or someone might ask me who are you, I might say, you know, I'm a podcast host, I'm an employee, I'm a friend, I'm a sister, I'm a daughter, I'm a woman. And in each of these roles I might act differently or make different decisions based on the context, but together they really help discern who I am and what I represent and the choices I inevitably make. Sometimes, these unique identities which are associated with our social roles can come into conflict. For example, you might see yourself as a student, but also as a traveler or an adventurer, as a daughter, a son at symboling a family member, and maybe your time commitments with school interrupt your ability to fully commit to those other social roles and identities that you find important, in which case some dissonance and potentially an identity crisis may arise when two of our social roles come into conflict with each other. And very similar but slightly different to this idea of social role is our identity within a social group, So for example, your religious identity, or if you're part of a sports team or a large community base which shares a common interest in similar patterns of behaviors or even appearances. This is a really weird example, but I often like to think of like furies as an example of this. Like that is a community, and that is a big part of someone's social identity. You know, they have similar hobbies and similar interests. Or if you're part of like a big fan base for something, that might be really really important for your identity because you have this shared sense of purpose and a shared sense of doing and of being. This links with our next kind of element or facet of identity, And this is the one that I think is probably the most important, maybe just as important as our value system. Our identity is formed by our passions, by our mission and our hobbies. What do we really care about? What is our purpose life? And if you're going through an identity crisis, that question is going to be hard to answer. It's hard to answer at any time. Like that is a huge existential question, like what is our purpose in life? But maybe it's better to scale that back to what do I love doing? What is my mission? For example, you know, you might believe that your mission on this earth is to protect nature, is to protect the earth. Maybe it's to help others make beautiful things, create nurture, or make money and build a fortune. This kind of assumption about what we're here for forms a really cool part of your identity, and it's totally okay if you don't know what that is right now. I was talking to my friend Gia the other day and she was like, I just know that one day I'm going to come across something and realize this is for me, and I really do believe that's going to happen for her. There's so many opportunities and changes in our lives where we really get to kind of get to the core of what we believe in, but also what we think our mission here is. And it's also made up of smaller things, specifically what we love, what kind of stokes the fire in your belly. You know, when you're meeting someone new, you might define yourself first by your hobbies. You know that you play football, or you crochet, or you run marathons, or you meditate or you paint, I don't know, whatever you're into. Those elements of what you love doing and what you fill your free time with are just as crucial as some of those bigger picture, things like your values, and these elements are just as crucial. Although they may not immediately come to mind, all of these small things build up to create us. They create our identity because it is a multilayered construct. It's not just one thing. And although the big things might come first, there not the most important. And as we dive deeper, we are able to see what is truly at the core of ourselves, not just our social role, not just the family or the life that we were born into. And I think something that I've noticed, and something that psychology really backs up, is you can tell a lot about someone by their response to a question like who are you? If I were to ask you this question right now, what would you say? Would you define yourself by your ethnicity or your nationality, maybe by your values and your beliefs, your social roles, maybe by your mission, your hobbies, what you love or who you love. And often when our identity is defined by external factors rather than those deep core beliefs, but things like our achievements, our political identity, our social roles, our performative behaviors or duty, that's when we can find ourselves quite detached from our true selves. And who we are at our core, our belief systems, our passion, and our mission. And this brings me it possibly my favorite element of identity, which is the existence of our true selves. When we look at some of those factors that create our identity, like I kind of mentioned before, some of them seem a lot more peripheral and less important than others. And this is where the distinction between our true self and our false or peripheral self kind of comes into this equation of identity. So our true self this refers to a sense of self based on authentic experience and the feeling of being truly present and alive and honest about who you are. So elements that make up our true selves include our deep inner values, our mission, our purpose, the connections we have with those that we love, maybe our religious belief, our goals, and our self concept, how we feel about ourselves, whether we feel good about ourselves, whether we see ourselves in a positive life, and our full self. It's kind of a defensive facade, and behind this facade you can feel really empty. It's based on behaviors and an identity that's learned and controlled rather than spontaneous and authentic and genuine, and it's made up of elements and factors of identity that I would say are pretty superficial and inconsistent or unstable, like how we wish others to receive us, maybe beauty and appearance and status. When we're able to identify our true self and exhibit it throughout what we do in every moment and embody our kind of pure intentions and our desires and our missions, we're likely to be a lot happier and fulfilled because we're in pursuit of becoming our best selves and making decisions with our core our ues at hand. We know what's important to us, but more importantly, who we are when all the facades and trinkets and material things are stripped away becomes more apparent and becomes more crucial to how we live our daily lives. But let's get to this next topic. What happens when that type of self, our true self, is confusing and unstable and really difficult to identify in the moment. That brings us to kind of the center of our discussion today, which is the experience of having an identity crisis. So an identity crisis, it's defined as a period of uncertainty and confusion in which a person, maybe yourself at the moment, your sense of identity becomes insecure, typically due to some kind of unexpected change in your role in society and your aims and your lifestyle, and a huge transitions in our twenties put our identity into question in a way that we often don't have to question in other periods of our life. If we think about our twenties, it's defined by massive change. It's defined by growing up, and we have to try and navigate that weird space between who we used to be, who we are now, and who we ultimately want to be in the future. And so many things can trigger or catalyze this type of rapid and really is a rapid transition and shift in our self identity. Let's think about a few like leaving school, graduating, that's something that is a really huge experience for people in their early twenties, moving countries, moving states, a loss of a parent, of a friend, of a family member, or a tragedy, a breakup. We're going to talk about that a little bit more. Illness and injury. You know, things come up as we age, as we enter into twenties. We're not young anymore. You know, you might be developing chronic illnesses, you might find yourself being injured, you might find yourself being unwell. And that's a real kind of catalyst for that kind of self discovery and the identity crisis that might come with it. And there are other just more subtle things that can be a significant trauma and a significant shift in our lives, like losing friends, getting fired, moving out of home. Basically the biggest trigger for this experience is change, in which we're forced to make decisions from a place of uncertainty and kind of an uncomfortable terrain where we might find it harder to remember our values and our mission and the things we love what makes us really us. Let's use that breakup example for this, because I think it might resonate with a lot of those a lot of us who have been in love at some point and now find ourselves well not in love, or at least not in love with the same person. Like I mentioned before, our identities they become very tied up in our social roles, in our relationships to others, and our values, our beliefs, and our goals might become a line to this other person as well, and whilst in a relationship. I'm sure many of us have had this experience, Like a relationship is a really vulnerable and intimate union of people. You know, you've chosen someone and you've chosen to spend a lot of time with them and get to know them, and we might begin to see ourselves not just as an individual, but as a partner, as a caregiver, as our lover, and our hobbies become molded by them, what we do together, how we spend our time, and with that we might also see a change in our values and beliefs. But when it's over, we have to recover all these old parts of our identity that we neglected, or we need to form new ones, and that leads to a sense of crisis and an inability to sometimes recognize ourselves. And the same can be said when we when we graduate from UNI or from a trade. We used to see ourselves as a student and defined ourselves by what activities and duties come along with that, you know, studying, performing well on exams, and our belief system At times, you know, I am studious, I believe in hard work. But when that identity is no longer available to us, we enter and can into into a really confusing period of our lives. Maybe a lot of you are experiencing at the moment, at the moment whereby we're really unsure of where we exist in the world, what's our place, what do people expect of us? And how do we define our worth? So what kind of comes next? Well, we may experience an identity crisis. Like I said, a lot of the original work done into this experience and this event was done by Eric Ericsson, this psychoanalyst, and he did a lot of groundwork on ideas of identity and self concept. So the identity crisis, it was coined by Ericsson, and he drew on his experiences from his own life in formulating this theory. Let's not get into the scientific legitimacy or reliability of this theory then, I think we all know that when something is anecdotal, it's a little bit less sound. But he laid out these eight phases of psychosocial development of individual personality and identity. An identity crisis is a phase in this development spectrum, and it usually occurs, according to him, when we enter early adulthood. In his opinion, it's a normal part of transitions it's a normal part of life, and it occurs because in early adulthood, this is where we begin to seek individuality and we deeply consider who we are beyond our social roles in our relationships to others, mainly our family, and individuality comprises a sense of uniqueness and developing a image according to your own inclinations and sires and mission. Every experience in this stage impacts our development of self identity. And what I mean by this stage is this stage where we're becoming an adult, and in this period we really begin to question the meaning of life, where we function in society, our role, our purpose, and so on. And often this grand kind of shift in how we see ourselves and our individuality is triggered by some big external change which forces us to really rethink who we are. Like we explained before, So when we reach the stage, psychology kind of concludes, and a lot of studies have found that we will inevitably experience some of the same things, things like low self esteem and questioning your value or your worth, not seeing your yourself as a good person, feeling really lost or aimless, like you don't really have a direction or a compass to point you in the right direction. Think about that in kind of the experience of graduating. You know, you used to have this really clear goal, like I'm working towards graduating, I'm working towards getting good grades, and then suddenly you're not a student anymore. So where do you kind of sit it. Also, an identity crisis might make you feel really emotionally scattered and you're finding it really difficult to regulate your emotions. You'll feel maybe an increased sense of insecurity, like the world is changing around you because you don't really know where you stand. And you might begin to question things like your values and your beliefs to your career path and you're searching for more meaning, for more reason or passion in your life. I guess that comes along with that development of individuality. You know, you get to finally make decisions for yourself and off when big life stresses and big life events come around, it puts a lot of things into perspective, and an identity crisis it can often be really difficult. You might feel really anxious or really depressed because your sense of self concept is no longer there now. Our friend Eric Ericson he believes this is a really normal and natural part of life. And I really agree with this. I think it is we all have to come to this stage at some point where we have to review our old inherited belief systems, our old identity, and decide for ourselves who we want to be. And like I said, this might come in the wake of some major life stresses. But there's also an alternative kind of proposal by another clinical psychologist. His name was His name was James Mussia. I don't know if he's still alive, but James Mussia was is still his name, and he had this different perspective than Ericson did, and he kind of furthered the theory of identity formation by suggesting that we all have to go through these four stages of finally coming to our identity. These stages are foreclosure, diffusion, moratorium, and achievement. So identity foreclosure, the first stage, refers to a commitment to an identity without exploration. We are just who we are because and we haven't really thought about it. You know, this is how our family raised us, This is our environment has kind of shaped us. You know, if you were someone who grew up in a really conservative household, you might merely inherent an identity that's been opposed on you by others around you, you know, by your family. And although you have an identity, it doesn't really contain elements of yourself. It's not really unique, it's not individual, and you haven't really thought about it, you know. If we're using the university or the graduation example, if you've been studying your whole life from when you were like three years old to twenty one or whenever we might graduate UNI, we have this identity of ourselves as a student that's never really been tested. It's inherited and it feels normal. But an identity crisis might occur for individuals when we begin to grow disorientated with this established way of life due to some reason or some large shift, like you graduate, you're finished with this path, and this pushes us into the next stage of an identity crisis and ultimately the formation of a new identity, so identity diffusion. This is a next stage, and this occurs when an individual we neither kind of explore or commit to what identity. It's kind of this weird transitory phase according to James, as individuals will at some point have to face their uncertain uncertainty and you kind of just stuck. You're kind of a bit paralyzed. Before all you're able to move on to that moratorium status where you investigate your beliefs. And this psychologist, he kind of has this theory that at this point in your life, where you're moving into exploring a new identity, you have two choices. Either you can actively look inwards, you can actively kind of feed your passions and think deeply about who you are, or you can kind of slip into a state of real stagnation and depression and sometimes even an existential crisis, which is an entirely different episode in itself, but a sense of just like stuck and you don't really know who you are. But if we do reach the moratorium phase, this is where you can undergo a crisis, an identity crisis, and you actively have to explore possibilities for your identity, and you might be feeling really overwhelmed with that opportunity, but upon succes as fully kind of overcoming this crisis, you really are able to achieve a strong sense of self identity. And Marcia he believed that these identity states were really cyclical in nature, so an individual might experience repeated deconstruction and creation of new identities throughout their lives associated with major life events. Whilst Ericson kind of talks about early adulthood, is this really formative period, Marcia kind of completes his theory by stating that an identity crisis is likely to reoccur in adulthood, and that's what we call a midlife crisis. And it also implies that identity is not really concrete, and we might have to revise our identity a few times, not to kind of emerge as our true self, but to really create a sense of stability and happiness with where we are at the moment. Okay, if you're in this right now, this might seem really really fucking stressful and confronting, but I really want to approach this topic from a growth perspective and a growth mindset, you know, Whilst we're still going to acknowledge some of those stresses that may accompany an identity crisis, I ultimately think it's a really good thing. You know. Questioning your sense of self might be stressful, but it's important in the long term knowing who you are and adapting to changes and major life shifts and coming out as a stronger version of yourself, maybe even as your true self, is going to allow you to grow as a person. So where to next? You know you've undergone this incredible shift in identity. You're probably feeling really lost and detached from yourself. So what do you do? How can you get to a place of obtaining and recognizing your true self and having a concrete sense of identity? Okay, I asked you a few questions earlier on about what are your values? And we're going to return to this, and we're going to return to why this question is important. When our lives have been shaken up, it's really really crucial to at least for some time, detach from external validation and look inward. I know this sounds really wishy washy and post enlightenment, but let me explain by what I mean by this. So, like Ericsson kind of explained, at some stage of our lives, we're going to face a crisis of identity and we can either move through it, or, as James Marcia said, we can remain distracted and lost and enter into a period of stagnation and existential crisis. And the best way to move through this is to seriously take some time out and look within yourself and ask yourself some of those questions we asked ourselves before about who you are. Ask yourself these questions and answer them over time to kind of figure out where you're at, figure out what you really represent. And some of those questions might be what are the qualities and characteristics that really define you right now? Is it you know, those external things like your appearance, or is it something deeper like I'm a nice person, I'm a generous person, I'm an honest person. If you're experiencing a major life change, sit with that feeling of instability and think about how is this changing me right now? How am I different from before this happened? And how can we kind of cope with these new things that are occurring? And then your values? You know, what are your values? I ask you? Do I think about five of them, but maybe think even deeper and think about it deep, like really think about it, like seriously, think about what are the values that make up who I am? Write them down, put them up in your room, put them up somewhere. That's important. So when you're going about your life and you're feeling like this crisis of like I don't know who I am, I don't know what I stand for. You can be like, you know I've done this work. I actually do know who I am. I do know what my beliefs are, and they are x y Z. It's also important to really sink deeply into your interests and your passions and your hobbies. Are you doing what you like to do, You're actually enjoying your life? Like that's a really big question. Are you actually enjoying your life? And if not, why aren't you doing it? What are the factors that are preventing you from doing it? Maybe it's because you have this conflicting social role. Maybe your job is taking away from the thing that you really want to do, and that is part of that crisis. Like I said, when your social roles begin to conflict, it's also important to really ground yourself in what helps me in these moments? What is going to help me through? What are the relationships, what are the things? What are the activities that are going to make me feel like me and going to make me feel like my true self? All of these questions are really really fundamental to ask yourself at some point in your life. And I think it's a pretty empty life you'll lead if you don't, or, like both of these psychologists we've talked about today have explained, you're probably going to end up in a state of pretty serious existential dread if you don't push through and do that hard work to identify what really makes you you. I think in times like this we really can't understate the importance of friends and family. You know, these people, they might see the external version of you, but they do really tend to see you as you are. And if you ask them to be honest with you, and if you say, like who who am I to you? What are my best qualities? Why do you like me? Why do you spend time with me? Why do you love me? I'm sure they'll have some pretty amazing answers. And it's a good way, and it's a good start to kind of overcome this sense of crisis with who am I and asking yourself those questions. I think something else that I've done, which at times of crisis have really helped me, Especially in my first years of UNI, where I was kind of undergoing this transition to adulthood and didn't really know who I was, was spending time alone and in nature, There are so many points in the day where I will be like having a thought and I'll pick up my phone and that thought is gone, and I realized that I actually have an opportunity there to spend time with myself and to really sit back and think about, you know what am I experiencing? Am I behaving in a way that's true to myself? Do I feel like myself at the moment? And I don't. But being able to spend time in solitude and spend time in nature and without distractions can be really healing, and it can be like a really amazing antidote and kind of tonic for the soul. And if you're really struggling, if this is a really hard period for you, where this lack of identity, this lack of sense of self is really starting to wear on you mentally, you can always seek professional help. I think that is such an important resource. Sometimes having an external opinion and an objective external opinion, not your friends and your family, can be one of the best kind of shepherds in a time like this where you're really seeking clarity about who you are and what you stand for. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. We're kind of going to wrap up here. I talked about what I wanted to talk about, and I hope that you've gained something from this. It was such an interesting episode to think about, and I really had to listen to my own advice and think about my values and think about what I love doing, and what my interests and my hobbies and my passions are and why I might not be doing them, whether I really enjoy my life. Like some pretty big existential questions associated with this topic, but like I said, important nonetheless. So I hope that if you're listening to this and you're undergoing and I don only crisis, you take away two important things. Firstly, this is so normal. This is so natural as you grow up and you went to adulthood and you have to figure out who you are and explore your individuality, it's makes sense that this is something you're going to have to overcome. And secondly, like there is a way through this. You're going to emerge as a better, brighter, true version of yourself if you do that work and you sit with your feelings, and you sit with your thoughts, and you sit with your identity and examine all kind of elements and facets of it and ask yourself, like, am I really embodying who I truly believe I am? So thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned something, and as always, if you feel called to do so, please feel free to leave a five star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening right now. Also a little plug, we now have paid subscriptions. You may have seen there are some episodes that have a little lock on them that you can't access. This is because they are for my amazing paid subscribers, and if you would like to be one, it's super easy. There's a link in the description of this podcast. It really helps this podcast grow. It allows me to kind of spend more time making episodes and be more serious about this little hobby that I have and this mission that I have to kind of share more with people about the way that psychology really impacts our lives, not just in a clinical mental illness kind of setting, but in every facet. And thank you so much for listening and supporting the podcast. I will see you next week. We're going to be discussing codependency