To conclude the topic of self-identity, I want to talk about why many people have difficulty realizing their “I” and their separateness. In order to be a good boy or a good girl for your parents, to please them, to earn their approval, acceptance, love, most of us in our childhood had to give up part of ourselves and become what our significant adults wanted us to see (parents or grandparents, educators, teachers, etc.). And each of us had to live up to the ideas about ourselves as a child or about the person we need to become, and to satisfy our parents’ expectations of us. And what do most parents, and especially grandparents, who grew up in Soviet times, want? Most of them want their children to be comfortable. How to make a child comfortable? Suppressing his will and manipulating feelings of guilt and shame. All this leads to the fear of rejection, which for a child is akin to the fear of death. And this fear paralyzes the little person, turns off his feelings and interrupts contact with himself. Then the person grows up, but cannot understand who he is, what he is like, what he wants, what he lives for. And he fails to take his place in life. His needs are not met, which is why the person unconsciously constantly feels dissatisfaction with himself and life, tension and anxiety. When anxiety and tension cannot be withstood, an uncontrollable release of aggression and an emotional breakdown occurs. As a rule, on loved ones. After this, the person experiences feelings of guilt and shame. It is difficult to bear them, so the defense is triggered and the feelings are switched off. Then, as I wrote, tension and anxiety grow and... - again aggression or an emotional breakdown. And so over and over again, cyclically. This cycle is characterized by a neurotic conflict. The way out of the vicious circle begins “here and now”, with restoring contact with oneself. From very simple questions: “Who am I? What do I know about myself? What do I want? What I feel? Am I what they think and say about me? Or am I what I feel and know about myself? Is there a part I don't know? And if there is, then who am I really?” When you start asking yourself these questions, getting to know yourself from different sides is a chance to step outside the circle and stop the internal conflict. The questions are simple, but it can be difficult to answer them. It may turn on avoidance (when suddenly many urgent matters or obstacles appear) or resistance, postponing the search for answers to questions. And that's okay. These are natural protective mechanisms of the psyche, which had been functioning in the established way for decades before, and restructuring processes for our brain is a huge job. For personal advice, you can contact me at WA, Tg: +79213361084. You can find out more about me as a specialist by following the link: https://www.b17.ru/surovtseva/ .