Who am I?

  One of the most obvious and common issue adoptees have is a missing sense of self. Most teenagers, adopted or not, wonder who they are but for adoptees they have no one to look to for a 'blueprint' of what they will turn out to be physically speaking. For example I have no biological family to turn to to see whether that acne I have is genetic or simple hormonal, or whether I will always have average height or whether I will grow taller, whether I carry any potentially deadly disease etc the list goes on.

  In this post I'd like to talk about the psychological sense of 'self' rather than the physical component. I write this from my own experience. It's difficult to describe who I am exactly. I've been thinking about it and I've realised that I am nothing. I am basically made up of pieces of other people's personalities and influences, the people who I come in contact with in my life. I may be wrong, only those who know me can comment on it, but it feels to me that I change myself to suit whatever situation I am in - how many of you feel the same way? For example, when I am with my extended family, I laugh and joke around with them, when I am college I am quiet and withdrawn, when I'm at my father's office I am brisk, efficient and business-like. Everyone, to a certain extent, changes themselves to suit a particular occasion, and maybe what I have experienced is only normal, but I can't help feeling slightly troubled by it because I can't help wondering who I really am under all these layers.

  Dr. Nancy Verrier (renowned psychotherapist, lecturer, author) has stated the similarity between the identity issues of an adoptee and that of a person suffering from borderline personality disorder (emotionally unstable personality disorder). Here is a quote from a person who has acute borderline personality disorder -

 "...it is very difficult for me to let other people get close to me. I am simply too afraid that they will discover that I am nothing at all, that I am nobody, a shadow, a ghost. I am afraid that they will find out that I don’t have any opinion about anything, no attitudes, no ideology, that I don’t know anything about anything, and suddenly they will figure out how boring I really am..."

And, I can't help but feel similar...