Who am I ??? - Who are you???-

Ego - "A sense of personal identity - One's sense of self esteem / importance"

Who we are is largely based on our memories. Things we have done, people we know, places we have been. Few adults can remember anything that happened to them before the age of 3. A new study has found that about age 7 our earliest memories begin to fade, a phenomenon known as childhood amnesia. I think I've got adult amnesia - I don't seem to remember a lot about my childhood at all.

Memory - " Something remembered from the past. The faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information".

So - given all of that, what happens to identity in an ageing population who at the least find their memory unreliable & at the worst have Vascular Dementia or Alzheimers?

 

I also wonder how much image matters to our sense of our own identity. If you are blind from birth & have never seen yourself, how difficult is it to have a sense of identity without knowing what you look like? Image is so important today, not just for people in the public eye, but I know women who feel distictly unhappy without full make up on & men who always dress smartly. That was me when I was working, but nowadays I rarely bother. Somehow I don't feel the need anymore.

Our sense of self is quite dependent on the clothes we wear. We all have a personal style. We choose the clothes & colours we like. How we dress matters to us personally & to how others perceive us. We also tend to make involuntary judgements about others depending on how they look. The judgements we make may be inaccurate & can change as we get to know someone, but if we don't get to know them, changing our view is more difficult.

I  now feel  confident & "happy in my own skin". It hasn't always been thus. As a teenager my self esteem was much lower. Maybe as we age and mature we are able to accept who we are & what we look like more and more. Teenagers & young adults often lack self esteem & confidence. This is sometimes caused by uninvolved or negligent parents, negative peers or trauma  / abuse. 

It seems such a shame that so many people are lost today. They don't know & value who they are. They are insecure & make bad choices. It seems such a simple question to answer, who am I, who are you? 

It's not.