It is that loving you as much as I have been able to manage has defined the person that I am. That is who I have become.
Sebastian Faulks. Human Traces.
How do we gain a sense of self? How do we answer the question “Who am I?” It seems to me that we gain a sense of self through the stories we tell ourselves and others. It’s a narrative process and it’s an always unfinished, creative process. We are all unique. Every time I conduct a clinic I meet new patients. Never once have I heard a patient tell me the exact story I’ve heard before. Everyone has a new, unique narrative. But this implies that the creation of a sense of self is all internal. It isn’t. We create a sense of self through our boundaries, our connections, our interfaces and interactions. We create a sense of self through our experience of love – its presence, its absence, its possibility, its loss.
Loving you, I become me.
Heroes Not Zombies 
I completely agree- thats exactly my experience.
I studied a painting at University which depicted a group of characters who were looking at the viewer with looks of varying interest and intensity that you had the sense of viewing and being viewed simulteaneously. At first I felt like a voyeur caught in the act, some of the figures were quite hostile, but then felt moved and had a feeling of boundaries dissolving regarding who I am and how others interpret me and vice versa. “Me”, “you” and “I” are such fluid concepts.
Andrea, I’m glad to hear that. I wish all doctors felt the same, don’t you? I’m sure that’s what you and both try to do in both our clinical practice and our teaching and I bet, like me, that those areas of your life give you a strong sense of who you are.
Anne, sounds a great experience! Though I bet you had it partly because you are such a naturally empathic person. I don’t suppose you can remember what the painting was, can you? Who painted it and its title? I’d like to see it
I guess it can’t be all internal because the source of the story is inevitably drawn from our interactions with the environment and its objects (including human) – most of which are random and unpredictable.
Oh for sure Snowqueen.
I think that for me the divisions between objective and subjective, external and internal, are not the most interesting thing. What’s more interesting is the way each influences and fashions the other. I’m not one of those “it’s all in your head” “there’s no external reality” people. But the connections and the influences between people, between people and the environments they inhabit, between the diverse and numerous aspects, parts, threads and functions within a person……those are all endlessly fascinating.
The creation of our individual stories, the stories that we create our experience of life with, are unceasingly interesting.