Identity Crisis
Looking back, I realized that the root cause of my not knowing what I wanted was, while my psychology studies. In my case, one of the reason was the condition of “identity crisis.” The trigger of the awareness was when I learned about the background of the development psychologist Erik Erikson (1902-1994), which overlapped with my own experience, and I was able to look back on my past from a different perspective.
Mr. Erickson was born into a Danish-Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany, suffered double discrimination, never knew his biological father, was encouraged to study medicine because his father-in-law was a doctor, but rebelled it and traveled around Europe as a wandering painter, married a Canadian dancer, and defected to US during the Nazi regime… In such circumstances, he was always unsure of “who he was.”
I am a purely Japanese person. Because of my father's job, I had to move around a lot, changed kindergartens three times, spent four years of elementary and junior high school in Peru, went to a Japanese school there instead of an international school, and returned to Japan in my third year of junior high school. Every time I moved, I experienced culture shock, also I was troubled as to why I couldn't come up with ideas that my parents would easily approve of, not realizing that my values were different from theirs then. Although I am a returnee, I am not so-called a “native English speaker returnee,” but I often feel uncomfortable with Japanese culture.
Every time the environment changed, the correct action I should take changed. In the other hand, at home, the ideas I came up with often made my parents worried, so I continued to feel unsure of my own choices. I wondered “what am I?” “Who am I?” and “How should I live?”
That was a big reason that I lost track of myself and didn't know what I wanted to do, and it should be so hard period for me... I could become aware of that situation and I was finally able to separate my past from my present and acknowledge it!
Also I realize that I have always been interested in different cultures since I was a child. I think that might be because I was looking for an identity society which I could fit in.... I wonder Mr. Erickson had similar feelings when he was wandering around Europe.
Since I learned about the state of identity crisis, when I feel anxious even though I think I have found what I want to do, I am now able to analyze and realize that it may be a time when my identity is wavering.
At times like these, I thought that I want to spend more time doing the things that excite me and tried new things that might help me discover a new identity, and I decided to make use of that process!
Because I am aware that my identity is easily shaken, I want to continue learning many different things!