MPT #12 9th and 10th grade: search for meaning and identity

this was my 9th grade ID card...i actually liked it better than any other year...in between the feathered 8th grade hair and super curly permed hair of later high school years (photo below)...i was always on a quest for meaning and trying to figure out "who am i?" analyzing myself, life, what mattered...i always remember reading pop psychology books, personality books, philosophical idealistic books, anything i could get my hands on to figure out who i was...i always felt like i needed to deal with the "deeper" side of life which isn't really the focus for most people in high school...i was also quite social and the counselor or confidant to many (gave guys i had crushes on advice on how to get the girls they were interested in)...

i also spent way too many hours of my life writing in journals...analyzing myself, my motives, my dreams, my interests...so self-absorbed writing all the minutia of what i thought about instead of what i did...

i was trying to find my tattered and torn copy of "please understand me" which summarizes the meyers-briggs personality test into every day terms...unfortunately it was so over used and missing so many pages i finally tossed it and haven't replaced it...i am an ENFP which means i'm Extroverted (like people), iNtuitive (make decisions about life based on my inner sense rather than reality), Feeling (follow my heart over my head) and Perceptive (like my options open instead of set and structured). i found a book on temperament which summarizes my type as the "advocate"; an idealist who focus on the growth potential in themselves and others and wants a part in the process...always seeking to know who i am, the search for my "true" self...integrity is the foundation of my self-esteem (oh boy...i was always betraying myself in high school...giving in to gossip or saying what i needed to say in any moment to be liked by people i probably didn't even like that well...i hated how i was such a chameleon changing to fit my environment)...

i'm going to quote out of this book as it was so true for me "desperate to please on one hand, yet fiercely guarding their integrity on the other, they must skate on the razor's edge, no easy feat. they can never be sure they are real because their integrity is more important to them than their sense of reality"

"...their mission in life is to have a mission in life, thus putting missions just out of reach...they try to be spontaneous so spontaneity eludes them...they consciously avoid self consciousness and so are all the more self conscious. they wish to be in touch with their feelings, only to lose the very feelings they want to experience more intensely..."

oh, man, i'm feeling depressed just reading this. i definitely suffered from depression in high school. only my family really needed me to be ok, happy all the time, no conflict, no sadness...so i gave them that outwardly and internalized too much...sorry for the therapy moment...i think by the end of this week i'll be ready to reflect on what i was hoping to gain from this adventure to my past...i think i've learned how far i've come and how i have an opportunity to allow my children to LIVE their life instead of always stressing they aren't doing it good enough...so many regrets from high school i analyzed everything instead of doing it...i would have dated, taken risks...allowed myself to love and be loved...

i should add one other personality test i took informed me i was "melancholy-sanguine" which to those of you who know a LITTLE about this know it was quite the polar opposites together...i was basically intense, depressive yet social and outwardly happy...

i wish people knew me better. i wish i let them. i wish i knew my classmates better. i wish i had more time to write about this but my son needs me in this moment and that is more important...

i've joined mommy's piggytales MPT recording my childhood a year per week...by the end of the week i'll have finished up high school...check back tomorrow for more details...