Rollercoaster Relationships change how one sees oneself

I just had dinner with my roommate and we had an interesting conversation about relationships and identity, and I thought it would be interesting to further explore this topic. Having a relationship seems to impact one's identity more than most people would like to think. People like to say that they are the same person with or without their significant other, but, its just not true. For instance, my friend and I were discussing another friend of ours who recently began a relationship, and within one week her personality remarkably changed. She has become optimistic, enthusiastic, and happy from her normal pessimistic, cynical, and sad. This is of course a great improvement, but why did it take a guy to change her identity and how did he do it. This may be explained by using Cooley's looking glass self, or seeing yourself how you think other people see you. If this theory of identity is true it explains why she would be more confident. She sees that he is interested in her and thus may have begun to see herself more has the positive opinions that he tells her he thinks of her. Another possible explanation for this change in identity may come from Mead's interactional self. Her social self is changing based on the new social environment she is in, with her new boyfriend, and the judgments he makes of her. This change to her social self may not necessarily be a lasting change in identity though, it may just be a situational or temporal change.

The same situation applies in the opposite scenario. When a relationship ends, a person becomes very emotional and sad, even if they know for a fact the relationship would not have worked out in the end or could not have been saved. A possible explanation for this could be a feeling of the loss of losing a part of one's identity. After spending a lot of time with someone you begin to really care about them and sometimes even think like them. When this ends, one may feel as if a part of them is gone, which is probably the hardest feeling to get over. In this case, people are defining themselves based on their relationships, which can be good or bad and cycle like a rollercoaster. When their relationships are working they see themselves one way and when they are not they see themselves entirely differently. My friend that I was having this conversation with fully admits that her emotions are based on how things are going with her boyfriend. Although, I was really upset when my previous boyfriend and myself broke up, I find this idea to be sad. I feel a person's identity should not be based on another individual, but yet when you spend so much time with that person it is hard for them not to become a part of your identity. Perhaps we more frequently experience static shifts in our identity due to our relationships with those close to us.

Why help? Why now?

Identity in itself proves difficult to fully understand due to its complexity. Many theories suggest sociological, psychological, and interactional approaches in a futile attempt to reach a definition. In my attempt to try to understand these theories I desired to determine whether chronic disease impacts one’s identity, or how one views oneself. I initially understood that chronic disease probably affected an individual’s identity in some way, but not until after I did a fair amount of research did I discover this to be correct. Chronic illness does seem to affect an individual’s identity, but not necessarily in a negative way. Through my experiences as a researcher and student I have come to understand that the age of diagnosis may have causality with how identity is adaptable. Research indicates that diagnosis of a chronic disease before the critical age of 11 years old does not seem to change an individual’s identity, but after this point will cause identity to change. Identity then may become more or less adaptive. This change in identity seems dependent upon the individual’s social environment which has a significant effect on identity, because it causes an individual to see oneself differently based on the judgments of others. We call this impact that the actions of others have on one's perception of oneself as the "extended identity."

This knowledge is extremely important in our society today because chronic disease is becoming even more prevalent and more and more children are being diagnosed with chronic illness. If we can understand how this diagnosis effects their identity we can then in turn find ways to help them upon their diagnosis. If medical professionals understand the effects that diagnosis of a chronic disease has on individuals in each age group, they will better be able to care for them. The new understanding that they will gain may allow doctors to empathize with their patients and learn how to provide better care and treatment courses for them taking into account their individual identity states. If doctors understand that at certain ages identities change in different ways then they can more effectively come up with treatment plans and coping mechanisms that are age dependent. If medical professionals working with adolescents understand that getting diagnosed with a chronic illness can influence how patients construct their identities, then those professionals can more effectively help those patients cope and make sense of the ways in which their chronic disease influences their identity once diagnosed.

Halloween frees one from the self

Since lately I have been contemplating how identity applies to just about everything I see and encounter everyday, I started to think about how it applies to Halloween. Essentially, this "holiday," I am not sure if we call it this, allows people to dress up and assume an any identity other than their own for one day. Interestingly, you rarely see anyone just go as themselves. Most people embrace this day and buy or put together a "costume." This costume and behavior that they enact while wearing this costume seems to be their exaggerated view of the identity that the real person has. This may be easier seen with an example. For instance, a person who is kind, good natured, and a school teacher, may dress up as a Dracula or a doctor for Halloween and in doing so adjust not only the way they dress but the way they act for that day and conform with the generalized societal view of how Dracula or a doctor acts, when in reality these both may be very unique depending on the person who has the role in real life.

OK, well what does this mean? To be honest, I do not know the answer, but Halloween always makes me wonder, especially now, why people love the idea of dressing up and being someone else for a day. I even love this, but I can not figure out why. It is not that I do not like who I think I am, and I am guessing this is not the reason for the popularity of the day. Maybe the appeal is that you have to be you every other day of the year, so for this one day it is fun to be someone else for a change. But then I wonder if your true identity determines what identity you will most likely pretend to be for the day. Using the profession one has as the definition for an identity, are doctors more likely to pretend to be angels or devils and are construction workers more likely to pretend to be baseball players. If this is the case then perhaps you can't escape your identity even when you try. Also, I wonder if it is even fair to pretend to be an identity that you really know nothing about. If we know nothing about this identity then how is it possible for us to pretend to be it, and are our portrayed misconceptions offending people? I know I am probably looking way to deeply into just a fun day of free candy and dressing up, but what do you think?

Analyzing the Audience

Although I am not yet sure exactly what my thesis for my English 225 convincing paper will be yet, our textbook, Aims of Argument suggests analyzing the intended audience prior to deciding on a thesis. The audience is a significant factor in the rhetorical context of a paper, and it is quite possible for an argument to be decided as successful or a failure primarily based on who the audience is. In order to make an argument an author needs to know to whom they are speaking and how the audience currently stands on the issue to be discussed. The authors of the textbook suggest that the best way to convince is to present one's position while creating as little resistance in the readers as possible.

My inquiry paper searched the effect having a chronic illness has on one's perception of their identity. In my exploration I found that identity was affected but not necessarily in a negative way. There also seemed an age at which identity prior to be diagnosed at this age proved no significant change in identity, but diagnosis after this age proved a significant change in identity in most cases depending upon the individuals social self and social environment. While still unsure what exactly I wish to convince my audience, it may help to determine who will be reading a paper about such issues. I think that medical professionals, parents, individuals with chronic disease, organizations that support chronic disease patients, and the academic society are the people who need to hear my argument. It is hard to answer exactly what the values are of these groups of people and what common ground we have that can be used as the basis for any argument I wish to pursue. It seems that obviously all of them understand what chronic disease is and the impact it has on people's lives, and see the significance in exploring this relationship. All of them understand the importance of the issue and probably would not be resistant to discussing it. If I started my argument discussing something that we all believe in I might be more apt to draw their attention and then lead into the topic I will try to convince them of. Lets say I decide to try to convince them of the idea that there is a critical age at which an individual's identity will or will not change depending upon if diagnosed before or after this age. I could begin explaining the importance of studying the effects that chronic disease has on these patients, which my audience sympathizes with and then I could explain the importance of better understanding how and when the diagnosis occurs impacts the identity. By understanding this medical professionals and parents might be able to provide better care or organizations may be able to devise more helpful programs for chronic illness patients. Then once I had their attention and our common ground was established I could try to convince them of a specific age. Although I am still undecided about my argument, I do see the importance of understanding who your audience is and where they are coming from.

Identity Conformity in Disney??

After reading Brett's comments on one of my previous blogs about the true and false self I was inspired to further think and write about possible answers to her questions. When considering the endless classics by Walt Disney, one can not help to notice the portrayal of very specific characters with individual identities that are used as role models for populations of children. How do these "role models" affect children today, do the movies and stories help or hurt the children on average? This seems a topic up for debate. On one hand the identities portrayed are all admirable in their own way; Cinderella is a hard worker, Milan is a brave warrior, Pocahontas a peacemaker, Belle a caring and devoted daughter, Snow White a loving and caring friend, and they all have a happily ever after ending. They are admirable characteristics and do all lead to a happy ending, so what child would not want to strive to be like them? Well on the other hand these are specific identities thought by society to be desirable, but are they subliminally promoting conformity? It is possible. It seems children should be encouraged to find themselves and develop their own personalities based on their environments and experiences growing up. Would this not create a more unique and diverse society, rather than one full of conformers.

Also, in addition to this point, in Aladdin, Aladdin tries to steal princess Jasmine's heart and in doing so pretends to be people he is not in order to win her heart. At one point in the movie he pretends to be a prince, and the Jeannie tells him just to be himself, that he would have better luck. We see Aladdin using multiple theories of the social self. He uses Mead's interactional self by pretending to act a certain way that he thinks Princess Jasmine wants. We also see Reisman's conforming self, because he tries to conform with the identity of what was considered worthy of a princess to marry. A question may arise when we consider Hochschild's emotional self. Is Aladdin portraying a false self or is he just trying to act a certain way in a very specific situation in order to achieve a goal? Does this constitute as a false self and give him reason to then judge himself as acting wrongly? Perhaps his true emotional self is so drawn to princess Jasmine that he will undoubtedly do anything to get her attention, which would imply that his true self was doing the action of portraying a false self. This seems a bit confusing but yet it seems very possible that a true self may have goals and desires that in order to devise ways to achieve these they must temporarily adapt false selves but solely for the purpose of satisfying the true self. So overall, Aladdin reveals that he is really a peasant essentially to Jasmine, and she does fall in love with him. The movie then does portray the importance of being yourself to children and how in the end it is the right way to behave. But yet, at the same time these false selves that Aladdin assumes seem just extensions of his true feelings for Jasmine, which do not change.

Overall it is important to be yourself which Disney supports, but what if they are providing the selves for you to conform to?

Resume Builders: Why?

Something that has always puzzled me is the idea of students participating in extracurricular activities for the sole purpose of writing them on their resume in order to impress an admissions board of their choice. This idea has always bothered me, so I figured why not write about it in an attempt to question why this is the case. When I was in High School I had this one "friend" who said she was a member of all these great clubs, but with further investigation I realized that she never participated in any of the events for these clubs but rather used them to put on her resume in order to get into NYU. I thought this seemed a bit ridiculous but didn't think much of it because well I was just in High School.

However, when I came to the University of Michigan I realized that so many more people do that here. I could not believe it. I honestly thought that people chose to participate in activities that really interested them solely of the purpose of expanding their interest. When you think about the steep competition to get into graduate school it is understandable that students want to stand out and impress admissions boards. But yet, at the same time wouldn't it be better if someone participated in a club that honestly meant something to them and was extremely active in this club, rather than spreading themselves so thin that the people in the organizations do not even know who they are. I would hope that an admissions board would be more impressed if a student pursued what really interested them for their own individual sake.

For instance, I am almost fell into this loop hole upon entering this university. When I arrived and said that I wanted to be a doctor, I was advised to get involved in as many things possible in order to "boost" my resume. I immediately joined the pre-med club, because of course I thought that was what I was "supposed" to do if I wanted to go to medical school. However it was not very long before I realized that no one in the club knew me and I was not contributing anything of worth but sacrificing an hour I could be studying to listen to people tell me about what I should be doing to get into medical school. I decided that I wanted to be my own person, and that in the end hopefully a medical school will accept me as me, not a compilation of Hochschild's "false selves" created in an attempt to be the "perfect medical school applicant." Well actually what everyone perceives the medical schools think is the perfect applicant, because honestly how can anyone know for sure. This is actually an example of Mead's interaction self, because people try to act how they think other people want them to. Well in that respect I felt that a medical school would want me to be me, an individual pursuing her own interests and with the goal of wanting to help and care for people.

Of course, I still participate in as much as I can, but my list is probably nothing in comparison to other "resume builders," who probably do not even know what is on their resume, in addition to the fact that I just don't sign up for things for the pure sake of saying I "do" something else. I aim to do things that really mean something to me. I wonder why should we all devote our undergraduate years to making ourselves who we think an admissions board wants us to be. It just seems more reasonable to be ourselves and do things that we would do if their were no graduate schools or jobs to apply to. These ideas of the social self are adding pressure to us to conform and adapt, when we shouldn't have to. Don't you think?

Diabetes Camp: A mold for identity

Today I interviewed a friend of mine, Danielle, for my inquiry paper. Danielle has type I Diabetes and has had it since she was six years old. After our interview the things she told me where playing over and over in my head. I was trying to think of a way to connect her pre and post diagnosis emotions and view of her identity to the research theories I had found, but could not help but to keep coming back to the role Diabetes Camp seems to have played in her view of her identity as a young child. Diabetes camp is a camp set up by different foundations, such as Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, American Diabetic Association, and the National Kidney Foundation. I started to question the influence these programs can have on a child with Diabetes. These programs are set up with the intention of bringing children together who all have the same disease in an attempt to show them that they are not alone, and give them an opportunity to become friends with other children "like" them. While these programs are fantastic at educating children about their disease and showing them that their are many other people in the world that have the same condition that they do, the idea that these children are all "alike," is what makes me skeptical. I would have never even considered this if it weren't for all the research we are doing in class about identity and my individual research looking at the affect chronic illness has on the perception of the person with the illness' identity.

Although, yes these children all are around the same age and all do have type 1 diabetes but this idea that these children are "alike" seems to categorize their identities as being similar. In this case it seems to imply that their disease is who they are and what makes them similar, when it reality it is just a condition that they all must learn to live with, but by no means defines their personality or their identity. This just seems to place children in in a category or group that distinguishes them from other children who can get the wrong idea. As my other friend Jenna noted, her father was taught in the hospital to call her a person with Diabetes, not a Diabetic person. The same idea applies, people who have type 1 diabetes are still people and as such still have an identity separate from their disease. Their disease is not what makes them them. Danielle actually said that going into the camp at age 8 she checked her blood sugar about once or twice a day, but once at camp the counselors made them check their sugar 5 times a day and monitored what they ate and when. She felt uncomfortable and as if these people were forcing her to revolve her whole life around her condition and made her feel sad. She felt that they placed her in a category with other children with diabetes and tried to instill being diabetic as a primary categorization, when she wanted to be her own person.

At the same time though, Jenna, who went to Diabetes camp at a much older age of 16, saw it as a fun opportunity to make friends with people who all had the same condition as her. She did not see this as a defining aspect of their identities but rather just a fun and social way to meet people who had to do the same daily tasks, such as checking blood sugar that she did. In light of this fact, I wonder if the age of diagnosis may play a role in whether or not one percepts the disease to change one's identity. For Jenna who was diagnosed at 12 she had already defined most of her identity, and just saw this as a new condition she would have to live with. However, Danielle who was diagnosed at 6, thought that it was more a part of her identity but struggled to realize that it was not before she developed her own identity. In addition, though Danielle felt this way, she also said that she thought that since she developed the disease at such a young age she was able to develop with it and it just became a part of her early on. She said that she felt with a later diagnosis she would have already defined her identity and having to include this additional aspect would have been harder for her to handle. Overall, the role Diabetes camp plays on children with type 1 Diabetes may actually vary depending upon age. Younger children may perceive the camp in an attempt to define them as Diabetics while older more mature children already realize that they are individuals first and Diabetics second, and see the camp as a more fun and social way to meet people who live with a similar condition. The idea is questionable.

Does Chronic Disease effect identity?

With many discussions and readings on identity , our task is to create a question, an interest, a topic for discovery, for which we will write an inquiry paper on. Before about a week ago I had no idea what inquiry was, and how it related to argumentative writing. I like to believe that I understand it somewhat better now, after a few class discussions. Inquiry may be better summed up as the authors thought process. It provides a writer with the opportunity to explain why they want to research a certain topic and how they do so. It is essentially a process of exploration and questioning. The author finds sources that seem relevant to their overall interests and then must analyze them, determining what other people are saying about the topic of interest and how he himself feels about what these other authors are saying. The writer may agree or disagree with his sources but ultimately will link them all together in an effort to reach an overall claim, an overall analysis or attempt at understanding. The end of the paper may come as an epiphany but the opposite may also occur, and one may be left with confusion and many further questions.

With much brainstorming and limited sources at this moment, I find myself interested in how external forces, such as having a chronic disease, may contribute to one view of one's "self." I wonder if having a chronic disease changes how one views oneself. This may prove a difficulty topic to investigate, but perhaps I can search for case-studies or comparisons between patients views of themselves prior and after diagnosis if diagnosis occurred later in life, and then even compare the role disease plays on identity in patients who have always had the disease in comparison to someone who lived a greater portion of their life without it and had a later onset.

One of the reasons that I became interested in this topic is because my roommate has type I Diabetes. She was diagnosed when she was 12 and says that its impact on her life had in fact redefined her identity in respect to how she views the world. Frequently visiting hospitals growing up she said that she became grateful that she had a disease that is treatable, for she saw many people in her ER visits who were not as fortunate, those who were receiving cancer treatments and had been in car accidents. Each time she went she had the comfort of knowing that at least she knew she would be able to return to her family and friends. She also said that having the disease makes you realize your life might not be as long and makes you a more positive person, for you want to have a happy life and make every day count. Overall, she views events and situations with an entirely different perspective once she was diagnosed and now has a different view on the world. I would like to further explore this idea, and if anyone has any suggestions for me, I would love to hear them.