Self-concept and stressors.

Image "upset red balloon" took from Doolepress  sketchbook

Have you experience a period of time that you feel you lost yourself? You feel upset, angry, useless and unproductive. Have you experience everything in your life was all messed up? You even started to hate and disappointed at yourself.  You tried to look through the mirror to seek the real "you "; however, you noticed that have walked too far away.

If you have all the symptoms that I have described, you had lost your positive self-concept.

Photo"self-portrait" by Kathleen Creighton, Photography. 

A positive self-concept provide a sense of meaning, wholeness, and consistency A healthy self-concept has a high degree of stability and generates positive feeling toward yourself. The components of self-concept frequently considered by Delmarlearning are identity, body image, and role performance.

Photo " refracted moments " by Dennis mojado.

Stressors affecting self-concept.

A self-concept stressor is any real or perceived change that threatens identity, body image, or role performance, and thus, a stressor challenges a person's adaptive capacities. The most important factor in determining an individual's response is the individual's perception of the stressor. 

The ability to re-establish balance is related to numerous factors, including the number of stressors, duration of the stressors, and health status (Source: from Hokenberry, M., Wilson, D., &Winkelstein, M. (Eds). (2003). Wong's care of infants and children(7th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby). 

The normal process of maturation and development itself is a stressor. Changes that occur in physical, spiritual, emotional, sexual, and family can affect self-concept. Being able to adapt to stressors likely lead to a positive sense of self, whereas failure to adapt often leads to a negative sense of self. For example, I was stressed for the whole spring semester. There were a large number of things happened in such a short time. I was sick and no one was around me that could take care of me, one of my close family members had passed away and I could not catch up with all my studies. Therefore, I was super stressed, and I felt I lost myself identity. Hence, I have acted like someone that I never ever wanted to be.

Identity confusion results when people do not maintain a clear, consistent, and continuous personal identity. It may occur at any star of life if a person is unable to adapt to identity stressors. Under extreme stress, an individual may experience disturbed personal identity, estate in which the differences between the self and others cannot be determined. 

Therefore, we need to know when we should forgive ourselves 

As a result, we need to find a way to set ourselves free, and we have to admit that we are not perfect that we also made mistakes. Thus, we all need to give ourselves some personal time only care about ourselves, and talk to ourselves to seek the real us. Moreover, we have to realize what have done were wrong, and we have to learn from the past. Always remember to ask yourself who you really are.