@doomsey I'm actually curious if we actually have anything resembling scientific evidence that stability of identity actually confers safety in people's lives, or if this is just a widespread belief based on the correlation between situations where people experience instability of identity and [various hazards]

I spent vast stretches of my life afraid of change, but it was a fear that (I think) had mostly been taught to me

@whitequark @recursive Enough.

I want to be flippant here but I probably shouldn't be. *I'm* unstable - I know this because I fell apart, and then spent over a year of my life trying to explain what happened. Furthermore, being adjacent to a number of ND adjacent communities, I've been exposed to unstable personalities there as well. I've known at least three different versions of @recursive. I have a nephew being treated for schizophrenia. *I'm* being treated for severe depression associated with ... things. Look at my profile - I self describe as "human meatball."

Is all that experience with "unstable identity?" I will just leave you to think about it.

@doomsey @whitequark To be fair, I suppose there's a big footnote to most of anything I would say about identity:

Some people have too-unstable identity already, this does not apply to them.

This is coming from the perspective of having too-rigid identity, which is a thing I have seen a lot, in myself and others, causing much suffering