I struggle a lot with identity, although not necessarily my identity as a blind person. For me it's because I just didn't really have preferences or likes and dislikes for most of my life, because it was just easier to go with the flow so no arguments were started.

It may seem kinda dumb, but I genuinely believe starting with small things and expanding from there. Do you like ice cream? What's your favourite flavour? Tea, coffee, or hot chocolate? Do you like warm weather or cold weather? And from there you can expand outwards to bigger things, like hobbies and your personal values. This can guide you to finding something to do with your days that makes you feel good

In all honesty, I don't think anyone really knows why we're here or what our purpose is. It's a question everyone slowly creates their own answer for. It's not a quick and easy thing, in my experience. Eventually, after years of wrestling with that question, I just decided to not care anymore about why I'm here. Whatever the reason, it doesn't change the fact that I'm here now and I'm doing the best I can. The answer might not be the same for you, I know, but it is possible to find a solution that makes you happy.

Do all those things you wanted to do as a teen but couldn't. Try out a bunch of stuff and see what you like. Have fun with it! What's the point of identity if not to bring you some kind of safety and joy?

Also I don't think most people really know what they want to do as a career. Most people just kinda fall into it and end up staying there. Some people change careers dozens of times and that's cool too

I hope any of this helps

Identity is a tricky topic for me. I'm a Christian, though I left the church long ago for reasons I won't get into here. I'm bisexual which I have known for a long time. I am bigendered which took me a lot longer to figure out. I'm an engineer and am certain I was born that way. I have no racial identity because I have a blended heritage and don't see the point in prioritizing one over another. I am a family person. Family is everything to me.

Now this is where things get really tricky. Blindness is a new identity courtesy of retinitis pigmentosa. This identity has robbed me of my hard worker identity. However temporary it may be, I am struggling to adjust to being out of work. I have had a job since I started working at 8 and was always proud of my ability to provide. If it wasn't for school, I would struggle to determine how I would structure my days.

Though my experience with my other identity challenges has taught me that identities are something people grow into. Sometimes because we delay our self acceptance and others because we are lost as we shift from one to another. So, it would seem most logical, that just as it took me time to understand and accept the other uncontrollable aspects of self, it will also take me time to find myself in blindness.

People can tell you what this identity means to them but identities are not the same from one to another. As I grow into blindness, I find that I can easily accept advice from others and hear their experiences. However I am quite a different person from another who is also in my shoes with retinitis pigmentosa. Identity is not so much a label applied to you by society. It is an issue of ones relationship to self.

Your challenges, experiences, and thoughts are all a part of what makes you uniquely you. These things evolve your understanding and relationship with self. Life is tricky that way. Two people with the same identity are never the same. It's just a feature shared, perhaps even a bridge into a greater social relationship with others who share an identity.

Finally on your thought of how to determine what you want in the future. It does you no good to compare to others here. Others have differing influences and motives for their chosen profession. Some prioritize pay, some focus on work life balance, others still seek variety of challenges. It may seem simple for them on the surface but they may be equally uncertain. I personally did not really know what I really wanted to do until around my 25th birthday. Mostly because my wants and priorities differed from my peers. My point here is that it is not always good to feel rushed and respond to that stimuli. If you want to be happy with your work, you need to find what makes you happy and see if you can turn that into a job. For me, I build robots. I love robots and can't see myself doing anything else really. I'm sure you have some ever present interests.

I’ve read Man’s Search for Meaning, several times over the years. I am Christian and spend a lot of time with God daily. He led me to the path I’m on now, and in less than a month I’ll be a Certified Vision Rehabilitation Therapist and starting the best career I could possibly hope for!

Identity is sort of an ever-evolving process. It will change over time as your experiences change. I'm struggling a bit with my. own right now and I've been happily married and solidly successful in my career for over 20 years. But now the kid's grown and I'm finding new hobbies and I'm wanting different things out of the career. It's just part of life.

Who I am now is very different than who I was at your age, which is very different than who I was at 18, which is very different than who I was at 12, etc.

I was pretty sheltered as a kid and I did need a few years away from that to really figure myself out, but I think a lot of young people go through that. Also, the things I wanted to do when I was younger are very different from the things I ended up doing.

Blindness has always been a part of my identity, but even that has been in different ways, depending on how it did or didn't affect my life, career, or social situation at the time.

A lot of folks may have some idea of what they want to do at an early age, but I know more people working in careers different than the ones they studied for in college than I do people who are actually in the field they planned on going into then. I'm an engineer with a fine art degree. I work with another engineer with a music degree and another one who's an MD who practiced medicine for years. My therapist used to be a product manager.

I feel like I've got a handle on it more now that I'm older (25 this year) when I had no clue when I was younger. I feel like part of my identity is wanting to work in human resources. I know I want to be a mother someday, too, so that's another part of my identity when that happens. My sexuality took a long time to accept (long story), but I'm bisexual. My hobbies form another part of my identity - I like to play D&D, I like to cook, and after a long day, I like coming home and listening to audiobooks and podcasts. I'm also a writer (for fun) and have been writing ever since I was a child. I also feel like my blindness is another part of my identity - I know others will look on that negatively, but it is who I am and I'm proud of it.

But trust me, fitting these puzzle pieces into place wasn't easy. I jumped around university degrees before settling; I struggled with my sexuality for all my teen years and it wasn't until last year when I accepted it either. I don't have much advice, but if you ever need someone to listen to, I'm here. I just thought I'd share my experiences.

Forced out my career of 15 years left me feeling adrift. Found that Mindfullness mediation helped. And working out! Had to learn how to reprogram my ego and let go a lot of stuff

A lot of what you said here resonated with me. A lot of kids in my classes in grade school already had ideas about wanting to have a family, kids, become a nurse, doctor, or astronaut, and I mostly just wanted to be employed somehow, a really vague notion of being an office worker. I had a lot of academic aptitude so once I graduated high school, set my sights on going into engineering because it was likely to lead to gainful employment. That went terribly. I couldn't find my way through the coursework or where it was leading. This was before I lost my vision.

I always struggled with my sense of self and latched onto things like the Myers Brigg personaliyty inventories for clues. These days I'm I, N, fifty fifty split between T and F, and P. That was never helpful either.

Just before the pandemic I lost enough sight I could no longer work. I had built up a career in health care, it was demanding but fulfilling, and I had some great coworkers. Awful ones too, the workplace culture was garbage. I'd built up my sense of identity with external factors, through my career, being an artist, stuff like that. All of that was stripped away once I had to start making big adaptations to sight loss.

I encourage you to keep digging into psychology, that interest may really come through for you. Have you gone through the five-factor model of personality and assessed yourself according to the factors and their facets? I got into that, then started looking at my family dynamics which led me to personality disorders. Turns out I have one, which became clear once I pinned down some of the more singular symptoms. I'm now on medication and speakiing with a therapist while I get my bearings, all of that has been a game changer. I was well on my way to being planted in the ground within five years' time otherwise. Personality disorders are considered to have genetic and trauma-induced components, though people can present with one in the absence of childhood trauma or without any family history of mental health issues. Current estimates of occurrence are one in one hundred people. There are different severities and combinations of traits so they are hard to pin down even for epecialists. Some of them are very internalised, don't get hung up on the stereotypes which are only a sliver of the larger picture. Hopefully none of this applies to you! ^_^

I had a lot of these struggles but they were mostly from a bad childhood that was compounded by blindness. I've done therapy and worked to get myself help and that's made things easier. Also figured out my own trans identity and made peace with being blind as one of the biggest parts of who I am. You're never going to be like the able bodied people around you and it's hard to accept that when you're younger because all you want is to fit in. Look for the things that are uniquely yours and try to embrace them.

I realized I was trans, and not long after that, I realized I had a thing for music production, so now I'm here