Temporal and Corporeal Thresholds of the Self – a Meditation on Selfhood

Anxiety, depression, panic attacks – all find a pathologized narrative within the western understanding of mental health. These moments of collapse can also be understood as a burial of an absolute self under the weight of the embodied expectations of capitalist ideals associated to selfhood. To uphold socially acceptable ideas of personal value and selfhood – a subjective self must bear the burdens of the collective imaginaries. The embodiment of shame, guilt, fear, lack of love and abandonment manifest themselves as anxiety and panic attacks, as eruptions of collective wounds. These wounds fester deep across the temporal and corporeal layers of selfhood. Where does the self begin and end though? In terms of the corporeal, skin – can be understood as a boundary – a porous membrane, letting the world in, yet shaping it just as much in the process. In terms of the temporal, a self can be understood as a byproduct of one’s constant becoming subject to the experiences of ‘being in the world’. Both the temporal and the corporeal notions of selfhood are understood better when looked at through a nebulous ontological lens rather than a rigid empirical one. Still, most of the western ideas of healing and upholding oneself are predicated on the idea of establishing ‘boundaries’ – a term which better describes the values associated to a legal body rather than an ontic one. If not as a boundary, where does the threshold between the individual's being and becoming lie? My research will glean upon the insights offered by my own diagnosis of my panic attacks and anxiety to reveal the worlds which my selves have negotiated. In doing so, I detail my understanding of mental health and the limits of objective western healing along with the nuances of being and becoming of the self.