I think too much self awareness is harmful.

[ladyh694]

I can truly say there is such a thing as knowing yourself "too" much. I'm not saying it's not good to know who you are, but sometimes it becomes painful and can lead to over analyzing and self criticism based on the beliefs of others. For example, I've come to learn I am way too self aware and this is giving me very low self esteem. I can actually see all of my faults, insecurities, defense mechanisms in very deep detail, and I can recognize them as such, which leads to self criticism and feeling like an insecure person. I can recognize all psychological and mental "problems" as they come, which makes me aspire to be a completely mentally healthy person. I feel inferior. I can recognize my positive qualities pretty well, but they are overshadowed.

Do you think knowing yourself too well can lead to negativity?

[Azhdarchid]

It definitely can have a downside, as partially demonstrated by the Dunning-Kruger effect. Intelligence isn't precisely the same as self-awareness, I wouldn't say, but higher scores on measures of intelligence have also positively correlated with mental disorders in a collection of studies.

This is anecdotal but I would consider myself a very self-aware individual, and I do think it contributes to indecisiveness and negative self-regard on my part. I can't get away with much (stupidity, unfairness, cruelty, inconsistency, etc.) without calling myself on it eventually, so my sense of self-trust or self-confidence is fairly low since I monitor myself always and see a lot of repeating issues. I don't necessarily think I'm worse than other people, though I often feel as though I might be, but other people I can shut out - I have to live with myself 24/7. So my own imperfections are much less tolerable to me.

[djbabyflame]

I believe people cause themselves too much strife by attempting to "find themselves". I know a lot of people who stress over figuring out who they "really are" which is only playing into (outdated and disproven) western psychology. Seeing as you can never really know or understand everything about yourself, it's best to let go a little and remember you're a complex entity who doesn't fit into categories or always make sense.

[Student]

A majority of who I am at any given time is largely based on the people I'm with, situational self or a chameleon. I had no interest developing interpersonal relationships until I turned 22 but through comedy I was able to find value in these relationships (as far as multimedia goes I'd always valued written works, music, movies etc. but comedy was one that required a participant). Before then I always behaved "normally" but my social interactions where by no means interpersonal, this was mainly due to normal being easier and abnormal required additional interpersonal encounters. Basically emulating normalcy made me very aware of how I moved and my behavior, even linguistically although some things where not worth the effort (sports mainly but later drinking as well) at one point I would finish a previous classes homework during class and do this until school was out and not have to deal with active participation in class or homework after school (first hour I'd just read) but this was giving me too much undesired attention and shifted intentionally from straight A's to mostly B's and if I found a class genuinely interesting I'd wait until the end of the semester to blow off any school work. Today I'm a much more socially fluent individual there's rarely a situation I find myself in where I don't have an expectation, fortunately though I have a few friends who don't have expectations of me where I can be myself (and occasionally I'll meet a truly interesting or dynamic person who I do not understand and with them I can be myself as well). My self awareness makes me as inhibited as you can be, but also gives me the freedom to choose who I want to be or how I want others to view me.

I call it emulating normalcy because this is not something that developed naturally in me, my mid-brain and cortex don't interact with each other, they independently function as I'm affected by hormones but the explanation for why I necessarily feel any given way is largely guesswork (fairly accurate guesswork but definitely not a science). This made gut feelings and second nature tasks (like riding a bike or driving) non-existent to me, I can still learn how to do these things and I don't feel uncomfortable doing them but they are and always will be deliberate tasks for me. Facial emotional recognition for me is also relatively low, but I've learned a lot deliberately about body language and subtext in spoken language that it doesn't really hinder me (sometimes a great benefit to my social skills understanding what people mean rather than what they say)

I would recommend to anyone rather than learn something you want to know, learn how to learn.

[rooms of the house]

holy s**t i didnt think anyone else was like this. i honestly thought i was the only one