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Expos paper 2

Better Essays

Expository Writing
Jesse Hoffman
October 5, 2014
Puzzle of Identity in Life

Every human’s life is like a puzzle: starting from birth to death, all the people and all the experience that we go through will impact our future decisions and will result in a final product of our identity. Just as all the pieces of the puzzle come together to reveal a final product or an image, our past experiences come together to reveal our final product, which is our identity: who we are and what our beliefs are. The effects of past experiences and encounters will reflect the actions and connections of the present. This adventure of finding ones identity by completing the figurative puzzle requires intimate connections and memorable moments that you …show more content…

This is why he prefers being in ‘middle of the ocean’ versus being present in reality and having emotions and feeling connected. So in this case the part of brain designed to defend Seth from mental harm is what causing the harm to him mentally, by disassociating and not allowing him to feel connected. Both authors seem to agree to the fact that because of the past trauma the victims prefer being isolated and avoid human emotions. Victims who faced trauma in past, tend to isolate themselves, which deteriorates them inside out, making them unable to form an identity for themselves. Although the victims are attempting to form connection; the defense mechanism of the brain makes them disassociate and unable to be present for the events that occur in their lives. In Stouts essay, she continues on about Seth’s example where he is unable to connect to closest people in his life. Even though he wishes to be at the events in his life, his mind doesn’t allow him to do so, because it sees a threat that exists only in his mind. She quotes Seth, as he describes how he is unable to feel anything during the most intimate moments in his life. He states, “Most of the time when she and I make love, and I’m not there, she doesn’t know it even then… It’s just that well, when I think about it; I realize that, really, I’ve missed most of my own life” (Stout 436). Because of the trauma Seth had faced in past, he is unable to be

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