How Do You Like Your Eggs?
Rebuilding Identity in Recovery
June is a month of paradoxes and power. It holds space for rainbows and reckoning, for celebration and self-reflection. It’s both LGBTQIA+ Pride Month and Men’s Mental Health Month, which may seem like an unlikely pairing until you dig deeper—and as a psychotherapist working in addiction treatment, I can tell you they intersect more often than you’d think.
A common theme I see among both LGBTQIA+ folks and male-identifying clients in recovery is this: the long, winding search for Self and the building of Identity. These are not just therapeutic buzzwords—they're often the very bricks and mortar of healing, especially in recovery work where your past has often blurred, buried, or bulldozed your original blueprint.
“Self” vs. “Identity”: Let’s Not Treat Them Like Synonyms
We often use self and identity interchangeably, like we do “I’m fine” and “I’m one minor inconvenience away from a spiral.” But from a psychological standpoint, they’re different—and the distinction matters.
The “Self”—from most therapeutic perspectives—is the deeper, inner core. In psychodynamic therapy, it’s the authentic self beneath defenses. In humanistic psychology, it’s the real self you are always becoming. In Internal Family Systems (IFS), it’s the Self with a capital “S”—the curious, compassionate center capable of holding all your inner parts without judgment.
The Self is internal. Stable. Quietly watching when your identity is busy changing outfits for every social situation.
Most crucially, the Self requires autonomy and agency to fully emerge. You don’t discover your Self through someone else's mirror. You uncover it by learning to make your own choices—even small ones. Like choosing how you take your eggs.
More on that in a minute.
Identity: The Public-Facing Mosaic
Your identity is more of a patchwork quilt—stitched from family expectations, community values, social norms, Spotify algorithms, and yes, trauma. It's who the world sees. It evolves and adapts. It's what you are (gay, straight, father, son, therapist, Swiftie) and often gets confused with who you are.
Identity is constructed from both internal experiences (your values, beliefs, memories) and external messages (what culture tells you is acceptable, attractive, or achievable). It's a bit like your Instagram feed—it reflects parts of you, but filtered.
As a therapist in addiction recovery, I often witness the identity work that has to happen after substance use is removed. Without the numbing, the role-playing, or the performance, a client may look in the mirror and ask, Who am I now? That’s not a crisis—it’s an opportunity.
Curiosity Over Correction: What “The Runaway Bride” Got Right
Now, let’s talk about eggs.
In the movie The Runaway Bride, Julia Roberts plays a woman who repeatedly bolts from weddings at the altar (hence the title). Over time, she realizes she’s been losing herself in every relationship—morphing to match her partner's likes and dislikes, including their preferred egg preparation.
In the final scenes, she sits alone at a diner, ordering every style of eggs imaginable—scrambled, poached, sunny-side up—trying each one with the curiosity of someone meeting themselves for the first time. And that, my friends, is psychotherapy.
That scene is a metaphor for what many of us miss: we don’t always know ourselves because we’ve never been encouraged to explore ourselves without judgment. We’ve been trying to get it “right” instead of getting it true.
You don’t need to know if you’re “masculine enough” or “queer enough” or “recovered enough.” You need to stay curious about who you are and how that changes with time, healing, and insight.
RECAP: So What Do June, Pride, and Men’s Mental Health Have in Common?
They all invite us to:
Embrace fluidity: of gender, expression, emotion, and yes—breakfast preferences.
Break binaries: Not just of gay/straight or strong/weak, but of good/bad, success/failure, relapse/recovery.
Explore, not explain: You don’t have to justify who you are. You can just wonder, and try things on, and say, “I’m still figuring that out.”
Recovery, identity, and masculinity are not destinations. They are eggs—meant to be cooked different ways until you find the one that tastes like you.
So this June, whether you’re marching in a parade, sitting in a therapy session, or just staring at a menu unsure of what to order, remember:
You are the architect of your Self.
You are the editor of your Identity.
And you get to decide how your eggs are cooked.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to rewatch that diner scene and get emotional about omelets.
Have you lost who you are in active addiction? Want help rebuilding? We at Sobriety House are here for it. Give our admissions line a call at (720) 381-4337 or email us at admissions@sobrietyhouse.org. And no, we won’t judge you for liking ketchup on your eggs. Everyone gets to be wrong about something.
