I discovered my 9-hood in the last few weeks, and it's been a great journey going deeper into this stuff. It was both that "oh crap, that's me" feeling, and "there are other people like me??"
It made sense to me based on comments friends and clients have made to me over the years... one friend when we were kids said that all her other friends and family could be represented by certain colors and patterns she was picking out in a little scrapbook, but I would be an empty frame because I took on others' identities. That killed me for years. Others have commented on me being a "passive" leader.. don't you ever get mad...you're always "nice"...never have drama... etc, you all know the drill. While inside I can be a tornado of fury, but I felt if I expressed it it would take over and kill me, or drive everyone away and I would be alone. I saw no solution for staying connected to others but to be a chameleon.
And OMG, it's not just my personal weaknesses and failings. There are others like me who react to life with these patterns! And I can recognize the patterns more and navigate with them now!
(In addition, my relative who I see is a 1's behavior makes a LOT more sense to me now...)
I ended up reading about this stuff based on a desire to heal, my word of the year for 2015. I couldn't figure out why it affected me SO MUCH that my mother was sick for years and died when I was a young teenager. Sure, it sucks for anyone, but it was really bothering me inside on a daily basis that something about MY identity was stunted and sick as a result of how I reacted to this (25 years ago!) I've lost other loved ones over the years that I can love and leave to their journey and stick to mine.
I see now my 9 pattern of hooking into others for identity and energy, and checking out into numbness when crap hits the fan. It resulted in me basically becoming a zombie of no emotion for the really bad times, pretending it was all good and denying my anger for the slightly less bad times, and always subconsciously feeling like if I didn't have my mom to connect with and basically give me an identity as I grew up, I was as good as dead too. I just abdicated my interests and loves (music) and did other things I didn't really care about. Because, you know, I didn't REALLY exist or matter...
Anyway, now, as a good 9, I'm all self conscious about actually talking about myself. Thank you all for listening and discussing this stuff, it really helps so much.