"being a Christian"

So, I'd like to tackle this concept of "being a Christian". How many of you "Christians" out there have felt like not a Christian at some point after sealing the deal with God? I have totally felt this way, and sometimes often. But I was thinking about how this phrase of "being a Christian" can be so destructive to the Christian. If you are in Christ, I Cor. 5:17 says that you just are a new creation. But I don't feel like I am being a good Christian, which is an interesting concept: the good Christian, because of guilt. I still sin and fail to do the things I ought to because I'm still imperfect and am still being perfected. So, the terminology of "being a Christian" makes it sound like something distant, something that we aren't, something we have to attain. Yet Christ purchased this for us. Why do we feel like we have to BE a Christian? If anyone is in Christ, He IS one. I mean, doesn't God want us to be ourselves in Him? That is, instead of trying to be something or someone else for him? Doesn't love accept? "God showed his love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." And where do these pressures come from? Certainly there is healthy pressure from the Holy Spirit, but there is also unhealthy pressure: things we can't be responsible for. So why do we come to hate "being a Christian" in some moments? Because in our heads, we harbor the structured misbelief that "being a Christian" means "not being one's self." What a shameful misrepresentation of the gospel, right?

Can anyone else identify with this? Are you feeling me?