Posted by Dory on September 19, 2007, at 16:51:35
In reply to Re: a new twist to therapy today **trigger** » Dory, posted by RealMe on September 18, 2007, at 23:24:16
well... not quite that either.. maybe i am using the wrong words or expressions somehow. i have sides of myself that are different for different situations as well... but i honestly feel it's an argument between two people. Like conjoined twins, all one person, and there is no losing time or alters or anything like that... like two people fighting over a microphone? One always regrets what the other decides. i hate to use language that makes it sound like two distinct people, but i don't know of words which accurately describe what i mean. It's somewhere in between your description of different sides of yourself and having another distinct personality... more on your side though. This is harder to describe than i thought. Maybe two states of mind?
i understand how i got to be this way and i have to talk with T about that.
The bolder, extroverted me... the one who wins people over quickly and will jump at the chance to do anything new... well, that part of me is dominant, publicly anyway. But in that state of mind i make impulsive decisions and often poor choices. i am too loud and too assertive, sometimes read as aggressive. i can generally pull it off when i need to, but not always, and it requires so much emotional/mental energy that i have to limit my time with others, etc.
when on the flip side i am so quiet people sometimes think i am mad at them. But i tend to avoid being among people i know then.. or out at all if i can help it. i hestitate. i often still make bad choices because i wait too long or just completely waffle back and forth unable to decide. It takes a LOT of effort not to become isolated and depressed during those times.
The real me, the whole me, is somewhere in between.
i started out life more or less as the quiet me and carefully developed the other side over time... deliberately mostly. Now that is as much me as anything else is. But it's like a prosthetic leg that i can run without. i taught myself what little i know about confidence, etc... and as a child i did not know enough to do a good job, or how to build that up like a strong wall.
i need to learn how to grow quiet me into a full person, and integrate the benefits of bold me. i need to take good things from both to dampen the lesser of both. The public me has a huge number of benefits for me, and i have acheived so much by being able to carry that off... and though it's not completely who i am i don't want to have a personality transplant.
you said it wasn't an act for you... some of my public self is, a lot of it is. That is why what i do now at school is so important to me... it speaks to *me* i can be confident and have something to say without faking it.
i want to stop putting on "the show" and learn to be me... all of me.
does this make sense?
poster:Dory
thread:783553
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070916/msgs/783970.html