How can I stop being a "Chameleon"?
I'm whoever I need to be at a given time. If I need to be liked, I put on my "sociable, funny" personality. If I'm at work I put on my "Professional, intense, hard-ass" personality.
Nothing I do is natural to me. Whenever I'm screaming at someone I don't actually feel that, I'm just "acting" it out...
I also base these personalities on people I know. I imitate their mannerisms and speech, how they'd react, etc.
Under all of that though, there isn't much of "me". The mask tends to slip when I'm tired, or acting for a long time.
My speech turns monotonous, I can't bring myself to emote or act. My true feelings of "nothing" shine through.
I feel like I don't understand myself at all, despite preferring to spend time alone.
I feel nothing from failure or achievement. I have goals and aspirations, yes, but I don't feel anything towards getting them. It's just another dot.
Did I write this post and forget about it?
"it seems i am not ze only spy" ahh post
everyone is like that, it's normal.
The way I talk and behave in front of my coworkers is not the same as when I talk to my friends, which is also not the same as when I'm alone in my room talking to random people online.
I obviously wouldn't call my coworkers retards and naggers, whereas I can call you that.
Doesn't mean both personalities aren't part of the same person: me.
Being different around different people is normal, I know that.
But to a lot of people it's who they are, they at friendly around friends and pissy to people they dislike because it's their natural behaviour.
I don't feel that way at all.
I have "friends" because having a safety net is important and has helped me in the past, not because I enjoy being around them. Naturally the way I act with them is based exactly on someone sociable I know and not how I actually feel about them. The hobbies, my personality, the places they think I go to, are totally different to the ones I present to coworkers, or to my family.
I laugh because it would be appropriate at that time to laugh, not because I found something funny.
I get mad and fuming in a meeting because it gets me the result I want to act that way, not because I'm angry at the other person's suggestion.
I feel like, from my observation, there's a difference there
I'd also like to add that I've always felt this deep sense of shame towards what I "truly" am, but I've been doing this so long I don't know what that is.
I tend to lie. A lot. Purely for the benefit of misleading and misdirecting people.
Even on mundane stuff, like where I was over the weekend or what hobbies I like.
I don't want anyone to know who "I" am or pin down any details about me.
Why are you scared of your feelings? Feelings can be wild but they arent that scary if you get to know them better.
Sounds smart. Other people will only cause you trouble despite claiming otherwise.
Of course you lie a lot. If the chameleonic mask were made of anything, then its texture is deflection, and the bolts and pins are lies. Lying is the adhesive that keeps it on your face.
Lying became as easy as breathing to you, because it became so routine and familiar, it became as everyday to you as someone else might pick their nose, or bite their nails. This is why you feel you simultaneously lie on one hand, but also ‘didn’t mean to’ on the other, especially when it’s found by others.
It most likely became like this because somewhere in life you learned that lying was a very useful shield to protect you. It was a defence mechanic against something that stood to destroy you, mentally, emotionally, or even physically. And the lying kept you somewhat safe and out of the jaws of whatever ‘that’ was. And now you remain doing it, long after ‘that’ thing has gone or not.
oh and in that pic you posted, focus on the last part
“My heart has two doors, even I can’t open the one in the back”.
This is true. I believe you, 100%. I know all of this because believe it or not, you are not alone. I share in your stripes, I was also broken and both living and dead too. That back door of your heart is like a knife in your back. You can’t pull it out, right? That’s to be expected.
So the answer is you have someone pull it out for you. You ask for help. You reach out. And you recognise your fear of doing so for what it is - that the reason you have refused to let someone approach that door to take a look, is because you are afraid of another knife going in. That is an understandable undeniable fear, one I grit my teeth at as I type this. But there are those who would pull that knife out, to examine the back of your heart to show you the parts of you that you’d lost and forgotten, to remind you that you are living, and you can still rise from the dead. They’re out there.
Find someone you trust, and ask for help.
We can say it’s a personality disorder, we can call it a trauma disorder, or whatever we like. Bottom line is, whether it’s due to BPD/NPD/ASPD/cPTSD or whatever the fuck label we slap on it, the root cause of feeling emptiness and not knowing your true ‘self’ and feeling like a ghost with dead mirky emotions that feel like having none at all is because of one thing and one thing only:
Dissociation. That’s what it is, and dissociation is simply the fancy way of saying ‘zoning out’ or daydreaming’. Some of us get stuck doing that, and live in our own heads 24/7. That daydream becomes a forever nightmare and it feels like there is no way out. So we look for answers in our own mind and get even more lost and lose touch with our emotions and sense of self even further than before.
In the mean time, real life and society demands you to act a part, so guess what you do? You consult your mind again to draw up a role to play, one you have no feelings for, and it becomes a mask. Tada, chameleon time. And then you spend a whole act trying to make sure they never find out the truth: That no feeling was put into its design.
So what’s the moral of the story? No shit you can’t find your actual self in your mind. That is not where you live. You were persuaded by your own mind that you were, because you got stuck in it so long you identified as it. Where you actually are, where your real self is, it’s your heart, your feelings, your soul, your inner child, whatever you want to call it. That’s you.
So is it any wonder why you can’t find it in your own mind? If you kept looking and thinking and thinking and looking using your own mind over and over to no avail, it should tell you: You are looking in the wrong place. Stop looking up at your mind. Look down to your heart.
That's an interesting way to put it but the obvious follow up question is: How can I look into my heart?
From the way you described it, it feels like it's easy to look into your mind for answers and getting lost while thinking it's your heart.
As it stands now I don't really feel like I have a heart but I'm sure it's there.
It feels very angry, frustrated, violent, a bit pathetic. I'm not even sure there's anything worth seeing in there or what I'm supposed to do with it if I don't like it.
I think the pic here
sums up part of it.
>You put a lid over smelly stuff to not cause trouble.
>That's an interesting way to put it but the obvious follow up question is: How can I look into my heart?
By not trying to look into it. That would imply using the mind again, same circular problem. Instead it’s a paradoxical method, you let your heart look into you. Understand? It means being vulnerable again, being ‘weak’ again, letting the masks dissolve and the walls to crumble. It’s a deliberate act of knowing the gargantuan demonic dragon of horrific fear that you may or may not have spent a lifetime avoiding, and instead you beckon it to come find you. You confront and allow anything and all negative or terrifying or uncomfortable and you let it in, you let it process, and it will hurt and be excruciating. But that’s okay because look at that, you are feeling again. A negative and dreadful feeling to be sure, but it’s a pulse, a sign of life.
It’s the art of letting the physician jerk and pull out the arrow from you, the one that killed you before. It will hurt and you will gnash and scream at the pain doctor, but at its end, the relief and life restored to you will be indescribable
Well said.
I've been feeling this way for the past years too.
>Who am I?
>What do I do it for?
>Am I myself?
I think many people have similar issues. Very few I know have a unique and exceptional identity that they can express in many facets without needing to "adjust" or "adapt" to given circumstances.
try to find values and morals for you that ring with you and stick to them
EVERYBODY does that - every single human being. It's called having a social life. Your only problem is that you don't see how universal it is and think there's something wrong with you individually.
>EVERYBODY does that
I think everyone knows that most people do it by a certain degree.
I believe the main problem is that you can lose yourself in the process of doing so. A balance of both, an outsider life of social constructs and an inside life of yourself, free of such social constructs is necessary to prevent the feeling of being lost.
i releate to this A LOT.
i think everybody relates to this to some extent. its part of human nature to want to blend in and be accepted by your peers
Having hundreds of different faces, none of them truly being you is definitely not normal. You have to break down the wall, become vulnerable, let powerful emotions overtake you, and take back your humanity. Even if it will cost things like money and status to do so. In reality, you are terrified of people and what they will think of you when they see the real you. But you just have to let go and follow god.
>take back your humanity. Even if it will cost things like money and status to do so
Stupid. This nebulous thing you call "humanity" doesn't exist.