Microblog Memes

Sorry for the hyperfocus rant.

tl;dr: analyze other peoples personalities to see what you notice and care about in a personality, then ask people who know you well to score you and compare the results with your own self-score. This shows you how people actually see you and how far that is from your self perception. Then you can look at the degree to which that’s a result of masking and see what your mask actually covers. Going forward, when you notice thoughts or impulses that don’t fit with others’ impression of you, you can make a conscious choice about whether to embrace them or not.

My therapist told me to make a list of things that make up a personality in others, because I couldn’t figure out what my personality was, though other people assured me, I had one. I looked at coworkers to make the list, because my coworkers are all wildly different from each other, but you could also do it with fictional characters or your family or friends.

My list is roughly as follows:

Optimism

Honesty

Helpfulness (whether you’re willing to go out of your way, lose face, or give something up for others)

Chillness (how much do you work yourself up unnecessarily, basically. Do you go with the flow or worry about things and/or let them eat at you)

Jokiness

Reaction to authority

Bravery

Thoughtfulness/curiosity(do they think about the things they and others do and form theories as to why or do they leave emotions and motives unexplored

Then, I asked my sister, my best friend, and my husband to put me on a 1-5 scale for each of those categories and did it for myself, so I could compare them.

Be aware: people who love you love your personality and it might be very overwhelming or otherwise difficult for you to accept a bunch of good things about yourself.

My husband said the closest fictional analog he could find was a mix of Kes and Lwaxanna Troi from Star Trek and Amy Santiago from Brooklyn 99, which made me cry and feels like I’m bragging. I thought of myself as unempathetic, impatient, and disorganized, so it was also difficult to accept. I also think of myself as really chill and relaxed, but alas, nobody around me does.

My therapist pointed out that only I get to see my inner thoughts, so I get a “sausage-getting-made” perspective of myself, whereas others get the finished product. It’s kind of the inverse of the fallacy (I cannot for the life of me search for the right combination of words to name this) where you attribute your own lateness to traffic or an unpredictable laundry issue or something out of your control, but when others are late, you think it’s because they dropped the ball.

I’m now realizing that this is maybe not actually breaking down the mask, but recognizing (and to a degree, appreciating) it. I do think there’s a difference between a mask and a normal politeness filter though, and I also think those people have seen behind my mask enough during meltdowns etc. to know who I am regardless.