Comments on: Character construction

By: sheepish

sheepish — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 04:16:25 +0000

I don’t think anyone sees themself in the same way others do. It’s not always obvious whose vision is clearer though. I dunno, you’ve probably blogged more of your feelings here than you tell your friends, but you certainly seem pretty normal to me (for whatever normal means and whatever the opinion of a stranger is worth). As you say, there are wide ranges of degree and definition though.

By: michelle

michelle — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 15:05:08 +0000

Others’ perception of the “together me” was (yet another) subject I covered when I did cognitive therapy a few years ago. I still remember my therapist saying that I appeared to be such a competent and objective person that she assumed people routinely looked to me, and my agreeing but also saying, now you see, you think I’m up to the task, too, when at the time, I felt that I was anything but. I remember feeling like this incredible frustration that my external image so belied the internal turmoil.

As far as the blog personae, I think it’s unavoidable that despite even consciouis efforts to be as “honest” about who we really are, we all cultivate certain aspects of personality. We choose what we talk about adn some of us (like me) just flat-out delete stuff we write that we decide we don’t want the world to know, after all.

PS I got your postcard and the boys LTAO. It was my first “blogcard.” I am glad it was from you. :)

By: pericat

pericat — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 15:30:16 +0000

On the one hand, it’s nice that people think one is competent and capable and together. On the other hand, it’d be nice if their thinking so did not also feel like a denial of your own reality.

There’s no useful objective measure for these things. But maybe you really are more emotionally able when working on shared projects or interacting with others than you are otherwise. Other people are terribly distracting.

By: wolfa

wolfa — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 22:24:28 +0000

Well, there are a lot of things I do not blog here (I do have some limits), and my good friends do know most of what I write here. Well, some of them. Probably in the broadest definitions of normal, I count; in the narrowest, not so much.

Michelle, once I (was actually very happy but) broke down and started sobbing because of stress, and people were *shocked*, and I thought, wow, how could they not know. But it turned out, I was thinking the same about someone else, who was feeling much like me.

I make no real claims about honesty here. I’m not lying about anything, but that’s not quite the same. But I often don’t know the truth, so.

And I am so glad you got the card(s?). I hope they weren’t smudged too much, cause they got rained all over.

Pericat, I have no idea if I am more able when with friends. (I am sure I am more when at work.) It is, in a disturbing way, only when with people that I ever cry. (I almost never cry. But only when with people. Or at movies or stuff. It’s not manipulative, it just seems that way.)

I’m sure it doesn’t really matter, it just sort of surprises me. Also, of course, I am often shocked that people do not realise what the scars I have are. But then, why would they? I forget what things count as normal.

By: shrinkykitten

shrinkykitten — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 14:23:27 +0000

wolfangel — I just wanted to say I struggle with the same thing. Even people who are closest to me, which should know more of me, still see me as being so confident and competent, and don’t believe me when I try to assert otherwise. Although I am glad I project such an image, I wish that there were more people who see me as I truly am, as it makes it such that when I express anxiety or doubt about something, people don’t take it seriously. But, I worry that if I *really* showed people how insecure and screwed up I am, they’d never remember my competent part (and would become overwlemed by my self-doubt).