the act of being vs. being an actor...is there a difference?

Post Reply New Topic

Back when I didn't know anything about Aspergers, I would put on a persona that I "absorbed" from watching something or reading something, then believe that I was convincingly "embedded" in anyone's social sphere. But it took so much energy, requiring a marathon-like pace that involves choosing the persona, performing the persona, finding an opportune time to psychological detach and rest, then "recycling" the persona and performance, detach and rest, "recyling"...and so on.

After I "discovered" Asperger's, I've just tried to accept myself and navigate myself without personas. It's a struggle and it seems like I regress easily without persona strategies. But my goal is to thrive without personas, to engage the world with minimal pretending and maximum authenticity. Naive, no doubt. But after years and years of narcissistic strategies...I just want to rediscover Me.

I think people can tell immediately that I'm "out of sync" or odd. I try my damnedest to not stand out while persona-free, but I know I still give off cues that make people in general re-evaluate their initial impression of me. Like they have to cognitively step back and reassess if my oddness is approachable or best left avoided.

Aguales, I'm there with you..

I have the same problem aquales and am having one hell of a time figuring out who I am. I'm getting there but my DX was 2 years ago. I don't know how to be me because when I'm me I become a really strange person and I know others notice it. I go back and forth between being me and acting like someone else. All my life I've observed and copied other people to try to fit in (didn't succeed much either) and never being myself because I see myself as almost "Rainman" like and that's not cool. Now though I'm trying to just be myself more often or at least find a balance between the two but it's a very slow process apparently.

In my 29th year, I have yet to discover who I am.

Hmmm.

What about being a collection of thoughts and opinions? Is that okay?

I'm not sure I have a self apart from my body and brain. I think self is more of a social construction than an actual property of the human mind.

I used to wonder who I was a lot, for similar reasons. But, it turned out that (a) some part of me knew all along anyway, and (b) the question wasn't nearly so important as I thought it was, because who we are is essentially one little part of the world that's always changing in response to all the other parts of the world. Or, as a friend of mine puts it, "a small piece of the universe observing itself". The search to find out who I was turned out in some ways to be fruitless, because looking for it with the part of my head that cared about those things, meant not being able to understand it because that kind of thinking is fairly useless, and meant being deceived by a number of false ideas. Done better to know who I am since I stopped worrying about it if that makes any sense, and the kind of thinking that makes me aware of that sort of thing was then given enough prominence that I could be aware of the fact that I was aware of who I was. Or something like that.

I'm kinda late, but thank you for your responses. It was nice to "hear" others echo similar issues.