duality of self

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My partner recently when to an open house that one of my store's suppliers ran. He saw their warehouse and stock, had a dinner, got to do networking, met different people, learned different standards of things and got a general atmosphere of how other people are like in our line of business.

When he came back and was talking about it, (I didn't go as I was running the store while he went), I said something like "Sounds like I would either have really enjoyed that a lot, or hated it with the passion of a thousand burning suns." He agreed with that statement.

This just about sums me up, I'm different at different times, and anyone who knows me well knows it. I enjoy my extroverted, 'interested in everything different' self far more than the part of me that would have hated being there. I find this strange. No one else I seem to know experiences this seemingly very different dichotomy within themselves.

Perhaps it depends on my mood, some emotional difference that I don't know why it happens, but my mood is always changing.

Rarely do I come across somebody that seems to have an issue with this, as I do.

I once described feeling as if I had two consciousnesses, where I will think I hate something or like something despite having experienced the opposite. It's as if my mind exaggerates doubt and opposition and screws itself over. It was part of what got me the OCD diagnosis, I suppose.

I CBF explaining it in length because I'm busy ATM, but yeah.

_________________
Unapologetically, Norny.
-chronically drunk

Everyday I seem to find something else that describes me. This duality is just the most recent of things. HOWEVER, that said, I have experienced meshings within myself upon noticing this. Well, kind of. Like, I have seem to unknowingly have 2 definitions for the same word, one pertains to my inner, personal self, and so I will hardly ever utter it even to people like my partner, and then I have my exterior self who 'understands' the word well enough to use it and apply it and grasp it. Like, I can use a word that I feel does not describe me at all, but then, in a completely different context of trying to describe my inner life, I will use that word. It's like uttering it out-loud suddenly makes these 2 worlds of mine collide and it's...weird to say the least!

I think I described it well in another thread somewhere on wp. Like I have a end of a piece string in my right hand and an end of a piece in my left, and because they're in 2 separate hands (selves?) and aren't visibly connected, they are totally different pieces of string. And my past year-ish/8 months, I have had multiple experiences where it's like I pull on both hands at once and find that it's the same string that's been behind my back the entire time.

As to whether I meet criteria for autism, I'm starting to think that firstly depends on if one of my selves can have it but the other one can't. Dissociation is supposed to be more common in ASD, but that's hardly an explanation.

I wouldn't describe any of me as being OCD...but what do I know? Clearly, not a whole lot about myself.

It's typical for me to simultaneously like and dislike something with almost equal passion, for instance I might feel genuinely glad to see a person and have a conversation with them, yet at the same time I am thinking about how much they annoy me and just counting the seconds until I can get away from them again.

Going with the string analogy, for me it's more like I can definitely see that it's just one string, but in the effort to reconcile the opposite ends I start tying it in a knot. So in a short time I can end up with a huge mass of knotted string.