Masking and dissociation, personas

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So basically, the personas you constructed were not displaying feelings? But was it consistently one, or multiple combinations?

What did they diagnose you with?

I am really sorry you had to go through all this. I was also wrongly diagnosed with Bipolar and Borderline, depending on which Psychologist would see me, each one interprets it according to his own expertise and they see what they want to see.

Its a big thing when you find that one, insightful, skilled psychologist that can pinpoint to what it really goes on. In the meanwhile you get totally disoriented by the wrong diagnosis, which actually I think it can contribute more to the confusion we feel about ourselves.

.. even for me , as a psychologist, never guessed until I started covering my ears more and more... and still it just did not occur to me...until I dreamt of something, that it was obvious, my subconscious talked to me.

I watched a documentary yesterday with Attwood- I am sure you know him, if not, he is one of the most worldwide famous leading researchers and experts in autism. His son had Aspergers and it never occurred to him, until his son got in serious trouble in his adulthood, and still he could not do the diagnosis himself, he had to rely on the help of his colleague.

My personas were displaying feelings I believed were appropriate to the situation.
I didn't know my actual feelings. I disconnected from them before I could spot them, that was my survival mechanism.
My persona was rather consistent, I think. That probably made it harder for psychologists, to realize how much of it was fake.

Schizophrenia.
Completely wrong but it was tricky to get out of it once everything you said was interpreted that way.

Back then, the rare moments of connection to my emotions were feeling literally mystical. My marriage developed from such mystical moments and, after all the remount of my mind, it still works
At the beginning of my therapy, I worked a lot with my dreams and very early childhood memories - situations where my thick layers of masks and defences didn't exist yet or melted for a moment.

Yes, I know the story. In Poland, we have a saying "szewc bez butów chodzi" - a shoemaker walks barefoot. Professional skills not always help with private life.

Okay!

I had a thought about this ( and autism is becoming my special interest by now).

The reason we fail to follow our "persona"'s scripting is that we probably like to observe,the patterns, details, colours, characters, stimuli and so on. Basically I agree with you about the time-lapse in auditory and visual processing.

I cannot personally observe and play out the same time. It feels like something is always missing . Maybe I should only do the observer stuff and what feels most natural to me.

Your thoughts?

Disassociation is one of the many mental illnesses that can result from too much masking. You unnaturally hide yourself from your self and others to an extreme degree your brain is going to react to the self inflicted wound.

I am not advising never mask, we need to do it survive. Besides not overdoing it, always be conscious that this is not you, you are doing it to gain something.

>>>[quote="ASPartOfMe"]Disassociation is one of the many mental illnesses that can result from too much masking. You unnaturally hide yourself from your self and others to an extreme degree your brain is going to react to the self inflicted wound.

Trust me, I do not want it and do not consciously do it. I wish I could just switch it off.

Neither I was putting a lot of effort trying to be someone else, or using personas when I felt it. At least not that I can remember! It just hit me out of nowhere and then shut down my system. It was hitting me on and off before, as a way to navigate intense feelings or explore unknown territory (something new that has triggered me with a lot of stress). I would even get it just by staring into nothing, feeling nothing, almost like self-hypnotised.

Basically dissociation is masking? trying to hide away from those unfamiliar and bad feelings.. .