@AmyJay

Interesting I had never considered doing that. I'll try to keep that in mind if I see a T that otherwise looks like a good fit. Thanks

@AlwaysChanging2

Your username resonates with me because that's something my therapist used to tell me, that she was confused because I'll say I'm one thing or I think one thing and then it changes. Kind of weird in retrospect that a DID therapist would be bothered by that but, whatever.

I definitely am guilty of pressuring myself. That's probably why my parts won't talk to me. I put too many expectations on every little thought and feeling. I so desperately want to be healthy and live a fuller life, but I end up putting expectations on myself because of that. I try to read into every thought and feeling looking for something that will move me forward.

Doing that so much I killed my ability to be free and spontaneous, in fact I'm afraid of expressing myself at all because I'm afraid that somehow my self-expression will be "wrong." I'm afraid of attaching myself to one thing or another and then having people think that that's me.

Tbh I don't actually think of people like this, it's just that I've been pressured by others to think of myself this way. Like if I said I played a video game then people would make all these assumptions, oh so you're a video gamer huh, then every time I see them it's like what game are you playing lately? Man, I feel like if I show any aspect of myself then people will take that and turn it into this big thing.

I feel like other people have always been trying to define me, put me in a box, and somehow I became complicit in that, I started trying to define myself too and honestly I just couldn't. I'm not that simple. I'm a lot of things. The possible manifestations of my personality are limitless. I hate when people see one single manifestation of that and treat that like that's my Real Identity(tm) and now I'm "that gamer guy" or whatever just because they heard I played a video game once.

Seriously why do people do that? They expect your whole personality to fit on a checklist that you can hand out like a business card or something. People just often get upset because they don't understand me, but it feels like it's rude of them to assume that I should be easy for them to understand. OR otherwise they assume they understand me when they don't and that is so irritating.

I started to feel like that's the way the world works, I have to be John Doe with hobbies A, B and C and passion X and that should all fit into one neat mission statement that I can wear around like a freaking nametag, and also it should be similar to everyone else so that way people don't have to spend any energy on thinking about who or what I am.

I get really self-conscious about expressing myself because it feels like it always gets blown out of proportion. THAT's why I pressure myself to know who I really am so that when poeple react to me like "ohhh so you're the guy who plays video games, I see," then somehow maybe I could give them the RIGHT idea about me rather than the wrong one, but it's impossible, what those people want from me is utterly impossible because I simply am not that one-dimensional.

See this is why I got so dissociative in the first place because to one person I was "that guy who plays video games" to another person I'm "the tea drinker" and it's treated like that has to be my whole identity when really all of these things are only incidentally associated with me when I may have only even touched that interest one single time.

Man, I just want to feel like I'm allowed to try on different hats without it being taken so seriously. I wish I didn't feel like every little thing I do and every way that I experiment is going to be tattooed on my forehead and carried around with me for the rest of my life. I really wish that people would stop assuming that I have to be easy for them to understand or would stop assuming that they understand me.

BUt... I know that some people are going to keep being like that, I can't change anyone else, I can only change myself. It is hard to just be like "whatever, I'm just going to be me" when I get panic attacks just trying to do any kind of self-expression. I got a panic attack checking out at Michael's the other day because I was there for a hobby and I felt like the contents of my shopping cart are going to be assumed to say a lot about me and the cashiers will think all these judgmental things about me. I get panic attacks over simple little things like this, I feel trapped in people's perception of me when really I want to feel free to be whoever or whatever I want to be on any given day. YOu know? I can't control people's assumptions about me and I wish it didn't affect me so much but it does it's really hard for me to just brush it off. I wish I had the self-esteem to be like, "hah, you think that's me, you have no idea!" And just play around with that and have no shame. But sadly I definitely have NOT developed that kind of confidence.

All I know for sure is I can't win by playing their game and saying "okay, THIS is me." People will either try to understand me or they will just make all their assumptions. People think whatever they want to think. It was a mistake and a huge waste of time to ever take that personally :/ I'd like to stop.

Sorry if I got really off topic... but thank you for getting me thinking about this because this is actually what's really been bothering me. YES it is this pressure, this pressure I am not very good at dealing with right now. I wanna be free and feel free and not feel like who people think I am is going to change the way they treat me so much.

But theoretically I have come to hope and believe that as long as I don't take it personally or make a big deal of it, nobody else will. I HOPE that is true. I need to experience it more to really believe it.