[BlossomingLen]

Hello! How’re you doing today? Good, I hope.

Something very peculiar happens to me every day. When I talk to people, I naturally pretend to be someone else or I pretend to be a character that I know. It changes my opinions, views, and beliefs that people commonly question me about. So when people ask me the same thing twice, I often have a different answer and sometimes others pick up on this and they call me out on it. I can go from an optimist, to a pessimist, to a realist, to something not even among them. I can enjoy a person’s company, to being irritated by their presence. I can be someone who stands up for everything that’s right, to someone who’s very manipulative and calculating. It depends on which character or person I see myself as that day.

Does anyone else do this? Does anyone know if this is some kind of disorder or a symptom of a disorder?

Either way, thank you so much for reading. Have a wonderful day!

[avlady]

i do this every day, as i watch alot of tv at night, and sometimes situations remind me of certain scenes in the sitcoms i watch. Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond come to mind alot as i do repeats too. I often hear the stars in the shows voices in my head in the daytime too.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by BlossomingLen

Hello! How’re you doing today? Good, I hope.

Something very peculiar happens to me every day. When I talk to people, I naturally pretend to be someone else or I pretend to be a character that I know. It changes my opinions, views, and beliefs that people commonly question me about. So when people ask me the same thing twice, I often have a different answer and sometimes others pick up on this and they call me out on it. I can go from an optimist, to a pessimist, to a realist, to something not even among them. I can enjoy a person’s company, to being irritated by their presence. I can be someone who stands up for everything that’s right, to someone who’s very manipulative and calculating. It depends on which character or person I see myself as that day.

Does anyone else do this? Does anyone know if this is some kind of disorder or a symptom of a disorder?

Either way, thank you so much for reading. Have a wonderful day!

here in the USA pretending to be someone else is not a mental disorder and is not any mental disorder diagnostic criteria or mental disorder symptom.

short version its a learned behavior, children learn it from the first time their parents teach their babies how to know what does a dog say, what does a cat say what does daddy say what does grandma do. then the baby grows up into toddler and young child playing dress up, tea parties and other lets pretend. a child goes to school and what happens..in schools the teacher uses lets pretend as a way to teach their classes, in jr high and high school what happens the music and drama teachers teach/ put on plays and musicals where again the teenager must play pretend to be someone else. in adulthood again people do pretend depending upon situations. in adulthood playing pretend is called roll playing. treatment providers also use the at of playing pretend in many of their therapy approaches.

all is not lost if this learned behavior of playing pretend for you is adversely affecting your life. learned behaviors are able to be reverse just by catching yourself when you fall into your habit of playing pretend, then go back to being the normal you. at first it will be hard but over time you will notice you dont play pretend with others as much as you used to.

[BlossomingLen]

Originally Posted by avlady

i do this every day, as i watch alot of tv at night, and sometimes situations remind me of certain scenes in the sitcoms i watch. Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond come to mind alot as i do repeats too. I often hear the stars in the shows voices in my head in the daytime too.

Is that so? That's quite interesting! Honestly, it's not because I'm infatuated with any of these characters and I have little to no personal connection to them. I just know of them and I know their personality/characteristics. Some of them, by coincidence, may be characters that I'm fond of in a series. But most of them are just characters that I know about. I just kind of wake up and I realize that I'm imagining myself as that character for the day. I don't really have much power over it. Sometimes, I also feel extremely de-attached from my body, like extremely empty or really lightheaded as if I'm not present in my body anymore. It's very strange. Do you feel the same way?

[avlady]

i do feel that way sometimes too, and i hate to have to say it but it drives me nuts. parts of the characteristics of the actors i act like sort of on purpouse sometimes, but not always knowing what i'm doing, like you said de-attached from my body too.i dream about them at night too. they consume my whole body and existence sometimes. all i have to do is think of them and i'm on the floor laughing. the serious shows on tv don't bother me, no dreams about them either.i was always considered to my friends as a bit of a comedian. i love humor and am attracted to humorous people.

[PumpkinPieHead]

I've had people tell me that if you know me, you only know one of me. It's like people know bits and pieces, some real some not.

It's not something I really do on purpose, I think my moods direct how I compose myself on a daily basis. This might be part of what you're doing.

[10yrsgone]

I don't know if this is the same type of thing as what you're dealing with BlossomingLen but I often find myself acting fundamentally different toward different people --- just not with the same person.

I'm sure this is fairly normal in the cases where you're talking to a friend versus a coworker or boss. You want to present yourself a certain way. But in my case, I often catch myself talking to different friends differently. Why I can't just "be myself" in front of everyone is strange. Then again, I have so many interests that it stems from trying to please that person at that given time out of fear of them judging me.

As for your situation, I've never had that happen before to me so I can't comment directly on it. Being a fan of a lot of media myself I often admire what I see in fictional characters but I can't say I emulate them unless I'm in those situations where I'm trying to be silly or have fun.

I don't want to sound insensitive, but those could be natural traits to use if you decide to get into acting or even cosplay. Translating the personality of a written character into living form is what those performers often do. I hope I'm not trivializing this in any way by making that connection.