This is another long as post and it pretty much serves as a confession. I realized last night that I’m essentially on the verge of a full out nervous breakdown, and it’s been a long time coming. You may remember a few years ago when I’d post about having panic attacks occasionally or flipping out, but I don’t think I ever actually fully went into the underlying reasons. This is that story, but it’s not a story at all – more of an explanation.
The put it bluntly, I have multiple personalities. This isn’t a natural thing or a disorder, but something I’ve cultivated and I’ve done so very well. I can pinpoint exactly where and when this started, and it was the start of my first year of university. I was lead to believe that after highschool life changes and I found that to be a bit of an illusion. I should explain that I wasn’t having a bad time, far from it, and I didn’t need life to change: I had a lot of friends, a good family, girls liked me, and all that. The problem was boredom. I wasn’t bored of anything in particular, but bored of everything in general. There were always parties to go to, new people to meet, and all that, but nothing really offered anything new. I’m sure other people fell the same way, but I’m not so sure other people handled it in the same manner as I did .
I learned to make a game of everything. For pretty much everything I did, I’d set a secondary goal that I’d try to accomplish. Going out to a bar? I’m going to try to get a number from a girl with brown short hair. Going to a party, I’m going to try to socially engineer a situation where my friend can hook up with this girl. In class? Try to discreetly change this discussion groups topic from the UN to something to do with the IMF.
It didn’t matter if I actually completed these goals, it just mattered that I tried. It was good, and things got a lot more interesting, but somewhere along the way my personality “split”.
I suppose it was because I started setting goals that I wouldn’t normally try to accomplish and I was in an environment where I didn’t know a lot of people for a very long time and as such had few expectations placed on me in regards to how I acted. In any case, in certain situations I’d pretty much become someone else who wouldn’t do things that I’d do, or more correctly, someone who would do things I wouldn’t normally do.
I don’t want to give the impression that I was acting like another person completely, or that I had a completely different personality entirely, but I’d only show certain sides of me in certain situations with certain people. Initially this was very minor: I’d buy shots out with certain friends, but not with others. I’d talk about taking down girls in certain crowds, but not in others. With friends from work I’d be somewhat serious, but from class I’d be a total clown. Things like that. Retrospectively, the problem is that while this started out pretty minor, over time these set personalities grew further and further apart, and it was a hard thing to realize that this is what I was doing, let alone stop.
To be honest, it also changed my natural state in that my “original personality” altered to be nicer to people and never really take things seriously. Yet, with certain people and in certain situations I’d be someone else entirely. Someone who’s moral compass is broken. Not to say I’d deliberately do very bad things, but I’d do thinks I wouldn’t normally do because it’s a dog eat dog world out there, and you either take advantage of situations or get left behind. For example, I might be at a party with certain friends, and start talking with a girl. In the “original state” I might not make any move at all or just get her number when I could have slept with her. If I was in that exact situation in my other state because of different friends and expectations, I’d go right in for the kill. Yet, even knowing this, were I to get that girls number in the first situation there is a very high probability I would never call it because I met her in the wrong “state”.
I believe the first time I actually had to start covering his up was in my third year of university when I moved into a house with a few friends of mine from high school who also attended the same university. We were really good friends back in the day, but hadn’t hung out that much since. I lived with these guys and some others off and on for two years in which these personalities pretty much totally separated. I gained a reputation among them (and as a result among a lot of my other friends from high school) as a “secret agent”. Disappearing for periods of time, going out without telling anyone or not telling people where I’m going, things like that. This was because my personalities had split to the point that this was a necessity. I basically had to keep groups of friends segregated.
In the years since, things have gotten worse to the point where my prime directive is ultimately secrecy, and I’m very good at what I do. It works out well, but there’s a huge problem; my personality is broken. The two halfs of me are so far apart that in my natural state, I often won’t know how to act. I’m sure most of us will remember a post on here a few years ago this time of year that caused a fair amount of controversy. This is somewhat the same. It’s to the point where I essentially can’t control who I am, that’s defined by external influences, and it doesn’t work because as I said – my natural state is broken.
So, as a result I essentially have to try to merge these two, which is not an easy thing to do since it feels like I’m forcing myself to act in certain ways when it should be (and IS under different circumstances) natural. So what I’m left with is a situation when I doubt myself when I know I shouldn’t, and I don’t do things that feel natural to do under different circumstances. It’s extremely hard to explain, but it kind of tears you apart.
I should clarify that this place is kind of holy ground in that it is the place where both personalities can co-exist. There are no expectations, and you guys have never actually seen either of these personalities entirely, so there’s no pressure to act unnaturally. That is essentially why this is getting posted here. It had to be said, and there was no fucking way I could actually tell anyone I know this because it’s fucking weird. Anyways, it’s just something I had to get out, and if you actually read all this thanks for your time.
