What is being yourself or true to yourself??

[maybellinesmom]

Ok I'm really nervous about this post but here goes.

Following a major breakdown just over a year ago I’ve been on a mission of self discovery, learning about social anxiety and how my behaviours and thought processes have been affected over the years. Learning what makes me tick and what I’m truly afraid of, understanding what happens to me during extensive periods of stress etc. I’ve learnt lots about myself but there is something really bothering me.....what is truly being yourself????

I’ve always been a people pleaser, so is my mum and my daughter, this is me though, I never really used to think that it was a bad trait to have. I’ve always found comfort in being a supportive individual. But when does it go too far?? I ended up completely changing who I was in the lead up to this breakdown in order to try and please one particular person and it radiated to everyone else around me. It was almost like I’d developed some strange split personality and I didn’t know who I was anymore coupled with intense anxiety and stress. Now this had definitely gone too far, I’d completely lost control of everything.

I’m not sure I’m making any sense but the thing is I’m still not sure who I am anymore? Is trying to be nice to people and doing things to please them not really my personality? Is this where I’ve been going wrong my entire life?
For instance, I may say something in different ways to different people thinking I’m providing the same meaning, I may act slightly differently knowing that that particular way is important or preffered by that particular person, I might think it suits their personality more or I’ll act differently just because I’m just more comfortable with them. Does this not really make me me??? At one time I thought this made me a good communicator, well liked and able to adapt appropriately to different people and situations. I thought it was a normal human behaviour, now I don’t really know. Is this something I shouldn’t be doing??? Or did I just take it too far and let myself completely change under the stress.

Help, I’d really appreciate your opinions as this is making me feel somewhat abnormal ???

[Lord Lucan]

I think it's normal to behave differently around certain people. In my own case I would say that I take it too far though.

[maybellinesmom]

Originally Posted by Lord Lucan

I think it's normal to behave differently around certain people. In my own case I would say that I take it too far though.

Thanku, yes I think I take it too far, especially under stress.

I'm overanalysing my behaviour

[Tamara]

Hi

I can only say being "True to yourself" means being honest enough to know what you are doing if for the greater good for yourself and for those around you. So by changing the way you talk to people - so that they feel comfortable is a great trait to have. You are making them comfortable and because you know its the right thing you are making yourself comfortable.

I hope I have helped a little bit. To be honest I am having the same trouble too.

[maybellinesmom]

Originally Posted by Tamara

Hi

You are making them comfortable and because you know its the right thing you are making yourself comfortable.

I hope I have helped a little bit. To be honest I am having the same trouble too.

Hi, yes thankyou, I'm wondering if it's ok to a certain point.

I'm thinking when you let yourself be forced into behaving differently though, to the point where you're no longer comfortable just to please someone else, then this is no longer acceptable

[Only_human]

Sorry to hear about your break down. It's nice to see you are getting better now and researching into your condition. That's a very brave and positive move so well done for posting. The forum is here for people to post their concerns, worries or to ask for advice others may deem silly, it's what we are for so always feel able to post, even if you fear judgement. It helps getting it out there and discussing it.

As for being true to yourself, well that's one of life's difficult questions and discoveries I think and I'm not sure many people will ever know their true self completely as we are ever changing and adapting. But i'd say in general it is just feeling free to do what you want to do with your life, say what you want, follow your own beliefs and follow your own personal path. But, that's easier said then done and you shouldn't beat yourself up if you're not quite there yet as I doubt many people, even confident, assertive types are ever truly at one with them self and truly free with them self 100% of the time.

Originally Posted by Lord Lucan

I think it's normal to behave differently around certain people. In my own case I would say that I take it too far though.

I agree. I think it's an inevitable part of human nature to conform somewhat to the person you with and your surroundings somewhat and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Some people are more natural conformers or more passive then others and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm very different with different people and in different situations.

But as Lord Lucan, said it can go too far and with more experiences and more exposure i've become more aware of this fault in myself at times and have learned to assert myself more as time has gone on. If you are conforming to the point where you are making yourself feel uncomfortable or doing something/saying thing's you don't necessarily agree with just to suit them, then that's not really positive. But, I understand with SA it takes a lot more time to feel at ease to be air your true opinions and interests, if ever, depending on the person.

[girlinterrupted]

Originally Posted by maybellinesmom

Hi, yes thankyou, I'm wondering if it's ok to a certain point.

I'm thinking when you let yourself be forced into behaving differently though, to the point where you're no longer comfortable just to please someone else, then this is no longer acceptable

I think you`ve already answered your own question

Of course being nice and helpful and supportive are positive traits,the trick is learning to distinguish who is worthy of your emotional investment,when it is coming at too high a price to yourself and your own wellbeing and when to pull back and put your own needs first. Sounds like you`ve already made huge strides in figuring this stuff and yourself out,you should be really proud of yourself for all the work you`ve put in!

[maybellinesmom]

Originally Posted by girlinterrupted

I think you`ve already answered your own question

Lol, Tamara helped me answer my own question!!!

Thanks so much for the replies, it really does help to get other peoples persepectives.

You know I've just realised that I was ok being the person I was, it's not me that was the problem and I'll be fine going back to that....hopefully even stronger. I guess I was thinking I may need to change myself, the fact that I conformed at times never made me genuine or true to myself somehow???

I did understand myself quite well I think looking back, what I didn't understand was my boundaries and why and how I let the anxiety take over. If I'd have understood that more (and I do now) maybe I'd be in a different place???

Well that is my food for thought this week and I think It's ok working towards being my old self as I was pretty normal after all!!!

[Cleo]

I was once accused of being a chamelion and it was't meant as a compliment. I'm sure you try to be 'all things to all people' for the best of reasons. Sometimes though, you (I) feel depleted and feel that everyone is taking part of you and giving nothing back. But the last postee has got it absolutely right.

All the best,

Theo

[maybellinesmom]

I think I may have been asking two questions here???

Thankyou everyone though, this is something I need to really think about

[Ajax Amsterdam]

I can understand your confusion, I think. Sort of - where do I end, and where does what others want me to be, begin? It can be difficult to know when one blurs into the other.

To make sense of it I think we have to understand that we are not one dimensional, cardboard cut-out people. We are quite complex and have many aspects. Many we never even access until we have to, but they are there none-the-less. For instance, although I'm an easy going kind of person, if push comes to shove I can be very aggressive. Is this aggressive aspect part of me or not? Well yes, I think it is part of me. I think we can dip into all sorts of ways of being if and when we feel we have to. So there are parts of us that are there, but that we may not recognise as part of us if/when they show up.

Also, we all show different configurations of our personalities to different people. This is perfectly natural. For instance, we will show certain configurations of ourselves to a partner, but others to our parents. Some to a trusted friend, but others to work colleagues. So we are made up of many parts, but we show different collections of those parts to different people depending on our relationship with them. Few, if any, people will see 100% of who we are. In fact, we are probably not even aware of 100% of who we are.

When we are SA I think we can adopt a passive, people-pleasing way of being as a defence mechanism. So we don't appear threatening. We can then fly under the radar of many people and avoid confrontation. People-pleasing is often a way of looking cute, cuddly, non-threatening and passive, whilst also looking good and virtuous. This people-pleasing can also be a way of gaining external approval and validation. It can be a good survival technique in settings we find difficult.

SA people and people with low confidence and esteem generally tend to have an external locus of evaluation. By that I mean they look to others to validate them and approve of them. People with good self-esteem tend to have a more internal locus of evaluation. Meaning they look to themselves more for their own validation and approval. For those with an external locus of evaluation, people-pleasing is often a preferred way of gaining the validation they need.

This, to me at least, is where it all blurs. I used to have zero self-esteem, so I used to people-please rather a lot. I'd change the way I acted, spoke, thought etc dependening on who I was with and what I thought they expected from me. This was a major mistake, because I lost myself, and despite all my efforts, being a chameleon like that comes across as extremely insincere and incongruent. You can lose friends over it because you are basically bullshitting everyone and being fake.

As I've got older, and hopefully a bit wiser, my self-esteem has grown a lot. Much of my improvement coming in a similar way to your own, via learning about myself, my SA and what can be done to work with it. In recent times I've come to realise that my values actually include doing some of the things I used to do before, as a people-pleaser ... yet for totally different reasons now.

To work out which is which I had to look at my values. This can actually be fun and informative. You can do this in list form if it helps. It's simply a case of being 100% honest and asking ourselves what we stand for? What are our values in life? How do we value being towards ourselves? Towards others? What do we value employment-wise? What matters to us. Where do we stand on religion, politics, leisure, exercise etc...

If we look at all aspects of our lives and answer with complete honesty, we build up a picture of what matters to us and what doesn't. Then we get an outline of who we really are. Then we can work towards doing the things we value and living to our values.

I find that I like caring and I like helping others to grow as people. Classic people-pleasing at one time, but not now, because it's something I value 100%. I know that this is 'me'. It's not a defence mechanism now, although it was before. So we can do similar things, but as the context is totally different, what I do now is for totally different reasons than it was before.

So I suppose what you need to ask yourself is whether you do what you do because it's part of your values for living, or if it's to gain external approval and validation. If it's the former, it's healthy. If it's the latter, it's unhealthy. When what you do is based in your own values, you are on the right track. This is you being you. You being true to yourself. This is the difference. Being true to yourself is living by your own values and not selling your values out in order for short term external validation from others.

We all have to make compromises in life, but if we are selling out our values in order to please others and gain their approval, we've crossed the line. We are not being true to ourselves. If you are not comfortable and feel pressured to be a certain way, your boundaries are being crossed. This is where you have to draw the line if you are to continue being true to yourself and living by your values.

If you value being helpful and supported, go for it. The world needs more people like you. This is you being you. You acting in accordance with your life values. It's you living your life with integrity. It sounds like you've already come quite some way and made a lot of progress, so well done on that.

[Ajax Amsterdam]

Originally Posted by Midlifecrisis!

To be "oneself", will always mean upsetting other people, though? So how to overcome that and start being ourselves, based on our OWN values ... not being affected by other people or THEIR values (conditioning) - (which can result in never really authentically 'LIVING' our OWN lives to the full)?!

Hi Midlifecrisis,

No matter what we do in life, someone somewhere is going to disagree with it. That's a fact of life. We cannot stop being who we are just in case someone somewhere will be upset by it. Just as life does not revolve around us, it does not revolve around individual others either. We can only live our lives around our personal values, not the values of others. We can respect the values of others, but we have to live by our own. If we live by the values of others, we have lost ourselves.

We all affect each other in life, and we all have slightly differing values and prefered ways of being. If we go about our business in a respectful way and with consideration for others, we are doing just fine. If this considerate and respectful approach to others, whilst we live in a way true to ourselves, still upsets others it is others who need to take a look at themselves and realise that the world does not revolve around them.

Can you make an omelette without breaking some eggs? No you can't. But in life we are always going to break someone's eggs, just as they inadvertently break ours (upset us in some way) so we may as well do it living to our prefered values than doing it trying to be someone you are not.

The alternative is to be a nodding dog. A people-pleasing robot. A yes-person, just to appease some. But the thing is, by doing this, you still annoy others anyway. People-pleasers are often seen as fakes, as incongruent, as dishonest and untrustworthy people without a genuine thought and opinion of their own. So in itself that upsets others too. No matter what we do, some sticky beak is going to be offended or upset. That's life. So maybe it's best to be who we really are and stand by that.

We are all influenced by the values of others and by social conditioning. But I see all that as a 'societal soup' from which we can pick and choose what bits we like, which bits resonate with us, what we believe in and what we don't. The mix we choose to adopt is ours.

Being ourselves is not the same as not being affected by others and their values. When we are in close proximity with others we all affect each other to some extent. But if we don't expect them to be something they are not just in case we get upset, why should we be something we are not just in case we upset them? We simply cannot sell out our values in a different way with every different person we meet. If we are ever to find any stability in life, surely we have to be what we are regardless. So long as we are respectful towards others I can't see why we cannot live by our values in life.

We are more affected by the values (and whims) of others in life when we are a people-pleaser for validation than we ever could be by following our own values. When we shape-shift in order to please everyone else whilst abandoning our personal values, all we have become is a piece of plasticine for others to manipulate and shape in any way they like. And when this happens, it's no surprise that we rarely like the shape we end up in. We don't recognise ourselves and don't know ourselves.

From then on where do we go? Personally I think we need to take control of who and what we are and do the shaping ourselves. It's the only way we have much of a chance of liking the result. We are all malleable, so it's important that it is us that is the shaper of who and what we are, as well as what we believe in, the values we hold and the way we live our lives.

[Rubee_J]

to be honest, i find that finding yourself/who you are is alot about gaining confidence. We all know how to do it, we all know that sometimes we fall and it feels like we're getting knowehere, we all know that going through these situations will gain confidence. It's just hard. I think confidence is the main element that helps us to know who we are.

When i start to repeat things that trigger my anxiety over and over, i become more confident, and with this comes self esteem and i feel like i truly know who i am. When you have no confidence, how can you be proud of who you are anyway?

Truly being yourself in my opinion is knowing that you are confident in who you are and how others feel about you, not minding whether others don't appreciate your characteristics because you know you are worthy, and you are strong enough. People will like you for you. I feel it is a ball of hope inside you. It's letting go off the need to be liked by 'higher' people and expectations of others because you dont care about having these people thinking badly of you. It is letting the nature of your personality override expectations. Its almost like the child inside you coming out.

I've just realised something... it's like the opposite of anxiety!

I think that alot more people would be themselves if social norms and acceptance werent so specific.

Hope this helped! It actually made me open my eyes abit

[Ajax Amsterdam]

Originally Posted by Midlifecrisis!

Thanks Benfica. Very good answer, but that's a lot to really get to grips with!
In my case, I seem to have spent a lifetime trying not to upset anyone else and trying to adhere to strict OTT conditioning values, but have "lost" ME in the process! But its because of having respect for everyone else (and maybe not myself somehow - with such low self esteem?)
I just wanted to keep everyone happy (but definitely not in any dishonest way) and find some happiness for me too, now?!

I agree that it's a lot to get to grips with. I think I learned to do it bit by bit in sort of a drip-feed fashion. Small yet consistent steps over a long period of time.

You hit on a crucial factor in your reply. This being the imbalance of respect you have. Your scales have been loaded heavily in favour of respecting others, at the expense of respecting yourself. This, I believe, is common amongst many with poor self-esteem.

I'll be honerst, I try to keep people happy too. I like seeing people I care about feeling happy. But what I won't do is keep others sweet at the expense of my own wellbeing. That's where I draw the line. I have learned that I am as worthy as them, so I need to respect myself as much as I respect them. There needs to be this balance in order to keep relationships healthy, I think.

I do hope you find the happiness you deserve.

As I say, it's about balance. So just keep an eye on those scales.



PS, Nice post Rubee-J.

[maybellinesmom]

Yes thankyou everyone.

Benfica you've been really helpful, I love the way you explain things.

I've always loved making people happy too, it's part of my caring supportive nature. I don't want to change from that. Hopefully when I come out the other side of this I can find another path workwise that lets me do that.

I did let somebody mold me into something else and I lost complete sight of who I was. It wasn't my choice, I had no control over it, or me for that matter and that was the problem.

I feel reassured that I'm ok to return to being how I was now. I just have to make sure I don't let that ever happen again

[Ajax Amsterdam]

Originally Posted by VinceMasuka

I did struggle with this at one point; I felt like all my opinions, likes/dislikes need to to be validated. Partly because everything is so complicated and I didn't feel 'informed' enough to know what was correct, and what was good or bad. What I've noticed, since I've constructed my personality conciously and thoughtfully, I'm constantly adapting what I consider 'me'. My values and opinions are susceptible to new input which I think is a positive thing. Nothing is black and white nor simple. I feel that this level introspection helps me see the world in a non-egocentric way.

I see it in a lot of your posts, always balanced and informed. I find it to be an extremely positive thing when putting SA into perpective. One of the most damaging aspects of SA is it can make some people believe their experiences are an accurate reflection of the world.

I think this is a massively important thing too. Our core values do tend to remain constant, but everything else should be fluid and open to change via new experience. This way we don't become stuck and rigid. We become flexible and adaptable.

I see life experience as something that passes through me. I sieve out the things that resonate with me and I feel I want to adopt, and I let go of the things I don't want to adopt and what doesn't resonate with me. This means that I evolve and grow through my experience.

To be honest, I think a willingness to take today's experience on it's own merits and in its own context is a big stride in dealing with SA. In SA we filter today's experience through yesterday's feelings, emotions and thoughts and use what happened in the past as a template for what we believe will happen now. In short, we are not living in the moment, but rather basing our experience today on contexts past.

Being open to new information, new input, brings psychological flexibility rather than psychological rigidity. And it's psychological rigidity which helps keep us SA.

Maybellinesmom, I'm glad your thread has proved useful to you.

Thanks for the nice comment, and all the best to you in all you do.

[Rubee_J]

Glad to have helped youu

Originally Posted by Benfica

PS, Nice post Rubee-J.

Thanks Yours is helpful too!