Struggling with Adopting Different Personalities

@L_innt Thank you so much for this comment, knowing that you and many others understand to an extent really gives me relief. I mirror fictional characters all the time too which I completely forgot to mention! But I do hope you're right about it being resolved over time, patience is something I'm working on too haha, thank you so much for the advice and reassurance, it means so much! 💗

@j_Bug After seeing your response and all the others, I'm starting to wonder the same thing. Which makes sense why I haven't thought of autism being the reason because I was diagnosed late at 21 a few months ago, but I've dealt with this issue for many, many years and never understood what was going on. And what you mentioned about spending time alone with your cats and not feeling like you need to be a certain way, I can relate to that in a sense too, I have 2 dogs and always feel safe with them knowing they aren't judging me, and even when I'm not spending time with them, anytime I'm alone, I usually don't feel that urge. Sometimes it comes about if I'm scrolling through social media, but alone time does give my mind a break when it comes to that.

@Marshmello Omg I've never heard of that, that's crazy that I haven't even heard of that or my counselors. My newer counselor is finally listening to my concerns with it, but I've only been under her care for a short time so far, but my last 2 counselors that i was with for years just kept saying it's me going through "phases" and saying stuff like "I'm not sure why it bothers you so much, can't you have 2 or more different styles to choose from?" And hearing that infuriated me because while I understand what they mean, they must've thought that's all I had issues with, and it's because, yes, at first it was me figuring out my style and how I wanted to physically express myself, but then it evolved into me switching personalities down to every detail as well so of course all that put together is going to bother me because I wasn't sure what was going on and they weren't listening to me. Seeing everyone around me at school being able to be themselves and not have to mask or unmask 24/7 added to it as well. So I'm very happy honestly that you mentioned that, it actually opened up my mind a bit about it and is very helpful so that I can finally look into how to cope with it. Thank you so much, seriously!

@A.S.H Thank you so much for all this advice and for being willing to listen to all the details and what I'm experiencing through this. I truly can't thank you enough along with all the other comments. Knowing that someone can somewhat relate while also being willing to give advice to help really does help me feel less alone in this.

@A.S.H When I'm transitioning to different personalities, I typically get this temporary feeling of excitement because I think "Maybe this is who I am and I can finally stop changing my personas so much" but very shortly after, I get very depressed, anxious, and even overstimulated because I get either bored or tired of that persona or feel like its not me, when I don't even know who "me" is. These transitions are typically triggered from very small things such as movies, social media posts, and even meeting someone out and about who I wish I was more like can trigger it too. Which sounds weird because to me it is, I shouldn't feel the need to change my personality, clothes, hair, etc, everytime I see something different that I "think" I'll like better for me to be. I have gone through trauma before in my past, but I think the moment that started it perhaps was in middle school when I was heavily bullied for my personality and style, so much so I changed myself to whatever was trending at the time just to fit in. That lasted for so long at a very young age, that I guess my brain has kind of forgot who i was and i lost who i was. Nowadays I don't do that to "try and fit in" or even follow trends, my mind just automatically wants to be something different nearly everyday.

@A.S.H I was having a similar thought process as you. Sometimes we have mood changes without realizing it because of changes that have occurred in our life. Not that these other diagnosises are not valid, but many people with depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma, or other related diagnosises will have behavioral changes. For example, with my depression in the past year, not only have I been more stereotypically sad, but I have more anger outbursts and anxiety. There's more to it then that obviously, just like any other mood diagnosis, but these things are very complex.