How to suppress parts of myself, to blend in.

[jonb]

You would be surprised to know how many people thought that character was based on me. It wasn't of course, my shirts are far more colourful.

[Angrboda]

Meh. Authenticity is overrated. I'm whoever I want to be, whenever I want to be it. I'm several different people on the internet, and more people in person (courting diverse groups like psychics on one hand and skeptics on the other, means being too attached to who I am can be profoundly maladaptive and anti-love). A lover I once had remarked in shock and dismay, "She's a different person when she's with other people!" To which my best friend replied, "Well, duh." You want to get away from parts of you, create more gravity in other areas of your identity; become something you aren't now, or more of something you're not already enough of that counter-balances what you want to de-emphasize. With the vagueness of the request, it's hard to be more helpful.

I also tend to fall back a lot on Sun Tzu's maxim that deception is a legitimate tool of war. I'm not averse to phrasing things in terms of selected misinformation to see how stereotyped and assuming my audience is. As a child of four, I developed delusions, including paranoid delusions. I believed people were looking for me, in order to kill me. So I learned to dissemble. To align who I was on the inside with who people would expect me to be, on the outside; that way I could accomplish the goals of the inner, while looking to others like I was a normal outer. I suppose as a result, fluidity of my identity and manipulation of my persona are old hat for me, tricks adopted out of necessity for survival. Maybe another who hasn't been through what I've been through 'couldn't' or 'wouldn't' live this way. I don't know. You tell me.

[John V]

There are parts of myself I want to suppress (nothing illegal, well in the first world anyway). Mostly to encourage other parts of me to grow but also to blend in and be Normal (at least forgettable in the street). Can anybody help? (No religious bullshit please, that does not work).

Can't say much as this is so vague. However, try modeling your behavior on others who you want to be like. Watch what they do, repeat it.

[jonb]

Can't say much as this is so vague. However, try modeling your behavior on others who you want to be like. Watch what they do, repeat it.

Yes you can be a poor copy of another, or you can find who you are.

[John V]

Yes you can be a poor copy of another, or you can find who you are.

A year from now I'd rather be better than what I am now, rather than saying this is "who [I am]" and being content with that. Twenty years ago I had panic attacks at the thought of certain social situations. Now I can get up in front of a hundred people and speak for an hour. I like it this way better. Modeling and practicing are effective tools for growth.

[jonb]

Yes you can be a poor copy of another, or you can find who you are.

A year from now I'd rather be better than what I am now, rather than saying this is "who [I am]" and being content with that. Twenty years ago I had panic attacks at the thought of certain social situations. Now I can get up in front of a hundred people and speak for an hour. I like it this way better. Modeling and practicing are effective tools for growth.

I think you have useful tools, but its only part, and it is always trumped by understanding.

[Gooders1002]

There are parts of myself I want to suppress (nothing illegal, well in the first world anyway). Mostly to encourage other parts of me to grow but also to blend in and be Normal (at least forgettable in the street). Can anybody help? (No religious bullshit please, that does not work).

Can't say much as this is so vague. However, try modeling your behavior on others who you want to be like. Watch what they do, repeat it.

Let's just say there are parts of me if the Biblical law was enacted, I would be killed for even thought I didn't do anything wrong, because of my traits. And Your religion looks down on my natural trait, which I can't change. and I would go straight to hell if your god was real, no safeguard no way to repent, just straight to hell. just because of who I am.

[jonb]

Let's just say there are parts of me if the Biblical law was enacted, I would be killed for even thought I didn't do anything wrong, because of my traits. And Your religion looks down on my natural trait, which I can't change. and I would go straight to hell if your god was real, no safeguard no way to repent, just straight to hell. just because of who I am.

Oh God, what could this trait be that would send you directly to hell, its not Leviticus is it, you don't eat shrimp do you?

[festive1]

Let's just say there are parts of me if the Biblical law was enacted, I would be killed for even thought I didn't do anything wrong, because of my traits. And Your religion looks down on my natural trait, which I can't change. and I would go straight to hell if your god was real, no safeguard no way to repent, just straight to hell. just because of who I am.

Well now you have my curiosity piqued...
There is no hell to be sent to. So at least there's that. But I'm guessing you aren't alone. Hell, we had a self-professed, non-offending pedophile on here a week or two ago. If there's a subculture for that, then there's a subculture for anything and everything.

[Gooders1002]

Let's just say there are parts of me if the Biblical law was enacted, I would be killed for even thought I didn't do anything wrong, because of my traits. And Your religion looks down on my natural trait, which I can't change. and I would go straight to hell if your god was real, no safeguard no way to repent, just straight to hell. just because of who I am.

Oh God, what could this trait be that would send you directly to hell, its not Leviticus is it, you don't eat shrimp do you?

yes I admit, I eat shrimp