it’s possible I have a personality disorder.

I am three persons. We all are. This is not a new thought, an original one. But it is something worth re-exploring.

Person One: the Person I Am to Other People
If we were doing a flow chart, this guy could go off into a million tangents. Person One is actually Person 1/10000000. We are slightly marginally microscopically different for every person out there in the world. And I’m not insinuating you’re some lying, two-faced, double lived so and so. That’s not on us, but on others perception’s of us. How we know someone, where we met them, our commonalities and our grievances all affect people’s view of us. Work Taylah is different to Youth Leader Taylah. And that’s not because I’m leading some double life, but because of their situations. In both, I enjoy a laugh, am quite clumsy, always manage to embarrass myself, can never walk away with a clean shirt, am hard working (to a degree, I’m only human) and relatively fun to be around. I have theological discussions in both environments. However, I’ll always be perceived differently by my youth kids than by my co-workers.
But, there are also purposeful differences. The Taylah hanging with close girl friends is different to the Taylah making small talk with customers, lucky for the customers. We slightly modify ourselves, appropriating ourselves to the situation. More physical contact-y with girls than guys, talking more about English Lit at UNI than at work, saving my Song of Songs jokes for church people, the usual. And it’s an interesting thought really, the different Taylah’s out there in peoples minds. Or scary. Either or.

Person Two: the Person I think I Am
This is where it starts to get slightly tricky/existential. I am not the person I think I am. We have skewed versions of ourselves. Or realistic. Depends on which side of the fence you sit. Or how your self esteem is. Or the selfie lighting at the time. Our perceptions of ourselves are not entirely accurate. Part of that is to do with our inner monologue, I think. The very high pitched voice (you think my voice is high) in my head, analysing everything I do and say. Analysing everything others do and say. Like when you talk to a guy you think is cute and you think it’s really obvious because you’re aware of the various potential scenarios you’ve played out in your head featuring him. But to him maybe you’re just a girl who always seems to be blushing.
And I have this conversation with my housemate all the time. We both have the tendency to see ourselves in a more critical, or what I like to call accurate for myself but not for her and yes I see the irony of this, light. And while I’m not going to give examples right now over what aspects of my personality I stew over, I know that we as humans do have the potential to focus on the negatives of ourselves. We tend to err on the side of humbleness, taking it to the point of viewing ourselves in the negative light.
And on the other end of that spectrum: it is highly probable that I think that I am funnier than I am. The other day I was watching stand up comedians and thinking, I could do that. I really couldn’t. Not that it’s that far different than what I’m doing now, writing average content for free for people to occasionally smirk over.
And it’s both a consolation and a worry. Or an existential crisis waiting to happen, because I need another one of those.

Person Three: the Person I actually Am
I’m not sure if I’m qualified to write this part. I’m the person I think I am, not the person I actually am. I think a nice social experiment would be to get a bunch of mates to all describe each other, and use all those answers to try and get an accurate depiction of the person they are. But I hope the person I actually am is kind. A good housemate. Enjoyable to be around. Good for both a laugh and a chat. Someone you’d recommend.

But just know, every day I am trying to close the gap between these three people. Because I think that’s where happiness is.