Terrified At The Idea Of Being Myself Around People.

[ms spock]

What I'd say is that I think we all show different aspects of ourselves in different situations. Not in a dissociative or splitting way, but simply in the way of what's appropriate to the situation. For example, the self that I am at with my boss at work is not identical to the self that I am with my best friend. I'm more polite, more careful, I keep more things private. That doesn't mean I'm being inauthentic, it just means I'm being appropriate.

Being appropriate is a great way to be in life.

Sometimes I see a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy of rejection when people decide to "be themselves" in a relationship, if the self that they bring out is a wounded and/or child self. This can manifest in various ways, like neediness or over-sharing when they've only just met someone. As a result, they conclude that it's not OK to be themselves. To be blunt, it probably isn't going to be very successful to be a child or wounded self in a new friendship, unless the other person is co-dependent. However, it is OK to be the adult part of ourselves, and if we're being the adult part of ourselves that also helps with not taking incompatibility as rejection.

Yes such wise stuff.

I'm not saying this with the intention of making anyone feel bad or more nervous. Meadowsweet, I'm also not suggesting that this is what you tend to do. I just want to highlight it to suggest that "being yourself" has a number of different expressions. You don't have to put your whole self out there at the start of a friendship, in fact it's likely to be counterproductive. Most friendships begin with socialising and shared interests, not with a lot of revealing and sharing from the outset. So it's OK - and usual - to start with the more surface aspects of yourself - your leisure likes and dislikes, your preferences in food etc - because that's still you.

This is a good strategy.

For me, being able to see a boundary of appropriateness to the situation means I can allow myself to be less guarded within the boundary, and more myself up to that point. Without having a sense of that healthy boundary, I would feel I needed to be guarded about everything.

So it comes down to knowing your own self and knowing who you are and being solid with it.

Some friendships stay social, some develop further. If you do go beyond the socialising, then I still think it's worth thinking about the aspects of yourself that you expect to bring in - especially between adult/child and wounded/coping aspects.

They are the parts we have to look after ourselves.

I find transactional analysis very helpful when thinking about relationships with people. A child aspect is looking for a parent, not a friend. A wounded aspect is looking for a rescuer. An adult aspect is looking to connect with another adult. That doesn't mean you have to pretend you've had no psychological injuries, it just means that with a friend you would probably approach that differently than with a caregiver or therapist. And also, you are more than the psychological injuries. You are other things too.

You express it really well Hashi.