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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Spirituality & Beliefs > Love & Relationships -Friends and Family

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  #1  
Old 20-07-2017, 06:08 AM
Volaju Volaju is offline
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'Absorbing' People's Personalities

I didn't know what other word to use, as this felt like it was the most accurate.

Strangely, when I'm around people long enough in person, I start to pick on some things. At first I thought it was just they were rubbing off on my and somehow my social mechanisms picked on their actions and manifested them in my own personality to feel like I am fitting in more comfortably with them. Except ... Eventually it started to happen with other people's personalities, people I barely knew, like I had met only recently ...

And then there are times where it would happen with people I have never met before, people on the internet for example.

Its gotten to the point I have to personality sift through my persona and actively block a lot of these feelings, but it becomes tiresome. Is this normal?
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  #2  
Old 07-08-2017, 07:33 PM
TinyToad TinyToad is offline
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Normal depends on context.

What you describe is very normal for someone who grew up in a very emotionally abusive environment, where as a child they were routinely invalidated, gaslighted and otherwise emotionally abused.

Survivors of such child abuse very often develop defensive coping mechanisms such as being highly dissociative, which helps a child to psychologically survive so that their neurological development can complete as best it can.

However, by adulthood many of these desperate psychological mechanisms (which are no fault of your own whatsoever) become rather detrimental to the person. One very common secondary symptom of childhood emotional trauma is having a very weak and unstable sense of self. Another common mechanism is appeasement through mirroring, in which the child was conditioned to try to avoid further abuse by mirroring the persona/mood/desires of the abuser(s) while suppressing their own true thoughts, feelings and needs.

In adulthood, these mechanisms will continue to be heavily active from the subconscious, so that the adult survivor will often compulsively mirror other people while finding it rather difficult to find a sense of who they really are.

Processing and ultimately healing the core emotional trauma is necessary to overcome these mechanisms, so that the mechanisms are no longer perceived as needed by the subconscious and can be peacefully relinquished.

A big first step in this sort of processing is often for the person to allow themself to realize that their childhood perception was quite different from one's perception as an adult, and so therefore emotional abuse was extremely damaging. Realizing this helps to validate what you endured, which is a big part of the processing and healing journey.

For example, because a child is completely dependent upon their caregiver(s) for survival, children instinctively understand that if they are rejected and abandoned, they will die. This means that if the child's primary caregiver(s) act rejecting or hostile, it invokes the terror of death itself in the child. It also means that a child's brain must also resort to all manner of desperate coping mechanisms in order to not flee from an abusive caregiver, because the child's instincts only know that the child needs a caregiver in order to survive. This intense and dreadful internal conflict is very damaging to the psycho-neurological development of a child. Often cortisol levels remain high for prolonged periods of time, which become toxic and damage the hippocampus, along with other aspects of the limbic system - the parts of the brain that play a huge role in our emotions, memories and sense of self.

Part of the good news, however, is that trauma can be processed and largely healed. Even the hippocampus itself is constantly producing fresh cells and can recover a great deal throughout and beyond the healing process.

Relatively fleeting but severe bouts of anxiety, despair and/or rage are another major indicator that the limbic system was badly hurt by emotional abuse during childhood, when present alongside dissociative phenomenon.
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  #3  
Old 08-08-2017, 11:59 PM
Volaju Volaju is offline
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Thank you a lot of what you say resonated quite strongly with me.

Take care, and thank you for the advice.
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  #4  
Old 10-08-2017, 12:23 PM
blackraven blackraven is offline
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Volaju - I see you're in your 20's. I can only speak for myself, but when I was in my 20's I was forever trying to forge a personality that was one that resonated with me and I liked. Unfortunately, I ended up observing how other people conducted themselves, their mannerism, how they talked, etc. and sometimes I tried to emulate what I liked in a person. For me though, I was very insecure at that point in my life and being liked by other people I fell in the trap of trying too hard to be just like them or always be in agreement with others. I'm not saying this is what's going on, because sensitive individuals can absorb other people's energy and personalities just because their ultra sensitive. Which I was too.

Fast forward 30 years and I'm pretty much set in my ways, personality-wise, and although I'm a very good listener, I no longer take on other people's personalities.

Experimentation with interacting with other people is the key. No one comes out of the womb and just knows exactly who he/she is. That takes time, years to develop. Don't be hard on yourself in this respect because it may just be the case you're a highly sensitive person. Is so, you might like the below website.

http://hsperson.com/
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  #5  
Old 10-08-2017, 03:51 PM
loved48 loved48 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Volaju
I didn't know what other word to use, as this felt like it was the most accurate.

Strangely, when I'm around people long enough in person, I start to pick on some things. At first I thought it was just they were rubbing off on my and somehow my social mechanisms picked on their actions and manifested them in my own personality to feel like I am fitting in more comfortably with them. Except ... Eventually it started to happen with other people's personalities, people I barely knew, like I had met only recently ...

And then there are times where it would happen with people I have never met before, people on the internet for example.

Its gotten to the point I have to personality sift through my persona and actively block a lot of these feelings, but it becomes tiresome. Is this normal?
well, I can be sitting in my house, not talking to anyone,by myself, and feel family members personality. It is not from some deep seated mental problem or abusive childhood...etc.
I can also sense what they are thinking about when I feel their personality around me.
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  #6  
Old 10-08-2017, 06:51 PM
Volaju Volaju is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by loved48
well, I can be sitting in my house, not talking to anyone,by myself, and feel family members personality. It is not from some deep seated mental problem or abusive childhood...etc.
I can also sense what they are thinking about when I feel their personality around me.

True, though I do actually have abuse issues from my youth. Its only weird when I start taking on emotions from people whose faces I've never seen, and met across the world, haha
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  #7  
Old 10-08-2017, 06:52 PM
Volaju Volaju is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blackraven
Volaju - I see you're in your 20's. I can only speak for myself, but when I was in my 20's I was forever trying to forge a personality that was one that resonated with me and I liked. Unfortunately, I ended up observing how other people conducted themselves, their mannerism, how they talked, etc. and sometimes I tried to emulate what I liked in a person. For me though, I was very insecure at that point in my life and being liked by other people I fell in the trap of trying too hard to be just like them or always be in agreement with others. I'm not saying this is what's going on, because sensitive individuals can absorb other people's energy and personalities just because their ultra sensitive. Which I was too.

Fast forward 30 years and I'm pretty much set in my ways, personality-wise, and although I'm a very good listener, I no longer take on other people's personalities.

Experimentation with interacting with other people is the key. No one comes out of the womb and just knows exactly who he/she is. That takes time, years to develop. Don't be hard on yourself in this respect because it may just be the case you're a highly sensitive person. Is so, you might like the below website.

http://hsperson.com/

Your explanation is very interesting, thank you. And I'll check it out.
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  #8  
Old 12-08-2017, 11:47 PM
Raziel Raziel is offline
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I won't delve into the abuse side of things as thankfully I have been fortunate in that way but I will say that it IS normal to emulate things that you admire.

It's most likely how language & art & fashion spread. People pass on recipes & jokes or use chat up lines that they have heard etc.

I bet in tribes the men watched the top warriors & copied them consciously or otherwise, look at the little thug gangstas rocking around with their trousers hanging down like iffy little clones ... it happens all the time. I worked in fashion retail & I noticed that there would be girls who's opinions changed depending on who was in the room at the time - not just a single girl either quite a few did it I guess it's a way of people pleasing at times.

Are you OK at the moment other than this thing that you have noticed yourself doing? If you are then your good to go (although maybe stay away from mime artists) if you have more going on then ... talk away if needed.
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  #9  
Old 21-08-2017, 06:04 AM
MertisN3w MertisN3w is offline
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my way

Quote:
Originally Posted by blackraven
Volaju - I see you're in your 20's. I can only speak for myself, but when I was in my 20's I was forever trying to forge a personality that was one that resonated with me and I liked. Unfortunately, I ended up observing how other people conducted themselves, their mannerism, how they talked, etc. and sometimes I tried to emulate what I liked in a person. For me though, I was very insecure at that point in my life and being liked by other people I fell in the trap of trying too hard to be just like them or always be in agreement with others. I'm not saying this is what's going on, because sensitive individuals can absorb other people's energy and personalities just because their ultra sensitive. Which I was too.

Fast forward 30 years and I'm pretty much set in my ways, personality-wise, and although I'm a very good listener, I no longer take on other people's personalities.

Experimentation with interacting with other people is the key. No one comes out of the womb and just knows exactly who he/she is. That takes time, years to develop. Don't be hard on yourself in this respect because it may just be the case you're a highly sensitive person. Is so, you might like the below website.

That is a very neat explantion. We do it all for different reasons. I use it more for discovering and winning peoples trust. I use it to learn about people themselves.
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