Putting on a persona?

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I really like the suit metaphor as opposed to a mask. Rather than a barrier to hide behind it's a context specific filter to express yourself through. Authenticity is maintained, and generally the best traits of your fundamental self still shine. Though pretty awkward at first, working an espresso bar I learned that people tend to respond well to shapeshifting somewhat to meet certain expectations and be met on their "level". Well worth the effort, as long as you don't lose yourself by becoming a complete mirror. Though that can be an interesting exercise on occasion...

In real life I'm too nonverbal and withdrawn to display much of a persona. But with my forum activities I mimic the posting style of others to a degree. Like yesterday I told off a bit of a cyber bully the way I think a guy in another of my forums would have. It went over pretty good.

Last edited by EzraS on 07 Jun 2014, 12:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

I wished I could mimic people.

I like this. This is more like what I do. I miss the "social" cues sometimes, but don't copy to the point of doing something morally wrong though sometimes I have said or written something just because I heard someone else say it without fully considering the entire meaning of it and how it might be perceived. I am not a good actress and these are all different versions of myself. I think people with ASD tend to have a harder time of it so we notice it more because we have to consciously do it (copy others demeanor or mannerisms) and we spend a lot of time consciously planning it out and analyzing it. We also "mess up" more or with more disastrous results. I think NTs must do it too but it is more natural for them, less clumsy and perhaps they stop doing it at a younger age. For me, I was more aware of how different I behaved in different settings with different people and then be unable to look at or even speak to the same people in another setting. And I was deeply ashamed by that. It interfered with developing relationships because some people lost interest, were offended, or weirded out by it. I was aware how drastically different I was from place to place and didn't understand why. I wonder if it has some relation to problems generalizing. In one place I'd be okay with someone. At another time and place with that same person it would almost be like I didn't know them. Like I was clueless about how to behave in that environment with that person. Also I could be really talkative once then never be able to do it again in the same situation. I hated myself for it. I don't have as many problems with this anymore because I have learned that it is normal to be slightly different in different situations but I still get worried when the behavioral differences are as extreme as very talkative to nearly silent. I also had problems with not knowing if I was expected to speak to a person in another setting and if that was okay with them because more than once I have been mistaken in thinking that someone wanted to be friends or because I got the impression more than once that this or that person who talked to me was annoyed that I was following them around. My natural instinct was to withdraw socially and watch painfully everyone else not having these problems.

So anyway, I think it is part of the human condition. But the differences may be more extreme in those of us with social problems. I also don't think my "personas" are as noticeable to others as I think they are because I am still told I have little body language and little facial expression or notice it myself more often that what I was trying to do didn't quite make it into and out of my body from what I pictured in my mind or else it is overly expressive and odd, trying to figure out what level of expression I should make for the moment to aid the communication. I am very expressive when I am very happy or very angry or very sad and I have no idea what I look like though people find it hilarious sometimes- and these are my more natural expressions. Every other time I am fairly flat. Personas are like an interface I use to interact with the world but they are usually oppressive in my case. I act very controlled and have been told that I look like I have it all together and could take on the world. Is there an Oscar for that because i certainly don't feel that way. It makes me more comfortable because it gives me instructions about how to stand, where to be. I have reason for doing this because my father's mannerisms were very odd, he had little tact and no common sense and someone reported him to CPS when I was a kid and it really left an impression on me that I have to look normal so silly people don't think silly things. The thing I don't like so much is that I often put on the "feel" of the mannerisms of the group I am in, even into the accents. I don't always realize I am doing it. I used to think that people were the same everywhere as they were at home, or wherever but they aren't. I just hate the range I have from total shutdown to very friendly with people I know and have been around a lot. I only recently stopped wearing the facade of social and personal competency recently. My most tiring "act" mostly involves trying to be competent in life, trying to prove to myself and anyone else that I am a "whole" person and mature and it is exhausting and actually backfires I now know. I also find that I get boxed in by these "personas". If I was extremely shy and quiet with someone the first time I met them I could rarely ever break out of it. I was able to do it though with my husband and he was one of the few I was able to manage it back then in high school and college. I still have extreme difficulty being who I am now with people I was unable to speak or look at when I was younger like in HS and college. I hate it. It feels so stupid. My sister very obviously copied people and I tried very hard to make mine less obvious so I wouldn't look stupid to anyone else or to myself. When we were first married my husband would get pretty upset at me for being talkative at home and then going out somewhere with people and "looking like I didn't want to be there". This attitude didn't help much.

Bottom line is, I am not sure this is strictly an ASD thing or an NT thing. I think it is a coping thing but not one that might make or break a diagnosis. Maybe it is less obvious in a person without ASD? Less controlling or less defining in an NT? Maybe it's the way it's done and how and why?

In the past I did this intensely but far less so nowadays. The DSM V mentions that failure to modulate behaviour according to social context is a sign of autism. What seems to be at issue here is the way in which this regulation or modulation is achieved.

I still get it wrong sometimes but for the most part ive settled into a reserved unassuming thoughtful character type which is really close to the real me.

I used to do this all the time, as well at home as at work or in social situations. Back when I didn't know that I had AS, I wasn't aware of it at all. Since I know, I only put up a persona at work, because if I don;t act the way they want me to, then I loose my job. I allready lost several jobs because of my personality...not that I'm a smug or anything, but still...
I discovered that I put op a persona once I was diagnosed, and I learnt how tiring it was! Now I don't do it anymore at home or at social occasions.

Welcome to WP ConfusedALot.
I can be a very good chameleon and I have always been since I was little child. I would always blend in to what the others around me were like even picking up accents and speech patterns within minutes. I can pick up an accent from watching a tv show as well or even from listening to a song. It's funny though because I could speak like them and sometimes move my body like them but I could never bee fully accepted like them or pass for them. Not could I dress like other girls. I never understood that point in the fashions they wore or how they did their hair and nails or why they wore makeup. None of those things really reached me. Other than being clean and looking relatively put together as in the colors of my clothes matched and they were clean and my hair was combed I could not get beyond that.

Since I found out that I am on the Spectrum, I have been more secure to just be myself and so I don't do it quite as much but I still do it pretty often. I usually do it around strangers or around people I don't know as well or in situations where I have to be mature and "behave". But I spent my entire life doing that in every situation until just the past couple of years.

I've done a lot of that, and it would get me in trouble because there was some sort of nuance I didn't understand, where another person could say or do something and it was okay but when I did something similar I got a totally different and unexpected reaction out of people.

Skibum - I'm just like that too! As a little kid I could imitate every character on the Muppet Show dead on. Still can. I pick up accents like crazy - wherever I go I start sounding like the locals after a day or so. Gotten myself into a whole lot of trouble over the years doing imitations of people that I know - get's people laughing though.

I think part of the trick for me is to pick something somewhat close to what you already are so its not so much about becoming something, ,more about filtering what people see and what they don't. There are some rolls I feel I can do and some I can't, all end up failing though, eventually.

Can pick up accents too - even do a passable Northern Irish, and that ain't easy! There is an extreme of this putting on personas aspies can suffer from called 'identity diffusion' - means you can lose your true identity around others, or create identities that you are not aware of yourself, it can look very like DID (multiple personality disorder as was) and has even been misdiagnosed as this in some cases.

I have very different personas in different contexts, family, friends, work place. I know that is normal to some degree but for me it is extreme, I get extremely anxious at the thought of these groups mixing, and really think people would be surprised at how different I am, it has been the main thing I have worried about my whole life. With my family, I basically have no personality, with my friends I am quite cynical and humorous (well I try), with work colleagues I think I come across as naive and ditzy.

For me I do see it as related to ASD, maybe interacting with my background. My parents have an unusual religion, and unusually high standards (I think they both have ASD and this is a reflection of that) , they weren't disciplinarians but I was (and still am) ultra sensitive to criticism and even slight disapproval would have been too much for me. But I wanted to fit in at school, I already felt different but at the time thought it was because I was mixed race which I think gave me an extra need to fit in. I knew acting like the other kids at home would not go down well, so I just acted differently at home, I thought most kids probably do the same but I kept it up for 30 years which has caused immense anxiety, really think I missed some crucial early milestone of being able to express an age appropriate personality to my parents.

Maybe after making that first split it became second nature to me because I do it with every group I encounter, I don't feel comfortable or feel able to 'pull off' my personality so I adapt and then get stuck in the persona I am perceived as. I think it has a lot to do with anxiety, wanting to fit in, not understanding the rules so being overly cautious and imposing rigid rules on myself in different groups.

Interestingly, the first autism service I saw told me that because of this I wasn't autistic (and loads of things I know not to be true) but I think even though it may not be typical it can be linked (sensitivity to criticism, anxiety, fitting in, not understanding what is ok in social settings so establishing strict rules) and there is a bit in the complete guide to aspergers about different personas, and pathological demand avoidance syndrome is and autistic disorder and that includes different personas. Still angry at how dismissive that first service was.

Thanks for the insight guys.

I'm definitely questioning if I'm Aspie or maybe just ADHD. Autism is definitely in my family though, so I really don't know what to believe. I don't know what "normal" is I think since my parents are both very obviously Aspie/Autistic and so is one of my siblings. Me and the other two are a bit more reserved though and do have home personas and social personas, but I do find it hard to keep up with this persona in social situations, especially if people are boring me with their chit chat and mundane chatter. I prefer to talk philosophy and politics. I don't know if this is because I grew up in a household full of Autism or if it's because I have ASD??? I do find that if I'm sick of pretending to be like everyone else and listening to them, I usually kind of shutdown and stop responding because it's kind of exhausting to pretend I care and to pretend I'm like them.

I told my mum she doesn't pay attention once and she said "that's because people are boring" That's pretty much how I feel, but that doesn't necessarily mean I have what she has.

I can't wait for my appointment - all this questioning is really making my brain want to explode!

Well you may or may not have Aspergers/Autism but you sound very similar to me...

I shut down when I have nothing to say or am not interested in the person or social topic anymore. A lot of my time spent in social situations is pretending... It's quite exhausting. I am big on mimicry and learned how to behave around people from watching and mimicing others and combining different traits from different people to create my social persona. But I also act different depending on the type of person that is put in front of me. I put on my "suit" everyday for work to pay the bills but really if I didn't have to interact with people to live I'd be quite anti-social with few friends... I'm just more interested in doing my own thing.

Yes - this is me. I think over the years I've just learnt to be the quiet persona (me just not talking very much at all) at work, church and other "professional" situations, so as not to embarrass myself. I only open up and become myself in some social situations and not always fully - I watch people for a long long long time before I think it's ok to do so. I used to get scared if these worlds would collide though and people at work or church found out what I was like at school or at home. I also find that if I see a friend in a personal life situation (on the street or at the shops) I avoid them just so I don't have to talk to them - like actually talking to them and pretending to be that social persona is too much for me to deal with at the time.



I'm originally from South Africa and I lost my accent and native language within a year of being in Australia. My sister who is def an Aspie lost her accent within months. I sometimes quote movies in an American accent without realising this. I don't know if this is odd or not though NTs quote movies too but maybe not in the accents? I dunno.


Yes! This is true. It's filtering rather than acting I think. Although I do copy some people's words but this tends to backfire. So filtering is more what I do. I don't really have a "false" personality, but rather one that isn't 100% true or 50% true and then there's me - totally unfiltered. I think part of the reason why I filtered was maybe seeing my Aspie mum get herself into pickles ALL the time. I'm very much like her but much more restrained. However, my mum always pushed me to try and get me out of my selective mutsim (often in embarrassing and humiliating ways) because she was just as shy and awkward as I was/am.




Thank you


Yep - same. I used to read teen magazines when I was young to try and get in with the crowd, but I still didn't fit in. I don't like styling my hair unless I have to, or I'm in a mood to look "pretty" like other girls, and if I didn't have to wear makeup, I'd gladly give the stuff up! I suck at putting it on and my fine motor skills in this department is terrible!


Yep - number one fear. I doubt they would find me appealing if I wasn't my filtered self....

Thanks Dr_Cheeba for replying.

agreed on the not wanting to really interact with people. Sometimes I would like them just to tell me what they want and go away. I will help them with a smile, but please don't talk to me about how your daughter did a cute thing this morning or how the weather is really nice today - I won't care and just pretend to care. When I've been forced to do "small talk" I feel stupid and fake and know it comes off as weird and unintelligent.

I think I only sometimes want friends because that's what "normal" people want. I mean sometimes my isolation or lack of being able to keep in contact with friends does make me lonely and I do sometimes long to go out and see people, and escape my incessantly chattering brain, but mostly, I find people dull and wish they would stop talking about unimportant crap.

sorry to be blunt, but I'm just being honest.