How you see your self vs how others see you

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I feel as if what other people see is a bland, cardboard cutout version of me; a visitor from the uncanny valley. I imagine that most would probably describe me as agreeable enough when I have my mask on; but perceive me as someone with few words, weak opinions held weakly, little ambition, and barely a hint of passion for anything. To be fair to them, I often see myself that way when I'm in the talons of depression, but it's very little like the inner life that usually brings me whatever joy, satisfaction, and sense of achievement that I manage to scrape out of life.

Decades of masking have left me hyper-cautious about what I reveal of myself, even to people that I've known for most of those decades. Alexithymia means that I don't know how I feel about something until it's far too late to remember why we were even talking about it. I barely clip the Venn diagrams of most people's interests, and sometimes even their sensory experiences. Practice has taught me that my bon-mots often make wonderful conversation killers; and while I'm not great at recognising facial expressions, I am incredibly familiar with "that look" (and worse). So I kind of bumble along making non-committal, but hopefully vaguely positive, noises come out of my mouth whenever it seems like I'm required to talk (which I'm not terribly good at judging and put much effort into avoiding where possible). "Alright". "Whatever". "I'm OK". "It's fine". "Mmmm, yes, I know what you mean" (oh, I am such a good liar!).

Holding my mask up doesn't leave much brainpower to spare for flamboyant displays of my dazzling wit and charm!

I see myself as a failure who could have been a success had circumstances not conspired against me. I had great potential but no support. But that is true of most people...

I have no clue whether anyone else sees me at all. My family don't. They see an inconvenience. To everyone else I am just too bizarre to categorise and too old for there to be a reason to try.

This is true for me as well. I also sometimes feel like I'm the dumbest person on the planet. I'm basically more prone to screw up than the average person.

People suspect than I'm weird, I know I'm weird

Your right this very quality can be something good it can make you strive to always get better

There were three times in my life that something like this happened to me. The first time was in the June of 1986 when I was 11. I was telling one of the boys on the bus ride home that two boys in my regular class were mocking the way that I speak because my voice was lower than average. He asked me, "Are you German?" I was taken by surprise, because I saw myself as being the typical British Canadian.

The second time was in the July of 1987 when I was 12. My sister and I were watching Hogan's Heroes on TV. I quipped to my sister that I was Peter Newkirk. My mum overheard me from the kitchen and said, "Cockney, I heard that!" My sister said, "You remind me of Schultz." I looked at Schultz's helmet and asked, "Why?" My 9 year old sister said, "I don't know....you just do."

There was a third time here on WP quite a few years ago. I started a thread asking if my fellow members detected an English accent when reading my posts. There was one member who knew me better than most members who stated that my grammar seemed more German. I took it with a grain of salt like I did the first two times.

Looking back, it all makes sense to me now. I've developed a better understanding of myself since the January of 2016.

I don't even really know how I see myself, I am kind of conflicted currently. I mean in my city it seems they tend to have environmental demonstrations on friday, and I work on friday...can't afford to lose my job by just walking out, I mean I work at a thrift store I am needed for my shift I don't have a lot of job experience or other prospects so I need to be reliable for my job. I could potentially request a friday off to go support the cause. But its like should I just walk out, the thrift store keeps clothes out of the landfill but we don't have a recycle bin for our own plastic waste or anything that all gets just put in trash. But I need to keep the job so I feel it would be a better approach to actually take a friday off so they can plan for that, I mean realistically me and my boyfriend are like a step above homeless, we have an apartment now and we can pay rent now but it something really sh*tty came up and depleted our funds well we'd be screwed.

I mean I want to be more active about climate change, but I also cannot really risk losing my job and in effect potentially losing the apartment that we need my boyfriends income as well as my SSI plus what I make from that part time job. But all this could collapse anyways as climate change gets worse, more automation happens and I just don't know what to do anymore. For now go to work for my four hour shift from tuesday to friday and try to stay sane at home but I'm just a little worried about everything going on in the world, so the staying sane part is key because sh*t seems crazy right now. But of course how do you stay sane when the whole world is freaking insane.

I mean people can't even argue with greta thunberg, they just try to attack her for having autism and caring about the environment....and even harassing her family and her 13 year old sister. Death threats and all kinds of disgusting crap like who sends a death threat....half of them probably would not actually go out to kill but like seriously the only reason to do that kind of thing is if you want to be a literal human piece of feces. I would say the same thing about any left winger who send death threats to right wingers as well, online death threats= you are literal human feces regardless of your politcal/environmental/religious/ect. veiws.

And i have no idea how others see me, but I see me as being pissed off and anxious about this kind of stuff.

I see myself as being introverted, but liberal and open-minded, with a sense of humor, and willing to get along with anyone. What people have always told me is that I'm too quiet, which is probably true. They sometimes act as if they think I'm stuck-up or prudish (which is not at all true), and almost always as if I'm "not quite all there". I usually get excluded from groups and conversations, so most people never get to know me well enough to change their opinions.