Copy Cat

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I know that Children copy each other growing up but when I was younger I can remember not feeling genuine because I was always copying another person 'character' or personality.
From the. Way they talked to the way they walked - I don't think I was ever really successful most lasted a few weeks to a few months and i was always looked at as mad or weird anyway. but because I didn't know about how brains could be wired differently etc.
I always felt like I had no true Identity and the way I was,was just a pool of other peoples sayings and character.
Eg (persons who got what they wanted)
-I tried talking more ghetto. For over a month after summer I was all ' yo, yo yo' until my friend asked me what was wrong with me. Then I stopped
----i was a bully - but I sucked @ it one kid threatened me in returned
-----i copied a guy friend who only ate donuts and coconut water @ school I did the same.(He was popular)
----I copied my teachers.(I would write down their unique sayings then say them back the very next day to my friends. - I don't know why I thought they wouldn't noticed'
--- I changed my walk many times over the years ( I trained myself, now I walk like a model) -lol. - but I do.
-- I changed my pitch many times lasted for months
-- even my best friend in high school I copied everything about even the way she moved her lips and things said, I would do it exactly the same way.
Now at 24 I still have many of those characters, becuz I put them so much in to practise. IDK-

Anyone else with similar experiences to such extremes
Undiagnosed BTW
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-the only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad- Salvador Dali-

I used to copy my sister, because she seemed to get praised by my mother for her "originality". Even though I tried to copy her I was dreadful at it, as my wardrobe choices always seemed haphazard and awkward despite my best intentions. I seriously had no fashion sense or understanding how to put clothes together. My sister and others would just annoyingly say, "Just be yourself" or "Be original for a change" and I had no idea what that meant, as being myself was...something pretty awful that made me constantly get ridiculed. As a kid I once put on an English accent for months because I wanted to be cool. I also tried the Valley Girl thing. In fact in retrospect I was ridiculous, but I couldn't see it. No matter how hard I tried to be cool, I was a laughingstock. I never attributed it to Aspergers (which wasn't an actual dx when I was a kid), but insecurity due to being a minority. I found out later on I was the only kid of my minority group that was singled out and bullied/teased. If you were able to pull off the imitation thing, it was probably better for you so you could at least pass as normal, or at least not scream "I am a target!" from a mile away.

Everyone copies each other, it's called peer pressure for when NTs do it. I copied people growing up and it never did me any good, I would learn the wrong things or end up being a bully myself or mean because I was doing what other kids did to me, I even copied younger age groups because I didn't understand child development and I didn't pick up on the hidden curriculum. I also pretended to dislike buses with green seats because other kids did, I decided to dislike Barney because other kids did and I was getting teased for it, I decided to like a radio station because everyone else did and I actually liked the music on it. but it was a problem because I also copied kids in my special ed class so that was the reason why my parents got me out and put me in mainstream. Then in 6th grade they were facing deja vu again because my school was wanting to place me in a class with kids with behavior disorders and my parents and our neighbors knew it was a mistake because I tend to copy people so I would be copying those kids and learn the wrong behavior. My behavior was always different in each setting and situation. At school I would be a different person, at home I would be myself. It was like I had split personalities. I have even copied phrases and memes people would do and it would also get me into trouble and I wouldn't understand what i did wrong. I can remember "It was so funny I forgot to laugh" going around and it was some fad or meme they were doing so one day at home I said it to my brother and Mom yelled at me to apologize. I did not understand what I did wrong and then assumed that phrase is bad and I am not allowed to say it at home, I can only say it in school. I realize now it wasn't the phrase, it was because my brother fell off the swing and I said it and had no understanding of the meaning and instead of knowing it was because he fell off the swing and I implied whatever it implied, I thought the phrase itself was bad and must never be said at home. Then I remember being at lunch at school and these kids from my class used to tell me the school cooks made slugs and we are having them and there are slugs in our food. I say it to my brother one day in the car that we are going to eat slugs when we stop for food and my brother started crying and Mom asked him what was wrong and he said I said we are eating slugs and Mom yelled at me to apologize for being so mean. I didn't understand what I did wrong and then thought saying we are having slugs and eating them and they are cooking them is a bad thing to say. Maybe not so much but maybe it was the situation not what I said. :shrugs:

I even copied my mother so I treated my brothers like they were my kids and I also took stuff from them as a "punishment" and I also spanked my friends and my brothers and I slapped my brother's mouth when he was three for calling me a poo poo head and said "That was a terrible thing to say" quoting my mother from the time she slapped my mouth for saying the f word.

I think these are examples of me not reading peoples intentions and I am sure they were just being mean and I didn't know it so I copied them and then didn't understand what I did wrong. Or they weren't being mean and I just didn't understand what they were doing but copied them anyway because I couldn't read the situation and still didn't understand what I did wrong. By 6th grade, kids didn't want me around because they didn't want to be responsible for my behavior because I didn't know where the line was drawn and when it was okay to say things or do things and if i got caught doing them, I would have complained how other kids get to do it and I can't and why are they allowed to and I'm not. They would have gotten caught that way. So instead of modifying their behavior and following the rules and acting appropriately, they didn't want me around because they didn't want to do those things to be a bad influence for me and then get in trouble.


I think either we copy others or don't copy others. It was also my literal thinking that made me do this too like I learned in special ed when I was seven that if I scream, it gets the teacher's attention because that is what this boy with Down syndrome always did so I copied him. I found a short cut than raising my hand and waiting for her to call on me or get to me. I knew better and didn't know any better if that makes sense. Then at age 16 I tried to have ODD so I would get my way and not have anxiety because this boy I knew who had it always had things go his way at home because he used violence to get his way and his mom was afraid of him so I thought if I be just like him, my own family will be afraid of him and I have to hit them and break things to get my way and when it wasn't working, I thought I had to try harder at having it and get over it and just do it and forget what I break. Just do it. And I have grown to hate people with it because of it and I got rid of the play mate because he was bad.

I've never actually copied real people (though, reading back through the diary I kept when I was 12, apparently I wanted to mimic the coolest girl in school, but never actually got round to practising it.) I did however, copy the characters that were my special interest at any given time. Throughout the entirety of fifth and sixth grade, when I was going through my Garfield phase, I behaved just like the fat cat; sleeping in the middle of the day, wolfing down my food at ridiculous speeds, I had a stuffed bear named Pookie and a rubber chicken named Stretch. For ages, I didn't sleep in my bed, I lay on top of it crouched in Garfield's sleeping position with my arms and legs tucked under me, and a thin blanket that was barely big enough to cover me draped over my folded up form. Once I even went so far as to copy the cartoon strip where Garfield stays in bed for an entire week. I got my sister to do it with me, my mom stocked us up on food and water, and we spent an entire week in my bedroom, only coming out to go to the bathroom. I was a little nuts.
After Garfield came Peanuts. I was absolutely in love with Linus, so from seventh grade to ninth, I dragged a blue blanket with me everywhere and mimicked the things Linus did with it; I could snap light switches on and off, turned it into a hammock, a climbing rope, a parachute, you name it, I tried it. I was still sucking my thumb at that point in time as well, so that only added to the authentication of the persona. I stayed obsessed with Peanuts til twelfth grade, but the blanket gradually disappeared as I became more involved with school, however, I do still sleep with it.
I still don't really know why I copied those characters, probably because they had such strong and individual personalities and I was so quiet and relatively blah. I came close to mimicking Spock during the beginning phases of my Star Trek obsession (which, if you can't tell, is still going on) but by the time I found Star Trek near the end of twelfth grade, I was secure enough in my own personality to feel like copying others was no longer necessary.