On the outside, looking in - AIBU to ask if you've ever felt this?

[Asthesayinggoes]

I was on the phone to a relative today just randomly explaining, or trying to explain, that I've always felt like I was acting, that I was never 'being me'. I have a mental health diagnosis, but nothing was ever explained to me about it. While on the phone, she goes 'it's called depersonalisation' after googling I suppose. Sent me a few articles about it and it's exactly what I had been trying to describe. I thought that I was the only one who felt that way! I knew that 'not having a strong sense of self' or something similar was probably one of the criteria which got me the diagnosis that I have. I have never however seen it described in terms that accurately described it!

Back then, and throughout the years, I also complained that I was tired of acting out a role, because I simply did not know how to just “be myself”. This phrase, a motivational saying extremely popular among the teenagers of my generation — and the go-to phrase for adults whenever they felt it their duty to comfort us — made me feel nothing but unease. I was very shocked to slowly discover that most people did not seem to share this feeling of eternal performance, but I was particularly disturbed by something else: feeling trapped in the supposed ‘role’. It was unsettling because it seemed intrinsically illogical. If I was performing (and that’s exactly what it felt like I was doing), then surely I should be able to alter my performance as I pleased — and yet I couldn’t seem to be able to do that. Everything I did seemed fake, forced, “not me”. And still, I couldn’t help but do it, and knew of no other way to act out the character that was, apparently, “me”.
“You’re not acting”, a professional would eventually correct me. “That’s personality”.
This really unsettled me. It seemed that indeed I had a self, but couldn’t escape the sensation of being in a never-ending play. How can there be a “sense of self”, if I feel like I am always performing? I am, at present, self-aware enough to know that what I perform is me. But it doesn’t present itself that way.

Oh and the MH diagnosis is Borderline Personality Disorder - if relevant.

No, not felt this. Does it get in the way of your living a normal life or in your interactions with others?

@blueshoes

No, not felt this. Does it get in the way of your living a normal life or in your interactions with others?

No, not in how you would assume I imagine, as I don't know any other way. The problem is that the only time that I feel like I'm really me is when under the influence of alcohol, which means that I struggle with sobriety. I don't know why that is, but being sober is a constant stress, exactly like as if you're playing a role all day long. The alcohol I presume, relaxes me enough to actually be me. One of the other diagnostic criteria of BPD is usually addiction of some sort. I only realised today why sobriety is so very hard for me. I hadn't realised that other people don't feel the same way!