Two personalities ... is it normal?

[leecamowol]

Hi
I hoped this would be as good as place as any to ask first. I have - and always have for as long as I can remember - had two differing personalities and I concerned that the conflict between this two is causing me harm (I've just been diagnosed with Anxiety and Depression after finally being brave enough to see my GP). To give you a few basics I'm a (just turned) 30 year old, gay male with a partner of 5 years.

On one hand I'm quite a camp, silly person who people seem to really love and have loads of fun with. I love football too and attend a local non league team who really make us (partner and I) feel welcome and gay banter is lovely not at all nasty. I wouldn't say this part of me is confident but I do "come out of my shell" more. I have the reputation for loving cheesy music, being football mad and lust after the typical Tom Daley celebrity types. Hopefully you know what I mean.

On the other hand there's time when I turn into serious person who is interested in politics (I've stood at the last local elections) and almost on a crusade to save the world by preaching about the importance of charity etc. In recent months it's this personality who has been reading a lot about Buddhism. During this time I've shut off from football claiming it to be bad for me, listening to more depressing, slower music and denying any interest in other things like celebrities, TV watching etc. These periods result in me removing or deleting things off facebook and claiming I'm a changed man. Then when I switch back I end up added the "likes" and "interests" back on to facebook.

A former work colleague once said to me "You really are a different person outside of work ... you are all serious and professional and then you turn into the campest and most fun person".

I just feel like I am constantly asking myself "Who am I?" all the time. One moment I feel like Christopher Biggins and then next the Dalai Lama (to be extreme).

Is this a normal thing? How do you really answer the question "who am I?". When I'm the former personalities I almost get to a peak and then am like "what the hell am I doing ... this is stupidness" then when I get to the peak in the latter personality I'm "when did I become so boring ... wake up, put the fun music back on and just enjoy yourself".

Thanks for any response you can.

[Meg888]

I don't think you necessarily have two personalities (mind, I'm not an expert). I don't think there is anything wrong to having a serious side to your nature - it happens as we get older, 30 is a great age to be IMO, young enough to have great fun and enjoy like we do in our early 20's but old enough to have a serious take on life - as we have to in order to progress further career/life wise. I'm sorry to hear you suffer depression, but maybe you're reading too much into this. I believe we all change our views, opinions etc as we age - I'm 42 now, and I've changed so much since I was 30 in my views, interests etc but I'm still the same fun loving person underneath. I hope I don't sound patronising, as I said I'm not an expert it's just my opinion :-)

[Bluestone]

Lol @ feeling like Cristopher Biggins :D

I think this is totally and utterly "normal" - what is normal, anyway? :)

I think most people have two sides to them. I know I do.
There are times and situations when you have to be professional and serious... and then there are times when you just wanna throw on your favorite pair of heels and dance the night away to Donna Summers! I think it's good that you can be both serious and know when and how to have fun. See that as a positive, not a negative :-)
Why do you feel the need to take things you like off Facebook, and then re-add them? Is it more to do with how you want to be perceived by other people? Don't be a sheep, do whatever you want to do. You're allowed to have different tastes and interests.
Now, in the words of Oprah Winfrey... YOU GO GIRL! :P

[IggyB]

You sound like you are unsure of yourself and cope with this by devoting yourself to certain things - Do you possibly have any other "obsessive" behaviour traits you might feel comfortable discussing with your doctor? The way you describe your behaviour and feelings sounds it sounds like this might be an issue along the lines of OCD (it's not all repetitive hand washing etc.).

Turning 30 is a mile stone and I think most men question themselves and their life choices at this age. I would suggest that you need to break this idea that you have two distinct personalities as that will not do your mental health any good, instead learn to accept who you are - in other words you have the capacity to be a fun, camp life and soul of the party guy who can then get home and read politics journals and campaign to save the word... they do not have to be, nor should they be, mutually exclusive.

[magsmay]

Hi Lee First thoughts are that it seems more to me that you are fighting the different aspects of your ONE personality. It is perfectly ok to be silly, flippant one moment then serious the next. You are perhaps taking these traits in your personality to extremes to try and find out who the real you is, when in fact this wacky sometimes serious other times guy IS you. Do these traits in your personality come over all of a sudden -like you change from Mr. Serious to Mr. Biggins within a couple of minutes? Or is it more you talk yourself out of being silly 'grow up' or 'chill out' depending on how you are feeling at the time? Do you forget things you have done as Mr. Biggins or Mr Serious? does the particular personality take you over to such an extent that you do things you would never ever do in the other personality? If the answer to this is very much a yes then you may -only may, be showing signs of Dissociative identity disorder (DID), also known as multiple personality disorder (MPD) and this could be diagnosed after consultations with a qualified medical health professional. First stop would be your GP to arrange further treatment. personally I think you may just be at the stage in your life where you feel the urge to 'know who you are' -believe me that day never comes ;-)

[China Doll]

I'm utilise a different aspects of my personality in work to the parts I use when I am out of it. It's not two different personalities, it's one personality that I use different bits of as and when I need it. Pretty much the same as everyone does I would imagine. (E.g. part of your humour is to play practical jokes on people, you probably wouldn't bring this aspect of your personality to a family funeral! Pretty extreme example but you get the point).