Have your ever acted in such a way that you would call it "not like yourself"?

When I get really frustrated I get snappy and sarcastic. It’s something I don’t like about myself, so instead of owning it I feel I am not being myself.

Once I got very irritated with my son. He was not cooperating with practicing the piano and I must have screamed at him. Maybe I even swatted him. Not sure.

This was not me. I scared myself. I instantly turned around and walked out the door of my house and walked around for hours, trying to understand what was going on. I thought that it was because of the stress in my marriage. Later on, it turned out maybe it was because of the way my brain chemistry was off.

Whatever. It wasn’t me. That is not who I am. I’ve never behaved that way since. I never did before. I couldn’t believe I did it when I did it. Very difficult to make sense of it when you so do not recognize yourself.

One time I had a one night stand, and that is not like me, and I can’t see myself ever doing something like that again. The guy was not a total stranger, he was a very very close friend of people I knew, but it was the first night I met him.

Yes I have had instances where when I think back about my behavior I definitely would not like myself. I would have to say stress and anxiety would have been the reason.

Yes to all of the above mentioned in your details. I can be out of sorts when I’m very stressed/anxious. I’ve also made some poor decisions (like many people) when I’ve been stressed/anxious, etc.

Only when I’m sober.

Everytime I go to work… no… just kidding… once, I think… I was totaly drunk and said a never-should-to-be-heart-truth to 2 friends of ours… never saw them again after that night… not a real loss… but a strange feeling having acted in someway without remeberance.

Yes. When I decided to get a divorce, I very CLEARLY remember having an epiphany and thinking ” THIS is NOT who I AM! ”
I did not LIKE who I had become, at all!
” I am not an angry, bitchy women, I am not an emotional basket case, I AM a HAPPY, HUMOROUS, well adjusted person!”

I haven’t been “that” woman again for the last 9 years! lol
Amazing how getting away from a crazy making liar gives you your self back! :-D

Just a thought, but I would question this assumption of having a permanent, instrinsic personality/“self” that is unaffected or unchangeable regardless of circumstances. Maybe it’s a Western invention for all I know, as I did not grow up in the States.

To get back at your question, I don’t recall ever asking myself that question. A new circumstance or environment tends to draw a new reaction out of me, but I don’t for a minute think that it’s necessarily “me” nor do I hold on to that event. Sure, there may be a pattern to the way I react, how specific circumstance triggers specific response, and that is what you call “tendency,” “habit,” or “behavior,” since it’s repeatable. I may not necessarily like what I discover about this “person” but that is all the more reason not to take myself so seriously.

There’s a documentary called To See If I Am Smiling about Israeli women placed in extreme circumstance, the war zone. The pressure was surreal and they left the military service deeply troubled, wondering “who” they really were.

No, if I were in their situation, I may have been just like them. If you are not always who you think you are, and of course you’ve tried your best under the circumstance and the guiding wisdom at the time, what else could you possibly do.

Maybe avoid putting yourself in that situation in the future.. haha..

@longtresses

I once was so frustrated and over-stressed (over-stressed would be an understatement ) and simultaneously very ill (because of which was not catching much sleep – 3 hours at max ) that during that time period I made plenty of extremely rash and erratic choices. Some of those were acts I would swear I would never do in life and had never done before in life presented the opportunity.

@raven860 The first part of your answer explained it. I would’ve been erratic too had I been sick, bogged down by stress, and didn’t have sleep for days.