The Battle Between My Authentic Self and the Personas I Carry to Survive

Heavy Ideological Personas Hurt Mental Health, These 3 Things Solve It

Photo by Luis MGB from Pixabay

What is a persona…

Personas are a Jungian concept that theorize people must hide a portion of their true selves behind a mask for survival. These masks in moderation are a necessary and good thing that makes society more civil. They’re a way to communicate trust and respect. We expect a brain surgeon to embody the persona of a serious medical professional. We don’t want to see the fun playful joking side of our brain surgeon or his interest in heavy metal music and culture. If he showed up to our surgery consultation in his “authentic” Iron Maiden T-Shirt and blue jeans we would “run for the hills”. We want our brain surgeon to portray the dress and language of a brain surgeon because we are betting our lives that he is a highly skilled expert in his field and we need every sensory detail from him to reinforce that idea. However, a persona should be a reflection of parts of our true selves and not a complete fabrication. The brain surgeon doesn’t need to fabricate his knowledge or professional demeanor. He is actually a brain surgeon, it is not an act, it is part of himself that he taps into when he is fulfilling that role.

The dark side of personas

The dark side of personas are when they are either too curated and far from the authentic self or when they aren’t curated enough and are too authentic. The ones that are too curated are the con-artists or people whose true selves are so immoral and abhorrent to common decency that they must expend great effort to be accepted in society, these are heavy personas that result in a Jekyll and Hide extreme. The too authentic persona problem are people who appear to be a mess, these are the people with bad hygiene, bad style, wear pajamas everywhere, and have vulgar speech. They are people who should take the time to craft more of a persona. The optimal balance is to have a light persona that is a representation of true aspects of yourself, so it doesn’t take a lot of energy for you to portray it to the world, and yet it is still respectful and pleasant to others. The less energy you expend on a persona the more energy you will have and the happier and more pleasant you will be. This is why choosing a career or job that aligns with you is important, if you must completely fake who you are to hold down a certain job you will be stressed and irritable and your relationships will suffer.

The societal persona crisis

There’s a paradox happening in today’s society where personas are becoming too light and too heavy simultaneously. On one hand the sensory aspects of personas are starting to disappear. We wear the same clothes in the office as we do lounging around the house or walking in the park. Senators dress like middle schoolers and heads of state speak like they’re at a bar with friends. However, on the other hand our ideological personas that communicate our morals, values, ideologies, religion, politics, and core belief systems must be heavily curated and unoffensive. These ideologically neutral personas are starting to crush us mentally.

There are so many diametrically opposed views that no one will accept all of you

Today there are more polarized issues and worldviews than ever before, and these views are no longer separated by lines on a map. The information age has mixed these diametrically opposed views thoroughly to the point our families, neighbors, classmates, coworkers, doctors and even those sitting next to us in pews of worship are sprinkled with vicious divisions that we don’t dare speak of. The result of these ideological divisions is that we are rarely able to lower our masks and be ourselves. There is almost always a belief we have that must be hidden from the person we’re interacting with at any given time. The act of hiding these parts of ourselves results in a feeling that no one on earth truly appreciates us for our authentic self. We’re weighed down with the sense that every human interaction is based on a mask and a fake premise.

I’m exhausted by having to constantly hide the beliefs of my authentic self

Much of the pain, isolation, and purposelessness we feel in today’s culture is a result of this conflict between our authentic selves and the personas needed to navigate modern society. Frequently I see inspiring articles about how we should quit curating our speech and hiding our true selves when we interact with people, and the idea resonates with me, until I think about the reality of putting it into action. If I dropped my neutral ideological persona I would risk losing almost all of my social connections. Even writing that sentence is risky because people’s imaginations could run wild and envision me holding some belief that they consider vile and evil, but everyone on both sides of every polarized issue has this same risk. There are so many “good vs. evil” issues where both sides view their opponent as the spawn of Satan, that it doesn’t even matter the belief. If you state any belief with conviction you instantly become a dehumanized vile enemy by someone within your social circle. I don’t think people realize the weight of the anger they carry against these opposing views and that the suppression of that anger spills into other areas of their life. We wonder why road rage and aggressive driving is the norm, why people are keeping to themselves, why customer service workers no longer hide their disgust for their jobs and their contempt for customers, it can all be tied to ideological issues. Some of these ideologies have real consequences like inflated monetary systems, high prices, and low wages. However, each individual blames a different ideology for these poor conditions and it’s who they blame that fuels the anger. In pure natural disasters like an earthquake people don’t get angry at each other because they don’t blame each other for the cause, but in an economic disaster we point to ideologies as the cause and take our anger out on the people we think voted for the crises or the people we perceive to have benefited from it at our expense. Personas play a role here because we must spend an incredible amount of energy to suppress these views or tells that could give people a hint to which side we’re on and we become exhausted, as there is rarely anyone we can truly vent to and be ourselves with. I’m fortunate to have a spouse that aligns with me, but many people must suppress their views from even their spouse or therapist. That is true loneliness and isolation, knowing there is not a soul in the world that you can bear all your beliefs and values to.

The three things needed to alleviate the ideological persona problem (all three must be done simultaneously, any done in isolation will be counterproductive):

1. Protect free speech at all costs, free speech is therapeutic

The first thing that is needed to alleviate this problem is to advocate for, support, and protect free speech. One of the main reasons people are burdened with this neutral ideological persona is that expressing views have legal, corporate, and social consequences. If we as individuals and as a society can remove these consequences, as much as possible, we will become collectively healthier. Let’s stop shaming, canceling, firing, and doxing people. Let crazy people show their craziness to the world on their own terms and refute their ideas in public or private, or in the physical or digital square. When people are allowed to express themselves in a civil manner without consequences then civil solutions can be reached.

The surest way to identify evil intentions is if a person, organization, or government seeks to silence opinions, views, discourse, or debate (there are people on both sides of every issue that try to do this). Those who try to silence others are infinitely more dangerous than the person exercising vulgar free speech because silencing someone stops dialogue, which then leaves violence as the only option whether that violence is legal through a government doing the silencing or the population in illegal protest. The damage only becomes permanent once opposition is silenced, so never let opposition be silenced. People who express themselves, who have relationships, and have a dialog with their community, are mentally healthier and less prone to violence. This is the foundational concept behind therapy. Free speech is therapy.

2. Rediscover grace

The second step we need to take as individuals and as a society is to show grace to each other. A culture of free speech only works in a culture of grace. Again, this is a foundational piece in therapy, don’t judge the patient, don’t criticize or condemn them. We must learn to separate the ideas of a person from their character. Pretend you are the therapist for the person expressing the idea you disagree with. I’m not saying don’t debate ideas, but the key is to not resort to ad hominem attacks that insult a person. Always stay in the realm of ideas even if the other person doesn’t. This quote from The Tree of Life written by Terrence Malick embodies the grace we need:

“The nuns taught us there are two ways through life, the way of Nature and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow.

“Grace doesn’t try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries.

“Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things.

“They taught us that no one who ever loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end.

“I will be true to you. Whatever comes.”

– Terrence Malick

3. Find our tribes

The third and final point is that we need to find the right tribes and communities where we are surrounded by people who share as many of our values and beliefs as possible. While the term “safe space” is much maligned the macro concept is sound. Historically unified culture, history, and religion make for peaceful times and “safe spaces”. When everyone in your family, community, and city shares the same values and beliefs there is a profound freedom and safety that is felt. When you look at countries with high rates of happiness and mental well-being, they’re usually places that have unified shared cultures. Keep in mind this only works when combined with the previous two points of free speech and grace. You can’t force unified culture or safe spaces, and you can’t form them based on a common enemy or scapegoat. They must form organically and for positive reasons to be effective. On an individual level we need to find places of worship, clubs, organizations, neighborhoods, or causes that let us wear our ideological persona lightly. When we have a community where we can be closer to our authentic selves the weight and anger of suppressing our ideals will ease and we’ll become happier and more peaceful as we have a sense of belonging and safety.

Conclusion

We must find the right balance between being authentic and wearing a light persona that is respectful and appropriate for each time and place. The splintered and divisive ideologies are not going away and most of them are out of our control as individuals, but we need to focus on what is in our control, which is finding communities where we can express ourselves without judgement, showing grace to each other, and building our own communities of safety and freedom. I know the idea of a place where everyone agrees and is kind and loving is a utopia that will never exist on this side of eternity but there are concrete steps we can take as individuals to make our lives better and to lower the temperature of divisions. I think Substack is a community that embodies the ideas I’ve expressed. It’s proof that we can show opposing ideologies grace while still seeking to find the communities where we belong, so show me some grace and join my community.

Thanks for reading, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe!