I drift from persona to persona depending on the people I meet and/or befriend.

A friend of mine remarked to me:

I read your blog and I see a person that is very different than the person I know.  Where is the line between who you really are and the person you project?

That is a very valid, and interesting, question.  I have a weak sense of identity.  This makes it very hard to discern where the psychopathic side of me ends and the person others know me as begins.  I don’t try to consciously project anything to my closest friends, at least not that I’m aware of.  But, some friends have reached the upper echelons and have been destroyed by my wrath.  I am a model professional at work.  I am the shoulder to cry on for the friends that don’t know I’m a psychopath.  I am a demon to those I am actively after.  I switch between these with the littlest of effort and often without realizing it.  This makes it difficult to see where I am masked and where I am not.

There are definitely times that I present a persona that I know will benefit me the most for a situation.  I try to be extremely conscientious at work and with those I am wooing.  I feign great empathy for most that I am acquaintances with and I try extremely hard not to let my psychopathic side show with anyone that I am currently gaining benefit from.  At other times, I don’t consciously present any persona.  With those I respect, I am very matter of fact yet still personable.  Sometimes, I do appear greatly psychopathic and it bewilders people as I show my callousness and cruelty toward others.  However, I am not always conscious of the switch between these personas.  What exactly does the ‘true’ me look like?  I don’t want to fixate on my psychopathy, as it does not fully define me, but I also cannot visualize a self outside of those traits.  It is all very confusing.

If I have a true self, I don’t know them.  It is like I speak many languages, but don’t understand the concepts that make up each word.  Ultimately, I guess it does not matter.  I know when I am consciously presenting a façade, but I don’t know what I’m masking.  I know that I often keep the psychopath in check, presenting an altruistic or empathic person to whomever I am interacting with.  I know that I often am defined by those twenty traits.  What I don’t know is what exactly lives behind the mask.  I don’t always know when I am hidden and when I’m not.  I don’t always know when I reach up to take the mask off or put it on.  I slip, in and out, so smoothly between it all.  Ultimately I am a façade, but I don’t know who I’m hiding.

I am a psychopath, but I am so much more.  Won’t they reveal to me who they are?