Mi'sen

Been mostly offline for a couple of weeks now. Good news: it really is possible to build a new personality Bad news: it really is a new personality

Psychologists, IME, disagree and say that personality is mostly fixed. Of course, they generally mean personality *traits* like Big Five etc., and sure, those rarely change significantly. But the arrangement & dynamics of those traits is much more significant than the values.

My own trait distribution is much the same. Ambiverted, high agreeableness (but frequently rude), low-going-on-average conscientiousness, extremely high openness, low neuroticism. But all my stories are changing, rapidly. And with them, the relationships between those traits.

Depending on your perspective, it could be easy to see no difference at all. Sometimes an aged face looks like the face of decades past when you look at it just so, under the right lighting. The internal experience, meanwhile, is one of being pulled up by the roots.

E.g. I've always felt like something was off about me. Never received a diagnosis, but something just didn't feel right. Spent a lot of time recently around someone with narcissistic personality disorder *in remission* (a rarity, to put it mildly). And, uh, I can relate. A lot.

Recognizing a lot of my worst *and* best traits as springing from compensatory behaviours has completely reoriented my internal compasses. And completely redefined my understanding of why I do things, and how to do things in the future. Prolonged shock therapy.

I am probably not nearly dysfunctional enough to qualify for a diagnosis. The nr. 1 diagnostic criteria is suffering, and I am mostly fine. But there are so many small problems that now seem obviously in need of fixing. Before, I had stories to explain them. Now, nothing.