schizophrenEEK!

(or, the two wrobs)
What an inauspicious start...invoking the false factoid definition of a famous term. But "multiple personality disorder" or "dissociative identity disorder" are crappy titles. And neither are true either, as the two wrobs have always been integrated. So well in fact, that it's only in middle age that i've pondered the duality.
But it's always been there.
In personality and physicality, there is a duality in me that seems more pronounced than for most. I was once described by someone as the most diplomatic person they'd ever met...and by another, the most tactless. The most easygoing and open-minded...and most stubborn or self-righteous? The most tolerant...and harshest critic?
Somehow, all true.
Being an unimpeachably trustworthy nurturer has always been at the core of my self-image. And often the reality. Several wimyn have made me the first person they've told they were raped. Other people have shared their most troubling secret. I've been trusted, profoundly and humblingly.
Yet others might tell you of an insensitive, creepy, or narcissistic wrob. I've rubbed some the wrong way, because i've always had a minor (or not so minor) savior complex, and have almost no fear of being misunderstood. That's brilliant, yet tragic.
I spent decades chasing radical humility, because i was far too aware of the arrogance lurking in us all. In my case, i might have called it justified arrogance, and we could lose hours debating whether such a thing exists.
To all that, you might respond that many of us are complex, and most of us contradictory.
Agreed.
But still, what the hell am i? College standout kissed by the hottest coed? Teetotaler who had my retainer tossed in a toilet by drunken floormates? On-call back-rubber for every womyn in my dorm (literally hearing my name shouted in summons down the hall, almost every night)? Outcast who had makeup applied to my sleeping face by smirking comrades? High school star of the play? Loner who didn't go to the prom because "he wouldn't have wanted to go with anyone who would have wanted to go with him"? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
That last choice was a bit of a martyrish pose, reflecting both unacknowledged snobbery and my determination to have a womyn whose "hotness" was perhaps unconventional, but indisputable. That's not quite fair to me though - i also sensed that prom was bullshit capitalistic show and tell. And even at that tender age, i had to be subconsciously aware that i'd met no female who was a pea for my offbeat pod (three decades on, same story). But still, wimyn weren't flocking to me as i thought they should, so my subconscious dealt with it in a way that kept my self-worth bulletproof.
Am i simply an embodiment of our culture of psycho-sexual alienation, in which we forever struggle to come to terms with that person in the mirror? There is a disconnect in us all, between the way we see ourselves and the way others do.
All true...yet for me, it feels like there's more to it. More than anyone i know, it feels like a fair response to my life is "What the hell is that guy?"
For instance, i've no idea whether i'm handsome or ugly.
Okay, that's not true. I'm either.
I'm not talking about bad hair or lighting. Some days, i look in the mirror and am struck by model good looks. Other days...as a friend said, "yechhh". I promise, this isn't some manifestation of the crippled self-worth we all share. I had to have my occasional ugliness pointed out, as i'd always seen myself as the most attractive person on the planet. Much of that stemmed from a teenage defense mechanism. I built my emotional walls so high, they took years (decades?) to deconstruct.
But i recently came face-to-face with this changeability, undertaking a six-week music project, recording a new video almost every day, in the same place with the same camera. I received a more profound tutorial in THIS IS YOU than most people ever do. And what i discovered was looks so inconstant, one might almost wonder whether it's the same person.
It leaves me envying all those who are simply one or the other. Attractive. Ugly. Somewhere on that spectrum.
I know, i know, the grass is greener, and being indisputably one quality or the other is its own prison. Yet mine seems the crueler torment...wondering whether my life might have gone in different directions, receiving (or being denied) love or opportunities, simply through random timing. One might think it would all balance out, but i suspect that in the long-term, it's more disadvantageous. I've not had many long-term romances...is this part of the reason?
I truly have no idea.
Personality seems inextricably tied to physicality, as our assessments of others are profoundly bound to how "attractive" they are...or how attractive we think others think they are. We all bullshit ourselves into thinking we're not so shallow.
I truly have to ponder whether a weaker personality would have succumbed to genuine schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder long ago. Some have been quite intimidated by my intelligence or attractiveness - yet i've also had striking feedback in the other direction. I know that if any of us came face to face with total truth...with what everyone we've known has actually thought about us, mental breakdowns would result. Few grasp just how tenuous and fragile our self-images are.
I would love that raw honesty. Even if it contained a thousand gut-punches, and only a few gems of affirmation. I promise you, there are a handful of hopeless crushes from all our pasts, who were pining for us just as much. Life-changers that never happened.
Who am i, we all want to know...we strive to label it, yearning for the comfort of certainty. Am i who i THINK i am? Am i what others think? How will i ever know?
Even for the strongest, this culture provides enough disconnects to keep anyone in perpetual therapy.
We trudge on, constantly trying to get the world to agree with our self-serving self-image.
Who am i?
Who are you?
Who are we??