ARCHETYPES

Growing up, there was something about being defined that I was drawn to. The answer to who I was had always eluded me, so I looked to other people and objects to tell me where the boundaries of my personality were. At some point, I became a collection of different archetypes. My repertoire of two-dimensional characters was approachable and familiar. I was the party girl, the cool girl, the girl next door, the shy girl, and even sometimes the sporty girl. These archetypes fueled my choices and shielded me from the supposed devastation that came with being different. Reinforcing these personas felt akin to what others would call motivation. I slowly changed my wardrobe, my slang, and my hobbies to fit these archetypes. The clothes, while not synonymous with personality, felt like putting on a costume. They made the shapeshifting easier. I was still me somewhere deep down, but I had figured out how to hide in plain sight with a fake sense of “I have it all figured out” written all over my face.

To some, I was the person they only saw going out, the party girl. In high school, a good friend told me that they liked the version of me that partied and “had fun,” so it became a crutch I sometimes rested on. Some people drink to feel relief from stress, but for me, it worked to bring out my social alter-ego. A night out became a performance, crafted well in advance of my first sip of alcohol, every move carefully choreographed to create an experience for my teenage friends that, if executed properly, would leave behind a positive memory of me with my audience. My costume always consisted of a low-cut black tank top and my favorite pair of dark wash jeans that frayed slightly at the ankles and fit in all the right places. Black on black was safe. By the time I was ready to go, I’d feel warm, ready to become the version of myself that was funnier, more confident and could easily turn strangers into friends.

When I started college, I quickly learned that my party girl façade could no longer keep up, so a different archetype took over. This one appeared more regularly and pushed the world further away by suppressing more of herself to fit the part. When I donned my brown sunglasses and leather jacket, my RBF (or “resting bitch face”) led for me, projecting an image of cool indifference into the world. Normally this worked out fine. People didn’t approach me for directions, and they didn’t strike up conversations with me at the beginning of a flight while the remaining passengers piled on to take their seats. This version of myself at her best pretended to know who she was and what mattered to her. But most days, she was stunted. No one knew how I felt about them and instead of being surrounded by people who knew all of my flaws and loved me despite them, I loved people who saw me as a stranger. I retreated inside of myself, scared to show a hint of insecurity that might shatter their illusion. Feigned indifference became part of my daily life. I thought that I liked being perceived as cold, and to acknowledge that there was a problem with that would mean challenging the box that I had allowed other people to put me in. It was easier to continue pretending.

By my junior year, I knew which character fit any given context quickly and could easily make the shift. But spending so much time subverting my needs and wants and insecurities in favor of portraying fractured versions of what I believed to be myself made me increasingly disengaged. I was so caught up in how I was supposed to act that I didn’t let myself care about my emotions, let alone feel them. The real me had vanished, I had lost sight of who I was, and I no longer knew if there was a way for me to look within to resolve the problem.

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FORTUNE FISH