When others estimations of you dont fit your own

[Lark]

I was thinking about this at the time it happened but didnt discuss it with anyone, in part because I dont know that many people who are that analytical or interested in psychology in real life.

I was out with some friends and they were passing comment on my laugh, I've got a big booming laugh that wont quit when I get started, I like to laugh and laugh a lot, it feels good and I like humour. Anyway, my friend was saying what was wrong that I wasnt laughing on this occasion, which was a bit strange because you cant laugh all the time but he then went on to say that he'd be afraid if I wasnt laughing because if someone like me quit laughing I'd have to be about to carry out a massacre or something.

I was a little shocked by the association between being, what I'd regard as regular common or garden good humoured and some sort of extremes of emotion or pathological label. Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing were someone else's observations have radically differed from their own assessment of themselves? Also is that more common now than it once was? To attribute behaviour or thinking to the strange, sinister or disordered?

 

[wildcat]

I was thinking about this at the time it happened but didnt discuss it with anyone, in part because I dont know that many people who are that analytical or interested in psychology in real life.

I was out with some friends and they were passing comment on my laugh, I've got a big booming laugh that wont quit when I get started, I like to laugh and laugh a lot, it feels good and I like humour. Anyway, my friend was saying what was wrong that I wasnt laughing on this occasion, which was a bit strange because you cant laugh all the time but he then went on to say that he'd be afraid if I wasnt laughing because if someone like me quit laughing I'd have to be about to carry out a massacre or something.

I was a little shocked by the association between being, what I'd regard as regular common or garden good humoured and some sort of extremes of emotion or pathological label. Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing were someone else's observations have radically differed from their own assessment of themselves? Also is that more common now than it once was? To attribute behaviour or thinking to the strange, sinister or disordered?

Estimation is a thing of the other.
You cannot assess yourself.
Observation does not vary.

It is one thing.

 

[Thursday]

like when my friend's friends think that I hate them when I just don't see potential in our union and I forgo the unnecessary interaction? Of Course.

 

[Fluffywolf]

I was thinking about this at the time it happened but didnt discuss it with anyone, in part because I dont know that many people who are that analytical or interested in psychology in real life.

I was out with some friends and they were passing comment on my laugh, I've got a big booming laugh that wont quit when I get started, I like to laugh and laugh a lot, it feels good and I like humour. Anyway, my friend was saying what was wrong that I wasnt laughing on this occasion, which was a bit strange because you cant laugh all the time but he then went on to say that he'd be afraid if I wasnt laughing because if someone like me quit laughing I'd have to be about to carry out a massacre or something.

I was a little shocked by the association between being, what I'd regard as regular common or garden good humoured and some sort of extremes of emotion or pathological label. Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing were someone else's observations have radically differed from their own assessment of themselves? Also is that more common now than it once was? To attribute behaviour or thinking to the strange, sinister or disordered?

I think everyone has, but as an INTP, I experience this daily. I stopped catering peoples opinions about me to everyone around me somewhere along the lines though, so I'm positively certain there are people around me that are unjustly scared shitless of me. It kinda works for me. Especially in the work division.

No worries, people close to me know what the deal about me is.

 

[nolla]

If it happens with people I thought knew me, it is a bit alarming... Lately I've been thinking if what I see as me being open doesn't mean that other people can read me. There are people who I would like to see me as I am, but who don't. I don't know what to do with it.

 

[Lily Bart]

People don't really think about such things, they just react. If it occurs to them to say something, and they just say it. Frankly, irritating as it is, don't take it seriously. As an INFJ, I suspect it happens to me more than most people, but maybe not. My favorite is when they attribute things to my very outgoing ENTP husband that are mine -- like my garden, or all the books I read, or my all time favorite, somebody complemented him on how nicely he decorated the kitchen one time -- and believe me, it wouldn't occur to him to decorate a kitchen to save his life!

 

[Totenkindly]

If it happens with people I thought knew me, it is a bit alarming... Lately I've been thinking if what I see as me being open doesn't mean that other people can read me. There are people who I would like to see me as I am, but who don't. I don't know what to do with it.

I recently found out that a lot of my behavior earlier in my marriage had been heavily misconstrued by my spouse's side of the family. It wasn't shocking in itself (they are very different from me)... only in how off-base and incorrect the judgments actually were... although if I put myself in their shoes, I can see why they thought what they did. I made some mistakes, and they did not rise to the occasion of seeing beyond themselves.

(To be more specific about some of it, they attributed a lot of my seclusion as purposeful rejection of family, where for me it was actually a coping mechanism meant to protect my family from stressful outbursts I might have had otherwise. And my silence was often meant as respect for other people's ideas, and instead it was read as disinterest, etc. And I also did not do things the way they thought they should be done, and they read it as a deficiency rather than as diversity.)

What to do?

Sometimes there's not much to do except live your life in a way that reflects your values, beliefs, and ethics -- so that you're proud (and not ashamed) of who you are regardless -- and meanwhile try to communicate in ways that others can grasp so they have the option to self-correct, if they want it.

But it's a two-way street. If someone else has chosen to be myopic or harbor bitterness, it's best to shake the dust off your shoes and move on.

 

[miss fortune]

Everyone always misconstrues the things I say into something amazingly bitchy when I just tend to speak without thinking first

I've been yelled at by people on many occasions just because they thought I was being mean and insensitive when I hadn't meant what I said that way at all... what assholes

 

[prplchknz]

I do the same thing where I say shit without thinking, but then people usually laugh. People take me as harmless, so it's ok. And honestly, I'm no longer worried if people don't understand what I mean, it's sometimes easier to let them be confused, or think what they want. I know the truth, and one day they'll be like ooohhhhhhhhh

 

[nolla]

Sometimes there's not much to do except live your life in a way that reflects your values, beliefs, and ethics -- so that you're proud (and not ashamed) of who you are regardless -- and meanwhile try to communicate in ways that others can grasp so they have the option to self-correct, if they want it.

Yep, that's right.. You can't much help it if people just don't get what you are. But in my case it is actually much more positive than what you were describing. The people who don't like me, those I don't care about, but the people who I like, it is strange how they see my motives. It was really a compliment that triggered my public image analyzing this time. It was said somehow like, I am seen as a nice guy that does things for people out of a feeling of obligation. I don't remember how it was phrased, but the idea that I do things because I feel like I have to is foreign to me. If I like someone, I like to help them. If I did it as if I had to do it, then it would mean that I do things for people in order to be liked. For me there is a big difference. Well, it might have just been that the person saying this used a different expression than what I would have used, but it started bugging me. I am not a "nice" person in that sense.

 

[Mole]

I can be emotionally consonant or emotionally dissonant.

And I can be intellectually understood or intellectually misunderstood.

So I can be consonant and understood, or consonant and misunderstood. Or I can be dissonant and understood or dissonant and misunderstood.

Each combination has its uses.

I find the most difficult is to be dissonant and misunderstood. Often because it can be a little dangerous.

But there is little danger here, so I can be dissonant and misunderstood to my heart's content.

It's like exercising an unused muscle - sometimes a little painful, sometimes I overdo it - but always something new and exciting.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

My concept of myself differed so often from how my family portrayed me that I lost most of my self-identity I think.

It's slowly coming back, because of all my interaction with people outside of my family these days. What they think of me differs greatly from my family (and tends to be much more positive).

In a way, it has retrospectively made me angrier toward my family, since now they seem like the only people on the planet that don't appreciate certain things in me. But is it justified? Are the comments I'm getting from these acquaintances more accurate than the ones from my family? I have no idea. I'm insecure, I'm always wondering who is correct.

 

[nolla]

In a way, it has retrospectively mad me angrier toward my family, since now they seem like the only people on the planet that don't appreciate certain things in me. But is it justified? Are the comments I'm getting from these acquaintances more accurate than the ones from my family? I have no idea. I'm insecure, I'm always wondering who is correct.

Difference between family and all the other people is that you can't choose your family. That's why some have to deal with great differences between different members of their family. I know I wouldn't want to make friends with some of my family members, if I met them now for the first time. I don't think that is a bad thing to think this way. People are different, and your family judges you more harshly than the others because the others that would judge you just aren't involved enough to say anything. Personally I try to find the people I am comfortable with. I can't please everyone. (This doesn't mean that I would burn bridges behind me, though...)

 

[OrangeAppled]

I'm used to people having weird ideas about my personality. Although, their misconceptions are usually predictable, occasionally one catches me off-guard as it's really "out there"....