What is the ‘Personality?’

One of the biggest mistakes we make in mental illness is by assuming that our identity and personality are the same thing. This becomes really confusing when, because of previous psychological trauma, our heightened response to threats becomes labelled as a ‘personality disorder’. We now have professionals confirming ‘we’ are broken, rather than recognising that we are simply deeply traumatised.

Our ‘personality’ is essentially our trauma.

If we have no trauma, our ‘personality’ tends to be fair and balanced. If we have suffered psychological trauma, our ‘personality’ may appear tetchy, unreasonable, or even dramatic. Yet at all times, our responses, conditioned through trauma, are not who we are — they are simply how we respond.

It can be very easy for those who suffered psychological trauma to feel broken. But they are not. You cannot break yourself. What happens is that you mistake your reactions, which may seem irrational, for your self.

Once you see that your ‘personality’ is nothing more than your conditioned responses — shaped by prior experience — and that your ‘self’ is not this, things begin to get easier. The self is the part that suffers, often through confusion, isolation, frustration, and rejection. But it arises because of your responses; it is not fixed or something that can be broken.

Simply recognise that self is not personality. Self is the reaction to personality. Personality consists of your memories and experiences that shape how you react to your world. It is entirely dependent on whether you have had a fair or unfair experience of life. This doesn’t invalidate trauma — it simply moves it into a place where we can gain control over it.

Does this make sense?

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet