I have often referenced the term “persona”. A persona is what you meet. A person is someone you get to know in time. Sometimes sooner than faster. There are also moments in life, where personae are bypassed and due to the uniqueness/intensity/timing of a specific situation, a persona has no time to kick in and the true self shines through with the intensity required from the situation at hand.
In his psychological theory – which is not necessarily linked to a particular theory of social structure – the persona appears as a consciously created personality or identity, fashioned out of part of the collective psyche through socialization, acculturation and experience. Jung applied the term persona, explicitly because, in Latin, it means both personality and the masks worn by Roman actors of the classical period, expressive of the individual roles played.
The persona, he argues, is a mask for the “collective psyche”, a mask that ‘pretends’ individuality, so that both self and others believe in that identity, even if it is really no more than a well-played role through which the collective psyche is expressed. Jung regarded the “persona-mask” as a complicated system which mediates between individual consciousness and the social community: it is “a compromise between the individual and society as to what a man should appear to be”. But he also makes it quite explicit that it is, in substance, a character mask in the classical sense known to theatre, with its double function: both intended to make a certain impression on others, and to hide (part of) the true nature of the individual. The therapist then aims to assist the individuation process through which the client (re)gains their “own self” – by liberating the self, both from the deceptive cover of the persona, and from the power of unconscious impulses.
Jung has become enormously influential in management theory; not just because managers and executives have to create an appropriate “management persona” (a corporate mask) and a persuasive identity, but also because they have to evaluate what sort of people the workers are, in order to manage them (for example, using personality tests and peer reviews).
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I have a favourite picture of my youngest of six children, taken ten years ago when he was 28. He’s Asperger, as are all my kids, and my ex husband in varying degrees. “Asperger’s are all good looking, as if God made up for their inability to empathize with others by making them immediately attractive to others.” Not my words, but those of Dr Tony Attwood, (2nd top) Asperger Specialist in the world. In my favourite photo of my handsome, charismatic, dark haired, dark (mud brown) eyed youngest son, he wears a fancy dress mask, it’s painted on brilliantly by him, it’s identical to the Phantom of the Opera, Gerrard Butler (Andrew Lloyd Webber) style. He’s wearing a black leather studded blouson/shirt with folded arms, and for once, so unlike Asperger’s, he’s staring straight into the camera, a real Heathcliff brooding figure, on his way to a fantasy warrior enactment where he went with his two best friends. I never see him now, since 2017, l’m rejected, because l know he’s Asperger, he hates me. Demands l say he isn’t, but l can’t, l went to hell and back with it enough. But that picture is exactly how l discovered Asperger behaves in people that l love, you get to see half of them, you know only half of them, they wear a mask every day of their lives, it is never removed. They lie every day of their lives, merely to survive, and they do it well. If you get too close, you are told (by my ex) “you got inside my head, l can never live with you again, even l don’t understand my own head, you know me better than l know myself, l can’t stay with you!” Thus ended our quarter of a century of marriage.
PS: addendum to last entry. Now imagine you are me, born a medium, wide open to everyone, to every lie, every mood, every pain, every hateful thought, and with the gift of not only seeing the dead, but reading the living too. Beautiful people cross my path, but God, in His infinite wisdom, chose my path among the moody, lost, frightened, angry souls. My job to bring peace, calm, and self belief to them. Then off they go, and forget that l exist. Gosh it’s lonely. But, He’ll explain one day. I just ask to earn my stripes enough to cross His doorway. May He bless everyone who reads me.
Everyone has to put out some kind of persona just to survive this world. Take for example working with others. I always felt I should hide some parts of myself because when I was younger I couldn’t or didn’t want the people I worked with to see “ME”. I’m different, and it seemed if people got to close that meant they could judge me. I’m older now and don’t really care what other people think. Back then it felt like the end of the world.
There are some people I just don’t have time for as well, they just don’t get my interest….period. I ignore those people and it makes me look stuck up. The only time I could really open up and participate is when I felt completely comfortable and that never ever happened at work.
Keeping up with personas actually, will lead a person to loose site of themselves and for me it damn near distroyed me. I had no way to express myself, the only way I could express “ME” is doing something creative. I started making quilts and those quilts where flamboyant to say the least. The angrier I was, the brighter and deeper to colors got.
The time I spent married was the best and worst time of my life. I actually had a husband that understood me, which was a miracle, cause I was a mess. But even with him, I had to put on a different mask every time we had to socialize around around people from his work life. Being unconfortable in hour own skin is a real buzz kill. Makes life so hard to live. I say be yourself, no matter what. Save yourself the stress and heartache. This is me take it or leave it.