problems-and-flowers

[problems-and-flowers]

Looking For Advice as Someone Newly Dealing With This

Hi, I'm very new to thinking about this part of my identity and am looking for some insight. I asked around and this seems to be the right place to talk about it. I apologize if anything I say sounds rude, I'm strictly speaking about my personal experience.

I heavily identity with a fictional character and I'm very weary about it. I've taken their name in some social circles, though I'm afraid to commit to it for reasons I'll get into. If I could I would take 100% of their physical appearance, though I haven't let myself do that for reasons I'll also get into. I have taken their personality to a much lesser extent. I do not identify as this character, however I identify with them a lot, to the extent I've taken parts of them as my own. I've done things like this before but they've all been to both a much lesser extent and have died down rather quickly. I've taken this one a lot farther and it hasn't seemed to die down.

I'm less excited to adopt this label or resonate with it because frankly I'm not very happy about it. Firstly, taking on parts of this character as my own is really distressing for me. In a perfect world I would dress exactly like them, but I could never let myself do that for a lot of reasons. Firstly because it'd be quite alienating, I don't have a crazy obsession with being "normal" or anything but it would undoubtedly make me stick out badly. The second and biggest reason is that if anyone in my presence knows of this character and recognizes my resemblance to them, that would create a lot of problems I don't want to deal with. Mainly how they'd perceive me and how it'd make me seem less genuine, sincere, and serious. I know to this community that isn't at all an issue, but to most people, if they saw me being like a character it would make them see me as not being myself. I'd seem more artifical. I understand it's easy to adapt the mindset of "just don't care what they think, do what makes you happy" but to me personally, I can't undermine that part of it because that part of how people will perceive me just isn't ignorable. That's just how I personally function, though. In summary my biggest problem is that people who know the character I'm imitating will naturally see me as less sincere. (I don't mean that as an attack at you all, but it is something that I am worried about for myself). My third issue is that even with the very few people I've been around who both know I imitate this character and know of the character I'm imitating, I get very angry and insecure whenever they equate the character to me. I have to force friends to not mention of the character I've taken as myself and not let them mention that I imitate them because it makes me feel bad about my identity. It makes me feel less secure in my sense of self, and even if I do reach a point where that doesn't affect me and I am okay with this imitation being myself, it still reminds me that it's not "me", and that hurts! I understand that in this group of people this idea is a lot more normalized so it may be difficult to relate to these thoughts, but keep in mind this is coming from someone who is both new to this and thinking a lot about how more ordinary people will perceive them.

This has gotten to be a big problem in my life. I get distressed whenever someone recognizes that I took their name. I get distressed whenever I remember that my preferred fashion choices are not something I can actually act upon because of how it relates to this character. (And also, even if I was around people who were 100% understanding of it and encouraged me to dress like them I still don't know if I could do it because frankly it's a little embarrassing). And it's kind of silly but I genuinely get emotionally distressed whenever I see them, like if I see a picture of this character somewhere I'll get angry and sad.

If you have any words to offer please give them to me. I'm pretty down about this. Also if any friends are reading this right now and you've pieced together everything, FUCK

[problems-and-flowers]

Looking for help with strange identity problem

Hi! I have an incredibly embarrassing problem that I have no clue how to talk about. I'm choosing to talk about it through this because that will hopefully shield me through the embarrassment. I'm also gonna be tagging this post a heck ton so I apologize if I'm just totally wrong about them. Interactions to this post encouraged

Lately I've been experiencing a, for me extremely new, issue with my identity in which I totally resonate and identity with a specific fictional character to where I start to want to become them. I am very embarrassed by this problem and don't really know how to handle it. I want to dress like them, I want to adopt their mannerisms, I want to look exactly like them, I want to have their name... in fact I've already taken their name. Don't know how to feel about that one

Resonating with anything in this sort of way is, I can't stress enough, totally new to me. I've never been one to "stan" characters (if that's even comparable) and I don't feel very comfortable at all with resonating with a character like this.

This is a problem for me because even though I do feel a sense of euphoria whenever I do take on parts of their character, I don't feel totally comfortable with it because I know it can't be kept up. I can't just become this character, that would be unimaginably weird and isn't realistic. Though if I could hypothetically become them without being bound by any sort of social rules, I totally would.

I don't know how to navigate this, I'm very embarrassed by it and already slightly embarrassed in the steps I've taken in adapting parts of their personality for myself in real life. Some details I think may be important to mention: If I could, I wouldn't switch out my pre-existing personality 1:1 with theirs, but, I'd want to get close. I am still a slight bit "me", but I resonate in some ways with this character a slight bit more than I resonate with myself.

I've seen some people commit to this stuff before online, like literally become the character they like and adapt them as their own as much as I'd like to, but something in the back of my mind tells me that's a little wild. And I wouldn't be able to do it myself anyway because of my ever present desire to be taken very seriously.

Point me in any directions, this problem is crazy. If there's communities that deal with this or something tell me, or any more appropriate tags I could use. I am very embarrassed by this problem