Are you more open about yourself than most?

[Geno]

Not referring to blurting out things that shouldn't have been said like the other thread on this page, but, you know when somebody is a "private person" who gives you pretty much no information on their life or themselves? I'm basically the opposite. I'll almost always tell people the truth about myself, what I do, and what I've done, even if it'll make people think less of me. (of course there's some things I keep hidden, though, not very many.)

I don't SAY much about myself usually, but I'm an open book when asked things, and I actually enjoy the "personal questions" many seem to hate being asked.

An example is, I'm open about my recreational drug use, even with people I've met recently who aren't in to that themselves. Why? Someone who'd judge me and not want to be friends with me due to that is not a person I'd want in my life anyway.

[CheekyMonkey]

I don't have natural reservations about things like that either. I suppose I don't want to put forth the effort to "hide" things and find it easier to just put things out in the open.

With age, I've learned to curb this habit more. There are time when it is not helpful at all!

[Sentetsu]

I'm with Cheeky, I would just rather be open about myself then hide anything. Generally if someone asks me anything about me, I'll respond truthfully to a fault.

[ginniebean]

I am a pretty reserved person naturally, I don't like to give out information and often regret doing so. That said, I have worked hard on here to be more revealing about myself and my struggles because I feel it's important. Yet I do often find this painful.

[sarek]

I'm a rather closed person myself. That helps balance out the impulsiveness. I also found that with quite a few people(NT people mostly), trying to be more sharing has no advantages at all. They either do not care or do not understand.

[Geno]

Originally Posted by sarek

I'm a rather closed person myself. That helps balance out the impulsiveness. I also found that with quite a few people(NT people mostly), trying to be more sharing has no advantages at all. They either do not care or do not understand.

Yeah, but the downfall to being a closed person is, people will start to wonder WHY you're closed, and people will be far less willing to open up to you. By being so open about myself, people are comfortable opening up to me in the same fashion. There's been so many times when people have said "You know, I've never told anyone this, but...", people have always been comfortable telling me personal, touchy things because of how open and easy to talk to I am. Plus the fact I don't treat people differently based on what they've done in the past. You could be a 20-year heroin addict with a violent crime record and I'll still treat you with the same respect as anyone else. (only exception to this is if the person has done something horrible to me or someone I love.)

[fracturedstory]

Not one bit. By the way the colour of the underwear I'm wearing is green.

[Sentetsu]

Originally Posted by thegreatgeno

By being so open about myself, people are comfortable opening up to me in the same fashion. There's been so many times when people have said "You know, I've never told anyone this, but...", people have always been comfortable telling me personal, touchy things because of how open and easy to talk to I am.

This is exactly what I've experienced. People become quick friends with me for this reason, even though I have trouble maintaining the friendship.

[Ocyan]

Originally Posted by thegreatgeno

[...]Why? Someone who'd judge me and not want to be friends with me due to that is not a person I'd want in my life anyway.

Start honest from the get go. I share your mentality. No surprises not visiting cards. Just a bit of you being you. People don't like you, they can go to the neighbor. Why hiding ?

Simple

This having said - depending on the situation, I like to keep some modesty or mystery, or call it rather being imprecise to avoid involuntary self contradiction, or just to give it a style. Being vague leaves people the rest to their imagination, and that leads to desire. In proportionate quantities, that pleases me.

[Assumption]

I go too far with honesty about myself. I don't like people to misunderstand. Even if that misunderstanding makes me look good. It makes me uncomfortable and feel the need to correct them.

Example: "wow, you have a publication in psyc bulletin, that's amazing. Well done!"
"well actually, my supervisor did most of the work. I just did the literature search and helped with coding and editing..."

In that case, I really don't need to downplay my success. In fact, I really SHOULD do the opposite. But I don't like to misrepresent.

[Geno]

Originally Posted by Assumption

I go too far with honesty about myself. I don't like people to misunderstand. Even if that misunderstanding makes me look good. It makes me uncomfortable and feel the need to correct them.

Example: "wow, you have a publication in psyc bulletin, that's amazing. Well done!"
"well actually, my supervisor did most of the work. I just did the literature search and helped with coding and editing..."

In that case, I really don't need to downplay my success. In fact, I really SHOULD do the opposite. But I don't like to misrepresent.

Yeah, I do the same thing!

Some things I've said to people I don't know too well.

Them: Tell me a funny story?
Me: Well, I could tell you about the time when I was 14, I drank an entire bottle of robitussin cough syrup while on antidepressants and the mix caused me to almost die, temporarily become psychotic and get something known as "Serotonin syndrome"?
Them: What the hell is wrong with you?
Me: A lot, a whole lot. I take it you don't want to hear the story?
Them: I didn't say that, tell me!

or...

Them: *sigh* i'm so sad, my girlfriend broke up with me.
Me: Look at the bright side, at least you're able to function and your depression happened for a reason. Imagine, for no or little reason, suddenly falling in to a depression so deep that every minute of your very existence is hell and the only reason you don't off yourself is because you don't want to move.
Them: that's not depression, that's insanity
Me: They can be one in the same.
(after that they're usually actually quite interested and ask a lot of questions)

(Note, I was never actually suicidal. I just became apathetic about whether I lived or not, but I never actually had plans to end it because of my belief that suicide is cowardly and selfish.)

[Ocyan]

Intriguing stories, did they actually happen ?

[Geno]

Originally Posted by Ocyan

Intriguing stories, did they actually happen ?

Yes sir, would you like to hear them? The serotonin syndrome story usually entertains people somewhat because it was because of my dumbassery, while the depression one is, well, depressing:P Another story people like is the first time I used stimulants to stay awake for 4 days and had to go to school (12th grade) on the 4th day.

[Ocyan]

I'm all ears...

[Geno]

I'll post one now and two later, they're rather long. This is about the binge.

Rewind back to a year and a half ago, my senior year of HS. A friend of mine tells me about this new legal chemical called "2-FMA" (To give you idea of it's effects, that stands for 2-Fluoromethamphetamine). I found it hard to believe you could get what was essentially meth legally online, but I gave it a go and ordered 5g of it for 100 bucks. Keep in mind at this point I had never tried stimulants and I didn't know I had ADHD. (Ironically my stimulant abuse and the way they affected me was what made me look up ADHD and realize I had it.) The package arrived two days after Christmas and I took out the bag of white powder, which looked exactly like confectioner's sugar(tastes like what you'd expect a chemical to taste like though). I emptied out a capsule pill and put about 150mg of the 2-FMA in there (Equivalent to about 30-40mg of adderall, only the high is MUCH smoother), and swallowed it.

Twenty minutes passed and I felt nothing, so I went stood up to go outside, and when I stood up it hit me, it suddenly felt like a piece of me that was missing my entire life had been replaced, I was so happy I had tears in my eyes. But the thing is, it didn't make me feel like I expected a stimulant to feel like, it made me feel incredibly relaxed, content, and all I wanted to do was have a deep conversation with someone. I remembered that stims make boring things fun, so I went outside and shoveled snow off of the driveway and had the time of my life. It no longer felt like a chore, but an incredibly fun game. I shoveled the sidewalks in front of all 20+ houses on our street.

Anyway, now on to the fun part of the story. Fastforward two days. I haven't slept or eaten, I've been redosing every 6 hours, and most of the effects were gone. All redosing did was keep me awake, emotionally I didn't feel bad, or good. Just blank.

But, I wanted to see what it was like to stay awake for 4 days, so I continued. By the third night (80ish hours awake, still dehydrated and malnourished) things had gotten weird. I remember watching Two and a half Men on TV and thinking the people on there were my friends and they were actually standing in my house, I picked up my phone and texted my girlfriend telling her that "she should come over because charlie and alan are here". (characters on the show). She said "I don't know who they are but I can't come over, I have no car.". I thought for some reason she lived across the street instead of 20 miles away, so I said "oh you don't need a ****ing car to come across the street, come over.". Luckily she knew about my little experiment, haha.

4am on the 3rd night, I realize I'm losing more of a grip on my mind with every passing minute and I have school in a few hours. I figured sleeping now was futile so I redosed and left. At school the psychosis got worse, as I started seeing shadow people in the corner of my eye, and I kept seeing bugs crawling all over my desk even though, for some reason, none of the other people in the room were at all stirred by the fact there were cockroaches circling my desk.

This is where **** makes a turn from weird to scary. It's a school, people talk and laugh a lot. Well, every single laugh and conversation I heard, I believed was about me. I thought everyone was trying to kill me. Then I pulled out a cigarette and lit it and smoked it in the middle of class, except I hallucinated the cigarette because no one cared about the fact I was smoking in the middle of a classroom. At this point, I decided I've pushed my luck plenty far enough, went to the bathroom, stuck my finger in my throat and puked on the floor, and said I didn't feel good and needed to go home. My dad came and picked me up as I was in no shape to drive, I went home, and slept for the next 26 hours. I woke up with parkinson style tremors and every single muscle in my body ached, in addition to an overwhelming feeling of derealization. (everything and everyone that's familiar feels wrong, messed up. it's a horrible feeling, 2nd worst you can feel behind the worst forms of depression.)

From then on, whenever I got more 2-FMA, I gave it to a friend of mine to never allow me more than a gram every two days, haha.

All in all, I don't regret it. It let me live for one day how schizophrenics live their whole lives. Psychosis is something you can never truly fathom or understand unless you've been through it, it was far different than I always imagined it being in a way I can't explain. A chemical being able to have that huge of an effect on your brain is what sparked my interest in pharmacology, I wanted to know how it did what it did. Fastforward to now I have a shelf full of pharmacology manuals and textbooks. Also, if anyone decided to try this, do yourself a favor and make sure you eat SOME food. A big part of the nasty effects I got were from malnutrition.