i. Acting 'out of character': Who am I ?!

Something happened this week which upset me terribly and made me wonder 'who' I really am.

Then, by chance, I read about a psychological phenomena which put the world right again for me and reassured me that I am who I think I am … most of the time. 

Let me explain:

We all have personalities which across time are fairly stable and persistent.  So, in any given situations and when relating to other people we tend to behave in a fairly predictable and consistent way.

'Trait psychology' defines five dimensions of personality in which people are distributed along a continuum so that a 'bell shaped curve' results (one of those graphs where most people are somewhere in the middle but a few people are positioned at the low or the high extremes).

These dimensions can be put in order of the mnemonic OCEAN':

O - Openness to experiences vs closed
C - conscientiousness vs unconscientious
E - extroversion vs introversion
A - agreeable individuals vs not agreeable individuals
N - neurotic individuals vs more stable emotionally individuals

So, for me I think that I’m middling range in the traits - open to experiences, conscientious, extroverted, agreeable, and unfortunately I’m a bit neurotic - I have had mild-moderate general anxiety. I’ve worried about things for as long as I can remember. And, as part of my anxiety, I’ve suffered with both anorexia nervosa in my teens (as has one of my daughters - the genes she inherited from me) and perfectionism; although I’ve now ‘learned’ to overcome the eating disorder, my perfectionistic traits and my anxiety almost completely (it flares only occasionally).

My dad suffered with anxiety, as did his mother (my paternal grandmother), so from my father I was able to model some of his adaptive coping mechanisms to deal with my anxiety: jogging (my father taught me), distraction (listening to music and watching television), exposure (just get out there and do things … and see that you’re OK and you’re still breathing) and finally - things my father never learned - talking to people about my worries, ‘problem-solving (listing my worries/problems and writing alternative possible solutions for each one)’, and ‘cognitive behavioural therapy’ (CBT) where I learned to see (interpret) the world in a less scary way and allow myself to stop trying to be ‘perfect’ and accept ‘average’ and ‘failing’ as just part of learning and life.

Fortunately, I never turned to ‘maladaptive' coping mechanisms for my anxiety: alcohol, drugs, self-destructive behaviour.

And so, like all of us, my genes have determined many of my personality traits some of which have made my life easier (my strengths) and some  have made my life more difficult and challenging (my weaknesses). The latter ones I’ve needed to work on.

We all have personality strengths and weaknesses. 

We can learn to work to our strengths - if we learn what they are That usually means following the things which come more easily and naturally to us. For example, I would never try to be a fighter-pilot or a neurosurgeon - as I’m not calm enough for those jobs.  But engaged in work where I get to talk with people, help people, and use my analytic skills - I tend to flourish and enjoy myself.

You often know the things you can do fairly well - because they seem to come more easily to you and you’ll often find that you enjoy those things most.  You might even be passionate about them.

Psychologists acknowledge that we are obviously more than just a bunch of psychological traits mapped along continuum graphs. And, while we might share our traits with many other people, we are still unique and different to every other person on the planet. 

So personality traits cannot explain all of who we are.

The determinants of our personalities are basically a product of three main things:

- Biogenic (nature/genes): neurophysiology
- Sociogenic - related to the cultural and social aspects of our lives.
- Idiosyncratic - the things which make us all uniquely ‘ourselves,’ different to anyone else.

The idiosyncratic qualities - which make each of us unique - are the qualities which determine how other people see us, know us, and love us. 

And so what things make up the ‘idiosyncratic’ part of our personality?

The answer to that is ‘we don’t know specifically’. It could be just chance  how the 100 billion neurones in our brains make random connections during our lives - before and after birth - with between 100 trillion and 1000 trillions connections forming. This is the cause for our brains being completely unique from each other.

However, it may also be less simply just ‘chance’ and more related to our ‘souls’.  As I’ve mentioned many times, I’ve become quite spiritual in recent years (although I’m not religious) as have many doctors who deal constantly with life and death. We see so many ‘coincidences’ and ‘miracles’ which we cannot explain - it does make some of us wonder if there’s more to the story than chance.

And, if we have souls and there is a spiritual side to life - then maybe our differences as people are linked to our individual souls (maybe we’re souls with bodies, rather than bodies with souls) and our life journeys (destinies) which we can choose, or not, to follow during our lives - are about learning life lessons (love, compassion, helping, tolerance, patience), and helping other people with their journeys. (I think we all, to varying extents, help each other during our lives - which is lovely).

Whatever the cause, it is the idiosyncratic parts of our personalities which determine our ‘Free traits’: That is the ways we choose to live: Our passions and our projects - activities, causes and people - which we decide are most important to us during our lives.

These projects, priorities and passions can sometimes even cause us to drastically change our ‘personality traits’ - act ‘out of character’ for periods of time - to pursue or achieve them.

For example, an introverted woman who hates arguing with authority figures and is usually very agreeable and easy-going might, for a period of time, argue with doctors and nursing staff in a major hospital - raising her voice and become very disagreeable and extroverted - if her dying mother is suffering in a hospital bed - inadequately medicated for pain relief, shivering with cold, and lying for hours in soiled sheets. She might act contrary to her usual mild mannered ways because of her passionate concern for her beloved mother whom she feels she must protect.

Following such an outburst of ‘out of character’ behaviour - although necessary, possibly, to get the help her mother needs - this woman would probably feel exhausted and upset.

The ‘core projects’ we have in our lives - including caring for our families, caring for our patients (if you’re in the health profession), pursuing our hobbies and passions - are the things which matter so much to us that we might sometimes force ourselves to behave very differently from our usual trait personalities.

And that is what happened to me this week. 

I felt awful afterwards, although - if I were in the same situation again - I would behave very similarly. In fact, now I think about it,  I’ve behaved ‘out of character’ on many occasions during my life - especially when someone I love needs me to fight for them.

In the situation this week I realised, from the way I behaved, how passionately I care about my patients.  And, I know I’m not unique in caring about, and fighting for, other people in this way.

But this week the situation happened as follows:

Walking into the waiting room to call in my next patient I noticed a tall woman, aged around 40, standing at the reception desk staring at me. I didn’t know her and I didn’t know why she was looking at me so intently.

She then spoke loudly, ‘You sell patient’s books here, do you’? She gestured towards a little table in a corner with a small book stand on it in which I have a few novels written by friends who are authors.  The book stand in my waiting room is just a way I’m helping my friends - we make no money from it. The woman continued, ‘I’m a patient at this clinic and I want you to sell my cook book too!’

I was taken off guard as no-one has ever made such a demand of me. It was also a busy morning in my clinic and my focus was on medicine and my patients.

However, a part of me also loved the idea of helping someone - especially in the shared passion of writing. But there was much to consider: Stocking this woman’s book would mean that I’d need to buy a bigger book-stand.

So, I began to explain to the woman - in my usual agreeable and polite way -  that stocking her book (completely as a favour to her with no profits to us - as for the other two novelists who are my friends) would be possible … but I’d need to purchase a bigger book-rack first.

As I was thinking of the logistics of helping this woman she spoke again: ‘My books are cookbooks for people with coeliac disease.’

That changed everything!  Her books were effectively ‘medical books’ as coeliac disease is a medical condition treated with diet. If the dietary advice is incorrect people with coeliac disease can get very sick.

‘Are you a dietician?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘But I have a science degree.’

And that’s when I started to change my mind about stocking her book. I didn’t think that I could put my patients at risk with dietary advice by someone who was not a dietician.  I wouldn’t even give such advice to them.  In the hospitals in Australia even the specialist physicians have to defer this sort of advice to qualified dieticians.

The woman then began to push me to sell her book … and I began to argue that I thought a dietician was necessary for such a book. The woman’s anger grew and I became disagreeable and assertive and annoyed …

I began to act in a way very different from my usual helpful and agreeable self. I hated behaving that way. It upset me and exhausted me. It made me so miserable as I felt like I was hurting the feelings of the woman who obviously loved her book and she’d put so much work into it.

Still, more important than her feelings was the safety and health of my patients. I have a duty of care to them. That comes ahead of me acting in a way I prefer to act - helpful, agreeable.

Finally, when I had had enough of the arguing about the necessity of a dietician for such a book I turned and left saying, ‘I won’t stock your book. Goodbye.’

The woman then stormed off leaving us both upset.

I called in my next patient and I felt completely awful all afternoon… and that night … and for days in fact.

I hate arguing.

I hate asserting myself to dominating people.  I avoid those situations like  the plague. I generally manage to avoid confrontations with aggressively assertive and pushy people by surrounding myself with quieter more agreeable people. The other personality traits of my friends and associates can be whatever you like - but I hate to fight. Fighting of any kind upsets me for days. I’ll do it if I have to - but I hate it. I think ‘disagreeable types’ - especially when they are pushing me to do something I don’t want to do - are my worst nightmare.

I grew up in a violent house with daily screaming and police and fighting.  My parents were physically and verbally abusive so maybe that’s the reason for my aversion to fighting. Maybe it’s a result of social factor’s in my childhood.  Maybe it’s also genetic.  I recall that even when I was very little I used to give my toys away to other people and try to make other people happy. Probably, like most physical and psychological conditions, it’s a mixture of both: nature and nurture.

But part of the reason I did argue in this case - and I’ve done so before and I’ll do it again if I must - is that I realise from my behaviour that one of my life ‘passions’ is taking care of people:  My patients, my children, my husband, my friends, and anyone I think is being bullied.  I think most people would do the same. Maybe some people, however, would find it all easier than me. Their personality traits would be more suited to confrontations. Maybe those people would enjoy work as social workers or lawyers or police officers. 

But, I did what anxious people like me do when we feel upset about something:  I discussed the episode with every person I know - friends and family, I went swimming to ‘de-stress’, I ‘problem solved’ so I’ll be more ready if I’m confronted again in a similar way by people making demands on me on the spot at work: I’ll say, ‘I’ll think about it.’ I also distracted myself from my worries with a few comedies and lovely music … and I wrote a blog (and you’re reading it) … then I let it go. 

For anyone reading this who finds confrontations easy - then you probably can’t understand how I find them so hard.  Obviously, that is your strength and my weakness. I don’t think it will ever be my strength - but with practice and reflection I can improve - then go back to avoiding confrontation as much as I can.

In your own case, acting ‘out of character’ may not mean of course arguing with anyone.  It might mean behaving as a ‘pseudo-extrovert’, if you’re naturally an introvert, to promote your book or apply for the job you’d love or stand in front of a class if you love teaching.  Then, after that period of time where you’ve behaved in a way not natural for you, you can relax and repair yourself.  Protracted ‘acting out of character’ can be exhausting, however, and not good for your health.

For me this experience can be classed as practice in asserting myself - hopefully in a polite way - for when I need to do so in the future. Hopefully next time I can be assertive but less upset and defensive.

Since reading about the psychology of ‘acting out of character’ over and above our natural personality traits to pursue and achieve a core project/passion - I’ve also come to understand why my disagreeable and more extroverted behaviour felt so uncomfortable and exhausting for me. However, I also surprised myself a little to see how passionately I care about my patient’s health and safety.  I care about them as I do my own family.

Maybe, therefore, my personality traits are well matched to the life path I chose as a doctor and a wife and a mother. Or, maybe, that was my destiny and I was given personality traits needed to follow that path.  Who knows.


Last thing:

A little psychology test to see if someone’s behaviour is ‘out of character’ for them and likely to be the result by external causes or that is who they really are:
 
Look at how a person behaves at different times with:
- different situations,
- different places
- different people

If that individual behaves differently in only ONE situation or place or with a single person - they are likely ‘acting out of character’ and the external event/place or person is triggering the aberrant behaviour in them.

However, if across different situations, places and with different people the individual behaves in the same way (ie rude, abusive, angry, impatient) then it likely that it is not external events causing the behaviour (ie. the individual may say these different situations and people ‘cause’ them to behave that way) but this is actually who they really are:  their personality traits - constant and persistent over time.

This may be a good thing or a bad thing - depending on their behaviour and how that suits your personality.