We Are All a Mixture of Opposites

Source: Envato Elements/FabrikaPhoto

Decades ago, I lived in a house in which my neighbour, Joanne, in the flat below was a senior nurse who worked in an operating theatre. Over time we became good friends. She told me how she was stern and scrupulous in ensuring that everything in her working environment which needed to be sterile was indeed kept sterile and that no stray items were ever where they shouldn’t be. Surfaces had to be left scrubbed and bare. The surgeons were terrified of her.

Yet, at home, her flat was a riotous jumble, discarded clothes thrown over chairs or on the floor, used breakfast bowls and mugs left teetering in the sink, drawers left hanging open after panicked searching for something lost, letters tossed aside any which way, regardless of importance. Those surgeons wouldn’t have believed it.

I thought of her again recently (she emigrated to New Zealand many years ago and, sadly, we lost touch) when I was visiting, in a voluntary capacity, a woman diagnosed with what is now termed complex PTSD. She had suffered serious emotional and occasional physical neglect as a child and has always had enormous difficulty managing her emotions. Velma is highly talented. She can carry out almost any practical task, always has the right tool for the job, and makes stunningly creative use of the tiniest of spaces for tidy and efficient storage of household items.

While 17 rolls of different kinds of sticking tape are cleverly intertwined and attached to hooks in a closet, the rest of her flat is a mess; everywhere boxes, newspapers, kitchen roll, face creams, unsent birthday cards—items brought temporarily from one room to another and then abandoned there, the forgotten detritus of everyday mayhem.

In short, Velma cannot find what she needs when she needs it—unless it is a particular screwdriver or specialist shoe polish or coloured cotton thread, which will always be in its allotted spot in a crate or cupboard.

So which was the real Joanne and which is the real Velma? Contradictory though the signature behaviours appear to be, they are just part and parcel of the same person. I see it in myself: While I deal highly efficiently, if reluctantly, with many tedious tasks, I also happily file stuff in what I euphemistically call "date order"—i.e., I slap the latest thing to arrive on top of an existing pile.

Increasingly, many people are being diagnosed with both autism and ADHD, which leads to some special conundrums. Individuals have written of their "autistic" need for a routine to reduce anxiety, only to find their ADH element craving for something novel and stimulating. Similarly, they may feel overstimulated by social contact, yet simultaneously crave it.

All this shows the error in trying to "pigeonhole" people, although that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Personality tests are still often used by psychologists and employers to assess job applicants’ character traits in an attempt to match them to a company’s needs or culture. However, other psychologists are increasingly coming to realise that personality, despite long having been deemed fixed and enduring, is actually malleable, susceptible to circumstances, and commonly fluctuates from day to day or even hour to hour.¹ Even minor stress changes us, they found, having looked at the impact on behaviour of "hassles" such as looming work deadlines, spats within the family, too many chores, and suchlike.

We may all behave in ways that are seemingly "out of character," some of which serve us better than others. Human Givens practitioners have a creative way of helping people to identify these many facets of their own personalities and take control of any that are unhelpful at particular times.² Imagining them as separate entities with names can help us see ourselves in the round more clearly.

I remember working with an actress once, who was treated with kid gloves on the set of the soap opera she starred in. She could click her fingers and people came running. But this same person was struggling to complain about faulty workmanship on the new kitchen she was having installed at home: She went into panic and couldn’t get any words out. I relaxed her, encouraged her to access the "diva" part of her, and to let Diva have the necessary conversation with the kitchen installer. It worked a treat.

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We are all a mash-up of mixed emotions and behaviours and values. What matters, I think, is to become aware of this and recognise where and when different selves are to be celebrated, and where some may be holding us back and need to be nudged aside.