Why Do I Feel Like Different Versions of Myself in Different Situations? – Part 1

By Regina Kerrigan, LCPC, NCC

This is a question that comes up a lot for many people. To a certain extent, it’s completely normal to make minor adjustments and self-edits to your behaviors and demeanor depending on who’s around you. For some, though, these shifts can become automatic, leaving them disconnected from their authentic self. I’ll break down some factors that can go into this phenomenon in this blog post, which will be the first part of a multi-part series. In future posts, I’ll explore more factors that contribute to feeling like different versions of yourself.

Have you ever noticed that you feel like you have a different personality for work, another with your family or friends, and yet another when you’re alone? In some cases, this is a completely normal way of being that is simply part of being human. After all, even before homo sapiens first appeared, our ancient ancestors survived by forming small family bands and social groups. An ability to get along with the group by blending in and belonging was a huge advantage for anyone in a world where food and protection from the elements and predators could get dicey. Having a few extra friends on your side was literally a matter of life or death. It makes sense that this is still an ingrained feature of us humans even today.

But what do you do when noticing this shift inside of yourself makes you feel out of control, confused, or even like you’re a fake? In more extreme cases, people around you may notice the different versions of you before you do. This ingrained feature to blend into social groups is with us from birth and can get a little (or a lot) out of hand when we have certain lived experiences as children, causing us to ultimately have what we call a fragmented sense of self.

Fragmenting is just one reason you or others could be noticing different versions of yourself. (I’ll get into some other reasons in other blog posts, like neurodivergence and societal factors like racism.) Fragmentation is an adaptive mechanism the mind can develop to cope with chronic emotional misattunement from primary caregivers, also known as attachment injury or attachment wounding, when we’re growing up. More severe fragmentation can be the result of abuse and neglect. I’ll focus on just the emotional misattunement piece for this post.

Some Context: Innate Mechanisms

Because children need to belong—again it’s in our DNA as a life or death need—they begin adapting emotionally to their caregivers basically from birth. Take a moment and think about how helpless and vulnerable we truly are as children. We depend on our caregivers for everything, and going against the grain socially would not fare too well for us.

Children also need to feel secure in the capability and wisdom of their caregivers since they do depend on them for everything. It would be incredibly difficult to thrive as children if, on a regular basis, we had to confront the knowledge that our parents are imperfect beings, even parents who are nurturing and caring most of the time. Coming to terms with this realization is a normal developmental milestone that adolescents begin working through as they individuate from their parents and begin the developmental task of becoming self-sufficient and adopting their own sense of self-efficacy.

But before kids are ready for that adolescent milestone, they need to believe that their parents are pretty much all-knowing and all-capable. Imagine how terrifying it would be for small children to understand that their parents, their source of safety and security, are fallible. That level of sensed helplessness and vulnerability would result in living in fear about their survival, making other developmental milestones impossible.

Another emotional need at play here is the need for external emotional regulation. As babies, toddlers, and young children, we are constantly looking to our caregivers for emotional co-regulation because we do not have the brain development yet to regulate our own emotions. Emotional co-regulation is a basic need for young kids. In a famous 1970s study by Edward Tronick, known as the Still Face Experiment, a mother interacted playfully with her baby and then, on cue, turned her face completely blank and unresponsive. Within moments, the baby often grew distressed—first trying to win back mom’s attention with smiles and gestures, and then eventually crying, withdrawing, or shutting down.

This simple but powerful experiment showed how deeply humans, from infancy, depend on emotional connection and responsiveness. When caregivers are emotionally unavailable—even briefly—it can create confusion, anxiety, and distress. People who grew up with emotionally unavailable parents were likely left to their own immature devices to arrange their psychological world in a way that managed confusion, anxiety, and distress.

This is Where Dissociating Enters the Picture

A really important point to make is this: No parent can be perfectly emotionally responsive 100% of the time. However, when it becomes a chronic issue, children have to find a way to secure emotional connection and manage their emotional turmoil. This is where fragmenting comes in, whereby children disconnect an emotion or need from their consciousness so that they can continue believing in their parents’ ability to protect and care for them.

Here is an example of a child beginning the process of disconnecting, or dissociating, from an emotion or psychological need: A tired toddler becomes angry and dysregulated when his parent tries to clean his face after eating (again, small kids can’t regulate their own emotions). If the toddler sees his caregiver respond to him with calm and unwavering acceptance toward him, the toddler learns that the emotion he is experiencing is just another emotion, not something that is anxiety-provoking and feared by his caregiver. In that moment, he can “borrow” his caregiver’s regulation skills and have the safe container of his caregiver to experience his emotions fully.

On the other hand, take the caregiver who never was given their own opportunities to learn how to regulate their emotions and handle stressful moments with calm, or maybe the caregiver with lots of unresolved trauma. These caregivers may become overly anxious or triggered at the first signs of a toddler meltdown and as a result send either direct or indirect messages that they cannot handle the emotional expression of their toddler. Or more devastating for the toddler, the caregiver shames him by snapping or giving silent treatment.

If this is a repeating pattern in this toddler’s life, he subconsciously learns over time that his needs (in this case, expressing dissatisfaction or anger about a perceived boundary crossing) are too much. To mitigate the possible repercussions of needing too much, the toddler instead begins to learn how to dissociate from the need, or split it away from his sense of self—along with the emotional pain he experienced when his need went unmet. The toddler may grow up feeling like certain parts of himself don’t belong—or like different ‘versions’ of himself show up in different situations. While this isn’t always the result of dissociation, chronic misattunement can make this pattern more likely.

More to Come...

There are so many other possible factors that can contribute to the feeling of being different versions of yourself. In the next parts of this blog series, I will explore how neurodivergence, abuse, neglect, and other factors can contribute to this phenomenon. I’ll also write a more in-depth article about dissociation and the mental health field’s evolving understanding about it.

Moving Toward Healing

If you’ve ever wondered why you feel like different versions of yourself show up in different situations, and you’re ready to understand yourself with more clarity and compassion, therapy can help. You don’t have to figure this out alone. I’d love to chat to see if I’d be a good fit for you. Send me a message or schedule a video or phone call.