The Person vs. The Persona

Recently, David Bowie's widow, the exquisite Iman Abdulmajid, described succinctly why their 24-year marriage had been so harmonious: "We both understand the difference between the person and the persona".

This distinction is important. All of us - even those of us who are not a global icon or a supremely famous, talented and successful superstar  - have a 'persona' (our 'public face', literally 'mask' in Latin), which is an integral, essential but SEPARATE aspect of our 'person' (the individual  we really are, what defines us when our guard is down, i.e. our true identity and personality). 

The persona is a shapeshifter and can be deceitful, misleading, vain, outrageous, disingenuous, shrewd and superficial, while the person remains (or should remain) constant: our true self. That true self is in all likelihood quite drab and boring, that is to say quintessentially human, and certainly at least a little insecure, needy and flawed, but nevertheless we need to stay loyal to our true self, even when we are putting on a show of being 'someone else'. The person we pretend to be when we go for a job interview, for example, is quite distinct from the person we pretend to be when we go out for drinks with our colleagues or other acquaintances. And both those 'personas', which tend to comprise a tweaked suggestion of our real selves, are nevertheless quite different from the person we are at home, in front of our close friends, partners, parents, children and other family members.

The narcissist has a persona (usually numerous personas) at the expense of the person. In other words, the narcissist is ONLY the mask/s, and literally nothing else. It's tempting for me to say that the wicked bitch I saw at home was who my mother really is - volatile, vindictive and violent - but I don't think that at all. The real, authentic person she once was, whoever and whatever that is, didn't disappear overnight. In fact I believe she's still in there, somewhere. But the fake, contrived persona that my mother is so desperate to uphold has, in effect, usurped the real person. As a consolation to myself, I tell myself that the person my mother really is, buried underneath all that bluster and pretence, is the kind, loving, attentive, compassionate, tender, affectionate and generous mum I needed and deserved. But I don't really believe that, either.

Personas are bullshit. We all have them, and we all need them, but we must recognise them as bullshit, and extricate ourselves as much as possible from the constrictive shackles of 'image management' and of caring too much about what other people think of us. Sadly for narcissists, personas are all they have. Where there should be a pulsing heart and a vibrant character and a real, naked soul, there is a void. Nobody's home. And nobody's ever coming home.