Daily Prompt: Name 3 Personality Traits You Are Proud Of
My personality was always the thing I liked most about myself, until the symptoms of my BPD were brought to my attention by my family a few years ago. It's like I have my true personality, but then I have the personality that my BPD controls. My BPD changes my true personality and replaces it with traits that I am not proud of, and that I have had to work really hard to be able to control. The main trait I see in my BPD personality is manipulation, and that makes me sick. I never intentionally manipulate anyone, and never knew that I was doing it until my mom and sister told me so. I am not proud of how my BPD changes my real personality traits, but the disdain I have for my BPD traits isn't as strong as how proud I am of my true personality traits.
My three true personality traits that I am most proud of are compassion, empathy, and charisma.
I've been a compassionate person all my life, and started out only being compassionate toward animals, since I had been surrounded by them since birth. I grew up on a non-working farm, but we did have cats and dogs. The animals were my best friends, my confidants, and my comfort. They got me through the times where my parents would fight, and comforted me after having a nightmare. I was compassionate toward my pets and my friend's pets, nursing them when they were sick and cuddling them after they were scolded. I grew up with compassion for game animals, and thought it was wrong that they were hunted. I eventually learned to channel my compassion into also being compassionate for people, mostly children and the elderly. I volunteered at a nursing home when I was younger and later became a nanny. One of my passions has been helping others, even in small ways, and my mission has always been to make another person smile. I am still compassionate toward animals and now people, and consider compassion my strongest personality trait.
Empathy is something that I have gained just in the past year. Prior to this year, the year that I started advocating for mental health, I had a hard time putting myself in other people's shoes and was often judgmental toward others. Once I realized the stigma that surrounds mental illness, it's like a light bulb turned on in my brain. I was stereotyping and stigmatizing other people based on their appearance or lifestyle, and that was wrong of me. I started putting myself in other people's shoes, and opened myself up to feeling the emotions of others. I am still working on being empathetic toward others, but am proud of how far I have come in the past year. I believe that compassion and empathy are two personality traits that everyone should have, and also believe that to have successful relationships, some level of compassion and empathy are required.
My favorite personality trait is my charisma. I've always had a strong, charismatic personality. My presence has always improved situations, and my charisma has always inspired others to feel joy and happiness. I've often come off too strong, too friendly, and too bubbly, but I don't see that as a flaw. I would rather be charismatic than boring or off-putting. People have always been drawn to me, and have often stuck around because my charisma is like a magnet. I don't mean that to sound conceited at all, it's just something that I have noticed over the years. Since being primarily housebound for the past two years due to being sick during my pregnancy and being a new mom, I feel like I have lost my charismatic attitude. I hope to regain it, and be able to attract the right kind of people with this personality trait.
I have a lot of personality traits that I don't like, but since the prompt doesn't ask for those, I will leave it here.
