What’s one thing you wish you had started doing earlier in life?
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I feel as though as we get older, we all have things that we deeply regret. The decisions we didn’t take, the choices we did. It invites the question of ‘what if’. What if I’d made a different choice a few years ago? Would I be better off than I am now?
One thing I often wonder is how different my life would be if, in 2019, I moved to the Sunshine Coast to live on the beach with my brother and his current girlfriend. I had just graduated from University and was seriously considering it – but then I got a full time job which halted any considerations of making the move. That job lasted a little less than two months and caused my mental health to tank and by the time it was starting to improve, they’d broken up – and then Covid happened, forever altering everyone’s lives.
Where would I be now, if I’d moved before going for that interview that got me that job? Would I be happy, living on the sunshine coast? Would I be unemployed right now, in 2026, after having had an almost complete mental breakdown in 2024? Would my back be undamaged and as strong as it should be for someone of my age? Would I be better off? Or would I be worse off than I am now?
There’s no way of knowing, but that doesn’t stop me from wondering. And we all do. We all wonder what would be different if we had taken a different path. It’s just human nature to wonder, to ponder, to compare our lives now to others or imagine what may be different or better. Of course, it doesn’t do to get caught up in such thoughts – believe me; I know doing so invites nothing but pain and misery.
But the one thing I wish I had learned to do earlier, the one thing that makes me wonder what would be different most of all, is how different my life would be if I’d learned to be true to myself at a younger age.
To explain, let me take you back to my life as a teenager. I was often the one ‘the odd one out’. I knew I was different, growing up. Most girls my age were interested in makeup and boys and fashion; I couldn’t care less about any of that. I used to go to a youth group and I just didn’t fit in with the other girls. Thankfully there was one other person who was the same brand of weird as me so it didn’t feel as lonely, but in every other aspect of my life…I did. I felt invisible, like no-one saw me. When I left school it only got worse, because how was I meant to navigate the adult world when I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere?
That’s how I felt. I know now, that much of that was anxiety talking, coupled with a poor sense of self worth. But at the time the idea of fitting in became all encompassing – to the extent that I started to adapt certain parts of my personality in an attempt to make others be more interested in being my friend.
If someone said they liked pop music like Lady Gaga (was not a fan. Nothing against her, just not my style), suddenly I liked it too. If someone said they liked some high end fashion brand, I agreed and expressed my love for it too – even if I personally thought the prices ridiculously over the top. If a friend mentioned that they agreed with a politician’s point of view, I said I did too, in case my mentioning that I didn’t would cause them to not want to talk to me anymore. I did things and went places that I had absolutely no interest in because I had ‘friends’ who wanted to – and to say no meant that they may not want to hang out.
Of course, looking back, I know these friendships were shallow and built on nothing more than me pretending to like the things they liked. There was no real connection, no real friendship. But to little old me, I thought I finally found people who liked me. Never mind that the me they liked was a version I presented to them, and them alone.
In psychology, this is often a trait of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), and may be known as the Chameleon effect. People with BPD often have an extremely unstable and fragile sense of self identity and therefore lack a consistent set of principles and beliefs that define who they are. Their identity fluctuates depending on the person they’re talking to. This is by no means done in a malicious manner, nor is done with any prior planning – it’s a reflex. But not everyone who does this may have Borderline.
The chameleon effect, or the chameleon personality, is a learned response to social situations and, as stated above, it’s not malicious. Some may see it as a form of manipulation; it’s not. It’s simply a person’s defence to a perceived threat. It’s a learned response to prevent negative social situations such as arguments, abandonment, loneliness…somewhere along the line the brain thinks, ‘aha! If I do this, it will prevent these negative experiences!’ So it does. And does it again. And again. And again.
The problem is you can very easily lose yourself.
And I did.
This is why I often wonder what my life would be like if I never started to act as a chameleon. Where would I be now?
I can’t answer that. But it’s because I started to do that, and be true to myself, that I became severely burned out. It’s because of that that I find myself at 34 years old totally confused about what I really do want in life. It’s because of that I find myself scared to even talk to friends out of fear of driving them away in case they don’t like the real me – and it’s most certainly because of that I’ve spent the two years seeing a psychologist and a psychiatrist, trying to not be a chameleon and to learn to love and be true to myself.
If I could go back in time, I’d tell myself not to bother. That if people didn’t like who I really was then they weren’t worth the bother. That the path I was on was leading me to a life of pain and confusion. The exhaustion, the confusion, the loss of identity – it’s just not worth it.
I wish I had learned to love who I was, and not be afraid to show others that. I wish I had embraced my true self all those years ago.
The good news is, it’s never too late to do so.
So let’s be our true self, regardless of what people may think. Because in the words of Dr. Seuss, “Those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind”.
Resources
DBT Path [2026} Do You Really Need to Change Your Chameleon Personality?. DBT Path, accessed online at https://emotionallysensitive.com/chameleon-personality-truth/
Kreisman, J. J. [2011] The Borderline Chameleon: Changing Identities, Changing Diagnoses. Psychology Today, accessed online at https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/i-hate-you-dont-leave-me/201101/the-borderline-chameleon
I’m doing One Foot Forward! The goal is to walk 40km in the month of October to raise money for Mental Health in Australia. If you want to donate to me, please follow this link. Any amount helps!
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