Autobiography in Psychology

Many times in people’s lives, they are asked to define their personality and they do not know how to respond. What is the actual definition of personality and how can we define our own? Personality is a unique consistent pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. In other words, personality is a combination of characteristics or qualities that form the person in you. Like a painting, there are many different color schemes that combine in order to show the big picture. There is no such thing as a person without a personality. Some people may not have very extroverted characteristics; this means that they have a shy or colorless personality.

Now its time for me to define my personality. Who am I? What events in my life influenced the person that I am today? Well I guess it started when I was born. The first few seconds that I peaked my head out of my mother’s womb into a huge place I now call “the world”. I was in a room with people surrounding me and caring for my every need; such as cutting my umbilical cord, cleaning my body of amniotic fluid, and bonding with this woman that I now call “mommy”. These first few moments in my life had a major impact on who I am today. Just think how it would be like if you were born, and just let out into the world without anyone to care for your needs. After all, this is the beginning of the dependency stage.

So the next few years in my life were a breeze. Old people pinching my cheeks, saying how adorable I was, feeding me, bathing me, burping me, changing my diapers, etc. during these years in my life my body would adapt to the world around me. I feel that if I didn’t get the care and nurturing that I needed from others, than I wouldn’t be able to move on to the next stage in my life; The independent stage.

Now I’m 5 years old and cruising through life; eating cookies, watching TV, trying on my mother’s lipstick, everything’s going great. Then one day I hear of this place called “school”. What’s happening? One day I’m chilling in my house, the next day my parents are leaving me for these too smelly ladies who wear hair nets. So I tried this independent thing, it was hard at first but then I met my first friend. I was now able to converse with people on the same level as me and share hobbies and interests. This would be the second bond I have in my life. This bond strengthened my ability to work well with others.

So far I’ve been doing pretty good with the life thing. My family seems to be treating me well, my friends like me, and I’m experiencing new things. I got a few scrapes and bruises along the way, but all and all, everything’s fine. Now, I’m 7 years old on my first trip to Israel. I’m having fun doing my thing until we went down to the pool area. I’m 7 years old and I’ve come face to face with one of the worst fears what would haunt my dreams for years; water! I tried “swimmies” and all sorts of ways to alleviate the fear but I just couldn’t do it. In fact this past fear still has an effect on my life today. Although, I can now float in the water and tread water, my fear of dunking my head held me back from doing a lot of things that the “cool kids” were doing and the lens in which I saw the world shifted to a different magnitude based on the cool kid vs. the wimp. Soon, one fear led to the next and I was afraid to ride roller coasters. The world I once knew became a whole new world that I had to adapt to because of my obsessive fear of injury or death.

As I moved on in my life, I tried to deal with the pressures of fitting in and showed a stronger side of my personality to conceal my weaknesses. So I worked on my disposition, a strong characteristic that I can thank my parents for. This attracted the kind of friends who would later in my life care for me and give me the sound advice that I would need to become the person I want to become. When I was in the 3rd grade, I made best friends with two very good people that I am still close with today. David and Hiram have left a major impact on the person I am today. I can’t imagine any other people