Multiple Associative Order

[talon]

This is not an officially recognized - or possibly even real - mental condition. It's certainly not listed in the DSM.

This is because it's not a disorder or a disease or an imbalance, psychological or biological. It's not a negative or a condition to be treated.

I think it's a normal and healthy state of being. Except for those few focused and dedicated individuals, we all have MAO (Multiple Associative Order) to one degree or another. Some people refer to it as "wearing many hats" and that means the same thing, more or less. When we engage in different activities, we exhibit different facets of our personalities. How we behave and think and act as a Mom is very different from how we think and act and behave as an assembly line employee. We are different as a member of a book club than we are as a work supervisor.

Part of it is the responsibility of whatever work or playin which we're engaged, but I believe that different aspects of our personality are also engaged, and we actually are different people.

Take chatrooms, for example. We are all certainly different people in chat rooms than we are in face-to-face. A large part of it is the lack of visual cues, another is the jargon and the heterodyning effect of a group of people, and part of it is the permission we give ourselves to allow that part of us free reign.

We are different people to our children, spouses, parents, friends, neighbors, or co-workers. And yet, all together, we are the same person. We have no difficulty, no break in memory, as we transition from one role to the next. We can blend roles and call up or dial down aspects of our personality at need.

We can lead secret lives without damaging our psyches because while those about us may not see all those parts of us, we do. We are always fully aware of what and who we are no matter which fragment our family or friends or colleagues see.

I know my co-workers never see vast portions of who I am. To them, I am a pleasant chatty older woman who's reliably always there, making the coffee because I'm usually the first one there (but not drinking it because I prefer tea), and most of them think I am highly efficient and anally organized.

My family sees me as a bit of a ditz, always misplacing things, impetuous, dabbly, a little tyrranical, and with a flash temper that dissipates quickly.

The places where I volunteer see me as quiet, almost invisible, and reliable. They know they can point to something, tell me "do it" and it gets done. Most of them don't even know my name. I'm just "you!" followed by "can you hold this/pull up that carpet/dig that hole/distribute these programs/label those chairs/arrange these flowers..."

My gaming group, my writing group, my co-religionists, they all know me as different people - and yet, I am the same person.

Why am I giving a name to a type of sanity? Because I feel that we benefit from knowing more about ourselves. Having a term we can openly discuss and compare gives us a chance to discover more about who and what we are and how we relate to the world. Defining normative behaviors is as important, I think, as defining behaviors we consider abnormal.

So, I've chosen to give this perfectly normal behavior a name so people can discuss it and define it and try it on to see if it fits their concept of "normal".

I may or may not come up with more "orders" (as opposed to "disorders") of this sort. This one is so common I'm surprised it doesn't already have a name. Or maybe I've just never heard of its correct name before, in which case, I hope some enlightens me.