Did I become what people expected me to be?
As a child you were called the difficult one, or the cold one, or the one who would come to nothing. Years later you notice you have become something close to it. The story almost tells itself: they saw it in me before it was there, and then it was there.
Often the story is true. But it also gets told at particular moments, to particular people.
A confession on a walk
In Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time, Pechorin is out walking with young Princess Mary. He has been mocking their acquaintances, and she tells him he is a dangerous man. He pauses. Then he begins a confession about his childhood:
"All have read upon my countenance the marks of bad qualities, which were not existent; but they were assumed to exist--and they were born."
— Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time, "Princess Mary", tr. J. H. Wisdom and Marr Murray
The list goes on. He was modest and was called sly, so he grew secretive. Nobody understood him, so he learned to hate.
The line before it
Pechorin is writing all this in his own journal, and he also records what he did just before the speech: he paused, then spoke "assuming a deeply moved air".
When he finishes, he sees tears in Mary's eyes and notes that she pities him. The confession has worked.
Lermontov doesn't say which part is an act. The childhood may be real, and so may the feeling. And the same story is softening a girl who has just called him dangerous. The novel leaves both on the page.
True and useful at once
"They made me this way" can be completely honest. It can also do a job: win sympathy, end an argument, explain in advance why nothing will change. Often it does both at once, and the speaker doesn't notice.
How a person turns into someone they once despised is a neighbouring question. So is being different with different people. This page asks something narrower: what the old story is doing each time it is told.
What the scene leaves
Pechorin knows his history and tells it well. Sorting the history from the performance is left to the reader. And so is a question: when I tell how I was made this way, who am I telling, and why now?
Epimelea is an app built around the existential school. The conversation carries over from one meeting to the next. The archive is encrypted on the device and belongs to the person who wrote it.
About the app: an AI therapist for long-term therapy
This page is about a school of psychotherapy. It is not medical advice and not emergency help. If you are in danger right now, contact your local emergency number, or find a helpline in your country at findahelpline.com.