Good girl gone bad

People say that there is no good girl gone bad. Just the bad one found out.

I doubt.

I believe that all of us possess different sides and there is no person who is entirely "good"or "bad". Different sides emerge in different situations. Many modern psychological theories have abandoned the narrative about the integral personality since, in this ever changing world, we are taking different roles and testing the effects of different behaviors. We are all in a way fragmented just by playing different roles in the society. This world is a theater with so many stages on which we put on the shows. This is not a negative thing. Imagine if you were completely the same person at your job, in your home,with your husbands and wives (boyfriends and girlfriends) and your bosses, colleagues, professors...

However, we are quick to make judgements about a person, just by extracting some of the actions from a wide range of them, finding arbitrarily something in common for those actions and sticking a label to a person, disregarding everything else. We are quick to put labels, but slow in thinking what we are doing by labeling. One sees what the one wants to see. No matter how hard we try, we can never remove ourselves from the picture we're observing. What we can do is simply being aware that we are a part of it and that our perception of a picture is influenced by our subjectivity.

What a person might be from your point of view is not what it could be for someone else. Therefore, don't be too quick to judge and place your perspective above all other people's perspectives.

I cannot think of a person who hasn't been a "victim" of someone's judgements at some point. Instead of judging ourselves, we should always bear in mind that we are a human beings prone to making all sorts of mistakes. Of course, we shouldn't use that thought to make up excuses, but to accept ourselves and take responsibility. Sometimes those actions might perfectly match to who you feel you are, sometimes they won't. You are a constantly changing human being. Those who never made mistakes have never tried anything new. Every mistake is a chance to learn. If you learn something new from it, it should not even be regarded as a mistake. That would not be fair to the experience it carries along.

As future psychologists, we are taught to look at one's actions as experiments through which they are testing something relevant, important for them. If someone provoked you on purpose, aiming to test you, he must have conducted some kind of his own experiment seeking for validation of his hypothesis. There must be something that one want to prove to himself through that. We are mostly biased and we love to see that we are being "right" about something or someone. So, the one who tested you will seek for validation that he was right. He will look for things which can support his theory, although you surely have much more in you than "a bad friend", "a traitor", "a whore", "a liar", "a cheater", "a bimbo" or whatever he's trying to prove to himself that you are. Willing to prove himself right, he'll misinterpret, misunderstand, he'll twist and turn the data, extract partially what he thinks is relevant. Everything to fit the theory. 

"...Primitive people pray for rain and when it eventually falls, they believe that it was their prayers what "caused" the rain. (All) People enjoy simple explanations.... the same goes for personality theories." - Albert Ellis

Whenever you catch yourself testing your hypothesis on someone, ask yourself whether there is even a small chance you're doing injustice to that person. You might wake up couple of years later to find out that you've been a jerk.

When someone labels you, you cannot help but at least for a moment step down from being angry, upset, hurt, and ask yourself : "Am I really what that person says I am?" Even if for a second you might feel like you are, remember that there is so much of you that other person disregarded. Even if a certain behavior was for judgement, you as a whole aren't. In every religion, it is the sin that is condemned, not a person.

I am a human being. And I make mistakes. I experiment. I test my own hypothesis. We all do. 

 Bad girl. Good girl.

I can be both. Depends when. Depends why. And surely, it depends on what you want to see in me. :)

If you have doubts why a person does what it does, ask. No psychotherapist, psychiatrist or psychologist can give you a better answer than that person. Ask, and you might find out.