(This post used to be part of Brain Lock).
I wanted to write about ‘the team inside me’ because I think it’s connected to the strategy in Brain Lock and to the detached observer technique. On the other hand the concept of a ‘team inside me’ feels weird and stupid and crazy to me and I wonder whether I’m imagining it.
Sometimes I feel like I have a lot of internal conflict. It’s like there’s a team of me’s instead of one me and sometimes they fight with each other.
For example, I have been waging an almost lifetime war against ’emotional eating’. That matters because I do gain weight if I eat for emotional reasons in addition to hunger. I can do well for a while at being mindful that it’s in my best interests to eat only when I’m hungry; I can even handle being hungry sometimes. But at some point, invariably, this other ‘me’ inside gets frustrated and sabotages the efforts of the first me.
This other me wants what I want when I want it and doesn’t care about the long term consequences. This other me sees other people eating whatever they want and thinks “why shouldn’t I?” This me can be very out of control and will sometimes eat regardless of whether I’m hungry or full or even getting to the point of uncomfortably full already.
When I became a Christian it sort of worked to label the ‘good rule-following me’ as the one who was under the control of the Holy Spirit. And the other chaotic one was me-not-under-God’s-control’. The other me was the one that was supposed to be dead now, according to Galatians:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
I read books by famous Christians, books that weren’t super-recent, about being ‘dead to self’. It seemed like an incredibly hard teaching and yet, it did seem to be what Paul was talking about and it did seem to be the solution to how to be a perfect Christian (my goal – well, perfection is impossible but I wanted to get as close as I could to that)
Anyway so I’ve had various labels for it but I have felt in various ways that there’s more than one ‘me’. I was very fascinated by the story of ‘Sybil’ decades ago, a real person who literally seemed to have 16 different personalities inside her that were like separate people with their own personalities and even memories. They were different ages and some were quite young. At the time that was referred to as “multiple personality disorder’. Psychiatrists believe it’s very a real disorder that some people have, but now refer to it as ‘dissociative identity disorder’.
I don’t think I have that (I mean, how would I know for sure if my other personalities are hiding?) but I do feel like maybe I’m a bit on that spectrum, that my personality is a bit fragmented and that’s why I sometimes feel like there are different ‘mes’ inside who sometimes are in conflict with one another.It makes sense to me for various reasons that I might be prone to some level of dissociation. I found this article which describes how I feel very well: Working with Ego States.
Ok, so I feel like maybe some of my ego states have some locked up unresolved grief. That because of that, they got a bit separated off by the rest of me, as a survival mechanism, at some point. That the way to be more integrated/be a team that works better or even so well that I wouldn’t feel like more than one me, is to help the sad & angry parts of me grieve. Sometimes I feel like the wrong part of me got put in charge and that’s why I feel overwhelmed. It has worked sometimes, to sort of talk to myself/be detached observer and sort of look for an adult part of me to take over. I feel like maybe I do a lot of negotiating with myself. When I am trying not to fall into addictive behavior. Maybe it’s because the ‘me’ who wants to and the ‘me’ who doesn’t want to are in conflict.
By the way, Dissociative Identity Disorder aka Multiple Personality Disorder sounds a lot like demon-possessed people in the Bible. Make of that what you will. What I know is, decade ago when I was participating on a forum for people with mental health disorders, I asked if I could be a moderator of the MPD/DID forum so I could delete posts from Christians who would do fly pasts and on their way, post about how the regulars were all being demon-possessed. It was not at all helpful to them! They were sweet people with a disorder I didn’t understand and evidently quite sensitive. Being called ‘demon-possessed’ did not sit well with them.
Anyway I don’t know about this different ‘mes’ stuff. Whether it’s all in my imagination. But, sometimes it does seem to be helpful to think of myself that way.