Shaun Downey
A while back, I said that I would do a post on how I experience different parts. I quickly realized that writing such a post is quite difficult, because I generally lose my sense and memory of what a part is like, soon after I am no longer blended with that part. However there is one distinctive part that has been showing up a lot recently, and I think that I might be able to capture some of what the experience is like…
First of all, please bear in mind that I am trying to use words to describe nebulous and often transitory experiences, so I am sure that I will only be able to capture a portion of it. Also, I am going to refer to the me that I generally experience as me- the outer most me- as ‘I’ in this post.
With this part, I fairly strongly retain my sense of ‘I’, but it feels as though there is another slightly different and slightly distant ‘me’ draped over me. Simultaneously there is an awareness that this part is of me and yet this part also sees things from a different view point than ‘I’ do. Most of my parts are needy, hurt child parts, but I seem to have one helper part that morphs from time to time, and this is that helper part. She feels wiser, calmer, and far more compassionate than I do, and I wish that I could access this aspect of myself more consistently, but sometimes I go for months without accessing her. Lately, she has been more present, though, and she has been involved in my making progress at accepting what is, rather than fighting against what is, because I don’t like it. A few days ago, the part helped me to see that if my mind needs to be divided in regards to the abuse memories and keep them from feeling real to me, then that is what I need and I should accept it, rather than fearing that it means that the abuse didn’t happen. She helped me to grasp that I may simply need to chose to believe myself because I am worth believing and it’s the explanation that makes the best sense out of the facts that we have been able to verify. Tonight I realized that this part has no doubt that the abuse happened. I don’t think that she has access to the memories, but she has better access to the rest of me and it’s hard to doubt the abuse when faced with the results of the abuse.
She is one of the better “formed” of my parts, but she hasn’t always kept the same form or had a clear one. In the past she has shown up as a fairy godmother, a spunky teen, and other forms that were nebulous. Now, she seems to be a mirror image of me. Oddly enough, I don’t actually ‘see’ her, but I have a strong sense of her, which gives me the outline of what she looks like.
I am grateful for this part of me and I wonder why she is separate from the rest of the me that makes up ‘I’? There have been many times when I have needed the additional strength and calmness of this part and I simply haven’t been able to locate it. Why do I consider it necessary to dissociate the me that is more self compassionate, forgiving, and wiser? I suspect that it may be because I can’t simultaneously live from those qualities and be willing to twist myself into a pretzel in regards to my mom. I can’t treat myself gently and believe that everything is my fault at the same time.
This is an amazing post, Cat! I’m so glad you know you have this part. She seems to be trying to tell you a truth, doesn’t she? A beautiful truth that is so much more worthy than the “pretzel truth”? She is good and compassionate and kind and trustworthy. Perhaps someday you will take her hand and walk with her and not let go. She sounds like a “keeper” to me!
Yes, I do think that I need to listen to the wisdom there. 🙂
I agree with your last few sentences. Feeling a part as distinct isn’t necessarily about finding something about that part unpleasant or unbearable, but about the cognitive dissonance involved in having contradictory beliefs and feelings. As a whole person, you feel both that you must continue to deny the abuse and that the abuse is incontrovertible. But that’s a little crazy-making. It is a bit easier to east believe only one of those things at a time, especially since denying the abuse was such an important survival tactic for so long. Continuing it may feel a bit like life or death.
Wow, touches a raw nerve. Can’t think clearly enough to come up with an intelligent response, but I understand what you are saying.
you do a better job than me explaining my parts cat!
i just know i become someone else ,right now my child piece extremely evident im living her hourly …i also cnt remember pieces of the hours its there then gone —–
im sorry you going through this but helps me to feel less alone to!
take care lisa
Thank you. You take care, too!
xoxo lis
Interesting you have a ‘guardian angel’ part who is wise and compassionate. She does sound like a keeper. And your and Ashana’s thoughts on parts and cognitive dissonance is so thought provoking. take care.
It is interesting, isn’t it? It’s like all of my mothering skills were incorporated into this part. If things are working the way that I think they are, then I have seen this part get pushy in some forms, when I have been avoiding doing what I need to do.