Posted by Dinah on September 2, 2004, at 11:43:06
In reply to Re: Not late!! » Aphrodite, posted by Dinah on September 2, 2004, at 11:15:26
I have a "life history" summary I wrote for my therapist shortly after starting therapy. Probably three or so months in, around the time therapy stopped focusing completely on "The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook".
In it, in highly coded language, it is clear that everything I believe about myself now, I believed then - but with less understanding and different words. For instance then I wrote something like "So during my time of difficulties as a young adolescent, after a year in therapy, and being unhappy with my life as it had become, and realizing that my behavior was not getting me what I wanted, I stopped. I stopped being crazy. I stopped misbehaving. I came up with socially acceptable reasons for avoiding situations that I wanted to avoid. I became what others wanted me to be. I sat back in amazement as I watched everyone believe that I was ok." Things like that. There is nothing inconsistent in my early reporting of what happened and either of my later theories of what happened. One is that the flawed emotional Dinah went into hiding at age thirteen or so, hurt and angry that no one noticed, and let a false front interact with the world. And that the false front eventually developed the delusion that it was real, and developed a limited range of emotions so that it could operate independently. The other theory is that the rational Dinah took what it wanted from the raw material, concentrated on will and intellect, and left what it didn't want behind, where it somehow managed to survive on its own (and without anything worthwhile because anything worthwhile had been stripped). Guess which theory belongs to each ego state? :P
There is also reference in that very early history to what could possibly be a third ego state and what I have always referred to as an alien being who took over my body in tenth and twelth grades. I have *always*, even in eleventh grade, referred to this stranger as Happy Dinah. But there just isn't enough evidence to tell whether it represents a third ego state or not. If so, it's probably where any sexuality I might posess resides.
So if it ever occurs to me that my therapist encouraged the creation of ego states, I look back to this writing which was done when my therapist had no influence over me whatsoever, and when I still had no idea what was going on in my innards.
poster:Dinah
thread:385420
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040828/msgs/385668.html