image from shindo25.deviantart.com
“What’s the matter with her? [Jasper] asked Griffin.
Griffin shook his head. ‘Nothing. She’s just two personas struggling for dominance in one body.’
[Jasper] … Poor little thing.” ― Kady Cross, The Girl in the Steel Corset
In many ways it may be difficult to imagine having so many personalities all wrapped up and active inside one body. So here is a little example of the type of changes you might recognise.
6am Wake up – ‘The Wife’ is getting herself ready for the day ahead as she chats to her husband.
7am Breakfast – ‘The Mother’ Time to wake the children (if they aren’t already awake), and get them organised for breakfast, shower, dress for school. ‘The Wife’, still around as she gets her husband off to work.
8am In the car – ‘The Taxi Driver’ as ‘The Mother’ takes the children to school.
8.30am ‘The Mother’ becomes ‘The Taxi Driver’ as she leaves the children and the ‘The Kamikaze Driver’ as she hurries to et to work.
9am ‘The Secretary’, subservient to her boss and on top of her game in the office. ‘The Office Organiser’ pops out from time to time to arrange matters in the office.
12noon ‘The Secretary’ leaves for lunch and ‘The Tyrant’ demands better service from the deli worker. ‘The Aggressive Bully’ appears as she talks to the customer service personnel when she feels she isn’t being served well. ‘The Inner Child’ appears when she realises she may be late back at work and is worried her boss may be upset.
1pm ‘The Secretary’ seamlessly takes her seat, assisted by ‘The Office Organiser’, with a short breakout for ‘The Wife’ when she talks briefly with her husband, followed by ‘The Mother‘ when she calls to check her children have been collected from school before returning to ‘The Secretary‘ to complete her work day.
5pm ‘The Secretary’ leaves work and becomes ‘The Kamikaze Driver‘ as she tries to get home as quickly as possible, stopping en route to collect her children, becoming ‘The Mother’ followed by ‘The Taxi Driver’ as she ferries the children home. Once home ‘The Mother’ takes over again.
6pm ‘The Mother’ is fixing dinner as her husband arrives. ‘The Wife’ greets him and thereafter ‘The Mother’ and ‘The Wife‘ play tag team until the children are in bed and husband and wife are alone.
9pm ‘The Wife’ and her husband enjoy some couples time before she decides to have a long hot soak.
10.30pm ‘The Integrated Woman’ enjoys a long hot soak, surrounded by candles, soft music, oil scented bath water and heavenly peace and quiet.
11pm After her bath ‘The Wife’ goes to bed and becomes ‘The Lover’ and ‘The Seductress’ with her husband before she falls asleep to dream her dreams.
“It all made sense — terrible sense. The panic she had experienced in the warehouse district because of not knowing what had happened had been superseded at the newsstand by the even greater panic of partial knowledge. And now the torment of partly knowing had yielded to the infinitely greater terror of knowing precisely”
― Flora Rheta Schreiber, Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities
This is a very simplistic example of sub personalities at work. They are so subtle at times, so obvious, that we don’t realise that they are sub personalities at work. In fact most of us take it for granted that it is simply a part of our one persona.
Voice Dialogue, as taught by Hal and Sidra Stone, teaches therapists how to speak to these sub personalities during a Dialogue session. The theory in Voice Dialogue is that only by becoming fully integrated with all your sub personalities are we able to utilise the strengths these sub personalities can provide.
An immediate example can be seen when the recent horror of the soldier killed in the UK. People rushed to protect the fallen soldier. “The Protectors’ had all come to the fore. The lady who confronted the armed man, ‘The Amazon’, strong, unafraid (in that instant) and able to stand her ground. Those who comforted the soldier, ‘The Carers’ who only sought to give aid and comfort in his final moments. The police who captured those responsible, ‘The Enforcers’.
NB. Use of this sad and horrific example is not aimed at causing further grief, hurt or diminishing the horror of what occurred. No offense is intended to the family or anyone associated with the incident. My heartfelt condolences and prayers are with the family and those affected by this event.
Blessings Susan x
Next I will explore the atypical day for a man in this scenario.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Read Full Post »
Owls and Orchids 