Break time reflections on control
Oof, I’m working on a first draft of a rec letter for myself and need a break because this stuff is exhausting. Different fields do it differently but in public health it’s common for someone to supply a draft rec letter to their recommenders that the recommenders can modify as they see fit. (I’ve actually only heard of this not being the case in the humanities, or if someone knows you really well and is really gung-ho to write a rec for you). Besides working on this letter draft, I applied for a research associate job today and read articles for adapting my paper on the mental health effects of neighborhood policing to a sociology journal. So, it’s been a productive day I have to remind myself that a little break is OK.
My therapist thinks that parts are acting more through passive influence right now than through overt switching. I’m not sure what I think about this. Passive influence implies that they have an agenda of their own and are acting on it, which implies that they have their own sense of consciousness that I’m not aware of. With “switching” I can say that I think, do, say, act a particular way when I’m certain environments that make me think, do, say or act in that manner. This makes sense to me because my “parts” don’t have their own consciousness. They are just modes that I slip into. Saying that the parts are operating through passive influence though implies that they have some degree of their own agency, which would imply that they have a separate consciousness from me to some degree. I know passive influence is considered “milder” than “switching” but I do feel that it implies some separation of consciousness between parts and I’m really not sure how I feel about that when I have never experienced split consciousness myself.
I wonder why I am so resistant to the idea of having more than one consciousness within me. Besides the reality that I only have ever experienced one consciousness, I think what I fear is lack of control. When I was diagnosed with OSDD it affected me because the one thing you’re supposed to be able to count on in life is yourself, and if you’re more than one person what does this mean? I feared losing control because it felt like everything I knew and believed about myself (e.g., that I was one person and had a pretty strong sense of self) had just been said to be a lie. The thing is, I do feel like I have strong sense of self, even the so called “parts” conform to ideals and values that I strongly identify with.
I felt that with the diagnosis I would learn new things about myself and that “parts” would emerge more strongly and take control. I did not stop to consider that I had been living with this “condition” already and was already familiar with what it meant in terms of loss of control. Yes, sometimes I will do or say things that are a bit outlandish, but it’s all still me at the end of the day. If I could live with this “loss of control” my whole life thus far, why should I expect diagnosis to change what “loss of control” is for me and my capability to handle it? So, I have to remind myself of this when parts work through “passive influence” rather than it merely being me thinking, doing, saying, or acting a particular way in response to certain environmental triggers. I guess the reality is that my parts have been working through passive influence as well as “switching” my whole life, so I already know what it feels like and I know that I can handle it.
I just still don’t like the implication that I have more than one consciousness within me because this confuses me to no end since it falls so far outside of my experience of myself: I have ever only experienced one sense of consciousness. If there were more than one person in me, I would like to be able to interact directly and talk with them. Also, I hate the implication that I don’t really know myself if there is more than one consciousness within me and I only ever experience myself as myself. OK circular and unresolved rant is over, going back to rec letter writing now.
