Deconversion And Dissociation

[dichotomy]

So glad to hear that things are quite positive at the moment, but goodness me what a fascinating and complicated way of being! It's remarkable how you are able to experience, analyse and express all of this so effectively.

 

It really sounds like you're moving forward positively and I hope this continues to be the case.

[diggindiddy]

I'm really glad to hear that you are better yunea. You seem to be living some very important things right know. You will maybe find yourself "bigger" (growed) after all this... surely you will know yourself better.

 

 goodness me what a fascinating and complicated way of being!

 

I heard things like this many times when I start trying to explain about my dissociation

 

I think it looks very complicated when you don't experience it. It's probably like having a big family. I was a lone child, so was my father and my mother has only 1 sister, therefore I have only 1 aunt, 1 uncle and 2 cousins. When I met my companion and he invited me to share some dinner with his family, I did not expect to arrive in a 15 persons dinner party - and that was only the closet ones. He has 2 brothers, 1 sister, all married with various children... and also 14 uncles&aunts on his mother side , 12something others uncles and aunts on his father side   so that makes somethings like 45 cousins. Everytime they organise a family event I start sweating.
 I'm just not used to it, but they seem to be very comfortable with it !

 

I have had people in my head since early childhood. I don't like the events that lead my psyche to create them, but I like the fact that my mind had this resource to make me survive. I don't know what it's like to think just for myself. Most if the time my head is in a big conversation.

 

My therapist's opinion is that it happens when parents are to "absolute". When they present their way of thinking as the Perfect Truth, the child will have difficulties to reconcile things together and might dissociate. For instance, if both his father and his mother speak as if they hold the perfect truth, but say two different things... or if the child's logic or senses contradict what one of his parents are saying. This causes cognitive dissonance.

 

When I was little, whenever I would spot some incoherences in the Bible I questioned my mother. She answered me kindly with other incoherent stuff, but she was so confident in what she was saying, and I felt that it was very important to her that I believed her. If felt like I had no choice. Valerie Tarico said in one of her video that it's because of evolution : gullible children that believed what their parents told them survived better, because they did not went playing with wild bears to check if they were really mean. Big Irony : right know, children are believing creationist stuff told by their parents because of evolution

 

I was a very smart kid and at some point, I felt like I could not trust my mother on some things. But I had to trust her. But I couldn't. But I had to. I felt like my mind was put under pressure and suddenly there was a trigger that made me split. From then, there was two child in me : one that completely trusted her and swallowed everything she said like candy, and another one that didn't trust her at all. I had a gullible and happy child to show my mother and all the doubts and fears had a new place to go.

 

I believe that any religious education can cause cognitive dissonances in a child's mind, and that at some point (for some people) there might be enough to dissociate. It might not turn into a diagnosed mental illness. I think it might disappear by itself, especially if the grown up child gives up on faith quite early in his adult/teen life, the separated mind could re-associate without noticing. When I was young I did not know that I was dissociated. Now I know that I was, but then I had no clue. I think there are a lot of dissociated or former dissociated people who are not aware of it.

 

Sorry for the long post I am fascinated by the subject.

 

XXX

DD

[Guest]

I'm glad you were able to gain control of your spiritual alter, or at least seek to understand her. I know this stuff does indeed take a lot of energy, so I definitely recommend resting often and drinking a lot of water. That's what has helped me stay sane. 

[yunea]

Thanks all for the encouraging words and contributions. 

 

I've been resting a lot indeed, and doing all kinds of nice things. My Spiritual alter is really sad now. She is slowly beginning to understand she has been living a huge lie, but she is hanging on to the last straws of her faith and has began crying inside my head (instead of the preaching she used to do). These are the things she says the most:

 

"What if it's true and there IS a divine plan and we're missing out on it?"

"What if we go to hell?"

"What if God hardened your heart to protect you, and we'll be invited back to Him again later in life? Shouldn't you stop the blasphemy?"

"How is it possible that believers report so much synchronicity - people, even unknown ones, walking up to them and giving them exactly the words, items or even money that they needed? You do remember it happened to us too, right?!"

 

The first three don't really bother me for longer than it takes her to say them. The last one is a difficult one though because it has happened countless times in my life. The thing is that it didn't stop happening when I stopped being a believer. I can only say to it that sometimes people do seem to have certain kinds of connections without words, a type of sensitivity to each other, and if one believes that a god gives them that connection and the information, they're more brave voicing their feelings and that's why it seems to happen more among believers. I don't know, and I don't want any wooey explanations, but entirely denying it would be weird as well. 

[yunea]

Alright I have an update.

 

For a while now my Spiritual alter had been begging on her knees that we'd go to church just one last time, and eventually I marked today as the day it might just as well happen. I attended a service in the very small Pente church that my soon ex-roomie goes to.

 

The sermon was blah, even Spiritual thought so (funny as it is, she expected to be happy, but she wasn't). It was the after-sermon praying session where she got where she wanted most - some prayers from strangers who didn't notice I have a head full of atheist alters (and an atheist main self too), asking for forgiveness for many things and hearing Jesus forgives every little thing she asked about, and...that's it really, apparently. 

 

I learned Spiritual is thinking of dying away, but she can only stand to think of it because to her, Jesus is there waiting for her with arms wide open. She wants to escape the cold dark reality that she can't convert anyone in the mind-space and that she caused a whole darn lot of trouble back in the day.

 

I'm not sure if it should happen. I've had alters disappear (die/melt) through complete acceptance before and it's always been a bit of weight off my shoulders, but it seems that in this case, dying is the easy way out for her, another form of escapism really, when she could learn she's not filthy or weak at all and doesn't need a lord and saviour. 

 

Hopefully everyone is stable enough that I don't get another war started within me. I think I'm okay in that sense, though. I couldn't have walked in through the church doors if even the angriest atheist alters hadn't been ok with it just for the sake of Spiritual. I just have the hugest headache I've had for months. Ergh.

[yunea]

Actually reading back my own thread now I see she (my Spiritual alter) is going through the classic stages of deconversion - sometimes it seems she still believes everything but finds herself a failure as a believer and wants forgiveness, and sometimes she is sure she will give it all up but gets fears.

 

I suggested to her some time ago that when this is all over, she can post her very own deconversion story here. She didn't know what to say to it yet.