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6
This is the pattern of every life:
We are born. We get hurt. We hide the hurt. We inflict the hurt. We tell ourselves we’re above the hurt or beyond the hurt.
Each of these is an identity, layered on the others—the strata of the self. They grow on every human being like the rings of a tree. I call them the Lover, the Loner, the Hider, the Fighter, and the Ruler.
THE LOVER
I am you, at the beginning. I am your original self. Your true self. Your essence.
I am basically a soul with an Apgar score.
I came into the world like a dry sponge, made to soak up love until saturated, then to squeeze that love out onto some other dry sponge, then to soak up some more, squeeze, and repeat. That’s why I can be a handful at times. I’m not shy about asking for the love I’m here to receive. I’ll cry in the dark, demand to be fed, and poop all over the place, expecting to be cleaned up. This is animalistic, sure. It’s also soulful. It’s a self that feels worthy of love and belonging.
Soak up. Squeeze. Repeat.
In the beginning, I assumed I was enough. I assumed being me was the only thing to be. I assumed today is all there is. I assumed when I smiled people would smile back. I assumed we were here to play together. I assumed we were here for each other. These assumptions were built into me. They came with the package. The package didn’t arrive damaged. That happens later.
But not much later.
THE LONER
I am you, too. I am your true self, as well, but I’m your true self after experience. I’m your soul after it gets hurt. I’m the sponge soaked in pain, instead of love. If your true self were a coin, I’m the wounded side of the coin. Yeah, that’s it—I’m your wounded self.
The wounds are myriad.
There are the big-T traumas: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, criminal neglect and all the other neglects between criminal and painful. There are the small-t traumas too. Abandonment. Loss. Rejection. Bullying. Marital conflict. Divorce. Alcoholism. Financial desperation. Indeed, desperation of any kind from the big people who are supposed to be the calm and steady center of this whole thing. And then there are just the ordinary pains of existence: feeling unseen and misunderstood. In other words, loneliness. Or the haunting sense that if I was only somebody else, something more, somehow different, everything would be okay. In other words, shame.
I begin to grow in you around the ages of four to eight. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but always early on. So early on that I’m usually the first you that you actually recall. Indeed, pain is like a light switch for memory. It’s when we start recording. Is it any wonder you think I’m the whole truth about how you started? I’m the only you that you can remember.
Of course, you try to forget me as quickly as you can.
THE HIDER
I am you, three. (See what I did there?) I am the first layer of your false self. The first rendition of your protective ego. I usually start growing in you around nine or ten years-old. Third or fourth grade.
You can probably remember the birth of me in yourself, and you can certainly see it in your children. You can see it on the day they go to school wearing mismatched socks and a t-shirt bearing their favorite superhero, but come home in the afternoon saying they can only wear this or that brand from now on.
I protect you by hiding your uniqueness.
I am the people pleaser and the chameleon. I am the first mask you wear to gain acceptance. I am the persona you put on so that you can say “Same!” instead of “Me!” I am the lowest common denominator. I am pop music. I am the latest trend. I am the current fashion. I am the you that tight-rolled your blue jeans even though, deep down, you knew it looked a little ridiculous. I will bend myself into whatever pretzel is currently being celebrated by the tribe. I will become anything to belong.
Ssshhh. Don’t tell anyone I told you that.
Why, you ask, do I say I’m a part of you, if I am your false self? Doesn’t that make me not-you? Aren’t I to be identified and eliminated? Isn’t authenticity everything, and aren’t I a weak and pathetic barrier to that? Aren’t I a hurdle to overcome on the way to your self-actualization? Listen closely. I speak quietly, and everything turns on this:
Once you create me, I am as much a part of you as your soul.
Right now, I am somewhere inside of you. I’m about ten years old. I’m scared and I’m just trying to survive in the social wilds of the world. I need your attention and care and love just as much as every other part of you. If you reject me for my timidness, my duplicity, my scheming to survive, you will be inflicting on me exactly the same kind of pain that gave rise to me in the first place. It will just be more of the same. Try to love me instead.
After all, compared to the next you, I’m easy to love.