Are you listening? (Part 3) The Inner Voice.

I have to be careful when I listen to my inner voice. For many years, it spoke to me of failure, shame, worthlessness. That voice is still lurking in the background. I am learning to shut it out, and with God's grace it does not control me as it once did. But it is still there, and I need to be careful to discern when the voice in my head is from the Holy Spirit, from some other spirit, or from my old nature, the one that is dead but doesn't act like it.

I've always been more comfortable in my own company than with others. As a small child, I developed a habit of narrating my own life. This would sometimes turn into telling a story that bore no relation to the real world around me, but to the life I wish I had. As I got older, and started interacting more with classmates and other kids in my neighborhood, I learned to keep all that to myself. It was never a matter of my being confused about what voices were real, and which ones were my own. I've never had auditory hallucinations. But the conversations with myself had turned into several different streams.

One is probably a symptom of OCD. I find myself repeating a phrase over and over again. It's kind of like getting a song stuck in your head. Most of the time when this happens, it's not a word or phrase with any particular significance. But it often will not stop. 

Another is my continued narration of my life. It's more color commentary, rather than play by play, but it often seems actually ahead of the action, rather than a reaction to it. This is sometimes distracting. It's also very disturbing when it happens along with my other habit of becoming physically disconnected from what is going on around me. The effect is almost like playing a video game like Doom or Halo. In one mode, you are first-person, seeing only what the character sees. Another mode is third-person, where you see the character from behind, and a little above. You have a wider perspective of the scene. I have lived much of my life in this way, watching at the same time as experiencing. 

The last is the classical 'inner dialogue', the 'self-talk' that many authors and counsellors discuss. This often includes replaying discussions or arguments, some of which are years old. It also encompasses many arguments or discussions never had, because I have them inside, from all perspectives. It seems that sometimes there is no point in having the real conversation because I've already had it, or it feels like I did. Along with the repetition I mentioned above, I also have from time to time dealt with words and sentences that I now know came not from God, but from my flesh, or the enemy.

I think I've painted a picture here of a borderline personality. Possibly schizophrenic, definitely disturbed. I'm pretty sure that isn't the case. What I am sure of is that I have spent many years chewing the things that reinforce the enemy's messages about and to me. Because I was shy, it was much more comfortable to live inside my own head than to engage with my peers on their level. Not to be arrogant, but I was a very intelligent, curious child. I learned to read very early, and very quickly with good comprehension. I found I could have a life in my thoughts, my voices that was much richer than the life in the real world, where I could fail and be humiliated.

The disassociated feelings have subsided a great deal in the past few months, as have the repetitions. I attribute some of this to my more active blogging. Some of it is also due to the anti-depressant I am taking. I've learned the hard way that until my new thought patterns and emotional responses become more set in their new paths, I need the support of an anti-depressant, anti-anxiety medicine, just like my heart needs the support of several powerful drugs.

The biggest change is that I've started to really examine the words I hear inside my head, and compare them to the messages I know to be true from the Word of God. I've never felt worthy of the promises He makes, and so I nurtured the voices that told me I was being punished by God, that I hadn't earned a respite, that I would eventually come to live in heaven, but that people like me would never be happy in this world. I now know that these lies were key in crippling my relationships with my kids and my wife. They made it impossible for me to succeed at various jobs, because I wasn't capable of doing things right or well. People like me.

I think that's where I am going in the next article. People like me.