/me is listening to Fever Ray – Seven.
A friend recently told me he doesn’t remember a lot of his college experience, because the breakup which followed it made a lot of memories unpleasant to process or revisit. I’ve been determined not to have a similar thing happen for my recent relationship experience. I’ve made sure to allow some time to remember what I had, especially the good parts, and to mention bits of it in relevant conversations.
What I think I’ll lose anyway is identification with those memories. When I was in the relationship, I was very strongly favoring a particular part of my personality, letting it run dominant over the other parts. Now that I’m alone again, I’ve eased back into a balance, but it makes the grieving process seem very strange to me.
A lot of the time, when the other parts of me are active, my grief seems external, and is alien to me. It’s not unpleasant. In fact, it’s very manageable. Just alien. My memories feel a little bit like the memories of another person.
Other times, when the part of me that was so strong in the relationship is active, my grief is immediate and total. I feel very strongly like it all happened yesterday. I have to survive these periods, but I always survive by accepting that it’s done. So even in this part of me, I’m more or less actively rejecting identification with my past self.
I know there are lots of other people who experience duality in their personalities. I have often wondered how (or if) they integrate things like these.
Any ideas? Similar experience?