A dark side of me

[TheAcherMan]

I'm trying to understand some aspects of myself and I'd like to ask what others think of a side of me that I've labeled "the Stranger." I'd like to know if others can relate to it. Below is an excerpt from a blog from 2 years ago when the Stranger made a rather vivid appearance. (it's a long rant. please feel free to skim for the general idea).


"i was walking with God and i thought i was growing. then slowly it got harder. feeling God's love and believing all the truths became a larger and larger burden. knowing that i'm not perfect i asked for God's help and kept trying. eventually i sank to the bottom. why i can wholeheartedly believe something one day and hate it the next baffles me. there is a part of me. i call this part "the stranger" (thanks billy joel).

the stranger is my evil side. boy is it ever strong. when i am under the stranger's control, i am angry. i hate everything. all that is pure is frustrating and annoying. all that is good i envy and want to destroy. finding purpose or truth is no longer important. all that matters is quenching my lust for evil. anything that tries to control me or say that it is true, i hate. it is easier to believe nothing. i don't need something to save me. i need things to stop saving me. all that matters is myself. i don't care about others. i never understood people. doing anything for them is a joke because it's against all that i am. everybody who has more talent than i do is an enemy. i'm sick of trying to believe i hav any worth. i'm a failure at everything. that has been proven time and time again. don't try to encourage me. please, just let me sulk. besides, i'm not worthy of people caring for me anyway. spare yourself and flee! most of all, i hate everything and especially people who try to tell me what to do or control life. i hate anything that tells me where i should be or what i should do. i hate responsibility. why can't i be left alone. i hav no motivation to be useful. why do you want to torture me? why can't you just let me be a bum. i would love to just sit on the street and pity myself.

that is, in short, who the stranger is. pure evil. i love him. i know i shouldn't but i love the stranger. he is such a feeling of freedom and security. it is overwhelming. the stranger is powerful and loves me too. we're hard to seperate. we were made for each other. the only problem is... the stranger doesn't work. it makes me incompatible with people and with anything else valuable in this life. that's fine when the stranger controls me, but sometimes i get in a thought of my own and it's longing for something actually good. this second part (i've never named it, but we'll call it the dove) is all that keeps me from running away, from complete depression, and probably from suicide. the dove wants me to believe that there can be good and happiness in this world and that it's possible to love.
which side do you think is stronger? of course the stranger is. dark, selfish power vs. hopeful world peace mumbo jumbo? come on. still, somehow i know that the dove is the part of me that should be listened to (even tho i would never hav considered that if i were left on my own). so i hav tried for years to fight the stranger and to give the dove more power. sometimes the dove gets on top, but the stranger seems to have so many more tools and so much more power. the stranger can control my feelings. the dove is something that i hav to strain to get. it's not as peaceful or as stable. that is what i do not understand. why would the good side be unstable and weak? when i trust the good side, i end up feeling worse than when i trust the bad side.

i often feel like i'm living a lie. even when i feel close to God, i can feel the stranger and i never feel completely free from him. i ask God to deliver me from the stranger, but the stranger never leaves. he haunts me reminds me of the joy of depression and of my worthlessness and failures. the stranger has so many good arguments for everything. i cannot brush him aside. and tho the stranger is always there, the dove is not. the dove just seems to die sometimes, leaving me helpless. i wanted to follow the dove today. I asked God for strength. i followed the stranger. i couldn't help it. the stranger won. really, i was helpless. i cannot fight the stranger alone and nobody helped me.

in conclusion, i'm super frustrated with dealing with this side of me that i cannot contend against. i guess i shouldn't let the stranger win, but umm... HOW??? it feels worse because i struggle with this way more than the average person. this is such a heavy burden for me and such a hinderance whenever i try to follow the dove. i'm fused with the stranger and i can't break away. i wish God would hear my prayers for aid. in all seriousness, this really sums up my life. my whole life has been a fight with this stranger. all i hav ever known is hoping for life outside of depression and evil. so this is hurting me right now."



Now, I'm not always like that (which is why I can chuckle at the teenage angst while reading it). Since then, I've never felt the Stranger as strongly. But he's still been present in my conflicts with God and has been a constant voice against Him and all reason in the world. So I'd like to ask if this seems normal to other Christians. Is this normal "old man" vs. "new man" stuff or something different? I can't live anybody else's life so i can't know if this is abnormally intense for a Christian. Just curious about what you'll say...

 

[BobW188]

I think you misread The Stranger. Far from being "pure evil," he is at worst a messenger - perhaps in the form of a very good, well costumed actor - alerting you to parts of yourself you would rather disown, of which you want to say, "That's not me!"

The problem is, it is!; and the solution - to the extent there is a solution to the problem of personal evil other than God's mercy - is to own those parts of you that you don't like and stop playing those "Not Me" and "Ida Know" games that Keane used to feature in "The Family Circus."

I met many Strangers during the years I kept a dream log and, as we got to know each other, I learned that none of them were anything like "pure evil" and that I myself was nowhere near as "good" as I wanted to believe. In fact, in many cases I learned that that surface appearance of threat, of evil, was their response to the fact that I had made them Strangers! If there's the Hell of the Bible, there's also the Hell we create within ourselves. We tend to be very bad at choosing whom to confine in it.

Odd as it may sound, the best way to approach The Stranger is exactly as Christ tells you to approach your neighbor: with love, and the desire to do unto him as you would have him do unto you. Speaking of the relationship between the concious and unconcious mind, the pioneer psychoanalyst Carl Jung said, "if the two must conflict, then at least let the fight be fair, with equal rights on both sides." Or, as one of my Strangers told me, (abbreviated), "Let there be a stillness at Appomatox, but without victor or vanquished. Only then can what is dead within you rise and walk."