Bill McCoy “And I Found Myself,”  CYS with permission from Safe Families’s Blog

 

OVERVIEW

 

“…and I found myself….”

I don’t know how often I’ve heard people use this phrase. The whole clause can go something like this:

“…and I found myself three hours later, still looking at porn.”

“…and I found myself at the video store, browsing in the adult video section again.”

“…and I found myself tearing my room apart, looking for his number.”

“…and I found myself staring at the TV at 3 a.m., knowing that I had to get up early that morning.”

“…and I found myself eating my third bowl of ice cream.”

“…and I found myself in line at the checkout line, with more stuff I don’t need.”

In all these cases my “self” is found in a place and space where I shouldn’t have been. I have been fascinated by this phenomenon for some time. Recently, it has now become a personal concern, as I’ve repeatedly “found myself” spending inordinate amounts of time playing on my laptop in what I call a solitaire stupor. And this happening despite that fact that I had pressing, important things to do that I actually thought I wanted to do! Something’s not making sense here.

So, I looked at the phrase “I found myself”. In order to find something that you once had (like your jump drive, your keys, your hard-to-keep-track-of toddler, your groove), one can conclude that at one point, you must have lost that something. So……how do we “lose” ourselves? That seems impossible. “Self” doesn’t fall out of a pocket, get covered up by junk mail, run off to play in the traffic, or disappear because somebody changed the station. As Bill Cosby said, “Was your head with you all day?” So, what happens?

I think what happens is something like what the Apostle Paul talks about in Romans 7. That’s where he describes an internal struggle we all experience, wherein we “find” ourselves doing things we don’t want to do and not doing things we want to do. There’s a civil (or maybe not so “civil”) war waging inside. Sometimes this battle is lost by my willful, deliberate, conscious decision to reject the choices that God would have me make. But often it’s more subtle, less dramatic, as if I really “lose” awareness of what I’m doing or the fact that I’m behaving in a manner contrary to what I feel is right.

Psychologists use a term, “dissociation.” Wikipedia defines that term as “a state of acute mental decompensation in which certain thoughts, emotions, sensations, and/or memories are compartmentalized because they are too overwhelming for the conscious mind to integrate …sometimes referred to as ‘splitting’”.

I can relate to this. Often, I lose myself when I’m overwhelmed by life. And the urgency to relieve stress overpowers my ability to make decisions based on the values that I hold dear. As if the part of me that desires to do right has to go off-line for a while. When that part of me gets “logged in” again, well, that’s when I “find myself”….

So, what do we do about this? Well, certainly the tools of recovery: counseling, group accountability, sobriety routines will help. But there are two areas of focus that I suspect will help with this particular issue.

First, I must become aware of my pattern and fashion a strategy to interrupt it. I suspect most people have a preferred method or two of getting lost. For me, there is usually a first step towards entry into “lost zone”, for example, when I hear myself say (Notice how the splitting is already occurring.), “I’ll just play one solitaire game and then I’ll get to work.” A signal needs to go off to help me recognize that I’m moving into a well-worn rut of disassociation. Maybe that recognition will allow me to really play only one game. More likely, however, I’ll need to decide, then and there, not to start. To reserve my precious solitaire time for a time when I don’t have more pressing work to do or when I genuinely intend to relax. Or I may need to completely give it up for a while.

More importantly, though, I have to deal with my being overwhelmed, the emotional, social, mental, or physical overload. Usually, I will have neglected a basic need or two. This can happen because I’ve rationalized that I’m too busy to address it, or I don’t want to admit the need. Perhaps I need to examine something that I find hard, unpleasant, inconvenient or embarrassing. Maybe there’s an unsurrendered sin that is troubling me that I need to confront. Or concerns and anxieties that I haven’t fully asked God’s help in. Whatever the issue is, it will nag at me like the chirping of a smoke alarm that needs a battery change. And if I refuse to address it, I’ll want to run away from it. To get “lost”.

So, I need to ask God, “What’s going on in me?”

If I know, I need to ask God, “What should I do about it?”

If I know that, I need to do it.

Ouch!

I mentioned the routines of accountability. Sometimes, when I keep finding myself where I don’t belong, I need to get some help. Think of the buddy system lifeguards use at pools with kids. Somebody (or somebodies) to regularly check up on me, to ask if I got lost, to remind me of the stress-relieving steps I’ve realized I need to take (or to remind me to take the time to hear from God for those steps).

It’s helpful if you can have your friends check up on you when you’re most “prone to wander.” When I worked at a downtown office, I realized that my resolve to stay lust-free was very strong in the morning, but would wane after lunch. So, a friend of mine began calling me around 1:00, asking how I was doing. Many times, this would “bring me back” and help prevent a prolonged zone out.

I know that my current solitaire obsession is in part a result of my not spending quiet, receptive time with God and not surrendering the busyness of my life to Him. So, I will be sharing this with close friends and asking for support in both addressing the core needs and not starting to get lost in the first place.

Anyways, at this point, I “find myself” with nothing more to say about this.

 

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

 

1.  Does this article sound real to you?  Do you know anyone, or are you yourself, caught in such a behavior pattern?

2.  Does it help to place attraction or addiction to pornography with other means of relieving tension and feeling a quick fix?

 

3.  What antidotes to obsession does this writer offer? Are they realistic for you? What other solutions would you mention?

IMPLICATIONS

 

1. We tend to be a tension-filled, quick-fix society. Pornography, over-eating and misuse of alcohol and medications are rampant.

2. Not all of us are susceptible to the same kind of temptations or compensations. Those who share weaknesses of obsessions can help one another—and those who are stronger can encourage those who are weaker.