The Other Me
I spoke on the phone a couple of weeks ago with my friend Matt Evans (the guy who helped me with my first emotional healing session). After that session, we knew there was more healing that needed to be done. My goal in the second session (which only I knew about) was to find the “other me.”
Matt started out like he usually does. He asked the Holy Spirit to reveal different things about me. The Spirit uncovered secrets only a few people know about. Like the fact that I don’t let people get too close to me for fear of what they might think once they know the truth. And that despite being an extrovert, I often prefer long periods of seclusion. There were other things, too.
Everything that was revealed to Matt hinted at the existence of another me. A Mister Hyde to my Doctor Jekyll. A persona that was unknown to me, except through occasional unexplained mood swings.
And a dream.
Let me tell you about it.
In the dream, there were two versions of me. One “me” was outgoing. He loved to socialize. The “other me” was a cave-dweller, who wanted to be left alone. In the dream, the outgoing me counseled the cave-dwelling me, trying to convince him it was safe to come out of the cave.
I told Matt about the dream. He took it as a sign that I may have a major alter.
I have no history of the type of dissociation seen with Dissociative Identity Disorder. So it’s unlikely that I have DID. But emotional trauma (and dissociation) exist on a spectrum. Most people suffer emotional trauma at some point in their life. Trauma creates fragments and alters. It seems likely that we all have them.
I’d never thought about whether I had alters or how they might affect my behavior. But the dream made me aware that I probably had at least one. And eventually, I would have to deal with it.
As Matt continued asking questions, I told him what I saw in my mind. Before long, we found the alter. He was living in an underground cavern. Somewhere inside of me. The cavern was long, with many adjacent chambers.
The usual method of healing an alter is to have them meet with Jesus. So Matt asked Jesus to find my alter.
In my mind, I saw Jesus standing in the cave beside the alter.
The alter had a concern. I’ve expressed it at various times throughout my life, mostly when I’m under pressure to conform to people’s expectations. The concern is that no one understands me. So the alter asked Jesus if He understood him. Jesus said He did. Then he asked Jesus if he could be trusted. Jesus answered that He could be trusted. When the alter was satisfied with the answers, he went with Jesus. They came out of the cave and immediately went into heaven.
The view on the trip to heaven was spectacular. (I saw it from the perspective of the alter.) It was as if I had been strapped to a rocket that was being sent into space. The feeling of peace and freedom I felt in heaven was incredible.
We found two other alters who were toddlers. They were hanging out with Jesus in what looked like the living room of the house I lived in 50 years ago. We said some healing prayers for them and they went with Jesus to a place in heaven.
Then we found other wounded parts of my soul (fragments). They appeared to be soldiers. In our previous session, we’d found many such fragments, which were healed and integrated. As before, we prayed for their healing and integration.
When the session was over, I felt physically tired. But emotionally, I felt great. I’d like to share a little more about how the healing has affected me.
I’ve taught every night this week at the Southwest School of Supernatural. Although I enjoy teaching, I’ve always felt some low-level fear and apprehension when I’m in the spotlight. After I teach and pray with people in public, I usually feel drained and I’m often grumpy. I just want to be left alone. So I retire to the safety of my cave for a couple of weeks… or months. Consecutive days of public speaking have always been difficult for me. But this week, everything’s been different. After four nights of teaching, instead of feeling like I want to crawl in a cave, I feel almost… energized. There’s no resentment over the time I’ve spent in public. No fear over what people might think of me. No worries about being misunderstood. I feel pretty normal. More normal than I’ve felt in decades.
If you feel like there are multiple people inside of you, there is hope. Jesus can heal and integrate the alters and fragments and help you live a more balanced, normal life.
I’ll be teaching more on this subject in future messages.
Related:
Podcast 059: Emotional Healing – Fragments and Alters
Choosing the me
I want people to see
Choosing the me
I want to be
Different emotions, and ways of handling things, come up, with every situation,
I don’t know if they are alters, but there are definitely different ways of handling things.
Choosing the Spirit you want to rule your life, in any given situation.
Make the wrong choice and things can go south quickly
Thank you so much for sharing this story! Thank you for allowing your gift of teaching to bless so many others. You have impacted me for good so many times. I’m grateful.
You just described me, an INFJ, perfectly. I hadn’t thought of it as a cave, but I suppose it is because I would say I needed to hibernate for awhile. I am alternately social, and enjoying people, then retreating to recharge. Is there a guide, or have you written some questions in order to aid locating fragments? Because, of course, being an INFJ, I’d want to do this alone. LOL. But seriously, a list of questions to help direct?
*Happy dance, laughing!*
I am so happy for you, Dave!!
I appreciate this step by step. It encourages me on my healing journey. I have worked through liebusting and some of the steps are similar to this with re-integration. I can tell that there is more integration to be done. I wonder how long the process takes in total. If there are always more layers?
I love your transparency. It’s a gift to others who also seek healing (and maybe enjoy the cave too much.)
Encouraging stuff.
I apologize if this is a duplicate post. I tried to post earlier, but I’m not sure it went through. What is the difference between an alter and a fragment? And is there a process one can go through in their quiet time with Jesus to reveal these alters/fragments and to allow Jesus to heal/mend them?
Thanks,
This was so encouraging and I am so happy for you
Amen, good word, brother. This will help others to see if they have alters as well. . . Do rest well after a long marathon of speaking please!
I believe this may be something I have been dealing with for years. Thru the last several years of my career they would always have us do personality tests. I would score equally on at least 4 or 5 depending on which one they used. It would freak them out and try to make me choose one. I would just laugh and say, “I will be whoever is not in the room.” The least score would always be the happy go lucky life of the party person. Is there someway I can know for certain if this is an issue. I have never had the things happen I have read about those with multiple personality disorder. But I do believe the behaviors were learned.
The condition I’m describing is not severe enough to be classified as DID. The events that caused it were not very dramatic. I have 7 brothers and we got into a lot of fights. Typical large family problems but nothing criminal. I would suggest asking God to reveal the issue and see what happens.