Member-only story
Most of us think of people as singular individuals. We may think, “I don’t like the way he’s behaving,” or “They’re a great person.” But we don’t normally think of them as containing two distinct people in their heads. We don’t usually say, “Let me talk to Mike Prime,” or “Have the other Alise call me back.”
But if you suffer from OCD or addictive behavior there is definitely more than one person inside your head. That’s why you have internal struggles. That’s why you do things that you don’t want to do or that you know you will regret. If there were just one of you in there, when you didn’t want to give into an OCD urge or an addictive behavior, you simply wouldn’t.
Human cultures have always been familiar with the idea of internal struggles between two entities within an individual. A famous Native American story describes the battle as between two inner-wolves, one good, one evil. Judaism understands there to be a divine soul coexisting and battling an animal soul within us. Islam describes it as the divine verses the satanic soul. In Jainism, the struggle is to conquer the self. And in the Christian bible, Paul describes wanting to do what is right in conflict with his sinful nature.
People suffering from addiction may feel this as a struggle against their addict self. Sometimes the addict self may feel all-powerful. It is depressing to…
