24 The Monster inside

I often feel that there is a monster in human beings. When I look at human history, I see wars, massacres, cruelty, torture, rape... everything that many animals wouldn't do. But humans like to position themselves above other animals, forgetting the animal nature that remains within them. In the "Age of Enlightenment" someone said that man is a wolf to man. That's not very fair to wolves... But it was a way of saying that we can be beasts or worse to our fellow human beings. You do not have to read history to say that. Just watch the news on TV and you will see it. I don't think we're all potential serial killers, but who can know how he/she will react in a time of war, in a very stressful moment?

Apart from history, there's everyday life and what we see of the people around us, or sometimes ourselves. We overreact to stimuli that affect us more than others. It seems normal to overreact when someone threatens our children. But what is the limit? Is it normal not to notice the reality of our children, their faults, their mistakes? We do everything to defend them in public, but sometimes we're ruthless in private. The blood bond is very complex, and it's not just blood, it's family, because it also works with adopted children. For everyone? I don't think so, because some people are able to keep a cool head and keep things in perspective. Most of the time .... but there's always a limit, one thing that turns everything upside down, that triggers the pressure cooker valve. It's different for different people.

I have seen myself in such behaviour. I know what can make me angry... No, I won't tell you. I also know when I'm in a bad period, when I'm on a rope, ready to fall. I know how to deal with it. It's better for me to "cut off" everything, to isolate myself from the world and stay calm. I'm not going to kill anyone or be physically violent, but I might say some truths that are not very pleasant for other people. I'm not vindictive and I don't hold grudges....Or only if it's something very serious. Knowing myself, I think there is a kind of monster in me, as there is in every human being. The bridge between these two sides of a person may be very thin or very thick, depending on factors that I can't understand.

I know that the term "bipolarity" is used more by specialists today. I've seen this phenomenon in some people I know and it's something that made me think about this "monster inside". Someone who suffers from this illness can be very friendly most of the time and the opposite for more or less long periods with something that stimulates this change. Being stressed or tired can explain this, but not only. It's very difficult to live with such a person because we can feel guilty about what happens to them. Is only one person guilty in such a case? I don't think so. My intuition is that what I described earlier as a bridge can be open or closed, can be wider or narrower, but it's not easy to make it narrower when the passage has already been used a lot.

Is it the negative face of ourselves or something else? I don't know and I can't understand myself how to define this "personality" in me, where it comes from... I can't remember anything like that for my parents, for example. But for my father or for my mother I sometimes saw a part of this monster. I'm not sure if it's the same monster inside that expresses something in someone with Alzheimer's. It can also be violent, angry and so difficult to live with. I have known some colleagues who have had problems with the "bad" part of him. For one, it was alcohol and he couldn't remember what he had done. For another, it was a problem with another person that he couldn't deal with. We often say that someone is blowing a fuse or "pêter un cable" in French (break a cable)... But I have known people who were friendly and the year after committed a murder or some kind of terrorist attack. With another, I had a strange feeling, like something violent was hidden... He had committed child and animal abuse.

That's just my own theory, without any reading (or not so much...) or study about it. It's just an intuition and I haven't seen any analysts to find out what they would think. I just know that some psychologists talk about the ego and personality and there are many theories about it. Man is such a complex "machine" ... I'm fascinated by how a drama like a rape or a murder can be forgotten by the victim for years, but it affects his own body for years because it's "written" somewhere. I've seen experiences in the brain with shamanism and parts of the brain seem to be hidden or accessible with things that are not always advisable. A monster or several monsters or personalities... It's so hard to know who we are and to stay ourselves.

2Dɛ

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