Why I hide behind the mask, and who is the real me?
Who is 80 IRL, and is IRL 80 real?
As I’m interacting with other people in this space, I’m often asked the often asked question of what do you do IRL? In a way, who are you IRL?
One of the best ways to explain this is the dichotomy of Bruce Wayne and Batman. He wears a bat mask as a crime-fighting vigilante seeking justice for the murder of his parents. He’s also a billionaire playboy.
The brain tease is that Bruce Wayne is the mask. The persona he puts on to navigate the world and that Batman is his true self.
Yet push it further, one might argue that his child self was exiled away with the death of his parents, and that Bruce Wayne is a persona, and that Batman also is a persona.
So who is the true self?
The Four Archetypes of Carl Yung and the roles in Internal Family Systems
I’m learning about Carl Yung’s work to understand this a bit more for myself.
The Persona - this is how we present ourselves to the world. It’s the mask we wear as we’re out in the world.
The Shadow - this is our unconscious, composed of everything we repressed away. In a way, it’s all the socially unacceptable things that we bottle up.
The Anima/Animus - the true self of our masculine/feminine psyche.
The Self - the unified unconscious/unconscious of ourselves.
We can also overlay this with Internal Family Systems (IFS) roles.
Managers - the protectors we have that handle how we interact with the external world. They keep us from being hurt by others and prevent painful feelings.
Exiles - the parts that are in pain, shame, fear, or trauma.
Firefighters - these are parts that emerge when the exiled try to emerge. They distract attention from the hurt and shame, leading to impulsive behaviors.
The Self - people are whole, underneath the collection of parts.
In both models, there’s a common theme of the SELF, a unified and whole us. I say us because the SELF includes the collective unconscious of all of us (more later on this).
There’s the mask we wear. I find myself getting into a space of resistance when I acknowledge that I wear a mask because my persona (or protector) doesn’t want me to know that I’m wearing it.
The mask helps us be “normal” in society. It’s not okay to run around with rage in the world, and yet that rage is part of us (the shadow, or the exiled).
For the shadow and the exiled, I’m avoiding using judgment terms like good/bad, dark/light.
They are.
The judgments itself is a creation of society that puts value on one thing over the other.
Why do I wear the mask?
So back to the question at hand.
The mask I wear historically kept me safe. It protected me from the traumas, the feelings that arose from the pain and suffering.
In the absence of the support I needed, my mask grew and grew, beyond my awareness and control.
When I look in the mirror, I see a mask.
My IRL persona is not me.
My IRL persona is the mask that I wear to do what I do.
My IRL persona is an outdated tool.
The journey continues to integrating my shadows, finding my exiled parts, and deepening the wholeness of my SELF.
I am 80.
