What Is Me and Not Me? | Reflections on Gabor Maté's book "When The Body Says No"

Gabor Maté in his book When The Body Says No discusses “self and not-self.”

In autoimmune disease, the body’s defences turn against the self. Physical mutiny results from an immunologic confusion that perfectly mirrors the unconscious psychological confusion of self and non-self.

…the tendency to serve the needs of others before even considering one’s own, are common patterns…These coping styles represent a blurring of boundaries, a confusion of self and non-self on the psychological level. The same confusion will follow on the level of cells, tissues and body organs. The immune system becomes too confused to know self from other or too disabled to defend against danger.

Simply stated, in autoimmune disease, the body gets confused between itself and invaders. The immune system responds and instead of targeting the invaders, the body’s own tissues become the subject of the attack. In attacking itself, the body confuses me vs. not me.

On an interpersonal level, this can happen also. There is a blurring between what is mine and what is not mine. There can even be confusion about what I am and what I am not, where I begin and where I end.

In the moments of reading Maté’s book, it felt like he was speaking directly to my lived experience.  I existed by taking responsibility for what was not mine. I absorbed the emotional burdens in my relationships while behaving hyper-independent and acting like I had no needs. Meanwhile my body spoke otherwise.

Maté spoke to the landscape of my life and puts words to the wordless.

I fawned and people-pleased my way through life, morphing in moments into what people needed me to be. I stuffed my true feelings and reactions down for fear of being seen as confrontational. I molded myself to the needs and whims of others who I feared being rejected by. I operated in unsafe circles as a chameleon as my most basic survival mechanism.

This was fueled by growing up in a strict religious home that encouraged my fawning behavior. Having a self of my own that didn’t align with the church’s teachings was labeled as “sin” and subjected to the most strict of rejection.

Behind closed doors, I was raging. The aggressions had built up and I was smothered. I took my anger to therapy and vented all of my frustrations, but didn’t really change my behavior until my body forced me to. When I became too ill to keep doing what I had done, when my autoimmune illnesses were flaring time and time again, I finally made the changes that I had needed since I was a child.

It sounds like such a simple question - what is mine and what is not mine? What is self and what is non-self? Physically I can see where my body ends and begins. I see the space that separates me physically from the world and from others. But what about psychically? Where do I end emotionally? Where are my boundaries? And so I ask again - What is mine and what is not mine?

The real life implications in answering the question are more nuanced. People pleasing and confrontation avoidance are so common that they are dramatized in TV shows. The show Friends illustrates the dynamics through an episode where Janice invites herself to Chandler and Monica’s wedding and instead of telling her the truth and risking offending her, they make up a lie and try to weasel out of the situation. People pleasing and conflict avoidance is written across our culture (at least for the sensitive of us).

As I sifted through my psyche and lifelong patterns, I wondered what was my responsibility and not my responsibility? What is my response and not my response? My feelings or reactions and not my feelings or reactions? What is my duty and not my duty?

For helpers and sensitive people, this distinction can be confused. Add a fawning, people-pleasing style and we are often responding to what is not ours, whether it is someone else’s emotions and reactions to us. We feel responsible for the emotional world of others. We worry about how people will respond to us if we set a limit or a boundary. We confuse help and people pleasing, and find ourselves afraid to say no or push back out of fear of rejection or losing the relationship.

Given the caring nature of the helper, we want - or feel inclined - to do for others. To help, to care, to be supportive, to be available, to be kind. None of these behaviors or traits are bad. However the me vs. not me gets blurred and often the helper is sacrificing themselves in service to others in an unhealthy way, often not setting boundaries or caring for themselves.

The over-responsible, the sensitives, the empaths, the people pleasers take responsibility for what is not theirs. They worry and take concern over how the other person feels and what their reaction may be. They fawn and temper their decisions and boundaries based on how someone else may respond.

In my work as a psychologist, I dread when I have to mention the topic of boundaries in therapy sessions. I can predict that my clients will balk at setting a limit in their life and will spend the session worrying about offending the other person. They become more focused on the reaction they will get in response to setting a boundary and lose sight of how the boundary may help them.

We see these patterns in the person struggling with their own health (often an autoimmune disease) and yet not exerting their no and asking for their needs to be met. We extol the selfless person without considering what it will cost them, and how much self-alienation they have tolerated. We don’t congratulate the empath who considers their own reserve before agreeing to help. We typically misconstrue their behavior as “selfish.”

We see it in the mother who selflessly cares for her children while ignoring herself in the process. We esteem her as gives it all away, and we say nothing about the burnout and loss of identity she experiences when her children are grown (not to mention the disease that often develops).

These behaviors over a lifetime can lead to illness and breakdown.

And so I return again to the question - what is me and what is not me? Do you know in your own life what is yours and not yours?

For decades I felt responsible for my relationships, as if I didn’t keep them going, do all the work, that they would crumble. I reacted to my family’s requests and fawned in order to not have conflict and be labeled as “headstrong, sensitive, difficult.” I worried about the wellbeing of the people around me in a way that kept me up at night. I carried more responsibility than was mine and I did it seamlessly until my health took a turn.

Now, thanks to my body’s revolt, I pay attention to what I need before I give my response. I consider my capacity and if I have the reserve I need. I move more gently, respecting the boundaries of my energy and reminding myself that I can tolerate disappointing someone. I remind myself of what is mine and what is not mine.

And so I close by asking - Do you know what is yours and not yours?

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