You have to get rid of the body. You may or may not have murdered the person in question, but it’s clear that if you don’t do something with the body soon someone is going to spot you and you’ll be charged with the death. You search for a good place to bury or dump it, but everywhere you go there are complications. Finally you find a likely spot and do the deed. It’s a shallow grave but it will have to do. Whew! You don’t know whether you’re more scared or disgusted. But before you can make up your mind, it rains, and the water washes out a hand or arm, or a friendly dog digs up the bones. You’re back where you started, only this time the police and townspeople are onto you. They begin questioning you and by the time you awaken, it feels like you’ve been grilled for hours. You wake up with that nasty, panicky, lying feeling, and think: What was all that about?
If you can identify the thing in real life that has been killed off you may want to consider whether you are going overboard with the change. It’s not really necessary to destroy one identity in order to commit to a new one. Integration and assimilation are better transition tools than sending parts of the self into exile. |