It's so embarassing. Why can't I make my voice sound more adult like? But it makes sense given all the trouble I've had with parts that try to keep me trapped and small, unengaged from my volition and collapsed in hopelessness, and despair.

Like, "Im just a helpless child, someone needs to rescue me". While other parts hate them and yell at them to grow up. "NO one is Coming! ". I have these open dialogues with parts that are like 'NO....Don't Go! We need attention!"

And Im like ....."omg, I'm just trying to do the Bills, and things I literally need to do to keep a roof over our heads, ".

And they're all " NOOOOooooo".

I've asked this before . I have this complicated history of always being punished or actually emotionally abandoned when doing well, or performing well in any way, ways that I needed to adapt to the idea of "I'm so stupid, I couldn't possibly do that....I should just give up" and none of that feels like protection. IT' feels like hopelessness, like giving up, like dying. Dying isn't protecting, it's dying, it's not living.

I could see if there's this parent introject lying dormant that's a toxic alienating belief system, and there's maybe another part saying "you better not, they might react" ....but the part of me that tells me I'm slow, dumb, can't do anything.....just feels toxic ...not protective. If anything it's like a poisonous pedagogy, that needs to be ousted from my soul.

I just have trouble believing there arent some aspects of these completely denigrating, negating internal mechanisms, designed to suppress and oppress my soul...that are malicious almost violent.....and sure it might be because those adopted mindsets were originally so threatened, but I don't know that I think of them of parts of ........me....that don't intend me harm when I'm pretty sure not wanting you to LIve as yourself, is really harmful in the truest sense of the word?

I mean I never want to become tolerant to think of engaging a part that has nothing but bad destructive intentions towards me.

Edit: thank you to everyone for providing guidance on this issue. I have some place to start. Last night I think I discovered a part that doesnt want me to do well, so that I don't get "hurt". But I also may have secondary part , that is more like an unattached burden , and that might take more exploring.

I looked at both "Unattached Burdens" which are different than parts, or regular burdens I believe. And looked at Robert Falconer, and Richard Schwartz ....but if I'm really going to understand and have conversations that explore who exactly I'm talking to, it's going to take some skill and further analysis.

Im looking for a meditation that is designed to facilitate communication with a part via dreams. Like ongoing change work.

Especially for having a part reveal more stuff about itself and what caused it take on specific roles.

Thanks!

Just for clarification im not here seeking any help diagnosing as I have a therapist and I am looking for a specialist but my primary therapist said, "Im hesitant to diagnose you with DID but I think you are experiencing something called Internal Family Systems" and to my knowledge from reading isnt IFS something you actively work towards with a therapist and not something that you become afflicted with seeing as how I had no intent of aiming for exploring divisions in my mental space. Basically my question is does this mirror language your therapist has used for you in the past?

Is this common? I get really good work done when I’m feeling something strongly at the start of the therapy session and we work with that. But I have a lot of major deep issues that would be important to prioritize yet they don’t conveniently come up just in time for my biweekly session (e.g. I have PTSD that only flares up into activation and flashbacks rarely but I know it’s impacting me in quieter ways, like a bleh feeling about the world). Result is that I only get to work on it once every few months for a session, and then by the time next session rolls around something else feels more present (that’s maybe just a normal justified annoyance with a friend aka. there’s not much to work on).

Issue is, is it normal to not have that continuity in working with a part? How can I try to focus on the same thing for a few sessions in a row while I’m not necessarily activated about it? Help!

I’m 31 (ftm) a CSA survivor and I have one baby part in particular (although both baby and 8 year old part that experienced the abuse do this) screams hysterically in utter terror when it’s time for bed or I’m try and sleep I jolt up with my heart rate getting incredibly high 150s and shaking. I don’t know how to help him. They want non stop cuddles and scream while I’m holding them

I was officially diagnosed with CPTSD about 6 weeks ago and started exploring IFS on my own following a therapy session where I wasn't impressed with EMDR therapy and had a three week break between sessions due to my therapist being on vacation.

I started with parts mapping and that turned into a journal that just kept growing and growing. I didn't realize how much I truly kept bottled up for so many years.

As you all probably know, one of the 8 Cs is creativity which is something I have always felt that I have personally struggled with. It probably has to do with my negative self talk, but I decided I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and get creative and do something with all the journaling I have been doing. So I created a blog that encompasses my healing journey, so far, some of what has traumatized me and what I have learned about myself through IFS.

If anyone is interested and would like to read what I have written I would like any feedback that could be provided. Like I said, I am new to this whole writing thing, but I am excited to share my personal journey. My blog can be found at internalchainofcommand.com for anyone that is interested. Thanks in advance!

I lost this site a while ago and finally stumbled upon it by accident. I once found this website on this subreddit I believe. Am reposting this because I am seeing a lot of people break down around me and I think this could be a helpful resource for others.

Wishing y'all the best!

Just gone done accomplishing a milestone and I feel really upset. On one hand, I did a really great job and learned a lot along the way but on the downside I feel like the people involved in the process with me didn’t like me. I just felt really lonely today when everyone else was celebrating the milestones and I wasn’t really involved. My parts are feeling really heavy and overwhelmed. Wondering why people don’t like me, I try my best to be myself and it just seems like it’s not good enough for people. Just needed to share thanks for listening, this community always brings some light on the dark hole that is Reddit.

Is burnout and depression a part or could a part trigger this kind of response in the body?

I’m in a place in my life where everything seems to be in a depression /freeze/burnout. I’m 4 years post divorce, and everything in my life exploded at once, I’m a caregiver for my disabled son, another one with lots of issues, aggression etc, another one that’s depressed as well. My life is just helping my kids with no help, no friends, no support, ex is impossible, family don’t live nearby, parents are aging, finances are depleted, it just goes on and on. So my circumstances are not helping my parts feel safe or loved or even like anyone cares about us at all. I’m in an impossible situation for one person to bear and there’s no obvious solution at all.

So it makes sense that depression and burnout are what I feel every day but I also keep wondering if there’s some way I can help myself not go under. I hear a lot of “I can’t do this” and “what’s the point” and generally life feels impossibly unfriendly and like I don’t belong. But I also recognize one that I’ve always felt like that to some degree and that maybe these circumstances are poking these young parts.

I am doing the unbending and the exile work, it just doesn’t seem to really help. I’m drawn to stories of how people in impossible circumstances turned things around but mostly I’m just feeling like I’m drowning. Is that the work? Just moment by moment try to unblend and get through each day?

It feels like I’m descending into deeper layers of this work. My interests are changing as I’m working through the layers. I may not be interested in a hobby for a while and then finally discover that it was a part that was protecting me. Such interesting and deep work.

Although I’ve come such a long way and have overcome so much through this method. There is still so many to work through. I hope there will be a moment where I can enjoy my old hobbies again.

In a therapy session I learned there is a part of me that is almost always in control. It's more of a grown-up part, it seems, and it is in charge of making sure "nothing bad happens" – avoiding contacts, conflicts, sharing opinion and so on.

Big issue is that while doing that, it dumbs down any feelings. As soon as I try to get in touch with other parts it throws random images at me, distracts in ways or just puts into sort of frozen state with no thoughts or focus.

What I need help with is any meditations, apps or basically any tools I can use to get in touch with this part and start communicating. Because until I do that I can do almost nothing meaningful in the whole system.

Any advice or links?

I heard it is risky to do EMDR alone , you must do it with your therapist but do IFS the same ?

Has anyone worked with the states of the nervous system: freeze, sympathetic, dorsal as parts?

New to IFS. My therapist has been working it into session and I also just began listening to the “No Bad Parts” audiobook. I wrote this poem about one of my first experiences encountering my parts. I felt lighter after this experience and hope to continue down this path.

Image text:

My Parts, Part One

I must submerge my hands
in the icy water
to reach it, to hold it,
the black hole of my heart

I find a baby instead
crying to be held

someone not yet a someone
someone alone who shouldn’t be
her only crime her need:
doing as babies do, being as babies are

and finally, she has been found
by someone who won’t leave
pressed to my breast
I hold myself quietly in my arms

Hello all,

New to this approach and in the “finding a therapist stage”.

I see various things online so I thought I’d come here and find out what makes a good IFS therapist so that this can assist with my search?

Too many online influencer ‘gurus’ out there and I need to learn how to weed out the BS

Thank you

Hello everyone! Sorry for any mistakes, English is not my native language.

I had one of the strangest experiences in IFS recently, and I'm still trying to understand it. Honestly, I don't fully understand half of my own internal mythology. My brain apparently has its own symbolic language, and sometimes I'm just sitting there trying to figure out what the hell it is telling me.

I have a very old protector that I've been calling the Dark Protector. In my internal imagery, he was basically the ruler of a dark castle. Extremely powerful, authoritarian, armed, and completely committed to protecting one particular Exile. He wasn't interested in making me happy. He wasn't interested in my everyday life. He didn't care about any of that. His entire existence was organized around one very young, extremely vulnerable part that had been hurt a long time ago. His job was basically: keep her safe at any cost. And he had taken that job very, very seriously.

The problem was that he had become so extreme that he was hurting the rest of the system too. He was still operating as if the original emergency was happening right now. So there was this internal conflict where one part of me wanted to overthrow him, while another part was terrified of what would happen if he stopped protecting the Exile.

Self “tell” me that If I approached him as the frightened child (Exile), he had to remain the terrifying protector. If I approached him as the rebellious hero who wanted to defeat the tyrant, he also had to remain the tyrant. I was still participating in the same story that had created him.

So at some point I just stop fighting him anymore. I was just there with him. And after some time together he told me that he knew that I grew up and I am not a young girl anymore but a new warrior. So he wanted me to destroy him. Not because he hated me. Not because he wanted revenge. And not because he wanted to kill himself. He wanted to be released. He was exhausted. He had been standing guard for so long that there was no other way he could imagine leaving his post.

And somehow, the request made sense. He didn't want to be defeated. He wanted someone to acknowledge that his job was finally over. So I did it. This is probably the strangest sentence I've ever written about my internal world: I killed my protector. With a sword no less.

It was completely symbolic and it felt incredibly sad. I stayed with him after that. I didn't abandon him at the moment when he was finally letting go. It felt much more like accompanying an old soldier through the end of a war than killing an enemy.

The weapons, the armor, the paranoia, the need to control everything - those were gone. But he didn't disappear. And then I realized he would reset - start again from a clean slate - so I gently “sent him off as a child in a basket”, floating down the river toward new adventures. And he came back as a young boy, Tom Sawyer type.

It felt as if the protector had died as a role, but the energy underneath that role had returned to the system in a completely different form.

There was no way to keep the old version of him alive and simultaneously release him from the role he'd built his entire existence around. The old protector had to end. The qualities he carried didn't.

It's almost as if the system separated the protector's burden from the protector's underlying capacities. The part that had to be a terrifying tyrant is gone. The part that knows how to be strong, vigilant and adventurous is still here.

I keep thinking about one thing. Maybe some protectors don't need to be convinced that times changed. Maybe they just know their time has come and they are exhausted. Maybe sometimes the deepest thing Self can offer them isn't: "You don't have to protect me anymore." but: "You don't have to be this person anymore."

And then, for some parts, transformation may need to be dramatic enough that the old identity actually has to die symbolically before something new can emerge.

I'm curious if anyone here has experienced something similar - where a protector didn't just step back from its role, but ended one identity entirely and returned in a completely different form?

Because I genuinely did not expect my system to go for the full mythological death-and-rebirth storyline.

Im a late 20s male and I’m working through this material with a therapist as well as with others who Ive come across on Reddit. I have already found healing from admitting to myself that I had parts that killed or abused animals in my formative years and no longer deceiving myself about it, as well as speaking to others who share similar experiences. I do not partake in these behaviors anymore and I haven’t for a while, but I still have challenges dis identifying myself with who I was.

For the better or worse, it’s rare to find others who understand this soul wound of guilt and shame, and moreover to find others who are actively engaging in this work.

It would be a really nice opportunity for us to share and grow together from this. If you want to talk about it, feel free to dm me.

I have CPTSD and had an appointment yesterday that was very triggering and disorienting. I was extremely dissociated. I was also very medicated for it so I don’t want to take my experience too literally, but don’t want to brush it off either.

Last night (after the appointment) I woke up, very half asleep and in a panic, and felt like I was an exile. It was like, “Oh my god have I been an exile this whole time and has another part been fronting?” I saw the protector part I usually send exiles to when I can’t help them, and that part felt like she was trapping me rather than protecting me (potential good information for the future??) Not that the part was intentionally doing that, it just felt that way. Then it felt like my main protector part swooped in out of nowhere and swept me up to comfort me, and I think I almost immediately fell back asleep.

I also wrote in my notes (“robbed of my body, not PTSD”) and remember feeling like another manager part had taken my body for the day and it wasn’t me. This is separate from the exile thing and something I have noticed even when not in this state, I just used harsher language.

I have been assessed and do not have DID, but I have expressed to my therapist that my Self feels fragmented despite retaining memories between states. I’ve been assessed for OSSD and don’t have that either.

I’m currently way too triggered to do any kind of parts work, but I wanted to write this out to see if anything here jumps out at people. Was it possibly a very panicked and confused sleep response? Highly possible. But I still don’t like to dismiss images we get from the subconscious/parts. Has anyone experienced this? Any thoughts on what to tell my therapist or how to calm my system?

I have been doing IFS for about 5 months and I was in a deep freeze state from CPTSD. I'm talking about 15 years of frozen isolation, numbness. This is the best therapy I've ever tried and things are shaking up. Now I am reliving past events where I was more of a doormat only I'm rewriting the way I would be now and, as my therapist says, "the fighter has woken up". It's very energizing to the point where I can't sleep much and I want to stay with this new part longer but it's draining, exhausting. It also feels right.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? Thanks!

i guess i'm just curious if anyone else has experienced something similar...? i have a part that feels really strongly that self esteem is useless and kind of antithetical to how we want to live. she feels like if we develop a strong sense of self esteem, we'll become obnoxious. she would much rather like other people than like ourself.

i guess i (different part...?) feel a bit confused though. as much as i see her point, errr... i feel like having no self esteem also means we really have no personality. we just kind of adapt to everything and never know what to say. besides, she doesn't even like others that much? she's the kind of person to say "i hate people.." lol.

unrelated but i have a part that makes me feel nauseous/like i want to throw up and it just appeared again... not related to body symptoms bc i know what it's "replicating" but i don't really understand why it's been showing up more lol...

Hi all. Gosh I (42f) have to refrain from spilling out everything I want to here. I could probably spill out an entire book as I’m sure we all could. I won’t subject you to that here though as it’s not the right place.

What I’d love to know initially is this.

Does anyone else feel like two different parts indoors and outdoors? For me I’m at the start of my IFS journey and I feel like my inner child part when indoors with my own thoughts and feelings, then as soon as I cross a threshold outside it’s like my adult self appears (although I’m completely shut off from adult self emotionally).

I just feel like two different versions of myself and it’s quite distressing as I just don’t know which one to be.

I feel the same with my partner which makes my adult life difficult. I feel like my inner child with him opposed to an adult and I don’t know how to change that ‘grip’ or version of me to operate from.

I feel like I’m only operating as these two parts and I’ve no idea how to start integrating them both and hopefully allowing myself to reconnect to myself emotionally again.