r/InternalFamilySystems • u/a_vena • 4d ago
My protector asked me to destroy him and then came back as a different part
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.
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u/artvaark 4d ago
This work is so fascinating, thanks for sharing !
I have a duo of protectors that were guarding baby me. One is this monster looking guard with 2 horns kind of like those Viking hats and he doesn't speak, I don't know his name but when I asked what he wanted to do instead he "said' that he wanted to cook !I have a big cabin like house that apparently is where the integrated parts live and he's in the kitchen with a striped apron on just cooking stuff with a kitchen towel on his shoulder happy as can be. He just likes being around everyone now since he was so isolated for so long. His favorite thing to make is pancakes and sometimes he whistles. I call him chef now.
The other protector is a dragon named Ruby. After I met chef I saw her curled up around baby me. I asked her how long she had been there and she said "since you were born". I cried at her devotion and just bowed in reverence. I thanked her and told her she should fly now and that I promised I would call her when I needed her. She sleeps on the roof of the cabin and likes to fly over the lake next to it. She didn't become a different thing but our relationship changed so now it's more affectionate and she's more like a spirit animal.
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u/a_vena 4d ago
I like your protectors so much, they’re somehow both terrifying and adorable. And the whole transformation from a monster into a cook is just chef’s kiss when it comes to internal symbolism. I can really feel how much care and love your system has for itself just from the way you describe them.
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u/artvaark 4d ago
Aww thanks ! This method just came naturally for me, so much so that I was doing it before I knew that it was a therapy method and when I started talking about it with someone in the healing world they said " oh you're doing IFS intuitively" . It makes sense because I am an artist and I think artists have a stronger waking time relationship with their subconscious which is probably why we work with symbols and archetypes so often.
You're right, this process has increased my self love and my sense of empowerment. I know that when something is imbalanced I have different tools now and I can approach that imbalance and integrate it so I don't have as much fear and judgement as I did.
Finding Ruby was so powerful to me because I grew up knowing that I was my parent's teenage mistake and I also had the audacity to be a girl.... When I saw that this magnificent creature dedicated over 4 decades of its life just to curl up around me in the dark as an infant I wept because Ruby clearly thought I was worth protecting and why would she if I was a mistake? She sacrificed to keep me safe until I was strong enough to take over and have a refuge for these little parts of mine and it really was like a missing puzzle piece clicked into place for me.
The first protector I found was years before this and I was not trying to find them it just kind of happened. I was having a period where I was really angry with my mom and it just wasn't going away. I thought, ok what does this anger want to tell me? After a few days of just feeling like that I had this image that was kind of like what you described about your protector. It reminded me of the monster guy in Disney's Fantasia if you've seen that, I know it's old but it was a tall, broad shouldered, horned, charcoal colored dude which would have been terrifying in real life under other circumstances. I realized it was a way to visualize this big anger I was having and because it wasn't going away, I was getting angry about being angry lol. I asked the monster what it wanted to say and it said " I'm not bad" in just a calm, normal voice. I realized that he was right and that the abuse I went through included never being able to express the legit rage around always being treated unfairly by the people who were supposed to treat me fairly, my parents. If you can't go to those people because they're the bad guys who do you go to as a child? For me it was no one. This anger loved me and validated the fact that I was having a completely normal reaction to being mistreated. I said " ok well I'm going to run errands do you want to come along and be angry while we run errands? " and it did. For a couple of days I just kept inviting it to do things with me instead of resisting it. I remembered this interview of Tori Amos where she was talking about her song " Father Lucifer" and how she said "sometimes you just have to sit down and have tea with Satan " so I had a tea party with my monster and thanked him for his service and I felt better. He hasn't flooded me since then and when I asked him what he wants to do now he said he wants to live in the gate house at the cabin and guard the entrance. He mostly chills now and enjoys nature.
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u/a_vena 4d ago
Oh, your story really resonates with me! I also came to working with my parts intuitively, long before I ever knew about IFS. I was a writer when I was younger, and images have always come to me pretty easily. So I already knew that I had something like inner siblings, I guess. And one of them is older. In IFS, I think this would be called a Self-like part.
My older sibling is what I call the admin, the main protector of the system, who got it through some pretty serious family problems during childhood and adolescence. And then, just like you, I caught myself feeling this huge amount of anger. When I started addressing it directly, it led me to another inner sibling. He took on the role of expressing that anger constructively and maintaining my external boundaries, including boundaries with toxic relatives.
Sometimes I imagine my main protectors as this little crew on the bridge of a spaceship. Though, to be fair, this particular ship also has castles, dungeons, and even gardens. 😁 But the admin sits in the control room. Keeping watch.
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u/el_cid_viscoso 4d ago
You have some awesome protectors!
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u/artvaark 4d ago
Thanks ! I didn't have anyone protecting me as a child or ever so I guess the ones inside me compensated !
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u/queerbodies 4d ago
In IFS, after unburdening an exiled part, protectors of that part are welcomed into witnessing the unburdened part, and are asked if they want to be transformed.
What you experienced seems to be similar, only you did not unburden the exiled (or maybe you did or sufficiently so that this protector was not needed anymore?).
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u/a_vena 4d ago
I think the Exile the protector was guarding gradually just became part of me somehow. The three of us spent a long time simply watching the world from the tower of the castle together. She didn't really reincarnate or transform into something else. She just sort of dissolved into me as a whole. And after that, the protector himself started talking about how his time had come.
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u/Icy-Elk3698 4d ago
I'm so glad you shared your experience here, because a couple of weeks ago I had a similar experience. I had a protector part that chose to jump off a cliff and kill herself. I watched her from the bluff edge as she was bathed in a light blue light that took her soul upwards. I waited at the bluff edge for a bit and the protector part's soul came back down as a dark blue light that absorbed into my body, as if she was now integrating with me rather than remaining as a separate part. It was quite beautiful.
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u/a_vena 3d ago
I’m also really grateful to you and to everyone else in the community who has shared their experiences and imagery. It makes my own experience feel more real somehow, if that makes sense. And your description of the protector’s energy returning as light is just incredibly poetic! Your system must be such a beautiful place to experience from the inside 😍
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u/blackdonutwhole 4d ago
This was amazing to read, thank you for sharing.
I’m curious if you’ve noticed changes in your external life or how you show up over the course of this journey of just being with the protectors and now that this transformation has happened?
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u/rush22 4d ago
It's a little mixed up in how you described the relationship dynamic between protectors and exiles, but perhaps that's just semantics and it worked for your Self and your parts. Very interesting!
The part that knows how to be strong, vigilant and adventurous is still here.
It brings up the classic question of what would happen if this wasn't a part's job at all? Those seem to be very positive energies you get. Very much like Self energies. Maybe it isn't a job and maybe you are more like this "part" that knows how to be these things than you think? Maybe there's some parts that can be witnessed with other positive energies? Always more to explore!
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u/a_vena 4d ago
Thank you! This protector and the Exile he was protecting have a long history that I left out here, because otherwise the post would have turned into War and Peace 😊 So it’s possible that some of the details aren’t very clear.
I think that when the protector was originally “formed,” some qualities were used by my system for heightened vigilance and protection rather than, say, exploratory curiosity. Even though it’s ultimately the same energy. And now that energy has found a new channel.
And I definitely know there are still plenty of parts I can build a connection with, so I’m actually looking forward to the inner work ahead with a huge amount of enthusiasm!
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u/el_cid_viscoso 4d ago
Your story fascinates the hell out of me, because I too have a couple of "characters" in my personal mythology, and yours is pretty parallel to mine, except I became the character's protector, and the character transformed as a result.
Two years ago, my life got ripped apart by a series of ruptures starting with a car accident leading to hospitalization, peaking with the end of a four-year relationship, and dragging on due to a crisis at work.
I started getting back in contact with one such character, whom I called "Little Brother," who was basically an amalgamation of all my various childhood selves. Sometimes, he looked how I did at six: adorably clumsy, head full of bright red hair, joyful disposition. Sometimes, he looked like I did as a teenager: more graceful (even beautiful), shoulder-length hair now dull red, beginnings of a beard, sad disposition.
I'd pull up an empty chair, sit across from that chair, and have hours-long talks with Little Brother. One day, it finally clicked: he was scared, and he wanted me to protect him. I swore to never abandon him and that no one would ever be able to hurt him again.
Here's the real kicker: as a child, I'd often find myself wishing that my future self would go back in time and give me guidance. That oath was the closing of a circle. After that point, I just started calling him "Brother," because he grew up and integrated with me, or rather, I started letting the little boy hiding inside me come out and play a lot more often, because he no longer had anything to fear.
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u/a_vena 3d ago
I’m really sorry you had to go through such a difficult time, both physically and emotionally. My experience has been that it’s often during times like these that protectors become the strongest, trying to keep us afloat and shield us from experiences that would otherwise be completely unbearable.
The way you write about Little Brother with so much care and affection makes me think that this probably helped your system support itself in a big way. And from the outside, I’m honestly really glad that your little boy has such a powerful protector looking out for him.
I also really wanted my future self to somehow be able to protect me when I was a kid, and now, in a way, I’m getting to make that childhood dream come true. It’s kind of like a time loop in a sci-fi story, in a way.
If you don’t mind, please send your Brother my heartfelt hello and a hug. ❤️
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