Internal Family Systems Therapy

So I just found this sub after asking around on r/CPTSD. I’m not sure where to even start with this. Books? Videos?

I cannot do the things I need to do because of this constant, unrelenting anxiety. I cannot work a job nor even update my resume because of it. I cannot complete university work either. I can’t hang out with friends and enjoy leisure because I am just panicked about how far behind I am. The only thing that calms me down is laying down in fetal position. I feel so lost and overwhelmed and don’t even know where to start in order to tackle this. The anxiety is so intense and all consuming. Does anyone have any advice for this? I feel like life is passing me by because of it :(

Hey everyone I’m curious as to what your experiences have been with parts that feel bored, or parts that feel like they need to scroll on social media, fill up time doing activities, watching movies, gaming etc. It feels like this energetic “need” to just do something. It’s a sense of restlessness, I think that would be a good way to describe it.

I was doing an IFS reflection today and noticed that I was able to hone in on my exiled part faster than I was its protector part. It was like I needed to sit with the screaming exile until it decided to show me the protector part which was super concerned about the exiled part but also afraid of it and concerned for it's wellbeing. But it was completely overshadowed and the protector only arose after further inquiry.

Does this mean anything? Wondering if there are similar experiences

Readind No Bad Parts and Dick Schwartz points out how people have used spiritually to bypass their parts (overcoming ego). Is IFS against spirituality? How would the two work together?

Before my big trauma that broke me, my spiritual practice was my main coping strategy and guided my life. I want to be able to get it back, albeit in a balanced way and without spiritual bypassing.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

I am feeling happiness this last year or so pretty consistently- after lots of trauma therapy.

So I thought that this experience I am having a lot was just human nature but I am starting to wonder if it isn't.

I have happiness and experience good things most days now. But at the edge of this happiness is this reminder that I am going to die one day. It's frustrating because it's always been there. My parents instilled from a VERY young age that I was going to die one day and I never got to feel immortal. Parents worked in trauma based medicine so they both saw horrific things at work daily and were always- and I mean always talking about it. They used to joke that I never had a sense of immortality like other kids. It's caused me to be extremely overly healthy at times and I am tired of it. (Bad hypochondria also but that seems to be more related to human connection than specially death).

So for example, tonight I went to an incredible sunset concert in the mountains. I had a margarita and danced with my husband and it was incredible. There were thousands of people there and I had a great time. But on the edge of my experience I was just almost seeing the experience as if on my death bed. I felt slightly removed and part of me was Judy thinking about death so much. Like this constant sense that I better enjoy this now, because life is too short and I might die tomorrow.

It's getting exhausting carrying this sentiment around. I'd really just like to relax and enjoy my time with out worrying about dying all the time. Has anyone else had a part like this?

Any insight would be much appreciated. Has anyone else had an experience in IFS like they’re going crazy? It’s like, I can’t do the work because all of the parts are loud and want to talk at one & want to be heard? I’m scared I’m developing DID or something?

So...as I've gotten a bit more adept at this (aka, consistent with reigning in my protectors consistently at all!) I've noticed something, and I'm wondering if it's kind of universal?

So my exile, like most, feels helpless. Doesn't matter in the face of what, but that's what it feels. Helpless. Small. Incapable of dealing with. Like most kids do when they experience the original trauma(s). But then the secondary feeling, which is actually hard to separate out from the helplessness, is shame. Like what a piece of shit that I feel helpless?! And then protector jumps in with judgements and fixes and so on.

Curious what all others experience related to this.

tldr:

Any advice on how I can better communicate with my parts when I can't see or hear or feel them, or use my imagination to see how they'd react to certain scenarios?

Some Background:

This is my first post on here. Like Dick Schwartz, I also have aphantasia (a blind mind's eye). So when I close my eyes and try to bring up a memory, or see a part, or even just listen to what a part is saying, it's just dark. (my mind's ear is pretty much deaf as well). After some traumatic events and deaths 20 years ago when I was in my 20s, I don't seem to have any kind of inner dialogue anymore. Memories for me, as well as thinking, are fact based and conceptual based, with some geo-spatial information as well so I can place these concepts as I think about them. After a bunch of losses in my life I'm pretty much run by my self-like Logic part and experience minimal emotions, especially since there are no access to emotional memories to pull up.

My experience to date with IFS:

I've listened to as many podcasts, and videos of Dick Schwartz that I can find, and listened to a couple of his audio books, including No Bad Parts. I struggle with the exercises because they are so visually based (e.g. trailhead exercise). I sought out an IFS therapist locally at the beginning of the year. Unfortunately she has only the basic level of training, so we went up doing a mix of modalities. Even in session I struggle with IFS work because everything is so tough when you can't see or hear with your mind to enable communication with your parts.

I've discovered that despite not being able to see or hear my parts, I get these shiver-like sensations that I'm pretty sure if what Dick describes as Self-Energy. When my therapist says something that hits home, I get this surge of tingling sensation to let me know that it did. This has been the thing that has allowed me to keep up hope that IFS can still work for me, since it is the only method of communication I get from my parts.

In therapy I've figured out I have this heavy anchor-like part that weighs me down and keeps emotions from rising to the surface. I tried using IFS Buddy and I got stuck when I got the prompt "Does it have a preference for releasing them into fire, water, or perhaps into the earth? ". How should I know if I can't see it or hear it? Other prompts within the IFS framework I struggle with are things like "How old does it think you are?" or really anything that is like "What does your part say about X?".

Is everything parts-related?:

The map of my "obvious" parts to date is as follows:

1) Protector part that keeps my emotions from surfacing
2) Exile part that holds the pain of various deaths in the family, including my brother
3) Firefighter part that used to go to pornography (before I met my wife) / goes to emotional eating whenever I start to thaw out emotionally and start feeling emotions

The map of my "covert" parts I have a suspicion might exist, but I can't detect them:

After I accidently saw a horror movie scene as a child and couldn't get images out of my head, I suspect my system created the following "covert" parts, which I have no way to prove they are there since I can't detect them:
1) Protector part that blocks visual memories so that horrific memories don't get "stuck in my head" and terrorize me. This acts in a blunt way that mostly blocks my audio memories as well
2) Protector part that blocks visual thinking (ie makes me have aphantasia) so that others can't describe horrific images and they get stuck in my head and terrorize me

Given these hidden parts, it would really help if I could have a way to communicate with my parts like most of the people doing IFS.

My question:

Any advice on how I can better communicate with my parts when I can't see or hear or feel them? Besides thinking/saying/hearing things and having the entire system react with Self-Energy, I don't know how I can improve the communication with my parts and make faster progress with IFS.

Okay I understand they help in some form or another but when they say "protectors" in reality the parts are protecting oneself from the emotional pain that comes from the exiles but the best way I can describe it is like a child that is standing in front of their mother to prevent their alcoholic abusive father that is about to brutually beat up his wife. The child is in the way and is trying their best to prevent their father from continually beating their mother but as we know the father can easily dominate and push his child out of the way so that he can continue beating his wife.

I see my protectors as a child that is protecting me from the pain. Standing in front of the pain to try and prevent the full capacity of pain can only do so much. A protector uses up: time, energy, resources, emotions, and so many other things.

While my parts protect me, I cannot see how it is full protection. Like as if though it were a shield but the shield were made of paper and not solid wood.

the protectors to me are self-destructive in a way. Some, not all. I feel more exile pain over the fact that self-awareness gets to me, feeling the shame and guilt afterwards that my protectors did such a shitty job protecting me but if I were to listen to the protectors perspective, they would be like: "I am doing the best fucking job ever! I am doing great!" but that response is coming from a 6 year old. I am not 6 years old.

That is why a protector is always painful in the end, is it not?

Because of this scenario I mentioned above, this feeds back into the shame and overall emotional pain, making the other parts more engrained in their parts. One parts pain feeds into the other parts pain causing a continuous cycle, while also dealing with polarization.

I think I am onto something. Maybe I am in a part right now. Maybe I am frustrated. But how could you not when you are polarized but also have the protectors feed coal to the fire? The fire just keeps growing and growing.

I've been doing IFS work with my therapist for a year and a half now and while I've had some moderate success identifying and connecting with some of my protectors and sensing some exiles, I haven't been able to really do much for those early younger parts that have been really hurting. I would get so frustrated (to tears even) and then shut down and feel like this stuff is impossible.

Something happened during the session last night where I felt like I was taking deep breaths with a super young version of myself and mentally putting my hand out and offering a safe hug like she wanted from her mom. I felt this weird warm and fuzzy feeling in my chest and thought, oh my gosh, I'm doing it!

It was ended a little abruptly when my therapist mentioned something about mothering and a critical part jumped in and said, 'what makes you think you can be a mother to her?' So i had to have a talk with that part.

But I'm still really excited. I finally feel like I'm making some progress.

CPTSD, Mother wound, and Disorganized attachment all suck.

Hope everyone here has a good Friday.

I have this child part that I call the wolfling because when I first met her all she did was bark. I can get her to talk now but she mostly still acts like a wild animal. She’s grown a liking to a couple of my parts, but is very peculiar about getting too close to them. My other parts she avoids and they avoid her. She doesn’t like women. They make her really uncomfortable. One of my parts can get her to sit next to him but sometimes she will randomly bite him or growl at him. I think this part is stuck in a trauma memory that happened to me around the age she is at. I’m not sure how to make her more comfortable with me. I’m not sure what to do with her at all.

I know I need to talk to my therapist about all of this but I can’t see him until my new health insurance activates. Any tips or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Hello! I am wondering if anyone has ever experienced a part that keeps you up at night?

I don’t really know how to phrase this question, but I feel like I may have a part that comes up whenever I am under extreme stress or transition.

When I was 7, we moved from Europe to the US and I began having incredibly persistent insomnia as a kid.

Every few years, when a major life transition happens such as a breakup, job change, or any physiological adaptation like med changes, it will come roaring back.

I feel like it’s a part because it’s unresponsive to almost anything I try to treat it. Much less like medical insomnia and more like a beingness that takes over.

I have tried being with my 7 year old self and telling her that we won’t abandon her even if means we have to stay up all night. She is mentally soothed but my body stays heart racing and alert.

Has anyone had any similar parts that seem bent on alertness and wakefulness? Any insights into helping 7 year old me finally feel safe enough to sleep?

I’ve done acupuncture and massage,all the cannabinoids, meditations, yoga, and am about to see a new somatic therapist. These things help a little but not enough.

Thanks so much

Recently I've been feeling like I'm hitting a wall in my healing work and I don't really see the way forward. Advice would very much be appreciated.

I've had to deal with a lot of big life events these past years surrounding losing significant others and close family members. I turned to a lot of self-compassion work. I was able to let go of several dismissive friends. It was hard and scary to let go of them, but the friendships that replaced them felt nothing I could have even imagined, until the past months. I've been dealing with a lot of trauma triggers in succession, culminating in 2 very triggering events these past weeks. These are things that are specific triggers for me, but would be hard on anyone. Simultaneously, I've noticed myself getting stuck in a familiar dynamic in all aspects of my life (work, friendships, dating, ...), where I initiate often, I try to communicate my needs (when relevant) while doing my best to hold space for the other person but often feel dismissed, or people just disappear altogether.

Recently 3 people (one of them being my therapist) have stated that I am too intense, take people's behaviour too personally and communicate from a helpless part when asking for help. I've found this very confusing, since I felt I had done a lot of work on communicating from a grounded place (in my window of tolerance), doing my best to take responsibility for my part in the dynamic, trying to hold space for them, not expecting a specific person to be available or hold space for me at any given time, ...

These comments have triggered a part of me that just wants to run and be by myself. I notice thoughts coming up like "I can't expect anything from people", "I'm better of by myself", "other people will use or discard me if I show up as anything else than an empty container", ... At the same time, there's a very scared and wounded part desperately wanting the other person to reach out for connection.

But it's also made me wonder what it even means to ask help from an adult part, and what's reasonable to expect?

Thanks to everyone for reading this far. If this was too vague, I have an example situation below.

As an example, this is a situation with a friend. The day of one of the very triggering events, I texted her briefly stating what happened, and that I felt like I kept getting stuck in the same dynamic in all areas of my life. She responded saying I interpret people's behaviour very negatively and that there's reasons why people can't be there. I texted her I understood that, but that right now, I don't have the emotional bandwidth for those people and I need to draw boundaries. She kept trying to drive her point home. I texted her saying the conversation felt triggering for me, especially after the day that I had, and that it made me feel as if she was saying I needed to accept breadcrumbs. She responded saying some people could leave if I tell them their behaviour is triggering. I texted saying that I wasn't referring to her when talking about people that aren't there for me and that I appreciate our relationship a lot, but that at a day like that what she was saying hit me hard. She started sending screenshots of our conversation to prove that she had been empathic and I was cherry picking her statements. It sort of ended there. I did take some more space from her after, but we have had some similar interactions (irl and via text) since then.

Learning that bad feelings such as anxiety etc are due to parts, most likely exiles, mostly when i dwell on past hurts....

Knowing that, and knowing i have to have compassion for the exiles and not hurt them or else more hurt will occur within (angry managers and fighterfighters), I no longer can push through negative feelings and thoughts when working on more "productive" things and personal hobbies. Because when i feel bad i don't want to dismiss the exile.

So what i end up doing is soothing myself through distractions, gaming, tv, etc, until I feel better.

The big issue is that it takes long time to feel better and relax my exiles and feel safe, while take so little time to them getting overwhelmed and upset. Meaning, I am not productive as all like i would like.

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(Down I go on further, you dont have to read for the main post purpose)

I feel like I am trapped in an unproductive psychology. I feel very envious when I see artists on social media sharing lot of beautiful work, when i can't get myself to do anything.

My hopless part feels like I am just not wired to succeed or reach where I dream etc, I need to accept that I am broken and the perfect life is not meant to be.... When I give in to these thoughts, my hopless part relax.

However, just because hopless part likes that, and I like it when blended, doesn't mean my system and other parts do... It only stays nice to be hopless for a bit, then other parts, such as managers that want to be productive and make use of my time and life, get angry. The pattern is very frustrating!

I feel like beneath all the need to "succeed" and work and share my work, is a feeling of worthlessness and being unlovable, and I need to prove myself to be loves.

Thanks for your time to reading

Basically the title. I wonder, what the IFS perspective is on this.

I have extremely polarized parts about wanting to leave my marriage, but have another part that says I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.

Part of what I’m struggling with is it seems a lot of updating younger parts means showing them you have adult coping skills & can handle things differently…but I don’t feel like adult me has anything to offer. I don’t feel like I can show younger me that I have the resources to make these choices.

With my therapist I really struggle to access either part concretely-whenever it asks how old it thinks I am I get totally stuck. I’m sure that a lot of this is protecting me from being scared to address it, but I’m also just not sure if maybe this isn’t the best modality for someone who feels like what they’re loooing for is help with a specific issue in the present.

I think my hope was that I’d be able to figure out what self wanted through this work, but I wonder if this is a better fit for processing past traumas then a concrete goal like decision making?

Also, how has IFS impacted your relationship with addiction?

I have been sabotaging almost all my relationships.

Whenever I feel close enough to them, I transfer all the needs I haven't had met as a kid onto them. But they also have to be a little bit distant — I don't really get anxious around people who are very openly into me, but I don't fall in love with them either. They have to be a bit hot an cold, avoidant, distant, or just normal but not head over heels with me. That with the combo of me liking them becomes my trigger.

I almost always act out and break it off because it becomes too painful to be this needy and anxious. But then the pain intensifies tenfold, multiplies by feeling guilt, that I caused it.

Sometimes I think the decision to break it off comes from Self, but after I'm not even sure yet. I'm in so much pain and regret after that I can't even say the original decision was rational at all.

And it's not about them. I don't want and don't think it's helpful to blame the other person. I hate conversations about how avoidants are the worst.

I am the problem. I would be the problem with someone else. It's not them, it's me. Sooner or later I am always triggered in a relationship, I always have this insatiable hunger for closeness that's actually the desperate need to be held, supported, soothed, calmed down, loved, admired. And I don't even display this need, it almost always happens internally. I'm terrified of being rejected. I only feel good when I'm with them or when I got the dose of validation of the moment, but it will never be enough.

And I did hurt my partners by lashing out or breaking up out of nowhere. I rarely even think about that, selfishly focusing on my pain.

I tried doing IFS, doing it now with a therapist. It's a lot. It's very confusing. It's a lot of emotions and needs. I seek romantic interest's company whenever I am triggered or just slightly stressed. I need to share my true self and it's not something I can comfortably do with friends, and definitely not with my family.

I'm using my partners. I don't even know if I ever loved any of them. I was obsessed, I wanted to get as close as I can, I was limerent, but love? Can I even have love with my abandonment/attachment trauma?

I don't know what my question is. Was anyone able to heal? Is it even possible for me? I'm very frustrated with the lack of results, I have been either living with triggered exiles in distress, or with the average unsatisfactory boredom. It's so tiring.

Hopefully this is allowed.

Can anyone recommend a therapist that is accepting new clients and in-network with Cigna? I've got childhood trauma, BPD traits, and going through a rough breakup with a narcissist BPD, needless to say I got some strong parts that I really want to learn to work better with.

If they are state-restricted, I could probably do WA or TX.

I am aware of the IFS site and have begun contacting therapists that way too, but thought this may get me there faster.

Thanks!

Very blended here. Anyone get stuck fawning so hard they go into what feels like a trancelike state? I end up forgetting basic facts about myself, get stuck in the flow of conversation, and do this thing where i straight up unintentionally lie/believe my lies in order to maintain a positive interaction. It feels like I'm improv acting, but underwater, and i cant control nor stop it. Lose feeling in my limbs, usually get really agreeable and easily talked into doing things for people.

What can i do to stop this part?

I know a lot of people here do EMDR, but I was curious if anyone did somatic as well. If you do, please link your resources too!

Part of my protector-like activities try to prevent the parts of my life that involve motivation and/or enjoyment from emotional pain which could destroy that. One could maybe say that they try to keep the pain from destroying love.

It is as if various activities like gardening, solitary hobby computer programming and cleaning around the house are parts. At least they're "islands", where I can find some peace and a sense of safety. There is even a kind of happiness there that seems weird. It is like the happiness of a part, not the happiness of my whole self. It can be hard to see clear part boundaries, but sometimes they seem clear, like with the difference between programming and gardening.

Other parts of me try to protect this from emotional pain that might destroy any enjoyment and motivation there. They do this by fighting and covering up sources of pain, and by preventing these parts from arising when conditions aren't right and they would be overcome by pain. Maybe one could say they sometimes keep these parts exiled to protect them.

This has not always been successful. When the love the used to be there is gone, that can be distressing, and also concerning because of loss of useful motivation. It seems to get replaced with unmotivated sadness, anxiety, or anger, all of which have their disadvantages. I wonder if there is a next level here, with something behind those other feelings.

Though, this makes me wonder about whether healing is a good idea now. If I become less dissociated, that seems good by itself, but loss of motivation and enjoyment may be an overly high price for that.

So, I recently broke up with a man I'd been with for two months. The relationship was a typical cycle of him love bombing me and then tearing me down. I learned a huge lesson after leaving him and I've been committed to ifs and self love ever since (it's only been 6 days lol).

Well, last night, I had a dream about this man. I don't remember what it was about; I only remember waking up in a mild panic. Heart racing, unable to catch my breath, trembling and nauseous.

I knew something weird was happening because I've never had a panic attack in my life. Today I felt into that part that panicked early this morning. The part is VERY strong and I can tell it'll take a while for it to open up; however, I gathered that it thinks I'm 11 years old, and it's trying to prevent me from getting bullied or humiliated again.

I get the feeling that my parts are acting up because I'm feeling an unprecedented amount of self love. Have y'all had anything like this happen? It's quite interesting honestly and I'm definitely going to bring it up with my therapist. Would love to hear your experiences.

Just curious if anybody connects these 2 modalities in their practice/therapy?