r/InternalFamilySystems

So I noticed recently: I experience emotions like a child. Literally. Since I wasn't allowed nor able to feel and express my emotions as a child when I was a child..now my emotions are still at that age. They're still child and not developed past then. I want to cry SO HARD, I want to scream loud, I am inconsolable, i cry and have strong emotional outbursts over childish things (or things that wouldn't have that impact on a healthily emotionally developed adult)..it takes me long to calm down..and I need to be witnessed and loved and validated and allowed to take my space. Basically anything you imagine a child emotional breakdown is. Also the sound of me crying and screaming sounds like a child. And I "act" like a child. I'm literally at that age of like 3.

I NEED to be given my space. MY VOCAL SPACE. When I was a child I wasn't let to have my space with crying or making any sound. I was a silent. Now, this is what is my trauma. This actually connects to a lot of other relevant struggles that I posted on this sub before.

I could talk more in depth about parts interaction in relation to this, but I won't bc it'll make the post too long

This part needs to be given space to be ourselves..in that way. We need vocal space, we need safety WITH our vocal space being heard, we need emotional safety and not being shamed nor seen as cringe nor "dangerous" (yes some people have said that to me before) nor crazy

I will, again, repeat for the people in the back: THIS PART DOESN'T NEED SOLUTIONS, IT NEEDS SPACE TO SCREAM ND CRY AND HAVE AN OUTBURST/TANTRUM OVER THE THINGS IT HAS THEM OVER, AND NEEDS SAFETY EMOTIONALLY + PHYSICALLY.

Being muted like this is a symptom of our trauma. It's NOT normal for me. Don't derail the conversation into that side. I feel/this part feels I can't breathe. Literally.

My question is: how do I do that in a house with roommates. Because I can't afford to live alone

I’m trying to understand what happens after a diagnosis, whether it’s depression or another mental health condition. Are you being supported by your loved ones, or are you struggling to get support from your family? What has your experience been?

I have been doing Internal Family Systems therapy for about a year with a Level 1-trained IFS therapist. Over the past several months, I have noticed that after a one-hour session, I often feel overwhelmingly exhausted and fall asleep for three to five hours. Is this a normal response to IFS therapy, or could it indicate that the sessions are placing too much stress on my nervous system?

So, I think Ive been doing this wrong! (People keep telling me you CANT do this wrong but I kind of feel like I have been), just looking for some thoughts on this and I guess validation that I'm on the right track with this.

I've been kind of looking at this as all thoughts coming form parts, and all parts needing to be validated/listened to. I'm not sure if this is just me, or everyone, but I have loads of negative thoughts constantly bombarding me at times , I kind of hear them partly, but more feel the response to them, like a jolt of anxiety, and realise Ive had a difficult thought (an example would be a "what if" catastrophising type thought) . I've realised I've been chasing these thoughts to try to understand where they come form, assuming they are a protector that needs to be worked with before I can sit with a sad part. So I spend my life kind of going, what was that, what was the message, what does it need from me, and clearly its bloody exhausting.

I recognise that this is a part that's doing this, its quite a self like part and a part that takes over quite a lot. I/this part am now thinking that this isn't the approach to be taking, and that these thoughts don't need to be worked with before I can sit with the sad part.

I was wondering if people had thoughts/similar experiences, and how they looks at/approach these thoughts that kind of constantly snipe from the sides? I'm leaning to just basically ignoring them, and focusing on the response to them i.e. if it provides a jolt of anxiety in my tummy, giving presence to the tummy feeling rather than chasing the thought?

I (25F) am not new to therapy but am new to the IFS side of it. My new therapist and I have been working on it since April. I have anxiety and ADHD and a strong inner critic, which heightens any abandonment worries/struggles I have and produces a lot of shame about myself and my life.

My therapist and I are pretty open regarding how I’m feeling during this work and have had to tweak the cadence of it at times to better fit how it’s affecting me. However, with being so new to it and not knowing anyone else who does it, I’m a little shocked by how emotionally dysregulated I feel during these months.

My partner and I agree I’m getting better with this work and that it’s a net plus, but it seems like my moods can fluctuate so rapidly in a day and I tend to almost cry more easily now.

Have other people experienced this same thing while doing this work? For instance, I’ll feel on top of the world realizing the progress I’m making but then later that day I get slammed with so much emotion and ruminating thoughts that I feel like I’m gonna have a mental breakdown. It almost feels like I’m constantly on the verge of a huge mental breakdown for some reason and the world around me doesn’t seem as optimistic

IFS vs AA

I’ve been struggling to adopt and lean into the principles of AA and I lack the willingness to even start step work. The hesitation comes from years of IFS work that seems to not align with messages in AA.

A part of me feels that AA is requiring me to label my whole self as an “alcoholic” (“my name is X, and I’m alcoholic” is how I’m expected to always introduce myself in meetings) when I know that just a part (firefighter) of me uses alcohol to cope. I also struggle with how shame-based AA feels to me. I’ve been trying to learn for years in therapy that I am not a bad person because bad things happened to me. I have no problem admitting times where I’ve done wrong by others and making amends, I think that’s absolutely necessary.

Listing character defects (behaviors of protector parts) is the opposite of what I practice in IFS, which is that “no parts are bad parts”, no matter how destructive they may unintentionally be.

Additionally, I’m really struggling with the God and capitalized Higher Power stuff. Maybe I’m self-centered like the rooms tell me I am, but this whole time in IFS therapy I’ve been working on getting into **self** energy (and using the 8Cs) to work with my protector parts- not calling upon a Higher Power.

Anyways, I tried to reword the 12-Steps using IFS lingo, and I thought I’d share for those in my same boat. Cheers.

1. Admit to having a protector part that uses alcohol to protect me from pain and that it often creates other issues.
2. Believe that self energy, with support from others, can help that protector part take break from trying to protect me in such a way by trusting self.
3. Made a decision to believe in the power of self’s 8Cs and 5Ps to better understand this part that uses alcohol.
4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of my parts without judgement or shame.
5. Admitted to myself and to another safe being that I have made hurtful and harmful decisions, and to genuinely take accountability of those actions without making excuses.
6. Became willing to work with my protector parts to understand them and their purpose.
7. Humbly ask these parts, by showing curiosity and compassion, to take on new healthier roles to support our system.
8. Made a list of all nouns (people, places, things) we have harmed, and became willing to make amends to those nouns.
9. Made direct amends to such nouns wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them, others, or myself.
10. Continue taking attendance of my protector parts and give my parts attention when they are loud or activated or unintentionally harming our system.
11. Be willing to use self energy to stay curiously and compassionately connected with my parts and to ask for help and guidance from others when needed.
12. Be willing to help others without expecting anything in return.

*Reposted this because I’m new to Reddit and couldn’t figure out how to edit my original post*

People who have had internal change via IFS (or other healing modalities), i.e. unburdenings, has that changed how you experience media like art, movies, tv shows, games, etc that have emotional depth?

I want to know if it’s better to save media I haven’t seen for later because I would likely enjoy it more, or if I should make the most of it now while it resonates deepest with my parts (perhaps even bringing some of them into my attention to attend to who I wouldn't notice otherwise).

Also, how has that changed re-experiencing media you've already experienced?

My practice has stalled after I was getting a huge amount of anger coming up(in conjunction with TRE though).

I have a list of the most high impact memories that I know have had the worst effect on my personality development as a youngster. I want to work through them methodically but I have been told this is not the way to do it. Please advise.

Hi! I'm new to IFS and still working on finding a therapist (long story short, I was doing EMDR and my therapist brought up IFS, we tried it and it really spoke to me, but I'm not seeing her anymore). I know no one here is my therapist, but I don't know where else to ask right now.

There's a part that has been very vocal lately and I can't tell if she's a protector or an exile. She's intensely terrified of loving anything because she's dead certain it will be taken away, and her fear is very overwhelming whenever I try to engage with anything I enjoy, but when I ask her if that's her job, or whether she's a protector or an exile, she only keeps screaming about the fear. The only other thing she has said is that she wants to go home and not be alone anymore. That sort of sounds like an exile to me? But if so I've never met her protector, and I have tried to look. I just followed the fear and she was immediately there.

One thing I have been thinking about is that in EMDR (before my former therapist brought up IFS), we focused on resolving some very intense feelings I had about a place I lost. It felt like the past was always with me, which was insanely comforting but also made it hard to see the present, and was occasionally super painful because the past is the past. So essentially what was lost wasn't fully lost. That's gone now with EMDR, but the fear started appearing when the past started fading. So I'm thinking maybe that unwittingly soothed that terrified part's protector, and now she's out in the open? Is that a possibility? Is there a way to tell?

But she IS doing something: she's always very good at jerking us back when I reach for the things I love. Could she be some unusual (to me; the other protectors I have met were very clear about what their job was) protector? Or maybe she does have a protector and I'm just not seeing it? But then shouldn't it be harder to meet the exile, if that's what the scared part is? (possibly I'm intellectualising again lol)

Either way, what can I do next? Should I just stop everything until I get external help? I don't want to make things worse with my inexperience, but I'm loathe to abandon the parts I've already met until I can find a therapist, and frankly that part feels like it'll do anything to be seen regardless of how prepared I am for her.

Sorry for the long post, and thank you for any insight you can share!

I usually always start with some kind of protector, then encounter exiles and cry, and have to take care of them.

Endless cycle

So because that is intense, i dont do IFS daily and not even weekly. I feel the need to rest. Until protectors make me feel too miserable, and there I go. Meet the protector, quickly discover a young exile and end up crying and soothing myself.

Is that going to be the main pattern until some good amount of unburdening happens?

I am always amazed at people doing IFS daily. My parts dont show up easily. I always need guidance from someone else (or at meast most of the time), unless i am in a very special setting and state.

"If you love someone, you want them to be happy; not sad". I think such an idea is around when people get married for instance.

But I sometimes doubt if this is just co-dependence in a glorious cloth. This taking responsibility for another person's feelings. That sadness of a loved one has nothing to do with us. Sadness is just another feeling. Nothing is wrong and we are not burdened to make things right somehow, and make that person happy.

Then at other times I think that statement is really true. Self energy which is love energy does not want to see sad people parading by, something I guess once Schwartz said.

So I am confused.

What do you think?

Sometimes we really don't realize how much emotional damage, time, and expense we pay for a flawed relationship.

Why do you think we keep doing this? Maybe this is how we say we are in love?

Or are there other reasons?

Well... I know a series of factors called schemas.

When you stay in a toxic relationship, the presence of schemas can prevent you from leaving.

A schema is a persistent mental pattern that is usually formed in childhood and continues into adulthood. Schemas are actually the way a person views the world...

Stay with me… we’ll get to know these schemas better in the posts to come.

I have been receiving a mix of somatic parts work, mostly somatic touch as i have preverbal trauma.

Its shifting my lifelong disassociation, and one of the things that i have known but its becoming clearer as time passes, is i have part/s that sing or repeat lyrics in my head

i have at times wondered why, and still dont know

i suspect, and its a guess, that with many many times sitting as a baby in a crib with no one coming, just me in crib and my mother suffering in her bed unable to tend to me (she has schizophrenia), i had very long periods of neglect, and just on my own, so any sound was relief....its like a self soothing mechanism for the babies in me, that they arent alone in the void of silence

of course, i am purely speculating, although i have had "memories" come up showing long periods as above, so there is some alignment to that

anyway, sharing seeing what resonates with others

Between IFS and journaling and a whole of lot of other things, I’ve realized a shift in my subconscious as it shows up in my dreams anyway. The little baby or child that is a recurring theme felt like grief for the children i couldn’t have. Now I’m starting to see them as my younger selves. In a recent dream, the adult version just hugged the child version and said simply “I’m here now. I’ve got you” and woke up feeling less… alone.

The triggers are still there. The numbing is still necessary. But something is shifting and it’s noticeable now.

Here’s to hope. Grit will see you through, friend. Stay in this game and don’t give up.

As my time has gone on in therapy, I've noticed an angry part that just seems to be getting angrier and angrier, to the point where I'm starting to not recognise myself.

See I don't know if this anger is coming out because I fawned and flopped so much in my life, and now this part that held on to all this anger is now coming out in ways that I wouldn't like it to.

I am getting an ADHD assessment as well, feel like some of my anger is to do with the difficulties I have cognitively, as well as sifting through our lifetime of emotional and physical neglect at the hands of my mother, and father, funnily enough, at separate times in my life as they got divorced when I was 5, and didn't physically see my dad again till the age of 9 (_i think_ those years can be blurry) who I can't even confront because she's dead. 3 years ago last July. And I have to spoken to my so-called dad in 10+ years.

I don't know if the comorbidity is making it worse, please have anyone else gone through this and managed to unblend?

Even if you don't have ADHD, have anyone come across an angry irritated part and unblend/ soothed it? I feel that is one thing that my part is really angry about. (Not being seen for the struggling child I was, an adult that I am, that I was always seen as lazy or just not trying hard enough makes that misunderstood part furious. And then the years of abuse and neglect at the hands of both parents and my only grandparent. All now of which are either dead or not in my life because f*** that s*** sideways.)

I've done the whole. Give It love and understanding, and thanking them, but this just doesn't seem to budge.

Tltr; to anyone who unearthed a really angry part, how did you go about on blending or soothing. Because this part just seems to not level out, and ruminates a lot.

I actually made my family members take the test

Dad - ISTP (unhealthy)
Mum - ESFJ (unhealthy)
Me (sister) - INFJ (fearful avoidant )
Younger brother - INFJ (dismissive avoidant)

I was wondering can looking into the mirror and looking into your eyes maybe even hugging urself while you do it or having a hand on ur heart and talking kindly to parts thats inside of you help ?

Like for example talking to the part of you thats afraid of love, connection, intimacy, vulnerability etc or the part of you that feels shame over not having xyz or being xyz. And just showing compassion to those parts of you ?

Can mirrir work help ?

I've been seeing an IFS-trained therapist for about 15 months, but I started doing Parts work in 1992 (not long after Richard Schwartz started, I guess). Which, among other things, means my Parts don't fully conform to the standard paradigm, but that hasn't proven to be a problem. Mostly, I'm just curious if other people have similar experiences. For me, it was a natural outgrowth of doing Inner Child healing work, but maybe it's not: I read the wrong book to start out and didn't realize that the paradigm in the field was pretty much one IC per customer...

So, I'm sure I'm not one of a kind, but how weird am I?

literally have been possessed by the ”manager” and I’ve referred to him as Noname for months now and he’s been helping me for YEARS but my therapist says she can’t engage with naming them? then there’s the inner child and i swear I’ve turned into that child before when I’ve been triggered but she says that’s the ”firefighter” and i hate these labels on them and for the first time today I had to visualize a space and call them forward but that makes no sense, I only turn into them, or their thoughts come to me and try to possess me, when I am incredibly triggered and it’s a shameful difficult thing—why should I call them and speak to them like they’re circus monkeys when they’re not here to befriend me but keep me safe?

furthermore (and this took years for me to figure out) parts aren‘t real (and real at the same time). there’s just a wall of dissociation stopping me from recognizing my own thoughts and feelings when I’m dysregulated. caused by fear and panic. when I’ve been triggered wandering the streets noname has literally told me “yes I’m you, and I’m taking care of you because you can’t do that right now. we’re in this together.” so why should I talk to my parts when they’re just trying to protect me? they don’t want to be seen! it’s dysregulating searching for them! I hate and don’t understand IFS. I’ve been dealing with this for years on my own and then this therapist comes along and tries to give me all these concepts that don’t align with my internal experiences. I just don’t get it and would appreciate advice.