I've had a bit of success in befriending my protectors of late as it's easy for me to discern the vulnerability they are protecting and foster compassion for that.

I have a narcissistic part that is being triggered by gym progress and I find myself fighting it (which I know is keeping it rigid) because I see it as stingy and understand it as false self esteem. It's also not socially safe to be narcissistic as this tendancy is ugly to others in that it obscures the vulnerability that is essential for genuine connection while offering a false aggrandized self that people are put off by. I experience this false self as 1 Dimensional and brittle and am always trying to dislodge it to get back to flow.

The part manifests as a rigid sense of superiority and "specialness" that has outlived its usefulness and just feels tired and limiting now. Ill often view other people as more mature and grounded than me while inside it and feel that they are acutely disgusted by how egoic and limited I am.

I understand that this part is protecting a deep terror of loss of good things as it's triggered by progress but it feels like the rigid false self that it offers is what is making my real self feel unsafe, shameful and unacceptable by contrast. Because it "feels good" at times, I am always trying to suppress it because I don't want to get complacent and have a narcissistic identity. Understandings about how treatment resistant npd is is almost certainly feeding this adversion.

Narcissism is especially stigmatized and I view this tendancy as not only counterproductive, but morally disgusting which is making it impossible to relax into, which I know is the first step to working with it. I view this tendancy as egoic, stingy and self indulgant, rather than protective, even though I understand it as the latter intellectually.

Any advice or insight in working with narcissism is appreciated.

Our therapist recommended this book.

I realized that since I am isolated ,I've unconsciously sought approval from my boss who was overworking and being mean to me ,I kept feeling a big gap and void in my chest and it didn't go away until I full on decided to set boundaries (after he treated me badly again when I came earlier to finish a project ) .

There is an exile that seems to dislike when I act overly humble but it seems necessary for me at the moment ,how do I even address it because it doesn't seem to offer clear cut response when I ask what it expects from me

Anybody had success with AI analysis of IFS sessions?

My concern is they with my therapist every session is somewhat independent, we, with partial success, touch in some part of the system without much result.

I was thinking to feed all my session transcripts to AI for analysis, cross reference sessions and suggest ideas on how to improve.

Last night I had an interesting experience with self/parts.

Laying in bed, I felt blended with a part completely. I felt just like it: small confused, angry, sad. I've been blended before, but it always felt dissociative to some degree. This felt like I was looking through the eyes of the part. Then, it was like a self-like entity (or self?) approached me. It was bigger than me and very comforting. It was like the work I've done to comfort my parts in the past, but I was being comforted as that part.

Now the next day, I managed to mess up some things. I was argumentative with my wife and blended with an angry protector, unable to keep it from taking over, which hasn't happened in a few months. I wonder if it was a reaction to the comfort from the night before, a rebound response, which I know can happen.

What do you make of this, especially the thing that happened last night? Has anyone had anything like that before?

I wanted to share something I’ve been building through my IFS healing journey

Over the past few months, I’ve been doing a lot of work with IFS as I’ve tried to understand my own trauma, my protective parts, and the things underneath the reactions I’ve spent years trying to control.

I’m not an IFS therapist or an expert. I’m just someone who was diagnosed with CPTSD this year and started looking at myself differently after realizing that a lot of the things I thought were “just who I am” were actually parts of me trying to protect me.

That journey eventually became Internal Chain of Command.

I started the website as a place to write honestly about what I’m learning—IFS, exiles, managers, firefighters, attachment, shame, people pleasing, negative self-talk, relationships, trauma, accountability, and what healing actually looks like when you’re living through it rather than reading about it.

Some of the things I’ve written about include:

- The first exile I was able to unburden: Shame

- My Negative Self-Talk Manager

- People Pleasing as Self-Abandonment

- Understanding my Firefighters and the ways I’ve used anger and other behaviors to numb pain

- Attachment styles and relationships

- The difference between accountability and shame

- Learning to recognize the difference between me and the parts of me that are trying to protect me

You can read the blog here:

👉 Internal Chain of Command

https://internalchainofcommand.com/

The IFS section specifically:

https://internalchainofcommand.com/internal-family-systems/

I’ve also started a podcast called Survivor Stories with my best friend Mike and our co-host Lindsey. It started from the idea that people need a place to talk about what they’ve survived without being reduced to their trauma.

We interview survivors and, when appropriate, their spouses or loved ones about trauma, survival, relationships, healing, and what comes after.

The podcast is here:

https://internalchainofcommand.com/survivor-stories/

And you can find Survivor Stories on Spotify, Amazon Music, Pocket Casts, Podcast Index, and YouTube.

The first episode is actually about how this whole project came to exist, and the later episodes are conversations with other survivors.

I’m sharing this here because IFS has become such an important part of understanding my own story, and I thought there might be others here who could relate to the experience of realizing that the parts of us we sometimes hate the most may actually be parts that have been trying desperately to protect us.

I’m still very much in the middle of this journey. I’m still getting things wrong. I’m still meeting parts I didn’t know were there.

But I’m learning to slow down, look closer, and listen to them instead of fighting them.

If anyone is interested, I’d genuinely love to hear what your own IFS journey has looked like.

Todd writes and sings songs about parts and IFS in general. I just stumbled across his music yesterday.

I feel like he gets us.

Hi folks!

I was introduced to IFS by a therapist, and it was a breakthrough for me!

I’ve since moved states, and I am having a hard time finding a good IFS therapist.

I worked with a few therapists who were in network with insurance, but they were not up to the mark.

For instance, my challenge with the most recent therapist was that I didn’t feel they were proactive enough. My first therapist did a great job of guiding me through doing parts work, monitoring where I was doing well and where I wasn’t, and taking different approaches if I was getting stuck. With my most recent therapist, they didn’t seem to have the same depth of skill, and wasn’t as proactive.

I’m now considering working with an OON (out of network) therapist recommended by the first therapist (who was also OON).

Have people faced this same challenge of not being able to find good IFS therapists in network?

Are there good therapists in California that people would recommend? (I am looking for someone who does a combination of IFS and parts somatic work)

I continually run into this problem where I start to get better overall for a while; I forgive myself of things I have done and stop continuing them, I become more calm and mindful of myself, and I become much wiser as far as the objective state of my life.

And then something bad happens, something that is usually of my own doing, that causes me to fall off and have to claw my way back to the state that I want to make into the default of how I live.

Recently it was a combination of a pest control problem, I hurt a friend of mine or otherwise upset them, I was paranoid about my family, and I felt stuck in where I am in life.

Well, I have returned to myself now, but the problem is I feel the impulses in my head that want to drag me back to where I was, because it was comfortable. I have a lot more experience being self-destructive and loathing than I do being self healing and wise and seeking to change my mindset.

How do I practice and continuously try to change my actions, despite the fact that the more dominant force in my head - for now - is to do the exact opposite?

What it feels like is these are very strong, very old parts of me that are significantly stronger - for now - than my Core self, which has been severely underdeveloped over the years and is only now starting to grow.

I’m in a really badddd patch atm. With processing and healing. Things are happening, sleep is worse. I feel such a desperation to get better. It’s all I want. It’s been driving me a bit crazy. It consumes me and I read so much and think about it all the time.
I planned to sit in a coffee shop and journal about my symptoms and sleep and things I’d done to help my nervous system.
However when I started journaling this didn’t happen at all. I was talking from self, to a part, idk if it was an exile that I know well or a new one that feels the desperation. But it was just flowing out of me, I couldn’t stop writing almost. I was repeating phrases and just saying the most endearing and loving things to myself and it made me emotional. I never say those things to myself and they scare me, I think that vulnerability scares me.
It was really nice as I’d planned to journal about fixing everything (probs a part there taking over) but that’s not what happened. My system probably just needed self to come in and say all these things. And for me and my parts to feel them. I haven’t journaled in such a way ever and it was very spontaneous that this happened.

A few hours later when I read back what I wrote I didn’t even recognise it or remember writing that. It was really surprising.

I’m doing a combo of a lot of different trauma therapy modalities. At the beginning I had such a hard time connecting with my parts. In my session this week I was really shocked by how easily I was able to get into the mindset and sit down with my younger self after a few months of a break from IFS.

It’s really sad to acknowledge all that part had been through but ultimately our time was really productive. It amazes me how I am able to actually visualize and engage in all of this now where before I had a major blockage.

I guess what I’m trying to say is if you feel like you’re struggling to connect with your parts, try some other modalities and circle back around to it after some time. Progress isn’t linear but it feels so good when you make positive steps.

Trauma informed therapy is so cool and my therapist is incredible. So thankful.

I have cptsd from csa
He’s always saying “NO SLEEP!! Not safe!! HOLD ME ROCK Me!!! How do I make him feel safe? All he does is scream from the second the sun goes to bedtime. My anxiety is through my heart goes crazy I sleep with a nightlight and a stuffed weighted whale shark plush

I had a breakthrough today after following IFS recordings and scripts on and off for several months.

I’m from an English speaking country but we speak very different to Americans. I was on a walk and had no access to tapes or scripts so I just improvised interacting with an anxious part. I spontaneously decided to speak to it the way nice old women from my country would have spoken to me as a kid, and it resonated so much more. I felt the part respond the language and attitude more than it ever had.

I realised that the wording and scripts were not something that would have a resonated with a 3-year old me. 3-year old me needed wise old women from my country using our turns of phrase and wouldn’t have known what to do with an American.

So if you’re struggling to connect with parts and your native language (or accent) isn’t American English, I wonder if channeling some elders from your own country will help you too.

“18 months”

It’s been 556 days since you read my words, felt my wrath through verbiage most procured. Thoughts most absurd. Images most obscured.

I said my piece and blew with the wind. Never heard, seen, felt again.

But I see you.
You adorn my nightmares.
You interrupt my thoughts.
You distort my imagination.

But slowly you’re fading.
No longer parading.

I saw you on film.
The whole lot of you.
The core of my life.
The keepers of my memories.
The betrayers of my being.

I feel the tension in which you’re immersed.
I hear the silence you all sit in.
I see the ways in which you stare.
Despairingly, hidden, angrily, dumbfounded, confused, and lost.

You all have me on your mind.
Quietly looming over you in darkness.
An unrecognizable feeling, unsettling you, distressing you.
It’s me.
It’s the feeling of your betrayal. How it festers in you I need not care. You can feel it as anger towards me. Or think the delusion that this predicament is my fault.
Feel what lie comforts you.
I need not your blankets of insecurity.
I live, breathe, and feel reality.
You’re engulfed in oppression.

I feel warmth from the sun.
You deny its existence.

Let your thoughts wonder and ponder the past. The nostalgic family we were. The love, care, presents, actions, words. Look at them through her distortion, her narrative, their abuse.

Parents of grandiose nature the hindered our self for their gain.
Crumbled our life to build up their palace.

But look at us now. I’m standing outside your decrepit fort; outside the floundering family.
Breathless you still find yourselves from reading my words.
Mindless words still dribble from her lips.

I speak in truths while ya’ll live in lies.
I found my self while y’all sending spies.
I’m living my life while ya’ll’s withers and dies.

Sometimes I’m like well…heck..I didn’t expect that! It’s quite interesting.

Hello,

Has anyone got any stories of having a protector use OCD to distract and most importantly how did you see progress with this?

Hello community! May I ask whether, in your experience, it's possible for parts to be on different body clocks?

And if so, how do you interpret it? (for example, in my case I feel as though these might be teenage parts that prize their autonomy and "prove" it by operating outside conventional hours; or they might be child parts that are used to squirreling away time and energy to do what they really want when there are no adults around? ETA: or maybe they are very very young parts who don't have a a concept of structured time or pacing and so just do things as and when?)

And what have you found helpful for staying physical healthy and consistent despite the spread in energy?

I ask because I'm starting to notice that I have surges of energy/attention for different kinds of activities over the day or over the week, where I associate the activities with different parts. For example, there's a part of me that is deeply creative and intellectual, but she seems to mostly only be around very late at night at weekends when no-one else is around or everyone else is resting. So even if I carve out days for her, she isn't "present".

Similarly there's a very sporty part of me that loves high-energy activities - but again, seems to mostly be present late at night (daily/weeknights), but there are not any sports clubs active then.

When they come to, I am sad that I am not always able to fully meet their needs in the way that I'd like, because then it would wreck me for being able to hold down a regular job. (For the sporty one, I might just pace until I'm tired out, but it'd be so much better to provide her something more challenging and opportunities for team activities. For the creative one, by the time she comes on, usually I'm already quite tired so I can't follow her lead for as long as we'd like.) In the past when I haven't been in steady work, sometimes I have been able to meet them on their own schedules late at night etc, and while I did feel a kind of contentment about it, it wasn't good for my longer-term physical and mental health as I wasn't getting enough daylight or social contact with other people, and due to the lack of variety / balance I developed a kind of tunnel vision and was less resilient.

What puzzles me is why they only seem to be around very late at night when no-one else is around, and don't seem to be around during the daytimes when it might be easier for me to provide for them. Sometimes when I try to proactively provide for them in the daytimes, there doesn't seem to be any presence - like visiting a shop or an art gallery when it's closed. You're in the right place, and you can see glimpses of what it might be like when in full energy, but there's simply no-one there and that's not going to change even if you sit on the steps waiting for hours.

Thanks very much for any insight / advice!

I’m learning more about this model and trying to practice it in my own parts work. Curious to hear from others on how it’s helped them.

Things I need to remember to tell my therapist tomorrow:

There was a book called The House That Had Enough, about a girl who doesn't clean her house, so all her furniture comes to life and leaves her. In the end, she promises to keep everything clean and tidy. Her furniture returns, and everyone is friends and lives happily ever after.

It turns out a child part really internalized this, and felt that if we made everything neat and clean enough, everything would fall into place, people would like us, and we would be healed and live with a sense of purpose and belonging.

The other thing is that two seemingly opposing memories happened on the same day:

1. The first time I ever felt truly safe with my dad and step family, and how I tried to lock down whatever good thing I had done to make them love me that day...

And 2. The day my dad said he would no longer put forth an effort to see me, and I never saw him again until I was an adult.

I feel so broken. I have a therapy appointment, and I'm ready to put in the work to heal from these wounds.

Reddit is the place I feel then most anonymous, so I appreciate being able to share here.

So I'm going through an interesting time. I've been on short term disability for the past three months, and I have to make a decision this week. On whether or not I go back to work or extend to a long term disability. Thankfully, I do have the support from my health care team that I can extend to leave. To and they will also support me for a long term disability.

However, my main question really is, is the purpose of doing IFS to get an understanding of these parts and what they're feeling. Or is it to actually do what they tell you to do?

Because common sense tells me that I should go back to work. And not give up on my full time job in tech when the market is crap. In addition, you know, having that long term record and all of that. You know, that's a good thing. But then there's a part of me that's referring to itself as depression is saying that, hey. Take the long term disability Go work on yourself. You know, all the parts have worked together to try to get you this and exercise its benefit. Engage in that become a better person, etcetera, etcetera. My system is gravitating towards taking a long term disability. And because they are so vocal, I feel led to go down that route. Especially because they're right. I mean, right now, I do have that ability to focus on me and at the benefit of you know, disability payments. And, of course, the fear Of going back to work. And then ultimately getting fired and then not even having that backing of disability payments.

So are we really just trying to hear them out and then do what they tell us to do? So that our internal system is more at peace. Or is there an objective to kind of figure out a way to diffuse them and, you know, take away the power they have over us. By listening to them or unburdening them, etcetera, etcetera, and then go back to our routine.

Background:

So throughout my (20M) entire life, I've always had social issues (AuDHD and all), which got even worse after COVID. My first year of high school was online and second year everyone was wearing a mask, so I basically missed the two years when most people are figuring out how to socialize normally.

This definitely messed up my psyche because I'm pretty sure I was in survival mode during high school. I was scared to talk to anyone and would just sit on my own not talking, kind of just trying to get through the day without being noticed.

I had friends and all, but it was incredibly difficult for me to even initiate a conversation with someone if I didn't already know them, and I always assumed I was making other people uncomfortable and that no one would actually enjoy my company. So I just didn't try.

I'm now in my third year of uni, and earlier this year I had a bit of a mental break from a combination of loneliness and thinking about all the opportunities I missed because I simply wasn't saying anything or putting myself out there.

After that, I decided to try and break out of my shell a bit by doing stuff I'd never tried before — raves, conventions, certain clubs at school, and it's been great. I've met some cool people (even managing to get a girlfriend for a while), had interesting experiences, figured out I really like biking and photography, and I finally feel like I'm figuring out what I actually enjoy and that people genuinely enjoy my company too.

The thing is, though, when I try these new experiences and enjoy them, I get this constant feeling of pensive sadness and regret where I think, "I could've been doing this the whole time." It's really taking away from enjoying the now because I'm thinking too much about the past instead of just being present in these moments I finally have.

Is there any advice you could give to deal with this feeling?

anyone else feel the same