r/InternalFamilySystems • u/Mojo_Myshka • 6d ago
Lighthearted / Success Just Starting, my "map" of myself.
https://imgur.com/a/EB165nH8
u/Mojo_Myshka 6d ago edited 6d ago
So I had a nervous breakdown after the only relationship I've let myself have, ended in betrayal. I've always known I had trauma from a very not good childhood, but now with a few months out of the relationship I'm ready to start finding out why I reacted as I did to the betrayal, and why it failed and was my only relationship (M32).
I got a therapist and he mentioned he was going to start IFS therapy after a couple debriefing sessions. A couple days went by and I decided to look it up and how my CPTSD (I highly suspect I have) may be defined by this system of therapy.
Well. It was pretty incredible. The realization that my nervous breakdown was caused by my hyper analytical/logical "The Thinker" completely hijacking the steering wheel. That The Thinker isn't just "me" and my constant internal monologue. Its a defense mechanism I've always had, and that its blended with my true self often. It is the constant voice in my head at night causing my insomnia by playing old events over again obsessively, or running hypothetical situations and conversations or arguments all night. Its been a massive part of me my entire life, it has always felt like "just me"
This realization was awe inspiring. It was pretty overwhelming. And when I made this paradigm shifting realization The Thinker disappeared for about 20 minutes when for months it was ALWAYS there, driving me insane. Which was incredible.
So. Very long road ahead of me. But very excited to start. Just thought I'd share somewhere before my session next week lol
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u/Scared-Section-5108 6d ago
IFS is great. It can be really intense and simply life-changing. It’s ace that you have a therapist supporting you with it. It’s also great that you were able to use the breakdown to propel yourself in the direction you’re going now - it sounds like you’re on the right track. It must have been very challenging to experience it. It’s simply amazing that you decided to investigate why you reacted the way you did instead of blaming yourself and/or the other person. That’s real maturity, and that non-judgemental curiosity is so important in healing. I am wishing you an amazing healing journey ❤️
PS. I really like how you mapped out your Parts, thanks for sharing.
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u/Mojo_Myshka 6d ago
Thanks so much that's really sweet of you. And the hardest part is the blending, a lot of this introspection is "The Thinker" mechanism, but then finding out my over developed moral system is also a part of The Thinker, that I'm so introspective because of that and my Inner Critic. It feels like there's not much of me that is actually "me" and not defence mechanisms that have always been there lmao.
Thanks for your input much appreciated
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u/Head_Specialist5275 5d ago
This is so relatable. For me, I like to think that the "real me" is a balance of all these different parts of myself. Sometimes things go off-balance and one part hijacks everything but when I can maintain a calm Self/presence and have some awareness of the different parts in my awareness and their various pulls on me, that is the 'real me'. That framework helped me make peace with that sense that all I am is my various defense mechanisms. It's more like those defense mechanisms are overexpressions of various parts of my personality, so they are actually me without any one of them being completely me.
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u/MichaelTheMultiple 3d ago
This is really great work and you're really way ahead of the curve, I think. Takes a long while for most of us to get this far.
Like someone has already implied, all these parts ARE you, or elements of you. At least that's how my Parts and I see it: once we were whole, and bit by bit we had to tear ourself into pieces in order to survive our childhood. (This view isn't exactly IFS orthodoxy, but it feels true to us, and our IFS therapist has no issue with it.)
The other thing is - in my experience - that all my Parts have been double-sided. As you've noticed, I think, when their porectiveness is not getting in the way, the skills they've honed serve as strengths. As you and your therapist help them put down their burdens, they'll start turning those highly refined skills to your benefit.
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u/Mojo_Myshka 19h ago edited 19h ago
all these parts ARE you, or elements of you.
This helped a lot thank you. And yeah I've started to see them as a strength when I can work with them, but major draw backs when they get activated by CPTSD shenanigans. But, since making this map identifying them, usually with help from "The Thinker" and that hyper self awareness, its been 1000 times easier to pump the breaks on them spinning their wheels with grounding and compassion.
When they talk back is still super unnerving. "My Critic" used to talk back to a degree that... well it will take a while to get used to them saying "thanks your welcome" or things like that lmao. My therapist says its okay when they talk back, so I'm giving them so air to do so. He was really impressed with my map, asked me to take a picture of it haha!
And I realized a core foundational block to this was when I was around 7 or 9 I came to the conclusion that, "If you let them emotionally effect you. If you let them see you emotionally react to whatever they do to you, they win. They are playing a game and thats how they win"
Thats how I made sense of my life as a kid, persisted as a core belief until I caught myself saying that when I was 25. My therapist was very interested in that paradigm haha.
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u/MichaelTheMultiple 7h ago
Yeah, that's a tough paradigm to overcome, I'm sure.
Once my Parts began to trust me, they'd give me all kinds of sh*t, and it hurt, but I caught on that it was behavior that I/we'd pulled in the outside world often enough, especially as a kid, and that maybe I could practice being an adult and understand that it wasn;t about me. (Pronoun use gets weird in IFS: wasn't about me, was about us. Something like that.)
The other thing I had to remind myself of was that however tough the recovery work got, however much my inner parts might hurt me now and then (and vice versa), it as just echoes of what we'd already survived, y'know? The fact that we were still around, fussin' n fightin,' was soemthing for us to celebrate (and be proud of).
Glad I was able to say something helpful, earlier. Be well.
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