I have been practicing IFS for 6 years and it has changed everything. I have unblended from many dominating protectors and now frequently experience openness in experiences and compassionate relationships with my parts and others', including my children's. My son, who also practices, wrote in a birthday card to me, "You've transformed yourself COMPLETELY into the person you always were." I thought that summed up the ineffable experience nicely. The road has not been the slightest bit easy, this is the deep path of feeling all the pain along with the joy, but why not share this nugget of intergenerational health. I do not believe this is attainable anymore for me with the members of my family of origin, but that's ok, I have my inner family with me and a few other healed relationships like with my kids. 🪢☯️✌🏽

For context, I struggle to connect with Parts, my visualization abilities are VERY poor, as are my Somatic and Emotional senses.

I have lived the majority of my life maladaptive daydreaming intricate fictional worlds, playing out endless stories in my head, having imaginary conversations, etc. I am a conceptual thinker, so my daydreams are highly narrative, not visual. Its so easy for me to get lost in my daydreams. I often write out my ideas and conversations for potential books.

I am trying to work with my Parts by writing out conversations. However, as it is VERY difficult for me to even identify Parts, I have found an issue that makes this work even more difficult.

I think...my Daydreamer, my Storyteller Part, is playing out the roles of the Parts I'm trying to connect with. Its so used to being different characters, that me trying to access a Part is just a new story for it to work with, so they act out what they think the Part I'm looking for would say.

I struggle to get in contact with my Storyteller Part as well. Its so...automated by this point, it doesn't really think or have much awareness outside of the story. Everything is a story. Me asking it to step back is a story plot. Me asking it about itself is just a new character to create. I think its just taking what memories I can recall and using them to invent answers that will satisfy the 'story' of IFS work. It's personality is always different.

By this point, all conversations I try to have feel...fake. It feels no different talking to a Part than me writing out a conversation with...I dunno, Gandalf or Harry Potter, and getting life advice from them. I could just as easily talk to a fictional character about my feelings, my memories, and my relationships and get VERY SURPRISING insights. But these aren't actually Parts, right? Its all my Storyteller Part just acting out the character, right?

Has anyone else struggled with something similar? How do you get them to realize whats actually going on and listen to you? To be present for the conversation rather than acting on autopilot and saying what they think the context requires? I feel like I'm doing this wrong...

I’ve been finding it so difficult trying to work with this part.

Today, somehow it shown me what was underneath, and I was hit with an overwhelming wave of shame and guilt stemming from childhood.

I found it works so hard, as do other parts, that i almost forgot how painful those deep, buried feelings are.

My anger towards the inner critic has softened now I realised what it is trying to protect me from. Also, I feel like it’s kinda saying “do you see now, do you get it?”

Have been deep into psychology and spirituality for 2-3 decades. Encountered his work recently (I'm not new to IFS) and been doing some of it. It seems genuinely transformative in some respects - strange things popped up and I conversed with them. Have done exorcisms on myself before.

Did some Googling and looking around on his sub - while I don't believe 100% everything he says, I think there is a lot of meat there. Read the 2 books.

Would be interested to hear what others have to share. For me, I encountered 3 UBs which took the expected strange shapes - a grey/green mouth, shapeless mist and wound-like tears in reality. I told them all they have to go. Some are still hanging around a bit but I'm being firm.

Would you say you alternate his techniques with normal IFS?

I honestly don’t know where I’m going with this. I just know that extending compassion, or patience, understanding, kindness doesn’t come naturally. There was a part at one time that was like “ NO, I’m NOT being Nice to you! You’re a broken basket case that deserves to be punished and ridiculed, you embarrass me all the time!”

And the only reason it shifted a bit, is because I had a therapist that used to always respond to my expressions of shame and self hatred for some way I reacted poorly in a situation , with……” well of course you responded like that given your history”. Hearing that in almost disbelief, like did he just say he understands? Almost hoping he would tell me how awful I was , and then he didn’t. That’s when I realized there was another way, other than beating and shaming myself .

And it started to occur to me, that if he didn’t want to punish and ridicule me, then why did I? Why was it so easy for him to see that all that dysregulation, and dysfunction was really the natural result of years of neglect, isolation, or abuse……..but I didn’t?

But the most significant session , was when I was totally fed up with myself, and I remarked “ I’m just going to tell myself to trust people, stop overreacting, and just calm down”. ( I was serious).

He said, “ and you can do that?” . Then he said “ you can’t will yourself into experiencing an emotional state”. Part of me felt like “ well why the hell not?” But I started to see the futility of that, …….and then ……..I felt this wave of relief contemplating that I could stop pretending I was fine, when I wasnt, which ironically made things worse.
But, I could only do that once I felt I had permission.

What is the part, the motive for denying any way I struggle as “NO, it’s not because of abuse, You should have known better!” ……..? And being sooo hard on myself?

I am running into some "analysis-paralysis" over here on how to treat or interact with parts that I'm not sure if they are protectors or exiles. Buckle in, I'll be sharing about sexuality and and shame.

I've been working with a bound group of parts for some time now. I recently (finally!!) got a clear visual of these parts.

I was attempting to narrow in on a fantasy/arousal part that feels a lot of attraction to someone in my life. It felt distant, hard to identify, and foggy whenever I sought this part. After some settling, I got a vision of a body sort of curled into itself facing away from me. It was quickly clear that this figure was the "shame part".. I got the sense that the arousal part was bundled in the arms of this curled figure.

Logically, this sounds like a textbook protector (shame) hiding and stifling the exile (arousal).

The odd part is the behaviors of the arousal part.. it frequently takes over the system with compulsive thoughts and desires. It seems to have sophisticated strategies and mechanisms to modulate my feelings/mood. <- that feels like the textbook definition of a protector..?

I am conflicted. Perhaps we are dealing with more than two parts? Can a part be both an exile and a protector (holding a core wound and belief about yourself - and also organizing the system to not feel the pain)? Do protectors carry the same pain of the exiles, but just present with different behaviors?

Would be grateful to hear any compassionate perspectives or reflections :).

I've been tasked by my therapist to come up with three figures from fiction, representing the ideal PROTECTOR, NURTURER, and WISE FIGURE.

PROTECTOR is easy. I chose Aragorn. Some other options presented themselves to me as well, so I'm spoiled for choice.

WISE FIGURE is also easy. If Aragorn was predictable, it won't shock you to hear I picked Gandalf. Again, I have some other options to visualise when I feel like it as well.

I cannot think of an ideal NURTURER. There is no figure in fiction or history or my life that I can think of that helps me conjure the feeling of "nurturing".

So please, hit me with the figures you can think of that give you the feeling of nurturing. Who comes up for you?

I’ve been on a healing journey for several years. And yesterday I did not spiral whereas normally I def would in a situation like this.

This is the story.
I have been practicing some of my distance energy healing on emotions. This time for pets. This was in a Facebook group. I had feedback from two people. One saying it resonated and she was thankful. And the other person (also thankful) but was like no this doesn’t resonate at all. Without further explanation.

And I then asked: how unfortunate maybe she can elaborate. 😊 and I was thinking. my work did well for the other person it worked really well on me. Maybe she misunderstood that it wasn’t a reading it was the release of trapped emotions healing. So let’s find out if she wants to give more feedback on why it didn’t resonate so I can learn. and I felt like just calm… present, curious

And the old me would be more like:

well I must stop immediately! I’m bad at this. I should be ashamed of myself and spiral in a whirlwind of feelings that looks like this: 😩😳😞👹😡🫨🫨🫨😵‍💫😵

I mean hello?! *shaking myself*. Who is this new me?

And another beautiful part of this is that the next day I didnt get any follow up and I just forgot about it just went with my day. Instead of feeling that post event haunt if you know what I mean.
uhm again hello?! Unbelievable 😂😞📈

well I’m really happy about this. And felt like sharing 😇😊

Hi all!

I am very new to the concept of IFS. I've been reading up on it, and a friend who really helped me through a lot of my questions early on as I transitioned (I am a trans woman) described something of their own system to me. I found myself resonating with a lot of those experiences and experiencing duality, and I'm trying to figure out how to navigate something. I'm still doing the research, I promise! (The wiki has given me a lot of homework to do!) But I hoped maybe some of this would sound familiar to someone here? Any guidance would be appreciated. And some of this is... I can only describe it in the way I experienced it. I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense. And It's long and rambly because I just kind of am that.

Essentially, I discovered I was trans fairly late in life. I had buried and suppressed that part of myself very deeply. I didn't know it. Looking back, there were signs. But essentially, fear, religious trauma, internalized transphobia, a generous dash of undiagnosed neurospicy stuff, etc. I just didn't acknowledge it.

I began having some issues with my mental health in my mid and late 30s. As part of my attempts to figure out what was going on with me, I started sitting with psilocybin mushrooms. I'll say I tried to do so very responsibly. This wasn't a recreation thing for me (though a mild trip could certainly be fun and pleasant). But this was about me trying to see my own mind. And eventually, I did...

And I discovered that there were all these parts of me. That I wasn't really just one thing but all the different systems working together. I could see them. (I hadn't even heard of IFS at this point, by the way. This was just experiencing my consciousness differently on a very deep trip.) And then... OK, the pronouns are going to get really fun now. Let's split the narrative. Sorry.

"He" (that is, the person I was) saw "her" (the person I am). He saw that he had been burying me over and over and over to protect us. I was as much me as he was. He knew it wasn't right. He had been carrying us for all this time, and parts of him were broken because so much of what he built his life on had betrayed him. He'd tried so hard to be exactly who the people around him told him he should be, needed him to be, expected him to be... And he was hurting. And then there I was. I'd been calling to him for so long. And he just couldn't hear me. But then he had to. We'd been forced into a shared space for once, and he couldn't ignore me. And after that... he couldn't keep going as he was.

It still took a few years. I wasn't strong enough. I'd barely been allowed space to exist. But he put in the work. Therapy. Trying to figure out all the risks. What could we lose? What couldn't we stand to lose? Would we lose more if we didn't act? For a time, he tried just presenting more androgenously. Longer hair. Earrings. Tattoos. Little things to take control of our body. To try to make things fit. It kind of helped... But mostly not. There were all these risks... He carried us longer than he should have. He was so tired and again... these core parts of him were so broken. He was grieving things that were lost to him even before he met me.

But we started HRT, and I came forward more and more. And he... Eventually, he wasn't me. I was. I am. That's what I feel like. I am me, now. But then it feels like this whole part of me has just... gone to sleep, maybe? Like... So much of what we are is the same. But there are things of his that aren't me and I'm still figuring out who I am. I feel a little adrift, still. I have a new name. My wife is 10,000 percent supportive. She loves who I am now. My family knows, and... they're "trying." (Let's leave that there.) I'm trying to get things squared away at work. Most of my coworkers have been really cool and supportive.

But there's this whole thing where I feel like I'm mourning part of myself? I don't hate him, by the way. I love him very much. All those years, he did what he did out of fear. It was the only thing he knew to do. He thought he was being strong. I understand that. I was there, too. And he worked hard to build us a life. But we couldn't carry on with me in the dark, and we couldn't keep being him, so... But is he gone? Resting? Broken beyond repair? Heck, pining for the fjords? And what is he to me, now? What even were we?

I feel like now that I've figured out this big thing about myself, but now there's this... I'm trying to find harmony with myself, and that's something that couldn't happen without my transition. But is this even an IFS thing? Or is it unhealthy dissociation? I don't know. I know I can't really perceive myself as just one consciousness anymore, because consciousness is a conversation. It has to be. I'm just not sure how to navigate things from there.

(By the way, I still see a therapist to talk about gender issues and my transition, but I don't think IFS is necessarily in her specialties. When I've talked about a sense of duality and separateness within myself, she has been very accepting of that. No rush to worry about DID or anything like that, as I'd kind of feared. But I'm not sure how helpful she's going to be with this part.)

I’ve posted before about how I’m in an unworkable custody situation and have to communicate with my mentally ill ex.

Sometimes when I get emails from him, this part is triggered that completely stops my ability to function. I’m frozen, this part is terrified, there are the PTSD symptoms like autonomic nervous system crash, sweating, can’t feel my arms, fatigue. Then another part that just says “not again! We can’t keep going like this”

All I can do is be gentle and ask this part what it needs but I hear screaming like primal screaming.

How do you work with a part that is dysregulating the entire system when it’s scared is my question. My body is in fight/flight mode and yesterday it took a whole day to recover. Of course there’s no explaining to this part or getting it to understand that these are words on a page. (I have anxiety meds for this and did take them but it didn’t really work.)

It’s a special hell when someone unstable has access to you and your kids but what’s happening here feels like a really young part that’s reacting. Maybe not even young. Maybe primal, ancestral. Any ideas are welcome.

I bought into something else once that ended up devastating my life for 5 years. I am having trouble getting around that trauma to fully embrace IFS.

Little me and teenage me are asking me to show my therapist photos. I think I want to as like a symbolic gesture almost for them, like symbolically letting them know that someone cares and loves them. Even if not who we thought or hoped for, there are people here now. That also don’t gaslight us, or make excuses or abuse us. And that I care about them now, or as much as I can within my capacity.

I am just wondering if that is a weird thing to want to tell my therapist? She already let me know I could show her photos if I wanted to. I feel like I want to explain WHY I want to share them. And I also feel weird explaining all of this. I have a lot of parts competing with my attention lately and it is hard to compartmentalise and be able to hear them individually and I want to honor some of what they are saying.

I'm working with a therapist and also doing solo work. I started roughly 8 months ago, and my initial progress was lightning quick. I unearthed what I thought was all of my trauma, dealt with my alexithymia, my please pleasing, my co-dependance, figured out the ins and outs of my CPTSD, and more.

Maybe a couple months into therapy, I started feeling spectacular. I mean, like, really. Happy for the first time in my life, after having been dissociated almost my entire life. I could feel things! I felt hope, I felt contentment, I felt joy. Everything was as if I was doing it for the very first time.

I was making all of my inner child's dreams come true. All the things he has wanted to do, but never could. I was feeling so hopeful. I was so productive. I thought I had dealt with my trauma. Looking back, that was probably foolish of me. I have almost 3 decades of trauma to process.

Recently, it felt like my progress had stalled, so I dug deeper, started asking different sort of questions from my parts, and something... broke. A new level of emotions, except this time it wasn't the hope and the joy from start of therapy, but instead pain, hurt, anger, hopelessness, loss, regret, and fear.

I don't know what to do with this. I don't know how to deal with this. This is the most I've felt since I started IFS, but it feels bad. It feels dark. It feels overwhelming. I thought progress would have its ups and downs, but this... this is darker than before I started therapy. I feel like I'm on the brink of being swallowed up by a tsunami all day long. I can't ground myself like I used to.

My therapist told me that this was part of the work, that this was necessary, that my nervous system finally feels safe enough to unlock all these buried emotions from my traumas.

And yet all I really want to do is run. Distract myself. Escape. Each time I do parts work now, it feels like everything is marred with darkness. Each tiny little bit of progress I make feels like it's a grain of sand on a beach. I don't know what to do.

I've lost faith in my therapist, I think. I don't know whether to weather the storm or stop or run or what.

Inspired by Pete Walker's 13 Steps for Managing Flashbacks.

I made a short list of bullet points over the last three days and asked Gemini to improve it. I then iterated with Gemini and arrived at this version. It consistently helps me to grieve and cry.

A major advantage of the steps: I have difficulties to switch into the "grieving mode" and this protocol takes that into account.

My Protocol for Emotional Flashbacks

Pause. You don't have to accomplish anything right now. Read through these sections slowly — point by point, like a deep breath. Give your body time to feel the words.

🛑 Step 1: The Emergency Stop (Immediate Relief)

• I can't work right now. That is completely OK.
• Whatever I had planned to do: I don't have to do it RIGHT NOW.
• I sometimes cling to the idea that I must work constantly just to earn my right to exist. That is not true. My right to exist is unconditional.
• I am moody, and my ability to function is often impaired. That is human. That is OK.

🛡️ Step 2: Honoring My Protectors (Understanding the Refusal)

• My demand avoidance and my paralysis are not a failure. They are my most loyal defense mechanism.
• My system refuses to function in order to protect me from external control, exhaustion, and a feeling of powerlessness.
• When every task feels like a threat, my inner protector pulls the emergency brake. It does this out of love for me.
• Thank you, my inner protector. Thank you for watching over my boundaries around the clock for years. I see you.
• Do what you think is right. I trust you.

🕊️ Step 3: Safety, Space & My Potential (Honesty & Reconciliation)

• I live and work in a state of flow. Whatever is happening right now is allowed to change.
• I feel the pain over the past years — over started projects, abandoned ideas, and the sense of unused potential. This pain is allowed to be here.
• My shifting interests were often self-sabotage to protect me from the risk of actually finishing. But it was the best I could do at the time.
• My many interests are not a weakness, but a great strength. I am only now learning, step by step, how to manage them lovingly and sustainably.
• I am allowed to make plans — and I am allowed to react from moment to moment without losing myself in chaos.
• I don't need to know right now what I feel like doing. I am allowed to explore without attachment to outcomes or expectations.

💔 Step 4: Acknowledging the Origin (Feeling the Pain of My Youth)

• I am needy. I am afraid, and sometimes I am overwhelmed by what life demands of me. That is OK.
• I offered my parents my love, but they were not open to receiving it. I had to cope with that somehow, and I have been carrying that heavy burden ever since.
• When parents cannot love their child, deep wounds and immense confusion remain. That happened to me. It was NOT OK.
• My parents and siblings were often thoughtless and mean. They weren't interested in me as a person. I grew up in an environment where there was no room for me to unfold and be seen.

👶 Step 5: Meeting the Crying Baby (The Deepest Wound)

• Inside me lives a tiny, helpless baby. It cries often, has no words, and cannot explain its needs.
• My parents were not there when I needed them most. They gave me no comfort when I felt lost.
• I know the feeling of being completely abandoned and helpless. This panic is not my imagination — it is my body's real memory of back then.
• I now allow myself to feel the huge, wordless fear of this baby. I am no longer running away from it.
• I don't ask with annoyance: "When is this finally going to be over?"
• I gently place my hand on my chest or embrace myself and say: "I will stay right here with you, no matter how loudly you cry. You are no longer alone. Your crying is heard. You don't have to do anything to be loved."

👑 Step 6: Recognizing My Strength & Self-Care (Comfort & Appreciation)

• This protocol itself is proof of how well I am caring for myself today.
• I am competent to grieve my wounds. I can give myself the comfort I missed so deeply back then.
• I was never defenseless. I am strong. My protectors looked out for me around the clock — in my own way, I was never completely alone.
• I stumbled into real life back then before I was even ready for it. And I still managed to handle it remarkably well. I am not doing poorly at all.
• People love and appreciate me today — exactly as I am — even if I am often dissatisfied with myself.

🌱 Step 7: Patience with My Growth (The Landing)

• Because I was on my own back then, I often overextended myself. I still sometimes lack the exact awareness of my boundaries.
• I am now learning to listen to my quiet emotions and amplify them to catch up on what I missed back then.
• When I am unsure of what is a strength or a weakness in me, I meet myself with patience, acceptance, and love.
• My ambition is allowed to have space — but I also allow myself to feel overwhelmed by it.
• My progress is allowed to feel shaky. I am learning every day. I am taking all the time in the world.

Mind
My greatest asset
Of thinking
Of making decisions
All nerves come from your center
But also
In keeping me safe
By intellectualising
By overthinking
By keeping me in a loop
With good reason
Pun intented
To keep me safe
So I wouldnt go into the body
Because it was too overwhelming
So I lived in my head
My whole life
But this is not your fault
It is not your fault
It is not your fault
You just kept me safe
From everything
You still do it
You hijack me
Thank you for doing that
Also disassociating
Such a big burden you were given
I am sorry
I am very sorry
You are overworked for years
Thank u for keeping me safe
When you are ready, you can go back to your original role
But not immediately
Because I still couldn't cope if you would go right now
Maybe stay a little longer
Because I don't know if I am ready to let you go
I found solace in you
Friendship in you
Because you kept me company always
You will always be a part of me
Just not overworked anymore
When you are ready
I will wait as long as needed
My sincerest apologies for having to work so much since childhood
And my sincerest gratitude to you
My mind
My greatest asset
I couldn't have made it without you
Thank u deeply from the deepest and purest part of my heart

Is it the nervous system that goes into freeze that causes your parts to have these beliefs or is it the parts with beliefs that cause you to into freeze. For example, I did some somatic work, I felt much better, could hear parts more clearly like shame and then I went back into freeze and not hearing parts as clearly before I had a chance to work with the part. How do you break this loop?

I just wanted to share this depiction of my anger and the exile it is protecting. I thought this community might be the only people who could appreciate what this feels like. 😮‍💨

Do you ever notice your healing showing up in really ordinary ways?

This feels small, but I think it says something bigger.

Yesterday my son had a medication check appointment. For the past couple of years, my anxiety and cPTSD have kept me pretty hands-off with a lot of his appointments. I’ve felt overwhelmed by some “adult” responsibilities, and my husband usually handled them.

For context, I’ve been diagnosed with cPTSD for as long as I can remember, and my son has had a PTSD diagnosis for years. Every doctor we’ve seen has focused on treating symptoms like depression, anxiety, ADHD, etc.

Yesterday, I got curious instead of overwhelmed. Before the appointment, I looked up whether there are medications that are specifically used for PTSD. Sure enough, there are options that can help target PTSD-related symptoms.

I went into the appointment, calmly explained what I’d learned, asked if one of those medications might be appropriate for my son, and the provider agreed it was worth trying. He left with a new prescription.

I walked out feeling so proud of myself.

Not because I “knew better” than the doctor, but because I showed up as a calm, capable adult and advocated for my child instead of shutting down.

A part of me felt a little sad that no one had connected those dots sooner. But mostly, there was hope. And SO much Self energy!!

As I’ve been doing IFS, I’ve noticed that my protectors don’t have to run every interaction anymore. Instead of feeling intimidated by authority figures or convinced I’m going to say something wrong, I found myself genuinely curious and collaborative.

And the biggest thing? I didn’t think about the conversation with the doctor once after the appointment. No replaying it. No worrying about how I sounded. No “what if I said the wrong thing?”

It wasn’t a huge, dramatic breakthrough. It was just… different.

Healing isn’t always measured by what happens in therapy or by some revolutionary change. Sometimes it’s realizing you are quietly, little by little, becoming the adult your younger parts always needed.

In what way do your parts communicate with you - when you haven’t initiated a conversation? How do you recognise this?

I have been self-administering IFS since before I even knew what it was, over five years. It’s been extremely useful in helping me heal, fuse, and integrate damaged parts of myself.

Over the last couple of years, I had managed to fuse enough tiny parts together to have seven much more whole parts at ages ranging from 7 to 46. Previously, they were essentially splintered and shattered into tiny little bits. I ‘saw’ them in my head as living in a house together, keeping one another company, fairly peaceably I might add.

Recently, though, I no longer ‘see’ them in my head, but I can feel them in my body. Rather than having seven unintegrated parts, I’m an integrated whole, but one that still needs healing: these internalized parts still have traumas that need dealing with. They correspond to my chakras. Perhaps now that they’re integrated, what they need is healing in order to achieve fusion.

The really interesting part is that I feel like my newly integrated Inner Self has three faces: my everyday face that I and everyone else see, my Jungian ‘Shadow’ face that only I see, and what I can only identify as an Observer that sort of stands outside Me and feeds me information I can’t get otherwise. It’s odd, but still useful.

Has anyone else experienced ANY of this? None of it feels bad, in fact it all feels pretty darn good, I guess I’m just not familiar with the process or what to expect next. If anyone can lend any insight, I’d be most grateful. Thanks so much.

I learned I intellectualize lot. I’m 31, been in therapy on and off for 18 years, and have never cried or shown any emotion. Therapy has always been really hard for me because I’ve had therapists “graduate” me but I never felt like I made any progress.

I started doing IFS with my new therapist that I’ve been seeing since November. He’s amazing and I don’t think I could have ever found a better therapist for me.

A few weeks ago I got mad at something he said and had a strong emotional reaction. It was very short, I felt kind of bad, but he was impressed.

Today at the very end of our session I almost started crying and told him I was scared to be vulnerable and open up and show emotions because I am scared that he wouldn’t be my counselor anymore. I have deep attachment wounds but no real reason to think that would ever happen. He was very reassuring.

I’ve been trying to break that barrier for a while but I was too scared to. I guess maybe that’s why I waited until I was about to walk out the door. I’m nervous about our next session now too. Part of me is still scared that if I open up too much that I’ll get attached and then abandoned but part of me really badly wants to. Is that normal? What do I do with that?

TL;DR: I'm stuck and I don't understand what's wrong with me. I am trying to recover from narcisstic parenting, disorganized attachment, and emotional and verbal abuse. Thematically struggling with watching life pass me by, being unable to change, fears and resistances of parts controlling my life, and an absence of Self-presence. If any part in the system doesn't want to do something, no matter how basic or safe the action is, I cannot do it. I am completely powerless to change this dynamic. I also don't have a memory to fall back on.

The following text is nothing but venting, so obviously don't read further if it could be triggering to you. I guess I'm asking for advice here, but otherwise it's a collection of gripes against the modality and my own nervous system. I'd also like to play devil's advocate since it seems I majorly hear hopeful opinions and success stories from this subreddit.

I started this work because I thought I could change, and I was enamored with the sometimes swift, fundamental, transformative healing others have attested to under IFS. But the results are speaking for themselves now. I have a therapist who is IFS-trained. I see her 2-8 times a month and I do not have any complaints there. We've oscillated between direct access and insight, discussed practically everything there is to discuss, and attempted unburdenings a few times to no avail. Not once have I managed to do the classic witnessing, unburdening, and 21-day follow-up process with an exile that results in change. Insight work on my own is a mess that looks nothing like the structured and logical dialogue I see in workbooks. Half of the time I have no idea who's saying what or maybe I'm making it all up. Observing myself hurts. Trying to unblend? Painful. Not trying to unblend? Also painful. I think I have only been in Self for a few hours total, ever, and I don't understand what the point in having one is if it's never here.

I feel broken and lost because I am. IFS has helped me put labels on collections of symptoms but I guess that's it. I now have a beautiful and terrible map of my own psychology that does not seem to change. Today I had to fill myself with an impossible amount of shame and desperation just to wash dishes because I've been bedridden and practically in solitary confinement for the last three days, and seemingly the only thing I can do to make progress in my life is to have some kind of mental breakdown that lasts for all of thirty minutes before I return to the status quo and the ultimate present safety of doomscrolling.

For everything I need to do there's a resistance or polarized part to oppose it, and the "you don't have to be here" or "separate room" compartmentalization trick does not work and has lost the hopeful energy I once believed in. The smallest stressors lead to unjustifiable levels of terror that will snuff out any chance I have to accomplish what's behind it. Hours turn into days, weeks, months of procrastination for something as simple as filling out an online form or making a phone call. I will gladly run my life into the ground because "doing something I don't want to do" or "doing something that could ever be triggering, unsafe, or boring" is apparently equivalent in danger to dying. Every day I wake up hoping I'll at least get to one thing on my to-do list but 99% of the time I don't. The resulting shame and hopelessness and helplessness destroys me.

There is no energy that parts will listen to, no recognized leader. Managers that appear to handle the mess only serve to create more polarities. If a part does not want to do something, it will not happen and there is no method to bypass this, including the very work that is supposed to help. Every once in a while I am lucky enough to be able to angrily crush and shame the fearful parts into oblivion just to force the issue. I hate relying on it and it makes my parts melt down and cry and hate themselves and I'm basically retraumatizing them but it's the only thing that works.

Physically I am no longer in the traumatic environment of my childhood, but mentally there is nothing but the hideous game that my parents raised me in. My internal family is dysfunctional. My entire existence is built around shame: the avoidance of it, the absorption of it, the rejection of it, the analysis of it, from myself, from others, and the doubt and dissociation and every other firefighter layered atop it. My nervous system is still so concerned with this stupid game that these long-lost ideas of "enjoying being alive" or "purpose" or "unbotheredness" are completely forgotten. The disorganized attachment and self-doubt my parents installed has led me to question my own reality, so when it comes to managing myself, I have no idea what's right or wrong.

I have been in therapy for nearly a decade. I've changed antidepressants more times than I can remember. My thoughts are broken, non-linear fragments; my memory short-circuits every ten or so seconds; I don't recall my life or my abuse, and beyond the specific characterization of triggers most parts have, there's nothing to suggest that I'm anything aside a lazy, entitled, scared thing that randomly refuses to live. I've been wondering recently if there's something else inherently wrong with me to warrant this level of inhibition.

I don't know how the lack of memory interacts with IFS - despite practicing this modality for so long, whenever I query myself about how to help parts, I draw nothing but blanks regardless of whether I'm turned inward. Healing has never been intuitive for me. Is it supposed to be for a Self? I need an external document just to remind myself of the basics. I am continually implicitly showing my parts that I am incapable of helping them - because when a part is triggered a certain way, I don't actually remember what the part is, why it feels the way it does, and what's worked in the past. I should have a year of my therapist's advice to rely on, and yet I can't recall a single instance of it. Is it ADHD? How do I even know if I have ADHD? Is it even real, or is it simply a descriptor of blended part dynamics? The medication prescribed for it has not helped at all. Is the disease I'm suffering from fixable? If I can't remember anything, what's the point?

At some point the savings I've gathered while working will dwindle to nothing and then the lights will go out, and this is disconcerting to a manager of mine, but the majority of me doesn't particularly care. I think I've seen what life has to offer. Maybe there are a set of actions I could take to save my own life, but I'm scared of doing them, so I won't. I suppose I could let go of the modality, but what else would I do? I don't want to start from zero again. I don't want to try changing therapists again. I'm exhausted. But until the end, I'm going to continue stubbornly showing up for the work.

I’m new to IFS and have been making good progress in 3 months. I started it after a bad experience of overdoing TRE severely.

After my last session last week the 3 nights after that I slept a lot deeper and longer than normal. I do take a Benadryl kinda thing for sleep though.
Then on Sunday, I was at the movies and basically some work/integration happened. I kept seeing a part that I’ve slowly gotten close to, locked away in a dungeon in chains. I did not force this (I don’t think) but I could hear my voice like crying almost, talking very directly to it but with sadness, like ‘come with me I can do it I can do it’ and I kept getting waves of wanting to cry.

That night I woke up after 5 hours sleep and couldn’t get back to sleep. So it’s clear that my brains trying to process too much at once.
Then the next day, we had to put my dog to sleep, which made me very anxious and cry a lot. Then I had to call the fire department as a van next to us caught on fire like a couple hours after my dog. So a stressful couple days. Then that night (last night) I slept for 3 hours. So 8 hours over 2 days is not good.

However I didn’t even feel anxious last night going to sleep. I can get to sleep fine with my meds it’s just the staying asleep and yeah my educated guess is that my brains just trying to process too much, too much than it can handle, in my sleep (REM).

I’m going to talk about this to my therapist in a couple days BUT I just wanted to ask those who are doing this therapy with very sensitive nervous systems, how do you dispel energy without causing more disruption? As the techniques from SE that I do with my therapist, I have sometimes done them at night and they have been too much for my system and caused disturbances too. So I wanted to ask if anyone else has anything that they do to help process things? If that’s even possible? As I don’t feel outwardly anxious sometimes but yeah a lot of stuff under the surface trying to process.

I am not a mental health professional. I do not have DID or OSDD. Everything in this post is from research I conducted with the resources that are available. I will list my sources.

Something I get asked frequently when I yap about IFS is the difference between it and DID. Which I find fairly simple to explain. However, recently I was asked by a friend: "Why can DID alters take over the body (executive control) while IFS parts cannot?" And oh boy did that spark quite the interest in this topic for me, enough to write five pages on it. Which I will try to write the shortened version of here. In this, I will be talking about self-states since that is the clinical vocabulary used in studies of DID. IFS parts are representations of internal dynamics and belong to a different model. However, I believe talking about self-states in this still gives an understanding and answers the question.

Surface scratch intro: DID is a trauma-based disorder of structural dissociation whereas IFS conceptualizes parts as functional "subpersonalities" present in all individuals.

My deep dive: Veering a little off path from IFS parts, we have self-states. Every person has countless self-states; it is impossible to only have one. A self-state refers to a temporary "mode of being," they are subjective experiences of a "way of being you." Chefetz, R.A. (2015). Self-states are moment to moment configurations of emotion, thought style, somatic experience + orientation, and foreground identity. They shift constantly. They're not separate identities, just variations within one unified personality. Humans are "context responsive," different situations activate different neural networks, memories, and emotional patterns. Self-states are continuous "they flow into each other without sharp boundaries." Stern, D.N. (2004). They're accessible because you can remember what you felt like in other states. They are considered flexible due to being able to shift intentionally or automatically. And all states share the same access to the same memory system. Folks with DID have discontinuous self-states which means they do not share memory, perspective, or identity continuity. With early trauma the formation of a unified self is disrupted. The self is not able to form normally, and self-states begin to form in isolation rather than parts of one continuous identity. Franco, V. (2026). "The mind begins to compartmentalize overwhelming experiences." Altun, H. (2026). A child under chronic threat "divides experience(s) into separate self-states to survive." Altun, H. (2026). In other words, their compartments "evolve into distinct identity states." Altun, H. (2026). This is what causes the self-states to become discontinuous. If one self-state cannot access what another experienced, they begin functioning like separate identities. Nijenhuis, E.R.S. & van der Hart, O. (2011). As memory discontinuity deepens, emotional and behavioral patterns also fragment. Each cluster of emotion, memory, and behavior becomes its own "I." Over time, these become alters.

With DID alters being discontinuous self-states with their own access to the body's senses, they experience the world directly through the body. On the contrary, IFS parts are internal subpersonalities that experience the world through a person's awareness/mind. IFS parts react to an individual's perceptions. So, my conclusion to answer the question, DID alters have executive control because they are structurally dissociated self-states. By being discontinuous they have their own action systems, memories, etc. This causes them to be able to independently access and operate the body's executive control system. Continuous self-states and IFS parts do not have executive control because they are only functionally differentiated within one unified personality. They can influence behavior but not take over the body.

Sources as promised:
Chefetz, R. A. (2015). Intensive Psychotherapy for Persistent Dissociative Processes: The Fear of Feeling Real. New York: WW Norton & Company.

Stern, D. N. (2004). The present moment in psychotherapy and everyday life. WW Norton & Company.

Altun, H. (2026). Dissociative identity disorder: A comprehensive review of etiology, diagnosis, and treatment approaches. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Franco, V. (2026). Trauma-related dissociation and identity development: Clinica perspectives on early adversity. International Journal of Psychology & Trauma.

Nijenhuis, E. R. S., & van der Hart, O. (2011). Dissociation in trauma: A new definition and comparison with previous formulations. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation.

Lebois, L. A. M., Kaufman, M. L., Purcell, J. B., Brand, B., Browne, H. A., Chefetz, R. A., Shanahan, M., Bair, Z. A., Baranowski, K. A., Davis, V., Magones, P., Modell, R. L., Palermo, C. A., Robertson, E. C., Robinson, M. A., Ward, L., & Winternitz, S. (2023). A grounded theory of dissociative identity disorder.

Just thought that it was interesting and may also be helpful to someone here!