Split

_{*I wrote a similar blog post several months ago, but the story came to me again with new words and in a slightly evolved way as I have continued on my journey.}

Internal Family Systems (IFS) states, in my own words, that our psyche splits in order to deal with the traumas of life. While I am knowledgeable on IFS, I haven’t done the specific training from the IFS Institute, so I’ll simply refer to this as parts work. With that, another way to explain this theory is that our ego (human self) and spirit self separate from each other. In trauma, this false belief of separation can become so severe that we forget our that our spirit, or higher self, even exists. Furthermore, our ego is no longer just the realization that we are human, but becomes our voice of fear, which further splits into different parts (Chronic Worrier, Inner Critic, Judgey McJuderson, etc.) to help protect our now fragile sense of self.

Breathe. Read that over a few times if you need to. It may take a few reads for the words to become understandable.

Here’s a personal example.

When I was young, maybe 7 or 8, my parents decided to get a divorce. Really, nothing wrong with that (well, maybe accept that we were Catholic). They got married in their 20s and were two very different people. The problem was how it was handled, especially for a sensitive, empathic child.

First, while we were all still living under the same roof, my parents got into a huge argument. For me any my sisters, this was scary, and we all huddled together on our oldest sister’s bed. Then, with one of my parents clearly needing to leave the house, we were told to choose who we wanted to go with. I’m pretty sure I wanted to die in that moment. I think part of me did. I, already scared, could feel both my parents pain. I wanted to please both, make them both happy, and here I was, being forced to leave one of them in more pain. I heard my dad’s pleas that we could go watch Space Jam. I had always been a daddy’s girl. Yet my sisters were both going with my mom. I wanted to be with them.

I can almost still see, or rather feel, the agony painted across my dad’s face as we left the house.

However, experiences are individual. I have also heard a similar told by a man on a podcast I was listening to. For him, this forced choice was empowering. I would say more as to why but I can’t remember his words and don’t want to create false meaning. I just simply know that for me, this unwinnable choice was literaly unbearable. My psyche split, attempting to protect me from pain-or really, the pain I felt in causing others pain (which is something a child believes she can actually do because the developing brain is self-centric), and tried to overcome that by never making the wrong decision again.

Hence, OCD.

(While OCD is most often recognized in people with compulsions, or repetitive acts, the defining point is really the obsessive thoughts. For people who go on to develop compulsions, its simply to soothe the stream of worried thoughts.)

Or rather, anorexia (w/ excessive exercise), which was a coping mechanism for OCD, anxiety, and depression, which were coping mechanisms for the pain and fear within my little body. Or rather, the felt separation from Love.

Furthermore, and I won’t dive into this too deep, but the legal process for divorce and child custody in the 90s (and I believe still does) sucked. I knew exactly what was going on as I sat in the family therapist’s office with my sisters, first with one parent, then the other. I could feel it going better with my mom. I desperately tried to save things during my dad’s turn, trying to illuminate the room with my energy. But it failed. I had failed. I didn’t see my dad cry after my mom was granted majority custody, but I could feel his heart break once again (it’s no wonder why he had a heart attack and triple bypass surgery at 40). The pain was too much for the both of us to carry.

My psyche split into what we call “protector parts”, yet are often cruel and controlling: “Don’t fail.” “Do better.” “Don’t fuck up again Ray.” “Why can’t you be good enough?” Then, when I inevitably failed, either because I was doing something I didn’t actually want to or because some part of me froze in fear (my shooting wrist would actually freeze playing basketball), my only option was to shut down in what we like to call depression.

_{*While I’ve listed memories that stand out for me, its often much small, sometimes forgotten instances that cause splitting, such as the time a parent forgot to pick us up from practice, or a teacher ignored our wildly raised hand when we desperately wanted tho share. Or, for others who grew up in a religious background, you may have been taught that God, the Divine, was outside of yourself AND should be feared. How’s that for controlling? (My intention here is not to put down any religion.)}

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Let’s look at this now from a mental health* lens.

While it is now considered normal (thanks to Richard Schwartz and his work around Internal Family Systems) to admit that we all have different parts of ourselves that take on various voices in on our head, we still diagnose the extreme version of this. The extreme version, brought on by severe childhood abuse, is diagnosed as “Dissociative Identity Disorder” (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder). I would caution that diagnosis here may stereotype a person with DID, further separating them from a connection with their community and their higher selves. (Diagnosis is not inherently bad and may point in a direction of how to treat, but often is used as a label that forgets both humanness and causation.). What is crazy** is when we label others as “different” or “ill” because they suffered from extreme abuse, especially when I consider that my own parts have often made me cry. Really, we’ve all just coped with the fears of life as best as we could, and their psyches needed to do even extra work. The only thing that ever heals (not fix…I’m not trying to get rid of any parts, just make them feel safe) is curiosity and compassion. 

_{*The term “mental health” lacks much of what I do as a therapist. Is psycho-emotional-somatic-spiritual too long to say?}

_{*** This is where I think the use of the word crazy is totallyappropriate.}

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Returning to Self

I’m not going to dive too deeply into this part at the moment, as this is still very much part of my current journey. What I will say is that it has taken me years of therapy, reading, grad school, and being dedicated to my own inner work that’s allowed me even get here… here, to the part where I can even recognize that my soul, or higher self, is always there quietly and patiently waiting for me to recognize myself. It’s taken years of unwiring, becoming aware of and letting go of old identities that were never really me, and detaching from fictional narratives. Still, my ego is fighting like hell to stay in control, but my spirit if fighting like heaven for me to return to myself. To stand in the power of my own beauty and joy. My own Wholeness and Oneness with all that is.

And so, the journey continues…