Anchoring the Parts of Me

On "Parts Work"

If you would like to pay for a subscription, but don’t want to do so through Substack, you can pay via my Venmo or PayPal. Also, if you’d like a paid subscription, but can’t afford it, please email me and I’ll add you—no questions asked.

I have been doing “Parts Work” for the last two-ish years with my therapist. Essentially, the idea is that we all have various parts/personalities within us and we are working to integrate all of them into our “Self.” These parts can be protective, aggressive, young, old, etc. So far, I’ve gotten to know three of my parts:

• Bis (my childhood nickname in my family) This part is my girlchild. She is around five or six. She is very scared and doesn’t know why. She has experienced ongoing trauma and abandonment within and outside of her family. She has experienced ongoing distrust and mistrust of adults in her life.

• Christa (my teenage part, I named her this because that’s what people knew me as at the time—I was too embarrassed to use my full name). She is hyper-vigilant. She is anxious. She feels abandoned. After praying to have friends, she finally got them only for these friends to morph into bullies. She got physically and mentally ill from the trauma of this. The betrayal, the pain, changed the trajectory of her life—not all in a negative way, but she feels it only in a negative way.

• Dissociated Grrrl (this is 20-something me). She is trying to not feel things. She is incredibly traumatized both from her past and in her present. She does everything she can to be out of her body. She has been raped four times and been in countless sexual situations that didn’t feel good and weren’t necessarily consensual. She exists in a grey space.

I’m sure I have even more parts that I haven’t met yet, but the ones above are the loudest and most obvious to me.

Last week in therapy I was talking about how difficult it is for me to feel compassion for my teenage part. I can easily feel this for my girlchild, but not my teen self. Why was this? After some emotional excavating, I found out it was because I was too afraid to connect to “Christa” because that would mean I would need to feel what had happened to her/to me. I was afraid that feeling it meant reliving it. I was afraid that feeling it meant it might happen again.

I actually didn’t come to this realization in therapy, though. A few days later my session, I listened to this interview with Richard Schwartz, the creator of IFS. In it, he guides the person who is interviewing him through a session of parts work. It just so happens that the interviewer also experienced bullying as a teenager (sadly, such a rite of passage for many of us). I followed along and journaled. I made some strong realizations and began crying. I finally could connect to my teenage part. I finally could feel compassion for her. I envisioned myself holding her and letting her wilt and cry. She didn’t need to stay in that place. I could now bring her with me.

It has been immensely helpful to use parts work as I heal my trauma. I am not broken shards of glass. I am not a singular quilt square needing to be stitched to others. I am already whole. I am integrating every single part of me back into me.

If you’re interested in IFS or just more general trauma healing books, these are my favorites:

• Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror - Judith Herman

• Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice - Judith Herman

• No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model - Richard Schwartz

• Decolonizing Trauma Work: Indigenous Stories and Strategies - Renee Linklater

• Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others - Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky & Connie Burk

• My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies - Resmaa Menakem

• Practices for Embodied Living: Experiencing the Wisdom of Your Body - Hillary McBride

• The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment - Babette Rothschild

• Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences - Peter Levine

• Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection: 50 Client-Centered Practices - Deb Dana

1. A Loving Message to Student Protesters - Kelly Hayes

2. A Spell For Heartbreak -

   Sensory and Sensibility

3. What They Did to Our Women: Azadeh Moaveni on sexual violence in wartime - Azadeh Moaveni

4. The police brought violence to UW-Madison’s Gaza encampment - Scott Gordon

5. Prisons, Prose & Protest - #15 -

   Prisonculture’s Newsletter

6. “The Bulldozer Kept Coming”: A Girl Stares Down Death in Gaza - Lujayn

7. Updates from

   For The People Libraries
   !

8. ICYMI: Iskra Books, publisher of my fave commie mag: Peace, Land & Bread, is going to publish my book! The book delves into my life’s search for belonging in online spaces (and off) whilst navigating various traumas, disabilities, and mental illness. Chapters include (and these are subject to change):

   Ch. 1: The Online Playground I Didn’t Know I Needed

   Ch. 2: Disability and Desire

   Ch. 3: The Herpes of It All

   Ch. 4: The Gamification of Love

   Ch. 5: The Era of Face-Shifting

   Ch. 6: Trauma As Currency & Commodity

   Ch. 7: Hypervigilance is a Portal

   Ch. 8: The Millennial Motherhood Question

   Ch. 9: Friendship in the Time of Covid

   Ch. 10: Get Off The Internet

   

9. You bet your ass I bought this oracle deck that is “yule” themed. I’m hoping this and my intention to watch/read things set in winter will offset my summer seasonal affective disorder.

10. Can’t believe I’m sharing a Macklemore song, but y’all!!!! Go listen to Hind’s Hall. All proceeds go to UNRWA.

---

Rage & Softness is reader-supported! Thank you to the folks who pay monthly to support my work. If you want to upgrade to paid, go here.

• Add your favorite song to the newsletter Playlist!

• Please share my writing with your community and comrades! Forward this email to a friend, put it in your own newsletter, screenshot and share it on social media.