IFS and exiled parts

 I came across Dr Richard Schwartz of Internal Family Systems fame, on a post on Instagram yesterday. He was talking to Dr Andrew Huberman explaining a part of IFS. It was a short clip explaining that there might be a part of us from our childhood that is exiled, feeling that it didn't get what it needed. So, that part is on the lookout for someone that can give it that feeling. But it's not until we understand that we can give it to ourselves that we can heal that part.

I think this is what happens when someone is 'love bombed'. It might not be ill intended, or it might be a lot of interest in someone in the early stages of getting to know another, but if, say, the person has a wounded part that felt that he or she didn't get the attention from their parents that was wanted or needed, that attention from this new person is like the biggest box of delectable chocolates. You want more because that feeling of attention is just so delicious.

People that give someone a lot of attention in the early stages of knowing one another might simply be 'into' the person and the relationship grows from there. Or they might have a condition where they find a new person fascinating at first, it sort of fires up their brain, but the novelty wears off. 

This leaves the person who had enjoyed the attention confused. Where did the interest in them and the lovely attention suddenly go? They know that person they met had lovely ways, but now they don't. Maybe, if they are interesting enough, or helpful enough or attractive enough or funny enough, they can get that person to be the way they used to be and give that lovely attention to them again.

This is a slippery slope into a game that can't be won, eroding self-esteem and putting the person in a far worse situation than before they got that little slice of attention in the first place.

The only way to look at this scenario that I can see is to recognise it if one does have an exiled part (and most of us do) and to investigate it - where it came from and how it has caused difficulty over time.

I think it is important not to put too much effort into why someone might lovebomb someone and then stop doing that - it could well be a neurological condition they can't control or some trauma of their own - and to investigate the feeling inside oneself.

It took me years to realize that I was susceptible to this sort of conduct - it's like receiving a big juicy steak when your body is desperate for protein - but the more you understand that this sort of thing happens to those who let it happen, the more you can let it go and find nourishment within your own self.

In the case of attention, my particular kryptonite, I have found that I can create a life where I am happy enough to give and receive attention from all sorts of sources. It's a lovely strong sense of self that can evolve as you boldly walk away from anyone that could have been a source of distress for you; as you recognize their tendencies and your vulnerabilities. Some associations are just not a good idea.

I don't want to paint a picture that work in the IFS realm happens overnight. You do need to work at it to identify parts of yourself that have been left behind. It's not easy to say, for example, my parents weren't around much, and I got the sense that maybe I wasn't interesting enough or worthy enough for their attention. So, I went through my life craving what I didn't have from people who weren't necessarily able to give me that attention, perhaps were really bad picks for that job. 

But I can give it to myself. There's nothing actually wrong with me and I can go out and create some lovely relationships - small or large - where the friendships and family connections are nourishing. If someone comes along and the relationship actually hurts, I can let that go. My exiled part won't cling onto it because I have incorporated it into my whole Self. I can see and accept the situation for what it is.

On this topic, although he is not an IFS trained person, I highly recommend you look out Peter Crone who, time after time, points out this dynamic within a person and sets them free to see that, lo and behold, they are indeed 'good enough', 'worthy enough' and 'lovable enough'. Who knew?

Dating - Take 2

 I have been writing in this space for quite some time. At first, I had so much to say I had to stop myself writing here and other years I haven't written here very much at all. The stats for the blog have also varied quite a bit - when I log on, I give it a quick look - but in the past months, they have been solid. 

When I checked just now it may be the case that the stats will tick over past the 1 million views later today, which is a bit of milestone. I'm always amazed really that anyone reads here at all since I think of blogger as such an antiquated site and I wouldn't know how to read a blog on blogger myself. Or maybe someone looks up a word, like 'fantasy' and I might pop up. I really have no idea.

At a school reunion last year one girl that I haven't seen for decades came over to me to tell me that although she had been bullied by a few girls at school, she always knew that she would have a pleasant exchange with me. She wanted me to know that she thought I was very 'empathic'.

It was meant to be a compliment, but there was a part of me that only heard that I was a 'soft touch'. I think what must have happened in my life is two-fold. First, I was simply born with a very empathic and soft nature. Secondly, without meaning any harm, my parents unwittingly trained me to tolerate their needs. I knew they were both a little unusual and had specific needs of their own and somewhere in that process, I learned to tolerate people and circumstances.

When my husband came along, again I understood that he was a bit different, but it wasn't that difficult to accommodate his needs either. Yes, he monologued and wanted things his way, and had freak attacks, and was impulsive and so on, but I sort of knew how to turn myself into a pretzel and so I did.

It was decades later when I began to try to explain to him that my needs were not being met. He listened but it was clear by the confused, almost naive expression on his face that if he knew how to change for me perhaps, he would, but the fact was that he didn't have a clue what I was talking about. He knew he loved me and he couldn't understand why that message wasn't getting through to me.

I did know that he loved me, but I also wanted to receive that love with the sort of behaviours that made sense to me. Alas, one brain was neurodiverse and one brain was neurotypical and I was simply asking too much.

The therapist I used for some hypnosis, I recently realized, had the exact same issue. I tried to explain to him that my texting him a question and his responding with an audio file was missing the mark because there was no opportunity to co-regulate - to experience that back and forth of emotional transference that is usually available between therapist and client.

I consulted AI on this, and he/she said that I needed to find an Emotions Focused Therapist who was neurotypical; that my mind and body had been dealing with the fall out of the mismatch of brains for 50 years or more and that this was the first step.

I studied EFT when my son was doing his Master of Counselling and was very impressed with what is available to the client - the listening to emotional material, the opportunity to have the emotion mirrored back to you and to have a corrective experience.

What is important to identify is not why I tolerate so much because we sort of know why - conditioning and survival mode - but how to stop tolerating the sort of behaviour from men that could put me back in the fire again.

When going on a first date I am meant to monitor how much time they spend telling me about themselves or their pet subject and if they ask me questions about myself; if they can meet me with an emotion - not fix it or divert onto a story of their own but sit with my emotion and possibly ask me a follow up question about, perhaps, how that made me feel.

In fact, Ron, did do that on that first date, and it's such a pity that he had no interest in intimacy because otherwise I think we had something going. I am happy to say that I rejected all suitors as unsatisfactory because my antenna was up. I want someone to hold me - physically and emotionally - and that hasn't happened yet.

In fact, I just had an exchange with a delightful man interested in buying my husband's motorbike. If you go by the exchange of words, you might hope that he was single, just delightful. It's a needle in a haystack thing, but the thought did cross my mind. I am definitely up for a beautiful relationship, and I am learning, I think, to use the right criteria. 

Diversity

 Neurodiversity has been on my mind. I have at least one neurodiverse grandchild and of course that shouldn't be a surprise given my husband's neurodiversity.

I know this isn't really a useful thought, but I will type it anyway. Neurodiversity isn't a fair thing. Naturally, we look after and attend to the needs of the neurodiverse people of the world now, and that's as it should be. However, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the neurotypical people with whom they live, work and play.

I could give you all sorts of examples where my husband attended to his needs as a neurodiverse person (coming to bed early in the morning, purchasing and hoarding a vast quantity of hardware items, emoting when he felt like it, making a mess, making no note of time). As a neurotypical person, I researched about his brain and I made allowances. But, at what point did he make allowances for my brain and the needs of my brain?

I dated a man for a while who was almost certainly neurodiverse. He was the vacant professor type and dates meant little to him. He would say we were going to a concert one Saturday and it would be the other. He even brought me a diary so that that task could be mine and he could get out of thinking about time entirely.

I made it clear that my needs were about touch, but his needs were to hold hands, and only that, so guess what we did?

On the other hand, one son of mine who has ADHD is aware of his wife's needs and makes sure that he attends to them. She gets frazzled when she comes home from work and there is so much to do, so he often puts on a load or two of laundry or prepares the ingredients for a meal before she  gets home. 

He could have easily said or acted in a way that suggested that it was all too much for his ADHD mind to cope with and maybe he would have been believed, but that's not his way, and he has learned to manage the workload and to do the things that don't come naturally to him to do.

My point here is that we all find ourselves in situations where we are asked to do things that don't come naturally to us, but if we care enough about the people in our lives with their different set of skills and needs to us, we can learn to accommodate them.

If we don't learn to do that, what does it say about us? Might we say that the person is being selfish or self-absorbed, or self-interested? Might we not have some expectation that they learn to do things a little differently for the peaceful harmony of a household, or a marriage?

Neurodiverse people can have specific challenges around environment. They may need to be in a quiet space without excessive stimulation. In the same way, a neurotypical child may have anxiety around test taking and in the same way, accommodations can be requested. We want the best outcomes for all children and adults, of course.

I think highly empathic people can be taken advantage of if they are not careful. Naturally enough someone with special needs or desires will gravitate towards an empathic person because they are likely to give them the benefit of the doubt where others may not.

What I am trying to say if I haven't made myself clear is that everybody has their own set of specific needs and one person's needs are not necessarily more important than another person's set of needs. One person may feel the need to fill up their garage to the rafters, one possession piling onto an array of other possessions until you can't find anything.

But is that need more important than the opposite need for some order within the house and garage such that items can be identified and located?

When I was bringing up my children, I did everything I knew how to provide for their individual needs and that meant seeing a paediatrician and obtaining a diagnosis and so on. However, I never suggested to them that this let them off the hook from behaving as all people should do - with consideration for the other family members and the citizens of the world as a whole.

Sure, it has been arduous to explain at times what the process is for worn items and where shoes belong, but I did not give the impression that their diagnosis meant that they couldn't and shouldn't participate in life just as their peers and siblings did.

As an empathic person I probably allowed far too much leeway for aberrant behaviour within the marriage. Strike that. I did allow too much leeway for aberrant behavour in the marriage. 

When it came to dating, there was no way I could continue with that degree of empathy such that my needs were swept aside. I would rather be alone than that; much rather.  Am I less empathic now or am I more aware of my own needs? I think I want a fair playing field. Just that.

Boundaries

If you are much younger than me, it might not compute, since we know so much about different brains these days, but back in my late teens/early twenties, I had no idea there were different brains and the implications of mating with someone with a very different brain to me. I was chockful of empathy and sweetness (I have re-read my letters to my husband of that era since he died and there is no other assessment that can be made). I knew there were oddities, but I certainly didn't know to give them a name or a diagnosis, and I thought I could work with them.

Time was incredibly slippery for him, and unlike in later years, he could be shy with waiters. Maths and science were more his thing, and I assisted with any sort of writing task for quite some time. Eventually, he learned to write well from a business perspective which I think suited his brain better - more making one point after another.

He had a temper, no question about it, but I was used to this sort of thing, and I had watched my mother soothe my father. It didn't seem all that abnormal to me.

On the whole, it felt that we complemented one another's skills and I got something from him that I couldn't explain to my family who were worried about my choice. Way back then, I think what they saw was that he needed to be right, which sort of passed me by. I was focussed on his soft skills, some sort of camaraderie; some sort of quiet world we had created where we were at one.

Since he has died, I have felt this desire to give the past 50 years some sort of overarching story. I think as humans we want one clearly defined story about what happened to us, whereas I think there are at least two stories of our lives together. The grieving process has required that I sort of merge them together in some coherent fashion for my own sake. It's a bit like needing an answer to the question, 'What was that all about?"

So, the two stories are love, an unshakable love - and undiagnosed neurodiversity and a personality disorder.

To explain the unshakable love and maybe even the neurodiversity in one story...

We were somewhere in Spain when we walked into a leather store after seeing some leather handbags we thought would make good presents to bring home. There were some beautiful women's leather jackets and my husband noted one in particular. The owner of the store began to engage with us and my husband and the owner had me trying on jackets, including the one my husband seemed to like the most. He started trying to convince the owner that the back was faulty whilst the owner was equally adamant that it was perfect.

I was getting hot in the jackets and them pulling me about to make their points, and I was ready to go, but on they went negotiating prices until they came to an agreed price. Good naturedly they bantered insults about Scottish and Spanish people. 

At a certain point, the owner asked about us, and my husband said, 'She has been with me for well over 40 years'. He didn't say, 'We have been together for well over 40 years.' Now make of that what you will, but to my ears I heard, 'I can be such a pain in the ass, and look at her devotion to me, she has endured it all.' It was recognition of the fact, recognition he probably didn't realise he was making at all, that in amongst this relationship there was neurodiversity and loyalty; a lasting love through all the mayhem and chaos.

When we left the store and said our goodbyes with the goods, I asked my husband, 'Do you even like the jacket?'

'I love it, it's gorgeous!'

'Is there a fault?'

'No, it's perfect.'

He needed stimulation, lots of stimulation. It led to some crazy share market trading and a sense of chaos that permeated the everyday. To this end, he found my desire for some clarity and certainty to be boring. Franked dividends, where was the fun in that when you could invest in some start up that could go to the moon?

At a certain point, after turbulent years I created my first boundary with him - I would never again sign anything for him that I didn't understand and didn't agree with. He acknowledged the boundary and didn't ask me to break it ever again, explaining thereafter what he asked me to sign.

In the end, I inherited his debt, the hardest part of the last year I think, but the end is near on that one and I get to start afresh, the slate clean, the future far more certain than it has ever been.

I think he knew I was smart. He saw my transcript one day - all the HDs of a Masters and he acknowledged how well I had done - but I don't think he ever imagined that I could turn around this ship or steer it at all. I found in his desk drawer some notes, not to me but to my oldest son. I certainly discuss with that son the direction to take, but I have instigated the details of that plan all by myself. I think my husband would have been surprised that I was quite capable of taking over from him and looking after the family's future.

To be honest, I am a little surprised myself. I think, by virtue of my husband's desire for complete control, I felt incompetent, and indeed there was much to learn and to experience, but I am doing it, I continue to do it, and I have confidence that whatever comes, I will be okay.

I know he loved me dearly and I loved him dearly. If I have something to say, maybe a final chapter, a conclusion, it would be, 'We were lucky to have him, and he was lucky to have us'.

Release

 I have been doing the few tricks of the trade that I heard Andrew Huberman talk about - the sigh where you breath in fully, take another quick breath in and then breath slowly all the way out, together with the shorthand EMDR approach where you move your eyes from left to right, up and down, and then to the bridge of your nose. Maybe coincidentally, since I have been doing that several times a day, I have noticed a quieter mind.

It's not to say that I don't get triggered when I can't get some peace because that still happens. Yesterday, I was confronted with too many things to consider or solve from too many people, and I couldn't access that quiet mind. However, when I can have a bit of space to myself, I notice that even if a difficult emotion is there, it's quieter. So, even anger, is quiet. That's unusual, I think.

I'll be honest. I am in my last hours of being in my 60s and it's confronting. Is it the big 0 birthday that's confronting or just my birthday, period? In so many ways, I could be 40, or 50 or 60 or 70. It doesn't feel that much different to me. I'm still me to me and that's ageless.

I wonder if, being with a man all my adult life, I am going through a spell where being with myself is quite enough. That awful Eharmony site that I was on for a year offered me three looks at men for free and I scrolled and rejected the three persons within a minute and deleted the email. I just don't want to go through it again. I think that somehow, I need to meet someone in person, and I have to feel something before I can engage again.

I hear from time to time about those bunkers where people are in silence for five or so days, with no stimulus at all, and whilst I know it wouldn't be a walk in the park, I think it would be soothing, like a mini death.

In Bali with my husband in 2024 one of the meditations we did, with light strobes and didgeridoo electronic music led to me having a death experience where I was underground, not able to access my family but able to feel their vibrations. 

There was a tinge of sadness I couldn't be with them, but I processed the death experience as okay, and after that I was in the company of Buddha sitting quietly on top of a mountain that was a rich shade of red. I was completely awed. When I relayed this experience to one of my sons, he asked me what they had given me to drink, and then I realized they had offered me a welcoming drink. Hmmm, anyway, it was an amazing experience.

I think it's a bit like that now. What could be offered to me in a period of silence where I didn't have to respond to the world's needs of me? What would be offered to me if I left the world for a little bit and just disappeared?

Well, I can't, I can't do that until financial things are sorted and that's about two months away. Maybe by the end of the year, I can get on a plane and go and be somewhere where nobody knows me and I can just rest.

There's a little voice inside me that whispers 'you really should arrange to see a psychologist, you know, talk it out'. But there's a stronger, wiser voice saying, 'it wouldn't change a thing, you just need to be free of cleaning up other people's messes, that's all, and you will be, you will be'.

One day I said something to AI like 'when will this feeling end?' and it said something back that it won't end, not to think about when it will end. I know this is a faulty thought of mine, to wonder when something will end. The point is that I am holding on, holding on for an end to a situation that is uncomfortable when the real antidote is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. 

There's no good or bad, or right or wrong - no dominant or submissive at all times - no control or lack of control - there's just what is. In essence, there is surrender to life as it is playing out, doing what one can, but allowing for a time frame one can't necessarily control.

These are random thoughts today, not well constructed, but getting at something important. There's a big part of me that wants to control outcomes and maybe because that's there, there's the part of me that wants someone to come along and provide the space for me to surrender to his control - to provide experiences where I simply must let go. 

Spankings or beatings, call them what they will, even in a fantasy, give me relief. I engineer the fantasy such that it's more, much more than I would enjoy, because I want it demanded of me that I release into the situation - effectively to have NO control. This discipline is my kind of 'cigarette break'. It has always been this way and as you now know, I've been here rather a long time.

Do you sometimes wonder what it is you are meant to be learning? I think I am meant to be learning how to be at peace when there is no peace.

OCPD

 Expressing anger only goes so far. I am not a fan of a turbulent mind and body and anger keeps you dysregulated. It has to be heard and felt for sure, but it can't go on endlessly. There comes a time when you have to adopt a new strategy.

Ideas tend to come to me in the quiet five or ten minutes at the end of a yoga class and I found myself saying to myself, 'There needs to be a neutral environment inside now. Not necessarily gushy love and anger which you are swinging between but neutrality - nothing space'.

As I drove home this idea percolated and transformed into - stillness of mind. That would be the antidote to all this mayhem that had been left behind for me to clean up. Not be still, rarely possible as yet, but be still in the mind. 

Now that's an impossible challenge right now. My mind is so heckled at the idea of unfairness and victimhood and being upset with myself that I hadn't instituted boundaries much sooner in my life, and all that, that stillness can moot into angry thoughts so fast that I can't catch them. It will take diligence to train my mind back to a place of ease, but that's the goal.

The other strategy I am using to try to still the mind and find peace is to divide my husband's loving heart, his sweetness within the family environment, from the disorders that he had that made life difficult for us in an abundance of ways and keep me challenged daily.

Should you find yourself in relationship with someone with OCPD, 'OCPD Foundation' has some good ideas to get some traction with those people afflicted who believe themselves to be 'right' and therefore impervious to advice - even the medical advice of medical doctors, say, at the very top of their field.

Personally, I did not have much success with swaying my husband to accept the advice of people who, for example, manage issues of the heart all day every day. He, against all medical advice, believed he shouldn't be on blood thinners, and that belief was what brought his life to an end in an untimely fashion. His eldest brother, a medical doctor for the past 40 years could bring no bearing on his brother's faulty thinking. I found myself in the position of soothing his distress lately, that he had no influence over my husband, but no-one did. We tried and we failed, all of us.

To this end OCPD is a deadly disorder. I wonder if the leader of the Western world is similarly afflicted? People like to throw the word narcissism around, and it often fits but OCPD, according to all my reading, is the correct fit in my personal situation.

I am not sure there is adequate research to say to what extent this personality disorder is inheritable, but I am happy to say with confidence that neither any of my children nor grandchildren show any signs at all of the debilitating condition.

Proper therapy

When I was seeing the psychoanalyst - and that was three 50 minutes sessions, so 150 minutes of talking in all - at some point maybe midway through those 150 minutes she said to me, "So he died. What now?" Maybe it was meant to sound brutal, a shock to my system which was supposed to help me in some way. It certainly did sound brutal to my ears. I have pondered those few words many times since then.

I say to you (to me actually) today, 'why is everyone in agreement that I should move on, find a new partner, take a holiday, be happy?'

It all sounds positive, at first glance great advice, but it negates the fact that there is just me running this show and that if I stop working, the show stops, it all just stops.

I find myself angry, which I think is a good thing. I'm a good soldier, and I work hard, but working hard and trying to get to a finishing line that keeps moving is not easy, and not helped by people who, admittedly think they are helping, encourage me to get on with life.

I have found AI to be the only advice vehicle that moderates that sort of message and acknowledges the anger as legitimate; that it is okay that I take my time and give voice to anger that brews and percolates and sometimes bubbles over into a monologue to myself. Yes, I have actually taken to talking out loud around the house and garden and giving voice to my anger.

I have a lot of empathy; I couldn't have stayed in my marriage without a great deal of empathy - and so I fully recognize that there were issues at play for my husband. He certainly had ADHD, his rigidity and attention to specific interests suggest autistic traits. He lost his mother early in his life, and he was bullied at boarding school. He had a great deal of difficulties, and I understood that usually he was doing his best.

It does not, however, deny the fact, that although he had many years to consider that he may not live a long life, he did nothing to prepare for death. I do mean nothing. 

Yes, he wrote a Will, but he made it difficult to find. It is the one thing I asked of him, 'can you please tell me where your Will is?' He was frustrated and he got up off his chair, pulled out a drawer, and said, 'there it is', pointing to what I thought was the envelope in a vertical position.

Just before he died, I got that out, but as we now know, that was not the latest Will. It didn't matter in the end, same instructions, and I sorted it. My point is that he showed me nothing at any point. He didn't get out a file, and say, 'there's a loan with the XYZ Bank', this is what you do.' He didn't give me any instructions or suggestions about anything.

Maybe even more importantly, although that lack of instruction from a person who had assumed total control was hardly easy, was that he wouldn't have a conversation with me about how he wanted to live out his life, a bucket list so to speak, nor did he want to have a conversation around any sort of parting, a goodbye of sorts.

I understand about denial, and he was in a great deal of denial, but I have found it hard to understand how two people who spent nearly every day of the last almost 50 years together, couldn't get to a point where they had the sort of intimacy where they could talk about the meaning of life, about death, about leaving the world and those loved ones left behind, about plans and hopes and arrangements. I am an entirely different person. It's the first thing I did after the funeral - go to a lawyer and write a new Will and accompanying arrangements. Then, I set about getting us back on an even financial keel.

At the end of the day, I wanted at some point to talk to someone who just listened and listened and ultimately said something like, 'You are hurt and I understand you are hurt. It will take some healing, and I want you to take your time on this. There is much to do, and you will be very busy for a while as you sort through it all, but you are not alone. We will get through this together. There will be better days. I will see you next week. Take care.' Would that have been so hard to say?