or How intimacy can feel in IFS terms

Recent experience is showing me how groups of manager parts in my inner life arrive in a defensive cascade in reaction to the arrival of new partner.  I am not talking about a first date, I am referring to a relationship that has traction, where there is growing trust, intimacy and connection.

When someone starts to get close, there are groups of parts that see the new presence as a threat bringing the risk of disappointment, fear of abandonment, fear of overwhelm, shame and rejection, fear of being an imposter or not being enough;  are some of the reactions that can surface.  All this feels very threatening and it is so simple to go along with these parts and say, yes, it’s the other person making me feel all this, so they have to go. 

When I manage to provide enough support and self-care to these parts, I start to see how frightened they are by this new presence and I ask them why.  I see all the steps that my parts have taken to try and deal with painful abusive events involving others in my childhood, I see how hard they have worked to try and stabilize things in the name of survival.  They feel threatened and they think “oh my god if we don't hold things together, if we don’t keep things the same, it will mean we’ve lost control and everything will get taken away from us and there'll be chaos and then we'll die.”

Each step forward seems to bring this rippling effect of fear of change and the fear of annihilation. It’s important to understand that that's what's actually happening isn’t the fault of a particular part or a group of parts. They've all been working from the best of intentions to try and just preserve the system, reacting to present changes as they did to uncontrollable traumatic moments that happened in the past.  To survive and protect the system, they developed some extreme behaviour and beliefs as they tried to make it safe when it really wasn’t. The extreme reactions that they have in the present are not signs of childish caprice, but are an indication of how hard it was for them in the past.

So bless them all, bless all the parts, and even the ones who are fighting to maintain the status quo if something changes on the relationship front, just to say, I understand. We understand why you're reacting this way, because you feel threatened because someone's here and they have different expectations. What will that mean? Will that mean chaos? And the act of trust is to keep saying, I'm here for all of you. I love you all. You're all doing brilliantly. None of you deserve the pain that you're carrying. I love and care about you and promise as an adult to do whatever is necessary to free you from these burdens.

Doing this takes the focus off the “other” in the relationship. Blame in not helpful and it usually comes right back at us with interest.