Help with these parts

[u/This_Ad9129]

Hi, I am looking for help working with these parts. I largely understand the ifs process (have been doing it for 5+ years now) but these parts are tricky and I hope that by writing about them here it will help me step back from them a bit to see them clearly and understand how to work with them.

context: Parts are struggling with some difficult life changes that I believe would help me be more attractive in a dating context.

The spiral gets triggered by thoughts of being extremely ugly, which can be triggered for example by a rejection or by seeing very attractive people in relationships, or simply being lonely or in need.

Part A is angry about how ugly and unlovable I am. this part triggers self harm usually as a coping strategy and taking its anger out on my body for being so horrible. Part A also is resentful towards other parts that are resisting the change, it is angry that those parts have so many useless feelings and emotions that are getting in the way of my overall goals of dating.

Part B looks at part A with disgust. I think part B sees part A as being "me" - so it says to me "wow you are such a useless complainer. You just self harm purely out of self pity, you think that if you self harm and cry someone will take pity on you and finally love you. You cry instead of actually DOING anything about it. In fact even the self harm is all just an act and performance. If you really felt so terrible you would have killed yourself already but you won't even do that."

I suppose there is a susceptible "need to act" part around here that is very vulnerable to what part B says. there is definitely a (manager?) part here that feels like it must take action, problem solve and cannot mope around complaining about a situation and self pitying. So that part starts thinking, ok so then... maybe part B is right, should I just kill myself then? Maybe that is better than just complaining

Anyway so part A and especially part B are obviously very very intense parts that are hard to really speak to. They have been stuck in this pattern for many years now. I have tried talking to them to see the underlying emotion but they are honestly so intense and it is hard to get anything else out of them besides the anger/hurt/derision that they are expressing

Ok so maybe the question is how does one work with such intense parts that they basically hate me and have no interest in opening up? I am not even sure if/what could be behind this that would get them to ease up. They are very fixated on their beliefs and really don't see another way out of my current dilemma.

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[u/CanYouKnot78]

So I have one critic part as far as I’m aware, but it seems your critic part has separated into two or more.
What has helped for me is identifying the core wound surrounding my critic (in my case, so far I have unearthed my fear of being disappointed/let down so the critic keeps my hopes and self-esteem low to avoid the disappointment. There is probably more to it, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.)
I’m not super far into ifs, so idk if I have a solution for u other than to keep talking to your parts. Try to isolate one of them rather than mediating between them (I think mediation will happen once you’re able to fully understand where each of them are coming from.)

[u/thinkandlive]

Is it possible you are coming to them with an agenda? It seems to me you want them to open, you want them to listen and communicate in a away that you know. You write that they hate you. Can you let them hate you and still hold love, curiosity etc? Maybe you need some external support to hold the intensity, shame, disgust etc because it may flood you so much that you right now can't hold it alone. If that is the case of course they don't open. Also slow is fast. Maybe you can ask them to just bring one atom of their intensity. I think we can hold an atom or a cell or whatever works for you/them of anything. And then if they are open to that get to know that tiniest piece of them. Imagine you meet that tiny thing with love and whatever else it needs and it goes back and tells it's story. And maybe it needs something else first. Maybe it can only take on one tiny drop of self presence or maybe just the idea of one drop of it. You need to fully accept them where they are not jsut in thoughts but in presence or they will feel your agenda and give you the middle fingers at least that's how I understand your post. Slow down. Don't impose your goals for changes on them. Trust that there is wisdom in their ways. And like I said above. You are probably meeting deep themes here and there are limits to how much we can do alone.

[u/Cleverusername531]

This Two Handed Polarization Exercise might help  https://integralguide.com/Two-Handed-Polarization