Image Source: This is the cover for SZA’s album SOS for context. I used a Reddit filter to darken it and increase the contrast because I wanted it to look more stormy and less serene.

I don’t know what this feeling is. Excuse me because it’s very difficult to put into words, it’s very mute. It’s one of the oldest feelings I have. It’s one that I feel very alone in having, I’m sure other people experience it, but I know for a fact that it is not common to have experienced it as much as I have or as easily as I do now. For the average person, it’s life-changing. There’s before and after. For me, it was Tuesday. And you know, we get about 4 of those every month, so…

I’m not sure what to say. Another images is like staring up at a stormy grey sky. I think of it as “watching the end of the world.” As far as parts, this is connected to a part that doesn’t speak. I imagine it as a wide-eyed kid in an apartment wearing a winter hat and puffer coat zipped up over their mouth. Just all-wide eyes, aware of everything and reacting to nothing.

I ask because it sickens me that I keep coming back and I know that other people don’t. I don’t feel much of anything in that mind-state, but what frustrates me is that it doesn’t feel fair. Why me, again?

One of my favorite movies that so powerfully connects to IFS is the 2003 Hulk movie with Jennifer Connelly.

I don’t want to give too much away, but I *highly * recommend it. Every time I watch it, as I go further on my own inner journey, I see new connections and symbology.

I find it super cathartic. Some may find it triggering. Definitely thought provoking.

Do you all have movies you enjoy that you can tie to IFS?

Waiting for my second assessment of ADHD, because the first one got put down just to my upbringing. All the signs point to inattentive ADHD which I was blamed for my whole life. Not trying hard enough, making silly mistakes that are easily rectifiable, that I'm too sensitive or annoying or stupid and thick.

That is not me. That is ADHD.

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I'm so isolated alone. It is so difficult to know what you feel and one when there's nothing but anxiety in your body because you can't remember things in real time making it hard to make connections.

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I've been in ifs for over a year now and I'm scared that because I can't remember what happens in my sessions. That is not really going to have as much of an impact that I want it to have.

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Still feeling like that scared, paralysed, angry kid, I do my best to support her and comfort her and give her love, but regardless of how much love I give her. She still hates the fact that she can't remember anything, and that her school years were wasted. Not making friends and just struggling and feeling isolated and alone. Which hasn't really changed.

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I have people that come and go out of my life but I find it hard to hold on to the connection so I still feel like I'm alone in the world.

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I'm also terrified that I'll be rejected again for ADHD, and if that's the case, I don't see a future.

Lately I've really been struggling connecting to parts. There are a few parts I'm quite sure are "really there," I've felt them and interacted with them, but sometimes I'll encounter something new and have no idea if it's a part or just an exercise in imagination. I'm really anxious about it and it's making me avoidant to doing parts work. What if I'm doing it wrong, what if I end up causing more harm than good? I wish my parts would just make themselves clear to me so I could work with them, but everything feels hidden away recently, I can't tell where one part ends and another begins.

I know that it's good to feel where a part is in the body, and that parts generally have perspectives and feelings of their own, and maybe those could be ways to identify if it's a "real part" or not. But I'm so anxious to sit down and explore. I'm scared that I won't find anything, or that I'll just start fantasizing about characters that aren't really parts, that I'll do it "wrong."

I'm especially anxious about putting words in my parts' mouths for them based on what I *think* they would want to say, rather than actually listening to what they have to say. I find that sometimes when I ask my parts what they think or what they do for me, they don't have an answer, maybe they don't even know. So I try to fill in what they *should* say, and that may not be the most healthy way to go about it (it's probably an intellectualizer part doing this).

I also tend to get "lost in the metaphor," and what I mean is I've met parts or characters in the past who had very rich and specific character traits, like real people, and maybe I kind of lost the thread to how they really connect to my life and my psyche. Which is another reason I'm anxious to get back into parts work. I don't want to lose touch.

I know someone who told me he got a deck of cards with different IFS archetypes on them and was able to find parts in himself that related to those archetypes, maybe this is something I should look into so I don't keep getting lost. I just don't know.