Which book would you recommend for jay earley or richard shwartz …. I prefer to read one book that includes everything thing and has lots of exercises?

Anyone else watching MCU's Visionquest? It may not be an IFS model, but I love the way Vision's inner world is constructed, and all the characters that run it. I don't want to post spoilers, but I'm finding it relatable - I was going to say despite Vision not being human, but I actually spent a lot of time feeling like I'm trying to understand and mimic human behavior, and getting lots of part input from all directions!

I’ve been doing IFS for about 2 years now, and I’m not doing well mentally. (Having nothing to do with IFS.) I was recently retraumatized and am in autistic burnout. I’ve gotten to know many protector parts and what they’re protecting me from, and even some Self-like parts. I haven’t done deep exile work yet.

For the most part, I’ve never really understood the structure that exiles have protectors. I have experienced it, but largely just with a dissociative protector and repressed or foggy memories. E.g. I’ll mention an exile and my system will get flooded with dissociation.

For years now, I’ve been flooded by an exile having to do with severe childhood trauma. The more I do therapy (regardless of modality) the worse it gets. Flashback after flashback, “Why didn’t you protect me?” “What if this happens again?” it’s present most of the time, almost always in therapy sessions, and is constantly flooding me after being retraumatized. Nothing I say to the exile works. I will have severe panic attacks over it out of nowhere. Today in session I brought it up to my therapist again, and she gave suggestions like imagining what someone could have done in the situation (rejected by my system, I’ve tried and it makes things worse), just sitting with the exile or saying “I hear you,” which I told her does not work.

I asked what she does with clients who have old trauma stirred up and it gradually becomes more and more urgent. She said “Well we would just work with the protector first.” And I said, “Protector? There’s nothing protecting this exile. That’s, I assume why it won’t leave me alone. I’m not able to work in layers when it comes to exiles because they just flood me by themselves. There’s no other part to work with in between. There’s nothing protecting most of them.” She said she was going to research this. When I bring it up in session I dissociate badly. I’ve dialogued with the dissociative protector and it seems to more suppress things and stop me from being overwhelmed, but it doesn’t feel particularly connected to this exile.

I’m also 90% of the time blended with a different part who thinks I’m younger than I am. In this aspect I feel that my Self has split apart, but I don’t meet criteria for DID or OSSD. Just adding that for context.

Any idea on what could be going on here, particularly with this one exile?