So you’re doing your damndest to be “your best self.” Maybe you’re confident and comfortable in your identity these days. But, at the same time, you still find that self-condemnation is a big part of your day to day. Why? 

Let’s talk about self-judgment taking place on subconscious levels. How your identities mask the ongoing self-loathing that created them. And how to heal that shit, once and for all.

Up for making big changes? Get started with us at patreon.com/traumatizedmotherfuckers

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Transcript / Blog Version:

Hey motherfuckers. So, hmm.

Let’s say that you have a lingering sense of being wrong. You work with extreme focus and concern to be the best you possible.

You find self-loathing to be a part of your routine, but you might not even understand why. For an unknown reason perhaps, it just feels like you’re never good enough.

Like something is incorrect. Others don’t get it.

They don’t know why you’re so stressed, so hard on yourself, so fragile to the criticism from the outside or seemingly afflicted by unfair judgments catalyzed from the inside. Which is fair because you yourself aren’t able to pinpoint where these negative assessments come from or why they seem so crushing either.

But it’s clear that they are holding you back, limiting who you can be, what chances you take, how expressive you are, how free you feel in conducting your own life, your ability to be you to the most cumulative degree. And wouldn’t it be great if we could all just get to the bottom of that inherent self-condemnation?

Well, that’s what we’re here to chat about today. So, how do I say, this month in the private community, we wound up talking about IFS again.

Unexpectedly. It sounded like the motherfuckers had some hangups around things such as sex, and the lack of any other forms of self-acceptance.

So, based on what I was hearing, I put out some extra information on other ways to think about IFS and some techniques for getting started. Which begged the question, what the hell do we talk about here on the public stream?

Well, seemed like as good a time as ever to talk about self-acceptance, forgiveness, and embodiment. The ultimate goal of using IFS, in my eyes.

Now, let’s be honest, that with CPTSD backgrounds, we don’t really adore ourselves. And if we do, it’s in a shaky, conflated, egoic way that’s going to bite us and others in the ass.

A sort of false love for ourselves that’s been developed adaptively by being who we think we’re supposed to be, where we focus on overcompensatory, acceptable pieces of us, and then inflate them to high hell. Often, they are nark parts of our brains, the dark side of the CPTSD spectrum.

Let’s just go ahead and say it. While, of course, at the same time, we’re also ignoring the aspects of us that we are not so fucking proud of, that we refuse to even look at, that keep festering under the surface, driving us towards psychopathologies, personality disorders, and ongoing relationship challenges.

So that’s where IFS comes in, to help us get into those willfully ignored bits and rebalance those overinflated ones. IFS is based on the idea that we all have multiple identities, and many of those identities we don’t have fuzzy feelings for.

Each was built to help us adaptively get through some situation, but that doesn’t mean we’re pleased with who we became. On the other hand, we have parts of ourselves that we herald as “correct,” “acceptable,” and “us.

” We rely on these identities, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors to a very large extent, and they take over our brains to become our dominant, most easily identifiable versions of our personalities. We protect them like gold, because they perceivably protect us from the world.

They’re the ways that we show up and front each day. So inherent in this concept is the fact that we all have “good” and “bad” parts, as we’ve labeled them, or as others have done it for us.

And that means we can’t really “accept” ourselves until we get to the bottom of all of them, even the parts that we really fucking hate. And oh, my friend, there can be many of them.

Extreme circumstances lead to extreme adaptations, ones we don’t feel good about in hindsight, like the relationship rager, the ruthless survivor, or the freaked-out fawner. Not necessarily our finest hours, not parts we really want to identify with or reenact.

But what’s helpful to note when moving towards self-acceptance is, your “good” and “bad” parts are not so dissimilar, actually. They’re often opposites of each other in their characteristics, sure, so they seem completely different.

But in reality, they were usually developed to compensate for one another, making them two sides of a sliding scale, each positioned at the extreme ends. Deeply related despite their differences.

Deeply related by their differences. Now, you know how this can go in your foo, your family of origin, right?

Cut from the same cloth, but the final outcomes are very difficult to comprehend as being related. People go in opposite directions, trying to be unlike each other, but the final outcome is that they’re all echoes of the same traumas, just split into different adaptive strategies trying to overcome them.

Different roles, created for the same purpose. To survive and to offset whatever judgments have been put into place about other people’s roles for a better chance at doing it.

So, you know, for instance, my brothers became low-achieving addicts to deal with trauma. I saw how much trouble that got them into and went the opposite direction, the safer course, which said accomplish everything.

The proactive plans for staying alive are the opposite, but the underlying pains are exactly the same. And I took my overachiever strategy way too far, trying to be completely different from them, overcompensating, creating other problems for myself, but never erasing the shared family trauma that lies below the surface or the judgments of self.

Well, we do the same goddamn thing in our own brains. For instance, if you have an exiled part that feels emotional, helpless, and incapable, well, that part became exiled because somewhere along the line you decided it wasn’t the “correct” or “safe” mode of action.

And this probably occurred at the expense of your brain developing another program of the exact opposite nature, one that’s a ruthless accomplisher with limited emotional capacity and an extreme focus on self-sufficiency. Proving your worth and capability every day becomes the focus of your life as you hide away that “weaker” part that you’ve judged negatively and continue to judge negatively to some degree.

How could these antithetical parts of us be related? Well, the pains and negative perceptions of one part spawned the development of the other.

So the original problem is never dealt with, it’s just overwritten by another program, aka what becomes a new problem. The real issue being, if that victim-y, weak, unwanted exile part ever gets activated, and it will, you’re going to confusingly flip back into that mindset, which is a very jarring experience switching between die-hard and confident go-getter, and exhausted, demotivated, fearful, no-getter.

And it’s one that you’ll likely scorn yourself for, being unable to accept the unwanted programming and continually trying to oppress it, realizing it’s still in there and doing your damnedest not to touch it ever again. This, of course, means you’re never accepting your full self, your full set of brain cells, and you’re never healing that helpless part or its core wound, the “burden” that it carries, in IFS terms.

Instead, that part will live on inside of you, throwing you for a loop from time to time, and creating fear/shame of self that you try to avoid at all costs. But it burns in there, fucker.

It burns. The thing you’re really loathing, buried deep below the surface of who you assess yourself to be.

This is further complicated because we tend to focus on our “self-like” parts of us, or the ones that seem the closest to who we are comfortable being, who we consciously identify as. They’re the closest thing we have to “accepted identities,” and we commonly insist that these are the only parts of us, especially when they’ve been producing reasonably good results for some amount of time.

We don’t have multiple personalities or parts, just this one that we’ve been counting on and strengthening for a while now. We state when we’re being blinded by the “self-like” parts.

But that whole thing is missing the real story. That our brains are systems.

They are comprised of many parts, those parts each have a function, an instance in which they are the best strategy for us to survive, or have been, and those parts work to balance each other out. For instance, the helpless part and the extremely capable part, two extremes that, if combined, neutralize each other.

You can be high-functioning for years, but it only takes a few months of accomplishing nothing to wipe out all that progress. Think most of us have seen that before.

So our parts tend to overpower and repress one another in a cyclical, counteractive fashion, keeping us stagnant, keeping us from accomplishing our long-term goals, and keeping us from being able to recognize, accept, or embody our “full” selves, since our parts are consistently judging and obfuscating one another. If we can recognize that all our parts have a role, and when functioning together, they create a well-integrated, flexible, adaptive, working mental system, then we can have a little goddamn respect for each of our identities and survival strategies.

We can stop hating pieces of ourselves, which lead to that overall self-loathing problem. And we can actually build that genuine self-esteem thing that none of us traumatized motherfuckers seem to hold consistently, as we accept our brains and learn to finally work with them, healing the wounds of each part so they don’t have to be secretly scorned or feared.

They don’t have to be the untouchables inside our brains. They can just do their damn job, but do it better, at the right times, and in ways that actually serve us overall, rather than getting stuck in polarized modes of existing.

‘Cause here’s the thing. We hate that “weak, just give up on life” part from our past, for instance.

But sometimes, it is the smart mode of action to kick it into high gear, and sometimes, it is the wiser option to sit back, wait for some time and events to pass, and recalculate our next move with that information in tow. We don’t always have the power to change our circumstances, and trying to over-control things leads to exhaustion, frustration, burnout, feelings of entrapment, and negative self-assessment.

So that “helpless” part has actually never been wrong to lie over and play dead, necessarily. It had a point in assuming that strategy, it’s just been labeled as “incorrect” when we were under pressure and felt scrutinized for being unable to manage our overwhelm and conquer the world on demand.

Know what I’m saying? There’s a time and a place for a lot of different behavioral approaches, and if we stop shitting on them, calling them “bad” or “unallowable,” maybe we could utilize them healthily instead of shutting them down or getting trapped in them.

So, accept the wisdom of the part. It is here based on your prior experience and the ways you had to adapt in those circumstances.

Understand where it came from, what events led to this cognitive adaptation, and give it some credit, noticing the times that this programmed strategy was the best option, potentially out of a real shit hand of cards that you were dealt. Recognize the parts of you, the good and bad ones, the villains and victims in your system, the saviors too, and then decide how realistic any of those judgments actually are.

Try to comprehend the origins of the parts, note the strengths of those parts and the weaknesses, dig into the relationships between the parts, how they developed to compensate for one another and their burdens, and how maybe that got a bit excessive, and then forgive the parts. Forgive yourself.

Understand yourself. Accept yourself.

Once your brain isn’t considering all the ways it itself is unacceptable, you’re no longer running from your mental conditioning with distractions and repeated patterns in life. You’re not flailingly hiding fragmented identities from your self-concept.

You’re not seeking their validation through unhealthy, potentially abusive means. Instead, you’re able to see the full breadth of your adaptations, accept them, appreciate them, and build some self-esteem.

No longer scared of “what lies below,” no longer overcompensating for it with rigid manager parts that block out your full personality and keep other, exiled parts trapped in time, living perpetually with their raw and gaping wounds. And this is what I think we’re all here for.

To stop villainizing past memories of ourselves and current-day behaviors we’re not so proud of. To stop over-relying on hardened, shut-down, socially-programmed, bastardized versions of ourselves that we declare our real personalities.

And to stop carrying unseen injuries that halt our progress and suck us backwards in time into those scary, shameful, hated memories they’re associated with. Self-recognition, self-acceptance, self-healing, and self-realization.

That is healing your trauma brain and healing your life. So, stop fearing your own internal system, motherfuckers.

Investigate it. Notice the polar opposite parts of yourself.

Investigate where they came from. Understand them and their relationships to each other.

Give them a little credit. They have helped you in some way, or they would not exist.

Period. And try to find the gray tones between the extreme, black and white versions of you.

That is the real relief of IFS. Besides, you know, having a head that’s not beating the shit out of itself on a daily basis as it tosses you between extreme behaviors, thoughts, and feelings.

That counts too. Heal your brain.

All of it. Not only the parts you’re most comfortable with seeing.

Using the IFS framework to label your parts as managers, exiles, and distractors. To understand the relationships between them and how they form in response to one another.

Work with the parts. Understand why they’re so goddamn butthurt.

And integrate them as uncondemned parts of your own brain. Integrating them together so the parts can become functional units of your mental system, allowing you to find flexibility, cognitive control, self-esteem, self-acceptance, small s, and self-embodiment, big S, on the other side.

And that’s a wrap on unexpected IFS month number two. Now, if you’re interested in hearing a lot more discussion on these tools, alternative labels for parts, methods for understanding your brain as a system of identities, and the ways to get in there, get shit done, and get started working with it, you know the deal.

Streaming those long, researchy versions of these conversations in great depth over on the private podcast stream, discussing them in the closed-door support community, and sharing real-life application recordings from all of you motherfuckers monthly, along with bonus exercise episodes, topical workbooks, and summary videos, if you’re really up for making the big changes. Find the whole shebang at patreon.

com/traumatizedmotherfuckers. And hey, my shameful “don’t ask for help” part feels pretty uncomfortable asking.

But, if you just want to help keep me alive so this self can keep churning out actual recovery information for the motherfucking masses, well, your patronage is both appreciated and utterly crucial. Shares, subscriptions, and 5-star ratings keep this 100% non-advertised DIY project possible.

Just gotta mention it. Until we meet here next time to mention a lot more, hail yourself, big and small s’s.

Hail your brain in all the interrelated but oppositional ways it’s been keeping you breathing, even when you’ve really fucking judged and hated it. Hail Archie.

And cheers y’all. Buh-bye.