SHAPED SOULS | THERAPY | THE FAMILIES INSIDE US

I Broke Down in Front of My New Therapist

Where are all the sinkholes when you need them

Photo by Alejandro De Roa on Pexels and edited in ChatGPT by the author

She sat opposite me on a cosy couch in a spacious, modern room attached to the back of her house, a self-contained granny flat. It was surrounded by bushland, so isolated it could be a serial killer’s dream location. I pushed the thought aside. I can’t start there. I already had enough warning bells ringing in my head.

In any other setting, it might have seemed like two sisters catching up, reacquainting themselves after a long absence. She’d be my older sister, the wise one, the one with her shit together, unlike me, still lost, slipping through veils of time, never quite grounded in the present long enough to feel moored. Always drifting on an ever-changing current.

It’s hard to admit at 62 that I’m still in this place, a war zone of my own making, fighting a battle that requires no weapons; there’s no external threat. Yet the dangers rage within, as real to me as any living, breathing enemy.

I shouldn’t be here. I had enough therapy in my 40s and 50s to sit the exam and start charging for my services. Shouldn’t I know all this by now?

Shouldn’t I be cured?

Cured of all the parts that once played a necessary role in my survival. To serve and protect, like loyal soldiers, shielding me from harm, stepping in so I wouldn’t have to. Taking over so I could just get on with it, this life in all its messy layers.

She’s talking like this, about parts, about people within us, and in my mind I’m thinking of movies I’ve seen: ‘Split’, ‘Sybil’, ‘The Three Faces of Eve’. Movies about split personalities, psychological thrillers, things we know can be real, but we put them in the fictional basket where they belong, the only place it makes sense.

What is she trying to tell me?

Oh, fuck.

And I’ve finally crossed over into the no-go zone, where padded walls and Nurse Ratched await my induction, locking me away, injecting me, never to be seen again.

I wonder then if I need to stop watching Netflix and get out more.

We all have parts

Something intriguing was unfolding as she spoke, her voice like an unyielding hand on my shoulder, yet delivered with warmth and all the wisdom of Yoda.

She wasn’t talking about split personalities; she was referring to the parts we all carry within us that have helped us cope, for all kinds of reasons, with our experiences in life.

These parts, also known as ‘Internal Family Systems’ or IFS, help us understand that we are not our rage or shame, nor our suspicion or critical voice; they are simply parts of our self, formed along the way to help us navigate all the shitty things life throws our way.

IFS posits that our minds are naturally multiple and that we all have different parts, also known as sub-personalities. These parts can be thought of like members of a family or players on a team, each with its own roles, interests, memories, and viewpoints… Richard Swartz, Founder of IFS.

Okay, I’m still hearing split personalities, crazy town, and every other cliché I don’t want to name because my head hurts just thinking about them. It’s a lot to take in, this ‘new’ information that isn’t really new. It just has a label now.

This concept echoes from the past, from some ancient place of knowing, though I can’t quite grasp it through this veil of incomprehension, or dare I say, rejection. That too is apparently a ‘part’.

My eyes drifted upwards, above her head, to the tall gum trees billowing in a gentle breeze outside the enormous glass window. White cockatoos were playfully bobbing on branches high in the canopy, dancing their bird dance, making those screeching sounds I could barely hear from this distance.

I wish I was a bird, up there, playing with them, free to fly away, far from this room and the reality that I may never rid myself of these parts within me, and that I will probably die still trying…

The horror of tears welling in my eyes snapped me out of my daydream, pulling me back into the warm room, a stark contrast to the cold winter’s day outside. The illusion wasn’t lost on me; this room pretending to be summer, while I melted yet felt frozen inside, like the landscape outside.

I wanted the ground to open and swallow me. I was falling through imaginary ice towards the murky depths, hoping it would hold fast so I wouldn’t have to resurface and face the inevitable; I still had so much work to do.

A weariness so consuming threatened to take over. I could just close my eyes for a nap, keep pretending this is my house, my room, and that no one else is here, not my husband, not the sweet woman who could be my sister but isn’t.

Seeing through the veil

“I’m so sorry,” I blubber like an idiot as I’m handed a tissue.

“Oh, God, please. This is the place for it.” She smiled so genuinely, I wanted to jump from my chair and hug her.

She’d seen this before, probably a thousand times. I imagined all the material she’d have if she were to write a book. My writer’s mind often takes over, finding tropes in the mundane, mapping out stories as if I have a photographic memory. I seem to, when it comes to trauma. But ask me to recall a happy trip to Bali — we’ve been four times — and I’ll see snippets, but mostly I get scenes of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ dancing in my mind.

I think I read too many books.

She gave me a printed handout as she explained the three major parts we all carry within us. I turned the page, affronted by the characters I know so well, there in black and white, staring up at me.

Exiles — are parts that carry the burdens of past traumas, pain, or negative beliefs. They’re often young parts that carry feelings like fear, shame or sadness. To protect you from feeling these difficult emotions, the exiles are kept out of consciousness, or “exiled” by other parts.

Managers — are proactive parts that try to keep the exiles exiled and prevent further harm. They do this by trying to keep you in control of every situation. Common manager parts include the critic (which tries to keep you in line by criticising them) and the caretaker (which looks after others’ needs at the expense of the person’s own needs).

Firefighters — are reactive parts that step in when exiles break out of exile. Their job is to distract your attention away from the exiles’ pain. Firefighters can lead to impulsive or destructive behaviours, like binge-eating, drug use, or rage, which can numb the pain or take your mind off it.

And the fine print at the bottom of the page:

A key goal in IFS therapy is to help the SELF build relationships with these parts, understand their roles and burdens, and ultimately help them to let go of their extreme roles and find balance and harmony in the system.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

I’m not crazy. I’m not even broken. Revelations hit me like a cricket bat to the head.

Here I am, thinking I’m utterly flawed and unhealed. Why else do old patterns and behaviours keep repeating? Why else does life often feel like walking barefoot on broken glass, sidestepping pointy shards, careful not to let them cut the skin, holding out for a clear space so I can rest my tired feet and relax into the moment?

There I was, thinking I must be a bad person because suspicion or mistrust clouds my judgement when there is nothing to judge. The threats are fabricated, not because I’m loopy, but because a part of me is in protection mode, ready for bad news, the worst that could happen; deceit, betrayal, the blow that may come and turn my world upside down again.

Or it may never come…

Life is surprisingly serendipitous

While I sat in that comfy chair opposite the woman who could be my sister, imagining myself free as a bird up in the canopy, crying as I absorbed the unfolding revelations about my parts, wishing for sinkholes of ice water, I was in the middle of drafting a story about my ex-husband being a ghost.

A few days later, my story went live. I’m not sure how I managed it, given the internal turmoil I was experiencing after that session — and other things; I’ll get to that. Then I read a comment that opened the floodgates, aligning my past with the present moment, as epiphanies pinged like pistons firing.

Marce, this story broke my heart. One person thinks everything is okay, while the other harbours lies and secrets. Devastating. It’s hard to imagine how you’d ever fully get over something like this — Sherene Jensen

The truth is, you don’t get over brutal betrayals. Well, I did, but the exile born in that timeline never did. The firefighter in me was quick to act, and it’s still acting the part whenever a phantom threat presents itself as niggling thoughts.

What if my husband isn’t really working late into the night and is living a secret double life right under my nose, just like my first husband…

The what-ifs can spiral into a cacophony of chaos in seconds, while I, on the outside, go about my day as if nothing is amiss, hoping like hell I keep my shit together until the storm within blows over.

I cried after reading that comment. I saw myself as a whole person, not as my mistrust or any other seemingly negative trait. That’s just it: there are no negative traits, only diverse parts within our mental system.

When we understand that, we have the potential for profound growth and healing.

Final thoughts

While all these elements were at play- my therapy visit, the unfolding revelations about IFS, writing the story about my ex- something else was happening that required my full attention and every morsel of stamina I could conjure.

My daughter’s six-year relationship ended, and I feel her heartbreak as if it is my own. The cycle of her grief is unfolding in real time, on a daily loop, as each obstacle presents itself and her new reality takes hold.

Putting my issues aside to be a solid place for her to land is where I’m at; that’s my priority. I’ve been where she is. The fragility feels impossible. I want to lift her out of her turmoil and into a future version of herself, grounded in stability and calm, long after her tears have stopped.

If only I could.

She has no idea what I’m going through, but this is what we do as parents. We don’t project; we hold the fort; we are the gladiators in their story. Thank God for those ‘parts’ stepping in. I don’t know where I’d be without them.

Thanks for reading, friends. Make peace with your internal family. They’ll be with you till the end…

© Marcia Abboud 2026 | All rights reserved