Your Teenage part sounds like mine. "Back off and don't get close" indeed.

They're also the therapy skeptic, and holds alot of anger and trauma. I try to understand their needs, and to unburden them of their formerly adaptive role which now doesn't help so much.

I'm writing in the context of dissociative identities with their own sense of self and who have "Free will" , and not ego-states in IFS. Still think maybe similar principles can apply even though blind adherence to IFS "tell the part to step aside" doesn't work for dissociative identities.

For example, Teen believes its their job to protect by keeping people away so that we don't get betrayed by someone getting close. One way it manifests is by being deliberately hostile to my current therapist, and being very blunt about the mistrust.

They also felt they weren't appreciated by me (me being the adult self in charge of daily life and work), and that I didn't understand they took a lot of physical violence for me in the past. I'm amnesiac for those, but I know they happened.

They bonded with me only after quite a while of private inner work.

I couldn't just thank them. I had to be genuine and really consistent, I had to affirm exactly how they helped and in what ways.

In addition to Teen switching in for the more vicious beatings, one of "my" traumas is being abused badly in an attempt to destroy this angry teen part within my psyche. So that my will to fight back could be broken.

I remember crying once I realised some of the trauma this teen part carried. They didn't like that, they think crying is "weak", that I'm "weak". I had to show that my tears of compassion and remorse weren't weakness, and show them I'm not "weak" now. That they did their job well, and I'm an adult who has left the abusive family and am living independently outside. That it's now my responsibility to protect them.

And only then could I explain exactly why particular ways wasn't helpful now.

For example, shouting "stop", "no", "somebody help me" when someone is physically hurting me and pushing them away is adaptive, but I can't behave that way in other situations that aren't self defense. I need to have legitimate alternatives for various situations too, of course.

One of their fears was that I'd just be a pushover because that was my role: keep your head down, and tolerate mistreatment so you don't end up getting kicked out into houselessness.

I negotiated a sort of team work where they'd "come close" to lend me their anger when appropriate, but not flood me. So I can then be assertive.

I might want to punch a rude person patting me on my head (it's extremely invasive and offensive in my part of the world with a strong Buddhist culture), but obviously that would be a crime. I can, however, step away, glare at them, and state clearly that I don't tolerate this behaviour.

(ETA: I've never been violent as an adult, just in case I sound really violent.)

When I was younger and a minor, I did actually need to fight peers who were physically hurting me, in self defence. I grew up in "rough" schools, and yes, physical fights did happen. My teen part would take over because otherwise I would be frozen and keep on getting physically hurt by people causing me actual physical pain. (For the record teachers didn't do anything and I've been abused by teachers so...)

As a young adult, there was a time where I was reckless. While I never hurt anyone, I'd intervene when two adults were going to fight and so on. Obviously, that is/was a safety concern it was important to work on with Teen.

(Yeah, and Teen didn't understand we're a petite Asian woman.)

I also am needing to address "see I told you so!!!!! Look what happens when you trust?!" after a recent betrayal from people I trusted. Can't say I've answers for that yet.

In therapy, one thing that helped too was my therapist saying she could hold space for whatever anger this self, or any part/self carried. My T even said the teenager could shout if needed.

We agreed on limits: No using the swearing on the therapist as a person (using swears about a situation, or when talking about one of my abusers is OK), no violence obviously, no damaging the room. Although I actually can throw soft stuff on the floor (instead of harming myself which used to happen in my early therapy days wherever we came close to talking about particular abuses) and I'd never throw anything at her, of course.

They're still a skeptic of therapy, but that's okay. The important thing is that we're a team even when we don't agree. Nor am I some tyrant, but their non abusive inner "parent". They get privacy and don't have to talk to me when they don't want to. I'm still their inner parent, and the adult part.

I hope at least some of this helps.