[TrailRunner14]

The IFS structure came so natural to me when my counselor introduced it to me.

I can see and connect with different parts of me easily, looking at them through the lens of IFS. It’s a realness that I’m trying to find words for.

When I’m in session with my counselor, I can talk freely about what other parts of me think and feel. There is really such an openness that I don’t feel anywhere else. In that place it feels so real. It’s a good feeling of being able to be truthful and honest.

This past week was a time like that and it lingered with me after I left and came home. I woke up with it still with me the next morning. The lightness and connection that that part of me, that came so up front, felt talking with my counselor.

As my day started, that feeling started to fade. I actually began to feel embarrassed, remembering things that I said and the connection that I felt. I was wondering if he thought I was really psychotic and loosing it.

I don’t know what I’m looking for.

I guess I was just wondering if anyone else felt like that.

It probably doesn’t have anything to do with
IFS, but for me it helps me to really see them and they feel “real”.

I think it’s kind of scary to think that they are only “real” in that place and time. Real as in being able to be heard and understood. Validated by someone else besides my counselor.

This might just be a weird ramble.

I was just curious if it was just me.

[Amyjay]

That's so, so awesome that you have been able to connect with those parts and experience them as feeling real to you!
I can relate to the realness fading so that it feels "not real" again. We have done some IFS work but since making some major breakthroughs we have gone back to struggling a LOT with denial again. T has told me that my "default setting" is the unreality of it, that is what the dissociation was about. She said it makes perfect sense to her that I wouldn't suddenly just know everything was real. If that happened I would be completely overwhelmed with the reality of everything that happened. (That is what happened actually ... we had a massive breakthrough that was emotionally overwhelming for a week or two and we didn't cope well.... then we retreated back into denial). She said it is natural for the healing and acceptance to come in bits and for old coping mechanisms (dissociative denial) to ebb and flow.

I have been trying to be more accepting of that (T said it felt real to me before and it will again, my connection to it has just faded a bit for now) and it has helped. I know she is right, that it will definitely feel real again at some point!

Maybe you could think of it as "having a bit of a break".