In this way of working,
And I think there's a chapter on this if I remember,
It's good as an author to remember your own book,
We devote some time to working with parts that are suicidal,
Self-harming,
Substance abusing,
Eating disorder,
Because those parts also contribute to surviving,
Because each is what I call a protector part,
Each is trying to protect the client from being overwhelmed by the vulnerable feelings of the little parts.
And so it often becomes easy to see the client gets overwhelmed by the distress of the young vulnerable parts,
And then the next thing that happens is the suicidal part says,
Well,
The obvious thing to do is to kill yourself because you can't handle their feelings.
And again,
We work with noticing the suicidal part and being curious,
What is the suicidal part worried about if the client lives?
And every suicidal part that my clients have dealt with,
They always say,
If you live,
You're going to be overwhelmed,
You won't be able to handle it,
Everything will fall apart.
And then the client can care about how the suicidal part feels,
Right?
Because the suicidal part is worried,
And it has no confidence that the individual is strong enough to be able to tolerate the feelings that were once very dangerous,
Right?
So when my clients were young,
It was safer to die than to be killed,
Which is often how they felt,
Right?
They woke up every morning afraid they wouldn't make it through that day.
Really,
You can see why I called it Embracing Our Fragmented Selves,
Because really,
The book is about that process of embracing the wounded parts of ourselves,
The protector parts of ourselves,
The rough,
Tough parts of ourselves,
And creating a safe internal environment in which each part feels valued,
Accepted,
And safe.
And the outcome is healing.
