Protectors

The word “protectors” sounds strong, and brave, and kind of sterile. But that’s not who these parts really are.

Imagine a room full of little kids, where some big scary things happen and the adults in the room don’t really understand how it’s affecting these children. Or the big people involved are so stressed out that they can’t be with the kids the way they need. So nobody is available to explain what happened, to listen to the children’s feelings and beliefs, to comfort and reassure.

So instead, one kid in the group says “Well, I see that nobody is coming to help us, so I will help us put on a brave front and pretend we don’t need anyone. Then we will survive better”. Another kid says “I think we should just pretend it didn’t happen. Let’s go play and try to forget about it”. And a third kid says “I think it happened because we did some bad things. I think we should try to be perfect, so nothing like that happens any more”.

These parentified children are the “protectors” we’ve had in our minds ever since those days. When we put on a brave face, or numb out, or people-please with perfectionism, many times it is because of these young parts who are kind of frozen in time, acting out the roles they took on way back then.

These parts still need to be parented, even though they don’t know it. It’s very helpful if we can build a relationship with them so they begin to trust that there is an adult here, someone who cares about them and the internal system and can keep the system safe.

Some ways to build relationships:

-When we notice big feelings, asking what the feeling is about and what the part is afraid might happen.

-Breathing and remembering we are adults, asking the part with the feelings to give us some space so we can listen and help

-Asking the part what its job is, what memories are coming up, how it’s helped us in the past

-thanking the part for doing its (her/his) best to try to help.

-updating the part about who we are now, where the person is that they worry about pleasing, that we can take care of them now.

-demonstrating self care, so our parts really believe we will do what we said we would do.

Below are some common “protector” parts. Sending gratitude for all of our protector parts. May we remember their vulnerability and their sacrifice. They were meant to be joyful and creative- they just took on these jobs as a way to help our internal systems.

Common Protectors:

Here are some common protectors, some of the beliefs they hold, and some ways they try to use to protect us.

• Distractor parts tend to believe that big feelings will overwhelm us, and they’re scared of the flames of those feelings. So they frantically distract us using whatever they learned would occupy our attention the best. This can include food, activities (exercise, working, reading, risk-taking, shopping, etc.), social media, numbing out with alcohol or drugs, or anything else that gets our mind off those feelings.

• Action-oriented or fixer parts. These parts often believe that our actions can fix or solve some problem, and sometimes they use those actions to prove our worth. So they drive us to work/achieve/fix things, often to the detriment of other things in our lives (including our health)

• Doubting or discouraged parts. These parts often try to keep us from trying hard things, worried that some hope will build up inside and then we will be disappointed.

• Self-critical parts. As we said before, these parts are often trying to live up to standards set by parents or other people we looked up to when we were young. They believe they need to keep criticizing us, or else those people (or someone else) will yell, or be disappointed, or even harm us in some way.

• Preventive, manager parts. These parts try to prevent bad things from ever happening again by always thinking ahead and being vigilant about preventing actions that might prove dangerous. Obviously this is an impossible, never-ending task, so most of them are exhausted and overwhelmed.