Sometimes my bedtime prog hits different, and rather than getting a restful eight hours of sleep, I crash hard, only to wake up at 3-4 AM with my mind churning. I started writing this blogpost during a night like that, when I was able to pivot my late night scaries into some focused introspection.
I’ve written before about inflection points in transition. The past few months held another inflection point for me, where the greater question about my relationship to transness changed. I’m no longer as concerned with the question of “what does it mean to be trans” as I am with “how do I live this life, in this body?” The therapy work I started around trauma and neurodivergence has changed how I understand my inner workings, and it's made me realize how intersectional my transness is with all my other qualities.
Last year, one of the ideas I was exploring on here was a concept I was calling “reintegration,” a kind of reconciliation of pre- and post-transition selves. I had a hypothesis that some form of trauma from my repressed transness was responsible for the feeling of discontinuity in me that has widened since I first came out. After learning more about how traumatic memory interacts with neurodivergence, I decided to pursue therapy radically different from the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy I had attended for so many years, and started working with an Internal Family Systems therapist. While IFS is easily the most bizarre form of therapy I’ve ever engaged in, it seems to be doing something worthwhile. IFS has given me a way to locate my disjunctures of memory, gender, and emotion, and figure out what reintegration needs to happen.
In IFS, consciousness is considered to be made up of a steering “Self” and a handful of specialized protector parts which work to avoid contact with traumatic memory. These parts are value-neutral, but often they get locked into particular responsibilities at different stages of a person’s life, which can lead to maladaptive patterns later on. The therapy focuses on using emotions to guide the Self into contact with specific parts, then facilitating conversation in order to help them update their role. What this looks like in practice for me is a lot of sitting with my eyes closed, feeling my feelings, and then having bizarre mental images and emotions come up. Afterward I usually have a good cry for the parts I met, and note what I’ve learned.
Of the parts I’ve encountered, many of them seem to have been molded in much earlier phases of my life, and several have been confused when I’ve shared with them that I’m a woman, that I’m trans. According to the therapy, parts need regular check-ins in order to feel safe enough to change their relationship the Self. I think that this may explain why there are still times when I suddenly feel pulled out of my gender, or struggle with misgendering myself in my lowest moments. I suspect it’s going to be a long, methodical process to get all my parts on the same page.
Outside of therapy, I've been connecting with my parts easily when moving my body to music. This makes sense from the literature: therapies like movement therapy, EMDR, or some forms of family therapy invoke either bilateral stimulation or some sense of spatial awareness in order to tap deeper into the emotions of the patient. One night not too long ago I couldn't sleep from anxiety, and so rather than trying to wait it out like I normally do, I blasted SOPHIE in my headphones and made a pointillist painting of my anxious part, tapping each dot to the beat. Something cleared inside me as I completed the painting, and I felt better.
Another place where I've been finding myself in contact with my parts has been on dance floors. I've danced at local rock shows before, but it wasn’t until this year that I started going out specifically to clubs - especially goth clubs - and I learned how to really cut loose. With some exceptions, it turns out nobody really cares how well you dance to goth music, just as long as you don’t bump into other people. I probably look like a crazed woman, flowing my arms around, shifting back and forth to the beat, but I don’t really care. This form of movement has been working a lot better for me than my old friend jogging, which pretty much just hurts my knees now. Plus I get to wear spooky outfits, so what’s there to complain about?
A few times now, my mind has entered an altered state while dancing, and the veil between my conscious Self and the parts I’m meeting in therapy has become thinner. One time I had a brief inner vision that felt like calling a meeting, where I caught the briefest glimpse of what I suspect is the full org chart of parts. Other times there’s been two or three protectors that have grown louder in my ears as I dance, pulling me away from the music. Therapy has helped me to see these parts for what they are, and be more conscious about whether I want to give them credence, or try and soothe them. This strange little exercise of assuaging the angels and devils on my shoulders as I dance has felt more substantial to me than years of weekly CBT.
At this point in time, I can't say that IFS has solved any of my bigger struggles for me - I'm still having a hard time on many fronts. What I can say though is that it's helped me become aware of the origins of my emotions, and it's made eminently clear to me how entangled my transness is with all the other aspects of my psyche. My reintegration work isn't just about transness, it's about trauma, and neurodivergence, and a host of other things that have shaped who I am over time. For now, I’m going to keep exploring this weird new way to encounter myself, and dance when I can.