Pushing Past the Fear

Or, TMI Once Again

This month, as I am in the throes of drafting scenes for my new book, I thought I’d talk about how I try to push past all of the negative voices in my head in order to get the story down on paper. (Spoiler: the negative voices become my friends and we basically have drinks together.)

Before I describe my particular chorus of fears, I first have to explain my internal family system. (TMI, but here goes.) Family Systems Therapy—which I’ve been doing for a few years—is an evidence-based approach to therapy that helps us access our inner parts in order to help them heal. The idea is that we have many parts inside of us (i.e. our families) and that these parts are not always in harmony with one another.

Remember the movie Inside Out,¹ in which the main character Riley grapples with her emotions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger? It’s like that, but in IFS the parts can be more complex, like people. All of our parts are good and they have our best interests in mind…but, well, sometimes they get confused and set fire to our lives.

The family system is organized into three rungs surrounding a core self. The core Self is at the center of—and separate from—the rest of the family. We all have this part and it can’t be harmed. The self is calm, generous, kind, self-assured, and relaxed. It’s basically the best version of you. (When I’m being a world-class B, my beloved husband² reminds me to “lead with your core self” at which point my firefighters tend to gleefully pour gasoline around the house, lit cigarettes dangling from their smiling mouths. This will make sense in a minute.)

On the first rung of the system beyond the self are the Exiles, or our softest, most vulnerable feelings that arise from traumatic experiences, however big or small. These are parts we try to keep locked away, like shame, pain, terror. Think of a child in second grade who forgets her homework. If the teacher calls on her and says something like “you should be ashamed of yourself” then writes her name on the board, that child will feel a deep sense of shame. This would be an exile feeling.

Next up are the Managers, or the parts that run our day-to-day lives. Managers can often be critical inner voices that correct our behaviors and appearance in order to keep us in control, and protect us from feeling the pain of our exiles. In our example, the second-grader might develop a manager who decides she’ll never forget her homework again so she never has to feel that shame.

On the outer rung of our diagram are my favorite parts, the Firefighters, or the parts that put out an emotional fire at any cost. They react strongly when exiles are activated, and they’re sort of like your most insane but extremely fun friend, who’s always telling you to skip class, get drunk, smoke a pack of cigarettes, and make out with every rando on the way to the liquor store. Firefighters go to extremes to distract you from feeling pain, and they emerge when they think the managers have failed.

Now, back to my fears about writing A Brief History of My Affairs. They can be distilled into three parts, one for each rung of the family system.

My exile part, who I call Sad Girl, is maybe seven years old and she’s too afraid to write the book. It can’t be done, she thinks. It shouldn’t be done. She’s been told that there are problems in the world bigger than hers so she should tamp down her emotions and stop talking about herself. Her family is busy with their own lives, so she writes and draws alone in her room, frightened by her feelings, too afraid to leave.

The manager who looks after my career is named Leslie. Leslie isn’t nice at all, but she knows how to get shit done. I think she was in charge of my life from ages twenty to around thirty-four. We’re frenemies. She asks, what will people think of you if you publish this book? After all, it’s called A Brief History of My AFFAIRS, not A Brief History of My Healthy, Well-Adjusted, Totally Appropriate Relationships.³ If some readers took issue with your first book,⁴ which was utterly uncontroversial, what on earth will they say about this one? Will your reputation be damaged forever? Do you even have a reputation? Where is this all LEADING, anyway?

That brings us to Cheryl, my favorite firefighter who wants me to be free from all of the muck of reflecting on the past. Once or twice per week, in the middle of the day, she calls out to me, Let’s go get drunk! Just this week she suggested that I ditch work and head to a Matisse exhibit at our local museum and have three or four or seventy cocktails while looking at art. It’s important, she said. For your creative inspiration. She’s a smart, free-spirited adventurer dressed in all black with no restrictions on alcohol consumption or anything at all. I adore her. If I could spend all my time with her and still function, I totally would.

How does one go on with these raucous ladies chattering away? I have a two-fold method for dealing with them. First, I have to acknowledge their existence or they get ornery. Sad Girl needs to know that she can leave her room any time, and draw and write however she likes. Leslie needs to know that I understand her questions and will try to be mindful of them. And Cheryl needs to know that we’ll go out for a drink next week, and we’ll go to Italy next year, but in the meantime I need to focus.

The second part of my method is to say my family’s mantra: I am strong and I can do it. Years ago, when I was a snob, I would’ve scoffed at mantras. Now, life has broken me⁵ and my feeling for all of humanity is: whatever gets you through. And anyway, there’s research showing that affirmations can actually change your mindset and positively affect your behaviors.⁶

The method sounds and ultimately is simple, but it took me decades to recognize that my chorus of parts both is and isn’t me, and that it’s possible to not just to face them, but to lean into them. Who are you trying to protect? I always ask. What do you need to be okay? Every morning when I sit down to write, the ladies and I have a little chat, then I remind myself that the purpose of my book is to try and heal from the past. Sentence by sentence, I keep going.

XO.

1. I love this movie so much. Bing Bong!

2. Who explicitly asked not to be mentioned in these newsletters. Oopsies! Did he marry the wrong lady? Sorry, my love! It will definitely happen again.

Oh, look! Here it is happening again. As Christian was proof-reading this post, he asked me to clarify that while he doesn’t mind the occasional mention, he believes my description of scene in the last newsletter was inaccurate and he will in no way be associated with it (or me???). (I’m not convinced he actually read the last post, but still.)

I think we can all agree that Christian both does and doesn’t want to be mentioned in my newsletter, and that when he married me maybe he hadn’t considered every eventuality. Love you, bird!

3. I think we can all agree that would be a snooze-fest, no?

4. I made the dire mistake of glancing at my Goodreads page the other day, for the first time in over a year, and dear god. Let me say here in a footnote (and more on this later, obvs.) that my family is completely fine with my having written ANISTFS. My mom is literally visiting my house as we speak. We are FINE. And don’t even get me started on the troll who scoured the internet to tell all readers for all time that my book was ableist. Email me, troll. I dare you. (Introducing Cersei, my burn-it-to-the-ground firefighter who shows up armed to the teeth. She’s fun if you just let her do her thing.)

5. "The world breaks everyone,” wrote Hemingway.

6. Here and here. But honestly, I learned this from Noom, which I’ve been doing since February because I gained 40 pounds while pregnant. And despite what everyone said—that I would just lose the weight—that shit did not come off by itself.