A firefighter confronts the pain of relational cut off
Being ignored hurts the worst, but helpfully exposes deep burdens of worthlessness
Firefighter: curious about their anger and grief
Sharky (Firefighter): I’m angry. But I have a wedge of curiosity about my anger. I want to work with it. Let’s do this, A!
A (Self-energy): What are you noticing?
Sharky (Firefighter): I feel upset, so under the anger, I feel grief. But I can’t access the grief unless I acknowledge my anger. I feel like I have an outline of the work I need to do, but intellectually knowing what I need to do is crap. I have to do the emotional work.
A: Let’s do it!
Firefighter: It hurts to be ignored. It helps to speak it.
Sharky (Firefighter): I feel angry to be put in the third bid category. With John Gottman, how if you have a relational bid, you can only be responded to in three ways — accepted, rejected, or ignored. Ignored hurts the most. It’s the ‘third bid category.’ It’s burning acid in me. It hurts so deep and so bad to be ignored.
A (Self-energy): Mmmm.
Sharky: (Firefighter): I want to defend myself against it. I want to say, “Yeah, I fucked up, but, I really have to be totally neglected? It’s really so bad that I have to be cut off completely?” It’s such an infinite vote of no confidence. It’s pushing so deep into any areas that are weak inside of us. It’s putting pressure on us. It makes all the parts notice where they don’t feel worthiness. It’s a constant, every day pressure of no contact that says, “You totally fucking suck. You are total fucking garbage and you don’t deserve to be in relationship with me.”
A (Self-energy): That’s a lot.
Sharky (Firefighter): Whew. You know what? It’s crazy how fast IFS can be helpful. I was really burning, really burning with the pain that was arising from this. But just SAYING what’s going on is giving me traction. I can see it’s a BELIEF that I, Sharky, am manufacturing from the situation. It’s true that there’s no contact. It’s true that a relationship I valued was suddenly cut off. It’s true I was told, “You hurt me, so I don’t want contact with you.” It’s also true I did make a mistake and I did hurt the other person, so I can’t deny they had a right to respond that way. And collapsing into self-recrimination or regret or bargaining about MY error will avail me nothing. I screwed up: this is what’s happening as a result. What I need to do is keep doing the work on the pain that’s arising as a result. I want to do this work.
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