180 [Healing Series] Estrangement Through an IFS Lens
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Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/180
Haley Radke: You're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Episode 180, Estrangement Through an IFS Lens with Marta Isabella Sierra. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Before we get started, I want to let you know how much it means to me that you're showing up here to listen to adoptee voices. I remember when I was first in reunion with my dad, and we hit the inevitable rocky patch after the honeymoon period faded, I felt so alone. I believed that I was absolutely unlovable because my first mother had ghosted me after a few months into our reunion just a decade prior. For me, creating this podcast has been a tremendous labor of love so that other adoptees like me who were feeling alone, struggling in reunion, or coming out of the fog would have connection, so we wouldn't feel like we were crazy. The wildest part of all of this is that it succeeded. Adoptees On [00:01:00] has become our show to connect and share what the adoptee experience is really like and I'm asking you today to support the podcast and make it sustainable for me to continue doing this work. I'm Haley, the host and creator of the show–our community's show–and I'm also a wife and mom of two little boys, who are trying their very best to stay quiet as I record this.
Haley Radke’s little boys: Hi, Mommy.
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This is a special episode in our Healing Series where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee. Today we are talking about estrangement through the Internal Family Systems model. And if you're not even sure what [00:03:00] that is, don't worry. It's literally my first question. Let's listen in.
I’m so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Marta Sierra. Welcome, Marta.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Hi, Haley.
Haley Radke: I was just telling you how you are a favorite guest on the Healing Series, so I'm so glad you're back. And you bring the Internal Family Systems model lens to our Series. I know lots of people are not necessarily familiar with that, so can you just give us a Cliff's Notes of what IFS is before we get into our main conversation?
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yes, absolutely. So IFS is, most simply stated, the honoring of the fact that we have multiplicities. We have many different parts of ourselves that can have a lot of conflicting feelings, beliefs, [00:04:00] intentions, and that all of our parts are working really hard to keep us safe and to try to keep everything together and yet often really failing at that when our system is out of balance. So the goal of IFS therapy is to strengthen the relationship between ourselves and our parts so that we can feel more internally connected, internally balanced, and so that we can cope differently than maybe we were before.
Haley Radke: Thank you for explaining that. And we have a really great episode in which Marta talks us through this, Episode 69. That's way back. You've been on a number of times, so way back if you want to hear more about IFS and how it can specifically help adopted people. Okay. So we are here to talk about estrangement, which is just super fun. Everybody loves it. There's no feelings, nope, no nothing. It's not hard, right?
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Super easy. [00:05:00]
Haley Radke: Super easy. Yeah, super easy stuff. But we've been talking through this Estrangement Series. I've had many adoptees on sharing really hard stories and about why they've decided to become estranged from their adoptive families or they're considering it. And I would love to hear your perspective of that from the IFS lens when we're deciding if this is a safe relationship to stay in?
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yes, absolutely. I just want to start with a little disclaimer, Haley, which is actually a comment on parts that give disclaimers. So there's this pattern when adoptees speak where we feel inclined or even maybe mandated internally or externally to give disclaimers like “not all adopters” or making sure that we [00:06:00] mention, I love my adoptive parents, before we go into something a little more complicated or something a little heavier. And that's an example of what I'll be talking about later on which is prioritizing other people's comfort before speaking our truth, before speaking our narrative and stepping into that. So I won't be doing that today, and that might be uncomfortable for some listeners or some people. And I'm doing that to really model not taking care of other people's parts, which is something that we talk about in IFS, which is not being responsible for other people's parts, not taking care of other people's parts. So I'm speaking today, as I always am, from both my personal experience and my professional experience, and these are things that I believe to be true. And people are welcome, of course, to have all of their own feelings about that, but I won't be giving any [00:07:00] disclaimers during this episode.
Haley Radke: Okay. While you were saying that, my jaw was on the floor because so many people give the disclaimer and I'm always like, Oh, come on. Please don't do that. Please don't do it. I just want to know what you think. You don't need to protect everybody. I love that you said that. That's fascinating. That's a whole ‘nother rabbit trail. Okay.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yes. So, that out of the way, the big question here, I think, is when do we hold boundaries versus when do we cut contact? And in IFS we talk a lot about polarities, which just very simply means two parts that are pulling in really opposite directions. My go-to example is someone in a relationship conflict that's "part of me wants to leave, part of me wants to stay." With bigger conflicts it's more than one part pulling in one direction and one part pulling in the other. It's almost like there's two whole camps that have really different [00:08:00] views. And so when we're talking about estrangement, that means that there's a whole group of us inside of us that feel unsafe leaving the relationship, and then there's another camp that feels unsafe staying in the relationship, and that can really rip us up from the inside out because it feels like an impossible position, right? How can I take care of all of my parts? In IFS we talk about our role as leaders of our system is to do our best to take care of all of our parts. And so how do we do that with this big conflict? And so the idea is that we really have to honor both sides. We have to honor all of it and the complexity of it, and, no matter what decision we might make in a given moment, that we're taking care of all of the parts the best we can, despite who gets the decision [00:09:00] made for them maybe in a given moment. For example, if you have two children, two external children, and they have different wants and needs. We're not going to be able to go to the circus and the zoo on the same day, right? So somebody's not going to get their needs met, and they still need love and care and support around that. So if you're in the place where the majority of your parts feel unsafe leaving a relationship, and you're going to stay in that, it's okay to honor that the majority of me feels unsafe leaving this relationship, I'm going to stay in it. There still needs to be a lot of attention to the other side, the parts that feel unsafe in the relationship. How am I going to still protect those parts of me? And so that's where the boundaries come in, right? Okay, what do these parts need to feel as safe as possible? And so, of course, that looks a lot of different ways, right? Email only, or taking breaks, or no texting at night, or [00:10:00] again, that's totally individual. And then to the other end of the spectrum, once 51% of your parts or more feel unsafe staying in the relationship, and maybe you start to take some of those steps towards cutting ties or you do cut ties, there's still a lot of love and care that needs to go to the sides that still feel loyal to the side that is really afraid. What happens without this relationship? I equate letting go of these relationships that are not functioning anymore to trying to move through the space and time continuum. Like you just start to shake. I'm shaky right now talking about it, right? Like it feels, I think, of what it takes for someone to saw off their own arm in an extreme emergency, right? It's that counterintuitive to us. And so there's just a lot of care that has to go into what we're going through in these experiences, in these relationships. [00:11:00]
Haley Radke: I feel like every time I go see my psychologist and we address something of this nature in my own personal life, it's like she has to tell me the same thing every time. And I even said that to her today. I was like, Do you feel like you're just on repeat with me? But sometimes it is taking care of that section of you that is like, Oh my gosh, am I doing the right thing here? I don't know. It does bring up all those things.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yeah. It's really hard to try to take care of these two sides of us that are really in such huge conflict. Sometimes I'll do an exercise when someone again, estrangement aside, is having a conflict and sometimes the thought is, Oh, whichever side has more parts is the winner, right? Or the one that maybe should get the priority or get the decision [00:12:00] made in their name. But when we're talking about trauma, sometimes there's more because the fear is really big, not because that's the thing that we're supposed to do. And so really listening to our parts, to both of these sides, both of these camps, what are their fears and concerns and what do they need from us to help them feel more safe? And listening to our parts means paying attention to what's happening in our bodies, what our thought streams are, what our thought patterns are, noticing our behaviors and emotions. All of those things are ways that our parts are communicating with us. And the less we listen, the louder they will communicate. And so part of my own journey towards severing ties, a big part of that is that the last four times that I saw my adopters in person, there [00:13:00] was a lot of vomiting before, during, and after those encounters.
Haley Radke: Wait, do you mean actual vomiting?
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: I mean actual vomiting.
Haley Radke: You felt so sick you threw up. Oh, my word.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: And, our dear Pam Cordano, who I'm blessed to be working with, her view on vomiting is that it's the body's way of saying no, right? And so my body was saying, No. No, I can't do this. No, this isn't safe for me. And I had some trouble listening, given that it had to happen four times before I realized I can't do this. I can't keep going like this. My parts are being very clear with me that this is not a safe situation for me, and I had to decide, right? Am I going to listen to them? Am I going to protect them? Am I going to put them first or not?
Haley Radke: So putting [00:14:00] them first, choosing our own safety, I think, is a way that you phrased that to me before we started recording, it feels like that's the scariest part because we’ve spent our whole lives being adopted and into someone else's family, into someone else's dreams and hopes, and we're trying to live up to that. And then now, as an adult, deciding, Okay, can I even choose myself? Can I choose that? It’s terrifying.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: It's terrifying
Haley Radke: Can you talk to someone that is maybe feeling that way? Like the vomiting, that's a pretty big signal. I don't think that all of us get to that point. Maybe we do, I don't know.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: It can look so many different ways. Again, Haley, everyone's system is individual, so how it [00:15:00] communicates with you is going to be different. But I know that I'm not alone in that reaction. Because we are so afraid of being rejected by a second family, we adopt so many beliefs and so many mandates internally and this idea of perfection, right? That we have to be perfect. If I don't want to lose this second family, then I have to be perfect, and some of that perfection plays out in parts of us that feel responsible to fix our adoptive family system. And when we center any adoptive family members, that could even be siblings, over ourselves, that's such a barrier to self-love and self-care, like you're saying, because then it feels impossible. It feels impossible to choose us when it feels like we're choosing us [00:16:00] to keep going with the pattern the way that it's been going, because that's created for safety, right? I have to be perfect if I want to receive care and love in this new family. And so that's safety based. So again, I'm going to say “safety” a million times because this is all safety based, except the method of keeping us safe is in direct conflict with the other. But both of these camps of parts are trying to keep us safe. They're just not succeeding. Unfortunately, protective parts most often invite in the very thing they're trying to protect us from.
Haley Radke: Okay, that's interesting. Say more about that. We are doing something to prevent something from happening, and the opposite is going to happen. It's just going to happen.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yes. So I'll reference when we talked about romantic relationships some time ago. I have a part that wants to protect me from [00:17:00] feeling abandoned, and so will run away first, but eventually that person's going to leave if I keep doing that, right? And so I have not avoided being hurt. If anything, I will leave that situation feeling more certain than ever that I'm incapable of this or I always pick the wrong people or whatever the narrative is that gets reinforced.
Haley Radke: Wow, we really have all the things going on there. Whew, okay, so you mentioned that you've chosen to be out of relationship with your adopters. Are you okay with sharing a little bit about that?
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yes, absolutely, and I will keep sharing about it as I keep talking about our parts because, I'm talking about that as an IFS therapist, but I'm talking about it as like, how did I get here? How did I finally do this? Which has been a very long process. [00:18:00] I listened to all my old episodes in preparation to talk to you today, Haley, and I was so surprised that in that first episode about IFS, I shared about the session I had had and how the therapist wasn't adopted, but that I felt safe because when I was talking about my female adopter, he reflected back to me: "It sounds like she's really dangerous to you." And I couldn't believe that was right there because that was 2017, maybe. I don't know. It was a while ago, at least three years, and it was right there, right? That I was in danger, that I really was unsafe in these relationships, and it was still so hard for me to see even then, even though it was coming right out of my mouth, right? There's other parts of me that were still so terrified about the how and the fear of judgment externally and all of these layers that [00:19:00] we're going to be talking about and the burdens that we carry as adoptees, which I keep learning more and more about. But at this point I have my big three that I feel like are the result of what happened to us.
So the first is the neurological and physical damage to our beings when we were separated that is mostly irreversible, right? That's first for me. It has to be because it's so concrete; this happened to our bodies. And the second is something I've talked to a bunch with you as well, Haley, which is that broken sense of innate trust in the world, in ourselves, in relationships. And then this third one that's really gotten so carved out for me through my own process and professionally is that we are loyal to others before we are loyal to ourselves. It becomes an internal mandate to put others before ourselves and I see this doing such pervasive damage to adoptees on every level. It touches every aspect of our lives. [00:20:00]
Haley Radke: Ugh. I don't want to talk about that because it's too personal. Okay. Here we are. Talking about this is so hard, and you're sharing really personal stuff, too. I identify with that so much, and I think I might have mentioned this in another Estrangement Episode, but I'll just say it again, but everyone I've talked to, it really feels like choosing estrangement means choosing to finally be myself.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yes.
Haley Radke: Who else would we say this to, what other friend would we say something like, Oh my gosh. You just have to go along with that stuff. Don't worry about being yourself. You would never [00:21:00] ask someone else to cover up all the things that make you you and just try and fit in and– oh my word. Ugh. We would never do that. So what is it in us? It's all of those three things, probably, but I'll let you go ahead and explain.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: And fear. Again fear. We are so wired for fear, and I think it's unfortunately sometimes our baseline. And I think it looks different, of course, in different people but, whether that's really anxious or really angry or really shut down, these are all fear-based responses. And I think that our systems, unfortunately, run on fear or love. And I think when the love has been blocked by the fear, this is the result, that we're often not in the present moment and therefore this need to fit into [00:22:00] our adoptive family systems, right? If our protectors are prioritizing our adopters' needs, and if they're doing that to ensure our safety, but they're not. That's not happening anymore if we're talking about adults. So our parts get stuck in space and time and some of our parts don't realize that I don't need those people for literal life support anymore. For housing and for food and for maybe some of the needs that were being met. I'm not there in space and time and yet our protectors, to a fault, will continue to prioritize others, thinking that it's keeping us safe when it's actually maybe putting us in harm's way
Haley Radke: That's so profound. I hope that thought can be really helpful for people to just unpack. Like how would you make the space to think about that and, I don't know, sit down and process with your parts to just think about that? [00:23:00]
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yeah. So I think a strength of IFS here is the qualities of self-energy, as we say in IFS, but really your heart, like opening your heart to yourself. Three of those eight Cs are courage, clarity, and confidence. And I think when we're talking about estrangement, these are so essential because they're all linked to truth and the truth about our worth which is that we deserve to be fully alive, to be fully here, to be fully ourselves. And that it's okay to take steps towards that which maybe nobody outside of us even understands. And how do we tap into that support internally? In order to tap into that support internally, we may need external support first. So I can't emphasize enough, as you often do, [00:24:00] Haley, the importance of support and the importance of adoption-competent therapy. I knew where I needed to go. I was really clear on it. The vomiting was the clarity for me that I had made the decision. This is over for me. I can't do this anymore. And there was still this huge how. How? How? How? How am I ever going to do this? And so I needed support around that, and that's when I started working with Pam. And in our first session I was already working on the email that would eventually be sent. And it took months of working with my fear, really, and supporting the parts of me that were terrified that I would die, all the things, all the irrational, trauma-based fears about what happens if I choose myself.[00:25:00]
Haley Radke: I'm glad you said that though because I think we can just say, Oh, we cut off contact, or whatever, and that just sounds like just this simple thing. Whatever. I blocked them everywhere, and I actually moved. But that's beside the point. It's not just one tear-off-the Band-Aid kind of thing. It's not that. You're talking about months of, oh my gosh, processing. It's never just this one little thing. Maybe there's a trigger. Maybe there's one little thing that's the trigger, but there's been months, years leading up to this point.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: Yes. There's a lead-up maybe to a moment or an action that's taken, but that's just a point in time. I think of it also as like a reunion, as this one moment, and there's so much work after. And estrangement is the same. If you do decide to cut ties, there's more work after. There's a lot [00:26:00] more work after, which is what I'm working through now myself. It keeps going,
Haley Radke: It keeps going, I'm sorry to tell you.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: It keeps going. Yes.
Haley Radke: Okay. That was so helpful. Thank you. Hard, but helpful, and I think it's given us a lot to process, and I'm really glad that you're going to come back, and we're going to talk a little bit more about this from a different perspective. So thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us again. And, like I said before, Marta has been on a number of times, so you can find all her episodes. I'll link them in the show notes. But where can we connect with you online?
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: I am almost finished with my final legal name change, so I'm going to give you my new email even though there's no matching website yet. But that is martasierralmhc(at)gmail(dot)com. [00:27:00]
Haley Radke: Perfect, and we'll link that in the show notes, too. Thanks so much for your wisdom, Marta.
Marta Isabella Sierra Cifuentes, LMHC: You're welcome, Haley.
Haley Radke: I would love to have you as a monthly supporter of the podcast. Without my supporters, there would not be a show. So if you want Adoptees On to keep going, I would encourage you to go to adopteeson.com/partner to find out all the ways you can sign up and help the show. And I'm so grateful for those of you who have signed up. It makes a huge difference for me and my family and the plans for the podcast, which are top secret, but there's great things coming, I promise.
Thanks so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday when Marta will be back, and we're talking a little more about estrangement through the IFS lens. [00:28:00]
