Now you might be wondering why you should read my story. For starters, I am what makes you, you. Or in this case, I am what makes a girl named Elizabeth, Elizabeth. I live in the mind. I head it all, actually. I am the Self and I oversee all the parts that make up Elizabeth. And right now, things aren’t going so well. The parts in general are divided into two- protectors and exiles. Exiles come whenever we are hurt and protectors come to save us from the exiles. From the very beginning, it has been like this. But lately, it’s all been going a little out of hand.
I look down with an expression of helplessness and sigh as I see Ela trembling with fear and crying. The overhead alarm was blaring and the whole room was covered in hues of red. One could hear the speakers screaming from all corners of the room. Ela was dangerously close to the ‘self-destruct’ lever, and one could see that she was desperate. And that’s when Beth came running. “Stop it, Ella”, she yelled. Ella looked up still trembling and chalk white. “He’s hitting us! He’s hitting us again”, she screeched. “I know. But listen to me. We can’t break down again. He killed Zizi, Ella. We can’t let him win”. The moment she said this, my heart did a backflip. It had been a while since Zizi had been killed. She was the life of the entire place. She was the one who wanted to dance in the rain and smell the flowers. She was the one who talked to strangers and laughed so openly and wholeheartedly. And now, she was dead. Sorry, killed. She couldn't take the alarms anymore. Every time I think of her, a pang of grief that feels like a stake of ice pierces my heart. Zizi was the one who was with me the longest. She was the kindest and the happiest. Everyone remembered the day Ella came to us. It was the day he first hit us. Ella came trembling and crying as always and Zizi was the one who tried to comfort her. But even Zizi couldn’t deny the fact that it was because of her that Ella came here. It was because of her that he hit us. And one day, she just couldn’t take it anymore, and well, it pains everyone too much to talk about it and so we never do. But the pain is there, it is always there.
If you asked Beth, she would say it’s all because of Liza and Belize. And no one would say it out loud, but they all agreed. You see, Liza’s whole existence depended on him. She is the literal manifestation of our love for him and Belize, our self-worth. Liza physically could not imagine leaving him or hurting him in any way. And wouldn't you know it, Belize vehemently disagreed. She knew he was the reason the alarms were blaring all the time. She knew he was why we couldn’t eat and we couldn’t sleep. He was why we never laughed anymore and she knew he was the reason everything bad was going on in our lives. Every one of the parts is torn between them. Some agreed with Belize but couldn’t bear to lose Liza. Some couldn’t decide if Belize was right. Especially Bee, Liza’s best friend. She thought everything was our fault, understandably so, seeing as she is the manifestation of our self-doubt itself. She thought everything he did was because we were wrong and that we don’t do our best to be a good girlfriend to him. She was Liza’s biggest supporter and she and Belize had the loudest and most violent fights over him. And ever since Zizi died, it all became so much worse. We could see that even Bee was starting to lose her grip on the whole situation.
I sighed. I knew everyone was waiting for my call. I know the right one of course, but I also know that if I make it, we would never follow through. Liza would overpower us all and we will be trapped in an endless cycle as we always have been. There was only one solution. We had to go to Dr. Lipstich. He would make Liza and Bee understand. He would make Liza go away amicably. It will be painful, but it had to be done. If not for anything else, for Zizi at least.
References:
1. Schwartz, R. C. (1994). The internal family systems model. New York, NY: Guilford.
Sweezy, M., & Ziskind, E. L. (Eds.). (2013). Internal family systems therapy: New dimensions. Routledge.
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