Internal Family Systems to Balance Hyper-Responsibility and Self-Destructive Behavior and LAKE EFFECT by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
- Marisa Gelfand
- 2 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Clara is falling in love for the first time when her mother divorces her father and marries their neighbor. Their neighbor who is Clara’s boyfriend’s dad.
It’s a teenage nightmare.
With her mom gone, Clara has to manage the cooking, cleaning, and keep the house running. Then her boyfriend dumps her, breaking her heart.
Clara is overwhelmed and mad. She skips out on her own life, things like college, convinced her family will fall apart without her. Only once her little sister is in college does Clara finally taste freedom. And that freedom looks like one long party. She drinks too much, hooks up casually, barely communicates with her family, and even tells people her (alive) mother is dead.
Many people pushed into parental roles as teens feel resentment over the loss of a normal adolescence and struggle with identity, boundaries, and self-worth. When they finally gain even a small amount of freedom, they may swing from hyper-responsibility to rebellious, impulsive, or self-destructive behavior. These reactions often come from anger, unmet needs, fear of rejection, and attempts to stay in control through chaos. These patterns tend to mirror the dynamics they lived through earlier in life.
Internal Family Systems can help people who vacillate between extremes by showing that these different “parts” of the personality are protective, not defective. This reframing reduces shame, cultivates compassion, and gently shifts self-defeating patterns.
Here are tools for using internal family systems to balance hyper-responsibility and self-destructive behaviors.
Become Aware of Your Parts: Turn inward and notice the parts of you (think: the movie Inside Out) like protectors and wounded younger parts (i.e. perfectionist, critic, people-pleaser, firefighter, abandoned child, etc).
Find Your Core Self: Your core Self is the steady, compassionate you that exists beneath all those parts. When you can recognize your Self, your inner system becomes calmer.
Connect: As you strengthen connection with your core Self, notice when protective parts take over and meet them with curiosity instead of judgment.