Big Fat Grandma

Big Fat Grandma is a part I carry around inside me. She is so fun! She wants to gather people, to feed them and make them feel welcome and at home! She loves to bake cookies and is always smiling and making sure everyone has enough. She is a feeder, for sure!! But she is really uncomfortable with sadness or other difficult or negative emotions, so she makes cookies and tries to make everything look and feel ok. She has a comfortingly large bosom and a pinny.

I use ‘parts work’, or some might call it configurations of self work (a person-centred term), a lot with clients. It’s the idea that we have loads of different parts that make up our 'self' - I will describe a few more of mine in a moment. Sometimes the parts have competing agendas. These aren’t dissociative identities, to be clear, they are normal, functioning parts of us. Let me explain further. 

Big Fat Grandma’s role in my life is to keep me happy. She does this by surrounding me with people that I love and who love me back, creating extravagant meals to feed (literally) those she loves, to keep me focused on what’s warm and lovely and smells of cinnamon and baking bread, as opposed to feeling anything painful or hard. She’d like to protect me by getting me to ignore those things and just be kind and nice and happy all the time. If she was always in charge I’d be the fattest, least processed (emotionally) person you know who just seeks to please everyone all the time! 

Now, I have other parts, like Old Man Academic. This part of me falls into the stereotype of male, reclusive, pompous at times, not-to-be-disturbed dusty old professor. This part’s role in my life is to keep me learning, to enable me to get my marking and preparation done for teaching days, to enjoy the isolation of academia, to relish the challenge of a new assignment. If he was always in charge, I would moulder away in some wood-panelled study until I died surrounded by bits of dusty paper and half-drunk glasses of whiskey. He protects me from failure by hyper-focusing on my work to the exclusion of everything else. Old Man Academic and Big Fat Grandma do not agree on the way my day-to-day life should be run, as you can imagine! 

Now let’s introduce Basement Dweller. Basement Dweller is a teenager who lives in the basement of the family home, doesn’t want to go out, just wants to watch Netflix all day in the dark, eating crap and avoiding any and all responsibilities. Basement Dweller’s agenda is to avoid social contact that tires me out, or avoid hard work that makes my brain hurt. Basement Dweller protects me from experiencing disappointment in people because she just avoids social contact in pursuit of mindless distraction and if she doesn't ry at anything she will never fail at anything. She also knows from experience that some people make her feel not good enough or afraid, and so it is easier to not engage with people if she doesn’t have to. 

This is to name but a few. I have more destructive parts, ones that love to cause a little chaos, ones that convince me I am not good enough, as well as loving, hopeful parts, parts that seek adventure and change…and so on and so on! 

Why does this matter and how does it help in therapy? The key theory is that all of the parts, in some way, are working for you - they are protecting you or have some kind of positive agenda, even if it is hard to spot. Each part ‘thinks’ it is doing what is right for you. So each part can be loved, understood, cherished even, for their (sometimes misguided) way of trying to help you live your life. 

Parts can begin when trauma occurs - a part that aggressively rejects everyone and every attempt to draw close; this part isolates to protect. Perhaps we can see why. Or a people pleaser part that meets every need someone else has; this part pleases to protect from ridicule or not being enough or damage caused by others. There are a hundred different reasons why parts occur but the point is they are all welcome, all lovable, all acceptable because they all want what they think is the best for you!

It is possible for a part to get a bit out of control, to be too-much in charge. That’s when it might be useful to seek some therapy to identify the part, honour what it is doing or has done for you, but find a new way to get that need met, or the protection you need, in a more adult and conscious way. It is actually so amazing doing parts work in therapy. We begin to judge ourselves less harshly, to berate ourselves less for the things we do that seem out of character, to find empathy and understanding for the part that needs more safety or more love. 

As you’ve read this, can you identify parts in yourself that could do with some understanding? The parts you’ve maybe tried to push out? Or maybe you love some of your parts and already see how they are working for you. Comment below, or drop me an email if you need some help with that.