Conflicting Emotions: Why Different Parts of Us Feel So Much

I’ve got 99 problems and Ryan Reynolds is one of them.

By Sarah Plassman MSW, LISW-S

Sheesh! And Other Thoughts on Being Human

How can one part of me be happy while another part of me is breaking apart with heartache?

Recently, I had one of those strange little moments where life looks perfectly ordinary from the outside, but somewhere inside you, every emotional light in the house turns on at once.

My inner child was there. My teenage self was there. My adult self was there. The parts that remember. The parts that protect. The parts that love too much and the parts that sometimes pretend they do not need anything at all.

Everybody showed up.

Sheesh.

And all because of a movie.

Thanks, John Krasinski.

Whenever the weather is nice and life gives us one of those rare evenings where nobody has anywhere they have to be, my tiny family likes to watch movies outside. We drag out the projector, light the fire pit, and settle into the little corner of our tiny city yard.

Every summer, we make a list.

Monty Python. The 90s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

You know, the classics required for proper childhood development.

Then we add whatever family-friendly movies we missed in the theater. This summer, IF made the list.

It looked harmless enough. A sweet movie about imaginary friends whose children had grown up and forgotten them.

Cute. Whimsical. Probably some laughs. Maybe a heartwarming ending.

Adorable, right?

NOPE.

We were fooled.

Somewhere between the imaginary friends and the firelight, I realized this movie had quietly walked into grief. And loss. And growing up. And the strange things we do when loving someone has taught us just how much there is to lose.

It was about the pieces of ourselves we tuck away because feeling them becomes too painful, and what happens when those pieces refuse to stay gone.

It was about finding our way back to joy.

To imagination.

To connection.

To the parts of ourselves that existed before adulthood handed us a clipboard and informed us that everything was very serious now.

Much of the story unfolds through Bea, a girl caught in that tender spot somewhere between childhood and adolescence. She has already lost her mother, and I saw a girl trying desperately to become old enough, strong enough, serious enough that maybe nothing could ever hurt quite that badly again.

She is growing up.

Maybe faster than she should have had to.

And then there is Cal.

Cal spends his time helping wayward imaginary friends find somewhere to belong after the children who loved them have grown up and forgotten them. But underneath his mission is his own story, and there is something about the way he looks at Bea that breaks my heart.

My hat is off to Ryan Reynolds.

Good work, sir.

He gives Cal this strange combination of sarcasm, irritation, humor, tenderness, devotion, and longing. He can say one thing while his face is telling an entirely different story.

And I love that.

So much of Cal's dialogue seems to have two meanings. There is what he says and then there is what he means. There is the joke and the hurt underneath it. The irritation and the longing underneath that.

Once you begin to understand Cal, everything he has said before sounds different. Every look becomes heavier. Every joke carries something else.

Because there is something uniquely heartbreaking about loving someone who no longer remembers the connection you once had.

Apparently my emotional stability was not prepared for this relational arrangement.

Several parts of me had opinions.

By the end of the movie, one part of me was smiling.

One was remembering.

One was grieving.

One wanted to protect.

And another just hurt.

My adult self knew perfectly well that we were watching a family movie. My therapist brain had spotted the themes from somewhere around Act One. But apparently nobody had consulted my inner child or any of the other internal departments before pressing play.

At this point, family movie night had become less “pass the popcorn” and more “process the past.”

Which got me thinking.

We do not always move through life as one perfectly unified emotional self. Sometimes very different parts of us are carrying very different truths.

So... Apparently We Have Parts?

A little clarification before we continue.

Parts language shows up in several therapy, recovery, and reparenting approaches, and different approaches may name or understand these experiences differently. These are not diagnoses, and I am not suggesting there are literally tiny versions of ourselves sitting around a conference table inside our brains.

Although some days, attendance is high in my head.

For our purposes, “parts” are simply a useful way of noticing the emotions, memories, beliefs, needs, and reactions we have gathered throughout our lives.

Some parts are loud. Some barely whisper. Some are wise and helpful.

Some are apparently still running emotional software from 1994 and have declined every available update.

Years of emotional development were apparently no match for Ryan Reynolds and an imaginary friend.

The Inner Child

The inner child is a way of talking about the experiences and needs shaped when we were young.

The part that remembers what it felt like to need someone,

to play without worrying whether we looked silly,

to create without wondering if we were any good at it,

to be curious,

to believe something wonderful might happen simply because it was Tuesday.

Watching Bea, we see little glimpses of that world: tea parties, dancing in the living room, being silly with her parents, creating, imagining, feeling safe enough to simply be a child.

And children notice everything.

Long before we have language for what is happening, we are learning.

What happens when I cry?

What happens when I need something?

What gets me closer to the people I love?

What pushes them away?

Which parts of me are welcome here?

Which parts should probably stay quiet?

Sometimes we begin tucking pieces of ourselves away.

The sensitive part. The angry part. The scared part. The playful part. The one who needs reassurance. The one who desperately wants to be held.

Those pieces do not necessarily disappear.

Sometimes they just become quiet.

Until life touches something familiar. Until something reminds them. Until we finally decide it is safe enough to turn the volume back up.

The Teenage Part

Then comes the teenage part.

If childhood is asking, “Am I safe?” adolescence begins asking:

“Who am I?”

Who are my people? What do I believe? What matters to me? Who do I want to become?

And please do not tell me who I am, because obviously that would be unbearable.

Adolescence is this wild combination of needing independence and still needing somewhere safe to land.

At fifteen, you have exactly zero years of experience being fifteen.

Confidence is high.

Supporting data is limited.

And yet, underneath the eye rolls and independence is incredibly important work. We are becoming ourselves.

Now imagine doing that while carrying tremendous pain.

Loss. Abuse. Neglect. Rejection. Bullying. Family instability.

Pain does not politely wait until we have developed the vocabulary to understand it.

So teenage parts find ways to cope. Maybe we become fiercely independent. The funny one. The angry one. The responsible one. The invisible one. The one everybody can count on. The one who makes sure nobody ever gets close enough to hurt us again.

Sometimes what looks difficult from the outside makes perfect sense when we understand what is happening underneath.

And this is part of what I see in Bea. She wants to grow up. She also knows now that loving people can hurt. Somewhere underneath the seriousness is still the little girl who remembers dancing in the living room.

Bea and Cal mirror each other.

Bea is guarded. Cal is guarded.

Bea keeps moving forward. Cal keeps himself busy helping everyone else.

Bea is trying to leave childhood behind. Cal is surrounded by the forgotten pieces of childhood.

And both of them seem to be asking some version of the same question:

What do we do with all this love when loving has hurt this much?

Cal is sarcastic, cynical, irritated, and a little grumpy. Basically, sarcasm seems to have become both a personality trait and an emotional support system.

But underneath all of it?

He cares.

Deeply.

And so does Bea.

They both know that connection comes with risk. That is the push and pull we sometimes carry:

Come here.

Actually, not that close.

I need you.

But please do not notice that I need you.

Human beings are very efficient communicators.

Cal seems to hold so much of what Bea is not ready to fully feel: the longing, the remembering, the sadness, the need for connection, the desire to still play.

And maybe that is why my heart keeps returning to him.

Because he keeps loving someone who does not remember the connection they once shared.

Sometimes the parts of ourselves we push away do not disappear either. They find us in our relationships, in our reactions, in memories we thought were settled, in moments that affect us far more deeply than we expected.

Or while sitting beside a fire pit wondering why Ryan Reynolds has personally decided to emotionally destroy you.

What is the deal?!

Jim Carrey Grinch voice, obviously.

A part remembers. A part hurts. A part longs.

And our adult self is sitting there thinking:

“Well. This seems like a rather large emotional response to an imaginary friend.”

The Critical Parent Part

Not every voice inside us is gentle.

Enter the Critical Parent.

It carries messages like:

Grow up. Stop crying. Do not be so sensitive. You should know better. You are too old for that.

The Critical Parent loves a rule.

Preferably one nobody remembers agreeing to.

I see some of this seriousness in Bea. She is twelve. She does not do childish things anymore. Life does not always have to be fun.

And I wonder whether somewhere underneath that seriousness is the belief that growing up might protect her.

If I need less, maybe I can lose less.

If I stop being playful, maybe I can stay prepared.

If I become serious enough, maybe nothing will catch me off guard again.

The problem is that when we pack away what hurts, we can accidentally pack away some of what brings us joy too: the tenderness, the silliness, the imagination, the dancing in the living room.

Apparently fun does not come with an expiration date.

I had not seen that in the adulting terms and conditions.

The Loving Parent

Then there is the loving parent. The part that begins offering ourselves the warmth, steadiness, curiosity, and care that safe adults ideally provide.

It is the part that looks back and sees the hurting little girl we once were.

Not with frustration.

Not with judgment.

But with warmth.

“Oh, there you are.”

“Come here.”

“It is safe with me.”

No lecture. No corrective action plan.

Just come sit down.

And this immediately made me think of Bea's dad.

He knows they are hurting. He knows exactly what their family has lost. He does not pretend the pain is not there, but he refuses to let pain become the only thing left in the room.

He dances. He jokes. He plays. He keeps reaching for joy.

He reminds Bea that she is still safe enough to laugh. Safe enough to be silly. Safe enough to play.

He is not trying to erase her grief.

He is trying to make sure she does not disappear inside of it.

It feels almost like he is saying:

“Yes, sweetheart. This hurts.

And we are still here.

Come dance with me.”

Maybe that is what loving ourselves begins to look like too.

Not promising ourselves that nothing bad will ever happen again.

We cannot make that promise.

Instead:

When pain comes, I will not abandon you there.

And we are still allowed to dance in the living room.

The Present Day Adult Self

And then there is who we are now.

The present day adult.

The one who can look around at this entire internal cast and say:

“Okay. Everyone please stop talking at once.”

We have exceeded the emotional bandwidth for this meeting.

The adult self does not have to decide which part is correct.

It can notice the child who needs comfort,

the teenager who's still trying to figure it out,

the critic trying desperately to maintain control,

and the loving part offering compassion.

Instead of asking which one needs to disappear, it can ask:

“What does all of this mean?”

“What do we need?”

“How do we move forward?”

That is what I see happening in Bea.

Growing up does not mean she has to stop needing people. She needs her dad, his steadiness, his ridiculousness, his joy. And while her dad is going through his hospital stay, she needs Cal too.

Someone beside her. Someone bringing fun into frightening moments. Someone who keeps showing up. Someone reminding her of the girl she was before pain convinced her she had to become quite so serious.

Eventually, Bea does not have to choose.

The girl who has known terrible loss can laugh.

The girl who is afraid can love.

The girl who is growing up can still play.

The girl who knows terrible things happen can also know wonderful things happen too.

Loss and love.

Fear and fun.

Heartache and joy.

All of it gets to be true.

And Then There Was the Mom in Me

Somewhere in the middle of all this emotional chaos, I looked beside me.

At my own child.

Because there was one more part of me watching this movie.

The mom.

And suddenly I was thinking about how desperately I want to protect the joy in him.

Not protect him from every painful thing.

I can't.

Life will hurt him sometimes. There will be disappointment. Heartbreak. Grief. Loss. Love that hurts precisely because it mattered.

All things I would gladly prevent with aggressive mothering and a strongly worded email if either were effective.

But maybe that is not the job.

Maybe the job is teaching him that pain does not require him to surrender joy.

That growing up does not mean becoming hardened. That he can be serious when life requires seriousness and still be ridiculous in the living room.

That he can grieve deeply.

And laugh loudly.

That loving people comes with risk.

And loving them is still worth doing.

Maybe parenting is not only helping children grow up.

Maybe it is helping them grow up without losing all the beautiful things they arrived with.

And all that, my friends, is why this movie found me the way it did.

It found the little girl in me who would have loved someone completely devoted to her. The teenager who learned a little too early that life can hurt and that sometimes the world does not make room for all of who you are. The critical voice that has tried to keep me safe, even when its version of safety sometimes made my world smaller.

And the loving part of me that can finally look back, open her arms, and say:

“Oh, there you are.

Come here.”

It also found the human I am today. The one who can see all of them, understand why they came, and feel heartbreak and joy at exactly the same time.

Which brings me back to the question.

How can one part of me be happy while another part is breaking apart with heartache?

Turns out, feeling two completely opposite things at the same time is not a system error.

It is factory installed.

We can grieve what was and love what is. We can ache for something a younger version of ourselves needed while feeling overwhelming gratitude for the life sitting beside us now.

We can miss.

Love.

Remember.

Hope.

All at once.

Maybe healing is not getting every part of us to finally agree.

Maybe it is noticing them. Listening. Understanding why they came.

Letting the hurting parts hurt without asking them to run the entire show.

Letting the joyful parts dance without feeling guilty because another part is still grieving.

And allowing the loving adult in us to say:

“I see you.

I know why you are here.

We are going to keep moving forward together.”

So there I was, in our tiny backyard, by the fire pit, beside my tiny family, watching a movie about imaginary friends while holding what can only be described as an unscheduled meeting of my entire internal emotional committee.

Not exactly what I had planned for movie night.

But maybe that is what stories sometimes do.

They slip past the parts of us that explain, analyze, organize, manage, and keep moving, and somehow find the ones that remember.

The ones that hurt.

The ones that love.

And, thankfully, the ones that still know how to play.

Sheesh.

All that from an imaginary friend movie.

We are definitely watching it again.

A Little Support for All Your Parts

Maybe one part of you is hurting. Maybe another has become exceptionally good at keeping everything together. Maybe your inner critic has been running the meeting for a little too long. Or maybe you are trying to remember what joy, play, or simply feeling like yourself used to feel like.

You do not have to silence any of it.

Sometimes therapy can help us slow down, get curious about what we are carrying, understand the feelings and reactions that keep showing up, and practice responding to ourselves with more compassion.

If you are trying to understand patterns that keep returning, work through painful experiences, reconnect with joy, or simply understand yourself with a little more kindness and clarity, the therapists at Agape Counseling Center would be glad to support you along the way.

Sometimes healing begins by remembering the parts of ourselves we learned to forget.

For Further Reading

Adult Children of Alcoholics & Dysfunctional Families. The Loving Parent Guidebook.

Co-Dependents Anonymous. Reparenting Our Inner Child.

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About the Author

Sarah Plassman, MSW, LISW-S, is a therapist and owner of Agape Counseling Center in Centerville, Ohio, and the author of Sheesh! And Other Thoughts on Being Human. Being a therapist has shaped the way she sees people, relationships, pain, joy, growth, and all the complicated things we carry with us.Through her writing, Sarah shares some of what she has learned from years in the therapy room, her own life, and simply paying attention to what it means to be human, with clinical insight, compassion, curiosity, and usually a little humor.

Because apparently, if she goes too long without saying something weird, she starts becoming suspiciously well adjusted, and nobody wants that.

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Educational Disclaimer

This article is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for individualized mental health assessment, diagnosis, treatment, or professional advice. The therapeutic relationship and appropriate treatment approach will vary based on each person's needs and circumstances.