A Narrative Journey for Clients and Clinicians
Told Through the Internal Family Systems Lens with Lessons from Will Smith’s Protagonists
By Carl Patterson
Opening: The Room of Three Mirrors
“Don’t ever let somebody tell you, you can’t do something.”
Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness
“If there’s anybody out there… anybody. Please. You’re not alone.”
Robert Neville, I Am Legend
“It’s time.”
Ben Thomas, Seven Pounds
If you could invite three men into a therapy session each seated in the aftermath of loss, each haunted by decisions they can’t outrun, each searching for a flicker of who they are beyond survival you’d find Chris Gardner, Robert Neville, and Ben Thomas sitting across from you.
They wouldn’t make eye contact at first.
Chris would be gripping his dreams like a lifeline, holding his son’s hand with a mixture of desperation and hope. Robert would be scanning the corners of the room for threats, scientific mind sharp, but heart barricaded. Ben… Ben wouldn’t speak for a while. He’d be the last to sit.
He’d need the silence first.
Each of them carries trauma like a second skin. And each of them, in their own way, is trying to remember who they are.
What happens to identity when the world takes everything? When fathers become ghosts. When lovers disappear. When guilt becomes a tether?
In this essay, I want to take you, dear client, reader, seeker, through the lens of three fictional men whose stories mirror our own internal battles. Using the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, we’ll explore how trauma fragments the Self, how protectors rise to keep us functional, and how healing doesn’t mean going back, it means going inward.
Because identity after trauma isn’t found in what was lost. It’s found in what still longs to be reclaimed.
This is a story about becoming.
Part I: The Fragmenting
What Trauma Takes
In IFS, we learn that the mind is made of protective parts each with their own role, voice, and emotion. Some are protectors. Some are exiles. Some are managers. And then there is Self, the core essence of you, whole and unbroken, even after everything.
When trauma hits, whether as a single event (Big T) or cumulative emotional pain (little t), our system fragments.
Big T trauma, like the death of a loved one, sudden homelessness, or physical assault, creates a shockwave. Think of Robert Neville losing his daughter during the evacuation in I Am Legend. That moment splits something open. He becomes not just a scientist, but a ghost among ruins. The protector parts rush in, survivor mode, overfunctioning, hypervigilance.
Little t trauma, on the other hand, is slower. It wears grooves in the soul over time like Chris Gardner being told again and again that he’s not good enough. Like poverty reminding him daily that dreams are indulgent.
Both kinds of trauma fragment the self.
And when fragmentation occurs, protectors rise. Some get loud, anger, numbness, overthinking. Some get quiet, disassociation, isolation, overachievement. All are doing their best to protect the parts of you that felt too exposed to survive.
The Protector and the Performer
Ben Thomas, in Seven Pounds, is the embodiment of an exile driven system. His guilt for a tragic car crash fractures him so deeply that he builds a life around atonement. He becomes a performer not for applause, but for redemption. His protector doesn’t yell; it sacrifices.
He gives everything, organs, time, love trying to make the ledger of his shame balance out.
IFS teaches us that protectors are not bad. They’re trying to help. But when protectors drive the system too long, the Authentic Self gets lost.
Chris Gardner’s protector is grit. Perseverance. The part that says, “You have to make it.” But it comes at a cost, he doesn’t cry, he rarely rests, and his joy is deferred endlessly.
Robert Neville’s protector is control. In a world without people, he clings to routine. Hears voices in mannequins. Talks to his dog as if she’s the only thing that still believes in him.
Because that part of him, the scientist, the soldier, the survivor refuses to feel the full weight of his grief.
All three men are fragmented. And so are we.
But IFS says something radical:
No part of you is bad.
Every part has a purpose.
And the Self, your core essence, is never damaged. Only hidden.
Part II: The Healing
Listening to the Exile
In every system, there is an exile. The part of you that carries the deepest wound. The part that learned to hide when it wasn’t safe to be seen.
Chris Gardner’s exile is the boy who was abandoned. The one who doesn’t believe he’s good enough. When he cradles his son on the subway floor, that boy aches to be told he’s doing okay.
Robert’s exile is the father who couldn’t save his daughter. The man who failed. His protector tells him to stay logical. Detached. But grief is leaking through the cracks.
Ben’s exile is haunted. He doesn’t speak to it. He lets guilt make all his choices. He doesn’t try to forgive himself. He becomes a ghost with a heartbeat.
IFS teaches us to approach our exiles with compassion. Not to push them down or explain them away, but to sit beside them. To witness. To soothe.
When protectors trust that Self is present, calm, curious, compassionate, they begin to soften.
And that’s when healing begins.
Because healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken.
It’s about welcoming back what’s been exiled.
Part III: The Becoming
Who Are You Now?
Healing is not linear. It’s not neat. And it doesn’t return you to who you were before the trauma.
It introduces you to who you’ve become.
Chris Gardner, after everything, walks into a room with a suit and a dream and finally, the door opens. But more than the job, he reclaims belief in himself.
Robert Neville, in the last moments of his story, chooses love. He sacrifices himself to save others but not from guilt. From purpose. His exile has been heard. His protector finally rests.
Ben Thomas… his story ends differently. But what he leaves behind is restoration. His system was too burdened to survive. Parts remind us if they become too burdened, we have a way out. But Ben’s final act is one of hope. A message: “You can begin again.” Our system was designed for protection.
Part IV: Understanding Big T vs little t
Big T Trauma: The Earthquake
Big T trauma is the rupture that splits the ground beneath your feet. It is war, assault, natural disaster, a car accident that rewrites your nervous system in a blink. It is what Gabor Maté would call the visible violence, the “capital T” because it shatters the structure of safety, connection, and control in an instant.
Gabor Maté teaches us that trauma is not the event itself, it is the wound left behind. The disconnection. The adaptations. The silence we keep long after the threat is gone.
James Baldwin would remind us that some traumas are systemic and inherited. “The horror is that America changes all the time… but it pretends not to.” Big T trauma can come with flashing lights and courtrooms, but it can also come with policies, redlines, knees on necks, and names not spoken at school roll calls.
Angela Davis knows the trauma of prisons, literal and psychological. The trauma of being caged for dreaming too loudly, loving too freely, resisting too openly.
Octavia Butler would say: Big T trauma mutates the Self. It changes what we become to survive it.
Little t trauma: The Paper Cuts That Don’t Heal
And then there are the little t’s. The moments no one thought were a big deal. The look that said you weren’t enough. The absence of a goodbye. The teacher who said, “You’re too sensitive.” The day they didn’t come back. These are the traumas that hide in plain sight.
Hanif Abdurraqib might say: They’re the skipped songs of the soul. The ones that play only when no one is watching.
Clint Smith teaches us to name the ordinary devastations: the slow disintegration of wonder in a classroom, the ache of a father saying nothing, the silence in a room where you were supposed to be seen.
bell hooks speaks of these traumas as lovelessness. Not the violent acts, but the absence of tenderness. The trauma of never being affirmed. Of learning to shrink to be safe. Of loving people who could not love you back in a way that felt like safety.
Big T and Little t: Defined
In therapy, we differentiate between:
- Big T trauma: obvious, life-altering events (death, abuse, war, disaster).
- Little t trauma: ongoing emotional wounds (neglect, microaggressions, emotional dismissal).
- Robert’s trauma is Big T. His daughter died in his arms.
- Chris’s trauma is Little t. A million moments of rejection.
- Ben’s is both. One big accident. Years of shame after.
All deserve healing. All deserve space. Your pain does not have to be justified to be valid.
Closing: Dear Reader
Dear Reader,
You are not the pain.
You are not the mask.
You are not the protector that got too loud, or the exile that stayed too hidden.
You are becoming.
Let the parts of you tell their story.
Let Self return to the center.
Let grief become a teacher.
Let joy be possible again.
“Becoming, Still”
I was not built for breaking,
but I cracked anyway
beneath the weight of silence,
in rooms where no one stayed.
I called it coping,
when I vanished to survive,
called it strength,
when I forgot I was alive.
But somewhere inside
the boy, the man, the part that weeps
still plants hope
in the garden of my grief.
Healing isn’t loud.
It’s a whisper that stays.
It’s the mirror I face
on my softest days.
I am not just my damage.
I am the door it left open.
I am the becoming.
Final Thoughts: Identity After Trauma
When you are young and the world fails to mirror your worth back to you, when your pain is too big for the room, when your needs go unmet and your truth goes unanswered, your nervous system learns to adapt.
It doesn’t ask, Who am I? It asks, Who must I become to stay safe, to be loved, to survive? And so begins the first fracture. Not of your soul, but of your sense of Self. You do not disappear. You divide. Parts of you step forward, bold, protective, necessary. One learns to perform. One learns to please. One grows sharp to spot danger before it arrives. Another stays small, silent, still. A quiet one holds the grief. A hidden one holds the rage. And deep beneath them all, still untouched, still whole, waits the part of you that was never broken. This is not pathology. This is protection. This is the brilliance of the human spirit, to rearrange itself around pain, to shield the flame until it is safe again to burn.
Gabor Maté might say: Trauma is not what happens to you, it’s what happens inside of you when connection is lost. Not just to others, but to yourself. To your body. To your emotions. To your truth.
Richard Schwartz would add: That loss births protectors who carry burdens, but the Self, the calm, compassionate core of who you are, remains intact. So identity after trauma is not about reclaiming some perfect, pure, pre-trauma version of you. It is not about going back. It is about going in. It is about sitting with the parts of you that kept going when no one came. It is about thanking them, not exiling them. And then slowly, tenderly, unburdening them.
You are not just the one who was hurt.
You are not just the one who coped.
You are not the mask you wore.
You are not the protector who shouted, or the exile who hid.
You are the one who can now return to yourself,
Not because the pain is gone,
but because you are ready to hold it with both hands,
and lead the parts of you back into the circle of your own becoming.
Reflection Questions
- What part of your identity feels most hidden right now?
- Who are your protectors, and what are they trying to protect you from?
- What does your exile need to hear to feel safe?
- Where have you confused performance with worth?
- What version of yourself are you ready to meet again?
