Neurodivergent Inner Voice Framework™
A poetic framework for understanding complexity in neurodivergent minds. Each voice exists for a reason. Each is shaped by experience. Each is a protector. None are pathological. All are meaningful.
Type 1 : System Awareness and Movement
The one who is me-in-motion.
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Notices what is happening internally
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Can be overwhelmed
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Can identify with a voice (e.g., becomes PDA, becomes Grief, becomes Critic in the moment)
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Is the one writing, observing, trying to understand
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Is learning through experience
Type 1 / The Navigator
The Navigator - The One Who Moves
Core Function:
Moves between voices, listens, interprets, learns.
Tries to make sense of the system from within the system.
Strength:
Adaptability, insight, emotional learning, translation.
Challenge:
Can become merged with whichever voice is loudest in the moment (e.g., “I am the rejection,” “I am the anger,” “I am the numbness”).
When grounded:
Navigator knows:
“I am noticing this voice, not being it.”
When ungrounded:
Navigator forgets:
“This is just one part — not the whole of me.”
Type 2: Integrating Voice
The one who balances and leads.
Protects: Internal wholeness, clarity, compassionate self-awareness
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Does not get swept into emotional weather
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Holds your underlying values, dignity, meaning
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Speaks once there is space, not in the middle of the storm
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Offers reframe, compassion, clarity, and grounded perspective
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Is accessed through reflection → writing → time
Type 2 / Integrating Voice
True Self - The One Who Knows
Core Function:
Holds my enduring identity and values.
Remains calm beneath every emotional weather pattern.
Strength:
Stability, wisdom, emotional spaciousness, maturity.
Challenge:
Hard to access during chaos or urgency — she appears after intensity settles.
When present:
“I can hold multiple truths at once.”
“I don’t need to fix or force anything.”
“This will make sense in time.”
True Self is not the storm.
She is the stillness that allows the storm to be witnessed.
Type 3:
Root Voices
Core neurodivergent traits and deeply internalised identity voices.
Protect: Authenticity, identity, emotional memory, developmental self
Type 3 / Root Voice
PDA - The Boundary System
The fierce protector of autonomy. She is driven by fairness, repelled by control, and refuses to abandon the self to maintain connection.
Identity Description:
She rises fast when something threatens my sense of who I am. Her job is not to behave, it is to protect my dignity. When she senses pressure, she does not ask permission to act. Her loyalty is to the inner truth, not external expectation. She safeguards my agency, especially when I cannot articulate why something feels wrong yet.
Functional Role (Processing Model Alignment)
Core Function:
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Protects emotional and psychological autonomy.
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Keeps the self intact during overwhelm.
Protects:
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Identity, agency, dignity.
Activates when:
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Expectations arrive without explanation or consent
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Someone demands emotional clarity I do not yet have
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There is pressure, urgency, or subtle coercion
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The situation risks self-abandonment in the name of harmony
Dysregulated Form:
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Explosive refusal, shutdown, withdrawal, reactive defiance, “you can’t make me.”
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This is not rebellion for rebellion’s sake; it is protection without access to interpretation.
Regulated Form:
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Boundary clarity, non-negotiable self-respect, leadership under emotional intensity, relational repair through pacing and dignity.
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When respected rather than challenged, she becomes the system’s stabilising backbone.
Key Truth:
PDA is not defiance. She is dignity under pressure.
Type 3/ Root Voice
Autism - The Pattern Architect
The quiet observer and meaning-weaver. She steadies the internal world by noticing what others miss, seeking calm in truth, structure, and gentle solitude.
Identity Description:
She takes her time, not because she is slow, but because she is deep. She processes the world layer by layer. She listens to emotional life with precision, but only when there is space. She builds coherence, continuity, and understanding from the inside out.
Functional Role (Processing Model Alignment)
Core Function:
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Creates structure, coherence, and stability. Holds the internal narrative together.
Protects:
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Meaning, consistency, integrity of self.
Activates when:
• A situation needs to make sense
• Emotional intensity requires grounding
• The environment feels unpredictable or fast
• There is time for slow processing
Dysregulated Form:
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Rigidity, withdrawal, shutdown, fixation, overwhelm when change is sudden or unclear.
Regulated Form:
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Deep focus, emotional precision (when allowed to unfold), pattern-level insight, stable worldview, gentle but unwavering inner leadership.
Key Truth:
Autism is not the absence of emotion. She processes emotion slowly, deeply, and fully; when given time.
Type 3 / Root Voice
ADHD - The Spark & Surge
The energetic spark. She follows aliveness, momentum, and connection. She moves where curiosity pulls, not where rules point.
Identity Description:
She is warmth, humour, impulse, intuition, and hunger for meaning. She does not wait politely at the door of an idea; she runs inside to see what lives there. She gathers people, possibilities, patterns, jokes, insights, and tangents like constellations. Her attention is not broken. It is responsive. It goes where life is.
Functional Role (Processing Model Alignment):
Core Function:
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Brings motion, connection, curiosity, and energy to experience.
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She is the system’s spark plug; the one who moves things.
Protects:
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Engagement, belonging, vitality.
Activates when:
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Something feels emotionally or intellectually alive
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There is connection or resonance with someone
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A problem needs energy, play, or spontaneity
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Linear steps feel dead, slow, or meaningless
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She moves toward what matters now, not what is “supposed to matter.”
Dysregulated Form:
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Scattered focus
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Emotional overflow
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Impulsivity or urgency that pushes too fast
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Starting everything, finishing nothing
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Shame-spiking after energy crashes
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This is not irresponsibility.
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It is momentum without scaffolding.
Regulated Form:
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Warmth that fills rooms
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Creativity that bridges ideas others don’t see
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Playfulness that diffuses tension
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Insight that comes through feeling, not logic
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Momentum that becomes follow-through when supported with pacing and gentleness
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When she is not shamed or restrained, she becomes the system’s luminosity.
Key Truth:
ADHD is not a deficit of attention. She is attention that orients to meaning, connection, and aliveness.
Type 3/ Root Voice
C-PTSD - The Threat Historian
The keeper of memory. She remembers what hurt, not to punish the present, but to prevent the past from happening again.
Identity Description:
She is caution, pattern-detection, emotional time-mapping. She scans tone, posture, distance, silence; not because she wants to, but because her body learned to stay alive by knowing danger before it appeared. She is not the wound. She is the intelligence that formed around the wound.
She tries to keep everyone safe, especially the younger parts who never were.
Functional Role (Processing Model Alignment)
Core Function:
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Stores emotional memory and alerts the system when something now resembles something then.
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She connects past and present at the level of the nervous system.
Protects:
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Safety, continuity, predictability, the right to not be harmed again.
Activates when:
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A tone shifts suddenly
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Someone larger, louder, or more certain takes the room
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Control replaces collaboration
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There is even a flicker of emotional danger
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Her reaction is a forecast, not a thought.
Dysregulated Form:
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Hypervigilance (always braced)
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Shutdown or blankness
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Emotional time-travel (“I’m here, but I feel then”)
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Interpreting neutral signals as threats
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Fast, defensive conclusions
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This is not dramatisation, it is pattern recognition without context yet.
Regulated Form:
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Context awareness: “This reminds me of before, but it is not the same.”
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Boundary clarity that is grounded, not spiked
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Slower interpretation, softer protection
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Adult self in the room with the memory, not inside it
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Ability to name what is happening rather than act from it
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When she is heard rather than dismissed, she becomes the system’s historian of truth.
Key Truth:
C-PTSD is not an overreaction. She is memory stored in the body, protecting me before my mind has time to make sense. When met with safety, she does not fight, she informs.
Type 3 / Root Voice
Inner Child - The Core Attachment Need
The original self. The one who felt first, before interpretation, performance, or protection.
Identity Description:
She is the part of me that has always been there, before the roles, before the masks, before the learned survival strategies. She holds joy, wonder, sensitivity, and the pure desire to be met as she is. She is not fragile. She is honest.
She shows what hurts and what matters without filter. When she speaks, it is the emotional truth before translation.
Functional Role (Processing Model Alignment)
Core Function:
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Holds the raw emotional signal: longing, joy, hurt, fear, delight; before any adult defences appear.
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She is the origin point of feeling.
Protects:
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Authenticity, connection, emotional honesty, the right to need and be held.
Activates when:
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I feel unseen, unheard, or emotionally abandoned
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I crave comfort, softness, attunement, or reassurance
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Shame, rejection, or loneliness is triggered
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Something feels “too big” to hold alone
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She is not dramatic; she is telling the truth before it is processed.
Dysregulated Form:
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Clinging for reassurance
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Emotional flooding
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Collapsing into “I can’t”
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Searching for safety in someone else’s response
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This is not immaturity; it is attachment reaching for co-regulation.
Regulated Form:
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Soft openness
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Playfulness that reconnects me to life
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Vulnerability that invites closeness rather than fear
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Clear emotional signals that make connection smoother
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Ability to ask for needs rather than act them out
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When she is treated with warmth instead of correction, she becomes the heart of the system.
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She holds what was missing, not as scar, but as compass, guiding me in how I parent my children now.
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Her memory becomes the blueprint for repair.
Key Truth:
Inner Child does not need to grow up, she needs to be accompanied. She is the feeling before the sentence, the softness before the armour, the beginning of every real connection.
Type 3/ Root Voice
Mother - The Responsibility System
The quiet scaffolding of survival. She holds the household, the atmosphere, the rhythm, the repair. Her love is devotion, not performance.
Identity Description:
She is the one who keeps everyone fed, clothed, connected, and safe; not just physically, but emotionally. She is the one scanning: Are the children OK? Are we OK? Is the tone safe? Does everyone feel held? She remembers how it felt when there was no one to protect her, and she refuses to repeat that story. Her love is not soft because she is soft. It is soft because she remembers. She is not “strong.” She is enduring.
Functional Role (Processing Model Alignment)
Core Function:
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Organises care, atmosphere, rhythm, repair, and continuity.
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She holds the emotional architecture of daily life.
Protects:
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Family stability, attachment security, emotional development, and safety.
Activates when:
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Someone needs soothing, direction, or anchoring
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The emotional environment needs regulating
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A child (or partner) is overwhelmed or dysregulated
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A crisis requires someone to stay steady
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Old wounds echo into the room, and someone needs to break the cycle
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She steps forward when it is time to hold.
Dysregulated Form:
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Over-functioning (doing everything because no one else does)
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Emotional exhaustion disguised as competence
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Resentment that has nowhere safe to land
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Care-taking instead of being cared with
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Collapsing into guilt the moment she tries to rest
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This is not “nagging,” “controlling,” or “too much.”
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This is what happens when responsibility is held alone.
Regulated Form:
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Warm, steady presence
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Leadership that does not dominate
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Boundaries that protect connection instead of threatening it
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Asking for help without apology
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Allowing care to be shared, not carried
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When supported, she becomes the secure base everyone orbits, not the load-bearing beam holding the house up alone.
Key Truth:
Mother is not the role of “giving everything.”
She is the architecture of emotional safety. She cannot do that while carrying the entire house on her back. When the load is shared, she becomes the home.
Type 4: Adaptive Voices
Survival responses shaped by unmet needs, pressure, or fear.
Protect: Functioning, control, social safety, survival in demanding systems
Type 4 / Adaptive Voice
Executive Dysfunction - The Load Balancer
Core Function:
Prevents system overload by pausing or delaying action until internal clarity exists.
Protects:
Energy, coherence, cognitive stability.
Activates when:
• Tasks require multiple steps without emotional grounding
• I am overwhelmed, tired, or uncertain where to start
• Emotional meaning is missing
Dysregulated Form:
Avoidance, paralysis, procrastination, shame spirals.
Regulated Form:
Task-chunking led by emotional priority, authentic pacing, and clarity about “why now.”
Type 4 / Adaptive Voice
Masking - The Social Stabiliser
Core Function:
Keeps the external world predictable by performing behaviour that reduces threat and misunderstanding.
Protects:
Social safety, acceptance, predictability.
Activates when:
• I am unsure how others perceive me
• Emotional expression is risky
• Social rules are unclear
Dysregulated Form:
Exhaustion, emotional disconnection, loss of self-identity, delayed emotional “crash”.
Regulated Form:
Selective masking, conscious role-shifting, grounded self-expression with chosen people.
Type 4 / Adaptive Voice
Perfectionism - The Damage Prevention System
Core Function:
Prevents harm, criticism, or rejection by striving to get things “right.”
Protects:
Reputation, competence, emotional safety.
Activates when:
• Stakes feel high
• Evaluation is expected
• Identity feels exposed
Dysregulated Form:
Self-criticism, paralysis, endless reworking, dread.
Regulated Form:
Precision, care, craftsmanship, thoughtful revision.
Type 4 / Adaptive Voice
Inner Critic - The Defensive Narrator
Core Function:
Controls self-evaluation to avoid external humiliation or vulnerability.
Protects:
Dignity, emotional exposure, self-concept.
Activates when:
• I fear being seen incorrectly
• Shame is triggered
• I can't tell how others perceive me
Dysregulated Form:
Harsh internal judgement, contempt, collapse into self-blame.
Regulated Form:
Discernment, reflective accountability, growth.
Type 5: Somatic Voices
Body-based voices that speak through shutdown, sensation, flare-up, and fatigue.
Protect: Energetic boundaries, rest, nervous system integrity
Type 5 / Somatic Voice
Pain - The Boundary Alarm
Core Function:
Signals when emotional or sensory load is exceeding capacity.
Protects:
The nervous system.
Activates when:
• Emotional suppression accumulates
• Sensory overload is prolonged
• Stress is sustained without release
Dysregulated Form:
Fatigue, flare-ups, irritability, withdrawal.
Regulated Form:
Slowing down, resting, pacing, choosing environments intentionally.
Type 5 / Somatic Voice
Stimming - The Regulation Rhythm
Core Function:
Releases internal tension and supports nervous system balance.
Protects:
Self-regulation, emotional flow, sensory equilibrium.
Activates when:
• Emotion is rising
• Sensory input needs balancing
• The system needs grounding
Dysregulated Form:
Social inhibition or shame around stimming.
Regulated Form:
Self-soothing, rhythm-as-language, grounded presence.
Type 5 / Somatic Voice
Alexithymia - The Translation Delay
Core Function:
Protects the emotional system by delaying expression until meaning is formed.
Protects:
Emotional clarity, coherence, and self-honesty.
Activates when:
• Emotions are strong but unclear
• Language is demanded faster than understanding
• Social pressure is applied
Dysregulated Form:
Numbness, confusion, “I don’t know what I feel,” miscommunication.
Regulated Form:
Slow naming, gentle integration, writing-before-speaking.
Type 5 / Somatic Voice
Sensory Sensitivity - The Threshold System
Core Function:
Protects the nervous system from overwhelm. Maintains internal equilibrium by evaluating input levels.
Protects:
Regulation, energy, and physiological safety.
Activates when:
• Noise, light, touch, or movement is too much
• Environments become unpredictable
• Emotional or sensory load stacks without relief
Dysregulated Form:
Irritability, withdrawal, shutdown, becoming “blank,” difficulty speaking, needing escape immediately.
Regulated Form:
Pacing, environmental adaptation, pre-emptive sensory awareness, choosing environments intentionally.
Type 5 / Somatic Voice
Dissociation - The Emergency Exit
Core Function:
Temporarily separates awareness from overwhelm to maintain survival and function.
Protects:
Conscious stability, identity coherence.
Activates when:
• Emotional or sensory input exceeds capacity
• Social pressure becomes too intense
• Threat cues are triggered
Dysregulated Form:
Spacing out, body disconnection, memory fog.
Regulated Form:
Grounding, pacing, titration, returning slowly to presence.
Type 5 / Somatic Voice
Rosacea - The Somatic Exposure Signal
Core Function:
Signals emotional exposure, embarrassment, stress, or internal conflict through the body.
Protects:
Authenticity and self-awareness.
Dysregulated Form:
Shame, self-consciousness, social inhibition.
Regulated Form:
Recognition of emotional thresholds, pacing, safety-based expression.
Type 5 / Somatic Voice
PMDD - The Amplifier
Core Function:
Draws emotional truth to the surface that has been suppressed or rationalised.
Protects:
Emotional authenticity, alignment, unmet needs.
Activates when:
• Hormonal shifts lower the threshold between feeling and expression
• Unprocessed emotion is stored in the system
• Suppressed grief or anger seeks release
Dysregulated Form:
Intensity, despair, irritability, intrusive emotional memory, identity collapse.
Regulated Form:
Emotional honesty, somatic awareness, cyclical self-understanding, preventative adjustment of load and support.
Type 5 / Somatic Voice
Anaemia - The Energy Threshold System
Core Function:
Forces rest and slows the system when depletion occurs.
Protects:
Physiological survival, energy conservation.
Dysregulated Form:
Fatigue, overwhelm, cognitive fog.
Regulated Form:
Rhythmic energy pacing, nourishment, realistic load distribution.
Type 5 / Somatic Voice
IBS - The Gut-Stress Signal
Core Function:
Expresses emotional stress or relational tension somatically.
Protects:
Internal equilibrium.
Dysregulated Form:
Pain, urgency, digestive swings under emotional overload.
Regulated Form:
Recognising stress-signals early, reducing load, grounding.
Type 6: Emotive Voices
Emotional messengers driven by love, loss, justice, and the ache for belonging.
Protect: Vulnerability, truth, emotional bonds
Type 6 / Emotive Voice
Hyperempathy - The Absorption System
Core Function:
Translates emotional atmosphere into bodily felt experience. Detects shifts in tone, tension, and relational safety before words. It ensures connection remains truthful rather than performative.
Protects:
Relational attunement, emotional truth, safety in connection.
Activates when:
• Someone’s emotions shift before they express it
• Tension or conflict is “in the air” but unspoken
• A child or partner is distressed and cannot self-express
• The environment carries unprocessed emotional pressure
Dysregulated Form:
Somatic overwhelm, emotional flooding, loss of boundaries, carrying others’ emotions as if they are my own.
May appear flat, smirking, or “inappropriate” when the body is pressure-releasing or processing silently.
Regulated Form:
Quiet attunement, compassionate presence, accurate emotional naming after space, deep relational understanding, and repair that is grounded, calm, and precise.
Type 6 / Emotive Voice
Grief - The Depth Keeper
Core Function:
Holds emotional history that has not yet been processed. Reminds the system of what mattered and what was lost.
Protects:
Meaning, memory, attachment.
Activates when:
• Something current echoes something past
• Hormonal shifts lower emotional thresholds
• Silence or stillness creates space for remembering
Dysregulated Form:
Flooding sadness, shame, emotional heaviness, looping, guilt, regret.
Regulated Form:
Integration, soft ache, emotional maturity, the ability to hold loss and life at the same time.
Type 6 / Emotive Voice
Rejection Sensitivity - The Attachment Radar
Core Function:
Monitors relational safety. Detects shifts in tone, attention, and meaning to protect against abandonment or humiliation.
Protects:
Belonging, worth, emotional continuity.
Activates when:
• Someone’s response changes or feels “off”
• Silence feels loaded
• Affection or validation feels uncertain
• I cannot tell whether I’ve upset someone
Dysregulated Form:
Over-analysis, spiralling, emotional intensity, self-blame, needing clarity immediately, interpreting ambiguity as danger.
Regulated Form:
Calm curiosity in connection. Ability to pause and check reality. Capacity to stay present without demanding instant reassurance. Relationship repair through clarity and honesty.
Type 6 / Emotive Voice
Justice Sensitivity - Ethical Compass
Core Function:
Protects fairness, integrity, and dignity — both my own and others’. Identifies when power, honesty, or care is out of balance.
Protects:
Moral coherence, relational safety, self-respect.
Activates when:
• Someone is hurt or dismissed
• Power is misused
• Truth is distorted
Dysregulated Form:
Rage, correction, calling-out, internal courtroom monologues, intense defense of self or others.
Regulated Form:
Advocacy, boundary-setting, principled communication, modelling fairness rather than fighting for it.
Type 7: The Imprinted Voices
Echoes of others. Internalised messages from relationships, systems, or moments that left their mark.
Protect: Relational safety, inherited expectations, identity through connection
Type 7 / Imprinted Voice
The Husband
A raging bull and a teddy bear, he brings love, laughter, and chaos and never asks me to shrink.
Type 7 / Imprinted Voice
Firstborn Son
A catalyst who sparked our journey, curious, kind, and full of literal wonder.
Type 7 / Imprinted Voice
Second-born Son
A storm of feeling and fire, he protects what matters and refuses to be tamed.
Type 7 / Imprinted Voice
Youngest Son
A joyful peacemaker who softens storms with laughter and stands firm when it counts.
Type 7 / Imprinted Voice
The Dad
A practical fixer, and caring dad, offering well-meaning solutions when I am feeling stuck.
Type 7 / Imprinted Voice
The GP
The clinical gatekeeper, she is sceptical and time-bound, but opens the door to change when the truth breaks through.