Transcript: Episode 59
59. April Fool’s
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
[Background noise of birds chirping]
Well, me and Sarah had therapy today with our therapist - the one that we pick out and we keep her and she’s going to keep us. So, we can go as long as we want, she said. And I know she’s telling me the truth of it. But because she tells me the truth of it, I want to tell her the truth of it too. But it’s a hard thing to do. We got things to say to her, to tell her about, I mean. But I get a little nervous. And I was not scared before, but now sometimes I get scared. I don’t mean to get scared.
And I know the truth of it is that it’s not really me getting scared. I know it’s them little girls getting scared. But if I get close to try to help, then I start feeling scared, and I don’t know why that is, because I didn’t mean to feel that. I know it’s them girls feeling that. But if I talked to the therapist about it then I am feeling that.
[Background noise of birds chirping]
But I don’t want to feel that. I don’t like feeling that. Feeling that kind of makes me feel uncomfortable, not comfortable at all, just uncomfortable. If I just tell the therapist by myself, then we are good friends, and good buddies, and we can play some football, and I like telling her what’s happening. But when I got to share and we got to take turns and I get too close to them, even if Molly is helping me, well, I get scared. But I’m not a scaredy pants. I am not a scardy pants. Just they are a little bit afraid, because there are some bad things we got to talk about, and it’s hard talking about.
So, when I was thinking about rescue missions and getting everybody safe to the attic, what I thought was if it’s scared for talking about things, then maybe if we talk about that first then talking about things will not be so scary. And I think that was a stinking smart idea, because I might be brilliant. I’m stinking smart, my therapist told me so.
But the problem with that is a little problem about being scared for if we’re going to talk about why it’s hard to talk about things, then we got to talk about hard things. So, I feel like I’m spinning in circles here, and it makes me a little dizzy. And I’m trying to help those girls. And there’s lots of reasons that hard things are hard things. And there’s lots of reasons that hard things to talk about are hard things to talk about - lots of reasons.
But also, there’s a few reasons that are really, really examples of why you should not talk about hard things, and why you should not tell secrets, because bad things will happen if you do. And so I thought if we talk to her about that first, then maybe she can help me fix that, then it will be like rescuing everybody. Because if we rescue everybody, then anybody can talk about anything they want and it will be okay. Because what I know, my therapist taught me, is now time is safe. And so I thought if we tell her this one thing about why it’s hard to talk about things and we can fix that, then maybe, maybe everything will be easier to talk about instead of harder to talk about. If we can remember now time is safe.
But here’s the hard thing about it, is you’ve got to practice it. Because you can talk about now time is safe and that’s a good thing to talk about, but you also got to practice remembering that now time is safe. And the only thing harder than that is remembering memory time at the same time as now time is safe.
So, here’s what my therapist taught me, and Dr. E tried to tell me, and Molly tried to help me remember. Here’s what we got to tell those girls to help them know is that when we talk to the therapist, that is now time. What we remember, that was memory time, and I know that. But what I got to learn now is that if I’m in now time with the therapist and we talk about memory time, we are still in now time, and that I tell you is a pretty tricky deal. It’s going to take some practice, but we’re trying. And my therapist said that memory time does not change now time.
So, if you’re scared because what happened in memory time, that’s okay. Have some feelings. But it does not change that in now time you are still safe. Okay? So, I got to learn that. If your body is remembering something from memory time, we can work on that in therapy and feel better, but even your body remembering something does not change now time is safe. And also, even if you remember something, like the parents, and so that’s a problem in memory time, but in now time, it’s still safe and they’re still dead. So talking about memory time does not change now time. That’s what I’m learning in therapy and my therapist is helping.
Hi, birds. I got some birds out here. I’m at the park and the birds are talking to me, because that is now time. And that bird says, “Now time! Now time! Now time!” Help me remember it for so I’m not scared.
But my therapist, she got very patient with me and very nice to me and she does not even make fun of me if I get a little bit scared, because I’m just trying to hold on for next time. I’m scared to let go. If I let go, what if I lose now time and that makes me nervous. But my therapist said it’s okay and them girls can talk to her if they need to talk to her. They don’t got to, but if they want to, it’s alright. But I’m scared if I let them all the way. I don’t know about what will happen for now time.
And also, there’s a lot of things we got to tell her - a lot of things. I can’t even tell you how many things. There’s like maybe a thousand things, and I know, because I made 1,000 paper cranes for that daughter. And that’s a lot of them, and it take me two years to make that. So, if it take me two years to make 1,000 paper cranes, what if I had 1,000 things I got to tell my therapist and I can’t even get one thing out. So, I thought I’ll make a plan for rescuing us from memory time to now time so we can talk about memory time, but to stay in now time.
Do you know you can do this? It’s called therapy, I think. I think that’s called therapy if you talk about memory time, but you stay in now time. And so I know them girls got a lot of things to talk about, and the little girls, I mean the little ones, and I think I know where it started of thinking we cannot tell no secrets. And if I help them little girls tell that one thing, maybe the other things will be easier. So, we’ve been working for four months, I think it’s four months, but maybe it’s four years, four months or weeks, to try to tell her about this, and it just come a little at a time - a little piece here and a little piece there and a little piece, there like Easter eggs. Like I’m on a hunt. Like I’m on a hunt for easter eggs, and I got to find them, except it’s not candy inside there.
So, I just got to help them talk to her about this one thing, and we’ve been working on it a long time trying to talk to each other, try putting it in the notebook, try to draw some pictures, try to tell the therapist. And she’s not getting mad at me that it’s hard or takes a long time, but she just said it’s okay and we talk about a lot of things. But this one thing, specific one thing, I’ve been trying to help and last week we did not get to work hard, because if Dr. E has to do all that talking, and if Dr. E has to do all that conferences, then we cannot be a mess of it. Okay? I think it’s called “be a mess of it.” A hot mess. We cannot be a hot mess. It’s not hot even, because it keeps snowing.
I ran 5k in the snow when Emma T and the outside kids and it snowed on our heads, and it was cold breathing and my hands were cold, but I just got to run fast enough my hands are not cold enough anymore. So therapy is like that, it just feels like it’s snowing, but if you keep going, then it will feel better. And so I just ran as fast a race I can run, and that’s not too fast, but I finish it. And so we think if we can finish this one piece or try to get it out, maybe other pieces will not be so hard of it. And so I try to take it to the girls - my idea. And I try to talk to them about it and Molly’s helping me. But when all of Dr. E’s work is done, then she said it’s okay to fall apart. I don’t want to fall apart. I don’t know what that means, but I don’t want to break nothing, and I don’t want to break nobody, but it’s time to work on therapy again now.
And we try really hard, every day, them little girls write part of the story and draw pictures of the story, and we try to get all of it out from beginning to end, like in order of the story, working together on it. And we worked really hard all week, and well, that is falling apart, because then we have some nightmares, and we have some nightmares at the daytime, and some feelings, and some body feelings. That’s just a lot of problems and kind of some anxious feelings or scared feelings. I look at the map to try to figure out all our feelings. And also a lot of crying and a lot of not sleeping and some problems, but we got in there. So, I knew when we go to therapy, it’s going to be uncomfortable, except I really like my therapist, it’s my safe person I can tell it to.
At first I thought, maybe we do not got to tell her, because we put it in the notebook, some words and some pictures. But only a little bit. But also, if you hide your notebook in the couch, she will still find it there and she will still know it’s there. And even if you talk about some other things, she will not forget that that’s on the list of what to talk about, because our therapist is stinking smart and she does not forget about you, even on a hard day, she does not forget about you.
[Break]
So, you just can’t get away with nothing. And if you decide as a team our therapist is a good one and our therapist is a safe one and our therapist is going to be helping us, then you decide as a team, here’s one little piece of something we maybe want to talk about. Well then, you really got to just do it, even if it’s hard. You got to say, “Okay, I can do this, and I got to talk about this now, because it will help us feel better.” And so, we do, and we got to, but it’s a lot of work really.
And so she looks at the notebook with us and for us, and then she gave it back because I thought Sarah was going to tell her the words that go for the pictures, because Sarah’s good at that, but what happened is this, those little girls had so many feelings, everything just coming up at once like a fur ball, and it was a whole week of fur balls, and it was a lot of hard full balls. And fur balls are nasty anyway right there in my notebook. I mean, not real fur balls, I mean it just feels like fur balls. And well, so we didn’t get very much out. And I thought we will do really good and Sarah will do really good, and I will be a helper, and we’ll keep everybody is safe in now time. And I thought we had a plan. Well, our plan did not even work at all. I mean, it worked a little bit, and there’s just a little bit of words, some of them, but man, it’s hard. And man oh man, it takes a long time. And man oh man, there’s not enough time of it. And man oh man, I don’t know how to get it out of us and put it all together, and it’s hard work.
But the therapist said we did good and we were very brave of it.
[Background noise of a mower
That man, all the way across the lake, is starting to mow. Can you hear the mowing? Don’t be scared. It’s just the park man. You don’t got to be afraid of every man, and you don’t got to be afraid of every lady, you just got to be smart about the bad ones. But that man is just a worker helper man, and that’s a good thing because that’s how I can walk on these trails. So, he got to take care of things.
[Background noise of a mower]
But I like it better when I hear the birds. And that’s just like therapy, because you just want to play football and just talk to her about good things and be buddies. But also, I’ve got to mow the yard. And if you got to mow the yard, you got to talk about the hard things, and you got to talk about some scary things. And I don’t know how if memory time does not change now time, and if I can talk about memory time but stay in now time, I don’t know how to do all of that and also them feelings, all them feelings they got, but I think they’re just going to have to talk to her all by herself, because I cannot do it for them. All them feelings are uncomfortable, and all those body things are uncomfortable and hurt me. And if they’re going to talk to her, then I can tell them it's’ now time and I can tell them that that therapist is a good one and my buddy. But I cannot do it for them, because it’s not my memory. They got to do it for themself. And I just got to tell them about the therapist and it’s okay to talk to her. But also, they got to talk to her. I can't make them talk to her, and I also can’t do it for them.
So, we got to learn some new skills, not just working together, but also for talking and telling things, because here is the very best part -- do you know what our therapist said? She said it is not our secret. Yup. I’m not even kidding you. I did not even make that up. She said it is not our secret. She said it’s their secret - them bad people that did bad things. It’s their secret, and so it’s not our job to keep it, and it’s not our job to hold it, and now time is safe, so nobody can even get hurt or nothing bad happen if we talk about it. So, we got to talk about it, because it’s not even our secret.
And that’s why I got to help them girls know, but that can be hard to do and I just got to get some practice. So, it might take me even more than 1,000 paper cranes of two years to tell her just this one thing, because it just keeps coming out, one fur ball at a time, and not everybody even got to say their piece yet. But if you got pieces ,then you got to work together to get them all out. And not only that, but Emma’s going to group and learning about DID and learning about staying present and learning about how to be grounding, and I don’t want to get grounded - that’s a lot of trouble.
I don’t want to cause no trouble, but if she’s going to learn about things, she’s going to just keep finding out stuff, and I don’t know what to do about that. And the therapist asked me if the big girls know about the little girls, but the big girls do know about the little girls, because of our circle notebook, and because of therapy, but they don’t know, them big girls don’t know what the little girls know. They don’t know about -- they know of them. They don’t know about them.
[Background noise of a mower]
So, that’s the best I can explain that. And the other thing is, that therapist, when we’re thinking about things, or we’re talking about things, or a lot of people are listening and working together, she can tell us stuff, and then everybody’s talking about it. And she can put things in my head - I don’t mean in a bad way. I mean in a “so I don’t forget it” way, like memory time does not change now time, and now time is safe. And you can talk about memory time, but stay in now time. And I feel like them are three good rules I got to hold onto. And so, I’m glad she put it in my head, but also, other people is learning too and other people can hear it, and everybody’s talking about it. And everybody just coming out of hiding, and everybody’s just learning things, and I don't know what to do about that - if that’s okay or not okay. It just makes me busy. It makes my head hurt.
And I don’t mean to be complaining. I’m just saying everything is changing. I don’t know what to do about that, except go for a walk. So, I came here for at the park and go on a walk and play in the nets and the castles and the playground and feel a little bit better. And then I thought that if I’m supposed to be practicing talking about stuff, I better talk about it for the podcast. And then that will give me good practice for my practice. So, I’m trying to practice for my practice for so I can talk to the therapist.
But also, if the girl in the attic, if she’s waking up and learning stuff, I don’t know what to do, and I might be shy of her. I don’t know what to tell her if she wakes up or what to do about that. But I told the therapist I saw her waking up, and I don’t know what to do about that. But that therapist said she will not lose me. So, I don’t want to get lost. I don’t want nobody be scared just for talking. So, we got to work together on that and learn how to do it, and so we’re trying.
But you know what you can be scared of? April Fool’s Day! Yup, it’s April Fool’s Day. You know what that means? That means playing tricks, and I got the best story to tell you. My therapist said I can tell her and I can tell you my therapist, she likes to laugh with me, and I can tell you what we did for April Fool’s Day. Here’s a story. It’s a story of April Fool’s Day.
You know them little army men, except not army men, like toys, and they have a big, old face going like, “Ahh” with their arms up, like they’re scared or running or something, and the boys have them in the toy box? Well, you maybe, if you got a husband, you can get one of them army guys, not with the gun. I mean like the ones, like the little toy figures like “Ahh!” You get him, okay? And you tape him to the license plate and if you tape him to the license plate so that he’s facing at the camera for backing up. And then when The Husband has to drive the kids to school, because you’re at therapy, then he puts it in reverse and the camera pops up. And then the camera pops up, he sees that man, “ahh!” Like he’s running over something and it’s the funniest thing happened all day.
[Laughing]
Oh man. Oh man. I can’t even laugh about it. My sides will hurt and my face will hurt and it will be the funniest thing that happened all day. I’m telling you. That’s April Fool’s.
[Break]
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