Transcript: Episode 4
4. Room Inside
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
I am still barely breathing from our therapy session today with a new therapist. We did go back to see her and she did let us see her. And I cried most of the time. But I told her all of it, everything that's happened with our previous therapist, and how we lost a good therapist at COVID, and lost our latest therapist because of her pregnancy complications. We even told her about what happened when we were 17 and that therapist moved us in, and another therapist had an affair with our partner. So we confess everything. I guess it's not a confession if it wasn't our fault. But that's what we've endured, and that's what's holding us back, and that's what's been so hard. But we also told her that we have done therapy for therapy. And so while I know that it will keep coming up, we are ready to get back to work.
I cried so much this session. And I had to turn my camera off for part of it to be able to keep talking. But I did. I did keep talking. She said that's what it's all about, to just keep trying. That that's how we've stayed alive every time it got to be too much. She talked to me about balance, about balance in my body, about balance in breathing. And how when I get so upset that I'm hyperventilating or not breathing well, that my body is not getting what it needs and so tells me that I'm off balance, which makes my feelings bigger. She said-. And I wrote this down so I won't ever forget it. She said, “Breathing is the ground you stand on.” That was powerful to me, profound, really. And I wrote it down. “Breathing is the ground you stand on.”
And so we talked about DID directly, a little bit. That I was diagnosed when I was younger. That my previous Kelly was helping me with it, but that then our worlds overlapped and we had to leave her. Because your therapist is not your friend. But also your therapist isn't your enemy either. It's a unique relationship. And we've learned that doing therapy for therapy with our dream therapist. I even told her I would keep seeing her for dreams because she's so good at dream tending, and it's really been helpful. So as she's able we'll keep seeing that therapist for that.
We talked about the podcast and how that happened and how that unfolded. We talked about the book and how it came from our notebooks that we worked so hard for so long to get back from our therapist. We talked about journaling and how helpful journaling had been, and how hard it was to lose that. Which maybe was part of why the podcast got so dark, because it was the only container we had at the time. We shared about using the podcast as a container, but one that helps others, hopefully, which is the only way to make meaning out of our pain, the way that works for us. And so deciding to keep sharing it and to start the new podcast to give us time and space to regroup from the other podcast becoming so well known. And how we took a screenshot to send to our friend and accidentally sent it to her. It turns out, she wasn't mad at all.
And she knows something about DID. I don't know what, because we're good at avoidance and worked our way around the circle for that. And kind of went around in circles instead of sitting there directly. But we stayed, and that's progress. She knew what DID was, and she knew that it's not crazy. She knew what DID was, and she knew that it was a way of staying alive. So she knows something. She wasn't angry at us. She didn't think that we did something bad. And she thinks she can still help us. She said that she's worked with DID before, and has others who understand what that's like. I was grateful.
And again, for us to cry means that there is something about this therapist, something about our connection already, that is moving us forward instead of being stuck, because so much came out. I'm exhausted from the crying. I'm ravenous. Like, I'm hungry. I need a nap. I need a good lunch and nap. That's what it feels like because therapy was so intense. And I don't know that we even talked about hard things other than finally giving her that piece of the story, sort of the framework or the structure of what's happened in our therapy journey, so that she understands why it's so hard.
I don't know what therapy will look like going forward. But maybe we have finally found our place where we can sit down and rest. Where we can set down the pieces we have been carrying all by ourselves for three years. Where we can heal.
I cried this morning in therapy the way I've needed to cry for years. I'm entirely spent, as if every ounce of my energy has been pushing forward and pushing forward until I couldn't anymore. And my tears were not distress. They were not angry. Maybe some anxious. Maybe some afraid. But mostly it was relief. There is someone who understands. There is someone who says that they can help. I told her that after everything I've been through, it could just be foolishness that I'm the one who keeps setting myself up in these situations, to act out getting hurt by a helper again and again and again. She said, “Maybe I'm just courageous. That it takes courage to keep trying.” And that's when she said, “That's what it's all about. That we keep trying.” She also said that DID is about protecting ourselves. It's a way of staying alive.
That reminded me of what we've learned from the ISSTD conferences about the neurobiology and the brain. That I’m not doing something wrong. I'm not doing something to be ashamed of. My brain, on its own, is doing what it needs to do to stay alive—to keep me alive. She said in that way, the protection that comes from DID is very caring. Even protector parts are actually caring. That's a lot of love. She said, “That's what DID is: love.” This blew me away, and I had to write it down too, because I don't want to lose that piece. There are so many times that even now I think, “maybe this isn't real,” “maybe I'm not real,” “maybe they're not real.” There are so many times I am ashamed or frustrated or scared. There are so many times I just don't even understand. There are so many times it's not even about understanding. It's about those big feelings and feeling so much. “But if DID is love,” she said, “then it means that's what's inside of me: Love, caring, protecting.” It's not that all of these parts are mine, as if I am some person who owns them or contains them. That's my body. My body contains all of us. But all of us together are loving and caring and protecting the body.
I have always this far thought: Is it supposed to be me, and they are parts of me that all together are supposed to become me? How does that work when we talk about emerging self? Is it me versus them, or them versus me? And I know that's when there's pain in the community when people force integration or talk about integration in unhealthy or unnatural ways. And I know also from structural dissociation that it's not about a core self that has broken into pieces as if you smashed them with a hammer. All of these parts that are me are all of the parts of me in this body. My body is me.
I never would have thought that that's where I would land in this process. I never would have thought that that's where I would connect who I am to my experience in the world. But it turns out, my body means everything. And my brain has kept my body alive. And breathing is the ground I stand on.
She said if I ever feel like running away to tell her. We haven't talked yet that we've actually had runners, or those kinds of experiences. And I'm grateful it's not happened during the pandemic. But it's also not been entirely possible during the pandemic. Which means even in the running away my body is on my side. My body is trying to stay alive. My body knows a pandemic is not the time to run away. It's evidence to me that my body knows what it's doing. And I feel like just as much as I ever had to learn to get to know my parts, I'm having to learn to get to know my body. I don't know what that's going to look like either. But she talks about it a lot, and it's been really helpful. Unsettling, but in a balancing way. As if you've carried a backpack on one shoulder for a long time, and it's been too heavy. And then someone comes along and helps you adjust it so that it's over both shoulders, and takes all the heaviness out. And suddenly you're just comfortable. Or maybe you learn how to put on a sweater instead of a backpack full of stones. That's what therapy felt like today. Putting on a sweater. No one's ever said to me before, “It's okay to put the backpack down. You'll survive if you let go of the backpack. Set it down so we can look at it together and see what's in there.” I've been carrying this backpack full of stones for three years, at least, if not 43 years. But today I set it down. Today we named the backpack; it's DID And there are alters or parts, or whatever words you want to say, all in this body, as my brain’s experience of being in this body, in this world. And there are so many things we have already done to create a safer world in which our body lives. And now having the support of therapy again feels like we get to improve that even more. And as we have a safe world around us, and a safe place for inside of us, then our body being at peace and calm, even happy, or being able to cry with relief, is huge. It means something. I don't know what therapy's going to look like. But we have a new day. And we have a new time. And we have a new therapist. And maybe everything's going to be okay. Because we did it. We got us here to the other side where there is help, and none of us are alone, and we can do this together.
I know that it won't be the same as before. It will be something new. But we also get to keep the pieces from before that were good and helpful. And grieved what is not. Even through tears, my tears, this body's tears today for so much pain from long ago. And we haven't even talked about the parents yet. Just therapy.
No wonder I have been stressed and overwhelmed and so outside of myself. There wasn't room for me inside here when there was so much else. But she said therapy is the place we can pour it out. Therapy is the place we can take off the mask. She said I am not your family that depends on you. She said I am not your friend that needs something from you. I am not anyone who needs you to be a certain way. I'm just here with you. And it all can spill out. And I think it did. And I feel a strange calm now. My body is excited. It wants to eat. It wants to sleep. It wants to play. But the stress and the tightness and the overwhelm and all of the not breathing from before is gone. This is what peace feels like. This is what calm feels like. My body is still uncomfortable and calm as an evening out on my porch. It won't last long. The husband has been reading to the children outside on the porch, 15 feet apart just to be sure, so that I could have privacy for my appointment. And I'm going to have to let them in and feed them and do our homeschool for today. And my work and all the responsibilities that happen in the middle of the week. But when I let them in, I will be letting them in. There is room inside me to care for them now. There is room inside me to welcome them again. There is room inside me because it's not all stuffed in there. And I wonder: If I am able to stay in therapy and if I can keep a therapist long enough, what will that look like to have so much room inside me?
[Break]
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