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Littles, Ages, and Development · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Over: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast, a podcast about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to longtime listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
• 0:58
  Okay, guys. The first thing we have to do today is draw the name for who won the registration for the upcoming AIM Conference. So excited about this. I have your names. Thanks for sharing the podcast, and here we go.
• 1:14
  Are you ready? We need a little drum roll. Right? K. I'm going to swirl my names around, and we will see who gets it.
• 1:35
  And our winner is Megan Smith Childers. So excited. I wanna see you there. I hope that helps, and I'm really excited to meet you there. So I will send you information, and so you can get signed up, and congratulations for winning the free registration to the Healing Conference.
• 1:56
  See you in Orlando! There's a couple things I want to talk about today. One is to follow-up on the very boring podcast that the good doctor did about people's ages. So I don't have any idea what she's talking about, all this psychosocial jumbo mumbo whatever. But what I can tell you is about ages.
• 2:19
  So I don't know like I don't get what she's trying to say, And a friend did send us the link to the video they were talking about. It was a video from the Entropy System. So I'll put a link to that video in my blog. And what they were just talking about is how everyone's different ages and how for them, they can use those stages to see where that person is at or something like that. But also that it's really important that the individual experience of each alter is like totally respected from their own perspective and that those are decisions they get to make just like their name or anything else that for some reason is important to them.
• 3:04
  So you can watch the video and learn for yourself about what they were sharing, but what we can share for ourselves or what I can share for myself is about what I know about ages. So at least in our system, people are the age that they are inside, which is a variety of ages. Like, know we have a baby, we have a toddler, we have a three year old, we have a four year old, there's a six year old, a 10 year old, a 12 year old, an eight year old, a seven year old who's sometimes 12. I don't know how that works. And, let's see what else, like me and the other grown ups.
• 3:48
  Right? So, like, there's lots of different ages, and the only thing I know about it is that, like, I just know because they know. Like, I know how old I am. Don't you know how old you are? So at some level, it's just kind of that simple.
• 4:05
  You just know because it's you. So how old are you anyway? That's a rude question, you guys. No. I'm just kidding.
• 4:13
  So part of it is just like you just know your age because that's your age. Like you just like anybody else in the outside world, it's the same thing. Now yes, it's true that people in the outside world have like a birth certificate and a birth date that tells them. Okay. So some people and, again, I'm only talking about our system.
• 4:36
  I cannot, like, make decisions for other systems or speak for other for our system, the age just is, like, part of the story almost. So, yes, like she said, there are some who there are some others inside who have stopped at a certain age because something happened. Okay. And so they're, like, stuck in that. I've heard it called a time loop by the system, called the Crisses.
• 5:11
  They refer to it as a time loop when you're stuck in something that's in the past, like a specific memory or a time period or something. So some of them are the age that they were when that happened because they're still there. So they have not grown up with everybody else. Other people are really specific to a specific incident and so maybe don't interact with the outside world as much so time has not passed. So it's like, yes on the outside world the body continues to age unfortunately.
• 5:49
  Like, do you know? We are getting gray hairs, you guys. Like, the body, there are gray hairs up there. It is shocking and horrifying. Like, the good doctor is like, no, this is great because we've finally grown into ourselves, and now Well, know what?
• 6:07
  I haven't grown into myself, okay, because I haven't grown into this body. That's part of the problem and part of why we're talking about ages. So yes, it's a problem, and yes, it's confusing. But if you are not on the outside all the time, then time is not passing on the outside the same as time passes on the inside, or actually doesn't pass on the inside. On the inside, it's kind of timeless, like without time as far as our system goes.
• 6:43
  So yes, what she said is true is that sometimes people inside stop aging because something happened, or because something didn't happen, or because that one was not needed on the outside the same way anymore as they used to be on the outside anymore. So for example, if I really wanna trip you guys out, what I can tell you is that I started like when the body was 13. That's when I came because something happened and I remember what it was because I was there. That's like the first thing I remember. Right?
• 7:21
  So I was 13. Well, was getting ready to turn 13. So I remember turning 13 because I was there. But do you know who used to deal with stuff like what I dealt with? John.
• 7:33
  John was the one who did that, but he did not have to deal with it because I had to take it over. So John is still 12 and never turned 13 because that was my job now and so he wasn't there when it happened. So of course people are different ages if they're not on the outside when it doesn't happen they never experienced it. That's like saying, why haven't you ever had cheese in France? Well, if you weren't in France, you can't eat cheese there.
• 8:02
  I'm not saying that that's all French people do. I'm just saying it's what I enjoyed when we lived in France. Okay? They have really good cheese. I'm not stereotyping.
• 8:15
  I'm just saying I could live on bread and fruit and cheese in France. That was pretty nice. All the people listening in France, I love you. I miss you. I wish we still lived there.
• 8:28
  Also, we lived a lot of other places too, but I'm getting off topic. So the point is, like, you're not there outside in the body to experience it, then it doesn't happen to you because it happened to someone else. So of course people are different ages. So my homegirl, Julie, who's a listener to the podcast but also my friend, she had the follow-up question about how do we manage time with the littles? So like the kids inside, how do we deal with time with them?
• 9:01
  So there's two pieces to this. One is how do they get time outside? And two, how do they understand time? So kind of going backwards there, they understand time just like any other kid does. They don't.
• 9:17
  They don't get it. Time passes outside of their understanding. Some of them can tell time. I think John can tell time. But time is slippery for all of us, not just the littles.
• 9:29
  It's not just about them and time being hard to manage. Time is hard for all of us. When you are not out front on a consistent linear time experience, then time really doesn't make sense the same way it does for other people anyway. That's not any different than the littles. But also any child even like someone who's on the outside younger children don't have the same sense of time anyway because it's more like this is what's happening right now and I'm in this experience right now.
• 10:01
  Right? So that causes two problems. One, some of them are stuck in the time loop where they think like our parents are still gonna find them or get them or something. They're not. They're dead.
• 10:12
  But they can't remember that yet. Even when the therapist tells us like a thousand times. I don't know when, at what point, or how, or whatever that that starts to click but it hasn't yet okay? So this time loop is one thing the other thing is I totally forgot. I can't think this hard, you guys.
• 10:36
  Okay. So another piece is that nope. Still forgot. So the other piece is that the littles know that they are not the rest of us. Like, they're aware of DID in their own way.
• 10:58
  They get that it's a separate thing from themselves, and they can talk about it different ways. Maybe John can talk to you about the body or what that's like to be younger in an older body or a boy in a girl body or however those things work, but they have some understanding maybe not the language or the lingo or all the professional words or anything about psychosocial something. Like, they may not get all those things or how it's categorized or labeled or something, but they have their experience of it and they understand that. So they know that they are not the same as someone else or that they are not me. Like, duh.
• 11:43
  They get it. Like, you know you're not your neighbor, Right? Like, on the outside. So it's pretty obvious and easy to understand that it's not the same person. The challenge is understanding how they get to move and play in a bigger body than what they feel like they are in because the body used to be small, but now the body is grown into an adult body.
• 12:14
  Right? So there is a passage of time there, but I don't think they talk about it or think about it as a passage of time. I think it's more like this slow awareness because it's been happening over time that the body has continued to grow and they haven't. But children just understand that kind of thing. We have a son on the outside who has cerebral palsy and so like one of his hands does not grow the way the other hand does.
• 12:43
  And so it's smaller and it doesn't do the same things and it doesn't match the same as the right hand. Like he gets that in his own way even if he doesn't understand everything about cerebral palsy. But he can tell you the name of it and he can tell you that it's because he didn't have oxygen when he was born and he can tell you that one side of his brain controls the other side of his body and that that side of his brain had problems from not having oxygen. And since there's damage there, the opposite side of his body also has damage and struggles in some way. So he can verbalize all of that and he's seven.
• 13:23
  Okay. So don't talk to me about what littles do or do not understand. Like, they're pretty powerful. Children are amazing. Whether we are talking about inside kids or outside kids, kids are rock stars.
• 13:38
  They get it. So I'm sure kids in every system would explain things differently, but they know what's up and have an understanding. Now there are sometimes where because of their perception that doesn't track all the way through. So like for example, when John tries to get down a plate to get his chips and salsa, like he still stands on the stool. We don't need to stand on the stool.
• 14:05
  We can reach it. Like the body can reach the plate that has the little bowl on it for chips and salsa. We don't need to stand on a stool to get it. Okay? So but that's a perception thing.
• 14:18
  That's not a body thing. Or in the same way, there's other things that our body is too big for that we can't do the same as we did before. But they learn that and adjust to that. So they know that they can play on our bike that fits the body and they don't have to use the bike that belongs to our outside daughter who's three. So like there's lots of different layers.
• 14:40
  Part of it is just how old they are And like what the video was talking about, their developmental stages or whatever. The video talks about it, you can watch the video, and the good doctor talked about it in the last podcast, you can listen to that. But part of it's just developmental phase, like where they're at and what they're learning. Another part of it is the experience on the timeline itself in the outside world. If they're not outside all the time, they're not gonna progress the same way.
• 15:09
  And then three, part of it is like perception and just what it's like to interact in the world. But as far as preferences and what they like to do, that's totally just kids stuff. So we walk to the park every day, which is good for the body, but also fun for the littles. But at the same time, we don't send the four year old altar out the front door to walk to the park. If she wants to go to the park then we have to have an appropriate time like not when we're doing something else that's really important like watching our outside kids or when the good doctor's doing her nerdy boring job that takes forever but I'm okay with because that way I get to sleep in even though she's working.
• 15:53
  So deal sold. But when they do go, then it has to be a good time, and John is the one who fronts. So he walks to there because 12 year olds can walk to the park by themselves. That's a safe thing and an appropriate thing. But once he's there, doesn't have to stay out front.
• 16:12
  He can let them play and still keep an eye on things. I'm not gonna babysit all the kids. That's his job. He can do that. I mean it's not really his job and we do have to be careful about it, but I mean like he's old enough to babysit or whatever.
• 16:27
  He's old enough to know what's going on and he has that not I don't remember the word for it, but like he has awareness enough of the littles to know what's going on if they need help or if they're in danger or something right so like that's just legit they're just being kids but they can be kids safely. Now as far as how they manage time, like getting turns to go out or to play, that just depends. There's sometimes that it's safe for John and even appropriate for John to play with the outside kids. Like if they're having some kind of tickle fight or if they're playing chase or if they're playing a game or watching a specific movie or something, those are appropriate times for the littles to play in some degree with the outside kids. There are other times as far as just being on their own or some of them that are more trauma specific or like have more safety issues, they're not gonna be the ones playing with the outside kids or hanging out with other people in general.
• 17:38
  They are very much inside. They don't come outside a lot and when they do it's only like now when we're home alone the doors are locked, the inside doors are locked and like we know no one is here or can get to us. Like when we feel that degree of safety then maybe they can come out and do something or, like play with something or paint something or do art or crafts or whatever it is they do. I don't even know. But I can tell you that that doesn't even happen very much.
• 18:15
  Like there's most of the littles are just now even meeting our therapist or just now writing in the notebook. Like remember when we did that unboxing episode of unboxing ourselves? Like reading through that notebook just now meeting some of them and learning more about them was a really big deal. So mostly they're just not out very much. Another thing I see people talk about in the groups a lot that I kind of want to respond to is that you have to be really careful about who's meeting their needs.
• 18:50
  Because like we as a system, if we're going to be functional and healthy, have to take care of our own system. So that means it's not really the therapist's job to take care of us all the time. Not that she's not helpful, not that we don't adore her, and not that she's not available for in, like, legit crisis. But we don't have to be so dependent on her that we're not functional by ourselves. The same thing goes for the husband.
• 19:18
  It's not the husband's job to, like, help us function or make sure that we're okay or play with the littles or parent the littles. Like, he is not our parent. He's the husband. But he can be friends with the others or check on the others, and he is very attentive, very kind, very, like, gracious or helpful or whatever. Like, he's really sweet.
• 19:41
  He's super fun. Has lots of adventures for all with all of us. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing or that he can't do those things. I'm saying that as far as who's responsible for meeting their needs and making sure that we as a system are safe and have what we need, that's on us. That's not his job Because he's not the parent and that's not fair to put all of that on him.
• 20:11
  It also can get so quickly into codependency stuff and maybe people who are doing that have different issues and that's totally fine with them. So please don't judge other people for what their systems do. I'm just saying that for our system to be healthy we need some level of independence there and we are trying to learn how to meet like our own nurturing needs. That's not the same as asking for help. We can ask for help from the therapist or the husband and we can be friends with them.
• 20:41
  Well I mean you know what I mean. Like connect with them and even acknowledging those nurturing needs that are met through the process of just being together and all the time we spend with them that's legit and that's cool but we can't like be so dependent on them that like when he's gone, like this week he has a production and so he writes musicals or whatever, so he's got this big thing this week and he's very very absent. That doesn't mean we get to stop functioning, It doesn't mean we fall apart because he's not here to take care of us. We're okay. We miss him.
• 21:17
  We miss the adventures. We miss the playtime. It'll be a great reunion. All of that's great and all of that is good, but we are not in crisis because he's gone. We are not falling apart because he's gone.
• 21:30
  That's just kind of an important piece. The other thing about having littles is that part of taking care of them is having what they need, right? So just like I want to have date nights once in a while, we have to be pretty consistent about getting to the park. For us that's something that helps. Other systems will have different needs.
• 21:53
  The other thing that helps us is you know how we write in all these notebooks for therapy, right? So in our bag that has all these colored pens so everyone can pick what they want to write with, we also in that bag have markers and crayons and watercolors because some of them prefer that or age wise need that or just like it. And so sometimes it's helpful to have those kinds of things accessible. Oh, one thing I didn't know until we did this whole, communication introduction bullet journaling thing separate from our notebooks for therapy. One thing I learned in the unboxing episode, one thing I learned from that is that one of the littles that has pretty important role, I mean they all have important roles, but that I'm learning about already and needing to pay attention to right now, She really likes stickers.
• 22:48
  I had no idea. That makes sense as a kid she would like stickers, but I never thought about it. So we need to get the girl some stickers. Right? So that kind of makes sense.
• 22:58
  Another example is that John kind of has this role of not exactly protecting or helping like I don't know the right words for it, but he checks on everybody. He likes the logistics of things and when someone does something that's good that is in the right direction towards healing or sort of consistent with what the therapist told us to do he likes to give us a badge. Okay he got the badges from the therapist and they're stickers and they're awesome and hilarious even the husband has gotten badges and bless his heart he's worn them like all day it's so funny when it happens but like for example I was not leaving I was not doing my dishes right and then she called me out on it the therapist and the alter who cleans it up the mother wife whatever Why does she not talk on the podcast? I don't even know. She needs to just okay.
• 23:58
  Okay. I'm not supposed to talk like that, so I'm gonna stop. But, anyway, so I got called out for the whole dishes thing, for leaving my snack dishes around and for not cleaning up after myself. If, like, for example, I had, I don't know, a marshmallow fight with the outside kids, or if we did something, like, I wasn't cleaning up after myself because it wasn't my job, and I don't want to, and why should I? But anyway, I got called out for it.
• 24:29
  So now every time I do my dishes, he puts this badge sticker in the notebook for me, and it's hilarious. So he tells you why you're getting a badge and that you did a good job or you did whatever, and that this is why you're getting a badge, and it's hilarious. But it works for him, and it's actually been really helpful because there are things I've learned through that that are important or useful or helpful to us as a system that I never would have guessed even mattered. I should get a badge for not dissing the one who's the wife and mother. Do you hear that, John?
• 25:08
  I need a badge. So I'll try to find one of the badges and take a picture of it and put it on the blog so that you can see it if you want to. But that's what we're talking about with the badges. So there's lots of ways that littles can be helpful or teach you a lot about the system as a whole and especially like for me, I feel like maybe even more so for Emma, but there's a huge disconnect between like where we are now and everything that happened when we were little like there's so much distance and so much like disconnect or not knowing or whatever the word is of having no clue that paying attention to the littles actually teaches you a lot sometimes it's super annoying because they can be so brat like they're children right so between outside kids and inside kids it gets pretty chaotic and overwhelming and loud and I hate it sometimes but I've learned if you pay attention to them and learn from them and listen to them you actually know a lot about what's going on and one thing we're starting to learn like not enough I can even talk about it but I'm getting glimpses of it that's coming that we're learning is from the journaling with the therapist one thing that we're figuring out is that things that bother us or are triggers or problems that we didn't even realize connected in it to anything the littles have the answers about why it does matter.
• 26:38
  So they're actually super important and their age kind of doesn't matter because whatever they know about, they know a lot. And one thing that the video from the Entropy System talked about is how they have more experience than just their age. And that's kind of true of anything. So if you take any kid even an outside kid or child good doctor says I'm not supposed to call them kids I'm supposed to call them children because they're not goats I guess whatever anyway if you take one of the outside kids if you look at what they've been through they know more about that because they've endured that. So like our child so like our daughter who's on oxygen and has a g tube she could almost do her g tube by herself.
• 27:29
  She has just now learned how to put her oxygen cannula on by herself and she's three. So she knows way more than most other three year olds about that one piece but it doesn't mean she's not three or that something's wrong with her other than she's been through this experience. So does it mean she can be responsive over the whole thing or actually understand everything in-depth? No, she doesn't know how to do the settings on the oxygen or why sometimes we have it at this high or this high or this low or when to take it off or when to put it on even. She just knows that when it time to put it on she is able to do that by herself and slide the thing up to adjust so it's comfortable for her.
• 28:14
  And to us that's really important like it's palliative care right and quality of life and all these things about how to make her comfortable. And that's one thing in a world where she has no choice about anything and where there's so much like medical trauma we can't stop from happening to her because that's her experience that she's already in and has already endured. Which is awful, but what we can do are give her choices. Do you want your blood pressure on this arm or that arm? Do you want us to put on your oxygen or do you want to put on your oxygen?
• 28:52
  Do you want and then like even her g tube, she has to have the g tube. But when we do her feedings, what we can do is, do you want this little g tube pad or do you want this little g tube pad? And like give her decorated ones so that she has some say and some expression and some way to just be herself. So that part, while I don't understand what the intrepiece system was saying about treating your littles like adults, I think I just didn't understand what she's talking about but the part about them being more aware or experienced about adult things in some ways even though their ages younger that part I do understand and with my daughter and her medical trauma like that's a neutral example of it but the same thing is true of like people who kids like outside kids who have been through sexual abuse or physical abuse or have been through foster care or, like, whatever are experiences similar to what some of us have been through. Right?
• 29:55
  Like, when you go through something specific, you know more about it. What I'm learning about right now is snow. I didn't know anything about snow. Never in my life have I had to deal with snow, and now it won't stop snowing. We moved here this summer, and now it snows and snows and snows.
• 30:15
  We had 11 inches of snow last week, and now it's starting to snow again and supposed to storm again. And like this snow does not go away, and it's cold and wet. Kind of beautiful except then your tree falls down. I am learning more because I'm going through this experience. We even had to replace our furnace.
• 30:38
  Like let's talk about the layers of triggering there when we were cold and all of this going on. I'm just using these neutral outside examples to explain how someone who's very little could have some awareness of things that are older than them even though they're young. That said, their preferences and their things that they enjoy doing or things that make them feel safe, those things are gonna be like what the good doctor said, age appropriate or whatever. So that's all I have to say about littles, but I hope that helps some. And if you have more questions, you can contact us through our website.
• 31:44
  If there's anything we've learned, it's that connection brings healing. We look forward to connecting with you.