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Inner Child(ren) · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: 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 long time 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.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Okay. So I'm going back to the leaving the fold book for part two, which is called healing as if that's a thing. No. I'm kidding. We're on it.
• 2:40
  But I have avoided this particular chapter for over a year, almost a year and a half, and I'm not even exaggerating. It has taken me this long to be able to get through it, much less actually talk about it. I also honestly have no idea what I'm going to say or where we're going to go, but I'm gonna walk through the chapter, and I think maybe at this point, with my good therapist that I have now who would not let me fire her, I think I can maybe tolerate talking about this chapter. I don't wanna talk about it in real life. So the chapter is about what is called, in this context, the inner child.
• 3:38
  It's called the inner child because it's not a book about DID. We are talking about littles. And when I talk about inclusion or blending where I can experience multiple parts of myself or ego states or co consciousness, like, whatever language you want to use. If you got some shirts on, this is an example. It also is another example that applies to people who are not DID, whether that is OSDD or just some general dissociation or just general trauma but not specific things of parts or shirts or ego states or altars.
• 4:30
  So it applies to a lot of people still talking around it rather than actually getting into things. So just to clarify, here we go. In this book, the way that they define an inner child or a little has to do with our childlike essence. She says, quote, it is the part of you that is open and innocent, receiving life with wide open arms, end quote. See, this is part of what took me a year and a half to get through because that's not how I view my littles.
• 5:14
  Some of them may be that, but some of them know some really scary stuff and would be more like in DID language, more trauma holder ish. So I already know they don't wanna know what they know, and so I don't wanna know what they know. The problem then, as we have talked about before, becomes that then I am doing to my inner children, my littles, myself, what was already done to them. And I began to be the one neglecting them when I will not connect with them or talk to them or listen to them or do things for them or for myself that have to do with them, either tending to specific traumas or acknowledging the need for things like playtime, for example. So I still won't talk about this in therapy.
• 6:15
  I know. I know. I know. And I'm trying. My therapist is trying.
• 6:21
  Like, all of a sudden, there's, like, a dinosaur stuffy on the couch now. Like, I'm not gonna notice that all of a sudden there's a giant green dinosaur sitting on the couch. And and what? I don't even know what to say about that. Like, I already have to use one pillow to cover up the feelings wheel pillow.
• 6:44
  Are you are you kidding me? So I already have to cover that up. And now, there's a dinosaur and I'm supposed to just ignore this stuffy and not notice that it's there. But I have to so basically, when I come into therapy, I just throw my backpack down on it. I'm very excited for winter to come so I can throw my coat on it and just cover up all of it.
• 7:13
  But I have to do that so smoothly that we're not noticing that that's what I'm noticing because even to cover it up isn't noticing, which is why I know cognitively I can already tolerate more than I think I can tolerate because I'm tolerating enough to notice what I don't wanna notice. Does that make sense? So it's so so much. This lady says, quote, your inner child wants to live and be happy. End quote.
• 7:50
  I'm just gonna be honest and transparent here that I struggle with that second sentence as well. It's another reason that it took me a year and a half just to get through the first paragraph, much less push myself through the whole chapter because I am still negotiating that with myself. Everything that happened to me five years ago was so intense, nearly cost me my life. I know it's trauma related. And I'm still not convinced.
• 8:26
  I also know, statistically speaking, that my life is at risk outside of therapy because I'm the kind of dissociation that is trauma based and that I need help healing that or I'm not going to survive. I don't mean that as a threat. I don't have any specific plans to harm myself. I don't even want to harm myself. And also, if I don't keep myself in therapy, I'm not gonna make it.
• 9:00
  And I'm just being honest about that, not because I think it's an issue of pressing concern, but because it is awareness that I need to hold myself accountable to. So maybe that for me, in my case, is, like, step one of even helping these little ones because I'm not gonna make it if I don't. So maybe this literally even though it's not about, like, toys or whatever, maybe it's seriously my first conscious effort of holding space to hold my own truth and know, hey. You're really high risk if we don't tend to this. So let's tend to this to mitigate some of that risk, stay in therapy, and maybe enjoy life a little bit along the way.
• 9:55
  So I know that's not fun. It's not about movies or stuffies or cartoons or coloring or, like, toys and stuff. Like, I don't know what you think of when we think of littles, but that's literally where I am at of okay. Does anyone in here want to still be alive? Can we just start with that?
• 10:14
  I don't even know how to get to the happy piece except that I notice happiness and tolerate happiness more and more the longer I stay in therapy, even when therapy is hard. So I think it's a thing. I think it's a thing. And maybe, just maybe, I'm on the right track because the next thing she says is that your inner child needs to be loved and cared for. So maybe my starting place may be way behind, and I may have a long road ahead, but maybe it is the exact right starting place because that is the love and care that I can provide right now.
• 11:25
  Let's go to therapy. Let's stay in therapy. What are we going to negotiate and tolerate as possible care enough that we can stay alive and maybe tend to some things? This is overwhelming because pragmatics continue to be difficult. I have a great therapist.
• 11:51
  We worked so hard for so many years to find her. And also, when I got my job and my job changed, it changed my insurance. And I thought for a hot minute, I was going to have to let go of my therapist because of insurance stuff and security clearance. Like, I can't even get into all that right now. And so I braced for it.
• 12:17
  Once again, I'm going to lose therapy, except this time, I didn't. We figured out a way. We meaning not me at all. My therapist figured out a way to mitigate that, and so I get to stay. And we get to continue therapy, and I am thinking how restorative is that for a legit crisis, not me trying to quit therapy, but a legit crisis outside my control interfering with therapy and therefore interfering with my feelings of safety and stability, and also my therapist responding with, it's okay.
• 13:03
  I got this. I got this. And finding a way to make it work in ways I could not do by myself, much less be even aware of. And so then by accident I mean, her intentional care, my accidentally receiving it, my unintended going through the circumstances, I think adds the next layer of we are safe enough, connected enough that it's time to do this. We're gonna have to talk about littles because care is happening, and it's much harder to deny your need for it when it starts happening.
• 14:00
  So, for example, when we are in a situation where we are being neglected, it's easy to not notice we're being neglected because that's dissociation. It's a kind of amnesia. Right? I'm not noticing that it's traumatic. But then when we start to receive care, it's such a contrast that then we are like, oh.
• 14:27
  Now that I'm receiving care, I also at the same time see what has not been care, which means then I feel all kinds of things. And so even without any trauma holding pieces, tending to littles gets really intense really fast. Hence, my avoidance of it, can we just say? But do you remember Christine Forner said at the ISSTD training that it is impossible to be a bad child. This author in this book says, a child is deserving and well intentioned even when they make mistakes.
• 15:10
  And mistakes are part of growth and development. A child also has very basic normal needs for love, safety, fun, and learning. I can this is so hard. I can almost hold space for those words when I use the framework of my own outside kids. I know that they are healthier and happier when I am responsive to them, loving them, when I keep them safe, when they get to have fun, and also they learn as part of their development.
• 15:56
  It is tricksy and slippery for me because of shiny happy. Because learning in this context that this author is using means development, Meaning that my kids who are now learning how to drive can you believe that the triplets are learning how to drive? Mary's just gotten her license, her permit, I mean. And what? Like, I am just still in shock about it that this is where we're at.
• 16:26
  But they couldn't do that when they were five or six. Like, when the podcast first started, Mary was six when we first started recording. And now she's driving. She can do so many things now that she could not do then. That is growth and learning and development.
• 16:44
  That is different than shiny happy where the child is responsible for the consequences of development. Right? So, like, for example, when a toddler is learning how to walk, we call them toddlers because they toddle. And I've said this before. Like, they learn to pull up, and they fall.
• 17:10
  They learn to stand up, and they fall. They learn to take a step, and they fall. They learn to take a few steps, and they fall. They learn how to walk, and they fall. They learn how to run, and they fall.
• 17:21
  They learn how to skip, and they fall. Like, it's this ongoing developmental process where a part of the natural process is the falling. So you could say in the context of learning to walk, the falling is a mistake. They don't mean to fall. Falling isn't walking.
• 17:40
  And yet, also, it is as normal part of the process as the actual walking. It's why we call them toddlers because they toddle and they fall down. But no one well, in healthy families, no one goes, oh, you baby failure. You're failing walking. No one does that.
• 18:01
  But we do that to ourselves when we are learning to develop other things and other experiences. And those of us who miss developmental stages growing up because of trauma and deprivation, as adults, we have to catch up some of those areas and we are mean to ourselves and shame ourselves for not already knowing how to do that, but we never got the chance. That is not failing adulthood. It is not a behavioral problem. There's no shame in that.
• 18:38
  We are just now finally getting our turn to learn and grow. So this author says, human children should feel unselfconsciously positive about themselves. What what does that even mean? Unselfconsciously positive about themselves. A healthy child also has seemingly limitless capacity for play.
• 19:14
  So what I think of when I think about a seemingly limitless capacity for play is this weekend, the children had their first garage sale. It was adorable. It was also a hot mess, but it was adorable. There was a neighborhood garage sale happening, so lots of people were gonna be doing it. And the children thought they could be millionaires by the end of the day.
• 19:40
  There were some hard lessons in the day, but they found things that they were finished with, a few clothes, a few books, a few toys, and they put little stickers on them for how much they were gonna charge. This was 25¢. That was a dollar. And they got it all organized themselves, and they put little piles in the garage so it was ready to go. And the morning of the sale, they moved it out into their spots.
• 20:09
  They drew with sidewalk chalk squares on the driveway so that they could each have their own area to sell. And they set up and closed the garage, set up in the driveway, and sold things. Now when everything didn't sell right away and they were not millionaires by, like, 10:00 in the morning, they were over it. And so we put a sign up that everything was free, and then Jules and I took the kids around the neighborhood to play and to shop with their spending money. So they are making deals, they're buying things.
• 20:45
  This is why they're not millionaires because they were spending their money instead of saving their money. But it was natural development. Right? They're learning what money is and that's healthy and appropriate and it's been something that they've not gotten a chance to learn because we don't have much of it. So how can they practice with money if we never have any?
• 21:06
  So this is good for them. So we spent the morning playing, but one of the places we pulled up to was just like our family and that they were done and they were over it. And so they just put up a sign in their driveway that said everything that was left was free. You guys, you should have seen how fast my kids got out of the car. But my youngest daughter, it was like she hit the jackpot.
• 21:37
  The exact kinds of costumes that she loves, the exact kinds of doll things that she loves, her favorite kinds of clothes, her sizes. Like, it was all in the pile. And it was like a game show. Like, I have never seen my children look more American. They were just grabbing this stuff and throwing it in the car so fast.
• 22:03
  And she was so entirely delighted. She just hit the jackpot. It was like she won the lottery. I can't even tell you. So we came home that afternoon.
• 22:13
  We got lunch. Everybody showered, all the things. So when we're all cozy and relaxing after being exhausted by the morning and early start to the day, my youngest, let me tell you, she spent the rest of the day just playing for hours with one thing and then the next thing and then the next thing for, like, until 10:00 at night. Like, I finally had to cut her off. Like, it is way past bedtime.
• 22:44
  I'm glad you had so much fun. The only reason she got to stay up late that night was because Mary and Alex had a dance to go to. And so, like, she played so hard all day long. And that's what I think of when I read this sentence is how it was like Christmas morning. Like like, I've never seen like, I cannot replicate this for her.
• 23:11
  I she just played so hard all day long, and that is what she's talking about. And it is a fascinating thing to read this sentence and be able to associate it with something to give myself a framework to understand what the author is trying to say because I don't know that I had that. I I did not have that kind of experience with access to those kinds of resources. I also had to be responsible. So, like, instead of playing, I was doing chores.
• 23:52
  Or instead of playing, I was helping at the library, my mother's library. Or instead of going with friends after school, I had to when I was five, I had to come home by myself and, like, clean house and work on dinner. Like, there was not necessarily playtime the way I saw with my daughter. There's also not freedom to be. Like, part of why she can do that is because she has the space and the freedom to just be who she is and to create the worlds in her head and play without being criticized, without being shut down.
• 24:40
  Like, I don't know how else to explain it. And I still don't know how to create in my life that same level of freedom and space to just be wholly me. I'm working on it. I feel like I have pushed the walls back a little bit so that I have more and more of that space, but I don't yet have permission from the world around me to be all of me. I have different permissions in different spaces to be different parts of me, and that's better than not having any in at all anywhere in my life.
• 25:22
  But I'm still working on this space. And because of that, I also am not sure I can actually make that better in my life until I tend to this little stuff. Because the problem isn't just in the present, the problem started when I was a child. And so part of tending to littles is not, like, I it's not about acting little or being little. It's not about being afraid of what littles know.
• 25:56
  It's literally about going back to catch up this development and letting myself finish what I never got the chance to start. Does that make sense? And when I hold it in that framework and normalize it a little bit in that way, it feels a little bit less daunting. Okay. And then the author writes a sentence that I am telling you was such a sucker punch to me that it literally made me throw up.
• 26:33
  And I'm not trying to be graphic or disgusting. It was just so out of the blue and so profound to me that I probably did not open this book for maybe six months or more. And I'm not exaggerating. It was so hard for me just this sentence. She says, birds and squirrels and other animals do not have to work hard to earn their right to be alive.
• 27:10
  She says they simply live. They sing and frolic as they please. They belong on the earth. They already belong on earth. What?
• 27:25
  Let me read that first sentence again. Birds and squirrels and other animals do not have to work hard to earn their right to be alive. You guys, in some way that I cannot verbalize right now, this for me was one of the most profound moments of my healing since NTIS and connects directly to fawning in ways I I can't explain or verbalize yet. But what did she just say? Like, I had to write it down on a note card and stick it by my mirror.
• 28:15
  I had it on a post it note by my keys. Birds and squirrels and other animals do not have to work hard to earn their right to be alive. No. Birds and squirrels and other animals do a lot of hard work as part of living. Like, it's not It's not like they get a free pass from the things that living requires.
• 28:48
  Right? So, like, if I want to feed my children, I need a job, for example. Right? So there's a work involved, but that job is about provision and protection. It is not about my right to be alive.
• 29:06
  So this goes back to how so many of us who are trauma or deprivation survivors are actually overproductive in life, over functioning in life because for us, living has to do with doing and not being. And learning how to just be because we already are is one of the hardest things of healing or recovery. The other thing that at least for me is really overwhelming and terrifying is that when I think of littles, I think of trauma because I know for me, that's where the timeline is. When I was that little, bad things were happening. So I don't wanna go back there, and I just dissociate further and further, and it's so hard to tolerate.
• 30:15
  And so then there's all this avoidance, and it makes it really, really hard to tend to what I'm avoiding. Right? Like, I get that the math is explicit. The math makes sense, but it doesn't make me wanna do it. It's so hard, and I get such big feelings so fast.
• 30:35
  But that's also actually a kind of little place to be. That I am overwhelmed, and I am scared, and I feel alone in it, and so I don't want to be here. So even my avoidance of littles is a little response. And it took me eight years, ten years of therapy to accept that. What's fascinating about this chapter and there's a bunch I'm skipping because it's still hard for me.
• 31:13
  Like, she has this whole meditation thing. I couldn't do it. I can't do it. I can't talk about it. I'm not ready for that.
• 31:20
  So I'm going to honor that and just leave it in a I'm not pushing way, and I'm not fawning on the podcast way. I legit can't do it right now, and I accept that. I can work on that in therapy and come back to it someday. Now is not that time. But what's interesting about this chapter is after this, this author then says, yes.
• 31:45
  There are hard things with those inner children or that your inner child or littles, like, whatever word you wanna use. Yes. There are hard things. But she says, and I don't say we have to believe her yet. But she says, they are also our greatest resources.
• 32:09
  She says, that is the part of us, like, our youngest parts, our inner child, our littles may have some trauma stuff, but they also have the answers to what we need. And that we cannot learn to meet our own needs until we learn to listen to them. So, like, for example, the need to play just because that one feels safer. Right? I can talk about that.
• 32:37
  For example, you needed to play, and you still need to play and enjoy life. So what is it you enjoy? What is it you like? What helps you feel better? That learning how to play is part of how we learn how to regulate, and learning how to play is part of how we learn to soothe ourselves in healthy ways, not just we've always been alone ways.
• 33:07
  And there's a big difference in that. So when I think of examples of this that don't have to do with anything scary from littles, I can think of when I was in grad school, like, doing my doctorate. One of the things that happened during that part of my life, like, it was super intense, super academic, very much in my head. So my need to play was huge just to balance things out. Right?
• 33:40
  And so that is actually the season of my life where we learned ballroom dancing. It was something I didn't have to be perfect at. It was something I could do in my body. It was something that taught me how to be close in the presence of people because I had to dance with other people. And as wild as it sounds, it was truly one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and I'm so so glad I did it.
• 34:14
  And I still love dancing because of that. Even though, normally, aside from trauma or DID, I'm not necessarily an extroverted person that wants to just go hang out with people or interact with people or go clubbing or whatever. Like, I cannot do those things. Those things are really hard for me to do, and it's okay. I don't necessarily need to do those things.
• 34:40
  But to learn ballroom dancing in a time where I was doing research and my dissertation and all the classes and grad school, like, that was such an intense time in my life. To have it balanced with ballroom dance was phenomenal. It was fantastic play. The author then says that just like we know that our emotions are only messengers and not reality, they're just telling us our response to reality, that that's how we learn from our littles when we need to make changes in our life. When things are out of balance or things are feeling off or we are dysregulated, we can get answers for what we need to rebalance or reregulate from our littles inside, from our inner child.
• 35:37
  She says, your inner child may have been very sad, angry, or distrusting, but those are important feelings to notice. They are understandable when you think about your life experiences and what you have been through. Rather than pushing these awarenesses away, let them sink in and help you really understand the trauma you have been through. Yeah. I don't wanna do that.
• 36:04
  And, also, and, also, that can be a very slow motion process in therapy. Right? It's not like something I can't just do something really quick and check off a list and move forward. That's something that's gonna take practice. It's something I can do with my therapist, but it gives me information about what is happening or what has happened and those feelings being there to point to those things, like signpost that guide me along the way so that I know where I've been and what was wrong.
• 36:41
  And that matters because it was not me that was wrong. I was a child. It is impossible to be a bad child. So my feelings that I'm already afraid of and are like, oh, I don't wanna feel that and I don't wanna know about that. Those are actually the things that clarify truth for me.
• 37:03
  Those are actually the things that show me it was not me that was wrong. Those are the things that tell me it was not my shame. And so I cannot know that until I listen to them. That's why it matters. And then then this author calls me out.
• 37:34
  She says, you may have had negative feelings toward your inner child, impatience, annoyance, or actual rejection. Ding ding ding. Perfect score. Got a hundred on inner child rejection. She says, realize that these can be natural feelings when a relationship has not been nurtured.
• 37:58
  If you have not known how to love yourself and how could you if no one else did, then you have not been paying attention to your child's needs. Given the way you were taught to think about human beings, you might even be disgusted by a needy, vulnerable child with all kinds of feelings and demands. The thought of being responsible may also be distasteful for you. Remember that you have not yet learned the joy of caring for your inner child. You have not yet realized the thrill of empowerment that this task can bring.
• 38:37
  For now, simply be patient and pay attention to your feelings so that you can better understand them. Ugh. I'm trying to be patient. She says, this relationship with yourself will require healing. The neglect, perhaps even abuse, you have done to yourself has actually been unintentional and a reenactment of what was already done to you when you were too young to even remember, and perhaps ever since.
• 39:12
  If you have been critical and demanding of yourself, realize that you were not actually trying to create a miserable life for yourself. You were acting out how you were treated when you were young. If you have ignored your inner child's feelings, it is because you were not aware because other people ignored yours when you were young. You have done the best you could with the knowledge and expectations that you have had. You have treated yourself in a repetition or reenactment of how you yourself were treated as a child by those who should have been caring and nurturing to you.
• 39:59
  Yeah. That gets really slippery really fast. So we're just gonna pause that. So that's legitimately all I can do with that right now Because it's a lot. But I think there is truth that maybe I can tolerate an awareness that they are there.
• 40:28
  I am responsible for tending to them at this point. They have needs that I will get better at tending to when I learn to listen to them, and that I will feel better when I do, even if I don't yet. Oh my goodness. It's so hard. This piece is so so hard for me.
• 41:01
  And yet, it seems like, if I am understanding this correctly, the more that we do it and the better we get at it, the more it actually supports being regulated and feeling better even while tackling other things because those needs are being met. So I don't know what that's going to look like. I'm being honest. And I'm not even sure that I'm yet to the place of being willing, or maybe I'm willing enough because I'm talking about it. I don't yet feel like I can.
• 41:49
  I don't feel yet like I'm able to. I don't think I even have capacity yet. But I can tolerate this much on improved awareness about why it matters and that maybe it's really important. And that is maybe the most I have ever in my life directly talked about anything littles specific, and that's the best I can do for right now. I'm gonna let that be enough And maybe find a way to honor that and let that seep through me.
• 42:57
  So that I can hold on to it. And maybe they can know inside me with me as part of me as me with them, a part of them, I guess, which is a whole different. I can't even fathom yet. Me as a part of them, an extension of them. I owe them my life, and I want this to seep through that we have made it to the other side, that it's okay to finally turn the lights back on, That I'm sorry.
• 43:39
  I've not fixed this yet. And, also, I'm coming. Help is here, and we're coming. And maybe believe that we're not alone anymore. Maybe.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Your support really helps us feel less alone while we sort through all of this and learn together. Maybe it will help you in some ways too. You can connect with us on Patreon by going to our web site at www.systemspeak.org. If there's anything we've learned, it's that connection brings healing.
• 46:28
  We look forward to connecting with you.