by Tim Roy
Little Tim: I always loved damaged goods.
Dr Jan: Mmm
Little Tim: I liked and kept the broken mask I found. The yo-yo with the broken string, I collected a knife that I never sharpened.
Dr Jan: Good for you, so you like damaged goods and it’s not true that you can’t love damaged goods.
Little Tim: I know, but do other people?
Dr Jan: I do, I guess that’s why I became a psychologist.
Little Tim: Yeah that could be the reason. Okay I’m learning this stuff, it’s all new, and all of us don’t know this stuff.
Dr Jan: I know, as it turns out some of these things that you thought are true don’t turn out to be true. It’s not true that you can’t love damaged goods.
Little Tim: I always loved damaged goods, and big Tim has a lot of people love him.
Dr Jan: He’s got a lot of love for them.
Little Tim: Well yeah, He just gives it all out because that’s the love we didn’t get shown ourselves. So we just, we learnt, we learnt that it’s better for us to give lots of love because we didn’t get any.
Dr Jan: Mmm
Little Tim: We’re allowed to do that because, because we didn’t get that much love. We’re allowed to actually turn that around and take what we missed out on there, put it on us as big people.
Dr Jan: Mmm
Little Tim: Cause it doesn’t hurt to love.
Dr Jan: No.
Little Tim: It just hurts to be scared.
Dr Jan: Yes that’s exactly right and your also right that when you give out love you get a lot back.
Little Tim: And that’s true, We see that. We believe in that and that’s happening, that’s all happening.
Dr Jan: It doesn’t have to happen every single time; it only has to happen enough.
Little Tim: It’s happening because all the boys are telling the story and I helped them write the story and I’m helping. I’m coming out to help but that’s when we’re by ourselves, so I suppose it’s really really hard. I find it’s really scary to come out because (whispering) I’m not big.
Dr Jan: Yes
Little Tim: And I can’t have people thinking that we’re a little bit silly because we don’t talk big words and stuff.
Dr Jan: Yes
Little Tim: More of the story, Dad he used to live on the corner and when Little Big Tim and Mark and I and some of the others used to go to school
Dr Jan: Mmm
Little Tim: The big boys, Mark and Little Big Tim were the bosses then and when we went to school we had to go past his house and everyone thought that he was a poof and it was like everyone in the school was saying that he was a poof and we just kept hiding the fact that we exist and that that was our Dad.
Dr Jan: MmhhMmm
Little Tim: The big boys know now that men who choose to be poofs, who want to be poofs, that’s alright. The big boys know that that’s normal. I just see that that’s just scary if these people were/are funny with little people.
Dr Jan: That’s right, that’s right. It’s about power. If it’s two grown ups they can do whatever they want to do. Two grown ups can both can say yes and no but when you’ve got a power thing where it’s a grown up and a little child and the little child doesn’t get to say yes or no that’s wrong.
Little Tim: Yeah
Dr Jan: Very wrong
Little Tim: Yeah they just had demons in them hey?
Dr Jan: Mmm
Little Tim: I mean even the church ones even the church ones had lots of demons in them, hey you could see them sometimes they were really scary hey.
Dr Jan: Mmm Mmm
Little Tim: And they’d be jumping up and down praising the lord waving their hands in the air, be clapping and all that and speaking in tongues and all that and then after church it would be really scary hey.
Dr Jan: That must have been very scary all the way through
Little Tim: Really scary
Dr Jan: Do you know now that that’s over? Do you know now that the big boys have grown up and that you’re safe?
Little Tim: We don’t go to church hey.
Dr Jan: Mmm do you know it’s over?
Little Tim: Yeah well I do but like I don’t think I want to grow up Dr Jan I don’t want to. I have had the best start cause I know when we had times that were the safe times and if I grow up I could lose those.
Dr Jan: Why do you have to lose those? You still have those times?
Little Tim: If I become one, if I have to learn all the memories (traumatised) of the stuff that I don’t want to know. Well that, that’s too much, if I don’t want to go there I don’t think I need to drag all the memories the boys and the girls and they know it’s,., they know the memories I don’t need to know those memories.
Dr Jan: MmhhMmm
Little Tim: I don’t need to know the bad stuff I need to know when mum was nice to me.
Dr Jan: Look I think it’s really important that you are able to let them know there were good memories, there were safe times. I think it’s really important that you let them know that. The times that you remember, the okay times, it’s very important.
Little Tim: Yeah well I was pretty cheeky; I used to slip in quite a bit when the good times were around.
Dr Jan: Well it’s very important that everybody, all the parts, know that there were good times. It’s part of explaining why you all turned out to be okay because there were good times
Little Tim: I can come back in and give them that but they can’t give me their jobs otherwise I wouldn’t have given them a job in the first place.
Dr Jan: Oh no but I don’t think you have to take on their jobs I think everybody, everybody still gets to do their job it’s just that you get to share it rather than stay separate from each other. So you can still be the part that can go to the colours if that is necessary hopefully that won’t be very necessary but if ever it was, if ever, you were interrogated again or something like that you could say lets go to the colours. You could do that; the other parts can do their jobs it’s just that everybody knows about what is going on. So I have got a part in me that pertains to my professional role and another, the role of mother. The playing part that allows me to play and muck around.
Little Tim: That’s fun hey?
Dr Jan: Yep I can do all those things and they feel quite different at different times. I know I can feel that when I’m walking to work and getting ready to be professional, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to be in here being the way I am with my mates or my husband because that just wouldn’t be very professional or therapeutic. So I don’t do that, that part of me isn’t operating when I’m in here but it knows about this part of me, it all feels like one part, but I behave differently. I could, if you say to me go to your, some other part of yourself I could do that, and it’s quite a different part of me when you see it here. So the only difference is that I don’t split them up and it all feels like it’s all one me. It’s one me who can be a different type of person in different situations, with different skills and different abilities and different ways of being.
Little Tim: How do you make me know what you’re talking about?
Dr Jan: Mmm well if you were to imagine.
Little Tim: Is there is there is a little Dr Jan? A little girl that I could play with?
Dr Jan: Mmm there is.
Little Tim: And it’s in everybody
Dr Jan: Mmm everyone has his or her inner child
Little Tim: Then why don’t they run away when, when they get angry and all that sort of stuff? Do you and the little girl have friends?
Dr Jan: Well not everybody’s had bad times. My inner child has only ever had the good times. When I was little I used to have a little imaginary friend called William because I was a lonely little girl.
Little Tim: I call William the Writer; did you want to be a boy?
Dr Jan: No I don’t think well maybe I did, I was a bit of a tomboy, and boys seemed to have more fun. And then slowly I just became J
an and William was part of who I was; the tomboy part of me. But I can choose whether or not I want to be in tomboy mode or feminine mode or professional mode or mucking around mode or whatever, depending on the situation; which part of me will be more prominent and be the part that is showing on the outside. And I can decide to be the other part but usually it depends on the situation as to which part I’ll be. But it all feels like one me. Does that make any sense?
Little Tim: So if I decided to stay away and not play in the light, as everyone wants me to play in the light, they will never I be all one. Is that what you’re saying?
Dr Jan: But if you stay away that means… does that mean that they won’t know about the goods times that you had?
Little Tim: No they can know the good times but there is plenty of ways, if I have to go away, to tell what’s going on and who’s in charge.
Dr Jan: MmhhMmm
Little Tim: Right, just sometimes the way that we behave, or it could be calling out Little Tim or they could be calling out Tim; or they could be calling out Timmy or they could call out lots of things. If it’s Peter he doesn’t know it straight away. And if it’s Troy he doesn’t know of it straight away.
Dr Jan: MmhhMmm
Little Tim: So there’s always lots of ways to sort of try and work out that who’s in charge.
Dr Jan: So you seem to know them.
Little Tim: Now I have probably got more information than ever I ever had, when the other day I suddenly ended up in here with you.
Dr Jan: Did that feel okay?
Little Tim: Scary.
Dr Jan: Scary because it was new, but did anything bad happen to you?
Little Tim: Well yeah well no that’s the sort of…
Dr Jan: Try and think about it
Little Tim: Well Mark wouldn’t let any marks happen to us otherwise I wouldn’t be allowed to come back and
Dr Jan: Hang on. You only came back into the memory; you didn’t come back in the real thing you came back into the memory yeah? Because you were here with me so it couldn’t be really happening.
Little Tim: Yeah well I didn’t get hurt in the memory.
Dr Jan: Right and actually you can’t get hurt in the memory.
Little Tim: What if I was hurt in the memory? And one of them were carrying the memory of that and I… this is… this is what scares me, I don’t know… I don’t know whose going to tell me what and…
Dr Jan: So you mean you become one with them then you will be there too.
Little Tim: Well what if I was hurt in that memory and I just don’t have memory of it? Now I have memory of it because I’m connected up.
Dr Jan: Well if you were there you would remember wouldn’t you? If you were hurt
Little Tim: Well I wasn’t hurt that time
Dr Jan: That part of you
Little Tim: But there could be other times I wasn’t hurt that time I know that
Dr Jan: You would you remember all the times you were around and the other times you are in the cupboard. So when you come back and remember; when you come back into the memory and discover what’s been going on, it will be you coming back to a memory that will be just the way it was, except you get to see what was going on. I don’t know whether that’s what needs to happen and I guess we’re just trying to work out whether that’s what needs to happen. If that doesn’t feel good for you just don’t do it yet. But it is important for you to remember that none of this can add anything new.
Little Tim: I’m learning.
Dr Jan: It’s important that we don’t do anything that doesn’t feel safe. If it doesn’t feel safe for you yet then you don’t do anything that doesn’t feel safe. But what I want you to keep thinking about is that these are all memories. Nothing new can happen now. What’s more, all the other parts, all the parts that do have memory, they’re all there, and they’re doing okay. They survived it.
Little Tim: But my job was not to have memory.
Dr Jan: Yes.
Little Tim: My job now is to have memory.
Dr Jan: Well it is.
Little Tim: That way I won’t be so scared.
Dr Jan: Yeas that’s right, you won’t be so scared but we also want you to let the other parts know about the good times.
Little Tim: But the memory I gotta have is what I’m scared of, finding out that I’m allowed to have memory.
Dr Jan: But now you also know it is only a memory, you can take it at your own pace. You can stop it, you can turn it back, you can turn the volume down, and you can live your life because it’s not actually happening again. You don’t have to do it again, the parts that did it the first time have already done it, they’ve already survived it, already got through so all they’re doing is letting you know that’s it’s happened, however all parts got through, it’s okay, it’s over, it’s done ‘we’ survived.
Little Tim: That’s right; I can always stop the film and the other stuff.
Dr Jan: Yes and that helps. That you don’t have to go in and get hurt, you just have to know what happened. You don’t even have to do that if it doesn’t feel safe. I don’t want you to do anything that doesn’t feel safe. But one way to make it safe is that you do get to control it, you can stop it and say that’s enough for now, you can turn the volume down, you can make it go further away and more distant. You can do anything you like because it’s a memory and you can manage to let it happen at whatever pace, whichever way you want to do it. However fast or slow or if it’s enough, it’s enough because this isn’t happening again; it’s just something that the other parts, that did know about it, are letting you know ‘this is what happened, but its okay because we got through.’
Little Tim: Mmm
Dr Jan: They knew how to get through it, you don’t have to get through it, they’ve already done that for you, and you just have to know about it. You won’t be scared because then you’ll know exactly what happened and you’ll also know that you got through it. You all go through it together with the different parts doing their different ways of doing it. So you don’t have to worry about maybe there is something you don’t know about that could happen again, because you’ll know exactly what happened and you’ll know it can’t happen again.
Little Tim: Well that’s like I’m gonna go back to the table (Conference) now and we’ll know a little bit more of the memories of the other parts.
Dr Jan: Mmhhmm
Little Tim: That what we’ve been talking about today.
Dr Jan: Remember just do what feels safe for you.
Little Tim: Yeah little bits, little bits at a time.
Dr Jan: Just test and see and make sure that we’re on the right track okay. Okay, so now can I have one of the grown ups, who can drive, come back to the room?
(Six seconds a yawn later)
Tim: Can I have a mattress to fall asleep on?
Dr Jan: Take your time to come back.
Tim: I’ve got a coffee somewhere.
Dr Jan: Yes down beside you but it’ll be pretty cold, iced coffee you’ll have to drink it as now.
Tim: I like iced coffee.
Dr Jan: You okay?
Tim: Yeah
3. Dr Jan speaks with Troy
(verbatim)
The following is a transcript of a conference room discussion. The persona known as Troy will converse with Dr Jan Ewing when he feels safe to do so. Troy is aged five years, has advanced to thirteen years old, but now has regressed to five years old again. He is solid framed and displays an angry appearance and his tone reflects his state of being—as a very protective persona. Dialogue will appear adolescent during conversation.
Dr Jan: We were talking about the memory of how you were in the bath. The first memory being. (Tim interrupts.)
Tim: I think what scares us about where we are going with your work now is the specifics. The actual event, the visual flashes, a lot of blood in the water, the water is up to our nose. We are just telling ourselves that we should just drown ourselves. That would be bett
er, just drown ourselves. Just worried where James was. Obviously the Old Man had palmed him out.
Dr Jan: We need to honour the fact that Troy’s anger, while in some sense we know that it’s not constructive now, it was very constructive then; it was the part that fought to stay alive.
Tim: It’s was the strength, you know, to bite, to bite a man’s hand.
Dr Jan: It pushed through the water and bit the hand and got safe.