January 8, 2018 • 31 mins
Sasha shares what she knows about Littles.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Over
about Dissociative IdentityDisorder. If you are new to the
podcast, we recommend startingat the beginning episodes and
listen in order to hear ourstory and what we have learned
through this endeavor. Currentepisodes may be more applicable
to longtime listeners and arelikely to contain more advanced
(00:32):
topics, emotional or othertriggering content, and or
reference earlier episodes thatprovide more context to what we
are currently learning andexperiencing. As always, please
care for yourself during andafter listening to the podcast.
Thank you.
(00:58):
Okay, guys. The first thing wehave to do today is draw the
name for who won theregistration for the upcoming
AIM Conference. So excited aboutthis. I have your names. Thanks
for sharing the podcast, andhere we go.
Are you ready? We need a littledrum roll. Right? K. I'm going
(01:27):
to swirl my names around, and wewill see who gets it.
And our winner is Megan SmithChilders. So excited. I wanna
see you there. I hope thathelps, and I'm really excited to
meet you there. So I will sendyou information, and so you can
(01:51):
get signed up, andcongratulations for winning the
free registration to the HealingConference.
See you in Orlando! There's acouple things I want to talk
about today. One is to follow-upon the very boring podcast that
the good doctor did aboutpeople's ages. So I don't have
(02:11):
any idea what she's talkingabout, all this psychosocial
jumbo mumbo whatever. But what Ican tell you is about ages.
So I don't know like I don't getwhat she's trying to say, And a
friend did send us the link tothe video they were talking
about. It was a video from theEntropy System. So I'll put a
link to that video in my blog.And what they were just talking
(02:35):
about is how everyone'sdifferent ages and how for them,
they can use those stages to seewhere that person is at or
something like that. But alsothat it's really important that
the individual experience ofeach alter is like totally
respected from their ownperspective and that those are
(02:58):
decisions they get to make justlike their name or anything else
that for some reason isimportant to them.
So you can watch the video andlearn for yourself about what
they were sharing, but what wecan share for ourselves or what
I can share for myself is aboutwhat I know about ages. So at
(03:21):
least in our system, people arethe age that they are inside,
which is a variety of ages.Like, know we have a baby, we
have a toddler, we have a threeyear old, we have a four year
old, there's a six year old, a10 year old, a 12 year old, an
eight year old, a seven year oldwho's sometimes 12. I don't know
(03:41):
how that works. And, let's seewhat else, like me and the other
grown ups.
Right? So, like, there's lots ofdifferent 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?
(04:02):
So at some level, it's just kindof that simple.
You just know because it's you.So how old are you anyway?
That's a rude question, youguys. No. I'm just kidding.
So part of it is just like youjust know your age because
that's your age. Like you justlike anybody else in the outside
world, it's the same thing. Nowyes, it's true that people in
(04:25):
the outside world have like abirth certificate and a birth
date that tells them. Okay. Sosome people and, again, I'm only
talking about our system.
I cannot, like, make decisionsfor other systems or speak for
other for our system, the agejust is, like, part of the story
(04:48):
almost. So, yes, like she said,there are some who there are
some others inside who havestopped at a certain age because
something happened. Okay. And sothey're, like, stuck in that.
I've heard it called a time loopby the system, called the
(05:11):
Crisses.
They refer to it as a time loopwhen you're stuck in something
that's in the past, like aspecific memory or a time period
or something. So some of themare the age that they were when
that happened because they'restill there. So they have not
grown up with everybody else.Other people are really specific
(05:33):
to a specific incident and somaybe don't interact with the
outside world as much so timehas not passed. So it's like,
yes on the outside world thebody continues to age
unfortunately.
Like, do you know? We aregetting gray hairs, you guys.
Like, the body, there are grayhairs up there. It is shocking
(05:57):
and horrifying. Like, the gooddoctor is like, no, this is
great because we've finallygrown into ourselves, and now
Well, know what?
I haven't grown into myself,okay, because I haven't grown
into this body. That's part ofthe problem and part of why
we're talking about ages. Soyes, it's a problem, and yes,
(06:18):
it's confusing. But if you arenot on the outside all the time,
then time is not passing on theoutside the same as time passes
on the inside, or actuallydoesn't pass on the inside. On
the inside, it's kind oftimeless, like without time as
(06:41):
far as our system goes.
So yes, what she said is true isthat sometimes people inside
stop aging because somethinghappened, or because something
didn't happen, or because thatone was not needed on the
outside the same way anymore asthey used to be on the outside
(07:02):
anymore. So for example, if Ireally wanna trip you guys out,
what I can tell you is that Istarted like when the body was
13. That's when I came becausesomething happened and I
remember what it was because Iwas there. That's like the first
thing I remember. Right?
So I was 13. Well, was gettingready to turn 13. So I remember
(07:25):
turning 13 because I was there.But do you know who used to deal
with stuff like what I dealtwith? John.
John was the one who did that,but he did not have to deal with
it because I had to take itover. So John is still 12 and
never turned 13 because that wasmy job now and so he wasn't
there when it happened. So ofcourse people are different ages
(07:49):
if they're not on the outsidewhen it doesn't happen they
never experienced it. That'slike saying, why haven't you
ever had cheese in France? Well,if you weren't in France, you
can't eat cheese there.
I'm not saying that that's allFrench people do. I'm just
saying it's what I enjoyed whenwe lived in France. Okay? They
(08:10):
have really good cheese. I'm notstereotyping.
I'm just saying I could live onbread 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.
Also, we lived a lot of otherplaces too, but I'm getting off
(08:31):
topic. So the point is, like,you're not there outside in the
body to experience it, then itdoesn't happen to you because it
happened to someone else. So ofcourse people are different
ages. So my homegirl, Julie,who's a listener to the podcast
but also my friend, she had thefollow-up question about how do
(08:54):
we manage time with the littles?So like the kids inside, how do
we deal with time with them?
So there's two pieces to this.One is how do they get time
outside? And two, how do theyunderstand time? So kind of
going backwards there, theyunderstand time just like any
(09:14):
other kid does. They don't.
They don't get it. Time passesoutside of their understanding.
Some of them can tell time. Ithink John can tell time. But
time is slippery for all of us,not just the littles.
It's not just about them andtime being hard to manage. Time
is hard for all of us. When youare not out front on a
(09:37):
consistent linear timeexperience, then time really
doesn't make sense the same wayit does for other people anyway.
That's not any different thanthe littles. But also any child
even like someone who's on theoutside younger children don't
have the same sense of timeanyway because it's more like
(09:57):
this is what's happening rightnow and I'm in this experience
right now.
Right? So that causes twoproblems. One, some of them are
stuck in the time loop wherethey think like our parents are
still gonna find them or getthem or something. They're not.
They're dead.
But they can't remember thatyet. Even when the therapist
tells us like a thousand times.I don't know when, at what
(10:18):
point, or how, or whatever thatthat starts to click but it
hasn't yet okay? So this timeloop is one thing the other
thing is I totally forgot. Ican't think this hard, you guys.
Okay. So another piece is thatnope. Still forgot. So the other
(10:48):
piece is that the littles knowthat they are not the rest of
us. Like, they're aware of DIDin their own way.
They get that it's a separatething from themselves, and they
can talk about it differentways. Maybe John can talk to you
about the body or what that'slike to be younger in an older
(11:12):
body or a boy in a girl body orhowever those things work, but
they have some understandingmaybe not the language or the
lingo or all the professionalwords or anything about
psychosocial something. Like,they may not get all those
things or how it's categorizedor labeled or something, but
(11:33):
they have their experience of itand they understand that. So
they know that they are not thesame as someone else or that
they are not me. Like, duh.
They get it. Like, you knowyou're not your neighbor, Right?
Like, on the outside. So it'spretty obvious and easy to
understand that it's not thesame person. The challenge is
(11:57):
understanding how they get tomove and play in a bigger body
than what they feel like theyare in because the body used to
be small, but now the body isgrown into an adult body.
Right? So there is a passage oftime there, but I don't think
(12:17):
they talk about it or thinkabout it as a passage of time. I
think it's more like this slowawareness because it's been
happening over time that thebody has continued to grow and
they haven't. But children justunderstand that kind of thing.
We have a son on the outside whohas cerebral palsy and so like
(12:39):
one of his hands does not growthe way the other hand does.
And so it's smaller and itdoesn't do the same things and
it doesn't match the same as theright hand. Like he gets that in
his own way even if he doesn'tunderstand everything about
cerebral palsy. But he can tellyou the name of it and he can
tell you that it's because hedidn't have oxygen when he was
(13:01):
born and he can tell you thatone side of his brain controls
the other side of his body andthat that side of his brain had
problems from not having oxygen.And since there's damage there,
the opposite side of his bodyalso has damage and struggles in
some way. So he can verbalizeall of that and he's seven.
(13:23):
Okay. So don't talk to me aboutwhat littles do or do not
understand. Like, they're prettypowerful. Children are amazing.
Whether we are talking aboutinside kids or outside kids,
kids are rock stars.
They get it. So I'm sure kids inevery system would explain
things differently, but theyknow what's up and have an
(13:46):
understanding. Now there aresometimes where because of their
perception that doesn't trackall the way through. So like for
example, when John tries to getdown a plate to get his chips
and salsa, like he still standson the stool. We don't need to
stand on the stool.
We can reach it. Like the bodycan reach the plate that has the
(14:10):
little bowl on it for chips andsalsa. We don't need to stand on
a stool to get it. Okay? So butthat's a perception thing.
That's not a body thing. Or inthe same way, there's other
things that our body is too bigfor that we can't do the same as
we did before. But they learnthat and adjust to that. So they
know that they can play on ourbike that fits the body and they
(14:34):
don't have to use the bike thatbelongs to our outside daughter
who's three. So like there'slots of different layers.
Part of it is just how old theyare And like what the video was
talking about, theirdevelopmental stages or
whatever. The video talks aboutit, you can watch the video, and
the good doctor talked about itin the last podcast, you can
listen to that. But part of it'sjust developmental phase, like
(14:56):
where they're at and whatthey're learning. Another part
of it is the experience on thetimeline itself in the outside
world. If they're not outsideall the time, they're not gonna
progress the same way.
And then three, part of it islike perception and just what
it's like to interact in theworld. But as far as preferences
and what they like to do, that'stotally just kids stuff. So we
(15:20):
walk to the park every day,which is good for the body, but
also fun for the littles. But atthe same time, we don't send the
four year old altar out thefront door to walk to the park.
If she wants to go to the parkthen we have to have an
appropriate time like not whenwe're doing something else
that's really important likewatching our outside kids or
(15:43):
when the good doctor's doing hernerdy boring job that takes
forever but I'm okay withbecause that way I get to sleep
in even though she's working.
So deal sold. But when they dogo, then it has to be a good
time, and John is the one whofronts. So he walks to there
(16:03):
because 12 year olds can walk tothe park by themselves. That's a
safe thing and an appropriatething. But once he's there,
doesn't have to stay out front.
He can let them play and stillkeep 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 joband we do have to be careful
about it, but I mean like he'sold enough to babysit or
(16:26):
whatever.
He's old enough to know what'sgoing 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'sgoing on if they need help or if
they're in danger or somethingright so like that's just legit
they're just being kids but theycan be kids safely. Now as far
(16:50):
as how they manage time, likegetting turns to go out or to
play, that just depends. There'ssometimes that it's safe for
John and even appropriate forJohn to play with the outside
kids. Like if they're havingsome kind of tickle fight or if
they're playing chase or ifthey're playing a game or
(17:12):
watching a specific movie orsomething, those are appropriate
times for the littles to play insome degree with the outside
kids. There are other times asfar as just being on their own
or some of them that are moretrauma specific or like have
more safety issues, they're notgonna be the ones playing with
(17:34):
the outside kids or hanging outwith other people in general.
They are very much inside. Theydon't come outside a lot and
when they do it's only like nowwhen we're home alone the doors
are locked, the inside doors arelocked and like we know no one
is here or can get to us. Likewhen we feel that degree of
(17:56):
safety then maybe they can comeout and do something or, like
play with something or paintsomething or do art or crafts or
whatever it is they do. I don'teven know. But I can tell you
that that doesn't even happenvery much.
Like there's most of the littlesare just now even meeting our
(18:19):
therapist or just now writing inthe notebook. Like remember when
we did that unboxing episode ofunboxing ourselves? Like reading
through that notebook just nowmeeting some of them and
learning more about them was areally big deal. So mostly
they're just not out very much.Another thing I see people talk
(18:42):
about in the groups a lot that Ikind of want to respond to is
that you have to be reallycareful about who's meeting
their needs.
Because like we as a system, ifwe're going to be functional and
healthy, have to take care ofour own system. So that means
it's not really the therapist'sjob to take care of us all the
(19:02):
time. Not that she's nothelpful, not that we don't adore
her, and not that she's notavailable for in, like, legit
crisis. But we don't have to beso dependent on her that we're
not functional by ourselves. Thesame thing goes for the husband.
It's not the husband's job to,like, help us function or make
(19:23):
sure that we're okay or playwith the littles or parent the
littles. Like, he is not ourparent. He's the husband. But he
can be friends with the othersor check on the others, and he
is very attentive, very kind,very, like, gracious or helpful
or whatever. Like, he's reallysweet.
He's super fun. Has lots ofadventures for all with all of
(19:45):
us. I'm not saying that that's abad thing or that he can't do
those things. I'm saying that asfar as who's responsible for
meeting their needs and makingsure 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 andthat's not fair to put all of
(20:08):
that on him.
It also can get so quickly intocodependency stuff and maybe
people who are doing that havedifferent issues and that's
totally fine with them. Soplease don't judge other people
for what their systems do. I'mjust saying that for our system
to be healthy we need some levelof independence there and we are
(20:30):
trying to learn how to meet likeour own nurturing needs. That's
not the same as asking for help.We can ask for help from the
therapist or the husband and wecan be friends with them.
Well I mean you know what Imean. Like connect with them and
even acknowledging thosenurturing needs that are met
through the process of justbeing together and all the time
(20:51):
we spend with them that's legitand that's cool but we can't
like be so dependent on themthat like when he's gone, like
this week he has a productionand so he writes musicals or
whatever, so he's got this bigthing this week and he's very
very absent. That doesn't meanwe get to stop functioning, It
doesn't mean we fall apartbecause he's not here to take
(21:14):
care of us. We're okay. We misshim.
We miss the adventures. We missthe playtime. It'll be a great
reunion. All of that's great andall of that is good, but we are
not in crisis because he's gone.We are not falling apart because
he's gone.
That's just kind of an importantpiece. The other thing about
(21:35):
having littles is that part oftaking care of them is having
what they need, right? So justlike I want to have date nights
once in a while, we have to bepretty consistent about getting
to the park. For us that'ssomething that helps. Other
systems will have differentneeds.
The other thing that helps us isyou know how we write in all
(21:56):
these notebooks for therapy,right? So in our bag that has
all these colored pens soeveryone can pick what they want
to write with, we also in thatbag have markers and crayons and
watercolors because some of themprefer that or age wise need
that or just like it. And sosometimes it's helpful to have
(22:16):
those kinds of thingsaccessible. Oh, one thing I
didn't know until we did thiswhole, communication
introduction bullet journalingthing separate from our
notebooks for therapy. One thingI learned in the unboxing
episode, one thing I learnedfrom that is that one of the
(22:37):
littles that has prettyimportant role, I mean they all
have important roles, but thatI'm learning about already and
needing to pay attention toright now, She really likes
stickers.
I had no idea. That makes senseas a kid she would like
stickers, but I never thoughtabout it. So we need to get the
girl some stickers. Right? Sothat kind of makes sense.
(22:58):
Another example is that Johnkind of has this role of not
exactly protecting or helpinglike I don't know the right
words for it, but he checks oneverybody. He likes the
logistics of things and whensomeone does something that's
good that is in the rightdirection towards healing or
(23:20):
sort of consistent with what thetherapist told us to do he likes
to give us a badge. Okay he gotthe badges from the therapist
and they're stickers and they'reawesome and hilarious even the
husband has gotten badges andbless his heart he's worn them
like all day it's so funny whenit happens but like for example
(23:43):
I was not leaving I was notdoing my dishes right and then
she called me out on it thetherapist and the alter who
cleans it up the mother wifewhatever Why does she not talk
on the podcast? I don't evenknow. She needs to just okay.
Okay. I'm not supposed to talklike that, so I'm gonna stop.
But, anyway, so I got called outfor the whole dishes thing, for
(24:05):
leaving my snack dishes aroundand for not cleaning up after
myself. If, like, for example, Ihad, I don't know, a marshmallow
fight with the outside kids, orif we did something, like, I
wasn't cleaning up after myselfbecause it wasn't my job, and I
don't want to, and why should I?But anyway, I got called out for
(24:29):
it.
So now every time I do mydishes, he puts this badge
sticker in the notebook for me,and it's hilarious. So he tells
you why you're getting a badgeand that you did a good job or
you did whatever, and that thisis why you're getting a badge,
and it's hilarious. But it worksfor him, and it's actually been
(24:50):
really helpful because there arethings I've learned through that
that are important or useful orhelpful to us as a system that I
never would have guessed evenmattered. I should get a badge
for not dissing the one who'sthe wife and mother. Do you hear
that, John?
I need a badge. So I'll try tofind one of the badges and take
(25:12):
a picture of it and put it onthe blog so that you can see it
if you want to. But that's whatwe're talking about with the
badges. So there's lots of waysthat littles can be helpful or
teach you a lot about the systemas a whole and especially like
for me, I feel like maybe evenmore so for Emma, but there's a
(25:35):
huge disconnect between likewhere we are now and everything
that happened when we werelittle like there's so much
distance and so much likedisconnect or not knowing or
whatever the word is of havingno clue that paying attention to
the littles actually teaches youa lot sometimes it's super
(25:55):
annoying because they can be sobrat like they're children right
so between outside kids andinside kids it gets pretty
chaotic and overwhelming andloud and I hate it sometimes but
I've learned if you payattention to them and learn from
them and listen to them youactually know a lot about what's
going on and one thing we'restarting to learn like not
(26:18):
enough I can even talk about itbut I'm getting glimpses of it
that's coming that we'relearning is from the journaling
with the therapist one thingthat we're figuring out is that
things that bother us or aretriggers or problems that we
didn't even realize connected init to anything the littles have
the answers about why it doesmatter.
(26:38):
So they're actually superimportant and their age kind of
doesn't matter because whateverthey know about, they know a
lot. And one thing that thevideo from the Entropy System
talked about is how they havemore experience than just their
age. And that's kind of true ofanything. So if you take any kid
(27:01):
even an outside kid or childgood doctor says I'm not
supposed to call them kids I'msupposed to call them children
because they're not goats Iguess whatever anyway if you
take one of the outside kids ifyou look at what they've been
through they know more aboutthat because they've endured
that. So like our child so likeour daughter who's on oxygen and
(27:25):
has a g tube she could almost doher g tube by herself.
She has just now learned how toput her oxygen cannula on by
herself and she's three. So sheknows way more than most other
three year olds about that onepiece but it doesn't mean she's
not three or that something'swrong with her other than she's
(27:48):
been through this experience. Sodoes it mean she can be
responsive over the whole thingor actually understand
everything in-depth? No, shedoesn't know how to do the
settings on the oxygen or whysometimes we have it at this
high or this high or this low orwhen to take it off or when to
put it on even. She just knowsthat when it time to put it on
(28:09):
she is able to do that byherself and slide the thing up
to adjust so it's comfortablefor her.
And to us that's reallyimportant like it's palliative
care right and quality of lifeand all these things about how
to make her comfortable. Andthat's one thing in a world
where she has no choice aboutanything and where there's so
(28:29):
much like medical trauma wecan't stop from happening to her
because that's her experiencethat she's already in and has
already endured. Which is awful,but what we can do are give her
choices. Do you want your bloodpressure on this arm or that
arm? Do you want us to put onyour oxygen or do you want to
(28:51):
put on your oxygen?
Do you want and then like evenher g tube, she has to have the
g tube. But when we do herfeedings, what we can do is, do
you want this little g tube pador do you want this little g
tube pad? And like give herdecorated ones so that she has
some say and some expression andsome way to just be herself. So
(29:11):
that part, while I don'tunderstand what the intrepiece
system was saying about treatingyour littles like adults, I
think I just didn't understandwhat she's talking about but the
part about them being more awareor experienced about adult
things in some ways even thoughtheir ages younger that part I
(29:33):
do understand and with mydaughter and her medical trauma
like that's a neutral example ofit but the same thing is true of
like people who kids likeoutside kids who have been
through sexual abuse or physicalabuse or have been through
foster care or, like, whateverare experiences similar to what
(29:53):
some of us have been through.Right?
Like, when you go throughsomething specific, you know
more about it. What I'm learningabout 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'tstop snowing. We moved here this
summer, and now it snows andsnows and snows.
(30:15):
We had 11 inches of snow lastweek, and now it's starting to
snow again and supposed to stormagain. And like this snow does
not go away, and it's cold andwet. Kind of beautiful except
then your tree falls down. I amlearning more because I'm going
through this experience. We evenhad to replace our furnace.
(30:38):
Like let's talk about the layersof triggering there when we were
cold and all of this going on.I'm just using these neutral
outside examples to explain howsomeone who's very little could
have some awareness of thingsthat are older than them even
though they're young. That said,their preferences and their
(31:00):
things that they enjoy doing orthings that make them feel safe,
those things are gonna be likewhat the good doctor said, age
appropriate or whatever. Sothat's all I have to say about
littles, but I hope that helpssome. And if you have more
questions, you can contact usthrough our website.
Thanks for listening! Thank youfor listening. Your support
(31:29):
really helps us feel less alonewhile we sort through all of
this and learn together. Maybeit will help you in some ways
too. You can connect with us onPatreon by going to our website
at www.systemspeak.org.
If there's anything we'velearned, it's that connection
brings healing. We look forwardto connecting with you.
Over
about Dissociative IdentityDisorder. If you are new to the
podcast, we recommend startingat the beginning episodes and
listen in order to hear ourstory and what we have learned
through this endeavor. Currentepisodes may be more applicable
to longtime listeners and arelikely to contain more advanced
(00:32):
topics, emotional or othertriggering content, and or
reference earlier episodes thatprovide more context to what we
are currently learning andexperiencing. As always, please
care for yourself during andafter listening to the podcast.
Thank you.
(00:58):
Okay, guys. The first thing wehave to do today is draw the
name for who won theregistration for the upcoming
AIM Conference. So excited aboutthis. I have your names. Thanks
for sharing the podcast, andhere we go.
Are you ready? We need a littledrum roll. Right? K. I'm going
(01:27):
to swirl my names around, and wewill see who gets it.
And our winner is Megan SmithChilders. So excited. I wanna
see you there. I hope thathelps, and I'm really excited to
meet you there. So I will sendyou information, and so you can
(01:51):
get signed up, andcongratulations for winning the
free registration to the HealingConference.
See you in Orlando! There's acouple things I want to talk
about today. One is to follow-upon the very boring podcast that
the good doctor did aboutpeople's ages. So I don't have
(02:11):
any idea what she's talkingabout, all this psychosocial
jumbo mumbo whatever. But what Ican tell you is about ages.
So I don't know like I don't getwhat she's trying to say, And a
friend did send us the link tothe video they were talking
about. It was a video from theEntropy System. So I'll put a
link to that video in my blog.And what they were just talking
(02:35):
about is how everyone'sdifferent ages and how for them,
they can use those stages to seewhere that person is at or
something like that. But alsothat it's really important that
the individual experience ofeach alter is like totally
respected from their ownperspective and that those are
(02:58):
decisions they get to make justlike their name or anything else
that for some reason isimportant to them.
So you can watch the video andlearn for yourself about what
they were sharing, but what wecan share for ourselves or what
I can share for myself is aboutwhat I know about ages. So at
(03:21):
least in our system, people arethe age that they are inside,
which is a variety of ages.Like, know we have a baby, we
have a toddler, we have a threeyear old, we have a four year
old, there's a six year old, a10 year old, a 12 year old, an
eight year old, a seven year oldwho's sometimes 12. I don't know
(03:41):
how that works. And, let's seewhat else, like me and the other
grown ups.
Right? So, like, there's lots ofdifferent 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?
(04:02):
So at some level, it's just kindof that simple.
You just know because it's you.So how old are you anyway?
That's a rude question, youguys. No. I'm just kidding.
So part of it is just like youjust know your age because
that's your age. Like you justlike anybody else in the outside
world, it's the same thing. Nowyes, it's true that people in
(04:25):
the outside world have like abirth certificate and a birth
date that tells them. Okay. Sosome people and, again, I'm only
talking about our system.
I cannot, like, make decisionsfor other systems or speak for
other for our system, the agejust is, like, part of the story
(04:48):
almost. So, yes, like she said,there are some who there are
some others inside who havestopped at a certain age because
something happened. Okay. And sothey're, like, stuck in that.
I've heard it called a time loopby the system, called the
(05:11):
Crisses.
They refer to it as a time loopwhen you're stuck in something
that's in the past, like aspecific memory or a time period
or something. So some of themare the age that they were when
that happened because they'restill there. So they have not
grown up with everybody else.Other people are really specific
(05:33):
to a specific incident and somaybe don't interact with the
outside world as much so timehas not passed. So it's like,
yes on the outside world thebody continues to age
unfortunately.
Like, do you know? We aregetting gray hairs, you guys.
Like, the body, there are grayhairs up there. It is shocking
(05:57):
and horrifying. Like, the gooddoctor is like, no, this is
great because we've finallygrown into ourselves, and now
Well, know what?
I haven't grown into myself,okay, because I haven't grown
into this body. That's part ofthe problem and part of why
we're talking about ages. Soyes, it's a problem, and yes,
(06:18):
it's confusing. But if you arenot on the outside all the time,
then time is not passing on theoutside the same as time passes
on the inside, or actuallydoesn't pass on the inside. On
the inside, it's kind oftimeless, like without time as
(06:41):
far as our system goes.
So yes, what she said is true isthat sometimes people inside
stop aging because somethinghappened, or because something
didn't happen, or because thatone was not needed on the
outside the same way anymore asthey used to be on the outside
(07:02):
anymore. So for example, if Ireally wanna trip you guys out,
what I can tell you is that Istarted like when the body was
13. That's when I came becausesomething happened and I
remember what it was because Iwas there. That's like the first
thing I remember. Right?
So I was 13. Well, was gettingready to turn 13. So I remember
(07:25):
turning 13 because I was there.But do you know who used to deal
with stuff like what I dealtwith? John.
John was the one who did that,but he did not have to deal with
it because I had to take itover. So John is still 12 and
never turned 13 because that wasmy job now and so he wasn't
there when it happened. So ofcourse people are different ages
(07:49):
if they're not on the outsidewhen it doesn't happen they
never experienced it. That'slike saying, why haven't you
ever had cheese in France? Well,if you weren't in France, you
can't eat cheese there.
I'm not saying that that's allFrench people do. I'm just
saying it's what I enjoyed whenwe lived in France. Okay? They
(08:10):
have really good cheese. I'm notstereotyping.
I'm just saying I could live onbread 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.
Also, we lived a lot of otherplaces too, but I'm getting off
(08:31):
topic. So the point is, like,you're not there outside in the
body to experience it, then itdoesn't happen to you because it
happened to someone else. So ofcourse people are different
ages. So my homegirl, Julie,who's a listener to the podcast
but also my friend, she had thefollow-up question about how do
(08:54):
we manage time with the littles?So like the kids inside, how do
we deal with time with them?
So there's two pieces to this.One is how do they get time
outside? And two, how do theyunderstand time? So kind of
going backwards there, theyunderstand time just like any
(09:14):
other kid does. They don't.
They don't get it. Time passesoutside of their understanding.
Some of them can tell time. Ithink John can tell time. But
time is slippery for all of us,not just the littles.
It's not just about them andtime being hard to manage. Time
is hard for all of us. When youare not out front on a
(09:37):
consistent linear timeexperience, then time really
doesn't make sense the same wayit does for other people anyway.
That's not any different thanthe littles. But also any child
even like someone who's on theoutside younger children don't
have the same sense of timeanyway because it's more like
(09:57):
this is what's happening rightnow and I'm in this experience
right now.
Right? So that causes twoproblems. One, some of them are
stuck in the time loop wherethey think like our parents are
still gonna find them or getthem or something. They're not.
They're dead.
But they can't remember thatyet. Even when the therapist
tells us like a thousand times.I don't know when, at what
(10:18):
point, or how, or whatever thatthat starts to click but it
hasn't yet okay? So this timeloop is one thing the other
thing is I totally forgot. Ican't think this hard, you guys.
Okay. So another piece is thatnope. Still forgot. So the other
(10:48):
piece is that the littles knowthat they are not the rest of
us. Like, they're aware of DIDin their own way.
They get that it's a separatething from themselves, and they
can talk about it differentways. Maybe John can talk to you
about the body or what that'slike to be younger in an older
(11:12):
body or a boy in a girl body orhowever those things work, but
they have some understandingmaybe not the language or the
lingo or all the professionalwords or anything about
psychosocial something. Like,they may not get all those
things or how it's categorizedor labeled or something, but
(11:33):
they have their experience of itand they understand that. So
they know that they are not thesame as someone else or that
they are not me. Like, duh.
They get it. Like, you knowyou're not your neighbor, Right?
Like, on the outside. So it'spretty obvious and easy to
understand that it's not thesame person. The challenge is
(11:57):
understanding how they get tomove and play in a bigger body
than what they feel like theyare in because the body used to
be small, but now the body isgrown into an adult body.
Right? So there is a passage oftime there, but I don't think
(12:17):
they talk about it or thinkabout it as a passage of time. I
think it's more like this slowawareness because it's been
happening over time that thebody has continued to grow and
they haven't. But children justunderstand that kind of thing.
We have a son on the outside whohas cerebral palsy and so like
(12:39):
one of his hands does not growthe way the other hand does.
And so it's smaller and itdoesn't do the same things and
it doesn't match the same as theright hand. Like he gets that in
his own way even if he doesn'tunderstand everything about
cerebral palsy. But he can tellyou the name of it and he can
tell you that it's because hedidn't have oxygen when he was
(13:01):
born and he can tell you thatone side of his brain controls
the other side of his body andthat that side of his brain had
problems from not having oxygen.And since there's damage there,
the opposite side of his bodyalso has damage and struggles in
some way. So he can verbalizeall of that and he's seven.
(13:23):
Okay. So don't talk to me aboutwhat littles do or do not
understand. Like, they're prettypowerful. Children are amazing.
Whether we are talking aboutinside kids or outside kids,
kids are rock stars.
They get it. So I'm sure kids inevery system would explain
things differently, but theyknow what's up and have an
(13:46):
understanding. Now there aresometimes where because of their
perception that doesn't trackall the way through. So like for
example, when John tries to getdown a plate to get his chips
and salsa, like he still standson the stool. We don't need to
stand on the stool.
We can reach it. Like the bodycan reach the plate that has the
(14:10):
little bowl on it for chips andsalsa. We don't need to stand on
a stool to get it. Okay? So butthat's a perception thing.
That's not a body thing. Or inthe same way, there's other
things that our body is too bigfor that we can't do the same as
we did before. But they learnthat and adjust to that. So they
know that they can play on ourbike that fits the body and they
(14:34):
don't have to use the bike thatbelongs to our outside daughter
who's three. So like there'slots of different layers.
Part of it is just how old theyare And like what the video was
talking about, theirdevelopmental stages or
whatever. The video talks aboutit, you can watch the video, and
the good doctor talked about itin the last podcast, you can
listen to that. But part of it'sjust developmental phase, like
(14:56):
where they're at and whatthey're learning. Another part
of it is the experience on thetimeline itself in the outside
world. If they're not outsideall the time, they're not gonna
progress the same way.
And then three, part of it islike perception and just what
it's like to interact in theworld. But as far as preferences
and what they like to do, that'stotally just kids stuff. So we
(15:20):
walk to the park every day,which is good for the body, but
also fun for the littles. But atthe same time, we don't send the
four year old altar out thefront door to walk to the park.
If she wants to go to the parkthen we have to have an
appropriate time like not whenwe're doing something else
that's really important likewatching our outside kids or
(15:43):
when the good doctor's doing hernerdy boring job that takes
forever but I'm okay withbecause that way I get to sleep
in even though she's working.
So deal sold. But when they dogo, then it has to be a good
time, and John is the one whofronts. So he walks to there
(16:03):
because 12 year olds can walk tothe park by themselves. That's a
safe thing and an appropriatething. But once he's there,
doesn't have to stay out front.
He can let them play and stillkeep 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 joband we do have to be careful
about it, but I mean like he'sold enough to babysit or
(16:26):
whatever.
He's old enough to know what'sgoing 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'sgoing on if they need help or if
they're in danger or somethingright so like that's just legit
they're just being kids but theycan be kids safely. Now as far
(16:50):
as how they manage time, likegetting turns to go out or to
play, that just depends. There'ssometimes that it's safe for
John and even appropriate forJohn to play with the outside
kids. Like if they're havingsome kind of tickle fight or if
they're playing chase or ifthey're playing a game or
(17:12):
watching a specific movie orsomething, those are appropriate
times for the littles to play insome degree with the outside
kids. There are other times asfar as just being on their own
or some of them that are moretrauma specific or like have
more safety issues, they're notgonna be the ones playing with
(17:34):
the outside kids or hanging outwith other people in general.
They are very much inside. Theydon't come outside a lot and
when they do it's only like nowwhen we're home alone the doors
are locked, the inside doors arelocked and like we know no one
is here or can get to us. Likewhen we feel that degree of
(17:56):
safety then maybe they can comeout and do something or, like
play with something or paintsomething or do art or crafts or
whatever it is they do. I don'teven know. But I can tell you
that that doesn't even happenvery much.
Like there's most of the littlesare just now even meeting our
(18:19):
therapist or just now writing inthe notebook. Like remember when
we did that unboxing episode ofunboxing ourselves? Like reading
through that notebook just nowmeeting some of them and
learning more about them was areally big deal. So mostly
they're just not out very much.Another thing I see people talk
(18:42):
about in the groups a lot that Ikind of want to respond to is
that you have to be reallycareful about who's meeting
their needs.
Because like we as a system, ifwe're going to be functional and
healthy, have to take care ofour own system. So that means
it's not really the therapist'sjob to take care of us all the
(19:02):
time. Not that she's nothelpful, not that we don't adore
her, and not that she's notavailable for in, like, legit
crisis. But we don't have to beso dependent on her that we're
not functional by ourselves. Thesame thing goes for the husband.
It's not the husband's job to,like, help us function or make
(19:23):
sure that we're okay or playwith the littles or parent the
littles. Like, he is not ourparent. He's the husband. But he
can be friends with the othersor check on the others, and he
is very attentive, very kind,very, like, gracious or helpful
or whatever. Like, he's reallysweet.
He's super fun. Has lots ofadventures for all with all of
(19:45):
us. I'm not saying that that's abad thing or that he can't do
those things. I'm saying that asfar as who's responsible for
meeting their needs and makingsure 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 andthat's not fair to put all of
(20:08):
that on him.
It also can get so quickly intocodependency stuff and maybe
people who are doing that havedifferent issues and that's
totally fine with them. Soplease don't judge other people
for what their systems do. I'mjust saying that for our system
to be healthy we need some levelof independence there and we are
(20:30):
trying to learn how to meet likeour own nurturing needs. That's
not the same as asking for help.We can ask for help from the
therapist or the husband and wecan be friends with them.
Well I mean you know what Imean. Like connect with them and
even acknowledging thosenurturing needs that are met
through the process of justbeing together and all the time
(20:51):
we spend with them that's legitand that's cool but we can't
like be so dependent on themthat like when he's gone, like
this week he has a productionand so he writes musicals or
whatever, so he's got this bigthing this week and he's very
very absent. That doesn't meanwe get to stop functioning, It
doesn't mean we fall apartbecause he's not here to take
(21:14):
care of us. We're okay. We misshim.
We miss the adventures. We missthe playtime. It'll be a great
reunion. All of that's great andall of that is good, but we are
not in crisis because he's gone.We are not falling apart because
he's gone.
That's just kind of an importantpiece. The other thing about
(21:35):
having littles is that part oftaking care of them is having
what they need, right? So justlike I want to have date nights
once in a while, we have to bepretty consistent about getting
to the park. For us that'ssomething that helps. Other
systems will have differentneeds.
The other thing that helps us isyou know how we write in all
(21:56):
these notebooks for therapy,right? So in our bag that has
all these colored pens soeveryone can pick what they want
to write with, we also in thatbag have markers and crayons and
watercolors because some of themprefer that or age wise need
that or just like it. And sosometimes it's helpful to have
(22:16):
those kinds of thingsaccessible. Oh, one thing I
didn't know until we did thiswhole, communication
introduction bullet journalingthing separate from our
notebooks for therapy. One thingI learned in the unboxing
episode, one thing I learnedfrom that is that one of the
(22:37):
littles that has prettyimportant role, I mean they all
have important roles, but thatI'm learning about already and
needing to pay attention toright now, She really likes
stickers.
I had no idea. That makes senseas a kid she would like
stickers, but I never thoughtabout it. So we need to get the
girl some stickers. Right? Sothat kind of makes sense.
(22:58):
Another example is that Johnkind of has this role of not
exactly protecting or helpinglike I don't know the right
words for it, but he checks oneverybody. He likes the
logistics of things and whensomeone does something that's
good that is in the rightdirection towards healing or
(23:20):
sort of consistent with what thetherapist told us to do he likes
to give us a badge. Okay he gotthe badges from the therapist
and they're stickers and they'reawesome and hilarious even the
husband has gotten badges andbless his heart he's worn them
like all day it's so funny whenit happens but like for example
(23:43):
I was not leaving I was notdoing my dishes right and then
she called me out on it thetherapist and the alter who
cleans it up the mother wifewhatever Why does she not talk
on the podcast? I don't evenknow. She needs to just okay.
Okay. I'm not supposed to talklike that, so I'm gonna stop.
But, anyway, so I got called outfor the whole dishes thing, for
(24:05):
leaving my snack dishes aroundand for not cleaning up after
myself. If, like, for example, Ihad, I don't know, a marshmallow
fight with the outside kids, orif we did something, like, I
wasn't cleaning up after myselfbecause it wasn't my job, and I
don't want to, and why should I?But anyway, I got called out for
(24:29):
it.
So now every time I do mydishes, he puts this badge
sticker in the notebook for me,and it's hilarious. So he tells
you why you're getting a badgeand that you did a good job or
you did whatever, and that thisis why you're getting a badge,
and it's hilarious. But it worksfor him, and it's actually been
(24:50):
really helpful because there arethings I've learned through that
that are important or useful orhelpful to us as a system that I
never would have guessed evenmattered. I should get a badge
for not dissing the one who'sthe wife and mother. Do you hear
that, John?
I need a badge. So I'll try tofind one of the badges and take
(25:12):
a picture of it and put it onthe blog so that you can see it
if you want to. But that's whatwe're talking about with the
badges. So there's lots of waysthat littles can be helpful or
teach you a lot about the systemas a whole and especially like
for me, I feel like maybe evenmore so for Emma, but there's a
(25:35):
huge disconnect between likewhere we are now and everything
that happened when we werelittle like there's so much
distance and so much likedisconnect or not knowing or
whatever the word is of havingno clue that paying attention to
the littles actually teaches youa lot sometimes it's super
(25:55):
annoying because they can be sobrat like they're children right
so between outside kids andinside kids it gets pretty
chaotic and overwhelming andloud and I hate it sometimes but
I've learned if you payattention to them and learn from
them and listen to them youactually know a lot about what's
going on and one thing we'restarting to learn like not
(26:18):
enough I can even talk about itbut I'm getting glimpses of it
that's coming that we'relearning is from the journaling
with the therapist one thingthat we're figuring out is that
things that bother us or aretriggers or problems that we
didn't even realize connected init to anything the littles have
the answers about why it doesmatter.
(26:38):
So they're actually superimportant and their age kind of
doesn't matter because whateverthey know about, they know a
lot. And one thing that thevideo from the Entropy System
talked about is how they havemore experience than just their
age. And that's kind of true ofanything. So if you take any kid
(27:01):
even an outside kid or childgood doctor says I'm not
supposed to call them kids I'msupposed to call them children
because they're not goats Iguess whatever anyway if you
take one of the outside kids ifyou look at what they've been
through they know more aboutthat because they've endured
that. So like our child so likeour daughter who's on oxygen and
(27:25):
has a g tube she could almost doher g tube by herself.
She has just now learned how toput her oxygen cannula on by
herself and she's three. So sheknows way more than most other
three year olds about that onepiece but it doesn't mean she's
not three or that something'swrong with her other than she's
(27:48):
been through this experience. Sodoes it mean she can be
responsive over the whole thingor actually understand
everything in-depth? No, shedoesn't know how to do the
settings on the oxygen or whysometimes we have it at this
high or this high or this low orwhen to take it off or when to
put it on even. She just knowsthat when it time to put it on
(28:09):
she is able to do that byherself and slide the thing up
to adjust so it's comfortablefor her.
And to us that's reallyimportant like it's palliative
care right and quality of lifeand all these things about how
to make her comfortable. Andthat's one thing in a world
where she has no choice aboutanything and where there's so
(28:29):
much like medical trauma wecan't stop from happening to her
because that's her experiencethat she's already in and has
already endured. Which is awful,but what we can do are give her
choices. Do you want your bloodpressure on this arm or that
arm? Do you want us to put onyour oxygen or do you want to
(28:51):
put on your oxygen?
Do you want and then like evenher g tube, she has to have the
g tube. But when we do herfeedings, what we can do is, do
you want this little g tube pador do you want this little g
tube pad? And like give herdecorated ones so that she has
some say and some expression andsome way to just be herself. So
(29:11):
that part, while I don'tunderstand what the intrepiece
system was saying about treatingyour littles like adults, I
think I just didn't understandwhat she's talking about but the
part about them being more awareor experienced about adult
things in some ways even thoughtheir ages younger that part I
(29:33):
do understand and with mydaughter and her medical trauma
like that's a neutral example ofit but the same thing is true of
like people who kids likeoutside kids who have been
through sexual abuse or physicalabuse or have been through
foster care or, like, whateverare experiences similar to what
(29:53):
some of us have been through.Right?
Like, when you go throughsomething specific, you know
more about it. What I'm learningabout 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'tstop snowing. We moved here this
summer, and now it snows andsnows and snows.
(30:15):
We had 11 inches of snow lastweek, and now it's starting to
snow again and supposed to stormagain. And like this snow does
not go away, and it's cold andwet. Kind of beautiful except
then your tree falls down. I amlearning more because I'm going
through this experience. We evenhad to replace our furnace.
(30:38):
Like let's talk about the layersof triggering there when we were
cold and all of this going on.I'm just using these neutral
outside examples to explain howsomeone who's very little could
have some awareness of thingsthat are older than them even
though they're young. That said,their preferences and their
(31:00):
things that they enjoy doing orthings that make them feel safe,
those things are gonna be likewhat the good doctor said, age
appropriate or whatever. Sothat's all I have to say about
littles, but I hope that helpssome. And if you have more
questions, you can contact usthrough our website.
Thanks for listening! Thank youfor listening. Your support
(31:29):
really helps us feel less alonewhile we sort through all of
this and learn together. Maybeit will help you in some ways
too. You can connect with us onPatreon by going to our website
at www.systemspeak.org.
If there's anything we'velearned, it's that connection
brings healing. We look forwardto connecting with you.
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