Saturday Stories: NaNoWriMo 2015
Rediscover a love for fiction, because stories can change the world
These fiction stories are unedited, unfiltered, and written in 15-25 minutes. Please be aware that they may contain intense material related to emotional healing, trauma recovery, and redirected fears.
Written November 2015 during National Novel Writing Month
Later that day, I sat in the waiting room of the office of the college therapist. I checked the clock. I was five minutes early. It was 8:55am and my appointment was at 9:00am. Each second was ticking slowly by. Why was I doing this? I was fine, I didn’t need therapy. I was embarrassed to be here. I had to push a button and a little light came on to let the therapist know that I was here. I sat alone in the waiting room. My legs were jittering, bouncing up and down.
Finally, a lady who looked to be in her late twenties and dressed in casual business attire came out to greet me. “Is someone here to see Irene?” She said.
“That’s me,” I said. I stood up. I didn’t know what to do with my hands so I folded my arms.
“Hi, I’m Irene,” she said. She held out her hand and I shook it.
“I’m Jillian”
“So good to meet you.” Her blue eyes were warm and I felt like I could melt into them.
“Yeah, nice to meet you too.”
“You can follow me.”
I followed her down a short hallway to an office. It looked bigger from the inside. There was a couch and a chair. She had flowers on a desk and a couple of paintings of flowers on the walls. There were dark purple pillows on the black couch and a blanket was folded up neatly on the far side.
“You may have a seat.” She indicated to the couch.
I sat down on the couch and sunk into it a bit.
I looked around and there were two book cases. One had lots of little figures and toys on it the other had books. There was a box filled with sand and a wicker basket filled with stuffed animals and dolls.
“Do you work with kids?” I asked.
“Not specifically, but I work with a lot of adults who have inside kids.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, maybe it is someone inside you who didn’t fully grow up. Toys can help us all. Getting in touch with your inner child can be very healing.”
I thought of the little voices that I heard, of the times that I felt so young. Letting that part of me out scared me.
“So, what brings you here today?”
“The school wanted me to come see you. They had to give me therapy because of something that happened.”
“Would you like to talk about what happened?”
“Not really,” I said.
“That’s okay, we can talk about whatever you wish. I want you to feel safe here.”
I nodded. Then we stared at each other for the rest of the hour. I just couldn’t talk and the clock tick dominated the session. Time went incredibly slowly. She waited for me and I didn’t know what to talk about.
“So, what are you studying in school?”
“Well, right now I’m just doing my basic classes, but I actually want to be therapist.”
“Really,”
“Yeah, I like listening to people and being there for them. It’s weird though because this is my first time in therapy. So, I don’t really know how it works. We’re supposed to talk about my issues, right?”
“Sort of, we want to help you feel better and be more functional in your life and relationships and sometimes that involves talking about your struggles sometimes it involves talking about your past. It all depends.”
I picked up the pillow next to me and fiddled with the strings on it. I wrapped one of them around my index finger and watched it turn bright red. I let it go and it went back to its natural color. I put all my focus on this. I didn’t want to talk about my past.
“What would you like to talk about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know what you would not want to talk about?”
“My past, but I know that I will need to talk about it at some point.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have to talk about that now.”
“Okay,” I looked up and met her eyes then looked back down.
“How about we start with what brought you in.”
I felt a zing race up my chest and settle in my heart. That deep pain I had been feeling all weekend. “Uh, the school suggested counseling because of something that happened.”
“I see.” She was quiet, I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell her what had happened. She could probably guess anyway.
“I uh, it’s hard to say.”
“That’s okay.”
I didn’t know where to start. “Where do I start?”
“You can start wherever you like. Sometimes people find it easier to write down what they are having trouble saying. Would you like to write it down?”
I nodded. My mouth had gone dry.
Today’s Insights
This story takes me back to my first several years in therapy. I first went to therapy when I was 19 and in college, but not in response to something that happened on campus. I saw an intern who was patient enough to sit with me while I found my voice. I sometimes wonder if she just hadn’t gotten far enough along in school to learn all of the techniques that many therapist use that are not helpful for people with my history and who have severe dissociation and multiplicity. I remember feeling like she cared and that was terrifying. Today reading this story I’m noting words like safe and how that can be a trigger word for people who’ve been through trauma. It’s a feeling that took many years to achieve. Years of sobriety and therapy and working on building a life filled with friends who know and respect me, yet still I am often afraid and knowing that I’m not expected to feel safe, makes me feel safer. Being told I am safe feels like danger and misattunement.
When I was in my late 20s I was that therapist intern greeting people in the waiting room, trying to put them at ease and say all the right things, yet still be authentic. It wasn’t until I’d been in therapy for 10 or more years with several different people that someone finally recognized that we are multiple. I was fortunate enough to find this person because I had gone to school to become a therapist and looked specifically for someone who worked with dissociation. It was a relief to have someone see what was going on with us and to be open to knowing those who we didn’t generally let out. Yet, this was also terrifying.
Today the beginning of sessions is remarkably easier. I am able to talk in ways I wasn’t before. I am not sure if some of this is the therapist I’m working with or if some of this being able to talk is that I’m still building trust with her and the more vulnerable people of us are not yet coming to sessions. Either way I’m able finding that I can talk about this and about the fears of not being able to talk, of getting so flooded with emotions and stress and trauma memories that I’m frozen in the chair, mute, and practically catatonic.
I think this tonic immobility experience of not being able to talk or move is a fairly common experience for many people with Dissociative Identity Response and complex PTSD. When I worked with a therapist who was aware and knew how to help with multiplicity and made space and welcomed the younger ones I began to be able to talk and they began to feel safe enough to come out. Before this therapist, I had several therapists get frustrated with me because they didn't know what was going on or how to help. I was once hospitalized at the end of the session because the therapist couldn't get me back to a state that she felt comfortable with. Some therapist tried to make me angry to get me to talk, which probably worked in part because a protector* eventually came out, but that ruined all rapport.
When I was working as a therapist for teens I found that what helped was attunement, just being present, giving space for the person not to talk and to just be. To any therapists out there who are working with clients who are unable to talk at times trust me a lot is probably going on for them. For us ,we were often switching* so rapidly that no one could front* long enough to take control of the body. A previous therapist of mine used to say, "Maybe you just need me to see how much this hurts." And that helped a lot, in letting us know that it was okay to just be and she was with us and we weren't alone, and that we didn't have to talk if we didn't want to.
Another thing that I found helpful when I or one of the younger ones of me were unable to talk was being asked yes or no questions that helped me find my way back to language. Sometimes whoever was out front could work with another insider* who could help them talk or who could share some words. Sometimes the pressure to talk, just forced us to switch from the person who’s struggling and needing support to someone who’s doing just fine and doesn’t actually need to be there, but the system* needs a break from the pressure to talk so they send someone who’s able to talk to the front. What do you know now we’re grounded. Except we’re not, we just rearranged ourselves so that the therapist would be comfortable rather than us actually getting what we were needing in that moment.
Definitions
*Protector: A term used to describe a person who is part of a collective/system who protects the system. Sometimes a protector is seen as the bad guy, but really they just want to make sure the body and everyone in the body are safe. Sometimes they can express anger and be assertive in ways that others cannot.
*Switching/Switch: A switch happens when someone inside switches to being outside or in front. So if Crystal is out and then the person writing this comes out and starts talking Crystal and I would have switched places. Rapid switching is a different person is coming front taking control of the body every couple seconds or minutes. This can happen seamlessly and be unnoticeable to people who don’t know the person well or what to look for.
*Front: The person who is out front and in control of the body.
*Insider: A person who is inside rather than outside or out front. They do not have control of the body in the same way when they are inside. When the come out and talk they are then fronting. We, Crystals, often refer to the others in our collective as insiders, we are all insiders at different times because we take turns fronting and don’t have a consistent person who is in charge of the body.
*System: In the context of multiplicity or Dissociative Identity Response this word is used to describe all of the people or beings that are in one body.
You’re Turn:
If you wish to continue the story in your own creative writing or prose you can answer the following questions for fiction to continue the story or answer the questions for prose that can be used as journal prompts, for essays, or poetry.
Fiction Prompts:
Write a scene of what happened that caused the college to send the character to therapy
Continue the story and write about the client reading what happened and how it felt to tell the story
Write a scene where the client isn’t able to write or talk
Write the same story from the therapists perspective
Prose Prompts:
Write about a time when you had trouble talking or didn’t know what to say
Write a poem about not being able to talk, but desperately wanting to
Write a letter to or from your inner child or an inside kid
Write your view on the pros or cons of forcing people to go to therapy or to get treatment