Little Tim, Big Tim (21 page)

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

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 better, 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.

Tim:
To bite a man’s hand and actually pierce your teeth into it. Ended up with a lump on my head, yeah got belted for it.

Dr Jan:
Mmm if we think of Troy more as a life force, rather than just rage. Maybe that allows him a way to begin to calm the situation. To begin with it had to be rage for that was the only way to have a life force. But a life force can be many things. It can be manifested into other things other than rage. It can be a drive to be alive and a way to keep going, a life force in the sense of not giving up.

Tim:
He (Troy) is pretty content in hearing that, cause it has been so spilt off and so individual functioning. I don’t know enough to actually talk here at the moment so (long Pause.)

I’ve got a big problem, a big problem, Little big Tim, Little Tim and Mark there are too many blank spots and to actually try and get a time line of specifics of what year and date.

Dr Jan:
I don’t think that matters that we work out whether you were four or six. But I think when you have a memory like that and it’s an image of blood and it feels very distressing, what we want to do is to stay with that long enough for any part that has any memory of that and feeling that went with it, we want to stay with it long enough for them to actually know it’s a memory. That it’s actually is over. That TIM got to survive and grow up and they did well by holding the memory whilst he did that. But they need to know that happened. And being able to say that was really scary, quite rightly so.

You were only little and he was much stronger, he was actually doing something that would frighten anybody. There was a part of you, which we think is TROY who really fought for survival and we have to acknowledge that he was there as a life force. It’s all part of TIM—any part that has that memory of being there in the bathtub, whether this particular one or any of the other times; because, they might all meld together, it doesn’t matter if we can’t work out if it was that specific time or the next one.

Or if it’s two combined it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the feelings and sensations that go with those experiences get acknowledged, get validated as being quite reasonable sensations and feelings. There would have been a lot of different emotions going on, fear, rage, and maybe guilt—about getting in the situation in the first place, all sorts of emotions, all valid for a small child, who doesn’t know what to do and is totally powerless. All parts that have got any memory whether it be an image or a feeling, a sensation needs to be able to recognise that and then know that it’s over, and share the memory that TIM forgot.

SWITCH

Troy:
I dropped a crumb.

Dr Jan:
Don’t worry about it, it’s my carpet.

Troy:
We’ll get trouble.

Dr Jan:
My carpet, don’t worry about it. I’ll vacuum later.

Troy:
Your carpet? This is this your place?

Dr Jan:
Yes. It’s my place and I don’t get cross over crumbs.

Troy:
Umm okay I did my best to keep our head out of the water. I swore and little, Little Tim went to his place of many colours.

Dr Jan:
Mmm

Troy:
I’m scared, really scared; always sad.

Dr Jan:
Yes, you were fighting back.

Troy:
It’s hard to fight back.

Dr Jan:
You’re hanging on.

Troy:
We want to get out of the water. (Yells)

Dr Jan:
Now you need to know that you did. Do you remember when you got to breathe again?

Troy:
Bite his fucken hand. (Angry)

Dr Jan:
And then you got to breathe. You did well.

Troy:
Peter came and had a chat. (Mumbles)

Dr Jan:
Who came to help you?

Troy:
Peter.

Dr Jan:
Is Peter there now.

Troy:
Yeah Peter is cool, we get along
Dr Jan:
That’s good.

Troy:
I heard you telling us about me helping and my strength, cause I’m strong.

Dr Jan:
Yes. You keep them alive.

Troy:
Strong one.

Dr Jan:
If it wasn’t for you, you might not have survived.
Troy:
The anger…the anger.

Dr Jan:
The anger gives you strength now, doesn’t it?

Troy:
I know that, I know it sorts of helps me, but I have got problems because, no one knows anger like I know anger. It’s the same as Shane sitting at the big table (Conference table) feeling anger he doesn’t know what to do with it. When I had to experience shame from Shane, it was really, really hard to know what that is about, it makes no sense so when the others know anger they don’t know how to deal with it.

Dr Jan:
So everybody is getting the experience that everybody else is experiencing and its becoming confusing. I can understand that, because some of those emotions are kind of new to them. Shame for instance, isn’t something you have let your self know about. Now Shane is showing you what that’s like and you are showing him what anger is like.

Troy:
But its like this, my job was to be angry. You’re telling me that I did other parts and other jobs while I did that job.

Dr Jan:
While I think that being angry was the way you did your job. I think your job was actually to stay alive. I think the anger was how you got the strength to do that.

Troy:
And I feel older ’cause I can understand big things like that. I don’t feel five and scared. I feel like Mark probably took most of my job when I got too exhausted… too tired I couldn’t keep up. Before it was simple. We knew how we spoke to each other. We knew who was who; we knew what age… we don’t have that anymore that’s all really bad.

Dr Jan:
I know… It’s always very worrying when things change but there were some problems with that system too. We wouldn’t have changed that if it was working well. What were the problems?

Troy:
No one knew what each other were up to.

Dr Jan:
And why was that a problem? It wasn’t a problem when you were little, why was it a problem now that Tim is bigger?

Troy:
Cause he can’t get angry when he is late. Cause I’m angry. No one tells him where he is meant to be and when he is late, he doesn’t know how to be angry about being late.

Dr Jan:
So what you are saying is that when it’s all spilt up like that, even though you know its familiar and got you through those hard times, it now has been creating problems. Because trying to function as an adult in the adult world that’s making life very difficult because the adult Tim can’t have some emotions when he is supposed to have them. He doesn’t know what is going on for him, very confused, or he’s not fulfilling some of the things that he is supposed to be fulfilling because he doesn’t know about it. So it ends up being too confusing; he doesn’t want to not be able to function in the adult world. To be in the adult world you have to remember where you have been and what you have said and what’s going on, and then you have to have a whole range of emotions so you can be a whole person. So the splitting that was keeping the pain away still keeps the pain away to some extent but it makes everything else harder. So now what we are trying to do is to get it so everybody knows what that pain was about, that now they know we are actually big enough to know about it: because now it’s over. While it’s still happening it’s too scary to let everyone know about it, especially if you are still little, you can’t do anything about it. You just have to find ways to survive. But when it’s over and you can start to know about it. It is not still happening.

Troy:
See when we were young, everybody was like this, we knew that. We knew everybody was like us. Now that’s wrong. Imagine a fish bowl and we are all the goldfish and you put a shark in there, which is the new stories, we are going to scatter to feel safe.

Dr Jan:
I think it’s important that only the parts that are ready to hear the stories should be hearing the stories. If there are some parts that aren’t ready to hear the story yet then they are not ready to hear it and we need to respect that. Don’t you think?

Troy:
We don’t know when ready is ready. We don’t know when the shark going to appear or when we are safe to come together. (Big sigh). Everybody trying to please everybody, you have got no idea you really have got no idea. You have, because you’re the boss of fixing these things up. But,

Dr Jan:
I know, in the end you know it’s hard when you are trying to please everybody; with me you don’t have to please me at all, I’m on the journey with you.

Troy:
Yeah you’re the boss of fixing things up. We all know that you are the boss of fixing things up but we don’t know how to fix things up.

Dr Jan:
Ok one of things that worked really well a long time ago when we started working and I actually think it might have been Little Tim. One of the things that worked really well, to show if there was a trigger/shark like memory and parts don’t know about it and are getting very anxious about being back there. The way that helped know that it’s just a memory is to start to change things in it. You can actually allow the parts that would normally disappear to stay but let them do what they would’ve liked to do. Do you remember the time we got the baseball bat?

Troy:
The big guys can do that all the time. What I’m trying to get you the picture of to get you to know about. (Long-pause)… I can be older, I can be five, and I can be what everyone wants me to be. But I can’t take on things that have happened thirty years long. I don’t understand, I don’t understand Shane’s job, I don’t understand Gary’s job, I don’t understand Peter’s job I don’t understand Mark’s job, I don’t understand, I don’t understand all of these jobs.

It’s too much, its big, it’s a long time, they’re old, Don’t understand things, feelings, and thoughts and whatever happen and all those things being flooded onto me and I just don’t understand. And then same-as equal maybe. I give them my stuff they don’t understand that. Why are we so scared like a child when we are big now? Everyone shuts down it all comes back to me, who’s got to cope with the anger again because they don’t understand that its anger from a little person who has still got little feelings, little thoughts, little actions and stuff they just don’t understand.

Dr Jan:
Mmm Mmm.

Troy:
It’s too hard sometimes.

Dr Jan:
So what might be a way for us to start to do that a bit better so that people don’t get flooded like they are. Does it need to be trickled a bit more? Everything is happening in a big hurry? You can’t do thirty years as you say in five seconds. And it is a lot and it takes a long time to process and a long time to work out what that’s about. Maybe it just needs to be trickled.

Troy:
Little Tim and I used to play a lot, invent things and build things. What I’m seeing to answer your question you know those things that you put peas in.

Dr Jan:
Colander?

Troy:
No, no the wire thing.

Dr Jan:
Like a sieve?

Troy:
Yeah sieve. We are in a situation where we are using a sieve and realise how quickly water runs through the sieve. We were working out a dam sort of thing; the water, a certain amount washed away the sand. On top it quickly washed the sand away but when we put the sand in the wire thing and then water, the water slowed down and trickled and didn’t wash away the sand as fast. You we need some sand.

Dr Jan:
Exactly

Troy:
(Big sigh)