by Tim Roy
So I’m sure that there were sessions that I was having with you where the host Tim would only have a very vague memory of having been here and that was about all. One of the signs of integration has been that you experience that less and less and you have experienced that outcome on fewer occasions.
Tim: Yeah well is it a complex situation; is it the fact that there is a duality there in the majority of cases?
Dr Jan: In the majority of cases that I see I would say that it’s complex, but it’s very common also that there have been difficult childhoods unresolved childhood issues which were resolved just by going tough. That toughness reached its limit and then there was a breakdown of not only what was going on, but also of all that went before. Then having to go back to all of the earlier stuff and yes that duality is not uncommon.
The best soldiers, once that real toughness has reached its limit, have got a lot of unresolved issues from childhood, which is what made them a good soldier in the first place. They learnt to dissociate early, they learnt to be tough, they learnt not to feel things and they learned to just push through, very early.
I encounter large numbers of veterans with PTSD who have you know clearly got huge amounts of character and strength, but have got histories of childhood abuse of one sort or another and that has made that system, which is fragile within in them, to reach it’s limit. And so recovery is more complicated.
Those that don’t, those that just have had a pretty well adjusted background, have had one or two overwhelming situations that have created PTSD and their only trauma have been adult age trauma, recovery is a fairly straight forward treatment process. You deal with the trauma, they recover and see you later, and six months down the track we’re done. The others I have seen for longer inevitably have got childhood issues.
Tim: Okay prior to meeting you and as I met Larry and worked out that I needed to get help, you know the biggest numb off component in my life was drugs and alcohol. Do you think I could of achieved the level of recovery we’ve achieved today using drugs and alcohol?
Dr Jan: Absolutely not. I think that if you had continued to use drugs and alcohol you might not even be alive today. And I certainly don’t think, I think drugs and alcohol can keep you away from psychological pain. They can’t in any way allow you to process and do the recovery work that you need to do. I think that drugs and alcohol are self-medication to try to dull pain, but they don’t do healing.
Tim: So talking of healing, when do you think we really started to escalate in our understanding that we were going to be able to work together and heal with each other? Is there a moment in time?
Dr Jan: Well to begin with, I remember feeling we needed that before we were going to do the work we were going to do. We really needed to build a strong therapeutic alignment. I was going to give you plenty of time to do that and I have been sure to be very open with you and to make sure that you knew that you could trust me.
If you asked me a question I would answer it. But I think the most pivotal session was one of those early sessions, one of the EMDR sessions. I can’t remember if it was the first time, but it was one of the early times when we did the EMDR session. You were having a memory of when you were about nine and then we went back to some earlier memories, but we did some work which was to show you that they were memories.
I was suggesting to you as you were starting to reexperience them that you could prove to yourself that these were memories by changing something and you were able to do that. You were able to take a baseball bat to one of them (paedophiles) and change the perceived reality and that, I think, was a watershed session for both of us. It was the session where you got relief; you were resigned to the fact that this was a memory. But not only that they were memories, but if they came up, you had some sort of strategy that you could use to show yourself, again, that it was a memory.
You could actually use that tool to give yourself some psychological distance from them again, so that you wouldn’t just get thrown into them. You know, if you got triggered somewhere you wouldn’t just be frozen and be re-experiencing all of the fear as if it was about to happen again, you could actually use that tool. And you started using. Whenever you found something, you’ve always grabbed hold of it and gone out and used it—to your great credit.
And you started using that very quickly after that and instead of having to come back in and do more work on memories, you actually just went away and started doing that on your own. Brought all the memories up and started changing them and doing the work It’s always surprised me that we’ve often only had to do one or two sessions on something that I expect to do fifteen sessions on. But you get the tool and you go away and by the time you’ve come back in, all the things I think we’re going to do next, you’ve actually been doing in between sessions.
So that, I think, was the first time that you got a real sense that I was going to be able to give you something, a good change and a sense that you could actually do the change yourself out there and get some real insight.
And it also taught me that this was going to be the process.
I think I’ve always followed along behind (laughing) you know, you’ll come back in and tell me where you are up to now. Because you’re going to go away always have done the amount of work I had just given you. I would say here’s a tool and off you go and start using it.
So I have to then be prepared for where you are going to be when you come back in again, because what you do in between sessions is going to be a whole lot of work that might normally only happen in here. Other people maybe too anxious to do and would only do it in here. So I decided to follow your lead because when you come back in I have to discover where we are, from the work you’ve done in between. And then you usually tell me where we need to go next and we go to the next one, so it’s been very much lead from behind.
Tim: So when we walk in here and we go very confidently looking you in the eye and say that we don’t have DID where do you go from there?
Dr Jan: (big laugh) Aahh, when you very confidently tell me that you don’t have DID we’ll talk about what that means to you and…
Tim: So we already do that.
Dr Jan: That’s right and we always talk about it and we always come to an understanding that we both agree.
Tim: Well one of us agreed anyway.
Dr Jan: Well yes we come to some understanding about what does that mean. What does it mean not to have DID
Tim: Well DID to me means that the escalation of productive therapy leads to DDNOS (Dissociative Disorder Non Otherwise Specified) escalating to another level which is known as something else. DID is a part of a process that is only part of my recovery journey.
The pivotal moment for me was hearing the soft young voice of Little Tim, accepting that a persona age five existed within me. And feeling you’re working very hard to remain in your professional role and resisting from comforting the frightened persona that owns the five year old voice. That was a revealing moment and at that point I walked out of therapy believing that there was a possibility, a big chance that I have suffered with DID since I was a child. There was a BIG Tim and now a Little Tim.
Then for me to find the courage to do the journey down south to revisit the places and houses where the abuse took place. It was the memories of what transpired within and around the bricks and mortars. For all that lost time and space to now be allowed to have some context.
Dr Jan: Huge courage.
Tim: I think taking an understanding that where we are in relationship to the therapy and its direction. It’s the next step, and if there is another diagnosis that is lesser than or minimises DDNOS, I feel that is where I am at. See, when you said I would need five years of therapy, making me aware that this problem of mine would not dissolve over night, I argued and said ‘Nah.’
Dr Jan: (Laughs) I remember you saying you saying ‘Nah,’ like we had to find some way to do it faster.
Tim: I had no idea of how we were going to find a way to
do it faster, for I had never been exposed to psycho-therapy as intensely that I was about to experience with you.
Dr Jan: I have to say that you have probably worked harder than any other client I have worked with, which is why it is faster than five years. If we found one way that worked for you, I was always thinking maybe we should’ve done more of that, we have just done something and I had the feeling that we might possibly have to do ten more of those relevant sessions.
However by the time you come back to the next session you don’t need to do anymore of those. I’m often left with an thought am I doing you a disservice by not offering those ten sessions, or should I just go with you and acknowledge ‘ok, lets go to the next step.’ Generally I have just gone with you, tentatively aware that if we need to travel the ground again, we will.
Tim: Yeah, and I have done my recovery twenty-four, seven and I’m getting comfortable, with the writing, releasing the anger I carried against the military, for other people to see, the recovery autobiography and finishing that. You have got no idea, correction; everybody else has got no idea it doesn’t have to be published. Its just part of my recovery journey. I would like to see it published if my story of recovery assists others in their chosen path back to normality, but it doesn’t matter, the work has been done.
If it leads to individuals saying to themselves I don’t have to be dictated to, for example the ten sessions not being a necessity.
Dr Jan: Sure, not following recipes.
Tim: If that closes doors and slams shut the lids of Pandora’s boxes. Then that’s why my story may be published.
Dr Jan: We have always had that understanding—that I wasn’t going to impose a textbook on you. There was some anxiety earlier that maybe if you didn’t do it the textbook way, I wouldn’t believe you. That this may not be the way that DID was suppose to be, that maybe the textbook wouldn’t mirror your behaviour. So from very early we got it clear that there is no textbook that this is the TIM ROY’S story.
Whatever it is for you, that’s the way it is for you. I’m not going to impose a belief onto you that it’s not supposed to happen like that. Also, I decided to not tell you to complete particular sessions when they weren’t relevant to the levels that you where achieving yourself. We have always had a very individualised approach, which is the method I use with all my therapy sessions. I get quite cross with recipe therapy, all clients are unique.
Tim: Another thing that has been of assistance was being able to return to the next session and listen to what you said and try to find a way to apply the knowledge within my recovery. I listen to my mental health professionals. I could’ve have read.
Dr Jan: Mmm yes
Tim: I could’ve read, I decide not to pick up, one self-help book/books. I know a lot of people mighten agree with that strategy.
Dr Jan: Yes you decided not to be influenced. There is a lot of confusion within DID, because all the memory is vague and there are so many gaps. I think every DID patient questions if it’s real, I don’t think there is any DID patient that doesn’t.
Tim: Once a week.
Dr Jan: Exactly, and then there this concern that if you do read something relevant to the subject, how were you going to manage to not entangle someone else’s story with your own truth. I believe that approach was quite wise for you, even though at times it’s quite helpful/useful to read others’ stories to be able to identify and relate.
Tim: It’s the healing process I have chosen to write, to have read others’ work I could be accused of plagiarism, I am safe from that accusation.
Dr Jan: That assisted us to know whatever happen, happened, and that you were not influenced by the stories of others. Then whatever happens happened and that allowed us to just explore and what is, is, and we will work it out together.
For quite a long time, there was a lot of trying to map what the system was. You came up with one watershed session: the triangular system.
Tim: That was clever, that was only thirteen though. But I knew there was more.
Dr Jan: Yes, I never thought any number was something I should hang onto, because you never know. Before that you where very confused and you drew me a lovely diagram at the time trying to explain to me how you felt.
The diagram depicted all these circles with eyes, the eyes of the circles where looking in at Little Tim as you identified that persona at the time. What became confusing for you was that with the work (therapy) we were doing some of the circles now where looking out, this was strange and new. Now they where looking out through their own eyes for the first time seeing what’s going on rather than being directed.
Sometimes a picture tells a thousand words. Quite often, pictures in therapy have some visual image, some analogy, or metaphor, which is often the way the unconscious speaks, in metaphors. This has been utilised because it has been too difficult to explain in words. Then you progressed to show/draw the triangulation diagram, and this was a way of conceptualising what you where experiencing. Because it wasn’t individuals, it was all these connections with different strengths.
Tim: Yeah, firstly I worked on a square, with two diagonal lines intersecting in the centre, with a circle drawn over the intersection, the circle, as I understood it represented Little Tim. The outside lines of the square and the inside lines that crossed represented a persona that wasn’t connected up and only understood their own existence.
With the advancement of the triangular understanding, I now experienced three personas that had their own identity were now connected and their experiences and memories could now be shared within their nominated triangular structure. As one triangle gave identity to three personas, due to the symmetric properties of a square dissecting in the middle, there were now four triangles that held three personas each. The centre still circled and represented Little Tim. Now I could identify twelve personas and Little Tim.
However the triangle that held its own three personas could not access the others’ world. The frustration lay with not being able to access the others, as we became increasing aware that the system wanted to integrate. Slowly we understood that we could access the identities in their entirety, the Seventeen, as the next diagram I drew was the wheel and the spokes became the personas meeting in the middle which was known as Big Tim. We are clever.
Dr Jan: Yes. We are clever. I think what’s clever is the unconscious mind, in solving dilemmas. That is what your unconscious mind has had to do your whole life, find ways to deal with this, that’s its going to work, keep you safe and keep you functioning. I never cease to be amazed at how clever the unconscious is. We think in these logical minds, and it comes up with something completely laterally.
Tim: So the progression of the diagram’s complexity and the understanding that I know had led to the hospitalisation and that I eventually let go of the belief that Little Tim controlled the system; Little Tim just remained Little Tim.
We were in a safe place and we were ready to accept the truth whatever that was. Change our core beliefs. The first example was that we could not integrate with the flood method; we had to absorb the truth within a trickle method.
Our DID system was created because we got overwhelmed, so we can’t be flooded in therapy/recovery because that doesn’t work. We had to accept that opposites work. Opposite behaviours, beliefs and actions have led to the understanding that Little Tim was not in control it was just what my mind understood to be able to explain to somebody else that was what was going on.
Dr Jan: I think back and all along it didn’t seem to make a lot of sense that Little Tim was in control. It’s inappropriate to tell you you’re wrong, you’re never wrong; I can’t ever tell you you’re wrong. I can try and explore what you are telling me so I can make some sense of it, its never wrong; it always has got some reason for why it’s being expressed.
So I listen and say to myself well that’s interesting, that’s curious and let’s just explore that further. I know this, that whatever is there for a reason and the reason is
always protective, including something’s that looks self destructive, self sabotaging. Then there are times where you can’t see the protective reason.
My understanding of DID, is that whatever is created at the time that it was created, was functional and the function was always protection and survival. I always say to myself if I don’t understand something, wait for it to be revealed to me, rather than say it’s wrong, it’s never wrong. The awareness I have now is the unconscious presented that understanding to ensure that the pace of integration happened at the pace that was required to keep you safe and protected.
Tim: So as my journey continued I got intrigued and fascinated by the possibility of a collective reality, although the fear was still there initially, that I’m a freak.
Dr Jan: That word I have difficulty hearing you use to describe yourself.
Tim: I love that word; I’m a fascinating freak. Fascinating funny freak.
Dr Jan: I would rather hear unique than freak.
Tim: Well I have forgiven myself for feeling any shame that revolved around feeling different.
Dr Jan: Exactly, It’s a word that has your own meaning to it.
Tim: Exactly, if society wants to run around the school ground labelling/calling me a freak. Well I rather be that kid that can accept it and say yeah, I can deal with that. Take all the venom and fun away from the uneducated.
