Little Tim, Big Tim (20 page)

Little Tim:
The big boys know now that men who choose to be poofs, who want to be poofs, that’s alright. The big boys know that that’s normal. I just see that that’s just scary if these people were/are funny with little people.

Dr Jan:
That’s right, that’s right. It’s about power. If it’s two grown ups they can do whatever they want to do. Two grown ups can both can say yes and no but when you’ve got a power thing where it’s a grown up and a little child and the little child doesn’t get to say yes or no that’s wrong.

Little Tim:
Yeah

Dr Jan:
Very wrong

Little Tim:
Yeah they just had demons in them hey?

Dr Jan:
Mmm

Little Tim:
I mean even the church ones even the church ones had lots of demons in them, hey you could see them sometimes they were really scary hey.

Dr Jan:
Mmm Mmm

Little Tim:
And they’d be jumping up and down praising the lord waving their hands in the air, be clapping and all that and speaking in tongues and all that and then after church it would be really scary hey.

Dr Jan:
That must have been very scary all the way through

Little Tim:
Really scary

Dr Jan:
Do you know now that that’s over? Do you know now that the big boys have grown up and that you’re safe?

Little Tim:
We don’t go to church hey.

Dr Jan:
Mmm do you know it’s over?

Little Tim:
Yeah well I do but like I don’t think I want to grow up Dr Jan I don’t want to. I have had the best start cause I know when we had times that were the safe times and if I grow up I could lose those.

Dr Jan:
Why do you have to lose those? You still have those times?

Little Tim:
If I become one, if I have to learn all the memories (traumatised) of the stuff that I don’t want to know. Well that, that’s too much, if I don’t want to go there I don’t think I need to drag all the memories the boys and the girls and they know it’s,., they know the memories I don’t need to know those memories.

Dr Jan:
MmhhMmm

Little Tim:
I don’t need to know the bad stuff I need to know when mum was nice to me.

Dr Jan:
Look I think it’s really important that you are able to let them know there were good memories, there were safe times. I think it’s really important that you let them know that. The times that you remember, the okay times, it’s very important.

Little Tim:
Yeah well I was pretty cheeky; I used to slip in quite a bit when the good times were around.

Dr Jan:
Well it’s very important that everybody, all the parts, know that there were good times. It’s part of explaining why you all turned out to be okay because there were good times

Little Tim:
I can come back in and give them that but they can’t give me their jobs otherwise I wouldn’t have given them a job in the first place.

Dr Jan:
Oh no but I don’t think you have to take on their jobs I think everybody, everybody still gets to do their job it’s just that you get to share it rather than stay separate from each other. So you can still be the part that can go to the colours if that is necessary hopefully that won’t be very necessary but if ever it was, if ever, you were interrogated again or something like that you could say lets go to the colours. You could do that; the other parts can do their jobs it’s just that everybody knows about what is going on. So I have got a part in me that pertains to my professional role and another, the role of mother. The playing part that allows me to play and muck around.

Little Tim:
That’s fun hey?

Dr Jan:
Yep I can do all those things and they feel quite different at different times. I know I can feel that when I’m walking to work and getting ready to be professional, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to be in here being the way I am with my mates or my husband because that just wouldn’t be very professional or therapeutic. So I don’t do that, that part of me isn’t operating when I’m in here but it knows about this part of me, it all feels like one part, but I behave differently. I could, if you say to me go to your, some other part of yourself I could do that, and it’s quite a different part of me when you see it here. So the only difference is that I don’t split them up and it all feels like it’s all one me. It’s one me who can be a different type of person in different situations, with different skills and different abilities and different ways of being.

Little Tim:
How do you make me know what you’re talking about?

Dr Jan:
Mmm well if you were to imagine.

Little Tim:
Is there is there is a little Dr Jan? A little girl that I could play with?

Dr Jan:
Mmm there is.

Little Tim:
And it’s in everybody

Dr Jan:
Mmm everyone has his or her inner child

Little Tim:
Then why don’t they run away when, when they get angry and all that sort of stuff? Do you and the little girl have friends?

Dr Jan:
Well not everybody’s had bad times. My inner child has only ever had the good times. When I was little I used to have a little imaginary friend called William because I was a lonely little girl.

Little Tim:
I call William the Writer; did you want to be a boy?

Dr Jan:
No I don’t think well maybe I did, I was a bit of a tomboy, and boys seemed to have more fun. And then slowly I just became Jan and William was part of who I was; the tomboy part of me. But I can choose whether or not I want to be in tomboy mode or feminine mode or professional mode or mucking around mode or whatever, depending on the situation; which part of me will be more prominent and be the part that is showing on the outside. And I can decide to be the other part but usually it depends on the situation as to which part I’ll be. But it all feels like one me. Does that make any sense?

Little Tim:
So if I decided to stay away and not play in the light, as everyone wants me to play in the light, they will never I be all one. Is that what you’re saying?

Dr Jan:
But if you stay away that means… does that mean that they won’t know about the goods times that you had?

Little Tim:
No they can know the good times but there is plenty of ways, if I have to go away, to tell what’s going on and who’s in charge.

Dr Jan:
MmhhMmm

Little Tim:
Right, just sometimes the way that we behave, or it could be calling out Little Tim or they could be calling out Tim; or they could be calling out Timmy or they could call out lots of things. If it’s Peter he doesn’t know it straight away. And if it’s Troy he doesn’t know of it straight away.

Dr Jan:
MmhhMmm

Little Tim:
So there’s always lots of ways to sort of try and work out that who’s in charge.

Dr Jan:
So you seem to know them.

Little Tim:
Now I have probably got more information than ever I ever had, when the other day I suddenly ended up in here with you.

Dr Jan:
Did that feel okay?

Little Tim:
Scary.

Dr Jan:
Scary because it was new, but did anything bad happen to you?

Little Tim:
Well yeah well no that’s the sort of…

Dr Jan:
Try and think about it

Little Tim:
Well Mark wouldn’t let any marks happen to us otherwise I wouldn’t be allowed to come back and

Dr Jan:
Hang on. You only came back into the memory; you didn’t come back in the real thing you came back into the memory yeah? Because you were here with me so it couldn’t be really happening.

Little Tim:
Yeah well I didn’t get hurt in the memory.

Dr Jan:
Right and actually you can’t get hurt in the memory.

Little Tim:
What if I was hurt in the memory? And one of them were carrying the memory of that and I… this is… this is what scares me, I don’t know… I don’t know whose going to tell me what and…

Dr Jan:
So you mean you become one with them then you will be there too.

Little Tim:
Well what if I was hurt in that memory and I just don’t have memory of it? Now I have memory of it because I’m connected up.

Dr Jan:
Well if you were there you would remember wouldn’t you? If you were hurt

Little Tim:
Well I wasn’t hurt that time

Dr Jan:
That part of you

Little Tim:
But there could be other times I wasn’t hurt that time I know that

Dr Jan:
You would you remember all the times you were around and the other times you are in the cupboard. So when you come back and remember; when you come back into the memory and discover what’s been going on, it will be you coming back to a memory that will be just the way it was, except you get to see what was going on. I don’t know whether that’s what needs to happen and I guess we’re just trying to work out whether that’s what needs to happen. If that doesn’t feel good for you just don’t do it yet. But it is important for you to remember that none of this can add anything new.

Little Tim:
I’m learning.

Dr Jan:
It’s important that we don’t do anything that doesn’t feel safe. If it doesn’t feel safe for you yet then you don’t do anything that doesn’t feel safe. But what I want you to keep thinking about is that these are all memories. Nothing new can happen now. What’s more, all the other parts, all the parts that do have memory, they’re all there, and they’re doing okay. They survived it.

Little Tim:
But my job was not to have memory.

Dr Jan:
Yes.

Little Tim:
My job now is to have memory.

Dr Jan:
Well it is.

Little Tim:
That way I won’t be so scared.

Dr Jan:
Yeas that’s right, you won’t be so scared but we also want you to let the other parts know about the good times.

Little Tim:
But the memory I gotta have is what I’m scared of, finding out that I’m allowed to have memory.

Dr Jan:
But now you also know it is only a memory, you can take it at your own pace. You can stop it, you can turn it back, you can turn the volume down, and you can live your life because it’s not actually happening again. You don’t have to do it again, the parts that did it the first time have already done it, they’ve already survived it, already got through so all they’re doing is letting you know that’s it’s happened, however all parts got through, it’s okay, it’s over, it’s done ‘we’ survived.

Little Tim:
That’s right; I can always stop the film and the other stuff.

Dr Jan:
Yes and that helps. That you don’t have to go in and get hurt, you just have to know what happened. You don’t even have to do that if it doesn’t feel safe. I don’t want you to do anything that doesn’t feel safe. But one way to make it safe is that you do get to control it, you can stop it and say that’s enough for now, you can turn the volume down, you can make it go further away and more distant. You can do anything you like because it’s a memory and you can manage to let it happen at whatever pace, whichever way you want to do it. However fast or slow or if it’s enough, it’s enough because this isn’t happening again; it’s just something that the other parts, that did know about it, are letting you know ‘this is what happened, but its okay because we got through.’

Little Tim:
Mmm

Dr Jan:
They knew how to get through it, you don’t have to get through it, they’ve already done that for you, and you just have to know about it. You won’t be scared because then you’ll know exactly what happened and you’ll also know that you got through it. You all go through it together with the different parts doing their different ways of doing it. So you don’t have to worry about maybe there is something you don’t know about that could happen again, because you’ll know exactly what happened and you’ll know it can’t happen again.

Little Tim:
Well that’s like I’m gonna go back to the table (Conference) now and we’ll know a little bit more of the memories of the other parts.

Dr Jan:
Mmhhmm

Little Tim:
That what we’ve been talking about today.

Dr Jan:
Remember just do what feels safe for you.

Little Tim:
Yeah little bits, little bits at a time.

Dr Jan:
Just test and see and make sure that we’re on the right track okay. Okay, so now can I have one of the grown ups, who can drive, come back to the room?

(Six seconds a yawn later)