Parallel play. It’s a thing.

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Tonight I did something I’ve never really done before. I’ve got a new mate who is a survivor (they/ them). Awesome person, really smart and funny and kooky and cool. They asked me if I wanted to parallel play with them. I had no idea what this meant, but I found out that it’s a term used in child development psychology where kids play independently but together. Through this, the research says that they begin to co-regulate. My friend suggested we could do some colouring in. Now there’s a part of me that thinks this is sooooooo embarrassing and silly but mostly my internals embraced it. I’d worked all day and felt pretty flat to be honest. Still hung up on the breakup. Depressed and tired. Plus I’ve got a lot of work on this weekend so it feels relentless. Initially my friend wanted me to come over but I had a meeting later tonight so couldn’t do that unfortunately. We decided to just colour in independently and chat over the phone on speaker. I coloured in two pictures from the Ellen Lacter book.

These images were about embracing all the parts of myself and accepting who’s inside me. What was cool about tonight is that I was meant to go to an ACA meeting but I did this instead. I think allowing time for myself to reparent in this way was an act of self care and love that I haven’t really done before – that extended beyond meetings. It pushed me gently into action. I feel super comfortable with my friend and a little shy about being intimate in this safe plutonic way. Survivors are truly remarkable humans full of love and good ideas.

Published by Leni

I am a 42 year old woman and survivor of satanic ritual abuse. I have dissociative identity disorder and experience complex PTSD symptoms. Despite this, I am relatively high functioning and tend to be very active and engaged in life. I started remembering my abuse at around the age of 25. Prior to that I had no solid memory of my childhood and things just felt blank. I was programmed to keep very busy in order to forget my abuse and so I was always on the go and doing things. I was lucky to find an interest in the creative arts and filmmaking, so my pursuits have mostly been very stimulating and enjoyable, though hard work. Almost everything I did kept me away from myself and I would say that I was extremely disconnected from the way that I felt in general. I always felt something was wrong, but couldn't put my finger on it. When I discovered I had been sexually abused as a child, it was like my whole world changed and everything that I had felt or experienced prior to this was a lie. Everything, yet nothing, made sense. I wanted to pursue recovery and wholeness immediately, but the more I tried to do this, the more walls I kept hitting. Programming was inbuilt in me to 'not remember' and I thought I would die if I did. The paradox was, that I longed to die, and suffered suicidal ideation on an almost daily basis for over ten years. I had used drugs and alcohol from the age of 13 to self soothe and medicate and the turning point for me was when I hit a rock bottom with drinking at the age of 31. I went into AA and that really kickstarted my journey of recovery. I learnt how to deal with life without picking up a drink or a drug and most importantly, I was led to my real saviour, Jesus Christ. Almost a year into being sober, I started hearing voices. I had heard these voices for a long time but had stifled them with alcohol and drugs. The voices were extremely loud and negative and told me to kill myself. I sought psychotherapy and prayer ministry and it was through these experiences that I discovered I had dissociative parts of self (multiple personalities). Since accepting this, I have definitely started to get better, although it has been a long journey. I am in my tenth year of sobriety and on a very personal, determined journey to find myself within my fragmented identity. This is a blog about Dissociation, Satanic Ritual Abuse, God and other stuff. I live in Melbourne, Australia. Please stick around and share your thoughts too.

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