More stories from our second small group. Guess what else happened?!

 

Our Second Small Group Intensive — what an experience! 

 

Yep, we did it again.

We went back out to the Texas Lake House and had a second SGI.  A second group, a similar  plan in place.  Of course, lots of new things happened, because it was a few weeks later, and a different group of attendees.  The adorable “born-in-a-chicken-coop-during-SGI-1” kittens returned to their original lake house landing place.  Same kittens, only this time, they were old enough to run and jump and play and climb and explore.  They certainly wanted a space bigger than the chicken coop!  

Pinky and Joe were there, of course, and the cows, and this time around, we found a few more animals to add to the list.  Somehow, finding a lot of animal life brings an extra layer of excitement to these events.

We had a different group of attendees at our May SGI, but again, for the purposes of this story, their names will be Friendly1, Friendly2, Friendly3, Friendly4, Friendly5, Friendly6, Friendly7, with another story written by young, but not so young FriendlyME.

What else, or who else, do you think we found this time?

 

 

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FriendlyME’s Story, SGI 2:

We were super lucky; more luckier than most everyone cepting Friendly1, Kathy, and House Mom cause we got to go to both of the SGI’s and it was a time for the grown ups to be all serious and work hard and have some hard stuff come up and be there so some people had lots of big giant emotions like anger and sadness and fear cause every insider got to come and be there and feel what they wanted or needed to feel and since this was what they callin an “intensive” then that means that it wasn’t just a fun and play time but a time to work on the big hard feelings too and that had to get first before all of the fun stuff.

Ok; Olga tellin me that I gotta not be talkin so long so I will try but that’s not the thing I am best on so probly I won’t be able to talk short but maybe not so so long either so here goes….

 

When we got to the lake house it wasn’t rainin but it had rained not long before and the pond by the lake was flooded and came up almost over the cement place but not all of the way but when we walked on the grass it was spongy kinda and got our feet wet

and the people that went to the airport sayin that they had some streets flooded what means that there was water in the road and so the cars hadta either go real real slow or drive a different way but nobody got drowned or hadta swim or nothin like that what is good.

Miss Kathy takin a car to the airport cause Friendly1 wasn’t supposed to be drivin yet cause her had operation on her hip and not supposed to drive so while they goin to the airport

Miss Friendly1 held the door open so Olga could carry stuff inside the house and House mom was super nice and her had gone to the store and got the groceries and stuff and then the Friendly2 peoples came to help put stuff away

and then after ranging stuff inside the house we sat and made bag-balls with the shopping bags and played with Joe and Pinky and was gonna put mama kitty and her seven kittens outside on the porch but it was super hot outside and wasn’t no shade nowhere so they went into the sun room instead

and then I went walkin outside to pick up some wood so it could dry before a campfire and pulled some woods out of the lake and put them on the ground to dry and while we was doin that we got lots of ant bites on the feets so worried that it wouldn’t work to sleep outside in a tent cause the grass was wet and lots of ants and probably after dark the bugs would be super bad so we left the tent in our canoe.

 

 

House mom made up dinner and then the other peoples came from the airport and it was an exciting time cause we got to see Friendly3, Friendly4, Friendly5,

And we meet Friendly6 for the first time and her is real and not just a face on the flat and that was kinda scary cause meeting new people is hard cause we sometimes worry that they won’t like us so we was a little bit scared but probably her was more scarder than us cause her had to meet all of us for the first time and that would be more scarder but her was very brave and comed anyway and they are very nice and we gotta spend time with them and now Friendly6 people are our friend even more than before so that was good.

I forgot to tell that Friendly5 brought her puppy and so even when Friendly7 came a little bit later on there was still more animals than people there

but the animals didn’t have to do any of the talkin work like the peoples did but the work they did was to help the people feel less bad or sad

and the animal babies was learnin how to behave and sometimes they membered the rules and sometimes maybe they forgot them

like when the young puppy peed and pooped on the floor only a few times causes he’s just a baby too and everyone tryin to help him learn by tellin him that was not a good thing to do and when they sayin that they using firm voice and maybe pointin a finger at him but nobody yelled loud and nobody hit the puppy or was mean to him bout it even when he pooped in the Miss Friendly1’s room two times

cause we all learnin how the right way to treat kids or peoples who makes mistakes not just bein bad on purpose cause lots of us don’t know how that supposed to work cause that’s not what happened to them so then we all had lessons to learn. 

 

 

The kittens were so much bigger than before when they was just little tiny babies and now they are bigger but still just learnin stuff like how to climb and jump and play with each other and mama kitty still feedin them milk but this week they learned how to eat solid food too, like real kitten food

and guess what?

They learned how to pee and poop in the litter box which is the toilet for cats and they made messes with the litter which is kinda like sand only bigger and it makes the pee turn into balls and stick together so pee and poop looks the same which is kinda funny but the poop would have stinked but the litter made it not stink so bad and one of the big jobs was to keep that litter box emptied and the people mostly in the sun room did that job and they did a really good job and that was Friendly3, Friendly4, and Friendly6 who did that and we wanna say thank you for that.

Friendly4 even made a special way for the little kittens to climb up from the floor onto her backpack and suitcase and onto her bed and lots of times kitty mama let the babies crawl into Friendly4 bed in the night so when her woked up the babies were asleep beside her and Friendly4 very careful and didn’t roll over on them so her kept them all safe and warm

and one time Friendly3 had Eclipse with her in her room cause Friendly3 liked to hold them

especially Eclipse cause her going to be her forever home so Friendly3 had her while her workin on homework

and kitty mama saw what a good job Friendly3 was doin with one baby so her went and brought all of the kittens to Friendly3 and put them on her bed and then her went away and took a break

and maybe that was when we saw mama kitty walk over to the hutch where she had the babies before but her didn’t stay there but just visited and then came back to the house.

 

 

The Friendly5 people and probably mostly their boys went fishin lots of times and they caught 10 fish and then let them go again. That’s a lot of fish! They also got bit by lots and lots of bugs cause the bugs like to fly by the lake where the fishin was

and also there was four ducks and three white geese that sometimes would fight in the back yard and the ducks would win but all of them wanted to eat the bread that they got fed and they waddled and made funny squawking sounds

and also saw lots of other birds like buzzards and sissortail birds what got funny split tail feathers what split apart when they fly in the sky

and saw cows

and guess what?

I saw a baby turtle and yelled “Jacob Jacob Jacob” real loud so he could come see the baby turtle

and he tolded me it was a snapping turtle and I know he was right cause when I picked it up and looked at the mouth it was sharp and curved and it would have hurt bad to be bit by it but we was really careful and kept our fingers away from the mouth and we got a picture of it

and then we took it to the edge of the pond where it would be safer and put it there and as soon as it saw we wasn’t going to hurt it

and it was safe then it turned and swam under the water and looked happy

so that made us happy cause we don’t want to hurt any critter

and we say thank you to Creator and thank you to the critter for letting us see it and try to keep it safe too.

We also saw a tree that had what looked and felt like skin instead of bark cause it was smooth and wrinkled-like and once there was a little frog in the kitty water bowl.

 

House Mom made lots and lots of wonderful delicious good and healthy meals for us and her taught us something important too.

See; it is a thing called a “boundary”

and a boundary is when you say that somethin is ok or not ok and then you make sure that people obey it so it is kinda like a rule but not a scary or mean rule but one that keeps everyone safe

and see what happened is that her didn’t want the fishin worms kept in the kitchen refrigerator and she wanted the kitchen sink to be clean and safe for food and eating so that nobody would get sick or nothin

and nobody did get sick cause her made the boundary and the boundary was that the kitchen sink was not for washing hands in; especially not hands that had been outside playing or fishing or touching the animals cause those things needed to be done in the bathroom sink

so her told everyone “No washing hands in the kitchen sink” and so mostly we obeyed cause that was best and her was doing the cooking and cleaning so her gets to make the rules for the kitchen and her did and mostly everyone remembered and obeyed and if someone forgot they didn’t get yelled at or hit or nothin like that but reminded instead. 

 

 

Something scary also happened in the kitchen

and that was that the sink stopped draining water and so we couldn’t use it to rinse dishes and House Mom couldn’t use it for her cooking the same way

and some of the kidlets got scared cause before if something like that happened then the adults would get super mad and unpredictable

what means that you couldn’t guess right what they might do but only know that it would probably be scary or maybe even violent and so we wanted to hide out away from the kitchen and not try to eat any food cause when you eat food it makes dirty dishes and when you can’t rinse off the dirty dishes that makes a mess and when you make a mess then the adult might get angry and yell or hurt something or someone so it was a scary thing!

But guess what?

None of those scary things happened!

Instead;

House Mom figured out a way to make things work and she didn’t blame us or punish us or make us go hungry or anything like that

and that was what Miss Kathy might call “a corrective emotional experience” which is big words for sayin that you get to find out there are different ways to handle something that was hurtful in the past and doesn’t have to be that way now cause now it is 2024 and the world is different than what we remember and stuff can be different too.

 

We have already written too much probably but there is so much we could be sayin…like we only saw Friendly7 a tiny bit at P4-2 and this time we got to see her more and her still seemed to like doing the skits and had lots of stuff to suggest when we got done doing one and people talkin about it.

It was too bad but Friendly7 didn’t get to be there for the very first skit which was the Noodle skit about what could happen at the dinner table and it was a doozie.

It kinda set the table (haha that is an on accident joke) for most of the skits cause all of us seemed to relate to it somehow and got triggered

and it was also good cause Friendly4 had a very important role in that skit and he did such a wonderful job of it like a super good job so much that lots of the other skits people wanted Friendly4 to play an important part in their skits too

and Friendly4 was brave and agreed to do it even though it wasn’t easy and was probably hard and make big emotions come up close

and I hope it let Friendly4 know that we like him and accept him and that he is a part of the Friendly4 people who is strong and important and stuff cause that is the truth.

Friendly3 was healing from her operation and worked hard to be able to eat more solider food and by the end of the week her did that well

and Miss Friendly1 worked hard too after her operation and she stopped using her cane while there even though some of the other people were grumping at her to use it more but her decided her didn’t need it no more and so put it away and didn’t use it cepting when her walking a long way or the hip hurting her more

so good job to both of those people for taking care of their bodies and getting more healthier.

Friendly6 was the newest people there and that can be a scary thing but they did such a good job and worked super super hard even when they was havin to look at hard hard stuff and had big giant decisions they was havin to make

and one of our favorite times was late at night when Friendly6 and FriendlyME got to talk together at night before we fell asleep cause we was sharin the living room sofas because it was more better for both of us to sleep there than to sleep in the beds sometimes and so we got to visit together a few times and that was very special for us and now her is another good friend that is more than just a flat person but real instead which is good

but it also means that we get more and more sader when the intensive was over and we had to tell everyone goodbye cause goodbyes are more harder than hellos. 

 

 

Like always Miss Kathy worked super super hard and didn’t get much sleep or rest cause her in charge of like 8 bodies and 200 people and that is lots of people to be responsible for!

Plus her havin to remember so many names and about the stuff we talk about and the stuff we tell her not to talk about and the assignments like acronyms or lists that her assign to us and like Friendly3  super good at doing her lists

and Friendly1 wroted about 100 acronyms

and we wish there was a piano there that Miss Kathy could have played her music for us but not one there

but her did bring her clay and bought a board from the store so people who wanted to could throw clay at the board where big feelings come out there and some people yell or cry or stomp feet or other stuff they need to get outside of the body stead of keep inside the body where it makes problems for the body

and Miss Kathy hears all of that and the feelings get vomited on her and her still nice to use and treat us like good people even when we feel like bad bad people

but all of those things must make her more and more tired and by the end of the time poor Miss Kathy eyes getting droopy and her giggles more cause her tired so it was time for the intensive to be over for this time but maybe another time there will be another one and people can come do more work then.

Olga wantin me to remind everyone that I’m not talkin about the hard stuff much cause I go away when it happens cause that’s the grown up stuff and I’m not a grown up and don’t gotta be there for that so not to think that SGI’s are all fun and games cause there is lots of hard stuff that happens too and I’m only talkin bout the fun stuff mostly.

Ok, good bye for now.

 

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My thoughts about this article

First, thank you again, FriendlyME for sharing another wonderful story with us.

We really did have a good time at SGI-2, and we did as much fun as we did work.   I won’t necessarily talk about all the hard work we did during this group intensive, but let’s just say… in reality, I think we worked harder than we played.  SO… even with all the fun that we had, we still addressed a whole lot of tough stuff, that’s for sure.

AND, I have a few more animal-critter pictures to share.  Well, I could share a dozen or two more, hahaha.  I’ll pick a few of the good ones.

Did you see the little frog that was in the kittens’ water bowl?  However it got there is a giant mystery, but yep!  There was a frog in the house! 

AND… when we were leaving, I got a very special surprise.

While I was doing my very last check outside on the back patio, I got to see another frog. 

And this wasn’t just any frog, this was a very special frog.  It was a bright green MAIZY frog!  What an absolute delight.

Maizy frogs are some of my favorite frogs in Australia.  (Okay, they are green tree frogs, but I call them Maizy frogs.)  I’ve told the DDCF forum community a lot of fun silly stories about my experiences with bright green Maizy frogs.  :).  It was such a pleasant surprise to see one in Texas!  What a lovely way to wrap up our event.  This felt very special to me.

 

But also, I can’t exactly wrap up this SGI story without sharing a couple more pictures showing some DDCF kitten antics. 

At SGI-2, the kittens were 4 weeks old (going to 5 weeks old before we left), and they were all kinds of adorable by then.  And very very mobile!  They were super curious, and starting to explore the world.  They were big enough to start running and climbing and oh boy, oh boy!  Did they have fun.

The kittens found a way to climb up to an interior house windowsill and peeked into the kitchen.  Kittens peering over the kitchen sink was a lot of fun, and they made doing dishes and getting coffee so much more entertaining.  What ‘cha looking at little kitties??  They were certainly learning lots about their world.  I have a dozens pictures of them doing all these things, but will share at least one.   

 

And then… there’s spunky Miss Luna being all brave and fussy. 

This is such a funny picture of our little Luna kitten.  She’s made it to her new forever home now, but what a cute little thing she was in May 2024.  Momma Kitty was patient and caring for her then, just as always.  The number of lessons we could learn from Momma Cat alone are huge! 

And of course, thank you Luna for teaching us to bravely use our voices.  🙂 

 

 

The Value of Our In-Person Events

 

I think by now, it’s pretty clear to see that we have an awesome time at our gatherings.   We make good memories and we deeply value our time together.

Of course, I can really only share a few of the pictures of what we did.  The little critters were fun, but they weren’t the point of our gathering.  The trauma work we addressed — well, not sharing pictures of that — but we really did put a big focus on talking through some important layers of healing work, with some excellent DID system work happening in all kinds of ways. 

And from what I can see, the SGI events have had a lasting impact on everyone who went.  SGI attendees learned new things about their DID systems.  They heard new information, increased communication with their parts, felt courageous and supported enough to say some hard stuff, and have had an improved sense of system work.  Areas of trauma that are a little uncomfortable to reach — well — those things aren’t too scary for me, so we did get into some of the harder areas of trauma and abuse. 

Yep.  We were brave.  And people were willing to work hard, so we did.

Every single person did some intense work.  This is really amazing and super impressive.  We didn’t just gather for fun and games — everyone walked away with more internal awareness and some additional areas of system work to do.  For me, that’s success.  Something gained, internally, for everyone present.

As a community built for dissociative survivors, we really cherish our  in-person together gatherings.

Our events are the highlight of the year.  Absolutely. 

And YES, there will be more.    These events are too good to not have more. 

Including… here comes P4 ’24!

 

 

 

Are you thinking about joining us?   I most certainly hope to see you there!   

And of course, I wish you the best in your healing journey.

 

Warmly, 

Kathy

 

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