P4 DID Retreat 2025

A Wonderful Example of Positive Peer Support in the Dissociative Community

We did it again!  And it was amazing, as per usual.

I couldn’t be more proud of the dissociative community who attended this year’s P4 DID Retreat.
We rocked it. We connected. We talked. We listened.

Peer support at its best! 

Our annual P4 DID Retreat, the event we all look forward to, has once again, been a big success. We didn’t want it to end!  This year’s event was unique to all the other years, and full of its own twists and turns. New adventures, new challenges.  We were back in Texas, but our 10-days were not the same!

We had many excellent, magical moments that we’ll cherish for years to come.
Good memories — ones to keep.

Here are a few highlights from the 2025 Retreat.
In random order, of course.

A trip to the Fort Worth Stockyards!

If you’re gonna come to Texas, we gotta show you some Texas.  

This year, we spent a chunk of time at the Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District.  Not only was this a ton of fun, interesting, and historically informative, we also got to enjoy each other’s company.  We meandered through so many of the shops, selecting just the right thank-you gifts for House Mom.  We gave lots of nibblies to the goats, sheep, pigs and the cow in the petting zoo.  Some of us ran through the maze.  We looked at the horses, the long horn cattle, and the train.  We tried cherry-flavored jerky and dill pickle flavored popcorn and so many different kinds of candies.  Country music, cowboys, cowboy hats, boots, cows and horses filled the area.  We all had Texas barbeque ribs for dinner, sat on some hay bales, watched the loud vivacious street traffic, took a ride in the horse-carriage over the brick streets, and learned the history of the area.  Most of all, we just had FUN together.

You know, at a location with all the glitz and glamour and activities and people-interactions as the Fort Worth Historic Stockyards, the options for dissociative systems to play were many.  There were areas of interests for the adults, the teens, and the kids.  Getting to have a social outing and the opportunity to play with other dissociative systems made the fun just that more fun.  Peer support, peer-connections, and making new memories!  

Many evenings sitting outside with magic fire.

This year, after having plenty of rain, there was no fire ban in the area of Texas where we stayed.  That was awesome news because we got to spend a number of evenings sitting out around the campfire, having our group talks outside under the stars, sitting in rocking chairs, just relaxing and sharing our hearts.  This was a beautiful, peaceful place to talk, and even the howling coyotes, the hooting owls, and the cicadas nearby were amazing to hear.  

Sometimes outside feels safer than inside, less restricted, less formal, less strict, less tense.  Outside can be a great place to be, and we were fortunate to give ourselves that option.

Oh, and of course, an outdoor campfire was the perfect location for s’mores!  Did you ever have a s’more made with a Reese’s peanut butter cup?  Those were the new fave around our magic campfires.

And yes, I’m quite aware that having a campfire in the evening can be triggering.  At this retreat, we also purposefully approach triggers with the attitude of bravery, leaning into triggers, addressing them with courage, using the “What’s different?” process, and overall, knowing that having positive, corrective emotional experiences is much better than letting old PTSD fears limit what gets to happen, especially when you out with a group of peers, a friendly group of safe people who can fully understand what’s going on for you, who possess high emotional intelligence, solid boundaries, personal stability, and can offer appropriate support and gentle understanding when you’re struggling.  

Because of the high degree of emotional and physical safety in this retreat environment, many attendees were able to address several of their painful triggers in appropriate, successful, and healing-inducing ways.

Our art room projects were astounding and amazing.

Talking about all our art projects this year would take a whole article or two of their own to describe all that we did this year.  

We had a plethora of amazing projects planned, and knowing that we had a dedicated creativity space to use, we went all out with ideas, supplies, options.  We used all the tables and then some!  It’s good the weather was awesome during our stay because painting on the outside patio deck became one of the most inspirational places to create these unique expressions.

The pour painting pictured at the top of this article is the piece that the entire P4 Retreat 2025 group participated with.  As a group, and as individuals, we contributed to selecting the colors, arranging areas of color, of pouring of paint, blending and carrying out the designs in a way that was intentionally significant for this particular group of attendees.  Everyone knows where they had a specific impact in this painting, and together, we made it.  

And of course, this 2025 art piece will be openly displayed at future events, and will be available to see and touch for many years to come.

The food!  Oh my goodness.  House Mom is THE BEST!

I’ve made several full on videos showing House Mom’s cooking and her beautiful dishes.  Meal after meal after meal.  We are never hungry and everything is completely delicious!  

She’s so incredibly dedicated to her kitchen — it’s just downright impressive.  House Mom has turned this retreat cooking into a culinary art of its own.  She organizes her recipes and ingredients ahead of time, fills the grocery orders with finesse, and this year, she took off in the car to go shopping with a helper.  They spent hours together walking around the stores gathering all the extra ingredients.

House Mom makes her kitchen process into a fun healing experience all by itself.   AND, yes, doing dishes with House Mom is also part of the plan, a healing process, and you know what?  Everyone has had very lovely, beautiful and fun times in the kitchen with her.  She creates moments that are unique, tender, fun and special.  It’s as much a treat to be there in the kitchen with her as it is to have the meal she created for us.

Like a real mom, she reaches out and connects with each of the women, trying to remember the individual needs, preferences and food-requests.  She cares enough about each person to do exactly what they need for their health.  You need two hard-boiled eggs for breakfast?  Or no mushrooms in your food?  Or nuts on the side?   She’ll do her very best to get all that done for you.  She’ll make a note, and remember it for next year as well.   Isn’t that awesome?! 

House Mom is the bomb!  She’s the real deal!  We all adore her. 

Kids Night and Story Time, too, of course.

Oh, the P4 Retreat is fun for the kids too.  There isn’t any dissociative system who shows up at a P4 Retreat whose inside kids stay hidden for all the time we’re there.  That’s not just possible!.  Kids are very safe at these retreats, and they are welcome to visit for a bit, of course.  Those stuffy old boring adults don’t get all the time.  No way.  The kids also need to play.

We had several different kids play day options scheduled this year.  Of course, we had our favorite dedicated-for-the-kids Kidz Night, with lots of stories, funny shirts and jammies, silly games, and of course, loads of ice cream.  Since when can you have a kids night and not have a zillion flavors of  ice cream?  It’s an essential, right?  PLUS, we had a whole selection of toppings and sprinkles and glitter and chocolate and peanut butter and strawberries and all the goodies kids like to put on their ice cream sundaes.  They were gooey messes, for sure!

Have you ever heard of the Aussie books, “Funky Chicken” and “Mission InCROCible”?   I met the author of these stories when I was in Australia, so we just had to read these ones.  These books come with fantastic songs and free video downloads too.  Well, we read those books.  And we read another story that was all about the Ka BOOOOM.  And another story that was all about places in America.

On a different day, we played with beach balls, and super soakers, and ran around in the yard squealing and giggling, having all kinds of outdoor water-splashing fun.  That was good, because the weather was plenty warm enough to play outside, and the water splashing cooled us down.  

OH, and some young system kids went fishing in the lake, and between all those kids, there were lots and lots of catch-n-release of fishing happening.  I couldn’t believe how many fish they were catching!

Then, we had an interpretive musical-dance class, and some of the kids were free to move to music, and to show emotions and feelings through the way their body reacted to the piano music.  That was good.  Challenging, but good.

A Tail Gate Party / Dance evening for the Teenagers

You know if those little ones get to have some dedicated time, the tweeners and teenagers want some time for themselves as well.  And for any dissociative system, typically, those teen years are very very difficult.  It’s often not easy for the teenagers to have fun, and we put a lot of effort into planning our teen days.

This year, we had a pool table, and rounds of pool going on for those who wanted to play.  We also had pac-man games, lego, puzzles, and other table games the teenagers might like.

We selected teen-preferred music ahead of time, and had a 4-hour play list of music the teenagers wanted to hear.  I brought along an outdoor speaker so we could blast our music loud.  Dancing or not dancing, most teenagers like their music.  We definitely were playing their music.

Of course, we had our teen dance again.  This year, we made it an outdoor tail-gate party, outside under the stars, and filled the back of a vehicle full of sodas, chocolates, and chips (every kind of chip in the store, I think!).  We had light-up bracelets and glow-in-the-dark window decorations, and sparkly make-up, glitter outfits, and fun teen clothes.  It’s not an easy task to bring the teenagers out when life felt so complicated for them, but we made our teen night as welcoming as we could. 

Some of the teens were sitting by the campfire again, added Magic Fire to bring out the colors.  The angry teens had a place to sit and talk if they didn’t want to dance.  Fire holds its own angry-fire magic like that, especially for those who are angry.  As a healthy fun alternative, some of the teens started their own giant ball toss game outdoors as well.  Some teens are more into sport than dancing, and that kind of body movement was absolutely welcomed as well.

The point being….  the teenagers were in a safe place, and a big chunk of  time was specifically made for them.  They could participate in a variety of activities of varying levels of movement.  They weren’t forced to do anything (hello, they are teenagers!), and they just got to hang out, and be themselves, quietly, or chat it up with the other teenagers who were there.  Some teens did things they did before in life, and other teenagers got to try brand new things they had never done before.  It was a safe place to grow and let even the teenagers have some time to just be themselves.

No boring adults invited!

What a sense of freedom that was for them.

Animals of All Kinds —  offering a variety of experiences

For lots of trauma survivors, connecting with an animal is far easier than connecting with people.  People are often the scary ones, the complicated ones, and animals feel safer, more real, less threatening, and more interesting.  That’s not true for everyone, but it’s probably more often true than not.

This year, we had our usual critter-collection, plus a whole lot more.  Of course, Pinky and JoeJoe were there.  And this year, we had another little dog in our midst.

At the Stockyard, we saw Texas Longhorns, a Highland cow, many horses, tons of goats, sheep, and even a little spotted pig.

At the retreat venue, we had another variety of wild life to see.  Between different folks in the community, we saw lots of deer, several different kinds of fish, wild pigs, a green snake, a frog, tadpoles, armadillo, butterflies, squirrels, lots of birds, and a litter of five kittens! 

Peer Support Exemplified again and again and again….

Around here, peer support looks like this.  Like-minded friends building connections with each other via a shared life experience, people understanding their own dissociative selves by learning from each other.  It’s the being vulnerable with each other, supporting each other, hearing each other, helping each other.  We spoke about difficulties of the dissociative life, we wrestled with ways to approach effective system work, we walked through activities created around system communication, and talked through a variety of difficult scenarios.  We held onto empathy, compassion, and hope.  We addressed conflict.  We sat through bad news, heartache, grief, and pain.  We didn’t just talk surface level chit chat.  This community of dissociative survivors knows how to build genuine bonds with each other, and we know how to be real, even when it hurts.  The heart of the P4 Retreat experience leans into conversations that create deep and genuine connection, addressing the truth of what is, even when it’s hard.  And uncomfortable.  Or complicated.  Or tender.  It’s the accepting of each other, including our differences, and still finding ways to care and connect.

In fact, the real magic of these retreats is exactly that — the depth of connections between people, and the width of support and healing that  happens because of the realness of the relationships.

Of course, we giggled and laughed, and had tons of fun.  Being a bit silly is required!  But the fact that we could be vulnerable and share deeply from our hearts is where the real connection happens.  We can see that each person arrived with their warts, their weird ways, and their PTSD pain-filled bruising.  Even so, we try to understand and connect, without judgment, and without rejection.  Let people be people, and find their hearts.  Find the real truth of who they are, and then sit with them, in that.

Genuine peer support.   It’s a beautiful thing.  

Maybe next time, you’ll join us, and feel that magic happening for you too.

It will be awhile until the next retreat, but it’s never too early to start planning.   Join in with our forum community, and let the connections start building.

Until then…..

As always, I wish you the very best in your healing journey, and may you too, find people with whom you deeply connect.

Warmly,

Kathy 

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