jibberish

I have been experiencing something odd lately. There are times when I am connected with one of my kids and she tries to come up with words to describe what happened or what she is feeling, it is like she is speaking in a different language. She doesn't seem to be able to access English, but when she (internally) tries to speak and only jibberish comes out, she knows that something is going very wrong with communication. It isn't that I knew another language that I have forgotten and that is what is coming up. This child is almost a preteen, so it isn't that she is pre-verbal. She hasn't ever actually said anything out loud that is jibberish, but the intent had been to speak out loud, but she stopped an instant before making a sound, because she knew that what would come out wouldn't sound right. This has happened both in communications at home and in session with my T. To be honest, I am not sure which of the kids this is, but I am pretty sure that it is either one of two or both of these kids have had the same problem. This is new, over the past several days, and I suspect that this child may not be able to communicate at all with words right now, although she is getting information to me in some way, just not a verbal form.

My abuser was from Mexico, although he came to the US when he was 12 and so had predominantly used English for most of his life. I knew no Spanish, however it is possible that he would sometimes speak in Spanish, but this doesn't sound even remotely like Spanish (which I have since learned to some extent.)

This is starting to become frustrating and a bit frightening to this child.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Any suggestions?

Speech Apraxia is a real thing...sometimes it can happen with physical trauma, I imagine it can happen with emotional as well. it's like you can understand the words and you can set them up in your brain to speak - but what comes next is like people in a line at a store - all rushing the door at once...they get out of line, jumbled, or come out in the wrong order.

Perhaps if you treat this a little like one might do Apraxia, it would work. So my suggestion would be for her to perhaps concentrate on the the main word (noun) of the sentence. Focusing may take some of the anxiety away which may be what is making things so jumbled. Now..since it is only one word but still has the chance of being jumbled - you may get "enc-ffff" for "fence".

But once you have the noun, you can switch to some pantomiming if possible (tall, short, now..etc) like charades. If this is really distressing/predominant - perhaps you can work with her on a word or phrase when she is not necessarily trying to communicate (no pressure). Something like "Would you like to work with words today? Let's do "H" I want to feel your breath on my hand as you say huh-huh-huh-huh--ha-ppy..." Maybe after some success, other words may follow.

Another thing is mode...perhaps she can't speak but can write or draw to express herself.

Finally, Spanish. Spanish seems to have many words whose endings sound the same with the "o" and "a" at the end. If you can have her give you one word...you might be able to figure out what it sounds the most like. But to a child who does not know any of the language being spoken to her at the time, it probably all sounded like gibberish. Maybe she is trying to make sense of what he was saying. Can you let her hear someone speaking Spanish on youtube or something and ask "what you are trying to say, does it sound like this?" That might, at least, help you with some direction... if she says yes - that's it, you could talk to the T about introducing a Spanish word that may have been used. Is her voice angry (command word?) or soft (manipulative?)

Just some thoughts. Not experience. Take care!

Not sure if this will relate to your situation, but Quato is an alter who was cruelly manipulated and physically punished into SA with the father. When he first arrived last year, he spoke jibberish, although also English. There was a lot of nonsense language, bad or nonsense poetry or songs, plus bizarre sound effects. He was all over the map and it was all totally crazy. It was sometimes entertaining too but it suggested a mind in extreme turmoil close to insanity. I think that was because by designed he was created by me and aligned so closely with me that our gatekeeper thought he was me. He had to hide what he knew not only from me but from himself. He did that behind a mask of meaningless blather. If I got close to the meaning, he would manipulate me away from it.

I can talk in tongues, nothing to do with religion or mysticism, but just start talking in a variety of made-up languages that sound like they might be real languages from various language families, so they may sound Sinitic, Scandinavian, Bantu, etc. I have no idea where this 'ability' comes from and it's always kind of freaked me out but I'm pretty sure now it's Quato's stuff.

I've never identified this as jibberish or much of anything but it's some kind of phenomenon that's unusual so I appreciate your posting this to make me think about it. Another alter is truly mute because he was only out for the mother's mute alter.

I wouldn't put any pressure on her to have to speak. My first reaction is that she may have or there may be an internal mechanism that keeps her from speaking the truth, perhaps from the original danger that was real if she told. We think Quato needed to be able to go into blather and nonsense in order to keep from focusing on the truth because otherwise he couldn't hide it from me.

The memories, you are not ready for them.. they will have to be revealed through another alter.

OMNICELL wrote:The memories, you are not ready for them.. they will have to be revealed through another alter.

.

I actually know what happened to her, through flashbacks. It's just that the words break down when she goes to talk with me or my T about it. **TRIGGER ALERT**. It is very true that she had very good reason to believe that my abuser would k**l her if she told, because he would suffocate her until she passed out. ** END TRIGGER**

I thought that she had previously been using words with me, but I am not 100% sure that she was. I am sure that she never tried to talk to my T until this past session. Hmm, I really do wonder if she had tried to use words with me before. I am now thinking about the differences between procedural and declarative memory. Is it possible that she is still in a state where she cannot yet put what happened into narrative form, but has passed on enough of the information to me through flashbacks that I have been able to make some sense of it and process it into verbal form? Even for me, it is almost impossible to put words to the worst of what happened. I had to email it to my T this week, because saying the words out loud was too hard. Partly because I am terribly afraid that this will finally push my T into not believing me.

Maybe she has been too panicked by the memories of what happened to be able to have the concentration necessary to form the words? Maybe even at the time, she may have been so panicked in the abusive situation that she didn't even really take in the understanding of language being spoken to her at the time and so now doesn't have language at her disposal to help her communicate?

If it was that she is too panicked in the present to be able to form words to describe what she went through, perhaps you could try teaching her some grounding exercises... Or if it was that she was too panicked in the abusive situations to ever develop an understanding of language in the first place, perhaps someone inside can take on the task of teaching her, talking her through basic language skills as you would a child...

I could also be possible that she is talking another language that she may have learned but doesn't have the access to those memories yet either (as in she may have split off some memories of the abuse herself...). I don't know what to do about that. We currently have that problem. Someone seems to be able to occasionally speak and write in latin. We only know it's latin from typing it into google. I've got no idea how to fix this problem. So hopefully that is not what is going on for her cause I have no suggestions on what to do about that....

I am starting get words at the beginnings and ends of sentences. Like, "He ......... me!" I suspect that the idea that this child is still feeling too much terror to be completely coherent is largely on target. That combined with possibly finding the experiences to be so far beyond what should be, that she may not have known words for some of what happened and the rest might simply be inexpressible.

I guess that since I now know what happened, it is my job to express it and find some way to help bring the levels of terror down and get her to see that all of me now exists in 2012, even if she experiences being trapped in 1977. Can I just say here that at this moment, I am tired of needing to deal with this? I will do it, because no one else can do it, but I am really, really tired of being connected to the pain and terror, even if the me who is out in the world isn't experiencing it, most of the time.

The Cat's Meow wrote:Can I just say here that at this moment, I am tired of needing to deal with this? I will do it, because no one else can do it, but I am really, really tired of being connected to the pain and terror, even if the me who is out in the world isn't experiencing it, most of the time.

You can not only say it, you can get someone to reply saying "here, here, sister!" Dang if that isn't exactly how I feel much of the time. I know it's my responsibility, whose else could it possibly be, but I'm just so tired and wish I could go on a vacation from all this. That said, I don't want my littles or anyone else to think for a moment I'm abandoning our journey. We didn't choose it but it's the road we're on, for better or worse.

Glad to hear you are starting to get more of a sense of what is going on for her... It sounds like you are well on the way to being about to help her through gradually lessening her terror and being able to learn how to describe what happened...

The Cat's Meow wrote:Can I just say here that at this moment, I am tired of needing to deal with this? I will do it, because no one else can do it, but I am really, really tired of being connected to the pain and terror, even if the me who is out in the world isn't experiencing it, most of the time.

We are soooo with you on this.... that describes how we feel a lot of the time too...