For Me, Healing Together 2026 Was Overshadowed By Circumstances
I really didn’t get what I needed from Healing Together this year.
There’s usually a calm, breath of fresh air feeling. I’m able to relax because I’m surrounded by others that either have DID or OSDD themselves or are therapists that work with DID, so everyone understands intimately what I/we are going through. They always play the music video of “No Rain” by Blind Melon at the closing for a reason! It’s exactly like that, at best.
Instead, I had a bad time. It wasn’t because of anything Healing Together did. The conference itself was great, actually! The things that made this a bad year for me were mostly outside of anyone’s control.
I had a mild kidney stone.
For about a week or two before, I’d been having symptoms. I thought it was a bad UTI that had maybe spread to my kidney and was making it ache, and I was given antibiotics even though the doctor at urgent care (ugh, big surprise expense) warned me it could instead be a kidney stone. I took all my prescribed antibiotics, and I thought it was making me feel better. But then, at the conference, specifically in the middle of Dr. Mike Lloyd’s class (which was great!), I started feeling the telltale low back cramps of a stone getting closer to making it’s exit, as well as a moving pinprick. I’m incredibly glad it was just a little pinprick, just discomfort! But it kept me in the bathroom for a bit of Saturday and quite a lot of Sunday. I missed the vast majority of the last two class periods because I couldn’t leave the bathroom longer than a few minutes at a time.
This was really hard on us mentally, especially Ignatius. He really wanted to be present for the conference. Instead, certain physical symptoms caused him to be overwhelmingly triggered, even before the conference began. Mitzi tried her best to take on the brunt of it, both before and after she knew it meant “pissing out a rock,” even though it meant Ignatius was not going to be very present at the conference. This didn’t work perfectly, but the fact that it worked at all is a testament to how much progress we’ve made lately. Still, at the very end of Saturday, Ignatius was briefly forced out by surprise and was so afraid that he couldn’t stand it. The next day, Sam was unexpectedly the one who handled most of the day, and he was remarkably calm about the situation. Those hours in the bathroom were pretty much nonstop rapid switching. A lot of us were trying desperately to not have Ignatius experience any more of the physical symptoms. It was so disorienting that none of us actually remember seeing the stone (if it was visible?), it was just inferred that it must have passed because peeing went from impossible (despite really needing to go) to suddenly very possible.
That alone left me (me overall, but specific ones of us as well) feeling like I missed out. Not just on some classes, but on any feeling of relief.
That was enough on it’s own, but unfortunately, it’s not the whole story.
Several minutes after the door opening on Friday, the person I went to the conference with got the phone call that an extended family member they were very close to was going to die very soon. (The person did pass shortly after the conference.)
So they were instantly having a bad time, very understandably. I do not blame them for being upset or for feeling like their Healing Together 2026 was ruined before it even really began.
But, while I/we were dealing with the stone, I/we were also trying to help the person we came to the conference with. Which brings us to the two categories of thing that frustrate me/us about ourself.
We uselessly tried to make sure the person we went to the conference with managed to get something out of it.
On Friday, I let them know they could do what they needed to do, whether that was stay to attend classes and meetings or go to their family and I wouldn’t be upset either way (Who would be?!), but that I wanted to stay and they could leave me there and not to worry about me because I’d be okay and would get a ride home via an app. I don’t know how to phrase this without sounding harsh, but, either of those were the logical choice. Instead, the person I was with did this third thing where they stayed at the conference all 3 days, but they were so miserable that they were nonparticipating for the majority of the time. Which, I understand grief was hitting. But those of us that were present for the conference wanted to make sure they at least got something from deciding to stay (especially Sam, apparently).
Obviously, the entire effort was pissing in the wind. ...Or, trying to piss and being blocked by a kidney stone.
Eventually Sam actually did give up on getting the person to attend a class or meet new people and left them to sulk alone with their head against a table for almost the entire day as they apparently wanted. Sam went off to do his own thing, but that was pretty much instantly taken over by the fucking kidney stone deciding it was time to go and having to spend pretty much the rest of the conference Sunday on the toilet, as mentioned before.
This person isn’t sure they’ll be coming back to the conference next year. But, if they do, as harsh as this sounds, I don’t want us going to the conference in the same vehicle again. It’ll be awkward since we both live not very far from the conference (we’re both incredibly lucky for that!) and carpooling there is a really obvious choice, but I need them to feel free to leave whenever they want and I need to be free to stay later without either of us worrying about making the other have a worse time and then trying to make their time better at our own expense.
We’ve made up since the conference, but it really sucked. And it mostly sucked for reasons outside of our control, but I don’t think we actually helped each other through the circumstances all that much. To be fair, I don’t think it was within either of our abilities. We were both completely and truly overwhelmed. And it came out later that actually, I value the social aspects of the conference significantly more than the person I was with. I don’t think going together (forcing us to leave at the same time) would’ve benefited us even if nothing went wrong. So, if they do decide to go next year, it’s going to be awkward when I refuse to carpool, but that’s how it needs to be.
But, actually, outside of who we were with, the social aspect was a problem.
This is alter dependent, but, a lot of our social skills are much worse than we previously realized.
And that was an incredibly frustrating discovery for several of us. And I’m not even totally sure which of us.
It makes sense. Evelyn did the majority of the talking for about 17 years! Not all of it, as several of me are figuring out, but, the majority. And, Evelyn is struggling with realizing that she’s basically been caught in a terminal people-pleasing / forever fawn response the whole time because that actually was her best shot at getting people to treat us less like shit, but I am not elaborating on that right now.
(For the most part, this is Nadia, in case you couldn't tell. It took me a bit honestly. I mean, we’re all the same person, we have things in common, our legal name belongs to all of us and Nadia as a name just started feeling less like a nickname and more like it belongs to me as an “inside name,” if you will. And no matter which “me” we are, we’re all still “me,” right?)
But, back to the point. The ability to talk to people and hold a lengthy conversation was just not there. There was talking, sure, but it didn’t flow naturally, and may not have left the desired impression. I’m not sure if one of us was perceiving cringes that weren’t really there or if that was perceived correctly. Several of myselves were upset with the way they interacted with others.
I don’t really know how to fix that outside of therapy, and I’m not sure what kind of therapy could help with that, and of course, I don’t know if it’s affordable. We’re looking into something, but nothing’s set in stone right now.
I/We seem to have bad luck around Healing Togethers. One week after our first year at the conference, our spouse (then fiance) had a major life-threatening and life-altering medical event. The second year happened right after Spike started existing and Hannah was discovered basically immediately after the 2025 conference, so that was a lot for Evelyn at the time. And this year was… this. DURING it.
It would be really cool if next year went smoothly. I know Healing Together itself will always be really great, even when shitty circumstances end up surrounding or interrupting it. I just really hope next year comes with that sense of relief it gave me the years before.