The summer solstice has passed, and when I first started writing this post, I was thinking about what it usually costs me.

A few months ago, a core part and her subsystem integrated. Since then, I been holding tightly to something that might not seem like a big deal to most people, but it feels huge to me. Everything makes me want to cry.

A friend can tell me about a small act of kindness she showed someone, and I feel tears welling up. I can cry while reading something meaningful, during worship, or when I see God moving in someone’s life. Sometimes the tears come from sadness, but they also come from joy and gratitude. There are times when I do not know exactly what I am feeling. I just know the tears are there. The strange thing is that I was not numb before this integration. I felt plenty of emotions. Fear, frustration, grief, happiness, and excitement were all there. I did not have access to the tears…I guess because crying has never been safe for me.

As a child, crying made everything worse. I made an inner vow that I would never cry again. I kept that vow for almost 40 years. I remember the day I made it. I remember where I was, what I was wearing, and how angry I felt. When the tears suddenly came back after the integration, I was excited. I know that probably sounds weird, but I had wanted them back for a long time.

I still feel awkward and shame creeps up when my throat starts to burn, but these tears are proof that we are healing. They mean I am present and experiencing life in the moment instead of staying in my head and intellectualizing everything. They mean I am not dissociating or running from uncomfortable feelings. I am connected to God, to other people, and to the things I care about enough to cry over.

As the solstice approached, I found myself praying that my system would not flip and that I would not lose access to what God had been doing. This last integration felt different because it was a core part, and I desperately wanted the healing to stick.

Much of that healing began about 15 years ago when I stopped relying on other people’s relationships with God and started building my own. For years, I looked to people I respected for answers because they seemed to hear Him clearly. They walked in wisdom and discernment, and they had the intimacy and anointing I wanted. Eventually, I realized that I did not want to keep borrowing from what they had. I wanted my own relationship with Him, so I began doing the things I saw them doing and added a few of my own.

I made it a point to say good morning to my Abba Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit before looking at my phone. I paired reading my Bible with my morning coffee and stopped doing one without the other. I talked to Him in the shower and while driving. Throughout the day, I thanked Him in real time for the million little things I used to take for granted.

Worship music was something that I always played in my home and while driving. But I had to learn to put everything else down, raise my hands, and enter into worship without distractions. I let Him teach me how to move from the outer courts into the holy of holies. I spoke in tongues every day, journaled what He was saying, and paid attention to how He was moving. When He asked me to do hard things, I did them even when I was afraid. One of my mottos became, “Do it afraid if you must, but do it.” I was able to do all of that on my own because I had someone in my life that believed in me. She reminded me that I had a calling on my life and taught me that obedience is better than sacrifice. 

My relationship with Him was growing deep roots and I believe that was needed preparation for the season I was about to step into. When I lost everything that I cared about in a matter of 3 weeks and still chose to say, “though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”, it was a test I didn’t realize I was taking and thank goodness I passed. That is when my healing began to advance. Obedience is healing even when it breaks your heart. It has carried me through some really dark times.

Fast forward 10 years and a lot of battles won. I was met with a level of evil that I had not had to fight before. It took me about 3 weeks to recognize it and 3 years to start to find my footing again. They tried to take me out, literally in the physical and also in the spiritual. Parading around like an angel of light to some people while manifesting like Satan himself behind closed doors. Still very active in the occult, she tried to use her position to convert me to the Hebrew Roots movement.  

I have come a long way in repentance and forgiveness for even exploring that psyop. There was a lot of anger to let go of because I was so desperate to heal, I was willing to try anything. So, I had to accept that I had been equipped to face her. If I had stood my ground instead of trying to protect those around me, things might had been very different. But I didn’t. I watched as she played her games, and eventually she had eroded the roots that I had established. I am ashamed to admit it, but I let her convince me that I was serving a false Jesus. That’s the hardest thing about the cult and mind control programming. I can’t trust my own programming not to lie to me, so I was trying to trust others. Now, I trust only what God confirms to me. 

When I went back to focusing on what God had taught me Himself instead of believing that unhealed survivors knew better than me, I started hearing Him again. That is where I find myself again today. Pushing in to what I know is truth and waiting on Him to teach me what I need to know next. 

He uses people to guide and support us and to be His hands and feet, but we cannot stop there. That is the surface level. We have to go deep if we want to go vertical in our relationship with Him. He has just as much to say to us as we have to say to Him, but we have to make the time to listen.

I hoped the tears were confirmation that the integration had held and my system was beginning to function more like one whole person instead of fragmented parts and split-off alters. I hoped all the hard work was finally becoming something that could not be stolen from me again.

Then today my system flipped and I was faced with the never-ending battle of coming out of the cult.

A system containing parts who went through a lot of trauma during that Hebrew Roots mess is back up for the first time in two years. When I woke up this morning, I felt pretty normal. I was hopeful, although part of me was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. I focused on my work, and everything seemed okay. That changed this evening when I finally sat down on the couch and propped up my feet. Without warning, I was flooded with some of the heaviest grief I have ever felt. It sat on my chest so heavily that I began questioning whether any of this was worth it.

I have done everything I know to do, and I am exhausted. I need a sabbatical. Not a working trip or a few days away where I am still connected to everything and everyone. I need a real sabbatical where I can relax, unplug from the world, and stop carrying so much for a little while.

One of the hardest parts of healing with multiple systems is that a system can come forward that has not received as much healing as the others. Suddenly, you find yourself losing opportunities you worked incredibly hard for. People begin treating you as though you cannot do the things you were doing yesterday because today you are no longer healed enough. The only reason that hurts as deeply as it does is because there is truth in it. That and the fact that we grew up in a cult family we didn’t ask for and now we have to pay a second debt we shouldn’t owe just to try to get free. So we put one foot in front of the other and keep doing the best we can.

These parts have not been present for the same healing that I’ve had. They are carrying wounds that other parts have already worked through, and they may not be ready for everything I was doing before the system flipped. I can understand why people respond to them the way they do, but understanding does not make it hurt any less. 

I was told to prepare a new wineskin and now I see why. What I had cannot contain this level of crushing. The grief alone is spilling over into every area of my life.

I keep telling myself that the work I did was effective and my progress is tangible in my life today. It helps that I have friends who can point out all the growth and remind me that I am not the only one that sees how far I have come. Yet suddenly it feels as though I am being sent backward through no choice of my own. Not that I am going back to the beginning by any means. I never get sent that far back anymore, but when my system flips, things do get shifted and we have to go back and get those parts and try to bring them out of trauma time and into current day life. 

Underneath the anger that is now surfacing is abandonment, and everyone knows trust issues are tucked tightly into abandonment’s back pocket.

The last time this system was up, they had a very different support system from the one they have now. Life has changed significantly during the past two years, and they are grieving what they just learned that they have lost over the last 2 years and are having a very hard time accepting that it is never coming back.

I hear lots of people say survivors hate change, but I don’t think they can understand the true reasons why and how much pain it causes even when it’s positive. Change has always brought consequences and that has not stopped. It’s not the same as a singleton facing change. Change, good or bad, comes with a cost for survivors. Growth comes at a price most struggle to pay because they can’t afford the consequences that come from being honest about what they are trying to heal. The old familiar double binds are packaged differently, but they are still there wrapped in the gift tag of healing.

I know that the hope I felt before the solstice was real. The healing and connection are still there somewhere. What happens after a system flip does not erase it, even though it’s difficult not to feel as though I have been forced backward again. My relationship with God that produced so much healing is still here, even if a different system is now at the front. The parts who are present may not know Him in the same way I do yet, but that does not mean He does not know them.

For now, we wait and keep telling them the truth. We remind them that they are not being ordered to disappear, become smaller, or earn their place by doing a job. They are not disposable, and I will not abandon them.

Hopefully, when the time is right, they will come close enough to let me begin cleaning and bandaging their wounds.

Until then, I’ll search for a new normal and try to bear the consequences of being treated differently with a grace that can only come from Holy Spirit.