I’m new here, but some people will know me from another site under another name. My healing journey involves working with parts. I have a very special place I like to visit and I found that as different parts visited it, they would buy a little dinosaur they liked. These dinosaurs quickly came to represent or symbolise some of my different parts and have been very helpful to my healing.

I find that if I need to comfort a certain part, then comforting the dinosaur reaches that part. If I need to let a part have a voice, then the dinosaur can speak (or ROAR! if need be). If there’s a scary action I need to take, then letting a dinosaur do it first can help as a testing ground. Carrying them around keeps me more connected to my parts rather than cutting them off.

And they have given my T and I a lot of insight into things. I am often not aware of what is going on inside me, but whenever a certain dinosaur has to hide in my T’s office or be locked up in the pencil case or sit out in the open, it gives us very important clues as to what is happening inside me.

There are 4 dinosaurs all up and they have very definite patterns connecting them. There is a happy one and a sad one. An angry one and a hiding one. Two green ones and two brown ones. Two stand upright and two stand on all fours. I certainly didn’t plan it that way, but it is very interesting how it’s turned out and how they are linked together.

Anyway, we’ve lost one. A couple of months ago we were working very closely with the sad part and trying to let it come out more and all of a sudden we lost the happy dinosaur. Straight after that the sad part was able to have a voice and be present in our sessions.

Losing the happy dinosaur was devastating. We searched everywhere repeatedly for hours and hours. Days. Weeks. Much distress. Heavy denial. Refused to believe he was gone. Avoided searching some places because if we did and he wasn’t there then he really must be gone. I felt like I’d lost a child. He’s a part of me. It’s so hard.

After about a month we finally managed to search everywhere and perhaps start to accept that he was gone and thought about whether we should buy another one to replace him. My T wondered if that was wise. He wondered if perhaps I had “misplaced” the happy dinosaur in order to give the sad part room to come out.

I was initially very cranky whenever he mentioned this. As though I’d hidden the dinosaur. I didn’t hide it on purpose! I’ve lost him! But I could see it was a slim possibility that made a lot of sense. I don’t lose time, but I do have a lot of blanks in my head around where and when I last had him out.

So I decided to wait and see. I think I’ve waited for about a month now and there’s still no sign of him anywhere. At present I don’t have a burning urge to replace him. He’s not prominent at present. And I’d hate to buy another one and then “find” him down the track. Would mess me up inside. So for now I’m okay with sitting back and waiting for a while. See what happens. But I know a day will come when I suddenly NEED him. Or I’ll be at the special place again and just buy him on impulse. I’ve been avoiding the special place to prevent this. But it is very good for us to visit this special place. I can feel a need for that place coming up.

All the dinosaurs got locked up very very tightly and securely for a long time after we lost him. Didn’t want to let them out and risk losing another one. We have recently very slowly started letting them out again, but there are big fears we’ll lose another one. However, once again, they have already provided very important clues in my healing journey.

What do you think? Would you buy a replacement one? Would it bother you that your parts are reduced to easily replaced commodities? Does it make it okay if you recognise the dinosaurs are only symbolic of the actual parts within you – simply tools? Would you continue to use the symbolic dinosaurs to assist you, or would you eradicate them and work on dealing directly with the parts?