When Healing Is Witnessed: A Journey to the Healing Together Conference

by By Heather (LS) Scarboro LCMHC-QS, LCAS, NCC

Healing rarely begins in the spaces where we expect it to.It doesn’t always start in conference rooms, therapy offices, or structured conversations. Often, it begins in the in-between — on long stretches of highway, in quiet pauses between questions, or standing beside someone you love while the ocean moves in steady rhythm.

This year, my mom and I traveled together to the 2026 Healing Together Conference by An Infinite Mind, a gathering centered on dissociative identity disorder, clinical and community support. For me, the experience carried personal and relational significance. It marked the first time, since diagnosis in 2002, she so openly and willingly embraced my lived experience as someone with DID — an experience shaped by childhood abuse from my father, with whom I am no longer in contact.

But the most meaningful work didn’t start at the conference.

It began on the drive.

The Journey Down: Conversations Without Urgency

The trip required more than eight hours on the road — time intentionally broken by a stop at Neptune Beach, Florida. Long drives create space that everyday life rarely affords. Without the interruptions of routine, we talked.

Not in one defining disclosure.Not in a perfectly structured conversation.But through unfolding dialogue — layered, curious, relational.

I shared:

• What systemhood looks like for us internally

• The adaptive origins of dissociation and dissociative systems

• How collaboration among parts functions

• The ways different parts experienced her throughout development

Perhaps most meaningful, we explored something that existed long before diagnosis or language:

How we experienced her as a loving mother — even before either of us understood multiplicity.

These conversations weren’t about simplifying history or forcing clarity. Families shaped by trauma are complex ecosystems. Attachment, care, survival adaptation, and harm-related contexts often coexist. Allowing nuance — rather than resolution — became the goal.

The Journey Home: Questions and Acceptance

The return trip — paused again at Tybee Island, Georgia — carried a different tone. The conversations shifted from introduction to dissociative experiences to understanding and acceptance of dissociative experiences, with curiosity.

Her questions reflected genuine engagement and evolving understanding:

• Is your communication internally like, “Petals of a Rose?”

• What helps parts feel safe in relationships?

• How do I continue to support you all once we are home?

• What language affirms rather than harms?

• How does healing unfold over time?

She also reflected aloud — connecting conference learning to memories from my childhood, and even her own. Protective behaviors she once observed now held different meaning. Moments that once felt confusing gained context. And the topic of Inter-generational Trauma was deeply explored.

These weren’t interrogations.They were bridges.

At Tybee Island, we walked quietly near the water, allowing shared presence to hold what words didn’t need to carry. We both searched for shells peacefully, supporting each other in the experience. By then, the journey had shifted from explanation toward mutual understanding.

What This Meant Internally

Living with DID means navigating life shaped by adaptive survival responses. External validation does not erase trauma, but it can reduce defensive load and increase felt safety.

Her willingness to:

• Listen deeply

• Ask thoughtful questions

• Integrate new perspectives

• Honor lived experience

communicated something regulating to my internal system:

You do not have to navigate this alone.

That message lands in ways difficult to quantify yet deeply felt.

A Reflection for Supporters

If there is something I hope families and supporters take from this experience, it is this:

You do not need perfect understanding.You do not need clinical expertise.You do not need immediate resolution of the past.

Sometimes healing begins simply through:

• Showing up

• Asking questions

• Listening without defensiveness

• Allowing complexity to exist

• Sharing quiet moments of presence

Safety is built incrementally.Curiosity itself is intervention.

Closing Reflection

The conference mattered.But healing unfolded equally in what surrounded it.

It happened:

On highways

In vulnerable conversations

On two shorelines

In questions asked on the way home

In willingness to see differently

My mom’s openness did not rewrite history. It did not remove pain or complexity. But it reshaped the present in meaningful ways — and OFTEN that is where healing lives.

And for that, I carry deep gratitude.

We are Healing Together!