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Diagnosed with Complex Trauma and a Dissociative Disorder, Emma and her system share what they learn along the way about complex trauma, dissociation (CPTSD, OSDD, DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality), etc.), and mental health. Educational, supportive, inclusive, and inspiring, System Speak documents her healing journey through the best and worst of life in recovery through insights, conversations, and collaborations.
Over: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast, a podcast about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to longtime listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 1:My friend Laura Brown told me about Al Anon, and I read about it in one of her books. And my friend told me about the Al Anon book that I just talked about, how Al Anon works. And it's not that I need anyone to find it helpful or useful, but it is what has given me something to fill in the gaps. You know how with trauma, there's so much we know not to do because we don't want to repeat what was done to us. And so we do the opposite.
Speaker 1:But with deprivation, the good is missing. So I can't do the opposite because the hole is just there, and I don't know how to fill in the hole. So the things that I found helpful in Al Anon or in ACA, the adult children dysfunction, something, I don't even know all the words yet. That's how new it is to me. But what is helpful is that I am getting skills to fill in the hole, or pieces of that's what's supposed to be in the hole, or glimpses of everyone else has access to these things that help them live healthy lives, have safe and positive interactions with others, and maintain friendships and relationships when it feels so impossible for me.
Speaker 1:At the end of chapter three, there's a quote in the middle to the second to the last paragraph that says, We find there are simple tools that can change the way we feel about ourselves and our circumstances, Tools that can help us get more out of living and to find excitement and opportunity where once we found only a struggle to survive. That is all I'm talking about, trying to keep myself alive. So the next chapter in chapter four, what it talks about is that it says, just when we finally seem to be getting ahead, there's always some sort of setback or crisis. How true is that? Even on the podcast, you've heard that, where even when I'm trying my very best, there are things that I get wrong or things that I don't know or things that I say that I didn't know how to do better or say better or do differently.
Speaker 1:And it causes even owning my own stuff causes more and more problems where I'm still putting out little fires all the time instead of being able to talk about the big one, the original one. Like, I can't make progress in therapy if I don't even get to talk about the hard things from the beginning. And then trying to find safety always seems to blow up in my face. That's a quote at the bottom of chapter four. It's exhausting when you are so afraid of the world and then dare to try to connect with something, and it seems like something goes wrong every time.
Speaker 1:Like, how many times do you keep trying before it just isn't working out? Or I only blame myself for being the common denominator. Even folks I've met from Healing Together, some of them I'm still friends with, some of them I haven't heard from in ages. They haven't heard from me at all, maybe. I'm sure that has nothing to do with the problem.
Speaker 1:Or in the community where we work so hard to be safe enough. And yet, also, it doesn't mean that people don't have different needs or the different timings of things. We've seen that all the time, even aside from the regular cycle of group dynamics that always comes back to conflict because healing happens through repair, and we can't get to repair without rupture. And not that anyone is causing ruptures, but they're always going to happen because it's part of group dynamics. So who stays for that?
Speaker 1:Who still shows up? Who learns to say their things, but in ways that are focused on healing? Who sticks around to see what repair looks like? That's where we get our power back. But nobody can decide that for anybody else.
Speaker 1:And just because there's conflict doesn't mean there's a bad guy. There doesn't have to be a bad guy. We don't have to be sucked into the drama triangle. This book says, In Al Anon, we do not give advice. Nobody tells anyone else what to do about their own private situation.
Speaker 1:Difficult decisions are uniquely personal and can only be made by the individuals involved. What we offer instead is experience, strength, hope. We share our feelings, our growth, and our pain. We listen and we learn, identifying with the stories others tell and discovering new ways to approach our particular circumstances by hearing how others have dealt with similar issues. We can take what you like and leave the rest.
Speaker 1:They also talk about not focusing on what is wrong. Like, even in conflict or even in, hard conversations or even in difficult interactions, we don't focus on what the other person is doing wrong that's not helpful or healthy. We focus on ourselves, like dropping the rope, and focus on instead of how things would be different if the other person changed all the things or if things were the way we wanted, just focusing on accepting how things already are and how we want to respond in ways that are congruent with who we want to be. We can't change other people, and we can't cure what is wrong. We're powerless over others.
Speaker 1:We didn't cause their disease. In the book, they're talking about alcoholism. But again, every time it talks about alcoholism, I could cross it out, scratch it out, and write trauma. We didn't cause the trauma. We can't control it, and we can't cure it.
Speaker 1:In the world of Al Anon, they call these the three Cs. So, if we're applying this to trauma in a context for a part of recovery, we didn't cause other people's memory time trauma. We weren't even there. So it's like one thing we can be sure of, like, I wasn't even there. I didn't cause this.
Speaker 1:And also, it doesn't mean it's not coming up for them, but I can drop that rope of either punishing myself or setting myself up to be punished or getting sucked into wanting to rescue them from what has already happened. It's one of the hardest things, even with our kids, our outside kids. It doesn't matter how well we love them, and I'm not perfect, so I can't get it right every time. And I know I've said this before, but it doesn't matter how much we love them. We can't change what already happened to them before they ever came to us.
Speaker 1:And even with ourselves, if we apply this to systems internally, what has happened that was awful has already happened. So we can respond to it, and we can tend to it, and we can work on healing it, but we can't change it, and we didn't cause it. That's a hard one for me, both because of shiny happy and because of my own stumbling mistakes in the mess and chaos of life, especially when my life is feeling unmanageable. The other c is that we can't control it. It says, although we try everything and we attempt anything that makes sense and much that doesn't, we refuse to give up because we feel it makes us look weak and out of control.
Speaker 1:There must be something else we can do. The only thing we can't do is give up. But when we finally surrender, we realize that we were only giving up our futile struggle against an incurable disease like trauma that has already happened. Which I don't mean disease in a pathologizing way, they're talking about alcoholism. But if we cross that out and mean trauma, it's still it's incurable because it already happened.
Speaker 1:It doesn't mean we can't tend to it or respond to it. So when we drop that rope, we're free to focus on what we can do something about rather than spinning out like squirrels spinning around trying to change what we couldn't. Finally, the third C is that we can't cure it. The book says, And again, it says alcoholic. That could be abuser, that could be partner, that could be friend, that could be trauma, that could be anything we need it to be.
Speaker 1:It could be our own unmanageableness. We can broaden that to make it applicable to us. It says, If we didn't cause it, and we can't control it, then the responsibility to find an answer is theirs, not ours. We find our own answers for our stuff until everyone has a desire to get their own help and their own healing. Anything we try with them is wasted effort.
Speaker 1:While we are unable to cure trauma, we can change our own attitudes about it. So not, again, not talking about being cold and dismissive. And also, if I wanna be friends with someone, but they don't wanna talk to me, I can't make them be friends with me. If I want to offer support to someone, but I'm only getting carebusters back, then I can't make them receive care. Right?
Speaker 1:But it doesn't mean I have to stop being caring. It just means I adjust my expectations, and I accept where they're at, and I accept what I'm able to give instead of trying so hard to give what I can't. It's part of un daydreaming and part of un dissociating to see the world more clearly. It says, knowing that we didn't cause the illness, meaning alcoholism, but again, we can we didn't cause it and we can't control or cure it, we learn to let others face the consequences of their own choices and detach enough to not be overprotective or cover up for them. We stop making excuses to friends and relatives for their behavior, others usually knowing what's going on anyway.
Speaker 1:We learn to not let someone else's behavior interfere with our own plans. We do our best to accompany our detachment with genuine compassion to be understanding and care for everyone affected by it, except in healthy ways. I'm trying to turn the page. Except in healthy ways where we can actually contribute compassion instead of just doing what we think we need to do, but doesn't actually help them or us. It says, Those special relationships in which a person is really close to an alcoholic are affected most, and we who care are the most caught up in the behavior of another person.
Speaker 1:We react to the other person's behavior, seeing that the drinking is out of hand, or trauma responses, we try to control it. We are ashamed of the public scenes but try to handle it in private. It isn't long before we feel we are to blame and take on the hurts, the fears, and the guilt of them. We too become as ill as they are. If we're all ill, no one's getting healing.
Speaker 1:That's why we need the boundaries or even the detachment, not from the person or not from a relationship, but from the trauma drama that really is only a result of everything we've all been through as opposed to contributing compassion in ways that are healthy and effective so that we're not just spinning out, but actually getting somewhere. It says, all our thinking becomes directed at what they are doing or not doing and how to get them to stop. It becomes our obsession. And that's italicized. This shows up with anxious attachment, and I'll talk about that later.
Speaker 1:But with anxious attachment or approach strategies, we can get so wrapped up in trying to maintain the relationship or to force things to be better, even though we're not meaning to be forceful, that we get very controlling because we're not knowing about the Cs. And when we get obsessing like this, then it can be smothering to the other person, or it can be controlling behavior, or it can be, filling in all the gaps without having an accurate version of the story. And all of those things make life more unmanageable instead of better, which isn't what we're trying to do at all. We often make the mistake of covering things up. We try to fix everything, make excuses, tell little lies to mend damaged relationships and worry more.
Speaker 1:This is anxiety. Sometimes we want to strike back or punish or make them pay for the hurt and frustration caused by their uncontrolled behavior. This is our anger. It points to injustice. Each time there is a sober period or a calm period, however brief, we want to believe the problem has gone away.
Speaker 1:That's daydreaming, right? That's not real. It's part of what's real, but that realness is the realness of the cycle, which ultimately is comes a version of interpersonal violence as opposed to health and safety and stability. When good sense tells us there is something wrong, we still hide how we feel and what we know. This is our denial.
Speaker 1:Perhaps the most severe damage to those of us who have shared this life comes in the form of the nagging belief that we are somehow at fault. We may feel it was something we did or did not do, that we were not good enough, not attractive enough, or not clever enough to have solved this problem for the one we love. These are our feelings of guilt. When we're obsessing, we scan for inconsistencies or signs of slips. We walk on eggshells, careful to not do anything that might upset them, or we view sobriety with skepticism, unwilling to trust the changes we see.
Speaker 1:After years of waiting for a more intimate, nurturing, or amiable relationship, or of hoping that the burden of household responsibilities will finally be shared, many of us are frustrated to discover that our hopes remain unfulfilled and we are more alone than ever. In short, the effects of alcoholism or trauma, obsession, anxiety, anger, denial, and feelings of guilt tend to persist until we seek recovery for ourselves. So this is the whole point. It's not that we're detaching from attachment. It's not that we're detaching from relationships or people.
Speaker 1:We have to detach from trying to be the one that can solve all the problems for other people or prevent crises from other people or, rescue other people. As much as we may want to, we cannot for two reasons. One, they have to rescue themselves, which is part of the trauma impact and part of the grief because no one showed up to rescue us. And because while they are doing that for themselves, we have to step up and do our own work. It says, the drama of other people's problems can be very distracting, but we discover that the problem does not lie solely within another person.
Speaker 1:The problem is also within us. The behavior of a friend, spouse, child, sibling, employer, or parent may lead us to Al Anon, but we soon realize that our own thinking has become distorted. Al Anon helps us to stop wasting time trying to change the things over which we have no control and to put our efforts to work where we do have some power over our own lives. Oh my goodness. The idea that for the first time there could be skills or things I could do or ways to actually fill in the hole of deprivation so that when I am trying to stand my ground in myself, capital s self, I could be safe and stable while living in the world, while fighting to be alive, while interacting well with others in safe and healthy and stable ways.
Speaker 1:It is seriously the first time in years I have felt hope. I'm going to keep saying it. You're going to keep hearing it because that is what I am feeling as I interact with this material is I have hope. And hope is everything. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1:Your support of the podcast, the workbooks, and the community means so much to us as we try to create something together that's never been done before, not like this.