Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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:
Speaker 2: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:We have emails today. Nanette says, I know you've heard this many times, but thank you. Thank you for sharing your journey in such a raw, transparent way that I know has to help hundreds, if not thousands of trauma survivors and their systems. As a newly diagnosed older adult, your podcast has been my saving grace between therapy sessions, and I learned so much from you all. There's no words and no gratitude large enough to thank you for being real, true, honest, and vulnerable with strangers and newfound friends.
Speaker 1:That gets me in a lot of trouble, actually, but we can talk about that another time. I can't wait to continue to learn from you all. You helped me know that I am not alone and that as scary as things can be, healing is worth it. Big hugs to each of you and your family. Well, thank you, Nana, and thank you for being a safe person out there.
Speaker 1:It's a relief, and I'm so glad to hear from you. BJ says, Hello, I'm thinking of you and waving hello. Oh, BJ, I'm so glad to hear from you. Thank you so much. Loretta says, hey, Emma.
Speaker 1:Thank you for all you do with system speak. I just joined the groups, and I'm interested in trying out the Zooms. How do you think they go? Can you tell me a little about the support groups and how often you have them and when and what time zone they're in? Yeah.
Speaker 1:This is listed in the community. So when you join the community, it's a two step process. First, just joining Mighty Network to have access to the community. And then also once you're in the community, you can join different groups depending on what you wanna participate in. And that has to be done with a non Apple device or non Safari browser.
Speaker 1:That's an Apple issue. There's nothing we can do about it. They are working on it. Sometimes it will work, but usually, you have to use a different device or browser. In the community, there's a link that shows the different groups that there are, but we have some check-in groups that are kind of reflecting on what we're working on with therapy.
Speaker 1:And also we're really careful with those that we're not trauma dumping or giving too many trauma details or going into trance. So we try to stay present and keep those shares short. There are other groups that are more social and free flowing and not about hard things, but they're less moderated. There's an art group. We're talking about moving what day it is so that more people can participate, and that will be updated in the community.
Speaker 1:We have a monthly birthday party that just for safety and so it's less activating, we call the New Year party. And every month, we gather and celebrate whoever is having their New Year and get to focus attention on them. We also have recovery meetings a couple times a month, and we're getting ready to have a speaker meeting with that where Larry Rule is coming to our meeting to speak to us. And then there's also a more advanced topic groups that we keep smaller groups. So there's a variety of them so that we can talk about more difficult things with less filtering because we're in therapy, and we've been in groups, and we know how to care for ourselves so that we can stay present with each other in the group.
Speaker 1:So there's a variety of things, and I will totally message you back and send you a link so you can see which groups you wanna join. Welcome. So glad you found us. Meg shared, the recent podcast is already another favorite. Thank you, Emma.
Speaker 1:Larry Ruehl is one of our favorite humans and artists. Fun fact, we both shared our art in a UK performance together about DID. He has been a beautiful matriarch with the Infinite Mind Healing Together Conference as a presenter. Also, his knowledge of 12 steps in recovery groups. PS, we were the friends who mentioned to him your shared love for collecting for apothecary beauties.
Speaker 1:Grateful for both of you. We also love how remarkably similar all of our journeys are woven together. Oh, thank you so much, Megs. Sydney shares, I do not have the words to thank MS enough for the latest episode, how it works. I connected immediately, and I felt a sudden shift in my perspective on my healing journey.
Speaker 1:I found some free versions of the literature online after listening, and now I'm swimming in sticky notes and journal pages and scrap pieces of paper, writing and writing and writing on whatever free space I can find. I didn't even know how to look for this. I didn't know that this particular resource existed. I didn't know that this was such a present day wound that I, all of me, desperately needed to attend to. I'm writing things like, we cannot control others' actions or reactions
Speaker 1:to things. Reactions to things. We cannot prevent the potential slip ups of those we care about. And holy cow, the weight that I can feel lifted from letting go of that control, the control that was never really there is so immense. I just wanted to admit out loud to myself that someone we love, sobriety, does not hinge on me or us. This was so, so huge.
Speaker 1:It feels like a moment of discovery that I'll remember for a long time. All of me is so grateful. Thank you. Oh, Sydney, I'm so glad for you. I really truly am.
Speaker 1:That book has changed my life and is totally in my top five favorites of all books on the planet. I love it so much. It really and I will say this over and over again, the how it works book from Al Anon, even if you're not doing meetings or even if you have have to be really careful about that because nobody wants more culty anything. Right? So finding healthy groups and safe groups and taking the time to do that, that first half of the book especially and then the second half of the book are stories, that book has been one of the first things I ever found that helped me fill in those holes from deprivation.
Speaker 1:Right? Like we say, trauma is the hard things that happen, so I know not to do those things. But deprivation was good that's missing, and so I don't know how to do what's missing. But that How It Works book has taught it to me and has a % changed my life in almost every way. I'm so grateful for it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing, Sydney. Anne shared, I listened to blue lighting. I heard the gratitude for attunement and secure attachment and resonance. And I felt deeply for those of us in the community who are trying to find new teas and how heartbreaking it is to lose that good therapeutic relationship and how impossibly hard it is to find someone new. Right?
Speaker 1:Isn't that amazing? Like, how amazing it is that that sacred, precious relationship can be developed and how devastating it can be when it's lost. I know you all have heard on the podcast how I had a therapist that really helped those first few years and taught me so much. And I'm really truly grateful, and I'm in a place now I can say that. I'm grateful for all the things that I learned.
Speaker 1:And also the ending of that was so devastating and nearly cost my life. Like, it really was an epic experience that then took five years to find another therapist that stayed and that I could stay with. And that therapist, I talked so much about the cage matches, but it was because I was in fight. I was in fight response because so much of my life that was happening was trauma I was having to defend myself against. And so this confusion about why am I doing these cage matches in therapy?
Speaker 1:Well, because I am in fight, because I've had to defend myself. And, like, okay. So then what that means hard things are happening and that I'm not in a safe place. So what do I need to do to get myself to a safer place? And then ultimately with politics and everything else, having to literally move to get myself and my family to safety.
Speaker 1:And by the way, can I say about the side quest? Can I say that the story of what happened with my family and in their school actually ended up going viral nationally because of those DEI posters that came down, and it became a thing to buy the shirts that they started selling to fundraise for help? And so now there's like T shirts about it all over the nation, and literally when we moved into our new house, our neighbor next door was already wearing the shirt. That's how we found out about it, that it had even been on the news. So I'll put a link in the chat to the news and a link to the shirts if I can find the link to the shirts in case anyone is wanting them or to support that group of kids.
Speaker 1:It was such a powerful experience. But my point is, it made sense now in hindsight why that is what was happening in therapy. Like, if only protectors can go to therapy, then something is wrong and out of balance, not necessarily with therapy, but if our primary relationships are with protectors, then it means something is not in balance. Not that our protectors aren't good. Our protectors are amazing.
Speaker 1:That's what they're doing is keeping us safe. But it brings up the therapeutic question of keeping us safe from what and having to answer that question, and then to heal, we must respond to it. So when we moved, being able to get to a place where we are healing because we did all of that work with our therapist in the middle where we were doing the cage matches, like, the healing that we got with that therapist and that amazing final session that we did not know would be the final session, the literal final session, that New Year episode, seriously, that was the best ending of therapy we could have ever had or imagined. And because that was so restorative that now when we found our new therapist, which again did take a season, it took a hot minute, y'all, it is six months into the year, and, like, those episodes are just now starting to catch up to tell you about everything that's happened since our move. It was incredible that we have been able to find a therapist that can help us with what we need help with, that has the presence and skill and art and science to support us in the ways that we need, and that we were ready to just jump right back into work where we left off with our first therapist because we had done that work in the middle with the cage match therapist.
Speaker 1:Isn't that amazing? So I'm just sharing that as hope for healing, that it is possible, that it is hard work, and also makes all the difference in the world. I'll go see if I can find the links to that news article about the story we had told you about that happened with the posters that was so traumatic with our kids. Thank you so much for sharing, Anne. It's brutal.
Speaker 1:And we did this have a season in the community where several of us were either moving or had to change therapists for different reasons. And I am so glad that in that round, we were not alone, and we are so, so grateful. Thank you. This message says, thank you for reading our tea leaves with Laura Brown's Price of Admission chapter one. We're able to listen to this today with our right brain emotional side, to feel what I, we, know and knew as true.
Speaker 1:We mourn for our little ones, those we have inflicted from the effects of having lived in dysfunction. While some inside are feeling stuck, we also know inside that we can reach for our hurt little ones and tend to them. Thank you, Emmes, for a community where we can share vulnerability and with bravery who we are as we understand ourselves in the present and the hell we come from, while also providing safe enough connection with others. The many opportunities for growth to strengthen our knowledge of and capacity for Zoom meetings and symposiums. We are grateful for every one of yous for showing up as yous are authentically today.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. That's so beautiful. Thank you so much. We did get several emails asking about the symposium this year and why there was not an episode, and I think that is delightful and funny. There was no episode with that symposium because no one asked to do it.
Speaker 1:It is not something I require at a symposium, and no one brought it up or asked, so we just didn't record anything. But I think it was really one of the most beautiful and profound symposium we've had thus far, and I am so excited to continue that healing. So, yes, the spring symposium is in April every year. If you wanna plan on that next year, it is in Seattle. And if you want to join us there, that information is on the systemspeakpodcast.com website.
Speaker 1:I'll put that link in the show notes as well. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening. 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.