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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.
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 long time 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:I'm sitting in my van, the mom van. Most of us aren't a fan of the mom van. Nathan and the boys drove it out here for us this fall and left it here and flew back to Oklahoma so that I would have it since I had more of the kids here and new drivers. And this is my first time to sit in the van and record a podcast since the pandemic. During the pandemic, I sometimes had to sit out in the van to record anything because it was the only way to be alone.
Speaker 1:Now tonight, I'm alone only by accident, by chance almost, by parenting, I guess. The two little ones made a fort of blankets and sheets in the living room using the couch and the hammock and books piled precariously everywhere. They're watching their favorite cartoon on the iPad for some very rare screen time while I'm away. They're watching Eureka, a new cartoon on Disney plus whose main character is a brown girl, and so they're very excited about this. She's smart and clever and funny, and I love that they can see themselves on screen.
Speaker 1:It matters. I've dropped off the older two at church for Wednesday night activities. There was free food and treats and games. I think they're playing a Nerf War or something that they thought would be fun, and they really wanted to go. And so I drove them here, and now I'm waiting, struggling with the idea that they are playing games for fun when far away, where there are so many people I care about and love, It's all too real.
Speaker 1:There is war happening in the world, real war. I lost friends in the attack on Israel. I've lost friends. In the attack on Gaza, my whole team I've worked with before there are either dead or missing, and it's gruesome and awful and heartbreaking. I've cried for weeks and weeks and weeks, and I'm not here to talk about politics.
Speaker 1:And I hate that that's what's ruling the conversation because these are people, so many hurting hearts. We have listeners there in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Syria. My heart hurts, and it has been hard, and war is not a game. And it is a surreal experience to sit here in the van on a cold night where the chill in the air matches the chill in my bones, and Christmas lights, early for the season, shine in my eyes across from the field, And planes circle the airport nearby, waiting to drop off people, not bombs. I've not recorded an episode in ages because this has been overwhelming and heartbreaking, and I was not doing well.
Speaker 1:I lost weeks for the first time. This all happened just before Seattle, literally the days before when we had a meetup there. We weren't sure at the last minute if we could even go, but it seemed too important to cancel and most important to keep my word because showing up for people is the beginning of safety. And so we went. Nam and in shock, unsure of safety for friends still missing, friends here still scared, all of us hurting, some of us gathering in Seattle to meet each other in person, friends from the community, people who've listened to the podcast, and it was amazing.
Speaker 1:It was so healing, people coming together just to be. I had planned some things to do, and I had ideas of things I wanted to say. But with war far away, I lost my words. I felt badly when people had worked so hard to be there, and I didn't want to disappoint them or not make it worth their time. But also care in person is really dysregulating.
Speaker 1:It was hard to be there, but so good. So good. These people stepping out of Zoom boxes to be real, to see that I am. I took them little jars with seashells and stones from my trips in The Middle East, and dirt from Africa, and flowers and herbs, and leaves from all of our gardens and all of the places we've lived, little collections from our apothecary so that they could see all of the places from where the podcast has been. Maybe it was a silly thing, but it was all I had to give.
Speaker 1:There are not words enough even in 500 episodes, plus another 200 never aired. They're not words enough to say how much I care That I hope you hear me out there and know that we are thinking of you still. That I am grateful for you and the words you have sent to me even if we didn't read them on the air, if I had all the money in the world, and my daydreams and imaginations could be real. I would send you every month all the best food from around the world, not the box of desserts from around the world that horrify and delight the children that someone subscribed us to during the pandemic. And they even shared with Peter once on a visit.
Speaker 1:But in my imagination, you would open the box, and the food would still be hot and fresh and delicious. And I would say, this is what Lebanon tastes like. I would send you a box of dates and sesame candy and bread with a little packet of herbs and sesame seeds from the street markets and stalls in Jerusalem. I would send you a simple box with some lentils and some rice and say this is what aid food in Gaza looks like. You could open a box, and a restaurant would pop out, And you would think it is a little Mexican restaurant, maybe one of the ones that Jules and I went to in Oklahoma on our tour.
Speaker 1:Except it's not. It has cold white floors and wooden tables and chairs, simple walls, and a TV hanging from the ceiling in the corner playing too loud. And that's what you would think. Except the smells from the kitchen were Middle Eastern, not Mexican food. And then you would hear the sounds of them calling to prayers, and I would say, this is what West Bank sounds like.
Speaker 1:When you settle in for a living as if nothing's wrong, as if you didn't just ride a bus through the security walls. I would send you bean soup from Nazareth. I would send you flatbread from Syria, spices from Pakistan. Maybe that's too serious. Maybe it's too heavy.
Speaker 1:So we could throw in fresh fish and fruit from the street markets in Sydney all the way in Australia, beans on toast and Vegemite, which, yes, I love. Or maybe France, I would send you a box for breakfast. And when you opened it, there would just be fresh bread and cheese. Or maybe you could climb the mountains, go for a hike, and come down the other side in Germany. You could have a beer.
Speaker 1:That sounds fun if you're not sober. And put a quarter. Not really a quarter. It's not America. But put the coin in the pay toilet.
Speaker 1:Or maybe you like a bigger breakfast, and we could go to England and get the whole plate full of everything. Or back home in the South in The States, and you could have breakfast. Biscuits with sausage gravy, non scones biscuits. It gets confusing depending where you live. There are so many places in this world, So many different foods and tastes and sounds.
Speaker 1:So many things to experience. The podcast airs in 94 countries. A third of them have hostages in tunnels right now. 33 countries. So many people have died in the last few weeks.
Speaker 1:And talking about breakfast is dissociating. It's surreal when there are people without food or water or safe shelter, when thousands have died, when some wars go on so long that no one's even saying anything. That is societal dissociation. And it's not the same as tending to hearts or keeping people safe. I have done my work for a long time.
Speaker 1:I know that it's not necessarily so important or doesn't change the world, but I have tried in my work to train government leaders and communities in how to care for people even in crisis. I have seen a lot of things. I have been places where I had to cover my head. I have been places where I had to put on armor, bulletproof vest, heavy, awkward helmet. I've seen sniper fire in the night, and I've seen rockets in the sky.
Speaker 1:And it's no way to live. I don't mean to speak to or over the experience of those of you who are there. I just have to say I can see you, and I have heard you, and I remember you, and you are not forgotten. Even when I'm here and I wake up in my cozy bed and go make breakfast. Today, it was a scrambled egg and some banana bread.
Speaker 1:As if nothing else is wrong in the world. As if there are people I have worked with for years who will never have breakfast again, who I don't know if they had breakfast today. Who are eating breakfast alone. I've not had therapy for over a month. I was in shock and overwhelmed when all this happened, and maybe it's when I needed therapy most.
Speaker 1:Because if I had not changed jobs, I would have been there. Because it was my job, I have been there to these places, sat at tables with these peoples, loved them, cared for them still, worked with them for years. There are not enough words to say my thoughts and my feelings. And so when I finally got to therapy today, all I can do was cry. And when I got home again and my children came home and sat around the table telling me their stories of kid dramas and school adventures and sharing the stories of their friends.
Speaker 1:I just keep thinking. I don't know if mine are still alive. And why did it take us so long to get help there? I'm not talking about the politics. I'm talking about the text I was getting as it was happening.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about the people I saw. I'm talking about the faces I saw as they FaceTimed me. If I had been deployed already, if I was there for the New Year, I would have been in danger. And yet far away, even with all the contacts and networking that I have from my work, We couldn't get there soon enough. We couldn't get a corridor open quickly enough.
Speaker 1:We need more people helping because this isn't daydreams about breakfast boxes. This is real life. And I know that I can't fix it all by myself, but I also know that every one of these humans are just people. This is not about politics. It is about human hearts.
Speaker 1:Just people. And it's too much to talk about on the podcast, and I can work on that in therapy. But, also, I have to do something. I can't not do something. Even still, we need more people ready to help.
Speaker 1:This is not binary where these people are good and those people are bad. That's not real. This is not politics where you can say, I am this party, and so I believe these things or do that. That's adversarial. It's binary.
Speaker 1:It's trying to win. We don't need to win. We need to be kind. But I'm just me, And I've already told them I cannot be deployed, so how else can I help? I don't have money, And I could feel so helpless and hopeless, except that's not real.
Speaker 1:I am the ship. So what can my ship do for you? And all I could think is the only thing I have to give is what's in my head and what's in my heart. And I do trainings, and I'm speaking, and I'm writing. What else can I do to get it out, to get it into more heads and hearts?
Speaker 1:How can I reach more people quickly? What do I already know and have? Where are resources already in place? And I thought about therapists who used to make fun of me for doing telehealth because my state had such rural areas, and people could not get to therapy. And so we started opening clinics out of hospital ER rooms, the first telehealth over phone and shaky video even before we could run it through the computer.
Speaker 1:And then I thought of online platforms where I've worked before at different times when my daughter was in the hospital. And I thought of technology already in place because these are the resources I have to work with. And then I thought of that time when Make A Wish. And I was trying to think how to use these resources, how to help get people deployed quickly, safely, but more spread out so people aren't traumatized as much by trauma. And while I was thinking and pondering all of these things in between crying and sobbing these weeks and mourning these weeks.
Speaker 1:It was in the middle of this that the Taylor Swift concert movie came out, of all things. And I know that it's been in the news that as she gave her concerts, she gave her tour people bonuses. And then it was in the news that she gave her truckers bonuses. I don't know if it's been in the news or if you know that she also donated to soup kitchens and homeless shelters in every city her tour stopped, enough that each one could feed over 500,000 people a year. I am certainly not Taylor Swift, and I don't have money to donate.
Speaker 1:But as I sat in a meeting that was talking about the impact of her gifts, I thought of that time when my daughter got her Make A Wish trip, and they took us all to New York. And while we were there, we met the owners and directors of one of those online platforms for therapy. And because of that day, I know people in headquarters there. And so I messaged them, and I said, you already have thousands, tens of thousands of therapists all over the world who know how to do telehealth and who have a platform. Please let me train them for psychological first aid and how to train these communities locally.
Speaker 1:We could find the people who are good fit, who are willing and capable, and train them, and they could train their communities. And we can mobilize so much more quickly. And when we have the other responses of NGOs and other organizations trying to help, we can improve the mental health care and safety that people need when there has been centuries of ongoing trauma. Intergenerational trauma passed down and passed down and passed down. We cannot make things better without healing hearts and tending to people.
Speaker 1:And we need local people linking their own people to their own resources locally or closely culturally appropriate resources, not just Americans coming in and getting in the way or taking over. But safe, culturally appropriate care find people who already live there or nearby so that it's not just deployments, but neighbors, communities, teaching each other to heal. Not just a community for the podcast, but communities all over the world. And like all corporations or businesses, They took my ideas to meetings and more meetings and more meetings. And today, they said yes.
Speaker 1:I get to be a part of creating a rapid response team that's international, not just interagency. I know it doesn't help pull people from tunnels or stop rockets in the sky or pull out tanks from running over families. But the better we get at caring for ourselves and each other, the less hate there is in the world, which means the less trauma there will be in the world. Even if it doesn't fix anything today, I don't know what else I can do, but that's something. That's something.
Speaker 1:Be safe out there. You are not forgotten. I'm sorry that you're hurting. It's awful, all of it. This is not about picking sides.
Speaker 1:Or borders or this or that or anything else binary. This is about people, people who are hurting, people who are scared, people who have died, people who are still missing, people who are waiting. I don't know what it's like. Even if I love your breakfast, I don't know what it's like to be you. I don't mean to speak to or over your experiences, But I see you, and I hear you, and we can wait with you.
Speaker 1:And we remember you. In the community, I posted a map of all our listeners, all the countries where they live, and I wrote. You can zoom in on that if you want. It's all the countries where we have listeners. It's all the countries where we have met people in person and through emails.
Speaker 1:It's all the countries that are part of this community, some of them more active or not, some of them able to read in English but not write, some of them in their own smaller groups by language. It's all the countries where there are humans. And when there are humans and when humans are harmed, there are humans who hurt. These are all the places where there are hurting hearts. We need each other, all of us, and it's really important that we maintain safety for each other.
Speaker 1:There is space for pain, and there is space for healing. There is not space for adversarial politics that are binary, where one side is right and others are wrong, or where one is winning against another. Those are abusive dynamics, illusions of power, and targeted isolation of hurting hearts. This is not part of our community. We are here for healing hearts.
Speaker 1:We have always held space for hard conversations. We can absolutely offer extra Zooms for difficult issues when requested. We've done this several times. Posting in groups and sharing in Zoom groups is specifically for vulnerable sharing and practicing responding to each other, and specifically for topics of therapy regarding trauma and dissociation. It is not, even in social groups, the place for politics.
Speaker 1:There are many painful events happening in the world and elections coming to The States. It is an appropriate time for the reminder that no group of people, faith tradition, LGBT, disability, country, or political party, can be collectively targeted without it being hate. Zero tolerance. Some deaf people think I betrayed myself for getting cochlear implants, and some hearing people think it makes me like them. Neither of those things are true.
Speaker 1:I am a deaf person with good tools for accessibility that work for me. They don't work for everyone. But it doesn't mean I isolate from hearing people or don't like sign language anymore. Some people think I am evil because I am part of the LGBT community. Some LGBT people don't like that I don't fit in their version of what that means, either how I present or because I am a person of faith.
Speaker 1:In reality, I am just a human, catching up on development because of trauma and deprivation, learning to be me, making mistakes and learning things the hard way along the way, and maybe not as far along in figuring things out as other people are. But I'm in process, and that is enough. I have sometimes voted against my registered political party because I believe straight party voting is actually undemocratic. My political party doesn't always get it right, and I face palm when they are idiots. The other political party, do you see how binary that is?
Speaker 1:Does some things better. Neither party is good. Politics is a collective fawning in an adversarial process. The purpose is to have your support so that they can have power. It's divisive in nature and corrupt when people aren't looking, sometimes when we are.
Speaker 1:I still vote even when it feels like my choices are poor and the outlook seems grim because that's the only way to contribute humanity to the process. Extremists attacking another faith tradition intentionally while and where they are vulnerable is absolutely not okay, and both sides have done so. And, also, extremists do not represent healthy faith. We have been talking about this on the podcast for a year using the example of growing up in the shiny, happy world of IBLP. These people are committing spiritual rape in addition to their other crimes, violating actual faith and people who want to experience connection in that way.
Speaker 1:We cannot blame anyone's version of God for what people do wrong. War causes harm. Borders are binary. Violence traumatizes generations. All three sentences are oversimplified only because what is happening is so horrific.
Speaker 1:Trauma is always horrific. Lack of care is always horrific. I have worked in war zones and disaster sites most of my career for decades now, and there is no place I have been where a soul that I met, no matter what side they were on, was not a human and was not a hurting human. Humans hurting humans hurts human hearts. There is anger when human hearts hurt.
Speaker 1:Remember that feelings just deliver information, like the Amazon driver dropping off a package. We don't invite the driver into dinner. They drop off the package and get back in the truck and go on to the next delivery. Happiness tells us something is right. Sadness tells us something is missing.
Speaker 1:Anger tells us something is wrong. All of our emotions are good and exactly right. While it is not okay to weaponize big feelings like anger, and while for many of us it is still a trigger because that's what happened when we were little, The feeling itself is not bad. It's just information. Anger is also part of grief, which is an appropriate response to humans' hurting.
Speaker 1:And in a world where so much violence is happening, now time feels scary. That is accurate information. It makes sense that we feel it, and it is important to pay attention to. Right? That's how we stay safe enough even in the midst of tragical circumstances.
Speaker 1:Monday's episode, this one that you're listening to now, will be without details our dissociated experience of the last month and our effort at a response. We cannot not say anything. And also, we are choosing to focus on humans. That's really important to us, even here in the community. We have people here active in the community who are Jewish and who are Muslim.
Speaker 1:We have people who are Christian and people who are pagan. We have people who are Catholic and who are evangelical. None of these are actually opposites. We have people here who have deep faith and people who have transitioned away from religious trauma. We have people here who grew up outside any faith context and people here who chose their own faith as an adult.
Speaker 1:We have people here whose faith is not a tradition or a religion, but expressed through values and character. We have people who are straight and people who are LGBT. We have people who are married to one person and people who are not married at all. We have people who are single and people who are polyamorous. We have people who used to be married and never want to do that again and people who have waited a long time to find a safe partner.
Speaker 1:We have people who have always known they were gay and people who are just now figuring it out. We have people who have chosen mixed faith or mixed orientation marriages, and we have people who are realizing they were in arranged marriages. We have people who struggle at this time of year anyway, and we have people who find this time of year to be their favorite and most cozy. We have people who are. We have people.
Speaker 1:We are. We are people. Thank you for listening. Your support really helps us feel less alone while we sort through all of this and learn together. Maybe it will help you in some ways too.
Speaker 1:You can connect with us on Patreon by going to our website at www.systemspeak.org. If there's anything we've learned, it's that connection brings healing. We look forward to connecting with you.