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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
Speaker 2:we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care
Speaker 1:for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you. I just need to share that I'm in a place in therapy where we are I am starting to trust her, Reengage maybe. Feeling walls come down that I've worked so hard to build back up over the last two years. But having eye movements for the grief and the loss and the confusion and the trauma drama of losing my previous Kelly has helped so much so that as I go about my normal days, little pieces of insight just click into place.
Speaker 1:Things my brain knew that I didn't know I knew. Things that help me see clearly clearly enough to stop going back. The eye movements have helped with those intrusions of thoughts, those flashbacks that are so painful, and the emotional overwhelm that has tried to drown me for two years. My head is now back above water, and the earth is beneath my feet again. I'm standing on my own aware that it hurt.
Speaker 1:I have not forgotten, and it has not gone away. But it is something that happened to me in the past. It is not something I'm living right now. And so I feel better even though the trauma hasn't changed. And there is distance between me and it that gives me enough space to respond instead of being in it.
Speaker 1:This has desensitized me from the pull of returning to what hurt me and the strengthening of me where I am now when I am here. I can hold on to the good, the things that were helpful, the things that meant something, what I thought our relationship meant therapeutically, and keep that progress. But my life does not depend on her, and my truth does not depend on her understanding me, and my voice is not silenced by shame. I will always miss who I thought she was, I think. And I will always be grateful for the work that we did there, learning about who we are and the months and years we spent writing in notebooks with different colored pens.
Speaker 1:But time moves forward, and I want to live now. And my getting better doesn't stop. And I don't want to forget to move forward because of looking back. I am not a pillar of salt despite the sea of tears that I have cried. And a new therapist who's not new anymore, who has been patient and cautious and careful to meet me where I am, to hold space for all of who I am, has taught me that therapy is mine.
Speaker 1:She is not the boss of me. She is not God. My value and my worth do not depend on on who she calls out to front or how well she thinks I'm doing. She says she knows nothing because it is my experience, and she's just here with me. As we get curious together about what is happening and why it has happened and what I want to do about it or not and what all of that means to me.
Speaker 1:She does not favor parts. She is not only pleased with certain ones. And yet I find myself masking covertly for fear of being seen, but also being seen anyway. When we talked about John Mark struggling and spending the last year in therapy trying to protect us, trying to test the waters, and trying to get our notebooks back so that we stayed nine months after the footprints episode until in a war zone we gave up. Our new therapist says that that was not behavioral or naughty or a distraction.
Speaker 1:She said that in therapy, whichever part or alter or piece of me or one of them is most equipped for a situation, handles it naturally most of the time. That it's a process our brain goes through, not something we choose to do or should be punished for. She said anytime in anywhere in any situation, even when it's unexpected, whoever is there out front is there for a reason. And that I could be curious instead of shaming and have compassion instead of judging or trying to push them away. Because I've gone to therapy for six months trying to be present, and I don't know how to hold that balance of having a consistent presentation externally or being covert enough that no one knows what's happening inside or masking how unwell we are with all of us here waiting for help and how to balance that with knowing they are there and have stories to tell and things they need and healing to embrace.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to stay present and also accept them. I don't know how to function and also let them be. And I feel we have been on pause for two years, maybe three, and someone has hit the play button in therapy. It scares me because it's been so messy these years. It scares me because last time we tried that hard in therapy to let what comes up comes up and just go with it.
Speaker 1:Things fell apart, and so it feels dangerous. But I need to breathe, and anxiety swallows me. And I want to be a good mother because the faces of these outside children matter to me. And none of us should be ruled by irritability. We are reading a book for a book group that said irritability is passing off our shame onto others, and my therapist said I don't think so.
Speaker 1:She said irritability and anxiety are white noise that fill up the space so that we don't have to fill, so that other emotions are harder to hear and not so clear. We told her about our throne of swords, and she was blown away that we had labeled them even if we didn't want to talk about them. She said that sometimes with DID, time does not exist at all, and it's a hard thing to reclaim. And that timelines sometimes are too difficult to put together. And I thought of my out of order book that says all the things I need to say but cannot say.
Speaker 1:And she says, these swords count. These swords are the story, and we can talk about them a little at a time. And that's when I realized that under the stand that holds up the laptop for telehealth therapy on Zoom, my hands were wadded in a satin baby blanket that I didn't remember picking up, much less tying in knots. But I knew those were the knots of my stomach at the thought of talking about things. And I don't know what it looks like to let them come back and surface again to tell those stories of swords.
Speaker 1:I know that I am not me who was me three years ago. I know that I am not them, and they are not me. I know we are here. I know there is one body. I know there is one brain that we share.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to struggle into the place of peace with us together, accepting each other, listening to each other, talking with each other. In the skills workbook, they call it communication and cooperation and collaboration. In a class, my friend John was presenting, and he said that when we don't do those things, we try to be over controlled. And that control leads to conspiracy, and conspiracy leads to coup, and that that's when things fall apart internally and externally. There is war in the world, and it is scary.
Speaker 1:There is war in the world, and I am afraid. There is war in me, and I don't want to see. I want to build a community of safety inside and in groups and in friendships and in my world around me instead of walls suffocating me. But that requires courage and tenacity, vulnerability, and transparency, but also boundaries. And it's messy as we learn and try.
Speaker 1:And I don't know why it is easier to do this for others with others than it is to do it inside. But I feel them coming, and I see the walls coming down. And I'm remembering places inside and having access to those places again if I just stepped in. Like walls coming down or curtains going up or arriving to a clearing after a long walk. And maybe what I see is me.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for listening to us and for all of your support for the podcast, our books, and them being donated to survivors and the community. It means so much to us as we try to create something that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing. One of the ways we practice this is in Community Together. The link for the community is in the show notes.
Speaker 3:We look forward to seeing you there while we practice caring for ourselves, caring for our family, and participating with those who also care for community. And remember, I'm just a human, not a therapist for the community, and not there for dating, and not there to be shiny happy. Less shiny, actually. I'm there to heal too, being human together. So, yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.