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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,
Speaker 2: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 think we finally did it. I think we found a therapist we can keep. I feel foolish saying it for the hundredth time, but maybe this time it will work. It was on video, of course, because pandemic, and will let me see her twice a week for the price of one, which is almost what we had before, two hours for the price of one. But they said to stay out of the hospital for now, we need to come twice a week.
Speaker 1:And she has an office. Everyone else that we've seen so far, online, on video, they were just at their house, which makes sense. I understand. Pandemic. But she was in an office, and there was something helpful about that, I think.
Speaker 1:Something that solidified a transition that we haven't had since our first try last spring when we almost had a new therapist. And there was something, even if it was only an illusion, there was something about seeing an actual office and her in that space that felt like a container big enough and strong enough to hold me in for just a minute. And it was so fuzzy, and everything was blurry and foggy. But I was there and I knew what was going on and I could see and I could hear. And she had on her wall a thermostat, which is what we used to stare at in the other therapist's office because it was right across from us.
Speaker 1:And we just watched the number, And I closed my eyes and I could see it. And it was like for just a moment, I bridged it all, all by myself as if I were strong enough and present enough and able to do it. I could hold it all and make those connections for the first time in a year. It was fuzzy, and it was hard, and I couldn't stay because it was a first appointment, so there were lots of questions. And she noticed I was looking at my notes for the answers.
Speaker 1:She uses an app so that we can text her securely and privately, but I promised her I wouldn't bother her. And you know what she said? She said, I appreciate that. But, also, you're probably really good at not bothering people, and maybe you should. You could try if you want bothering me and see how it goes.
Speaker 1:I was so shocked by her answer that I had to write it down. I'm not really going to bother her. But what a thing to say. What a connection to feel even if we are brand new to each other after a year of feeling so alone. She asked me if I knew why we were meeting, and I couldn't get myself to talk.
Speaker 1:I couldn't get myself to say anything. And then I heard a little voice squeak. Please help. And that's all I could say. She went back to the forms to make it easier and talked about me being married and my family and cancer and Sjogren's and being deaf, what church we go to.
Speaker 1:And then she asked something about my family, and I froze again because there's so little hope left in me that anyone could help. And because last time, we almost started to talk. It hurt so much to leave. And when the therapist was the safest one in the world and strong enough to hear what we had to say, We didn't get to stay. And she asked one simple question, and so many layers came up in me.
Speaker 1:And I cried, and I didn't mean to, and I didn't want to. And I was overwhelmed, and I thought, my god. I can't fail this. I don't have any chances left. And I didn't know what I would do or how to collect myself or get myself together so that I could finish the appointment or even get started.
Speaker 1:And I didn't want to go to the hospital. I had to get it done. But do you know what she said? She said, let's just mark it down as difficult, your family, and we can talk about it another day. And there was something so simple and so true and so surreal about that, that I snorted and started to laugh.
Speaker 1:She asked me about my goals for therapy besides staying alive. And like before, I said there were hard things I just need someone to talk with me about to listen to me. And that I want to be a good mom and a present wife. And that for the first time, I've got friends. Plural, more than one.
Speaker 1:After this year, I'm feeling so alone. Also recognizing that this year brought me friendships that I've never had before and how important those are to me and I don't want to mess it up. And she said, Anna felt so silly, because who has to make friendship a goal in therapy? Who's so unwell that they can't even attach to good and safe people? Or when good and safe people try, it makes you want to die.
Speaker 1:That's messed up. But do you know what she said? She said, if I want to make friendship a goal, then it means there's already attachment in there somewhere, somehow. My body just doesn't understand it yet. She said, you're not failing.
Speaker 1:You haven't messed anything up, most likely. Your body literally just doesn't know how to process it. And so we can do some body work too. I don't even know what that means. It sounds scary.
Speaker 1:She said it wouldn't be. And she said that under my family, where she marked them as difficult, she would add chaotic. And I thought, what a word. Such a simple word to explain so much without me having to use any of them. And maybe that's true in a way I didn't understand.
Speaker 1:And if my childhood was so chaotic, then no wonder I feel so crazy. So then she went back to my husband and asked about the children and them being adopted from foster care and their special needs. And then she asked me if I'd been in foster care. And things fell apart after that. I got stuck, I couldn't breathe, And again, I felt so foolish that this year has been so hard that I can't even breathe in therapy.
Speaker 1:And I started to panic. But she said to me again, look at you listening to your body like that. That's really amazing. And I thought, this woman is crazy. And she said I was listening to my body, and that's what was scary, that it wasn't me failing or that I had done something wrong.
Speaker 1:It was that my body was doing something new and didn't know how to process it. I needed some help. And she said, good thing for you, I know how to do that. And it made me laugh again, and everything was okay. She said they marked in the hospital that I scream at night and that they found me in the morning under the bed instead of on it.
Speaker 1:And we talked about nightmares. And for the third time, I started to shut down. I couldn't do it. I couldn't see her or hear her. And it was quiet and my face was hot and I was a million miles away.
Speaker 1:And I thought, if only I could imagine that thermostat. And it were like a button, and I could push the button and I could just be back at the therapist's office. On the couch I knew, next to her chair, what could see nothing but the thermostat and her shoes and her desk and her notebook, and it started to come all over me, I thought, that's all that's wrong. I just miss her. It was so hard this year.
Speaker 1:And all of that came pouring out of me. And she said, if you worked so hard to go see her for so long and did so much work with her, then it must have been really important work you were doing. And maybe part of what's been so hard for the last year, she said, is that maybe it's really important work that your body wants to finish, that your mind wants to finish, that the other parts of you want to finish. And so maybe when you're ready, she said, will you get back to it, and that might feel better. And I started to cry again because maybe she was right.
Speaker 1:Maybe this whole time I thought there was no one there and no one listening just because I couldn't find my way back to her office, because it was gone, because I left. She asked me if there was anything specific I wanted to start with or that I wanted to tell her about the work we've already done those four years with the therapist. And I couldn't because then it made me miss the others as well, and the pieces that they hold, and how hard it must be for them not just to wait this year for so long to have help again, but maybe for our whole life, for years and years and decades, are things we still haven't said out loud that nobody knows, that we're tired of carrying around and I said as much. And she said, it sounds like there's a lot and it sounds like it makes you uncomfortable because it's big and has been waiting for so long. And so she said, Let's practice listening to your body by not talking about it today.
Speaker 1:She said, We can talk about it another day. Let's just breathe for today. She said there's been a pattern in my life where it was not okay to ask for help, and a pattern in my life where the people who were going to help didn't get to. And I just sat and cried because it's so much grief. Not because of anything anyone did wrong, but because of so many good people who tried to help and I lost them.
Speaker 1:And how much I miss them every day. But all I know how to do is stay away. So she tried to get me to breathe because I was crying, But that was overwhelming, a new lady there trying to help me while I was crying about nobody helping me. And so I tried to push her away, going off the screen, and I said, I'm fine, I'm okay.' And she said, If you think so, then I'll believe you, but I don't. And I was surprised when she said that, But then she added, So if you think you're okay, can you tell me what that means to you?
Speaker 1:Because it doesn't mean the same thing to me. And I thought about how not okay things have been for so long. So what did it mean that I was okay? And I told her, It means that I'm still here, and I can still hear you, and I'm still trying. And she said, It sounds to me like you've tried hard for a long time, and it sounds to me like your body is tired of trying harder.
Speaker 1:She said, Maybe what you need is to try softer. And it made me cry again. And so we practiced breathing like the therapist taught me. And then she taught me about square breathing, where you follow the shape of a square and you breathe in for four counts and hold it for four counts and breathe out for four counts and wait for four counts and then breathe in for a new square again. And then she took something I had said and told me we would work it out in our body.
Speaker 1:And she told me how to karate chop my hands for tapping. Tapping one hand over the other like my flat palms making an x. And then the top of my head, and then my forehead, and then my temple, and then under my eye, and then over my lip, and then my collarbone, and under my arm. And she said we could practice. And when we first started, my anxiety was at an 11.
Speaker 1:With the breathing, we got it down to an eight. And with the tapping, we got it down to a two. And all of a sudden, there I was in my own skin for the first time in a year. And she said not to worry about the pandemic. It's made everybody crazy.
Speaker 1:But that if therapy was helpful for me before, and if it worked before, and if I made progress before, she said, that means it can help again. That means it can work again. That means I can keep what I learned before and make more progress again. She gave me three things to practice for homework. One is the tapping and the breathing to practice.
Speaker 1:Two was instead of telling myself that I'm crazy or that I'm unwell or that I can't make or that I failed therapy, she told me to start telling myself and my friends and my husband when I'm having a hard time. And I'm supposed to say, I'm having a hard time and I need support, and I'm learning to accept help, and here's what I need. That's a lot to try and practice, and I don't know what will happen if I try. But there was relief in that, That maybe I haven't failed, that maybe I've not ruined everything, but maybe I'm just having a hard time because it really is that hard, and I just need support and that it would be okay to accept it. And the third and last thing she said was to start thinking of a safe place and imagine what that would be.
Speaker 1:And that it's okay it's not the therapist's office from before because there's grief there. And she said to take something that is entirely safe, where I feel relaxed and comfortable and more myself as if that were a thing. She said some people like the beach, or some people imagine a place they've been, or some people make up a new place. But I think my place is by the fish pond, out back with the swing. And so she told me to practice spending time out there by myself and then going inside to my hammock and lying down and trying to remember the details of the fish pond while I'm not at the fish pond.
Speaker 1:And to imagine what it would take to make it a safe place. What would I need around it or in it or in that place or around that place to make it so safe that nobody could come in unless I let them. It reminded me of the therapist last spring who helped me think about a container, But when everything fell apart, I used it to lock the island inside. And I thought maybe that psychiatrist knew what he was talking about at the hospital, about building a bridge. But maybe this is a safer way to do it if I let them come out to the fish pond and told them it was here because I think maybe they would like it and maybe the chickens and maybe if this lady really knows what she's talking about and really is going to stay a little while and really going to see me twice a week, then maybe it's time to let them come back.
Speaker 1:I don't know what will happen if they do, and it makes me anxious. And I don't know how things will go. But for the first time since more than a year ago, I laid out the circle notebooks and the pens and the markers and the crayons and the paints. I left notes so that I could say it on the podcast and so that we wouldn't lose it Because if we are going to get better, it's time to get back to work. And if I am going to let them back, they've got a lot of catching up to do.
Speaker 1: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. Connection brings healing, and you can join us on the community at www.systemsspeak.com. We'll see you there.