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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:
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 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:We have emails today. I just listened to Heretic. I am unsure if you are always that vulnerable in the podcast. It amazes me. Thank you for putting into words the cages and the temple and the blind obedience, the shame of feeling like I chose to be a part of the church.
Speaker 1:But the blueprint that churches use is so insidious, you're far in before you realize anything. Then, because of past traumas, we don't even have the awareness to look for buttons or tricks and definitely not how to find them. It hurts my heart so much that religions rely on trauma and the need of hope or healing to recruit and trap people. It took me walking my trauma back to break free of them. It took seeing what they already knew was vulnerable about so many of us to get out.
Speaker 1:Thank you. There's so much more, but I am rambling. I'm so proud of you, and I hope women of the church and any church listen to your podcast. You are taking the power back and helping others find it. Yukdorp said, to doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.
Speaker 1:They literally shame members for even having thoughts on what might be healthy. You won't ever turn back if the shame of even the concept of turning back means spiritual death. Okay. I'm done for now. This just really riled me up.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for expressing what is so impossibly painful. I am so glad that was helpful for you. I know that it is a terrifying, terrifying thing to face, and so exhausting to sort through, and so many big feelings about it, and comes at the risk for such consequences as retribution. Like, they will find ways to take people down. It is so scary.
Speaker 1:And I'm not even laughing because of the vernacular of of that in English, but of the reality of it is terrifying. It is terrifying. So it was a really big decision to release those episodes, and I'm glad that it reached anyone anyone who found it helpful. Thank you. Tiana says, a few days ago, I listened to your four part discussion with Nicole Wilden.
Speaker 1:Something that really struck me while listening is that it is truly holy to utterly be ourselves. Yesterday, poet Andrea Gibson died. Oh my goodness. Do you know I appreciate so many people notified me of this, and I saw it online, of course, but it was really someone that I followed their work and followed that story and honored that person at the very first retreat, I gave that book at retreats and symposiums, one of the books that was really meaningful. And I don't know even if people noticed that or thought or liked it or not, but it's definitely one of the authors that I really truly was invested in learning and experiencing and the truths that were spoken.
Speaker 1:It was so powerful. And yeah, yeah, that I think also because the ovarian cancer connection, it is rare to survive ovarian cancer. And so when I see people battling that or surviving that, it's just it is profound to me and really touches that lived experience nerve and so many layers of so powerful. I I don't even have words. Clearly, I'm still I'm still in shock of it.
Speaker 1:They say, so today, as can be expected, their beautiful work is flooding social media. Among it, I saw something which resonated with how I felt when listening to those podcast episodes, and I'd like to share it with you. This advice was originally given to me regarding my gender and sexuality, but it pertains to so much, the best advice anyone ever gave me. You can never make someone's life better by agreeing to not be yourself. Denying who you are will never bring any other person peace.
Speaker 1:It may seem so from the outside that every soul in the universe is invested in every other soul living in line with their truth. That means someone asking you to live in opposition to your essence is not speaking from their soul. They are speaking from their learned human biases, hatreds, and fears. Therefore, to be you is to be a guardian of not just your own soul, but the souls of those who mistakenly think their own lives would be better if you would be somehow other than who you are. I like the way this reframes the idea of being spiritually responsible for family members from one of denying ourselves to one where we fully inhabit ourselves.
Speaker 1:If you don't know Andrea Gibson's poetry, you can read some of it here. And then they link to the substack. I'll totally put that in the show notes so that you can read, because it really is so powerful. That's an amazing quote. I thank you for sharing it.
Speaker 1:I really feel like it is something I have spent this year in therapy wrestling with. I think the community has been so violated with everything that has happened over the last year. And then the retaliation of that this year, I think the podcast even in its own way was violated because I was violated. And the really, like, in in church words, the using the heretic email earlier, and then this one, the referencing the stuff with Nicole Wilden's episode, the the wrestling with angels, right, which is in the story of Jacob in the Old Testament in the Torah. And the wrestling with angels is what I have felt that the last five years has been about, sometimes wrestling with demons.
Speaker 1:But literally, like, getting myself free so that I can be fully me, and I can create spaces in which my world allows me to be fully me. Not everybody out there is going to like that. Not everybody out there is going to want that, and that's okay. They can do what they need to do, just like this is saying. But someone who knows me, someone who's being true to themselves is gonna let me be true to myself.
Speaker 1:And I will no longer betray myself so that others can be more comfortable. And I think that is it is a really I think that will become really apparent and evident as you hear the episodes that we have recorded since we have moved here and since and since I've really begun to engage in my own liberation. I was even thinking last night as I was falling asleep how the states I lived in previously, the whole culture, the whole dynamics, everything was about the binary right or wrong. And anytime we're in that binary, that is the limbic system. That means trauma is already happening.
Speaker 1:But here where I live now, the whole culture, not just my friends or where I'm at or my work or anything, which,
Speaker 2:by
Speaker 1:the way, has completely changed because I took that challenge from Doctor. Tema very seriously, and I have completely changed my work. The nonprofit has been reorganized, and so now we're focusing on the projects for the community, picking up where we had already talked about last year. I know that other places have copied that and implemented it before we got to because we were violated with trauma and things had to go on pause, that's fine. We need all the healing in the world.
Speaker 1:More power to them. But just like this quote, it's about focusing on myself and focusing on being true to me, returning to that, I think, my work, letting go of the platform where I was working, where they were demanding, like, really exploiting therapist labor, I have resigned from that and let go of that. I have transitioned into what I want to be doing with teaching and really reclaiming my life personally and professionally, and it has been powerful. And I'm so excited for these episodes to unfold and you learn more about liberation as well and that framework of applying what I already knew from sort of the union metaphors, but then also the feminist framework, but specifically liberation. What I have learned from doctor Tema, from Chuck, from other friends and colleagues where I have discussed this further and more trainings, and finally, finally, good therapy.
Speaker 1:I've been trying to get in good therapy for a decade. And now not only do I have good therapy, but it is about me. I am not having to do bad therapy. I'm not having to do unsafe therapy. I'm not having to do therapy about other people.
Speaker 1:I'm getting to do therapy about me, for me, with a good therapist who knows about liberation, and knows about trauma, and knows about empowerment. And it has been the healing I have been waiting for and fighting for and advocating for and trying for. And I think you will hear that growth as these episodes unfold. This is amazing. I will put the link to the Andrea Gibson Substack in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, truly. This email says, I love SystemSpeak, and I love what SystemSpeak does like nobody else and has never been done before. Not like this. Y'all are making fun of me now. What system speak does that no one else does is not about therapy, is not about group therapy, not even about peer support.
Speaker 1:It is about relational healing and practice socially, showing up for our own healing and health and well-being and aliveness when we were being destroyed and harmed and exploited. Thank you. That's exactly what I was trying to say, but in a great little tagline. This email says, I listened to the System Speak podcast because I was harmed growing up and into adulthood. I am still sometimes being harmed, and it's hard to get away from it and hard to provide for myself so that I don't have to continue being harmed.
Speaker 1:How can I count on myself to be here with myself and for myself When I am at my most vulnerable or when another person is trying to harm me, I can't do that? I don't know how to do that. If I knew how to do that, I wouldn't need system speak. I'm so glad I have system speak. I'm so glad you do the podcast, and I'm so glad my therapist listens too.
Speaker 1:I am not at this time able to participate in the community for lots of reasons because I'm just not able to right now. But I want you to remember there are lots of listeners who still listen even if we don't participate in the community. I love when we hear about the community because it gives me courage what someday might be possible for me too. But for now, remember, you've got all the listeners still listening because we believe in you, and that has helped me learn to believe in me. Thank you for what you do.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. Y'all, that will make me cry. That is gonna go in my printed book of things I've kept. This email says, you recently mentioned the community on the podcast. What you're doing with creating this community and creating this example of your clinical perspective as a person with lived experience is like, we don't need to prevent anybody.
Speaker 1:It's all about learning to show up for ourselves, to live as ourselves, and to be ourselves. And I think that applies to anybody, whether they have DID or not. Thank you for the podcast. We are cheering you on as you just keep going. We're so glad you're here.
Speaker 1:You guys are quoting my words back to me, and that is tricksy. Thank you, really. This is from Sheena, and Sheena says, hey. Could we please have the Valentine's Day episodes back? Because we really like that music.
Speaker 1:And I know the music episodes came down, but I, for one, would like to vote to have the Valentine's Day and even the winter playlist back up if you are willing to do so. Let us know. We're still listening anyway. Thank you for all the songs. Can we have some more this winter?
Speaker 1:Like a playlist of the songs you've done over the last year. Oh my goodness, you guys. Thank you for the encouragement. This one is from Sarah, and Sarah says, I don't know what's going on in your real life because I don't know you in real life, but I could hear in the podcast, and maybe this is your mapping and not my business. My goodness.
Speaker 1:What's coming? Maybe this is your mapping and not my business. But as I listened to the podcast over the last year, it felt like Sasha was getting pulled more and more away, like more and more absent. Like, what even happened to Sasha? And then I didn't even know how to find words for it until hearing your new episodes this year.
Speaker 1:And it's like, oh my goodness, she's back. I don't know what's happening in your real life, but it is so good to hear you feeling like yourself again, hear you feeling strong again, and hear you feeling coming back to yourself. So thank you to you, and thank you to doctor Tema and all that homecoming. Welcome back to your own podcast. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:Y'all, I don't even have words. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna let that land. Brooke says, I listened to you talk about reclaiming the community, and what I love is that there are lots of places we could go to therapy or have therapy groups.
Speaker 1:There's lots of places we could only socialize or even trauma dump or even get wounded by it. You're not wrong. There are lots of places to learn about trauma and dissociation, and I'm so glad there's so many lived experience voices. Right? I totally agree with that, and I totally support that.
Speaker 1:What is unique about your voice is that you blend your clinical knowledge with lived experience so that it's authentic rather than therapeutic, which helps it not be hierarchical. Hierarchical. Hierarchical. I don't know if I can hear that or say that or not. And also structured enough, it's still healthy and safe.
Speaker 1:What you do is very unique, and we hope that you keep doing it. With you, I don't have to run to you for rescue. I learned to run to myself. Oh my goodness. That is maybe the highest compliment ever.
Speaker 1:Yes. That's the whole point. Recovery talks about it as like fellow travelers. It's not just connection brings healing, meaning you can come to me for healing. That is not what we mean.
Speaker 1:That has never been what we meant. That is exploitation. That is reenactment. That is re traumatizing. And at some point, those people, when you turn to them like that as substitute parental figures, as culty figures, as those kinds of experiences, they will at some point either, one, become transactional, so there is no authenticity because you're doing it to get something, or, like, whether you're getting paid or whether like, that is not relationship.
Speaker 1:That is transaction. Or they will devastate you because they are human, and you have them set up so high that they will fail that because no one can be that. And either way, it will be devastating in the end, ultimately. There are some ways, like in therapy or therapy groups or something where you know that's what you're doing, you know that it has limitations or is transactional in those ways, and if that's what you're consenting to, that's okay. If you are risking boundaries or setting boundaries or however you wanna do it socially or relationally in different places, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Like, it really is as long as you're aware that that's what you're doing. It's not what I'm doing. It's not what I'm offering. I don't know how many times to say it. And also, I feel like you all are hearing me, and you are getting it, and you are seeing it.
Speaker 1:This is about authenticity. Here are the things I know. Here are the things I feel. It is the left brain and the right brain. Whether that is modeling for you or not is up to you.
Speaker 1:It is for me just practicing turning towards myself, turning towards my own system, and then other people who also know how to turn towards themselves and their own systems, that is a journey we can walk alongside safely and in healthy ways. Because we can't do anything about memory time. It has already happened. We can respond to ourselves and stay and live in the present, and that is where healthy attachment happens, and it actually turns out to be so easy for us when we are tending to ourselves. I never knew that was possible.
Speaker 1:It has been the hugest breakthrough and all that I needed, like, a decade ago, a lifetime ago. Right? Thank you so much for your email. This email is from Jane, and Jane says, I listened to the homecoming episode, and I will order the book soon. But what I'm really struggling with is how to know when to stop trying in my relationship or not because I do love them, and I do want to be with them.
Speaker 1:And, also, it does not feel healthy to me. How do you know when it's too toxic? How do you know what's hard because of attachment and what's hard because it's impossible because it's too toxic? Oh my goodness. I think this is the question for the ages.
Speaker 1:I cannot answer for everybody, and I cannot even answer for you. What I can share is my own experience, and that is that there are some kinds of harm that happen that are harm. Like, this is harming me. This is disempowering me, and those kinds of things. This is invalidating me.
Speaker 1:Those kinds of things are direct harm. Like, someone doesn't have to hit you for it to count as harm. Right? But when we grow up with trauma, then our baseline for what counts as harm is so off that sometimes we don't recognize that this is harm or that is harm or what is happening is is harm. There's also deprivation, which is the good that is missing.
Speaker 1:And if and sometimes part of the harm that's being caused is that safety is missing or stability is missing. Right? You can't build into a relationship if you can't establish one first. So if you don't have stability, you're not even actually getting to a relationship stage. And I think that's one thing I've had to learn is to not get ahead of myself because my daydreams are so vivid.
Speaker 1:I can see the potential in this person. I can see the potential in this life. I can see what I wanna create here, and I take off starting to go for that without seeing that my partners are showing up to do the foundational work that makes that possible. Like, we can't skip those steps. Right?
Speaker 1:And then remember what Chuck said, I think by now you will have heard it. And then remember what Chuck said, I think by now you will have heard it, about how safety is not a lack of danger. Safety is connection. And if you are not and if you have and if you cannot have stability, if your partner does not actually believe in you or presume goodwill, you can't feel connected because you are not known or seen or heard, and it will be misattunement. And so then that's part of why there's not stability that stays.
Speaker 1:Right? You can't have connection without those things. So I think we experience this, like, even in the community. If there are people that want to leave because they don't believe in me, they they need to go because that's not safe for me, and it's not safe for them. But it also means they don't know me, which makes it mean I can't get to know them.
Speaker 1:Right? So then we can't have community if we don't know each other. Right? And then on the other hand, the people who so it's the same. It ties back into the other things the emails say.
Speaker 1:So this is something else that so this ties back into some of those previous emails, I think, in that way, because that applies all the time to every relationship. The other way to tell is if you are feeling particularly anxious, it means you're having to seek out care that's not coming, and there are reasons why. So that's a red flag that you do not have secure attachment in that relationship. And I don't mean that in an ableist way, like, there's something wrong with you. I just mean the relationship's not working for you.
Speaker 1:If you are feeling particularly avoidant, it means you are receiving harm. It means you are being harmed. And so that doesn't mean you're bad or the other person is bad. It means that is information about the quality of the relationship. And sometimes it's easier to see those things because they're qualifiers that feel like it ties us back to ourselves as opposed to dissociating from that externally.
Speaker 1:Because when we're not safe or stable or things are, like you said, super toxic, then what happens is we attune to our environment instead of to ourselves. So if you are confused about what you want and need, it means you're tuning externally, and the confusion is the discrepancy between what someone else wants from you and what you and your system actually needs. Right? So this is where interpersonal violent this is where interpersonal violence comes in and coercive control comes in, and it's really important to just pause things and go back to yourself and your own system about what you need and want. Because it doesn't matter what the daydream is.
Speaker 1:The daydream is not real. If you are safe and stable and secure with someone, you can then it's not even daydreams because it's actually happening. It's coming to fruition. Right? That's the evidence.
Speaker 1:There's not the confusion. There's not the wishing and longing for the mirage that doesn't exist because it does exist, and it is real, and it is happening. And that's a beautiful unfolding. The thing about trauma is I can know not to do the bad things, or I can I can practice noticing what someone else does that is harmful? That's really hard, but I can do it.
Speaker 1:Deprivation is much harder. Like, it's hard to know what does a good relationship feel like if you've never had it. And if you have something like the emails about heretic and religious trauma stuff, if you've had these experiences or any experiences where there was coercive control, then part of what happens is you think there's something wrong with the relationship because you there's something wrong with you, that you have to try harder, that you have to earn it, that you have to prove yourself. All of those are red flags. That is not relational.
Speaker 1:That is control. And we will talk about this again later on the podcast with Chuck again. He's gonna come back because we had follow-up questions, so many emails. And the thing that helped me step out of that cycle really was Al Anon. And I'm not saying that I'm recommending it.
Speaker 1:I'm saying my experience was because and, again, I was really careful because I did not need to be cult hopping, and I had to I was really intentional about what groups I was attending and how often I was attending because of my own history, not because anything bad happened. But filtering in that context, right, that how it works book that we talked about at the beginning of the year, that book was so pragmatic. It is what finally helped us learn how to fill in the good that was missing. And one of the things I've learned from recovery, I don't know what book it's in, so I apologize, But one of the things I've learned from recovery is about JADE, j a d e, which is an acronym about justify, argue, defend, and explain, which is a concept used in communication to highlight ineffective and potentially harmful communication patterns, especially when dealing with difficult or manipulative individuals. The core idea is that engaging in these behaviors can escalate conflicts, drain emotional energy, and ultimately fail to resolve the situation.
Speaker 1:So if you notice that you're having to do some of those things, that's more evidence that it's toxic. One thing that really helps in response to that or instead of that is the detachment pamphlet, which I can put in the chat as well. We talked about it before. But where you detach with love, not detaching from the person, and I don't mean not caring about the person. I mean, you're detaching from the unhealthy dynamics so that you're not enabling the toxicity to continue.
Speaker 1:One of the hardest lessons I have learned over the last year is that it's is that I can't do anything about other people abusing me, but what I can do is not colluding in the abuse of me. Right? Is not doing to myself what they have done and how to get myself out of those situations and then now prevent them that I don't get into that kind of mess in the first place. But that takes a lot of really specific relational work, and I think there are not enough therapists who know how to support this specifically. So So I used to say, really, what complex trauma needs for healing is a good psychodynamic therapist.
Speaker 1:Whether they can use other tools like EMDR or not, that's fine. But they have to be psychodynamic because the wounds are relational. But now I think that's not enough. I don't believe that anymore. I think I mean, I still believe that, but I think, specifically, we need to talk about power.
Speaker 1:What takes away power? What supports empowering? Because it's people taking away power that gets us in these situations and then traps us in them. And so you may have a great therapist who can help with this or help with that, But if they don't know about power and if they don't know about liberation, they're not gonna be able to get you out of a situation with this. And then they are also a complicit bystander, if not more harmful.
Speaker 1:And that is something I have had to grieve and something that I have had to work through myself of, like, is recognizing the participation of therapists in that process. So really taking on the responsibility of me that it is my responsibility to navigate situations and to get out of unhealthy or toxic situations, those are the tools that have helped me. I hope that makes sense. I will try to put links in the show notes. Meg said, we just listened to the safety lace episode and appreciate yous referring to ships.
Speaker 1:Ships even with yous, listening to the body and having both internal friendships and outside friendships. We use a speedboat emoji because at times, it feels like you're so far ahead of us, Dancing skier behind the boat trying to hang on much better than a tugboat. That's an amazing image, and, also, I feel like I'm just barely running ahead of you. Like, oh my goodness. This is a lot.
Speaker 1:You will keep hearing about the ships all summer. For sure. Lisa says, oh my heart. I appreciate your safety lace episode. So much good in it and tips for me too.
Speaker 1:But my goodness, I am beyond happy to hear how you've grown. Oh, my heart, I can't even say. You are amazing and strong and kind and good and all the wonderful. I'm so blessed to have you in my life. Thank you for that.
Speaker 1:And thank you for being brave enough to be you, just wonderful you, my role model. I can't even. You go on with your amazing self. You go. High five times a bajillion.
Speaker 1:You've got this boo. So happy for you. Oh my goodness, Lisa, my friend. Thank you so much for your encouragement and for cheering us on. It's very kind of you, and I love this.
Speaker 1:It is a great example of delight and appreciation, which is not the same as fawning to be safe. And I just wanna point this out because we've talked before about how after the fawning episodes, people stopped saying thank you. Saying thank you or appreciating is not the same as fawning. Fawning is being safe with an abuser. I'm not the abuser.
Speaker 1:It is okay to say that episode rocked or was amazing or was good or nailed it, and I appreciate it, Lisa. I need that encouragement just as much as anyone and really, and and sometimes deeply need the encouragement because it is so hard and vulnerable and because there is so much stuff that happens online. Right? And so this really helps me have the strength and courage to keep going, and it means the world. Thank you, Lisa.
Speaker 1:I mean that. This one says, if I had to just write a summary statement, it is that System Speak helps me access my system and my body, and that is how it helps me survive. Thank you so much for what you do. Oh my goodness. I appreciate this because this is what I say in all my presentations about what integration means.
Speaker 1:I don't mean combining parts. I don't mean making parts go away. I mean, when we have integrative experiences, it means we have awareness of and access to ourselves. Attunement with ourselves is everything. As soon as we can get that, then we can start attaching with others internally or externally, and we can have secure attachment with anybody who is also doing that.
Speaker 1:But we cannot have secure attachment if we are not attuned to ourselves or if the other person is not attuning to themselves. They're so like, everything depends on this. So good for you. Awareness of an access to yourself is everything. I love this email.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Y'all brought it with the emails today. This was so encouraging and helpful and just I feel all filled up with all kinds of good. Thank you. 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.
Speaker 1: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. 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.
Speaker 1: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. That's what peer support is all about. Being human together.
Speaker 1:So yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.