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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,
Speaker 1: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. Catherine says, Dear Emma, please would you do an episode about feeling possessive of your therapist? Is this normal for people with DID? Would you also address the issues around extended family bystanders and unwillingness to hear our stories and to believe us? Whew, that is packed with a lot of things.
Speaker 1:I could certainly circle back to it and do some episodes about this. And also, I could tend to it a little bit now. The piece about being possessive of your therapist, and is that normal with DID? I think that's normal for lots of people. I think that we have such an intense relationship with our therapists that it can feel very uncomfortable knowing that our therapist is working with other people.
Speaker 1:We also have memory time folks and younger folks when we have DID, right? And so part of their experience too is that we literally have to stop our access or our visit with our therapist so that our therapist can talk to someone else. And that does not feel good in memory time with little ones. So we really need to be in our adult selves, tending to those little ones and addressing some of those worries and concerns because they don't have object permanence necessarily. Right?
Speaker 1:Throwing into the mix a little attachment wounds with anxious attachment or disorganized attachment, especially for those of us with any kind of complex trauma where the wounds are relational, that just really escalates everything even more to where it feels bigger and louder, and is harder to tell the difference between now time and memory time, and harder to know that we can hang on to our therapist or that nothing is putting our therapist at risk of separation from us, that may even feel more raw for folks whose trauma patterns relate to that as well. Does that make sense? So if you lost a caregiver or had to share a caregiver or a caregiver was taken from you, that may add to some of those feelings too. So we can absolutely circle back to this and talk about it. Thank you for asking.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate it. Lexi, you wrote in about Sjogren's and these ideas and this, a certain protocol that you know. And yes, I just wanted to confirm I am on a very high dose of vitamin D3 and that does impact the autoimmunity suppressant effect. And my doctors and my rheumatologists are on that. I have really good ones.
Speaker 1:And yes, they're watching my calcium, all of those things. So I actually appreciated that there was someone else out there who knows this experience and understands it. So I it was information I had, but you sharing it did not at all bother me. It actually was super helpful just in a feeling like attunement kind of way that someone out there understands. The flare ups I was having was not because I didn't have enough vitamin D3.
Speaker 1:It was because I was going through some trauma and, not getting enough rest and recovery to process that. And it was doing all kinds of things to my body. My doctor was like, You have to get out of this because you're not going to survive, like literally. So it is definitely starting to settle and starting to get myself back on track as I care for my body and get back to safety, which is a good reminder to any of us, because no matter how holistic we are, no matter what good care we do for our bodies of going to the doctor or taking our meds or whatever it is that we need to do, sleeping enough. If we're not safe,
Speaker 2:the rest
Speaker 1:of that doesn't matter. Like, we really, really need to be safe. And I think one of the I mean, it does matter. All of those things are good. And also to like stay ahead of those responses is really, really hard.
Speaker 1:And I think, like when we talk to Chuck Benencosa on the podcast, I don't know if you've heard it yet or not by the time this airs. But one of the things that he talks about is how it's hard for some of us to experience safety when society is the danger. And so all of those things just playing in was really, really making my body struggle with a lot of things. And I am so glad to be in a safer place, to be getting regular sleep, to be getting nourishment in my body, to be a little more balanced with work and life and the rhythms of things that are more intuitive to me and what my body can do and the natural rhythms of my body. I really like to do my paperwork and my writing and things like that in the morning while I am not parenting.
Speaker 1:And having that time to create really settles my body And then doing my job, because we all have to work to be able to provide for ourselves and our families if we can in whatever ways that we can, whether that work is a job or whether that work is recovery or whether that work is therapy or whether that work is following whatever disability therapies we need, like all of the things, right? And then at the end of the day, after all of that work and getting and already having done what I like when my body starts to shut down, I can respect that. I can relax. I can go to sleep early. And it has just been so much better for me.
Speaker 1:I am literally in a fight for my life and I am so, so grateful. So yes, you are absolutely right that it's a progressive disease. And even though I can't get better, I can stop it from getting worse or slow it down from getting worse. So I really appreciated your email. And it's also interesting you talked about the connection to multiple sclerosis, which I have never been diagnosed with, but I have an uncle who has that.
Speaker 1:So that's interesting to me, the connection. So yes, I do have a doctor locally who is trained in the protocol. It's one of the places that you mentioned in your email. And I am so grateful, seriously, just to have someone who understands. I felt so much attunement and support in your email and not many people get that.
Speaker 1:It's a lived experience thing, I think. And I really appreciated what you shared. Seriously, thank you. It's also one of the reasons that I moved to where I moved because that doctor is here. And if I don't have that doctor, I'm not going to survive.
Speaker 1:Like, I don't mean that dramatically, as you understand. I mean that literally the care that my body needs and the level of support and rest and recovery and sleep and nourishment and balancing work and rest, like all the things, I feel that pressure. Like I have really had to push through the last decade because of the outside kids being able to provide for them, being able to care for them, being able to care for them after providing for them, like working all day. And I feel like my body literally shutting down. Like I can't push like that anymore.
Speaker 1:And I have not felt that kind of significant awareness of my body's decline since chemo. I am not currently on chemo, but I recognize the feeling from that. And so I am being really, really careful and much more intentional. So your email was very timely. I appreciate it so much.
Speaker 1:I'm going to email you back. And also I will put this in my folder of those attunement emails I get sometimes. I so appreciate it. Thank you so much. This message says, I want to tell you it's remarkable.
Speaker 1:Your songs are the podcast is remarkable, you are remarkable, and your songs are remarkable. You even hit that high note. The other thing I want you to know that I understand is when you were singing that song, it was not a song about the podcast. It was not a song about the episode. I understood that song was an anthem about coming out for you.
Speaker 1:I remember watching that song be sung in memory of Tina Turner on the award show. I don't know if you got to see it or not, but I felt so many feels when you shared it with us. Thank you so much. Oh my goodness. I love when y'all recognize the songs.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's ever okay. It has been such a big deal for me reclaiming that part of my experience, that part of my childhood, that part of shiny, happy, that part of my ears continuing to do things I never thought my ears would be able to do, my voice being able to do things I never thought I would be able to do, and the authentic just being present and sharing, not having to be shiny happy, not having to be perfect, not having to have it exactly right or get it right, not having fancy equipment or recording studios or anything like that, just letting it be free and me and fun and play. It has been everything. Thank you for the support, really. This email says, Sasha, this is mostly for you.
Speaker 1:OMG, thank you for the laughter. Such honesty in that laugh. Okay. Time for the meat and potatoes of this message. We are a new OSDD system in the body of a GWM.
Speaker 1:I do not know what that means. I'm sorry that I don't. I know that it means I'm not cool. It means something cool. Our pronouns are a mess right now.
Speaker 1:So we is kinda hard to use. We have at least one alter who is little and 12, and he wants you all to know, to him and most of us, because we are visually challenged, we really enjoy the ASMR sounds of outside and freedom in your podcast. Oh my goodness. That was back when we had our chickens. Oh my heart.
Speaker 1:The chickens. Y'all, I will have chickens again someday. You people who love your puppies so much, you need to get chickens. I don't know if you understand how playful and loyal and devoted chickens are. Chickens are a whole oh, they healed something in me I didn't know anyone could reach.
Speaker 1:I love chickens so much. Your podcast has become a daily listen, a time to go dark, as we say. Before our life changed due to a stroke, we were in a career of peer support, and the different parts, because we don't like to say alters, would change often with every person we worked with. Being Sasha is looking for friends, we are too, in the system world. Our brother has DID but won't talk about it.
Speaker 1:And because our training, we are outgoing, though a little oversharing at times. To mirror your use of Indiana Jones references, we used Star Trek for examples, such as coming out to a friend, both about our sexuality and the plurality we carry, and we called ourselves a trill. Now he wants us to get the tattoos. Anyway, enough about us. The ship system.
Speaker 1:That's so cool. Thank you for sharing. This message says, OMG, the price of admission part two. I literally cannot. It's like the whole symposium in a podcast.
Speaker 1:That's so funny. Do you know we have our first group that has gone through the original symposium enough times, feeling comfortable with it enough that that group is moving on to the advanced symposium. And I am so excited because we take all of the same things and make them relational. And it is going to be epic. I can't wait.
Speaker 1:This message says, I relax in the community because you're there. Because you're you, you're keeping an eye kind of like a lifeguard. Not that you're going to dive in and pull everybody out who looks like they're drowning, but, you know, I feel like your role is to have the megaphone with a very gentle voice and say, y'all don't drown out there. That was amazing. This one says, Dear System Speak, the episode called Part C is my new favorite.
Speaker 1:Listening to Emma's conversation about insiders, including the comment about feeling discomfort with the word folks describe these, was especially encouraging for me today. I listened on my way to and from therapy. Thank you for continuing to take risks internally, privately, and in limited ways with us publicly for our collective sakes. Oh my goodness. Do you know sharing that somehow healed it?
Speaker 1:Like all of a sudden, I'm saying folks all the time now, like all of a sudden it's just okay. Like I needed that to be heard. People responded to it. And now that was somehow the medicine I needed to release it. So I feel like I've reclaimed that folks kind of word.
Speaker 1:So that really helped. I really appreciate everyone being so patient with me. This one says, Listening to newly uploaded and re uploaded episodes, and they are all so good and we just wanted to say thank you. Choosing Adulting from August 2024 is so relatable. Back when we worked, we had so many jobs where we were responsible for opening and closing the store library, and we were always like, people you do not notice at all, or you would not put us in charge of this.
Speaker 1:We had so many sneaky hacks, routines, workarounds, ways of compensating or adjusting, and still we would not achieve perfection and then not locking ourselves into or out of places. Oh my goodness. So that episode is when I got I locked myself in the office. That was a terrible, terrible day. With all of the trauma and memory time echoes that entailed and all the activations that entailed also, we even got ourselves locked in the staircase at work once, and we are not even medically supposed to use the stairs.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. Y'all, we still have house keys stashed or hidden in 11 different places, and realizing we were allowed to do that and it was better than getting locked out of our own house regularly was such an improvement. And yes, we are proud of ourselves for letting us do it. And also it was frustrating and embarrassing for some of us to once again admit that we're pretty sure none of us are the daily living part. I love this so much.
Speaker 1:Do you know I have said for years now that we do not have a planner? And here's what I've decided just in the last couple weeks. I don't have a planner because planning never worked in my family. There was so much chaos and there was so much coercive control that it didn't matter. Like there was no purpose that planning served for me.
Speaker 1:You know what did work though was organizing. And so I have some really good organizing parts, and I'm sort of learning to work with that and honor that differently and really appreciate it. I loved this message so much. Thank you. They said, I mean, we make it work.
Speaker 1:And now that we're medically retired and we finally found the part that was doing that stuff on purpose about half the time, she is attempting to work in new ways, so things have improved a lot on the daily living front. But that still leaves the other half of the times. When it just happens, it's an exhausting and tricky thing, and we actually believe it is a bit like being clumsy, just a thing we have to deal with. Because our brain is busy doing its particular set of complicated and awesome DID trauma coping moves, it's just going to occasionally drop certain other things that ought to be common sense priorities, or so we tell ourselves every time it happens again. So we loved this episode for making us feel so much less alone about one of the less obvious ways our life is complicated.
Speaker 1:I loved this message. Thank you, Maribus, for sharing it. This message says, As a member who has attended two of the three symposiums you've hosted so far, the symposiums have helped us all of me, both past and present, to develop safety with myself and lean into developing safe and healthy relationships with outside people, even when we still struggle with agoraphobia. We were sitting with the PARTS today and asking them what activity rejuvenates and exhilarates and educates each of us, them and me and I, unanimously believe being taught by you is exactly our favorite juice box. Thank you for gifting us the opportunity to connect with others and systems to help heal the cause, which is trauma, not us, who are people.
Speaker 1:That's pretty far out too. Deuces. Oh my goodness. There was so much I loved about this email. Thank you.
Speaker 1:This one says, I've just listened to the emails depersonalization and how memory works episode four times in a row while doing yard work. It's slowly getting through. I find that when things are a most direct hit in terms of relevance for my system, they go in much more slowly, and I get very foggy around it. This episode is brilliant in its clarity and directness, and I'm almost tap dancing. I'm so grateful that I can begin to grasp it.
Speaker 1:I wonder if Emma and or anyone else with experience or more knowledge than my zero on this could speak to what relational flashback means as distinct from a sensory one. I think this may have importance for my system in part because my trauma and deprivation is largely so very early and pre verbal and pre memory right into prenatal. So every family has a social contract. I talk about this in my book, that's about complex trauma, the problems with complex trauma therapy. Every family is a social contract of how we approach care and avoid harm.
Speaker 1:Each family is different. So what that contract looks like is different for everyone. But when we experience in now time, something that reminds us or acts out that memory time contract, then it is relational flashback. So sensory flashbacks, because we have those clues, the sound or the smell or the taste or the whatever, the visual, it gives us clues to what's going on. So we can give our body different information and get ourselves reoriented and it's easier to get grounded.
Speaker 1:But emotional and relational flashbacks have like zero context in our conscious awareness, and that's why they're so hard to shake off. That was a really brave question, Karo. Thank you. This message says, I'm new to the podcast and the area of the community. I've been listening while I work and just wanted to say that it's helped me understand a lot of things going on.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate all of you. Oh, that's so sweet. I am really glad you found us. Welcome. We also now have comments from Spotify, not just Apple.
Speaker 1:That's a whole new thing. On the reconnected episode, Lindsay said, thank you so much for this. You're welcome. Again, that emails depersonalization and how memory works. Kim says, Oh, that's our friend Kim.
Speaker 1:Hey, Kim. Kim says, This breakdown is super clear, and I finally have a good grasp on what depersonalization means, as well as a better understanding of how memory works. You go, Kim. Kendra says, Thank you so much for your podcast. This episode hits home.
Speaker 1:I was diagnosed with DID about two years ago and have finally gotten on track with who my parts are. Your podcasts have helped me understand what it's like to be multiple. This particular episode is great to have because it helps us understand depersonalization as part of our system and how to manage it. I love that! Way to take care of yous!
Speaker 1:On the Price for Admission episode, someone wrote, While I recognize that mental health awareness is important, I find the Systemspeak podcast to be overly focused on self labeling and reliving trauma rather than encouraging personal growth and accountability. In my opinion, there is a fine line between processing the past and becoming trapped in it. I believe the podcast could benefit from a more balanced approach that emphasizes resilience, forward momentum, and ownership of one's future. Wow. Okay.
Speaker 1:I don't know who wrote this obviously, but I feel like they are someone who doesn't know me at all. Like, I feel like I've made enough progress in therapy to recognize that what they wrote is not actually congruent to my experience or even feedback I have to accept. I don't think that's my truth at all. In fact, it has been since the pandemic, so five years since we labeled who was who on the podcast, we have spent the last six months not talking at all about anything memory time, maybe even longer than that, because we were so focused on now time stuff. And this comment is left on an episode that literally is about now time relationships and how to be resilient and move forward and take ownership of my future.
Speaker 1:And by the time you hear this, you would have heard the initial episodes from Since the Big Move and me doing exactly that. So you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna send this comment into the ocean and let it wash away. And also it's that reminder that part of society not being safe is keeping our eyes open, knowing we're not always gonna be supportive, And that is absolutely a risk for being out in the open, for speaking our truth, and for normalizing the struggle.
Speaker 2: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 2: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. That's what peer support is all about.
Speaker 2:Being human together. So yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.