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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, 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 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 we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening
Speaker 2:to the podcast. Thank you. You might hear a background noise because my children are watching doctor who in the other room. So sometimes they're laughing. Sometimes they're screaming.
Speaker 2:Sometimes the music is loud for the suspense of it all, but they are having fun. A different group of kids, some have left here and others have come, everyone going where they want for the start of summer as school has finished. They played outside all morning together. I watched from my window as I worked. And then as it grew warm, they moved inside for screen time, filling water bottles because that's what's cool, the way they learned how from Jules.
Speaker 2:I spent most of the day working on OG episodes, going through the February into the beginning of 2020. I have so dreaded this and so avoided it that it's been almost a month since I even tried because I remember twenty twenty was hard. So on these days, between the ones for mothers and fathers, I spent relistening to episodes from Emma's top 10, which was our goodbye thank you list to our first Kelly through the loss of her at the end of that year, the transition to a new one, and to the footprints episode. One of the most powerful ones for me personally, seeing clearly what was not mine and finding a way to hold space for recognizing when I am not wanted, when care is not really about me. One of the things that surprised me, relistening to the episodes, is that some of the original ones were really short.
Speaker 2:I don't guess it matters, but it's not something I knew or realized. And I wondered if that would be good for me to be more present for shorter times than losing myself in longer ones. I don't know. It's been hard to do this year, and I'm trying to trust the process that words are coming back again. But so much happened over the last year, and I had to get back to a place of being okay in my own skin again no matter what anyone else thought or said.
Speaker 2:It is hard to be measured against a moment of something someone hears rather than remembering these episodes are like postcards, a passing moment, an unfolding experience, pieces of the story, more than they are about who I am. In some ways, a lot about who I am, sometimes more than I can see or hold for myself and also only part of myself, trying desperately to hold on to the idea of documenting my process in case it's helpful to anyone, in case someone needs to remember they are not alone. And that is very different than creating or performing or having something to prove, and certainly is very different than defending myself. And with DID, none of that is my intent. But this process is messy, and I'm learning along the way.
Speaker 2:And I'm not done, so this is not done. But the last year has been particularly painful and exhausting in ways that felt like it nearly did me in. I don't mean that as a threat or as manipulative, and I think it's unfair to those of us who struggle with self harm or suicidality To call it anything like that when we are only trying to breathe. I think that the things I have experienced and shared make sense in the context of me. Shiny happy is all about being punished if you get it wrong.
Speaker 2:Relational trauma is about what is wrong, making us feel like we are wrong, and physical and sexual assaults leave us feeling like we are bad. And altogether, those things seem to reinforce each other, which leaves a person feeling like they can't win, that trying is wrong. Through the years, we have learned how much connection brings healing, and we say it on the podcast. We talk about how necessary it is because that's where the wound is. So then when we try that, even though trying feels wrong, and then sometimes get it wrong again, The shame in that is exponential, and it runs deep, and it feels like drowning.
Speaker 2:And, also, if we hold on to holding on to both or remember what my therapist said about there being more than one truth, that it can feel like getting it wrong. And, also, we can still keep trying, like falling down when we learn how to walk or falling over when we learn how to ride a bike or falling flat when we learn how to skate. People come with their own developmental skills and social skills and all of us at different levels. So maybe there are gaps that make life harder for me or social skills I don't have that make navigating friendships even harder or mistakes that I make as an adult that other people make as children or adolescents because they had the chance, and it's only just now my turn. Then it means I'm not just catching up progress.
Speaker 2:I'm catching up mistakes too. I don't mean to make excuses. I mean to hold compassion for myself, to not have all the answers, to get better at getting it wrong. Not that I want to get it wrong or trying to get it wrong, but knowing how to handle it when I do. And it feels risky when you feel alone in it, Not because of neglect this time.
Speaker 2:I'm an adult with adult resources. I'm not a child, so there are times I am alone, and that's okay and normal and healthy even. The way it's fun to see Jules at work every day at the office, and, also, we still have our own offices for privacy where we meet with the people we try to help. There's a balance to it, that healthy version of connection that somehow connects to there being more than one truth at a time. Like, I am grown and caring for myself and also not alone in doing so.
Speaker 2:I've learned this in the community where we work so hard to connect. And, also, I am not their therapist, and they are not mine. We do not parent each other, and yet we do tend to each other together in different ways that have been really beautiful. When it was time for seasons, There were people in the community already who were LGBT and had navigated that safely for themselves in their own way. When it was time to learn about shiny, happy, and arranged marriages, There were others in the community who had already found their way through.
Speaker 2:When I had to ask myself hard questions about adult relationships and what I wanted and needed and exploring how I identified. There were people there sharing their experiences and hearing mine. Even though it was my work to decide for me what I wanted and what I didn't, what feels like me and what doesn't, who I wanted to spend time with in what ways and when that didn't feel good, and how to set boundaries with all the in betweens. The last year, from last summer to this summer, was maybe the hardest year of my adult life besides 2020. And there wasn't much I could talk about simply because privacy.
Speaker 2:And that made things build up a bit, I think, since this is usually the place I can say things no matter how hard they are. That safety shifted for me during the pandemic when my family found the podcast. And since then, since Nathan's family found the podcast, and then knowing church people were listening and having to be careful. I think that's why episodes started coming down when they just didn't feel safe anymore. And then the last year felt like being squeezed out of my own podcast where the safe space was smaller and smaller and smaller, and there was less and less that I could say, And not knowing how to get it right, and only hearing that it was wrong to be me, That's what it felt like and what made it hard to have words.
Speaker 2:And, also, even then, there is more than one truth. Because the people who felt safe on the other side are maybe some of the safest I have known, And that is a great relief and comfort to me, especially listening through the original episodes, thinking over and over again that I had found a safe person who wasn't or someone who would stay and didn't. It's no wonder that I don't know how to do people when I haven't had people who just let me be one too. And in the meantime, my struggle to find another therapist left memory time in shambles, left me scattered all over the place like debris after an Oklahoma tornado, And the sight of the mess of my own life exhausted me, and I didn't know where to even start. Finding a new therapist last year seemed good, hopeful even.
Speaker 2:And, also, how many times had I gotten my hopes up before? So how long do I keep going to see her week after week before I can talk to her, before I can believe that she's staying long enough to even hear what I have to say. And this Linda therapist is nothing like that first Kelly therapist. In some ways, that's hard. She's hard.
Speaker 2:She's tough. And, also, every time I found someone soft enough to remind me of my previous Kelly, it never worked. And Jules reminded me this week that I had found someone different on purpose. That that means therapy is focused on cleaning up the debris field, not unrescuing me from being alone in it, and, also, holding more than one truth at a time. Having help with the debris field means I'm not alone in it.
Speaker 2:So there's no rescue. And I have said the connection is more like a cage match than a tea party, but that may be a more accurate understanding of life in some ways and good for me in some ways, boundaried for me in some ways so that I can see clearly what work there is to do in therapy and my life that is a mess. A mess I have been transparent about, a mess I own, and also a mess that makes life hard for everyone around me because it's not cleaned up yet, which is why I have to stay in therapy. But it has been a very lonely year even if by natural consequence. I miss our friends who have left the community and also feeling like I do the podcast wrong sometimes makes it hard to connect with those who have stayed.
Speaker 2:I try to make friends, but having gotten that wrong sometimes makes it hard to reach out to those who have still tried. And sometimes, I don't know what I've said out loud and what's still in my head. My therapist asked the question about the podcast of what of how I know what is sometimes vague because privacy, and what is sometimes vague because dissociation. I'm not sure that I have the answer, and it makes me wonder how present I'm even being with myself and what that's going to look like now that therapy is happening again. She asked me why I'm staying for the hard part of therapy when it is so hard?
Speaker 2:And I said, because I wanna clean up the mess of my life. Not that I am a mess. I know I really am doing my best. And, also, I am a mess, and it makes my life harder than it has to be. And so I wanna do better, not in a shiny happy way, but in an intentional way.
Speaker 2:And I wanna be a better mom. Kinder, maybe. More open, less shiny happy as they all are teenagers or almost all almost teenagers. And I wanna be a better friend, more consistent and stable. Because when it feels like no one else has been, it's hard to believe you can.
Speaker 2:But I wanna try. And I wanna care better, whether that's Nathan as we co parent or learning to be a friend, not just have acquaintances, or knowing what it looks like to grow the community with good boundaries that don't lose me. Caring for me better too, I guess, which somehow this year I've learned connects directly with how I'm caring for others. I've shared before how when I was little, one of me was for the mother, and one of me was for the father. There was more of me then even, but that was a thing.
Speaker 2:And now it feels like that in a different way, where part of me feels very strongly. It is not safe to be trying to live in the world. I don't mean that as suicidality. I mean that as being public in the world or connected to others at all. And part of me, at the same time, thinks we're right on the cusp of figuring out some big things and that if we just keep going, things are going to get better.
Speaker 2:That the people we've made friends with could be friends for life. The rest of what life we have left, which is decades of not being alone. Part of me thinks I'm foolish, stretching out the inevitable. How many times do we have to go through it before understanding that we are bad and unwanted. I don't know how to tell when I spend the morning watching the wind in the trees, if the silence is relief and rest, or if it's a threat and isolation.
Speaker 2:I told my therapist, I'm staying in therapy even though it's getting hard because I want access to myself, and I want to know how to be me. And do that well more than anything else. Just be me. All of me. That's what I want from therapy.
Speaker 2: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.systemspeak.com. We'll see you there.