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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 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 to the podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 1:We have the third section of the homecoming book that I wanna share, so I'm just gonna keep going. She calls part three, recovering from roadblocks on the journey home. That is so much more compassionate than like, how did you get in that mess again, loser? So like, oh my goodness. To talk to ourselves so differently where we just say, Hey, recovering from a roadblock on my way home to myself is so much healthier and so much better and so less shaming.
Speaker 1:It was a really good reminder for me. You know what else is a good reminder for me? This chapter. Because chapter nine talks about grief and that we cannot come home to ourselves without deciding to stop running away from grief. She says, the grief in the pit of your stomach, the base of your back, the side of your head, the back of your throat, the core of your heart, you cannot ignore your grief.
Speaker 1:Eventually it makes its presence known. It will not be denied. Okay, this is really interesting or terrible timing for those of you in the community, because I know that recovery group has found that grief book, and it's one of the things that we're starting to work on a little bit together. I am also pacing it as part of self care because avoidance. I mean, because also I was adjusting to all that's going on in my external world and needing to get safe and stable so I can address those issues.
Speaker 1:And also it feels like it's a time where the world is not safe or stable anyway. So it feels like I don't have access to that, which is really frustrating and exhausting because I also don't want to ableist myself, right? Like that internalized ableism where I have expectations of pushing myself to do things that it's just not the season to do, or that it's just not time to do, or not acknowledging how frightening the world is right now. And so it makes sense that I feel more raw. She says, The journey back to yourself requires you to acknowledge the people and things that you lost that were taken and that you gave away.
Speaker 1:The losses may have occurred during your season of disconnection from yourself when you were wandering around looking for home in all the wrong places, or the losses may be the cause of your disconnection. These losses are a painful reality, but to complete the journey home, you have to see them clearly. Okay, Clarissa Pinkola Estes from The Wolf's Book also says this, that we have to be able to see clearly, see accurately, and as Christine Forner said, stand what we see. She says, When you get to the place where you have given up so much or have had so much taken, you recognize that disconnection is not worth it. It has numbed you, but it has not saved you.
Speaker 1:As you look at your losses and the sacredness of your time and life, you are no longer willing to exchange yourself, your values, your integrity, your safety, or your mental health for anything that promised relief but did not deliver. Y'all, I had to pause and go cry when it said that, when it talked about that, that feeling of, You all know me. You know my daydreams. You know how I can, like, get lost in that. And I spent a whole year, three years, I don't know, learning to wrestle with that, that it's not what people say.
Speaker 1:It's not the daydream you can envision. That relationships take both people showing up to create safety, reciprocity, and equitable mutuality. Like, I don't know all the words because I'm still learning it, but there is no connection with out that, no matter how much you want it, no matter how much you see its potential, it cannot grow into that if it's not actually happening. And that is gut wrenching and devastating. Laura Brown talks about this with the price of admission, right?
Speaker 1:And here Doctor. Tema says, It's not worth what you have sacrificed for it. She says, Nobody else can tell you when you've had enough striving, straining, or self destructing to avoid grieving what you have lost and continue to lose. One of the most painful things I have had to discover is that when you have a history of trauma, you often have a high tolerance for emotional pain. You've had to learn to endure, persevere, and hold the pain in.
Speaker 1:Some of you even learned how to do it with grace, with gloss, without the slightest hint that you have been affected by losses. People may interact with you and have no idea the pain or heartbreak you carry. You wear your mask so well that your homecoming may not be because you can't fake it anymore, but because you choose not to. This is how I felt, like I am not going to survive this. I have to come home to myself to stay alive.
Speaker 1:She said, I'm glad you've reached this important milestone on the journey home. You could have spent the remainder of your life living as a fraction of the person you are, but you chose not to. You did not choose this time. The time chose you. The mask cracked and the river of grief erupted and would not be denied.
Speaker 1:You may have hit rock bottom or just couldn't take it anymore. You may have experienced a steady boil that intensified over time until you woke up and said to yourself, I have to get out of this pot before it destroys me. You may not even know what grieving looks like, but you know you cannot live in the margins anymore. You've lost time as you lived someone else's life, trying to be something you're not or chasing what wasn't going to be given to you. You may have lost hope, which led you to settle because you no longer believed or perhaps never believed that you could have good things or deserved more.
Speaker 1:You may have lost your confidence so that you no longer remembered how to advocate for yourself. You may have been pushed down so far that you got to the place of accepting anything you could get. You may be surprised by some of the circumstances you tolerated and dysfunction that you accommodated. When you have lost sight of your self, you can unknowingly allow your wounds to make decisions for you. And when you're wounded, it's hard to take care of yourself, let alone maintain friendships and romantic relationships.
Speaker 1:You may have lowered your standards and released all expectations after losing faith in relationships and yourself. Remember when you used to think real friends would consistently treat you with love, esteem, and honesty. Remember when you used to think that a relationship with someone who honored you was possible. Your body was not designed to live in a constant state of vigilance. Your body was created to respond to a crisis and then return to balance.
Speaker 1:When you live with constant stress and danger, your body pays a price. You guys, I got that warning from my doctor even, and I just recorded an emails episode where it came up because someone wrote in about it, but we have to take care of our bodies. And if we are staying in situations that are so stressful or dangerous or unsafe or unhealthy for us, our bodies pay the price and we don't get that back. We can repair and recover and tend to our bodies, but it will never be the same as before. That is not worth the sacrifice for someone who is not being safe with you.
Speaker 2:She says,
Speaker 1:This can also impact us professionally. Try not to judge yourself harshly for the opportunities and positions and money you lost when you lost sight of yourself. I have worked with victims of sexual harassment and assault, and they are often people who perform very well at their jobs until the harassment and assault started. As a result of it, they started coming in late, missing meetings, and being anxious and distracted. They couldn't focus because they were constantly looking out for the perpetrator.
Speaker 1:Examine the times when you were forced to disconnect from yourself and think about how affected your education and work. Healing requires truth telling. There are times when others want you to hurry up and get over your pain because they're uncomfortable with your grief. If you are honest, you'll admit there have been times when you couldn't or chose not to sit with your pain as you tried to convince yourself that you were over it. As you come home to yourself, make the decision to hold space in your heart to grieve the things and people you lost during your seasons of disconnection.
Speaker 1:She gives an invitation to grieve and says, Identify the losses you want to reclaim. Perhaps you want to reclaim your acceptance of your body, your comfort with affection, your neglected friendships or work, your educational goals, or even your self confidence. When you renew your clarity and decide to no longer hide in confusion, you accept the journey home. There are times when you knew what you wanted, felt, or thought, but your self doubt was so all consuming that it was easier to hide in confusion because it gave you permission not to act. You can take a step forward in this moment by acknowledging, I am not confused about what I feel, think or want.
Speaker 1:I am afraid. In this moment, activate the wisdom and knowledge that's already in you so you don't have to cling to confusion anymore. You may want to acknowledge in this moment that you're not sure of the way forward, but you know that where you are now is not where you want to stay, whether that place is physical, spiritual, psychological, social, or vocational. I had to do that when we moved of like, I don't know what the future looks like, but I cannot do this anymore. She says, while there are some losses you can reclaim or rebuild, you must acknowledge the people and things that are permanently gone and not coming back.
Speaker 1:If you lost time doing things or being with people who drained you more than they edified you, you can grieve this while also seeing any ways in which that time was not a total loss. While you grieve these losses, be open to new sources of hope, even hope for the return. Your parent may have died, abandoned you, or not shown up for you emotionally, but you can meet new people who parent you, mentor you, protect you, advocate for you, or nurture you. The divorce or separation may be final, but down the road, if you are open to it, a different love from someone else may be available to you. You may have failed miserably at that exam, but there are opportunities to try again in another class or in another year.
Speaker 1:You may have lost the opportunity to work with one person who could have helped you professionally, but you may meet others who will open the future doors for betray you the way others have. And then she writes this vow and invites us to read it out loud. And oh my goodness, it made me cry. In fact, it has been weeks since I read this and I had to come back to read it for the podcast because this last part was so hard, these final chapters. The whole book was so hard, but these final chapters just hitting me in the gut.
Speaker 1:Here is the vow to myself. I will no longer entertain anything or anyone that requires me to be something I am not. I make a radical revolutionary decision to come for what's mine and nothing is going to keep me from me. May it be so, and so it is. Chapter 10, the next chapter is about healing from breakups and divorce.
Speaker 1:So I'm sure I'll have no problems at all reading this through with y'all. Oh my goodness. I was explaining to the kids because because, like, at the end of the physical year, we finally could file the paper for the federal tax report that's, like, quarterly or whatever. We could file the final one for the old previous nonprofit for SystemSpeak that we had to close at the time because we couldn't track all that was happening with the changes in administration, and because I had to get myself to safety first. And I was talking to the kids about it because they were with me.
Speaker 1:We were going to the post office to mail it, and I was talking to the kids about it, and the kids were like, mom, that's awesome. It's like you've got three divorces in one year. Oh my goodness. You guys, they're not wrong. And it just was like a sucker punch to my gut.
Speaker 1:And just like she says, that doesn't mean it's the end of me or the end of life. Right? Like, even with the nonprofit here where we live now, they have one of those nonprofits for nonprofits. So we have a good team that can do all of the accounting, not just some of it, all of it, and someone who can track all the changes and all the legality of the paperworks to make sure that no one is in danger because of it, and it's that easy just to keep going to hold our head above water. I am surrounded by safe people who are good and kind and love me and support me and make my living possible, who recognize the ways in which I'm disempowered, whether that is indigenous, living persecuted for my faith, escaping cults, disability, a single parent, poverty, like all of these things that make my life hard, the re empowerment that comes from people who follow through, like she talked about in that chapter, makes all of the difference and makes being alive possible, as opposed to, there is no way I'm ever going to win this.
Speaker 1:It's not supposed to be winning. It's supposed to be living. So let's see what she has to say. So I'm going to share the next chapter because it is painful. And because it is painful, I wanted you to have the heads up that it's coming.
Speaker 1:She says, When you have had a relationship come to an end, it can disrupt your sense of self. Oftentimes, even in the midst of the relationship, you may have already begun losing yourself because you have been trying so hard to hold on to someone. I invite you to create a safe place for yourself, a sanctuary where you don't have to try to hold it together. You guys, I read that. And when I moved into this house where I live now, one of the things that I did was get very intentional about what went into my bedroom.
Speaker 1:I did not feel safe. I did not feel comfortable. I did not feel me, and everything in me and about me and my body was so raw and so devastated and so betrayed and so hurt and so terrified, where, again, not even being safe in society, the politics of everything, the horror of trying to raise my children in this environment, the moral injury of the impact of all of it, I was so distraught, and I read this invitation. And I feel like I wanna keep the details of it private, but what I want to share is that I created my bedroom designed in such a way that I could cling to hope while feeling hope support me. With what I allowed to enter my bedroom, with what colors I chose, with how I decorated it, with which books I brought in, with which clothes I brought in, like in every way,
Speaker 3:I
Speaker 1:created very, very intentionally this blank canvas as a, of a safe space that I built a little at a time, sometimes literally, to make sure all of me, especially those littles that I have so long neglected. And that part is on me. That is not anyone else's responsibility. I mean, as an adult, especially that they felt safe and comfortable and had what they needed. And that it could be a non activating space, a recovery space, a cozy space, a safe place.
Speaker 1:And y'all, it has been life changing. I don't take work in there. I don't bring anything into that space that is not medicine to heal me. And it is maybe one of the most significant things I have ever done for myself. She says, create a space where you don't have to convince your former partner, other people, or even yourself that you're fine.
Speaker 1:Y'all in that new bedroom, I cried for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks, like sobbing, vomiting, shame, shock of all of the feelings, of everything that has happened, of all that is hard, of all of the betrayals, of all of the, how do I even come back from this? How do I stay alive? And I wrestled with angels, as they say. Do you know what I won from that? When I kept, for so long, kept saying, I can't win this, I can't win this.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I won in the end? I won myself. And that's what Doctor. Tema is talking about with homecoming. She says, give yourself a safe place where you can be honest with yourself about the heartbreak, the disappointment, the sadness, the grief, the anger and confusion.
Speaker 1:Give yourself permission to be honest about those feelings of desperation, humiliation, loneliness, shock, and for some of you, relief. The reality is that you can experience more than one of those feelings at the same time. Those emotions can coexist. So the first step toward healing after a breakup is to come out of denial. The truth is it's over.
Speaker 1:If it feels right, you may just want to whisper that to yourself. It's over. It's over. Some of you have been holding your breath waiting. You may have been waiting for the other person to change their mind and choose you.
Speaker 1:You may have even been the one who decided to end it, but you are still in shock about being alone again, or about all that happened. The situation may not even seem real, because when you put your trust in a person, a relationship, friends, or marriage, you have certain assumptions or expectations that were not met. You may have felt fairly or absolutely certain that the relationship or friendship would last. So when the rug was pulled from under you, it stunned you. You may feel let down by yourself, by the other person, by love, or even by God.
Speaker 1:While you may not have imagined you would be alone at this point in your life, the truth is that the relationship is really over, and it's time to heal and begin again. Release the pressure of what others say you should feel, say or do. No one can tell you what to feel, say or do. Those people are not you, and you don't need their approval, agreement, or permission to feel what you feel. Even if you are coming out of an unhealthy relationship, a part of you might still miss the person.
Speaker 1:Why would you miss someone who didn't treat you well? You had a history together. You were connected in some ways. There were some good moments, and they may have still treated you better than others have in the past. On the other hand, even if the person was very kind, but you were not fulfilled in the relationship, you may feel relieved yet guilty for ending it.
Speaker 1:Tell yourself the truth about what you feel as layered or complicated as it may be. Give yourself the gift of honesty because you cannot heal what you will not acknowledge. Give yourself space and time to grieve, to reflect and to heal. Healing and feeling do not need to be rapid fire. You do not need to cry once, send them text messages and declare you're all better now.
Speaker 1:Your emotions may have erupted in a moment, but the healing work takes time and space. Do not run from it or rush it by busying yourself with work, burying yourself in sleep, or burdening yourself with endless distractions. Distractions. You are valuable and worthy of love. Breakups can really break you, your heart, your confidence, and your self esteem.
Speaker 1:The devastation may feel intolerable. You will need to choose and affirm yourself to come home to freedom. Self affirmation will be more sustainable and healing than jumping into a rebound relationship, looking for approval from others without ever healing and approving of yourself. It is true that part of healing is relational and takes place in connection with others, but it is also true that an aspect of healing is internal, psychological, spiritual, physical, and emotional. I invite you to choose you before you go back to what already hurt you, before you choose another, and to love yourself rather than continuing to look for love in all the wrong places.
Speaker 1:I invite you to heal and affirm yourself before you go out into the world, hungry for compliments and thirsty to
Speaker 3:be
Speaker 1:seen. Dare to believe that your value and love for yourself are not dependent on someone else believing it. As you prioritize healing your broken heart, you may want to consider addressing other heartbreaking experiences that have affected you. Mistreatment in your past can make you more inclined to accept or ignore continued mistreatment. You have already left mistreatment and don't want to be mistreated again.
Speaker 1:It is important for you not to blame yourself because no one deserves mistreatment. It can also be helpful to acknowledge past experiences that may have caused you to think love means endurance and tolerance no matter what. That is brutal enough, but she comes in with hope and nurture. She says, as you heal, cultivate and nourish positive friendships. Sometimes when we isolate ourselves, we can replay in our minds a distorted script, which psychologists describe as cognitive distortion.
Speaker 1:If we don't have someone to bounce ideas off of, sometimes we'll keep telling ourselves things that aren't true. Being with good friends who can be honest and caring can help us navigate the journey home. Nourishing people do not require you to be fake. It is important to find safe friends who are people you can sit with in silence and crying, ranting, and even giving voice to the parts of your story you have not shared with anyone else yet. They are not people for whom you have to pretend or perform, and they won't break your confidence by sharing your secrets or ridiculing you.
Speaker 1:Good connections remind you who you are beyond the relationship you had with your ex. And with the support of these friends, you can make the journey to reclaim and even recreate yourself. She also gives warnings. Unless you are co parenting with your former partner, I invite you to really think about reducing communication and interaction. Sometimes people want to jump into being friends right away without giving themselves time to grieve, heal, or process the end of the relationship.
Speaker 1:Remember that in most cases, people were not friends before the relationship, so trying to reclaim something that never existed can create more problems. If you were friends before the relationship, you've already left the friendship when you transformed it into something else. You cannot go back to where you've already left. You cannot bring back what is already gone. Your ex is not a place to engage with you in a fruitful way.
Speaker 1:This may mean unfollowing your ex on social media, not contacting them by phone, not meeting in person, and telling mutual friends not to give you updates on their life. Give yourself breathing room emotionally and physically. Focus on cultivating other friendships and learn how to appreciate solitude. You don't constantly have to have someone in your space. You can come home to you and actually enjoy the gift of silence.
Speaker 1:Spending time with yourself is not a punishment. It can be painful not to have someone to come home to or share your day with, but you are a gift, and being present with yourself is also a gift. There undoubtedly were painful, unfulfilling, or difficult moments in the relationship. Now you have some space without tension. Occupy it.
Speaker 1:Occupy your own life, your body, your heart, your mind, and your spirit. Give yourself this space and time for growth, insight, and healing. When you move forward, you will be free of baggage. Another thing to remember is that after a breakup, you will need to release any investment you have in your ex's opinion of you. You cannot and should not live your life perpetually looking back.
Speaker 1:Some people may think poorly of you because of the version of the story they have heard from your ex or the pieces they filled in themselves even if it's not accurate. Some people may gossip and not even ask you or talk to you about it directly causing more harm. Those are betrayals that you can notice, but it is not usually beneficial to go around trying to convince people of your own narrative. People who know you will know your story. Those are the people who care about you and will support you.
Speaker 1:In addition to releasing physical involvement with your ex, you may also need to release any negative ways with the relationship may have affected your body image, your comfort with intimacy, or your confidence in expressing yourself sexually. You may be holding on to their criticism and rejections and shame. Instead of evaluating yourself based on their words, what they did to you, those betrayals, and who they are now with and what they have done to you, write a new script that is a love song to yourself. Begin to compliment and affirm yourself. Your ex does not get to have the final say on anything about you.
Speaker 1:It is up to you to revise and renew your own perception of yourself. Of yourself. The people who know you and love you will see your growth and grow with you. Take a sacred pause to reflect on this release. I release you.
Speaker 1:I release you from my emotions. I release you from my heart. I release you from my mind. I release you from my body. I release you from my spirit.
Speaker 1:Look in the mirror and say to yourself, I choose you. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of grace. You are worthy of safety. You are worthy of compassion.
Speaker 1:I choose you. Welcome home. In the next chapter, she takes those same principles and applies them to the workplace, that when you are in a toxic workplace, just like with toxic relationships, that spending time in these spaces causes you to disconnect for yourself. This makes me think of the sealskin, soulskin story in Clarissa, where when we are away from ourselves for too long, as I read this whole book and the whole concept of Homecoming, it keeps bringing me back to the sealskin, soul skin story, where we dry out, me literally with Shogun's, right? Like literally until I die.
Speaker 1:Like it dries me out to be away from myself, to not be allowed to be myself. When the seal woman could not get to the water, she was not going to survive. We have to be able to return to the water, whatever that is for you. For some of us, it is literal water. For me, it is also those early mornings.
Speaker 1:It is enough sleep. It is what my body needs because of Sjogren's. It is time with my children. It is time writing and pondering and painting and creating. It is my responsibility as an adult to do those things.
Speaker 1:So I am struggling with this because I currently work in a job for the benefits of the insurance and the regular paycheck for my children at a company that is a platform that I think really exploits therapists and it's super unhealthy. Most therapists who have gone through their training hoops, so many of us have worked like in community agency settings and things like that, where we don't get to stay with our clients, we're treated poorly, the clients don't get good care, and it can be really, really hard. There are some places where they do that really well actually, and that is beautiful when it happens well. But those of you who did not get those beautiful experiences know what I'm talking about. And I am in that kind of very similar situation online where, like, for example, I have to work so many hours every week, but they only count the time that we are literally face to face and talking.
Speaker 1:So it might take me three or four hours work to get like a full two hours counted, right? If a session is only forty five minutes, and what if someone is having trauma and so they're struggling and not speaking out loud in that moment, but I can't force them to talk out loud. That's not what they need, right? So I'm going to choose. So when I'm pushed into a corner, I'm going to choose my clients every time, but then that means I'm not getting credit, which means I have to work harder and harder and harder.
Speaker 1:I have a private practice with enough people to be full time in private practice, but I can't let go of the other job that is so toxic because of poverty. So I'm basically working two full time jobs, and it's part of why I'm so exhausted. Plus I have my part time job with ISSTD because I cannot pay for CEs. So I do that job to be able to have access to CEs just to keep my license so that I can have my other job with my kids. That's toxic.
Speaker 1:Like that's exploitation. That's not good and healthy, that I am being treated like this in the other workplace, so I'm really struggling with this chapter because it's a place I have not made changes yet. And I think all of this is going to be made worse by what is happening politically with like Medicaid cuts and things. I am not saying your politics are good or bad, I'm saying a consequence of what they are proposing is going to have disastrous effects on therapists and clients. So, but she speaks to this.
Speaker 1:She says, You may feel stuck due to limited finances, a lack of education, geographical constraints, but I encourage you to reflect on any level of choice that you do have. Often, your despair will increase when you feel stuck and powerless because you believe that no one else will hire you or that you're too old to start over. I invite you to just imagine that there are options, even if they are in the same company but a different department. As long as you surrender to the idea of being stuck, then you will continue showing up in spaces that you have outgrown. The work situation may be all you could have imagined a few months or years ago, but give yourself permission to look again.
Speaker 1:Oh, I really feel called out by this. Like, I know I can feel, and my doctor has talked to me about it. Like, I literally am pushing my body, the last decade, more than it can go. And it is not healthy for me, and I need to address it. And also, I still have six children to raise.
Speaker 1:Three of them are getting very close to launching, but they are not launched, and y'all, my kids are gonna need some support. So it's not like they turn 18 and disappear. Right? Like, they are going to need the kind of support launching into adulthood that I never had, and I will fight my best to give that to them. But I cannot help anyone if I'm not here.
Speaker 1:So trying to think what are the ways in which I can support myself and my family in the current state of all the things that are happening in ways that are healthy and feasible and sustainable. I think it's a question all of us have, even folks on disability aren't getting enough. And so how do we make this stretch even further? Y'all, it's impossible. It's already not enough.
Speaker 1:That's the whole point. And it's so expensive to be poor that people who, even our middle class, do not understand how poverty is punished and keeps us poor. I mean, unless they are compassionate and have done the work to look in to understand these things. Right? So, like, I could use the public example of moving.
Speaker 1:I could not afford a big truck to move our family all at once. I did not have a job that was going to pay that for me. So I literally had to do a U Haul at a time because that's what I could afford was one U Haul at a time, but altogether, that cost almost twice as much as what the one truck would have cost. And it certainly cost my body and my strength and my recovery. Right?
Speaker 1:So, and absolutely had an emotional toll with how epic that was. And also I was saving the life of my family and myself. That's what it felt like. And so that's what we do. We do what we have to do.
Speaker 1:But Doctor. Tema is saying, Look for choices where we have them. Think of things we have not thought of before. Do things differently so that we can survive. She says, For some of you, it's not realistic, practical, possible to transition at this moment, so you must consider how to stay connected to yourself while you're in a place you don't want to be.
Speaker 1:It's important to learn how to cope and thrive in restrictive environments. Okay. So for example, I have added recovery meetings so that I literally have some Zoom meetings that are tending to just me rather than me tending to everybody else. I have to make sure that every day I'm eating my lunches, I have my cups of water, I go for a walk. I am moving my body so that I can endure what I am having to endure while I have to endure it.
Speaker 1:And also she says we don't have to drown in the despair in the meantime. She says, for those of you who need to stay where you are for a season, there may be a number of things you can gain from the place you're in. You may learn a new skill, acquire new wisdom, or develop the ability to work with certain people. Decide what you want to gain from your time there in this season and let that be the center of your motivation and focus. It's a beautiful thing when you can look back over your life and acknowledge the valleys, but also see the ways you grew, learned, and cared for yourself along the way.
Speaker 1:She also then talks about rituals. So, like, for example, I literally, every morning, I have these copper indigenous thermoses and cups, and I fill them up with water, and I sing the water song that is part of the tribe. I may have shared that by now. At the end of the day, I close my laptop. And when I close my laptop from work, I do not go back on it.
Speaker 1:I step away from my desk. Even when I come back into my office at home to, like, do a art project or something, I'm at a different table or desk. I only work at that desk. I have to leave my work there. That is part of my ritual of caring for myself so that when I am there, I can be all the way there.
Speaker 1:And when I am not there, I am fueling up to be there again. She also talks about work and play balance, that we need care, but we also need pleasure, and not just hello, pleasure. Although there's that too, right? But also, what do we do? Like, I enjoy painting.
Speaker 1:I enjoy writing. I enjoy teaching. So one way I take care of myself by not only being a therapist twenty four seven, I also make sure I'm doing consultations, and I do mentorship, and I give trainings. So I do these variety of professional activities so that when I'm with my folks I'm working with, I could be with them all the way because I have the balance, not just outside of work, but even in my work, there's a variety of things. I am going to be less stressed about folks I can't get to or have to say no to if I know there are more good therapists in the world.
Speaker 1:So one way I advocate for that and take action to support that is by teaching other therapists, right? I love this. I have such a passion for it, and it matters to me. Okay, so the next chapter, she talks about childhood trauma. As if any of these other issues were not hard enough, now she brings up childhood trauma.
Speaker 1:She gives examples at the beginning of the chapter, which I'm going to skip and not read because all of this has already been so hard, but I appreciate that she includes with that different kinds of trauma, including racism, sexism, classism, and ableism, because I think we don't tend to those enough relationally, even when we know better. She says, The first step in healing childhood trauma is to acknowledge that it happened. This in and of itself is huge for most of you. You may have been raised to minimize, deny, bury, and suppress the trauma. People may have ignored it or made you feel that it was insignificant, especially if the perpetrator was a family member or someone the family esteemed in your community.
Speaker 1:Acknowledgement is not only recognizing that the trauma occurred, but also being aware that it was significant and that you are significant. You may have continued to see the perpetrator and had to pretend it didn't happen or that it didn't matter, but it does. Your safety and well-being matter. The trauma should not have happened. You may have been pressured to tuck it away or compartmentalize it, but the reality is that the trauma often peaks out in various ways.
Speaker 1:So today, push past family, cultural, and religious pressures to deny and instead choose to acknowledge what you yourself have experienced. And then she talks about ACEs, She talks about post traumatic stress. And then she talks about people pleasing or fawning, right? You may find yourself always trying to appease others in the hope you will be safe if people like you. Without even thinking about it, you may cater to others and neglect your own needs.
Speaker 1:This is also a survival strategy based on the belief or experience that if others are happy with you, they will not harm you. You may define yourself by other people's attention and approval, so you may find being alone unbearable. When you constantly need reassurance and validation, people's appreciation is never enough. No matter how much time or attention they give you, you may find yourself constantly questioning if they really care and if you will ever be enough. On the other hand, you may hold people at a distance because you don't feel safe or trust them.
Speaker 1:Your relationships may be limited because it feels too vulnerable to actually let people in. Pushing people away and constantly seeking others' approval are actually two sides of the same coin, right? This goes back to attachment. That's what she's talking about. The approach strategy of needing to reassure care, needing to go after care, needing to cling to care, and the avoidant strategy of trying to avoid harm.
Speaker 1:When we are safe and in safe relationships, we don't have to do either of those things. So the fact that we do those things is part of the evidence that things happened to us or did not, or we did not get what we needed. She says the sense of emptiness can be so overwhelming that it pulls your attention throughout the day. Consider the ways your early exposure to trauma may continue to affect your relationship choices and approach to intimacy. Trauma can also result in neglecting yourself.
Speaker 1:You may neglect your hygiene, medical appointments, rest, or even food. Trauma response can also show up as hoarding or neglecting the space around you in other ways. She also talks about when abuse is ongoing into adulthood, whether that's from living with caregivers that continue to abuse us, or whether that is having partners and interpersonal violence. And then as part of self care, she talks about shame. Of course she does.
Speaker 1:She says, Shame causes you to feel like something is wrong with you instead of focusing on the fact that something wrong was done to you. The violations you experienced are the responsibility of the offender, the perpetrator, the one who mistreated you. They are accountable for their actions. You are not responsible for the ways you were hurt or left unprotected as a child. Oh, she mentioned both trauma and deprivation.
Speaker 1:Shame may have been placed on you as a child, and you may have carried that shame in your body, heart, mind, and spirit. You may have felt shamed of who you are and live from that place of shame, which can set you up for further violation and victimization. This is how we re encounter interpersonal partner violence. Awaken to the truth that the shame you have been carrying does not belong to you. Raise your consciousness about the things that you have been through that were not your fault.
Speaker 1:You should not have needed the knowledge and skills of an adult in your childhood and adolescence. It may be difficult to stop blaming yourself for the things you've been carrying for years, but I encourage you to envision yourself at the age when you experience the trauma. Can you stop putting the expectations of adulthood on your three year old self, your seven year old self, your 12 year old self, even your 17 year old self? You can make a decision to not be angry with the younger version of yourself who did the very best they could at the time. I invite you to look back at yourself with grace and compassion.
Speaker 1:Look back and see the child you were, not the adult you are now. Make a decision to take the bricks of blame, condemnation, and judgment off your back. Take away the punishment and welcome yourself back home.
Speaker 3:She closes the book with a section about oppression
Speaker 1:and how that shows up for those of us who are BIPOC, queer, disabled, poor,
Speaker 3:other marginalized groups. And that part of our healing is acknowledging and addressing those issues, including the fact that society continues to harm us and that it makes sense when we don't feel safe in now time.
Speaker 1:I heard in a group from a friend who said they wanna take their NTIS mug and shatter it. I think they should. It makes sense why they feel that. Some of you got tattoos of it, and like me, continue to cling to it for safety and the reminder because we need a tangible way to separate memory time and now time.
Speaker 3:But with that comes the responsibility
Speaker 1:of remembering that as an adult, I'm the one who keeps me safe. That's why now time is safe. Not because there aren't hard things in the world. There are awful things in the world.
Speaker 3:But I keep me safe.
Speaker 1:I can't do that perfectly.
Speaker 3:I get hate mail.
Speaker 1:I'm at risk when I go into the city, when I drive through some states on the way back home to my children in Oklahoma, sometimes there. I have children with brown skin who now have to carry their passport cards to prove their identity.
Speaker 3:Because even though I know they are children, my babies, others will see them as adults in their barely grown bodies. And no one is stopping to ask questions. I know that a passport even can't protect them. There are so many ways I cannot prevent tragedy. So it feels like now time is not safe at all.
Speaker 3:And in so many ways, that's true. And also, like I said in that last podcast we recorded in Idaho, nobody owns the sun or the sky or the clouds or the rain or the trees or the grass or the birds or the bunnies or the butterflies. No one has access to my internal world unless I share it. I will stay alive under the sky. I will find safety in the sun and in the rain, and I will find home with my feet in the grass and the whispers of the trees and always in the water any chance I get.
Speaker 3:That is how I stay alive and keep myself safe, even when I cannot. Emma's welcome home.
Speaker 1: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 1: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 1:Being human together. So yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.