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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 3:Hi.
Speaker 1:Hi.
Speaker 3:It's funny to be podcasting with you over the phone.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It is a little different.
Speaker 3:You are caring for your parents, so you're about an hour away.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. It's hard being apart.
Speaker 3:And the kids freaked out because you went to quarantine with someone else, and we had to explain all of that. It was lots of drama. But I'm glad that you're taking care of your parents. It's a fascinating thing. Since we're podcasting, I would say it's a fascinating thing to watch that from the outside, to see the healthy dynamics of a normal family doing those kinds of things with aging parents or medical crises.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They didn't, like, manipulate me into coming here. They just had a need and and I came to to serve them and and yeah.
Speaker 3:You're so sweet. No. We had an exciting night because Kyrie asked to do a podcast by herself.
Speaker 1:I'm sure she had a lot to say.
Speaker 3:Well, she wanted to tell her story about the hospital. So she talked we talked we I don't know. We had a little conversation about what she's been through medically and how that impacts her now, and she read her ABC book. And then we played the G tube song.
Speaker 1:Cool.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry. There's so many things in my head. It's hard to just call you and then be focused about this when I've not seen you all week. My head is so busy. Anyway, so all of the children now want to do their own podcasts and read their books.
Speaker 3:And I'm like, well, there's certainly some relevance in your trauma histories, but also it's a fine line between do you understand what you're consenting to because you need to understand to consent. But also, I mean, it's good modeling and it's good sharing and I appreciate their healthy outlook on how it empowers them to say their stories in their own words. So
Speaker 1:We could also we could also record them for a family archive whether or not they go out as a podcast.
Speaker 3:It kind of led to some discussion about keeping Cure eight and the book about our family and why we did that. And we talked about how their stories were already on the news and people were already telling their stories, and we wanted to tell our own story in our own words. Are you asleep? Is this too weird? Is it too late?
Speaker 1:No. I'm ordinarily, I would be saying, yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. But I've heard recently that that's, like, bad manners for a podcast interview because then it has to all be cut out.
Speaker 1:So I'm I'm listening actively. Wait. What? While you're talking.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. Well, don't be weird.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to be a good interview guest.
Speaker 3:I don't want you to be an interview guest. I want you to be yourself.
Speaker 1:Eager to help. That's me.
Speaker 2:I was like, wait. What just happened? Where did you go?
Speaker 1:I was listening.
Speaker 3:Okay. So all of this matters, though, because we have a book.
Speaker 1:We do have a book. You have a book.
Speaker 3:It's scary.
Speaker 1:You, we, the book is scary or having the book is scary?
Speaker 3:Yes. I guess the book came about because of sort of the same thing. We had already done the memoir about us becoming a family and what that was like. And this sort of evolved from therapy and the notebooks. And while the actual therapy part is all about processing those betrayals and those violations and those double binds and all that relational trauma we finally have kind of an outline, I guess, of events and, like, a pocket full of what the content is, so to speak.
Speaker 3:So
Speaker 1:do you need to state for the record what this book is?
Speaker 3:It's too scary. I can't even talk about it. Like, this is the worst podcast ever already because I can't even talk. I and you're busy being polite. And so I'm like, this is done.
Speaker 1:Sorry. I will try and fill the awkward spaces.
Speaker 3:Because if you Well if you don't fill the awkward spaces, I have to delete those two. It doesn't actually help. So
Speaker 1:our last book was a memoir about our family coming together. This book is a memoir of you and your childhood and your experience coming to understand dissociative identity disorder something like that
Speaker 3:oh yeah we have DID I mean I have DID yeah why is it not a thing that it doesn't just go away Why is this the conversation that
Speaker 2:we always come back to?
Speaker 1:Why why does it need to go away? It doesn't need to go away.
Speaker 3:Whose side are you on?
Speaker 1:Capital u, your side, all of you, your, the royal you.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. Okay. I don't even know how to talk about the book because that's how scary it is. So how am I gonna let it go out into the world?
Speaker 1:I'm amazed that you've gotten this far, honestly. Like, a couple years ago, I asked if you would ever write a book about all this, and you were like, no. No. No. No.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:Oh, man.
Speaker 1:So it's taken a lot of personal growth and a lot of courage and a lot of therapy, and I'm really amazed. And it's a beautiful book.
Speaker 3:A lot of writing. It's taken, I don't know, twenty years.
Speaker 1:I remember years ago you showing me chapters where you were trying to tell this story, and I feel like what you have finally come down to has some of those stories but is entirely fresh writing. And it's like, it's really beautiful the way you tell the story through the lens of of your own experiences. I mean, I guess everyone tells their own story through the lens of their own experiences. But reading it, I felt as a associative person. It helped me to better understand what it's like to be a dissociative person.
Speaker 3:It's very vivid writing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I I don't mean that, like, braggy pants. I mean, like, that as the style. That's how it came out was like a painting in words.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I would say that reading it for me was very, like, a kind of a sensory experience. You do a good job evoking the details of these experiences and being in the moment and not just the horror of it, but sometimes the beauty of it or the textures and smells and sounds and it just feels very present, which I guess is is part of what DID is like anyway.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right? All of those past things feeling very present.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It it makes it triggering, though.
Speaker 3:Do you think that there's too much horror? Because I don't know how I don't want it to just be a trauma dumping book, but, obviously, obviously, it's more backstory than what we've ever shared on the podcast. But I also don't know how to write an actual DID experience that's authentic that doesn't include the trauma to some degree.
Speaker 1:Right. So you asked is it too much? I honestly don't know because each person is different. To me it was not too much. I do not have the same trauma or the same triggers that you have.
Speaker 1:And so I could read it and feel empathy and compassion without feeling like personal danger flags go up because I knew that I was safe, that I don't feel affected by those personal experiences. If it is being read by someone who had similar experiences, I don't know how they would be able to receive that or whether, I guess it depends on where they are in their own, like, healing journey. Maybe for some it might be, I guess, healing to see that someone else has shared similar experiences, or it could just be triggering to think to have to think about those kinds of things that DID is built up to protect you from. So I guess each person's response is really gonna be different. But I think what's important in this case is just you putting it out there as an expression of your own experience, and what's what's going on inside?
Speaker 3:It's so intense. It's really hard for me to even talk about. The
Speaker 1:Well, we'll not we won't put you on a book tour. Okay?
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. I imagined that when we would do this podcast and talk about the book, that it would be super exciting. It would be like, oh, this is why you should get this book. You should read our book. And in the last week, we have had this snowstorm.
Speaker 3:You had to leave in this snowstorm to go to your parents.
Speaker 1:I did.
Speaker 3:It has been freezing cold. We were fighting against freezing pipes and all the drama of the snowstorm.
Speaker 1:Rolling blackouts. And
Speaker 3:because of the storm, we couldn't get to the schools to pick up food for the children. And so I couldn't work. And then this morning, we had an earthquake. Did you know that? A 4.8 earthquake?
Speaker 3:No. And so I've had children all week by myself homeschooling and trying to work and not being able to work and utilities and all of this going on. And, like, I'm okay. We've done it, but I'm really happy to see you. But I think then trying to talk about the book, I'm like, like, there's no room left.
Speaker 1:Too much. Too much.
Speaker 3:But then also thinking about letting these stories out or saying them that out loud on paper. Like, it's all the same triggers and fears and everything else of, like, what if it's not okay? Or what if it is me that's bad? Or what if it's too much? Or even the people like, this isn't going out for the whole world.
Speaker 3:Like, this is these are the people who I know listen to the podcast because they write. And so I know their hearts, and so I care about them. And I'm like, here's my book, and I'm really proud of it, but also it might hurt you, so don't read it. Because I don't wanna trigger them. You know?
Speaker 1:And there's always I know there are fears around whether any of the people involved in your history were to find a copy of it somehow. It seems very unlikely that it would happen, but but I I know that you're in now time with me and with people who know you and people who love you and support you, and you are not gonna be abandoned or betrayed in the way you were in the past. What you've written in the book, which is a really beautiful book, is your experience and what's inside your head. And I really believe that holding on to the truth and is the is the way to go. As you said at one point, the secrets that you had to hold for so long were not actually your secrets.
Speaker 1:You look like you're thinking pretty hard.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. This is such a different energy than what I thought this podcast would be, and it's such a different thing to be talking to it's very disorienting that I'm talking to you for the podcast over Zoom because
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You're not here. And, usually, you're here, and we have this little funny thing of just being chill and talking on the podcast. And now I'm like, no. This is a big scary thing, and you're not here even though also I'm okay. I know I'm okay.
Speaker 1:Should I make this more of a sales pitch? Buy now. Buy now. No.
Speaker 3:I do want people to be careful about getting it and when they read it and how they care for themselves when they read it because there is that triggering content just because that's part of DID. Like, the hardest part, right, is recognizing not just that DID is a thing, but accepting why it's a thing. And I think that's what the book is about for me in a way.
Speaker 1:And I like that you have, like, some self care tips at the front reminding people to to be aware of themselves as they read and to take breaks when they
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. We put a trigger warning page in at the beginning. Yeah. At first, I put some of the more significant chapters, and I was like, especially chapter this and this and this. And then it was just a lot of chapters, and I was like, no.
Speaker 3:That's not gonna work. DID is just rough, you guys. It's brutal. There's there's no way around it. I'm thinking of my dead parents, and I it's fascinating because I feel simultaneously I feel afraid of their response even though also cognitively I know they're dead.
Speaker 3:But those fears of that, like, are raw enough it makes me sick to my stomach. But, also, I think of them, and I think of what they went through and what their parents went through. Like, so much of it is generational that Yeah. Part of the book is, like, this has to stop. We have to talk about it out loud.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And some of my story is their story, meaning things I thought, oh, I shouldn't put it that in there because they wouldn't like that that was in there. But oh, I mean, they wouldn't like any of this, the podcaster, me being married to you. Like, nothing. Nothing.
Speaker 3:But but I think it speaks their truth too of starting to understand not to excuse things or to make any of it okay, but starting to understand and recognize they were the way they were because of what they went through too.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's true.
Speaker 3:My family won't talk about things. And so even with traumas that are acknowledged, it's it's dismissed that it's traumatic.
Speaker 1:Traumatic or traumatic?
Speaker 3:Traumatic with a t. Like, they'll agree, oh, yes. This happened or say, oh, no. That didn't happen. But regardless, they would say it's not traumatic.
Speaker 3:Like, get over it. Just let it go. Why are you this wasn't a big deal. It was just such and such. That's just how things were back then.
Speaker 1:But that's also their own form of of dissociation. Right? Not to the point of of dissociated identities, but that's why parts of your family would feel so defensive. Because in the same way that your barriers would go up whenever you try to explore these things, their barriers go up. They only feel safe when they have blocked off that part of their their history so that they're not thinking about it.
Speaker 1:They can't look at it because they don't wanna see it's inside.
Speaker 3:Okay. So I will try to tip her up because this is just a thing, and we're gonna do this thing.
Speaker 1:Alright. Tip her. Woo hoo. Let's do this.
Speaker 3:Book It's so scary.
Speaker 1:You have a very different understanding of Tipper than I do.
Speaker 3:I I didn't quite make it to Tipper. I saw it for just a minute, and then it slipped away. It's so scary.
Speaker 1:Exactly. It's scary.
Speaker 3:Okay. So the book. We're gonna talk about the book, and we're gonna be chipper because that's a thing. Yay. How do we do it?
Speaker 3:I just interview myself. Welcome to the System Speak podcast. You've written a book about DID. What would you like to share? Well, I don't.
Speaker 1:I mean, really, you could have a whole panel discussion. Right?
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. Well, and obviously, here's the crazy part. As a person with DID, I can work very hard to get into a sensory place to prepare myself to write. I can work very hard on outlining content from journals and notebooks and therapy. And I'm really good at getting myself into, like, a trance and just letting the writing happen.
Speaker 3:But to go back and read what I wrote or to realize other people are going to read what I wrote or to consider it something worth reading is absolutely a different experience altogether. And so now trying to talk about it, I'm like, I don't even remember what was in there. I know we wrote it. I'm not being gamey. I know that we wrote it.
Speaker 3:I know we typed it. I know we edit it and edit and edit and edit and edit and edit. So much editing, but I I hate I hate I don't know how to talk about it. I guess I could talk about that piece. My friend Vivian, who wrote losing the atmosphere, came on the podcast, and I met her.
Speaker 3:And she was the first person that I knew who loved writing, which we love writing but also writing is hell. And she was someone who loved writing but also has DID. And that's the first time that we met someone who loves writing the way we love writing but who also has DID and so she was amazing to help edit our book and was a very good and kind friend in that way.
Speaker 1:She did a really good job, some total legit editing. She was a wonderful help.
Speaker 3:She was amazing. Right? Friend Joan Goulston, who is a therapist in our Sunday group with Peter, she also helped edit, and I appreciate her hard work as well. And then you helped with editing and format suggestions and helped turn the painting into a cover. So there's a book.
Speaker 1:There is the book.
Speaker 3:It's called if tears were prayers, which comes from a poem.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The book has a couple of your poems in it.
Speaker 3:Are you okay? Like, I feel like you're really far away.
Speaker 1:I am really far away, but I'm living with you. I'm not sure I'm not sure what to to discuss about the book. I don't imagine we want to make it into content right now because that would be hard for you and for your listeners. I will say that in in writing, in my work, and in the media that I enjoy. One of my favorite emotions is what I call sad beautiful, where where something is heartbreaking but also glorious at the same time.
Speaker 1:And I think you really capture that in your book. There's a number of moments that you talk about where as the reader, I can tell what a nightmare at this particular situation is. But then through the eyes of your experience where you as a child were seeing moments of beauty or personal connection with objects around you or things like that. And so those two things together, I think, are really compelling and is kind of hardy kingly good at times and really scary at times. But I liked getting to know some of your inner parts more, getting to see how you all interact.
Speaker 1:I really liked getting more backstory on on some things that I know are triggers for you that, you know, I've always understood and tried to help you with, but but I didn't know why they were triggers specifically. And so I thought that was really interesting.
Speaker 3:Writing about interacting with each other was actually really difficult because there was not always as much interaction as is reflected in the book. But to be able to make it make sense in a story form, they had to interact more directly earlier.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 3:Does that make sense? Not that it's I not don't mean that it's not real. Like, those are actual conversations and experiences. So I'll just say, in general, the book sort of moves from one of the primary experiences that led us back to therapy, I guess after the parents died but sort of in response to that, and then kind of jumps all over the place because that's what DID is like. It is not a linear story and then sort of moves toward getting into therapy where we are now.
Speaker 3:Not updating our story through the podcast time but sort of deciding to start the podcast and getting into the very early stages of therapy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Just as a total writing nerd thing, I like how, like, there is a forward thrust to the story of the book. Like, it does move forward when they're in the earlier chapters when is more being revealed about your childhood, there are questions that come up, and you want to find the answers to those, and and they gradually are revealed. And your adult self in the earlier chapters is desperately trying to figure out what's going on, and that realization happens gradually over over the course of the book. So while the events that we are seeing depicted are, like, swirling around in these sort of eddies that circle and loop back on themselves and sometimes move forward and the the plot still moves forward because, like, there's a a momentum to it.
Speaker 1:There's sort of a an emotional arc to the story that's just not chronological, and it still works.
Speaker 3:I hope it works.
Speaker 1:I thought it did.
Speaker 3:It was really hard work to make it work. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But your writing has really come so far since our our first book, which I also think turned out really well. But I know that was a hard experience editing that with with your big mean editor.
Speaker 3:You are my big mean editor.
Speaker 1:But this one, I you've really grown a lot as a writer since then. This is a a really lovely memoir. I think it's beautiful.
Speaker 3:I feel very exposed, not just with the book, but also this week, again, while you were gone. I ended up writing this big email to the listserv for ISSTD and the therapist who treat DID about the plural community and what it means to be plural and why we need to have cultural competency as part part of ethical treatment and that sort of turned into me submitting an article to the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation for the first time kind of about all of that just like, we need to you need to know the language. You need to know how people are expressing DID differently now than they were forty years ago. And Yeah. It turned into this big thing, and I feel very, very exposed.
Speaker 3:It was received really well, and people have been very supportive and kind and encouraging about it, and I am grateful. And, really, the more opportunities like that that I have, the more of an integrative experience it is, but, also, it's terrifying. And so I think the timing of that and you being gone and trying to start therapy and trying to be present with the kids and the work. Like, there's so many pieces happening that when we were like, okay. The book is done, and we are ready to actually start taking preorders, and let's sort of move forward with this project.
Speaker 3:I was actually in a very stable place. And then as soon as we made that decision and hit the red button The
Speaker 1:training wheels came off.
Speaker 3:Yes. Exactly. And everything kind of fell apart. And now I can't even get through this podcast with you that feels so ugh. Like, the energy of it is all off because all these things happened.
Speaker 1:The training wheels not only came off, but you're suddenly on a on a unicycle riding through a flaming hoop over a barrel of tigers and
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. Eyes. That's what it feels like. I thought we would do this podcast, and we'd be like, we worked really hard, and we wrote this book, and here's all about this book, and you're gonna be so excited to read it. And now I'm like
Speaker 1:Victory lap. I am really excited for you, and I'm really excited to read it. And I hope people love it.
Speaker 3:That's very kind.
Speaker 1:It's really special. I I think it's really, really a wonderful book.
Speaker 3:One of the things that we mention in the book is that feeling that so many people have of what if none of this is real? What if DID is not real? What if we are not real? What if our trauma wasn't real? What if what if what if What if?
Speaker 3:You know, all those questionings and doubts and fears that are really just deflecting from having to accept it. Right? But we shared a conversation from therapy actually where she was like, so what if? Like, what if it wasn't as you remember it? But what if it's only a metaphor?
Speaker 3:Then what was going on in your experience as a child that you needed this metaphor? Yeah. Sometimes even I'm like, maybe I just made up my parents. And I'm like, oh, no. Nathan met my parents.
Speaker 3:Like, there's this
Speaker 1:Your mom was definitely real.
Speaker 3:I was telling the kids today. They don't believe me. I was explaining to the kids today how she would just lay in that one corner of the bed and she didn't leave the bed and how her whole bed was covered in piles of papers. Yeah. And they were like, she slept in trash.
Speaker 3:And I was like, well, and and they were important papers to her. She was they don't have a concept for hoarding, you know, other than Mary, and I can't I can't say to her, don't grow up and be my mom. You okay?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm I'm just fine.
Speaker 3:I'm not, so I keep asking you.
Speaker 1:Displacement.
Speaker 3:Hey, now.
Speaker 1:You taught me all your psychological words. Now I'm wielding them against you.
Speaker 3:So what do you think of the book? I I don't know. I
Speaker 1:I love it. I I think I think it should be a bestseller.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:No. I I really think it's beautiful. It's tragic, but beautiful. Hurts my heart to read about you having to go through some of those things, but it makes me love you even more that you have gotten to the point where you are right now and be the person you are right now, wife and the mom that you are right now and all of the all of the people out there that you work to serve. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:Squint eye just a little bit.
Speaker 3:Squint eye. We're gonna have to work on the presentation a little bit for here we wrote a book and you want to buy it. The whole I I can't podcast because I'm dissociating, but we need to do a podcast so it's happening. And every everything Yeah.
Speaker 1:I can see your eyes doing the little twitch thing they do when you're shifting.
Speaker 3:What? And
Speaker 1:yeah. There's a lot of panels inflict in there as you're trying to be present.
Speaker 3:I think it's just really that scary. It's that scary to let this book out, but I feel like Yeah.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 3:I feel like it's that important. And, of course, it doesn't have all of our story in it, and, of course, it doesn't have all of our altars or whatever. Like, all the insiders, all the parts, however you wanna say it. Like, they're not all in there, but there's more than that's in the podcast, which kind of surprised me. But, also, they were sort of primary people from childhood.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No. It's like, I love getting to know them. There's some that I have known or interacted with, but getting to to see more of them and get to know them better has been really wonderful.
Speaker 3:It's a strange experience to share them because they are not like, they would not be ones that came on the podcast. They would not be ones that would share in any other venue, I don't think. But sharing those stories and honoring them in that way as part of sort of again, I keep saying outline because I know there's so much more to it, but just that outline of what we've been through and what we've endured as a way of putting it into words and honoring those voices even though they are not public ones at all. Right. Which is appropriate and as it should be.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'm I'm just excited the incredible growth I see in in your journey how going from barely able to acknowledge DID as as something that you were living with to facing I guess, not facing, but starting to be willing to look inside and and get to know the different parts of yourself and then starting to look at the the horrors behind all the different boundaries that have been set up to protect you and realizing holding on to your safety in the present, to being able to share with friends about DID, to come out to them about that and and now to be able to to share these very personal experiences. I think that's that's an incredible an incredible journey, and I feel like it goes a long way towards depriving all those childhood horrors of of fuel, like the the kind of oxygen of secrecy that they need to keep to keep fueling their own toxic presence that you're exposing all those shadows to the light, showing them for what they really are. And what they were was really bad, but what they are is in the past. They're not you now.
Speaker 1:They're not the present, and they're not even things that you did. They're things that happened to you, so you don't have any need to be ashamed of them.
Speaker 3:Telling a story in your own words takes this sting out somehow.
Speaker 1:You said that once about our our last book about how when you wrote that and you got the physical book, then you sort of felt like all of the that trauma from those hard years of medical emergencies and and all of that was sort of lifted off your shoulders, and I'm really excited to have you be able to hold this book in your hand and feel like you have taken some of that weight off your shoulders and that you don't have to just hold it all in your head for right now?
Speaker 3:I want to be proud of the book because it's speaking it out loud and because it's not my secrets and because it was really hard work to make really good writing. But, also, it's just so hard that I think even though I wanna be excited, I'm still just wary of gravity of the decision to share. Like, you can't take that back. Sure. And so even though part of me in my imagination I don't mean a part in my imagination.
Speaker 3:I mean, in the imagination of a part of me, there was this image of being excited with you and, yay, we wrote a book and let's be silly and talk about the book. And yet, it's really kind of a somber thing because it's that intense and because it's that real. Yeah. It is written, hopefully, hopefully, it is written so that the reader feels like not just that they're reading our story, but that they feel the experience and the chaos and the confusion. And like you said, all that swirling around, the fogginess of having DID
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Of trying to track where you are and when you are and what is happening, when it's happening, why it's happening, and trying to put pieces together as part of your everyday experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. I really like that about it. Like, the the famous books in the past about DID have all sort of had this sense of, look at this. Isn't this wild?
Speaker 1:I feel like a lot of the the well known books about dissociative identity disorder are case studies written by nondissociative people for nondissociative people. And I think they're well meaning, but there's also sort of they're written with a shock value of, like, look at how strange this is. This is so different from normal experience. There's very much an othering going on. But I love how in your book there's such empathy.
Speaker 1:You approach your your memories and your other alters with such compassion that it feels very relatable. It doesn't the situations, although they are thankfully not ordinary situations that most children find themselves in, like they really present you as a person who's very understandable even though the way your brain has dealt with that trauma is different than most people. I think it's very humanizing.
Speaker 3:I don't want it to be sensationalized. And I I tried to even find a way to write a book about DID that was not about trauma, but there's just no way to do it.
Speaker 1:Well, and and when you were depicting trauma, you're not sensationalizing it. You're not depicting it in graphic detail. You almost get that sense of of your mind trying to wander off to protect yourself from the reality of what's happening. It's very clear what's happening, but I think you've done it very tactfully, very carefully.
Speaker 3:And part part of it too is that we pick some of the easier pieces. And so then you think, oh, these are the easy pieces of trauma.
Speaker 1:Wow. Yeah. If those are the easy pieces, that's that's really extra horrifying.
Speaker 3:Right? And, again, that's just the content. It's not the thing people when they focus on sensationalized DID, they're focusing on the content of the traumatic incident. And that's not even the part that's traumatizing. The part that's traumatizing is that this was your parent or your caregiver or the person who is supposed to be helping you or all those double binds or the betrayal.
Speaker 3:That's the part that 's traumatic. And so trying to write that into the story beyond just, oh, here's the horrific thing that happened or the terrible thing so and so did to me, it's not about that, but those relational dynamics that were the framework for what happened. That's where the trauma is. I think that's part of what we had to write therapeutically as well to get the content down so we could say, hey. That this happened and this happened in this way with this person.
Speaker 3:That was hard not just because of what happened, but because of who this was or because of what we needed.
Speaker 1:I also feel like so I was I was thinking of movies or books or whatever about DID, and I feel like so often they don't even it's not even about trauma. Trauma's like the origin story that has created this person who kind of takes on different characters. Right? There's always this sort of theatrical sense of one person playing many parts. But in your in your book, as you're telling sort of your inner life during these experiences, what you really see is that these different selves are ongoing.
Speaker 1:It's not that you're just putting on a different role. You can see how different people within you have had experiences that have shaped the way they respond to things and how different people sort of leap into action action to protect you in different ways in different situations, that it's it it never feels stagey or artificial like it does sometimes in in TV or movies that there really is a lot of life going on inside. And when you really understand what's happening, it makes perfect sense why things are shifting around the way they do.
Speaker 3:How did you feel reading it?
Speaker 1:I felt sad sometimes and horrified, of course, that things had happened. I felt a lot of love and compassion for you. As I always say, like, every time I learn more about you, I just love you more. I felt hopeful in in seeing your your journey. It was surprising sometimes to see things depicted that that I was there for, but to get them from your side instead of my side, that's an interesting experience.
Speaker 1:There's just so much heart in it. There's so much compassion and love in that book. I I think if if more people could tell their own life stories with that much compassion, I think we would all be healthier people.
Speaker 3:How do you feel about the book going out?
Speaker 1:I'm excited to have it go out. Don't think we're gonna be able to promote it in the way we did our other memoir because it is more private. But I think for the right audiences, for the right readers, I think it will be a really powerful experience and I think an important one. I really am excited to to get it out into the world.
Speaker 3:Do you have any reservations or concerns?
Speaker 1:I don't have any reservations. It always seems like there is some possibility that someone from your past might end up getting a copy of the book or something. And I can see that stirring up some drama, but it doesn't scare me. I don't I don't have to hide any of your family's secrets because they're not mine. So that doesn't bother me, and your family doesn't particularly scare me.
Speaker 1:I I I think it's gonna be okay. I think the people who would be threatened by this book have a lot more to hide than you do, and you are working on increasing your transparency rather than increasing the secrets. Right? You're trying to turn the light on, so that's always the best direction.
Speaker 3:I said, what if they never talk to me again? And you said, they don't talk to you anyway.
Speaker 1:It's true. It's true.
Speaker 3:I think that there were some special things, and I don't wanna say too much about it because spoilers, but I think that there were some special things that were almost sacred to me in the book, some aspects of things that no one knows to memorialize for me or with me or be present in that with me and putting that on paper to be able to say, hey. This piece was a good piece. Like, it's not all bad. This piece was a good piece. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And and even though this ended badly or even though that happened, this moment was really powerful, and I want to share this moment because it made a difference. And somehow sharing that keeps it alive in a way despite the rest of what happened.
Speaker 1:I love that. I mean, how many more ways can I say I love it? Everyone should go buy a copy right now.
Speaker 3:Systemspeakbooks.com.
Speaker 1:If tears were prayers by Emma Sumshaw.
Speaker 3:We did use this pseudonym from the podcast for the book even though all of that is public information now because I do have one abuser who has a Google alert on me. And so just for an added layer of safety, even though it's not secret at all, we did put Emma Sunshaw as the author of the book to match the podcast rather than our legal name even though the legal name is public now. Is that too complicated? Do you think that was a bad move, or does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Makes total sense. I mean, it's the name associated with the podcast, and it gives you an extra layer of protection. Also, I assume that there's an Emma Sunshaw rattling around in there somewhere too. So it's just determining which one of you gets to put your name on it.
Speaker 3:Well, that would that's what makes it an agreement. Right? Because it matches the podcast. So
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. I it's just scary. It's just scary to let it out. I believe it. But it's time, and it needs to be done, and it's ready.
Speaker 1:And fear is just an emotion. It's not a reality.
Speaker 3:Woah. Fear is just an emotion, not reality.
Speaker 1:If it was a reality, it would be danger, and you're not actually in danger. You're just feeling fear.
Speaker 3:Oh, I feel like there's actual danger. Like, what if we get hot lined? What if we get fired? What if we get kicked out of ISSTD? What if the family does something terrible?
Speaker 3:What if the parents come back to get me, and now they're even creepier because they're ghosts like I have? Lots of danger. I think the other piece that is sort of a layer of tragedy with it is that when we started really, really working on it five years ago, we were still with the therapist and had that sort of framework of safety, and now we have to end the book without her. And I think that brings up new pieces of grief that we have a better perspective on and a framework for since we've worked so hard on it for the last two years. It's strange to me that it's been two years and it's still that hard.
Speaker 3:And why do we keep trying to go back but we can't go back and working through all of those layers. But finishing the book and going back through it because of the editing, I realized what a reenactment that is and that it has to do with some of those earliest pieces of wanting to hold on to that safe place that you can't because it's gone.
Speaker 1:But, also, I would I would argue that it's not gone. It's still part of your story. Like, I think as a an associative person, I never know how to how to distinguish myself. But, like, I need to work harder at remembering that those parts of my past are still present in myself. And I think just because you're not currently seeing the therapist does not mean that she is not part of you and your experience in your life.
Speaker 1:She's an enormous part of your life. The work that you did together in the past is still part of your present and who you are and how you have gotten here. She's an enormous presence in the book, and I think it's only by focusing purely on the chronology that you could say, I finished this without her. Like, she's there. She's part of it.
Speaker 1:She's part of the experience.
Speaker 3:But she's inside me in memory time. She's not a a person on the outside like you are. I mean, she's a real person on the outside, but I can't share this moment with her like we would have. I can't.
Speaker 1:Yes. That's something to grieve. It's true.
Speaker 3:So it it doesn't make what was good in the past bad. That's what's different. But it's it's also done. It's also gone. And so understanding why that was so necessary and why it is so hard and feeling those pieces, but that grief is so deep and so painful, but recognizing also that there are layers that are really about other losses.
Speaker 1:Sure. In the book, you talk about the loss of some people who were very special to you, and I can imagine that this also ties into that.
Speaker 3:I think it helped me understand how significant that was and why this felt so big and why it's so hard to keep trying, why it's so hard to find one more time a new therapist and one more time trust someone and one more time hope that someone will stay when things keep happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And yet at the same time, it's like a whole new world has opened up because I have the group I've met through Peter, and I have colleagues from ISSTD and now I have friends who are also therapists who have DID and people I've met through the podcast and and listeners even. And so in some ways, I have more support than I ever have, which is the only reason we were able to write the book. Yes. Because that's relational healing. Right?
Speaker 3:To be safe enough to even put this onto paper, much less share it. It's not even about my own courage. It's about that's how much support people have poured into me or else we wouldn't have been able to do it. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It's like you hit a critical mass of people you could trust that made it worth sharing this the story on paper.
Speaker 3:That feels significant.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's wonderful.
Speaker 3:So I am excited. I hope that we get more confident in being able to share that it's something worth reading, but also it feels so very fragile. But I think the fragility is not about being afraid. I think it's about the sacredness of how precious those pieces are, both my story and those parts of me, and how carefully I hold those bits of the story and why it matters so much to share them. And part of that goes back to that same conversation that we had with Kyrie when she wanted to do a podcast is that lots of people will hear this or lots of people will see this, but also so many people are already hearing your story and knowing your story because of their stories being on the news or because of the other public pieces or because of what happened to us when we're little and everyone has access to so many parts of us and it's like that's so violating.
Speaker 3:But there's something empowering about saying no. This is my story, and if it's gonna be out there, then let it be in my own words.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm really proud of you, by the way.
Speaker 3:It's a
Speaker 1:real accomplishment.
Speaker 3:I think it's interesting that when I mean, thank you. I think it's interesting that when we finally had a chance, the kid's asleep and you awake and having a break from caring for your parents. And finally, like, have to do this now because it's the only chance we get. And yet, the energy is so different than expected, and it's not like, yay yay book. I mean, I keep saying that, but it feels significant to me.
Speaker 3:But I think part of it isn't just, like, the reverence about it. Part of it is also maybe that there's actually peace. Like, that it's maybe just even though it's a big thing, it's within my window of tolerance.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like, I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 3:I'm okay with it. I'm I it's a quiet thing in a reflective kind of way of, okay. Let's do this. And while there are lots of feelings about them, lots of different feelings, none of them are so big as to knock me off balance or destabilize me one way or the other.
Speaker 1:What a great thing to realize.
Speaker 3:So we're gonna do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. You are.
Speaker 3:If tears were prayers.
Speaker 1:Buy it now. We need a theme song for your book.
Speaker 3:So many theme songs. Thank you for your help with the book, and thank you for your support.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 3:Even on a week when we're exhausted and worn out and have had things even crazier than a pandemic happened.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure that's every week.
Speaker 3:In our lives.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Hey. Guess what?
Speaker 1:What?
Speaker 3:I get my first vaccine next Friday.
Speaker 1:That's so cool.
Speaker 3:How are you doing caring for the parents?
Speaker 1:Okay. I guess. I hung up some pictures for mom today. She was very excited about that. And I've been going through her stacks of magazines in the garage and pulling out pictures to make a collage with someday.
Speaker 1:She's been very excited about that too.
Speaker 3:You're adorable. Oh my goodness. Okay. Let's do it. We're gonna let the book out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Free range memoir. Go forth, young book. Spread your papery wings and fly.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. You know what I feel like? Where the excitement comes in is I feel like it's keeping a promise to myself of making sure that we say what we need to say, and it's some kind of caring for those younger parts of I hear you. Yeah. It's not a secret anymore.
Speaker 3:And that feels big. That feels really big.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Okay.
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.