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Diagnosed with Complex Trauma and a Dissociative Disorder, Emma and her system share what they learn along the way about complex trauma, dissociation (CPTSD, OSDD, DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality), etc.), and mental health. Educational, supportive, inclusive, and inspiring, System Speak documents her healing journey through the best and worst of life in recovery through insights, conversations, and collaborations.
Over:
Speaker 2:Welcome to the System Speak Podcast, a podcast about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to long time listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 3:If Taylor Swift is your thing, all the spoilers for these episodes. So if you haven't heard the new album, skip this until you're ready. If Taylor Swift is not your favorite music, that's okay. You can skip these episodes. Or if you wanna just bear with us a little bit and use it as a framework or a context to the conversations I have with the kids or the things I learned about myself or my own system, I think there's a lot that's applicable even if they're not your favorite songs.
Speaker 3:These episodes are the full twenty four hours of the release of Taylor Swift's new album, The Life of a Showgirl. So we start out reading through lyrics with the kids on the podcast. I don't have the whole lyrics. We I edited that out just for length and for time and for copyright. But we read through the lyrics together because our family is a deaf family.
Speaker 3:I have cochlear implants. My oldest has cochlear implants, and my youngest has hearing aids. So we're not even too listening to the music so much yet as understanding the words. Then we listen to the song, but it will still literally take us weeks and months to be able to get the sound all the way into our brains. So we're not even talking about the music and don't really care if you like it or don't like it.
Speaker 3:It's the conversations about the lyrics and about our experiences in response to the lyrics that I think is not just exciting because we're Swifties, but helpful enough and applicable enough that we wanna share it here. So just bear with this. Y'all have been on tangents with us before, and this one is about sexuality and development, and I think it matters. We have had a sick week at our house. Some of us have not felt well, and we have fevers breaking just in time to be excited for what is happening tonight, which is very, very important.
Speaker 3:The release of the next Taylor Swift album. Woo hoo.
Speaker 1:Only the young. Only the young.
Speaker 3:Okay. So we thought while we're trying to stay awake to wait for it to come out that we could talk a little bit about why it matters to us or why we like her specifically
Speaker 4:and so So Taylor Swift is important to me because the, well the first official time like I. That I ever heard one of her songs was you belong with me and I very busy, physically remember like us like the. School like set up to like the gym like we had an assembly thing it was like back in first grade so I don't remember all the details it was like someone's birthday or something and back in the day we like had all go out and like in the assembly we had to sing happy birthday to everybody and everyone was on the stage and I decided to do remember the next song being with You Belong With Me and that song like was probably the first one and then the second one, I think I remember hearing that like mom to me at that one point, and I remember her like singing it to me when I was younger, and then I remember her playing like white horse in the car like on long road trips because like, to me it kind of feels a little bit like a lullaby, like whenever we have to like settle down in this quiet time or to like go to sleep she would play that song.
Speaker 4:I know it's a sad song but also it's like so like low by mic.
Speaker 3:I have so much to say about that, that makes me cry that you remember that, like in a good way, it makes me cry. I'm very touched. White Horse was one of the first songs I learned. I love
Speaker 4:that song.
Speaker 3:Taylor Swift started getting more well known about the same time that I got my cochlear implants and then my parents died. So for me, White Horse, I know it's about relationships and also there's lots of metaphors that she writes about, but for me, White Horse was really about letting go of my parents. Like, they're never gonna show up as good parents for me. It's just done. Like, I missed out on having that.
Speaker 3:It's too late because they died. So I don't mean to ruin our party, but it's very touching to me that you remember that. And you're right. When we would go on really long road trips, we would start it out with the music super fun to get you all settled and kind of matching your excitement and then kind of use the music to bring you down just a little bit.
Speaker 4:Music has always been important in our family. Like ask us anything and we'll like okay so this song is for this reading, this song is for this mood, this Taylor Swift song is for this mood, this Taylor Swift song sorry I love you Taylor but some of your songs I can only listen to when I'm sad.
Speaker 3:That's fair, that's fair. I love also that you remember that we used to sing songs and change the words to them. Oh yeah. And sing songs to you Even now instead of like calling you upstairs, that's what I do, I say only the young.
Speaker 1:Only the young.
Speaker 3:And you guys come back and it gets us in this little conversation. It's just sweet little family moments. What about you? How did you learn about Taylor Swift? What do you like about the music?
Speaker 1:I think one of the main reasons she's important to me is because I'm important to her. She cares about everybody and she's just so nice and, like, so supportive and kind. And even if every doesn't everybody doesn't get to meet her, she makes sure that everybody gets to see her like in her videos and stuff and she's so grateful and kind like whenever she wins an award she says thank you to all her fans. And like I really like how kind she is and thoughtful. And when I'm sad, I like to listen to her sad songs.
Speaker 1:And my mom may like, she like sings different recordings of Taylor Swift, and she's really good. And she did I Can Do It With a Broken Heart. And one day when I was sleeping on her drooling, She played I Can Do It With a Broken Heart, but her version in Night Ear, and it was so good, and I really like it. And like most of her songs just, like, mean a lot, and, like, I can relate to them. I mean, yeah, I just like sad songs.
Speaker 3:We've been through a lot of things that we have big feelings about. One of the first things that we did when we got here was make sure that we had a new piano and a new guitar because we lost that leaving Idaho. And so now also my friend Laura Brown is giving me a 12 string guitar to play with No way. So that I can record with that as well. Isn't that sweet?
Speaker 4:But we need, like, a taste, like, an off it, but for recording songs.
Speaker 3:I know. People say that and people ask that. For me, the reason I haven't done that that's a really good thing to bring up. The reason I haven't done that is because for me, it is so expressive. I worry if I and I know I recorded it for fun and for play.
Speaker 3:I worry if I started recording to actually make it good or a good recording, that I would start worrying about that instead of what I'm feeling. Oh. Does that make sense? That's why I have not.
Speaker 4:I need an otter tune. I'm so glad otter tuning fits. So I'll
Speaker 3:I don't use that. I probably should. That would help. So
Speaker 4:No. You are a Greek singer without otter tune, mom. I need otter tune. Like, I'll just I'll just be like singing for fun but I like if you've done me on a stage, oh my goodness, I will not want to think if I know how happy I felt.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. So here's a fun fact, I know that music has been hard for me because cochlear implants, music is hard for you because of cochlear implants, music is hard for you because of hearing aids, and also we are like what you said, a family that loves music and so learning what that means and practicing ways to enjoy and appreciate music, but I actually did not listen to a lot of Taylor Swift originally. There were some songs like White Horse that I got. I think that was really for me one of my funeral songs from my parents, but some of the others I just I didn't most because I was parenting too. I just didn't it takes us new lyrics learn new music be able to understand the words and the music at the same time.
Speaker 3:It's just so much work I did not get a chance to learn like really focus on Taylor Swift until I watched miss Americana, which someone told me about to help me because there had been people who were sort of targeting the podcast and targeting our family and things happened that were just like how do you come back from this? How do I be myself when people are saying such awful things? And I didn't have the development to know how to do that yet because trauma and deprivation, but someone told me about Miss Americana and I have always gone back to that movie over and over and over that documentary because it happened right that like recorded everything that happened with Kanye and all of that. And so it shows like how she walked through those hard seasons of her life and I have gone back to that over and over again. And so that's really what got me connected to Taylor Swift and then I agree with you about how she is kind how she doesn't seek attention for her kindness, and she is so smart.
Speaker 3:Her lyrics are poetry and clever.
Speaker 4:One of the things that another one of the thing that got me into Taylor Swift was back during COVID, mom gave us poetry lessons. I very differently remember some of them and I think one of them was actually Taylor Swift, but I don't remember which one. Like she just knows like how to write her own poetry and the poetry in writing is like very important to me and so like when I the first thing I always do before I listen to any songs and it's like they're not, I always look at the lyrics like okay to read the lyrics what are they supposed to mean? Like our mom and our dad are both lyricists which means they like study music and I feel that's very important to know what the lyrics mean and what they are. So like you'll see my playlist they are not explicit songs, like none of them are, but like I just go through and I make sure that like I know what this is talking about, that I understand what's going on here, like I'll even ask my mom like what does this lyric mean or something like like that?
Speaker 4:That.
Speaker 1:At the end, can we like, at the end of the podcast?
Speaker 3:Can't. That's a good idea. Let me explain. That's a good idea. The reason we can't just play her songs is because you have to pay for them like what we can do is record our own versions and use a specific license and so I could sing something or one of the new songs.
Speaker 3:I can't do that tonight because it's too late to hear a brand new song, but I would if there are any I like they'll probably show up. That's a good idea. We do it's okay if I say what you're pointing to since they can't see you. We have a record player, and we have the vinyl albums with different Taylor Swift records, and we've listening to them and it's been fun getting ready for this album released tonight. It's so exciting.
Speaker 3:The other thing that we can't not talk about leading up to this is the two year span of the heiress tour. Oh, yes.
Speaker 1:Oh yes me too
Speaker 3:right. I think that it's not just that it was such a significant tour in like music history or for the industry, but it was such a specific time in our lives. Think of all that was happening for us during the time of the Eris tour from when it began to when it ended.
Speaker 4:Like we were still moving during the Eris tour. We were moving here when it was happening.
Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome to the Eris tour. I think
Speaker 4:the Eris tour was the first time I actually heard getaway calls. That's what got me to Reputation. I've never heard a Reputation before the Eris tour because I've been literally living to 1989 in Fearless, but then that Eris tour hit and I was like what album is this on mom? And she's like reputation? I'm like what is reputation?
Speaker 4:It's like we
Speaker 3:had a lot of catching up to do right but we were leaving shiny happy and then we were invited to the last show at Vancouver with a friend. We did not go. We were not able to go, but we moved here right after. So literally the Era's tour was us Escaping. Deciding.
Speaker 3:Yes. Escaping. That is a powerful word, but it is exactly right. We
Speaker 4:left.
Speaker 1:Through the tunnel of the eras.
Speaker 4:The eras tour with the Right?
Speaker 3:I love that. It was so significant for us. And then in the middle of the tour, when she surprised everybody by adding tortured poets department, I know so many of those songs were slow and sad.
Speaker 4:It was a
Speaker 3:completely different vibe, but it was the vibe where I was. Like, we joke about the divorces, the divorce with me and papa, the divorce with the church, and the divorce from nonprofit, and just having to grieve so much and learn how to see things clearly, not just for myself, but also because I can't teach you what I don't know and I was so focused on daydreaming and what could be or what might be or what if or just letting other people tell me like how to prove myself and that album was like no we're done here actually, and it just really really matched where I was in life and I literally feel like that album and Al Anon saved my life. I wouldn't add to that, we are not like
Speaker 4:most Swifties I would say, like because we take so long to learn the lyrics, like we'll be trying to sing a song and everyone's like oh yeah, there's this new song next to them. I'm like but I just believe in this song! Like it takes me like hundreds of tries to learn one tune of this song, so by the time I learn it I do the dance to it. Everybody else is like doing like, I don't know midnight or something like that and I'm still on the line. Midnight?
Speaker 4:I don't know, I don't know what order they came out because I was like not even torn, the album came out, but like it just takes so long and I currently only have one cochlear implant because my other one it went in the trash can. Well not like it just doesn't work, so it takes extra long and it would normally with two implants real, I can hear 80% of everything that's being said. With one I would say I can hear like 50% of color development, 75 ish percent when it's just like I can view your lips and I can look at you.
Speaker 1:This is a feat.
Speaker 3:This is a feat for us to learn new music. In fact tonight there are lots of people who will be listening as soon as it appears on Spotify, we're watching the countdown, there are people doing live streaming, watching it, listening to it, all the things, we will be reading the lyrics and then listen and reading the lyrics and then listen because that's how we do. We have only a few minutes until the countdown ends. Is there a piece of one song that you wanna sing? Oh, the man.
Speaker 1:Cool. It's so cute.
Speaker 3:Do you need to come stand?
Speaker 1:So cute. Can you two
Speaker 4:start it? Are you gonna start it?
Speaker 1:Alright. You ready? Looks good. Okay. Would be cool.
Speaker 1:I would be cool.
Speaker 5:This I played the field before I found someone to commit to, and that would be okay for me to do. Every conquest I had named would make me more of a boss to you. I'd be a fearless leader.
Speaker 1:I'd be an awful tired
Speaker 5:with everyone in Malaysia. What's that like?
Speaker 1:I'm so sick of running as
Speaker 5:fast as I can. Wondering if I get there quicker if I was a man.
Speaker 1:And I'm so sick of them coming at me again. Because if
Speaker 5:I was a man, then I'd be the man. Be the man. I will I'd be be the the man. Man. They fail hustle, put in work.
Speaker 5:They wouldn't shake their heads and question how much of this I deserve what I was wearing.
Speaker 1:If it
Speaker 5:was rude, could I be separated from my good ideas and power moves? When he would talk to me, oh, let the players play. I sit just like Leo, and in Central Bay, I'm so sick of running fast as I can. Wondering if I get there quicker if I was a man.
Speaker 1:And I'm so sick of them coming out of
Speaker 5:me again. Because I was a man. And I'd be the man. I'd be the man.
Speaker 4:I'd be the man.
Speaker 5:What's it like to brag about raving in dollies and getting
Speaker 4:bitches and models? And it's
Speaker 5:so good. It's your bad. And it's okay if you're mad. If I was out fashioning my dollies, I'd be a bitch. Not a ballet.
Speaker 5:They I'm so sick of them
Speaker 4:coming at me again. Because I if I was a man,
Speaker 5:then I'd be the man. I love it so much.
Speaker 3:Thank you. I love that so often she changes the last line of the chorus. The last time they do the chorus, she changes it.
Speaker 1:Look how cute it is.
Speaker 3:It's a cute little mic. Okay. So that was amazing. Tell me, why do you like that song and what does it mean to you?
Speaker 1:Before that, at the end, Camille do a countdown and be like, we love Taylor. We don't wanna miss it. Oh, okay. Things I like about that song is like, it explains that like, their world is kind of more men based and that's unfair and Taylor's making it fair because she's awesome.
Speaker 4:The reason I like that song is because like it not only like what Kyrie said, not only is it just that but also I think she's explaining like that we don't have to like be just like that we don't have to be like you know the stereotypical guy who's like you know going out and like like flashing the Dolly that she said to her, you know, we can just be like our own kind of, well, the man. I love it. Wait just one second, okay are you ready? Yes.
Speaker 5:+1 0987654321.
Speaker 1:It's updating. It's updating. Oh my goodness. The
Speaker 3:timer just went out, and it flashed. Let's go back. I'm gonna bring it up. I wanna see the lyrics, though.
Speaker 1:Oh, no.
Speaker 3:The lyrics aren't there. Okay. Oh, shit. Let me see if they're on Google yet.
Speaker 4:How about the the Google? Or, like, you got Pinterest?
Speaker 3:Okay. No. The shade of Ophelia lyrics. Ready? I heard you calling on the megaphone.
Speaker 3:You wanna see me all alone. As legend has it, you are quite the pyro. You light the match to watch it blow. And if you'd never come for me, I might have drowned in the melancholy. I swore my loyalty to me, myself, and I right before you lit my sky up.
Speaker 3:All that time I sat alone in my tower, you were just honing your powers. Now I can see it. Late one night, you dug me out of my grave and saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia. So Ophelia dies, but she was saved from Ophelia's fate. Keep it 100.
Speaker 3:Oh, that was from that was an Easter egg in the podcast with Travis Kelce. Keep it 100 on the land, the sea and the sky pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes Pledge allegiance to your hands, your team, your vibes. Don't care where the hell you've been because now you're mine. It's about to be the sleepless night you've been dreaming of, the fate of Ophelia. Ophelia, eldest daughter of a nobleman, Ophelia lived in a fantasy, but love was a cold bed full of scorpions.
Speaker 3:The venom stole her sanity. And if you'd never come for me, I might have lingered in purgatory. You wrap around me like a chain, a crown, a vine, pulling me into the fire. All that time I sat alone in my tower, you were just honing your powers. Okay?
Speaker 3:The bridge. Tis locked inside my memory, and you possess the only key. No longer drowning and deceived all because you came for me. Locked inside my memory and you possess the key. No longer drowning and deceived all because you came for me.
Speaker 3:Okay. Are you ready?
Speaker 4:Okay. What did you think? I liked it.
Speaker 5:Loved it.
Speaker 3:It started out a little jazzier than I expected. Yeah.
Speaker 4:It's actually be like, you know, like a torture department song. Like, it's sad because, like, the lyrics seems bad, but actually listening to it starts to be happier. She worked with different people, so it would
Speaker 3:be interesting to see how it unfolds. Yeah? Okay. The next song the next song is Elizabeth Taylor. Do you want to read the lyrics this time?
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 1:And then I get to read
Speaker 4:Opalite. Elizabeth Taylor, do you think it's forever that viewer Portofino was on my mind when you called me at the Plaza Athenee? Oh, oftentimes it doesn't feel so glamorous to be me. The right guys promise they stay. Under bright lights they whittered away but you bloom.
Speaker 4:Portofino run my mind and I think you know why.
Speaker 3:Okay. Are you ready to listen to the next one? Okay. Elizabeth Taylor, what did you think?
Speaker 4:I liked it so much.
Speaker 3:It has a really specific vibe, doesn't it? Every album is so different. Elizabeth Taylor. Okay. Okay.
Speaker 3:So the next one is opalite. Opalite is a kind of
Speaker 4:gem. Yeah. Thought
Speaker 3:Okay. Opalite. Your turn.
Speaker 1:My brother used to call it eating out of the trash. It's never gonna last. I thought my house was haunted. I used to live with ghosts. And all
Speaker 4:the
Speaker 1:perfect couples said, When you know, you know. And when you don't, you don't. Hey, so time for a Panda Express song after that.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. Okay. Here is I am loving I needed these lyrics to speak to me and they are talking. They are talking to my soul.
Speaker 1:They're laughing at you.
Speaker 3:Life is so much better, right? When we talk about how hard things were before or how dark things felt and now things feel so much lighter and better, it's the same thing.
Speaker 4:This song kind of felt a little nostalgic just like listening to it and I think that's the kind of vibe I was going for, like
Speaker 3:You were hoping? Yeah. We have a lot, right? It's been a year of changes and life is just so much better. Okay.
Speaker 3:What did you think of that one? I loved that one. You loved Opalite? Yeah. Okay, you want to read Father Figure?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay, these are explicit lyrics.
Speaker 4:Yay. I love it. That's all I wanted. Something special, something sacred in your eyes for just one moment to be golden naked at your side. Sometimes I think that you'll never understand me.
Speaker 4:Maybe this time is forever, it can be. That's all you wanted, something special, someone sacred in your life. Just for one moment to be woman naked at my side. Sometimes I think you'll never understand me, but something tells me together we'll be happy. Baby, I will be your father figure or baby puts your tiny hand in mine.
Speaker 4:I'd love to. I will be your preacher, teacher, but be your daddy. Anything you have in mind, it would make me very happy. I had enough of your time. Please let me.
Speaker 4:I will be the one who loves you till the end of time. That's all I wanted. But sometimes love can be mistaken for a crime. That's all I wanted just to see my baby's blue eyes shine. This time I think that my lover understands me.
Speaker 4:If we have faith in each other then we can be strong baby. My baby. I will be your preacher, teacher, anything you have in mind. If you are the desert or be the sea, if you ever hunger, hunger for me. Whatever you ask for that's what I'll be.
Speaker 3:So I don't know what it means to her. It makes me think of the whole Scooter Braun stuff because that is a song about fawning. If you have to be what someone else wants to be cared for or protected or loved or supported or empowered, that is not actually empowered at all. That is coercive control. That's what we do with the There's that.
Speaker 3:Okay. Let's play it.
Speaker 4:Anything that has like an e on it that's not explicit, it means it won't show up on your phone. Like that little white box next to the song. You see that? What's the e? Explicit though in music, it means it's like basically rated R for music, kind of.
Speaker 4:And for video game e for everyone, so anyone can play it. Like the Bluie game would be rated e for video games.
Speaker 1:I think those three will be on my phone.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. I really It's so confusing because games e for everyone. Mhmm. Music e for explicit so it's not on your child lock phones. And then Movies.
Speaker 4:I mean what I do is I like, oh, find that song, but I'll like, switch up the clean version of it, throw it over like Bug Phone.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure about QIA's though. It doesn't do that.
Speaker 3:Oh, because QIA has Spotify Kids. Yeah. So explicit means saying the things directly. So implicit is when something's implied and explicit is when you say things directly. You're very explicit with, like, because talking to
Speaker 4:we don't always understand it because of our developmental delay stuff. Papa is very implicit, like he thinks we understand it but we don't. So when we don't he gets frustrated.
Speaker 3:With autism and with deafness, you have to be very explicit, very direct because there's not what is called incidental learning to pick up what is implied. So if it is not explicit, it is likely not understood. In this case, they're saying the words are not filtered at all, so everything is very very explicit, and then culture has taken that to understand bad words or inappropriate language or sexual tones or sexual content which is not what explicit means but has come to mean that because of this. Because of pop culture. You go.
Speaker 3:What did you think
Speaker 4:of the song? I, I mean, it's, I think that of, for me, like, it's relation to to stuff that I haven't done yet, so, like, it's not, like, clicking to me in a way yet. So, like, I maybe if I was a little older, I would understand it a little bit more because, like, I'm only seventeen and three quarters.
Speaker 1:I'm only like 28.
Speaker 3:So think about the difference between fifteen and twenty two.
Speaker 5:22.
Speaker 3:Right? So that's part of it. People who have been listening to Taylor Swift since Taylor Swift was little grew up with her. So it makes sense that adult content does not resonate with you as much. That's actually really healthy.
Speaker 3:So if that's not one you vibe with now, that's okay. You might like it later. It may never be one of your favorites. She has so many songs in her whole entire catalog that there are lots that you want to listen to.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's impossible. Like, if you're like a die hard pussy, bet you
Speaker 3:would know like every single song. But I don't know everything was solved. So let me ask this just to make we're consenting as we go. Do you want to read the next explicit song or do you want to skip it? Do you have a preference, thoughts, feelings, you want me to look at it first?
Speaker 3:I just want to roll through with it. You wanna keep going? Okay. But I love that you know they don't all have to be your favorites. That's okay.
Speaker 4:Think so far my favorite one is Oprah Dight.
Speaker 1:My favorite one is Fate of
Speaker 3:Fate of Ophelia is your favorite?
Speaker 1:So far.
Speaker 3:This conversation is continued on the next episode.
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, being human together. So, yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.