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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: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast,
Speaker 2: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:So a funny thing happened when I walked into therapy the other day. I'm just kidding. That should sound like a bar joke except it's for therapy. Right? Oh therapy it's so hard but seriously here's something that happened in that really hard session that we were talking about in the trigger episode the therapist asked at one point what does safe mean?
Speaker 1:What? Crickets. Do you hear crickets? Maybe cicadas? Like we had no response to that.
Speaker 1:What does safe mean? All we could come up with was that we know in TIS now time is safe and we know it's now time if we don't see the parents because in our case the parents are dead so we know the therapist is safe we know the therapist's office is safe we know the husband is safe we know our friends are safe, but that's like everything that's all we could come up with like I don't even have a starting place to answer that question. So we think we're all tough gonna read the notebook and she's like oh if you know it's safe to read the notebook then tell me what does safe mean? Like okay philosopher let's just I need drinks with that like if we're gonna talk not really I know I keep making jokes because actually congratulations to us we are ten years sober this week thank you you're welcome okay so we ended up asking our friend we have a friend we have other friends we're learning that we have actually have a lot of friends who knew but our good friend who we met through our sick children little punks whiny toddlers both of them not really I'm just I'm kidding I'm kidding they're adorable they are especially when they're holding hands skipping through the pizza restaurant they're adorable But I asked my friend.
Speaker 1:I was like, okay. This is what happened in therapy. The therapist said this, asked us this question. What does safe mean? How are we supposed to answer that?
Speaker 1:So, you know, cheat sheet, phone a friend. This is my final answer. What is your answer to that question? What does safe mean? And this is what our friend said, and it blew us away.
Speaker 1:We got permission to read it on the podcast. And again it's one of those times where we're sharing something very personal so that others inside can listen back to it later because it's that important. This that are super super personal but I'm sharing because we need this to sink all the way through the layers does that make sense? So here's what our friend said when we asked what does safe mean? Our friend said to not feel afraid to be able to be myself to not be threatened to not be triggered to not be exposed to harm physical or emotional and feeling safe is a complete trust in a person or our surroundings.
Speaker 1:What? Like mind blown. Yes, hit the little back ten seconds button and listen to that again because it's so powerful. To not feel afraid, to be able to be myself, to not be threatened to not be triggered to not be exposed to harm physically or emotionally and feeling safe is a complete trust in a person or your surroundings and that's a big deal and one layer that's new for us are these emotional and dynamic and relational triggers which we talked about in the trigger episode because those toxic relationships when you try so hard and try so hard and try so hard and you're never enough that's not safe. The person may be a wonderful person and may be not ever gonna hurt you and maybe everything's okay except that.
Speaker 1:If you're not enough, that's not healthy because you are you and you are all the you that you can be and you can't change who you are in that way and so emotional safety is part of safety not just physical safety and that's been a really hard lesson for us. And so when we wrote down her answer in the notebook, Emma wrote, I don't know if I ever feel all of that. And then Jean Marc wrote, maybe locked in a hotel room. We really like to lock ourselves in a hotel room and just not ever escape. That's where you're gonna find us when we're super old.
Speaker 1:Some random hotel room somewhere in the country or out of the country, somewhere in the world. A place where we can have food delivered and they clean our room once in a while and we can swim. Just so you know, in case you're looking for us when we're like 65, that's where we're gonna be. Probably homeless. Because I don't know if these kids are going to be taking care of us.
Speaker 1:Okay. But then someone else wrote, not just in a hotel room, but where no one knows where we are. And so again, there's that feeling of part of what is safe is not being attacked and not being come after. And those kinds of feelings, which is why even when a relationship's not abusive but it's toxic and they're coming after you like you need to do this why aren't you doing this you're doing this wrong why that kind of shame being inflicted on you does not feel safe and like we retreated into a turtle shell. It was so so awful.
Speaker 1:And so that is about whether it's their triggers or your triggers trying to protect yourself and be safe in healthy and relational ways that I don't even have words yet because we're just learning this. We're just learning this. But someone else said I feel safe when my parents are not coming back or in foster care when the families were safe and we had what we needed without trouble. Meaning like being in trouble. In fact what we've learned in the last few months is that feeling of being in trouble is actually a really big trigger.
Speaker 1:And the therapist said that that's common with people who have been abused And so that also makes sense why we would fail in friendship when we already feel like we're in trouble and then keep getting punished for it. That, like, we can't repair that. That it's too much of a trigger in itself, the whole process. And so we were just stuck and it was just heartbreaking. I don't even I can't even talk about that right now.
Speaker 1:Okay. To so what we had to do was literally take these this beautiful poem she wrote. My friend would say she is not a writer, but that was a poem. That was a poem that she wrote and it was beautiful and it was full of meaning just packed full of meaning and so we had to literally to process it all of us together had to take it line by line by line because there was so much in what she said. So the first part to not feel afraid when do I not feel afraid?
Speaker 1:What helps me not feel afraid? So we started making a list. Someone said, when the therapist tells me it is her office and I am safe. Someone else said, when I see the therapist or she sends a message back to me so I know she's still there and we didn't mess it up. Someone else said, I think I felt safe for the first time when I read her last email and printed it again.
Speaker 1:And oh my goodness, I need to share this email. I need to share the email, but it's not actually my email, so I can't share it. But I've asked if we could talk about it on the podcast because I think it's relevant to a lot of survivors, and I think it would be really helpful if it's appropriate for sharing. But it's Taylor's email, so we need to talk to Taylor about it, and we'll wait and see what she says. Or when she's in the mood and to do it her way.
Speaker 1:Okay. So someone else said, I feel safe when the therapist helped me feel safe when she showed me her office and stayed close, and we looked at pictures of horses. Someone else said, I do not feel afraid when we're with the husband. Then someone said, I don't feel afraid with my friend, this one that wrote this poem that she doesn't even know is a poem but is amazing. And we talk about the reasons we feel safe in that friendship.
Speaker 1:They don't she doesn't fuss at us. She understands trauma in her own way. She sends us snacks. That was for Jean Marc. You could tell.
Speaker 1:I and then someone wrote, I appreciate she doesn't shame me or mock me about DID or fears or triggers or our faith tradition or anything I have shared. She keeps me safe in this way of supporting me without shaming me and by reassuring me frequently even when I don't ask for it. She checks on me often so I'm not losing as much time. And then some others share some other things. And then we talk about another friendship that's new and like just a month or two ago we met her and it says I know this person is safe and I know she's real and I'm grateful for her being kind and gracious but she's new and so we don't wanna give her lots of pieces, which is just good boundaries.
Speaker 1:That's like a new thing, right? Someone else wrote, she's very kind but we're careful of her because she did not choose us back yet. So I don't tell her more pieces anymore. Oh, that makes sense. Like it has to be a mutual thing, right?
Speaker 1:Like if you're sharing something with friendship, then they need to be sharing also. Or if they're sharing, you should also get to share. Like it's a mutual thing. That's what works well. And someone else wrote, maybe we're too hard or did it bad because the other people thought we were bad.
Speaker 1:So now there's a whole new trauma with lost friendships, right? About how people who say they are safe but then don't stick around. And so the younger ones or other parts trying to interpret what happened when we barely understand what happened that's a lot to filter through and figure out even if whoever they're worried about is a wonderful person Like it's not about if they're good or bad or bad talking them or saying anything that's wrong. It's about the health of the relationship and our capacity to participate in it and whether that works for the other person or not. But filtering that down for the littles through trauma filters is a lot of pieces.
Speaker 1:Someone else wrote, I know she will not hurt me. I know she is safe in that way. I'm not afraid. I just don't know her yet. Only about her.
Speaker 1:Which is true. That's intimacy. Right? Just because you know a lot about a person is not the same as knowing a person. Just because you have a lot of information about a person does not mean you know the person.
Speaker 1:Just because you are friends online does not mean you are friends with them. Like there's a level of intimacy that comes from actually knowing the person and not just knowing about them that develops friendships and intimacy and social and emotional ways, that is really important. So I think those are good boundaries that everyone had different opinions. And then we talked about the therapist. I am sometimes afraid to do wrong, to be in trouble, to lose her.
Speaker 1:And someone else said, she said she said she's not going anywhere. She said it a thousand times. Well, and, like, our mother was killed by a drunk driver. So, like, we know we know she can't promise she's not going anywhere because she could get squashed by a car. Sorry, that's not funny.
Speaker 1:Okay. So then someone else talked about another friend who, like this was when we were in college decades ago. Someone talked about a friend who had taken care of us but had gotten too busy and so just didn't participate and how that was hard. And then someone else who had said that they were okay even with the trauma, but then when they found out our story was like that's too creepy and we don't wanna talk about it and then quit being our friend. So those things, even if it's just about their capacity, all of those three examples, those were good people.
Speaker 1:But their capacity to be what we needed and our capacity to be what they needed didn't mesh. It's like dating. Except without the dating part. It doesn't make them bad or it doesn't make them good, but to keep us safe and for healthy relationships and healthy connections, we still had to sort through what worked or not and let go of what wasn't safe even if they weren't necessarily bad. And those kinds of experiences make therapy harder because you have to trust to do therapy.
Speaker 1:Right? You have to participate and open up and be vulnerable. And that's hard when you've been through the kind of things we've been through to have DID. So someone wrote, oh Cassie, Cassie wrote, so why bother letting them talk now if we just have to shut it back down again? I'd rather just not dive into things than drown there by myself.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is funny. They start fighting. And then Jean Marc says, but that don't mean they don't want to, and I keep working hard on my mission to get them ready. Then you get me stuck there so they can't. So then they see the same thing happen except it's your fault, and that is called acting out, so quit it.
Speaker 1:And she said, shut up. You don't even know. And he said, Oh my goodness, you guys, I found some journal pages, dude. Okay, he says, I know a lot, I know you are scared and freak out, and then he lists some reasons I don't want talk about right now because I don't want to deal with it. But what if it is okay, like the therapist told Taylor in this email, I need to read the email you guys.
Speaker 1:What if it is okay like when we went on our trip? And what if it was hard but only because it's also good and now it's okay. And then talking about Doctor. E gave this lecture about neutralizing things and this whole trigger and we dealt with it. Maybe you just need to go for a walk in the woods in November.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's the retreat? We have that retreat. And he's like, you should just go participate and get loved up the way we did at this other at the women's conference. And so then everyone even Taylor can learn about NTIS even in the woods like we saw in the hills and the fields that I love. Maybe I double dog dare you.
Speaker 1:Oh, and then she wrote, you don't even have a dog. He said, that was just mean, but I ain't taking your bait, you fish face. We are done here. Go get a salad. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:You do not even get a badge for being mean. Wow. That was special. Okay. I'm feeling pretty proud of ourselves right now.
Speaker 1:But then she went on, I know all that time is memory time. All those other examples, these are not examples from right now, they're examples from a long time ago, talking about these different therapists that did not stick around or different friends who did not stick around. That was all a long time ago. And now time the therapist is good and safe. I get that.
Speaker 1:And Jean Marc said, And she won't be too busy because she already gave me appointment papers. Like for the end of the year. Like that is a good therapist who is like, I understand you're anxious about therapists. Here are your appointments forever. But we earn that, like we show up, we don't miss our appointments unless it's snow, and we tell her, I can't even think about the snow, it's coming, it's coming, I can't even think about it.
Speaker 1:Oh, Cassie said, I know she has worked so hard to prove she is safe, and she's never given up on me, and she helped us find what safe means. She did not lose us. She did not give up on us, and she is still here. So I guess that's what makes her feel safe. And then the one for the mother said, my name is oh, she doesn't say her own name, she repeats this thing that the therapist says when we're struggling with memory time or now time.
Speaker 1:The therapist always says, my name is and then says her name. This is my office. You are safe. And so she wrote, she always tells me when I am scared for so I remember it. This is my office and you are safe.
Speaker 1:And then someone wrote something I can't even read. I don't know how the therapist does this. Oh, and then someone wrote, the therapist makes me feel safe because she reads my words and holds them without spilling me. Wow. Okay.
Speaker 1:And then in the poem that my friend sent, the next line is about how safe is to be able to be myself. And Emma said, this one is still hard for me when everyone else knows more about me than I do. Oh, snap. That's so true. And then we talk about being able to tell our friend pieces of trauma, not details, but who understands what trauma is like and we talk about what we learned at the women's conference a little bit and how that was helpful and why that makes us feel safe and then and then there's this quote that and it says, I guess it's okay for me to read this.
Speaker 1:Like, it's in the notebook, which is why I was gonna read it, but they aren't my words. So maybe she doesn't want it read, except where she wrote it was public. So does that make it public? It's okay to read? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna read it and record it, and then I'll ask her. Maybe? Okay. Anyway, I'm just gonna read it. It says, do you have one or maybe more than one, A person or people who feel like a home to your heart.
Speaker 1:A person whose presence makes your fears diminish or your dreams feel possible. A person who just by being with them creates a space for you to know more of yourself, not because they demand that you do, but because they make you feel safe enough to inquire and question, safe enough to be raw and vulnerable, Safe enough to be wrong or weak or afraid. Safe enough to be bold or brave or big. Safe. Do you have one or several?
Speaker 1:Someone who holds your heart as valuable and plays the string of it with care, respect, and honor. Do you have people who want more for you than you know how to want for yourself? Someone who believes more is in you than what you cannot see in yourself. The ones who provide both safe places to fail and springboards to fly because of how they love you. The ones who show up not because they have answers, but because they know showing up is the answer.
Speaker 1:Snap. She says, these are not the ambiguous players in our lives. These are the relationships that help create us, make us grow, and are most honoring to our existence. These are the ones who have linked arms and continually creating us by choosing to do life with us and loving us well. You know who they are if you have allowed them to exist.
Speaker 1:If you have them, reach back, reach out, thank them, value them today intentionally on purpose. This world needs more people who are willing to love big, love small, love often, love consistently, love intentionally, and love well show up. Mic drop. And that, you guys, is our therapist. Oh my goodness it's so heavy.
Speaker 1:It's so heavy. And so as we were trying to explore this what we did was go back and watch the talk with the fire from the women's conference. And that's when it started developing that we ultimately that's what we wanna do with the pages that we've written from therapy. We're also gonna compile and keep some things, but the things we can let go of and when it's all finished, which is not today, like someday, even if it's years and years, we will have a fire that is safe and good, and John Mark says will involve marshmallows, and we will burn the pages because even if it was just for a moment we were able to hold on to what safe could feel like from what the therapist said and what our friend said in her poem, and we went through it for like two weeks. There was so much that we shared.
Speaker 1:And when we talk about trauma and why we do therapy when it's so so hard and so so awful this is what our friend said and again I asked permission to share it. It isn't really that I am or was brave. The thing is I am stubborn and I feel like so much was already taken from me and I lived my childhood in fear and I refuse to let them continue to ruin me by letting my memories dictate who I am today or my worth. They aren't going to get that from me. They already took plenty.
Speaker 1:This time is mine. What? Mic drop again. These three quotes we have read over and over and over again for like three weeks because they're so powerful and they are so empowering and they teach us not just that now time is safe, but now time is mine. We get to decide for ourselves what our healing looks like.
Speaker 1:We get to decide for ourselves who we feel safe with, when we feel safe, what feels safe. And no one else gets to tell us what that means or what that looks like. No one else gets to take that from us. We have a right to have that for ourselves. And in our case the parents are dead.
Speaker 1:So why do we need to be afraid now? So therapy is hard and talking about memory time is awful, but that's not the same as being in memory time. And it's not the same as living again what we already lived through. Now time is safe and now time is mine. And then therapy on Monday happened when we ran out in this session because facing this and the fire was so much and so big and so hard.
Speaker 1:And here's what we wrote in the notebook. I feel terrible for running out, for running away, for failing you when you have cared about me. I feel foolish for thinking I could do what I cannot. I feel stupid in our dress up clothes like a costume to hide all the ugly that is me. All of them and all of me like pieces in a play with only tragic endings.
Speaker 1:I feel ashamed for all you know, and I feel ashamed for you knowing and staying and I was the one who left. How can she learn the horrors we hold if she was the only innocence left? But innocent and anxious are not the same thing. How can you know and still be here? And if you can, how do we know and stay?
Speaker 1:And if you say we must know each other and not just read about each other, what is the word for that? And why have we never felt it before? And why is it so big now? And then we spent days processing more about the fire and more of us putting more information and about the fire, like putting the pieces together, but also sharing ourselves and why it is hard for us and what impacted us and how it all fits together. Like it's been in a powerful amazing week of healing even though it's been maybe one of the hardest weeks of therapy.
Speaker 1:We wrote after that running away session. Someone else wrote, Therapy today was hard, obviously. I don't remember going to the lake, but I tried talking and now writing. I can't stop crying. Even though it was not what I was expecting, when you said that I needed to know the others and not just information about them, It immediately made me think of the talk I've been listening to from women's conference.
Speaker 1:I've listened to it over and over all week, and so I feel prepared for this hard day. What I did not realize is that I cannot know them without knowing why we have DID. What I did not understand is that I cannot know them without doing the work to see and hear and feel who they are. I cannot hold on to denial and get to know those who really dealt with what I am denying. It's cruel, and for a moment, what had protected me became what is now betraying me.
Speaker 1:The pain of what you say, or rather the pain of this truth of what you say, hurts me more than there is air. They hurt us. They neglected us. No one has ever said it out loud before, outside my own head, where words are real and speaking it gives witness. And that was liberating, but nothing has ever hurt so much.
Speaker 1:But also, it was true. And I don't know how to bear the details if just the list of things swallowed me up. And so the other piece that I wanted to share is an email the therapist wrote to Taylor. And it's one we've had to paste into the circle notebook and also keep a copy that we read every night before we go to sleep because it's been that powerful for us and we need to hang on to it. I don't want to talk about Taylor's email to her that this is a reply to, and I want to clarify that we don't actually email her very often, and we don't text her very often, although more than we are comfortable with.
Speaker 1:And sometimes there's, like, a random picture or painting that slips through, and we're like, who sent her this and why did they sent this and what does it mean? But anyway, this came after women's conference when we had such a struggle coming home. And the Nachos podcast episode, all of those big feelings, there was a lot of layers there, and part of that is Taylor. And she wrote to the therapist, and the therapist wrote back. And this is one of the big pieces of the big breakthroughs we've had in the last few weeks, and that's all I can share.
Speaker 1:No. I just don't want to. This is a separate thing. I just want to share these pieces to say that they have been big breakthrough moments for us and that what we have not understood before is that sometimes therapy is like the monster on Lost. Do you guys remember Lost?
Speaker 1:Do you remember how everyone who ran from the black cloud, like, was killed and died? Right? But everyone who stayed and stood their ground and faced the monster, it went away. And therapy is awful. And therapy is hard.
Speaker 1:Even when you have a good therapist that you love and adore. And even when you're a good match and you're able to open up and to share things. And even when you've done all that beginning work of two years of learning that now time is safe. Therapy is hard and facing the content of memory time is an unpleasant process and it's awful and it's unfair that these people could do this to us and we have to clean up the mess of it. That's not okay and it's not right and it's not fair.
Speaker 1:But what we have learned in the last two weeks, last few months, the last two years is that doing that work is the very thing that gets your strength back. And doing that work is the very thing that gives you hope again. And doing that is the very thing that takes your power back. And sometimes, saying out loud what happened is the very thing that honors the struggle it was to endure it. We don't like therapy right now, even though we like the therapist a lot.
Speaker 1:It's not a fun season in therapy. It's difficult because the content is so awful. There's not even someone to say, Hey, I had to talk about this today in therapy because it's so gross and so awful and so horrific that it's not appropriate to share even off the podcast. And so it's lonely, ugly, awful, dirty work. But it's what makes us clean again, and what keeps us safe, and what sets us free.
Speaker 1:And that's work worth doing, even though it's hard.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening. Your support of the podcast, the workbooks, and the community means so much to us as we try to create something together that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing, and you can join us on the community at www.systemspeak.com. We'll see you there.