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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:We have more emails with more questions to answer and so I've got those today. The first one is from Sarah who asked what the family did for us on Mother's Day and whether everyone inside gets a different present for Mother's Day. And this email was very sweet and curious in a healthy, good way, but it was really funny because we actually got nothing for Mother's Day. It's just not the way our family functions. We don't focus a lot on holidays for lots of reasons.
Speaker 1:And for financial reasons, we have never bought each other presents we have never gotten each other presents and the children have a very small budget so that it's fair for everyone for their birthdays and so for their birthdays we usually have hamburgers because they like hamburgers and potato chips, which we don't buy any other time. We only get to buy them for birthday parties. Then they get to choose what sort of dessert that they want for their birthday, and we also don't have desserts anytime except for on their birthdays. And so that's how they celebrate their birthdays. Their grandparents, the husband's parents usually sends them $2, so they get to go spend their $2 or save their $2.
Speaker 1:And so it's really that simple. For Christmas, when the children were younger, they got a lot of presents because they were on angel trees in different in the community where people could choose their name, so to speak, and go buy them presents and deliver them to a place that then brought them to us. So it was like a community caring for all the different children who didn't have anyone to care for them except they were living in our home. So the presents were brought to us, and we could give them to the children. But when the children are out of foster care, they are not on the angel tree anymore.
Speaker 1:And so that stopped with adoption. And so Christmas is very difficult for six children while we are trying to provide for their other special needs and with everything going on. So Mother's Day is so at the bottom of that and not even a priority. The husband is so overwhelmed. He's doing much better now, by the way.
Speaker 1:We can talk with him about that, what that's like to start feeling better and and, have some new medications, and he's continued therapy over the phone, video sessions on the phone through the pandemic. And so he's feeling a little better, but, just caring for the children day to day is so overwhelming that doing something extra on top of that is really hard. We did call his parents to wish his mother a happy Mother's Day, and I made sure that they called their biological parents to wish their biological mothers happy Mother's Day. And so for me, that is the that was meaningful. And wanting to honor them where they came from, both for the children's sake and for their mother's sake, that was meaningful enough for me.
Speaker 1:So that's really the only thing we did for Mother's Day was to contact their biological mothers and, the husband's mother. But even then, they were singing them a little song that we helped them learn. So I'm not sure if they even realized it was Mother's Day. We talked to two people on the phone when our daughter, who is very sick, wanted to call them, And they both mentioned Mother's Day, but our daughter's only four. Well, she's five now.
Speaker 1:And so she didn't understand what they were referencing and no one else picked up on it. So we just didn't have Mother's Day. Usually Mother's Day we are able to skip church and that's how we celebrate it and so really it's just a different thing, between how our experiences were growing up and with our own mother being deceased and the complications of that because of our growing up experiences and because of our finances and because of our culture as a family, there's just no real reason for them to have thought of Mother's Day. Sometimes at school, they make something for Mother's Day and they are proud of their project, but they don't realize Mother's Day as a holiday. And, because school is out for the pandemic, they did not have any special projects or anything like that.
Speaker 1:But I got to spend the day with them and but for us, there was no special different things for different ones inside. There was a Christmas one time where someone gave us a gift bag, and inside the gift bag were not wrapped up but different things that were meaningful to different ones of us. And that was very powerful and very special experience, but that just happened the one time. And and then I can think of one other time when we were first married. We made a gift for the husband for his birthday out of puzzle pieces and sort of everyone contributed something.
Speaker 1:But that was before we had told him about the diagnosis and we've not talked to him about it since. The gift, I mean. And so I don't know if it's ever been noticed in that way. We're right now working on a gift for a friend that all of us have contributed to differently. So in that way, it's very unique, but not really as far as your question for Mother's Day and different ones of us celebrating in different ways.
Speaker 1:The next question is from Rachel who asked about the therapist and what she thought of people's letters. And here's what's fascinating about that. All of you who wrote in letters to thank the therapist for sharing her videos on the podcast, All of you asked to remain confidential. You didn't want me to pass the letters on. You just wanted to tell me what you thought about it.
Speaker 1:So that's fascinating and I know most of what people said were they were trying to honor our relationship as a separate thing and so not wanting to intrude on that. So she has not actually seen anyone's letters from the responses to the podcast where she shared her videos and I have not seen her since that time. Also, I really think that we just don't want to talk about her anymore on the podcast for a variety of reasons that it was a very difficult journey for us having to leave but the truth is that really we are new to feeling our feelings and we have felt them and it's been very messy because our feelings muscles are new to that and that's a good thing it's not a bad thing it's progress we're doing it right and we're feeling all there is to feel and all of that is good and okay But also we respect her privacy and as we make that transition, we don't want to continue to focus on that on the podcast because mostly our relationship with the podcast and with those of us trying to do therapy will be with a new therapist.
Speaker 1:And so we're just focusing on that and we start therapy with another new therapist this week. I'm very concerned she's got a little less experience except it's all in the right area. So with trauma and EMDR and things like that so I don't know what she'll think about DID or if we'll even tell her about that. I don't know if we're going to talk about it any I really so much is happening internally and there's been so many changes that I don't even know. I'm I'm really honestly surprised we're even going back to therapy, but we're trying.
Speaker 1:And I think honestly what is going to happen is that we're just going to try and talk and honor the different parts of our story in the ways that we can, but use the EMDR to integrate and associate our experiences. I'm not talking about parts with the bad version of integration. I'm talking about associating like we learned about at the ISSTD conference and talking about being aware and tolerating feelings and memories and thoughts and focus on building just this capital s self, like we talked about in a different podcast, and just letting the rest remain private. I honestly just where we are right now, and obviously, that can change at any time, but where we are right now, I'm not sure that we'll ever talk to anyone the way we talked about them before or let them talk to people the way we did before. So much has happened in the last year, and it's been so incredibly painful.
Speaker 1:It has broken that in a new way at the same time as healing it in a new way. And I really honestly am not trying to be evasive. I just don't have better words for it than that yet. Brynn says, Wow, I love your podcast. This has been such a helpful resource for me in understanding myself and learning more about dissociation in a very personal and non threatening way.
Speaker 1:Thank you for doing this incredible work. I resonate with several of your parts of your system and would like to communicate with them directly. Is there a way to write to different people? Thank you again for doing the work you are doing. Brynn, you can write to anyone you want in the same way you wrote this, just on the System Speak website, and we will respond to them that way.
Speaker 1:Barbara says, I just got done listening to your latest podcast. I want to thank you for protecting them. I want to also remind you that Pollyanna is real. I am real, and I have been called that several times through my rose colored glasses life. I won't apologize for the storm I avoided just as you should never apologize for being angry against the storm you are stuck in.
Speaker 1:Both of us matter. One no more important than the other, even if on polar opposite ends. I may be a lot of things in life ignorant, distracted, selfish, but I'm very real. And I was wrong to live avoiding those storms you and so many others like you had to endure. My heart goes out for you with as much energy as I'm guessing it requires to harden yours.
Speaker 1:I don't think my heart is hard. I don't I'm I'm not sure what we did. I don't know what that means. If you're triggering that little piece, I don't I'm not sure what it's referencing about my heart being hard. I don't think I don't think my heart is hard.
Speaker 1:I'm a fairly nice person Most of the time, life does suck, and I don't need to explain to you the whys. Our paradigms are different, and the more I listened, the more tears I cried. It feels like our systems are parallel in a lot of ways. You representing those very people that I couldn't look at, not because I was afraid of you, but because I was afraid of the circumstances you had to go through to become you. And when do I do that?
Speaker 1:I think of things you don't want to hear, so I get stuck between wanting to let you know, but then remembering how good things can quickly feel wrong to you. And that is your truth, and that is okay. Remembering how good things can quickly feel. I'm not sure what it means. I feel I'm I'm not sure what that means.
Speaker 1:I podcasted with you all last night. I remember being, oh, I know who this is now. I remember being tongue tied, having others wanting to speak but quieting. We had a thousand thoughts going through our heads but struggled to formulate words and explain to state clearly what each of our truths were at the same time. Why?
Speaker 1:Because in meeting other systems, especially those that feel like us, I am meeting we. I know of you because we have one. I would venture to guess all systems have one. I am so sorry I avoided it for so long. Thank you for helping me see it now.
Speaker 1:While thank yous don't undo the difficult things you went through, you go through, I pray moving forward some of the burden you bear eases however that looks or needs to be for your system. I pray for systems that shame releases its ugly grip to the power of pride.
Speaker 2:Today, I
Speaker 1:had a doctor's appointment. I've worked with her for years, and she is the one who prescribed my medicine. She observed how much more open I was. She told me that today, for the first time that she can remember, I, with ease, talked about what DID is for us, for me. She said I always held back, and she appreciated what we were giving her, part of ourselves, really.
Speaker 1:You do that for people, systems speak. You give others freedom to release themselves from the very walls you need to create for yourselves individually or as a team. And those were the tears I was crying about when writing this. All I can do is continue to send you who wants it, mad respect and hope for your overall well-being. Oh, I think that she doesn't mean my heart is hard.
Speaker 1:I think she's talking about the walls we're building, but we're building walls for safety and building walls for holding that self together. I know we've not expressed it well, and it's come in the middle of a lot of big feelings, but it's really a good thing. And we are wanting to feel what we feel and know what we know. Finally, we have a phrase for that because Christine Forner taught it to us and have, for the first time in just recent months, had a bit of a breakthrough of an experience of a capital s kind of self and more awareness of that and wanting to hold on to that and to tolerate that more in different ways. But it requires adapting to functioning in a different way in order to hold all of those parts and awareness and co consciousness in different ways and to protect from things that pull us away from that.
Speaker 1:And that at times means being pretty fierce. And I don't mean like just protectors or things like that. I mean fiercely advocating for staying true to what we feel and what we know because what we feel is true even when we don't yet know what we know. And learning to know what we know and feel what we feel about it at the same time is really hard work and it's really changed everything about how we function as a system and I know we're still being blurry about it but only because I don't have good words for it yet. But I do apologize that for right now there is so much that's a bit messy.
Speaker 1:But we are trying and, grateful for your help, and, we'll continue to update you as we're able. Crystal says, just listen to the very real podcast of I'm back. Yeah. I think that's what the other one was about as well. She says, thank you for your process, your honesty, just being real with where you're at.
Speaker 1:Part of honoring yourself and healing is just being where you're at, even if it isn't what everyone else wants to see. People want us to be all better, but we may never be all better, and at some point, that has to be enough. I also know that sometimes systems have to restructure to get through life and the present and with the resources that you have. Sometimes for me, when I don't have the right therapy, we had to just be an I in order to survive. We are now working with a good therapist and able to be a we again, but when working and transitioning therapists, a lot of us had to go away.
Speaker 1:I hope you can feel we honor wherever you are at with whatever you are able to at the time. I have no idea how you all do all that you do. It's okay to be wherever or whoever or however many you are, whether that is one or a thousand. This is not an easy road. We're all going through our own journey, both alone and together, Weird how those both can be true.
Speaker 1:People who haven't been through the stuff we've been through can't get it, can't get the need to be frustrated and not okay and just want to be better, and why does it have to be so much work? Hope you are able to continue to honor your experience. My hummus, of all foods, had a label that said, hope. It's okay to not be okay, and being a work in progress is progress. Thank you so much for that.
Speaker 1:That's really all that I was trying to say. You really gave me lots of good words for it. And to the other email, when I talked about Pollyanna, I meant you can't. It is a toxic thing. It is a gaslighting thing to ignore what is hard and bad.
Speaker 1:What you can do is acknowledge what is hard and bad and feel it and let it go and choose the good. You always have the power to choose. The therapist taught us that in the beginning. You can choose the good, and we are choosing the good, but we go through the difficulty to get there. And we can't choose the good without seeing how fully the bad is because otherwise it's not a choice.
Speaker 1:You can't only choose good if you don't have bad as an option. If you don't see the hard and see the ugliness and see the bitterness and see the sour, you cannot taste the sweet. You cannot feel what is right. You cannot feel what is good. There has to be options for there to be a choice.
Speaker 1:And so when I said that about Pollyanna, that's what I meant, was to ignore all that is good and all that is bad is not healthy or right or real. It's only a part of what's real. So you can be real, but that choice is not real. It's like boundaries with people who only say yes and never say no. Their yes is not real because they can't say no.
Speaker 1:It's why one liners are not comfortable if you tell them to everybody because they're not just for you. It's why it feels uncomfortable when you find out that someone has told you something you thought was special just for you, but then you find out they've said it to everybody. All of those things are ruptures to your own development, ruptures to your own self, ruptures to who you are and who you're trying to be and the team that you've brought with you inside. Thank you, Crystal, for helping me find some words. Graham says, thank you all again for your work with this podcast.
Speaker 1:With restrictions on travel, I don't get to listen as often but caught up with most. I may be responsible for a few of your Australian subscribers because I mention it often in my training on complex trauma. Well, thank you for that, Graham. Amy says, Good afternoon. I've enjoyed your podcast for a long time.
Speaker 1:I like when you know who's speaking on a particular episode. I feel like I've come to recognize several of you by your voice, laugh, accent, but recent episodes don't mention who is out that day. It's because I've not told you, have I? In particular, in a couple of recent episodes, it sounds like there's someone new. I hear so of a British accent.
Speaker 1:I so very much don't want to be invasive or rude. I'm still learning how to interact with those with DID. I'm just curious. So, yes, there's a couple things. One, I'm not meaning to have an accent, and I'm sorry, and I'm working on it.
Speaker 1:I will get it fixed. It's because I'm new to these cochlear implants, and my speech will catch up. It will settle down. I'm working on it, and it's a bit embarrassing that you can tell it. But it's about that, not an intentional accent.
Speaker 1:I'm just I'm just getting my speech caught up, but I will fix it. I will fix it, and we will smooth things out because for right now, we're not sharing that information because it has been abused. And that's unfortunate for those who are needing the help, which is why we were trying to speak up in the first place and start the podcast. But when safety is a concern, that always comes first. So my apologies, but that is the simple explanation I can give for now.
Speaker 1:But thank you, Amy, for being supportive, for seeing us clearly, and for being aware of what's going on and so kind to check on us. I will work on that and do a better job because I need to be much more fluid and much more covert and much more under the radar than that. So my apologies. Abigail says, I would like to contribute to your family. You've brought a great deal of value to my life.
Speaker 1:I'm technology challenged and can't find where to subscribe. No rush. Hope you are as well as you can be. You can subscribe to the podcast on the website SystemSpeak.org. There's a donation button there, and you can either do a one time donation or a subscription monthly donation.
Speaker 1:And that's very kind of you, Abigail. Thank you for your support. Jackie asks, we just wanted to hear from you. We appreciate the new interviews that are coming up and all the discussion about ISSDD, but we also miss hearing from you and wanted to be sure that you and your family are well. Can you briefly update us just to let us know how you're doing during the pandemic?
Speaker 1:That's very kind. We are doing as well as we can. We are now in week fourteen of quarantine since our trip to California and with our family for our daughter who's waiting on surgery. In our area, we have entered phase two of restrictions being lifted. So many things are open now and people are out and about more.
Speaker 1:Some of them are wearing masks. Some of them are not. Our family is choosing to remain in quarantine because of our daughter who we are still waiting on for surgery to happen. And they said she would not live to this summer, but school is out and she is still with us. So we are grateful for that.
Speaker 1:And, we are also going twice a week to pick up food for their children to have breakfast and lunch at school. But we pick it up in a bag driving by for a no contact delivery and, we wear mask for that. Other than that, we have not left our home and are not leaving our home. We were able during some of the quarantine to take walks in the park when no one else was there just to let the children out and to let them play and to move a little bit in the sunshine, which is good for all of us. But since the restrictions have begun to lift, it's too busy there and not everyone is respecting physical distancing.
Speaker 1:And so it's not really safe for us to go there at this time. We are not leaving our yard really now, mostly just only playing in the backyard or on the patio deck, on the deck in the back, where it is safe. And the neighbors and our family are still taking turns and rotating the children in the backyard so all the children can be safe. Our friend did send us a sprinkler so the children have gone to play in the water because the pools are not open. And so as summer comes, they've been able to play in the water a little bit.
Speaker 1:We have remained in touch with the husband's family through phone calls and letters as much as we can. We send letters and call his parents every week. They are about three hours away from us, which with our children is too far to drive there safely without stopping, and we cannot until after our daughter has surgery. His family, we have called a little bit. My family is not really in contact.
Speaker 1:There's there's nobody there. So, that's really the extent of our contacts other than maybe once or twice every other week or so. Someone has dropped something off for the children or a bit of food, which has absolutely been helpful. Another friend just sent us a box of paper towels and toilet tissue and trash bags and some necessities like that, which was very kind of her. And so we are just doing our best in quarantine.
Speaker 1:We are continuing to work online, both the husband and myself. I have quit two jobs because I don't know how to do them anymore and cannot do them anymore. And so that has shifted some things, but but we are both still working many hours and doing our best to provide for ourselves during the pandemic. We did hear from our landlords that of the home that we rent because we sold our house to pay for the our daughter's medical bills. And so the home where we are living now is, not ours.
Speaker 1:We are renting it, and they let us live here at half price because of our children. And so which really is a miracle to our family. But they, have sent us a letter that they are going to let us live here another year. And so we are very grateful because we were very concerned about that and worried about what would happen to our family while we were still waiting on surgery. We have to live here close to the hospital while our daughter is finishing these surgeries and so we cannot go back to Oklahoma until this last surgery happens, which we are still waiting on.
Speaker 1:So we are grateful that we have a home and that we 've been able to make sure the children have what they need. They've grown a lot. The older children are entering middle school next fall, whether school opens or not. And so they have already this summer, just in these few weeks, have jumped two sizes in their clothing. And the little ones are now becoming the big kids, and there's a lot of changes for everybody inside and out and a lot of triggers developmentally for us that we can maybe talk about in another podcast or in therapy sometime.
Speaker 1:We'll have to address because it's becoming a significant issue. But as far as the pandemic itself, we are healthy and well, and we're continuing to take precautions and doing the things we can to provide for each other. Our city this week, like many other cities across America, have had protests for what has happened with excessive force with the police. And we've had several conversations with our own children about these issues already before this week, but especially as the protests have started. Because we have children with brown skin, we have children with disabilities, we have children who cannot hear, we have children who cannot raise their arms, we have children who cannot follow directions because of autism.
Speaker 1:So between having brown skin and being deaf or between being overstimulated by noise and not able to respond to police directions even though he's got white skin And my other son with cerebral palsy who cannot lift his arms above his head if he were told to do so, we've talked about how do you handle that and what happens and what do you do and what do you not do. We've always talked to them about this from the beginning, and we continue to learn with them. And it is a significant issue absolutely for our friends and we hold them in our hearts. We are absolutely heartbroken by all these things that have happened that we have watched. About three years ago, there was an officer involved shooting near our home actually in in Oklahoma and it was on national news.
Speaker 1:And so at that time, the children were only in third grade, the older ones. The younger ones were just three. And at that time, we talked with them about racial issues and privilege and prejudice and racism and oppression and different things. And all along since adopting them, we have tried to talk about these things as it comes up for them as well as we learn for ourselves, always learning because we cannot know what we do not know and it's important to continue to educate ourselves. We absolutely recommend the book White Fragility if you've not read it yet and it's really important because you can say I'm not racist when when you've not been aware of all the layers that you're not aware.
Speaker 1:So in that way, it feels very much like dissociation in that we're dissociated from what we don't know. We can't know what we don't know in those ways, and we've got to learn. And even though we've got little children, it absolutely impacts them. Even in the smallest ways, like, for example, they don't have crayons that can color the color of their skin. Like, did you ever think about that?
Speaker 1:Did you ever stop and realize that you can't give a brown child a piece of paper and a box of crayons and say, here, color yourself. They can't do it. They don't have that crayon. We had to buy a special multicultural pack of crayons and markers and colored pencils that had different shades of brown in them for our daughters to be able to color themselves in on paper for school and for projects and just just a hundred ways that you don't even realize that you never think about. It's it's so so important, and that's an entirely different podcast, but that's absolutely part of the update for the pandemic for this week, that that's part of what's going on.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, there are concerns with how people are if they're wearing masks or not so that more people don't get sick from gathering and that puts more people at risk. But the protests, what we have seen here, and I'm not speaking for everybody I'm only speaking my limited experience of what I've seen here in Kansas City thus far at the time of the recording in this podcast the protests during the day have been very very peaceful but what has happened is that at night people who are intoxicated and using substances and also who are from out of town like the arrests show that they are not from people from here. They are anarchists and people from white extreme extremist groups who want to cause problems and cause fighting. And they are coming and starting the fighting by throwing bricks and frozen water bottles and rocks from the back of the crowd so that it looks like the protesters are starting riots. But here at least in the first week, it has not been the protesters who were doing this.
Speaker 1:It was other people doing this and making them look bad and that is just more of the oppression. It's so frustrating because even those who are protesting have such big feelings in every right. I mean, the protesters have got plenty to be angry about. So much to be angry about. Whole experience of how things have changed shape and still remained a problem and how systemic it is and all of this.
Speaker 1:They've got plenty to be angry about. So the people who are doing this, here at least, are stealing the right and stealing the modality from them, which is more oppression, from them getting to express themselves their own way, the way they want to express their anger. They have a right to choose for themselves what that looks like and how to do it safely and effectively or not. And so the people who are hijacking the protests are really being extra cruel in that way and it's unfair and obviously loses the message of what the other people were trying to say. But it's an escalating concern very near where we are.
Speaker 1:In fact, when we went to the hospital for checking up on that and we were in the hospital rooms, we could see it from the street below. And so it's very close and very concerning, we are being safe and caring for the children. We have in the past taken the children to different protests for them to learn that experience, but we do not take them at night or when it's not safe. And so that really has shifted from what our pandemic experience was even a week ago. But as far as our own health, we are thus far well.
Speaker 1:I'm continuing to wait on news for our daughter but she is not doing well and deteriorating and that is just concerning and a difficult thing as we wait for that but there's nothing we can do. We are just waiting and so we will certainly give an update on that when we know anything. This question comes from Lisa who wants to know, is the person that we're listening to someone who is new to the system or new to the timeline or just new to the podcast? I loved this question because it was a wonderful way to phrase it. Am I new to the system as a whole like a new alter?
Speaker 1:And I love the question because sometimes when there are new alters, they may be new to the host but have already been there a long time. Or they may be new to friends who are just meeting them but have already been in the system always. Or maybe someone who really is new to the system absolutely has just showed up for whatever stressors or traumas or whatever is going on. There are lots of different things. I don't know how that works for everybody else or for different systems, but what I'm saying is that our focus for right now in this season as far as what we're able to share on the podcast is that we very much want to just have a consistent presentation, which obviously hasn't worked because you all have picked up on it, but I will work on that time.
Speaker 1:But it's a hard thing to be this vulnerable and showing on the podcast, but with several of us needing to protect for different reasons and needing to keep things safe, and I don't yet know what that's going to look like moving forward. I honestly don't. I can tell you that for the month of June, we have the podcast about the ISSTD set up and already scheduled. I can tell you that we have podcast episodes the first Monday of the month all the way through the rest of the year is a clinical guest and that those have been recorded and edited and are waiting. So you will have that at least and in the meantime we will do our best and catch up on the other side with what we're able to share, when we're able to share.
Speaker 1:But right now we are just doing our best and there's a lot going on and that is really all I can say about it both internally and externally. Sam says how have you been able to maintain connections while during the pandemic? Well we've not, not inside or outside except that's not true. We have sent a lot of mail. Some people invested in toilet paper.
Speaker 1:We invested in postage stamps and we have tried to maintain connection as we can because everyone's circumstances have changed. We have not been able to be in touch as much with our friends on the phone because all of us are caring for children as well and that is like we just cannot be present with the children and also on our phone And so that has decreased significantly and that has been very difficult and was a hard adjustment of not being as in touch and fluid in that way because usually we were able to keep company with each other mostly throughout the entire day. Other changes were that we have mostly had to keep the extra Facebook pages down because we cannot manage the same thing. We cannot be present managing that and putting energy into that while also caring well for so many children with such high needs and we are not really on any social media at all other than those pages. Like our personal Facebook we are not on very often at all and we don't have any other accounts on social media for anything.
Speaker 1:And then as far as therapy we've shared already, we had already left the therapist and I know that now was good timing for all of this going on because I don't know how I would have handled it if I had not made the choice. If it had been made for me because of the pandemic, it would have been too much for me, I think. And I don't know how that would have worked. And it's funny that I made I talked with the friends on the group podcast. I talked about how now everyone can see her online and I cannot, except it's really not about that.
Speaker 1:I was just teasing about that that it's a funny dynamic that's happening because everyone is on telehealth now, and she was not before but that's not the reason I stopped. I stopped because I had to spend the time with the children and I could not pay for those sessions when I had insurance here in Kansas and so those truths still remain and have nothing to do with the therapist other than that was a hard thing to do but it was the right decision for our family. So even in the context of the pandemic that was the right choice and we stand by the right choice but it is so difficult to process it over and over and over again because of those same things about different parts having different questions or trying to reassure that or silence or just put it to rest and let it go. And then the connections through the podcast as people have continued to write we have been able to continue responding to them. We took about two months off of the podcast but because we had so much scheduled out ahead of time, then only about two weeks were missed as far as airtime.
Speaker 1:So we had a solid break of self care and restructuring time before trying to work on the podcast again. And now we've done we've got several ready to go and scheduled up for another couple months so we can take some more time off and care for ourselves and our family while we wait for surgery with our daughter and are just really having to focus on maintaining connections through those who are responsive and those who are able to support us in those ways. It's made very clear to us who is responsive and who is not because, for example, as school was finishing with our children, the older ones were supposed to be having meetings about transitioning to middle school. But because of the pandemic, they could not have that. So they had Zoom meetings and on the Zoom meetings, they talked to them about friendships and relationships and one of the things that they talked to them about was how you don't just keep pouring yourself out and giving pieces of yourself away to people who do not treat them safely, which I knew, but also to people who are not responsive and give you the same thing back, which I had not thought about.
Speaker 1:And so I felt a bit silly, like putting so much out, like into the notebooks, for example, or trying so hard with some people that I thought, oh, I really want to care well about them because I know that they are a good person. They may be a very good person, but not interested in reciprocating that relationship with you, even in a friendship setting. And so I've been learning social skills with the children just as much as they are. And at the same time the relationships that are responsive and are healthy have become much stronger even though it's been very difficult because of the shutting down internally and the restructuring that's going on. It's been very hard to navigate that and remain connected because you can't.
Speaker 1:When connection goes up, dissociation goes down. When dissociation goes up, connection goes down. We learned this from the ISSTD conference just now, and it really gave us a framework to know how to navigate that and how to resolve some of these circles we were going in and spinning around. So we still don't have good words to describe it, and even trying to answer emails today has been very difficult. And I know it's not all entirely coherent or as fluid as we need it to be or what, but it's where we're at.
Speaker 1:And so we're just putting it out there vulnerably and doing our best. And when we get better words and are able to express ourselves more clearly, then we will. Thank you for your questions. Thank you for your continued support. Thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoy through the month of June in learning some of the things that we learned from the ISSTD conference recently.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. 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.systemsbeat.com.
Speaker 1:We'll see you there.