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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 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 1:It's been a crazy couple of weeks, and I don't even know how to tell you what all happened. The children came for Thanksgiving, and it was really good to see them and also hard to say goodbye. And at the very end of their visit, my tooth exploded. And I spent a week waiting on oral surgery to be arranged and in extreme pain, barely being able to eat or drink anything. It was awful and gave me new compassion for what my daughter goes through even though that's not at all the same thing.
Speaker 1:But I did get my surgery, slept through a long weekend, and then somehow managed to fight my way back to work, which was difficult and exhausting because I was in a great deal of pain after they pulled my tooth. They gave me prescription narcotics, but I never went to pick them up, and I didn't take any. My mother struggled with pain pills, and they made her really mean. So I'm scared of them now for myself. And, also, my body doesn't want them.
Speaker 1:It makes me nauseous and itchy. It's like my whole body knows this is not good. Danger. Danger. My neurological system on alert and not even letting me accept the pills at all.
Speaker 1:I couldn't. But that meant enduring the pain of it, alternating Advil and Tylenol with ice packs all the time, which was also hard because everything was so tender. It was a really rough week. The highlight, however, came at the end of the week. Just as I was feeling better enough that there was some relief.
Speaker 1:But while I was still in pain, still having to rinse my mouth and still on soft foods, which is better than no foods, the good thing that happened was my passport came. I had ordered a whole new one because of my name change finally settled. I've ordered passports for all the children as well. I think that's what Jean Marc was talking about at the airport, but I literally couldn't understand any of it. So if you didn't listen to it either, it's fine.
Speaker 1:That doesn't hurt my feelings. It was hard for me to understand, but felt really important, so I left it. It's not that I have specific plans for anything. It's more that I don't wanna be complicit. If something happens or there's an emergency, I don't wanna say that I couldn't help because I didn't fill out the paperwork.
Speaker 1:So since the election, it's felt important to have our papers in order for all kinds of reasons. I hope they never need them or that they get to go on cool trips as they grow. But regardless, it was important for me to get their passports ready, and I'm still waiting for them to arrive. But mine came. I've done immigration before and also just traveled on visas, work visas, tourist visas.
Speaker 1:It's how you get around the world. But if me or my children are not gonna be safe, our options are limited. I can't do a student visa anywhere because I'm not a student anymore. But to get a work visa, you have to have a job, and laws have changed now. Having to register before you can even fly to England or anywhere in the EU, they're pacing things since the election.
Speaker 1:People are flocking there, flooding there. I don't know the right word, but they're trying to slow the system down. So even Canada passed a law that anyone immigrating has to pass an English test, even if English is their home country language. So to apply for express entry, which doesn't guarantee that I'll be selected, There's two things I have to do first before we can even fill out that paperwork. One is the WES, which is something like worldwide education something.
Speaker 1:But basically, they take all of our educational transcripts and compare them against standards in the world and countries specifically to see what is equivalent and what qualifies in another country. So that assessment and the report of that assessment, I have to have done before I can get a job in another country. And now also the English test. That score is required to be able to fill out the express entry paperwork. So they were two things I could do before even looking at what my options are.
Speaker 1:So I still don't have a plan. But I also can't be complicit and not jump through the hoops to be prepared and ready if I need to keep my children safe. Maybe that sounds paranoid to some. But when your ancestry comes from people of forced migration, you know to be ready. When you or your children are included in targeted populations, you have to be ready.
Speaker 1:So it's sad and tragic, even just the contention of it all. And I don't mean provoking politics. I just mean my own experience with trauma, even if it's historical trauma. What happened to my grandparents and their grandparents? Not just me today, Not just right now.
Speaker 1:And also, those steps of the West and the English test, I couldn't even do them until my passport came. Because to do them, you have to have the passport number and a copy of your passport. So it's like even though I don't have specific plans, working backwards in the process the way it works, I still had to do the steps to be ready, to qualify, to even ask to do the thing, to make any plans. So there with my mouth still hurting, my face still broken, my passport came, which meant it was time for the next steps. The West piece was easy.
Speaker 1:I just had to do an online registration, get my account set up, request my transcripts, and have them sent. That part was not difficult. The English test is more tricky. The English test is called the IELTS. I think it stands for International English Language Test Standards or something like that.
Speaker 1:But the IELTS, the only places close to me, even close to me to take it were Seattle, Salt Lake, or Denver. I think also a place in California, but they didn't have any available dates. We've just started winter here. So there was no way I could drive to Denver or Salt Lake. Which left Seattle?
Speaker 1:From where I live, Seattle is a day's drive, a long drive, but not too difficult. And also with winter, that feels risky. And also, I got my passport on a Wednesday. Did my paperwork for the WES and the test on Thursday and found out on Friday that the test was Saturday. So there wasn't any time to plan for a road trip, just a last minute flight.
Speaker 1:And because it was so close, it was a direct flight and only two hours. So in some ways, super easy, but also last minute, and I don't have the resources for all that. It was an excellent opportunity for anxiety. But I scrambled and I found a ticket on sale. And I flew by Alaska Airlines to Seattle.
Speaker 1:It was cold, a rainy flight in the dark, but I got there. And there are lots of people I know in the area actually and others who could have come to meet me if we had had any notice at all. But it was all so sudden and so fast and so quick, and we were scrambling. Mars from the community and fiance took me to lunch and gave me a ride. And we got to spend time together talking, and it was lovely.
Speaker 1:It's an example. I hadn't seen them since the symposium, not in person. And it was a reminder of how isolated I am sometimes when I don't leave my house. And a two hour flight seems simple, even if also still privileged. But it made me miss lots of people in the community and made me excited to be back in groups and have new plans for the new year, including helping myself be more connected.
Speaker 1:I think that's part of my healing and part of my recovery. I think it's what bridges the gap from being alone in the closet to entering into healthy relationships in the outside world where I can be connected to me and also to others. That takes practice, and I can't do it if I don't try. We were traveling to get back to the hotel, and traffic is terrible. People in Seattle know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I'm not from Seattle, but now I know what I mean. That was wild traffic. And, also, it gave us more opportunity to connect. We got to pull over to a little diner place, a coffee shop, and meet with our friend Raya, who was also nearby. And it was so good to connect with them in person.
Speaker 1:We hadn't seen them in person since the Seattle meetup over a year ago. And we are super proud of them because they just graduated school as well. So it was special. Even if also traffic is terrible in Seattle during the daytime anyway. My hotel room was cozy, and today is the day of the test.
Speaker 1:There's three parts in the morning, reading, writing, and listening. I'm most anxious about listening. I don't know how that works when you can't hear. I mean, I have my cochlear implants, and I will use them. But I don't do well with accents, And there are different English accents on the test.
Speaker 1:I also can't use headphones, and I emailed them to say that because they're supposed to be headphones for the test. So I don't know how it will work if I can't do it and they're not replying to me about accommodations. And I don't know what accommodations you can have when it's literally a test about capacity. So I'm a little anxious about it. In the afternoon, there's a fourth section, which is an interview with a person for the speaking portion of the test.
Speaker 1:I wish I could just turn in the podcast that everyone knows I can speak so much. Maybe I talk too much sometimes. It's a far cry from being mute like I was as a child. Selective mutism, it says on my paperwork. Because I didn't talk in high school.
Speaker 1:I've made up for lost time now. As soon as the test is done, I will fly home. Literally, just a quick trip here for the test. And I'll go back to my world having missed out on a weekend going straight back into work after the chaos of my tooth and this English test and not knowing at all what the future holds and understanding that I can neither control it nor predict it. And also, I just wanna be able to tell my kids I did all the things I could do even if nothing else changes.
Speaker 1:Not just this weekend, but reconnecting to my heritage on both sides from things that happened in World War two and things that happened to native peoples and learning how much that impacts me in ways I didn't know and how the disconnect from my own heritage is part of deprivation and trauma. Historically, collectively, inside of me. Intergenerational trauma dramas passed down to me who didn't even ask to be born. There's a joke that my mother always made about how I didn't want to be born because I came so late after my due date. And every time she told the joke.
Speaker 1:I thought to myself, I don't think I wanted to be born because I think I knew what I was getting into. We don't always know what we're getting into. And, obviously, as an infant, I could not change what I was born into. That's hard for me to say out loud because for a long time, with shiny, happy, and LDS theology, the teaching was that I got what I deserved. So some people deserved more, and I deserved less than them, and others deserved less than me.
Speaker 1:And that's how modern casts were explained away. Justified, excused. I think it's something I struggle with still sometimes, getting into things that I don't mean to even while trying my best. Like, who wakes up one day and says, hey. I'm flying to Seattle tomorrow to take a test.
Speaker 1:Normal people don't do that. And at least this time, I knew it was happening, and I told my therapist. And I got here, my luggage had clothes in it, not just potatoes. Although it also had sack lunches, a V eight, and peanut butter sandwiches squeezed in in between my pajamas and my clothes. So maybe that's evidence of progress even if I still get myself into messes while doing my best to stay safe.
Speaker 1:And maybe part of my healing isn't just fewer messes, but also knowing how to get out of them. Because sometimes it's right to run. Sometimes it's right to leave. 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.
Speaker 1:Connection brings healing.