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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:Okay. So we could call it switching topics. So we've talked a few times about EMDR, which I believe is eye movement dumpy dump roopty roop.
Speaker 1:Desensitization and reprocessing.
Speaker 3:That's what I said.
Speaker 1:I would be having right now if the children were not asleep. That was amazing. That was amazing. Uh-huh. How's that working for you?
Speaker 3:Clearly well. So this is something that I've been doing with my therapist, and she has this little box, like a small like the size of a small m p three player. And there are two chords that come out of it. One goes to headphones, and one goes to these two little plastic paddles that I hold in my hands. They're about maybe the size of a quarter.
Speaker 3:They're pretty small.
Speaker 2:See, when you say paddle, to me, that's a whole triggering image.
Speaker 3:Oh, That's
Speaker 2:different thing.
Speaker 3:So these little little flat plastic things.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I haven't seen them.
Speaker 3:They're like I mean, they're like dongles.
Speaker 1:That's does not sound any better. I used to have a I used to have a dongle for work, and they're
Speaker 3:shaped kinda the same.
Speaker 1:Don't you work with a dongle? That's gonna be the name of the podcast right there.
Speaker 3:Like you're laughing at my dongle.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, I should have stopped. We were doing fine. It was really good. Okay. I don't even know how to picture this.
Speaker 1:You're gonna have to try again.
Speaker 3:So there's a little kind of oval shaped ish plastic thing that I hold in each hand.
Speaker 2:How big is it? It's like the size of your thumb? Yeah. Or the whole hand?
Speaker 3:I'd say about the size of my thumb, maybe smaller. And I just hold it in my hand.
Speaker 2:Okay. Like in your palm?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:One in each hand or just
Speaker 3:One in each hand. Yep.
Speaker 2:So like your hands are fisted with this thing in it? Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 3:And then when she turns on the device
Speaker 2:Oh, we could call it switching dongles.
Speaker 3:Switching dongles. There you go.
Speaker 2:Okay. Sorry.
Speaker 3:When There's so many things
Speaker 1:happening in my brain right now.
Speaker 2:Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.
Speaker 3:I'll just point out you're the one who wanted to continue.
Speaker 2:It was way too sappy. We had to come full circle and clear
Speaker 1:things up.
Speaker 3:We've got all the sap out now. So
Speaker 1:Then what happens?
Speaker 3:She turns on the little box
Speaker 2:and Like with a button?
Speaker 3:Yeah. A little sliding switch. And it starts going beep, beep, beep.
Speaker 2:Wait. You hear this or see it?
Speaker 3:I hear it. And it beeps in the right ear, then the left ear, then the right ear, then the left ear.
Speaker 2:So like earbuds or headphones?
Speaker 3:Headphones. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's not something I could do?
Speaker 3:If we found the little piece that could connect your processors to a headphone jack, you could probably imagine. I guess I don't actually know. Can you hear in stereo with it or just mono?
Speaker 1:Well, how the fly and flip am I supposed to know that? I don't even know what that means.
Speaker 3:Does your Bluetooth connect to just one side or to both sides?
Speaker 2:Right now, these processors? Yeah. Just one.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay. So it may not it may not work for you with the sound part. But also the paddles vibrate at the same time that you hear the buzz on the the beep on the right side, the the little disc you're holding buzzes at the same time.
Speaker 2:Only one of them or both of them?
Speaker 3:On the same side that the beep is happening, there's a little buzz in the thing you're holding.
Speaker 2:Vibrate in your hand?
Speaker 3:Yes. The vibrating Oh
Speaker 1:my goodness. You did not just say that.
Speaker 2:I can't even. You've been a bachelor for too long.
Speaker 3:Truth.
Speaker 2:That was a really long trip. I missed you.
Speaker 3:I missed you too.
Speaker 2:Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. You're vibrating dongle.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I have a vibrating dongle in each hand.
Speaker 1:Oh, make it stop. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 1:No. No. No.
Speaker 3:No. So she'll give me some sort of thing to think about, a question or like exploring a memory or if there's a particular experience that has been triggering lately or that I've been struggling with, she'll ask me to think about that and see if there's a particular feeling or memory or something that comes up. And we'll take, like, thirty seconds or something as I just feel the alternating vibration and the alternating sound. And the sound and vibration is supposed to trigger some of the same parts of the brain as REM sleep.
Speaker 2:We would do a better podcast if we would both sleep first.
Speaker 3:I don't know. I I think it's pretty entertaining as it is.
Speaker 2:Okay. I'm sorry I interrupted. There's like 10 things happening at the same time in my head right now, so okay.
Speaker 3:It's like a party in there. Is it a housewarming party?
Speaker 2:For a tree house? Yeah. Oh my goodness. Okay. Get your glowworm on.
Speaker 2:Wait. So you hear it
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it vibrates
Speaker 3:At the same time.
Speaker 2:On the same time on the same side.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:And she can actually control can control the speed at which it happens What? And the volume at which it happens, the intensity of the vibration.
Speaker 2:How does she know how to do that? Like, went to school for that?
Speaker 3:Also, are two knobs on the box that she can turn.
Speaker 2:But she so she works this little machine.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I'm sure she said training. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, she had to, like, you can't just get that on eBay.
Speaker 3:Well, you probably could.
Speaker 2:I said eBay, like it's 1990 what?
Speaker 3:Welcome to the twentieth century.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness. I'm just gonna let you talk. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's that's kind of how the process has worked as we discuss, and then I sort of close my eyes and let my mind go as as I have this alternating stimulus. And then she turns it off and we talk a little bit more, and then she turns it back on with another prompt. It's been interesting. It's like it's not it feels like it just kind of opens things up a bit more in my head, like allows the thoughts to connect a little bit more clearly with a little more insight. And for example, I was struggling with some writer's block.
Speaker 3:I had a lot of anxiety as I was trying to write. And so we did a session where we talked about that and the reasons why that was so hard for me. And I learned through the experience that part of it was I was grieving the loss of a relationship with a longtime collaborator that I had had and that I had never realized the extent to which I was mourning that loss. And so we talked about that. And after I finished my session, I actually went right to the car and texted this collaborator to talk to him about how much I missed our collaboration and how I understand that it's not the time for us to be working together at at the moment, but but how much I appreciated him and missed him.
Speaker 3:And I've really been able to to write since then. It it made a big difference.
Speaker 2:You've been pretty prolific, like
Speaker 3:Relatively speaking.
Speaker 2:As much as we can contain the children so that you're actually able to physically sit down and write. Yeah. That's amazing. So you feel like it was a positive thing for you?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Without a doubt.
Speaker 2:Did you think it was scary? No. It wasn't scary No. At all?
Speaker 3:No. But also, I'm very comfortable with living inside my imagination. And even though I've had my own heartbreaks in my life and traumas, I'm not really scared to go look at them. So if I was less comfortable going inside of myself, then I can understand how it might be scary. But for me, it was it was good.
Speaker 2:Fascinating. We saw her today, the new therapist.
Speaker 3:Yep. Did you do any EMDR?
Speaker 2:No. Some
Speaker 3:doop de doop roop de roop?
Speaker 1:No. We did not.
Speaker 2:We talked about the children. We didn't even have to talk about us.
Speaker 3:That's that's not displacement. What's that? Dis distraction? No. It's a different word.
Speaker 2:You are asking the wrong one.
Speaker 1:You have to give
Speaker 2:someone else a glowworm. Not my glowworm.
Speaker 3:It's true. It's not yours.
Speaker 2:Hashtag not my glowworm.
Speaker 3:But if you go look in in the kitchen in the house, you will find a plate of chocolate dipped macaroons and those are for you.
Speaker 1:What? Yeah. How'd you do that?
Speaker 3:You gotta get them before John Mark because Oh. They will be gone if he finds them.
Speaker 2:True story. That's so funny.
Speaker 3:We'll have to delete out the name though. Sorry about that.
Speaker 1:You'll
Speaker 3:have to go find them before JM does or they will be gone.
Speaker 2:I think John Mark's been on the podcast and said his name now.
Speaker 3:Oh, did he? Okay.
Speaker 2:We just did one the other actually. Because here's the thing. Do you want some gossip? Oh. Here we're talking about so many things today.
Speaker 2:This may be, like, the epic episode.
Speaker 3:Housewives of All Inside My Head.
Speaker 2:So there's like well, I'll say Emma. Okay. And m Uh-huh. Being co conscious.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is the word the therapist taught us for, I think how did she say it? Like, to being aware at the same time.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Present at the same time sometimes, which is a new thing. And the therapist says it's good, but it's kinda weird.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I can believe it.
Speaker 2:And so that's, I guess, progress and a good thing.
Speaker 3:I feel like those two would be a really good team up because they have complementary skills. Like, each one has strengths that the other one lacks.
Speaker 2:What did you mean?
Speaker 1:Like, can you give me an example?
Speaker 3:Well, if if we're talking about the
Speaker 1:We are.
Speaker 3:The people I'm thinking of. Like, one is very warm and nurturing and the other has a lot more structure.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh. That's right.
Speaker 3:Like, that's a really good complimentary set of skills. And neither one of them is mean spirited, so they are both safe to be around each other. Right? So there's some people in there who are not gonna co conscious without a fight. Right?
Speaker 2:I can't imagine.
Speaker 3:They're gonna be fighting over the steering wheel. But those two, think I think have the potential to be amazing team players. And I think they would both be less lonely knowing they could do that.
Speaker 2:That's fascinating. Well, I don't even know what to say about it. If there's like a whole what is going like a whole ripple effect to it, I guess. But here's the thing that's kind of crazy that I have noticed is that yeah. Therapy.
Speaker 2:Therapy. Therapy. Whatever. But oh,
Speaker 1:don't laugh
Speaker 3:at me.
Speaker 2:But also, really, I know what's made that possible is the safety from you and the therapist and our friends.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 2:So when you tell me that about them being safe with each other, I know that they learned that from you guys.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 2:And that's part of what, like, what I was trying to say earlier about opening up that space and creating that safety. And the Trixie thing becomes, like, what is like, from for them, for their from, like, Emma's perspective, what is safe enough that she doesn't have to rely on dissociation as much versus what is happening at the same time is that it being that safe, then people inside, people, parts, whatever. Like, we come can't come to the front more. And so it feels like right when things should be getting better, things feel like they're falling apart. And that's confusing when it feels like getting worse at the same time as it seems like we're getting better.
Speaker 3:So each individual has less control over things because there's more shifting around, is that it?
Speaker 2:Maybe kind of. I don't know. It's so new. We've done like five podcasts in a row trying to figure out words to it and explain it, and none of it's even made sense yet.
Speaker 3:So you're saying there's more changing happen?
Speaker 2:Yeah. But I mean, it's two things happening at the same time. In one layer, like, there's so much safety around us right now, which is ironic in, like, war zones and stuff. But that's how true this whole thing about relationships and connections being safe. Like, think about it.
Speaker 2:We have the therapist. We have the new therapist. We have you. We have friends. We have professional colleagues even now who know about DID and are our friends.
Speaker 2:And we've even talked about parts with the kids in appropriate ways. Like, there's all these layers of safety in a way we've never had before, and it's so locked in that in a way she, as a whole, as a system, us, are more stable than we've ever been before Yeah. And and less need of dissociating. Yeah. I'm not sure if I'm using the words right, but for dissociating as much except that at the same time, there are some who are so specific in their roles, like Doctor.
Speaker 2:E for work, for example, that that feels like part of the stability.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So does that help or does that reinforce dissociating? And how do you fix that? I don't know. It's not really a question for right now. But then at the same time, there's the layer of things are now so safe and we have so much support that the really ugly crap is coming to the surface.
Speaker 2:And I don't mean insiders, mean content. But because of that, just when she doesn't have to rely on dissociating as much, Also, she has to be more present to feel all
Speaker 3:of that. The hard stuff. Yeah. That makes sense.
Speaker 2:Do you see what I'm trying to Because it's been really hard, really hard to find words for, and we've been working for over a month to try and explain what's happening.
Speaker 3:Can I give you my reflect back to you what I what I'm thinking as I hear this?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:So do I remember that your that the therapist has talked about dissociation like lots of little drawers?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:So if the inside of your mind is lots of little drawers, The inside of my mind is a fish tank. Woah. It doesn't have any more or less in it than yours. It just flows around. All of the same experiences, like, if I had DID, the contents would be exactly the same.
Speaker 3:It's just whether it's divided up or flowing around. So thinking about what healing looks like with DID, it is not about removing or discarding drawers. It is not about one drawer winning over the other.
Speaker 2:Wait. Say that again.
Speaker 3:Healing from DID is not about discarding any drawers because your content is the same. We do not have different amounts of content in our minds. It's just organized differently. Right? Woah.
Speaker 3:You're not any less of a person or any more of a person. And the goal of healing is not to discard your drawers. Well, please don't discard your drawers. And it's not that one drawer has to win over another. Healing would be gradually making the partitions between those drawers more transparent and permeable.
Speaker 3:Which means on the good side that there's more fluid shifting. People have more access to each other, more access to the parts of life that they engage the most with. But on the hard side, as those partitions become more transparent and more permeable, it means the things that you set them up to protect yourself from are no longer as well hidden.
Speaker 2:Yes. That. Like the poem. That's why we wrote the poem.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So as the walls become more transparent, you're starting to see things through them.
Speaker 2:That's really heavy. Yeah. I can't even make a joke about it.
Speaker 3:Heavy, but not bad.
Speaker 2:Woah. What?
Speaker 3:Just because something's hard doesn't mean it's bad.
Speaker 2:Like what you're saying about saying goodbye doesn't mean Yeah.
Speaker 3:The things that are scary in there, the things that feel unsafe are all things in the past. Now time is safe. Even if you pull those ugly drawers open all the way, there is nothing in them that can hurt you now.
Speaker 2:Wait. Say that one more time.
Speaker 3:Even if you pull those ugly drawers open all the way, there is nothing in them that can hurt you now. Because that is not where you are. Those are memories.
Speaker 2:Memory time?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Now time is safe. And what you were working on is coming to terms with memory time. But memory time is already fixed. It is contained.
Speaker 3:It has its bounds, the bounds of time and place, and it does not extend to now. Now time is safe.
Speaker 2:So we just have to look at it?
Speaker 3:Yeah. You recognize it for what it is, and you don't have to be afraid of it. You did have to be afraid of it at the time, but you got through it. All of you worked together to get yourself through it. You were out the other side.
Speaker 3:But the way that your mind helped you get through it by putting up these partitions, just like with the kids, right, the things they learned when they were younger have made their lives harder now.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:But it's what helped them survive.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:It's what helped you survive, but it's not helping you right now because you don't need to partition it off. It's in the past. And so you're learning how to change that protective barrier. You're learning how to see it for what it is. And it will feel scary at first because it has always been scary.
Speaker 3:But just because it's scary doesn't mean you're in danger.
Speaker 2:Woah. Just because it's scary doesn't mean you're in danger. Yeah. I feel like that's a big piece I wanna hold on to. Like, I need to write that in the circle notebook.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Just because it's scary, it doesn't mean you're in danger.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't actually have the circle notebook.
Speaker 3:I know. You gave it to the new therapist. It's amazing. I was very proud of you.
Speaker 2:But she locked it up.
Speaker 3:Yep. To keep it safe.
Speaker 2:She was totally legit protective in that way.
Speaker 3:It's like she knows what she's doing or something.
Speaker 2:We're gonna have to do this for real.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But first, we have to go away again, so we're off the hook.
Speaker 3:Off of one hook onto a different hook.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be a scary one. We're going to the Dominican Republic for a month.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I'll miss you again. Yes. It's hard these things.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 2:But the Dominican Republic does not have child protection services. And so we're going to go make that happen By helping that happen, not making. That sounded really terrible.
Speaker 3:I am really proud of you. I tell everyone you're a superhero. Aw.
Speaker 2:We're a hot mess. That's what we are.
Speaker 3:That could be your superhero name.
Speaker 2:Oh, fish tanks. We just have to look. We just have to learn to look. Oh, like, that's where they're not dissociating comes in, like learning to tolerate it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness. I feel like something just clicked in my brain.
Speaker 3:Oh, good.
Speaker 2:Like, I literally physically felt it click in my brain. I know that's not at all possible, but that is seriously the sensation I just had. We have to be able to tolerate the looking. Yeah. Tolerate the looking.
Speaker 3:It's only by
Speaker 2:looking only It's not now. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:Only by looking will you understand what it really is.
Speaker 2:You blew my brains out again.
Speaker 3:I'll get the cleanup rag.
Speaker 2:Thank you for talking to me.
Speaker 3:I love talking to
Speaker 2:you. Was a good podcast date.
Speaker 3:Oh, well, I I enjoy.
Speaker 2:I love you.
Speaker 3:I love you too.
Speaker 2:Anything else?
Speaker 3:In your refrigerator in your head, there's enough eggnog for everybody.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:You are the best one.
Speaker 3:I love you.
Speaker 2:I love you too. 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.systemsspeak.com. We'll see you there.