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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 1:I'm a wild woman now. Hi.
Speaker 3:Hello. I thought you were addressing the listeners. I didn't realize you were talking to me.
Speaker 1:Of course, I'm talking
Speaker 3:to you. Hello, listeners at home.
Speaker 1:Hey. You with the theater nerd shirt.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I just wanna talk to you. We're gonna do a fun thing today. Well, fun for me.
Speaker 3:How fun is it? Oh,
Speaker 1:I could change everything. Uh-oh. No. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3:Sound fun.
Speaker 1:So lots of pieces. But first, before we start, I know today's topic is a little bit sensitive. So anything just like I tell everybody else who comes on the podcast, anything you change your mind about or uncomfortable with, we can take off. We don't have to air. We can pull the whole episode like you, yourself, even though you are the husband, have full consent.
Speaker 1:And I also want to warn the listeners, just in case this is not their topic or what they want to listen to, that we are gonna talk about some sexuality again today. We're gonna talk about orientation stuff, gender stuff, maybe religious trauma stuff. So that's just sort of a warning for that in case you wanna skip this episode. The other thing I think it's really important to just say upfront is that we are talking about our personal experiences. We are in no way assuming that other people are the same as us, obviously, because we're quirky and weird and different.
Speaker 1:And our circumstances by any standard are completely unusual and unique. There is nothing about our lives that is normal. So I'm aware of that. Also, that even though we may share some of our personal choices or pieces of our story about how our life has unfolded, we are in no way judging other people who have made different choices than we have. I just want to say all of that up front because I want to be super gentle.
Speaker 1:Also, it's a little different because we're kind of off topic from DID, but that plays into it some. And so I think it is related because it's part of healing, and it's part of negotiating, and it's part of, like, advanced therapy topics. So I do think it's relevant, and I do think it's important to tend to. Does all that make sense?
Speaker 3:It does to me.
Speaker 1:Is there anything you need to add to that before we even start?
Speaker 3:Not that I can think of. That's good.
Speaker 1:Okay. Listeners have already heard the piece by piece episode with, like, the Father's Day video. People in the community may have seen the Father's Day video. It was up briefly. We have somebody who keeps taking everything down.
Speaker 1:That's a different story for another episode. Anyway, so talking about therapy issues. And that time my therapist was like, when are we gonna talk about? You and your husband are both gay. I'm like, wait.
Speaker 1:What? And part of what was funny about that is because when you and I got married, everyone around us was almost as shocked as we were. So I think to me, that's part of what was funny when she said that. It took me back to that that moment of people being like, wait. What?
Speaker 1:And at the same time of, okay. That makes sense in this dynamic that we have.
Speaker 3:Just to clarify, I recognize that in a lot of ways, I am not Heteronormative. Heteronormative, but I do not identify as gay. I identify as straight. But I understand that, yeah, that I am my own self. Right?
Speaker 3:I I'm my own unique flavor of whatever I am. So I understand that when she said that, she was talking about how we're both not typical.
Speaker 1:Right. Well and this is part of why I wanna talk about it because I don't think it's just about DID. Like, you have shared so many times about feeling like you have parts but have access to all those parts, like your aquarium. Right?
Speaker 3:Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then that we have these walls up or or everything filed away in folders or card catalog or whatever analogy you wanna use, and so don't have access to it. So part of what it is is that you are so comfortable being you, and through the experiences you've had growing up, have your own culture and your own preferences and your own things that you like or not like, whatever, even about dating or sexuality. But with me catching up through therapy, it's like these pieces keep popping up of, oh, I kind of knew this, but now it means something. Or I didn't know that, but now I have access to it. Or I was aware of that, but now it feels more mine than it did before.
Speaker 1:And it just all those layers trying to, I don't even mean integrate because that's such a sensitive word, but just trying to navigate and hold all those pieces at the same time, it's a lot to unfold. Sure. So to clarify, even when the therapist said that, and even when you and I talked about it, like you like you said, you do not identify as gay, and you have only ever dated girls. And part of why people were shocked when we got married was because people were making assumptions.
Speaker 3:Yes. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And so it's really frustrating when you're working so hard to be wholly yourself, and people make assumptions about that. And so one of the reasons people were making assumptions this is just such a brief summary of your entire adult life. I'm sorry. One of the reason people were making assumptions is because in your faith tradition culture that you grew up in, people tend to get married very early.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Very young, like in college. And you had not gotten married yet. We did not even meet until we were 35.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And so in that culture, that felt like something that was unusual.
Speaker 3:Even even in the broader, like, American culture, I'm not into sports. I like making things like crafty things. I write musical theater. Like in so many ways I feel like I live the stereotype of the gay man, but I've never wanted to have sex with a man. So it doesn't matter what other things I enjoy or don't enjoy.
Speaker 3:Like, who I who I do or do not wanna have sex with has not defined what I like in my life. Right?
Speaker 1:Right. Right. And we talked about that some last year after we had doctor Lou Himes come on the podcast. They talked about gender and sex and gender roles and gender expression and all of those layers. And we talked about how in lots of ways, you and I have so much of that reversed Yeah.
Speaker 1:From heteronormative traditionalness
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That it makes sense why people are confused confused by by us. Us. Right? Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1:So this just for fun, and you're not you're only gonna read the question out loud. You don't have to read your answer out loud because that's private.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay. And we're gonna turn the computer so even I don't have to see it. Okay. And if you just read the question out loud, what we are going to do just for fun to set the record straight, get the joke, Is do the Kinsey scale test. It's very short, very simple, and I hope it has the same diagram for you that I got to see.
Speaker 1:I feel like this is not the same site. First of all, to remember, I am not your therapist. And this is just developed for research to talk about how someone is experiencing and expressing at a given point in time. So it's not even like something that can just whip out a label, stick it on your forehead, and that's where you land forever is a 100% truth.
Speaker 3:It's good because I I don't have labeled stick very well. I never even identified, like, with a school sports team. Right? I'm not, the dress up at all my school colors and cheer guy. I just don't I don't identify myself in those terms.
Speaker 1:How would you identify yourself without labels? How would you explain that?
Speaker 3:Sometimes it's pretty lonely.
Speaker 1:I think that's valid. That's what my therapist was saying. Yeah. And obviously, she's not your therapist. She was talking to me about my stuff, but that's exactly what she was saying is when you don't belong in this community and you don't belong in this community or you don't have this freedom and you don't have this freedom, where are you, and how do you meet those needs?
Speaker 1:So that's what we're gonna come back to after you do this. Okay. So it's turned so I can't see. So you just read the question out loud.
Speaker 3:Okay. So it says my sexual fantasies are only about only the opposite sex, mainly opposite sex, rarely about the same sex, mainly opposite sex sometimes about the same sex, both the same and the opposite sex, mainly the same sex, that sort of thing. So it's sort of a scale.
Speaker 1:That scale is called the Kinsey scale.
Speaker 3:So I have a question.
Speaker 1:That's why we're talking about it.
Speaker 3:Right. So here's my question. Does sexual fantasy mean fantasizing having sex with someone, or does it mean anything that arouses
Speaker 1:Anything that arouses.
Speaker 3:Anything that arouses. Okay.
Speaker 1:This is just me outside of you. Sure. I don't know that you would have sexual fantasies about having sex with anyone a lot or explicitly or to a high degree because you don't like touch. So I don't mean that judgmental. I just mean it's not your language.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That makes sense. So second question, the idea of having sexual intercourse with someone of the opposite sex is, and it ranges from disgusting to desirable.
Speaker 1:That's another tricksy one because
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 1:You don't like touch.
Speaker 3:I'm not interested in having sex.
Speaker 1:It seems simple. Right? But there's really so many more layers and nuances to it.
Speaker 3:The third question is, I feel emotionally bonded to, and then the range is from only the opposite sex to only the same sex. Does this include friendships or is this just okay.
Speaker 1:Immediately for you, all those faces of friends in New York come to mind. Like, there's just so many people who adore you, which is one thing that worries me. I mean, I know you're committed to your parents, and I know you're committed to the children, but it worries me for you sometimes being so far away from that. Mhmm. You had so much support there, and you were just pulled out of that.
Speaker 1:And so I don't mean that it was bad or permanent or forever, but the impact of that, I think, is a trauma that we haven't really had a chance to honor or recognize or tend to just because medical trauma and the kid trauma and everything that we've been through. There's been so much that all of those kinds of things keep getting put to the back burner.
Speaker 3:Well, and part of that change was not just geographic. It was getting married. And so in some ways, all of those friendships were about needing to fill my social my social heart. Right? The to fulfill that social aspect of me.
Speaker 3:But it's not any easier for me to have male friends, and I don't have much time to have male friends. So it is Trixie.
Speaker 1:That's kind of the layer my therapist was bringing up.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That there are needs that we both have that we're not getting when our boundaries are too rigid.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Plus there's the challenge of us not getting to actually spend a lot of time together. And so that's hard when we don't actually get to socialize with each other. We parent together, like we do a lot of parent discussion and administration and
Speaker 1:Turn taking.
Speaker 3:Turn taking. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's been a hard year and a half. It's been a year and a half now
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Since you left. It's hard.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. We can come back to all this.
Speaker 3:The idea of having sexual intercourse with someone of the same sex is and, again, it ranges from disgusting to desirable. Previously, I have had sex with ranging from only the opposite sex to only the same sex. I'm trying to make sure that I'm getting all the, like, negatives correct. Like, I don't wanna make click the wrong button because of a double negative somewhere. I identify myself as and I'm gonna read these options because they're less of a clear, I mean, it is still a a scale, but the wording is interesting.
Speaker 3:Strictly straight, straight but open to new sexual experiments, mostly straight but don't mind occasional switch, Bisexual, bisexual, not bisexual. I come in two parts.
Speaker 1:Now we know.
Speaker 3:Homosexual but don't mind occasional switch. Homosexual but open to new experiments and strictly homosexual. Interesting. So that was all of the questions.
Speaker 1:It's really short. Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Your results. Kinsey level two. On the Kinsey scale of levels zero to six, where zero is complete heterosexuality and six is complete homosexuality, your score indicates that you have predominantly heterosexual behavior, but more than slightly inclined to be attracted to the same sex or engage in homosexual behavior.
Speaker 1:So this is interesting to me, not in any kind of judging way, but what's interesting to me is that it's not a surprise. And that part of your behavior, what they're calling behavior
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:For you is so filtered through your faith tradition. Sure. And so I feel like part of your experiences have been shaped by choices that you have intentionally made because of who you have chosen to be. That sounds bad because I don't wanna be like gay or straight is a chosen thing. I don't mean that.
Speaker 1:But, I mean, you have such intentional boundaries about who you want to be and what behavior you what choices you wanna make for yourself morally and ethically and spiritually. That is a very intentional process in our faith So I'm not saying that that would change your other experiences or change your score. I don't mean that. I just mean I know that even when I was doing it, some of the questions that felt behavioral for me were so filtered Mhmm. That I would have answered differently twenty years ago instead of in the last ten years.
Speaker 1:Sure. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:Can I give a a maybe a strange comparison?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:So we've talked about how I struggle with depression. And part of how I came to understand that it was like a chemical depression, like a neurological disease rather than just feeling bad about things is because there will be times that I have these terrible negative thoughts or feelings going through my mind, but I'm able to step back and say actually I like my life and there's nothing wrong right now and I feel separate from these thoughts and feelings that are swirling around inside of me. Like I still know that they're part of me as a human but who I see myself as is separate from those things. Does that make sense? So me as the human animal, I can say that my body does in fact respond biologically to men more than to women.
Speaker 3:But who I am inside and who I identify myself as has just never been interested in that. Right? And so to me, I feel these layers. It's we talk in our family a lot about how we have, like, a spirit self and a an animal self.
Speaker 1:I talked about it briefly on the piece by piece episode.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But I but I recognize that that as an animal, that that I have sexual desires and that if I was purely animal, I would probably act differently than I do right now. But I'm not. There's an intelligence inside me. There are thoughts and feelings and desires, and those do not align with what my body has been inclined to do.
Speaker 3:And I have just chosen over the years to focus on what I have chosen for myself as opposed to what, in some situations may have been the easier thing to do just because that's not what I wanted. It didn't feel right. Not in a shaming way per se, just in the same way that that I can feel my depression and not identify with my depression, I could feel those desires and just not identify with those desires. It's funny, you know, as as the guy living the the closeted homosexual lifestyle, I was I only have had one girlfriend in my life before you. Right?
Speaker 3:And that was in my thirties when that happened.
Speaker 1:You went on lots of dates, though.
Speaker 3:Oh, many, many dates. I loved dating. I always had more women friends than men friends. And I was always looking, like you said, that people in our our faith tradition often marry in their twenties or in college. I I wanted to.
Speaker 3:I had every intention of. And I remember the horrifying feeling of finally realizing that every woman I knew was not the person I was going to marry. But
Speaker 1:Are you okay?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I forgot what I was
Speaker 1:The story about the girl knocking on you.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes. So I had not had a girlfriend, and I thought, okay. Maybe what I need is a girl who's willing to take the lead.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 3:But she I had never, like, made out with anybody. I'd never kissed anybody. Right? And
Speaker 1:We didn't even kiss before we got married.
Speaker 3:But she wanted to to really this girl that I dated really wanted to make out and so she was making out with me and I was very bored. And she finally decided that I must be asexual. And I'd never heard of people being identified as asexual.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that you actually had a conversation with her about this.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Because I think for her, that's what she needed to understand why I was not enjoying making out with her. And so I went and I looked it up and read some comments from people that identified as asexual.
Speaker 3:And it was fascinating that two things happened simultaneously in my brain. One is I felt a huge wave of relief that I was not the only one. Right? That I was not the only one who was not driven in the same way by sexual desire.
Speaker 1:That there were other aces out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But on the other hand, I absolutely did not identify. Like, I immediately took that label and I was like, drop. Like, it's not my label. Just means that I'm not alone.
Speaker 3:I so I didn't identify as asexual either. But I was really comforted to know that I was not alone in having those feelings. Ain't that fascinating? That was, like, the op two opposite things at the same time.
Speaker 1:Wow. So it was a relief. Just wanna be sure I understand. Mhmm. So it was a relief to finally have a word for it, but not adopting the term for yourself even though it also described your experience.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think I think it was not the word that was comforting. The word opened a door for me to see other people's experiences, that there were people who were not just fixated on sexual experience. That there were other people who had not had boyfriends and girlfriends throughout their lives, who were not, I don't know, just sort of sex driven. Because even though I identify as straight, I'm not a really sex driven person.
Speaker 3:And I think that was what was comforting to me because I had not seen that depicted before or talked about. It always felt like something was wrong with me, that that was not one of the primary motors in my life.
Speaker 1:So it's so interesting to me because I think that is another piece that impacts your score on the Kinsey scale.
Speaker 3:That
Speaker 1:if you're and and I'm not saying that you should change. I don't I don't mean any changes. I just mean, I think that if you took out your faith tradition, well, you wouldn't be who you are. But if you if you took out your faith tradition and you took out the asexuality, I think your Kinsey score would be much higher.
Speaker 3:You think so?
Speaker 1:I don't think it's bad that it's a two, and I don't mean that you don't match your Kinsey score. I don't mean any judgment there at all. I just mean those two things, I think, impact your score in ways that have made it difficult. Difficult is not the right word. Tricky for you and other people, girls you were trying to date or in marriage, especially when we were new to each other
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:To understand or know how to read, to make sense of. The and that's an example of why, like, the Kinsey scale is not the end all answer. Right? It's not the solution. It doesn't tell you who you are.
Speaker 1:Who you are, you know who you are. You decide who you are. You express yourself the way you want. And so it is it is an example to me of having access to your parts. Because a part of you is very asexual.
Speaker 1:A part of you is a very faithful person spiritually with specific behavioral and health codes that go with that in your tradition, our tradition. And part of you has this higher Kinsey score that is balanced by these two parts, except that you have access to all of that. So you're able to cognitively, cognizantly consent to what you're actually choosing intentionally as opposed to reacting without being aware, being driven only by sexual desire and biology and not filtering through humanity
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Or not having access to even those pieces. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:I think so. I wanna say about the the faith tradition part that I don't feel any imposition from my faith tradition. I know there's a lot of lot of LGBTQ people who feel pressured by their churches to be some kind of person or another. And I know that our church also has made people feel uncomfortable in those ways that has felt people has made people feel unwelcome. And I feel like the church itself is trying to do better at that.
Speaker 3:But I grew up in an age in which those things were not talked about and so everybody was still sort of firmly in the closet, I guess. But I don't feel like I'm in the closet. I don't feel like there is any external force asking me to conform. I feel like in the way that you said that my faith tradition sort of sort of shapes who I am. Like I believe the things I believe, and I believe things about my spiritual self, my identity.
Speaker 3:Nobody externally is forcing me to be anything. I guess that's something that I'm grateful to my parents for that I never consciously, anyway, felt shamed for being who I was or for not ticking whatever boxes. I feel like in a world of square pigs and round pigs, I'm kind of the ampersand.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that that is a beautiful piece of integration. Even though you don't have DID, to use the word well, to have that individuation, to have that differentiation, to have that integration work where you can just be at peace with all of the pieces of who you are, that's a beautiful thing. And I think really ultimately where most of us want to be whatever the context of our lives as opposed to having to wrestle so hard with different pieces and try to confine to someone else's something.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then with DID, it's like you're wrestling with other parts, and you to try to get that many people on board into boundaries or or or confined to something is really, really tricksy.
Speaker 3:Committees.
Speaker 1:Right. Exactly. So for me, I know, like what you said with our faith tradition, that many people have been hurt or or something part of that is because we have there are generations. I do not at all mean to excuse or justify any pain. Part of the pain, though, is generation gap of having people who are older and don't know how to have these conversations.
Speaker 1:And as more people who have grown up knowing how to have these conversations also take leadership. There are different ways that we're able to have conversations and different ways, like bishops and church leaders are being taught of how to love people and accept people and talk to people instead of these a false tradition in a way of being passed down. And I'm not talking about doctrine. I'm talking about just loving people.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I appreciate that that is improving even though there's lots of ways we could do better. With DID, I think for me, there's so many layers to those experiences that make it tricksy in different layers, different ways. One thing and if this is too personal, you can you can tell me. But one thing that was very touching to me was when we talked about this privately a couple weeks ago, you brought up Cassie and concern or wanting to tend to making sure she had not felt pressure in any way to perform or sexually or something. And that was just a very powerful moment that I appreciated.
Speaker 1:My response to that, just for listeners who now know far too much information about us, my response to that was that I think that was pressure from myself. There were parts of me that so wanted to be good and so wanted for this safety that we found in you to not go away that we were trying very hard to do all the things that we thought we were supposed to do, which included having children. And so there is trauma there that was in no way caused by you. You have never ever I mean, that's a benefit of marrying someone who's asexual. Right?
Speaker 1:Like, you have never ever I think and in fact, I think it's part of why it was even possible that we as a system, even before you knew about DID, could marry you because we were safe, because there was no pressure in that way. Right? And I'll come back to that piece. But those early days trying to have children or the miscarriages, like, there was so much trauma in there that I was doing to myself. Not intentionally, but pressure I was putting myself under or thought I was supposed to be doing and didn't know differently that I think comes in part from some of my religious trauma layers.
Speaker 1:We're just now getting into a therapy. That really was traumatic. And that's part of why I wanted to talk about it on this podcast. The first time it came up in my head of realizing that was when I had a guest on the podcast. Her name was Maureen McEvoy.
Speaker 1:She's the one that came on and talked about reenactments. And she talked about a case that she had where a client was struggling with trauma issues and coming for abuse recovery in therapy. But she and her husband were trying to have children. And so she just kept forcing herself to have sex because she wanted to have children and not realizing the trauma that she was doing to herself. And so that really resonated with me in a way that I couldn't talk about at the time.
Speaker 1:Like, it's been a whole year since that interview, and I'm just not able to talk about it. And so I think some of that happened to me. And so that was a hard piece, but then it's also hard thinking. But there's also it's also hard with DID of being exposed to different parts of yourself that you didn't know were there.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And it's one thing to try to get out the door for a day or to function at work or to parent the children without being weird. But it's another thing to apply that same healing to sexuality as well. Yeah. So for that, when like, on the Kinsey scale, when I took that, I got a six. And Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Right? And when you know me and my history, like, that makes sense. When you look at me married to a man, that does not make sense. And so that's part of what is hard and confusing. The other piece that is tricksy as far as therapy and DID is being married to someone who is asexual.
Speaker 1:Kinsey scale in context. You know what I mean? It's so funny to say because it's labels, and you don't use labels, so it's hard to talk about. But you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:The generic brand asexual.
Speaker 1:The safety have a label. The safety of being someone who is generically labeled as asexual but does not use labels for himself because he's married to a woman. The safety of that was so good for so long in the context of needing to be safe after everything I had been through. And that's that's still good. It's still safe, and I still appreciate that.
Speaker 1:I don't mean that that's a bad thing. When it became challenging in therapy was when my therapist brought it up as addressing other parts and other pieces of but you also have these needs, and you also are lonely in this particular context. And you're also not kissing girls anymore, and you're also not you know? And so what we did was go back to this safe example of, like, alcohol. I am now ten years sober.
Speaker 1:Whoo. High five. Ten years sober, which is great. And there are many people who, as part of their sobriety, can never drink alcohol again. There's also more research now that they're saying, why is that a thing?
Speaker 1:That's not actually necessary for everybody. But in the context of my covenants, I'm not going to drink alcohol. But what I have found that I was worried was not okay, like I was being secretly naughty. Where those mock tails? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because they don't like o'Dules or something. Right? Like, I don't know. And so so I found these girly little mocktails, and they have been fun to literally keep in my closet away from the children even though they're safe for children. But it's like this rebellious piece where all of a sudden there are these drinks in my fridge that are so naughty, except they're actually perfectly fine.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're within the bounds of what is appropriate for me. They're not causing harm at all. But when you mix sexuality with religious trauma specifically
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm trying really hard not to just cry right now. I'm sorry. Like, I'm not actually in crisis. It's just so emotional because I'm fine. Everything is fine.
Speaker 1:So part of what happens and I'm only just barely getting into this in therapy, so I don't wanna go too deep with this piece of things. But part of what happens with religious trauma is that everything is black or white, which is extra hard when you have childhood trauma because of object relations and things anyway. You're either good or you're not good. You're either good or you're bad. It's not even just either either good or you're bad.
Speaker 1:It's more like you are safe for now, but you could still be condemned later. Like, is such a precipice. It it is it is not like you have to walk the line. It is that the line is a tightrope
Speaker 3:Over hell.
Speaker 1:Over hell.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. And so it is really, really scary. So when I do something like, say, I'm not going to drink alcohol, and my therapist says, but you don't actually have an alcohol problem. You never had alcohol problem.
Speaker 1:People around you had alcohol problem. You don't drink alcohol simply because you promise not to. So having a mocktail is not a problem because it's not alcohol. And my therapist says, you're not justifying things. You're not excusing away sin.
Speaker 1:It's just not bad. You're just not doing anything wrong. This is not you trying to be a weasel. Like, there's just nothing wrong, and it's okay that there's nothing wrong. For me, that feels like such blurry boundaries, even though it's not.
Speaker 1:I haven't actually transgressed anything. It gets really scary. Like, not just hard to find my way. Like, I feel like I'm in danger.
Speaker 3:And
Speaker 1:the problem with religious trauma and developmental or childhood trauma together is that you are already condemned. Like, there's no way to win.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I don't wanna just throw the towel in because there's no way to win. Right? But I also wanna look what is healthy within what is safe. And when I'm when I'm learning about what is safe enough and what is healthy, then what my therapist is saying is that boundaries are for safety. So it goes back to the idea of boundaries as a fence.
Speaker 1:Right? And the kids know they can play anywhere within the fence
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:As opposed to the fence is here to punish you.
Speaker 3:They're not in prison.
Speaker 1:Right. Right. When I am in childhood hell with a dash of evangelical hell, then boundaries are a prison.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Boundaries are about you can't do this. You can't do this. You can't do this. You can't do this. Which is fine as long as you're dissociated and as long as you're completely shut down and as long as you're collapsed and you're not moving.
Speaker 1:Because you know how to play those rules. Right? Like, that was childhood. And so as
Speaker 3:long
Speaker 1:as you don't move, that's fine. The problem comes when you start healing and getting better in therapy, and your therapist is like, you know it's okay to move around and play. No. No. I do not know this.
Speaker 1:Okay? And so looking at those boundaries as, like, a fence and saying, okay. The boundary is that I have chosen not to drink alcohol. So I'm not going to drink alcohol because that is my line. But then instead of only drinking water, which is not alcohol, it's also okay to have almond milk.
Speaker 1:And it's also okay to have mocktails. Like, I'm not doing anything wrong. It's really, really hard for me to shake off that I'm not doing anything wrong.
Speaker 3:Something that that struck me, thinking about the difference between a playground fence and a prison fence, a playground fence is to give children freedom within a zone of safety. As they learn, they ultimately will not need that fence there. A prison fence is for people who are already guilty to protect the world from them. And if they break that boundary, then their consequences become much, much worse. Right?
Speaker 3:Like, it's
Speaker 1:Solitary confinement.
Speaker 3:Solitary confinement, torture. Right? So
Speaker 1:what's fascinating about what you're sharing is that just weekend therapy, like yesterday, although this is the whole thing is a different conversation. We can talk about it later. But just yesterday, we were going through the English teacher episodes and talking about when that moment when Jeannie said to us, you're not dangerous. And so all of therapy yesterday, like the entire session, was processing how I avoid relationships or am scared to engage in relationships because I have this fundamental belief that I'm going to hurt them, that I am dangerous, that the more I give of myself to a relationship, the more likely it is that they will leave me. And so part of my confusion then isn't even about boundaries.
Speaker 1:Like, I thought the confusion was about boundaries, but the confusion is that I'm in a playground fence, not a prison fence. I was a child, not a prisoner. That's the confusion.
Speaker 3:Well, and it's such a a dark irony too that you feel dangerous because other people did things to you. Right. It's totally upside down.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. I can't even talk about that yet. We need to come back to it. But it applies here because when we talk about sexuality, the same thing.
Speaker 1:Right? I am safe not having sex because I'm not going to get hurt.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Therapeutically, if I don't wanna go that far, then this fence around, those are good boundaries. But what my therapist was bringing up was that there are lots of ways to appropriately and we've talked about this already. But and I tried to talk about it on the piece by piece episode, and all that did was get me lots of offers for a date. So I had to clarify. What what my therapist was saying was within those boundaries that I set for myself, whether that's whatever that is, like therapy, for example, of these things of sex do not feel good to me right now because of what I'm working on in therapy, which is even that is hard to say out loud.
Speaker 1:Right? But if I'm practicing, then that is my boundary. But because that is my boundary and because I'm an adult capable of keeping that boundary, then everything else within that is playground. Meaning that I actually have the right and the freedom to liberate myself and to enjoy everything else that's within these boundaries.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And
Speaker 1:you and I have talked about that some. And and I don't even mean just sexually, like trying to make it super neutral just for the podcast for privacy. One of the things would be nobody wants to go on walks with me. I really like walks. Nobody wants to walk with me.
Speaker 1:We have a dog now. I can take the dog like, it meets that need. There are ways. It doesn't even have to be sexually acting out. It can be play.
Speaker 1:It can be good. It can be connection. She talked about ways to touch myself. That sounds exciting to say on a podcast, but talked about like the butterfly hug. And you know how like the kids tap, their therapist taught them how to tap with the butterfly hug.
Speaker 1:She said you can also rub your shoulders in that same position like this or even like hug yourself in the same position. Yeah. And like practice just exposing yourself to touch. Like, we've talked about all kinds of different pieces. But when we talk about the boundaries and everything within that being play, like, there's so much that I'm actually free to do or experience and tend to myself and to other people in healthy and safe and appropriate ways that I thought I didn't have access to because I thought I was a prisoner.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Also, there's this piece about I don't know how much of my own development is impacted by what I witnessed and went through when I was little, and that's more that we'll be working on in therapy. But I've also talked a lot on the podcast and with people who have emailed about that frustration of being that statistic of I am this way because of trauma when that can be turned around as a trope really and as a stereotype and dismissive of people's orientation or self expression. And so that's frustrating, but that's like a whole different topic. But also until discovering what I'm experiencing now, I don't know if I have ever had access to the level of safety and support also as I do now to be so wholly myself, so fully myself, even though there are also limitations to that And even though there are complications to that, that for now are still protective because it gives us opportunity for pacing and for the time and space we need to keep working on our own healing individually so that what we do bring together is healthy. So even some of that hard that hurts is also actually really good for us for now in this season, even though I know that won't work forever, it being that hard.
Speaker 1:And even though it feels so high risk for hurt, I think the work of it is worth doing. And that's not just about impulse or biology or sexual drive. There's so much more to it in that way. So those pieces are valid too. I guess I guess the point is that just like you have these layers of nuance where you don't have those labels, for me, setting my own boundaries even sexually and realizing that within that, I am on a playground and I get to make my own choices and I'm free as opposed to thinking I am prisoner and I can't negotiate anything for myself.
Speaker 1:And this is when my therapist said, anyone telling you that you have to have sex is abuse. And then she said, which I know, right? Like, you know that. I've been in difficult situations in the past where it's not like I can say, hello, you're abusing me right now. Please stop.
Speaker 1:Like, know it's more complicated than that. But cognitively, you know that piece. Right? But what she said that I had never thought about before is also someone telling you that you cannot have sex is abuse. I don't mean consenting for yourself in relationship with someone else and saying, no.
Speaker 1:I don't want to do that right now. Or I don't wanna go that far. I don't want it. Like negotiating all those kinds of things is within your own power for yourself. But I mean, someone else telling you what you can or cannot do with your body.
Speaker 1:And obviously, emotionally, like that's really big right now with Roe versus Wade and everything happening with the Supreme Court and and and now even, I forgot the case. It starts with an o. I totally forgot the case. But if they're turning over the marriage rights for GLBT as well, that's not just about gay people getting married or not. And I'm not here just to talk about politics, but the point is that that's also about whether you can visit someone in the hospital.
Speaker 1:It's about inheritance. It's about Yeah. Children. It's about like, there's so many other rights that are involved in that. It's not just about who loves who.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:And so so all of this is very sensitive in me right now because it's all stirred up for those reasons. But choosing for myself and getting to, for the first time, create what that looks like for me in my own way with including all these different parts of me, from getting a six on the Kinsey scale to parts of me that were more sexually aggressive that or parts of me that are more reserved because there are triggers or there are things from memory time or parts of me that need to touch or to kiss or to whatever. And so what does that look like in the inside and of that, like, playground, you said? And realizing that I'm free to make those decisions that just because I have this boundary fence and these are the things, which is good because when you're first getting in therapy, like, you don't even know there's a fence Right. Much less that you get to put up your own fence.
Speaker 1:Right? So it's good that I've made it progress knowing where is my fence right now, but also saying that just because there's a fence doesn't mean I have to lay down on the ground and collapse because I'm in danger.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The fence is already there to protect me, and I'm capable of keeping the fence in place. So it's okay for me to do like, it's so liberating, and it's so freeing in ways that I don't think I thought I would ever experience. And so what happens internally when I do experience that is having these other parts of me that I have had to push away and push away and push away or push down and push down or ignore or dismiss or whatever because I didn't want to be bad or I didn't want to cross the lines of this fence or because it wasn't an option or because it wasn't possible, then having them online, so to speak, because realizing, oh, no. It actually is possible. We just have to stay within these boundaries.
Speaker 1:Then it brings up, like, I am so much more wholly myself, all of who I am, rather than part of me trying to be a different part of me that's not actually anything like this other part of me, and then me having to be a part that's not even me. Like, that only makes sense in DID world.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Can I can I ask a question regarding parts? Mhmm. When you talk about being a six on the Kinsey scale, do you feel like that is for you a holistic score, or is that an individual ALTER score? Or how does that work?
Speaker 1:I wondered about that, but I answered the questions in the context of everything that I could remember. System. Yeah. Like, I tried to be really intentionally answering. At least what I remember, the questions were, like, in the past, you have.
Speaker 1:And so I answered like that of even circumstances that I'm not necessarily connected to but know about because of the book. Does that make sense? Oh, our book made me gay.
Speaker 3:It's true. It can happen.
Speaker 1:How do you feel having these hard conversations? And, I mean, I know we've got these boundaries and we've talked about more of all that privately. But having these conversations about hard things, like, how are you feeling after it stirred up those things for you, hearing what it stirred up for me? Where are you at? What are you feeling?
Speaker 3:I'm okay. Mean, honestly, I don't feel very stirred up. I feel like I'm still the same person I was. I don't feel like like, I I felt reassured to see my Kinsey score because that's kind of where I would have put myself.
Speaker 1:That's what it seemed to me. Like, it was like, that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. I feel like these are all things that I've spent my life wrestling within myself already, so it it doesn't feel like it's shaking my earth.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's an important part of consent in that we're so transparent about it and talk about things because everything that we thought would be so hard to talk about, we were like, oh, yeah. We already knew that, or we have actually talked about it in this way in this way in this way. It's actually been a thing since we met. It's not like something new that just came up spontaneously or out of left field or out of the blue. It's just therapeutically, how do I put this together?
Speaker 1:What does it look like? Therapeutically for you, what are the words that go with that even if you also don't wanna use the labels? Yeah. Like, that's one of my favorite things about the GLBT community, right, is that they're very pro agency. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You get to decide for yourself. So if you don't wanna identify as this and don't wanna identify as that, like, you get to decide that for yourself. No one else gets you get to set up your fence. That's your fence. And so I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that you have been patient and tolerant while all of this has unfolded and not just, like, creepy or possessive or panicked or afraid I'm just gonna up and disappear on the family or like, it's it helps me understand what it is to be cared for all of who I am when I don't I guess the word for that is fawning. Right? Like, you're not requiring of me to be just one piece of me.
Speaker 3:Yeah. No. Not at all.
Speaker 1:And I don't think you ever have. But I think that's part of like, you've played such a beautiful role in my healing, and I'm so grateful for you. And you have provided a very safe space in which I could come as far as I have. Like, you are kind and you are funny. You think you're funny.
Speaker 1:That's what I always tell people. They don't understand because they don't have to live with you. But now I don't live with you either. My goodness.
Speaker 3:Doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:It's so funny to me that in so many ways, it doesn't make sense at all that we're married. But, also, it makes perfect sense. Like, we're very complimentary. You have been a beautiful, beautiful companion, and I am grateful for that. Your companionship too.
Speaker 3:We are a couple of oddballs that just happened to fit.
Speaker 1:There you go. There you go.
Speaker 3:I'll be the ampersand. You be the anterobang.
Speaker 1:You know what's been interesting is that as I've learned this about the boundaries and this area in which I can play and be free and learn what it means to be myself is that now, instead of learning to trust you that you're really safe or learning to trust my therapist or other people that they're really safe, I'm having to learn to trust myself.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That I'm okay and that I do know what I want and that it's okay to want, that it's okay to need, and that I can meet my own needs in ways that are not about running away or harming other people or that are healthy and good and beautiful and consent and transparent and boundaries and all the things. It's a strange thing to almost be healthier. We don't have to keep talking about sex on the podcast. And in fact, I probably won't come back it for a long time. I feel like I've said what I wanted to share about that, but I wanted to have that conversation with you very publicly.
Speaker 1:I wanted to come back to this Kinsey scale piece because it was so interesting. But also say that I feel like I have in my own way found peace with what I want and what I need and the boundaries and the very fundamental layer that it's okay for me to say this is what I want and this is not what I want, or this is what I need and this is not what I need. And to meet that meet those needs as myself and and to meet those needs myself, knowing how to navigate my own world as opposed to someone else saying, you have to do this or you cannot do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that is huge, huge, very healing. Like, the most well, I don't wanna get all sappy. I feel really good about it, and I'm excited, and I appreciate your generosity and kindness.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for listening to us and for all of your support for the podcast, our books, and them being donated to survivors and the community. It means so much to us as we try to create something that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing.