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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.
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 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:Our email is a big one, but we're just gonna do this. This email is from Sarah, and Sarah says, we would like to know what you think about what is happening in the online discussion about the clinical presentation that use video clips without creator consent. Okay. So the first thing I wanna say about this is that I'm sorry I'm only just now responding. I don't wanna make any excuses at all, but I can just explain that piece because I think it is relevant.
Speaker 1:It's important to respond to harm. It is important to respond to pain, and it's important to respond quickly. And so any kind of delay in care counts as misattunement, and I want to address that and acknowledge that, and I'm sorry for that. My my my explanation for that, not an excuse, but my explanation for that is simply that, number one, I'm not on any social media, so I was not aware of the conversation until someone pointed it out to me. And I'm not on the clinical listservs because of conversations that happened, like, a month ago that were just difficult, and I turned all that off.
Speaker 1:So I have been completely out of touch in that in that way. So I was just not aware for one thing. And then right as I was finding out, I was in process of working sixteen hour days while I had no children with me. I was just home from the earthquakes, and I was then flying back to Oklahoma through the tornado storm. So I was in the airport for hours and hours and hours and had my daughter's birthday, and and then we're getting ready for Jules to come for the weekend to be with the whole family for my daughter's birthday.
Speaker 1:And then we are flying together to ISSTD for the conference, the annual conference. And so I have just been super busy and completely out of touch as far as the online conversation because I'm not there. So that that is that neglect in that way and why there was a delay in response, and I apologize for that. The the other issue that is more personal is that in that process, I also really had to take time to reflect and to see my own therapist and to consult and to ponder and to work through to being able to respond from a nonactivated position where I could contribute something healthy or informative or useful for the conversation because I don't want to make anything worse because it is such a triggering situation. So I, myself, am also feeling activated in that.
Speaker 1:And it is really, really difficult and sensitive, and I wanted to do it well. So it also included some days spent under the covers hiding and processing. And I'm just gonna own that completely because this was really, really difficult, and it has taken me some time. But I did get this email. I know everyone else has been waiting.
Speaker 1:And I think for me, because of what we have been working on in the community, talking about left brain stuff and right brain stuff because of where we are in the workbook group, I think that's how I want to organize my response because I think there are some clinical things that I can contribute for context and information, not to speak over any experience, not to dismiss any experience, but just to add information for context. And then after that, I think I can do the more affective right brain side of this was my experience. This is what I'm hearing from my friends who are experiencing things. And then from that, sort of pull that together to what I want to say myself. So I hope that makes sense, and I hope you can bear with me all the way to the end so that there so that you can hear what I do actually want to say in response.
Speaker 1:But I think there are a few things to clarify first just to make sure that everyone, even nonclinicians, have accurate information, not about what happened, but about the context of what happened and some things. I think it's just important. Information is just important. So I wanna share this, and then I'm going to share something someone in the community actually said in response. And I do have permission to share that.
Speaker 1:And and that system in the community actually sent me more of what they had written than what they shared on the community with permission to read that and share that with you because it so powerfully captures that response. And, again, that is with consent. And then finally, there's just something I wanna say as a person and as a clinician. So I'm just structuring it in that way and letting you know that that's how I'm structuring it because that is how best I can stay present enough to even say anything at all. So the part one of this, I guess, is just so my clinical response of clinical information, just to clarify some things because aside from what happened and people's response to that, in the resulting discussion since then, there's been lots of discussion about different things and lots of lived experience clinicians speaking up and those thoughts and feelings.
Speaker 1:And so there's different places you can get different pieces of the information. This is only just the tiny piece that I have to add or contribute that is only informational. So please know this is a left brain piece first only because that is easier for my system to personally ease into what is a very hard conversation and to help me stay present and safe to be able to engage with that conversation. It is how I think and how I process and how I do therapy. So it's just my perspective.
Speaker 1:So so bear with me so that I can get all the way to the right brain stuff, if that's okay and if that makes sense. I wanna be careful in responding to this because I do not represent any organization except myself. And I also wanna be super sensitive because I know that people are hurting, and that is trauma, and that hurts my heart. And I know one of the clips that I saw in the presentation was someone from the community that I thought, oh my heart. It hurts me.
Speaker 1:I also have my own lived experience of exploitation and so am sensitive and biased in that way for sure. And part of why I did not post anything or say anything earlier is because I needed to tend to my own work first personally for my own safety and to address things from a nonactivated place. So I wanna say that first. But then other things that I can just add as information clinically, not at all speaking to people's pain or the struggle or how to advocate, but simply just clinical information for context. Several things I would say just to add to accurate information out there.
Speaker 1:One is that standards for presentations are set by credentialing boards for continuing education, not the organizations that host them. These standards address general areas of content, timelines of presentations, and sources cited for presentations. So while organizations have no way to really preview the exact content of a presentation prior to it being given, they are able to receive feedback from clinicians who attend presentations. So that's really how that is handled. In any presentation you go to as a clinician for CEUs or CEs now it's called, continuing education is what it means to get the actual certificate, like, to pre to actually print your certificate for that presentation that you saw.
Speaker 1:To get the credit for it, you literally have to fill out a feedback form that gives feedback on the presenter and the environment in which it was given. So that is how people can make change and are empowered to immediately respond to things when they happen. As clinicians as part of getting our continuing education certificate. So that feedback includes options for specific comments on content as well as specific feedback on specific presenters. This is part of every presentation as the process by which we receive our certificates.
Speaker 1:And in that way, each attendee is responsible for the directions, which presentations are planned, and how conferences go. So it's a really empowering way to effectively communicate what is helpful and not helpful, and that's the place to do it for sure. As for unrelated diagnoses being discussed online, or in those presentations, just some things again as information just so that those of you who are not clinicians have some context. One thing is that malingering is not a diagnosis. It's a z code, and the z codes are descriptors of symptoms.
Speaker 1:So describing what is going on rather than being a diagnostic category. Fictitious disorder is a diagnosis, and it is unrelated to a dissociative disorder diagnosis. But they do matter to the clinical community because in legal and disability and insurance cases, clinicians are asked to distinguish between them. And then the other question in this email is about imitative DID. That is not a diagnosis, but it is one of several ways the online phenomena has been referenced in research literature over the last five years in effort to distinguish these newer presentations online from traditional presentations of DID in clinical offices.
Speaker 1:So this imitative diagnosis is also what it's being called in other unrelated diagnoses. So it's not just about DID. There have also been papers written about this for Tourette's, for example. And I know that, Katie Keach and I were on the guidelines team writing the guidelines for emerging adults, and we address some of this in those new guidelines that will come out next year. But that imitative diagnosis, does not mean invalid or not real.
Speaker 1:It's e even if there's an actual case of imitative DID, for example, it doesn't have to mean the person is bad or that they're making it up. It means that there may be underlying issues different from someone with a traditional case of DID, but is finding their presentation and expression safer in this context or their support with the online community? It's also super important, really important to understand that imitative does not mean made up or fake, but more like mirroring externally instead of internally. So, like, in traditional cases of DID, before social media was a thing, what was presented reflected so like a mirror. Right?
Speaker 1:Not like we're talking about attachment, but I'm gonna bring it back to that. But it mirrored or reflected what an individual had experienced in the past. So, like, different glimpses of trauma became different self states or different experiences or responses or trying to cope with real life with trauma in the background became those self states. Right? So a traditional case of traumagenic DID involves different aspects that are similar enough across the board that they have gotten this diagnostic category in the DSM, and that's what clinicians treat as DID.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? But this is fascinating because with abuse and neglect, we had no mirror at all. We talked about that on the Steve Gold episode, and he clarified that and thought about that. So but what's different is that these newer presentations that looked different than traditional cases of DID but are often presented on social media. It's like what people who are native technology users or grew up with early access to social media, they seem to have each other as a mirror in a way that others did not have any mirror in the past.
Speaker 1:And so what is happening is not that these people don't have valid experiences. It just looks different, but they have access to different support than people who were isolated in the past. Does that make sense? So that's the distinguishing thing. It's just something different than ever before.
Speaker 1:In newer cases of people who utilize social media, there are often reflections of each other because that's where their connection and support is. And those cases reflect very different presentations than traditional isolated cases. And, traditionally, those were more covert cases, and the online social media presentations are more overt cases. And that's not a judgmental thing. It's just a difference.
Speaker 1:So that would be like saying extroverts are less valid than introverts. That's not true at all. It's just noticing that the presentations are different. But noticing that and saying that and describing the difference is how we do start to validate it. So while I agree the tone should be more sensitive and how we want to definitely emphasize consent, which is a whole different thing.
Speaker 1:Right? Those things are important, but it's also a high risk of having public profiles and public content. I definitely have experienced that and violations of that because of the podcast. Like, I get it. I get it to my core.
Speaker 1:But the clinical curiosity and the early study of saying these cases are different, like in our own article that we published, saying these cases are different is not the same as saying these cases are bad or wrong or not valid. It simply makes it explicit that there is a shift from traditional presenting DID. And that shift appears to be sociocultural, not less valid, but something in common socially and culturally online that was not present in the past before social media was a thing. It's just a different thing. It's a new thing because social media is new.
Speaker 1:It's new because having community is new. So these people have a very different presentation than people who do not use social media or different from traditional cases of DID. But that's not a moral judgment of those presentations so much as a validation that something new is happening and something different is happening. Social media connects people in ways like never before, which means they identify in communities like never before, which means it makes sense that mental health and identity issues are expressed like never before. I put this part on the community.
Speaker 1:This does not invalidate these expressions of self or self states, but simply notices the pattern and attempts to validate it so that it can be studied and researched and properly treated and or supported. It does not in any way make it less valid. We really do want everyone's experiences validated. That includes noticing differences enough to make space for identifying them. Then we can build from there.
Speaker 1:And we definitely wanna do that in ethical and kind and sensitive ways. It is good progress that clinicians are talking about this and huge for it to break through into presentations even if also so holding space for both. Right? Both and. Even if also that is messy while they learn how to do that well and safely and ethically.
Speaker 1:This has always been true in the history of medicine, which is something else to talk about that I think is also completely valid for the whole history of mental health and the study of psychology. We had the exploitations of the salons of Charcot, which I talked about in my presentation two years ago. We had Freud's recanting of abuse reports because of social pressure. We have the history of institutionalizing people and lobotomies and the history of therapists learning boundaries because of the damage caused by violating them. Like, all through the development of therapy, as we know it today, we've learned from what was not done well.
Speaker 1:And I think this is more of that, and it's important to learn from it and part of moving forward. And so we do not in any way condone any clinician diagnosing or implying a diagnosis or denying a diagnosis of someone they've never met or solely based on social media. That's entirely unethical. But that being said, there are actual ethics and rules standardized in the research community for what and how to use public social media clips in trainings and presentations. It's actually a very common thing and, again, one of the many risks of sharing content publicly.
Speaker 1:So I, as an individual, can be aware of consent. So, for example, in my presentations, in my workbook, I use things that other people have helped or taught or shared, but I use them with permission, and I say that explicitly. I think that's part of what is missing, but I think it's a cultural piece. I think it's a good cultural piece, and it's an important one. But if people have not been exposed to it, they don't know.
Speaker 1:That's not the same as it being unethical because the ethics actually say you can do it, and it's fine to do it because it's public content. But learning to change those ethics comes through individuals and the ethicist who set those rules and set those standards and publish that and the credentialing boards with it, not an organization that is required to follow what is already standard even if we want to improve on it. Does that make sense? So I think we have to continue to model and educate and also change those standards, and I can just focus on myself as an individual. And when I do presentations, I only include those kinds of things with consent, and I don't do videos at all because of my own personal issues.
Speaker 1:And so that's how I can handle it for myself. But I also think we need to be careful about about making assumptions because I think there are a lot of clinicians with lived experience that don't identify as that because in their time or their generation or for different reasons, it wasn't safe to say so in the way it is now. But, also, even as it becomes safer now, I struggle and have talked publicly about struggling with how do I want to identify when when it doesn't always feel congruent. And part of that is because of DID and the changes and wrestling with navigating different self states, different alters, parts, whatever. And part of it is navigating.
Speaker 1:I don't know how I feel about that. And there are some people who are getting really really organized and feeling useful in that way. And if that is good for them, then that is great for them. I personally, right now, am in a place of working really hard on religious trauma and therapy, so it is not the time for me to get super identified with a group or a charismatic leader or swept away by other people's politics. Like, I cannot, in a healthy place, do that right now.
Speaker 1:I don't I don't need one more church even if it's not religious or anything, like, even completely secular and about other issues. Like, I don't that's not where I'm at personally or in my therapy journey. But that's just where I am because of my own historical stuff and my own trauma stuff and where I'm at personally and in therapy. I think the other thing that's important to remember historically is that many of our active clinicians who treat DID are people who, especially the experienced clinicians, are people who just a generation ago, meaning, like, a decade or two decades, are clinicians who fought for survivors through the memory wars of the nineties. So these clinicians, and I put this on the community, these clinicians are coming out of decades of having to defend dissociative disorders as valid at all due to organized attacks against lived experience and those who treat them.
Speaker 1:Part of this defense has been researching and confirming trauma as the source of traditional presentations of dissociative disorders, including identifying neurological biomarkers validating the diagnosis as legitimate. These studies have also identified trauma as the source of traditional presentations of DID. This is a huge breakthrough in the science of studying dissociative disorders and distinguishes these as unique diagnoses different from malingering, factitious, personality, or other disorders, including different from cases of imitative or fantasy models of multiplicity. This in no way invalidates other experiences or presentations which have not yet been studied. Lived experience can speak to unique and varied experiences while the science lags behind in evidence.
Speaker 1:Discussing these newer presentations in literature and trainings is how we begin to validate them and educate about them. We want to do this ethically and model that in our presentations the same as we practice healthy and safe interactions in this community. All of that is just some clinical context and information I wanted to share, but only in a left brain kind of way. So, for example, in the particular clinical presentation that people are talking about, legally, the presenter covered themselves by saying, I am not diagnosing or not treating these people. Ethically, the person covered themselves by following the standards and ethics of how to use public content to allow people to speak for themselves, especially in movements demanding change.
Speaker 1:Okay? So those things apply legally and ethically. What is a struggle, and I think where people felt hurt, wasn't so much in the words said as in the tone they experienced. This is why I wanted to go through right or wrong, right or wrong, and that is black and white. But right or wrong, this is why I wanted to go through the left brain clinical context first because I think it adds information.
Speaker 1:It answers some people's questions because in any kind of drama, in any kind of gossip, much less when you have all these parts internally, plus other people's parts, plus hundreds and thousands of people, like, it shifts from we experience this collectively, which is a collective trauma, to I heard this and they said this. And and so I just wanted to give those bits of information as context clinically to help with some accurate information. So so those are my thoughts. Like, when we talk about thoughts and feelings, those are my thoughts. But when we come to the right brain, which does experience, and I feel my feelings, then what hurts are several things.
Speaker 1:I wanna share my feelings, but I wanna share my feelings as I experience them. This is so hard to talk about. I literally have to walk through it step by step. So even just my right brain experience of things. I was at the conference last fall where the original version of this presentation happened.
Speaker 1:And as a clinician, I did put feedback on my form that that presentation, the tone was not okay and that I had concerns about how that feels from lived experience. So I did the air quotes. Right? The air quotes of the right thing after that session. And because there were myself and others who spoke up about that, that session was never released publicly.
Speaker 1:When one of those presenters then has recently given that presentation again, and in the presentation, use clips from social media without the content creator's consent, my first reaction was to panic because I didn't know if I or the podcast were going to be included in that because that has happened to me in the past, where things that we shared publicly were used in inappropriate ways or to target us. So I know this feeling because I have felt it repeatedly on all kinds of sides. If we're talking about sides, I have seen it done inappropriately by clinicians. I've seen it done inappropriately by plurals. I have seen it I have been hurt by lots of people for that reason.
Speaker 1:So I'm not on social media at all because of this very thing. Because when you release something publicly, it is then public content. And so it goes back to online safety. Right? And for me, it has not been safe enough to be on social media.
Speaker 1:Period. But I have continued with the podcast, although we almost stopped it the that when all of that happened two years ago. And so I understand those feelings from that experience myself. I do not mean to speak over the experience of those who are dealing with it right now, or or I I only mean from my perspective of that experience, I get it at a gut level. So that was my first response.
Speaker 1:I was not included in those clips or in the presentation in that way. The next response I had was, as I watched through it, I did see a system I recognized from the community. And my body, literally, I'm not kidding, my body cried before I could realize what I was feeling. Does that make sense? Because they're my friend, and I recognize them.
Speaker 1:And they've been in groups with us, and I thought, oh my heart. There they are. People can see them. And it is a strange feeling because I know their social media, which I don't follow because I'm not online, but I know them from groups. I know that it's public.
Speaker 1:So I know everybody's seen it, but there was something about the context and something about the tone that did not feel good. Later, I heard, and I did not know this, that one of the systems in the clips used had already, a year before, died by suicide. And that this is one of the reasons the online community had such big feelings about the presentation and the clips that were used. But, also, as a person who is a survivor of exploitation, that consent issue is everything. So it's Trixie because my left brain knows it's public content and here are the ethics, and it's actually supposed to be empowering for the clips to speak for themselves rather than people speaking for them.
Speaker 1:But it did not feel good watching it. And so when I look at the words, I recognize the words. Some of the words are mine from my article of this is DID. This is something else. What is that something else?
Speaker 1:And I it there are echoes of my conversations with Ellie Somer and about maladaptive daydreaming and what is that and what is it not and why is it called that and why not. Like, all these different things that I have been working on and through and trying to educate about for the last decade, I heard echoes of it in the presentation, but it was the tone and something implied that was not explicit that did not feel good. So this was my next feeling and my thoughts and feelings. Right? My next feeling was that there's something yucky here that feels like something yucky from the past.
Speaker 1:It's not that on the surface, something is wrong, and it's not that something is untrue. It's something about the conclusions and implications from it is is something is yucky there. So I think that is the other thing a lot of people also felt is that something about it just felt yucky. And I'm sorry yucky is not a professional word, but it was not a professional feeling. It had this emotional connotation to it.
Speaker 1:So the next feeling that I felt was that despair, which I don't use lightly, and I think is where people's suicidality and safety issues came in. At least for me, this is where it came in. There's something about despair. The way things were presented and the tone used in the presentation because what was being said how do you even find words for this? There there is I okay.
Speaker 1:So I'm just gonna say what I felt. I'm not saying what he said. I'm not saying what he intended. I'm not saying what the presentation is about. I cannot speak to those things.
Speaker 1:I can speak in my own voice what I felt. And what I felt was a double layer. And I what I felt during the presentation and after the presentation and the aftermath of the online conversation about it is this despair of I am bad and I am wrong and this is happening again And I can't even do dissociation right. All of those are actually thoughts. Those aren't even feelings.
Speaker 1:Those are all thoughts. But they were so subtle and so sneaky. And so the rug pulled out of me that it was beyond unsettling and beyond dangerous and beyond despairing. And I think that's where people started having safety issues and safety concerns in response to witnessing this. Because what it left me with was because I have a podcast, which he didn't speak about at all, to be clear.
Speaker 1:I'm not accusing him of anything. I'm saying, even though I'm not on social media, I have been public about some of my story. But because of that, then I feel because he says I'm public with my story, even though I had negotiated boundaries, even though we have stopped saying who does which episode primarily, even though we work really hard to mask who is out in group or who is out on the podcast, and we work really, really hard to be as covert as possible, as well presenting as possible, and do all the things that you do when you don't have privilege to be yourself or safety enough to be yourself. It makes me sick. I can't even keep going.
Speaker 1:I feel so nauseous that because of all these reasons listed on someone else's slide, that my experience was wrong, that I can't even do DID right is how I felt. And then when others respond to that in such an angry, activated place And, again, you will hear next week with Laura Brown, her talk about anger and how it points to something is not right. There is injustice there. And so I'm not saying that the response is wrong. I'm not judging or critiquing that response.
Speaker 1:But what I am saying is because I am not yet in a place in therapy where I can be that, then I am also being wrong and being plural that I can't do plural right either, which echoes with my experiences of trauma in the gay community where I can't do gay right, which echoes all the way back to core trauma growing up where I can't be right. And that's why I called Laura Brown to have that conversation. Because if I cannot even be right, then how can I live? That's why it became a safety issue for people. That's why suicidality was a response to that video.
Speaker 1:It wasn't because of something he did wrong or said wrong. It was a tone and an implication and a darkness, and I don't I don't know him. I know other people who presented on that panel or moderated or hosted the other first panel. I know some of them and have context about them or can say things directly to them. You know, on the podcast, I have called out other clinicians and said, no.
Speaker 1:I don't think you're right. We have to fix this because of that. You know that I have had guests who disagree with each other, guests who I disagree with, guests who have had difficult conversations with me. And we have walked through things. But this was something else, and it hurt deeply.
Speaker 1:But I am not in that place where I could respond with the intensity and the anger and the calling out organizations instead of people. Because those organizations are people, and I know they are people with lived experience. And I don't see an oppressive entity. I see faces. Now I have two things I have to acknowledge in response to that.
Speaker 1:Number one, I am still in early stages of therapy all this time later enough that I am aware that I am waiting for crumbs. That I don't know crumbs are not enough. That I am in process of learning to add good into my life. I am actively working on that as hard and as fast as I can, and it is not fast enough for this. And there are other people like me that it is not fast enough for this.
Speaker 1:We cannot get to that place. And I think that is as valid and as okay as people who are able to advocate loudly or clinicians who are able to give context or those who help us hold both, which is the healthy way to navigate life, that both things are true. There is a clinical context, and also the tone was not okay. There's more information behind the scenes that was not communicated clearly. And, also, it is retraumatizing when someone says your feelings are wrong.
Speaker 1:When someone says you are being wrong. So it is both. Both are true. The second thing that I have to say, and I I mentioned this earlier, that Laura Brown conversation became critical to me because I want to know how to learn from my anger, but I do not want to become angry. Maybe that's not what works for other people or what other people need.
Speaker 1:But for me, it's actually really, really important that I learn to notice my anger, figure out what information it's giving me, and then use that well without becoming my own perpetrator. I don't want to just reenact it. I don't want to respond from activated places. But also, I still think I can create change, and I still think that I can build bridges. It does not mean everyone wants to cross them, but I think it's possible to build them.
Speaker 1:Katie Keach is a clinician that I refer people to when they ask questions about neurodiversity. They are also a clinician with lived experience, And they are a clinician that I worked with closely on the new guidelines for ISSTD that will come out next year. I respect their work even though it's different than mine. And I respect their experience as identifying as plural even though I don't always feel like I can because I don't always feel like I belong or fit or I'm accepted there in that space. I have experienced so much bullying from plurals that it's nothing I wanna be a part of.
Speaker 1:But for Katie, plurals have been really safe people, and they've experienced the bullying from those with traditional traumagenic DID. But because we are civil and respectful and compassionate towards each other, we're able to have conversations about these things, and we've worked together very well even though we have completely different perspectives. And so I wanna give a shout out to them for doing such brave work in that way and thank them for holding space for differences. I've invited them to come on the podcast, and we can talk about this more in another conversation rather than just this long response to an email. But I use that example to say that I think we can hold both and navigate both without causing more harm.
Speaker 1:And in fact, on the community, I wrote this. Because it's also important for where I am in therapy, so I'm just sharing in case it helps. Dividing into camps of we are good and they are bad or we are right and they are wrong is binary thinking. This othering becomes contentious and adversarial with potential for bullying from either side. This reduced safety limits learning from both lived and learned experience.
Speaker 1:The struggle with healing developmental trauma is learning to hold both, both and or finding the gray. It is learning to communicate effectively and advocate in ways that are meaningful. We highly recommend an upcoming episode with Laura Brown about feminist rage for more information about this. It was a great conversation, And we have moved things around plenty with extra episodes from John Mark and, double episodes because of a recap and things like that where it there's just a lot happening. And you know what?
Speaker 1:Right now, my focus is on my healing. And not just my healing, but for the first time, my life focus is on living. And so I don't want to get lost and stressed out about which episode is coming up next week. The episodes are there. The episodes are coming.
Speaker 1:We are all learning together and healing together and progressing together, and we can continue to support each other and invite people into hard conversations to learn more and do better than what we knew a year ago or five years ago or ten years ago. That's what I need. I am full of mistakes and full of not knowing, and there are so many skills that we don't get when we are growing up in developmental trauma. And there is so much missing that it's not just about talking about the bad things. It's also about all the good things that we never got.
Speaker 1:And so I'm gonna focus on those things and filling my life up with good and adding in the good. And while I continue to go to therapy to address the hard things, I wanna be living the good things because it's time and it's now and it's mine. This is my life, and I'm gonna make a mess of it sometimes. And maybe people won't like what I say even about this, but that really is all I want to say right now, all I feel capable of saying right now, and what I want to say right now. And the weeks that this was all happening were really intense for me.
Speaker 1:I had worked through some hard issues of some hard lessons from the Healing Together conference, and that was so so good for me. That's what brought about the conversation with Laura Brown. And then I flew back to Oklahoma, and I spent two weeks there again and my daughter's birthday. And I had to go to the dentist and do my annual checkup and then get ready to go to the ISSTD conference with Jules. And then flying back from that, I am bringing three of the kids with me.
Speaker 1:So I'm gonna have three of the kids, and the husband is gonna have three of the kids, and his parents are struggling. His mom is not doing well and on oxygen. And so I need to take some of the kids so that he can care for what kids he has and his parents and tend to all the things. Like, there's just so much going on in real life, and I don't wanna fight. And I don't wanna be binary about that.
Speaker 1:That was my childhood trauma of being split between my mother and my father. And I've got all those wounds there. I'm not gonna do that with groups now. I'm gonna be me. And when these groups are helpful, I will utilize them or refer people to them.
Speaker 1:And when those groups are helpful or have resources, I will use those resources or refer people to those resources because we are in this together. It is not a binary thing, and we need each other from peer support to clinical support to research support. We all need each other, and I think there are ways to do that in healthy and safe ways, and I so appreciate people out there who have gifts of advocacy. I appreciate people out there who have gifts of research. I appreciate people out there who have gifts of privilege and are able to give and pour their heart and resources into a variety of things that do any of that or all of that or pieces of that.
Speaker 1:It's all good. It's all good. What is not good is trauma. What is not okay is oppression. And exploitation is always abusive and with consent.
Speaker 1:I want to share a poem by Cordelias from the community Before I read this poem, I want to share that it expresses relational trauma and grief as well, but specifically relational trauma. And I want you to know that so that you can care for yourself during and after hearing the poem and this episode. If that is too sensitive of a topic for you right now, you can skip forward several minutes. When we go back to the discussion of the impact of the presentation and with consent, I want to close with a poem. It is called Mother Robinson.
Speaker 1:An unrepaired rupture that no one will own. Perhaps he is within ethical boundaries set by the board, allowed to call out diagnosed systems as self diagnosed or malingering as long as he includes a disclaimer. Being right is apparently better than doing right. I can logicize it all, but my feelings can't understand any of it. Like littles being told, we are not friends.
Speaker 1:Back and forth, black and white. You are wrong if you don't feel shame. You are wrong if you do. There's supposed to be gray, but where is it? I am too much.
Speaker 1:I am too little. He is my mother, mother Robinson. You can try and try for mother Robinson, but you will never be enough. You are too dramatic. You are too much.
Speaker 1:You take up too much space. You are too loud for speaking at all. A forced sigh. That's your name. Forced sigh.
Speaker 1:That's how she calls you and how she dismisses you to bed. Forced sigh. Come here. You must be more. Forced sigh.
Speaker 1:Go there. You are too much. Each tear that I clear with my sleeve makes me colder. Then I put on a smile and go back to work. The show must go on.
Speaker 1:Your feelings are not real because you are not real. It's retraumatizing. It's my whole life. Your father is dying, but you must go to school. Check off your task list.
Speaker 1:Achieve the a's. The classroom intercom buzzes. Is it for me this time? Has he died? No.
Speaker 1:Not this time. Keep working. But he has already died. He is not him. Where is dad?
Speaker 1:What is real? This man is not my dad. This man cannot walk. This man cannot talk. His words are all wrong now.
Speaker 1:Get the antelope, he tells you. Because somehow antelope now means camera. He wants a picture of this moment where everything is wrong. Five children and their father smile for the antelope. Click.
Speaker 1:His hair is gone where they shaved and cut and stitched his head back together, but something is missing. Part of his skull is gone. The cancer is gone. My father is gone. But he is also here.
Speaker 1:His body is here smiling for the antelope that is somehow a camera. But dad is not inside my father. It doesn't make any sense. But we smile. Click.
Speaker 1:Are you happy, antelope? He tries to hug us for the picture. He looks at his hand that does not move, that does not hug us. The side no longer moves. Smile for the antelope.
Speaker 1:Click. You're not supposed to cry. You're supposed to be working. You have to pay the bills for life. The life that isn't real.
Speaker 1:What happens if you stop acting in the play that is life? If you don't pay the bills, maybe nothing happens. It isn't real. Can the play be over? I'm tired of acting.
Speaker 1:I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know who you are. I don't know what is real. Is anything real? Why are you crying?
Speaker 1:It's not real anyway. And then Cordellias wrote, I watched the video when it was first released. Before a lot of the reactions had come out, before the petition, before the topic ever came up here in the community. And at first, I was excited about the topic because I can relate to the confusion that he mentions at what it's like to receive a DID diagnosis as a covert system when the online representation of DID is overt. But as the video went on, there were many things he said that just made my stomach sink.
Speaker 1:And I can logicize what he meant even though the words often came out poorly. And I can logicize what he did may not go against standards for presentations set by credentialing boards, but I cannot logicize the feelings that I felt while watching that presentation. According to credentialing boards and research, he is right. But it is possible to do both, to be right and do wrong. Now, I am not the truth fairy, able to flit about and see who is telling the truth and who is hiding a lie under their pillow.
Speaker 1:But instead of defending the idea that it isn't okay to accuse people of making up their symptoms, he instead called the kettle black. For me, there is a feeling now that if I were ever to be open with my experiences, that a clinician could publicly cast doubt on my experiences and intentions if I don't do DID right. That I must be careful to always present the proper amount of shame, certainly never any level of joviality. And it just triggers the years of always being too much, too dramatic, never displaying the right emotions to please the mother. Truth be told, some of the video content he shared that comes from content creators that I have seen before and choose not to follow because the content is very loud both in terms of literal sound and in style.
Speaker 1:But he also shared twice content from a system I do follow. In one video, he points out that DID is presented as a game of guess who. Yet, this is a video I had previously liked and related to because it does address the topic that many people with DID do not go around conscious of being a certain alter at every given time as is often portrayed, though that is true for some. It does sometimes feel like a game of guess who for me or my spouse. I liked that system has displayed content that she and her husband are able to openly talk about DID and parts without tension, just as daily part of life that he could know the others rather than her feeling mortified and trying to hide them away.
Speaker 1:That gave me hope. Perhaps I should make a video presenting my identity confusion as a tragic game of guess who, where no one wins so that clinicians can oh and ah with pity over my properly shame filled and hopeless betrayal of DID. My words are angry, but my tears are made of salt and shame and sadness. This video could not have come at a worse time for me, having only recently been able to tackle some of the phobia of sharing parts a little more openly in therapy and with my husband. Having just begun to be able to dialogue inwardly a bit and feel like maybe opening up is helping me to feel better.
Speaker 1:But this presentation made me feel like I'm not healing. I'm just displaying some kind of imitative DID, just sick in a new way. There's that black and white thinking again. Two choices. And I can logicize that to the inside kids, but I can't make them feel it.
Speaker 1:Somehow, he is my mother, and there is no way to be good enough or right enough for mother Robinson. And you're not allowed to talk about how that feels. You're just supposed to go to work and pretend you're fine. No wonder everything always feels unreal. Mother Robinson is not going to own the fact that he hurt many genuine and diagnosed systems with his words.
Speaker 1:In fact, he states, quote, we did this presentation four and a half months ago and we actually had a bunch of people online make comments about the presentation and they were quite frustrated and angry that we were questioning the validity. See, that's the catch 22 with mother. If you disagree, it's because you are wrong, because you are dramatic. And mother's going to go along saying the same hurtful things again, training others to say the hurtful things too. It's that same scenario of the t telling the littles, we are not friends.
Speaker 1:And no matter how many times the t correctly restates that, the rupture is not addressed. Because it was never about the validity of the words. It was about the validity of feelings. Cordelius, thank you for bravely and vulnerably sharing these words. You led us into places that were difficult to feel for ourselves, to know for ourselves, to stay present with ourselves.
Speaker 1:Sometimes my left brain is a safer place. I can reason things there. I can predict what's coming at us and plan to keep us safe. It's one of those pieces about learning how a and p's are protectors, which we talked about in group e's once after a webinar. But I'm very uncomfortable with thinking of myself as a protector because by default, even in logic, it begs the question of what am I protecting myself from?
Speaker 1:And the answer to that is feelings and awareness. And with that awareness, there are things that we need to say, things that have not been spoken, but have been a long time coming. It took me all these weeks, both pragmatically and therapeutically, to come up with these words to find any words at all. And I'm sure they still need editing. And I'm sure that through therapy, there will be more layers that I find and learn to feel and grieve.
Speaker 1:But I also grieve things still unsaid. And I mourn the history of our field, my own profession, in which I have committed no crime, but also represent by default. And it's tricksy because far too often, survivors are responsible for the world. And far too often, we are apologizing when we have done nothing wrong. But when I think about my thoughts and feelings, my left brain and my right brain, All the parts and pieces of me, self states and layers, I need to see.
Speaker 1:What I grieve are the words still unsaid that have never been spoken and should have been. I thought a lot about what institutional courage would look like. I thought about what things need to be said. I talked to people. I asked questions.
Speaker 1:I reflected. I went back under the covers to ponder, to cry, to weep, to wait for words to come. And what I finally have decided on is that it is more important for the words to be spoken than it is to wait for someone to say them. Three times in the last three years, I have said these things publicly in conference presentations. I have pointed them out.
Speaker 1:I have drawn attention to them. But today, I, who am no one, will also apologize for them. Here are the words that finally came to me. From the exploitations of Charcot's salons to Freud's recanting of abuse reports, from the institutional deprivation and abuse of asylums to the medical horrors of lobotomies. From the ethics and bias of Piaget studying his own children to more recent drug experiments done without consent.
Speaker 1:From the shady history of therapists learning boundaries by violating them to the modern salons of case studies and social media clips, Our field of study, our profession, our offices have a difficult history with a harmful past that continues to impact our present.
Speaker 2:For this, I apologize.
Speaker 1:This history is what we in our offices call intergenerational trauma. It took an entire generation to recognize the betrayal of exploitation and recanting, another generation to acknowledge agency and autonomy, and another generation to consider consent and boundaries. We are still learning about dignity and have not yet perfected it. And for this, I apologize. Being confronted with the past may be uncomfortable to us, but not as painful as for those who lived through it.
Speaker 1:Voices for change may seem loud, but these are cries sounded through centuries. And change comes too slow while generations hold their breath.
Speaker 2:For this, I apologize.
Speaker 1:We hear and support the community's concern that the use of social media clips without the expressed consent of the individuals in them is reminiscent of the historical trauma of salons from the eighteen hundreds and the case presentations of the nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2:For this, I apologize.
Speaker 1:And in the silence, while you are holding your breath, waiting to be acknowledged, waiting to be seen, waiting to be heard, daring to take up space. That silence that lasts too long feels complicit. And for this, I apologize. And for one last comment from Cordelia where they said, and with consent, I quote, The flashback easing that I am now reexperiencing on loop triggered by that presentation is that someone in a position of authority and caretaking seems to be pleasing whether I have correctly felt and displayed my trauma or not. And I am not even a content creator, But that is still where the presentation went for me emotionally, end quote.
Speaker 1:And for this, I apologize. There's nothing else to be said, except that I am sorry. 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.systemspeakcommunity.com.
Speaker 1:We'll see you there.