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Diagnosed with Complex Trauma and a Dissociative Disorder, Emma and her system share what they learn along the way about complex trauma, dissociation (CPTSD, OSDD, DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality), etc.), and mental health. Educational, supportive, inclusive, and inspiring, System Speak documents her healing journey through the best and worst of life in recovery through insights, conversations, and collaborations.
Over: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast, 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: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 Coercion then becomes any form of manipulation that pressures someone into something against their will. So this is really tricksy because even when it's not intentional, that is what we experience. Like, communication is how the message lands.
Speaker 1:And if someone's body, like, is saying no, or if I am feeling rage surface, that is a boundary. Even if the boundary is just about titrating or pacing, but there should be some flexibility. If my body is saying no, maybe I'm sick, maybe littles need something else, maybe I'm worried about my kids and need to focus on that, maybe I have an extra presentation coming up. There can be all kinds of reasons my body would say no to anything that have nothing to do with the other person. It may not be about my date or about Nathan or about, like, whatever ship we're talking about.
Speaker 1:So there could be so many reasons my body is saying no. But in this example with the relationship development and attachment development, in a healthy relationship, that person is going to respect my no and let my no be no without taking it personally. And that is healthy In attachment activation, they will take that personally because they are think they are going to receive that as rejection. Or if it were the other way around, I would receive it as rejection if I'm taking it personally. And then we get back into the cycle of the rage, the interpersonal violence cycle, the coercive control cycle, the abuse cycle.
Speaker 1:We're responding to and acting out in response to other people's feelings instead of just tuning into our own systems. There are examples like, if you really loved me, you would do this. Those are that's an emotional dynamic. There's this social pressure of thinking or saying you have to because everyone else does, like basic peer pressure. Right?
Speaker 1:And there's power dynamics using authority or money or experience or privilege to get compliance. That goes back to that goalpost being changed over and over again. I'll help you with this, but it has strings attached. That's not actually help. That's making it harder.
Speaker 1:Doing four is making it harder. Doing two is making it harder. That's not the same as doing with. Healthy love and respect do not require a price of admission. Healthy love and respect do not require pressure.
Speaker 1:Consent is an ongoing conversation. Even in long term relationships, even with healthy attachment and healthy relationship development, no is still no. Even after saying yes, we can still change our mind. I know this feels like common sense, but with developmental trauma, we may not know this, or we may not have practice with this, or we may not know how to use those muscles. The nervous system confuses danger for love and compliance for safety.
Speaker 1:That's because, again, our limbic system is focused externally, focusing on other people instead of internally on our own system. And we become afraid that saying no feels like betrayal rather than setting boundaries. This happens to me a lot. Because of that double bind that is my own history, I have to be really careful and learn how to say no, practice saying no, practice saying that's not actually what I'm feeling, that's not actually what I'm experiencing, or setting those kinds of just clarity on where I'm actually at as opposed to a story someone is telling themselves about me. Because within my double bind, within the style of fawning that I was required to do for my parents and the terror that is behind it, saying no feels like I am betraying them.
Speaker 1:And it is safer to say yes and betray myself. That's not what I want. And the majority of the time, it's not what your partner, friend, any ship actually wants from you either. So thinking about how to reclaim consent is like figuring out what does a comfortable yes feel like. What does a enthusiastic yes feel like?
Speaker 1:And how are those two different from a pressured yes? The other thing that we talked about is how women and men are different. And I talked about this with Nathan. Maybe he would come on and talk to me talk with me about it on the podcast. But women and men regulate differently.
Speaker 1:So we are told all of these things to calm our bodies, like deep breathing and these different grounding things, those are dopamine based. And there are times that that can be really helpful. That's fine. And also, research just since this summer has revealed female assigned at birth bodies need oxytocin based grounding. So dopamine is the chemical of doing, chasing, striving, achieving, scrolling.
Speaker 1:It's that rush you get when you check something off the list. But dopamine actually uses up oxytocin, the hormone that helps us feel connected, safe, and belonging. So when we are over focused on dopamine based things, we actually lose access to what we actually need, which is why sometimes when we are trying all the coping skills we've got, it feels like we're just getting worse and worse and worse. That is what leads us to functional freeze, where we're high strung and exhausted at the same time, overachieving but emotionally numb. It's a type a and a type b fused into one nervous system loop.
Speaker 1:Do crash. Shame. Repeat. Regulating as a female assigned at birth body is completely different than regulating as a male assigned at birth body. We have to nourish our body through the parasympathetic system where there's a flow, thinking about it like water, where there's air.
Speaker 1:That goes back to why I was talking about watering and airing, not just grounding. We need connection with each other. We need to be able to be safe with each other, which means every encounter cannot check off a list of hard conversations. We need safe conversation. We need to notice what our body is craving.
Speaker 1:Are we actually looking for one more accomplishment? Are we looking to be able to breathe safely? Who do I have to be to be accepted is not belonging, that is compliance, that is fitting in. Oxytocin based connection is who am I, and who can I be safely with and still be me? If we are safe with someone, if someone loves all of us, we won't have to change ourselves.
Speaker 1:There will be things we can learn, skills we can gain. And we can learn about them and how to love them in meaningful ways, but we will not have to change ourselves. In memory time and because of memory time, most of us mistake social approval for belonging because as children, was survival. We became shapeshifters, reading the room, changing our tone, smiling through discomfort. That is code switching.
Speaker 1:That is adaption. It was once lifesaving, but now costs us authenticity. I have been learning this year about the difference between who are my friends and who are just friendly. There are some great people who are very polite and very kind and do lots of great things, and if I interact with them at a conference or here or there, they're great. It's an enjoyable time that is not the same as they are actually showing up as my friend.
Speaker 1:True belonging never asks us to betray ourselves. It invites us to come home. We learned that from doctor Tema. So what is limerence? Limerence is romanticizing people.
Speaker 1:It is the daydreaming of a relationship. Limerence is that intense, obsessive infatuation that feels like love but isn't actually built on really knowing the other person. So parasocial layers make this even harder because there's more distance. Right? So we're knowing about them or pieces of them, but we're not actually knowing them.
Speaker 1:Limerence is fueled by cortisol spikes and dopamine drops. Our brain feels starved for safety, and that person feels like the only meal. When we are in limerence, our nervous system is dysregulated. We are not in our prefrontal cortex. We are in the amygdala.
Speaker 1:We're seeing threat, and that person feels like safety. But that safety is an illusion. That safety is rescue. And no one can rescue our babies. We have to rescue our own babies.
Speaker 1:But we don't know that yet, and so we cling and obsess and call it love when really it is survival chemistry. And when it collapses, it feels like coming off of a drug. That's when that euphoric recall shows up. But we cannot shame ourselves for limerence. That just makes the wounds worse.
Speaker 1:We cannot heal what we're hating. And if we are hating ourselves or the people around us, we will not heal, and our relationship will end because we cannot be in relationship with what we hate, whether that is ourselves or someone else. It is a time to pause and ask, how old do I feel in this relationship? Am I feeling like an adult? Am I behaving like an adult?
Speaker 1:Am I using resources that I have for my own support like an adult, or am I just feeling like the child who was never chosen? Here's the kicker. Are you ready? Limerence, almost always. Limerence is not about the person you're looking at.
Speaker 1:Limerence is almost always about the people who were not behind you when you were little, who did not pick you up, who are you still waiting to tend to you. That is why the other person will feel objectified with limerence and feel in danger with limerence. The harder you try to convey your love, the more dangerous it feels to the other person. Because it's not we're not oriented to now time when that is happening. And when we're experiencing limerence, we are not healing.
Speaker 1:We are dating our own trauma response. So what are the clues when we are drawn to people who make us work for their attention or earn their attention or have to be good in some way or payback or there's any kind of things are counted in ways that, rather than being natural reciprocity that comes from expressive and responsiveness, It being more compliance and status quo and, it being that price of admission. Right? Two, mistaking intensity for intimacy. And three, having to earn being chosen rather than even having the opportunity to be choosing.
Speaker 1:That's because they are not loving themselves. Or if someone else tells us they are feeling that, we are not loving ourselves. Because when we are loving someone instead of limerence, we believe in ourselves. We are present with ourselves. We are caring for ourselves.
Speaker 1:And so we have that to offer the other person because we can be expressive and responsive, and that is received. But if someone won't receive it and someone is shutting that down or you're getting it wrong or you can't do it right and it is you that is wrong in the relationship, then that is not relationship. That is reenactment. When you are trauma bonded, chaos feels like chemistry because the nervous system equates unpredictability with aliveness. But healthy connection is not adrenaline.
Speaker 1:It's regulation. It's not the rush of being noticed. It's the peace of being accepted. So do we want relationships like romantic relationships where we get the butterflies? Yes.
Speaker 1:But we also want to be able to feel safe. And if we really love ourselves, we have to learn how to say no. We will lose people in our lives when we start to set boundaries, and that's okay. We have experienced that over and over in the community. We have experienced that over and over in different ships.
Speaker 1:We experience that over and over in different ways, but it means it's a boundary, and what was happening was not healthy. And that is protecting yourself, and it is choosing yourself. That is the paradox of healing, which is different than a double bind and also how we get out of a double bind. When we stop abandoning ourselves, the people who benefited from our self abandonment may indeed leave us, But we stay. We stay with ourselves.
Speaker 1:And when we do that, we start to find other people who can tolerate their own selves. And that is what we need and can do and enjoy in parallel ships where we're parallel healing instead of trauma bonding. In a romantic relationship, Healthy chemistry does not feel like a roller coaster. It does not feel like we need a seat belt. It does not feel like we have to chase someone down or avoid the harm coming from them.
Speaker 1:There are illusions that it could be where it is about the instant spark or the forbidden thrill or shared trauma or the level of chaos, savior complexes, even both of us having similar things that we enjoy or ways to connect. But that is just chasing the feeling of chemistry, which is about reenacting the chaos of our dysregulated childhoods instead of the steady heartbeat of compatibility. Butterflies are nice, and also butterflies are seasonal. Butterflies have a whole life cycle, and we need to be safe in that whole life cycle. Does someone love you and care for you as much and in the same way when you are cocooned as when you are showing your pretty wings.
Speaker 1:We think the connection is strong, but what we're realizing we experience is that our nervous system is flooded. Stability might feel boring after chaos, but boredom is peace we haven't learned to trust yet. When we move into healing and learn to love safely, we will feel seen. My therapist said seen stands for what am I scared of, what am I embarrassed about, what was I expecting that I didn't know I expected, and what do I need. And here was something super interesting.
Speaker 1:She said that triggers or being activated isn't actually an overreaction. It's an under repaired experience. So the other person in whatever ship we have, whether that is work or friends or partners or whatever, the other person may not put the trauma landmine there. They're just stepping on it. But with healthy relationships, we can repair those, and we notice the explosion and go back together to see what happened without anyone being in trouble.
Speaker 1:And we can learn to say, I hear this is what you experienced. This is what you're feeling, and here's how it makes sense. What else? Is there anything else I need to know? Because emotional safety isn't when we say we understand, it's when they feel understood.
Speaker 1:So this is why it's important not to take it personally or why we feel unsafe when someone else takes it personally because then they are focusing on their feelings instead of hearing ours, or I'm focused on my feelings instead of hearing theirs. And all of us have feelings that are valid. To feel connected, those feelings need to be validated. And we have to learn how to do that in our ships in ways that are meaningful to the other person and how to express ourselves in ways meaningful to us with all of the boundaries we're learning how to do. I can love you and also not tolerate being harmed.
Speaker 1:I can have compassion without collapsing my own existence. This is the opposite of the double bind. These are the boundaries that get me out of the double bind. Boundaries are not walls. Boundaries are what creates doors.
Speaker 1: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.