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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 2:You guys, this is Sasha. I am back. I have missed months and months and months of my life. I can't even tell you. Even before that, that's a little blurry.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to put pieces back together and trying to figure out how to live my own life, except I can't because there's a whole crew of people in here. So I wanna talk about something. First of all, unfawning ruined my life. So y'all need to go back to fawning because I was wrong. Fawning is much safer.
Speaker 2:It just cost your soul. Oh my goodness. Okay. So don't really go back to fawning, but can we just hold space for a minute how when we remove ourselves from codependent or dependent or fawning relationships, how everything falls apart, and it is highly unpleasant for all involved. I just wanna say, we were talking about this in therapy today with my therapist that I had for a year now.
Speaker 2:Bonus points, gold star for her and gold star for us. And we were talking about a specific example, which I don't wanna go into right now because I am learning that I have a right to my own privacy. Who knew? Not me, but there you go. So I don't wanna talk about this specific example, but the metaphor she used of this is sort of like, you know, the whole shiny happy concept where we had to stay on our blanket?
Speaker 2:When that gets relational and there's fawning involved, it's like shiny happy fawning becomes like a whole game of Jenga that you're playing balanced on a ball you're trying to juggle. Right? So can we just say, do you have that image in your mind? Because it is exhausting. Right?
Speaker 2:Like, every time there's a rule, we have to pull it out from the bottom and try to get it on top without spilling anything. All the edges are very straight and cornered. It's very it's very binary. Things fall apart, and so you fail, or you succeed in playing a scary game that you can't actually win. It is literally a game you play until you fail.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness. So in this context, we were talking about holding space for not just holding space for both, but, like, holding space for lots of truths at the same time, that this can be true, and also this is true, and also this is true, and also this is true. Do you know what that feels like to me aside from the Jenga metaphor we'll come back to later? It feels like have you ever watched those women who do the lace? I don't even know what it's called in English, but they have all those spindly things, and they just start throwing them back and forth, and it looks like they're just making a mess.
Speaker 2:But it creates this incredibly intricate pattern. Do you know what I'm talking about? That is what it feels like when we are in the middle of all this. So to stay present relationally, even with ourselves and also connected to another person where there are some boundaries and some flexible boundaries, but also some not flexible boundaries because it's healthy, not because it's shiny happy. So we talked about this a year ago in a different way.
Speaker 2:Like, a year ago, parked in this very park, not knowing it would be months and months or a year until I talk to you again, we talked about this concept of undaydreaming that I cannot just imagine what life is or going to look like based on how I want it to look like. I mean, there are some things. Like, I can set goals for myself. There are things I can accomplish. There are ideas I can have or receive feedback or correction or instruction from others and build more skills and create things or ideas or bring things to fruition like the community or other things?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And, also, this has to be based in reality. Examples we have given on the podcast already in the past have included things like needing to have the budget for the community to pull off what it does, needing to have enough funding for me to be able to devote more time to do more of what we want in the community because I have to feed the children. Right? So I can't just do that instead of feeding the children.
Speaker 2:That's daydreaming. Getting funding to support the ideas and work that we and the board are developing, that's real life. So there are ways to negotiate it in healthy ways where it does not actually cost my soul. That's the goal. Oh, that was an excellent rhyme.
Speaker 2:So we have learned a lot about this. So there's lots of examples we've shared on the podcast. You don't need to hear it all again, and I'm learning again about privacy. So I don't wanna give more specific examples right now, But what I do wanna share is that when we are fawning, part of the reason it costs our soul is because we are meeting the needs of everybody else instead of meeting our own needs. And part of the process of not meeting our own needs is holding in our true thoughts and feelings and not having hard conversations with people in our lives that would let us also meet our needs because we are one of the people in the relationship.
Speaker 2:Right? So it's actually really healthy important to have hard conversations where you share your thoughts and feelings even though it's a really scary thing to do. And it takes practice and muscles. We have muscles for this that we did not have a year ago. I think that's amazing.
Speaker 2:In a similar way, I remember one of the things we've learned with Nathan is that you can have conflict and disagreement without it being ugly or nasty or hateful. Right? We've talked about this before on the podcast with Nathan. We have different ideas, different opinions, different perspectives, and so we don't always have the same ideas or thoughts or feelings. And so we can have, what you could call conflict or disagreement about different things, and, also, it not be hateful or ugly or abusive because we've developed muscles we can use to simply disagree in safe and healthy ways.
Speaker 2:We have that with friends online. There's lots of different ideas about what it means to be plural or not or about this concept or that concept or what you think about structural dissociation or not. We can have our own thoughts and feelings and opinions and also not weaponize them. Right? It's an election year in America.
Speaker 2:That is terrifying. And four years ago, it got pretty nasty out there in the world, like, really unsafe for some people. So in the same way, we can use those same skills to have our own thoughts and feelings and opinions and also not be nasty and ugly with them. I know not everyone's doing that, but that brings up the next point that in a relationship, it is both people. It always takes both people doing the work to have a relationship.
Speaker 2:And a relationship cannot be more than what both people are putting into the relationship, which means all relationships are somewhat limited by what the people in the relationship are actually investing into it. So that's where things come in like boundaries. Right? We ought not invest more into a relationship than someone else is investing. I learned about that from Clarissa years ago.
Speaker 2:And it's really hard to do when you're good at fawning because we will give everything, again, the cost of our souls. We will give everything to a relationship or to another person because we want to care for them the way no one has ever cared for us. And because we have been trained by childhood deprivation and relational trauma of how to care for others instead of ourselves. So it ends up happening almost without us realizing it. It.
Speaker 2:But when we come back to unfawning, one of the things that's actually really hard about it is that to be healthy, to have a healthy relationship and not only reacting and responding out of fear or memory time cues, we have to stop playing Jenga. We can't play Jenga. So maybe sometimes there's a lot to juggle, like work and family and free time and friends and lots of things like that, so there may be lots to juggle. Part of juggling is the balance and trying to balance our needs with the needs of those around us. Anyone who is a parent gets this because, of course, the needs of the children are most important.
Speaker 2:And, also, if I don't put my oxygen mask on, I'm not going to be there to care for the children. Right? So we have definitely learned this especially throughout the pandemic and since then that we have to find ways to care for ourself so that we can do a good job caring for the children. And the same is also true for our other relationships. But when we're still fawning, what happens is we don't hold space for our own things, our own needs, our own thoughts or feelings because that is what is being sacrificed or stuffed down or hidden away or shoved down.
Speaker 2:Like, whatever language you wanna use, we dissociate from our own needs and focus only on the care of others. Because if they are safe, we are safe. If they are calm, we are calm. If they are happy, our lives are easier. So when we do that, though, what happens is that we store up all of these thoughts and feelings that really are our reality, and we completely deny it so that others can have their reality, which means our reality is just pushed under the surface and ignored or denied or dismissed or repressed or however you wanna say it.
Speaker 2:And, yes, that sounds tragical. We can talk about how victimizing that is or how oppressive that is or how sad that is. Absolutely. And, also, it is us doing it to ourselves. We are reenacting what other people have done to us and how other people have treated us, and we do that to ourselves.
Speaker 2:So to give an example that's safe enough to share and already is public, right, because you already know things. So an example is if someone sends an email to the podcast and says, your email is terrible. The community is terrible. You're terrible. What you're doing is awful and dangerous, and I don't want any part of it.
Speaker 2:So first of all, if you want a part of it, leave us alone. And, also, when we do reenactment and get activated by those conditional cues of, oh, I am bad. I always knew I was bad. How dare I think I had something good to offer? So maybe the podcast is bad, and maybe the community is bad.
Speaker 2:What if I'm doing a terrible thing? I don't wanna be dangerous, so I should do nothing. And it spins out into this rabbit hole until we can't function anymore. And so it becomes the ties that bind, if I could say it that way, like, where we are literally paralyzed by our own fear and shame that never even was ours to start with. Because the memory time shame was put on us by other people, and the now time condition cue came from other people.
Speaker 2:It's not even our stuff, but we're living according to that reality. So no wonder we feel broken because reality feels broken. The mirror with others is broken. Right? So it's not an accurate view of ourselves, and it's not an accurate view of the world.
Speaker 2:I'm not a terrible person. I'm a human person who sometimes makes mistakes, but I'm not a terrible person. The podcast has some episodes that are better than others. There are some episodes you may like more than others, but that doesn't mean it's a terrible resource. The community has had its ups and downs with all of humanity in all of the parts and peoples of all of the multiples because that is life with humanity and because that is trauma and because that is healing and because we focus on relational work together.
Speaker 2:And so, of course, it activates and brings up all the things, but that's actually good. That's healing. That's progress. That doesn't make the community bad. So it's not binary.
Speaker 2:Right? But if I want to function in the world, I can't be spinning out in rabbit holes. So here's what this means for me that makes me really, really uncomfortable. When I am fawning, I have to live down in the rabbit hole because that's where my reality gets shoved down into. And as much as it feels like, oh, poor me, and really could be validated for all kinds of reasons, it's also true in a really uncomfortable way that I end up using that rabbit hole as a shield to protect me from further harm.
Speaker 2:So do I want connection, and does connection bring healing? Yes and yes. And, also, is connection terrifying? And does connection bring up memory time things for me? And does connection activate not just, like, condition, cues, and things, but also it brings up recognition that my internal selves are not as invisible as I thought, that other people can see me, which is as unnerving as it is sickening to realize that people could see me and chose not to.
Speaker 2:So is it my fault if people are interacting me are interacting with me in a misattuned way that is relational trauma that requires a fawning response, which in itself requires me to shove down my own existence until I am invisible with no needs and definitely not any thoughts or feelings or opinions. No. That is not my fault. And, also, in an advanced topics kind of way, when I choose to stay asleep to that process and do not do the hard work of waking up to what is happening, then at some level, at some point, it is me doing it to myself. I do not mean this in a victim blaming or victim shaming kind of way.
Speaker 2:I mean it in holding truth like the woman doing her lace, holding lots of truths at once, and one of those truths being, it turns out I am not helpless. As an adult with adult resources, I have the power to empower myself using whatever tools I need, whether that's something like the podcast or community, whether that's therapy, whether that's other resources you find on your own. You do you. And also, my life is not a game, and I have spent so many years juggling balls that had platters balanced on them while trying to build Jenga towers and being afraid it's going to spill. Of course, it's going to spill because that's a hot mess waiting to happen.
Speaker 2:And, also, if I make a mistake and it does spill, it's not actually the end of the world. So if I start to create space for learning to make mistakes and learning to recover from them and learning to empower myself to give myself permission to be human, then it makes more possible because I'm already starting to exist and take up space in the world. But here's where it gets hard because part of is having the hard conversations and saying the hard things that meet our own needs and express our own thoughts and feelings as we navigate the world in a real way that is not just about playing Jenga. I have sat with this and wrestled with this for a year now, a little more than a year, and it has been brutal. But today, I stumbled onto an even harder piece, and that is that once I say the hard things, I also have to let them go.
Speaker 2:There are parts of me internally who have done the hard work of reminding me of all the dangers in life and of everything that could go wrong and everything that is already wrong because shiny happy means right and wrong. And predicting what is wrong is what made us more right, which made us more safe. Not really, but this is the binary understanding of what is seeming to be safer. Except it's not actually safe because it's not real. Fawning is not real, so nothing of substance can come out of it.
Speaker 2:And here are more hard truths for your lace, and here are more hard truths for those of you making lace. There is not one time in my childhood, my adolescence, or even adulthood where fawning actually kept me out of danger. Fawning only delayed the danger, which means my quality of life every day is built around fear that those Jenga towers are going to collapse, which also means are you still making lace? Because here comes another spool. It also means that in a way, very parallel even to self harm I know.
Speaker 2:I know. That causing or letting the Jenga tiles finally fall actually brings relief. Because up until they fall, we are living in fear, and everything is focused on fear and what we're afraid of and what might happen and what's likely to happen and what if and what if and what if. Well, you know what? So what?
Speaker 2:What if? Ask the question and answer the question. What if it happens? What if the Jenga towers fall? The answer is if the Jenga tower falls, You guys, we just pick up the pieces.
Speaker 2:That's how simple it is. But when we're still waiting for the fall k. We're making lace. We're making lace. When we are still waiting for the fall and we are fawning, that requires us to maintain our fear in order to support the fawning to avoid what we fear.
Speaker 2:So this is where it becomes relational internally because part of me is threatening me with the fear. Part of me is complying with the Jenga rules to prevent what I'm afraid of, and part of me is left carrying the Jenga tower on the juggled balls, and part of me is left carrying someone else's Jenga tower while juggling balls. Nobody told me to do that. I am doing that all by myself, and part of healing starts to be owning that and just starting to put things down. You can be gentle.
Speaker 2:You don't have to make the pieces fall. And, also, you can say, I just can't carry that anymore. Do you remember that a year ago at the water park where we were like, we just can't carry your stuff anymore? This is that moment. And you can say, you know what?
Speaker 2:I really don't like juggling. This is too much. Or maybe I only like juggling two or three things, but 19 things is too much. Or maybe you're juggling other people's balls, and it's time to just give them back. Hey.
Speaker 2:You juggle these. Those are your fireballs. I have my own fireballs to juggle. But I have spent years holding close to my chest. But I have spent years denying my own thoughts and feelings so that I would not notice my needs, but then also using those same unmet needs as resentment or venting or complaining or judgment against those who could not meet my needs or were not meeting my needs or maybe didn't even know about my needs because I was the one not telling them.
Speaker 2:So it gets really tricky because when we are children, deprivation is danger. And when we are children, being left alone is terrifying because it is danger. And, also, as an adult with adult resources, I become responsible for myself. And, yes, along the way, learning how to do that feels impossibly hard when it has never been done, when it has never been modeled, and when I have always had to care for myself. Right?
Speaker 2:All of those things are true. We're still making lace. We're still making lace. All of those things are true, but we can put a pin in it like she does when she's making lace. We can put a pin in it and come back to that piece later because that's a different discussion.
Speaker 2:Right now, the truth that I stumbled on is that I am using what I never expressed to anyone as evidence of why I should not express it. You guys, that logic doesn't math. That doesn't even work. So when we are fawning, it is really important to hold on to all the things, to have the evidence for why it's not safe because, otherwise, how would we justify to ourselves that we are fawning? So in situations where it's unsafe or we're in danger or there's relational trauma, that makes absolute valid sense.
Speaker 2:And, also, so so we put a pin in it, and we're going to new spools or whatever they're called. Please someone send an email and tell me what those things are called that they are thrown back and forth when they're making lace. And, also, when it is safe enough so I'm not talking about when it's not safe enough. That's a whole different thing. Right?
Speaker 2:We put a pin in that. But when it is safe enough and we are with people with whom we are trying to build healthy relationships, we can't just hold on to all of that resentment and all of that fear and all of that and all of that darkness. Because if we are because it's safe enough, then actually engaging with friends, with relationships who are safe enough means laying our cards on the table and not picking them back up as weapons. So part of unfawning is saying the things. But once those things are said, we have to let them go.
Speaker 2:Putting a pin in it, looking at our beautiful lace. Another way of saying this is even with our systems internally, when we have needed dissociation to stay alive, whether that was physically or relationally, then anything we have done or tried, then that makes sense. Staying alive is really, really important. Being dissociation makes sense in all the ways we have talked about. We can look at that lace from previous projects.
Speaker 2:Right? And also and also there comes a time when we are safe enough, with resources enough, and support enough that it's time to start waking up. It's not binary. Putting down the game of Jenga tiles does not mean we have to throw it away. There may be times we still need dissociation, and that's not failing.
Speaker 2:We could sit in a comfortable chair at a nice table and play Jenga without having to balance it on a ball while juggling. It's not that it's bad. We're not being binary about it. And, also, for me personally, it's time to look at things, and it's time to talk about things, And it's time to think, what happened in the last year, and what am I gonna learn from that? It's time to say, who has stayed in my life?
Speaker 2:Who is showing up in my life? What are we how deep do I really want to go with this healing? It means taking a moment to say, when this happened, I felt this. It's taking time to notice who's in here and why are they here, and what are they here to teach me. We have, over time, on the podcast, talked about some of us who are here.
Speaker 2:We have learned some things. We have talked to some people, and then it felt like everything fell apart at the pandemic, before the pandemic, not even because of the pandemic, but all of us in crisis together, really, in what was a unique time. We've talked about that in doctor e's presentation, how the pandemic was a time where all of us were going through the same trauma, even our therapist. That's really unique. Last year, all of us online went through collective trauma together, and that was hard.
Speaker 2:But look what we've learned and how we've grown. We've also been online enough. I don't mean we have social media. We don't. But, I mean, we've been around long enough as a podcast that we know who's safe and who's not for us.
Speaker 2:So so, really, we're to the point in therapy where the question becomes this. If shiny happy was about having to be very good to stay alive, and was getting good at being good to stay safe enough to stay alive. And if it means I'm the one who built my own Jenga towers in that effort, not intentionally, I thought the game was staying alive. But if it's not a game anymore and if I'm alive enough and safe enough and supported enough and connected enough, then and here's the question part. Sorry.
Speaker 2:That was long. If all of that is where we got to where we are, the question then is what does unfawning for myself look like? Not just me unfawning for others. You guys, I am fawning for myself, for my own fears to settle, for my own concerns to be assured. What does it mean to unfawn for myself, to let myself see and say the hard things to myself, to accept who and what is inside me and just let it be.
Speaker 2:What does it look like to let myself spill on the floor in pieces and also pick up those pieces? No pieces left behind. What if I don't even play Jenga anymore? What if I just build something amazing? What if I don't wanna build something amazing?
Speaker 2:What if I just want to discover the shape of me?
Speaker 1: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.systemspeed.com. We'll see you there.