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Diagnosed with Complex Trauma and a Dissociative Disorder, Emma and her system share what they learn along the way about complex trauma, dissociation (CPTSD, OSDD, DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality), etc.), and mental health. Educational, supportive, inclusive, and inspiring, System Speak documents her healing journey through the best and worst of life in recovery through insights, conversations, and collaborations.
Over:
Speaker 2:Welcome to the System Speak Podcast, a podcast about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to long time listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Hello. Hello. I am super excited to talk to you. Some people know you from the community, but how do you want to introduce yourself?
Speaker 1:So, I'm Charlotte Mickey. I will say that I live in Ontario, Canada, which is pretty cool up here. And we are we are a DID system that sometimes goes by the nickname Wolfpack, which maybe we can talk about a bit later. And yeah, right now, I work in academia, but I'm also going to school to the social work program.
Speaker 2:I am so glad you're here, and I'm so excited to talk to you. I don't even know how to explain what we're going to talk about. We have emailed about it. I have been excited, but you have had your own journey. Where do you even want to start today?
Speaker 1:My goodness, I know, right? I'm just so excited to, I think, share our story because we've been hearing a lot, and this is something, a big impact that the community has had for us, and we've been hearing from a number of voices in the broader DID community, that sharing diverse voices is so story. So I know there's a lot of topics that we talk back and forth about. I wonder if maybe they could put a bit of context to where we come from. No details or anything like that, but just to have an understanding of our general story.
Speaker 1:Because I think we come from a different story than a lot of people that we've heard from.
Speaker 2:That's so beautiful. And the sharing of the diverse voices, I agree, is so, so important. And we appreciate the courage and vulnerability of being here and absolutely will let you share the pieces that feel safe enough.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you for this platform and conversation to be able to do that. It's something that's really important for us. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So in in general, our abuse history, I guess, had was from birth all the way up until we were 37 years old. And so during that whole time, we were really isolated from a lot of what goes on
Speaker 2:in
Speaker 1:society, guess, and even the parts that we were not, like we went to school, all that type of stuff. He didn't realize how kind of controlled or regulated by other people that symptoms or even relationships with people to know, like, something, you know, something is off sort of, but didn't until 37. And that was kind of a hard line where our our main I'll say main abuser person, they passed away. And that was transformative. Transformative.
Speaker 1:And we were lucky enough to know someone pretty closely. We remember working with them at a public area when we kind of just came to realize what something is not right anymore. And that was about five months after this person had passed away. And that was, like, a month before COVID started. And so we we were lucky enough to get that person is a social worker, and she helped us get access to a therapist and she knew enough that there was trauma involved but didn't know what.
Speaker 1:So we got in to see our therapist a week before everything where we are shut down because of COVID. And she was wonderful enough to keep seeing us even though COVID happened. And so we got to see her all throughout COVID kind of learning about what was happening, trying to figure it out. It's so funny, she describes the situation, or I guess our conversations, which were very, very minimal. There's not a lot of talking in our early months of sessions.
Speaker 1:She calls it Swiss cheese, where there's holes everywhere and she couldn't understand where how they fit together. But she knew that she did that they did. And it was really like, I I think that kind of backstory is important to what we might talk about later because I really was isolated from the world for so long. And also an important part of the therapist had not worked with anyone who she knew that had DID or dissociative identities in any way. So we were both kind of approaching this from unknown, really new perspectives.
Speaker 1:Cut me off if I need to pause at any time too, please.
Speaker 2:Just really appreciate, like you started with, I wanna share my story because the more diverse voices we have, the more people can relate. And I was also diagnosed, in my case, in the death after my parents. And so, it is just fascinating how much that happens when we're enduring so much, and then when an abuser passes or when parents pass or something and then things kind of finally fall apart just because it's safe enough to do so and some of us fall apart more than others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Yeah. I'm so glad you said that because it that actually is a fairly common story to hear from other people. So it is it is pretty, what's the word, validating, I think, to hear that. So thanks for mentioning that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so we kinda jumped in it together also while COVID was happening. So there is still that kind of theme of isolation. It was just happening in a different way. And it it felt it feels now looking back on it, like, starting from a place of, like, baby steps, I guess, without any history. So neither one of us knew any history about DID, about the memory wars, about the whole history, you know, like, all of that.
Speaker 1:None neither one of us knew anything. I never heard about it before. And, you know, when you first learn about DID, and I hear this from a lot of people that you get kinda like, wanna research everything, wanna learn all about it. And I started learning or searching online right away as soon as it came up, and this was probably in the fall of twenty twenty. And the first thing I came across was system speak online.
Speaker 1:And maybe it was in the summer of twenty twenty, and the community had just started. And we didn't have, like, a fear of connecting with people about it. We had a fear of expressing ourselves about it, but not about learning because we were still super excited and into it. And so we joined right away. So for the first few months of realizing that we needed help, we had a therapist, and we joined the community and we had lots of resources.
Speaker 1:And we didn't have, like we had never seen any of the media, movies, or people, things that people referred to. So we didn't have that type of history. And so I think that helped us kind get started on our healing journey without having knowledge or awareness of that until later. Yeah.
Speaker 2:What was that like for you, sort of joining the community and starting to connect with other people with lived experience, even if also different than yours or different context?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that it was actually amazing because I knew, sort of, based on like DSM type stuff, what DID was. Experiences or were having struggles or their own experiences, the feeling, the vibe was still the same, that need for connection, validation, understanding, and just experiencing compassion from people whether they really understood what you were talking about or not, that was felt immediately. And that was transformative immediately, and scary, and new, and I don't even think I had the words for that at the time. But, I mean, I still remember we posted one time and it took, I don't know, not that long to post and just to say, Hey, I'm too scared to post right now.
Speaker 1:But I and after receiving that compassion, was kinda like jumping right in with two feet. Yeah. And and it's remained ever since. And I think the the importance of hearing those diverse voices was immense because, at least for us, there is an innate tendency to want to compare. But not even compare, but when there's uncertainty about what your own experiences actually are, hearing people with different experiences from yours made us feel like maybe we're doing something wrong, or maybe we're not really experiencing what we think we are.
Speaker 1:And that took a bit of time to get to, even now, actually just a few weeks ago I was having this conversation with somebody. So it does come up again, but having it really set in that we're all on our own journeys and it's okay if we're different. We can still be there to support each other in the ways that we need to support each other. And learning how to do that, it took a lot of time. I know we post a lot about it and we talk a lot about it and I think because it's so hard to hold on to sometimes.
Speaker 1:But having that community has helped in that way a lot and I think it's helped us realize that there are so many other types of methods for healing out there as well, and that it's okay to try different things because what works for you might not work for someone else, and that's okay. And if we don't try, we know. So that's kind of the approach that we take. And as we go through our journey and we've learned so much about all the the media portrayals and and all the history and the hardships that has happened in this field up until now, honestly, are shocked. We hear bits and pieces from different people and we didn't know.
Speaker 1:And the more we learn, and we are learning a lot and actively learning a lot, it makes so much sense why the field is where it is now. And it also makes us so grateful for all the people. I'm even getting emotional about it. Like, all the people in this field who have done the advocacy work to have all of these effective supports out there for people. I feel like us and for those coming to make care so much more accessible, appropriate, and so many options out there and resources for learning, from all different voices.
Speaker 1:It's amazing and astounding that there are people who are able to do it, and there are people who are able to do it in public ways and in private ways and in their own ways, they're also impactful and effective. And I think one of the biggest reasons why it's so painful come in here and talk is just to say thank you. And that the work that everyone is doing, whether you think you're seen or not, it's felt in a big, big way.
Speaker 2:What has that been like for you, the transition from a person who is seeking help for treatment because of trauma to really studying in school and working towards social work and learning from a clinical perspective. How has that shifted for you and what has that been like?
Speaker 1:Yeah. That was an unintended chuckle. It's it's been interesting. I feel that we have done so much learning over the last few years by attending, you know, many webinars from all sorts of associations and groups out there and different people in the field attending theirs to then coming into a broader generalist, like kind of first year social work program. It's almost night and day, but it helps me look at the learning that I'm getting in school, from a broader and multiple perspectives.
Speaker 1:So for example, I've taken seven courses so far, it's a part time program, and all the instructors are different and they all come from different practical places in the community. And you can see in every single one of them where they have, like what their approaches are, what you can tell the history of where they come from, how they get their ideas and perspectives, which I'm not sure that I would have been if I hadn't done all this all previous learning. I also am able to approach what they're saying from a more critical lens. Not necessarily taking everything that they they present at face value, being able to think about it it critically and having confidence to ask deeper questions that I don't think we'd be able to do. It's refreshing though that a lot of willing to have discussions about topics like dissociation.
Speaker 1:Not all, but I would say like six out of seven of the professors that I've had are are willing and able and wanting to talk about that. Also, our our class is very accepting. We've we've shared, that we have dissociative identities in the class and talking about, for example, when we talked about grounding in class and if we bring out maybe grounding can happen in different ways, well then the discussion actually goes to, well what could that look like and how would variations or do we be helpful for different types of people with different needs. And so that's actually been really cool, and I think it's it's been enriching for everybody. So overall, it's been positive.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I love that you're getting this reception, reception, that people are receptive to what you're sharing and to what you're bringing to the table, not just as a consumer of mental health, but as someone who is informed and as someone who has lived experience and as someone who really has done the work to understand the greater context and the ongoing unfolding of what we know clinically, it really has been a beautiful thing to witness your evolution in this, really.
Speaker 1:Thanks. And it's you you and the community have supported that a lot. And, yeah, we have gone through a major evolution. That's that's a cool word to say. You also have told me about some of
Speaker 2:the conferences or seminars or trainings you've had to go through already. Is there any of that that you wanted to share?
Speaker 1:Sure. So as part of our continuing education, we'll say we're taking, some advanced certificates. That the program that we're in now is is a generalist social work program, so it's not specific to counseling. It's applicable to all different types of social work. And so, we're working towards some other certificates.
Speaker 1:And, one we're working on now is a trauma specific certificate. And we've taken four of seven courses that are required for that. In general, they've been really well. There is one specific course on DID, There's hardly any that we find in in Canada anywhere. Though Christine Forner offers some really awesome courses.
Speaker 1:I'll put that in there. Yes. Yeah. She does. And we had actually taken this DID course, like, a week after we had taken one of her courses or workshops.
Speaker 1:And that experience was an interesting one. So it was the very first time, and I'll say like even after going to our doctors and dentists and talking with them about DID, to our therapists, to people at our work, to everyone, at our school, disclosed to. And then we went in this one DID course. The description of it sounded great. We shared it with some other friends.
Speaker 1:Everyone was pretty positive about it. And the very beginning, it was exciting to see that there were people from so many different fields there. So there are people who treated, eating disorders, substance use, there were indigenous healing groups. There was someone in the, what am I thinking? Like, jail, carceral kind of, system, all all over the place, really, people who worked with children.
Speaker 1:And I was really excited because as people were introducing themselves, lot of people were saying, you know, I'm really not familiar with with DID or dissociation in general, but I can tell that my clients have something going on and I know I need to learn more. And that that was amazing. I got really, really excited to hear that. And and then the experience in that, it was a two day course, I found that the instructor had good intentions and maybe not enough experience or rigidity in their experience. It made me sad because the attendees of the work shop were so enthusiastic and were clinging onto everything he said because they were so desperate to learn because there's not a lot of learning opportunities, especially up here.
Speaker 1:And to hear some of the things that were coming out of his mouth, some sounded great and some sounded just awful that I was worried. I was worried about the type of information that was getting out there. And what it also showed me is that as learners, we do really need to be critical about what we're hearing. Does this make sense? What what I'm hearing from the perspective of the people I work importance of getting information from a variety of sources to be able to inform your decisions.
Speaker 2:That's such a critical piece. Also, I have to say, I'm sorry, someone has started mowing right outside, and so I apologize for the extra sound. Of course, they have I hear it. They I think it's such a critical piece what you're saying, and I it's something that we've seen with the online community, even amongst, like, the broader community of lived experience online of learning to be informed about what choices we have, about where people get their information, about how and why it matters that we cite our resources, and how to tell what is sharing of resources and what is just marketing a vulnerable and targeting a vulnerable community and being informed in those ways is so, so important, both for people who want to learn about DID because they have it or because they want to help people who have it or treat people who have it. And I think it's such a powerful experience.
Speaker 2:It's one of the reasons we talked about go ahead and talking about this on the podcast because what you went through was so significant in this example?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. All of what you said. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1:So this this course, it was so impactful to hear somebody who calls themselves an expert in the field to talk about a group of people that we identify as being a part of and not relating to anything that he is saying in a bunch of different cases. And to feel the impacts of contradictory statements of you mentioned like sightings versus talking or plugging and that happened as well. And honestly for the first, well at least first half of the first day, we couldn't it was very hard to pay attention to what this person was saying. Trying to understand what is not sitting right and what trying to differentiate between where this person is coming from versus our triggered reactions or activation from what Buddy's saying, tease those apart. So I'm able to think about it a bit more.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it was it was the most impactful and the most disheartening experience that that we have had since learning about this because we had only heard from other people, right, about this type of education or approach from educators and therapists, practitioners in this field, and we had never seen it. We'd never experienced it before. And now we have. And the question is what then? And I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know the answer to that except to keep keep talking about it. The ultimate conclusion that that we came to, when and when we brought up questions to him. For example, it's a very broad example and it was the very first example of the workshop. This person had mentioned, and I've heard this before from other people, Dissociative Identity Disorder kind of was the title of the course. And the first thing he said was, From now on we will not call it Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Speaker 1:We will only call it dissociative identity adaptation. And I know that that term works for a lot of people, which is awesome. And it doesn't for others, which is also awesome. That's great. Or there's other terms that people like to use and that's great too.
Speaker 1:But the rigidity of that and seeing throughout the course how if anybody had mentioned DID, he would stop them and correct them and say DIA. And it's that all or nothing. Anything rigidity. Right? And that was a theme throughout the course.
Speaker 1:And and it was coming after reflecting on this course for a while. Recognizing the rigidity and beliefs no matter no matter what they are and not the not having the options like like we talked about was a key point to realize, okay, maybe this workshop wasn't for us, maybe this is not the approach that we want to take. What are some things that we presented that were helpful, that will provide other options for people in the future and even for us? And so that's the approach we ended up taking. But it did did take a while to come down from how we were feeling, about that course.
Speaker 2:There are so many big feelings in that. And of course, what to call DID is such a big discussion. In America, the issue really is that it has to be disordered for insurance to cover it. And that's what the DSM is about. It was never meant to describe people.
Speaker 2:It was never meant to describe identities. It's literally to describe disorder so that there is reimbursement for the treatment of that disorder. So the cultural experience of how someone identifies with dissociation or dissociative identities is a completely separate thing and a very privileged place to be in for those of us who don't need the insurance to be able to get treatment. And also for those of us who do need insurance to cover our treatment, to get treatment, it has to be disordered. And so I know that that's not like a preference or identity piece, but just some of the historical piece that's specific to The United States.
Speaker 2:And it's so frustrating that it's limited in that way. I know that in our workbook or our clinical compilation that we did, in those books we reference dissociative identity response. And so there's lots of choices. What I like about the different choices are how they focus on, like we say response because it's response to what happened to us as opposed to focusing on what is wrong with us. But I agree that in your case with this course, to have such binary thinking of this is right and this is wrong feels a little shiny happy to me.
Speaker 2:And when you were telling me about that, it was so funny that he was trying to teach something that broadens except also limited at the same time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly. That that was the feeling of the entire course of there was lots of talk about decolonizing and and, you know, addressing patriarchal constructs and and stuff like that, while at the same time being extremely rigid and telling us how it has to be. As you were talking, thank you for talking about the insurance things in Ontario specifically in Canada because every province is different. Social workers actually don't diagnose people, and diagnosis isn't required for insurance for people who happen to have it. And so we do it anything if you don't want to.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It's so cool. And it's something I didn't realize for some time, actually when starting school.
Speaker 1:So that that was another helpful thing. Yeah, to understand those differences between our provinces and in The US and other places of how that type of thing works. And so it does help, in our case anyway, to approach in therapy not having to work from the DSM or don't, like, they're not even allowed to legally to diagnose. So, that has been helpful from a flexibility perspective.
Speaker 2:Wow. Wow. Anything else that you wanted to share today?
Speaker 1:I I guess I just wanted to give another thank you for everybody out there who might be listening for doing what you can and what you do. It's important. It's really important. And we also wanna say that there are there is so much resources out there with with diverse voices and perspectives on so many different what helps you out there, even if it's different than other people, is can be so important and helpful, and, we hope that you're able to find that.
Speaker 2:I think also it's important to remember different parts or different shirts or different people inside may also have different needs. That we also have different seasons of different needs. I know in the community we see people who have been here and also people who have come and gone and come back again and just really have, again, that nuanced and complex flexibility of there are so many points of entry and so many resources now to really be sensitive to what your system needs specifically, what feels safe enough, what seems congruent enough, what feels helpful and responsive enough, and caring
Speaker 1:for
Speaker 2:yourself in that broader sense is such a big deal.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness. Yes. Yeah. That was spot on and beautiful. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yes. We couldn't agree more with that at all. And no matter where you are, people who care about you are gonna be there where you're at.
Speaker 2:Is I I guess I guess I have just the last question of what has it been like for you to not just connect with other people in the broader community with lived experience, but now also to be developing generally your clinical identity and having connections with other clinicians who have lived experience.
Speaker 1:That is important for us, and in fact we're even starting to look into finding someone in our area, like in person, to be able to have a kind of mentor from that lived experience social worker or clinician. There are so many unique challenges that I think they're unique, I don't know, to having lived experience and being in the clinical role. That having that support in that way, is validating and encouraging to keep going and pursuing that field. Yeah, think that's what I have to say about that.
Speaker 2:I am so glad we got to talk to you today, and I so appreciate your perspective and again, your vulnerability and courage in sharing your specific story. Was there anything else that you wanted to cover today before we let you go?
Speaker 1:Nope, that is everything. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you! Peace to you, my friend. I'll see you in meetings.
Speaker 1:You too. Bye. Bye.
Speaker 2: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.systemsbeat.com. We'll see you there.