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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
Speaker 2:we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care
Speaker 1:for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you. I had a birthday for the first time. There are lots of reasons it makes me uncomfortable. Some of them I understand, and some of them I just know that they're a trigger because I feel that triggered feeling where I get kind of dizzy and can't focus and feel kind of blurry or have big feelings or flashbacks or things that don't match with other pieces.
Speaker 1:Usually, I try to avoid it, but this year, I'm learning to turn towards. And so when my friend asked if she could celebrate my birthday with me, I went ahead and said yes. Well, actually, she texted my husband and asked him if he could help her arrange a surprise. And he said, maybe that's not a good idea yet. And so I knew about it because he told me and she told me, which maybe helped with practicing and learning for the first time.
Speaker 1:I also wrote about it and shared it on Facebook and even posted a picture because I'm practicing all of those things too, communicating and connecting and taking pictures that are just normal, safe, good kinds. I actually don't mind my husband or my friends having my picture or sharing my picture if it's not a creepy one. I mean, just normal, happy pictures that I've seen, and I know it's okay. It's the taking of the pictures that's hard for me that's a trigger. But seeing my picture with my friends actually helps me remember now time and helps me remember that now time is different and now time is safe.
Speaker 1:It's grounding in a way. So in my house, I have a lot of pictures up on the walls instead of fancy decorations because it helps me remember who I am and where I am, who my family is, and who my friends are. So even in that way, I'm learning that pictures are a good thing. So maybe at ISSTD, I'll still have my picture taken even if I have to ask for help on the inside to get it done. Because even though the podcast is a little bit creepy and weird that we do this or that I talk into the phone and say things I can't tell anyone else except that everyone hears, I'm really glad that it helps people, and I'm kind of proud of myself for trying, and I recognize that in a different way.
Speaker 1:So on my birthday, my friends came. They drove all the way from Oklahoma, the four hour drive that I used to have to make to see the therapist. They drove up and took me out to lunch and then drove home again. And because of the therapist, I know that's an epic drive and that that was a big day and that it was a lot of love for them to do that for me. It was very sweet.
Speaker 1:They came up the front porch steps singing happy birthday in sign language, and they had birthday crowns on their heads and made me wear one. And I was anxious and awkward, but they didn't make fun of me or give up on me. And they were patient with me, and I asked for help inside, and things settled down. And I got help, but without missing out. So even if I couldn't stay entirely, I also didn't miss it, and I could watch in a new way.
Speaker 1:So we're learning some co consciousness too, and that's really new for us. And they were very kind. They were also really funny, and they made us shirts that looked like from the theme of the Friends TV show. The shirt said the one where Emily has a birthday. It was pretty funny, and I had to put mine on, and we all wore our shirts to lunch.
Speaker 1:I've never had an experience like that, and it was all so silly except that it was fun and good, and they were just loving me. And that is an experience worth having. There was also something special about them being in our home that's new. They got to be in our new office that we've made where we can get to our art supplies and our journaling things. And the littles have their toys out where they're more accessible instead of hiding in a backpack.
Speaker 1:And we have a desk for our work so that we can sit and work early in the morning before the children are awake, but without having to just sit in the dark while the husband sleeps. We even moved John Mark's hammock up there inside the room So it's not in the backyard or on the back porch, but in our office. And so it's been a pretty special thing, almost like a birthday present we gave to ourself, where everyone has a space and a place we can retreat and recover and a place where we feel safe at home. It's the first time since we got married that we had our own space. It's the first time that I can remember feeling that relaxed even in my own home, at least since having anyone live with me.
Speaker 1:I feel safe with a husband. I don't mean that. And he's very kind and always leaves us our space. And when our bedroom was the only space that we had, he would go to his office and work if we needed space on our own. But this is new and feels good, almost like we're real and being kind to ourselves and starting to work together in a whole new way.
Speaker 1:It's symbolic somehow, I guess. But, anyway, I'm really glad we did it and made our own space. And our friends brought presents for our new space. They brought a picture to hang on the wall that has all of our pictures together on it so that we can see. And our friend brought us an hourglass that you can turn over and the sands keep going so that we never lose time.
Speaker 1:She also gave me a jar full of pieces of paper of all the things that she loves about our friendship so that I can read them on a hard day. And I got some cards and other things that were pretty special too and peppermints, so many peppermints with a special bowl to hold them in that has pictures around the side and even a cup for drinking soup because they knew that's something easy for me that I can get down even when eating is hard. It wasn't that I got presents for the first time because even the husband and I don't exchange presents because everything that we have goes to the children. But that's okay. I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1:It wasn't about presence. It was about being known and being seen and being heard and being loved. They were special gifts that were thoughtful and meaningful, that let me be me, that love me just as I am, all of me. So it was a really good day, and there was something special about sharing that space with them. They even walked with me to pick up the children, and we sang happy birthday.
Speaker 1:And they had cake, and the children were delighted. But something settled in me because they were there, they had been there in the space as if it made it more real, as if maybe everything is okay again even though we live far away. I felt more solid somehow, more present. Enough so that when they left, I was sad, but I was also okay. I was worried that I would fall apart when they left or that I wouldn't be able to do it because it would hurt so much when they were gone.
Speaker 1:But I was okay. My spirit had been strengthened, and my heart had been filled. And I could still feel their presence there in good ways that healed my soul. It was a new and good and fun thing to celebrate my birthday. And because of that, my son's birthday was the next morning.
Speaker 1:And because I had had such a good day, I made sure he had a good day too. I always had, but I hadn't before understood why it mattered so much. But now I understood, and so I tried extra hard, and it was good, making kind of a magical weekend. So I was really in a good place when we went to family therapy on Monday, except the therapist wanted to see me by myself before. That made me a little anxious and a little uncomfortable, but we've known her for over a year now.
Speaker 1:And so I knew in my head that she's safe. And she knows about DID, and so it's okay to talk to her about anything I need to, even though we don't really talk to her about DID things. But she's learning a little bit. Maybe only a little bit because that's all we tell her. But I was willing to go, and I thought it was because of our daughter who's having surgery again and that that's why she wanted to meet and check on me.
Speaker 1:I got there and everything was fine and we started talking. And she asked just four or five simple questions, and everything fell apart. It was like I shut down and wanted to run. And she was trying to get me to breathe and trying to get me to look around the room and trying to get me to feel my own skin. But I just wanted to run.
Speaker 1:I want to share what happened because it's the first time that I was really aware of it enough to be able to put it into words. But it might be a little bit triggering. I'm not gonna talk about any trauma specifically or in-depth, but I'll reference some things. So if you don't wanna listen or you're not in a good place, go ahead and skip. But the process of what happened was really important, so important that I wrote it down and I told my friends and I put it in my journal because I didn't want to lose it because it's the first time that this has happened where I could hold on to all the pieces even though they were really hard pieces.
Speaker 1:She just asked about our birthday, which we were okay with, and wanted to tell her about our friends coming. And I just froze, and my brain stopped working. And I couldn't make my mouth open to speak even if I wanted to. I could not speak. Everything went into slow motion as if time stopped altogether, except at the same time, a thousand things were happening in my brain, in my mind, as if years were passing even while I watched the clock tick seconds away.
Speaker 1:I couldn't make it stop. It was simple at first, just trying to answer her questions. But then the more questions that she asked, the more things I started to hear in my head. There was a little voice, something about a sister, but I don't have a sister. But then arguing about whether I did or not and what happened to her.
Speaker 1:I tried to answer her question about whether foster care had been safe or not and where my brother was and something about my grandmother keeping him but not me. And then I heard someone shout at me, put your dress down. And I heard her ask me, why wasn't foster care always safe? And I heard someone say, two were not and one ended badly. And then I saw the fire, the fire that we talked about last fall, the fire of the house burning down.
Speaker 1:And I felt all kinds of things and saw all kinds of things, and I heard a faraway but hovering voice that said, if tears were prayers and ashes still made soap. And at the same time I heard it, it was like I saw the journal writing, which I don't even have. It's in the notebook at the therapist's office. I don't even have it back in Kansas yet. But at the same time as I saw that, as if it were in the notebook right in front of me, I heard also, don't look.
Speaker 1:Someone shouting at me, don't look, and stop talking. And then my mind began to jump around to other things as if it were safer to look at other hard things that were not as hard, but none of it having to do with what she was asking me. And it just escalated in more and more details until I was just flooded with a thousand stories instead of any one single thing, and I just felt nauseous, and I felt like I was going to be sick, and I wanted to run. I tried really hard to do what I learned when the new lady did EMDR with us, But it was all happening so fast, and we've only done EMDR once. And I couldn't make it work.
Speaker 1:I couldn't get to that safe space. I couldn't find the tree house or find the therapist's old office that isn't even there anymore. It's like it was vanished and beyond my reach, and it was like I had crawling out of my skin and wasn't even in my body anymore, and I couldn't get back in it. It felt like hours, that part, and it wasn't even a minute. And I couldn't recover, and that suddenly I was running.
Speaker 1:And I left her office. And I felt ashamed and embarrassed, remembering the time I ran out of the therapist's office and woke up at the duck pond, an hour away. I don't mean to run away. My feelings were so big, and my panic was so strong. I wasn't sure what I could do.
Speaker 1:I wasn't sure how to make it stop. I couldn't see straight. I couldn't think clearly. And there was this roar of competing voices in my head. And it's maybe the most crazy I have ever felt.
Speaker 1:Hearing little girl big voices shouting. And all at the same time, I can hear someone thinking, you're just dysregulated. You just need to get regulated. This is just neurological. And I'm trying to remember everything that I've learned in the things that I've studied, in the books that I've read, in the workbooks we've done, in what the therapist taught me, in the interviews we've done.
Speaker 1:But it was just escalating and getting louder and louder and crazier and crazier. More and more voices and more and more flashes, like pieces of everything, but not a story of anything. I wanted to run away. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to stop being alive.
Speaker 1:I don't mean that I was gonna hurt myself. I just wanted it to turn off, and I couldn't fix it by myself. Except my friends had just been there this weekend for my birthday. And so I remembered that when it's too much by myself, I'm supposed to ask for help. I had already run away from the family therapist.
Speaker 1:And so I texted my friends, and I emailed the new lady, and I tried to do the things that I know I'm supposed to do to help me calm down. I sat in my car and did the breathing I couldn't do in the family therapist's office. I looked around in the parking lot to count colors and did think about what I could hear and what I could see. I got out peppermints so that I could have one to taste and something to smell. And when it started to rain and spit snow, I went for a walk around the building until I could feel my skin.
Speaker 1:And I listened to music and my Bluetooth, songs that keep me strong and help me focus and feel safe. I had one voice message from the therapist a long time ago, and I listened to it again. And all of that together was enough to get me home safely. And when I got home, I held on to the husband really, really tight. I couldn't tell him what happened because it was too much, and I still couldn't speak.
Speaker 1:And then I went to my office, and I started to draw in my journal all those different voices and all the things I heard when all she did was try to ask me simple questions. They weren't even hard ones. But I drew it out, and I thought, if we're really going to do this, if we're really going to do the hard things and the hard work of looking at the hard things, how is it even possible when I can't even answer the easy ones? Or how will I ever do that hard work when the easy questions cause a big response like this? And how will I ever learn to regulate it or recognize these voices or put all these pieces together?
Speaker 1:And it felt so overwhelming, but I got it out on paper and colored it. And I thought this one I want to share not because it's too much information but because it shows how much happens from a single simple question in therapy. How much happens on the inside? And it shows what it's like when a single simple question has so many answers all at once so that you don't know how to get any of it out even if all of it's trying to come at once. I felt better after drawing it out for that reason because I want you to see if you're a clinician, you need to see what it's like to hear a simple question and then hear a thousand answers before you can get anything out.
Speaker 1:And why it's so hard. Because I don't mean to just sit there saying nothing, and I promise that a lot more is going on inside even when it looks like nothing is happening on the outside. After I had drawn it in the journal, I went over to our hammock, and I got our bear, our big bear, and I turned on cello music because for us, that's very relaxing and grounding because it's something we chose as an adult. It has no connection to the past. It's ours in the present and now time.
Speaker 1:And we turned on cello music, and rocked in the hammock, and we rocked, and we rocked, and we rocked. And that vestibular movement kept us going until we could regulate, until I could regulate even my own body. And then I messaged friends again to connect and to process and to not be alone. And they were there for me. And when I felt better and had words, I texted the husband too, even though he was just downstairs because I wanted him to know that I want to connect with him.
Speaker 1:There's just a lot happening, and it's hard to talk about it. But I was able to tell him in the message. And after I had rocked again for another hour, things were settled enough that I was able to go see him, and then we could talk. And it was good. We interviewed Frances Waters this week, and her interview is coming up on the podcast.
Speaker 1:But one of the things she talked about was a reliance on dissociation. And when I heard that, I was confused. And so she went back and asked her about it. And I realized for the first time what everyone's been saying about how dissociation keeps us safe. And I realized how I rely on that to not feel the same way some people drown things out with alcohol substances or anything else you could be addicted to.
Speaker 1:Netflix, food, anything really, bad relationships. For me, it's dissociation. It protected me as a child. I've understood that for a while, but now I understand that as an adult, it protects me from feeling. And all this time, I thought that was okay as long as I could function.
Speaker 1:But when you have a birthday with good friends who are safe and real and show up with their hearts and their spirits, to love you and to remind you that they are there and that you're not alone. And when you have a husband who is good and kind, and children who are sweet and trying, and people I've met through the podcast who are listening and learning along with me, and new friends that you're trying to make and trying to keep. Those are things worth feeling, and I don't want to miss that, and I don't want to lose that from forgetting. But that means staying awake and staying present and feeling what there is to feel and knowing what there is to know instead of dissociating. And that is hard and it is painful because not all of it is good.
Speaker 1:And not all people are safe. And not all people who say they are your friend really are. And not all people listen to learn, and not all relationships are healthy. But I want to be, and I want to learn, and I want to listen and I want to participate and I want to remember even when it's hard. So things are about to change in therapy.
Speaker 1:It's already started. It's already getting harder. Things are already coming to the surface. And it feels awful. And it's worse than unpleasant.
Speaker 1:And it isn't any fun. But it means I get to remember, and I get to feel. But it means I get to be awake, and it means I get to feel, and it means I get to remember. So it's not the easy thing, but it is the right thing. And so we're staying in therapy, even though it's hard, because I want to get better.
Speaker 1:And maybe that's the birthday present I'm giving to myself. Maybe what I'm getting is my life back. I told the therapist about what happened and sent her the picture of the journal even though she's not my therapist now. Just because I wanted to share and just because it felt big that I was able to put into words even if it was drawing on paper what I experience when that happens, I've never been able to capture it before in words or pictures, and I've never shared it before, and I've never remembered it before. So this picture was a big deal because it means the walls are coming down.
Speaker 1:And even if they don't all fit together, and even if I don't understand all the pieces yet, I remembered them, and I was aware of it, and I knew it was happening. She says that's progress. I think it's exhausting, but also she's right because she also said all of it is memories, and that's the other piece I understood for the first time. I didn't understand it first. I had to think about what she said for a couple of days, but then I realized what she meant or what it means, that all of it is memories.
Speaker 1:Even the voices I hear from long ago, my own thoughts and feelings that feel so real and different now. Sometimes people say they don't want our therapist to say that it's all part of one or that it's all me because they don't want their alters to feel less real. And I understand that, and I understand it gets misused, and we can so easily be abused. But I also understood for the first time that knowing that knowing that it's all memories, that it's all mine, that it's all me is actually the thing that makes them very real, more real than anything because that is what happened, and it is what I thought about it, and it is what I felt about it. Even if I couldn't hold all of those pieces at once at the same time together.
Speaker 1:And so maybe my brain did pull them apart, and maybe since they were apart, they grew up more and more distinct because I was relying on dissociation to keep me safe. So maybe it is a lot to do, and maybe some of it is pretty horrifying, and the feelings really are big. But she's also right in that we've already lived through the worst of it, and it is memory time because it's already over. And in now time, I'm grown with a birthday. I'm not a little girl anymore.
Speaker 1:I'm surrounded by love and people who support me in every area of my life. And you know what? I did that. I worked hard to find good people and to create my life. I worked hard to get away from people who were not safe and out of relationships that were unhealthy.
Speaker 1:I'm the one who dared to connect back with people who offered friendship to me, even if I'm still learning how. And so on a hard day in therapy that wasn't even for me because it was family therapy for my children. I fell apart, and it was ugly, and it was messy, and it hurt. But also I learned a lot. And even though I ran out of the office, I didn't run away from what I was learning.
Speaker 1:And I did come full circle, and I even emailed the family therapist about it. Mostly because I didn't want to have to tell her next time I go. But that's different from hiding. And so I'm trying. There was a graph I saw on an article about dissociation that I saved and have looked at a lot.
Speaker 1:I can't find a citation for it, but on the left side, it talks about the hurt and the loss of trauma, and it talks about how you go through shock and numbness and denial, and then emotional outburst and anger and fear, and searching and disorganization, and panic, and guilt, and loneliness, and isolation, and even depression. And I thought about how I've spent years in each of those, but it makes a you as it lists each of those things going down and down and down where life gets harder and harder and you're less and less functional and life gets worse and worse. And then at the bottom of the u, it turns up towards the right side and goes back up to what they say is loss and trauma adjustment. And as it goes up, it talks about the troubles of reentry and the new relationships and new strengths and new patterns and I thought maybe for the first time, we're on the upswing. Maybe we've made enough progress that we really are getting better even though therapy is getting harder.
Speaker 1:And maybe that really is what will get our life back. I'm scheduling this to post on Dissociative Identity Disorder Awareness Day, partly because I myself am understanding it for the first time finally after three years or three decades of trying to figure it out. Partly because I had this experience with a picture of being able to draw out what it's like in a moment of a fraction of a second of an experience and that that's worth sharing if it helps people understand. Partly because I'm practicing this coming out process because I have to go to the ISSTD, and this week they're going to release an article saying my name legally and the podcast name, which means people are going to find out. I'm also posting a meme about DID, just an informational picture quoted from Carolyn Spring about DID.
Speaker 1:And I said that I do a podcast about trauma, but I didn't yet say which one. Because even though I can be really vulnerable here, I wanna keep this space private and safe enough that it has good boundaries. Not everyone's gonna understand about DID or be okay with finding out that we have it. We've worked hard to find safe friends who accept us anyway. All of me.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't mean everyone will or that it's always safe to try. So it's a balance, working with all the inside parts and the outside world and memory time and now time. Sometimes I feel like I'm the center of the hourglass that keeps getting pivoted and turned and flipped until I can't remember which way is up. But I am proud of me and our progress and getting to know me differently, all of me and knowing that it is me, my memory, and that embracing all of them is embracing all of me collectively. I still don't like therapy.
Speaker 1:I hate therapy, actually. I'm not saying that I enjoy it, but I really like having friends, and I really like having a healthy marriage, And I feel a lot better about how I parent. And I don't walk around afraid all the time anymore. And I sleep more, more often, and I'm feeling better generally, even though many days are still hard. For me, what DID Awareness Day means is just how the therapist taught us that they're not our secrets.
Speaker 1:Any problem with DID is also not my problem because my problem is taking care of me. And I've learned a lot about what that means even when I still struggle at implementing the things that I know that help. I got there. I got there on one hard day and one hard night. I used myself.
Speaker 1:I've met parts there in me that were so, so little, and I've just been waiting to be held and rocked, and I didn't know I could. I've met parts of me who run because staying meant danger and parts of me who had to deal with that danger and parts of me who protected me from knowing about that danger, and parts of me who tried to just live a real life and survive, and parts of me who found every way we could to get away. And so in that way, it is all me because this is the life we share, and this is the body we share, and this is the life we have created. And it turns out I really kind of like it, and I want to keep it and all that comes with it, the good days and the hard days, the staying and the remembering, the husband and the friends, even when sometimes that means laughing and sometimes that means crying. Because we, I, am not alone on the inside or the outside, and I have a whole lot of help.
Speaker 1:And allowing myself to learn how to be loved and connect with others instead of pushing them away or running away or hiding has made all of the difference and made my healing exponential. I think before, I was like a castle with walls so high that no pain could get in. But any castle under siege also runs out of food and support. You don't get nourished that way. You don't get fresh air that way.
Speaker 1:You've gotta let the walls down. If I were to imagine it now, I would imagine it more like Stonehenge instead a castle. But with the big tall rocks on wheels, could move easily so that there was still a circle around me, and when I was in danger, I could pull them close. But when it's safe and there's good to be let in, I could make the circle really, really big and let all the good in that I wanted, the fresh air and the sunshine, the nourishment and the peace, the nurturing that brings healing, the connection that brings support so that I'm not alone anymore. It's hard work letting those walls get pushed out and pulled down.
Speaker 1:It's hard work learning how to do it safely and who you can do it with and where you can do it, but it's worth it. Find a way to let your walls down. Find a way to make your circle bigger. Find a way to connect with someone safely, carefully, but intentionally. Go get your life back.
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@www.systemsspeak.com. We'll see you there.