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Diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder at age 36, Emma and her system share what they learn along the way about DID, dissociation, trauma, 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:Okay. So we're driving, and I'm sorry about that, but it's literally the only time I have to myself. So I have to talk while I'm in the car because that's all I've got. And I know this isn't super long, but it's a huge piece, and I don't wanna lose it. So I'm recording it here so I don't lose this piece because it feels really big to us and where we're at.
Speaker 2:So, basically, we're still playing Jenga with the therapist. And as part of this, like, she's like, you have to learn to get off your blanket, and you have to learn to drop the pieces. Like, that it is okay for me to spill and it not be the end of the world. Healthy relationships repair ruptures. So even if something causes harm, not intentionally, I don't wanna hurt people.
Speaker 2:Of course, I don't wanna hurt people, but I'm also causing harm to myself to avoid causing harm to others. And so how to care for others and also myself is the point of the lesson in therapy. Right? And you guys, my therapist is brutal. Like, when we're talking about tea parties and cage matches, I don't mean that therapy can be easy and sweet.
Speaker 2:I mean, the cage match really ultimately, of course, is actually with myself. And that if I'm going to be so hard on myself, then what I experience is hardness. Right? That's the cage match. So really, technically, I need to leave my therapist out of it and not blame her because it's not even her fault.
Speaker 2:This is shiny happy in my own head. This is relational trauma conditioning in my own head, all the things. Right? So so when she's saying that, she's not saying go hurt people or be disrespectful. She's not even saying spill myself on purpose.
Speaker 2:In fact, I clarified because she was like, you just need to say all the things, and you need to spill all the pieces and just let it all tumble out because we were talking about Jenga. Right? And I was like, is that an order? And she said, I'm not telling you to do it. I'm saying you have a choice.
Speaker 2:You could do it. And so, of course, it's all my responsibility, and, of course, I have choices to make. But what she's trying to show me is being aware of what I'm even feeling with myself. Like, because of the circumstances of the last year and the unfolding hard conversations as part of that, I've been very hyper focused on those things sometimes with rabbit holes, like the ruminating, just going over things over and over again, the changing of the community to the new website. Is it good?
Speaker 2:Is it helpful? Is it not? Do we go back? Nobody wants to move again. How do we do it?
Speaker 2:What does that look like? Like, all these questions instead of being present with myself. So you guys, that's flight. If I'm overthinking everything else instead of just being present with where I am and what's going on inside me, that is flight. That counts as flight instead of just being me, present with myself.
Speaker 2:But as it turns out, I'm not great company. So that's part of it too is even learning to know myself so that I wanna hang out with myself. But that means slowing everything else down, which then disregulates people around me because they read that as something being off because they sense the change relationally. Where really what's going on is I'm actually trying to be more authentic relationally even within myself, and that requires a slowing down to get to know myself. So this is the huge piece and the epic piece because it's not just like in the beginning learning about dissociation and what is it and my system or who has what or subsystems, like, any of the things.
Speaker 2:Like, those are structural things and how it works. Those are names and who's here and getting familiar with each other, all of which is important work. I'm not shaming any of that work. I'm just saying, and also right? Like, it goes back to making lace again.
Speaker 2:And also, I have to slow down enough that I can see and feel and hear what there is to see and hear and feel even when I have to see and hear and feel, even when those parts of myself are, like, super quiet. It is part of the unfawning with myself. It is easier to fawn for myself with myself so that I keep myself feeling safe. Because, really, that's what's happening when I fawn for other people. Right?
Speaker 2:Fawning for other people is being good at being good to be safe, except that I'm the one who wants to feel safe. So then I start masking with myself or fawning with myself to help myself feel better or that I'm doing well enough or good enough or wanting what's happening to me instead of sitting with discomfort or fear and looking at what is uncomfortable or what is making me afraid. And the reason that this comes as an advanced topic later, right, instead of in the beginning is because it's not just about parts or structure. It's about process and relationship and the dynamic between us, all of the invisible stuff. So a recent example in the context of religious trauma and things I'm working on in that therapy group, one of the things that Jules mentioned when we were talking about that is the piece about the binary concept of what a relationship is supposed to look like that I was conditioned to see not just marriage as man and woman, but also as this binary all or nothing.
Speaker 2:And so when there's a relationship that is adding differently than that or in a different context than that, even within friendship, that there's actually this intrusion of no boundaries at all, which maybe is where sometimes my two rigid boundaries pushing away in response to too much coming at me. So when we talk about, like, the avoidance strategy for attachment, if it feels like I'm drowning or it's too much and so I have to push away or get away or run away because of the overwhelm that what is coming at me is at a pace too much and too fast for me to handle, then avoiding that makes sense. It makes sense why that happens. It goes back to that sunburn concept of even though this may be a good thing, it's too much for me, it's too fast for me, how do I slow it down? And when there are healthy friendships and healthy relationships, then in repairing that, we tend to that together of, okay.
Speaker 2:So what does slowing down look like? What does less look like? And I don't mean people are too much. All of us are afraid of that. Right?
Speaker 2:So many of us with relational trauma, we're so afraid our needs are so big or too big or too much because they've never been met. So, of course, they feel big, and, of course, we're used to them not being met. So we can go down that rabbit hole so fast, but this is what we're flighting from is how to stay with ourselves and what our needs actually are. And this year has been all about learning to slow my role. And part of why that matters is when we have friendships or relationships, but the container we share together in that friendship or relationship needs to kinda match.
Speaker 2:When there are limitations, whether that's time or energy or whatever the the the confines, if I can use that word, of the relationship, of the container that's holding that relationship together, then seeing that accurately instead of daydreaming is really important. So last year when we were working really hard on daydreaming, it was about holding on to the concept that we see Jules part of the time even though she's all the way interested in what our relationship was. It was really hard for me with binary thinking and relational trauma experiences and religious trauma context to understand that both of those things could be true. I didn't know yet how to make lace. So working the last year on understanding this, but coming to terms with it is what helps me see my own life accurately.
Speaker 2:So in the same way that I raised teenagers while also having to work two full time jobs while also wanting to be in the community when I get a chance, while also having teenagers who don't necessarily want the parenting I have to offer while also knowing that we all care very deeply about each other and what I do is for them and for me and balancing all that at the same time. Like, the lace that I am making is something different than I've ever made or seen or understood before. And I don't even mean dating and relationships. I mean the safe people who are our supports in life, whether that is friends or chosen family or whatever you want to use for language to describe it. But the point is, if I'm going to spend months and months in therapy working on what it means to be scared and alone, part of that is recognizing I don't have to stay scared and stay alone.
Speaker 2:That there are lots of ways to open myself for connection, but those connections will be most healthy when I see them accurately. So that means if I have friendships that feel like safe friendships, that doesn't mean I have to give myself away. And that having some boundaries in the context of those relationships is healthy, but that's not the same as avoiding interacting and how to balance and find that nuance. And right now, I'm not good at it yet. It's like a pendulum swing.
Speaker 2:I give too much of myself away, and then I feel bad because I feel them because I can't keep doing it, and then I fall apart. And so then they're in crisis because I fell apart. Or I swing the other way of where I'm super avoidant and super detached trying to protect myself, trying to protect them from me, but then because of that, not connecting at all. So learning how to stay in my lane and also claim my lane, like, how do I stay in the middle? How do I find myself in the nuances and the complexities of what it means to be me, and how do I do that internally, not just externally with other people.
Speaker 2:And here's the kicker. I don't think I can do it externally until I learn to do it internally. And it's gonna be messy. It's gonna be messy externally in my life, and it's gonna be messy internally as we go back to therapy to talk about DID and memory time and actually get back to work. It would be way easier way easier to only isolate.
Speaker 2:It would be way easier to just keep flighting and then crashing and collapsing when I can't anymore. But that's also a pendulum swing. You know, like, when they talk about the polyvagal ladder and and how we go down the polyvagal ladder in this order, and so we have to go back up the polyvagal ladder in the same order, you guys, I knock myself off the ladder. Like, I fall and I break my foot, and I can't even get on the ladder. Like, this is really serious.
Speaker 2:If I want any chance of healing, if I want any like, I know that sounds extreme, but it's just the urgency of if I want to do life better, if I want to learn to people better, I have to learn how to me better. So it means pausing a lot of things externally long enough I can slow down and look at the pieces of why am I doing what I'm doing, how am I responding to what's offered, who is out when and why are they there, And what is my authentic, this is where I'm at, and this is who I am, and this is my best contribution to relationships, and also including myself in that process, and how do I do that inside. And also respect when something doesn't feel safe enough or is too much or too fast, not because people are bad or the goodness they're trying to offer is bad, but because, woah, my sunburn is hurting right now. I just need a minute. It's big stuff.
Speaker 2:It's hard stuff. I don't even have language for it well yet, but it's what I'm working on and what I'm working through, And it's classic timing as the kids have gotten out of school for the summer, and so I am bombarded by peopling all the time. And my introverted self has no space except for in the car, the twenty minute drive to therapy and waiting for my appointment to be like, woah. This is what's happening in my head right now. I just need to put it somewhere safe so I don't lose it, so I don't lose me.
Speaker 2:So I'm going into therapy. I'm not happy about it, but I wanna get better, you guys. I wanna heal. I wanna figure out who I am and what it is that I want and need so that when people ask me, I know how to say it so that I can take care of myself because I matter too, so that I can be a better mom and a better partner, so that I can tend to all of these open sores, to these deep heart wounds, to the question of how long have I been this afraid, hurt, and alone? Therapy sucks.
Speaker 2:It really does, but I'm not sorry for showing up for myself.
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.systemspeak.com. We'll see you there.