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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 longtime listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Are you doing okay?
Speaker 3:You mean in this moment or generally?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I just wanna make sure that I haven't been too I wanna make sure that you haven't felt that I've put positivity towards you in a negative or bad way.
Speaker 3:I think that our conversations have been an example of staying with it. Because you could hold on to the truth that was yours and that you so wanted to offer me, but you also let me be present with where I was which was a place of pain. And I think that was new for both of us. It was new for me to stay in the pain place when I needed to, even though I could also hold on to the hope, which normally is what I would have done anyway instead of the pain. But I was doing both for the first time.
Speaker 3:And you, even though you didn't want to go to the pace of pain, you stayed present with me even though our opinions and our ideas and our thoughts were different. Like, did the work of maintaining a friendship even though we were in different places of life and had different perspectives. And I think that that is powerful in healing and absolutely part of the process. And I think to add to that, both are necessary because if all we had was pain, which is some of the ones inside, right? If all we had was pain, whether we're talking physical pain or emotional pain or mental pain or the anguish of the distressing of it or how dysregulating it can be.
Speaker 3:If that's all we had, that would be like that would be despair. There would be no hope in that. Which is why healthy positivity or finding the good or the actual effort of holding on to authentic hope that is real and connections that are safe and stable even when life is not, I think that's why it matters so much. It literally is what keeps us alive. And so your job and your system is so important and so critical because you hold a peace for them that they don't have without you.
Speaker 3:Like you matter so much.
Speaker 1:Speechless. Sorry.
Speaker 3:What are you feeling?
Speaker 1:I'm not sure, but we're fine.
Speaker 3:Of course you are because it's what we do best.
Speaker 1:Yep, it's a beautiful day out there. So are the kids doing well? Are they healthy?
Speaker 3:You're so funny. Why? You're so slippery.
Speaker 1:No. I did isn't that part of connection? Is asking and genuinely being concerned about other people on this earth and their experiences and how they experience it? I don't know.
Speaker 3:It is. It absolutely is part of connection. It's also part of being very good at being good and very good at caring for others and very good at avoiding what's happening inside.
Speaker 1:Well, I, you know, we do what we can do every day, don't we, Emma?
Speaker 3:Well, and I think that that's another example of the and. Because you can be very good and very respectful and skilled at avoidance with yourself. I can have someone who authentically came to a birthday party and authentically cares because they are a good and decent person in the world wanting to love people well in the ways that they can and that be all that they have to give that year with so much going on in their own lives already. It doesn't make me bad, and it doesn't make them bad. It's an and.
Speaker 1:Did you feel that way? Did you feel like people were thinking less of you because they were not connecting with you?
Speaker 3:It wasn't that I thought that they were less of me. I mean, it wasn't that I thought they thought I can't say that in English. It wasn't that I felt they thought I was, oh, I still said it wrong. It wasn't that I felt they thought less of me or didn't want to be with me or whatever. It was that I couldn't tell what was real because I thought it had to be one or the other.
Speaker 3:But it was really just both. So when when they came to the birthday party and I didn't hear from them again, I thought I had done something terrible. I thought I had done something wrong. I thought I was being punished. I thought it was because I quit therapy.
Speaker 3:I thought I could fill in all kinds of blanks for why it was happening. But that wasn't it wasn't about me at all. That's just who they are. It's who that person is.
Speaker 1:Could it be who they were and maybe that you could grow through that with them?
Speaker 3:Well I can't grow with them if they're not participating. That was the issue. And I think that was the trigger for me of why it felt unsafe even though it was a safe person. Because they were not participating reassurance and there was no further connection. It was just sort of left hanging.
Speaker 3:And because it happened in the context of the pandemic, it was like a rupture that was never repaired and became a very deep wound that is not. And, but it's okay. I have other friends and I have other supports and people who were present and have attended to me and that I am able to attend to as well. It's not a bad thing at all. It was just an experience of, oh, this is just who and what that is.
Speaker 3:It's who this person is and what that relationship looks like. And it's okay for me to have my needs met and other closer relationships in other places with and that can happen without it being me being bad or them being bad. It goes it's like object relations right? Like ultimately that's what it comes to is this year for us was a whole new layer of development that it was supposed to be at like six months old, 10 old, a year or two old, right? Like toddler development, object relations.
Speaker 3:I can hold both for the first time. I can hold both at the same time that this hurts and I'm also okay. This person is safe and good and kind and not particularly available but other people are. So they are still safe and good and I am still okay and I can hold all of that at the same time.
Speaker 1:So maybe just attaching, you need to attach with caution. Maybe that's what we all need to do. Attach with caution some. And I find most personally, a lot of my relationships have had ruptures in them. But it's the way that those ruptures are navigated that either solidifies or distances the value of that relationship to both parties.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And that was one of our biggest lessons of the year in a good way was that all relationships have ruptures. All relationships have ruptures. It's part of having a relationship is experiencing ruptures. But healthy relationships repair them.
Speaker 3:And so as I experienced some repairs with some relationships as I continued to struggle through the year, those relationships like my friendship with you was solidified even though there's so much going on within both of us. Whereas other relationships had ruptures that were not repaired and were just left hanging there. Like, I can't fix that by myself. It doesn't it's like a it's like a bad date. Right?
Speaker 3:Like, no matter how much I want it to go well, I can't do it by myself. I can't do their part of the work. I can be ready and willing to repair and I can make my efforts at repair. But if they're literally not responding or participating, there's nothing I can do about that. But it also, I learned the and part is that I learned that I'm okay with that and to recognize what it is, that it's really about their stuff, not about my stuff.
Speaker 3:And I can let them be who they are and I am okay still, but my energy and investing of repairing ruptures are gonna go with the people who are also doing their end of repair and healing of ruptures so that we have healthy relationships together as opposed to one that's just left hanging for an entire year because nothing else Right? And I think to me, I think one difference in the birthday part I talk about the birthday party experience because it was so significant to me. And I think that's another difference. For this person, they have birthday parties all the time. They have birthday parties with all of their kids.
Speaker 3:They have birthday parties with their spouse and themselves. They have birthday parties with their friends. Like they have a lot of birthday parties. For me, that was literally my first and only birthday party.
Speaker 1:Ever?
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so when they randomly show up, that's significant to me. And then when they disappear after it, it feels significant. And so I think because it was my only experience, it was extra loud. Whereas to them, it was just a gathering that was fun and they put forth a lot of effort to travel so far up to see me.
Speaker 3:And my other friends have attended since then. I don't mean, I mean attended to like nourishing our relationship. And so when two of them did that, then I think the other one feels significant. Not because they're bad, it was just such a different experience. I don't know what it means.
Speaker 3:It's not even that it means something bad. It's that I don't know what it means, and because of the circumstances of the pandemic, and because of the circumstances of going through one therapist after another trying to find a therapist, I didn't have anyone to help me interpret it. And because she's not participating in repair, it was literally just an open wound that was left there.
Speaker 1:That's Is she aware that that was your person only?
Speaker 3:I have no idea because I have literally never got to have a conversation with that person about actual things. Which which is why showing up for a birthday party that for me was such an intimate experience was a little bit jarring, but it wasn't a bad thing. It felt like a gift of presents. I don't mean like presents. I mean like being present with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right? And so that was very significant. But then when after the birthday party that's taken away, then it's very confusing why it was offered in the first place. That's where the trigger comes in of like is this a trick? Is it a trap?
Speaker 3:Did I fail? Did I mess up? Did I do something wrong? But because there's no repair it's left hanging.
Speaker 1:I am truly, genuinely sorry that your life experience has made you think those things. That is absolutely heartbreaking. And I wish everything that was done to you can be undone so you wouldn't have to, all these years later, just wonder what someone's intent was and to automatically assume that it must have been something that you did wrong even if that feeling happened for a moment or a minute.
Speaker 3:Well, it put me in the hospital. That's how that's how big it was. The birthday party almost killed I
Speaker 1:mean, it's your first and only. That's a day to celebrate you. And if you all we have is our experiences from the past. Right? And why I lack those, I can be empathetic.
Speaker 1:I learn from people more externally than I do internally. And I I I I can feel how heartbreaking that must have been.
Speaker 3:Well it's much easier to care for other people than to care for ourselves right? That's why I have foster children and chickens and a goat and a rabbit and whatever else. A depressed husband who is good and kind but also depressed and absent in that way because then it doesn't require my presence, right? Like so you asked earlier how do I do that? Well I've navigated that really well, right?
Speaker 3:I have a husband doesn't isn't able to stay present so it doesn't require me to stay present. I have children who have attachment problems and so it doesn't require me to attach. I mean it I I'm I'm oversimplifying because of course we work really hard on all of these things and very actively and even the husband is open about this. I'm not bad talking him at all. But but do you like, you see how, like, if you just look at this simple layer, like, it's it's so obvious.
Speaker 3:Of course I'm managing all this fine because I've surrounded by my I've surrounded myself in a world that matches what's happening internally.
Speaker 1:So a little bit of waiting? You know kind of like what I do with my inside so.
Speaker 3:It's like dating people who aren't actually going to choose you helps you avoid having to commit to someone, right? So the same thing happened with the birthday party. People came to see me and it was so hard to be seen I couldn't handle it. But then my wish was granted by the rest of the year not being seen by That's that's that's a part of why we have to stay in therapy. Right?
Speaker 3:Because we keep acting all this out until we get better.
Speaker 1:So I'm confused. Are you gonna have another day to celebrate you?
Speaker 3:Oh, not if I can help it. What
Speaker 1:if it would go well?
Speaker 3:I see what you're doing there.
Speaker 1:No. I just
Speaker 3:But I will also speak your own words back to you and say, but I also know where I've come from and what that was like, and I don't want to repeat it.
Speaker 1:Wanna repeat, though, if you can exchange it? Do you always wanna you talk about memory and you talk about now time and memory time. I do you think and I wondered I've I've always wondered this. If you put more good now time experiences in your bank, would it replace some of the memory time experiences that you that that's your experience and that causes you to make choices in now time that maybe you wouldn't if you had different now time experiences. Now
Speaker 3:see I think this is an important philosophical question and it's a relevant one because I think that that's what therapists are trying to do right? That's part of what they try to do through the relationship you have with them and through how they care for us and through the progress we make in that experience. And I've seen that be true and happen with the children since we've adopted them. When we first, when they first came to us for foster care, all they had were stories that were terrible about their past. And any time something got triggered, it was something terrible from the past.
Speaker 3:Like right, like our own stories that we don't wanna talk about. These horrible things that they had been through and endured and had happened. That was all that they had to say and share and talk about. But over time, now when they talk about the past, they know their past story. And they know what was so hard, but it's less familiar to them somehow even though they're still aware of it.
Speaker 3:But what they remember are the adventures we've had together and the memories we've made together and the the good things that have happened in the years since they've been with us. And so I've witnessed that and I think that's what I was trying. And I think it's what made even the podcast so powerful the first three years. But in 2020 what happened was all of my progress was sort of wrapped up in this one package dependent on what I had experienced with the therapist and through those words even like what you're referencing with now time. And all of that progress was wrapped up in that.
Speaker 3:And so when that was taken away there was no place to reinstall those play those pieces. There was no place to it was like it was like it it was like if like what I talked about on the podcast was like how therapy felt like in Indiana Jones where he gets to the party, he has to take the leap of faith and he scatters the stones and he can see the little path to get across. And I talked about that on the podcast once and we we shared how that's what therapy feels like and you get across in ways you can't even see that you're getting across, right? But what happened to me a year ago was like I was in the process of walking across that bridge I could literally see with the stone scattered off and it was like someone knocked me off. And so I fell in the ravine anyway.
Speaker 3:And crawling out of the ravine has been very difficult. And so I felt for a year like I was still falling and there was no one to catch me and the only way to end the fall was to crash at the bottom and I would not survive that. And so my choices were to either keep falling or to wait. And what I was waiting on or who was gonna come or how to find my way out of that was probably the hardest and longest experience of my life which is saying a lot. Because I lost everything that was holding up.
Speaker 3:Every stone that I had thrown to show my path was taken from me. And it was terrifying and it was traumatic. And now it's really it's like I have a whole new trauma that is making it really, really hard to reengage in therapy and to make therapy safe again and to even try to participate in therapy much less get back to where my therapist now, that we have now, we don't talk about DID. We're not even that far. We talk about how to show up for the appointment and still be safe during and after the appointment because therapy is such a trigger and the feelings are so big and so raw.
Speaker 3:Like really, it has been a I don't know how to talk about it more explain it safely or appropriately for the podcast.
Speaker 1:I understand. So can I ask you one more question?
Speaker 3:Of course. Because it's way more fun to dig into my past than yours.
Speaker 1:Looking back since you started this podcast, do you have anything that you would do differently?
Speaker 3:That is a good question.
Speaker 1:And you don't have to answer, so don't worry.
Speaker 3:No. There's a couple things. If you're talking about just the timeline, if I had known how hard leaving the therapist was going to be or how destructive that was going to be, I wouldn't have done it. But I also don't think I could have stayed and gotten better because of like three different reasons that aren't even relevant to right now. If you're talking about the podcast specifically, one of the things that I feel badly about is that I've tried so hard to do the different like social media or Patreon or or video, different things that like the community is really big into, but I just can't.
Speaker 3:It's not part of me. I I'm in a place now where I can share a picture and a poem, but it wasn't safe to have the system speak specific page. So I had to take it down, which blends my public life a little more blurry and that scary. I have thought clinically about how I I wish at times there were a broader perspective on things like OSDD for example, but I I I don't have that experience so I can't speak to it in the same way and I can only rely on people being willing to come on and share. And I'm so grateful for the few people who have.
Speaker 3:And I think that the last year has been brutal to keep the podcast going. And I don't just mean the process of it, I mean the sharing what there was to share because it was not pretty stuff. And people liked having hope or hearing Sasha laugh or hearing funny things and entertaining things. But when that was not the season, it was much harder to share and it was much harder to listen. And I have debated a lot about whether that was a smart move or not for the podcast to keep sharing.
Speaker 3:But at the same time, ultimately what keeps coming back and what I keep getting back in emails are that I'm not the only one dealing with this. And that other people are struggling with the same things. And so if I don't share and get through, like how do I get back on the bridge? How do I get back across the way I was trying to get? How do I get back to a safe and stable place so that I can start pressing forward again or start interacting differently or share those other pieces safely?
Speaker 3:How do I do that? If I don't figure it out, people who like I'm not the only one trying to figure it out. And so if I'm going to offer hope authentically then I have to be real about the times when it feels like there's not even if there also is. I did not know that that season was going to last so long. You know, in the past it would have been maybe one hard episode.
Speaker 3:This was like a hard year of episodes and it was torture for everybody to listen to, to for me to do, for me to share, for me to find ways to talk about it. The only other thing that concerns me about what I would do differently would be when I first got doxxed and I tried to respond to people because I thought they were actual humans that were invested in learning and being safe. And so I thought I could answer questions and solve it. And that just like made trolls worse. I wish I had not responded to that at all.
Speaker 3:But I learned that lesson and didn't do that again after that and sort of used that lesson to come out on my own terms and have handled that as well as I could. But it really put my family at risk. We had to move because of it actually is part of why we had to move. And and so I'm concerned that that will happen again, but I am also just doing the best that I can do. So at some point, part of being authentic and self acceptance at all is just being okay with that, that this really has been the best that we could do.
Speaker 1:And you're doing it so well. And it's so easy to say because I don't have a popular podcast. It's Have a nice holiday season. However you celebrate it.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's so kind.
Speaker 1:Everybody is fine inside. Right?
Speaker 3:Oh, everything is just fine. It's always fine. Fine is what we do. Right? Everything is fine.
Speaker 1:Are you a little sarcastic with me, miss Sunshaw?
Speaker 3:Always.
Speaker 1:You thank it it it was always an honor and a pleasure, I learned so much from you, and I appreciate your time in this conversation.
Speaker 3:I appreciate your friendship and your continued avoidance and your determination. If
Speaker 1:don't avoid I may turn into a completely different person that just can't even tie her shoe. That won't be pretty.
Speaker 3:I I I that's the kind of year I've had. That's what's happened is and it's a good question because how far do you push and try to move forward without pushing too far and getting in that place right? Like it's a scary thing and I think that's part of what happened to us of trying too hard too fast to be something we're not to fit a mold we couldn't fit in and so they've they've been hard lessons for sure. Thank you for holding out hope for the entire world, and may 2021 be a happier, brighter podcasting season.
Speaker 1:I just want you to continue to do you. That's it. Okay? Just do you.
Speaker 3:That's what people say, but
Speaker 1:Have a good evening, Emma.
Speaker 3:Anything else you wanted to share or ask or talk about before I let you go?
Speaker 1:I wanna maybe talk to the survivors out there that my line of work I do because of you. I made a commitment to myself a long time ago whenever whatever happened to me moving forward, I always wanted to know why people act the way they do because I know people cannot always act and be the best version of themselves. But I just want to tell the survivors that I see you. Other clinicians see you. Hang in there.
Speaker 1:And you're okay to be wherever you're at when you're there. But just don't stay stuck there. Just keep moving. You know? And you too, Emma.
Speaker 3:Oh, such a sap.
Speaker 1:I mean that.
Speaker 3:I know because it's an and. Right? It really is real what you're saying, and you're a sap.
Speaker 1:Well.
Speaker 3:How was this for you doing the podcast? How was it?
Speaker 1:It's beginning it's becoming more comfortable, I think. You know? You you've had, I don't know, how many more podcast experiences that I have. I've had, let's see, one and a quarter. But you make it safe.
Speaker 1:What they don't know behind the scenes is, the listeners won't know, is the patience you showed us just trying to get us to this point to be able to say, okay, we'll Zoom Emma. So that's how I know that it's genuine. What you're trying to do is genuine, and you're willing to do the work to make people feel safe because otherwise, I don't think a part of me would ever allow that.
Speaker 3:It's intense. It's intense to be real, and I think that's part of what hurt so much of the last year to be real and to be authentic and to feel all the feelings. That was intense and that was hard and unpleasant and what did you say gross? It was so gross. Feelings are gross, and I hate them.
Speaker 1:Okay. Just out of morbid curiosity, it oh my god. Do I really want to? No. No offense.
Speaker 1:But do I really oh, is it still that hard? I'm scared.
Speaker 3:It is scary. It is scary. I I can't I can't speak for everyone, of course, and I can't speak for the future because I'm still learning. What I can tell you is that I feel like that for the first time and now it's been at the time of the recording of this podcast, it has been thirteen, fourteen months into this. And I knew I had to leave that therapist six months before that.
Speaker 3:So about a year and a half into this experience of allowing myself to see what I could see and feel what I had to feel and to do the hard things that meant being, that meant going forward even though it was terrifying. I feel for the first time like I am starting to stand on the earth again instead of just falling, instead of just scrambling. There are days that I wake up and I can function a little more easily. There are ways that I have maintained function. Like there are five things that I said I can feel myself regressing and deteriorating and these are the five things I cannot compromise on.
Speaker 3:And I have been able to hold on to those five things even though I lost everything else everything else felt so And there are new rules for how I function. And I don't mean rules in an oppressive way, I mean added structure for how I experience everyday life in ways that I did not experience before. Like my flesh has grown bones underneath so that there's substance to me in a way I didn't feel before. And the days that are good days, I'm able to acknowledge as a good day differently than in the past and they last a little bit longer. What is still hard where I'm at right now in the place that I'm at is that it's very easy to fall back down, I guess.
Speaker 3:I don't know another way to say it. It's very easy to slip away. It's very easy, to struggle and things very quickly overwhelm me. But at the same time, when we're talking about good things about 2020 or the pandemic, in some ways that was a very safe way for me to have to go through this experience because so much less was required of me. I didn't have to go to parent teacher meetings.
Speaker 3:I didn't have to, you know, all the things that we lost during the pandemic in good ways of being more sheltered at home and more connected with each other in those kinds of ways. That has been a supportive environment in which to do this ugly ugly ugly work which I know sounds so ironic when I say it felt like being alone. But part of why I was so alone in 2020 was not just because of all these different friendship experiences which are natural and normal experiences for everyone else, but so so triggering to those of us with attachment issues. Part of what made 2020 so hard is because no one could do the work I needed to do but me. It was not something I could delegate to a friend.
Speaker 3:It was not something I could delegate to the husband or to the children. It was work I had avoided that I myself had to do. And so there's something about having done that that makes me stronger and more three d for lack of a better word than what I felt like before.
Speaker 1:That's something to be proud of. Good for you.
Speaker 3:I I I look forward to the day when the transition between those experiences is not so difficult and the day when I can hold on to the good days longer and more solidly. But right now, I think because I'm so new to feeling things, when something hurts me, it hurts me very big. When there is a wound or a rupture, it's a very deep one. But I think that's because I'm still so new to being able to tolerate it that it's just extra sensitive. So I'm hoping that over time that balances out but I'm I'm not there yet.
Speaker 3:But that's an assumption.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Sounds like a goal to me.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you for being my case manager.
Speaker 1:No. I just it's I you you have a good rest of your weekend, and it was an honor talking to you guys.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Bye, Emma.
Speaker 3: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.systemsspeak.com. We'll see you there.