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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,
Speaker 2: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:I had this really specific experience this morning where we're at the end of winter break. The kids have been out of school. It has been chaos with six children. We've had hard weeks with everything that is happening outside our family, around us, and it's just one of those times where I know I cannot prevent the crisis. I cannot control the crisis, but it feels like the flood or like a tornado where we're just trying to push back the walls and using all of our strength to hold on to safety and the sand shifting under our feet.
Speaker 1:Like, how do we get grounded when it feels like we are being invaded? How do we learn how to build relationships when it feels like we don't know who we can trust? How do we learn what safety is when it doesn't feel like it stays, and trying to navigate what to do, what not to do, how to move forward. What does that even look like? Like, wrestling with with all of the pieces for my own healing and also in therapy, in recovery, on the podcasting community, how do I make sure that it's me that I'm talking to where it is only my own experience, strength, and hope that I have to share.
Speaker 1:I can't talk about anything else. I can't talk about anyone else. I have to stay centered in me and listening to my myself. That feels extra hard over the holidays when we don't have therapy because therapists being off or when it's harder to connect with therapists or my insurance has changed. And so do I get to keep my previous therapist?
Speaker 1:Is my insurance coming back? And now I have it back. I can go back to my pre like, it's so confusing and disorienting. We were just talking about that in the community even with the times changing because we've reset the schedule, which we've talked about on the podcast for a long time, talked about in the community. And even even in deciding to move forward with that, any kind of change is also disorienting.
Speaker 1:So, like, trying to get my feet grounded and using all the resources I have. There was a reading in the recovery book I was reading the other day that gave the example of, like, karate or taekwondo or something. I don't know what the exact martial art it was referencing. But it said a black belt, which made me think of Laura Brown. And it was someone telling the story of watching someone go through their emotions and their moves or whatever it's called.
Speaker 1:Like, they were watching this person and noticed how their attention was on the foot that was planted, not the foot that was in the air. And that really got my attention because I feel so knocked off balance with all the changes and also focusing on where my foot is planted in the ground rather than focusing on what is knocking me off balance. Because if I only focus on what knocks me off balance or the grief or sadness or fear or hurt or betrayal, like, in the blank, any of those feelings, if I'm only focusing on that, then I lose my balance and I do fall over and I do collapse and it is devastating. But if I use my strength and my therapy and my recovery and outside help and all the things to focus on where is my foot planted, how do I center in being me, how do I focus on what I am wanting to share, what I am trying to reflect on, what I am learning. It's okay if it doesn't apply to everybody.
Speaker 1:It's okay if people don't wanna listen. It's okay if things are knocking me off balance or or if I'm having to position myself with my foot in the air, my focus is on the foot on the ground and being able to center that. So one of the things that really helps me with that is my recovery work. And I know that's not for everyone, and I myself can be super activated by anything that is regular meetings or anything that's culty in any way. So I have to really make sure that I am only doing what feels safe and comfortable in my body and with my system.
Speaker 1:So I do a lot of random meetings, and I study the materials that feel good to me. So for example, I have found this book that is about a feminine perspective on the 12 steps rather than just beating myself up with the 12 steps in a shiny happy way. And part of what I read today addressed fear directly, and it was so helpful. It was talking about step four, which is when we look at our own stuff, but also not just when we look at our own stuff of here's what I've done wrong or what I'm responsible for, but also why I was doing what I was doing, what was I responding to, looking at trauma responses, looking at my history of trauma and deprivation in the context of everything, and affording that to other people too. Right?
Speaker 1:But it said, what does it mean to be fearless about our inventories? In truth, probably none of us does an inventory fearlessly. If we waited until we felt no fear, we'd probably never get started. Rather than wait for fearlessness, we can refuse to let the fear stop us. We can move ahead even if it's scary, even if we feel overwhelmed or ashamed.
Speaker 1:Remember, courage doesn't mean the absence of fear. It means acting in the face of fear, and we can ask for help to get us through. We don't have to do it perfectly. That, regardless of any other recovery context, was exactly what I needed to hear today on a day when I was feeling knocked off balance and a lot of fear. Just be me and do it anyway.
Speaker 1:That's a simple message for my system that even when we're afraid, we still have permission to exist. Even when other people don't like us, it doesn't make us bad. There's room. And in a more non dualistic way, it doesn't make them bad either. There is room for all of us to exist and all of us to have our feelings.
Speaker 1:And that is true internally, and it is true externally. That is really important because part of what I am learning is that I cannot do this alone. If I am unbanishing my system, if my system is coming back online, if I am reconnecting to myself, I cannot be the only one here. I cannot be the only one I consider the same externally. I cannot do it alone.
Speaker 1:That is why we say connection brings healing. I'm currently in chapter two of the Big Red Book, which is for adults who were children of alcoholics or children of dysfunctional families. And it said, Someone who is an adult child feels alone or abandoned after disagreements with authority figures or spouses. And we can regress to a stage of childhood and feel wrong, faulty, or undesirable. Because we hear criticism as attack, the adult child believes there can be only one conclusion.
Speaker 1:I am wrong. I am bad. This conclusion is not related to the conflict but now enters the conflict and diverts the solution. Blame enters the picture. Without help, we do not argue well with others, and we are doomed to reenact arguments that lead nowhere.
Speaker 1:We repeat the pattern of hurtful arguing that we witnessed as children. Nothing is resolved, and we harm ourselves and those we care about. Then it goes on to talk about the inner critic, which we also read about I think it was in 2020 when we read Pete Walker's book with about complex PTSD. It says here, This is the voice in our head that brings self doubt or second guessing from within. This is the voice that makes us reactors rather than thoughtful actors in relationships and work.
Speaker 1:We explode with harsh words and threats that can be traced directly to how we were treated by our parents or grandparents. We realize how harsh we can be towards ourselves. Recognizing this critical inner voice takes a while. We have become so comfortable with shaming ourselves or cursing ourselves, we cannot hear the extreme negativity. Occasionally, that inner critic is a feeling more than a voice.
Speaker 1:The adult child feels different, unacceptable, or wrong without knowing why. Admitting that we've internalized our parents' behavior is a brave step toward changing the behavior. But then it reminds us that left brain is not enough even when left brain gives us context. It says, our experience shows that we cannot read ourselves into true change, and we cannot watch enough television to find healing that lasts. We simply become information gatherers, which is a form of control in itself, trying to control the variables to be safe.
Speaker 1:If we are simply reading about recovery or watching it, we still think we can reason out a solution without doing the actual work of recovery. Our experience shows that we cannot recover alone. We need to interact with recovering adult children to practice the principles that bring results. Recovery takes effort. We admit that recovery is not easy.
Speaker 1:We will not deny there's pain and challenge ahead. You will not have to do this work alone. That's why we need community. Right? And then in the daily reader today, the one called hope for today, it said, I can't alter the past, neither what was done to me nor what I did to others.
Speaker 1:It's necessary to look back in time without staring. As long as I kept staring at my past without experiencing my feelings about it, I stayed mired in fear, resentment, and self pity. That's like focusing on my foot in the air and where I'm about to be knocked off balance or have been knocked off balance instead of focusing on my foot that's firmly planted in the ground. I couldn't let go of something I didn't possess. Only after I stopped long enough to feel my anguish, bitterness, and emptiness could I let them go and move ahead.
Speaker 1:But when I read that, I felt like it's really hard to take the next step, to move ahead, to keep going when it feels like every time I lift my foot in the air to take the next step, I get knocked off balance. So even if I understand focusing on the foot that's planted helps ground me, I still have to lift my foot, which maybe is a step two kind of thing. I have to trust the process enough and believe in gravity, something enough to lift my foot off the ground and put it down again so that I can even take a step. I don't have a black belt. I don't wanna fight.
Speaker 1:I'm not trying to run from anything. I'm just trying to move forward. And taking the next step forward, it feels like with trauma and deprivation, every time we take a step forward, we get knocked back down again, and we take a step forward and get knocked back down again. So what it feels like I'm learning is to just stay put, to stay on my blanket, to stay small, not take up space, don't lift your foot in the air. Right?
Speaker 1:And also, that's not going to get me anywhere. So I am not actually a child. I am an adult. And yes, I've had difficult experiences, and also I'm responsible for moving myself forward. No one is going to come rescue me.
Speaker 1:So here's what I realized. Part of the problem is assuming that anyone who says they want to help or anyone who says they're good or anyone who says that they want to support me actually means it. Because I did not have the skills to discern the difference. And then in the reading today, it says, Turning to an alcoholic or dysfunctional person for affection and support can be like going to a hardware store for bread. Perhaps we expect a good parent to nurture and support our feelings, or a loving spouse to comfort and hold us when we are afraid, or a caring child to want to pitch in when we are ill or overwhelmed.
Speaker 1:While these loved ones may not meet our expectations, it is our expectations, not our loved ones that have let us down. Learning to receive care and support is hard. When you've not had it, it's also unfamiliar. When some people have used it to trick you, it also feels cruel. And, also, it is my job to regulate myself and my job to balance myself.
Speaker 1:So learning what actually is support, what actually is bread, what actually is nourishment so that we recognize and respond to what feels congruent to meeting our needs rather than what someone is telling us will meet our needs helps us see the difference. If I am only doing what other people are telling me, that is still compliance. That's not moving forward. If I am only reenacting what has already happened by doing to myself, abandoning myself, isolating myself from care, holding myself back, then I'm doing to myself and my system what was already done to me. If I'm waiting for things to change or to be different or to be better without participating in that process, then that's memory time.
Speaker 1:Because as a child, I couldn't do anything about what was happening to me. But as an adult, there are lots of things I can do about it, and I have choices. To make any of those choices, though, requires me to lift my foot in the air and to take the next step. And as a deaf person with vestibular problems and as a person with complex trauma whose vestibular system is affected, there's a lot of balance issues. There's a lot of falling over.
Speaker 1:That's sometimes embarrassing, sometimes funny, sometimes painful. And, also, it doesn't stop me from trying. And when I think about that hardware store or the bread and my expectations, I cannot set boundaries about other people. I cannot change what other people think, say, or do. But I can choose for myself what I say, what I think, and what I do.
Speaker 1:And when I set boundaries in response to what other people say or do, that's not about them. That's about me. So my expectations that a hardware store is going to give me bread is not based in reality or experience. I know a hardware store doesn't sell bread. So those are my expectations that need to be adjusted.
Speaker 1:And when someone is offering me nails and screws and sharp objects, I don't have to ingest that. I can recognize it and say that is a hardware store. It is not bread. That's fine. We need hardware stores on the planet.
Speaker 1:That makes sense that we have hardware stores, and, also, it doesn't mean I have to eat that. I don't have to ingest that. My boundary is for myself. I only need to eat the bread. I only need nourishment.
Speaker 1:I do not need more pain. I do not need more harm. I do not need more sharp objects in my life. I need safety, and I need nourishment. So I can go to the bread store for bread.
Speaker 1:I can go to the market for bread. I can make my own bread. I can nourish myself by only ingesting what is nourishing. And so I have been sitting here this morning before I did my readings feeling overwhelmed, feeling weary, feeling so many big feelings about the last couple of weeks, and also knowing that that's a step one, I'm powerless against any of that, and all of it is absolutely unmanageable. And, also, my step two is that I knew if I read my therapy homework and my recovery materials, like the daily readers or the different books or things, the literature, that there would be something in there that would help me.
Speaker 1:And this is part of why I love recovery because therapy helps me with memory time and trauma, but recovery helps me add in the good and the application of my healing and what to do about it, how to move forward, what moving forward even looks like. That's what I get from the meetings. That's what I get from the community. That's what I get from friends who act like it because it is nourishing and does not cause me further harm. And so in step two, whether that is I'm gonna open the books and read, whether that is I'm going to go to a meeting or to a Zoom group, or whether that is I am lifting my foot in the air to take another step, to keep moving forward, to get off my blanket.
Speaker 1:Whether that is, I will trust this one a little bit, or whatever shape trying again or moving forward looks like one step at a time. Right now, I can't even do one day at a time. I can do one step at a time. And knowing that that's in there for my step two and step three is being willing to open the book, willing to attend the meeting, willing to go to therapy, willing to have direct conversations, willing to record something again, willing to take the step. And then step four being, what happened when I took a step?
Speaker 1:What kind of step did I take? How did I feel about that step? What was my motivation for that step? Where did I step? Who was helping me inside take that step?
Speaker 1:I can look at all of that, but I can't do that work of looking at all of that if I'm not willing. And I can't be willing if there's not possibility for change and for healing. And there's not possibility for change and for healing if we don't acknowledge what's wrong and what's hurting. And that's why I go to therapy. That's why I journal.
Speaker 1:That's why I create art, to express the things that have been unspoken, to find the things that have been buried, to uncover what has hurt so much, to say out loud I have been fed nails and screws and sharp things. And to acknowledge my own role in reenactment of I had the expectation of bread at a hardware store and to ask for outside help from therapy and Zoom groups to stop shopping at hardware stores for nourishment. If I need to go to the hardware store to get a plunger for the toilet, to get tools for a project, to get supplies to build something, that is fantastic. That is congruent with the experience, and there can be much satisfaction in that. I have parts of me who love a good hardware store, the smell of a hardware store.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. That can be a good thing for some of us. Maybe not everybody. And also, it's not where I get bread. And I was sitting here thinking after reading all of this and thinking about the hardware store and the bread and thinking how can I make this tangible for my littles?
Speaker 1:Because right now, it's one of those days where I have littles who are afraid and hurting. I have teens who are angry and betrayed, and I have adults who are weary from tending to them and tending to outside kids and trying to function when what I feel is collapsed, which means I'm back in functional freeze, which means being gentle with myself, like not rushing podcast episodes, not putting out anything that doesn't feel safe, not walking into hardware stores looking for bread. It means slowing down, being gentle, caring for myself in the ways that I can, and doing step four about what even that means so that I am looking for nourishment and giving myself nourishment and safety and not hardware stores. Hardware stores are not going to fix this. I mean nourishment.
Speaker 1:And thinking how to make this tangible because with kids out of school, I don't have hours and hours to do an art project. With PowerPoints due and book deadlines and these left brain things that are giving me some structure to keep functioning enough so that I can also parent well and keep functioning instead of collapsing? How can I do something without drowning in the creativity and also not only be left brained? How how can I hold on to what I am learning in therapy and recovery about myself, my own healing, and so much pain in the world? And I was wrestling with that before my readings, while I was reading, and after my reading.
Speaker 1:And then it came to me. It's so simple. Today is Friday. Today is Friday, and Friday is holiday. Literally bread.
Speaker 1:I have to stop expecting other people to give me bread. I have to give myself bread. And on Fridays, I literally make the bread myself. I mix it, and I knead it, and I roll it into ropes and weave it into challah. And then we set it aside and leave it alone and let it rise in its own time gently, safely without being invaded, without being poked, without any sharp objects.
Speaker 1:We just let it be. And on its own, it rises until it's twice what it was before, And then we bake it. And when we bake it, it stays soft on the inside even though it is hard on the outside, crunchy on the outside, boundaried on the outside, like the Sabbath itself, the day itself, a boundary between this and that, holiness in time. It is not a shiny, happy blanket that is going to make me good. It is not other people's approval that makes me good.
Speaker 1:It is not compliance with other people's expectations that make me who I am. The holiest I can be is myself, just being me. And the best care I can give myself is protected space enough so that I can rise as I rest and rise from that rest healthier, whole year, w h o l e, whole year, more whole than before, my own story woven together by myself and offering that nourishment of bread to myself and passing out what I have that's good for those who want to tear off a piece, not of me, but of goodness, of nourishment, of wholeness, and whatever that means to them. That's all I have to do today. One step at a time.
Speaker 1:Looking for bread, making bread, eating bread. When we say Shabbat shalom, it's not just happy Sabbath, although there's that. It's the peace. It's the greeting. It's the serenity.
Speaker 1:It's the clarity. It's the coming back to myself with nothing between the values of me and me. It is me congruent with myself. It is my foot planted in the ground. It is my hand full of nourishment, of bread that I have provided for myself.
Speaker 1:That we together provide for ourselves parallel to each other, doing it together in our Zoom boxes across the world. That is the calm in the storm, not just the absence of danger, but the presence of support, of care, of nourishment. It's as simple as bread. I can do bread. Bread does not feel impossible to me.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for listening to us and for all of your support for the podcast, our books, and them being donated to survivors and the community. It means so much to us as we try to create something that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing.