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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.
Welcome to the System Speak podcast, a podcast about dissociative identity disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to long time listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Tonight is the night before Thanksgiving. The children have been out of school since last Friday. Watching movie marathons while I worked Friday, Saturday. The children have spent the mornings at the park down the street and the afternoons watching movie marathons while I finished working Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and this morning. They were not impressed that I still had to work when they were out of school.
Speaker 2:But if I want the time off for the ISSTD conference, I can't use all my PTO now. And if I want any time off at Christmas, between Christmas and New Year's, When most therapists, many therapists, take the whole two weeks break because we need it. Even though on this side, when I'm the one on the couch, I know that that's hard. But this year, for the same reason with the ISSTD conference, if I'm going to be the speaker, if I'm going to go and have this job, I have to save my time off for that. But I want some time off because the boys will be here.
Speaker 2:The other kids don't know that yet, that they're coming for a visit. But I let them have their screen time now because I'm not much of a fan. Except I'll watch the parade with them in the morning while I open the Zoom line for the community. Because I'm not the only one alone in the world. I'm not really alone in the world.
Speaker 2:I know in un daydreaming, I'm not. I have friends. I could use the time off to text them. I have had the same therapist since I found her at the beginning of the year. We're not to a whole year yet, but almost by the time this airs.
Speaker 2:I will have known about her this long, and I've now been seeing her longer than I thought that maybe I should try to go see her. So that's something. And, also, holidays are for gathering, family, and local friends. And my family is dead. I don't think I can talk about my family more than that because it's not okay.
Speaker 2:Because that's too much for them and for me. But it means we are alone on holidays. There's Nathan, but I could not afford to fly him and the boys here. And I don't think the kids here were ready, and he needed to stay with his parents. And so it seems to have worked out for the best apart.
Speaker 2:I hear Dante saying that it's my own natural consequences for leaving my family, Nathan, everyone. It's why I'm alone. And, also, I have to fight back against that because it's not true. It's not true. Jules is nearby, but her family is still alive and in town.
Speaker 2:And she will be with them, and I won't see her for two weeks. I posted about it in the community, not about Jules, but about being alone and on my own. Jules texted me right away, worried and feeling bad that we were not together, that she can't be here when it's hard. And, also, I don't think it's something she can rescue me from. And I think as uncomfortable as it is, it's actually good for me to feel it.
Speaker 2:Not in a masochistic way, not as an emotional self harm, but to see clearly. Not consequences, like Dante says, but my own choices, like my therapist says. I saw her today, and that was one of the things she asked me. Can you trust yourself? What evidence is there that you're not making good decisions?
Speaker 2:What if you are? Shiny, happy is hard. When shame spirals happen so quickly. The mix of relational trauma and shame and shiny happy seems to be especially special. I don't know what's happening, that I'm talking in therapy.
Speaker 2:When I get to therapy, I am relieved instead of in a panic like before. And when I get there, words tumble out of me instead of silence drowning me. She's sneaky and slippery, my therapist. Not really. But somehow last week, I said something about my mother in passing.
Speaker 2:And today, I mentioned my father on accident. Nothing disrespectful, of course, because that is not permitted, But a memory random from being in his car once, a story I told her related to something else that tied back to trusting my own choices, which has to do with unfawning and unshiny, unhappy. Even splitting up my records from Nathan's at church to be my own person by default of geography. Once again, protected by the privilege of chaplaincy while also retaining my right to ask questions and find the answers. Specifically, what does it mean when what I believe in is myself.
Speaker 2:My youngest daughter asked me that question after watching a Taylor Swift video. I'm telling you it is Taylor Swift madness here with my girls and my boys, and the things they are learning are good. By good, I mean empowering. I don't mean good morally. I don't mean shiny good.
Speaker 2:One of my children got called out at school for using a new word. The teacher laughed privately with me later, and I laughed too. Even Nathan laughed. And, also, somehow it comforted me, not because I want the children to be rude, but because it means they're free. They're not docile statues on blankets.
Speaker 2:They're learning and growing, Becoming their own people. Needing me less and less and sometimes more differently. With their own thoughts and opinions, ways of expressing themselves, and everyone right now is writing songs. Jules has shared with them mine, and they are realizing and connecting the dots that when they help me record or watch me practice, bad songs come out. I don't know yet if they're really that excited about the songs or if they just still feel guilty for breaking my cello.
Speaker 2:But I take it with a grain of salt because I know tomorrow, I will be the worst mother in the world again for half an hour or so. And then they'll forget because we repair, because they are developing and growing and becoming. And that is unlike anything I ever experienced. I don't know what your experiences are with your families of origin, as they say, or on holidays. If you, like me, are on your own, maybe more so without these outside children, or if you, like me, are exhausted by cooking food as fast as they can eat it for days and days and days and literally looking up to your children who are all now taller than me except the youngest, the middle two almost.
Speaker 2:Or if like Jules, your family is still alive and still gathers, which is in some ways good and in some ways hard. And I try to close my eyes to remember those days. I don't know if I will see you on Zoom tomorrow, or if you live in another country where it is not The United States Of Thanksgiving or have yours on a different day like Canada. Or even if you're a native like me, maybe more connected or on the roles than me, and find yourself wondering what exactly are we celebrating and why? And how to keep the good and explain the rest and teach your children about both?
Speaker 2:Maybe you are like me before children, hiding and avoiding it altogether. I'm irritated that there's a podcast about it, but it felt important that on this night, the night before Thanksgiving, I came here to tell you that I'm thankful for you, that I'm thinking of you. Maybe I will see you tomorrow on Zoom. Maybe I won't. I know that you will not hear this tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Maybe someone else will shuffle episodes around, so maybe you will. But I couldn't not say the things, that I remember you, that I see your faces, even those not active in the community still, or those who are new, and those who have stayed, and those who have come back. I'm so grateful for you. Maybe I only know your name from emails to the podcast, or maybe we've met in person at one of the meetups. But I want you to know that I'm thinking of you, that I remember you, that I am so grateful for you.
Speaker 2:Maybe you're a clinician who's never met me, or maybe you have at a conference, or come to my training, or our monthly consult group that I offer for free, by the way, on the first Wednesday of every month on Zoom. I'm grateful for you. Maybe you have donated to the podcast. Maybe you're someone who sends $5, and that $5 has built up over the months. Or maybe you support the podcast by encouraging me and others in the world who need to know that they are remembered, that they are not alone even when it feels like it.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to un daydream still. And that means remembering that you are there even when I feel alone. It means being willing to talk to a therapist even though also I thought I will never attach to anyone again. It's so scary to try. So much is happening in the world right now, and it is so scary to keep going, to be willing to be vulnerable when it doesn't always feel safe or when it doesn't feel safe at all.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes in therapy, they talk about containment. Let's put all this in a jar and on the shelf, and we'll talk about it next week in therapy. That's great. I'm glad that dissociation makes me transy enough that things like that can work. I don't mean that it's bad.
Speaker 2:It is helpful. I've done it. I've used it. And, also, sometimes for me, containment looks different than an imaginary bank vault or a jar of therapy topics. Sometimes for me, containment is like time and space.
Speaker 2:Using a reference I have used before with my family, So I'm sorry for the religious reference. So skip thirty seconds if you don't want a religious reference. But the same way that a temple is a temple in space on the land, in the building, the temple itself, And the Sabbath is the temple in time. I need containment the same way sometimes. Compartmentalizing time and space in ways to help me keep moving forward when it feels impossible.
Speaker 2:There is war in the world. And, also, when I look out my front door, there is a privilege of safety. Today, just for tonight, I am safe enough right now. There have been terribly distressing experiences with previous therapists or in therapy before that I very nearly did not survive. And, also, I have found a therapist that I feel relieved when I arrive and better when I leave, even when we talk about hard things.
Speaker 2:I don't know how we do it because I feel like we talk about a hundred things. So maybe that's just still entering into therapy, exposing myself to therapy, like a rock skipping across a lake instead of thinking I'm drowning in it. Maybe I'm still testing the waters. But for right now, it feels safe enough today. It contains me enough that I can go and visit my therapist and spill my guts, but not myself.
Speaker 2:And come home ready to parent, able to function, And with thoughts and feelings that percolate slowly enough that I can find words tonight before I sleep, Which I can do because my body is settled somehow. Maybe I am in a more reflective place because this year is closing, because a new year is opening, and next year will be different. There are some changes we're working on in the website. Thank you for those who have been patient while that was in process. It doesn't happen quickly when children are priority.
Speaker 2:There are changes happening on the podcast because there are changes happening in me and my life. I think for one thing, for example, instead of interviews the first Monday of the month. Jules and I will be doing a recap of something together throughout the year or at least some in advance you can listen to throughout the year. I'll spread them out. I know they can be intense.
Speaker 2:I may also just let Nathan be, unless he asked to record one like codependency. And let him focus on his parents and the boys, while I focus on regrouping here. I have asked the children again if they want or need to go back to Oklahoma, even if we still live in a different house. But right now, they're happy here and want to stay. I don't say out loud to them that I don't even know what that means, to stay and how to do it in healthy ways.
Speaker 2:So I suspect that will be a coming theme because it keeps surfacing. But I think the beginning of staying has to do with trusting myself and my friends, learning how to connect, and being bold with what I have to offer, and trying new things for what I want to offer the community starting with the retreat in January. I'm so excited. I've almost got it planned. I know where we will stay and the food we will have, and what I want to share with you during our time together, and learn from this safe group of advanced topics people, And making plans for a future that I don't know how to pull off.
Speaker 2:But knowing that twenty twenty five conference is in Boston, and the fall is in Toronto, and that's a goal. That fall Toronto conference, I'm gonna get there. There are so many of you there, and I want to say hello Because I am grateful for you. I didn't know what I was going to say tonight, and I don't know that it's been worth your time when I'm not talking about DID specifically, but trying to live specifically. And tomorrow's a holiday, cultural, perhaps, Historical, for sure.
Speaker 2:And many of us will be gathered in places we don't want to be. Some of us will be excluded from gatherings without us. And some of us will struggle together ourselves. And I just thought it was a good time to tell you that I remember you, and that even when we're alone, we can be alone together. Maybe that feels extra important to me as I transition out of some versions of community and try to make my own.
Speaker 2:When I sit in the silence of what it means to have tried to create my own family, and what has gone well with that, and what hasn't, and being aware that those days are almost gone. Even if that is good and right, and exactly how it's meant to be. I don't know how many more holidays. I even have the children here with me. They're not really mine, you know?
Speaker 2:They're people. They belong to themselves. And their lives do not have to fit into my imagination. Or maybe it's the other way around as part of un daydreaming that my imagination doesn't actually fit their lives. So today, when we got off work and finished therapy And what I wanted was to celebrate that I was available to spend time with them, that we could play games or go for walks or tell stories.
Speaker 2:It wasn't me that they wanted because it's a holiday. It's when you gather with your family, the people that mean most to you. And I know they love me, But at the core of their being of who they are, when the world says go home to your family, turn to your family, It's not me that they choose. And part of that could hurt deeply. And, also, it's not about me at all.
Speaker 2:It's about who they are and where they came from and their own daydreams that will be their work to untangle. But it's not my job to pop those bubbles, and I can't rescue them or do that work for them. I can just make sure they're not alone in it. So when I got off work and got out of therapy and wanted nothing more than to go on adventures with them, on a walk and laugh and talk and come home and play games. What we did was sit around the table and Zoom their biological families because that's what we do.
Speaker 2:All of these holidays that were hard enough for me growing up, Now as an adult with my own chosen family, they're not about me at all. The children together have four other mothers. Six other fathers. And that's who they need to talk to on holidays. Their grandparents that are still alive, not my parents that are dead.
Speaker 2:Their biological parents who missed them every day. Not me who thought of them while I was working. I know that with foster care and adoption, it doesn't always work to stay in contact, and we try to do it safely. But there is nothing about adoption that is beautiful without grief. There was always grief in adoption.
Speaker 2:And people say, oh, but you are their mother, and they love you. And it's true. I know it's true. And, also, they have other mothers, and that's true too. First mothers who birthed them and loved them and held them before I ever did, except for the youngest whose mother was handcuffed to the bed while she pushed her baby out, and they handed her to me as if I had chosen to be part of that cruelty.
Speaker 2:Nothing is binary. It's never either or or good or bad. There is so much nuance, so many layers to love, to living in a world where there is pain, to being vulnerable when it doesn't always feel safe, to dare to connect with people who should be enemies because we are not enemies. We are mothers to these children. We are humans on a planet together.
Speaker 2:And I am a tired human. And after this, I will go to my bed and I will cry. Because I'm in a season of loving humans who don't see me, not maliciously, but at capacity. And it's time to focus on myself, my own un daydreaming, to pop all the bubbles of dissociation. Not too much, too fast, but enough.
Speaker 2:Enough to see clearly. Enough to wake up, enough to live my own life, even when I'm on my own.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening. Your support really helps us feel less alone while we sort through all of this and learn together. Maybe it will help you in some ways too. You can connect with us on Patreon by going to our website at www.systemspeak.org. If there's anything we've learned, it's that connection brings healing.
Speaker 1:We look forward to connecting with you.