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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, 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:Mimi.
Speaker 2:That's funny.
Speaker 1:You can't believe that day or night too. Mimi. It was delightful.
Speaker 2:True colors. Okay. So the recap for today was ISSTD psychoanalytic conference. Mhmm. Day one, and it was this session called
Speaker 1:You have to say it fun.
Speaker 2:Oedipus Rex and Dissociated Sex, Rethinking the Myth and Other Cherish Psychoanalytic Principles. That what you meant by say it fun? Something like that.
Speaker 1:I mean, come on. Oedipus, Rex, and dissociated sex?
Speaker 2:Okay. Here. Hold on. I just have to be honest. That is not what I thought we were gonna talk about when I saw it said dissociated sex.
Speaker 1:What were you expecting?
Speaker 2:Well, I was kind of excited. Titilated? I I thought we were gonna talk about principles of sex because it said sex.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about sex, baby. Talk about you and me.
Speaker 2:We cannot because Kim will be like,
Speaker 1:stop She told you. Don't do it.
Speaker 2:Don't do it. Don't do it. But I thought he was gonna do it. This was by Ira Brenner.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I thought he was gonna talk about sex because that's what I said. Right. Here's what happened. It was a generational language issue. They meant gender.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Biological sex.
Speaker 2:And they were talking about like gender and sexuality, meaning sexual development of the person. So how things like boys will be boys or boys need to be macho or girls, like all these binary messages that we get, what that does to us. So then I was really excited about that because that can be really good education. I have children. I wanna make sure they have options to be themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No. That's not what we talked about either. No. I don't even know what to do with this.
Speaker 2:So basically, he told his story and then kind of got in a fight with John O'Neill, an intellectual discussion. You guys, here's the thing. We don't understand this because of what education has done to America. You mean what America has done to education? There we go.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Sorry. No. That was spot on. So historically, which feels weird to say it with that framework, But traditionally there are many cultures.
Speaker 2:Again, I'm thinking because Anne's was here and we were talking about being deployed in The Middle East and how part of the culture is just this arguing back and forth. Like it's so, so intense And you would think it's domestic violence, but it's just a conversation sometimes, right? But also the same thing with psychologists. There are obviously different psychologists with different theories. Some of them have done their work.
Speaker 2:Some of them are really well known for their work. And historically, these people would get together and on their own personally as colleagues and friends have deep, intense discussions. Professionally at conferences, they would have panels that were not sweet little take your time turn taking talking, but, like, intense deep discussions, arguments. They would get very heated sometimes, but it was cultural and it was safe. They knew each other.
Speaker 2:They cared about each other. And so, like, when John comes and asks him a hard question, Ira responds to the hard question, that's what this is. Yeah. They're saying, I don't think that's right because of the like, that's how they fine tune the theories Mhmm. As opposed to now when we just don't have theories.
Speaker 1:Right. No, we do. We have the theory that makes the insurance companies the most money. That's the theory we all follow. Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:No, that was really cynical. But back to the arguments that
Speaker 2:was You're not wrong though. I know. Sorry.
Speaker 1:The arguments were about promoting critical thinking and like really growing and like fine tuning points. It wasn't about disrespect or
Speaker 2:It was not disparaging. Yeah. Not disrespect, not character shaming or person shaming. Mhmm. It was critical thinking and the debating of literature and understanding research and science.
Speaker 2:It was not ugliness.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it was just important for me to talk about that piece explicitly because as a survivor person, I saw conflict, and I was like, oh, everything is okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think I still have some sensitivity to the I don't even wanna bring it up. I don't even bring it up, but the online controversy last year. Yeah. And, like, I want I want to be proud of my responses. I want to think clearly even when I'm wrong and make mistakes, which happens and it's very public when it does happen.
Speaker 2:I want to respond from a thoughtful place, not an activated state. And this was so good for me to see, and it happened very quickly. It wasn't like it was the whole presentation. I'm that's funny that we're starting with this. But what happened last year was from an activated state.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. People were arguing and fighting and in fight response. Granted, they had reason to be. But this was not that kind of debate or or arguing or fighting or activation. This was, like you said, critical thinking about a topic, and it was nice, comforting even, restorative somehow, to see that play out in a professional way.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Sunny sent? Was that too much? Might be too I didn't know I was gonna drag all that up. It was really traumatizing though, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And as we approach me preparing for the plenary, I'm really anxious about it, I think. Like it, it should be a safe world. Me and ISSTD as a safe place with people who understand dissociation and me as a person with lived experience getting to speak from lived experience, that should be like as safe as it gets.
Speaker 2:But it doesn't feel safe.
Speaker 1:What feels unsafe about it?
Speaker 2:People hating online from activated states rather than just I disagree with you because of this point and this point, and then I studied this theory in school of thought and this Mhmm. It's not intellectual debate. The character shaming is not okay. It's bullying. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I don't wanna be bullied anymore. No. That's fair. I've been this is so funny. This is where we're going.
Speaker 2:I I've been talking with the kids about Taylor Swift. They're all about Taylor Swift right now. And I just showed them the video of when she got her award when she was only 17. Mhmm. And Kanye came up and took the microphone and did all of that.
Speaker 2:And she got like they were booing him, but she thought they were booing her. Yeah. And then after that, they did that interview with her expecting her to bad mouth him because of what he did and to have every right to do so, but she didn't. Mhmm. She just said, I I don't know them, and she didn't take that bait.
Speaker 2:And we've been talking about that over and over again the last couple of weeks because of some issues they're having at school of, like, be true to who you are and also be kind and also be strong. Yeah. Like, it's okay to do all three. Being kind doesn't have to mean being a pushover or being weak. You can have good boundaries.
Speaker 2:Oh, I showed them that too when someone threw something on the stage and she was like, part of a healthy relationship is gentle, strong boundaries. Mhmm. It freaks me out when you do that. Don't do that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, those kinds of conversations. So I think it was just good for me to watch that play out.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Well, hopefully that this is a different experience. Right. Like in the plenary.
Speaker 2:Okay. So anyway. Moving on. Ira Brenner talked about sex, but not I know.
Speaker 1:Not really.
Speaker 2:It was about gender and development. And to do that, he also told his own story. So if you don't know, Ira Brenner worked inpatient when Cloughed first got medical privileges at the hospital and started treating DID patients.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And who at the time were multiple personality disorder patients. Mhmm. And so he shared, like, what was that like and how it even put his career at risk because no one understood what was going on and what was happening. But he began seeing switching on the unit that was not treatment induced. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that's sort of when he started, okay, this is a thing, and we need to help these people. And then ultimately started the actual dissociative disorders unit. So again, I told you, it was like, this sounds like a podcast. I wish we had this on the podcast just because it's a piece of history. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I'm glad they got it recorded and that it's it's documented there. But we also talked about how the language and how he told the story, and we know it happened so long ago, but the language felt so antiquated. Like
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What did you feel about that? Do you have any words for that piece or no? It's okay if you don't. Well, I don't know. I felt like the way he was describing it felt like one of those moments where from a lived experience perspective, it felt like there was some silencing happening, some not listening, but I don't know how to explain it right now.
Speaker 2:Like it slipped away.
Speaker 1:Well, I was listening yesterday and reflecting on it, it felt like a time when, and this probably was the time when there would be an expert, right? An expert professional doctor who would administer treatment to a patient and they would be the ones deciding what to administer to the patient, which is not at all collaborative care and is not the way I tend to practice. And I don't know, maybe that was better. I don't think it was, but it just felt so foreign and a little bit
Speaker 2:It's one of those times where you realize history was not as long ago as you thought. Right. Like when I do my presentation, like the long full date one, and I have like the pictures of Charcot Salon and things like that, and we talk about this and it's like, oh yeah, that still happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, when he was talking about when they actually set up the dissociative unit was what sometime around 9495. And I was thinking in my mind, oh, I was in high school reading my very first book about DID. Like that was in my life that this was happening. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So he talked about being influenced by Otto Kernberg, who did a lot of research about borderlines and character formation. That's a whole other thing I actually don't wanna go into today, if that's okay. But from that, developed focusing on DID through a psychodynamic framework, using what we were just talking about in the previous recap with John O'Neill's session about dissociation as a defense, which comes from Freud's theory. Right.
Speaker 2:As opposed to Jainet's theory of dissociation as fragmentation Mhmm. Which leads to structural dissociation. So he is on the John O'Neill Multiplicity. Multiplicity perspective on the Freud side of things with it being an active defense against trauma and deprivation, which he addressed, I appreciated that, not I was weak until life got hard and I fell apart. Right.
Speaker 2:Think that's the other reason. Uh-huh. It just doesn't feel good, the Genet structural dissociation model. It doesn't feel good. I don't know any survivor of trauma and dissociation, of trauma and deprivation.
Speaker 2:Like, don't know any dissociator who doesn't who is not their best when life is hard. Like, that's what we do is push through.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:We have capacity to do far more than we ever should. We over function. I don't know anyone who's a dissociator and is like, oh, life is hard and I'm weak and I fell apart. Like that's the opposite of how it works. Even thinking about like, oh, this was so hard and now here's a new alter, it is literally an adding to capacity.
Speaker 2:It is not a diminished capacity.
Speaker 1:Right. Bam. Look at that.
Speaker 2:Okay. Okay. Not that I'm acknowledging anything. I'm just saying. So he also distinguished that the original theories of dissociation from a Freudian angle was that it was caused by trauma.
Speaker 2:He was saying his perspective and theory and framework of dissociation was about it being a defense, is a Freudian word, due to the anxiety, which is a Freudian concept, meaning like internal conflict, not anxiety like, oh, I'm anxious, right? The internal conflict in response to the trauma, which makes sense in the context of deprivation when no one else is responding. Yeah. He began studying dissociation in his sessions, trying to identify what the triggers were for switching specifically, that's what he studied. And what he found was that triggers were not even actually, this reminded me of this bad thing, but that this reminds me of when I didn't get help.
Speaker 2:This reminds me of when I didn't receive care. So the most common triggers for switching were not something in now time reminds me of something bad in memory time. They were care or lack of care in now time reminding me of lack of care in memory time.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:that showed up with experiences of humiliation, relational needs, expectations not being met, and desires not being supported.
Speaker 1:Wow. I did not hear that at all. Not surprising.
Speaker 2:Any thoughts and feelings about it now?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. It's not surprising, really. Right? If what is overwhelming is the lack of resources to handle what's happening and the lack of resources are because of deprivation. It would make sense that that's what's most triggering is being reminded of those times we don't have what we need.
Speaker 2:Well, so I can make it more neutral using myself as an example because of the podcast. I've been through a lot of hard things the last four or five, ten years, decades, lifetime, right? Here are the list of hard things that happened to me. When my life was actually in danger was when I didn't have the resource of a therapist. It wasn't the hard things happening to me that made my life hard.
Speaker 2:It was the lack of support that made my life hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:When I lost my therapist, that's when I fell apart. When I couldn't find a new therapist, that's when I didn't think I would survive. And validly, I believe. Right. But having a therapist is this stabilizing factor that even though these things are still in my life, it's so much better and I am stable, not because these things have gone away, but because I have enough support.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, it's funny when you talk about that, it reminds me of like research on like risk, like suicide risk. And the times that are most dangerous are when people have a thwarted sense of belongingness. What does that mean? Like they have lost something important that let them feel like they belonged.
Speaker 1:Oh. So it's been thwarted, their belongings. Okay. And then there's the sense of hopelessness that that's not going to change. So it's like when you lose some when you lose whatever it was that helped you feel like you belonged, and then that's not ever gonna get better.
Speaker 1:That makes sense.
Speaker 2:Daps all over my toes. No, I think that is truth. I just don't like it.
Speaker 1:That's just like different worlds of research colliding in my brain.
Speaker 2:But that makes sense. That's exactly what I was trying to say. I am not threatening suicide. No. And also, if I do not find a therapist that I can keep, I'm going to die.
Speaker 2:I don't plan to die. I don't want to die, but I cannot survive this without help. Yeah. No pressure therapist. That's terrible.
Speaker 2:No. I'm good. I'm good. By the time this airs, I would have had my new therapist, who's not a new therapist anymore, almost a year. Oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't wanna jinx it every time I've said that on the therapist, by the time every time I have said that on the podcast, by the time it airs, I've lost that therapist.
Speaker 1:Well, oopsies. So that
Speaker 2:feels a little scary. And, also, it's not actually causal. Right? So maybe it's good for me to say, good for us to schedule it way out to air later and then
Speaker 1:Yeah. Go from there. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Okay. So he also talked about I going back to Ira Brenner, when you're talking about Freud and defenses, he said his opinion was that what Freud coined as repression was not actually accurate, except that what he got right about it is that there is an active process keeping things separate, which is the dissociation. That that, again, when we go with Freud's theory, it is an active process, meaning it is actually happening actively, we're weak and it broke.
Speaker 1:Right. A fail it's not a failure to do what we're supposed to. It's adding something else too.
Speaker 2:So I really think that breaks my last strong hold onto structural dissociation. Like, up until this point, I've been like, I disagree with how it by experience. Just period. I disagree. That's not how it feels internally.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And then I have had theoretical disagreements because of other things. But I've said, but it's okay because this piece is good in normalizing, but I don't think it is because of this. I don't want it normalized. Maybe this comes with unfawning or unshiny happy.
Speaker 2:I don't think it's okay to normalize that my life is so hard I'm broken. Right. When I know it's the trauma broken, it's the mirror that is broken. It's not me that is broken, which means structural dissociation completely falls apart.
Speaker 1:Well, and also in its pursuit of normalization, it implies that anyone could end up being dissociative or have DID given the right circumstances, the right barriers to integrate potentially. But like Paul Dell is talking about how you have to have, and John O'Neill was talking about how you have to have the ability to have like self hypnosis as a young kid. So not everyone can just add that active defense. I don't know if that
Speaker 2:Right. Well, and I think that also answers some of the plurality question, which is not what Ira Brenner was talking about at all. Mhmm. But if you take that self hypnosis and the process John O'Neill was talking about it happening when you're very young, then that is like a natural, not natural, I don't even like that, a developmental process of dissociation, but people who learn it plurality. Wow.
Speaker 2:People who learn it later. Mhmm. And identify as plural, not because of trauma. That is a skill based dissociation, but it makes it, but it's still valid. Like it's a different process, but not any less valid.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Okay. So, okay. So then he talked about, again, Freud developing incest complex and then having to give that up because the community was like, no, we're not gonna talk about that. Thank you, Victorian era.
Speaker 2:And then Genet going into the splitting divided psyche route, which we've just addressed. But he said that Freud gave up hysteria and trauma because it didn't work. So it was the second person who said Freud had to recant his theory because he sucked at hypnosis. I just Poor Freud.
Speaker 1:He's so
Speaker 2:So he said specifically, Freud gave up his model of hysteria and treatment because it didn't work. Dissociation is operational. So looking at repression was not enough. He was not successful at hypnosis himself. And so his theory, and also his theory of free association did not account for a state of auto hypnosis.
Speaker 2:So that's when he said that about the Rosetta Stone. Do you wanna say that? I don't know.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't know if I got the full quote because he was talking fast and we couldn't pause it. But he was saying, the more we understand DID, the more we understand the human's mind's capacity. This is where I started to go off track. But capacity to handle catastrophic experiences. Like he was talking, that's where he said, it's like a Rosetta Stone of figuring out what our capacity is and how we handle things.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. He went as far as to say that if we can figure that out, we would also be able to prevent other disorders that are basically come to the point of a broken brain. Where it's psychosis or schizophrenia or something, not because of dissociation, but because the brain needs tending to that we are not providing as caregivers. Yeah. And providers.
Speaker 2:So Brenner talked about moving from Freud's defenses to character disorders or personality disorders. So I wanna be clear. He was not saying DID is a personality disorder, but this goes to this part I was more familiar with because I was trained under someone who studied under James Masterson, who studied under Jung, who studied under Freud. So when we're talking about character things and character formations, it's a whole different understanding. But John O'Neill, this is when their conversation happened.
Speaker 2:John O'Neill asked the question, or he did not ask a question. He contradicted or said, I disagree. He said, In all of literature and the DSM and all of research, is a character or a personality is only one. So it stays in axis one because DID is more than one. It is not a splitting.
Speaker 2:It is a copying. So meaning we duplicate what is working so far. It's a it what it reminds me of, and I know this is just imagery. It's not factual because I'm not a scientist and like, a molecular scientist. Okay?
Speaker 2:But in imagery, you know how DNA copies itself when it's splitting cells and things. This is what what he was saying is that we basically, when there's a new alter, we copy what hasn't, like, what has worked and omit what has not worked. And so we get new alters. I mean, that's what he was implying. That's not what he said.
Speaker 2:We get new alters in the same way that it is literally more than one because it is a new cell. Mhmm. Even though it is a new personality, a new person, as opposed to it's not you're not cutting a person off of like, oh, the arm's not working, so let's just chop it off. Right. You're not doing that with personalities.
Speaker 2:This alter didn't work, so we're cutting them off.
Speaker 1:More like this alter didn't work, and so we're gonna have a new one that has a different Blend. Uh-huh. Try another mixture. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that one retires, but they do not cease to exist. So which is interesting. I know we've gone off track from what John said, but that comes true to lived experience. Right? There are times that some alters are host and then they're not host anymore, or some EPs become ANPs, or some John O'Neill says all EPs used to be ANPs.
Speaker 1:Which would make sense if they're being duplicated, created as an attempt to solve a problem. That is a need. That is a need.
Speaker 2:And a relational need. So when the relationship does not meet, they put a new person to try to meet that relationship.
Speaker 1:Wow. Sorry, my brain's getting really geeky about like robot copies or like beta testing.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly. That's what Like what works and what doesn't, is why ANPs that do work well are so fine tuned, but cannot go outside their capacity. Like in our mapping project with the counselor and Doctor. E, could not be close to people who are trauma connected. It is outside their capacity of their DNA.
Speaker 1:You know what's funny for me? My learner who has to go to these trainings is not the
Speaker 2:counselor. Is it like a sub person like you said the author was or completely No. Not related at all?
Speaker 1:I don't think it can be related at all because this training stuff triggers a lot of stuff that the counselor cannot have in the room with her when she's doing her job. So it's like it's filtered. It's like it's absorbed by someone and then filtered through, and then she gets the usable stuff without any of the ways it attaches to us. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which sometimes is why she panics before sessions because she's like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to do anything. Because she's not the counselor. Because she doesn't remember the training. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But then when she's there, it shows up.
Speaker 2:Cue cards. Yeah. Wow. Okay. No, that's good.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:I don't even know how we got there. But we were talking about the clones, different versions.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah. So then Brinner responded and they talked through that. But then he also said, again, sort of like John O'Neill did, this is why we have to have psychodynamic relational therapists and therapists need psychodynamic training, even if they seek it out extra because it's not taught in schools anymore, which is both horrifying and distressing. But we have to seek out psychodynamic training because, or therapists, because it's not just safety and stabilization.
Speaker 2:He said stabilization comes from safety, meaning needs are being met. And ego strength, and it is transference based.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Not being hurt by your therapist is not the same as being tended to by your therapist.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, it's funny. It brings me back to that idea of trauma versus deprivation. Like our therapists right now, it's like the focus is don't hurt your clients, don't cause trauma, but don't look at the fact that we don't know what we're doing relationally to actually show up for our clients. It's like as a field we're depriving our clients.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. Which is where that voice of lived experience matters to speak up and bring that. And also we need to do that in a way that translates gently and safely enough that people can receive it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he actually talked about that too because he brought up Holocaust trauma. And I wanna say something about this. One thing I think people forget is that ISSTD was actually founded in response to Holocaust trauma. So this is one reason I'm in the camp. Not that ISSTD gets everything right, I know they don't, because they're made up of humans, literally volunteers.
Speaker 2:And humans are different from each other. There's conflict, there's difficulty, there's challenges, and not that they get everything right. I'm a person, I don't get everything right. I get that. I'm not arguing about that.
Speaker 2:And also, it was literally founded about Holocaust trauma, childhood trauma, developmental trauma by people who themselves were the children of Holocaust survivors, who not only knew trauma, but had themselves experienced relational trauma. And he talked about how what happened with his generation was, we have the generation of Holocaust survivors. And then we have their children who endured the aftermath of the Holocaust. Mhmm. But it was not discussed because there was no space for them to also be victims because what they were experiencing was not as bad as the people who were themselves in the Holocaust.
Speaker 2:So we had a whole generation of children of the Holocaust who were
Speaker 1:silenced. Almost like unintentional gaslighting.
Speaker 2:Absolutely unintentional relational trauma. And it is out of this that we have people who say no trauma is valid, trauma is valid, trauma is valid because they're trained since children to validate trauma for their parents who went through the holocaust.
Speaker 1:But they're also invalidating their own deprivation.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. So does ISSTD have problems? Yes, it does, because they're all survivors. Everybody in different And obviously now, years later, not everyone is a child of a Holocaust survivor.
Speaker 2:I know that. That's why I'm overgeneralizing. But everyone has different kinds of trauma because we are humans in a traumatic world, and being cruel to each other is not going to heal trauma. It just adds to trauma. Right.
Speaker 2:So do they get it all right? No. But are they also a source of some good that has a right to be in the world? I think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, I've certainly gotten a lot of good from them.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And do they also, at different times, individuals within ISSTD totally mess up or respond from unhealthy places because of their own trauma or because of their own dissociation that's not looking at their own relational trauma because it's so hard to see? Absolutely. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And also, have there been beautiful people who have done their work and advocated for good and done good and right things that need to be there because we're accomplishing good and providing one of many spaces for therapists to become better therapists so that we can exponentially heal the world. I think that matters. I think that's worth investing in even if we're just teaching a class, and we're not gonna get it all right either. I'm so scared. Are you scared or you're chill?
Speaker 1:Well, depends on who's thinking about it. Right now, a little nervous. It'll go well.
Speaker 2:It'll be fine. It's gonna be great. Okay. So back to Brenner. Then he finally got into his actual topic about sexual development pathways.
Speaker 2:And I literally wrote, WTF? Yes. I was so confused because I thought we were talking about actual sex. Mhmm. He was talking about gender.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I was misunderstanding. I thought because the context of trauma no. Because of the context of Freud, it was going to be like an incest kind of training. Right. Well, mean Not training for incest, training about Freud's incest complex.
Speaker 2:Right. That's what I thought it was gonna be. And it kind of was, but it was very gendered.
Speaker 1:Well, Oedipus Rex is in the title. Right. Like, we're supposed to be talking about that, but anyway.
Speaker 2:So like how these expectations and binary rules, subtle, both, not subtle, like overt and covert, right? That we put these things on. So here's what it implies, is that not only are we dealing with that growing up as we organize, who am I? Am I straight? Am I gay?
Speaker 2:Am I a girl? Am I a boy? Am I non binary? Am I somewhere? Like, what does that mean to me?
Speaker 2:And then also the follow-up questions of how do I want to present that and which of those roles do I actually want to accept or reject? Much less the process of having to accept or reject. Which means not only in a context of DID or OSDD, do we have our own alters that form out of our development because of all these different things? Also, we have like, I wanna say pseudo alters of what other people's expectations are. Like we have to be this because that's what society or our family or our parents or someone says we have to be.
Speaker 2:Shiny, happy as an example, where that didn't come from inside of me or who I was. It was put on me. Right. So someone else's mask. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But but you had a version, a copy made to fit that external demand.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah. So the alter becomes in response. Remember like that Freudian anxiety complex in response to the trauma of those expectations.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, and it makes sense that gender is such a powerful piece when we look at how almost, almost always in systems when they're studying people with dissociation, there's some part or alter that has a different gender identity than the body host, which would make sense if you're trying to solve a problem that you haven't solved yet.
Speaker 2:He also talked about trans people not speaking to that specifically, but identifying how, like by default they have trauma.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Not just because my experience of who I am doesn't match my body, but because of having to navigate these expectations of what other people say their body is and what should be, which I assume would also apply to intersex. Right. Mhmm. And then in in a I I don't wanna compare traumas, so I don't wanna say less traumatic way, but it feels less traumatic than that. In another way, things like shiny, happy, like purity culture.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Or things like that, where it's other people's expectations and this is who you have to be. That's never okay, whether we're talking about gender or morality. That's not the same as choosing well the best expression of who you are in this life. Mhmm. Anything about that?
Speaker 1:I wanna be clear that I wasn't saying when people experience a transgender identity that's because of dissociation. That's not what I'm meaning. But there's a lot of gender issues that come up with dissociation.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, then gender dysphoria being by default a part of a dissociative, obviously a part of the trans experience. Right. Until they can live more congruent to that and, have support for that. But with DID or OSDD, also that gender dysphoria for different parts with different experiences than what the body or host or a different alter may present.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I can't even get into Lowenstein. Mhmm. Like, I just can't. So then Brenner kind of closed with defining dissociation as the auto hypnotic response to overstimulation in trauma.
Speaker 2:So to overstimulation in children. So not just meaning like, oh, turn off the TV because you're overstimulated, but meaning when you have relational trauma and you lack care and nurture and co regulation and space to have feelings, you are literally overstimulated or highly sensitive because you're carrying it all by yourself, what a parent is supposed to carry for you while you develop capacity to do so.
Speaker 1:Or things you should not have been carrying at all, ever.
Speaker 2:I wrote a star because you said, oh, we need to talk about that, but I missed it entirely. It was something about the sleep wake cycles and how we sleep differently. And he was talking about different dissociative Oh, he was falling asleep.
Speaker 1:He was talking about falling asleep and they studied children. And some children have like this long period of semi alertness, but like kind of slowly shutting things down and then drifting off to sleep. And then other children have this like very distinct shift from alert and then suddenly asleep. Like, it's a fast thing. And I think I see that with you because you're, like, going along, going along, and then all of a sudden, okay.
Speaker 1:Time to go to sleep. And you're asleep in, like, two minutes, if that sometimes. You are just done. Whereas I will lay in bed and and slowly drift away.
Speaker 2:I wake up the same, though. I wake up fully ready to
Speaker 1:go. Mhmm. And I don't. So yeah, I don't know what it means, but it was just interesting. He was talking about it.
Speaker 2:I guess the last thing was that he said, despite the differences in theories, what matters is that as clinicians, we
Speaker 1:are
Speaker 2:empathetic, focus on understanding how minds work, offer support, create zones of safety. Were there any others of those that I didn't get down? I don't think so.
Speaker 1:That was really reassuring because he was basically saying the way you treat them is just the way you treat good relational therapy. Right? Showing up for someone and tending to them without without traumatizing them, without like neglecting them, without disempowering them.
Speaker 2:I think that's everything. Mhmm. Things are showing up in my life.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2:How are you?
Speaker 1:Maybe not for this conversation, In general. Okay. Do you wanna say the funny thing about his conversation?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. I guess that too. I'm sorry. Was a side note. I missed it.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's okay.
Speaker 1:He was talking about those moments when, like, someone loses their keys and they can't find them. He calls those mini fugue states He thinks that they're part of dissociation, not just forgetfulness.
Speaker 2:I feel like you wrote a little song.
Speaker 1:Well, I didn't write a song, but it came to my mind. Baby fugue. So that's been stuck in my head for twenty four
Speaker 2:hours. You're welcome. Yep. I hope they enjoy that.
Speaker 1:I hope so too. I'll play it on the piano.
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.