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Emma shares about complex trauma, deprivation, and dissociation (CPTSD, OSDD, DID). Educational, supportive, and inspiring, System Speak documents the best and worst of life through insights, conversations, and collaborations. An archive curated for dignity for all.
Welcome to System Speak, a podcast about Complex Trauma and Dissociation. It's our story, our learning, and the ideas we've been working with as they've unfolded over time. Earlier episodes give context for where we are now, and current episodes may engage more advanced material, harder content, or reference earlier conversations. A few things to remember as you listen. The podcast is education, reflection, and storytelling.
Speaker 1:It's not therapy, and listening doesn't create a relationship. Although I am a therapist, I am not in that role here, and nothing that I share is individualized clinical advice. Every system, every internal world, all of your own stories are all different and you take up your own shape. What we share about ours won't translate directly to yours. It isn't meant to.
Speaker 1:We're all different, and all of our stories matter. As always, take care of yourself during and after listening. We are so glad you're here.
Speaker 2:And should we talk about a little more about your deafness in college?
Speaker 3:I mean, we can. I don't know what to say.
Speaker 2:Because, yeah, you're deaf in college. Yes, you learned ASL in college because of that deprivation piece you're talking about before, your family not recognizing or willing to look at your disability. And so you had to learn it in college instead of learning it at a younger age. Whenever we went, if we found ourselves at the hospital, you had an interpreter. We would go to the theater and watch movies, and you would use this device, for caption that you could see that other people couldn't see.
Speaker 2:It was the nineties. I don't know how they do it now.
Speaker 3:The same. Not gotten better.
Speaker 4:Oh, no.
Speaker 3:Sometimes it's worse. Sometimes they're like, just use your phone.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. That surprises me because I feel like even the the buck fifty theater had them. Right? But, yeah, you had hearing aids. They were still trying to make you learn vocal training.
Speaker 2:I know we talked about that in a podcast before. You were trying to feel vibrations and figure out where the tones are, and sometimes I would play air piano for you if someone was playing piano so that you could see what notes were being played. I'm pretty good at your piano, by the way.
Speaker 3:I think this is an example of the three of us and what a wild world we lived in, where it was such a deaf world and such a musical world at the same time. And I know that's unique and sounds weird, but for the three of us, that was our reality. You sitting with your purple music theory book. I actually have mine right here.
Speaker 2:Oh my
Speaker 4:gosh. Yeah. And nobody wanted to teach me music theory. I don't know why. Oh.
Speaker 3:And then at the same time, all the time. Even when we went on walks, we used to sing the songs or sign the songs on our walks and play. And just all the time. I signed in high school. I didn't speak in high school.
Speaker 3:I didn't speak until college because things had been so hard those last years of high school. And so I went into college, selective mute, it said on my thing, I could talk to you all and I could sign with you all and I could voice with you all. It's not that I couldn't. It wasn't that I couldn't speak or that I don't know. I don't even know what to say about it.
Speaker 3:I feel like the complaints about how deaf am I or that I'm not deaf or something are really all about not understanding deafness or not understanding I hearing don't even know what to say else about that. But it was a fun world. And you know, trying to get a music degree, I was doing okay until they changed the pianos to keyboards and I couldn't feel it on the keyboards. That's what changed and made it almost impossible for me at the very end, right, as things were all falling apart anyway because they changed it to the keyboards. They brought in the keyboards and I couldn't pass ear training obviously.
Speaker 3:So they were like what do you do about that? Send me to a different school.
Speaker 4:Thank you, Beethoven. Just bear.
Speaker 3:I'm not arguing that it's unusual or weird. Anything about our story, the three of us, anything about our story. I'm not arguing that it's not weird or unusual, but that doesn't make it not real.
Speaker 4:And the problem I had is when someone else who was there for part of it is telling me things that I really don't remember. For me, that whole period of time, I remember more feelings than actual memories. And some of the stuff, shared some stuff. It's funny because, like, when I read it, the memory came flooding back in. And some other ones that I didn't know were there, but, like, I really don't remember.
Speaker 4:So for somebody to tell you could tell me, you know, Santa Claus visited me. I might believe you. I don't know. I don't remember what happened then. So I think I feel like with that too, like, I mean, I might have agreed with stuff that I didn't know because I don't remember.
Speaker 4:You know? And I think I don't know. Yeah. That time was crazy for all of us. I did love signing all the time.
Speaker 4:I missed that.
Speaker 2:You could sign right now.
Speaker 3:It makes it harder for a podcast.
Speaker 4:Itching. Oh, and I'm going to be a great aunt. I just found that out, like, last week. So Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Crazy. Crazy. Right? Oh. We're old.
Speaker 4:But
Speaker 2:it's good. Sometimes it feels like like college was a couple years ago, and sometimes it's really hard to bring back. And probably that, I don't know, the memory loss stuff is what contributed to you being, like, a target of the people harassing animals.
Speaker 4:So I feel like I wouldn't have even entertained it at all if I had a clear picture of what happened, then I just I wouldn't have even listened to anything. Also, I wouldn't have even talked to her if the other person who I trusted didn't contact me, like, the same day because I put stock in what she said because I trusted her. And now I see that I shouldn't have, but, like, yeah, there there was a lot of things contributing to that, but I still feel, like, pretty bad about it, you know? But it's it is what it is. And I had therapy this morning, which is great.
Speaker 4:I was like, hey. Look. This is what I'm doing today. This is what we're talking about. And she said, you know, even when you're talking, she said, that's still even that recent event where you you know?
Speaker 2:Because I felt like I mean, I really
Speaker 4:I didn't mean to hurt you, and I didn't and I hate that, but it's still past. And I'm in a different place now, and I have moved past that. You've been very gracious, and I need to remember that that is the past. So now how can I help? How can I fix any damage?
Speaker 4:You know? How can I I don't know? That's where I'm at.
Speaker 3:Well, I appreciate you being here. And and, you know, that's that's part of it too. The past like, the stuff they're talking about was thirty years ago. My adolescence was forty years ago. My childhood was fifty years ago.
Speaker 3:I will be 50 next year. So, like, I'm not saying that for fifteen years I've never made a mistake or don't have some kind of learning curve in life. I don't have any need to be perfect or get it all right, but we don't need to be malicious towards each other's growth curves either. And when we're talking about dissociation in therapy, there's only so much we can process at a time. And they took some of the hardest pieces and made them public in a way that was weaponizing limited disclosures I had made, but things I had not finished processing in therapy.
Speaker 3:Part of that's on me for being a public person, which makes it all parasocial, and I did not understand about what parasocial was or what it meant or the impact. I understand that very differently now, and I'm careful about it differently now, so that is part of my learning curve. But at the same time, that does not mean I am responsible when there are abusive relationships weaponizing things against me or others who exploit that or others who distribute that. And and so it it has been a really painful year and very difficult, very difficult for my kids because their names were all over them.
Speaker 4:I'd imagine that. And I know how much you love your kids. Like, just seeing, you know, they're your whole world right now. I can't imagine how much that hurt. Like, it's just yeah.
Speaker 3:Go ahead. I see you have thoughts. See those.
Speaker 2:Can you really briefly talk about the parasocial relationship thing and what that means? Like, it's just I don't know.
Speaker 3:It just that you're so funny. Just I don't know that I do have words for it right now. Just that because it's public so, like, with the podcast, for example, people people don't need to listen to the podcast to be my friend, but people who don't know me in real life listen to the podcast and spend that time with me for hours making their own meaning about what that means to them. I don't need other people's systems to be the same as mine. I don't need people to agree with everything I say, but they spend time internally with those episodes learning and thinking and reflecting.
Speaker 3:You and I have done that talk about some episodes and here are notes I took and what it meant to me, those kinds of things. But without those kinds of follow-up conversations that are reciprocal and in real life, so to speak, then it's just parasocial where it's like a version of their reality because their experience is real and their feelings are valid, but I don't I'm not experiencing it with them. Yeah. Because I'm not there inside their head. Yeah.
Speaker 3:The one-sided Yeah. So in some ways that also happens with therapy, which of course makes it complicated, where I may care a great deal for my clients and my clients want to have a safe space in that relationship and in that context. That is absolutely real, but that's not the same as I get to go with them in real life every day. Like, I'm not there, right? So I will sometimes even say that.
Speaker 3:Like, I know I wasn't there, but this is what I'm hearing as an outsider, like making that clear, because it doesn't mean like, I have a therapist and I want that to be real. I'm not saying it's not real, but it's so contained because it's focused on us, right? So it's not focused on our therapist. We're not paying for the relationship, right? I know sometimes they can feel that and people say that, feels like I'm just paying for you to be my friend.
Speaker 3:That's not what it is. We're paying for the time to be dedicated to ourselves so that it's not a time we're having to take care of anyone else. That's part of why it's one way. So when I am the therapist, then people are there for the time. And by the way, no therapist that I know of these days gets paid $250 an hour, by the way, since that's one of the things that was said.
Speaker 3:We post whatever is the general in our area, what people are posting, we have to say that is what it is. Insurance has their own contracts and insurance pays that amount. Most of my people do not pay a copay. Most of my people have that reduced or whatever. No one is paying that much.
Speaker 3:I just want to be very clear. I'm not making that much. But in real life or in reciprocal relationships it's a two way shared experience, but that is still like three experiences: my experience, your experience, and our shared experience. So part of healthy relationships is making sure we're on the same page about the shared experience even though we don't have the same individual experience, which is why we're not codependent. I know we used to talk about that and then I forgot we talked about it, and I found the book again, all the things.
Speaker 3:Differentiating is part of what keeps us healthy, and also together reciprocally and safely being on the same page as each other is what makes it real. So there are some people who do listen to the podcast but also talk about it with me in real life or also I know them in everyday life or whatever. That is less parasocial. Someone who doesn't know me in real life but listens to the podcast, that is parasocial, but it doesn't mean their experience isn't real or valid. It just means I'm not aware of it.
Speaker 3:I don't get to be there for the experience. Is that what you were asking? Or Yep.
Speaker 4:Makes sense. Good. It makes me think about so I, like, have a new obsession with 21 pilots. So I feel like I know them. Like, their lyrics are so raw and, like, I relate to everything they say, but they don't know me.
Speaker 4:I'm I'm a fan. So, like, it's the same kind of thing. Like, feel you almost feel like you have a relationship with somebody like that. Like, if you like, I listen to, like, their albums on, like, repeat. So, you know, it can feel that way, but it's they don't know who I am.
Speaker 4:Right? So, So, like, it's the same kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I suppose
Speaker 4:yeah. Even in any, you know, any kind of relationship like that, there are people with unhealthy boundaries who will, you know, attach in a different way, you know, and that makes sense. Still sucks. Yeah. I
Speaker 2:think what you were sharing about the parasocial relationship and the three different perspectives is such a good way to kind of summarize what happened. Like, your client had a perspective that was different from even your shared experience together, and that came to a collision. And I don't know if that perspective you know, it's not your responsibility to correct it. I mean, for one thing, you can't. But, yeah, it's it's really hard.
Speaker 3:It's it's hard because of not wanting to respond to any of that directly. Right? But generally, like, when I do trainings, for example, when I do trainings, one of the things I talk about is that people often leave therapy. And I've said this before, so this has been on the podcast before, before any of this has happened. But one of the things that often happens is people will quit therapy right at a breakthrough.
Speaker 4:I knew that.
Speaker 3:Because it gets hard and it is going to change your life. People understand that, but here's why it's hard. And I'm not speaking to any one person in particular. I'm saying generally, is literally what I teach clinicians. We are looking at the early social contracts, that every family has a social contract of what keeps us safe or what gets us hurt, even though it's not verbalized, and even though every family, the rules of that or how that works may look different in different families, that every family has something like that.
Speaker 3:But when we get up against the developmental piece of I am no longer able to continue healing and maintain that contract, It feels life threatening because when we are children, we require caregivers to survive because we're mammals, because we're primates, because we're humans. We are not lizards. We can't just hatch and scurry off. Right? So it feels life threatening because in childhood it was life threatening.
Speaker 3:Even if we did not have bad parents, or even if we did not have malicious parents or anything like that, it feels life threatening to put distance between us and our caregiver. So even in therapeutic relationships, that feels like life threatening to put distance between us and our caregiver. And also developmentally, that's what adolescence is. Developmentally, that's what toddlerhood is. Developmentally, that's what emerging adulthood is.
Speaker 3:So when we hit new developmental phases where there's going to be a huge breakthrough that literally will change our lives for the better, it feels terrifying. And sometimes we get caught in the terror and need to validly, like no shame, back down because we're not ready to face that degree of terror, even though all this may be, like, subconscious. Right? But we're not ready to face that degree of terror, so have to contain it by backing down so that the terror also goes down until we learn that we've actually already survived that. And so we can go through, I think at one point on the podcast, we call it the wall of terror that we can actually walk through it and we're okay on the other side because we've actually already lived through it.
Speaker 3:But that is one of the most terrifying moments in therapy. And it is one of the most frequent times for people to just stop because it's so scary. But when we have something that is parasocial or something that is not reciprocal because it's in the therapeutic relationship, if we can walk through that wall of terror without weaponizing it, because it's really the terrorism memory time, we're only afraid of what has already happened to us. So, so if we can walk through it and know that we can survive it, which is really what all of us are trying to do is to stay alive. And we all know this here in different ways.
Speaker 3:Like that is the hardest thing is to just alive ourselves every day, right? And, being able to walk through that wall of terror to the other side, then all of those kinds of boundaries can be negotiated with that developmental transition. So even as clients graduate therapy, they have different boundaries than while they're in therapy. When I have colleagues who are also clinicians, they have a different experience than colleagues who also have clinicians with lived experience or clinicians who don't have lived experience have different experiences in our parasocial, whatever that is, to the degree of like consults or supervision or something. But all of those things can be negotiated when there is safety.
Speaker 3:But if we get caught in the wall of terror or we go backwards, we're not yet to safety on the other side. So it feels very rigid and inaccessible, and we can experience that as abandonment when actually we're abandoning ourselves in it. We have to get through the other side to keep developing, but that is terrifying, like the terror fying. I got a little clinical there. Sorry.
Speaker 3:Is that too much?
Speaker 2:I'm joking. I never
Speaker 4:heard somebody explain it that well. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. When
Speaker 2:this is, like, published, if it is, I'm gonna take much better notes that I'm taking. And you said emerging adulthood and immediately I went back to us at college together and the social contracts that we had there that we couldn't
Speaker 4:keep Yeah. And
Speaker 2:stay alive at the same time.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We all just felt that. That was heavy. I am thinking honestly, I'm putting you on the spot a little bit. I won't say who, but we'll know who.
Speaker 3:I am am thinking of a particular relationship you had, and that that relationship with him, I'm not gonna say his name, but it rhymes with Rusty.
Speaker 2:Do you remember the sigh? Because it was like it sort of like That's right. Remember? Forgot now.
Speaker 4:Okay. What was the question?
Speaker 2:So I got a little I'm sorry, what? The
Speaker 3:fact that that, like all teasing aside, and I would only say this because we have talked about it so much and you've done so much already with this, but the fact that that seemed like a better option than in exploring other options because it fit the social contract has to do with how deeply we were impacted by how traumatic things were. Not the, You're a bright girl, why are you with him? Why are you with him is because it fits the social contract in all the ways. The fact that whether he is well behaved or not is not part of the contract is a problem. That's the violation.
Speaker 3:And so the fact of how many choices we didn't have or how many the things that are supposed to happen naturally and organically in emerging adulthood, everything from sexuality to identifying values or choosing careers or pathways or partners or those kinds of things, we didn't even, like our development got hindered because we didn't, or disrupted, like I don't even know what word to use, but we didn't even have the choice to explore any of those things. We were supposed to go to college, major in something, preferably music or sign language. Some of us did both because we're extra compliant so that we could marry a man, so that he could be a preacher. Bonus points if you could play piano for him. Like when I say it like that, I want to vomit because that's really gross and not the same as this is who I am and have naturally evolved into.
Speaker 3:So it's so hard to untangle, but I don't think any of us should be shamed for how hard it was because it was so traumatic. That's with all the context. I understand not everybody there was malicious. They were in the same system. And also it doesn't make any of us less complicit.
Speaker 3:So I think it's important we talk about it, and I know we have a lot. But it's so, so painful, but I don't think it makes any of us bad.
Speaker 2:The hard thing is that some of us more than me, probably, we're literally told you're bad for not fitting in in the right ways, for not looking right, and appearances was very important to the college. With the person that you're referring to that I dated my freshman year. He met me my first week, and we were, like, just hanging out at a restaurant with a bunch of other people. And he asked me out and it was like, oh, exciting. Someone noticed me.
Speaker 2:And this is what's expected. You know?
Speaker 3:Literally evidence of your faithfulness, I just wanna say, which is different than actual faith. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Sorry. Keep going.
Speaker 2:No. No. You're fine. So, yeah, it was not what it appeared to be. He wasn't who he appeared to be.
Speaker 2:I wasn't who I appear to be, not in a bad way, in a trying really hard way. And I am 47 years old and just now realizing, like, what an appropriate emerging adulthood could have looked like for me or how just like learning about my own sexuality or my faith and what I I actually choose for myself. So I'm just now doing that. It's like being a a late teenager all over
Speaker 4:again. Yep. I relate to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But but that's I think it's also evidence of our healing. We're literally catching up.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:We're finally safe enough to do what we've been waiting to do for all those years. That's a big deal. So we don't think it's that like, I I talk about it with my kids in their IEPs and stuff. Right? Like, it's not that you're behind.
Speaker 3:It's like you're right where you're supposed to be. And for us, it's the same thing. Look at us learning to be safe enough and alive enough that we can go, oh, okay. Let's continue developing. Where'd we leave off?
Speaker 3:That's evidence of being alive. That's not a bad thing. There's no shame in that. That's a lie, heavy. We can all take that back to therapy.
Speaker 3:Right, man. Oof.
Speaker 4:Like, she's gonna be ready for it. Was
Speaker 3:there anything else you all oh, yeah. Anything else either of you wanted to say or share or that we didn't cover on this icky topic that we're moving forward through and from?
Speaker 4:I think just that honesty is so important, not just with other people, but with yourself. Because I feel like I couldn't start to heal from any of this, or I couldn't have been reacted the same way that I did until I was able to be honest with myself. I don't know if that makes sense. It's just something I feel like I learned from.
Speaker 3:That's a big deal. That's a really big deal. Anything we didn't cover on your list? In your notes.
Speaker 2:No. But maybe after the recording is is done. I mean, like, after the podcast stuff is done. I just wanna if we have time, I just wanna hear, like, maybe some good memories from the college. They believe that we don't have time.
Speaker 3:My my favorite memories are just we laughed so much in a season that was so painful. And I think that's really one of the ways we all survived together. We laughed so much. We were ridiculously happy and silly in a world that was extremely painful.
Speaker 4:Yeah. That's our superpower. Yeah. My favorite memories were definitely reading books that you both could have read and I hadn't read, and I had to read them out loud. But that was really fun, and they're still two of my favorite books.
Speaker 4:So, like, I that's one thing I never did forget that stayed. So I'm I'm glad I still have that memory. Oh, also singing in the rain. I do remember singing in the rain. More than once, but, you know, like, that was the thing.
Speaker 4:It's really fun.
Speaker 3:I love that there are pieces you got to keep that you remember.
Speaker 4:And I think more will come back because it's crazy. It's like, you know, like, I've graduated therapy several times. But, but I think, like you said, there's times you just have to kind of back off or whatever. And I am in a healthier place now. Like, I don't need therapy like I did, but now I want to heal further, and that's why I came back.
Speaker 4:You know? And now I I don't go every week. I go once a month, but now I feel like I can because that's the one area that I've never really healed from is I feel like because I was older and I was part of my own trauma in a way. So, like, it's harder, I think, to face it than the stuff when I was really little. So I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 3:I think I think I also need therapy differently, but will always have therapy. I think I think I will engage in it somehow just because it helps. Like I do better if I have a walk and I have some protein and I'm hydrated. I've got my coconut water here.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:Like I do better if I do those things and it's the same with therapy. I'm just healthier and happier if I stay in therapy, but it's not the same kind of therapy as it used to
Speaker 4:be. Right. Yeah. Before, I had to have therapy to, like, you know, survive. Now I have therapy just because it makes me healthier.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Kind of like yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, that's really where I would close with this is that one of the most beautiful experiences of how hard this year was in lots of ways, not just the online stuff. There was so much other stuff that I haven't even talked about on the podcast because all this other stuff was going on and it was like, just survive. One of the most beautiful things that has come out of this year sorry, lots of things happened in my head just there that I will say is that the therapist I have now has done therapy intentionally so differently because I've been wounded by so much of this therapy and about what led to this and some bad therapy and things like that, that I could not engage in therapy the same way. And she's been so intentional about it and connected it to nature in such a way to sort of support my, connection to earth and tribal life. And I know that's one of the things that came up as well.
Speaker 3:We didn't talk about that, but your skin tone doesn't have anything to do with your indigenousness and the things I have found about family history. We can talk about all that another time, but regardless where I live is very indigenous, the culture is very indigenous, they have welcomed and accepted me and I'm very happy here. But my therapy is also part of that. So it's been very nature based and very different than anything I've experienced. But what I have learned from that or gained from that is it has opened to me the world being a safe place again, as opposed to the trauma has me so small and kept me in such a small space that I don't know how to survive that, and I'm scared of the whole world.
Speaker 3:Now it's like, I know who I am. That is what I learned from the last year. I know who I am, and that's what matters. That the world is actually a very safe place, even if also people violate that safety and how big of a place that that can be and the beauty that comes when you let yourself open to that again. That has been profoundly healing for me, and it is the greatest gift that any of these people gave me because I would not have learned it without going through what I have.
Speaker 4:It's like you're a duper here. Like, what they meant to hurt you with you. You get to choose what you do with it. Yeah. You still got to come out on top even if the pain is any less, however.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But it helped me. It helped me. It really gave me muscles to discern what is mine and what is not mine. What is real?
Speaker 3:What is not real? Like, I wrestled with those things for years, and now I've gotten such practice, unfortunately, and such clarity that I'm really clear about that. And that feels good. I would like to thank them because that has been a lovely gift. And who knew that they would deliver such healing?
Speaker 3:Because, yeah, we choose the medicine we apply, and that's the medicine I got out of it. Thank you so much for coming and being here.
Speaker 5:Till it spit out lies. Thought you'd keep me on my knees watching myself apologize. You really thought I'd break when you said complaint, but every page you pulled just proved what I ain't. Can search my past, but You mistyped my life into your little report, played God with my licenses and called it the court. But the numbers didn't lie and the paper didn't bend.
Speaker 5:Every claim you weaponized and spolded in the end. You really thought that state was on your side. But they read every line and saw how you lie. Every
Speaker 1: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, and healing brings hope.