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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 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 2:I told my therapist about making lace and send her some clips of the videos so she could see what I'm talking about. I can put them in the show notes too in case you don't know. And so we talked about holding more than one truth at a time and seeing clearly the pieces of my life, parts inside, and relationships outside. The children, co parenting with Nathan, having Jules close but not running away, and learning about friendships and all the things involved with all those things. Loving and being loved, Boundaries, pacing, balance, containment.
Speaker 2:She liked the metaphor, and we talked about it a lot. And, also, she expressed concern that it was just me managing all the pieces, not being in control of them. I told her I am in a way that I do have choices, that it's a design on the lace I'm creating. I just can't see it yet. She asked how I felt about it and tried to get me to come up with feelings, even threatening to use the feelings wheel pillow against me.
Speaker 2:And I told her, I have feelings. I really do. I'm not just avoiding, but I don't know what they are yet because I need to see clearly what is happening and who I am and what my life really is without the running away and without the daydreaming. I need to see accurately before I can know how I feel about it, and that's going to take some time. She asked me if I had just accidentally shared a need when I said I need time and space, And it's true.
Speaker 2:I think that's what I need more than anything right now, time and space to breathe, to see clearly, accurately, to let it sink in, to understand, to reflect. All of that, I said, is part of acceptance. Accepting life as it was for what has already happened to me. And life as it is without the daydreaming. All the pieces keep moving.
Speaker 2:Things keep changing back and forth. And all this time, I've asked what is real and what is not real. How am I supposed to know? When maybe all of it is true, circumscribed into one great whole, as they say. And that may be real or not real was in itself binary, Thinking, not saying one thing and then another thing was changing your mind when really it was just bobbins for lace.
Speaker 2:All the things are true all at the same time. How in relationships I care for you and you care for me, And what caring looks like changes from day to day, and that that's okay. I shared what Jules had said about religious trauma and binary thinking and visions of love relationships as man and wife in a forever kind of way, and how sometimes what I have grieved has been eternities that I cannot attain and mortality that has already been so hard. My therapist said that maybe even that is binary, good or bad, right and wrong. When to her, it sounds developmental.
Speaker 2:She said that shiny happy is not healthy, but that there are times in life when conformity is the thing. Like, how we go to school as children and learn to sit in our seats and how to write and how to read and that math facts are the same every time, and that learning those things are important because they lead us to concepts and ideas and activities that are more nuanced and complex, but that we can't do if we don't learn the first steps. So she said, it's not wrong to say. This bobbin holds lace. This is lace.
Speaker 2:This is what lace does and looks like and how it's made. And, also, that string of lace is not the only piece in what's made or the whole part of how it's made, that it's more complex with all the bobbins racing, some paused, some pinned, some flying fast. It really was amazing to watch. I don't know why it hypnotized me so much, but it caught my attention and has been a metaphor that helped me this summer, that helped me learn how to hold more than one truth at a time, that it's not just this one or that one that's good or bad or right or wrong, that all of it is real, that it has different pacing at different times, that there's a time and a place for some and not for others, but that all of it matters and all of it's real. And how you work it together is what creates the design on the lace.
Speaker 2:It has intrigued me, and I can't stop watching over and over. And my therapist said, maybe life is not just memory time in the past and hard things that happened to you. Maybe, she said, those were just the strings. But as you learn, like with therapy and practice, like in the community. You still get to decide what lace is being made.
Speaker 2:You still get to create your life. She said my life is not over yet even though I'm 47. I can't believe I'm that old. I don't know when it happened, how it happened, or what it means to be 47. But here we are with gray stripes of silver hairs, making lace out of me.
Speaker 2:My silver strands don't bother me. I've earned everyone. I won't hide them. I'm not sorry for them. They mean that I'm still here.
Speaker 2:They mean that I'm still alive. And maybe I'm learning to look at all the bobbins of lace, to notice, to be present even in the trance so that I can see what's real. How so much is real, even good things, not just hard things, and absorb that so that I can learn and even know what I think about it and how I feel about it and what I need. My therapist said that's thinking critically. She says that's new for me in this way.
Speaker 2:She says it means using your frontal cortex, not just trauma responses when interacting with the world. She says that means I'm having safe enough and stable enough experiences to grow in a new way. She says that it comes after elementary school in early adolescence when you start noticing that not everything is the same. She gave examples of things my own kids are going through, how they notice what other people wear or which brands are cool or what shows or foods they like or don't like, what preferences they have, what dreams keep them occupied, who they like and not and why. It's development, she said, not judgment or selfishness.
Speaker 2:It's learning to say, when this happens, I feel this, and I like it or I don't like it. And I know because my body tells me and how there's confidence in that realness in that authenticity in that. So she said we could talk about who in me is 13 or 14 or 15, or because she always gives me choices, we could talk about what happened in my life at that time. And for reasons I don't wanna explain right now or get into right now, I chose the latter, which surprised us both that I wanted to say hard things directly. But it goes back to a conversation I had with her in a session last fall where I shared about a really hard day.
Speaker 2:I'm finding out what was happening to my parents because of their experiences and choices and how our lives changed after they got divorced and how we moved a thousand miles away. And I didn't really have parents after that, which makes sense culturally even aside from trauma and deprivation. These were the years and generations of parents who raised latchkey kids when we all just ran the streets and the countryside, not knowing that we needed parenting. So we talked for a long time, most of the session, what that was like generally, the things that happened, those years. My parents' divorce, moving so many times, not having a parent in the home, bullying at school, the dramas in friend circles, my mother's car accident, and when she started taking the pills and other things and what that was like being alone in the world and not having a way to know what was right or wrong or good or bad or healthy or unhealthy.
Speaker 2:No boundaries at all. No protection at all. No nurture at all. I'm going from that to shiny, happy high school where everything was good or bad or right or wrong or pass or fail. And that what happened in shiny happy schools and camps and colleges was really rough and painful and hard and required, she said, A suspension of knowing in order to maintain belief.
Speaker 2:That's when I started crying. That piece. She said when you're busy surviving, your brain and body stop developing. And so there are pieces I literally don't know and can't do because I haven't even had the chance yet. And learning and that learning to make lace is an example of starting to develop again new skills, complex and critical thinking, being able to see more than one truth and the nuances and complexities between them, and weaving that together into meaning until I can say, hey.
Speaker 2:It looks like this. So that it's actually really good and healthy to slow down and notice things. I see this happening. I feel this when it happens. I think it means this.
Speaker 2:Let's wait and see if that's what it means or if it's something else. Or sometimes the boundaries to say no, not yet, or not so fast. Just put a pin in it. We can come back to it later. I'm creating shapes here, and they're my shapes to create because I'm the one with the bobbins in my own life.
Speaker 2:I'm weaving my own threads even if I'm noticing others. The safest and most simple example is with the children so that I can say to them authentically and tenderly, I understand you don't want to be here. And, also, and that your friends and schools that you like best are there in Oklahoma. And, also, that you still love me and that I love you and that we're all doing our best. And even if you can't be here all the time, your love for me is real, and my love for you is real and still means something.
Speaker 2:Or to the other children who do wanna be here, I'm glad you wanna be here, that the schools and friends you want to keep are here. And, also, the rest of your family is still there. It's okay to talk to them, to share with them, to spend time with them. I still love you, and you still love me. And our love means something.
Speaker 2:I think in the past, I thought if the bobbin stopped or got bundled, they went away. I know that's partly object permanence, which is way younger even than elementary school. Right? So that's a struggle too, part of why it's hard to remember all the things at the same time. But it doesn't mean anything's gone away.
Speaker 2:We just put a pin in it, and we're creating shapes. And sometimes there's spaces in the lace, and sometimes there's even patterns it makes with that pacing and with that pausing. That doesn't mean it's not coming back or taking turns or just as real as ever because the bobbins still fly, and we're still making lace. And there's a design unfolding, that means something that is unique to me and my own life, the same as yours is for you. And maybe in the beginning, it's messy because we don't know what we're doing and because it takes practice to learn.
Speaker 2:And, also, the old lady in the video, who's older than 47, has the skills and experience to make something beautiful, which means there's still time for me too. Lots of time, maybe. If I stick around to dance with my bobbins, to paint with lace, to learn what the pieces are and how they move and who I am and who you are and what our story is together. I cried in therapy today and, also, I left feeling better. Therapy is happening again, slowly, gently, intentionally, safe enoughly.
Speaker 2:I'm not good yet at making lace, but I did show up for me. And I am looking at the pieces, and I am learning to leave for me, for my family, for us together. And as I've said so many times that I'm so glad you're here, I'm starting to be glad that I'm here too even if I'm not finished and still messy and still learning. I'm here, and I'm trying, and there's movement, and that feels good.
Speaker 1: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.systemspeak.com.
Speaker 2:We'll see
Speaker 1:you there.