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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 1:I want to talk about therapy, and I've driven to the park and had a walk after it was done. I didn't know if I was going to be sick or cry, and a walk seemed like it would be most regulating. So I've parked here and rolled the windows down and can see where the bus will come. And I will surprise the children with a ride home even though it's just a few blocks. They will think it's a treat, not something I can do every day even when the winter comes.
Speaker 1:Therapy was hard today, not because of memory time, but because a lot is happening in now time. I'm trying to even just understand what's happening, to understand myself. There's no drama. Nothing bad has happened. But I can't quite keep up with myself, with what I'm choosing, with learning how to be present in my own life even while it's unfolding.
Speaker 1:I want to tell you about those things. I want to say those things, how amazing it was, how much fun we had, everything that's unfolded since. And also my heart is heavy. Not because something is wrong, but because I'm not dissociating anymore. I mean, I am.
Speaker 1:I do. But all this time, I thought dissociation was about parts, about shirts, altars, self states, all the words for all the things. I thought that's what DID was about. And I guess it is. And, also, I don't just dissociate from myself.
Speaker 1:I dissociate from how I feel, from what I remember, from who my friends are, from how to be a friend. From what I want or don't want, from moments when I'm fawning, from recognizing what is traumatic and from recognizing trauma responses. So what I've learned in therapy this summer is that healing isn't just about cooperating and communicating. Healing is about seeing through the fog, seeing all of me, feeling all the feels even when they're hard. And I thought it was memory time that was hard, and it may be true.
Speaker 1:And, also, now time is hard sometimes too. And sometimes it feels like dominoes where a trauma response in now time becomes memory time, causing new things in now time. And then the trauma response to those things, causing new trauma in now time. And then the trauma response to those things, like, where does it stop? When does it stop?
Speaker 1:How do I stop? I want to stop. That means sitting with hard truth. And if I'm going to sit with hard truths, that includes unshiny and unhappy people where things are not binary, this or that, either or. And there's nuance and ambiguity, moments where both things are true, sometimes more than both things are true.
Speaker 1:And I don't know if I'm on the verge of falling off a cliff or flying free. Coming here was the right thing for me. It had to be done, and I needed to do it for me. And, also, it impacted everyone around me. In some ways, they're better.
Speaker 1:It's better. But there's not a day that goes by that I don't ask, what if it's not? Should I take the children back? Should we let Oklahoma be home instead of being here where September is already fall and leaves are already changing and temperatures are already dropping. What if I should be back in the frying pan where hot summer still is happening and life is too hard, but altogether, I have changed my job.
Speaker 1:Not again. I mean, the change this summer. And it's been good. It's easier and safer. But also a pay cut.
Speaker 1:And what if that was foolish? Making things harder for the family just so I could be more comfortable, putting the podcast and community at risk just so I could be comfortable, Which is the more selfish thing to do? To risk my life and feed my children? Or to give up comfort so I can be with them. There were bad earthquakes this week in North Africa and floods around the country, and they say I am needed, and it is hard to say no.
Speaker 1:But I feel myself retiring in slow motion. An unexpected side effect of unfawning that I don't have the same drive anymore, the same push anymore, and I wonder how long I have been this weary. Even with the podcast, I wonder, when does it end? How does it end? I don't mean that as a threat.
Speaker 1:I mean that as in I know the time is coming, and I want to do it on my own terms. I think the changes in politics and the increase in bullying make it less safe to keep going even after years of being targeted so directly. I've endured it because it mattered. Because enduring is what I do. It's one of my tattoos, actually.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I've shared that. She who endures. Except that with therapy, here's the thing. I'm done enduring. I don't want to endure anymore.
Speaker 1:I just wanna live my life. And now with more resources online and different kinds of social media, people don't need the podcast in the same way they did before. There are choices and options. And people who are more extroverted than me, I can let them take a turn. I care about people's hearts and how change is hard and how in some ways we will all grieve together when it's time.
Speaker 1:And so I'm talking about it even before there's a solid plan of what that will look like so that we can indeed grieve together and let it go gently. It's hard, I know, the letting go of anything. I personally have grief issues, and I need to talk about that in therapy someday. And in a world that's less binary, letting go doesn't always have to mean goodbye. I've learned that some even with Jules.
Speaker 1:I don't wanna talk about her or her stuff. And there has been no drama or crises or any change. She has always been supportive and kind and good even to my family, and I am grateful for her. And my children love as much as I do, even if in different ways, when she comes to visit. And we are all of us glad and grateful for how she makes the world a better place.
Speaker 1:And, also, it's like with the adoptions. When Nathan and I always said children are not Happy Meal toys, they're not meant to be collected or owned. They're not ours and no longer their biological families. No one has possession of them. They are not objects.
Speaker 1:They just live with us now, And we include their biological families in the ways that we can when it's safe to do so, when they want to do so. And maybe I'm learning the same thing about other relationships too. Jules is good and kind and safe, like Nathan always has been, like Kim has been, like Peter has been, like friends from the community have been. At some point, I'm going to have to come to terms with the idea that maybe I do have friends and learn how to act like one. But even on the very best of days, days like today when the breeze is cool and the sun is bright and dogs are chasing balls in the park, And you can hear the chatter and clamor of children as they walk home from school.
Speaker 1:Even on days as beautiful as this, Jules is not a happy meal toy. We don't get to keep her. She doesn't live in our pocket. She's a person with her own life even if we are part of it. I am learning about relationships, but with the codependency of Nathan and the untangling of that as we've lived so far away.
Speaker 1:Learning to be in new friendships and relationships without the codependency means keeping things healthy. And as someone who dissociates, that's really hard sometimes. I have had to learn to say no. You cannot rescue me from this. Her life without six children is in some ways comfortable in ways that mine will never be because six children not that the children are bad, but parenting uses resources and time and energy.
Speaker 1:And it is my season to do that work, to finish that race as they say. And there are no cheats. It's not a game where I can get out of bits of it. I have to just keep going, learning and growing with them through hard days and happy days. So sometimes I have to say no.
Speaker 1:I did not run away here, and I cannot run away from here. I did not run to Jules and cannot run away with Jules. I want my relationships to be healthy. I don't want to be a reenactment. That means seeing clearly instead of dissociating both what is good and what is hard, what adds to my life and what limits are in place.
Speaker 1:It's funny that as I learn and practice that for the last year, the children and even Nathan have also grown because of it. This is part of healing. Simply becoming me, deciding who I am and who I am not, what roles I want to take, and if I take them, what I need to make them worth it for me. Not rescuing others, not fawning more than is my capacity, not making myself smaller, which is the kind of fawning to make you fit so you can stay. What does friendship look like when you're not afraid of people anymore?
Speaker 1:Even if all you've done is find a few safe ones? What does dating look like when it's not about arranged marriages or eternities or for the purpose of starting a family? What does it feel like to let parenting be done for the day? How do you let things be? How do you accept that someone is close Without running away at the threat of intimacy?
Speaker 1:Or clutching too tightly because of attached cry? How do you transform disorganized attachment into reorganized attachment? How do you slow down the world that spins too fast so that you can say, this is what feels right to me in this moment, checking in with my head and body and all of me that we are on the same page. Whether that's moving forward or just staying present or letting go. Even when that's where you're supposed to be, like Oklahoma, or someone who is kind, like Nathan, or something that's good like the podcast.
Speaker 1:Losing our therapist before was painful because we didn't understand, because it was abrupt, because there was no repair, because we didn't get to choose. But through that and since then, we also learned that sometimes we do the leaving that goodbyes don't always have to be harmful And that when we feel that something is good and right or not at all, That is our own voice. My body and my mind talking to me, not just parts. Me already knowing what is the right way to go. This way.
Speaker 1:That way. Stay here. Get going. Wait a minute. Pause.
Speaker 1:Just breathe. This information is already in me. I already know how to tell myself these things, how to help myself know what to do and when. I just have to listen to how I feel and learn to see through the fog. Last year, Earlier, when we put up playlists of songs as a surprise, one of them was the Taylor Swift song that included the lines, Marry me, Juliet.
Speaker 1:That was intentional. It was asking, begging when I shouldn't have, when it's not possible, when it's not what's happening, when I know better. But it was dissociation, daydreaming, looking for fairy tales. But fairy tales aren't always real, even when people are. So I have cried and grieved Jules even when she's still here and still good to me and to my family and as supportive as ever and been so willing to be brave and vulnerable on the podcast and brave and vulnerable in private for hard conversations that has kept us together this long.
Speaker 1:And, also, I think fairy tales are binary. Daydreams that are this or that, either or. But fairy tales aren't real. So maybe I can't run away, but I also can't squeeze all of me into one place. That's a fairy tale too.
Speaker 1:I think it was shiny, happy trauma, shiny, happy programming that I thought if I could put myself together again, that it would undo all the bad things, that it would make me good enough. So maybe it goes back to death of hope, not just the loss of a childhood I never had, or like Nathan said, the adulthood that never will be. Maybe it is enough that my life is as it is, that I'm alive at all, even if in pieces. So what if it's okay that podcasting was a season even if it can't be forever? That Jules was good for me and my family even if it can't be running away, that being here was good for us even if it means we're not altogether, that I could find what I want to help with for ISSTD even if I don't do everything.
Speaker 1:Maybe I've been in therapy all this time that I thought I wasn't. Getting a piece of healing here and a piece of healing there. And rather than it being one therapist after another that I don't get to keep, but rather pieces of therapy that are for me. Maybe that's what brings us back to the patchwork quilt, Stitching pieces of help together, pieces of support together. Even if I am also accepting, I cannot be stitched together.
Speaker 1:Maybe being safe enough, stable enough is good enough. I'm in a scary place, not an unsafe place, but a blurry place, a blendy place, like waiting for new glasses, seeing through the fog, not hiding from what is hard or confusing, but sitting in all the thoughts and feelings as tangled as they are, letting go of what is this or that and either or. Practicing holding both and plus more. I'm still a person of faith. And also, we went to pride this weekend.
Speaker 1:I am a parent and try my best. And, also, I enjoy the early morning hours before they're awake and also at night after they've gone to sleep. You can tell by looking at my body that it's been through a lot. And also, I'm strong enough to walk to the park and healthy enough to play with my children. And also, they're old enough that they need me less and less and often have other plans, and most of the time just need rides.
Speaker 1:And as the triplets get their driver's permits in the next few weeks, theoretically, they will need rides less and less. Nathan will be driving the van here later this month because it's paid off, so I'm more comfortable with the triplets driving it. He'll drive it out here and then fly home. My concerns, I'm sure, have nothing to do with putting my children behind the wheel of a little car that could get squashed like my mother's. And, also, that's true too.
Speaker 1:So I feel better with them up in the van. Not that that really truly is any safer or would prevent more danger or stop a semi and a jeep. But maybe if it makes me more comfortable, which gives them more freedom, that's good enough too. Maybe part of what I'm saying goodbye to isn't just people, but trying to control the variables that are illusions of safety. Maybe most of the time, we're already safe enough.
Speaker 1:Maybe I don't want to hide anymore. I just want to go live my life. I'm in a weird place in life. Not bad. Nothing wrong is happening.
Speaker 1:But that's part of what's different. Just being okay. Nothing is wrong. Life is eerily quiet and still, and yet also has good surprises with loved ones showing up. Rainbow flags to wave.
Speaker 1:And paths to walk ahead. What if part of saying goodbye is just letting go of trauma? What does that even look like if I didn't carry it around with me anymore? Or make my days about it anymore. I'm just curious.
Speaker 1:Being open and present with so many changes over the last year and the transition from the fog of dissociation into the brightness of reality. Trying to be gentle with that while still honoring the feelings and somehow figuring out my thoughts. What does it look like? That thing they call reality. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: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. We look forward to connecting with you.