Latest / System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation / Nutritionist

Transcript

Nutritionist · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Over: 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.
• 1:06
  I do not even know how to tell you what has just happened in my brain. It seems like such a simple thing, and yet for me is such a big deal. You know how we've had Annie Goldsmith on the podcast, and she's an amazing dietitian that has taken trainings by ISSTD and is doing a wonderful job of informing the world about trauma and disordered eating as well as helping survivors recover in an embodied way that cares for and tunes to their bodies. She has become a friend over time, and we are working together on some projects, which is exciting. But learning from her has shown me some things that maybe we need to work on.
• 2:08
  Besides Annie, we've also learned a lot from having our daughter with her eating issues because of a cleft palate and her g tube. That and now the pandemic and having school lunches and seeing what the children are fed every day. All of these factors together has brought up a lot of questions for us and some triggers in therapy. Please understand, I do not at all mean to speak to or disrespect in any way actual disorder eating diagnoses. But that being said, recognizing during the course of therapy issues that we have around food, primarily from neglect as a child and growing up in a family of very heavy people that were often on different kinds of diets, Both of these experiences plus specific traumas that we don't need to go into right now have led to eating being difficult for us, not just a trigger.
• 3:13
  And obviously, trauma therapy will help with those things. But we've also become aware, thanks to these other circumstances with Annie Goldsmith and our daughter, that there are just gaps in our knowledge and that dissociation has impacted our eating in ways like caring for the children all day and realizing we've gotten to bedtime and have not been able to eat yet. So while we do not do any intentional or severe restricting, we are still not tending to our body. Discussing this in therapy and then helping Annie set up with people who listen to the podcast and are asking for referrals has shown me how to look up referrals by searching for dietitians that are either trauma informed or hashtag HAES, Health At Every Size, which has given me the resources to actually explore this for myself. And so as one way to support my own healing and address dissociation in a physical sense, I really, really need to care for my body, and that includes finally addressing some of these eating issues.
• 4:38
  That's a lot to say in public, and that's a lot to say out loud. Using what Annie taught me to help others, I was able to find my own trauma informed dietitian. And this morning, we've just had our first appointment. I was shocked at how scary it was and how much it felt like therapy. I cried for the first fifteen minutes and couldn't even talk yet, which was both distressing and also confirming that this was probably the right move for us, that there are enough triggers around food and eating specifically that we need some help dealing with it.
• 5:24
  So I knew it was the right choice, even though it was hard. She was very kind, and she asked good questions. And things came up that I didn't even expect. Memories I hadn't realized before or things I had forgotten about or dissociated from, I guess, as well as other things I just didn't realize I was doing. Like when people send us food, I save it and only let the children eat it.
• 6:04
  And I don't eat it because I know they're sending it for the kids. But food is for everybody, and I need to be eating too. And I think a lot of this trauma stuff or memory time things have been triggered by shortages during the pandemic, even though I'm alive just fine. Even though also I'm safe, and I've made it this far, and I'm doing just fine. So often, when we say we're doing just fine, we're dissociated from what the struggle is because being aware of the struggle means needing to tend to the struggle.
• 6:48
  My new dietitian said that trauma therapy is more effective when we are self nourished, when we are well nourished. She says that being malnourished makes dissociation worse. And so we talked about mechanical eating, which is doing it because we need to do it even when we don't want to do it. Like that I need to be eating three times a day even though there's chaos all around me with the outside kids. Because humans eat several times a day, and that's normal and okay.
• 7:34
  And we've used our resources to make sure that we have food, and so it's okay to eat it. I don't have to hoard it just because I'm afraid we won't have food later. And even with six children, there's still enough food for me too. There's just one body of mine, and it needs to be fed. It's okay to eat.
• 7:58
  It's safe to eat. I'm safe enough to eat. There is enough to eat. She said that just like other things, when we dissociate from our eating, the more we avoid it, the more stressful it becomes. So we talked about some of the stressors that we have around eating, like memory time things, the chaos of a big family, and the sheer exhaustion of every meal needing to be cooked for eight people and what that looks like in our house so that just the idea of eating exhausts me.
• 8:45
  And trying to get food on the table is so many hoops that I have to jump through layers and layers of triggers and trauma, plus all the spoons that it takes to feed a big family. She said that we can tend to these things, and she knows how to help. It was a good conversation even though it was hard and even though I was surprised and shocked a bit that this is something I'm doing now. I don't know if it will change the world, but it might keep me alive in it. When I finished that appointment, I got to talk to my regular therapist about how this is a new thing, not as one more thing I have to do, but another way to help contain my issues.
• 9:40
  I don't have to carry trauma around food or eating or neglect around all by myself when I have a dietitian that is helping me with it. My therapist talked about the dietitian being a kind of container, kind of like we've used the podcast as a container. And so I finally told her about the new podcast and how we've shifted to this one from System Speak. She said that that makes sense after everything we've been through with our therapist before, and all the work we did those first five years, and what our life is like now compared to then. She said sometimes your containers just get full, and that's okay.
• 10:28
  What matters is that you got a new container and that it's working for you. I appreciated that, and I appreciated her support of understanding why this helps us. And we also finally talked about the exploitation piece. If I'm acting out something from being trafficked when I was a child and now trafficking myself because of the podcast, we talked about lots of sides to it and lots of angles, lots of parts. She said she doesn't think so, and I don't think so, although it was good and healthy for us to pause and look at it.
• 11:15
  Because this isn't about exploiting ourselves in inappropriate ways, and we've set boundaries around it even when things got intense. It's not about exploiting, we've decided. It really is about containment and about meaning making and expression and having my own voice in my own way in my own place. A place where I'm free. A place where, for whatever reason, words come this way, a place that we've practiced and rehearsed, not what we're going to say, but the saying of things over and over again through 400 episodes and five years of podcasting.
• 12:04
  And the power of offering something to the world out of so much pain instead of holding it in or it only being shame. This is a way to turn it into something good, to show the way even when it's hard, To show tolerating it when it is hard. To not give up. And to be a voice of hope when there is no other. We are here feeling you even while you are there listening to us, and that means something to us.
• 12:52
  There's power in that. There's strength in that. There's courage in that. There is endurance in that. Enough that now, even still, we're here together.
• 13:06
  But I want my body back. I don't mean a certain weight, and I don't mean a certain size or a certain shape, but I've been talking in group about a phrase I heard, about a tiny little bug that has so much power, like ants or ladybugs or hummingbirds, which aren't bugs, but they're tinier than some, and how they have so much power. And so I was making lists of people that I know are tiny little bugs but have so much power. And I compared it to having a therapist that I thought was so big and strong and in real life was so tiny. And that dissociation from the body, not knowing what size I am.
• 14:05
  And I don't just mean littles, but that experience of not being aware and so disconnected. How do I get my own body back and its strength and its power? There are some simple things I can do, like easy stretches to be back in my skin and feel my muscles, even if I'm not a yoga expert. I don't need to be a yoga expert to move my body. Jamie Marich taught me about dancing mindfulness, and we've continued to practice that and play with that on our own with our own music.
• 14:47
  And it's helped in different ways. And now that the weather has cooled off, we can go for our long walks while the children ride bikes and scooters or run along beside me. And those are all things I can do, but they're all things that put energy out, which is important when you're connecting to the outside world, like spending time in nature or with animals or pets or a beautiful day or a quiet evening that also nourish my soul. But I have never learned how to nourish my body. There are some things I've picked up, like I know to drink water instead of soda, and I'm pretty good about that.
• 15:37
  I've learned about vegetables and how to cook them by growing my own garden, And that's given me progress and knowledge that I have now that I didn't have from growing up. But there are still gaps in understanding, and I don't have those signals of hunger to know when I'm hungry and to stop and eat. And there are other senses, and I want my knowing back. I want to be able to notice when I'm eating. I want to be able to notice when I'm hungry or when I'm full.
• 16:17
  I want to be aware when my body needs something. I want to care for my body in ways that tell my brain you are safe now. You are loved. You are present in now time. Where I am an adult with adult resources, even a dietitian.
• 16:44
  That's where the mechanical eating comes in. She talked to my doctor and looked at my labs and said that I'm malnourished, that I'm not eating enough or enough variety of things, and that I can't heal from dissociation while my brain is still in a trauma state, And my brain won't learn to send me signals to tell me that I'm hungry while it's malnourished, and that I won't learn to receive those signals if my brain is not sending them. And so I have to practice eating, she says, even when I don't want to or think of it. We have alarms set up now, not in a traumatic way or an oppressive way and not even in a tracker way. Just prompts, cues.
• 17:45
  Hey. You're hungry now. Hey. It's time to eat. Hey.
• 17:52
  Go cook yourself something. Hey. You prepared these meals. Grab one of them. Heat it up.
• 18:00
  Sit down for half a minute and eat it. Enjoy your food. Enjoy a rest. Then you can get back to work. I told her how we have a schedule set up for the outside kids, that that's part of how I manage the chaos.
• 18:17
  So they all know their routine and where to be when, and that we work our schedule every day, that that's helped us be on track during the pandemic. So we looked at what I do during each time period. So we looked at what I do during each period they're busy and found times where I can prepare food and eat. It's a lot, and it feels daunting. But we have an app to be connected to where I can send pictures of my food, and we can talk about what I'm learning.
• 18:57
  And she can respond and answer questions. So in some ways, I have more access to her than a therapist even. But also, she can talk to my therapist and my doctor and make sure that I'm getting the care that I need and talking about the things that I need to talk about. Some accountability, I guess, which helps when your strong point is dissociating. Because I want to do this, and I'm ready to do this.
• 19:28
  And that means talking about hard things. Even the things that I pretend are long ago, but are still impacting me every single day. I have friends and resources like the school lunches for the kids that make sure our home has enough food. I work hard at my job to provide for my family, which means my environment is safe and that my resources are available and that I have created for myself, gifted to myself and from those who care about me the resources I need to be well. But I needed a teacher to know how to use them, and it was time because I do want to be well.
• 20:24
  But that means addressing some of the things that are keeping me from being well. She says that someday we'll get to a place of intuitive eating. She says that means knowing our bodies well enough that we know what we need and know when to eat and to eat what we need. She says I'm not there yet. That's a long term goal.
• 20:51
  My short term goal is to eat three times a day. She said it's going to be hard at first. My medium goal is to learn to notice when I'm hungry, to learn to notice and respond to the cues from my own body. That's what will teach my brain that I'm finally safe and break through some of these walls of anxiety and barriers of dissociation by being present, not just by knowing enough or having enough, but by responding consistently to myself. It's a whole new layer of care that I almost can't comprehend.
• 21:42
  But it is care for me, and it's time. 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. One of the ways we practice this is in community together.
• 22:47
  The link for the community is in the show notes. We look forward to seeing you there while we practice caring for ourselves, caring for our family, and participating with those who also care for community. And remember, I'm just a human, not a therapist for the community, and not there for dating, and not there to be shiny happy. Less shiny, actually. I'm there to heal too.
• 23:15
  That's what peer support is all about. Being human together. So yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.