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The Three Emmas · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Over: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast,
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: 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.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: This is new, and it just happened recently to the three of us. And I'm still trying to find words to explain it, but I thought if I could, then maybe it would be more helpful to some of the others who don't understand what's going on or how we did it or why we did it. We didn't mean to do it, but it just sort of happened. But to understand, first, I have to tell you a story. The story goes back a long way, and there are some references to my family and to some abuse in general, but there's nothing graphic or specific that I'm going to include because that's not necessary.
• 1:51
  The first story, it's about Emma Z. We ran away from home when we were 17. Why that happened is a different story, and I'm not telling that one today. But the point is, in our senior year of high school, we ran away from home. We were too old to go into foster care, they said, even though we had been in foster care before.
• 2:25
  So we were emancipated by the judge on the condition that we continue nannying so we had a place to live and finish school. So we were a nanny and took care of some children in exchange for a place to sleep and food to eat. That way, we were able to finish school but didn't have to live at home. So we live with this family, this woman, a single mother, and took care of her children. When it was time to go to college, the woman drove us to our school, which was kind of her.
• 3:15
  And she showed us around and gave us a tour because she had gone to college at the same place. That was all good until we were in the enrollment line and came upon the table where we met the dean of women. The dean of women was also the counselor for the college. She was not licensed, but she was the counselor. And in the enrollment line, this woman we had nannied for told the counselor that we had abused and had nightmares and needed help.
• 3:58
  So she signed me up for counseling as part of the school for free with this woman. That was our first counselor outside of foster care. We wanted to stay in school, so we did try hard. And we talked with her, and she made us keep a journal. And that was our first time journaling with a therapist.
• 4:22
  What we didn't know was that she was mailing our journal home. And the more that we talked about certain things from the past, the more that things seemed to escalate a bit. So to go around much of the story, ultimately, what happened was things escalated. They called the parents on the campus who were not even in contact with me and I was hiding from, told them where I was, and made them come to campus and gave them everything we had written, all of our journals, all of the papers from school, everything we had written that had anything to do with our family and gave it to the parents. Things escalated so much, and we were not functioning that we ended up being diagnosed then with DID, being sent two hours away to a larger town to a DID specialist who confirmed the diagnosis.
• 5:31
  But we had to continue going to that therapist on condition of being able to stay in school. So she would not let us stay in school unless we saw this therapist. But our family would not participate, and there was all kinds of drama because they found out we were telling things, and that's a different story. But because the parents would not participate, then they started sending me every week to therapy driven by the psychology professor's wife. So she drove us to therapy every week, two hours away, and then back to school, two more hours of driving.
• 6:22
  And we did this all through school. That's how we met our first DID therapist who was specifically trained in therapy for DID. We were 17 years old at the time. We saw her for several years, but the safety with my biological family continued to be an issue, and the complications from the school made it more difficult. So the therapist found a safe house for us to stay in for a season due to safety concerns from the biological family and some issues they were sorting out with the school.
• 7:21
  This is a very specific time in our life, running away from home to being diagnosed in college and moving to live in this safe home and staying there while having therapy for DID. This place did a good job caring for us and helping us keep helping us be safe, And we had a hospitalization during this time to learn about safety internally and different ways of communication. So once we are more stable and ready to return to school and safe from the biological family, the people in charge of the program very much wanted us to go to a particular school to pursue the things we had chosen to study. However, because we were still sorting out the internal things, not everybody inside was on board as a system. And there were a few who rebelled against being contained in the safe house instead of being free to go where we want, and it felt triggering of some other things we had already been through in the past.
• 8:44
  So even though we as a whole, to the best we could at that time, understand understood that they meant well, there were many things that did not feel good even though we knew they meant well. And so we left. So that was the second time in our life we had run away. This time, we actually left the country. We knew how to travel a lot because growing up, our family was a military family.
• 9:16
  So this time, we left the country. We didn't just run away a bit. We ran far away. We had grown up in a military family, and we knew how to get around and how to move. And there was a specific one of us inside who was really good at running away.
• 9:34
  And during these years, she got better at running away. For several years, no one knew where we were at all or what we were doing or that we were safe. Inside, we didn't know what was happening, and she was outside and not telling anyone. We did manage to go to graduate school and finish at another school, But this time, being careful not to tell anyone about us or anything from our past or make many friends, we began to stay pretty isolated for our own safety because last time, when we had tried to ask for help, the people had actually kept us there, and it felt like repeating the past even though they were trying to help us. During this time, in a new place, in a new country, at a new school, it was such a new beginning and so far from everything and feeling so safe to be that far away from our biological family that there was a creation of a new altar at that time.
• 10:43
  We also, to get further away from our biological family, legally changed our name during those years. So we became from Emma C to MST. So then there were two MS, MSC and MST. And as things settled with MST and we felt more safe, there were more of us that came out again during that time and got to go back to doing the things we knew how to do. We did a pretty good job of it, being able to finish school and being able to date people and try to meet people and to have friends again.
• 11:29
  It was not perfect. We as we have mentioned in the past, we had several encounters with dating alcoholics, and that was a very difficult time and took quite a lot of therapy to get through and to get over, but we managed to do it over much, much time. Also during these years, Emma T only dated girls. Emma T never dated boys and a therapist asked how we had come out to ourselves or changed our sexuality as an adult. But the truth is MSE, who had grown up, had never dated anyone.
• 12:17
  We did not date anyone in high school or in college at all. We were too frightened and too afraid because of the things we had already been through. But MIT dated quite a lot and not always very wisely. And we got in lots of messes, primarily relationship messes. So it was a season of functioning very high professionally, but not doing well at all personally and being far from home resources that we knew or people who could help us.
• 12:53
  There are many other things that many of us went through during those years, but those would be when MIT was host instead of MSZ being host. So then the third story I wanted to tell you is when we met the husband. We met the husband through family and friends that we had in common. Doctor. E worked with the husband's cousin, and he is the one who introduced us together.
• 13:27
  We had at that time not been dating anyone and had decided we did not want to date anyone ever because it had always been such a bad experience in the past and so difficult. But he was very steady and very kind and very non intrusive and did not pressure us in any way. In fact, even before we married, we had never even kissed. So he felt very safe and good for us in ways we had not had in the past, even though it was not necessarily a traditional sort of marriage. But for the first time, we were back in The States and we were working well professionally and doing much better personally because we were stable and safe as far as our environment goes.
• 14:25
  During the years of meeting the husband, we had not had any therapies. We talked to the husband online for several months, writing letters back and forth and talking on the phone. We met him once for a week, every day, seeing him every day while he was in the same town visiting his family. We literally only saw him six days, every day for six days, while he was in town visiting his family. And then he flew back to New York and we did not see him again for six months.
• 15:11
  And then we went to New York to visit and stayed in a friend's apartment. So I did not stay with him or have any physical or sexual contact with him. And he showed us around New York and talked to us about New York because he's a writer there. And we enjoyed our visit, and we got engaged and got married two weeks later, having only spent two weeks together in person. We had never thought that we would marry a man.
• 15:51
  We had never thought that we could be with a man or that we would be interested with a man. But we knew that he was a safe place and we could feel that for a number of reasons it was the right thing to do. And for the first time, we felt very safe. However, that changed our name to Emma S. And because we were so anxious about getting married and living with a man, this also became a new time of a new altar, Emma S.
• 16:32
  So very briefly, without lots of details, that is how there came to be three Emma's, Emma z, Emma t, and Emma s. The difference is during the times the different Emmas were host, the rest of us, some of us, still did our thing and came out different times. While the different Emmas were taking turns being hosts during those different years, the rest of the others still came out to do the things they needed or wanted to do, but our life was very different depending on who was host. Emma Z never dated at all or had any relationships that were dating or romantic relationships. She also lived in The States, and it was during undergrad school years as opposed to Emma T, who went to grad school outside The United States, spoke a different language than Emma Z, and only dated women.
• 17:50
  And then Emma S was back in The States, not in school at all, and married a man. So in this one little example, trying to use a timeline and trying to practice telling a cohesive story of our history, That is how there were three Emma's, Emma Z, Emma T, and Emma S. The difficulty with this is that because they were host, there was a lot that they did not know about everything else that was going on. So T could not know why we had left The States or why things were so bad or why we were so alone. So amity often felt very lonely and felt very desperate for positive connections and relationships, but really struggled to find them.
• 18:52
  And then as we had worked so hard to get away from the biological family, MS sort of walked right back into them, coming back to The States. They had been looking for us for more than ten years. By then, the parents were old, and Emma S. Tried very hard to reconcile to them. The father would not forgive her for telling at the school when MSE told about the stories and wrote them in the journals.
• 19:23
  Her mother Her mother was more unwell than in the past because she was older, but MS moved her into her home and tried to care for her until she died. These were difficult years for MIS and for the others who had worked so hard to get away from the parents. Also, while the husband is not judgmental or oppressive person at all, she did marry into a very conservative family. And so there is a lot about the years with MRT that she cannot express directly or talk about or pursue until she and the husband had talked about these issues in therapy and come to more arrangements. This got better with time between therapy and talking with the husband and being accepted by him, but they were difficult years.
• 20:34
  So these different issues separated further the different MR's, MLZ, MRT and MS. However, over the last year in therapy something has happened and this is I want to talk to you about. We have worked very hard on some things, like feeling safe and knowing that now time is safe and knowing what and who is safe. We have also worked very hard on trying to be aware of each other and journaling the notebooks again, even though the notebooks themselves were a trigger because of what happened in college. We have also worked very hard on trying to put together some timelines just for our own peace of mind, understanding where we have been, what we have been doing, and what is the story of the others and what they need.
• 21:35
  As we have processed some of these things, there have been connections that have come about, including finding the original therapist from college, who was actually one of the people that trained the therapist we have now. And so we were able to write her a letter and talk to her about some things with the help of our therapist. And through that experience, there were many things that Emma S, who is the host now, and Emma Z began to understand about each other. And then because we talked so much about the running away, because the running away became a safety issue, so we had to address it at the beginning of therapy. And because we had to work out the relationship issues with the husband and what that means for all of us, we also had to become very aware of Emeti.
• 22:44
  And so I'm telling the very short and simple version of it, but because of this work, Emma Z and Emma T and MS have begun to understand more and more of each other. I do not mean understanding more of the others inside, only amongst the three of them. And now, what has happened most recently is that Emma S, who is the current host on the outside normally to the rest of the world, although not very much on the podcast, but she has begun to remember more and more things from Emma Z and MST. So I want I want to be clear about this because it's very strange to talk about, and we are still learning words for it ourselves. So like always, if we say something wrong, we offer our apologies because we are using words the best that we can to describe our own experience.
• 23:50
  We do not mean it is the same experience for everyone. What is happening is that the more all three MS become aware of each other and what they have been through and what they need now and communicating about these issues and working them out and working together then more and more they become present with each other I am not saying that they are only one or that they are one or that two of them have become one or that one of them is lost or gone. There's nothing about them disappearing. We can see all three of them. We can hear all three of them.
• 24:40
  But those three, all three of them can understand each other and be present together and be out front together sometimes this is very new for us I want to read something I learned because it is the first time I knew words for it. Because this happening more and more, we have not had a chance to talk about it in therapy yet because of all the things that have been happening and the holidays and the time away from therapy and missing appointments. So we don't have words for it, but we found words for it on the power to the plurals page when they are sharing articles every week that are teaching us about DID. But in article three, it talks about this and says it is called co consciousness and co fronting. I want to read a tiny part with permission.
• 25:46
  It says from the Cambridge Dictionary that consciousness is explained as noticing like awareness. Right? So it says or to the Cambridge Dictionary explains consciousness with the word noticing, or to notice that a particular thing or person exists or is present. So being co conscious is all about being present in the here and now, knowing where and when you are. When we use the term Co Consciousness, we refer to a state where two or more alters are actively aware, they notice and know what is going on around them.
• 26:33
  What is happening in their life at this moment in time. Whereas in a classic DID situation, one alter at the time fronts and the other alters have no awareness or lose time due to amnesia. So this is a new thing and what it's saying is that when one of the MS is out, the other two Emmas still know what is going on, which is new. But also the one that is out now has access to things that have happened in the past to the other two Emmas. And so it is a new thing, and there are many good things about this, and there are many more challenging things about this.
• 27:22
  And so in coming weeks, we'll be talking about some of these things as we experience them or as we share about them because it's a new thing we've not had before and a new thing specific to these three. The other thing that article talked about was how it helps to be co conscious if you are working together on the same thing. And I think that this is part of why it happened with the three MS because there were specific issues we have been working on together that they share for over a year in therapy. And so in therapy, because we have been working on these specific things about safety and about our timeline and about some interactions being back in the present with the same people from in the past, but in good ways and safe ways, not just abusers from the past, but connecting these pieces together and making them present for all three of them, which has never happened to us in the before, has never happened to us before. And I think it is because of these things happening that now this co consciousness is happening with them.
• 28:40
  So there's a lot more to talk about for co consciousness and a lot more to talk about for affronting together, but it is not something that we know a lot about yet because it is new and only in the context of the three MS, not anyone else yet in the system with others in the system. So we will have to wait and find out and see what is happening, and we can share and explain it as it goes. But I wanted to tell you that this is something that we will be talking about and sharing because it is a big change in our system and something that is new and different for the three Imas. And it also has an impact on the rest of us because it changes how hosting happens. It changes how we get to the front and some other things that it has an impact on.
• 29:40
  Also, there are things that make there are also some things that are harder because now now that MS knows about Emmett T, for example, it changes some of the thoughts and feelings that she has about relationships or dating or being married. Not that it's changing our decisions. It changes our experience or understanding or makes things easier or harder in some ways. And so there are new issues to work out as there are changes that happen with the system, then we all it that also changes how we interact with the world around us. And so there are new things we have to navigate and decide and work out as a system in ways we never had before.
• 30:32
  That's part of what we'll be talking about in the future. So maybe it is a small thing to you, or maybe you are someone who already understands it, or maybe you have been co conscious with another part of your system for a long time, or maybe you are just learning about it as we are. But I wanted to share that, and that's what we wanted to talk about today. And so we will talk about it more and thank you for listening even while we're learning new things in such a simple way. We are grateful for your support and for your help and for the things that you have taught us as we learn.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening. 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.
• 31:43
  We look forward to connecting with you.