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Bethany Brand & Kim · 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 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.
• 1:02
  Okay, guys. Today's podcast is not gonna be anything that you think it is, but there's a reason I've decided to go ahead and do it this way. So bear with me and enjoy the experience of not enjoying the experience. But first, let me back up and talk about Bethany Brandt. She's a guest that we are going to have on the podcast.
• 1:24
  So let me introduce her and share this first. Bethany Brand, PhD, is a psychologist and the director of the Clinical Focus Program at Towson University near Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Doctor. Brand specializes in the assessment and treatment of trauma related disorders, including post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, and dissociative disorders, DDs. She has over twenty five years of clinical and research experience, including training at Johns Hopkins Hospital, George Washington University Hospital, and at Shepherd Pratt Health Systems Trauma Disorders Program.
• 2:06
  Doctor. Brand has been honored with numerous research, teaching, and clinical awards and served on several national task forces that develop guidelines for the assessment and treatment of trauma related disorders. Doctor. Brand is the principal investigator on a series of international treatment studies of patients with dissociative disorders, the top DD studies. Doctor.
• 2:31
  Brand is also the principal investigator on a series of studies that are developing methods for distinguishing DDs from other conditions, including malingered dissociative disorders. She has delivered clinical and research presentations around the world. In addition to assessing and treating patients, Doctor. Brand serves as a forensic expert. You can see her personal website at bethanybrand.com.
• 2:57
  Her faculty site is www.towson.edu/cladepartments/psychology/facultystaff/bbbrand.html. The Top DD Studies website is topddstudy.com. We are very excited to welcome Doctor. Bethany Brand. Good morning.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Good morning. How are you?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you for talking to me today.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. My pleasure. You've come pretty highly recommended.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: That's very kind. I I didn't know this was gonna turn into such a big thing, and so that has surprised me in the process.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: But
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Fantastic. All the information, we need more and more information to get out there about trauma and dissociation and dissociative disorders. So it sounds like you're doing a good job.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I'm trying. It's been, I think one thing that's happened is building more of a community between clinicians and survivors.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I agree.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Some I don't know. Just the politics of the nineties and different things, I think there was just a little bit of a rift, which everyone kind of understands in their head but Mhmm. It's leaving people isolated from each other and so I didn't expect the effect that has come from pulling that together. So I'm glad it's one tiny thing to help.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: My name is Bethany Brand and I'm a professor of psychology at Towson University, which is in Baltimore, Maryland. I am one of the primary investigators for the TOP DD research studies, which stands for Treatment of Patients with Dissociative Disorders. I am first foremost a clinician, and I've been practicing for about twenty five years, as of 2019. And I have a total of five different lines of research. All of them relate to trauma and mostly they relate to the impact of trauma causing dissociation, dissociative disorders, the assessment and treatment of dissociative disorders.
• 5:17
  I'm also working to try and improve the coverage of trauma with particular emphasis on dissociation in psychology textbooks, because a lot of times the textbooks don't adequately describe dissociation and dissociative disorders, and they tend to be, more opinion based or, or presenting dissociation from a Hollywood esque perspective rather than evidence based and, you know, kind of respectful, informed perspective. So that's a whole another line of research, and I'm glad to talk about whichever of those you would like to.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I am so excited to talk to you actually because of all of those things.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: It's not just a lot of research that you've done or a lot of projects you've been involved in with your students, but the research is so good. And I don't say that lightly. I really appreciate the quality of the research and the things that you're targeting. I think it's so powerful and I wanted people to know about it.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Well, I really appreciate that. Thank you. It's I I never expected I'd end up here as a researcher and able to potentially help people around the world. It's it's rather mind blowing and incredibly exciting and, you know, it's it's my passion. It's my my career mission.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: It's a it's really exponential, though, because, like, the textbook example, it's so difficult to find a good therapist anyway, and it's so difficult to engage in therapy anyway. Anyway. But when new clinicians are not given accurate information when they're going through school or licensure, that just limits the pool further, not counting whatever additional damage is done, not because people are bad, but because they don't know.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: That is precisely right. And so anybody who might even think about going into the, field of of being clinician or a researcher or, you know, criminal justice system.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And that, my friends, is all there is of that. It's awful. I'm laughing because I can't cry anymore about it. It was an astounding, phenomenal interview with Bethany Brand and the things that we talked about with trauma and dissociation and the latest research that she's doing and the DD studies. And it was just powerful.
• 7:53
  And then, oh my heart, oh my heart. Just as fast as lightning literally through the lines of our house, just like that, the interview was gone. That's all, like we cannot recreate what was in that interview. There are not words for that. Like, it was so traumatic.
• 8:23
  I can't even tell you how I have grieved the loss of that interview. Even if she would let us interview her again, it would not be the same interview. We cannot recreate what was in that episode and there is no way to fix what happened. It was not her fault. It was not our fault.
• 8:48
  It was not intentional. It was a horrible and tragic accident. I can't tell you how sad. I am grateful that of the few minutes of the interview that was saved, and I don't know how or why. But of the few minutes that were there that she was able to talk about the research.
• 9:07
  Because if there is anything that is important for you to know about Bethany Brand, it is about the DD studies and what she is doing. Because more than any other question on this podcast, the number one thing we get asked is about what is the latest research because no one's doing research anymore, which is not true. Bethany Brand is the one doing research now. She has the newest research. And the other question that we get asked more than any other is why aren't they teaching it in schools so that new clinicians better understand dissociation.
• 9:43
  And she's the one taking care of that. And so it was important for me, I debated about this every week because this happened in June, right after we got back from Africa, literally right after. And like the day after. So we were still in shock. The lightning shocked our house and it's just gone and so we have thought and thought and thought for these four weeks since that interview whether to even bother to share any of it because we lost it.
• 10:15
  It is it's gone. We can't get it back. We have emailed her to remind her we would love we explained what happened and that we would love to please have her back as a guest and complete the interview and do another interview. And that is just not gonna happen. And so there's there's nothing we can do about it.
• 10:38
  We can't fix it. But what she said was so important that it was worth sharing. Because if there is anything you need to know about Bethany Brand, it is about the top DD studies. Google it, search it, find out about it, look at it. There are people who will be able to participate in some of those studies soon.
• 10:58
  Be paying attention and have it on your radar. That's the number one reason that I decided to go ahead and share this very tiny portion of an over an hour long interview that we had. She was amazing. I was so grateful for her. But she is entirely swamped in research and going to swat us like a mosquito.
• 11:20
  So like we are, it's not happening. We cannot recreate this interview. But it was incredible and you just I there aren't words. Look up the top DD studies and see what you can find out about it. So I'm gonna refer you to those because it's worth knowing about.
• 11:41
  That's why I decided to go ahead and include it on the podcast, even though so much of it was lost. But here's the other reason I decided to include it in the podcast, because this is not the first time that's happened. There are times because of glitches with the software that this has happened as well. It's happened a couple times with Julie, but it also just happened again today with Kim. So Kim is a listener almost from the beginning who emails pretty frequently and I adore her.
• 12:14
  She's trying so hard with her partner to learn about DID and support her partner who has DID. And so I have loved her perspective for two reasons. One, she is a super sensitive and caring person who is trying hard to educate herself about DID. But I also love that she is super raw and real. She doesn't fake it.
• 12:36
  She doesn't pretend like it's easy all the time because it's not. And so I love her level of authenticity. The other thing I love is just her perspective as a partner of someone with DID. And so we wanted to interview her on the podcast. Hi.
• 12:54
  Oh my goodness. We finally did it.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: We finally connected.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad. How are you?
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: I'm doing good. How are you? And how's everybody doing?
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, fantastic. They're crazy. I'm crazy. It's all good.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: Can you hear me okay?
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I can. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself so people know who they're listening to?
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: My name is Kim, and I am I don't know whether you call it a fan or someone who's been listening to the podcast since the beginning.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: So you you are a super fan. Like I was the beginning.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: From the beginning, I kinda came in a little late. I found you because I joined one of those groups and they someone in the group said that you had a good podcast because someone was looking. And so I went to it and that's how I found it was through a group. And after I found it, I was hooked from the first episode. I I could relate to the first one.
• 14:00
  So I've been staying hooked with you guys ever since.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. But in your family, you are not the one with DID.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I am not. My partner is the one who has DID.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: So you are bringing a whole new perspective today.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: I am. I hope it's a good perspective. It's been a rough road, but, yeah, it's a different perspective because it's it's hard on the partner just as, I don't I can't say just as hard as it is for you because I don't know that. I just know that my experience as a partner, it's incredible, but it's also very trying and there's not a lot of support. So I totally get, like, not being able to find a therapist and not being able to talk to people about it because they don't get it.
• 14:51
  It's the same over here as a partner. People don't get it. And it is hard for even me to find a therapist who believes in it and or just gets it. I've gone through a couple. I've given it a break.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: This is actually why I love you. There's several things that you just said that I wanna point out. One, I love that you get it. You understand how hard it is. You're in the trenches with him, and you understand those pieces.
• 15:22
  And so your emails have always been so supportive and insightful about your side of the experience of things. But also, you have this sensitivity. Like, you just said how hard it is for you, but then you said, but I know I don't understand what it's like for them. Like, you have this awareness. Have you always just been this deep, insightful person?
• 15:47
  Or, like, do you come by that naturally, or have you had to work at that? Because it's really, really a special part of who you are.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: I come by that naturally, I guess. I and I'm trying to be careful because I don't wanna, like, trigger anything. But just to know that I came from a, you know, really churchy background. So a lot of what I get my insights wisdom and things like that, I just come by naturally. So being very empathetic, perceptive, and those kinds of things, I've always been.
• 16:20
  Even in I mean, we can go back to my junior high and high school years where I would have people come up to me and they would tell me, like, their problems. I would tell them, this is what you should do. And if they did it, then they would have this particular outcome that I said. And if they didn't, they'd have the complete opposite. So I've always just kind of been very in tune with other people.
• 16:41
  But I can tell you that being with a partner who, has DID, it brings it to a different level because this is someone that you I'm sharing my life with. Like, I know and I love this person. So it's not on this surface level anymore. I had to do a little bit more digging to get a little bit more empathetic than what I was. And I thought that I had it going on.
• 17:05
  It's not until you get into the trenches with someone that you really find out what you're made of. And that's when I learned, I've got some digging to do. I have some more work to do because there's another level that I wanna reach because this is my partner. And that's the work that I'm doing for myself right now and for them, but definitely for myself because I'm learning that there are different levels of being there for someone else that that I didn't have before. And that's exciting and scary at the same time.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I think that's true for anyone in that you phrased it so well, but even for the survivor in a relationship with someone, you have to dig deeper to learn to connect differently than in the past and to trust differently in the past and to Yeah. Learn what love is differently than the past.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Absolute. And that's that one word, that love word. You know, you kinda think that you know what it is when you're growing up or you have, like, your first relationship and you're, oh my god. This is love.
• 18:14
  I can tell you that this is a different level of what I thought love was. I can kind of say, I didn't know what love was until this. And I know that people just kind of in general are like, well, this is what love is and this is what love is. I don't think you know it until I don't personally think you know it until you get into some really sticky places with someone and you choose to stay there and stick through it or you choose to go. Now, again, that's not to say that anyone who leaves is a bad person.
• 18:46
  I'm just saying from my perspective, you learn a different level of love when you are going through it with that person versus when things are kinda like pretty okay or you just having those regular bumps in the road that you get in relationships. When you have something like DID or your partner has it and you guys are sticking with it, trying your hardest to work at it, honey, that is a whole another level that a lot of people haven't experienced and maybe won't.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: That's so wild that you're sharing that because it's exactly what we talked about in therapy therapy yesterday. We have a new friend that we're trying to be friends with, but it's really terrifying. But she has a sick child. Like, we have a sick child, so there's a lot we share in common. So it's kind of an important time to get it right, and the therapist is sort of helping us use it as, like, an example, I guess, to figure things out and practice things.
• 19:40
  And one of the things that she said yesterday was exactly what you just said of, like, there are some things we we made this joke about, like, we just need to take a friend class because we're so not good at it. Like, can we just sign up for a class? Is there a book we can read? And she's like, you don't need a class or a book. You just need to do it.
• 20:02
  You need to be in a friendship that is safe and real or a relationship that is safe and real because you only learn it by doing it, little baby steps one at a time.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: Right. I agree with that. You you can take all the classes you want and you can read all the books you want. But until you're in it, you don't really know. Like, even with the stuff that I'm doing, like, all the research I've been doing over the past year and a half on DID, all the classes that I've taken.
• 20:30
  I went to the conference. Like, I did all of this stuff. And it it's great and it helps, but it doesn't compare to the real life experience that I have with my love. I call them my loves. It's it doesn't compare to living a real experience.
• 20:46
  It really, really doesn't. So you can have all of that and it gives you a nice little cushion, but until you're walking it out, you don't really know, you know, what's in it. You need the other person to bounce things off of. So I agree with that.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Which conference did you go to?
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: I went to the NAMI conference last year. When I first found out that my partner had DID, kinda like all everything just kinda went wild. Everything shut down. I didn't know what was going on. And so I started just kinda doing my own research.
• 21:19
  And so I joined my local NAMI chapters, and that's how I started learning what was kind of what was happening in terms of, you know, what happened to the brain and medications and all of those things. And I ended up going to the NAMI conference, last year because I had taken all of the classes already. So I've got, like, my certificates and all that good stuff. And I was like, well, I think I'm ready to go to a conference. So I went to the two day conference.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: How cool
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: are you doing?
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: That was it was pretty phenomenal. I enjoyed enjoyed it very much. But I didn't know at the time the difference between, like, trauma and what Nami was doing because Nami's great, but their trauma part, you know, it doesn't it's not really in there in there like that. They do really well with, like, mood disorders and stuff like that, which is cool, but I needed a little bit more. So I had to start doing a little bit more research to find what I needed for my situation.
• 22:16
  So I'm still with NAMI. I still go to my classes because, you know, they have support groups and no one's in there with the same issue I have, but sometimes it's just good to be around people who kinda get it because you can I can get overwhelmed and I have gotten overwhelmed and sometimes I do become overwhelmed and I need that outlet? So I still go to support.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. I love that you have some boundaries there and some self care. It's a big deal. It's intense when you're caring for someone else or supporting someone else who's struggling.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It's it's tough. It really is. It's not easy. It's it's it's easy to say, you know, just take off and leave, or it's easy to just kinda brush it off and tell people, oh, we're just going through a hard time, but I'm living it every day.
• 23:02
  Even if my partner isn't here. Like, they're not physically here with me every day, but we we still have our relationship. So that makes it a little bit more difficult too because we're not physically interacting every day like we used to. So I I do have to do a lot of work. I have to do a lot of work, a lot of reading, a lot of understanding because some of the things that they go through, I don't understand still.
• 23:29
  And some of them, I probably never will. But in my misunderstanding or not being able to understand it or in my ignorance, I want to find out ways to help myself to cope during those times so that I'm not attacking. You know what I mean? And I'm not like, where are you? How come you're not doing this?
• 23:45
  How come you're not doing that? I used to do that so bad. And so I'm now learn and still learning that sometimes they're just not in that place. Sometimes they're just not there. And so that's why I'm still educating myself more on the trauma side of things so that I can kind of understand when those times of non communication is happening that is not personal, it's something that they're dealing with.
• 24:09
  So the education continues, Sasha. It doesn't stop.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. You have such compassion there. You've learned so much. Let's back up and tell your story a little bit. You don't have to say anything you're uncomfortable with, and we can edit out anything you change your mind about.
• 24:26
  Okay? Okay. Why don't you share with us just a little bit? Like, how did you know something was going on? How did your love how did he get diagnosed?
• 24:35
  Like, tell me a little bit about what's been going on.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: Okay. Well, I kind of knew something was going on about two years ago because we were we would, like, be together in in the house. Right? And we would just be, like, watching TV or something. And one she would just turn the channel and watch there'd be a show on that I just totally didn't get or didn't wanna watch and a show that I didn't think that she'd like to watch.
• 25:05
  And she would just, like, start cracking up laughing and be all into it. And I'm like, wait a minute. Like, we were just watching a completely different show that had nothing to do with this. And then there was what really ticked me is that we used to take a lot of pictures together, like, in my phone. And they would also send me pictures, like, if they were out and stuff, you know, selfies, hey.
• 25:26
  This is where I'm at. That kinda thing. Right? I one day looked at all of the pictures, and I noticed that it was the same person, but then it wasn't. Like, I would get a picture at 07:00.
• 25:38
  Right? Then I would get another picture at 07:01, and then I get another picture at 07:02, and it would be three different people. But it was still it was her. But I knew that it wasn't the same person. The facial differences, I could tell.
• 25:52
  The look in the eyes, I could tell. Right? The posture, I knew that it wasn't the same person. So you
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: you figured this out intuitively before she told you.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I figured it out before she told me. I didn't have the words. I didn't
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Okay. So here's what's happened. I just talked to Ken, and this is the same thing that happened when I interviewed Bethany Brand. The interview went for over an hour, and we finished, and I hung up, and I clicked save, and all of it was there the entire hour.
• 26:33
  And then but then when I opened it back up, there was only, like, fifteen minutes of the interview was there and the rest of it is gone. This is the third time maybe fourth time it's happened and so this is a reason and an example of why we need supporters for the podcast because we need better software to record the interviews so that they are not lost in saving because I cannot tell you how heartbreaking it is. And so it's so frustrating because it's just lost and it's such good material. And this interview with Kim was amazing. And so it is heartbreaking that we lost the rest of it, and so we're calling her back right now.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: Hi there.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. I know. Can you believe it? It's so bad. I can't believe this happened.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: I can't either. That was so good. We were on everything. Oh my gosh.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: There's no way to recreate that hour. I understand that, and I'm not gonna make you do that. But let's go ahead and just talk about it so that the listeners can hear. I've already recorded and explained what happened and was like, this is why we need better software, you guys, because this has happened twice before or something. Where do you wanna go from there?
• 28:16
  So much happened when we talked. I don't even know where to start.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: So much happened. It was so real. It was amazing. What whatever works.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Okay. So the way that I started researching and figuring out, you know, what is going on is because July of twenty seventeen, something happened. They just, like, physically left. I don't know what happened to this day, and they're not telling me. I've asked numerous, numerous times, so I figure that is something that I don't need to know right now or they're not comfortable sharing.
• 29:02
  So they physically left July of twenty seventeen. So they now they left then and they're still gone. So they're, like, twenty minutes away from where I am. So no longer are we, like, physically seeing each other and experiencing each other every day. So we have the phone and and we see each other, but it's not like it was before.
• 29:24
  And what I was trying to do is figure out what happened because they weren't really giving me any information. So I started with going to NAMI. I joined my local chapter here, and I started just going to the classes. Started taking the classes. I graduated from all of the classes that they have.
• 29:44
  I still go to their support groups. And what happened was I was going to the classes and learning, but what they were talking about and what they were experiencing wasn't my experience. It looks to me like they are really, really good at mood disorders, things like that, but not so much of trauma. I didn't know what trauma was. I didn't know that trauma, that DID came from trauma either.
• 30:07
  So after class one day, I asked my instructor I told my instructor what was going on in my life with my partner. And I said there's just a difference here. I feel a disconnect. And my instructor told me that I need to be talking about and learning about trauma and that that's kinda where the DID comes from. And so they gave me the information for ISSTD and told me that I should just start there.
• 30:34
  And so that's what I did. I went to the website. I went to their Facebook group. And that's kinda where I started learning about trauma. So I went there.
• 30:43
  I just started going to different websites. I started reading books like The Body Keeps the Score. There's two other books that I have on dissociative identity disorder that I ordered and read and highlighted and, you know, marked up and everything because I was trying to figure out what was happening. And I even went to therapy to try to, you know, get myself under control and figure out how do I how do I be a better person for my partner because this is what they're going through. And that's kind of how my research started.
• 31:19
  And I'm still doing the same thing minus the therapy part.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Because what happened when you went to therapy?
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: When I went to therapy, I I tried three different therapists. Two of the therapists did not believe in DID, and one of the therapists, they did believe. But their approach just didn't work for me. I went to the therapist once or I went twice. The first time I went, I was explaining to them my situation with my partner, and they the therapist seemed like she didn't really get it, didn't really understand what I was saying.
• 31:53
  So I kinda spent, the first twenty minutes giving her background on DID, like, where it came from and and what what it's doing to my partner right now. And she ended up at, like, the end saying, well, you know, you sound like you're more of a professional than I am. Maybe we should switch seats. And at the time, I thought it was kind of a joke, so I laughed it off. Didn't really think anything about it.
• 32:18
  My second session with her, though, is when I knew that it was over because she kept telling me to only refer to my loves as one person. She didn't want me to call them they. She didn't want me to say my loves. She wanted me just to talk about one. And that didn't work for me.
• 32:36
  So I ended up leaving that session, and I haven't been back to therapy since. And that's been maybe four or five months. I'm gonna give it a break because I don't wanna be with a therapist who doesn't believe in in the relationship that I have. I don't wanna be somewhere where you're telling me to discount everyone and only focus on one person because that's not the way our relationship works. And there isn't just one person.
• 33:01
  I have a relationship with all of them. I know them all. We all relate together. They all have different personalities. So I wanna talk about how I'm dealing with and living with all three of these people, and you want me to just talk about one, and that's just not gonna work.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: One of the things that we talked about earlier, the first time we were recording this, was about how this you you brought up such a big point because with the I talked about this after the Kathy Steele podcast after I saw her, and she's getting ready to be on the podcast in an interview. And so I can talk to her about it again. But she and I differ just a little bit, although I've come to a better understanding than I did have initially. But there is a difference between there being one body and sharing one body as a system and the refined experiences that happen developmentally over years and years and years and the neural pathways created because of that and the experience of the different that we have differently within a system with each of us having such a completely different experience despite sharing one body. And especially in the beginning when you're not yet aware of the experiences of the others, I understand just like in regular life with other people, how the more you understand about the experiences of another person, the more you can sort of have compassion and work together and communicate differently and those are really important lessons even in our country right now.
• 34:43
  But, just like we have that experience internally, the same is true with relationships outside of us. So when you're talking about being a partner of someone who has DID, that's a big deal because you have relationships separately or not even necessarily separately but uniquely with each part of them. And one of the things that we talked about was how that's true even when you don't have DID, that Mhmm. All people have these different aspects to themselves. What's unique about DID is that that's caused by trauma and is to such an extreme, But still without DID, there's still different parts of you.
• 35:27
  And if you are in a relationship, part of the work of that relationship is navigating all of those connections between the different parts of you and the different parts of another person.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: Right. Because, I mean, we all want to be loved and accepted and cared for for our whole selves, not just, you know, the one part. And like you said, it's true for people who have DID and those who don't. I want to be loved and accepted and all of that stuff for the totality of who Kim is, not just the Kim, the employee who works at this place or Kim, someone's daughter or, you know, I want to be accepted and and validated for who I am all the way around. So discounting 5% of me, you're discounting me.
• 36:18
  To me, you're discounting me as a whole because you're not taking into account this 5%. You don't you don't wanna talk
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: So it happened again, and now I've lost track. And I really, really, really do not need to hear more people tell me to record it twice as part of a backup. While that is the most logical thing and makes the most sense, the thing is that because of my cochlear implants, one device is already being used so that I can hear to do the podcast. So I need a second device already just for one recording, and the second device can't transmit to my cochlear implant and also record. So we are doing the best that we can, and it continues to be frustrating when technology doesn't work.
• 37:09
  But also, this is why we continue to ask for supporters for the podcast. Because if you think the podcast is terrible, then it's really terrible if you knew the interviews we lost. But if you think the podcast is good, you have no idea the amazing things we have lost, and it's so sad. So we appreciate the support for the podcast. The interview with Kim continued with some really amazing discussion about attunement.
• 37:40
  This is the part of the discussion that was lost. She shared about a specific situation with her partner where they both were triggered. So her partner had an idea that would help them feel closer. And she herself, Kim, agreed that it was a good idea, and they moved forward with that idea. But in doing that, the system felt threatened enough that they withdrew, which then felt like emotional distance to Kim.
• 38:10
  You could see how dissociation plays out between them, where in trying to protect themselves, they isolated themselves from the people who cared about them. But also the people who cared about them, Kim, in this case, had hurt feelings by the increased emotional distance just as things were going well. So with both of them triggered, the more Kim escalated, the more her partner with DID withdrew because of being overwhelmed. This is entirely my retelling and not their own words, which is not fair to either of them. But it was a fantastic discussion about attunement because what both of them were looking for was support from each other.
• 38:53
  And this is true in relationships, whether it's DID or not, where conflict comes between people or hurt feelings happen. So then, person that you most need comfort from or you most need to protect you becomes the person that's hurting you. I'm not necessarily talking about in a domestic violence kind of way. Safety is always important in those situations. But I'm talking about in regular everyday conflict.
• 39:25
  The reason this becomes a big deal with trauma and dissociation is because it's acting out the abuse dynamic when abuse is not actually happening. So again, domestic violence situations are a different story. I'm not talking about that. But in situations where now time really is safe, but someone is triggered and responding as if they are not safe, and so putting up walls or withdrawing or distancing further. And the other parter is trying harder and harder, which is actually triggering more and more and more by increasing the intensity instead of respecting the space that's needed.
• 40:06
  So what happens is that each partner for the other becomes the perpetrator, not intentionally and not because anyone actually did anything wrong, just because of the old feelings triggered because of misattunement where they are each needing their needs to be reflected and met, but both are left feeling abandoned or hurt instead. It happens with friendship and it happens in relationships, especially with trauma. It's an easy thing to trigger and we had a fantastic discussion about it that no one will ever get to hear. The other thing that happened is that while Kim started the interview with Sasha, Doctor. E came out to call Kim out on something.
• 40:52
  She noticed that throughout the interview Kim continued to refer to how things were before or that her current distress was in part difficult because things had been so good before. And Doctor. E pointed out that she was living in memory time. Relationships and friendships are not static things. There's a flow to them, and sometimes there's greater connection than others.
• 41:16
  But it doesn't mean there's disconnection, and it doesn't mean that things are in crisis. But while Kim was living in memory time, she was missing out on the now time part of the relationship. It was a really good interview, and I'm so sorry we lost it. Except maybe it got so much into their personal stuff that maybe it's okay it was gone. We'll trust the universe on this one.
• 41:38
  But what we need in the meantime is better software so we stop losing interviews. We do have a backup plan, and we are trying to get different equipment for our cochlear implants so that we can continue recording podcasts and even back them up on Skype just in case. But for now, there's no way to do that, and so it's really difficult and tragic when we lose one, like our discussion with Kim or the interview with Bethany Brand. But the other reason I wanted to go ahead and share these interviews even though we didn't get to hear the whole thing was because that's what DID is like. You think you're talking to one person and all of a sudden it's over and you missed a whole entire chunk.
• 42:20
  Or you think you're listening to one thing and then all of a sudden it's someone else and you're listening to another thing. Maybe you think you're talking to Doctor. Brand and all of a sudden you're hanging out with Kim. That's what DID feels like if I were to splice the interviews together without explaining to you what happened. I thought about doing that, but I didn't actually do that out of respect for Doctor.
• 42:43
  Brand's interview. Kim would have been cool with it. But that's what it feels like when you have DID and you don't always know where you are or when you are or who you're with or what it was you were talking about. And that's what it's like with DID, when there's whole chunks of information you know you're supposed to have but you can't remember. That's what it's like with DID when there's entire pieces of conversations just gone that other people know and can reference or even laugh about but that you don't have access to at all.
• 43:17
  So I decided in the end to go ahead and share the pieces of interviews because they kind of make a point and because that's kind of what life is like for us every day. Finally, the other piece about DID is that the past is in the past. That's the whole point of memory time. These interviews that we thought were so good and we were so excited to share are just gone. There's nothing we can do about that.
• 43:49
  Even if doctor Brand let us talk to her again or Kim let us keep calling over and over, None of that would recreate the interviews that once were. So it's another truth about memory time, that what's done is done. It may be good or it may be bad. There may be good memories or there may be hard memories, but they are memories. They're in the past.
• 44:20
  So there are hard things to look at and hard things to remember, but they're not happening right now. And just like the therapist says that now time is safe, now time is present too. And so I think we learned two things from this experience. One is that it's okay to grieve what was and is not anymore. There's lots to grieve in trauma, and we could do a whole podcast just about that, about grieving our childhood that we have lost, about grieving the innocence that we have lost, about grieving the lifetime of growing up and and thriving in a safe childhood and adolescence that we never got to have.
• 45:07
  It's okay to grieve those. It's okay to work in therapy on what we had instead. But getting stuck on it or drowning there doesn't bring it back. And so we somehow have to just keep going. Maybe we're sad.
• 45:35
  Maybe we're frustrated. Maybe we're overwhelmed. Maybe we're really, really angry about it. Maybe we're able to keep it in perspective, and it's just really disappointing. And it's okay to talk about those feelings, and it's okay to share those feelings in good and safe ways, but also it's just done.
• 46:00
  It just is, and it's in the past, and that's where it stays. And we could either give up because of mistakes even though it wasn't our fault, Or give up because circumstances are against us even though it's just technology. Or we could give up because we don't qualify because deaf people shouldn't be doing podcasts anyway. So maybe it's too much, and maybe it's too hard, and maybe it doesn't always work out as we think. Or maybe that's not the point.
• 46:35
  Maybe the point is to keep going anyway, to keep trying anyway, to keep getting up again anyway. Maybe we keep sharing so that we can keep learning. Maybe we keep interviewing so that we can keep sharing and learning. Maybe it all fits together with lessons for all of us, reminding us that we're not alone, reminding us that the worst is over, and reminding us that we're becoming something more than how our past defines us. Because a few lost episodes may be sad, because of lessons learned for ourselves, like just to not respond to people trying to dox us, or maybe because we took down a few episodes because of our own boundaries and comfort level, like an episode that's never aired about a therapeutic technique that was really creepy and we didn't think should have any more attention than that.
• 47:33
  Or maybe the two episodes with men that were mansplaining instead of sharing and didn't wanna listen from a survivor's perspective about DID. So maybe sometimes things happen to us. Maybe sometimes we make mistakes, and maybe sometimes we set boundaries or make our own choices. But the point is that it's a process, and each podcast is only a postcard because we are not defined by who we once were, and we are not defined by what has happened to us. We are defined only by who we are choosing to be and who we are becoming and how we incorporate all of these experiences into the progress of our own learning as we learn to work together and listen to each other and just keep going.
• 48:28
  And maybe the biggest thing is that it's all really so silly anyway and doesn't actually matter, except that they were really good podcasts and it's sad to lose them. And maybe it's easier to talk about lost podcasts than a lost childhood. But, also, a few lost episodes doesn't undo all the good ones. It doesn't undo the funny ones. It doesn't undo the breakthrough ones where we learn so many things.
• 48:58
  It doesn't undo the progress we've made from the beginning, from the first episode over a hundred ago. In the three years since searching for our therapist or the decades since first being diagnosed, we've made progress. And a few bad episodes or a few bad days or a few bad experiences even, nothing changes that. We get to keep the good, and we get to tell the good. And while there are some hard stories that we don't tell, There's still a lot of good things to share, even if it still comes in pieces.
• 49:44
  That's DID. 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.systemsspeak.com. We'll see you there.