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Moving Up · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Welcome to System Speak, a podcast about complex trauma and dissociation. It's our story, our learning, and the ideas we've been working with as they've unfolded over time. Earlier episodes give context for where we are now, and current episodes may engage more advanced material, harder content, or reference earlier conversations. A few things to remember as you listen. The podcast is education, reflection, and storytelling.
• 0:41
  It's not therapy, and listening doesn't create a relationship. Although I am a therapist, I am not in that role here, and nothing that I share is individualized clinical advice. Every system, every internal world, all of your own stories are all different and you take up your own shape. What we share about ours won't translate directly to yours. It isn't meant to.
• 1:06
  We're all different, and all of our stories matter. As always, take care of yourself during and after listening, and we are so glad you're here.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Okay. Today is a big, big day. It's a big day, and I've known it was coming. I'm not just talking about Taylor Swift in Toy Story five or Deputation or any of those projects happening, I am talking about my family. Well, myself and my experience of my family.
• 2:01
  Right? We have known since the beginning the kiddos were spread out, the ages that they were, the grades that they were, and we knew this day was coming. Oof. It is such big feelings. I am leaving my work in the city.
• 2:25
  It is a gorgeous day with the sun shining. I've already had my walk at the beach. I'm feeling better as if the weather itself were also celebrating everything that today means. And also and also so many big feelings. This year has been hard.
• 2:57
  There has been a lot happening. We should have known it the year literally started with the flood. And then everything that's happened since, I have my oldest getting ready for eye surgery, which they've already talked about. And my youngest has spent the year getting ready for the next round of airway stuff after really good years with the best airway she's had so far. So it feels like a big deal to be going back into what feels like a routine we almost didn't have to worry about anymore with appointments and clinics and all the things.
• 3:41
  We've had the twins surviving everything that is middle school and the triplets having their year of their first jobs, their first dates, their first proms, their first driving, all of the things. And so it has just been a year. It has just been a year. And, also, it feels like it culminates today in all of the big feelings that are wrapped up today. And even trying to talk about it, I'm going in circles because it's such a big deal.
• 4:18
  Today is the day that we knew would come. I didn't know it would quite be so literal where it was an hour here and then straight to the next one for an hour there and then straight to the next one for an hour there. We are headed to the elementary school where our youngest is officially having her moving up ceremony, which she gets honored as someone on student council and getting to celebrate our last kiddo finishing elementary school and moving into middle school. And then after that, we walk. We don't even have to move the car.
• 5:03
  We walk down the street to the middle school, and they have their moving up ceremony as the twins become high schoolers finishing middle school. Thank goodness. Middle school's brutal on everybody. And then an hour later, hopping over to the high school where all the seniors finished yesterday. And so today is the official moving up ceremony for the juniors officially becoming the seniors at the school.
• 5:36
  And so the triplets are becoming seniors. It is so epic. I don't even know I don't even know how to contain all the many different feelings that are coming up and how special it is this particular year where we have been through so much together and sort of reorganized ourselves as a family. And what is that gonna mean to us as the kids get older? And with it also focusing so much on everybody's health, I started out the year so sick for so many months.
• 6:13
  I just could not shake that with everything going on. And and then all the kids and their different medical things and mental health things. And then the news that we just got yesterday, which I have permission to share, that Nathan has been diagnosed with cancer, which explains why he could not literally stay awake for the last few years. They have been testing and trying and doing medication, trying all things to see what is something, wrong with his body, what is depression. He's been trying to figure it out for years, and now we finally found out what is going on.
• 6:54
  And it is cancer. They are hoping that it is benign and just some tumors that they can take out. He's got surgery next week, and we can share an update when we know more about that as he's ready to talk about it or share. And, also, it is just been I don't think we could have packed more into this year. This year has been epic, and it's not even halfway finished.
• 7:21
  So I was walking this morning along the beach and looking at the blackberry bushes. Right now, the blackberry bushes are flowering, and I've been learning in indigenous medicine about how the blackberry bushes are about boundaries and what they teach us about boundaries. And then there's also daisies blooming everywhere, and daisies are about resilience and innocence. And it's just been a lot this year, so I'm just trying to let myself feel all the feelings and be present in the moment with everything that's coming up. So I went on this really slow, long walk by the beach this morning, and I could feel the sunshine.
• 8:22
  I could feel the waves, and that has been so healing to me this year, learning about the whales and about not being alone because whales are in community and learning about the medicines where we live here. So, like, near the beach, there was this row of blackberry bushes, and they're flowering right now. So they were also full of bunnies and birds and learning how blackberry bushes can teach us about boundaries. And I never thought about that because I actually have a lot of good memories about blackberry bushes, even picking them with my grandmother when I was little. And it's always fun when you have so many good memories too.
• 9:09
  You know? And so so I was sharing pictures of the blackberries with my family, and I was like, this helps me remember when I was little and such a good memory and a memory, like, you could taste but in a good way, and it was so yummy and fun. It's fun that I've gotten to pass that on to my kids, so I was feeling nostalgic. And, also, in front of the blackberries were just daisies and daisies and daisies for days, which teach us about resilience and innocence and feeling not just peace and serenity, but being able to feel joy and celebrate what today is about and the fun that it is and the resilience that we have as a family and as individuals and as systems and as communities and everything that is going on in the world and being able to just enjoy our days and move freely about the cabin, having the freedom to walk up and down the beach, to enjoy our work or our school, or to be celebrating the accomplishments of what they've done over the last year at school. And the other thing that I think is different from this year than before is we learned each other in new ways such that I think it maybe is for me the first year transitioning into summer that did not feel like a crisis.
• 10:50
  Like, have resources lined up. We've got support. We're not alone in the world. We have what the kids need. The kids have transportation.
• 11:01
  The triplets have learned about how to use the buses and are learning about the trains, and they're practicing driving. And so, like, with all the things of who meets what where and our time together being more and more about just time together rather than catching up or being in crisis, it has just made a world of difference. And so I was talking even in therapy about how I finally get to have weekends that are just weekends. And when I get to leave my office in the afternoon, I get to really leave my office and then get to walk at the beach. And then by the time I'm home, I feel ready and good about being home.
• 11:43
  And then when I'm ready to go back to work, I feel ready and good about being back at work. And how that feels like a better balance that I've worked so hard on for over a year to be able to find that place of being able to work enough but not too much, to be okay, but also be taking care of me, not just everybody else. And it has felt so good and made such a difference. And to be able to be giving that to myself and to witness everybody else learning that for themselves too and spend this weekend just being nostalgic about when the kids first came to us, what those stories are about, and what that was like. And I don't know.
• 12:36
  There's just so many big feelings. I can't believe we've made it. We've made it through so much hard. We've added so many good memories that we never would have had otherwise or that we can share together and so many big feelings about them growing up and also some of the heart is still there. Right?
• 13:03
  Like, I'm really excited to go see my kids and meet them and watching all the moving up ceremonies today. And, also, that doesn't mean I'm not still scared to go to the schools or anxious about it. And, also, in the beginning when we first got them, I almost couldn't. I could just have a panic attack or be so anxious I couldn't do it. I almost couldn't get myself in the building.
• 13:27
  And now when I go, I know the other parents, and I've got friends there and neighbors there. And it feels like community in a different way than what I've experienced before. And I think that's true in a new way in different areas of my life, in different domains of my life. Because this year, I've really learned about how who I am is just in me. And it doesn't necessarily matter if other people like that or don't like that or agree with that or don't agree with it.
• 14:22
  Like, that's such a middle school lesson. Right? So we've talked about it so much the last year. And with both middle schoolers, but then also with the youngest being at the age of learning that friendship shift and change and people grow in different ways. And and also sometimes you get to really resonate with one person or another, but that the people who are safe for you are the ones who let you be yourselves.
• 14:58
  And I think I've seen the high schoolers learn that in a way that is maybe more about advocating for themselves. They have so much independence and also learning that their independence really depends on them saying what they need, asking for help when they need it, and following through on their end of things. And as they've learned to do that, how it just makes everything exponential. So I think it's just been a year where all of us were learning the same thing in different ways, and it just makes it pretty special. When I think about my youngest graduating elementary school, it's just I think it's just a lot from all the layers of the things.
• 15:58
  There's the layer that we're just proud of her, and it's such a big deal to be finishing elementary school at all. Right? There's that layer that's just about her. There's the layer about medical trauma for her, the layer for us as her family that none of us, even the pediatrician talked about it, that none of us thought she wouldn't make it past four. And here we are graduating elementary school.
• 16:32
  Like, nobody knew that this was even possible. There's there's updates about that that she wants to share, actually, but I've I've encouraged her to talk first to think about it more. And the pediatrician thinks it's okay, but I'm just learning to double check. Right? So just pausing until we can all feel that it's okay.
• 17:04
  But, anyway, the fact that not only is she graduating, but she's graduating in a fancy dress with high heels with no cords. And I don't mean, like, honors cords. I mean, like, oxygen cords. No tubing. Right?
• 17:28
  She's not connected to anything. She's she's she's pulled off this day in ways that I just I don't even know how to explain. And that even though we're moving back into all the appointments that prep for airway reconstruction, like sleep studies and swallow studies and craniofacial and all the things, that there really is just this moment that's about being alive and honoring the present moment and that when we fought all of these years for quality of life, This is what we're talking about, that not only is she graduating today, but her surgery that was going to be this week got moved because she said, no. I want to graduate with my class. And that she has the right to do so and that people can listen to that.
• 18:39
  And she gets to consent in all things for herself. And that quality of life means to her, this this little blue dress and these sparkly Taylor Swift shoes and who who she gets to sit by during the ceremony and which pictures she got to put in and which pictures she changed out because she feels differently about her pictures now and and, like, all the things. And so that she gets to decide what it means to her and what this date it like, it's just I'm in awe of it. And then there's the additional layer that's mine, not hers or put on her, but the additional layer that she's the last little one. She's our youngest, and and this is our official goodbye to elementary school.
• 19:36
  And I can't I don't even know what to do with that. Part of me is very sentimental and, like, I feel very tearful. Part of me is very relieved, and I'm very excited that we are done with elementary school. It has been some hard years. I don't know.
• 19:55
  Those of you who we've talked together because we're parents, those are hard years. And to have gotten six kids through that, to have gotten ourselves through that, it's a lot. It's a lot. And there's just so many big feelings. And then the twins finishing middle school through some of the hardest years our family has had and also being so completely true to themselves and navigating beautifully the situations they have with with what choices they wanna make and where they wanna live and what they're doing for their future and what friendships have looked like, learning to balance friends with also getting their work done, navigating their first romantic relationships, navigating their own pronouns and pronouns of peers, navigating all of these things and finishing that race and really no longer being babies, no longer being children, really coming as adolescents into this day of finishing middle school.
• 21:23
  It's so awkward. They went into middle school with their little children bodies, and they're coming out of middle school with their adult bodies. Everyone except my youngest is taller than me, bigger than me, stronger than me. And everyone but my youngest has their adult bodies, and the boys are all still growing. They're all three at six feet.
• 21:54
  Two of them are over six feet. I guess that's talking about the high school kids, but I kind of shared about them already as much as I want to without them. The just the trying to fathom that we had babies going to elementary school and coming out as pre adolescents. And pre adolescents, babies going into middle school, coming out as full adolescents with adult bodies and having high school kids that went in as adolescents at the end of the pandemic, y'all. Our triplets came out of the pandemic to go into high school and became adolescents and are now transitioning to their senior year.
• 22:48
  Oh, so many feelings. With their adult bodies and almost adult minds, brains still growing, developmental tasks still happening, skills still growing, because that is part of being human. And to be surrounded by support in a way that was so different from what I experienced is so powerful and healing and just a beautiful thing to witness. And I am so happy for them, and I am so proud of them. And And remembering how tiny they all were when they first came to us.
• 23:31
  I mean, our youngest, we knew she was coming before she was born. The twins, we got one when she was still a baby and we got the other one when he was two. And the triplets all came to us when they were four or five. So think so many feelings. I think for them, the way they have talked about it and described it, and 've talked about as a family without getting into their details, I think for them, these days are not just about graduating school.
• 24:22
  It is about graduating foster care, about acknowledging adoption differently. Like, our whole time with them have been these years in schools. And so it brings up a lot for them. It brings up a lot for us. And
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: It's just such a big deal. It's such a big deal. They've been through so much. We've been
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: through so much together. I can see their little faces. And I don't think there was a moment of any of it that was easy or simple. But there also wasn't a moment that I was not overwhelmed with love and the honor of raising them and sharing them with their families. It's just a really special day.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: 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, and healing brings hope.