Latest / System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation / Guest(s): Crystals

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Guest(s): Crystals · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Hi. Hi. How are you?
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I'm good. Well, just to even start, go at you wanna go ahead and introduce yourself again so that people can hear your voice?
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm, Crystal's multifaceted. I started multifaceted journeys, and I also, started the podcast, Therapist Interrupted.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: That is amazing, and I am so glad to have you back here. It has been a long time. I know you've been on the podcast before and doing your own projects now, which is super exciting. Let's just start for people who don't already know you from the community or your other work that you've done. How would you describe your story in whatever is not too intrusive?
• 1:55
  Your story of learning about trauma and dissociation.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Okay. I, I'm like, do I tell the professional story or the personal story and how they interact, which is kinda directly related to our work? I have a master's degree in counseling psychology, and I got over twenty five hundred hours of supervised clinical experience or licensure. And then at that point, I really needed to focus on my own healing, and, I needed to go into in home substance use recovery. So I, my my employment had ended, and I started focusing full time on, my own healing.
• 2:51
  And then, got diagnosed, DID a couple years into, staying sober and then have, done a lot to learn more about about that and about trauma. And yeah.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So for people who who don't know, how would you explain what we mean when we say recovery in the context of sobriety?
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: For me read it in the context of sobriety. For me, it's it's an ongoing process. I how I understand alcoholism for me is that my body has a specific reaction to alcohol, and that is something that happens for all of us. I know that's not everybody's experience, but for us, if we if we drink, our body reacts alcoholically, meaning we have an extremely difficult time stopping. So for me, I've been a %, sober, since, September 9, '1 02/2009.
• 4:05
  And I've also had what they call, like, the obsession has been lifted, whereas I'm not thinking and craving alcohol anymore. That took a long time and a lot of healing and a lot of work to get to that point.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. And I think that it's something we've not talked about enough on this podcast simply because it's not necessarily part of my lived experience, but there are several people in the community or or several other people with lived experience online in the community, in the greater community who are addressing this. And I'm really, really glad that that's something. Either that's being talked about more or maybe I'm just becoming more aware of it, but I'm glad you are one of the safe people out there who who are, not just doing this in your own journey, but also educating others and supporting others too.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It was really hard to get sober, and I think there's, not a lot of understanding around how, being multiple or DID or plural can impact that. Yeah. What how would you how would you talk about that piece, just how multiplicity
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: impacts sobriety or or the journey for sobriety? I know that I've heard Jamie Marich talk about it some. Uh-huh. I know that Mar Lev talks about it on their podcast. What how would you explain that or talk about that?
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: Well, for us, I I think one of the things that made it difficult was that the person going to meetings was not the person who was, drinking. Our our kinda more work or school people were the ones that were working the steps. And so and we had a lot of denial around our alcoholism and they would the powerlessness with it. And but I think what was key for us was that the even though the person who, was going to the meetings and working the steps wasn't necessarily the one drinking. Once they started to get that they were also an like, the the body is alcoholic, that really made a big difference as far as us being able to maintain sobriety.
• 6:41
  And then also our own, our own like, I think I think our view might be a little different than some people because we do think that it is not just a trauma reaction, but that we have a physiological, makeup around it. But that, I think that trauma sets the body up for that, especially if you have a a fawny not fawny, but a, like, tonic immobility or freeze response during the trauma, that that can set the body up to be when I had my first drink, it was like I'd been drinking a lot longer because my body had those chemicals is my kinda theory.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: I think that what you're saying is really valid. There's so much that happens in the dissociative process with natural cannabinoids and everything else that, your body, all our bodies, like, I mean, all people, when we go through trauma, we are already producing some of those chemicals naturally. So when, like you said, when the trauma responses in the moment even include some of those chemicals, then that makes sense that it really I like how you phrased it. Sets the body up for, those physiological responses already being familiar. Uh-huh.
• 8:03
  And it it also opens up some space for more compassion too where, again, whether we're talking about sobriety or whether we're talking about dissociation, that these are not necessarily even, like, behavior problems or some of the things that comes in with shame sometimes or or, I mean, from other people putting that on us when it is neurobiological responses, even though as part of caring for ourselves, that absolutely includes behavioral
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Intentionality. I don't even know what are the right words to say. But I love also what you're sharing, about the process of recognizing amongst parts different ones being involved in the process in different ways. I I don't wanna appropriate that, but I think it also applies to all of us even just in therapy recovery
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: For dissociation of so many of us parts of us are really good at research or parts of us are really good at learning left brain. But, other parts that are still experiencing that not actually having access to that information.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And what's interesting is the that the and and it took me decades to figure this out, that the the once the people who were working the steps, once they really got the powerlessness and I think that's the other part that if you're not an alcoholic, that it I mean, if you haven't I'll rephrase that. If you haven't struggled with addiction of different kinds, you don't really understand the powerlessness part. And once they started to get the powerlessness, that was somehow able to translate through the system, to where we were able to maintain sobriety. We struggled with a lot of other other, not a lot, but some other, difficulties that were dangerous.
• 10:09
  And and it took it took a long time for us to get more stable. But definitely finding a therapist who was able to, give us a diagnosis and start to work with different people helping us within our communication and talking to each other and all of that made a huge difference.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: This that that's really another layer that translates to trauma and dissociation as well because when things have happened to us, there's powerlessness in trauma that, I think is is a place where there's some parallel denial in that of, well, it happened to another person of me or it happened to another one of us. And so, like, I can control things or I can protect myself from things even though those things happen when we were so little or so long ago. And, again, not, not speaking over the addiction aspect or the importance of powerlessness there, but learning from it and applying it. Does that make sense?
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's interesting mechanisms, for lack of a better word, that we use to not realize we were an alcoholic because if we're an alcoholic, we would have to stop drinking, and that would that was a major way we were coping. Those same mechanisms have been like, we use them to deny our our DID or deny the history of abuse or deny being a lesbian or like, it's like this thing that worked, but we used it in all these other contexts. And it's been a every single one of those has been a huge, like, ten year process, to be like, no. This happened.
• 12:15
  This is a problem. This is who I am. How do I live more authentically in the world and get my needs met around these different, points of demographic or identities or, I mean, different aspects of who who we are and what we're needing.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I was just talking with Katie Keach about this a couple weeks ago, about the the application sort of again, not not to take from, but to learn from neurodivergence communities and masking and how we do that in these other areas, whether that's religious trauma or dissociation or trying to be, more singular than we are or in the LGBT community, like, all these different showings up of masking. What did what did that what does masking look like in addiction?
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: For us, we masked it really well and that all of our drinking was completely hidden. To give you an example, when we started going to AA, we told our housemate we're, like, I have a problem with alcohol. I'm gonna start going to AA. And she said, I didn't even know you drank, because we we were a binge a binge drinker, and that was one way that we denied that it was a problem because we didn't drink every day. And so she was like, well, how do you get it in the house?
• 13:50
  And I'm like, I put it in my backpack and take it to my room. Like, and people just didn't see it, didn't recognize it. And so we also didn't see it and recognize it. But when we when we drank, we we drank until we passed out. Like, that was the goal.
• 14:10
  But we did it alone. We did it, when people weren't gonna be able to know.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: So in the context of dissociation and self knowing and not knowing, what is it like for you right now even sharing that piece of your story and being aware of it as opposed to dissociating that piece too.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because I didn't realize
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I was gonna be sharing, like, this was the thing. So one of the things I
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: was thinking about when I was thinking about the podcast, It's just we've done so much work on it. And and then also, like, being a person in recovery has, in a lot of ways, become a part of our identity to where we I mean, we have fourteen and a half years sober, so it's been a long journey of, starting to recognize those things. And I worked with a sponsor who, we went line by line through, some of the literature, and I spent eight months on step one. Just step one being, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives were unmanageable. And it it was really, really difficult, for me to be able to to see that.
• 15:44
  Even even when I was in in house treatment, I, was struggling with denial, and people were like, well, why are you here? And I'm like, well, I don't know. Don't have a problem drinking, but I, you know, can't stop. And it it was really dangerous because of some of the ways that it interacted with suicidality. They've got to at first, it saved us from that, but then it got to be really dangerous.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I think that that's I didn't expect to be discussing this either, but that that's a really important piece where whether it's dissociation or addiction or or anything else that leaves us more vulnerable or or less aware of, I don't know, the implications of our own experience actually making us more vulnerable and higher risk while literally not being aware of it.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. Yeah. And I also started drinking late. Like, I didn't start drinking until I was 23, which I I think this gets getting into some of my my other history that I don't always talk about, which is, I was in bible college before that and graduated when I was 23. And I think that, I bible college was unlike for a lot of people.
• 17:16
  It was kind of a safe place for me, even though I can't come out of some religious trauma and some similar, homeschool program, the the Belvoir homeschool program and some of that. But my bible college was a safe place, and so then I started remembering stuff. But because I was, committed to following the contract I had signed, I didn't start drinking until the summer that I, graduated. And then that also ended up coinciding with moving and and go starting to go to, graduate school and starting to come to terms with my with, being lesbian and liking women, and that really being a wedge in my, connection to God, I think, in my higher power. And and and the way that it's the way that it's complicated and and so I started drinking, when I and drinking fulfilled like, a lot of people say you need a spiritual experience to overcome alcoholism.
• 18:32
  I'm like, why didn't I drink before? And it's because I had some spiritual connections that that, for some reason, I was able to keep despite my trauma. And then when I started to come out to myself was that was when I really started drinking.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: It is a hard thing, I think, when we start coming out to ourselves to then squeeze back into what we were not being before. It's it Yeah. It doesn't
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: it you can't go backwards. Work. It's yeah. Yeah.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: I think I've also talked about I love what you just said about this intersectionality with religious trauma that I know we've talked about this in the past some privately, but that we kinda have some shared experiences in that way. And I've talked with my friend, Elle, who was on the podcast a couple years ago about what happened to us in college. Mhmm. But even in talking with her, we have said the same thing that it's really ironic that in some ways, college was a very safe place, that Yeah. Both things are true.
• 19:45
  There is a lot of trauma that came out of that. And, also, because of the confined environment and the very strictness of everything, there was, like, this bubble that we were in, like a cocoon of some
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: How and part of what was traumatic is that, you know, you know, like, they say with butterflies, if you see a cocoon, don't help them out because it's how they get strong so they can survive. Yeah. With bible college, part of what is traumatizing, I think, is that, at least in my experience, is that they are telling you when to come out of the cocoon and what that's supposed to look like.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean the cocoon doesn't feel safe or cozy or better than where we came from.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I I think that the, I have mixed feelings about Bible college. It was where I started remembering stuff, and it was kind of the first time in my that I really started to feel and connect with support. I started therapy there. The dorms felt very, because men weren't allowed into the dorms, and so that felt safe to me in a in a way.
• 21:07
  Yeah. So it's it's kinda but then also now I'm realizing some of the impact of some of the strictness of the rules, especially around things like dancing or sexuality or or, just some of some of those things where I'm like, oh, this is a whole area of my life that I am cut off from and need healing around.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. I have had the same experience or or similarly in that it felt like a respite from some of the traumas I had had thus far, and it felt like a, a relief that, okay, It's good that most of the time, like, no one's beating me up here. No one's, like, invading me most of the time. Right?
• 21:58
  Like, there's some specific things that happen, but, generally, that's the benefit of being that locked down. Uh-huh. But, again, with that cocoon and other people defining what that looks like and what your timing looks like, there are some serious, developmental delays or gaps that kind of happen as a side effect. Does that make sense?
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I I was I've been this has really been coming up in interesting ways lately just that I have and I'm sharing a lot here, so I don't know. Just that I have not had a partnership or dating relationship, and that how many things go into that. At the same time, that has been very safe for me. I have not had some of the trauma and reenactments that a lot of what I see in here, but also none of the good has gotten in either.
• 22:55
  And so it's like the impact of that isn't I don't think it's often talked about. I don't I don't know very many people that have that experience, of just the level of lack of experience. And so this is all coming up right, to be healed.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, right. I think I think that that's part of the context I was in with Nathan where I feel like that church sort of appropriated that vulnerability in me. And, okay. Look.
• 23:32
  Here's how I'm supposed to do it right, and at least this is safe enough to do it right. But none of the doing it right had to do with being me.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: And so even though he was safe and good and kind, which is all lovely, that was not the same as like, I would it was still reenactment.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: And sometimes those missed experiences or not getting to share or practice safely with someone become the reenactment not of trauma, but of deprivation of the good that's missing. Does that make sense?
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And, and then when that starts to come back online, it's like you're you're still 11 years old. Like, it's like, how do you even, like, go where do you even go from there?
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Like It's so hard. And not just in dating, although, especially with purity culture, that's absolutely like, sexual development is part of what is impacted, a huge piece of what is impacted.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: But even socially, like, I still am so awkward and get it wrong. And even when I try to be intentional or think I know what's going on or understand or making my choices, like, it takes me so long sometimes to know, okay. This is what I'm choosing or here's why I like, I have to be
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: so intentional
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: because for so many years, everyone else told me what I was deciding.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. Yeah. The social stuff of being homeschooled, I think. And then and then I'm like, I'm 44 years old. Shouldn't I have caught up to this right now?
• 25:21
  Like, what what the heck? Like, I don't know how to have friends. Like or or I don't know how to let in the friendship because I can, have friends, and I'm good at surface friendship from, you know, learning how to interact with a lot of adults at a very young age, but not having a peer group. Right. Yes.
• 25:39
  And so it's really, like, like, even just going to Healing Together and then, for the first time in person was just completely overwhelming in ways I was not expecting at all. See. See. Because of some of the social stuff that, yeah. It's like, I I don't know.
• 26:02
  I'm for I I'm forming relationships that are deeper, and now they're real people. They're not just on a screen. Yeah. So it's like, I trying to figure out how to navigate all that.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: I have
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: And then you mess up, and then it's like, oh, is is that person gonna be gone forever because I messed up? Right. Sorry. I interrupted you. You were gonna say something.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: No. Just the same that I felt the same experiences. And, I know that even trying to navigate places that are supposed to be safe and people who are supposed to understand because we have these shared experiences. I still, at the same time, have these feelings of but I can't do whatever it is you're doing. Like, I'm aware I'm pointing to, like, imaginary people out in the horizon.
• 27:00
  Yeah. But, like, whatever it is you're doing and whether we call it socializing or or No. Or even the advocacy community, I'm like, I don't know how to do that thing, whatever this is. Yeah. And it's weird because in, like, religious trauma context, I feel like I can't do that thing either.
• 27:23
  Even before I had words for, like, spiritual abuse or religious trauma or things like that, shiny happy. Like, I just knew this feeling of I can't be what you all are being. Okay. I can't make that work in me. Now I understand, oh, religious trauma and, oh, gay and all the things.
• 27:44
  But I feel the same thing sometimes socially, whether it's the system speak community or the greater community of whatever you all seem to be doing so well and even enjoying is really hard for me still.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's also growing up in a culture. It's like growing up in a different country that no one around you has any context for. Yes. And it's like and then I've met, like, I I've, hearing I don't know how much we've I don't think we've really directly talked about it with each other, but hearing you on the podcast and then a a new friend that I've met, it's like, oh, you grew up in the same country that nobody else I've ever met has ever been to.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Right. Right.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: And that's overwhelming. And that whole other experience of, like, oh, somebody gets this. Somebody knows these references, like, the cultural references that nobody knows.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Right. It's like the whole language and culture in and of itself.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's different to come out of it. I mean, there are people who are still in it, but don't get the trauma pieces. Right. So it's it's like yeah.
• 29:12
  It's it's complicated.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think something that is unique to religious trauma is that it violates your sense of community Mhmm. So that if you leave, you don't know how to replace that community.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, community becomes its own activating experience where it's really tricksy. So, like, I was talking about this, I don't know, the last couple weeks in a in several different interviews. I think with Katie, I think, with the system that was just on this week where Mhmm. When everything went down last year, and I don't mean to get get into that, but just in response to that. When everything went down online last year in the community and Katie was on talking about the refractory that's gonna air in a couple weeks, Like, I was in the middle of religious trauma work in therapy and recognizing, wow.
• 30:19
  So not only was shiny happy more of a problem than I realized, but also where I landed because of that also fits that whole cult pattern even though I'm just trying to be good and I'm just trying to find my way. So I have to get out of that. So, like, the refractory started in this whole context of me being like, I can't join things right now.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. That totally makes sense. Yeah.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Right? And I was talking about to Katie about it, who was very gracious and understanding, but, like, of it's not that that was bad, or that being online is bad, or that, like, even the system speak community was bad. It's that how do you commit yourself to a group of people when it feels like to the core of my heart, you are my people? Uh-huh. And also, oh, having people is dangerous.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I'm kinda dealing with some of this right now. Well,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: okay. I have two two two what what part
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: of me is, like, the cofounding and being a moderator with the Retractory and and the ways I was working to try to make that as safe as I could because it and just in the context of what was going on for me at the time and some personal healing revelations I was having about some trauma that I wasn't aware of that happened a year ago that's now, like, surfacing in a whole way that's totally throwing me. But that having founded Multifaceted Journeys has been incredibly triggering and,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: because
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: I was so scared that I was gonna start some kind of cult, that I was gonna recreate something that I had been in. And and I'm still dealing with that. Like, right right now with it, it's become a church. And and right now, like, we have a committee that's working on, like, getting me ordained and the requirements, the ministry requirements for that. I can't even fill out the the, like, list of things that I've done because I don't want to be my dad who is a pastor.
• 32:48
  Like, I don't want to, like, recreate. And so that is just, like, totally throwing me in ways that I ain't even, like, realize even though people give me feedback that I'm not creating you know, that even though I've done everything I can to try to safe put safeguards it.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: I think you bring up a really valid point, and it's something I have to continually walk through of I am in no space of leadership other than starting the, like, here's this space for us to share. But we're transparent about things, and people vote and give feedback on things. And it's not just about what I want. It's about what are we creating. And three, then it being a board and not me at all.
• 33:41
  And Yeah. Like, those kinds of things. And then, also, I literally have to walk through the steps of that same thing of, like, also people can come and go as they want, and people can do this or that. But other times, it's really hard, like, when this is this is more pragmatic, and we can take it out if you don't want it in. But Okay.
• 34:08
  But, even things like on the first platform we were on, like, there was so much I couldn't control because it was just it was automated through their service. So moving to my own, like, our own platform where when stuff happens, we can talk about it instead of being automated. Because the first platform was, like, automating moderation or censorship or something, and I know that impacted you, and I'm so sorry. And, also, we need to be able to be vulnerable and human with each other. And being able to repair those things is part of our healing, repair those things is part of our healing collectively and individually, and I couldn't do that on a platform where I literally couldn't fix anything.
• 34:57
  And do you know what's funny? What ultimately happened is it even flagged me because I posted too many things, and it kicked me out for being a spammer. And I could not get back into my own community.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, when that was all going down, I got kicked out, like, three times. And it just played into some of my middle school trauma, some of my not belonging, some of my and then it it just got to a point where I was like, I cannot put my system through this. Absolutely.
• 35:31
  I cannot keep and and I kept coming back and I kept trying. And then and then I didn't know where we were at, and then, like, we tried to connect, and then both ended up standing up on each other on accident because I didn't get the link. And you were waiting for me, and it was just like a perfect storm of, like and so I've not talked to you since then.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Well and I feel like the the system that was on this week for the podcast talked about this. But also a side effect of everything that happened with the online drama last year and the the video and everything, a side effect of that was that most all of us who were in any way impacted by that, even by association, got so thrown off in therapy that it took, like, months just to get back to where we were working on. So the same time this was happening with you and me, the online video stuff happened. Yeah. The I was dealing with religious trauma.
• 36:36
  I was also coming out about my sexuality and talking about Nathan. Like, what are we gonna do about this legally? How we just need to put it on paper. What is that gonna look like? Like, everything at once.
• 36:49
  And I basically was like, I just can't. I just can't. And I was done. Not with people, not with myself, not, like, giving up on life, although that would have been easy. Right?
• 37:02
  So, oh my goodness, it was so intense and so much was happening all at once. I think that's one of the unspoken, although now we're speaking it, but one of the impacts of what happened last year that people who were not involved don't understand how it literally cost all of us a year of our lives.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then, I mean, that was on the heels of me losing my therapist. So my therapist was quitting on me. And then shortly after the whole thing with, the system speak platform, I had a really close friend, stop basically in the friendship. And it was just like,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: I can't do this. This is too bad.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: You know? Like, all my all my stuff is just completely getting shaken up. It's been I mean, at the same time, I've found I've gotten a couple in person friends that have, stayed and that are now because I'm really struggling since coming back from the conference and some new trauma stuff coming up that a new category of trauma stuff coming up. And having friends that are, like, gonna call me or go for a walk or be like, what do you need? Like, that's a new experience for me.
• 38:35
  And then picking up some of the pieces, like reconnecting with you or resolving things and being, like, just learning that you can have stuff happen and you can resolve conflict and you can work through things.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. I think both healing together and meeting people in person and healing from whatever people's online community is, one of the benefits is gaining skills that start to translate to in person differently Mhmm. Yeah. If it's not always closed locally.
• 39:16
  And it gives new opportunities for a whole new kind of connection, which is both healing and activating because it brings up new layers ready for healing. Right? So it's still hard.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: It it was so hard. I
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: I could
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: not believe how many things and not things I was expecting came up, including reconnecting with, like, the first girl, one of the only people I ever had a sexual relationship with, contacted me at the conference. And I was like, oh, I haven't talked to you in fifteen years. I was just like, what? Wow. It was just, like, so much stuff.
• 39:58
  Just, like, here you go.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. That's so intense.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: I was like, I didn't even recognize her or know who she was. And and then we've we've sent since met up and talked and and and stuff and and, you know, reflected on how where we were. But it was just like like, all of this stuff just came up in ways that I was not expecting at all.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Wow. Wow. And and that's the other thing that's hard about in person or even the, like, Zoom meetings or whatever platform you use for, like, not telehealth, but with friends, like video meetings. Mom. Like Mhmm.
• 40:49
  That's the other thing is when it's happening in real time
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: You're on your toes of learning how to stay present and also deal with things.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, the thing the thing that happened one of the things about being in person was it was, like, suddenly, we're all actually in bodies. Like, before, we're, like, avatars on screens, and now we're, like, real people next to each other, navigating a physical space together, which I've never had the experience where I was meeting so many people that I had known for years for the first time in person. Right. And so it was really, like, it was really good, and and it was really powerful.
• 41:42
  And it was like, oh, I'm part of a community, and this is real. These are people. And I have all these people that care for and then because I fundraise, I did not have money to go because people gave me money to go. That brought up a whole other kind of, people care about me, like, connection that was overwhelming.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: It is. And it's also that evidence of people in my life are staying even when that is not always smooth. Like, we are literally learning together. Like, in the beginning, it's like, oh, look. We have these shared experiences, so we can share this moment together.
• 42:24
  But over time, even with rupture and repair, it's like, oh, no. We're literally learning together. That's why it's hard sometimes. Yeah. And, also, that staying is everything.
• 42:38
  Mhmm.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: So how does this I wanna make sure we talk about your, nonprofit. How does all of this translate for you into what you're offering? Can you tell us about multifaceted journey a little bit?
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So what do I wanna say about that? So I offer, several groups. They are not all, specific to, people who are plural, but right but they are most of them are, that because that's that's who has wanted and needed the group so much the most. So feeling a little lost with how to talk about this.
• 43:25
  So I offer so the mostly, it's it's, groups for people who are wanting to, like, live more authentic lives and have more, the the word I've used is sovereignty, like like personal choice and how to, do that. So so that there's a crossover there that anybody can come to. Some some of the groups that I've done, like, mental health advanced directives, coaching of helping people have support to fill out those documents and look at, like, what do you actually want, what's actually something that you where do you want help, where do you not. Or, the other one is, living your purpose, which is a a course where people get to come and practice a a skill or a gift and get, feedback on it. And we talk about, you know, what it's like to be out in the world and some of the problem difficulties with that.
• 44:26
  These are the ones that are more for for anybody. And then there's one called navigating differences that's all about, like, how do I keep my boundaries and be have empathy for somebody who has a completely different view than me, and we do a lot of role plays in that. And then, the ones that for people who are are plural, we have a topic based support group, a plural providers group, that has been closed. I open it every once in a while, and I might add another section. I also have I want to build really want to build the in person plural groups, which is very, very slow.
• 45:06
  A lot of this is very, very slow building, but that's okay because I'm still getting the foundation together. So I have an in person plural walking group and in person plural art group, And then I also have a reclaiming spirituality, which is about, just the stuff we've been talking about on this podcast. Like, how do I find my own spirituality if I've been through spiritual trauma? And that that one's plural specific. Internal parenting, we have an art group.
• 45:40
  And and about most of them are online. I have a fiction writing group that's open to anybody. What else? A parenting thing, sleep coaching, a a twelve week series called life compass, calibration where it's all about, like, what is what's gonna work best for you. We talk about sleep and eating and a little bit of the mental health advance directives in there.
• 46:12
  And how I work is, if somebody I I base all of the well, maybe I'll stop there. Let me ask you if you have any questions, and then I'll tell you the other part.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Well, I just wanna vouch for you that I have known you for a really long time and that even through, like, the intense drama of the pandemic, like, I mean, politically in our country, that even when you and I had different focuses or understandings of things or other differences, I I I always felt like you were respectful. Uh-huh. And, like, I know during the pandemic, I was so focused on being careful about things because of my daughter. But do you have compassion on that? Even though when you also had other information of, like, and also think about this and also think about that.
• 47:12
  And so I just wanna vouch for that in that class that you mentioned, that you're someone who really can live that as a principal in life. And I also think that there are some of those classes that I even really need to take, but I also am avoiding those topics. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's hard, but I just wanna make sure that, I mean, listeners can decide for themselves, like, what resources to use, and I know that.
• 47:40
  But I just wanna say that you're someone I've really known for a long time and appreciate.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, thank you so much for saying that. The navigating differences course started as and I'm always hesitant about how much to talk about my experiences with the lockdowns. It's goes really deep, and it's really a lot for me, and it feels really vulnerable for me to share my views on that. But the navigating differences came out of that to, like, how do we be in relationship with people who
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: see
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: things differently? How do we respect our own view and boundaries and what's okay for us and also have empathy and consent and respect? And, that's a big part of, you know, my values and what's important to me and learning how to be in that cross section Absolutely. When they don't align. And and I've grown up you know, growing up lesbian in the church and then growing up in having some conservative youth in a very liberal place.
• 48:55
  Like, my experience my entire life, I have never met one person that agrees with me on everything. And and I'm talking about major issues. I'm not talking about, like, different you know? And so I I feel like I've in some ways, it makes it so I can go anywhere. And in some ways, it makes it so I belong nowhere.
• 49:17
  So I I so I I guess I tried to, like, create a community where we don't have to agree on everything, but we can have respect and empathy and compassion for and honor those differences.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: That's something we're doing with System Speak too with, brave spaces and how to honor each other's differences but with civility. And what you just said actually reminded me of the Chrises. And one of the things I learned from their groups was about, like, how things on the outside reflect what's happening on the inside. Yeah. And if I can't get along with the people around me in a compassionate and civil way, then it means I'm not doing that with my internal system either.
• 50:04
  If I can't advocate strongly and boldly, but also compassionately and kindly, then that's how I'm treating myself inside as well. Mhmm. And so I think these skills that you're teaching are skills that not only fall into some of those developmental gaps that we all experience because of trauma and deprivation, but also Wow. Or and also. I'm trying to say and also.
• 50:32
  Yeah. And also, I think they apply internally in ways that we really, really need.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That the navigating differences course is, I mean, I think I expounded it onto into the my, the therapist compass calibration, which is just the role plays that that a lot of this stuff, you need the practice in a safe environment in order to be able to learn the skill. And role plays are terrifying. People hate role plays. But they they bring light to, to so much stuff where you think, oh, yeah.
• 51:15
  I can I can be with empathy with this person that I disagree with? And then you go into a role playing, you realize, oh, I totally shut down, or I totally, you know, wasn't able to do that.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: I see I I think that's so powerful. I know that. Last year, I just took a respite completely from doing interviews with anybody for the podcast. Like, I just stopped completely and took months and months and months off after all this stuff happened online because it was like there was so much contention in the air everywhere I turned. I thought, I'm not safe anywhere.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: And even though that was not necessarily entirely true, there was nothing happening me internally that I knew where I could take it externally. And Yeah. So it wasn't until I finally, after all these years, finally had a new therapist that I could also stay with and who was staying with me Mhmm. And had them long enough to get some stability under my feet again before I was like, okay. I need to pick up where I left off, which is all these relationships from a year ago.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. I I can sympathize with you more now having, started the therapist interrupted podcast. And I don't have that many views.
• 52:47
  I mean, I don't know context about how many views people have, but but it is terrifying. Like, I had a little piece of self disclosure of current struggle, in the the episode I did with Annie Goldsmith on eating disorders and DID awareness. And it it was really it was really scary. Like, and and, like, even talking on your on your podcast, it feels a little different because it's not my own platform. So, yeah, putting yourself out in the world in a vulnerable, authentic way can be really a lot.
• 53:22
  And then when that when you see the impact and I know you've talked a lot about some of the impact of that. And I'm terrified. I'm like, let's just have this thing grow slow. Like, let's just not be seen, but put this out in this way.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Right. It's really, really tricky, the pacing of things. So we can put links to your podcast and your nonprofit. We can put it links in the show notes. But is there anything else about either one?
• 53:54
  You can email us those, and we'll get them in there. Is is there anything else about either one that you wanted to share?
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: Well, what I was gonna share about the, the, community I started was and I don't there's some internal disagreement of whether or not this is is important. But it kinda speaks to the power of choice, which is how I set stuff up is around what I would call a point person. So I, like if somebody wants something, and then I meet with them and talk with them and, like, say they want an in person group, then I will do it in person. If they want it or they want it online, then I do it online. So, like, it's a way I found to try to meet, conflicting needs or different teen different needs, where I'm able to, like, really kinda center, like, a a person's needs and then do a different group for a different but, so that it was camp coming to mind.
• 54:59
  The podcast is, therapist interrupted, and I started it originally to highlight stories of people who went to school to become a therapist and then, didn't make it all the way or change their minds and to bring awareness to just different journeys and also the that you're still valid. Like, that's something I've struggled with a lot of I failed. I didn't get my license. And so bringing awareness to, like, your purpose in life and what you're bringing to the world, whether you are on disability or whether you are doing something completely different. And then now I'm expanding that to therapists who have shifted their, way of working to be more, dissociation informed and inclusive in those ways and bringing awareness to different kinds of intersections.
• 56:06
  So those are and then I also have a sub stack where I put articles, but my sub stack has really gotten neglected because of the podcast. Podcasts take a ton of work. They take I don't know how you do it. They take so much. It does.
• 56:21
  Right? It takes so many hours. I'm like, why does it take me three hours to write show notes? Like, I don't even edit. I'm like
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: It's epic, and a podcast really, really can take some time.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it gets better the more you do it because of the tech. But now I gotta learn all new tech because I was using Spotify, and now I gotta use a different program, in June. So I'm just like, oh my gosh. I just I just do the show notes and some trigger warnings and put the links in, and that takes me, like, three hours. You're just kinda like in a title, you know, coming up with a title.
• 57:00
  Like, I have to listen to it, like, three times to do a brief summary and a title.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Well done. Well done. Anything else that you wanted to share today before I let you go?
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: Not that I'm I'm thinking of right now. Just if if people are interested in anything I'm doing to reach out. There is a a process, to joining multifaceted journeys that includes an hour, meeting with me and talking with me where I kinda explain all of it and, just try to make sure people know what they're getting into or what it is. So, yeah, people can reach out.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. I am so glad to talk to you today. Also, Jules says hello.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, hi, Jules. I miss you.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Aw. She is at work right now, but she told me to say hello.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah. I miss them.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm just I'm just feeling the relief of finally getting to talk to you and reconnect. And thank you for being you. Thank you for what you're doing in the world, and, we are happy to support your projects.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Alright. Thank you so much. It's really good to reconnect with you as well.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: 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.systemspeak.com. We'll see you there.