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Turbulence · 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. We are so glad you're here.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: I often think of our chickens. I miss them even if I'm also aware that I idealize that time we spent in the country during the pandemic. But the chickens were sweet, and ours were particularly cuddly. And they were delightful to watch as they would run and play and peck for food. They were my friends in a season of grief, and I think of them often even between getting pictures of them in their home where they live now, happy and free.
• 2:27
  I cannot help but think of it as we have started therapy again and feel ourselves squished back into a cocoon where I want to wrestle and fly free, but no one can help me because it's my work to do, learning how to fly, which maybe is more than a chicken can do. But I think of a little chick inside the egg, maybe even cozy where it's growing. But at some point, it has to come out, and it's ugly and messy when it does. But it's a new creature then with a whole world waiting for it. There are things I have learned since that first top 10.
• 3:44
  Things like every relationship has to be one on one just as much as every relationship requires both people participating. I have learned that I don't have to compromise my boundaries to deal with someone else. I have learned that every person deserves a respectful working relationship. I have learned that I do not have to take responsibility for other people's choices. I have learned that I am not responsible for other people's feelings.
• 4:43
  I have learned that my life choices are not anyone else's decision. I have learned that it's never a wrong decision to give love. I have learned that we are all of things in us, made of the things in us, even dark and light, and we are still good. We are still worthy. We still matter, and our voice matters.
• 5:28
  Your voice matters even when it is different from mine. I have learned that pride is a consciousness of one's own dignity, the understanding that I am worthwhile and I am worth something. I have learned that pride is a rejection of shame. And with that, everything has changed. In the past, I felt safe when fawning worked because it would prevent me from being harmed if I could be good enough.
• 6:27
  But I was not perfect, and fawning was not real, and so it did not work forever. And then I was in crisis because my bad parts were no longer safe. We could not fail not fawning. To fail fawning meant death. So when I started to be real or vulnerable from unfawning, it felt like suicidality.
• 7:12
  But in a relationship that is real and vulnerable, It does not always feel safe even when it actually is because real and vulnerable feels terrifying. But the evidence is that we are safe for each other, even for hard conversations, when love is real. Love can mean dating or romantic relationships, but it can also mean safe friendship, healthy friendship, healthy relationships. And when love is real, we are safe for each other even when triggered. When love is real, we are safe for each other even when experiencing turbulence, like the new pink song lyrics.
• 8:25
  When love is real, we are safe when you see parts I don't yet know how to acknowledge. When love is real, we are safe even when I experience passive influence and struggle with going in circles in my head trying to figure out what I want or need. When love is real, we are safe even when I have big feelings because of grief and frustration that trauma invades and impacts everything. When love is real, we are safe even when all of that is exhausting. When she we I interviewed Steve Gold.
• 9:23
  He talked about there not being a mirror because of Trauma and Dissociation Deprivation. And that because of there being no mirror, we have no sense of self. But Joanne Twombly told us in her interview that self has always been there. So I think it means that self is there. We just can't see it because of trauma and deprivation and dissociation.
• 10:00
  We can't see it because of suicidality when it's too dark to see a mirror. We can't see it because no one ever turned on the lights. So then someone like the husband comes along, and it's like a safe object, like a teddy bear or a baby blanket, which is great. It's more good than nothing, but it's still not turning on the lights. But when your soul is filled with love and care is experienced consistently, it is like someone opening the blinds and the light pouring in.
• 10:57
  And that sounds super sappy and adorable, like a beautiful metaphor. And it is. And that's true. But it's also really rough, and it's hard because now I can see all these things in myself that I didn't know were there. I can see the damage that trauma has caused.
• 11:25
  I can see the bruises from the impact, and I'm not used to the light. It still stings. Being seen is hard. Being noticed is worse. Receiving care is brutal.
• 11:49
  Communicating what I need is terrifying, and then having those needs met is dysregulating, but in a turbulence kind of way. Like, the window is open and fresh air is blowing through, except I'm a mess and naked and raw from deprivation, so it is shocking to my system, but still in a turbulent way. The lyrics to the pink song say, you can't help when your stomach sinks, see your life happen in a flash. In your head, it could be so real that you almost feel the crash. The panic is temporary, but I'll be permanent.
• 12:48
  So when it hits, don't forget. As scary as it gets, it's just turbulence. Close your eyes. Pretend you're driving on a bumpy road at night. You can meet me in the corners of your mind.
• 13:05
  We can build a new cloud nine. If you're alive, then it means that you're committed to survive. That's enough to drain the life from you sometimes, but hold on tight. You can't help when your stomach sinks. See your life happen in a flash.
• 13:27
  In your head, it could be so real that you almost feel the crash. The panic is temporary, but I'll be permanent. So when it hits, don't forget. As scary as it gets, it's just turbulence. Lately, because of my work and for the children, I have been on all these airplane flights, and turbulence can be scary, but my plane still keeps moving forward.
• 14:03
  The relationships of the last year are something I have never experienced before, And the hard conversations, like about my children or where I need to live or what my life is going to look like and all the trauma and therapy things. It's so hard that it's always in the way, that trauma, that there is always turbulence. But we are going somewhere new. In that podcast interview, she said self is blended with a part of you, like passive influence. And I realized that metaphor about parts all in the car and who is the one driving.
• 14:52
  I realized I am the car. I am this stupid car. That's what self is. I finally understand it. I am the ship.
• 15:03
  I am the car. That is my self. Joanne Twombly also talked about survivors intuitively picking up on feelings in others, and that gets really overwhelming to me sometimes. It's not enmeshment. It's noticing and tending.
• 15:28
  But the noticing and tending too freaks us out when someone else does it for us. And I think it's a trigger even if a positive one. Maybe even complicated with triggers and layers of triggers. There's the layer of being noticed at all, which feels dangerous, and there's the layer of my wall of dissociation being knocked down faster than we can tolerate, like too much light, too bright, too fast, too soon, too early. She talked about exiles, and I have exiled myself.
• 16:12
  When you notice me, it feels like I have been caught. It feels like I am supposed to keep the lights off. So it is scary to see the light coming in, and there is a bit of panic or a lot of panic. It feels like I will be in trouble for letting the light in. I don't yet know who I am in trouble with.
• 16:39
  My parents from memory time. But they are dead and cannot hurt me now, and I could not disappoint them further. So who am I in trouble with? God? Any concept I have of God isn't one just waiting to punish me.
• 17:07
  That's religious trauma. Right? So who is doing the punishing? Me? Part of me?
• 17:20
  Have I been playing god this whole time? Am I Dante? What kind of space would Dante need to start to feel safe? What kind of space do I need to start to feel safe with Dante? What control and choices did we not have before?
• 17:47
  What control and choices do I have for healing now? What am I managing to think? I don't have needs, and what needs do I really have after all? I talked about this with the husband. Who knows the story of Dante and the inferno?
• 18:15
  He asked me in reply, what if you are Virgil, leading yourself to the paradise that is also you? What if you are paradise? What if therapy is the process of traveling down but not being engulfed until you come out whole on the other side. And then he pointed out that in the story of Dante, the lowest hell was for betrayers. That is relational trauma.
• 18:59
  When we talked with our friend Laura Brown, she said anger is information that something is wrong, and sadness is information that something was lost. And joy is information that something is right. How do I move from Dante to Joy? I got the book that Laura recommended called and then I met this woman by Barbrie Cassingham and Sally O'Neill. I've not gotten to read it yet, but I skimped through to see what it looked like.
• 19:55
  And each chapter is a different story of another woman coming to terms with who she is and what she wants and who she loves. That is joy. I have been reading a book called Queer Mormon Theology by Blair Osler. Learning how to see truth for truth rather than what others think it means. Broadening my perspective on what love is, on who God is, on who I might be.
• 20:47
  That is joy. And I have been reading the book, leaving the fold by Marlene Winell about fundamentalist religion and the struggle to leave and how much it hurts to try. That does not feel like joy, but setting myself free might. I have only read the first chapter so far and what it reminds me of more than the church I grew up in or the trauma of what happened to college or my struggles with where I've come from now. More than any of that, it reminds me of the trauma of leaving my family.
• 22:00
  Some quotes from leaving the fold. Extricating myself from their hold meant guilt and fear. But at the same time, there was a very urgent part of me insisting on breaking free to a more expansive way of living. The discovery of great joy is to permit unconditional love for yourself and others. As part of religious trauma, she had learned to attribute all of her emotional and family problems to issues of sin and repentance.
• 22:52
  She later realized that even though she had broken ties with the church and her family, her nightmares about being evil were related to those early messages. She had joined the church because it seemed to give her the order and sanity she wanted after a chaotic childhood in which she had to do the parenting of the family. However, she craved love for herself too and was devastated to recognize that she did not get unconditional acceptance there. The problem with dogma is the problem of rigid and high demand religions, those that hold their tenants to be more important than people to the point where people can be harmed. A dogmatic religion is one that does not truly honor the thoughts and feelings of the individual.
• 24:02
  It is also one that is static without room for development. Doubt is considered sinful, and contradicting information is screened out. The divine and sacred are seen as derived from outside with no recognition afforded to a person's inner resources of wisdom, strength, and love. A rigid religion fosters dependency on the external authorities and leaders for guidance in truth. A rigid religion erodes the natural contentment and confidence with which every child begins life and every healthy human being needs.
• 24:49
  Rigid religions in the world have caused great pain and conflict among people. The very nature of dogma is to separate because these kinds of systems claim to have the only truth. Therefore, no matter how altruistic its pronouncements, a rigid religion will produce judgment because there will always be others who believe differently. Judgment leads to discrimination and all too often to persecution. Dogma can never bring us together to understand each other and our shared humanity.
• 25:31
  The problem with dualistic thinking of good or bad and right and wrong is that we assume personal value must be earned and we compete ferociously. We attempt to master the earth and exploit it for our own purpose. We constantly rationalize the use of force, both in families and internationally. Although punishment and revenge have such negative consequences. We search outside ourselves for satisfaction, blaming and hating when it doesn't work.
• 26:13
  Christian fundamentalism results in disconnection from self, from other people, and from the world. And then the author says that to heal from all of this, to become whole, healthy, and self responsible, we must ask ourselves two questions, two difficult questions. What happened to us? And what happened to us because of that? She says the phases of recovery are separation, confusion, avoidance, feeling, and rebuilding, or what some call restructuring.
• 27:16
  She says that notions of who we were, our purpose in life, our relationships to others all need explanations about the world, interpretations of the past, expectations for the future, and directions about how to feel, think, make decisions, and lead our own lives are lost in these kinds of experiences. But it's also what we will get back as we heal. To make a real break, she says, you need to call a halt to life as you once knew it and create some space, a new direction for yourself. And that's when we come back to anger again. She says there may be rage over the damage done, life lost, negative self image, ignorance about the world and real life, guilt, and unnecessary suffering, the denial of pleasure, missing skills never developed, hurt relationships, spoiled and missed careers.
• 28:35
  And she adds, if you have parents who used religion to justify severe discipline or if you suffered actual abuse at the hands of church leaders, you could be very, very angry. Uncovering and grieving these losses will be key to releasing you from pain. It takes that restructuring to rediscover our self worth, to rejoin life on a different basis, to reconstruct perceptions and beliefs, to fully accept myself, to appreciate and love myself, and to learn about the kind of self esteem that does not depend on external approval, what we call fawning, being good to be safe. Healing also includes learning to appreciate our body, to enjoy sexuality, and to grow in what that means to me. She says your task in this area will be to build trust within yourself and the skills needed to deal with the world.
• 30:01
  She says fundamentalism splits everything into black and white, right and wrong, good or bad. You may have developed an unrelenting perfectionism as part of fawning. You will need to allow yourself to be human, to understand old messages about mistakes and shoulds and goods, and learn flexibility and compassion. But if you do this work, the result will be a much more relaxed and open way of being. Taking charge of your own life, she says, is central to recovery.
• 30:50
  You will need to reclaim your right to feel what you feel. Processing emotions for yourself and expressing them to others may also be areas we need to work on since we were probably taught to repress and deny our feelings. Life, she says, was meant to be enjoyed right here, right now. And Laura Brown said that joy means something is right.
• 31:48
  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.