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Transcript

Smore Nachos · 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
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: to the podcast. Thank you. I think it started on the way to the airport when I was driving to drop off half the family to go back to Oklahoma for school to start this week. We had a good visit. It was really lovely to spend time together.
• 1:28
  I stayed at my house. Nathan stayed at the Airbnb, but we all spent days together. And the Oklahoma kids stayed at my house with me so that we got time together, even one on one time together with the kids who don't live here and Nathan with the kids who don't live there. And it was really good. There were hard conversations, just growing up things and repairing things and tending to things, but good conversations.
• 2:14
  There were developmental conversations with the first puberty talk with our youngest, the middle kids getting the first talk. That was a sex talk beyond just puberty. And the triplets getting all the things from the usual sex talk they roll their eyes at now, making fun of quotes they heard in health class at school, to things like contraceptives and ethics and politics, to safe places to get help, and even adult things, like how next year is their last year visiting the pediatrician and what adult annual exams are like, As well as things like driving and car insurance and jobs and licenses, everyone is growing up so much. But on the way to the airport, the children saw a particular billboard that was advertising something that they asked questions about so that Nathan was explaining about ambulance chasers. And then an ambulance literally drove past us in another lane on the highway.
• 4:05
  So they were making ambulance jokes, not in a mocking or disrespectful way. But because with my youngest daughter, we've spent a lot of time with ambulances, which then turned into telling stories about those ambulance experiences. So I guess it was at the surface of my mind somehow, somewhere. But in therapy today but after the weekend with my family, I felt surprisingly settled. I grieved when they left, and I was sad to say goodbye because, of course, I love them and always miss them, the ones who aren't here.
• 5:07
  And, also, they're doing really well with the friends and activities they want there that aren't here. So I'm getting better at thinking outside the box and letting people choose what they want to choose and trusting the process and seeing more and more evidence that everything's okay. And then after that, when Jules was finally cleared of COVID and could come back to visit, I was so happy to see her. I cried. Not just dramatic tears, but, like, little tears.
• 5:59
  Little parts of me were happy to see her. I could feel that even though also I stayed present and didn't let those walls down all the way. It was progress to notice them, and it was interesting to feel them connecting with her. And she just hugged us for a long time, and it was tender and sweet. And we've had a good week together.
• 6:41
  So having gotten to see all the people that I love left me in a surprisingly calm place before therapy today. So that's what I said when I got there, that I feel surprisingly calm. Even game, I said, for something hard. Not avoiding, not dissociated, not trying to pick a fight or stir up problems, but just I feel safe enough and calm enough. Maybe today is a good day to talk about something that usually I can't or seems too hard or would push me over the edge.
• 7:44
  So today's the day, I said. And my therapist hopped out of her chair pretty quick to go get those little EMDR things I hold in my hands that vibrate and light up in alternating patterns. She said, we're still working on hurt and alone that you noticed when you broke your foot last year. And I said, I think we finished that. Aren't we through it?
• 8:24
  And she looked at me and laughed and said, we're never finished. But she was teasing because we had been tracking some threads that came out of that web of trauma, and it was time to go back to them today. So I held the little gray things in my hand, and we talked about my broken foot and the sound it made when it broke and the feeling hurt and alone in the garage just to see what else comes up or if there are other webs for us to look at before we look at other new things, she said. So going into it, I felt completely calm and safe and had no idea what would come up because I felt quite settled. So it was interesting to me to see what would work today, what would happen when it started.
• 9:48
  And when they started, I felt the vibrations in my hand, the pulses back and forth, and my eyes followed the green lights lighting up on each one back and forth and back and forth. And what came up was ambulances. First, the ambulance stories with Kiriye. And then and with more pulses and flashes, It went back further to sixth grade, fifth grade. That day, everything changed, that I don't wanna talk about here right now because privacy.
• 10:55
  But I've never talked about it in therapy before except for that time last year when I told her about the day or the evening that followed before my parents divorced, and things were never the same. And with more pulses and flashing lights, it was all the way back to the fire. And I talked about how before cochlear implants, I could feel an ambulance, but not hear one. I could see the flashing of the lights, but not hear the sirens. And with more pulses and flashing lights, My mind went back to when I was little, to the fire, and the sirens vibrating in my bones, and the lights flashing in the trees.
• 12:13
  Today was not a day to tell those stories in therapy, And my therapist said it was okay because someone wasn't ready yet, which somehow brought back that safe and settled feeling that I walked into, that I walked into therapy with. As if despite all of that, I was still safe enough. And so I did not talk about those stories or process the details of those stories. I could sit with them and reference them and answer some very general questions, And that felt amazing. I mean, the stories are unpleasant.
• 13:22
  The memories are worse, But I was okay enough and safe enough to sit with them, to sit in them, to stay connected to now time while talking about them. Even talking about not talking, the years of being mute, not because of my ears, but because I wouldn't speak or talk in any language, and why maybe that has mattered. And maybe that is part of why the podcast has been so important or speaking for ISSTD has been so important, or writing the memoir was so important. Because I needed to tell my story and my words with my voice on my own terms. It's maybe the first time I've ever done EMDR movements and didn't just cry the whole time or have big feelings the whole time.
• 15:06
  I did have feelings in the different stories, fear and panic, sometimes shame, but nothing was big or drowning me. It was like an undercurrent of peace in a way I don't know that I've ever experienced. Safe enough, connected enough, okay enough. Feeling more settled with the children coming back and forth as they need, feeling comforted somehow, relieved to see Nathan doing okay, even better, and more relaxed somehow. And after the last round of pulses and lights, what I said was that what I'm noticing is that I'm okay.
• 16:39
  I'm okay enough. I've made it to the other side. Things are better. This is my life as I fought for it and created it, and it's a beautiful thing. And now Jules is here to meet me in her car for lunch.
• 17:02
  That's perfect timing.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: Hi. Hi.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: It's so funny that you're here.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry. Is it bad?
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: No. It's wonderful. I'm so glad. I'm recording. I'm sorry.
• 17:19
  That's okay. I'm almost done. I was just talking about therapy, which I can tell you at lunch. It was really good, though. Good.
• 17:32
  But, also, can I show you something from last weekend? Always. This is off topic for people who are listening, like a pivot. I'm sorry. Pivot.
• 17:42
  I was about to be done. Like, I was gonna stop. But then no. It's okay. I saw you, and I wanna show you this.
• 17:49
  This is what I did with the kids.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow. It's that theme. I'll try to talk loud so they can hear me. Hi, everyone.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: I love you.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: I love you. I got you surprises. I'm so excited. Can I say one of them?
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: I got Teddy Grahams and baby marshmallows and milk chocolate chips so we can make s'more nachos.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Can I tell you something that you literally just said on the podcast Yeah? About how when you were clear from COVID, then you were able to come over. Mhmm. Like, I saw you, and I felt, like, littles. Like, I stayed present Mhmm.
• 18:37
  But I could feel Littles glad to see you and crying of relief somehow.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I feel that with you a lot too.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Mhmm.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: So I'm delighted we get to give them s'mores nachos tonight.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: S'mores nachos?
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: We'll see if it works.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Did you imagine this thing? Uh-huh.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: We talked about it last night.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: I don't remember that. Well, it wasn't you. Because there were things happening.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: But I felt bad because we talked about s'mores two nights in a row, and then we didn't have them. So I decided to make extra special, s'more nachos.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: That's adorable.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry to distract.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: No. I'm glad. I was really trying to, like, come out of therapy, Trent, and share because it was really fascinating. It was a very unique therapy experience for me today. Mhmm.
• 19:37
  So I was trying to share about that. And then it's so funny because we're here at taco time in the parking lot. Uh-huh. Gonna go get a 99¢ burrito? Uh-huh.
• 19:51
  It's like a therapy. I can feel I'm having a Littles issue, and it makes me a little nervous, but also it feels okay.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It's kind of Littles food.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Okay. Okay. So here's the papers
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Uh-huh.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Outside Littles who aren't little. All the children are taller than me now except Kiri. But this is the paper I made for them.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Mhmm.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: But I made four of each for all of them, so I had to make it, like, 32 times.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Did your hands get cramped up?
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Well, I did it while I watched the Olympics. So I did a green one, and I did a red one, and I did a blue one, and then I did one like this, putting it all back together. Yeah. Because I thought if I just handed it like that, even if we talked through it, it would be too much.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Mhmm. That's amazing. I really liked this thing from the book. It helps kind of bring different things together.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Secure Relating Mhmm. Is the name of the book.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: I can't ever win. That's a hard one. Oh, I don't need anything. That one's true all the time.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: That's very cool. Good job.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: I'm just gonna stick it in my journal, I think. Like, a memory, that's good.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: But you can go back and look at.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: I was just recording and talking about how I feel so settled. Like, it was good for me to see Nathan on the other side of things and see him doing so well. And it was good for me to see the kids, and we had all our big conversations and all the things, but but everything was really repaired nicely. I think it was hard for me to know that things were okay because I couldn't see them. Mhmm.
• 21:48
  Like, object permanent somehow. Mhmm. But to see them and know, okay. No. They really are okay.
• 21:53
  They do have what they need. Everything's actually okay. And, also, they can still go back and forth. Like, it's actually okay. Like, it was so settling for me.
• 22:03
  And then that moment seeing you when you could come back and then having our good days together and like, I just wanna I'm sorry because I'm recording. You can cut it out. I just wanna say, like, I feel, like, something I don't know that I have felt before, and I feel better and safe and connected. Secure, maybe. Oh, weird.
• 22:35
  Maybe I feel secure. Oh my goodness. I was finishing I'll tell you about therapy later, but I was finishing my session, and she we did eye movements. And Shoop dee doops. Shoop dee doops.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Shoop dee doops. And
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: she, at the end, I thought we're done, but, no. Of course, one more time, she's like, what are you feeling? Where do you see in your body? Because then I was like, I think I feel happy. How weird is that?
• 23:07
  Like, I don't know if I've never said that in therapy. Woah. That means it's working. She said it's on the feelings wheel, so it counts.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: It is on the feelings wheel. There's a whole bunch of ones that come off of happy. It's like a whole category.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Right? Mhmm. She said, what are your thoughts? And I said, well, I think my thoughts are intrigued. She said, oh, more curiosity for more therapy.
• 23:35
  Because you have to come back next week.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Can I just say, one of my clients always says, you're making it weird? I think his therapist has our job to just push a little bit further to make it weird.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Now we can make shirts Uh-huh. To make it weird.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: I want a shirt that says, I make it weird for a living. On end.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Where's my phone?
• 24:13
  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.