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Transcript

Splinters · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Over:
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: 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 long time listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Okay so this week in therapy, my therapist was all over the calling me out. She said that we have an inner dialogue phobia. And I'm like, listen, I don't want to know anything about inner dialogue. She's like, exactly. Oh my goodness.
• 1:28
  So she also called us out for minimizing our ability to cope. She said that we are forgetting how strong we are, how much we have already endured, and that our responses are normal to the abnormal stuff we've had to go through. That these things should never have happened, and how our brain is responding to what's happened is absolutely just normal. I get all the points for being boring and normal, but then I lost all my points for getting called out in therapy. She also said that our inner critic voice is trying to keep us safe by like talking about how we feel scared to reengage in therapy and saying that we can't do it again.
• 2:20
  That that's actually just that inner critic voice minimizing our ability to cope. And so we have to remember that we have an adult body with adult resources and that what we've been through is heinous, she said. She said what we have been through is heinous. Like, don't know if anyone's ever said that out loud. And I was like, I don't even know what I thought or felt when she said that, but I don't know.
• 2:52
  It felt big somehow. But she said the fact that we even have a system shows how strong we are. And so we need to use our skills to help us remember that we actually do know a lot of things already and we do get to keep the progress that we've made already and that we can use new skills to help in those moments that are more difficult. And then one of the examples of that she gave was the tapping which we actually learned from our therapist who died from COVID. So we talked about that and about using the mantra or affirmation, like I don't know what that's called, but using like that we need to say even though I feel this, whatever that is, I unconditionally love and accept myself.
• 3:39
  So people, I guess we'll be working on that. The other thing she talked about, which was pretty interesting because this is what we've been learning about, and obviously it's a big trigger from what's happened before and some negative therapy experiences we had been in the past. And so we also talked to her about transference and about what we've been learning about it, the book that we read, the in session book, and then other things that we've learned from a training and how much it has really impacted us in understanding what we've been through in the past with some negative therapy experiences from years and years ago or from more recently. And so she talked about how transference is the relationship between her and us, and that every session we will talk about it directly because she wants that relationship to be safe and that we need to be able to talk about issues and feel safe and her available for us to be able to process things with not just our own content, but about how we feel with her when we don't like something, when something triggers us, when something makes us feel uncomfortable, that we need to be able to say those things not just to her, but to other people in our relationships.
• 5:03
  That that's part of healthy boundaries is having the freedom and the capacity to be able to express those things directly and as fully as we need to. And that it's her job to do her work of being able to handle that and to be able to respond to that. And that was a pretty powerful discussion. Her job is to be present with us, and our goal is to decrease amnesia and increase awareness. And then she talked about how there's two kinds of amnesia that is relevant to this.
• 5:37
  One being the actual dissociative amnesia because of trauma that's happened in the past. And then the second kind is amnesia between the parts or the amnesia between alters, however you wanna say it, because of awareness and communication issues. So that there's two kinds of amnesia. So the very next week, we actually practiced this, checking in about transference and things that we were aware of, things that we were feeling but didn't know what it meant, and how we were feeling with our progress in trying to reengage in therapy. And what was coming up with that?
• 6:15
  Like, we still afraid of that? Are we anxious about that? What are the thoughts that are coming? If we try to talk in therapy again, what will happen? And how to sort of process that as we're going instead of it building up so big.
• 6:36
  So that was really hard, but it's actually been super helpful. And we have just talked about what we want our new goals for treatment to be. And I was super honest that like my goal for treatment is still just to show up every week because that in itself is still enough of a huge feat that I feel like I'm pretty confident that that's a fair goal that we just keep coming to therapy, right? But then she also talked about some long term goals and she brought up integration. But before I even said anything about it or we could even respond at all in any way, she said right away, the integration is not something that she chooses to do to us or that she chooses we should do or that she chooses to make us do.
• 7:35
  She said that that's not how it works. She said integration will only happen if that's what we choose or if it unfolds naturally. But it won't even unfold naturally, she said, if it's not something that is in process along the way all of us are feeling safe and comfortable with. But what she did say was that a good goal for treatment would be decreasing amnesia and increasing awareness. And the reason that that's a good goal is because if we can do those things, then we can keep everybody safe and we can make sure that our needs are being met and that we can decide for ourselves what it is that we need, what we want, what we prefer, who we how we want to express ourselves and all of those kinds of things.
• 8:36
  She said that there's two kinds of amnesia. One is the amnesia between us and the trauma, like dissociative amnesia itself. And then the other kind of amnesia happens between parts or between alters, however you want to say that. So with the folks inside, when they do not have awareness of each other, there's amnesia when someone else is out or there's just a lack of awareness of what else is going on if that person isn't able to have the level of co consciousness, not that they know everything about everything or all that's going on, but some level of consciousness of the system and how that's working. So she said that decreasing amnesia and increasing awareness like through communication, for example, will help everyone feel in control and safe.
• 9:31
  And that that really is our number one goal for everyone to feel safe and us in control of ourselves as far as being able to express ourselves the way we want to and meet our needs in ways that are meaningful to us. And I really liked that. And it was a way that felt empowering to sort of start setting up a framework, but also have progress in a solid way of reengaging in treatment. Now that we're really getting to know her and we're starting to settle in and it's starting to feel safe and we're starting to do what we need to do for our part of the work. But then she dropped the truth bomb because of course there's a truth bomb because it's therapy.
• 10:19
  But she said that a soft step towards decreasing amnesia and increasing awareness would be to talk about who's present at sessions. And I was like, no, That's not happening. I don't know why it's such a big trigger. I that's false. That's false.
• 10:40
  I think it is because I think I know. I think it is a big trigger because we were just starting to open ourselves up to all of this when everything kind of came crashing down before. So it feels like it's one of those moments where it feels like the reason we lost everything before, which is like an overgeneralization. Right? But that's the feeling or the thought that goes with the feeling, that inner critic piece, it feels like that's what caused it.
• 11:14
  And so if we don't do that, then maybe we'll be okay. Like it now feels like that's danger. So as soon as we start talking about identifying ourselves, which we don't even do on the podcast anymore, if you notice that on the notes, like we just don't put names anymore because it just feels like not safe, but also protective of we just need to present ourselves as wholly as we can. I mean, as well as we can for those who want to participate. I can't even say it.
• 11:54
  That's not true either. It feels like we are expected right now to present a unified front and like a focused in control as normative as possible kind of experience, like back in the closet. That's what it feels like. And so we said that. So then we talked about that for a long time because remember, we are tending to our relationship as we go.
• 12:22
  So most of the rest of the time we talked about how that felt, why it was scary, and what we're gonna do about it. But one thing that she said was that the reason it was important for her to start meeting and relating to every one of us specifically and uniquely is because that's important to safety in a relationship. And she wants to be able to have a relationship with all of us, meaning each of us, not just a relationship with whoever's pretending to host or front at the time. And that got our attention because I think it's been a long time since we felt open to that, since we felt able or available for that, since we felt that anyone cared about that. And so even as soon as she said that, it was like you could feel or, I mean, I could feel like some of them peeking out.
• 13:32
  Right? Like, I don't know how to explain that. But, I mean, I'm not gonna let them out or talk about it yet, but I I could feel the shift as soon as she said it. She said that it's important as a long term goal, even even though she doesn't want us to do anything in the moment that's uncomfortable. But it's an important long term goal to consider because everyone needs the opportunity to be seen and heard and valued.
• 14:05
  What am I supposed to do with that? Feeling seen and heard and valued? That feels pretty dangerous. And I don't know why because those are good things. Like, those are things everybody wants.
• 14:20
  Right? So why is that so terrifying? Even when it's like, if you have a therapist checkbox of I really need my therapist to be able to do these things. Like, she's checking all those boxes and it feels right and it feels good and it feels safe and there's nothing intuitively that feels off. But to let that happen feels terrifying.
• 14:43
  Right now, we're struggling with that even with our friends because we feel like a hundred thousand miles away from everyone. The husband doesn't even live at home. Like, I don't know if that's part of the disconnect there or, like, that dissociative or what did she say? Derealization or something. Like, it feels so raw and so far away and so blurry that when she's talking about everyone feeling seen and heard and valued, well, of course, when I, like, write it on paper, of course, people wanna feel that way.
• 15:20
  Of course, I wanna feel that way. Of course, I even want, like, the littles or others inside to feel that way. Like, of course, I do. But when we talk about how willing I am to actually let that happen, I'm not, apparently. I'm not.
• 15:42
  And it's it's a scary thing. But she says it's the actual relationship that will heal us. Everyone feeling seen and heard and valued. That that's actually what is the good that's supposed to come out of transference. And she said again that it's not her goal to get everyone stuck together or to get rid of anyone.
• 16:13
  It's her goal just to help everyone feel safe and there be enough cohesion that we are able to help each other feel safe when hard things happen or hard things from the past come up. That feels terrifying even though I understand cognitively that it's right and that it's good. I don't know what makes it so difficult other than being cognitively aware that when I said that, I don't know what makes it so difficult. She's like, that's dissociation that makes it difficult because you have trauma. It's so hard.
• 16:53
  And I don't know why it's so hard because it's such a simple thing. It is not a difficult thing. It's like friendship. Why is it so difficult to have friends when your friends are good and safe? I don't know because it feels dangerous and that's so messed up because your friends who are safe are not dangerous.
• 17:12
  And we as a system would not have chosen friends who are dangerous. But I don't want to mess it up and I don't want to fail. And that's what I told her is that I don't want to mess it up. I don't want to fail. I don't want to do it wrong so I have to lose another therapist.
• 17:32
  Like, I don't have it in me to go through this again. And do you know what she said? Because she's like a warrior princess. Like, I don't even know what is going on here. But she just called that out immediately, and she said that the good thing about therapy is that it's not a pass or fail.
• 17:55
  That literally my only job is to show up and to be honest. And then she started in on all this nonsense about how we deserve safe people and that she's strong enough even for us to be mad at if we wanna be mad and all this stuff about safety and attunement and being heard and seen and valued and cared for, it makes me so uncomfortable. And if we're gonna look at the dissociation and why that makes me uncomfortable, if that always signals the opposite, then I understand cognitively in my head, I understand it makes me feel uncomfortable because feeling it now makes me aware of how much I didn't have it before, which actually I think is really what comes down to the birthday party thing, not just the trauma trigger from the fire, but also the trigger of to feel that cared for or valued helps me understand how unvalued and uncared for I was before and without it. So it's like engaging in that or trusting in that, that in itself, the experience of attunement actually makes you face the dissociation, makes you see the truth of how good that is, which by default makes you also see the past, like looking at a mirror behind you.
• 19:36
  It makes you see how untrue it was in the past. So there's no way to feel that and also still maintain that level of dissociation. And I think that's what makes us uncomfortable. I'm just being really honest. Because I know how to dissociate, and I know how to go on and keep functioning despite whatever struggle we're feeling and just plow forward in a dissociative state unaware of how much it hurts.
• 20:10
  I know how to do that. What I don't know how to do is how to let people in, feel them care for me, and also manage all of those big feelings from all of the years and years I was not cared for. She said that that brings us back to transference. That transference is falling in love and not like an erotic love, although that can happen, but that's not what she's talking about. She's talking about, like, the way a mother looks at a new baby or a new baby looks at the mother or how friends who click really well right from the beginning have that power to stay so close no matter what's going on in their lives.
• 20:58
  Or all these different kinds of examples. She said that in English, there's only one word for love, but that in other languages, there's all kinds of different words for different kinds of love. And transference is a kind of a word for love that can be very healthy and very appropriate to help someone feel cared for and to help someone feel valued. But that experience of that kind of care and value is scary because it's new and it's unfamiliar and it points to what has been missing this whole time. But if we want healing from the trauma we endured when we were little, or if we want to help those parts or alters who are still stuck in the past or trauma holders or however you want to say it, We have to value and care for them, and we have to tend to what they, what I already went through.
• 22:15
  And that's terrifying even if it's exactly right. You know, it's like it's like the children, the outside children, when they fall off the bike and they scrape their knee or something, and we have to clean it up and then spray the stuff on it so that it doesn't get infected or whatever. And the stuff that we use doesn't even sting like the stuff the rest of us had when we were little. It just bubbles and foams and is cold, but it doesn't actually sting. And still, they still cry and scream in that moment because it's so shocking and it's so scary and it you think that it's gonna hurt, but it doesn't actually hurt.
• 22:57
  It just reminds them of where the wound is so that the wound can get clean. But keeping the wound clean is how it heals. Or like this week, we got a splinter in our thumb, and it hurt really bad even though it was a tiny thing. And digging the splinter out hurt even worse. So it's like we don't wanna dig the splinter out because it hurts worse.
• 23:25
  But, also, our thumb isn't gonna get better if we don't get the splinter out, and the pain isn't gonna go away if we don't get the splinter out. I feel like my entire being is full of splinters, and I'm tired of carrying them around. But the only way to pull them out is therapy. And I'm just scared it's gonna hurt. And the only way to feel better is to let my friends be my friends.
• 23:58
  And I'm scared it's gonna hurt. And I can stay by myself and try to keep things all locked down and the walls up if I want to. But if we do, we're gonna keep walking around with a body full of splinters. And I'm not sure that that's what I want, even if that's what's familiar to us. And that last time we talked to the mother hunger lady on the podcast, she said that dissociation is a surrogate mother.
• 24:35
  And I wanna know at what point we decided it was okay to just keep walking around in pain. And I think that the last year or two years, we've worked really hard to notice the pain, to sit with it, to realize what it is, to honor it, to say, hey. There are splinters here, and they hurt. But now I think it's time to pull them out slowly, carefully, not all at once, but it's time. And I didn't understand until on that podcast that Kelly McDaniel said, we have to differentiate between mother hunger and mother cruelty.
• 25:32
  And that maybe is the hard piece because when we're used to being hurt, we assume all love of any of those kinds of words for love. We assume that love is dangerous because what we knew before was cruelty. And so sometimes we feel shame when we're hungry for love or we run away when it's offered or we shut down when we feel it. But maybe it's normal and even healthy to feel mother hunger and want to be fed mother love, any kind of love that's good and right and safe. And maybe it makes sense simply because we're human, not because there's something wrong with us or because we've asked for too much or because we've overstepped any bounds.
• 26:41
  Maybe we're just people, and relationships with other people are supposed to matter so that we all feel loved, so that we all feel seen and heard and valued. Sometimes when I think of situations in the past where I tried really, really hard for a really, really long time, I thought it was just me doing it wrong or us failing in general or that maybe it's true everyone out there is going to hurt us. But she said on that podcast that bonding always trumps fear even when your caregiver isn't giving what you need, which is why we sometimes try to sacrifice so much of ourselves or give pieces of ourselves away when we are so hungry to be loved or to feel love or to show love. But maybe discerning the difference between cruelty and care is the beginning of feeling it and giving it and showing it and experiencing it in good and healthy and safe ways. So that's what our therapist said, that we have to be vulnerable in relationships for the relationships to work and that we have to not forget.
• 28:22
  She said, don't forget the experiences with those who have been safe and who are safe and even therapy experiences that have been good. We've talked so much about what can go so badly wrong or what can hurt so much when there's a rupture. But all relationships have ruptures. Healthy ones repair them. And we've had a lot of repairs too.
• 28:55
  A lot of repairs. And we've had some people who have worked really, really hard at repairs because it mattered to them enough to do that hard work. We mattered enough to them to do that hard work. And that's something worth remembering. The husband knows everything, sometimes more than I know about myself.
• 29:27
  And he's still here, and he cares. And with him, we feel seen and heard and valued. We have friends who have worked hard to understand us, who have listened to a lot of podcasts to understand DID even, and others who understand it because they also have it or because they treat it. And these friends may not even always understand us or what's going on exactly because they can't know if we don't tell them. But they've stayed and they're still here.
• 30:14
  And that's worth something. That shows the value of that relationship. It shows that we are valued in the relationship. And sometimes it feels like we're on the cusp of dawn, like the lights are about to turn on. Or if you've ever watched the sun come up over the water and seen the light change both in the sky and in the waves, it feels like that, like light is swimming and something good is coming even though it's still hard and maybe a little cold.
• 31:00
  Warmth is coming. Spring is coming. Summer will be here, and the sun will still shine. And maybe it won't hurt so much if we get the splinters out. Maybe we don't have to keep people away from knowing us or seeing us or understanding us.
• 31:23
  Maybe we just don't need to give them our splinters, and maybe we don't need to wait for them to take them out. Maybe that's what therapy is for, focusing on the splinters and digging them out so that, like, the children who want so much to play outside, they just want their Band Aid so they can go back and play. Maybe it's time. Maybe we're ready.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: 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. One of the ways we practice this is in Community Together. The link for the community is in the show notes.
• 32:34
  We look forward to seeing you there while we practice caring for ourselves, caring for our family, and participating with those who also care for community. And remember, I'm just a human, not a therapist for the community, and not there for dating, and not there to be shiny happy. Less shiny, actually. I'm there to heal too. That's what peer support is all about.
• 33:02
  Being human together. So yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.