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My Own Rescue · 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.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: The audio today is taken from the Al Anon book, how it works. Here we go. I'm finding my pages. I am in the blue book that is not the blue book. You all okay.
• 1:16
  I have to tell you this. I know I've said it before, but I cannot express how funny it is in sign language. Like, that does not translate in sign language. And that is why I think I was having so much trouble in English literally understanding what you were talking about with the blue book and this book that is blue. Because if you look, it's blue, but it is not THE blue book.
• 1:44
  So the book that is blue that is not the blue book is like book blue, not book blue. Like, I can't tell you how funny it is in sign language. So that's very confusing for me. So how Al Anon works. This book that we are talking about, here's what I have to share.
• 2:05
  I'm still new to the book, so I'm still reading towards page 45.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: So I will get
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: to step one. But a couple of things I wanted to share first, if it's okay, on chapter two that says help and hope, I underlined that it said no situation is really hopeless and that it is that it is possible for us to find contentment and even happiness whether they are still drinking or not. I underlined that because one of for a couple reasons. One is a trauma reason. And so I was just noticing that I got activated by that, not because it's bad or wrong.
• 2:48
  But a story came to my mind. And because we do sharing, I am sharing this story while it's presenting itself. One thing that was a big part of conversion therapy in my experience of being gay is bad at my previous church is that there's a famous quote that they use and kind of weaponize, I think, about how the idea or concept of soulmates or intended is not a thing, which never felt good to me. Because I part of my spiritual experience, like not even beliefs, like literal experience, is that some of us have spirits that are just more connected than others. I have all kinds of theories of why that is, but it is beyond time.
• 3:45
  It is outside of time. So I literally experience understand that I think we knew each other before we were born. I don't know the math of that or how that works. And I don't mean to offend anyone who believes differently. That's cool.
• 4:04
  But those are really the two biggest reasons that I ever even agreed to join that church is because they have a theology that explains part of that, even though it wasn't everything that I already felt on my own. And because they have a concept of a feminine divine being included in the story, which was really important to me. But I feel like that got appropriated and violated, and it's a whole different thing for them. So anyway, just disclosing. But this quote was about how any two people who are obedient enough, meaning to the church, they said to God, but now I understand they meant to the church, can make marriage work.
• 4:59
  Because there's no such thing as soul mate, that you just have to do the work of being married. How depressing and sad is that? Like, yes, being in a relationship is a lot of work. Absolutely. And, also, I don't wanna be in a relationship where it's only work.
• 5:15
  Does that make sense? I also don't wanna be in a relationship. This is where I'm at after just getting divorced, and I don't wanna be in a relationship where I'm the only one doing the work. Like, I just don't have that in me anymore, and that's really, really hard. But so that was the trauma activation.
• 5:40
  And, also, I navigated that okay, which felt good. But I also wanna not dissociate from it. So I'm saying the thing. The other piece that I wanted to say about this is the sentence ends with whether the alcoholic is drinking or not. And if I am substituting like trauma there or deprivation there or dissociation there or something, then it means whether or not really, really hard for me to tell what is the difference between I don't mean telling me what to do.
• 6:22
  I don't mean advise of do this or leave or stay or go. I don't mean that. I mean literally the question of how to how to know the difference between, like, safety. Oh, we need to take care of safety. And they are making progress enough, and it's irrelevant.
• 6:53
  It's irrelevant what they're doing. Like, entire like, it feels like as I'm learning Al Anon language and ACA language and things that there's this spectrum from, oh, that's absolutely not okay, to it's irrelevant. And as a trauma and deprivation person and things I have been through, and I'm just curious how to distinguish that. Or are they separate questions? I'm confusing.
• 7:31
  So that is just is not a complaint about the sentence. It brought up questions, and those are my questions. But they are big enough. I want to make that its Okay. The next thing.
• 7:43
  So I'm on page eight. It's the chapter two. It doesn't actually say page eight. The other thing I underlined on this chapter was, and put a big star by, Our thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions, and we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it. Oops.
• 8:06
  See, I feel like that happened with my family that I was just overwhelmed by everything and did not have the resources I needed to be doing what was asked of me, and it was all too much and unmanageable. And I made it worse by doing this thing. So I put a big star by there, which is super uncomfortable. And I'm trying to think how that applies currently because I've grown a lot since leaving. Thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions.
• 9:05
  I'm irritable and unreasonable without knowing it. I think currently, I have sort of a pendulum swinging the other way where I have felt like, okay, there are no solutions and falling into hopelessness. So then becoming irritable and unreasonable without knowing it looks more like I was done, like not have any fight left. I think I had so much fight before. That was my irritability and unreasonableness.
• 9:38
  And that was so hard that when I let go of that, I just sort of pendulum swung the other way. I was like, I don't have any fight left. So part of why my life is unmanageable is because I'm not doing anything about it. So here we are because I just have let myself oh my goodness. I almost said this, so I'm gonna just finish this sentence.
• 9:57
  I said or I was going to say, I have just let myself get beat up sometimes literally because I just don't have any fight left because I'm exhausted from the ten years before. So that's a piece I will take to therapy. My apologies. Okay. I also read chapter three.
• 10:29
  And talked about Okay, at the very second sentence, it says it isn't easy to go against old beliefs and fears and reach out to other people for strength, guidance, and support. That was fascinating to me because I don't know that I am consciously going against old beliefs and fears. I think I literally did not know it's an option. Does that make sense? They talked about it then in the next paragraph.
• 10:57
  It says it says woah. I don't know who that was. It says reaching out for help may actually seem more dangerous than continuing to struggle alone. I agree with that. I feel that 100%.
• 11:10
  And it says the surest way to survive was to handle everything by ourselves. So I had to. Okay. Can I tell you something funny? I can tell this is real enough because my birthmark is showing.
• 11:24
  I have a little birthmark right here that you can't see all the time. But sometimes it shows up more than others, and it's like, oh, at that. Okay. Just sharing. I don't I think it was I didn't have other options.
• 11:41
  So part of now is learning that I do have options. I think it's part of why this has helped me so much so quickly because oh, okay. So taking it back to the heretic house, there's no way out. Right? So I just stopped trying to get out.
• 12:06
  Yeah. So this has helped me so much so quickly, not because, like, I'm done. Obviously, I'm not done, but because it's giving me ideas and tools to even try anything. Whereas before, I wasn't just powerless. I was, like, hopeless.
• 12:24
  Does that make sense? Is that is that a thing? It says we learned to tough it out alone. We became experts at keeping secrets and creating the appearance of normalcy in the midst of crisis. We avoided people because it was easier to be alone than to pretend.
• 12:40
  We hid our shame, our fear, our rage. I feel like with my family ten years ago, those ten years in the church, it wasn't even that I hid it because I couldn't. Everything was very public. But nobody responded. Nobody cared.
• 13:00
  And that felt a lot like childhood. And so I think there was some learned helplessness in that. I can be shamed in public. They cannot be shamed in public. Those are the roles.
• 13:14
  I don't wanna get beat up anymore emotionally or physically anything. All the ways, not for me. So there we are. Our efforts left us feeling more alone and ashamed than ever. Check.
• 13:31
  Without a helpful place to turn to or an understanding shoulder to cry on. Check. We held our secrets inside where they festered. Well, perfect score on that one. But reaching out to others is the key to recovering from the effects of alcoholism.
• 13:49
  That is the sentence where I was asking about, can we plug in trauma or deprivation or dissociation? Because that is what I do in the community. That is what I do on the podcast. That is my life. In my research, my clinical stuff is that connection is what brings healing.
• 14:06
  I see that. I know that. I believe that. I live that. And also, why, Val, am I not offering it to myself?
• 14:13
  There's a question. Fellowship is an unexpectedly rich and nourishing source of compassion and support. We find that there are simple tools that can change the way we feel about ourselves and our circumstances, tools that can help us to get more out of living and to find excitement and opportunity where once we found only struggle to survive. As we watch those around us in our meetings begin to find greater freedom and greater joy in our lives, most of us realize that no matter what situation we face or how desperate we feel, there is good reason for hope. Okay.
• 14:59
  I have found that to be true already in recovery. I colored that bright yellow and marked the page so I could find it again in case I think I'm going to die. That is where the hope is. That was a beautiful paragraph. It was amazing, and I want to keep that page accessible.
• 15:19
  So that was really good. 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.