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Transcript

Trees · 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.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Please note that this episode has a content note or a trigger warning for reference to things we processed in therapy, including references to big feelings, even suicidality, although no details or threats are shared or made, as well as references to abuse, therapy trauma and the fire. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you. I was as surprised as anyone to see that John Mark made an episode at July 4. But I guess if there was ever a time that felt like his day, That might be the one.
• 2:08
  I was embarrassed. When I saw the episode, I was shocked at first, but then also embarrassed. And I wanted to take it down and frustrated because things had been moved out of order, which I can't always seem to help. But then I thought, if he's been gone so long and things have been so hard, then maybe we should hold space for that as our new therapist says. And so I tried to respect it and leave it alone, but I was also embarrassed.
• 3:11
  I don't know how to be both accepting of them and also present in me, how to stay but also let them be. How to be brave in connecting with others and hide parts of me. And I hear in my head, sometimes it gets stuck like a wagon in the mud. And I think, I don't know anything about wagons in the mud. Where does that even come from?
• 4:08
  And I know it's him. And for just a moment, I'm hungry for Mexican food, for salsa, for days when I was brave and free, for days when I roamed and played, for days when I thought I was powerful enough or strong enough or brave enough to fix anything. But maybe that's part of what we're learning, that we can be brave and strong and also fragile. I don't mean fragile like broken. I mean fragile like not okay on our own, as in needing others after all, and scrambling to connect in the places that we can with all the mess that we are and say I'm still here.
• 5:35
  I've held on in the only ways I know how through a really hard year, and I just need to know if you're still there too. And then I also saw on my phone that he told our last Kelly goodbye, And words started to come, and so I typed them and sent them to our new therapist because I didn't want to lose them when we waited for two years for them to come. And I said, it's raining, but the children are busy with library books. My work is finished, but I haven't told them that yet because I want words to have time and space to come to the surface. I'm sitting at my desk with some acoustic classical music playing to match the rain outside.
• 6:53
  I really want words to come. It's the same as when you feel like you need to throw up, and you know you will feel better if you do, but you just keep waiting and feel sick. I feel sick. I know it's been months now, months, Months since we found you. Months since we started therapy again.
• 7:23
  Months since we tried to do this again. But I'm still waiting to throw up. I hate that we have to do therapy for therapy, that we can't just talk about memory time because now everything gets filtered through Kelly time. It's like being on a date and talking about your ex. It's embarrassing and not helpful.
• 7:56
  I know that therapy has not been all bad. The therapist that moved me into her home when I was 17 saved my life. The therapist who had an affair with my partner got me out of a really toxic relationship. And then this Kelly that taught me about memory time and now time, she taught me about trauma and dissociation. She listened when no one else would.
• 8:30
  She knew that first therapist and understood she wasn't all bad. She knew the people and places of my past enough to validate for me that my own story was real. And all of that mattered. All of that helped. She taught me about now time being safe until it wasn't anymore.
• 9:00
  In our very last session together, before we left for the Middle East and then the wildfires in California just before the pandemic happened, she spoke truth to me. She told me to step forward. She told me to turn toward. She told me the friends that I had found would love me and embrace me and stay and that I would be safe. I said nothing.
• 9:33
  I cried harder than I have ever cried in my life because if it was true, that was terrifying. And if it was not true, it would destroy me. And I think that I spent the last two years trying to decide just that, whether it was true and I was just terrified or whether it was not true and it was destroying me because it felt like a setup. If I did step forward and turn toward, I couldn't see her anymore because no matter how good she was with her boundaries, it didn't work for the friends that we shared or for me. And if I didn't step forward and turn toward, I would have failed therapy because I couldn't and didn't do what she told me I needed to do.
• 10:37
  So then I still lost her anyway. That's when I knew about always having a choice wasn't really a choice. And so I said nothing because there was no way out. And I just sat and cried because I knew therapy was over. That's when I knew I would never get to see her again after that day.
• 11:09
  And I sat and I cried harder than I've ever cried before in my life. And I plan to end my life in a way that she wouldn't be held responsible and in a way that wouldn't harm my husband or my children. And off we went to Syria, except that we didn't die there. So I wrote her a letter, and I told her goodbye that I wasn't coming back to her office. I didn't even do it in person because that would mean going back, and I couldn't.
• 11:49
  And then I was sent to the wildfires in California. The fires, do you see? The last place I wanted to be. The last time there was a fire, I lost the only people who had ever cared for me. And now here I was in another fire grieving my Kelly, the Kelly I had almost told about the fire.
• 12:19
  We got so close to telling this time, but we didn't. I wanted it to be over. I wanted to walk into the flames. I wanted to end things there, but I didn't because there was a horse, a horse that saved me from the flames, a horse like one I used to know when I was little, come back to rescue me like an angel, and then I rescued her from the flames. And so I came home from the fires, and my friends came up for my birthday, which I had not had since the first fire.
• 13:04
  And then the pandemic happened, and there was no Kelly, and there were no friends, and now time wasn't safe. And I wasn't sure I should still be alive or how I escaped to the flames, and I wanted to be sick. I needed to throw up like I threw up after what they did after the fire. That's not in the book. Only the easy parts are in the book.
• 13:42
  The birthday party was going to be an adoption party before the fire. The birthday party was going to be the start of a friendship before the pandemic, but all I saw were flames, and all I heard were balloons popping, and all I felt were hot tears. And I was alone, alone where now time wasn't safe anymore, alone where the farmhouse was ashes, and my Kelly's office was empty, and I was alone. And all of it, all of it was my fault. I canceled therapy after that.
• 14:41
  We didn't want to hear her read what we said out loud. We didn't want her to burst into flames or her house burned down. We didn't want to talk about the pain that's been so heavy for these two years since the biggest triggers were brought to the surface, and we were left alone in them. I know that it's a reenactment. I know that us leaving Arkali was a way to try and show and say how abandoned and how alone we were when we were only four.
• 15:37
  I know that my brain is trying to tell me things I don't want to see, trying to help me feel things that I don't want to feel, and that this is why I avoid them, that this is why I can't go back, that this is why it hurts so much. But I also know that we are indeed alone. No one is coming. There is no rescue. Rescue.
• 16:10
  There There is is no no showing up. There is no checking in. There is no one there. We are alone in the dirt and in the ashes smelling like smoke and laying there spoiled. I know that therapy is hard because we've seen what happens when you try to talk.
• 16:51
  And so again today, we panicked and canceled therapy and said we changed our mind, and we wanted to quit. But then our friend said, I hope you're not quitting therapy. And another friend said, you're not responding. And another friend said, I miss you. And for a split moment, like the sun breaking through the clouds, we could see the difference between being a child alone in the dark and being an adult with support and resources, and that our lives depended on reaching out.
• 17:58
  And so I tucked my tail, and I messaged her again and said, can we cancel our cancel? Please, can we still come? I'm so sorry. But I can't read it, and I can't talk about the fire. Please don't make me.
• 18:17
  It's too much. And she said that was brave to say and wise to know and that it's important we listen to the body and listen to the feelings and pace things carefully and slowly. And then I felt little, and I couldn't talk. And I knew I was trying to hold them inside the way you try to hold your stomach inside when you need to throw up. Because I don't dare risk it again, letting them out, but I don't know how to hold them in any longer.
• 19:16
  And if they are ready for help, then maybe it's time. And our therapist said, maybe we don't use words today. Maybe we just draw a picture. What does that feeling in your chest look like? And when she said that, I could smell the smoke.
• 19:58
  And I clenched my fist together to brace for the sound of the popping of balloons. But I didn't dare draw a house on fire or what happened after. I drew an apple tree with flames behind it and leaves turned to ash. And the trunk stained with smoke. I didn't draw it.
• 20:49
  Someone did. I know who did. I watched it happen this time instead of not just remembering, And I know it was her who is me, I guess. I'm learning how to hold both, to stay but also let them be. She asked if I still needed to throw up, And then she asked, why do our bodies throw up?
• 21:35
  And before I could stop myself, I heard me say to get the poison out. And she said, maybe there's bad stuff ready to come out. Tell me about your tree. I did not want to tell her about the tree, but I for sure did not want to tell her what was behind the tree. So maybe that was dissociation on paper, making it easier to talk about the tree on fire than the house on fire.
• 22:21
  She asked what a tree represents, and I couldn't think any intelligent answer I might have about the symbology of trees or what it could mean was gone. And all I could see was a little girl hiding in an apple tree, protected from that which had chased her and waiting for that which would welcome her. And I closed my eyes, and I could smell the blossoms and the fruit and feel the air in my hair as if I were there. And so I said, someone said, it's a hiding spot. And she said, what kind of hiding spot?
• 23:38
  What does that mean to you? And I said, a place where I was safe and loved. And she said very quietly, like how therapy is also a place where you are safe. And then I felt the heat of the flames because it was all taken away, And I understood finally how the two stories were connected, how memory time had tried to take over now time, how it felt like I was losing my Kelly in the flames, How the rupture was not between us, but in time. How I thought speaking to her would mean losing her.
• 24:40
  How I thought not speaking to her might be the only thing that would save her. She said therapy should be the safest relationship that we have. And when it's not, that's therapy trauma. Where the trauma is in the relationship, and we know with that we've got examples of that. But when it's good and right, it's a safe place like the apple tree.
• 25:26
  And she asked what that felt like when we had a good and safe place in an apple tree, in a farmhouse, in therapy, and we painted another tree in a rainbow of watercolors with bright leaves in every color. And it looks strong and healthy and happy with ivy growing around it as if it's holding it together. And I thought, oh, that's what I miss because no one has been holding me together, and I can't seem to do it on my own. And when we showed her, she said, look how much someone loved you, and look how much love is still inside you. They started something in you that was good, and look how it's grown.
• 26:44
  And it made me cry even after therapy was over and we closed our laptop. And I looked at the painting of the rainbow tree and was overwhelmed by happy and good and safe memories of being cared for and loved even if only for a short time. And what a gift that was. And for the first time, I was able to hold that in my hands again, seeing that a seed has grown over time and that all has not been lost. And in my hand are three little bunnies that we've protected for decades.
• 28:05
  Maybe it wasn't about waiting for someone to care. Maybe it was about remembering that someone did.
• 28:54
  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.
• 29:21
  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.
• 29:49
  Being human together. So yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.