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Seaweed · 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, and we are so glad you're here.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Okay. It's finally time to talk about therapy a little bit. You guys know, those of you who have been listening, that we've been talking for a year and a half about the whales because I felt like a drowning whale. Like, I could not get to the surface to get air, and I was so worried I was not going to survive. Now, I do not mean that as a threat or any intent.
• 2:00
  I mean, that was the feeling was like, I don't have enough air to breathe. So I have spent the last year doing all things therapy to make sure I had enough air in my lungs to survive. That meant cutting out some things, like changing my jobs. That meant adding good things to address deprivation. So making sure that I had space and privacy, that I have books, that I have care for my children, that I have, like, getting needs met and really focusing on where that is safe enough.
• 2:45
  I got to really take a break from anything that was either overwhelming or distracting from my actual need meeting. So I did change what I was volunteering with. I had to change how much of myself I was giving away. It was epic. It was painful.
• 3:14
  It was a season of pruning. And also coming back into my own now this spring with learning about the birthing of whales and the community of whales that lifted them to the surface while they learned how to breathe and feeling that literally in the community this year and returning to ISSTD and having my new office and getting to put that together and watch it thrive. All of these things have been so good in healing and putting air back into my lungs. Learning how to play, going out with friends, learning to connect with others, and learning ultimately what I do and do not want in any of my shifts. Right?
• 4:12
  Because one of the things where I have contributed to chaos is not understanding how early I need to say no about certain things because I just keep thinking I could be accommodating or I could be supportive. And then it really turning into a crisis because I didn't recognize fawning soon enough. And then having to set no's that were harsh. But I can't know how to do that if I don't know what my needs are. So I can't know what my needs are unless I know who I am.
• 4:48
  And learning who I am and what it means to be me and really going back to square one of getting to know myself system and having the last year and a half be just me, my kids, my co parent, obviously, who's still doing okay, by the way. And getting stronger and more adept at knowing myself and what my needs are, then I get less tangled up in sacrificing myself because of others' needs, right? Going back to rescue our own babies. I'm just rehashing, recapping, reconnecting to all of these things I've been learning because it feels like it's been ages since I've got to talk about these things because so much other stuff was going on. And now it's finally just like, okay.
• 5:49
  And we can center back on what we're learning and focus on those things. So the way my therapist talked to me about these entanglements was about the seaweed. You guys, I don't know. Well, I mean, I do know because I know the story of I ended up with the therapist that I have. But the fact that my therapist works from a non Western perspective and supports everything I'm learning about liberation framework and about attachment and about relational and psychodynamic work, but without it being westernized medicine.
• 6:34
  So very in tune with liberation framework, feminist psychology, but also tribal stuff. And the fact that she knows sign language, like, fluently has been so, so powerful. It is core wound stuff for me. I did not get to grow up with it. This is why I got an email about this.
• 6:59
  It's easy to answer really quick. I took sign language classes in college because I didn't go to a deaf school. It's really that simple. Anyone with hearing aids later or who does not go to a deaf school, like anybody, that's how anyone hearing or deaf or anywhere on the continuum, that's how you learn sign language. And so my therapist understanding these cultural pieces of what it means to be hearing, to be hard of hearing, lowercase deaf, uppercase deaf, and everything in that whole continuum, plus getting cochlear implants, why I got them when I hadn't gone to deaf school, why it still is culturally betraying myself, and talking about that identity just like we're talking about all of the other things we're learning from the tribes around us, heritage, from history, from reconnecting in all these different ways.
• 7:56
  It has been so, so good for me and made therapy so accessible. I also have a colleague friend who sometimes interprets for me at conferences, who also is fluent in sign language. And so have my first consult group where I'm getting to go with other hard of hearing and deaf people for consult group. Like, it's just been so good for me. I can't tell you how this whole concept of wanting to include my whole self, to look for ways to support my whole self continues to play out in beautiful ways.
• 8:38
  But what came up in therapy was about the seaweed. So if we look at the symbols of seaweed, we are talking about resilience, emotional cleansing, and adaptability. Seaweed thrives in dynamic and turbulent currents. These are my notes from therapy. It's a spiritual emblem for gentle strength and emotional healing.
• 9:07
  It reminds us to bend but not break when facing challenges. Seaweed survives extreme tides and conditions. Seaweed has the ability to bounce back in the face of adversity. Seaweed grows beneath the waves, so like our unconscious. So hidden inspiration, emotional entanglements, our work is to release them.
• 9:34
  And when we do, it brings renewal. So it's the washing away of emotional debris. I'll come back to this, but when my therapist was talking about it, y'all, do you know what I got in my mind was this image of the car wash? I know that's not seaweed, but, like, it's a car wash under the ocean, the way it can cleanse and scrub. And then also sustenance and humanity and interdependence with nature.
• 10:03
  So this is so good. It was so hopeful. I needed strength and hope. And this gave me, from my experiences, some strength and hope was the seaweed. And it has become an image right alongside the sunflower and some of the other symbols we've been talking about lately.
• 10:23
  This was so powerful to me. So the challenge then, if those are all the good things, that challenge going back to what they said about emotional entanglements. So when I looked that up, it says emotional entanglement often called enmeshment. So it might be the same thing, occurs when boundaries blur and your emotional well-being becomes dependent on someone else. So that's exactly what we were just talking about when we were driving to work, about feeling responsible for other people's feelings and other people being dependent on us for their feelings.
• 11:05
  It says, with emotional entanglement or enmeshment, you lose track of where your feelings end and theirs begin, often feeling responsible for their moves or sacrificing your autonomy to maintain the connection. So this is an example too of coercive control and how we get caught in that cycle. I mean, yes, there are some malicious people out there, but also most people aren't trying to harm their partners. Most people are needing reassurance or having their feelings and their, like, inside babies and all of that that they need to take to therapy and do that work in therapy. But when I'm being intrusive or adding to the chaos of contributing to the rescuing instead of just staying out of it, then they become dependent on my efforts of rescuing.
• 12:03
  So then when I stop rescuing, it feels like abandonment and reinforces that. But if I don't stop, I'm sacrificing my own autonomy to maintain the connection, which means fawning, Right? Being good at being good, to be safe, but at the expense of myself. It says, key warning signs, mood contagion. Your happiness is entirely contingent on their mood.
• 12:33
  You feel intense anxiety when you are not in contact with them. Blurred boundaries. You absorb their emotions as your own and frequently make excuses for their toxic or damaging behavior. So this goes back to how long are you gonna put up with what you're putting up with, or as Laura Brown talked about, What is the cost? What is it costing you?
• 13:00
  What is the price of admission? Next is walking on eggshells. You avoid setting boundaries or expressing your own needs because you fear how the other person will react. I never connected that to fawning until grief group this morning when we were talking about that contributing to chaos kind of way of, if I am I still get in the drama triangle if I think I caused it or if I'm supposed to cure it or if I try to control it. So those things, those pieces from recovery, as soon as I start engaging with that again, then I suck myself into the drama triangle.
• 13:47
  But when I set boundaries sooner so that I don't engage in that, then I do not get entangled. Does that make sense? The next one is loss of identity. You struggle to make personal decisions or enjoy hobbies without factoring in the other person's preferences or validation. So that's one thing that's been so nourishing for me because I was working so hard for a couple years to give up more and more and more so that other people in my life could have attention or time and space.
• 14:27
  It meant I was losing the things that literally fed me to keep me breathing. So I gave up my own nourishment so that others could feel connected. But then that doesn't work anyway because if I'm not nourished, there's nothing for them to connect to. Right? So even with my outside kids, if they are needing me to be present, then I need to do the things to care for myself so that I can be present.
• 14:54
  This says, the difference between emotional intimacy and entanglement. It says, while emotional intimacy involves sharing your inner world while maintaining a strong sense of self and respect for boundaries, entanglement is more about functioning as survival. It is fueled by codependency or fear of abandonment rather than healthy independent interdependent commitment. So interdependence, super healthy, good. Codependent, back to that from 2022, 2021 when I started that book in Oklahoma at the end of the pandemic when one of y'all sent me that book.
• 15:42
  And it's literally five years later, six years later, and I'm still wrestling with it. I'll put some of these links in the show notes. This says how to untangle and rebuild autonomy. Number one, reclaim your center. Oh, that's exactly what I was just trying to talk about.
• 16:03
  So like getting back into an office, getting back to being able to walk outside, getting back to my committees at ISSTD, getting back to writing, getting back to the podcast episodes, going through the season of hard things that we did with our family, where I was validly needed in different ways, and also had my own things to take care of, but coming through to the other side of that and being able to recenter on what nourishes me so that I can be myself, that helps me show up in other relationships better. Number two, identifying personal needs. Make a list of your own emotional and psychological needs. Affirm that you have the right to ask for space, emotional support, and authentic communication. Okay, two things about this.
• 16:58
  Number one, when we have complex trauma and deprivation, it is really hard to know what our needs are, to exist enough to have needs, much less know what they are. So I get that that piece is huge and we will keep talking about it. Number two, not being able to get space when you ask, not being able to get emotional support or goodwill or presuming goodwill, not being able to communicate authentically if you are having to defend yourself instead of be yourself, that's when it swings back into coercive control, and you've got to get out of that. In being able to hold your own, to set your boundaries, to have healthy communication and be respected, that is beautiful and good even when it's hard work. Okay.
• 17:55
  So then the next one, number three, set and hold boundaries. Oh, this is on me. No one can do that except myself. Establish clear limits on what you are willing to tolerate. That makes me think of Doctor.
• 18:10
  Teuma's books. It's all about you don't have to tolerate what is not healthy behavior. You don't have to stay to tolerate negative or shameful interactions. You don't have to tolerate being put down instead of lifted up in your relationships. But whatever you're not gonna tolerate, you're the one who has to do something about it.
• 18:36
  And so establish clear limits on what you're willing to tolerate and how much of your energy you are willing to expend on fixing someone else's issues. Oh, so that goes back to Laura Brown's book, The Price of Admission. It goes back to Al Anon, like how much energy, how much of yourself are you using up to survive everybody around you instead of thriving yourself? And then number four, seeking support. If breaking free from the repetitive cycle of an entangled dynamic is causing significant distress, consider speaking to a licensed mental health professional who specializes in codependency and boundary setting.
• 19:24
  I would say complex trauma and deprivation. Y'all, this is really tricksy though. This needs to be someone who understands relational trauma, and this needs to be someone who understands that if that is what is happening, couples therapy is contraindicated. Otherwise, it just makes things worse, and it's really their failure and a disservice to you and your partner. Okay.
• 19:50
  So then I also looked up queer identities, and it brought this up as lesbians urged to merge and talked about U Hauling. Oh my goodness. It made me laugh. It says, because women are typically socialized to prioritize emotional intimacy and attunement, dating another woman can create an incredibly rapid and deep sense of connection. While this intense bond can feel deeply comforting and validating, it can also cross the line into unhealthy entanglement, where boundaries blur and your emotional well-being completely depends on your partner.
• 20:30
  I think that's what we were talking about with the other thing we were reading where it talked about we can't skip steps in relationship development, even though we have skills at hyperattunement because of being complex trauma survivors, and skills for relational depth because being socialized as women and complex trauma survivors. I also think even though that says lesbian specific, that it can happen in community groups or specialized friendships, the whole Anne and Diana thing from Anne of Green Gables. I love that so much. It's super platonic, and also it's so emotionally intense. This says, lesbian relationships are famous for moving fast, jokingly referred to as U Hauling.
• 21:24
  This acceleration can create a fast and intense emotional attachment, sometimes called limerence. Okay, we talked about that before, that mimics true and lasting love, but can actually cloud your judgment. When two highly emotional attuned women connect, they may merge social circles, finances, and living situations before establishing strong individual identities. And also then it goes on to talk about how refusing to do that, or trying to slow down and not doing that can be perceived as abandonment or avoidance when actually it's health. I appreciate that actually.
• 22:06
  And also there's an excellent therapist on social media who is a lesbian therapist, a queer therapist, and talks about this a lot. Her videos are amazing. So I will try to link to her as well. And again, we don't have to sidetrack into queer culture right now, but that's a big deal. So coming back to any of us, signs of unhealthy entanglement.
• 22:31
  It says, it is crucial to distinguish between healthy supportive partnership and a toxic codependent entanglement. So number one, loss of autonomy. If you lose your happiness, contentment, and daily mood, or if those are entirely contingent on your partner's mood. Oh, that's a rough roller coaster. That's the Venn diagram of hell right there.
• 22:55
  Disproportionate reactions, a stressful event in your partner's life, like a bad day at work causes you so much distress that you cannot function normally. Yes, Yes. Boundary dissolution. You abandon your own hobbies, friendships, or personal goals because they don't involve your partner. Oh, guilty.
• 23:15
  Control and panic. You feel intense anxiety when you're not around them, or you become deeply jealous when they invest time in others. That's when attachment styles can get weaponized. Cyclical conflict, every disagreement blows up into a crisis because your sensitivities are intertwined, making minor issues feel like relationship ending threats. This is also why couples therapy can be contraindicated, because it can actually make things worse.
• 23:44
  So it says how to untangle that seaweed. I mean, it doesn't say seaweed, but I'm keeping the vision of seaweed because that is much safer. That is much safer and helps me see it clearly. Number one, take a me inventory. Spend intentional time alone.
• 24:02
  That is what I have done for the last year and a half. I have stayed single. I have spent time alone. I have worked on these things. I have learned these things.
• 24:12
  I have done the work I set out to do, and I have learned so much. It says rediscover your personal interests and reengage with friends outside of your relationship. I think the biggest thing I've gotten back in a new way is music, different than ever before, and that's been fun. Number two, establishing clear boundaries. They keep coming back to this.
• 24:35
  Define what your personal space means. Frame this not as a pulling away, but as making room for healthier, more sustainable love. And number three, self regulate. Practice processing your own emotions before bringing them to your partner. This prevents every feeling from escalating into a shared crisis.
• 24:56
  Oh, and then that therapist has a good video on that again. So I think where this landed for me with parasocial was that I was doing that some with the podcast, which was fine until I knew people or people thought they knew me, which is different than actually getting to know people and building actual relationships, which matters so much. But then there's like entangling that happens that I don't even know is happening, and that doesn't feel safe to anybody. It doesn't feel safe to them. It doesn't feel safe to me.
• 25:31
  So learning more about that. And unfortunately, there's not enough information about this in the literature. So I am looking at that. I am studying that, and I am working on helping present that. Doctor.
• 25:46
  Laurie's amazing. Okay. So now I wanna know. Okay. So this is what I looked up.
• 25:54
  It says the emotional entanglement is a reenactment. And in fact, why it can escalate so much is because there's a compulsion to continue to hyperfocus on another person so that you can recreate the familiar toxic relationship in effort to gain closure or fix the original wound. And also, that's how reenactment continues to harm us, because it doesn't actually address the original wound. So it's just adding to the wound. The mechanics, it says, are the unconscious pool.
• 26:31
  You subconsciously seek out dynamics that feel familiar, even if that familiarity is painful. I walked right into that, right? The illusion of control. The brain attempts to process and master an old unresolved hurt by restaging it in the present with new characters so that you can solve the problem of it. Okay, y'all.
• 26:54
  We do not need to be in relationships that are escape rooms. We're not gonna drown in the weeds of the seaweed. We want to lift each other up for air so that we're all breathing and we can be happy, healthy whales. So we can witness our own reactions when we feel a sudden surge of intense emotion, we can pause to ask, what feeling in myself am I having trouble sitting with? Number two, establish autonomy, focus on building a strong independent sense of identity outside the relationship, engaging in your own hobbies, journaling and daily habits that foster self connection.
• 27:33
  Y'all, I think that is something that gets me too because I love the journaling and I wanna share the journaling, whether that is almost any format, but playing with the art in the journals and then, like, pen pals. I have a whole thing about that because I had this pen pal that I got in fifth grade, and she followed me until that earthquake in Japan. And we really like, there's a whole theme in our littles about pen pals and wanting to be able to stay connected to people or send things and help you make sure that that is healthy enough and also that I'm giving myself the same thing. If I paint a series of bookmarks, I include myself in being able to use them. If, like, all these different things showing up in ways that don't sacrifice myself but include myself.
• 28:29
  It says, anytime we have big feelings about someone else, when we are super sad with someone else or super angry at someone else, we need to ask ourselves what feeling within myself am I having trouble being with. To the extent that we get caught up in a reaction to someone else, we become blind to the part of the difficulty that lies within ourselves. Fascinating, that's very psychodynamic, very relational. That's good. I'll put that article.
• 28:58
  Let me copy that link for the show notes also. Okay. So let's go to actual literature. Now that we kinda know what we're talking about, let's go to actual literature. This article is from a book from 2024.
• 29:17
  Oh, interesting. This one compares it to quantum physics. That's fun. Quantum social theory. Let me put that in there.
• 29:26
  Okay. This one from 2026 talks about the architecture of it using the access of the head, heart, and gut. And oh, interesting. So makes patterns out of the entanglements and calls them operator fusions. These patterns represent the mechanical configurations where two or more operators, people, become pathologically or reflexively locked, creating the rigid traits and states often observed in psychopathology.
• 29:59
  So this is what we see when there are people that we know are good people, but get caught up in abusive dynamics because it's reenactment. So the abuse was in memory time, but then it starts happening in now time because we're trying to recreate it, to heal from it, only that doesn't work. That's actually some of what trips me up sometimes because I understand that it is a trauma response. And also, doctor Teuma says, I do not need to tolerate it just because it's a trauma response. Or Laura Brown says, I don't need to endure it just because it's a trauma response.
• 30:42
  Okay, okay. Here's another one all the way back from 2016 that is saying critical thinking helps, and also we have to tend to the empathic or affective wounds, otherwise we will have information that cannot do critical thinking, because our variables are off and when we're not presuming goodwill, then even if we have some of the information, we will draw false conclusions, and that sets us up for reenactment without even realizing, and will help us hyper focus on what is going wrong instead of seeing what is right or good or healthy. And, as part of our brain actively trying to set up a reenactment, So then the bad stuff, which is really memory time, keeps seeking out where can it play out in now time. And so kind of loops on any pieces that could be off or could be off and then draws false conclusions about them to make like, making the puzzle fit. That's really interesting, but that's all the way back from 2016.
• 31:52
  I'm surprised how much I'm seeing about dogs and animals as well, but that makes so much sense. Okay. So I don't want to go too much on the side quest. I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go too much on the side quest into all of that because I would be more weeds and I'm flighting from how hard it is and how scary it is and how much it hurt.
• 32:15
  Right? And how much for me that brings up grief. And so I'll stay present with the big feelings, but that visual of the seaweed as a way to represent those entanglements, I think is really helpful because it's a safe image. Like, even painted it for therapy. I painted seaweed, and I like seaweed, like in my with sushi and everything else.
• 32:41
  Right? And so and so the other thing I really like about it both for myself and when I'm working with folks is because it puts the stuff out there and makes it not malicious. When I'm only seeing how much this person is hurting me, it's really hard to see what actually hurt me in memory time. And it's hard to take responsibility for my own part in being caught up in it. But when I know it's the seaweed, when I know it's trying to cleanse me like a carwash does and think about it that way, then it's outside myself.
• 33:17
  And it's not about blaming anybody and not about shaming myself. It's just about healing. Everyone is trying to heal. Our brains naturally want us to heal. And also helps me notice that feeling inside when I start to get caught up in an entanglement and I feel kind of wavy because something's coming between me and my values and that DPDR starts, or I start feeling a little off center, I can notice, oh, that's what that rhythm is.
• 33:47
  That's what those waves are. And identify it so I can pull out sooner so that I'm not caught up in it. And it is much safer and more healthy. And that gives me hope because it doesn't have to keep repeating. 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.
• 34:23
  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.