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Piece by Piece · 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.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I am finally starting to feel better. It has really been a rough couple of months in lots of ways, and I have missed you in the community. I hope that by the time this airs, I will be back in the community on a regular basis and getting to see your beautiful faces in groups. I miss you. I really, really do.
• 1:28
  It has been Trixie. Not bad. It's just my work being deployed. And then also we had COVID, and then we had to finish our deployment, which we will then transition to virtually. So it's been like we have been all over the place.
• 1:44
  So if you missed me, I missed us too. It has just been a lot. It has been a lot. But one of the things that happened was that we got to go to the Denver Regional Conference for ISSTD, and we got to meet four community members. And it was so fun to meet them in real life.
• 2:07
  I got to spend a lot of time with two of them, and it was just so nourishing to my soul to feel these friendships blossom and experience all the deep conversations that we had, the laughing that we shared, and the adventures in this bizarre hotel that we were in that was, like, a different theme on every floor. So there was, like, a Pac Man floor. There was a music floor. There was a horror floor that we did not go check out. There was a sci fi floor.
• 2:46
  It was just so fun. We just had so many adventures. And maybe it's okay that we couldn't do everything. Maybe that's part of what we're learning and pacing, and what we did get to do was exactly right. One of the adventures that we had was that I got asked out on a date.
• 3:11
  You guys, I was shocked, and it was so funny. I mean, look at this. You know me. Does it look like I have been asked out on a date anytime recently or that I was expecting that? No.
• 3:26
  I don't think so. So while it was pretty bizarre and it was pretty funny and not just bizarre because people have feelings, like, I get that. That is not bizarre, and I am not shaming that at all. What is bizarre was that I didn't know this person at all, and it has been a long time since we had a random pickup line. Oh my goodness.
• 3:52
  So here's the thing, though. It actually brought up a lot of really good conversations that we had. And I wanted to talk about this a little bit because I feel like I can't be the only one experiencing this. So sometimes this can happen in therapy when it's called transference. Sometimes that transference can happen with friends or in other relationships.
• 4:15
  But you know how when you're in a relationship, whether it's a friendship, I don't mean necessarily a romantic one, but any kind of relationship, that brings up the wounds from the past. Right? Which is why we need each other for healing because it's connection that helps resolve some of those things and heal some of those things. But we practice that together, the healing part, and we work out the hard stuff in therapy. Right?
• 4:43
  Like, I know that groups or Zoom is not the time for trauma details or trauma bonding or getting sucked into those triangles of rescuer, victim, and perpetrator. And so I understand that, and I'm aware of that. But we also know that stuff just comes up in relationships because we are practicing. And I feel like when we are able to talk about things and do healthy repair or healthy conversations, then we're really able to work through things and recognize what's going on and what it's really about because we are not just animals. I mean, we are mammals, but animals need shelter.
• 5:32
  They need food, and they need reproduction. Those are all animal impulses because survival depends on those things. So as mammals, we also want shelter and food and reproduction, and that means having an innate biological drive for sex. Right? And sex is amazing.
• 5:57
  There's nothing wrong with saying that. But, also, we're humans, which means we have agency, which means we have the capacity to choose when to have sex, when not to have sex, how far to go into making out with somebody, or what boundaries to set about that, when or where, what is the place we're comfortable with, what is the timing we're comfortable with, and the most important piece is consent. So, obviously, those of us with sexual abuse in our past have had consent violated. It's not okay. So now those of us who have dissociation because of trauma end up having lots of layers.
• 6:46
  Like, this can be a really complicated thing to talk about. So please forgive me if I don't do it gently enough or if I don't cover your particular experience because all of us are different. But something that happens with a lot of us, I think, are that just like other issues like big feelings or memories, our experiences with sex and with abuse that involved sexual abuse, these aspects of ourselves kind of get split up into different parts sometimes. And I really still struggle with parts, but I don't know what else you would say. So you know what I'm talking about, though.
• 7:26
  Right? And so there may be parts of you that really, really like sex. There may be parts of you that really, really don't like sex. There may be parts of you that are curious or interested, but also afraid or cautious. And there is just like with any other things, whether that's memories or big feelings, there are there may be some kind of gatekeeping system that helps you as a whole know when to do this or when not to do this or who you can do it with, all of those things.
• 8:03
  And that is part of living your life. But this experience here, which my friends found very funny, it was not funny, guys. Okay. It was a little bit funny. My experience with this brought up so much in our conversation, and so I just wanted to talk about this a little bit.
• 8:25
  Because in this example, I obviously declined the date. I did not accept the date. Because first of all, the husband, which I'll talk about in a minute, lucky him. I'm gonna talk about him again. But second of all, this person only knew me through the podcast.
• 8:44
  They have not even come to Zoom groups or anything. We have not built any kind of friendship or relationship. So even if the husband was not in the picture or even if I was completely available and maybe even therapeutically available to do anything I want, I would still have to decline this person because they were fawning about the podcast, which means they cannot actually consent to that sort of relationship. And consent is everything. So I I, obviously, in this situation that actually happened, I declined the proposition.
• 9:23
  Although, thank you. I don't know what to say. I am just not in a position to be available for that for, like, a 100 reasons right now. But thanks for the very forward offer. That was very brave.
• 9:37
  So for a 100 reasons, I declined this particular opportunity. But it brings up a lot of questions that I really do need to be looking at and talking about and discussing and exploring and figuring out for myself. So in my own particular life, besides any childhood issues, I did not date in high school. I did not date in high school, like, at all. I completely, a 100% avoided it because of everything that was going on around me.
• 10:11
  In college, I was in that difficult situation, which you know about because of previous episodes, and I was not in a place to be dating. I wasn't interested in dating. And there was more abuse going on into my adulthood, which I think we don't talk about enough and maybe need to come back to for a whole different episode. But because of that abuse, there it is also true that there were parts of me that were very activated and very much exploring sexuality and acting out in ways that I think we thought were about relationships, but were not really because these people didn't care for us. There there was no relationship happening.
• 11:04
  It was like we confused them being possessive over us as them choosing us. It was domestic violence situations. It was dating alcoholics. Like, all of these things were really, really not good for us and made our life way more complicated than it had to be. And somehow, looking back, this is just in hindsight with the pieces I can have access to, trying to reflect on all of that and what happened.
• 11:38
  I feel like that in some ways, our system responded to these experiences in different ways. One thing that happened is that we just kind of developed this very extreme aversion to male bodies. Now one thing I love about the community is that we have, over the last of two years, really developed some healthy friendships with very safe and good and kind male bodied friends. And I am very grateful to them. I I think it's unfortunate that there's so much pressure on them to be so sensitive and safe because so many other men have abused that.
• 12:31
  And we know that women can be abusers too. And so to know that we have male bodied friends who've been abused by females, who have been abused by males, whatever their story is in different ways, like, we can't just make assumptions about gender. And so having male friends over the last few years and now I actually have a lot of friends who are male bodied friends that have been really good and kind and safe, and I really, really love having them in my life. So I think that we've come a long, long way with this. Like, my life, my world is a better place for having these men in my life.
• 13:17
  And then the husband, obviously, you know him. You've heard him on the podcast. This is very authentic. It is very him. It's not edited.
• 13:28
  Like, he is just like that. He is safe. He is kind. He thinks he's funny. He is so supportive.
• 13:35
  Like, I can't tell you how good he has been to me in so many ways. And so I love that we have come from this place of aversion and avoidance of men to having so many good men in our lives. So a shout out to all the good males because I love you so much. I am so grateful for you. There are just it has changed my whole world.
• 14:01
  I I just I mean it seriously. My life is better because you are in it, and I am so glad you are here. I'm so grateful for your participation in my life and in the lives of those around you, so thank you for being in the world truly. And it's funny to even be talking about this because this morning in The United States, today is Father's Day. So so it's kind of extra special.
• 14:29
  I mean, I know it won't still be Father's Day by the time this episode airs, but I just I wanna hold space for the good male bodied people in this world and just truly express my gratitude. But as I navigated those early years and trying to find my way to safety, one thing that I really thought would be helpful was if I were only with women. I even lived in a women's commune for a while. Like, you don't understand. I thought I could just escape the world of men altogether.
• 15:09
  And out of this, like, I really I really tried hard to find a relationship that would be stable and safe and would last. And I feel like from each relationship, I learned something that helped me have that helped me this is so hard to talk about, but I think that each relationship helped me learn something that I took with me into the next relationship so that that one was a little bit better. But it took me a long time to realize that an underlying current was that I kept eating alcoholics, and that wasn't going to work whether you're straight or gay or anything. And so, like, they were really violent, and it was a really traumatic time in my life. And I don't wanna go into those details, but it was very, very difficult for me.
• 16:06
  And part of that difficulty meant I kept ending up in situations where I had to run away to be safe. So it kept reinforcing this flight response. Like, I didn't know it was a flight response at the time where even ultimately that I just ultimately actually just left the country. But I continued exploring these relationships and learning from each thing. So I knew that I did not wanna be married to a man.
• 16:36
  And finally, after several difficult experiences and years and years of trying to muddle my way through adulthood, I realized I also could not be with an alcoholic that was going to, like, physically abuse me or fight or scream at me all the time. I could not do those things. So I had a lot of really, really hard experiences, but that also included not being accepted or approved by my family, which was really happening anyway. But being a part of the GLBT community really kind of just made things worse with my family, and there was more misattunement. And so I struggled more and made more of a mess of things, which just reinforced what they already thought of me.
• 17:26
  Like, it was just this spiral, and I couldn't fix it. And it was such a difficult season because I had my own traumas during those experiences as well. The domestic violence relationships, obviously that's trauma, but I also had a lot of trauma in the GLBT community. Like, I had some really difficult experiences. So it made me hard to feel connected there when even there I felt rejected or even there I felt abused.
• 17:56
  Like, where was safety? I also had a lot of grief and violations and betrayals in some of those experiences that I don't need to get into right now, but that were really, really difficult. And ultimately, I just needed to take a break and not date anyone for years. So then there was this extended period of time where I was not dating anyone because I needed to get to know myself more than I realized and heal things with me instead of expecting someone else in a relationship to heal me. And that seriously was one of the best decisions I ever made as an adult.
• 18:44
  During these same years, I was also exploring my faith. I had grown up with some religious abuse in a very conservative evangelical kind of religion, and I wanted to make my faith my own. And that required sorting out who I thought God was and the difference between that and people who badly represent their version of God. And I had to untangle those pieces, which is really hard, and I'm not gonna get into that right now. But what I mean is it was definitely an identity exploration kind of phase in my life that was not just about sexuality or orientation or things like that.
• 19:33
  And so faith is actually very, very important to me, and I did a lot of studying. I went to synagogue. I learned Hebrew. I had already learned Catholicism from an adoptive family. And this history of saints and scribes and people who devoted their lives to try to pass on goodness in the world just intrigued me.
• 20:01
  And layers of ancient wisdom intrigued me. And I studied and I studied and I studied. And ultimately, the faith tradition I ended up choosing was one that had some practical benefits for me, like supporting my sobriety, but also had some more spiritual pieces that were really important to me, like acknowledging some version of the feminine divine. So all of these things were really important to me. And then when we met the husband, I was able to marry him or that part of us who married him did so for three reasons.
• 20:40
  One, he was good and kind and safe, and we had not found safety with anyone. Okay? So we were not going to let go of that when we found that. And number two, in that church, we could get married in full freedom of being ourselves without any distress because our family literally were not allowed inside the building, which is something we had literally worried about and been anxious about since we were a young child. And not just because of abuse or something, but our family does not get along with each other.
• 21:24
  And then we were always in the middle between the tension of them and the arguments of them and the drama of them and them wanting the scoop on the other side. We were always stuck in the middle. And this would be a moment that could be ours without any of that. And then the third reason was he was very sexually safe. Now what I understand now is a term like ACE.
• 21:51
  Right? But because of this, which I didn't know the words at the time, I don't know if that was around. Maybe it was around by then. But because of this, and I knew this about him, I chose it intentionally because there was no pressure on me sexually. And there was no I wasn't going to have to do anything I didn't want to do, and I wasn't going to be violated, which had happened regardless of the gender I had dated or who I had been with.
• 22:22
  And so this was everything, and I was not going to let go of that. It was absolutely the best relationship I've ever had. It still is the best relationship I've ever had. And so I'm grateful to him. He has always been very safe.
• 22:37
  He has never raised his voice at me. He has never done any kind of name calling or threatening. He has never physically hurt me. He has never touched me or violated me or initiated anything without my consent. He has never done anything like that.
• 22:56
  But he also absolutely helped change diapers. He absolutely takes turns cooking. He helps clean up. He helps with the children. Like, he is everything that I needed in those ways.
• 23:10
  And I am grateful for him, and you all know how amazing he is. So I'm thinking everything is fine until a couple of months ago in the middle of therapy, my therapist randomly says to me as if I was looking for trouble. She randomly says to me, when are we going to talk about you and your husband both being gay? And what is that like for you because it's a lot of loneliness to carry? Now let me reassure you.
• 23:47
  I was not feeling lonely until she said that. I was not worried about it until she said that. And so what we have been talking about in therapy is how safety is not the same as nourishing, and not being harmed is not the same as being tended to. Now, again, let me be clear. You know him.
• 24:17
  He tends to me in many ways. So how do you navigate that therapeutically when the more progress you make in healing, the more parts of you start coming online, and it disrupts present day functioning and choices in ways that are challenging. And that is all kinds of things. Emma, the one you know as Emma, we haven't seen since 2,019, and she's the one who married him. Now maybe that's because he's not been living here.
• 24:56
  Maybe when he comes back, she'll come back. Like, I don't know how that works. But in the meantime, what do we do about that sexual expression or sexual connection or something? Like, is it am am I going to just abandon him? No.
• 25:14
  Am I going to do anything that would hurt him or harm him or that he wouldn't know about? Absolutely not. My priority is caring for him and being safe for him in the same way he has been safe for me. But, also, I know that having animal needs because I'm a mammal doesn't mean I have to be driven by those impulses. I am also a human who has agency to choose how and when those impulses are expressed in what context and what those boundaries and what that safety is going to look like for me.
• 25:55
  So they are big questions, and I've talked about all of this with him. I've talked about all of this with the therapist. And it is just fascinating to recognize that these issues are there. Like, I can't just pretend that they're not there. I can't just ignore them until they go away.
• 26:17
  That's not how it works. So are they difficult topics, sensitive topics, and in lots of way, very private topics? Yes. And so it is difficult, but I cannot just avoid it. And it's hard because then because then, like, with transference, when you start building relationships and you start building friendships, that can trigger some of those feelings because you have this deep intimacy you're building in these friendships.
• 26:47
  And remember, intimacy is not about sex. Intimacy is talking, time together, and nonsexual touch. Healthy sex. Unless you're choosing a different kink or something that is consensual to all parties, healthy sex comes out of those three t's. It comes out of those layers of intimacy.
• 27:12
  It is a result of those aspects of intimacy. Right? So as we start spending time together in Zoom groups or building friendships, as we start talking about vulnerable things and being responsive to each other, it is very natural that all kinds of feelings get triggered or come to the surface because it's a natural response to intimacy. But it doesn't have to be eroticized, and people don't have to be objectified. But it's tricksy because that is what was done to us.
• 27:53
  When we were abused, especially for those of us who were sexually abused specifically, it makes sense that some kind of closeness, or when we start to feel empowered, that that would sometimes be associated with having the power the way our abusers had power and so connected with romantic or sexual feelings towards someone. Because when we were little, that's what was associated with any kind of care or closeness. But here's the thing. That was not care or closeness. That was abuse.
• 28:38
  And we, as adult humans, don't have to reenact with others what was done to us. And in fact, sometimes when you really care about someone, you can express that love to them by not doing to them what was done to you. I was talking about this with my friends this weekend. And one of the things that one of them said was it makes sense that when you start to have those feelings of safety and those feelings of connection, that you would want to act on it more as if you could hold it in your hand. If you hold the person, if you can claim the person, like this reaching out.
• 29:30
  You guys, that's an attached cry. You're you're reaching out, trying to make them stay, trying to make it permanent, trying to make it more real than it already is. But that is not about sex with that person. That is not about romantic feelings with that person. That is about the depth of emptiness and loneliness and neglect that has been within you needing to be filled and waiting to be filled.
• 30:06
  But sex is not the answer to that. Sex is not going to solve that. Sex will not make that go away. Romantic feelings or sex, any of that is not what fills that hole. And that hole can't just be ignored.
• 30:30
  You can't just fill it up and pretend it was never there. That hole needs to be grieved, that you were neglected or violated or abused, whether it was relational trauma or physical trauma or sexual trauma, those violations need to be honored and grieved and acknowledged to be healed. And part of that grief is that it can never be undone. What has happened and what didn't happen is already in the past. It's already there, but it doesn't make you wrong for needing care.
• 31:20
  It doesn't make you wrong or bad for feeling big feelings even of attraction. But when you feel those feelings, that means not that you need to act on it with sex. It means that you're experiencing attunement at a different level or in a different place than you have in other times. When you're in relationship, whatever's coming to the surface, that's what's going to be tended to and healed. And those of us with trauma from our childhood have these kinds of violations, and that's going to be part of what is brought to the surface.
• 32:00
  And that does not make you wrong or bad or even rejected. It's okay to say, wow, I am experiencing this, and I don't know what it means. I don't know what to do with it. Here's my context. Here's what I'm feeling.
• 32:17
  And to work with your therapist about what is coming to the surface, to talk it out, to process it, to hold space for those things, for those parts, and see what purpose they serve or what information they're giving you. And with whoever your partner is, if you have one, to have conversations about here's what I think I need, even though I didn't need it yesterday. Or here's what's not okay with me because I'm tending to this. And now in a relationship, I need you to tend to it also. And what that looks like when you have different parts that are genders or different parts that are different orientations or all those kinds of struggles, all of that's valid.
• 33:01
  But if you just hold space and honor what's there and communicate about it, if you're in a relationship or with your therapist or both, healing that, the pieces will fall into place. I don't know yet what that is looking like. But are there all kinds of things that you sacrifice for a relationship when you care about someone? Yes. Can you do that in healthy ways that honor your commitments?
• 33:28
  Yeah. I think you can. So what is that gonna look like for me? I don't know yet. I'm still in the middle of it.
• 33:35
  But I can explore what I need to resolve this or to feel better about this or to look at these pieces my therapist brought to the table without harming the people around me, or without betraying someone who has been kind to me, or without violating someone else's capacity to consent. These are big and important issues and not at all what I thought would be the topic of conversation this weekend. But here we are.
• 34:31
  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
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: this. Connection brings healing.