Latest / System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation / Re-Engaging

Transcript

Re-Engaging · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: 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 longtime 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
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: to the podcast. Thank you. I had therapy three times last week.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: It's all kind of a blur.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: On Monday, it was an extra appointment I had asked for on Friday because there were big feelings, and I've learned to ask for help and not do it by myself anymore. And it felt safer to see my therapist an extra time than to just carry it around alone. Wednesday was my regular appointment, And we talked about journaling pages, which I got to shred myself. Not memory time kind of journaling, but now time journaling about the last year that's been so hard. Things we haven't even talked about on the podcast.
• 2:17
  Things when now time feels as hard as memory time sometimes. But we were getting ready for memory time things in therapy. I needed to wrap up now time things to have the spoons to do so. Even though my therapist keeps saying all of it counts. And then I went back on Friday to start my regular appointments for twice a week for at least a season.
• 3:20
  I'm talking about what it's going to be looking like to talk about memory time things. It's been a long time since I was in therapy for therapy, for actual therapy. Not really since losing my first therapist. And definitely not since finding our new Linda therapist. But I've been in therapy here or signed up for it for a whole year now, and a lot has happened in now time.
• 4:11
  So even though every once in a while, I've been able to say, hey. This is the thing. It's coming up. I can't talk about it right now. Or, hey.
• 4:20
  This is the thing. This is the week it happened so long ago, which is more than I've done in five years. I still hadn't actually got into things so much. Let my guard down that much. It's been hard and not just because of what happened before in therapy with my previous therapist, Kelly, But because so much is changing in now time, it's felt like trying to stand in the sand without sliding around as if there's been no solid ground.
• 5:10
  It's been like being in a fun house in a scary kind of way where you don't know which mirrors are the path and which mirrors are blocking you, which mirrors are real and which mirrors are distorted. That's what the last year has felt like with so many changes, becoming more and more comfortable in my own skin, which is progress and why it counts as therapy, and also less and less comfortable in the world in which I'm in. And, also, less and less comfortable in the world I had surrounded myself in along the way until now. Unfawning and the untangling that followed has been hard. I had to ask deep questions about who am I, How do I identify?
• 6:26
  What do I want? What are my choices? And how do I even know how to choose? And when I finally do, who's still even there on the other side? So many things have happened.
• 6:50
  So many people have come and gone. I've had to redefine what safe means, and when I feel it, and when I see it, and when I don't, when it stays and when it doesn't. I've had to renegotiate all my boundaries. What am I open to? What am I not?
• 7:22
  What boundaries do I need? And how am I ever going to learn some common sense? And how do I stay open to trying without shaming myself for what I just don't understand yet? How do I make the changes I see clearly and know that I want and don't know yet if I have the courage to balance out my fears. How do I choose myself without hurting everyone around me?
• 8:23
  But even in all that, I have learned to trust myself and even my body more and more that it knows what I need, what feels safe, and what doesn't, even when I don't always understand why. I have grieved the loss of friends, the changing shape of my family, and my children as they fly back and forth. Practicing for the beginning of their own lives With adolescents in full swing. I have learned that I need care. And also when it's safe to receive care, and also where it's safe to get it and where it's not and how to practice receiving it and letting it be.
• 10:09
  I told Jules that maybe I have some care busters growing into care trusters. And that part of what makes that safe enough is that even care is nuanced. That some things feel safe enough sometimes and not other times, and that's okay. Adding shiny happy to the mix and undoing that has meant getting better at making mistakes, sometimes bigger mistakes. Today, I was painting, working on a mural in the office, but it was close to time for therapy, and I didn't think I had time to change into my painting clothes.
• 11:23
  But we, something more than just me, we were excited to paint, and painting is way more fun than therapy. And so I thought I could get it started, do just a little bit. And I dropped paint, bright melon color paint, Angel's pink sweater. She was gracious about it, and I apologized. And, also, I'm just a mess.
• 12:15
  And there are some things that with therapy will get better, and, also, some things that I think are just me and learning to accept me as I am is maybe part of the progress. Even if I learn lessons along the way, like don't wear other people's sweaters when you're painting. And, also, I'm not sorry that the sweater felt like a hug or that I was excited about painting. Maybe that's part of blending. Blending something more than just parts or altars or shirts.
• 13:14
  So I've come a long way in the last year of therapy, learning lots of things about myself and friendships and relationships, and the good and the hard about what that looks like for me and what that means to me and what it looks like for me to show up or not show up or even show up and get it wrong in those relationships. I feel like I'm learning, like something invisible is developing, like I'm adulting in a domain in my life that I didn't even know existed. Maybe not quite adulting. Sometimes it feels like everyone else is older than me. And I don't just mean because of younger parts.
• 14:30
  I mean, because of being sheltered. I mean, because of being isolated growing up. I mean, because of the confines of shiny happy. There's so much life experience that I don't even know or have or understand. So much for me to still learn, But I'm still here, and I'm still trying.
• 15:08
  And some of it won't really get better until I can heal the pieces where things went wrong. I don't mean pieces of me where things went wrong Because I'm not what's broken. The mirror is broken. I am not bad. What happened to me is bad.
• 15:44
  See how far I've come that I can even say those things and mean it, even believe it. But my timeline is a little wonky, and the things that happened along the timeline have been really hard. So if I had found a good therapist who's good enough and staying enough and I feel safe enough, then I think it's time enough to start talking about the things. So last Friday, that's what we did. Talk about what that would be like, what it would look like, maybe doing some eye movements slowly, gently, talking about memory time things.
• 17:06
  And I had homework for over the weekend to think about a calm, safe place that I could call something besides that. But a place I have been or could imagine where I felt safe enough, calm enough, regulated enough, maybe even soothed enough, and the sensory details of that memory or imagination. So I tried to think about that over the weekend, and I know it's not appropriate for sharing the details of on the podcast because it's only mine, a piece to keep to myself, not to give away to anyone. That's how my weekend started, feeling safe and calm. But like the weather in Oklahoma, my life continues to be chaotic even when I'm trying.
• 18:28
  They had 17 tornadoes over the weekend in Oklahoma, and three of them touched down in the town where we're from. One near where Nathan and the children are living with his parents. One downtown and one near the high school. Much of a rural town north of there got wiped out. The damage locally was enough.
• 18:57
  The kids got out of school and were shaken with big feelings from the night in the hallway huddled up for safety that I took off work here to tend to them, to Zoom them, to call them, to let them see me, to see them, to hear their stories and make sure they were safe. It was not very calm, but it was calming, showing up for them, witnessing myself parenting in good enough ways. And then one more of them flew back here with all the changing of who is going to be where for the summer. Moving the rest of my office into the new office with Jules. Moving one of the kids up to the room that used to be my office and moving the new one into that room.
• 20:15
  Moving itself may be fairly activating for me. Lots of cues from growing up, moving from VA to VA. I wonder still if it's part of how I don't know how to just be still or settle enough the way some other people can. I don't know how to imagine a life that is stable enough with all the bills are paid and there's food enough and housing that stays the same. It's so foreign to me, and I don't know how to imagine it.
• 21:11
  So whether intentional flight or unintentional flight or just pure adventure. I don't know. But my kids know how to do planes, and I've tried to pass it on in a good way, the knowing how to move, to meet new people, to live in different places, to experience different cultures. But it does make my life wild as a tornado, things flying around, spinning around, ever changing, even when I'm trying to just be. By Monday, I wished I had another extra appointment, but I didn't have one, and I didn't ask.
• 22:15
  Not just to deny myself help I should be asking for or need to receive or to deny myself care that I need to receive. But because things were literally that chaotic, I couldn't have if I wanted to, and so it didn't happen. So today, Wednesday, I rode the whirlwind back to therapy, a little more scattered than feeling calm and safe. And, also, because therapy is safe enough, we could talk about it and get it out and settle, regulate enough even though what was happening in our life was disregulating. So it's not like bad behavior, and I still have to talk myself through the shame of it.
• 23:31
  But there was enough time left to talk about maybe what would happen if we started doing memory time therapy again. To go slowly and gently, she let me see the choices. If I wanna do eye movements with the light bar or with the paddles in my hand or with the things you hold in your hand just to try them out. And then she asked questions about when memory time has invaded now time and what are some examples. We had talked about starting easy, so I told her about moving luggage into the house yesterday, going through the garage, and how I had a flash of the memory of when I broke my foot there in that same spot when that same child was here last summer.
• 24:52
  So we talked about that when I hurt my foot. And what was hard about that besides the fact that it hurt and still hurts now? I told her, I think it's that I was hurt and alone. Like, there's a people in my family. Where was everybody?
• 25:23
  And also maybe guilt because I wanna be angry that they didn't just do what I asked, and then I wouldn't have even been out there and would not have broken my foot. And, also, I can just own my stuff and do my own things. And I was just trying to get it taken care of, and that was my codependency, which is my responsibility to change and set boundaries around to be healthier. So I can't really blame anyone else. And, also, no one meant to make it happen.
• 26:07
  It's not about blame. So that's a lot of nuance and a lot of truths to hold all at once. My therapist says that a lot, that there's more than one truth. More than just holding both even. So she asked about that.
• 26:35
  When else had I felt hurt and alone? And what came up in my brain was during the pandemic, maybe even before that, after Africa. I've been listening to those episodes as we work on OG episodes and getting them back up and realizing that the Africa trip happened right before the pandemic. I'm so glad we didn't get stuck there. And, also, my therapist at the time that Kelly had spent a year teaching us now time is safe, And then it wasn't.
• 27:29
  And when it wasn't, where was she? Or what happened that we didn't tend to that? What did I do so wrong? Where did she go so wrong? How do you hold space for both of that?
• 27:50
  The nuances, the more than one truth, holding both? When I was hurt and alone. And that led us to the grief of daydreaming. I don't mean just about Jules having her own life as well, but about how I can't be married to a man just because I'm gay. I can't be married to a man.
• 28:26
  Even though Nathan hasn't done anything wrong or ever hurt me, I have nothing bad to say about him. Nothing bad or terrible has happened other than I just need to be me. And he has always let me be me. And she took that deeper to the same feelings about God. And my anger related to my faith, shiny happy specifically, and my realization that no one's coming.
• 29:19
  The miracles that I've known were my own. That it was me that was there. Me that was working hard. Me that did the things. There's no one coming to rescue me.
• 29:41
  And that's when I started to cry in therapy today. There's no one coming. Last week, I read an article. I can post a link to it in the show notes. But it was about how we have felt presence with us under certain conditions for our brain.
• 30:10
  It was an article in Scientific American, I think. And it made my blood run cold because of experiences I've had, because of faith I want to keep, because of what shiny happy has done to me, because of doing enough therapy, Because the last year of unfawning and un daydreaming has taught me that there's no one there. No one is coming to save me, to rescue me, to make life better, to make life easier. There are no easy answers. I have to save myself.
• 31:16
  I have always had to save myself. That's why I cried Because my therapist, of course, connected that back to foster care, to childhood, to people saying they cared and then they didn't, to people saying they would be a family and then not, to my own family not wanting me, For everyone around me being overwhelmed and unable to help, the same as I am overwhelmed and exhausted from trying. For recognizing the truth that no matter how good I am or how hard I try, no one is coming. This is all me. It's all on me.
• 32:37
  I have to do the things. I have to get myself together. I have to learn how to provide for myself and my family, how to set boundaries whether they like it or not, how to find friends who stay, and how to have the hard conversations that make that possible, and how to trust when it is, How to believe in me and to believe in them and to be willing and open to continuing to try. Open to possibility. Open to healing.
• 33:32
  That's what my therapist said, that there's more than one truth. That it may very well be that it's true that no one is coming, that I have to save myself. And, also, I always have. I've done it so far, and I'm not entirely alone anymore. Those who have stayed in my life, those who do try, those who are working on themselves and simply a presence alongside me for real.
• 34:22
  Those are still miracles to me. Those who have helped or supported or shown up in a hundred different ways, that is still real enough even when it feels like so much has been taken away. So while it may be true that it's not a far fall to despair, it's also true there's hope enough to come down from the ledge. And in holding both truths and all the feelings in between, It's how we do another day. Still hurting.
• 35:23
  Still saving myself. And also not alone. Because others also have hurt and are trying to save themselves. And maybe that's part of getting through it together. Thank you for listening.
• 35:57
  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, and you can join us on the community at www.systemspeak.com. We'll see you there.