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Emma Accepts Her Diagnosis · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Over: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast,
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: 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.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I had therapy today. I got to see her. We drove down yesterday taking different roads to get around the floods, And we spent the night at the husband's parents' house, which is an hour away from where the therapist is. So that got us close enough we could get to therapy around the floods and still be driving in the daytime so we could see that where we were going was safe and know how to follow struggling the last couple of weeks so I'm really glad we made it and coming was the right thing. And maybe for the first time, I stayed the whole time.
• 2:22
  Not just stayed the whole time, but said all the things that I needed to say, even the hard things. I talked about missing her and how I struggled and how part of me felt bad for being so needy and not at all trying to be inappropriate or weird or crazy. But really struggling without that connection. But it was good because she didn't shame me at all for it. And however annoyed she might have been in real life, she didn't let on and didn't act like it while I was there.
• 3:27
  She said, struggling like that just makes me human, and it doesn't mean I'm unwell at all. And she said, everybody who's human needs connection. And everyone who's human struggles from time to time. When you miss that connection or it's interrupted somehow. In this case, for us, because of the storms.
• 4:13
  I also confessed to her that I hadn't been writing in the notebook. First, because the girls were here and there wasn't time, and then because of the storms, and there wasn't time. And then after that, there was just too much. It had all built up so much, and I didn't know where to start. And then somehow that jumped to just not being able to and then not doing the workbook.
• 4:51
  All of it together really was the perfect storm so I told her that what I learned that the notebook is helping and the workbook is helping and talking to her is helping. So I learned that the hard way, but we were able to talk about it. But then we also talked about now time and memory time. And I learned something new that I wanted to share here so I could listen to it again. We've been working on learning that now time is safe and making sure that everybody inside knows that now time is safe.
• 5:51
  We're not being abused or neglected in now time. We're not hungry or abandoned. We're able to care for ourselves and choose healthy people in our lives. We have the husband and the therapist and the house where we live and the children in it and the therapist's office. All of these things make now time safe.
• 6:26
  Memory time is in the past. That's when we were hurt and we were abandoned and we were neglected and we were even abused. And some inside are still in memory time, and they don't know yet about now time being safe. And I asked her why it's so hard to tell the difference and why I struggle so much with something so simple. Because I know one of the other things we've learned is that memory time can't change now time.
• 7:15
  So even when there are memories from the past that feel real in the present, now time is still safe because we're not being hurt in now time, and we are safe in now time even though memory time feels real. So I asked her about that. And what she taught me is about triggers, which we've talked about a little bit before, but I didn't understand the way that I understand now. She said, now time can trigger memory time, which is why sometimes now time doesn't feel safe because it's triggering memory time. But now time really is still safe.
• 8:15
  It's memory time that wasn't safe. And she said what's actually triggering are the senses. So we talked about sight and sound and smell and touch and taste and how these senses in now time can trigger memory time. So they overlap through the senses which is what makes it difficult to discern between them. So I remember in memory time driving to Oklahoma yesterday, but that's already in the past.
• 9:10
  Now time, I'm already here in my car after therapy, but I can still remember memory time when I was leaving my house with my daughter to take her with me so she could spend today with the grandparents. That is memory time in now time. But now time is safe. I'm not driving right now. I'm parked at the park across the street from the therapist.
• 9:47
  Memory time. That is the past. It already happened even though it can feel very present. So it's the same with hard things from the past from when I was little. In memory time those things were very very real in memory time.
• 10:20
  It's not that they're not real. It's just that they're in the past. So sometimes, she said, that's why I can be in now time and think, no. That couldn't be me. That didn't have anything to do with me.
• 10:42
  That couldn't have happened because I'm in now time and what happened was in memory time. But also other times they overlap and that's why memory time feels like now time. And so it's hard to tell the difference and that's why grounding is important and being present in now time is so important. And she said, it's not just important for me, but it's important for the others too. That we all need to be grounded and present in now time because that's what takes the power away from memory time.
• 11:39
  So I asked her how we know there was trauma because maybe it's all just bad dreams. And she said, it's like compartmentalizing things of in an extreme, like putting it in a drawer and filing it away and closing the drawer or maybe even locking it. It doesn't mean it's not there just because the drawer is closed and it doesn't mean it didn't happen just because it was in the past. And so one thing that's important is knowing that it's all real. All of them are real because that's part of saying it now time is knowing that it was real but in the past and helping them understand that what happened in the past is not happening now because now time is safe and what happened a long time ago is already over.
• 13:07
  So I have things to remember and they have stories to tell. But all of us are real and all of what happened is real. But it was also in the past and now we are safe. That's part of why it's okay to tell the stories now and part of why we are strong enough to tell them that now time is safe. Because it wasn't safe to tell our stories back in memory time.
• 13:55
  And in memory time, we were not able to rescue each other or ourselves or get out of what was happening. That's part of what made it so hard. But since memory time, since then, since what happened, we have gotten out and we have gotten away and we are safe. And we are safe in the therapist's office where we can talk about the hard things of memory time. I don't want to forget about what I learned today.
• 14:34
  Sometimes it feels like I'm almost present when it's happening, when we're learning, when she's talking to us. And other times, I miss it entirely or I seem to fade out in the middle of it. And I tried hard to stay time I get to the car, it's gone. And I didn't want to lose this because there's power in this. There's something in understanding this peace that gives me the capacity to intervene in my own behalf, the power to help the others who are stuck in memory time, and hope that maybe I can get better.
• 15:48
  So part of what we have to do, she said, is identify triggers. Because the more we can catch triggers and tell whoever is bothered by memory time when really we're living in now time, the more they can understand that now time is safe. And ultimately, we want everyone inside to understand that now time is safe. And she said that someday, not only will we all know that now time is safe, but that someday, when we get a trigger or something happens to trigger someone, that all of us will be able to know that was just a trigger. We're still in now time.
• 16:48
  It makes us think of something from memory time or feel something from memory time, but that was in the past, and now time is safe. And that felt powerful, almost like hope. Like, maybe there is a way we can fix this. I don't mean fix the others as if something were wrong with them. I mean, fix the process.
• 17:17
  I mean, heal from the trauma and learn new ways to cope with everyday life besides just dissociating automatically without being able to make it stop. So there are some, she said, who don't know now time is safe and some who are still learning and others who are getting better at it. And those of us who are getting better at it can help others get better at it too. One thing that happens sometimes at our therapist office is the front door to where the receptionist is slams if people aren't careful with it. It always makes us jump.
• 18:09
  I startle pretty easily. Other times, there are voices in the hallway when they're going to other therapists' offices, or we can hear their footsteps going by or feel them in the floor. And what I learned today and realized, even after doing the workbook, it just now clicked finally that these were triggers. And so we talked through it. How the sound of a door slamming meant that someone was angry and that that meant danger.
• 18:47
  Except that's in memory time. It's not in now time because now time is safe. And in now time, all it means is that the door was closed, and it doesn't have anything to do with a therapist or us. And, also, in memory time, the sound of voices in the hall or footsteps in the hall outside our door meant someone was coming to get us and someone was going to hurt us. When she said this, I almost cried.
• 19:27
  And when she said this, something felt hot inside me. And when she said this, I wanted to go away. I felt slippery and fuzzy, and I don't know how to explain it. And I had to fight to stay. But I was learning good things and really wanted to hang on, and so I tried.
• 19:50
  I knew that I startled when there were footsteps in the hall or voices outside her door. It doesn't happen every time and not very often, but I knew it startled me when it did. But I hadn't realized that I startled because someone inside thought it meant danger. I hadn't realized that I startled because someone inside thought someone was coming to get us. And the therapist doesn't often push very much.
• 20:30
  And even that, she didn't push too much, but it was very direct in how she said it. And it was something I needed to hear and something I needed to face. We had been talking about bone in my body was on fire with the knowledge that what she said was true. That there had been people on the other side of our door, there had been footsteps in the hallway, and there had been someone who came to get us. And there had been so much danger.
• 21:22
  I stopped there. I don't want to bring up hard things before we're going to be gone for three weeks. I don't want to do too much before I'm getting on an airplane for international travel. I don't want to disappear. So she helped me pace it.
• 21:41
  It was wise, and it was good. But what we came to and where it settled was that not only is DID a thing, but the trauma behind it is a thing too. And the neglect behind it was a thing too, and that all of it was real. And that those parts burdened with carrying those stories memories and those sensory experiences, the part of my brain that holds those pieces, have been on pause for a really long time, have been stuck have been stuck in that trauma for a really long time. And that to see them is to know that.
• 22:59
  And to tell them that now time is safe also means to know that memory time was really hard. And it means rather than trying to get rid of them and rather than them trying to do it without me, that maybe we need both. Maybe we need each other. So that now time won't trigger memory time anymore. And so that they won't be in memory time without knowing now time is safe.
• 23:53
  And the whole time that we talked about these things, the whiteboard that sits beside her chair had the word trust written in capital letters right in the middle of it. It must have been left from another session. She didn't write it in my session, and I don't think I lost time when it happened. It was already there when I walked into the room. Maybe she wrote it before I walked in.
• 24:28
  I don't know. But it seemed kind of symbolic that it was there, Kind of important to soak in what that might look like and kind of explaining why everything else was so hard. Because, ultimately, maybe what I'm learning is to trust the therapist and to trust my husband and to trust the others inside and for them to trust me and for me to trust myself.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: 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, and you can join us on the community at www.systemspeakcommunity.com. We'll see you there.