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Red (Part 1 of 2) · 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 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 to the podcast. Thank you.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. Okay. So we watched Turning Red, the new Pixar movie, with much great difficulty of technology, but we pulled it off. Some of us, we were able to pull it off and come back together to discuss it, and so I'm excited. I just wanna jump right in because we have so much to say.
• 1:32
  Okay. So turning red is a movie about a little girl and her family. It's one of those mother mother movies. So I was like, oh, Are you kidding me now? Also, I just wanna be upfront with it starting out with honor your parents.
• 1:48
  I was like, oh, snap. Are you kidding me? I don't even like so between the technology and it starting out that way, I was not hopeful, guys. I have to admit, with the couple of weeks that I've had and that being the beginning of the movie, I was like, this is not happening. I can't do it.
• 2:10
  But it was also sort of fun because I had outside kids watching. And I knew that it was a movie about trying to regulate your feelings. And when she can't regulate her feelings, she turns into a red panda bear. I knew that. I did not know it was, like, so puberty specific, like, coming of age.
• 2:33
  And so my outside kids were dying. They thought it was so funny. They are all 13. The triplets are all 13 this year. And they were like on the floor.
• 2:47
  I am not kidding, falling out of their chair laughing. And so they loved it and I loved that they loved it, but it also brought up so much stuff for me that I was like literally gripping the edge of the
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: table because I was like,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: oh my goodness, there's so much here. So it's about her coming of age and wanting to be her own person and that independence and what is that word, the therapy word, differentiation of being her own person, not just who her mother expects her to be And then finding out that trauma is kind of passed down, Like her mom is being hard on her because her mom was hard on her. So it's kind of got those themes of it being passed down. There's the themes of religion and culture a little bit. It's a Chinese family, and so it's a different context than Christianity, but some of those same themes of that stuff being passed down.
• 3:50
  And I oh my goodness. But I loved the love of their friends. She has a little group of friends and the mother keeps being afraid that they're not good for her, but they really turn out to actually be very good for her. Not because they're making her rebel, but because they're helping her be true to herself. And I loved my outside kids seeing that, and I loved that I could feel that.
• 4:22
  And for me, and I'm gonna try not to cry right now on this part, for me it was significant because I have been through this therapy and friendship trauma drama. And now when I have a moment like that of needing friendship or needing support in that way and she she like, those are her good thoughts, right? Like her happy thoughts are these friends. And for me, it's like these little Zoom boxes that I see. Like that's what I think of.
• 4:53
  And it just, for that to be in my heart and even that has been tested because for the first time I've had to do some admin trauma drama of groups of please just be kind and safe and a lot of people are doing that really well And I actually talk about this a little bit on the podcast coming up, so you'll hear it. And I debated that because I don't want people to panic that something terrible has happened. And I know we all have trauma and so that's super triggering easy to just panic of, oh, it's not safe anymore. That's all I'm meaning. But if we don't talk about it explicitly and do the work to keep it safe and say we are not keeping secrets, we're being transparent.
• 5:32
  This is how we have to keep each other safe. That's what makes it different and that's what makes it unique. So that's why I am talking about it even though it also makes me uncomfortable and I'm not trying to scare people. And so even for me I feel like just in the last month I have been through what she went through a little bit of are my friends safe? Are they not?
• 5:53
  Can I trust them? Can I not? And seeing who I've had to let go of because they really weren't safe And also, no, these people really have shown up for over a year. And so I loved those moments. It made me cry actually.
• 6:11
  Those moments where she was using her friends as her good thoughts to calm and feel safe. And it's your faces that I saw. And so that was very touching to me. So anyway, that's sort of the story. And then as background, I have the dream therapist.
• 6:31
  And yes, when we're talking about this, there are themes that you may resonate with or not. That's okay too. But also, when we're thinking about it therapeutically and I'm not your therapist and it's not a therapy group, but also when you're thinking about it therapeutically or trying to reflect on it, we play all the parts. Now I know that this is not your dream. It's a movie, but we can still talk about, like, what resonates, what came up besides just the obvious layers, and just go with it where you want to go with it.
• 7:06
  Unpretending, what did you think about the movie?
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: So good. So, so good. I you know, you get into it at the beginning and, oh, yeah, and it's teenagery stuff. And so, of course, I had this teenagery part, like, just sort of hanging about. And then, oh that generational thing when it was passing down and I'm just going because we have just discovered some amazing bad good stuff.
• 7:33
  Good bad stuff. And just the whole thing, by the end of the movie, I was such a frenzy of, like, oh my gosh, if I learn from this movie, like, I could just take, you know, the friendship and the and the the imagining all the good stuff and oh, anyway. There's so much. There is so much. It reminds me also
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: of those moments where regulating your emotions is not the light switch. You can't just turn them on or turn them off. Them having their panda bears locked up in actual lockets, Like that's not regulating, right? I go through this a lot with outside kids, but it's true for us too, that turning everything off or trying to stuff it down. And that's where we are in therapy.
• 8:26
  This morning we had therapy about how do I balance trying to be present and trying to not dissociate, but also be accepting of all of me and also open space for whatever comes to the surface. And then there's this movie. Tilly's?
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: In my system, we have a place that we call the Cuddle Place, and I haven't finished the movie yet. I started a little bit late, so I'm really excited for you guys to kinda give me some heads up on stuff to look forward to. But I have gotten far enough to see the friends cuddling with her and saying, you're so soft. And in my cuddle place, that is what it's like for us. And also, wanted to wanted to share something, and I have permission for my parts.
• 9:21
  We have some trauma where, our mom was reading our diary and, sharing it with our sister, and they we walked in and they were laughing. And in our diary, we had talked about some, you know, some things that were personal, you know, that were related to hormones and having urges and stuff. So when that part came up, that was very triggering and we were really, really mad at the mom. So going through the movie is just really interesting because I have an eight year old, and I'm just kinda thinking ahead of what is it gonna be like to be her mom or her dad, and how am I going to break this this trauma, this inherited trauma? How am I going to respect her privacy?
• 10:13
  How am I going to encourage her to be healthy you know, when it comes to puberty, to be healthy and, you know, to, experience that part, that a very important part of your life. So, I'm really loving this movie. But, yeah, it's triggering but also super comforting to just imagine, when we are emotional being a big giant red panda and having our hearts hug us, we can just do that inside of our head anywhere we are. And that is so good.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: I think that that's a really important piece, Talise. Anyone who's read our book or listened to the podcast recently knows that that happened to us even in college again. And of all of our personal stuff being literally copied and sent to everyone who knew us at the time. And that is so traumatic. It's such a violation.
• 11:12
  And having that contrast with how normal and personal and real that just adolescent development is. And watching this with the outside kids was super interesting because right before the pandemic happened, right as we were leaving our previous therapist, our oldest three, the triplets, were starting the very beginning of puberty, right? Like they were turning 11, 12, pre preteens, like moving into adolescence quickly. But they really became adolescents during the pandemic. And so watching them go from quarantine straight into middle school has been pretty wild.
• 11:59
  And at the same time, the twins were little bitty babies at the time, before the pandemic, and now they're big kids. And just this week, so it's perfect timing, just this week, they have their first body talk at school where they split up the girls and they split up the boys and learn about deodorant like they're not already supposed to be wearing it, all of this. And I have so many feelings about that and there's so many discussions we've already had as a family, and that happening in such a public setting at school. Like, there's so many layers to that, but also normalizing that we just have bodies. And that's so hard when there are many of us, again I'm trying to be sensitive, when there are many of us whose bodies have been violated in a variety of ways.
• 12:57
  And not even just learning about body parts or bodies or how bodies work or how babies are made or things like that, but even just like Tilly's was talking about the part of the movie where she's starting to have feelings and starting to see cute boys or this or that, and how to navigate who you're attracted to or who you're not and when you are and what to do with all of that in the context of family and religion and culture. And all of those are big things. And it was such a moment of, oh yeah, this stuff counts as trauma when it's violated, it counts. Or when you don't have support and there's misattunement, that's relational trauma. Dandelions?
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Can I just, like, ramble? Is that okay? Okay. I'm just gonna kinda go through, like, the topics that we brought up already and how it relates to me.
• 13:51
  And some of it is DID related and some is just like life stuff, like hard stuff. And, Tilly, I'm so glad that you mentioned the journal thing because as you said that, so many people were nodding their heads as like, yes, that happened to me too. And that just breaks my heart. And just thinking of all of us as adolescents having that privacy violated, it really breaks my heart. And I, and you know, all of us probably thought we were alone in that, that we were being singled out, which we were being singled out, but how alone we were in that.
• 14:26
  But like now we have this community where we can all honor our heads and say, yes, I know what that pain is. That's just like the power of community, I think. When we were talking about honor your parents, so as we were watching the movie, my wife and I just kept like, like my wife comes from a very, their family is very, like, steeped in culture and, religion, and so is not accepting of their sexuality and therefore not accepting of me, and so they haven't seen their family for a long time. But it was just very cool to be able to like sit next to my wife and her also to be able to be like, that reminds me of my mom and like that, like just being able to like laugh through it because I feel like the movie even though it was triggering in some aspects, it did have like a sense of humor to it, which I think was really helpful and kind of helped pace things. And sometimes when I'm going through this healing process, I sometimes feel like I take up too much space in the religions the relationship and, like, forget that, like, my wife also has, like, a pretty heavy background as well.
• 15:36
  And so I think it was nice to be able to honor that space. Okay, the puberty, just like it being in the 90s, I think helped so much just because like the Tamagotchi, all of those, like the little necklaces, the little butterfly clips, I was like, wow, That was me at that time. So, yes, triggering, but also I don't remember much from my puberty. So I was just, like, laughing because I was like, yes, my hair did look like that. Yes, I wore those things.
• 16:11
  But also it's a little bit triggering because I'm on medication right now that, like, my acne has flared up. And so I feel, like, kind of, like, it feels very reminiscent, to that time, and I don't really know much from that time. So, like, that's, like, a little bit tricky for me. Obviously, the panda was talking about like, was, showing regulation. Calm down and you'll be back to your homeostasis if you want to say it that way.
• 16:42
  And so obviously that reminded me of my parts and I really liked how she struggled in the beginning with the panda. But then as the movie evolved, it was like she was, like, growing to be comforted by them. And that, like, reminded me of my parts. And I'm not, oh, I'm not perfect with this at all. And sometimes my parts, I'm like, will you just hush, or will you just allow me to have this day, this day, this hour, will you just allow it?
• 17:13
  This therapy session, will you allow it? But I thought it was really beautiful how like she, I don't know, just kind of came to embrace that. And so like that was just really good for me to see, I think. Talking about friends, obviously I feel like parts go in with that too because sometimes there are parts that I feel very comforted by. And so being able to turn inward and just like think of this one part in particular and I just kind of like feel the cortisol just like chilling out a little bit.
• 17:48
  And then the community, and Emma I'm so glad that you were talking about, oh, just like how you have been very transparent in the community and it and and you even just mentioning now like we don't have to, like, throw, I don't know, like, the red flag up, con like, right away and, like, abandon ship. I'm glad that you said that because I do have moments where I feel like that. If I get too close to somebody, and I don't know, a part of relationships is sometimes giving hard feedback or really being heard. And I've tried that in some aspects, like within the community, and it really truly hasn't done the best for me. And so I feel really afraid of that.
• 18:38
  But I also remember that we are all struggling and we are all learning. And so like, that's really important for me. And I think for the most part, especially the ones that like I see coming and being regular and really sharing their journey in terms of like growth, like I feel really safe with that. We might not be perfect all the time, but I think like there's a general consensus of like forward movement or at least being, held in that space when it's not so great. And then the alternate universe, just like going into that and how the movie was able to, oh, love all the everybody's shaking their head.
• 19:16
  Yes. Yeah. It just felt so calming and the movie was able to really do that in such a beautiful way. And my inner world has really changed over the years. And at first it was like a very dark and dingy place, but it's growing to be more safe over time.
• 19:31
  I wish I could say these things to my therapist, honestly. I don't know why I'm feeling so open right now. Oh my gosh. I think she would probably, really want
• 19:42
  Speaker 6: me to say this to her
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: in therapy, actually. And then at the end, just like the battle, sorry, Tilly, that I'm doing this. I know you haven't seen all of it, but I do wanna share the battle that she had of keeping the red panda or not. And, like, I I in my mind, I was thinking, like, yeah. I don't think I would give up my parts either even though it can be really dysregulating and really troubling and really confusing at times, but like there is comfort there.
• 20:14
  And so I like seeing that battle within and like the conversation with her mom and grandma and things like that and other relatives too. And then the last thing is the red panda felt so cozy that, like, I'm learning now to, like, be okay feeling cozy, and I've even, like, bought a little stuffed animal to, like, help me feel, like, cozy. And that, like, I'm very shy about it, but I'm sharing it now. It's a little, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.
• 20:42
  All of you. I love it so much. Yeah. It's a little ibex, and I just, like, it's so comforting, and sometimes I feel so silly, but I know y'all get it. So that's my ramble, and that's the only way I could be able to share is to just like go go to town on that.
• 20:58
  So thank you so much for listening.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: I'm so grateful that you shared, and there's so much truth in all of that. I think that is one thing that really made the movie hard for me, not in a bad way but in a good way. That reflection of the internal world and that reflection of being familiar with PARTS and being open to that. I know, I know, I am, I, I know that that process was interrupted for me because of therapy trauma. And we are just now sort of getting back into that place and I feel that starting to happen again and I'm terrified.
• 21:42
  I'm so scared because what happened before was so hard, right? But that's what we always say. What happened before? What happened when I was a child? What happened?
• 21:50
  Like, oh. And so to see that reflected so beautifully, like you said, like you all shared, and how safe and even cozy you using that word and how she learned to be comfortable being relaxed and be comfortable letting go and that she learned how to let go without falling apart, I feel like those were just really huge pieces for me. Sprout?
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: There's such good sentiments and thoughts being shared that I almost it's almost already said what I was thinking. Just two things that came up to me and it was like stewing in my head. The first, like, after the the diary or the the drawings, you see you you can see that the character is kind of like beating herself off. And that was such a strong I had such a strong reaction to it because I guess as kids, so natural that the mom did something really wrong. She took her private diary and she really shamed and embarrassed her and there she was like, I'm such an idiot.
• 23:00
  So I don't know. That stood out to me as something that like, just to remind us that we're not the idiots. That sometimes even if we feel like it's our fault, it wasn't our fault that the things that were done to us were done to us by people that didn't do the right thing. So that's one piece. And then there's another piece that I I I don't know.
• 23:20
  It's just so powerful to me, the whole generational trauma piece. Where you see she's kind of taking the role of ending that cycle of trauma that, you know, her grandmother is all carried on this thing of whatever unhealthy or things that they were doing or how they were responding to their own situations, and she made a choice to stop that. And there's even this, like, feeling that I had when the grandparents or their aunties were, like, pulling the mom when she was sleeping. There's something about, like, maybe this is just in my head, and it comes up in therapy sometimes, where I sometimes have this thing that I used to think I'm so alone in this, but sometimes I I remind myself that maybe there are, like, that ancestral help somehow of helping me to be able to end that cycle of generational trauma for generations back from whatever they could do from whatever realm. And I know this sounds so woohoo, but it comforts me knowing that that kind of exists even if they weren't perfect.
• 24:32
  And even if they were a part of that cycle as I kind of helped the mom, like, come into the circle and help them do what they have to do and help her kind of get to where she has to get to.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: We talked about that a little bit on the episode where we visited the mother cemetery and kind of had a very powerful moment considering that. And it's a moment that's hard to stay with. And so sometimes when I have to go back to that episode to hold on to those pieces, because it's not one easy to just do on my own, I somehow need that. I don't know if it's because the body is deaf and so we're so visual, but somehow needing that space to really feel that and feel strong enough to hold space for that because those are big pieces. Those are hard pieces.
• 25:24
  Thank you for sharing that. Unpretending? Part of what's
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: going on for my system as a whole at the moment is the fact that we've raised two adult children who are in their early 20s now and, there's a lot of gaps, like, a lot of gaps, in that. And it also seems as though, there was a lot of misachievement in there on, the mother, my behalf. And so watching that and particularly in with the Tamagotchis and stuff because coming like, I was trained so hard raising them not to be my parents but still with so much influence. Like, what did she say? I have been under the influence of my mother's approval my whole life.
• 26:21
  Like, it oh my gosh, it was just like, ugh. And I see now, like, I was like the mother at that part of the movie where I was overprotecting. There was a lot of religious baggage that stopped attunement with my older children, and one of them now really, really struggles. She is the first the eldest daughter, and I've realized with generational stuff it seems to really go to the eldest daughter and
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I can look
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: back. It was it was so fantastic though that it didn't stop there, you know. And that's the best thing about Hollywood because it, you know, she, Nae Nae kept searching and feeling, you know. She allowed herself to feel. With a lot of the stuff that I've been through and stuff.
• 27:26
  I actually taught my children not to feel. And that is so hard to unteach, you know. I don't know about the rest of you how you learn to unfeel. But at the same time, I'm raising these two little ones now from a very different perspective. But back back to that where where Mei Mei was attuning and learning how to feel her feelings but able to calm down at the same time was beautiful because I'm still trying to learn how to do that with my insiders.
• 28:09
  And I'm still trying I've just started writing, like, one of them or two of them, and someone else is drawing as well now. It's almost as if I am allowing them to be who they are. And in doing that, they're talking to me in their dreams, in their writing, and so much we are learning. And it's overwhelming and confusing, but at the same time it's it's like Do you remember when she was jumping over the buildings and stuff and she was switching from her to the to the panda bear? And it was There was such joy and she could be all of her, you know?
• 28:47
  That that just gave me such hope. Oh, sorry. And, I don't know. What I really wish what I really wish that I could have done that, You know how she said, You are so crass. And then Mei Mei started doing that crass dance.
• 29:10
  It's now called the crass dance. I wish that I could have done that crass dance to my parents. You know, not crash, but crass. You know, that I couldn't have that, you know, and the wiggle and all that other stuff. And, you know, I'm I'm hoping my little children that I'm raising are doing that now with me and that my older children can do that now with me, you know.
• 29:33
  And then the pulling of the panda bear and how everybody is working together and how the dad, I really liked. It was the same with the other one. The dad was able to attune and tell the truth because the mother was so broken, she couldn't tell the truth. And the grandmother couldn't tell the truth. And everyone was keeping it all under wraps.
• 29:51
  Don't speak. Don't feel nothing, you know? And then at the end of it, and then how she chose to stay with
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: the
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: panda. And everybody on my inside has gone, Yes, we are staying. And I'm going, Yes, we
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: are
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: all staying because this is who we are. And I'm gonna stop rambling.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: It was so beautiful, those pieces. And at least for me, I'm absolutely in that place of needing to soften towards that again, to turn towards myself again instead of being so on the defense. And it's a hard and scary thing. But again, like Dandelion shared, when they make it so beautiful, it gives me a visual to hold on to when I try, instead of just fearing, if I do this, it's gonna be really scary. Now I also have this visual of if I try, it can be really beautiful.
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: Yes. Hi.
• 30:56
  Speaker 7: Wow. I can, like, relate to everything that every single one of you has said so far. I'm like, yes. Yes. Yes.
• 31:04
  A couple of things I'll talk about. I think the biggest thing for me is I could really I could relate to, you know, this world of perfectionism because I lived my whole life till about a decade ago, I guess maybe 80% of my life, you know, being just ultimately perfect in every way with regard to everything. And for me, that wasn't because my my mom or my parents were like saying, You must be perfect. But it really came from my own shame, from my abuse of believing I had to be perfect so that it would hide over all of that ugly messy that's really inside of me. So the more I could do to just, you know, super overachieve and be the, you know, number one in my valedictorian, number one in the business school, you know, number one at this, this gold medal in the CPA.
• 32:16
  Go, go, go. You know, like, all of those things would somehow create this shield around me that then no one could ever know that inside it was all really ugly. And I saw it as ugly because I was, you know, I had been abused. And so we didn't want anyone to know about any of that ugly. So we had to keep putting layers, you know, and layers and layers around that.
• 32:43
  And so I could really relate to, you know, that there's this messy inside that you don't want anyone to see. And yet it took it took for me, it took getting really sick and falling apart for then my messy to be able to spill out. And once I was, like, physically messy, because, like, I wasn't I wasn't all beautiful anymore because I looked like I was on death's door, like, all the time, you know, that once I wasn't physically perfect, then it was like, oh, okay. Then some more of the I'm just a mess. I could see, oh, yeah.
• 33:24
  I'm a mess physically. And then that allowed my inner world, all of my system and parts to start coming forward because it was safer now that somehow this, you know, the dam had broken. So let's start spilling out. And and that's why, you know, once I was to that point, I discovered really, like, who I really was, all this messiness inside of me, which wasn't really ugly or messy in a bad way. It's really in a good way that, oh, I'm a I'm a a human being with all these, you know, failings and things that I've done wrong and things that happened to me that weren't pretty that weren't, that weren't my fault, but still felt like, oh god, no one could know that.
• 34:17
  It was like it all became it became okay for that to be known. And then that allowed me to start, you know, the healing process. And so, you know, once I came to know the messy parts of me, really, I'm so much richer. Like, that that perfect Holly was really, like like, my my best friend for, like, you know, always from eighth grade until now, I remember, like, over a decade ago before my messy started to show, she'd say, You know, you're really hard to be best friends with because I would never share. Like, I wouldn't let the cracks be shown.
• 35:02
  And now that, like, I share my messy, I have such richer relationships with people because everyone's got messy. Right? But I finally embraced my messy, and I really like who I am a lot better as a result of that. So I would never give up my red panda or all of my red pandas and all of our messiness because I think it's what makes us beautiful.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Hollies. Again, I know for us that this is the place. Like, I feel like about to burst forth. Like, I I I feel it happening, and I feel being past the point of being able to stop it from happening. And it's terrifying, but also not bad.
• 35:58
  And I feel like we have a good and safe therapist and it's time to go there again or to start going there again and hearing other people. It's so funny because I've read so many emails from some of you back in the day when the podcast was new of, thank you for putting this into words or something and I was just on accident while I was doing my thing, right? And now on this side of it, you're giving me words to be able to do the same thing again. And I feel like that's such a beautiful experience of even what we saw in the movie with a girl and her friends. Miriam?
• 36:37
  Speaker 8: Hi. I had written to somebody right away when the when we were watching this. I identified with the character Miriam. I immediately knew that's me. And so I was seeing the movie through the perspective of that character.
• 36:53
  So Miriam is my Hebrew name. And it's a name
• 36:56
  Speaker 6: I was given when I
• 36:57
  Speaker 8: was adopted, having come from a non Jewish family prior to my adoption. And so much for me about coming of age, knowing that I had come from a non Jewish family and I was coming of age in a Jewish family. And there was, so much conflict in me about how do I be some of one culture and some of another? How do
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: I make that,
• 37:21
  Speaker 8: sort that
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: out with God? That's what
• 37:24
  Speaker 8: I was bringing to the conflicts in the movie. I wasn't experiencing so much the, the challenge as being emotional regulation, which, of course, I knew that's what they were depicting. But where my resonance was coming from was much more about the split between the divine and the secular or the ordinary. You know, there's, like, the world of the magic and the immortal, and then there's the ordinary and the temporary. So what I how I ended up experiencing this story is that also so much for me was coming up about gender that was very binary.
• 38:12
  So it seemed to me that there was a lot of emphasis on this is what is male and this is what is female. And for me too, as an unbinary person, I was feeling a lot of pull in one or the other, like a felt like an outsider. I was reminded of the feelings of growing up as an outsider around what is male and what is female. So the tension, as we got closer and closer to the resolution in the ending, for me, I was experiencing some gender use euphoria, even though that wasn't character struggle. It felt like being able to keep what she chose to keep in the end made her somewhat of this world and somewhat of a magical world in a way that, for me, felt consistent with non binary gender and somehow not having to split the the divine from the other.
• 39:11
  Like, divinity can exist. Sacredness can exist among us always, which to me is like where the healing really happens. Like, discovering that moment to moment over and over again. It doesn't take prayer. It doesn't take formal meditation, which is what I also felt like the movie was saying, is that you can you can just have everything go wrong and have a holiness experience.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: I don't even have words. I'm crying. I'm crying. Thank you so much for sharing together.
• 39:49
  Speaker 9: Yeah, there were a few things that really hit us. One was in the beginning when the mom was looking for Mei Mei to be perfect and that she had to look perfect all the time and that this was keeping actually, the mom to feel safe. She felt safe when everyone looked like they met a certain mold, and she didn't even Mei Mei didn't even know, herself, and nor did the mom. They really didn't know who they were. And when when Mae Mae was changing into the panda, how it made her want to, hide like it like it did like, when she was hiding behind the curtain in the bathroom and everything, she didn't want anyone to know.
• 40:32
  And it felt so much like I could relate to that because as we began to realize and we were diagnosed with DID, it was like we wanna hide from everybody. And we know that that's what our, others are that's what they do. But even to say we experienced DID or, we have complex trauma or any of that, it's like we wanna hide it and just how hard it is in doing that and hiding doing whatever it took for, just so that others would still accept her, not being even able to accept herself, but realizing how, you know, how important that was to her. I could just absolutely so relate to that. And then how, and then on a different note, we loved how she was becoming her true self, as she was with her friends and learned to accept herself as having the panda.
• 41:29
  But in the beginning, it was just so difficult for her. She began to become who she is as she was able to embrace the panda within her. She wasn't whole without the panda. She was she was just a part of herself, but she began to become more of herself. Even they said, look at the new you.
• 41:49
  Look at the behavior in you. And when the dad looked at the video of her as the panda behaving as she was and then switching to the child. And that was coming out, that joy and enjoyment was just coming out constantly. He could see that the panda gave her life. The panda wasn't taking from her like the mother was relaying, but the panda was actually giving her life.
• 42:14
  And the more grounded she was, the more able she was able to control, being a person or being a panda. And I just thought that that was just, you know, so cool to see. She could control both of them. And then one of the last things that really jumped out is the rupture and repair with her friends. How they, you know, they turned around and they, basically, when they were in the concert and they said something to her about she turned them in or she she turned on them or something to that extent.
• 42:48
  And then to for them to just turn around and be like, Okay, we're gonna love you anyway. And just that rupture and repair. She said she was sorry. They expressed themselves, and then they were able to quickly for that to be okay and put aside. And we recently had a rupture and repair with a friend who was very close, and it was very hard when the rupture happened.
• 43:12
  But when she reached out to us and, you know, wanted to talk about it and just apologize and recognize what she was doing was so hurtful, it meant so much just the fact that she recognized it. And I think that that was good for Mae Mae, and it was good for the friends as well for them to just be able to see that that true relationship of going back and forth between one another. So those were just some of the big points that really I thought was just so cool.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Unpretending?
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Going back to that, the mom's panda, like, the mom was terrified of her panda. She was terrified of those inner feelings, those feelings that obviously she couldn't express to her own mother, the grandma, you know? And so, of course, she wanted to protect Mei Mei from the panda because she thought it would be as terrifying for her. And then that was the thing, thank you, for saying that.
• 44:16
  That the father got to see the real, the real one. And it's like somebody, anybody, a therapist or a good friend or anyone who can say, I see all of you and you're great, you know? And then that was when she was able to go, Oh, I can. I can keep my panda. And what freedom that gave her.
• 44:40
  Oh gosh. That was so good. It was so good. Thank you for sharing that.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: This conversation will be continued in the next episode. 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.
• 45:55
  The link for the community is in the show notes. 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, being human together.
• 46:25
  So, yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.