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School Year · 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 to the podcast. Thank you.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: You guys, today is the day. The children have officially gone back to school, and I am elated. They are not as excited about it as I am. And truth be told, I am not excited about having everybody's alarm set again because I like to just wake up naturally. So even though I would normally be up at this time, I still have to set my alarm just in case, and I don't like it at all.
• 1:35
  It makes me so anxious, and then I worry about, like, what if this is the one day my body did let me sleep late? No. I'm still parenting, and there are years and years and years left of parenting. So here we are, everybody doing our best, but it is exciting. I called Nathan this morning to see how those kids were doing.
• 2:03
  They don't start until tomorrow, so they think they're the hot shots being super cool when our kids have to go back to school up here today, and they don't have to until tomorrow. So I just reminded them that we would get out of school before they do, and it will matter more then. So they enjoyed the last day of their summer. Nathan was at the gym, actually, on the elliptical, so good for him. And and I also worked hard to make sure I was there and cheering them on and cheering them out the door and also not hovering or doing everything for them.
• 2:45
  They emptied the dishwasher before they left without me asking. Everybody remembered their backpacks and their binders and their computers. All the computers were actually charged, and their rooms were clean before they left. Like, I did nothing. It was so, so hard not to, like, try to rescue them or try to do for them, but let them do their thing and have their space.
• 3:16
  They've got friends from the neighborhood that they've made at the new park over the summer, which, by the way, just to follow-up from John Mark's episode a while back, the new park is a big kid park. It is not a baby kid park. Like, it has stuff to climb. It has workout equipment. There's a skate park and a bigger walking track around it, and the kids love it.
• 3:38
  And so we have been playing there a lot once the smoke cleared. I don't know where you live, but where we live, it has been wildfires every day started by lightning, and it has been pretty brutal and made outside time difficult, even swimming. So I have noticed that I missed that because summer for me is usually a pretty active outdoor time, and and I feel like some of that sunshine kinda feeds me through the winter. And winter here is brutal too. So so I worry about that a little bit.
• 4:16
  And, also, we have still been super active because we've been working so hard on painting the office, which, by the way, all of the walls are officially painted as of this week. So that is super exciting. There's some little spots where someone, perhaps myself, got paint on the ceiling, and there are some spots of, like, window frames she wants to touch up. Jules does. So I don't know anything about touching up window frames, and I feel like I should keep paint away from the window.
• 4:50
  So I suspect that is not my fireball. I think I am not permitted to participate in that, but there are other things. So it's super fun. We have a conference room. The kids came last night and helped me set up.
• 5:04
  They had so much fun, and they had the most hilarious pretend meetings. It was definitely a window into their experience of my life. And then we were driving home, and they were like, wait. Why do you need a conference room for meetings? When your meetings are on Zoom.
• 5:32
  And I was like, okay. First of all, you're not wrong. And, also, we're starting to do a lot of in person things, actually, and we're gonna be having more and more events here. And so I'm excited, and we worked really hard on that space. And it is continuing to unfold now that the mega painting is done and the biggest pieces of furniture are in place.
• 5:54
  We're starting to decorate and starting to get other things set up. And so it's super fun. Although disorienting as well, our poor people that we work with in person, Mine and Jules, every time they come, something is different, and I'm like, I'm so sorry. So sorry. But it's a new season.
• 6:14
  A new school year, to me, it feels like happy New Year time because everything changes. The triplets are sophomores this year. They are getting wisdom teeth pulled and scheduled to be pulled. They are learning to drive. They are wanting jobs.
• 6:32
  They have dates. Somebody wanted a nonbinary haircut. Like, all the things, they are becoming people. The twins are going into seventh grade, and they are completely different creatures. I don't even know them yet because they have changed so much as they have grown out of elementary school.
• 6:53
  And then Kyrie is doing well. She is still the boss of us, by the way, in case anyone was wondering. She is still the boss of the family. But she is delightful and, and holding strong. Like, I don't know what else to say.
• 7:10
  She's still with us. She has had preop and continuing to have those preop appointments. Like, there's so many different things because they can only intubate her once. So, like, the whole team of doctors like, I think the record was 11 doctors at one of her surgeries, but, like, all the doctors have to be there on the same day. So there's a lot of coordinating that has to happen.
• 7:34
  And, also, her airway has to be stable enough to intubate because I don't know how much we've explained. I can't remember. But, like, actually, it's extubating. That's the problem. Because when you get extubated, your airway swells naturally just a little bit.
• 7:49
  I mean, that's not a natural process, I guess. But in response, like, there's swelling from having from being intubated. Right? Her airway is so small. There's no room for the swelling.
• 8:00
  So then they have to do Heliox and all these things to, like extubation is the scariest part of the whole surgery. And sometimes it's several days before they can do the extubating. So it's just a whole thing. I don't even know how to explain it unless you know about these babies. And I also don't wanna overexplain where it's, like, intrusive into her world.
• 8:22
  What she is excited about this particular surgery and why she asked to move forward with it is because one of the things they can do is actually fix her mouth a little bit, meaning her airway has been priority, obviously, for so long that there are small things she still needs done that we've never been able to do. Like, inside her mouth you know what a tongue tie is, how the tongue can be attached to the bottom of the mouth? One of our kids had that. So, like, we got that taken care of, of course. But she has that, like, with her cheeks as one of the things that was, like, a problem from all of that not developing in a normal development kind of way, her the inside of her cheeks are still attached all the way to her gum line.
• 9:14
  So it's just never been priority because we had to focus on her airway, and it had not bothered her that we knew of until now. But she's just realized that that's different from other people, and she does want it fixed. And there's no like, she's growing adult teeth in her tiny little mouth that does not have room for anything. So one of the things that they can do while she's already asleep is pull some of the extra teeth and fix her cheeks. And so she wants that because that is very important to her as she is going into fourth grade and is more socially aware of some of those other impacts that are side effects from everything else.
• 9:57
  So it's interesting because in a way, it's super scary, but also in a way, it's kind of cosmetic. Like, those are optional things we don't have to do, and we would never do them just to do them. But if she wants them and is already gonna be under, that's the time to do them. Does that make sense? So it matters to her.
• 10:17
  It will make her more comfortable and maybe open up even a little more airway without messing something up. And the teeth have to come out because they cannot use a palate expander because her pallet is barely repaired, and we don't want anything to mess up the pallet. So it's really our only option in her case. That is a lot of details, and, also, she will tell you all about it if you sit down with her. So, like, it's just it's a mixed feelings.
• 10:49
  Like, it's super dangerous. It it's super scary. Obviously, the airway pieces are the most important, but she is holding on and wanting some cosmetic pieces as well. So, like, everything just has to get done at the same time. So it takes a while to make sure she's stable enough for everybody to agree that we can do these things without messing up what is already done well.
• 11:14
  Like, we don't want to that last mega mega surgery that she had like, she's had other things done, but the biggest airway reconstruction she's had, the last one was in 2020 during the pandemic. Remember, like, we almost lost her then waiting for it. But when they finally cleared her and we got her in, they did all the things. That particular airway has done her so well. Like, nobody wants to touch it.
• 11:40
  Even the doctors don't wanna touch it, but she's outgrowing it. So we have to fix that without messing it up because she's done so, so well. So if they can do another good one, she could maybe have another couple of good breathing years. And it really, really matters because every good breathing year buys her more time, not just for those years, but, like, eventually, she's going to stop growing. And if she can stop growing while she has a stable airway, like, she could be okay.
• 12:18
  And so it's the first time where they were like, she might have a future. She might be alright. She may be able to pull through this. And I can't even wrap my emotions around the risk that she might not survive surgery. And, also, if she does, she might have a future.
• 12:35
  Like, the binary the level of binary thinking in that and the emotional roller coaster and whiplash of it, I can't even. But the point is, these are the things that have been on my plate, and these are the things that have been really big. We have moved this summer. Everything is settled. The office is coming together.
• 12:58
  That is exciting. And the starting of the school year, when you have this many kids, like, that is the New Year. Like, New Year's Day is more like, okay. Two more days until school starts again. Like, that's what New Year's Day is.
• 13:16
  This for me is a New Year. As much as maybe how we're calling birthdays a New Year, Like, this is something to celebrate. The kids will be actively supervised and learning and playing and having fun most of the time. We do still have math class, but some of us like math. So, like, there is, like, a whole layer of relaxing I can do when school starts because I know that my children are fairly safe from, like, seven in the morning until four in the afternoon.
• 13:53
  And as a parent who has to work very long hours just to keep us housed and fed, I can't tell you the relief this is to me. Semicolon, however, comma, I am not comfortable sending the kids away from home while there's wildfires that could get here at any minute. Okay. To be clear, there are not wildfires that may get here any minute. We have people working really hard on them.
• 14:23
  They're just the closest they've ever been to us since we lived here. And so we are watching it really closely, but it makes me nervous because I saw what happened in Paradise, and I saw those school buses. And, like, I'm trying not to panic and be afraid of that. Also, schools are not safe in America. Can we just talk about that for a hot minute?
• 14:44
  So I'm like, this year is the first year. Well, no. I think last year was the first year. Let me think. Where was everybody last year?
• 14:54
  This year is the first year that literally because of where people live and how old they are, literally, every single child is in a different school. That has never happened before. Usually, at least two or three of them are in the same school, but now Carrie is the only one in elementary school. The twins are both in middle school, but they're in different middle schools. And then Kirk is in high school with Nathan and the grandparents because that's where his band program and that scholarship that he got is.
• 15:33
  And then Mary and Alex are both here, but Mary goes to a deaf school. And so, literally, this year is the first year. Like, talk about uncodependenting and differentiation and individuation and all these healthy developmental things. You guys, this is the year for that. So I'm a little anxious about, like, how's everyone's little hearts doing with the, pressure and the excitement of being on their own more, but also not having, like, an entire pack of siblings to back them up on a hard day or when something goes wrong.
• 16:12
  So, like, literally, this school year, starting today, like, starting right now, nobody's getting rescued anymore. And I feel like that is going to be a bumpy road and some hard times, and, also, I think it's gonna be really good for everybody. We have worked so hard to help children from different families feel like part of one family and also have now spent two years working on being unshiny happy so that they have more freedom and more expression and being sure that we're talking through religious trauma and things like that. So I think they're ready. I really do.
• 17:01
  I don't think it's traumatic, but, oh, the first day of school and my mom heart, I can't even with myself. They're fine. You guys, they're like, I just wanna get to school so I can have breakfast. Like, oh, there's yogurt in the fridge. No, mom.
• 17:16
  I'm gonna eat school. We're gonna eat breakfast at school. Okay. That's fine. What you do you, boo.
• 17:23
  I'm gonna go to my office and not worry about you. And by not worry about you, I mean, do a podcast talking about how I'm not worrying about you because I'm not worried about you. Preoccupied attachment lunch? I think it's fine. It's fine.
• 17:38
  Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. So as fall comes and the temperatures cool and the fires settle down and the children are back in school, I can settle in my routine. I have different hours this school year than I've had before so that I can be home when they get home from school. Usually, I was about an hour, hour and a half behind them and had, like, one really late night this year.
• 18:11
  The class Jules and I are teaching doesn't start until their bedtime, and and I will be home every day when they get home from school. So that feels a little better and more comfortable. I like that better. And, also, I get things back, like salad for lunch. My kids will eat salad with me, but salad for lunch every day is not their thing.
• 18:41
  They will eat their vegetables. Salad in addition to something, but, also, that's fine. Like, they're teenagers. They need more food than just salad even if I throw chicken on it. So that's cool.
• 18:53
  I can go for my walks around the park or around the loop at the office. Like, there's just something more routine, which in some ways is a little bit more intense, maybe a lot more intense, but not as intense as when they were little and I was responsible for the whole world. So it feels better. It feels healthier. They feel more free and more excited and really are just you guys, they're just growing up.
• 19:24
  And that comes with natural letting go that's kind of built in as part of the process in some really cool ways to witness and to watch and to see and also finding ways to tend to them so that they're not alone, which is not the same as the over independence that we had to experience by default with trauma and deprivation. Right? So there's extra things, like, I'm cooking them dinners that they request. I'm letting them help me cook dinners. I made them caramel corn, like treats and surprises and support and lots of conversation and talking at the table and on the couches and in their rooms and one on one conversations they ask for.
• 20:17
  Like, being present and also not doing for. And also when they do ask for help, like, getting all their computer cords untangled, then it's okay to step in and be supportive and do what they need. But that's different than me doing everything because I think I have to do everything, and they don't learn anything. So it's been an amazing summer that has had its hard parts, but really has been really powerful, and I feel like we're in a whole new place. It's been great to be back in the community more.
• 20:52
  The last few weeks as they got ready for like, they have not needed me the whole last week because even though school hadn't started yet, they're like, we have to enjoy the last of the summer. And so, like, they're swimming all day, and, like, it has just been amazing. And so, yeah, it's a new school year, which for a family with kids is like a whole new year altogether, and they're all new people. It's just amazing to see and kind of fun that I am too. We're all new people and also more of ourselves than we've ever been before.
• 21:32
  It feels hopeful. It feels exciting. It feels good, and I just needed to document that because not every day feels like that. So we're gonna take the win and let it be.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Hall is here. I hear the yell. Back to school. Ring the bell. Brand new shoes walking loose.
• 23:10
  Against the wall. And we don't notice any time pass. We don't notice any We sit side by side in every class. Teacher thinks that I sound funny, but she likes the way it sings. And I don't dream well, I'm in bed and silly thoughts go through my head about the bugs and alphabet but when I wake tomorrow I'll bet that we and I will walk together again because I can tell that we are gonna be friends.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: 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.systemspeak.com. We'll see you there.