Latest / System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation / Wrestling with Angels

Transcript

Wrestling with Angels · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Over:
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the System Speak 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.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: So just checking in about what we've been working on in therapy and still too much about our sex life and about religious trauma and these have been ongoing issues that we've been working on therapy for the last year. And it sort of all culminated this week and several things that happened, which is what I actually want to talk about and share with you, but it's still these topics. And I'm sorry, it's still these topics, but here's the thing, I want to move forward and I want to keep healing, but part of what I have learned especially because of blending is that I cannot move forward in my healing without all the parts of me. DID is not like a buffet where I can just pick and choose which pieces I want to keep on my plate. Like if I want to be whole, whatever that means to me, then it means that I need all of me on board, all of me included, all of me invited, all of me acknowledged, and this is hard work.
• 2:31
  And right now in particular, we are working on relationships and the parts of me that are involved in relationships mean that to be authentically and wholly myself, I can't dismiss or turn away or turn off parts of me. I can, as we work together and with blending, talk about what do we want expression to look like, what choices do I want to make, And what does that look like altogether? But intentionally and consciously choosing those things is different than dismissing or dissociating from those parts of myself. So if Molly, for example, has this strong faith foundation that's really important to her to maintain in some way, then it's important for us to work with her on how to experience and express our faith in safe and healthy ways. And not just in the present, but it also means acknowledging memory time things that make faith expression a bit of a struggle.
• 3:54
  That includes acknowledging religious trauma, both in the past and the present. And so when we are super explicit about some of these issues, it's not to just keep harping on it. It's that to stop dissociating, we have to be able to very clearly see what we're looking at and what the pieces are and what is coming up. Otherwise, we're only living part of a life. So for sexuality, we can't just pretend that we're part of a person, that we don't have those needs or preferences or experiences or desires, and just turn them off like a switch without acknowledging this is what we want or this is what we need or even the hard parts of this is what we're afraid of or this is what we don't want or these are the trauma pieces from the past.
• 4:57
  Like part of blending as an experience, not just blending alters or parts or states of being or self states, like whatever language you want to use, but becoming aware of the different layers of things, the different layers of experiences, and being able to stand it, to be able to look at it, to see it, to turn it over in my hand and look at all the angles. So I don't mean to get stuck in a rabbit hole and not pull out of it and just keep falling. I I mean, to intentionally and thoroughly explore and reflect on what is coming up for parts of me, for myself, for myself, for the state of being. And part of why that's hard, like when we talk about state of being, part of why that's hard is because different things are going to come up for me when I am in a very calm and safe and social kind of state of being, as opposed to when I am in a memory time state of being or in a feeling state of being like that changes the state. Right?
• 6:23
  And so like, I'm going to see different things. Like, if I am traveling back to Oklahoma and I'm driving in my car, there's different scenery in different states. Like, if we're gonna take it super literally, I see there is the barren mountains of Wyoming that has beautiful sunrises and sunsets, or there are the tall and peaked mountains in Colorado, or there is the very flat land and prairies of Kansas. Like, all of these things I see along the way. Right?
• 6:59
  So the same thing internally when we're talking about blending or alters or parts and not just co consciousness, but co experience and feeling and experiencing different states of being, I'm going to feel and notice different aspects of these issues in different states of being. So because this is new to me, I am still inexperienced at being able to notice all those different pieces at once. So it just takes me time. And in this example, a whole year, I'm sorry, but we're making progress because the last issue took three years to process. Right?
• 7:46
  So, like, I'm trying and I'm making progress and I'm getting better and quicker at being able to do this, but it's like building muscles. And it takes me time to notice all the facets, all the layers, all the aspects so that I can bring them together. Like, is integrative work. And I don't mean integration in, a scary bad way of making people go away or only being one. I mean, being able to pull together a topic, my reflections on it, my experiences on it, my thoughts and feelings about it, and being able to pull all of those layers together and express myself directly much less be who I want to be or navigate big issues or hard topics in the world.
• 8:44
  And so as an example of that, I just want to tell you the story of what happened this week. So first of all, for clarity, the last two weeks, the Elle episodes have gone out on the podcast. So that's what you have listened to. I recorded them at the beginning of summer, but they've come out this fall. And so as I'm recording this, literally the last two weeks, have listened to the Elle episodes about the religious trauma aspects of college.
• 9:15
  So this was super intense for us. It was super triggering, but also work we're doing in therapy and things we are talking about in therapy. So we're doing it intentionally. We're doing it consciously. Like I'm aware that this is going on in my life.
• 9:33
  I'm aware that we're tackling this. I'm aware of the layers coming up. I am aware how it connects to earlier in my past. Like there's so many things that is really, really hard about this, but also we are tackling it and also we are okay. So in the middle of all this, there was the ISSTD virtual conference, like the weekend that fell between the two weeks of the four L episodes.
• 10:08
  And the keynote speaker for this conference was a man from India who specializes in treating children recovered from sex trafficking. So I'm not going to get into that right now. I don't want to get into that right now, but that just added to the intensity of what was coming to awareness, was coming to the surface, what we need to address in therapy. So I'm just saying it's been like a week. Okay.
• 10:47
  Y'all like it has been a week or two and I have felt maybe within my window of tolerance, but right at the limit of what is overwhelming and trying to stay present with and not just be like, okay. It's all dissociated again, and I feel better because it's not there. It's it's so much harder to stay present with things and to tackle things, like to use that fight in a good way instead of just running away from it or freezing it and and just not tending to it. So I'm trying. I'm trying to stay present with all of this.
• 11:36
  Now that's the background context. So here's what happened this week. In the middle of the week, the church came out with these youth booklets, and I'm going to talk about this in just a little bit. But here's here's the overview. These are booklets the youth already had.
• 11:58
  They have been updated. I appreciate the softer language, the softer tone, but also there are still some very clear boundaries and very direct statements about what they call same sex attraction. And so I'm just going to process this for a minute and then another thing happened and then another thing happened. So I'm just going to tell you about this. So for those who don't wanna talk about this at all or religious trauma at all, you can skip.
• 12:37
  If you can hang with me to just sort of walk through this a little bit and how I dealt with it, then you can hear what is coming up and how we finally worked through these things. So I'm just going to read a little quote from the youth booklet. It says, sexual feelings are an important part of God's plan to create happy marriages and eternal families. These feelings are not sinful. They are sacred.
• 13:10
  Okay. So a couple things about this. There's so many things about this. First of all, this podcast is not about a debate over these issues. So that debate aside, I'm just coming back to thoughts and feelings if we can narrow down the focus to that.
• 13:28
  The other thing I'm not going to focus on today is the actual impact of this on my children and how we discussed it with them. We can come back to that later. For right now, because I'm talking about what happened this week, I am just focusing on the impact on me. Right? So for context, as like without the other layers, and I know it's hard, I know it's hard to confine thoughts and feelings to this piece of things, but for this discussion right now, for my thoughts and feelings, just for myself in my current context, part of what is tricksy is knowing what applies to me and what doesn't because this is directed to the youth and I'm not a youth.
• 14:20
  The other thing is about marriage and families. I have like fulfilled that. I don't mean I'm done parenting. I don't mean that because we got everybody to age eight and up that we're good to go and I can check parenting off the list. I don't mean that.
• 14:38
  I mean that, like, I cannot physically have more biological children. There's no way we could foster or adopt more children. And I have married the husband ten years ago. So those things like are done, not as in finished, but done as in, I did all the things like those things are fulfilled. And so in that way, it also does not apply to me because not that I'm off the hook, but because it just by circumstances.
• 15:18
  Does that make sense? So I literally have to walk myself through this in these steps thinking through all of these layers. The other thing is that it is true that regardless of my faith tradition, I don't know what like the afterlife is gonna look like or what my future is going to look like or how things unfold. I just don't know. I don't know.
• 15:45
  You know, when I first learned about the church and their focus on families, I was like, no way, literally like, no, no, I don't wanna be with my family forever. I don't want it to focus on families. And now I have this sweet little family. So does that change my perspective and teach me some things? Yes.
• 16:07
  Do I want to be a different kind of parent than I grew up with? Yes. Do I love the outside kids and want to support them? Yes. Is it fun that they are growing up and becoming their own people?
• 16:22
  Most of the time. Sometimes it's really hard, but it's a lot of developmental tasks happening, right? Like our babies are turning into kids, our kids are turning into tweens, the tweens are turning into adolescents and the husband and I are just old. We're getting old. And so we're all at different developmental tasks.
• 16:47
  So there's that as well. The other thing that I wanna talk about is the reference to sexual activity. And the reason that piece it matters is not just because of sexual activity, but because for someone who is a survivor of religious trauma or who grew up in purity culture, there are a lot of connotations to that. And culturally, when they are talking about sexual activity, they are talking about anything that is interacting with the opposite gender. So, and anything that is any kind of anything, whether that is kissing or touching even over the clothes, like, and we'll there's a quote about that in just a minute, like anything.
• 17:39
  So this is a very different frame of reference and that piece we're actually going to come back to later. And I'll explain that. That piece we're actually going to come back to later because what we have done is there is someone that we met in the community who grew up in the husband's church, and so understands that culture the way he understood it. And so together, we rerecorded the seasons episode. I mean, we didn't rerecord seasons episode, but the two of us, the other person from the community, we listened to the seasons episode together and recorded our conversation and reflections about that and about culture and purity culture and what that was like in the context of religious trauma.
• 18:31
  So this piece we're going to come back to in another episode. I think those air for you next week. So for me, the context is more about this piece comes to a clash of culture and understanding. And so how do I make peace with that within myself, not just who I am, but in my different states of being as a unified experience and expression, but also in the context of my faith experience and expression, all of which is different than culture. So it's really tricksy, sounds conflicting, but it doesn't have to be.
• 19:18
  And that's the point. That's why I'm talking about this. So the next quote says, keep sex and sexual feelings sacred. They should not be the subject of jokes or entertainment. Outside of marriage between a man and a woman, it is wrong to touch the private sacred parts of another person's body, even if clothed.
• 19:40
  In your choices about what you do, look at, read, listen to, think about, post, or text, avoid anything that purposely arouses lustful emotions in others or yourself. This includes pornography in any form. If you find that situations or activities make temptation stronger, avoid them. You know what those situations and activities are. So that's pretty explicit.
• 20:08
  That's pretty explicit. It feels very black and white. And, again, there's lots of layers of this that need to be addressed that we're not talking about today. But the the thought is very black and white. So just trying to address this.
• 20:29
  Like, really, this literally came to my email in the middle of the workday. Right? So how do I deal with this? So the the issue for me is not even the content here because it's not what I'm debating right now. The the issue is the black and white of this is very right, and this is very wrong.
• 20:49
  This is good. This is bad. These binary thinking, and I don't mean binary is gender or nonbinary is is not gendered. I mean, binary in the thinking of black and white, this or that either or, and how to shift that because in therapy, we are focusing on both end of how to hold both, how to be inclusive of all the parts of how to not be shaming or othering of other parts of myself. And so taking this and again, having to work through it and shift the language, not to change what they are trying to say, because that's their business, they get to say what they want, but how I receive and understand and talk about these things with my children.
• 21:39
  So for example, it is very important for us that our children know that they are loved. Like no matter what you do, no matter who you love, we love you. But if that's so important for us to tell our children, how do I also tell myself that? Does that make sense? And I'm not going into this here right now because it brings up too much that I'm not ready to deal with yet, but just for pacing, it does have a follow-up paragraph about abuse and how people who have been abused or touched without consent are not sinful, how that is not, like, it's actually a really, really good paragraph.
• 22:28
  And I appreciate that, but I can only deal with so much of this at a time. And so I'll have to come back to that another time. But that is one piece of what they did well. Then after those sections, including the extra paragraph about abuse, which I appreciate that they've added that, I appreciate the support and the mental health emphasis and sort of countering some of the issues that have been there in the past. Like, I appreciate that they address that in a good and healthy way, which I can't get into right now.
• 23:05
  But after that section, then they have a list of, like, like, questions that they ask the question, but also answer the question. So one of these was, I am attracted to people of my same sex. How do these standards apply to me? And then it says, feeling same sex attraction is not a sin. You are a beloved child of God and a disciple of Jesus Christ.
• 23:32
  Remember that the savior understands everything you experience. Through your covenant connection with him, you will find strength to obey God's commandments and receive the blessings he promises. Trust him and his gospel. This is a really hard piece for many people in the GLBT community. It is a life or death piece.
• 23:56
  And this is one of the pieces that I had to bring to therapy. Like how do you wrestle with that? Even in my context with the husband and the children, how do you wrestle with that where you're not wrong, your feelings aren't wrong, your thoughts aren't wrong, but don't do anything. And so very similar to purity culture, even for street people, how do you like, you can't turn it off like a switch. And if we're not making things an on off switch, but using the dimmer switch, like bringing it back to safe enough, how do I turn a paragraph like that into safe enough with a dimmer switch?
• 24:51
  Right? So it's tricksy. They also updated a section for adults. The adult section says, God promises that if we obey his laws, we will have eternal joy and he always keeps his promises. People who experience same sex attraction or identify as gay can make and keep promises to God.
• 25:10
  They can walk in his light. They can fully participate in the church. So I appreciate, I mean, I'm trying, I'm trying to wrestle with this and I appreciate that we have made progress of attempting to be more inclusive, that we are clarifying in black and white language that gay people are not bad. Like all of this is good in progress, but going back to that dimmer switch, like how do you in a conversation like this, in the context of religious trauma, how do you address this? How do you find the dimmer switch?
• 25:53
  How on earth do you make it safe enough? And how do I include all parts of me in my experience and my expression if also some things are off limits. And, you know, in seasons, we use the example kind of alcohol, not as a comparison to sexuality, but as a metaphor for there are some things that we could really want and just not do. So I miss drinking, but I just don't do it. I'm ten years sober.
• 26:53
  And I just don't. And so we use that as a funny example of of in the seasons episode of learning how to have boundaries with myself in my choices, but also still being able to be creative and relaxed within those boundaries to do what I want, like that I could drink other things. I don't have to just only drink water. Right? And so that's the metaphor for boundaries and choices, but that doesn't work for the same as who I am.
• 27:32
  And so are these really tricky topics and really difficult things? Yes, they are. And I'm not trying to trigger people too much or make things so hard, except that it is a part of healing. And until I can bring this full circle for myself, I cannot work through it. And I cannot blend those parts or bring those parts on board with myself.
• 27:58
  So keeping my faith is really important to me, but also what does that look like in the context of this? So these are big questions to wrestle with, and it feels conflicting. It feels contradictory. It feels black and white. It feels binary, but it doesn't have to be.
• 28:24
  And being curious about how that can work and what that can look like is what opens up the possibility of being able to be myself, to also be a person of faith and also creating change in the world and also living true to what my faith is like that all of those things are actually possible. So that was one thing that happened. Okay? So in the context of this religious trauma, this very triggering email comes out. I get it literally in the middle of my workday, trying not to have a full panic attack as I read it of trying not to fall down the well of shame as I try to process it, trying to hold onto my state of being like that place where you're not, like, couldn't be so connected, I guess, because it wasn't time for a community meeting.
• 29:39
  Everybody else in my life was also working. It wasn't time to socialize. I couldn't even do a Zoomies. Like there was no way to be extra connected, I guess, but still safe and social and stable, like how to maintain frontal cortex space and also be feeling all of this and experiencing all of this. Like it felt impossible.
• 30:02
  But then the next day, so it's not over yet. The next day, I had for the first time, someone come to me, come to me specifically for help coming out to their kids. You guys, I just started weeping. Like I could not stop crying and they were so gracious. They were like, I'm so glad you're feeling all this.
• 30:31
  You're helping me feel my feelings. Thank you for sharing with me. Thanks for validating me. Except I didn't mean to be validating them. I mean, I want to validate them, but I was just crying and I couldn't stop.
• 30:45
  And there's lots of layers to this. Obviously, it hit home with some of the issues I'm wrestling with right now. Also, there's the layer of no matter what context or whether I use labels or not, like, the husband does not wanna use any kind of labels. I want to I don't it's not that I need labels, it's that I need to include all of myself. And if I can do that and learn how to do that, then I don't care about the labels so much.
• 31:13
  I really don't. I don't need to be identified as anything other than myself. But in order to do that, I have to come to terms. I have to be able to come to terms with these aspects of myself. Right?
• 31:30
  And so I'm wrestling with these layers and she says this and I just start balling and I can't stop. And part of it is because it's something I'm already wrestling with. So I kind of had to deal with that and refer her to some good help. But also there's the issue that there are some conversations I just cannot have with my outside kids and not because they're not prepared. Like I think we can have a very open and direct conversation.
• 32:01
  I have DID, this is what DID means, because we've had such good conversations already. And there's such a good groundwork laid for understanding. And I don't think it would be a big jump for them because we talked about it so much, right? And the same with sexuality. If one of them came out as gay or if we were talking, we have two of the kids who are half siblings.
• 32:29
  And I wanna be really careful because protect privacy, but two of the kids that are half siblings, the parent, one of the parents, the biological parent has come out as GLBT. And so like, these are conversations we've already had at home. So it's not that it would be a big jump for the kids or too hard for the kids or that I'm too ashamed to talk to the kids about these issues. It's that everything I talk to them about, I'm also talking to their biological families about, and that's too much for me. If I could just talk to them and only talk to them, I could tell them more things, but because everything we say includes their families, that's just too much.
• 33:13
  And it doesn't feel as safe or as contained. And so that's harder. And so I think there was just some grief that also got triggered. So this is what I'm talking about that you have to notice, or that I have to be noticing and curious about all the things that come up. Because when we're blending, when we're working together, when I'm having these, I don't it's more than co consciousness, like co experience.
• 33:41
  Like I really don't know the word. I need a better word for it, but I have to notice all the layers. So I can't just say, even when I'm trying to explicitly think about this one thing, this person in front of me wants to come out to her kids. So we're talking about sexuality and orientation and coming out issues. So I'm aware of my own layers of that, but oh, there's also a layer of grief here related to something else.
• 34:10
  So in that moment, I have to like reach out and accept and tolerate and be willing to see what that is about, to be curious about what that is about, to hold space for whatever that is, even though I thought we were dealing with this over here. Does that make sense? And so there's this whole other layer of grief of that I love my outside kids so much. I know they love me. We are a good solid family despite the chaos and everything we have been through, but also they're not my kids.
• 34:51
  They're not happy meal toys. They're not objects I own. They are other people's children that we are helping to raise. And we love their biological families and are supporting them as well in lots of ways that we don't talk about publicly because of privacy. And that's really just our attempt to be respectful of that, but it's so complicated in so many layers.
• 35:17
  And so that also cannot just be a black and white issue. How do I do both? How do I be fully myself, have these beautiful conversations with the children, but also respect my own boundaries and maintain my own safety. And so what does that look like? How do I create that?
• 35:40
  So I took all of this, these three experiences, the L episodes coming out and the religious trauma, I guess that's four things. The the Elle episodes coming out about the religious trauma, the sex trafficking talk at the ISSCD conference, the youth booklets coming out, and then this woman at work who wanted help coming out to her kids. I took all four of these issues to therapy. And first of all and you guys, I just cried. I cried so much this week.
• 36:22
  I can't tell you how much I cried this week. Like, so much came up and out of me. And in some ways, this was very cleansing. And in some ways this was very healing and good and like a relief came off me because I finally tackled some of these issues, but also it was just hard and it was intense and it was exhausting. And so in the idea of states of being, which is the same thing as alters, except also kind of an expanded view of it, like honoring that too.
• 36:58
  I was in a state of being of grieving and of feeling these layers and of doing the work, but also being exhausted by it. And to honor that even that the work is hard and that therapy is intense sometimes, and that all of it together is exhausting, even though it is also good and healing. Like that's as valid to hold onto as the other pieces. And so just being aware of this and feeling this, but therapy was super intense. So the sex trafficking pieces I can contain and kind of pause so we can come back to and fully address them directly.
• 37:43
  The L episodes we have processed for months and months and months, and really we'll continue talking about these issues because they all are networked in or associated with other traumas even from childhood. Right? So again, for now kind of containing those things and pausing them to come back to work too specifically. When I told her about the youth booklets, she was like, f that, you know, like, except she's she said it and she slammed her hand down on the table and it was the perfect response. I'm not gonna drop the f bomb again today because I already did in the warrior episode and I got emails about that, but that's another example of not being black and white.
• 38:43
  And I am not a person who just uses bad language all the time or foul language all the time, but that is an example of binary thinking too, of assuming that the use of certain words or certain expressions are bad or foul as opposed to expressive and creative. And so how to balance even that, right? So the same question comes up of how to be less binary even in use of language because I want to be less judgmental and less shaming of myself and more free and more open to express myself and to tolerate what does come up and what I do feel. And so that's kind of a messy process. But what we talked about with the youth booklet and some related things, related issues are how when I am being defined by others or when I am being pushed around by others to do something or not do something, or when I am not actually given a choice to do something or not do something, that that's a trauma reenactment.
• 40:19
  And so what's triggering about the way I experienced the youth booklet and coming to my email and it's not just the content. I mean, we could talk about the content for a whole other episode and even the good things, like it's not all hard and it's not all bad, but even the good things, like we could talk about that for a whole other episode because like I never had some of that. Some of the guidance that's in the book is very practical and very good aside from many spiritual or faith tradition or expressions. Like, that's great. I appreciate that all these things we get to talk about with the kids and parent with the outside kids in ways that we were never given.
• 41:02
  But what was triggering or what is the triggering piece is not even the content for good or bad if we're being binary about it. The triggering piece is the reenactment of being told who I have to be or who I can't be, or being split internally into these are the good parts and these are the bad parts, or these parts for this parent and these parts for that parent. And so I told her, and I shared this in Clinicians with Lived Experience group, I told my therapist, like, feels like parts of me were divided up into teams, like team mom and team dad. Right? Like these were for the dad, these were for the mom.
• 41:50
  And that in itself is like very divisive internally. And so all of this comes back to those layers. It's not even about what the church said or what the youth booklet says or what my kids think about it or what I think about it or how we choose to incorporate it into our lives. That's not what I mean. Like, I can navigate those things.
• 42:10
  I really can. I am a competent parent. I am a faithful person. I know what I think and what I believe, and I know how to navigate those things. I'm not worried about that.
• 42:21
  I'm using the example, which was highly activating or triggering to express how what felt like an outside issue that was a really hot topic was really just a hot topic because of my inside issues. And daring to hold space for conflicting feelings is part of how I knit myself back together again. Does that make sense? And I can be confident and competent in being fully myself because then I can be intentional about things, whether that's how I live my life or how I parent my children or what I do with my faith or whatever. Like I can navigate those things because I am healthy and happy and well adjusted and making progress in therapy.
• 43:28
  And my therapist said specifically and explicitly, you can't manipulate happy, healthy, well adjusted people. But that's exactly what happens in abuse dynamics. Right? They tear down that health. They tear down the happiness.
• 43:48
  They make it difficult to adjust, and they have to break you down in those ways first before they can manipulate you. Because you cannot manipulate happy, healthy, well adjusted people. So first they have to tear all of that down and break that apart. And like at a very surface level, even without any details, then it's like, oh, that's what's happening. That's what I'm feeling.
• 44:18
  That's what shame does. It tears me down. It breaks me down. And then like, I can't see what I'm not in my frontal cortex. I can't see what is right or wrong or good for me in binary or non binary ways.
• 44:33
  I can't hold both. I can't make decisions for myself. And and that's when that abuse dynamic kicks in and that manipulation starts to unfold. And it's super, super intense, which brings me to the third thing that happened or the fifth thing, depending on how you're looking at it. The next thing that happened this week was that we did a podcast interview with Dan Shaw.
• 45:03
  This will be the February, I think. He was the other keynote speaker for the ISSTD conference that weekend. And he is a psychoanalyst, and he and I knew this. What I did not know about his history is that he had been in a cult with an, like, an Indian guru. Okay?
• 45:30
  And that he got himself out of this and he learned from this, and that's why he became a therapist. And so now what he's writing about is traumatic narcissism. And so he distinguishes this from other kinds of narcissism because the that splitting that happens in that breaking down process, right? So that you can be manipulated. Traumatic narcissists specifically do that in such a way that they get to keep all the good feelings about themselves, but put all of their insecurities on you.
• 46:14
  And so this is a specific kind of relational trauma that also came up this week that stirred up a lot of these things in the context of these layers. And so we will talk about that more later in that episode, but it was so much to process in one week. It was so much to go through in one therapy session. And really ultimately where it brings us is this is why it is critical, critical that we choose our own happiness, that we choose our own health, that we get curious about how we can adjust, how we can be creative, how we can hold both, because you cannot manipulate happy, healthy, well adjusted people. And so as I look through these issues with the husband, the outside children being away for work, relationships, like all of these things are not about failing anyone or about sacrificing myself.
• 47:39
  Because I think up until this point, like the last ten years of marriage and parenting, I think that's what I thought. I either have to sacrifice myself or I will fail the family or the world or life and put that pressure on me of that binary perspective that had to be either or, the black or white, the this or that. My choice is literally I thought, not consciously, like I wasn't aware of it, but what I was doing with that splitting inside myself, I was, I either have to care for them or I have to care for me. And if I care for me, I am failing them. But in order to care for them, I have to sacrifice myself.
• 48:35
  So this is what has shifted is that it can be both and. I can care for them and care for myself. I can provide for them in ways that also take care of myself in the process. I can care for myself and care for them rather than caring for them instead of caring for myself. Does that make sense?
• 49:13
  So the better I get at understanding those layers, pieces of my own healing, the more I can apply them in other ways. So that, for example, I can learn to navigate my own sexuality issues and my own sexuality expression and also help others do the same. I can keep my faith, but also express it in healthy, happy, well adjusted ways. So I'm trying to think of a more neutral example. In a black or white world that like, just as a more neutral example.
• 50:01
  Okay? In a black and white world, when we had little bitty kids who were learning everything because they had been not exposed to anything. And they were new to our family. And we were trying to teach them a concept of how how we practice the Sabbath, for example, what does a Sabbath look like? How is this Sabbath set apart?
• 50:45
  In the beginning, if when you're being very black and white about it, it looks like, these things on Sabbath, don't do these things on the Sabbath. Right? That's a binary perspective of the Sabbath. Please go to we go to church on Sundays. We wear Sunday clothes on Sundays.
• 51:10
  We wear ties and coats or Sunday shoes, or we, you know, like these kinds of black and white, do this, do this, do this, don't do this, don't do this. We don't do this. We don't blah, blah, Right? But in a nonbinary expression of the Sabbath, it will look like if today we want to experience peace, how do we want to spend peaceful time together? Do we want to walk at a park?
• 51:46
  Do you are you more comfortable taking off your tie and coat? Do you want to wear tennis shoes instead of flats? Like what, like instead of nitpicking at things that don't actually have any consequence, focus on what is the principle of what we're trying to teach. Right? And so and so instead of using the youth booklet as binary black and white, Don't do all of these things.
• 52:20
  Instead, have the podcast conversation we did with the kids about adolescents where on their own, they brought up all of the same content and expressed it in beautiful ways where they're being intentional about their choices. They're aware of their own development. They are seeing the difference between what everybody else is doing and what they want to do or don't want to do and are deciding for themselves. Does that make sense? So then, like, I can expand that to other areas too.
• 52:51
  Like my work days are really long because I've spent I lost that contract at the beginning of summer when the emergency protocols were not renewed and by default, it deleted part of my contract. And so like, we basically had no money all summer until I could get a new contract. And it was really scary. And in that time, our bills got way backed up and I thought, oh my goodness, like it was so stressful. It was so scary.
• 53:20
  And so what are we gonna do? But then getting the contract, and so now that I've got the contract, I have to work really hard, not just to pay these bills, but to catch up our bills from four months ago because we had no income at all. And so I can work really hard. I can work long hours. I can do what it takes to get it done because that's necessary because it's a season.
• 53:48
  But then after everything is caught up and I can be really proud of myself for being able to do that, I can be really grateful for the opportunities that we were able to do that and that we pulled through such a scary season. Like I can be grateful. I can appreciate my own work ethic. I can even go so far because we're being non binary to understand that I got my work ethic from my mother and say, oh, there's something good and useful that I got from my mother, which gives her some bonus points for like something good that was gifted to me, right? Like not just hard memories, not just bad memories, like something good.
• 54:31
  There's something good that I got from my mother was her work ethic. And so that's great. But in continuing that non binary perspective, I can also be aware and hold space for the realization that my mother worked as hard as she did because my father wasn't keeping a job, because she was trying to be a single parent, because she was using work as a coping skill, because work was the only time she didn't have to parent, like all these things. And so recognize, okay, from that, I can learn how to have a good work ethic, but also how to care for myself. So stopping earlier in the day or taking a lunch hour or letting myself go to the bathroom when I need to go to the bathroom, remembering to eat, going for a walk before I start my work in the morning.
• 55:35
  Also doing things I enjoy, like writing projects or podcasting or blocking out part of my days for therapy, like trying to keep things balanced in a way that my mother did not pass down and that were not necessarily possible during a season when we were in crisis. When we're not in crisis, when things are okay again, then I don't have to keep acting like I'm in a crisis. And my therapist said, things and situations change and so do people. If we don't change with them, we are doomed to repeat the same behavior. So if I don't recognize when things are okay, I'm not ever going to feel like I'm okay.
• 56:30
  So this comes back into safe enough because working hard and extra jobs and extra hours when there's a financial crisis because of a layoff, that makes sense. Like it's hard, but it's temporary and it's a season. But when things are okay again, not that I don't have to work hard, but I don't have to only work or I don't have to work all the time. And I'm just trying to give neutral examples of this because what we're learning has to do with how to hold both, how to be less binary in our thinking, how to open up space for other parts of ourselves. So in the past, if doctor E would only work and others would only play, then what does play look like for doctor E?
• 57:37
  What does work look like for parts who only played before? Play for Doctor. E might be writing a journal article or or going to a Zoom meeting or doing clinical consults instead of only seeing patients. Play work for parts that play may be doing their own dishes instead of leaving them for another part to do or picking up toys when they're done playing or putting away the skates instead of leaving them on the floor. Like, how can you be curious in small ways of of opening up space to be less binary, but also recognizing that you actually get to do more?
• 58:34
  It's kind of like a playgrounds conversation. If if you're within the bounds of what is safe and what you are choosing to create for your life, then how much freedom do you have? Like, what is your, how do you use all of that freedom that you have within that space if that, if those boundaries make you safe enough to actually enjoy the world around you, to actually enjoy your life as you are living it, what is that going to look like? How does that change things for you? It opens up so many questions.
• 59:22
  So back to our therapy session, a therapist gave us a couple of resources. One was a book called Conversations with God, which we have not read yet, but if we do read, we'll talk about it. She said that would be good for us to read. So we're gonna read that and just see what we think about it. And then we also found some podcasts that are actually about our faith tradition and the queer community or by the queer community or by queer people.
• 1:00:00
  And it has been super, super helpful and helping us shift in an ongoing way, like our understanding of how to incorporate who we are or how that is going to look for us, because these are deep, deep layers, you guys. Like, we grew up, like, deep layers, like going all the way back to infancy, all the way back to early childhood. These are not things that are gonna be untangled easily or quickly. But finding ways to have these conversations and finding ways to talk about it, finding ways to experience it in ways that include all of me is so critical and so important and so liberating that I don't know that I even have words to describe it. So we're making progress in this.
• 1:01:06
  And thank you for your patience and for listening and for those who have shared your own experiences and your own journey, because it's a lot to sort through. It's a lot to feel. It's a lot to notice. And they are hard, hard layers. But I feel like I'm finding my way, and I feel like I'm responding, and I feel like not just finding my way out, but finding my way through.
• 1:01:41
  Like, it goes back to the healing stories with Bill. Like, I'm finding my own hero. I am being my own hero. I'm being a hero for my kids. I'm being a hero for my family.
• 1:01:57
  I'm being a hero for me, and that seems worth it.
• 1:02:27
  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 this. Connection brings healing, and healing brings hope.