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Guest: Moon Knight · 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 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.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Hello. Good morning. You are super brave to do this. It is not a, it is not a normal clinical interview. I'm so sorry.
• 1:15
  That's okay. I'm actually super excited. So, I had to call in backup. I called in you because you're a clinician and I need a clinical conversation and I wanted to talk through us through that lens. And I called him because I'm actually not a Marvel person and I don't mean that in any offensive way to either of you.
• 1:38
  It's just not my thing, which is okay.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: I think you're a marvel.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. I can't even. That's adorable. It's all good. It's all good, but I think it'll be really fun.
• 1:54
  Oh, we'll have fun.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: So, like, I'm I'm not a Marvel purist. Like, I haven't read any of the comics or anything. I've seen most of the movies, all the one pretty much all the ones that are on Disney plus, but I haven't seen the ones that were like, I haven't seen, like, you know, the original Hulk movie or the Spider Man movies because they're not on Disney. But during quarantine because I I would try to watch all the the Avengers movies, and I kind of got the point, but then not really. And my husband said, we have to watch it in timeline order.
• 2:26
  So that's what we did during quarantine. We had, like it was one of our our rituals. Like, when we were going to do, you know, a a movie night, we're just like, okay. We're watching the next one in the timeline. And now I understand the plot.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: There you go.
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: Which I didn't understand the plot for. So that that's, like, my history with Marvel. I'm not, like, a super huge, like, aficionado, if you will. But but I have a general understanding of most of the plot, at least, of the, you know, Infinity War saga.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Okay. So you're still ahead of me because I have no idea what you just said. And I didn't even know there is an infinity war but that explains a lot about what's happening on the news so that's helpful. If you want to introduce yourself a husband, no one needs to introduce you. Everybody already knows you.
• 3:18
  But if you wanna introduce yourself however you want to, just very generally so that listeners can orient to the sound of your voice, and then we'll go from there.
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: Okay. So I'm Katie Jalinas. I'm a therapist in private practice in Waterbury, Connecticut and I've been a fan of the podcast for a while so I'm excited to be joining you.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: That was the part that surprised me that you already knew what the podcast was. That was super fun. So earlier this week we aired the moon knighting podcast episode about what's happening on moon night on Disney plus. This is not an advertisement. We should be getting a billion dollars for it but it's not an advertisement.
• 4:01
  We're just processing. I I I I cannot process it by myself, so I am calling my backup people here. These these experts in this world. So when we recorded the that episode with the husband, that was was that, like, two weeks ago? It doesn't matter because they're listening to it all at once.
• 4:22
  But I had not seen anything. And then over the last week or two, we have watched the rest of it. So we have seen all the episodes now, and I feel like just so that we can even talk about things openly, we need to just from the start say that this episode has spoilers because I don't know how to talk about it without doing spoilers. So if you are wanting to watch it and have not yet watched it, don't listen until after you watch it. If you don't care or if you're unsure, you're welcome to listen, but there are going to be spoilers because I don't know how else to do this.
• 5:04
  So okay. Really quick, I'm gonna call you husband. I'm gonna call on you. Sorry. I never call you husband.
• 5:15
  But I'm gonna call on you, sir, to just give us wife. Oh my goodness. Just give us a very quick recap of what Moon Knight is in case there's really someone who's only heard this episode, which there isn't, but just to be legit.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: Moon Knight, is a character from Marvel Comics. He was sort of a lesser known character that just got a new series on Disney plus starring Oscar Isaacs, I think his name is. And he is a notable character because he has DID. Like, they talk about it explicitly in the comics even though they did not call it by that name in the series. The portrayal of DID in the comics is not necessarily a good reflection of what DID is.
• 6:07
  So we were very curious when the series came out how it was going to portray DID and if they were going to be more respectful than than the common sort of evil alter trope that you often see in in movies where characters are specifically labeled as DID. Do you want more introduction than that?
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: No. I just wanna say, since that's where we're starting and since we already said spoilers, I just wanna say that I had a very roller coaster experience of how they did that because at the beginning, was like, you prepared me. You were like, remember, this is superhero context because otherwise, I'd be like, why is everybody fighting? No. Right?
• 6:50
  Which is my stuff not about the movie but you're like remember superhero world so there's some fighting and they actually did I mean all things considering a pretty good job with the violence in that a lot of it's implied rather than shown even though a lot of it is also shown like there's a lot of aggression in the movie it's a superhero movie but they also just imply a lot rather than it being super super graphic but it was a lot for me but you you helped me frame it superhero movie, there's some aggression, there's some fighting. And so the first like two or three, maybe even four episodes, I was more focused on that than I was the DID of whether I could regulate the level of violence, and it was okay. And the DID moments, we would pause it and be like, oh, that's interesting because when I experienced that, this is what it's like. And so we had some really neat conversations that I kind of thought were, okay, they're really doing this very well. I was regulating that and managing that, but the thing that I was sort of confused about that was in my background or in how do you say that?
• 7:59
  Background noise? What is the English? In the
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: In the back of your mind.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Okay. Thank you. Back there where it's super busy, there was this confusion about it's not really associated with any trauma. Like, I I don't know superhero world other than Spider Man gets bit by a spider. That's traumatic.
• 8:20
  But that's literally all I've got. So I was confused about, like, how's that gonna show up? Is it gonna show up? And I felt myself, like, physically or somatically or whatever, I could feel myself bracing for it or tensing for it, but it just kept not happening. And so then I kind of relaxed and was like, okay, so we're just focusing on superheroes.
• 8:39
  This is not about trauma. And then they made a whole episode that only that episode is all about trauma. And I was like what just happened here? So as far as tolerating the series that was really the hardest piece for me. And then the ending of the series was back to okay now we're in a whole different I don't even know what's happening anymore.
• 9:02
  This whole we're sailing through the sand and it's not the water but we're in a different world and now are we inside or are we outside? Is this psych ward real? Is it not real? Like I was so confused which DID or not it was very disorienting. So if they were portraying that then it makes sense.
• 9:23
  If other stuff was going on we can talk about that. And then the post credit scene totally jumped the shark for me. I was like, every character was just not who they're supposed to be, whether it's superheroes or DID. I don't know what just happened. So, Katie, what do you do with all that?
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: I my experience watching it was a little bit similar to what you you just described. You know, watching it, of course, through my my therapist lens, I'm I'm looking for, okay, how are they portraying DID? You know, where's the intersection between this is superhero world where we have, you know, comic magic and and things like that, and authentically presenting somebody who has DID before their superhero origin story started. And so you know that there in order to have that portrayal, there has to be that history of trauma. It's, you know, implied by having that diagnosis.
• 10:19
  And yet, where does that that stop and the superhero aspect start? And where are we? What are we doing? You know? And and I especially felt confused during the asylum episode.
• 10:34
  That's the title of the the episode for any any listeners who aren't familiar with that use of the term. Are we in the inner world? Are we in the outer world? Are we really dead? Are we alive?
• 10:46
  What is happening right now? Very confusing, and it never got cleared up. So that's massive spoiler alert there. You will leave the series just as confused as you were when you started.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: I I felt like I ended even more confused than I was in that episode. Like, that that particular setting comes back at the end in a way that I was like, wait. What? What what's happening now? Like, had been kind of the afterlife before, but now it's not?
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: Yes. Yes. Very confusing. And, you know, we ended we ended up going back to Egypt and everything like that, and then we end up back in London. And what's happening?
• 11:27
  Where where are we? When are we? Which I guess that is, you know, true to character for DID. Right? And maybe that was the intention of leaving things confused because they gave the impression that because Steven Grant and Mark Spector are now buddy buddy, everything's all well and good.
• 11:44
  But as we know about DID, are there ever really just two?
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: Not likely. And we know from the first episode, you know, he was also being called Scotty. He was also being called Stevie. We never hear about that the entire rest of the series. And so then the other part that shows up is Jake, and we never heard about Jake the whole time.
• 12:04
  You know? So there's lots of things left to be discovered that haven't come to light yet, and you leave just as confused as you were when you started.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I agree that they left those clues that there were other alters by the different names. There's also this scene where they're running through this storage unit, and one of the storage units is banging like someone wants out but it's locked and he just he looks at it but then he keeps running and in that moment you don't notice anything but later when he starts opening the sarcophagus and one of them comes out and then they run past the other one with someone banging, and they don't help him the way they helped each other, then my mind went back to the storage unit of, oh, somebody was in there then.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: Yes. There were those clues that you know that there must be more, and they just hint at it, but they don't develop that at all, which I think is also consistent with the portrayal of DID because you can both see something and not see it. Right? If there's that phobia of internal experience, it can be right in front of your face and you still, you know, no. There's nothing there.
• 13:14
  And so I think that was kind of a trooper trail in a way.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's true.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: In in the original comic book version of the character, he only has three three alters, which feels it feels ignorant to me. Like, it feels like it's completely misunderstanding the source of DID and the purpose, like, why the mind creates this experience, and it feels very convenient for the writers to be able to just switch between three characters. And I personally, I have hopes that when they drop names like Scottie, that they are suggesting that there are other people, other alters in there that are doing things that we're just not seeing yet.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I feel like they've introduced at least five. They have Mark and Steven. Thank you. Steven, and then Stevie was referenced, Scotty was referenced, and then Jake at the end. So that's at least five and we don't know who was in the storage unit if it was one of those or someone else and we don't know who was in the other sarcophagus or if it was someone else.
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: What about I don't know I it makes me think of the scene when the boys were little. And I want to talk about that a minute because the husband and I had some debate on this because it felt backwards that the one we thought was creating alters, it was the other one that was hurt. And so then that felt mixed up somehow.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: I was confused that entire scene. I I was thinking that the brother who had died was an interject. I thought that maybe Stephen Grant had been an introject of the brother who died. And then that turned out not to be the case. So that that was a little bit confusing.
• 15:10
  But also, you know, in regards to, like, the the trauma that would have, you know, created the dissociation, the death of the brother is clearly a big t trauma. But the relationship with the mother, I feel like, was implied as the thing that was really the most devastating. Because what it what I felt like was implied is, you know, having the type of mother who would reject a child for an accident that resulted in the death of another child. You know, what else was happening with the relationship with the mother even before that,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: that would have maybe led, you know, towards that disorganized attachment pathway of, you know, developing dissociation? I I have so many questions and thoughts about that particular sequence when they're exploring the character's past and his trauma. And part of me thinks, like, from from my experience talking with, you know, you as a person with with DID, my wife, that when you are looking back on your traumatic experiences that you can't just walk into them and get a clear picture of what's going on. And so from that perspective, it seems very possible to me that what we're seeing is not an accurate retelling of everything that happened, that it is being filtered by who is trying to protect who and what actual memories are being covered up. Because while what they depict would definitely be traumatic, it does not seem like the scale of trauma that would cause a personality to split, and it doesn't seem at the age at which that would happen.
• 17:02
  Right? Because that starts So really, I can believe that that is how these two particular alters are coming to terms with their history without necessarily understanding everything that actually happened. But on the other hand, I think that's not really my job in a in a movie or a TV show to come up with that much outside material to understand what I'm seeing. Like, I don't think that the creators are thinking of it in that way. I think there is an honest and earnest attempt to be respectful to DID and to be truthful in their portrayal, but I think they're also still limited in their understanding.
• 17:44
  And so I think I think there are just sort of weaknesses in in how they're depicting it. There are layers that can be explored and come to terms with if that is what you're interested in doing.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: That's what I was gonna say is that it felt very incomplete and stilted a little bit, but I think that since they have been renewed for a second season, we just found that out yesterday, so since they have been renewed for a second season, if they come back to that same scene with one of the other alters that we haven't met yet and we get more information about those incidents or more background about what's happening, that that would be really interesting and very authentic in that we so often get pieces of our stories in pieces. Here's a piece. Here's another piece. Up to what we can tolerate. Right?
• 18:37
  And they did do a good job showing it was very difficult for him to tolerate seeing what he saw and knowing what he knew. I think they have opportunity to bring that full circle.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: That moment where Mark is having to acknowledge what happened and he starts hitting himself, that that felt like such a raw, real moment of, like, physically externalizing the kind of pain that the brain has been trying to protect itself from. Like, that that was so visceral and and really compelling. Although, I'm saying that as as a fish tank. Right? For me, it's easy to look at that and say, oh my goodness.
• 19:23
  That feels so raw and real. I know it very it must be a very different experience for for you to look at that and and process that in a different way.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: No. That looks like therapy. Because his hitting wasn't just I'm acting out the violence I received. His hitting was I'm feeling it turn it off. I'm feeling it make it stop.
• 19:51
  I'm feeling it block it out. I'm feeling it distract from it, avoid it. Like, literally what's coming out trying to put it back in. Like, when you just see him slapping, can see, oh, it's, like, aggressive. And so you know he's in touch with that aggression that he received.
• 20:07
  But it's also when you're when you're feeling that and you're experiencing that, it's also, like, literally trying to stop it. Like, put it in. This piece is coming. This piece is coming. Let me shove it back in.
• 20:20
  Let me shove it back down because it's coming out everywhere, that's not okay. That's not safe is how it feels.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. I felt that that was that that portrayal felt very raw and authentic.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: That was really powerful, that scene, that moment. Yeah.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: If I I really liked Oscar Isaac's performance overall. There's there's been a lot of of chatter about how the Stephen Grant character is so different from the comics. In the original comics, he's sort of a millionaire bachelor about town, which makes him feel not very differentiated necessarily from Mark.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Or Batman?
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Yes. The the originally, a lot of people thought of Moon Knight as as Marvel's Batman, which is kind of the horrifying thing to think of in terms of DID of saying, well, really, DID is the ultimate alter ego. Right? It's the secret identity that's even secret from the hero himself. So that's that's weird, but I really like that that they're so distinct.
• 21:34
  Not that every alter is is super distinct. Like, I'm I'm terrible at identifying alters as as you well know. But but as far as portraying something for the screen, I felt like he made he made each of them a real person. I loved each one of them as their own self instead of thinking of of the as one is, like, the real one and one is the fake one. Although the the script itself did kind of lean that way sometimes in in that sort of self exploration episode, it did lean a little too close to, oh, this guy is my imaginary friend that I made up to comfort myself.
• 22:23
  And I was like, no. But I feel like it didn't end there. At the end, I felt like they came to respect each other, but it did it did make me a little uncomfortable there for a bit.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: I I totally agree. I felt that in that asylum episode, they definitely leaned a little bit more towards this is psychosis, where, like, oh, you made him up to make you to make you feel better. And doctor Harrow, not even talking about how bad of a therapist he was, but he was a villain after all. But, anyway, like, the way that he almost was gaslighting Mark into thinking that Steven was his imaginary friend I was totally not a fan of that. And it and, again, that was another thing that wasn't really cleared up.
• 23:12
  You're kind of left at the end of the series wondering, like, oh, is he real? Is he not? And I don't know that it was supposed to be that way.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: That that I would agree that the portrayal, whether that was intentional because that character is the villain or whether it was unintentional, that portrayal of that doctor in the hospital experience was horrifying. It was awful, too real unfortunately but awful. It was a terrible therapist, terrible psychiatrist, terrible holds and restraints, that that was just awful, and I know people are really upset about that. Not because they did a good job portraying it badly, which can happen, but because we don't want people to continue to be traumatized by that, and it's so retraumatizing to see it on the screen. But also, when you first told me about that there was going to be a psychiatric ward scene that was gonna play into it, I was like, what?
• 24:17
  But when you first told me, I wasn't just anxious about how it would be portrayed, both personally and professionally. Like, I've worked a lot of inpatient units, I've seen it done well, and I've seen it done not well, and this was not well. This was not okay on on what we saw. But when you first told me about it, was like, well, I don't know how you tell because if that's his internal world, then it makes sense that there are everything that looks like people from what's going on externally. Or if it's the opposite way where that's what's real and everything else is reflecting that.
• 24:59
  Like, which side is looking glass. Right? That it's that Alice in Wonderland effect. And so there's certainly that possibility, but if an entire internal world is built around a psych ward or even aggressive mythology, that's, that would in real life, that would be a clue to some of the trauma. Right?
• 25:26
  There would be additional reasons that would be some of the trauma. So, like, for example, I have I can just disclose this since it's my podcast and I've already run my mouth and put out a memoir. I can just say these things. But, like, my mother was a medical librarian, and sometimes the hospital she worked in were psychiatric hospitals. So me growing up in that environment as a child, even though I was not even a patient there, it would make sense if I had some of those things incorporated internally in some way.
• 25:58
  Or, for example, the mythology and all the Egyptian stuff, there's a lot of people really into that. Now as a fugar as a fugar I've never just woken up in Egypt. I have woken up in France. I have woken up in Sydney. I have woken up in lots of places but not in Egypt.
• 26:19
  But what's interesting about the Egypt piece is that whole battle between good and evil and I know part of that's just because it's Marvel but also part of it is just the Middle Eastern version of the same thing as westernized Christianity. There is one there's two gods battling it out good and evil one wants people that be able to choose even though they could choose badly one wants to remove the power of choice so that no one can choose badly, but that ultimately is in itself bad because then people don't have the opportunity to choose. Right? So it comes down around agency, and I think that that is part of why it's such a big deal in culture right now because we have civil rights, we have women's rights, we have children's rights, like all these things being violated. So it makes sense to me that this is part of the narrative even though that's the framework they're doing it.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: Right. That's the power of storytelling, right? Being able to take messages and portray them in ways, even though it's, you know, superimposed on on fiction. But it communicates a very important message.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And I I think it is a reminder that forcing people to be good does not make the world better by default. People have to have the choice to become what they want to become, to make their choices for there to be progress in the world. And and I'm not not to get off into politics, but that's so happening in our country right now. It's so happening, in different places around the world, and it's it's a really frightening thing.
• 28:09
  And so I appreciated more than I expected some of this aggressive outlook of or this aggressive expression of no. We are literally fighting for the right to just be. Yes. I want people to choose good. Of course I do.
• 28:27
  Yes. I want people to be safe. Of course I do. But we have to let people learn to make their own choices or it's nothing is real. And that's how I left that series was I don't even know what's real.
• 28:40
  Like nothing is real. It's all been blurred until I don't know which is the inside world or the outside world or if it was all just a dream while he was in his bed.
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: Right. Right. You're you're not left with any clarity at all about what just happened.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: I'm just sitting in that confusion. It's very uncomfortable.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Can I can I shift to a different topic for a moment?
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Yes. Please do.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: So one one thing that I thought a lot about as I was watching this was, I guess, the idea of representation. There's there's a challenge. It was it's easy for me to think so the superhero aspect is not really about DID. It's this guy who has DID that is also happens to be a superhero. But I have the luxury of thinking that way in part because there's so many straight white men portrayed in media that it's easy to have one who just happens to be a superhero and not think that that is a reflection on who I am as a person.
• 29:46
  But if you are in a specific niche or niche, however you say it, that is not depicted very often, then their identity becomes wrapped up in the story itself. I've I've really been excited lately by some of the Disney movies, like Soul or even Moana, where you have characters who we would consider minorities in in mainstream America, but it's not about their race. It just happens to be a character who comes in that shade of color, which is wonderful. Right? So to say that this is a character who's a superhero in a superhero movie who just happens to have DID would be wonderful to get to that point, but there have been so few positive depiction of DID in media that I that I am aware of.
• 30:45
  Maybe there are more that I just don't know of. That it's hard to look at the story without thinking about it as a depiction of DID. And one one line of commentary that I've heard a lot as I watch videos or listen to podcasts or whatever about the show is the people who are huge fans of Marvel movies have found Moon Knight to be really disappointing because they feel like it just is focusing too much on these weird guys. Like, most of them don't seem to like Steven, and they want it to be more action and adventure. I loved it, and I loved Steven.
• 31:21
  And I loved that the movie was almost more of an exploration of this guy's internal battle than the external battle. But that's because to me, it is a it is a show about DID. It's to me, it's more about that than it is about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Right?
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: So I it's hard to it's hard to know how to approach it. I guess everybody just approaches it from their own lens in the end, but I'm I'm glad that they at least are trying to be respectful thoughtful in the way they approach it.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Well, and Katie, maybe you can speak to this, but I feel like that in itself is very real as far as the DID experience in that we feel like we're fighting this external battle to stay alive, to function in the world, to be a spouse, to be a parent, to have a job, or whatever it is our responsibilities are in a day, a student, anything, when the real battle is internal and everything that's happening inside that's impacting the outside. And then besides that, there's also the layers of how the world responds in very similar ways. When there are people, whether they know you have DID or not, when you are someone who is a survivor and has had to do fawning or been good at reading the room or have skills for seeing what someone wants from you because that's what keeps you alive, then you're very good at being that thing and doing that thing. And so the meager ones or the more quiet ones or the more emotional ones or the more struggling ones are not as popular and are not as supported. And I don't mean in therapy or in marriage, but in in whether it's social circles or at work or colleagues, even if they don't know about your DID.
• 33:31
  And that ends up reinforcing some of those barriers because to function you have to like that person wins because to be safe with those people which is the support you need then you then that that one has to go take care of it. And so it does leave things out of balance. And so I think in an unexpected way, that actually reflects a very intriguing part of the reality of DID. What do you think, Katie?
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah. For sure. I I thought that the the portrayal of Stephen Grant, you know, he's, you know, kinda seen as this, you know, flighty, skittish, kinda guy who has no idea what's really going on, like missing whole whole days at a time and just, you know, comes stumbling back into work late, making a very vague excuse, you know, clearly not really knowing what's happening. And he he is portrayed portrayed as weak and, you know, the the distaste of others towards him, you know, even even the voice of Khonshu, you know, the idiot is in control. You know?
• 34:43
  He's very much portrayed as, like, you know, he's the the expendable one that we want him just out of the way. And and I think that you're right. That is accurate to the experience of of, you know, different alters who have to come forward to take care of certain things in the world. And it may not be fair, but it's accurate.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: That makes it so powerful that in one of either the final episode or the second to the final episode I can't remember, but it makes it so powerful when he finally says when Mark is in crisis and he finally says, if we are the same, if we are really one, then what power you have, I have too. And he pulls it off on his own to save Mark. And that is just that scene blew me away.
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: Yes. Yes. That was I felt the pinnacle of, you know, their journey together as the two alters coming into true collaboration. You know, when you you see their journey together, you know, from complete denial to, you know, that struggle, trying to, you know, put the other one in a box, you know, just, like, get out of the way and let me live my life. Sometimes literally.
• 36:00
  Yes. Yes. It's like learning to to talk to each other, learning how to, you know, give control to the other one when it's appropriate, and then finally realizing, like, we are one together. And so it's kind of an integrative process even though they don't literally become one. You know, that's not portrayed, but the spirit of integrative functioning is there.
• 36:24
  And I thought that was so powerful. And then moving into that final episode, when they do function as one, although still separate, that's beautiful.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: There's you were talking about layers, and in that last the last episode, I'm I'm not a big fan of the the Marvel climactic CGI fight scene where it's all, like, animated monsters fighting each other. But there was something about the layers of that scene where on the biggest scale, it was these emblems of of good and evil, basically. And then on this scale below that, it was our hero fighting our villain. And then below that, it was, like, the different alters within this one man working together at last. My my only worry was in that last fight scene.
• 37:15
  Like, I felt like I lost the distinction between what makes Mark Mark and what makes Steven Steven, and they just sort of use different weapons, but they could both fight just as well. And I hope that if they do another season that we don't that we don't lose the definition between those two, that they still remain people because I love them as people. But I but thematically, I love the idea that they are finally on the same team. I I I can't think I was trying to remember the word that I think he the phrase he used to use. Was it functional multiplicity?
• 37:54
  There you go. That they are are more than one, you know, inhabiting the same body, but they are no longer at odds. They are really working as a team in in a really supportive and healthy way, I think.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: And that they like she said, they they went from not knowing what was going on or hiding secrets from each other to okay, here's the story, here's what I'm about, here's who I am, to learning how to take turns in that context of no, I really need to do this because it's my thing, but also you need to do this because that's your thing. So how do we navigate that? And then the becoming one in as a team, like you said, but even while still who they were, it was not a fight for dominance. And I think that's one piece that people with DID really struggle with of I'm the one in charge or I want to be in charge or if I were in charge. And the thing about that is I really feel like that's actually a reenactment of the abuse dynamic that our struggle with alters and the power and the struggle for dominance or time or fighting that out is sort of a reenactment of other people having power over us and the different experiences and perspectives of that.
• 39:17
  And when we stop when we let go of the dominance piece and focus on the attunement and meeting needs and what is it that you need that I can give And all of us internally are doing that or externally in the world, that's when there's peace and functioning.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Powerful stuff. It it takes so after we watched the finale last night, and that the post credit scene really threw us for a loop. I did you know, I watched all of my videos with the recounting of everything and all the Easter eggs you missed and all of that discussion. And so I've sort of been mulling on that for a while.
• 40:02
  And the idea of of trying to take control, I think, is part of what that's about. I I hadn't thought about it before, but when the Jake Loxley Lockley Loxley, the Jake character, at the end, he looks in the rearview mirror of the car, and it's only his face you see. It's like he is not allowing anybody else to participate, but he has taken control. And I I think that's sort of an interesting thing that and just in in context of you talking about learning to work together as as alters, and he has not. But I feel like because we don't yet know what his story is, what trauma he was designed to protect from or like, I know that I'm I'm never sure I'm never sure what to call you because I know you have lots of names.
• 40:59
  You've got your home name and your professional name, so I guess Emma's on the Zoom screen. I will call you in. So I know from my history with you that there are alters inside that other alters are scared of and do not feel safe around even on the inner world. And I also know that that particular alter that I'm thinking of is there to protect you, that even though it's scary, it was there to keep you safe. And so I always have tried to be very respectful to to her and even loving because she kept you safe, and I'm so grateful for that.
• 41:47
  So I feel like if we get a second season of Moon Knight, I want to understand not just Jake Loxley as the hidden evil altar. I want to see him as what is he a response to? How does he fit into this person as a person? How is he also a human being struggling with things? I don't I don't want it to be the hidden monster was another personality the whole time.
• 42:24
  Right.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: Right. And that's, I think, what our our fear is as, you know, people who care about people in the real world who have DID is that are they going to make the misstep that many other media creators have made where DID is used as a convenient storytelling trope. Yeah. Where you have the good alters and the bad alters. And I really hope that that does not happen with this series.
• 42:53
  I hope that they continue, to consult the community of people who have DID to portray in both an accurate and respectful way the complexities of each alter, you know, not as all good, all bad, but as as you said, you know, created to respond, you know, to protect and, you know, with a really important purpose.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: There there are some people who have suggested that like, in the first episode when you have that kind of amazing sequence in the Alps where he keeps losing time and when he he comes back, like, he's surrounded by dead bodies, that kind of thing. Like, there's there are people who are saying that is actually the third guy. That's not Mark doing that. And that would make it makes sense that that Jake is there as a physical protection when they are in physical danger. He's someone who has permission to fight back, in a way that even Mark doesn't.
• 43:53
  Mark fights, but he often stops himself from killing people. Right? He's not he's not really into killing. Right. Right.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I think that well, I I hope that they really explore that piece of things to bring it full circle because the last scene just by itself as it is for me totally jumped the shark and went right back to the trope of, oh, of course he's the killer and whatever is going on isn't even real he's just the bad guy so everybody with DID are bad and we're right back to that and having to fight media and so I hope that they explore that and clarify that because as it was left I was really frustrated with that And not just him but all the characters. It did not feel to me like a big reveal. To me it felt like off the page we lost track of who characters are and not even about DID because I know how to track a lot of DID characters. Right? Like myself, I have friends with DID, I have clients.
• 44:57
  Like I know anytime you're dealing with someone with DID, you're dealing with like an entire book. I get it. But that to me it was just so I need the fleshing out of whatever happened there in an ethical way, not just a storytelling way. But at the same time as someone with DID if I were trying to put all these pieces together it would be that there is some kind of hospital trauma involved because he's got that feeling so sometime as a child he somehow in some way had exposure to that. The Egypt stuff could be all kinds of things, but to me it feels like especially because it's so cartoony, but also I know, like, comic books.
• 45:45
  Right? But it feels like that's a little boy in his sandbox and those are the toys with him in the sandbox and he's playing and the world develops from that. Like, I don't mean it has to be that storyline but that's what it feels to me that the those cartoony versions of the pictures are coming from Littles, and there's gotta be Littles involved somehow because it's so toy like. And
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: In in the first episode, in his fish tank, at the bottom, you have the Great Pyramid. You have the boat he ends up on. You have the Gate Of Osiris. You have Ahmet's temple. Like, all of those things are in the fish tank as toys at the very beginning.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: Which he probably got from the gift shop that he works at. Yeah. Yeah.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: The in the gift shop, they sell they sell to wear it dolls. The big hippo, they're selling hippo dolls in the very first episode. I love it.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I went I went back and rewatched the first episode just recently to see what what I had missed now that I'd seen the whole series. And there's so many hints, you know, throughout. It's it's really amazing. Yeah.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: That part is so well done. Right? What what else did they do well about DID? Some something that
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: I found really delightful was that Steven and Mark both became superheroes in different ways. It's like the system is a superhero, and each alter expresses that a little differently. I thought that was super cool.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I thought the relationship with Layla was really interesting because she didn't know, you know, that Mark had DID when when she married him. Right? And this is, I think, common experience for for loved ones of people who have DID, of learning as the loved one, learning to accept this person for for who they are with all of their alters. And so at first, you know, she's, what do you why are you calling yourself Steven?
• 47:56
  What's with that stupid accent? Like, you know, knock it off. And there's that struggle of acceptance. And finally, she is able to appreciate Mark and Steven both separately and together. And I thought watching her character development in that relationship was a really cool portrayal that felt pretty accurate and authentic.
• 48:16
  And the fact that that Mark and Steven have to negotiate their mutual relationship with her and like, Mark is the one
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: who's married to her, but Steven likes her too. And what does that mean? Like, are they enough of this like, because they're the same in in the same system? Like, does that mean it's okay, or do they have to have different relation like, it it gets complicated, and I like that they sort of open that door a little bit. Yeah.
• 48:44
  Definitely.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Anything else before I let you go, either of you?
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: I hope they come talk to us as consultants for the next episode.
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: I hope that they continue to look at this as an opportunity for representation. Mhmm. You know, not to not to fall back on the old trope of, you know, good guy, bad guy, but, you know, to really understand that, you know, DID is in the spotlight in a lot of ways, you know, with social media and, you know, with a lot of conversations and a lot of skepticism. And that's really, you know, disheartening on one hand. And on the other hand, that opens up opportunities for dialogue and discussion and, you know, truth, you know, to come forward.
• 49:33
  And I think that using a character who has DID as a framework for a story can be a really great way for representation in the media to happen if it continues to be done respectfully and accurately and not fall back on those really worn out tropes that have done a lot of damage to people with DID.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for talking to us. Absolutely. This was fun. Yay. You all are good and brave.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: That wasn't too bad, was it?
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: No. That was not bad
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: at all.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: It was really good. I appreciate it. There's just such a demand. People wanna know. People wanna hear us talk about it.
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: I guess one thing I wasn't sure if it was too triggering was bringing up the stuff about the relationship with mom and, like, the disorganized attachment piece. I don't know if that was too much. So if you feel like that should be edited out
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: No. I think it was important. I think what you felt was it hitting close to home with me, and so I just didn't respond. But I think it's important information, and I think it's okay to leave in. I just Okay.
• 50:38
  Didn't take it deeper because of my own stuff, but I think that that balances it out. So it's okay to listen to for others too. Okay. Not that I have any mom issues. I'm just saying.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Issues. She has the full subscription.
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: You're so helpful. Oh my goodness. You know, like that that was the thing that kind of stood out to me the most because I think one of the misconceptions about, you know, DID and trauma, like people understand that DID comes about as a result of childhood trauma, but sometimes there's not an understanding of what that trauma looks like that would cause DID. And so, and I think Nathan, you had talked about this a little bit where, you know, is this a trauma that would reasonably result in the creation of a DID system? Maybe, maybe not.
• 51:28
  And what we know about DID is it's usually relational developmental trauma, which would be more likely to be tied to one of the parents. And that's hinted at, but not not gone into. And so I think what in it Emma, in your in the discussion on the ISSTD forum, you had mentioned, like, people are going to be, you know, having having victims and avatars and and things like that in their systems as a result of of this show coming out. But I also wonder, is this going to if people are gonna be thinking back, like, oh, I had a trauma like that in my childhood.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: I must also have DID. Mhmm.
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: And I think, you know, that's a that's likely a concern maybe.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: It's it's really tricky, and I really like how you summed that up at the end about being respectful and authentic. That was good. That was better than what I was gonna say, so I just left it because it was good.
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: You know, the representation thing really is important, you know, that there's, you know, somebody being portrayed but not in a negative way.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Right. The I mean, this Marvel is not my thing, but I watched the whole series because I mean, for the same reason of can someone get it right? Like, it's so interesting because cognitively, you know, this is not real, but also at the same time, there's some hope. If someone out there can get it right and do it well, then maybe I can too. I think I think that's part of the podcast and why we've had to be real even with the really scary dark places because for that same reason of not just we can't, we're gonna avoid talking about what's hard, but also how do we get through it when it's hard?
• 53:07
  How do we come to the other side? How do we reach the other side safely or at least at all? And, you know, so I think it's a really important part of the conversation.
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: That's good stuff. Maybe I'll leave in our postscript here. That was good. That was good. Thank you so much.
• 53:26
  I appreciate it.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: Yes. Thank you for having me, and it's great to meet you.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: That was very gracious of you.
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. Because like I said, I'm I'm a huge fan.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Okay. I will let you go. I wanna respect your time, but thank you so much. Really.
• 53:42
  I appreciate it.
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: Yes. It was great meeting you.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: Have a good day.
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: You too.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: We ended our call with Katie, but then the husband has a post postscript. Let's go.
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: Because I just don't stop
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: talking. I'm excited. You're excited.
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: So I had a crazy fan theory, like, ridiculous, and it's not how the show is actually going to do this, but I think it's really interesting. When we were watching the show, one thing that you had complained about was how they made the parents into the good parent and the bad parent.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: And let me explain that that is a problem because it depends on who is out or which alter you're talking to about whether that parent is good or bad. Yes. And it's also much more nuanced than that, obviously.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Like, my own parents had lots of struggles, but they're also just humans who were themselves traumatized, and I know that. But if you talk to one younger part of me, it is the father who is bad and the mother who is good. If you talk to another younger part of me, it is the mother who is bad and the father who is good. And interestingly, externally, my brother and I do the same thing. He's very pro father, very over the mother.
• 55:08
  We had to move the mother in and worked our best with that, but had no adult interaction with the father. Like, he was over us. So it gets split in that way too. But altogether, the pieces make more sense.
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: Well, and that's that's kind of what my fan theory is. In the way they depicted the father and mother, the mother was the aggressor, the abuser, and the father was kind of removed sweetly supportive but innocuous and not able to do anything. But I thought, what if both Stephen and Mark are altars that are protecting the father and that the new altar we get at the end is the altar who had to deal with the dad's abuse?
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: I agree with you that there there's no way it's only one side when there's more alters we don't know. Yeah. There's no way. There's more pieces to the story.
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: So I feel like I feel like the show depicts that memory sequence in the fifth episode as objective truth, and there's no way that it is. There's no way that, even, like, as they're going to the waterfall, they step on that weird bird skeleton, which seems to suggest that Khonshu is already present with them even in that time, but that's like a symbolic expression of something. He's it's not literally stepping on Khonshu. There's so much in that that suggests suggests for those of us who have more context to say this is not objective historical reality. Because in our memories, we don't have objective historical reality.
• 56:53
  Right? We remember everything subjectively. And through the lens of DID, each individual alter is remembering things through their own subjective experience. So that's gonna give a whole spectrum of different memories of the same thing.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: But that's the same as my brother. Right? His whole point is your book is terrible because it is not objective truth.
• 57:17
  Speaker 5: Right. I just I really, really hope as they go forward with a second season that they don't shift the focus onto weaving this into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and lose the journey of this individual. Because I think part of what made this show special, even with its flaws, is the fact that it was looking at the system's journey to understanding themselves that just happened to be against the backdrop of of this comic book battle as opposed to this is a comic book movie that just happens to have a plural person in the middle, a a DID person in the middle.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: At the same time, though, how do you hold all of that information and reincorporate yourself into life? Because I feel like that's where we are. We've done therapy for five years now to figure out what DID is, but now we know very well what DID is. I mean, between the podcast and interviews and studying ISSTD classes and therapy, like, we've got all the cognitive information. But going back to our own lived experience and now that we are in therapy again, how do we move forward?
• 58:37
  Like, what is next of actually doing the therapy work instead of only learning about
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: it? Yes.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: So they have learned about each other, superheroes or not. But what is next? What happens? He it it ends with him on the floor, right, after he got out of bed and fell down again. So when he gets up, what happens next?
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 59:47
  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. One of the ways we practice this is in community together. The link for the community is in the show notes.
• 1:00:14
  We look forward to seeing you there while we practice caring for ourselves, caring for our family, and participating with those who also 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.
• 1:00:41
  So, Sometimes, we'll see you there.