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Seattle Bookends · 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.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I know that we have so much to share, and it's been a big weekend. So I'm sharing this fresh, recording, and then publishing right away. Usually, there's a delay. But today, I want to catch everyone up just a little bit because I've not been able to explain myself, which is strange because really that's all I do is explain myself. We took a break from system speak, a break from the podcast, a break for self care, a break for safety.
• 1:37
  My circumstances have changed, and my situation have changed in that there are no secrets anymore. Outed, discovered, tracked down, chased down, Google alerted. That's me. And there's something about realizing that I can't make everyone happy, everyone hear me, or everyone understand me that I decided it's best to just keep going as myself making progress slowly, doing my best this side of mortality to learn and grow and heal. So we are back.
• 2:20
  I don't know that we can always promise episodes twice a week, but through May, they are scheduled. Things recorded over the last six months as we healed and grew and got back into therapy again, finally. We have a good therapist. That's something you should know. It took us a while to find her, as you already know.
• 2:45
  And it's taking us even longer to trust her. We'll talk about that. And in future episodes coming soon, you will hear that journey of us learning her and her learning us is different than ever before because she knows about and listens to the podcast. And we are starting at the beginning together, listening to one during the week and then actually talking about it in session, which we have never done before. I've had eye movements, which you'll hear about for my grief from my previous therapist and the trauma that that was and the being abandoned in it for two long years.
• 3:37
  I know that during the pandemic, the podcast got very dark, but I also know the world was a dark place while we were all alone and that it was hard on everyone in all kinds of ways. So while I'm sorry that the podcast was so dark for a season, I am not sorry that I acknowledged it because doing so was the beginning of my healing or at least a new step in the process. And in that dark and lonely process, I learned to feel my feelings and to own them and to say them out loud. And that's a big deal. And I'm not sorry for that.
• 4:28
  Our family has moved again back to where the children can go to public schools that don't mind them being there, that know how to help disabilities, that are willing to help disabilities. And we grieved the loss of our country home where we stayed for the two years of the pandemic. They said we could buy it, but we had to leave. And it hurt to say goodbye once again when we thought we would be staying. But outside the confines of the boundaries of our land, we were not welcome there, and it was best to leave.
• 5:10
  Sometimes flight is the best response. Sometimes flight is the right response. We are safe now and settled in our new home without the front door is a neighborhood full of children who are vaccinated and happy to play with my children. And out the back door are the woods and a creek and a pond and country land like we left as if God or the universe has landed us in the very middle of the best of both worlds. And we are happy there, only minutes from my husband's parents so that we can be together while caring for them.
• 6:01
  And life is strangely good. Not easy, but good. The community is still going, and you'll hear about bumps along the way as we grew individually and collectively and navigated new waters in doing so. But I am proud of us, and I think we have done it well. But what I wanna share this week today is about my experience in Seattle.
• 6:31
  My first time to fly away since the pandemic began when I raced the virus home not quite fast enough to avoid catching it. And then later this week, you'll hear our Healing Together recap from the conference that's already happened months ago now. But I want you to catch up on the episodes that we already recorded now that we're back on air with System Speak because it is not the same as before. There is progress that has been made, a new therapist that has been found, And life inside and outside is not the same. We needed a new container.
• 7:23
  I didn't know if that needed to be a new podcast or just a fresh start. But that's why there were changes, and I didn't have words to explain them. And I thank you for the grace and space that you have held waiting on me to sort things out, waiting for us to sort us out. Because if we're moving forward, we need to do so safely. So let me tell you about the last week.
• 8:01
  When I left quarantine, when I left my home for the first time by myself in two years and went straight to the airport and flew to Seattle. As strange as it sounds, it was my first time to wear a mask all day because I've not been out of my home where I needed one. It was strange to see the changes of what the stewardess say because of fights on the plane and wanting people to be safe until the mandates are lifted. And it was strange to see the pilots come out to speak, to back them up, trying to prevent any problems. And it was a strange thing to work so hard to keep my mask on, only to take it off to eat.
• 8:57
  It was a strange thing to be out of my home, up in the air, and land somewhere else again. I had a flashback on the plane because the last time I was on a plane was when I was racing home from San Francisco, literally on one of the last flights before the airports closed when the state of emergency was declared. And on the way home, there was John Mark texting the therapist that we had at the time, trying to explain the state of emergency in us, aware that things would never be the same. And it wasn't until this flashback on the plane that I realized how hard she was trying to understand and how grieved we were that she could not and how deeply aware we were that that was the end. And so I cried on the plane, tears for that day when words were not enough and fawning failed us, and we lost the only good we had ever known.
• 10:34
  There are so many things I understand about all that now. There were those boundary issues I know, but I think they could have been navigated. It was the relational pieces that were missed, the attached cry that was not heard. And the confusion was because those are her specialties. And it was easier to believe that she did not understand than to face the truth that we were falling through the cracks, that she was so busy looking elsewhere.
• 11:16
  She could no longer see us. It is a cautionary tale of caring for ourselves and whatever jobs we have because I know she meant no harm, And I know that no one knew everything would go on pause for so long and nothing could be repaired. And on that plane flying here to Seattle, I could feel the depths of that grief, but I also had awareness of what it was. And I could hold space for the memory of how hard she was trying, of how hard we were trying, but without dismissing how deeply it hurt. I have learned to hold space for both.
• 12:20
  That the parts of me who knew she was trying to help us were right, but also that it was not helpful. And waiting for care to be helpful becomes toxic and that the parts of us who knew we needed to leave were also right. And it makes sense that was hard when being good has kept us safe. Because being in trouble has never been safe. And it makes sense with the reenactment of footprints, fawning through the pandemic, waiting, trying to be good enough, present enough, here enough to be accepted, crying out in attachment cry, but being left there alone.
• 14:20
  And that was not okay. And there are some things you can gain understanding and perspective and learn why it happened or how it happened and even hold space that it was not intended to happen, but still acknowledge that it did and that we cannot let it happen again. So sometimes repair is from far away and doesn't look the same or heal the same. And the scar goes across space and time, but that can be enough. Knowing she's out there loving people well, caring for people well in ways that are meaningful to her While I am here, now finally with my feet back under me, getting help for me in ways that are meaningful to me, caring for me.
• 16:12
  We had to renegotiate NTIS to make it apply, to remember that was real even when we hurt. But the thing is that now time is only safe when we are not in ongoing active trauma. Safety always matters most, and we had to get ourselves safe again before now time was safe again. Part of that was reclaiming therapy as mine, Not in folders or notebooks, bound up in a tub in the office of my therapist. Not oriented only to her voice.
• 17:27
  Not tranced only to her words. My therapist is not God. And that was my mistake, not hers. So that's where we started with our new therapist, not just boundaries about office hours or emails or phone calls that I won't ever make. But the boundaries of what it means to be human and humans together focused on tending to me, not the world of my therapist, but the world around me.
• 18:33
  The world inside me and how to do ruptures and repairs, and how to orient myself to my own life in the present moment where I live, whether her voice is there or not, whether her words come or not. Because therapy is mine, which means also that it's not a starting at the beginning. I get to keep my progress, the things that we have learned so far. And after these months of healing from our grief, we slowly step into the waters of therapy again. Finally, two, three years later, it is time.
• 19:49
  And we talk about our relationship, the therapeutic relationship, explicitly every session, including transference and countertransference, what we're thinking and what we're feeling and making sure we're on the same page so that what happened before does not happen again. When I left San Francisco, I was a person trying to manage anxiety aside from the DID and a person about to fall into a depression like nothing I had ever experienced before. But as I landed in Seattle with the earth beneath my feet and fresh air in my lungs and awareness of the beautiful, beautiful sky, I am a person who knows how to feel her feelings and tolerate them and name them and say them. This is how I've grown in two years. There are more markers of the bookend of this experience in Seattle this week at the ISSTD conference.
• 21:54
  When I flew to San Francisco, it was to meet strangers, to try not to fall apart in front of them, to give an illusion of health and wellness, to fawn enough to pass. But this week in Seattle, my plane landed inside a circle of friends, people with whom I have met weekly or monthly, discussed issues in-depth. I've seen their faces on my computer screen so often that we have become friends. When I flew to San Francisco two years ago, I knew that I was alone. I did not yet know how alone I was, but I could feel the loss of my friends and my therapist looming over me like a storm.
• 23:25
  And it's true that like any Oklahoma tornado, it gutted me. It cleared the rafters and knocked down all my walls. It was devastating. It destroyed me. But out of this, something new has been built.
• 24:05
  And when I walked in to the conference here, I was embraced by friends, people I've grown to know and to love. Friends who cared for me walked beside me. Friends who ate with me, laughed with me, talked with me. I had grace and dignity. I was accepted and respected, seen and heard.
• 24:47
  That were friends from the community, that I met with, learned their stories, went to sessions with, shared meals with, and with my clinician friends. I am a colleague in my own right with a new, barely there confidence like I have never known before. And this was healing to my soul, an integrative experience in that all of me were welcome here. I think if I had fallen apart, it would have been okay. But I didn't need to fall apart because I was so well tended to in a million little ways from people who did and said things that meant, I see you.
• 26:16
  I hear you. I know you. I care about you. It was so powerful. And when I flew to San Francisco, it was with great anxiety about going up to accept my award for the podcast in 2020.
• 26:51
  And then it was canceled before I got to. And we all scrambled to get home again. And then it was mailed to me a year later. A tragedy, it seems, in some ways, a developmental task left hanging in the balance, in the middle of crises that were far more significant. Until this week, when at the award ceremony, I heard my name called for the workbook, me, Not Me, and We, which lays out everything we have learned over the last six years into a lived experience workbook for those of you like me trying to swim in the sea of dissociation without drowning.
• 28:13
  And it won. It won the award. And as much as that is an honor and as much as that is a delight after so much hard work for so long, and as much as it means to me that my colleagues here, respected friends, would honor my experience as valid, my offering as acceptable. That means so much to me. But let me tell you what it meant to be walked by a friend to the stage and have the ovaries to climb those steps and stand there while they said good things about me.
• 29:09
  And to take that award not because I need accolades, but because it was something to hold in my hands that says what we are doing matters, that our community is not invisible, that the clinicians out there learning how to care for us want to do so gently and compassionately in ways that don't add to the harm. And that is everything. And I could not be more grateful. There are not words enough adequate to express my thanks to the board and to the clinicians and to our community because we did this together. Also, that's for you, Alexis, because you helped me edit it.
• 30:40
  I'm crying. I can't tell you how special this week has been to me. The people I've gotten to see, friends I've gotten to embrace. I was so overwhelmed and so overstimulated, and it was so hard. Half the time, I couldn't even hear what people were saying to me, and I just smiled and nodded.
• 31:19
  They call it in the deaf community, they call it the hearing nod, where if you just smile and nod, then hearing people just keep talking even if you don't actually understand them. And I'd have to just keep trying. But after two years alone in quarantine, overwhelmed by children and working into the night after they were asleep just so that we wouldn't starve or lose our home. And riding every spare moment just to keep myself alive because I felt it was so needed in the community. And pouring myself into this these years.
• 32:26
  To come here where people care and notice and respond to that. I couldn't just isolate in my room. I couldn't miss a minute of it, and I just kept soaking it up and soaking it up and soaking it up because it was filling me up. And it has been so hard for so long, not just the pandemic, but a lifetime of waiting to mean something, to give something, to offer something that is good. And people said such kind things, and it was so hard to know what to do with that.
• 33:24
  And I just kept smiling, and I kept saying thank you. Like Peter said, just say thank you. And I just kept saying thank you. That is so kind. Thank you.
• 33:34
  That is so kind while their words washed over me. As if I have spent a lifetime crawling through the mud only to be received here and washed with warm water. Like, I can't tell you how cleansing it was, how filling it was, how empty I was, and realizing that in those moments when I was buoyed up instead of drowning, instead of just keeping my face above water. And I know I know that not everyone could come because of COVID or country restrictions or all of those problems, and I know it's still not entirely safe and that we don't know and we don't know and we don't know. And I missed the faces that were not here.
• 34:50
  But it was so special to see so many. And I know that not everyone who was going to present got to, and I know not every presentation is for everybody. But for me, this was a bookend of here we are. We are still here. We got through this together, and we are not alone.
• 35:22
  And people are caring, and people are here to get better at caring. And there was laughter, and there was silliness, and there was the exhaustion of conference presentations, and the energy that drove it. It was so much normal. Also, Seattle has really good food. I had linguine with clams.
• 35:59
  I had an eggplant sandwich that was to die for. Oh my goodness. I had the best Indian food of my life. I can't can't even I can't even tell you the adventure that this has been and how it has impacted us so deeply. And now as I prepare to travel back home, back into my little world of my family, I'm not going home alone.
• 36:59
  And I didn't make up my friends. I've seen them in real life in three d, clinician friends, community friends. We are not alone. And I'm not going back just for quarantine. This was a bookend, a marker in time where everything has changed again.
• 37:36
  And all of those weeks and months and years that I was crawling through mud, it was for this. It was for this new beginning, the building of something that never has been before, the unfolding of spring, even in Seattle, where it rains and the sun shines and it rains again. But they have the most beautiful trees, pointy trees, and such delicious food. You were good to us, Seattle. We are grateful, truly, and we love you.
• 39:04
  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 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.
• 39:31
  We look forward to seeing you there while we practice caring for ourselves, caring for our family, and participating with those who also care for community. And remember, I'm just a human, not a therapist for the community, and not there for dating, and not there to be shiny happy. Less shiny, actually. I'm there to heal too, being human together. So, yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.