System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

By Emma SunshawScience Social Sciences Health & Fitness Mental Health

System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation episodes

March 09, 2019 Meghan's Rainbow
We talk with our friend Meghan, whom we met in person.
Our website is HERE: System Speak Podcast and sponsoring nonprofit website is HERE: S3C Foundation.
You can submit an email to the podcast HERE.
You can JOIN THE COMMUNITY HERE. Once you have registered with the network, you will receive an invitation to orientation, and then can use a non-Apple device or non-safari browser to join groups HERE. Once you are set up, then the website and app work on any device just fine. We have peer check-in groups, an art group, recovery groups, social events, and classes. Additional zoom groups are optional, but only available by joining the groups. Join us!
Content Note: Content on this website and in the podcasts is assumed to be trauma and/or dissociative related due to the nature of what is being shared here in general. Content descriptors are generally given in each episode. Specific trigger warnings are not given due to research reporting this makes triggers worse. Please use appropriate self-care and your own safety plan while exploring this website and during your listening experience. Natural pauses due to dissociation have not been edited out of the podcast, and have been left for authenticity. While some professional material may be referenced for educational purposes, Emma is not your therapist nor offering professional advice. Any informational material shared or referenced is simply part of our own learning process, and not guaranteed to be the latest research or best method for you. Please contact your therapist or nearest emergency room in case of any emergency. This website does not provide any medical, mental health, or social support services.
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
1 hr 1 min
March 07, 2019 Dr. E Recaps Kathy Steele
Dr. E recaps seeing Kathy Steele at a conference.
Our website is HERE: System Speak Podcast and sponsoring nonprofit website is HERE: S3C Foundation.
You can submit an email to the podcast HERE.
You can JOIN THE COMMUNITY HERE. Once you have registered with the network, you will receive an invitation to orientation, and then can use a non-Apple device or non-safari browser to join groups HERE. Once you are set up, then the website and app work on any device just fine. We have peer check-in groups, an art group, recovery groups, social events, and classes. Additional zoom groups are optional, but only available by joining the groups. Join us!
Content Note: Content on this website and in the podcasts is assumed to be trauma and/or dissociative related due to the nature of what is being shared here in general. Content descriptors are generally given in each episode. Specific trigger warnings are not given due to research reporting this makes triggers worse. Please use appropriate self-care and your own safety plan while exploring this website and during your listening experience. Natural pauses due to dissociation have not been edited out of the podcast, and have been left for authenticity. While some professional material may be referenced for educational purposes, Emma is not your therapist nor offering professional advice. Any informational material shared or referenced is simply part of our own learning process, and not guaranteed to be the latest research or best method for you. Please contact your therapist or nearest emergency room in case of any emergency. This website does not provide any medical, mental health, or social support services.
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
1 hr 5 min
March 05, 2019 Outside Kids
Today we have a big surprise, as we introduce you to our outside kids! It’s DID Awareness Day, and one of the most common questions is how someone with DID can parent. But parenting is actually really important to us, and keeping our children safe is very important to us. The outside children introduce themselves by age, and share what they like (and don’t like) about our family. They talk about life before adoption, and each shares one hard memory as an example of how life was different (so please consider that as a trigger warning). They sing “Journey to the Past” (from the “Anastasia”) movie, talk about big feelings, and sing one of the songs The Husband wrote them to help process big feelings. The older kids can’t talk about big feelings without also talking about puberty, and there’s a song for that, too! The kids cover all kinds of issues, from foster care to friendship, from online safety to why sharing our family story is important to us, and how we do it safely. They also have a really good discussion about why it’s important to talk about hard things with safe people, and how it impacts us if we don’t have safe people. It’s a conversation starter for the dissociation explanation, even if foundational rather than explicit. The children focus at first on their own experiences, then Emma’s, but then process using the story of a boy at our hotel - whom we are pretty sure stole our wallet. That leads to a discussion of safety issues - and some of their issues are pretty big and direct because of previous experiences they have been through prior to adoption. It’s a fairly frank and direct discussion of the issues, and about why we need each other, and how we are learning together. It’s an intense discussion that very much reflects everyday of our life! Parenting well and intentionally takes time and energy, but is worth every precious moment.
52 min
March 02, 2019 Dr. E on Shame
Dr. E shares what she learned in a conference session with Kathy Steele about dissociation and shame. She explains Steele’s perspective on DID and parts, why Steele doesn’t recognize parts as individuals, and how Steele refers to ANP’s as DL’s and EP’s as TF’s and what these terms mean. She explains how Steele describes shame, the connections to DeYoung’s theory, and the variety of ways shame presents. In an example, she discloses an experience with poverty and how that impacted us as a system. She then calls on both the clinical and the DID communities to become more sensitive to shame issues being acted out against and amongst each other, when we should be empowering and supporting each other. Continuing this, she talks about how not addressing shame continues to distress and disrupt a system. She tells how Steele explained shame as part of the dominance/submission dynamic in the animal kingdom, and how this is played out with abusers. She then shares how shame is sometimes more familiar than it even safer than other emotional responses. She connects, then, the Plural Positivity movement to a way of facing shame, and Pride Day as a way of working through it as a community. She discusses the experience of living with chronic shame. She also explains how hyperarousal and hypoarousal impact even just trying to talk in therapy. Dr. E then discussed what she agrees and disagrees with regarding the DL/TF model. Dr. E explains what shame teaches us about why it’s important to find a compassionate and connected therapist. In the end, Dr. E shares how Kathy Steele provides a definition of integration as close to Functional Multiplicty as yet described by the clinical community. No abuse memories or specific disclosures are given in this episode.
1 hr 4 min
March 01, 2019 Zoom In, Zoom Out
Sasha accidentally gets triggered out at a conference about DID, and learns quickly it’s something she can almost control - but not quite. She describes it as feeling far away, focusing on the therapy notebook, and “zooming in” until she was out front. The same thing happened with “zooming out”, where she felt further and further away. In the process, she learns a few things about DID while at the conference. She shares about the importance of keeping what good stabilizing experiences you have in therapy, even when it’s a bad therapy experience or a mismatch with someone who didn’t know how to treat DID. She talks about what she learned about betrayal trauma, and how it impacts attachment. She talks about what she learned about eating and sleeping triggers, and why both are important to the body (trigger warning for these issues). She shares what a speaker said about “parts” being part of a whole system, and why this matters. She also shares what she learned about shame: triggers and how to face them. Finally, she shares what she learned about why the abuse isn’t your fault. No specific memories or traumas are shared in this episode.
53 min
February 28, 2019 Sasha Crashes a Conference
Sasha recaps her version of a conference.
Our website is HERE: System Speak Podcast and sponsoring nonprofit website is HERE: S3C Foundation.
You can submit an email to the podcast HERE.
You can JOIN THE COMMUNITY HERE. Once you have registered with the network, you will receive an invitation to orientation, and then can use a non-Apple device or non-safari browser to join groups HERE. Once you are set up, then the website and app work on any device just fine. We have peer check-in groups, an art group, recovery groups, social events, and classes. Additional zoom groups are optional, but only available by joining the groups. Join us!
Content Note: Content on this website and in the podcasts is assumed to be trauma and/or dissociative related due to the nature of what is being shared here in general. Content descriptors are generally given in each episode. Specific trigger warnings are not given due to research reporting this makes triggers worse. Please use appropriate self-care and your own safety plan while exploring this website and during your listening experience. Natural pauses due to dissociation have not been edited out of the podcast, and have been left for authenticity. While some professional material may be referenced for educational purposes, Emma is not your therapist nor offering professional advice. Any informational material shared or referenced is simply part of our own learning process, and not guaranteed to be the latest research or best method for you. Please contact your therapist or nearest emergency room in case of any emergency. This website does not provide any medical, mental health, or social support services.
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
53 min
February 25, 2019 Sasha Tries Friendship
Sasha tries to make friends.
Our website is HERE: System Speak Podcast.
You can submit an email to the podcast HERE.
You can JOIN THE COMMUNITY HERE. Once you are in, you can use a non-Apple device or non-safari browser to join groups HERE. Once you are set up, then the website and app work on any device just fine. We have peer support check-in groups, an art group, movie groups, social events, and classes. Additional zoom groups are optional, but only available by joining the groups. Join us!
Content Note: Content on this website and in the podcasts is assumed to be trauma and/or dissociative related due to the nature of what is being shared here in general. Content descriptors are generally given in each episode. Specific trigger warnings are not given due to research reporting this makes triggers worse. Please use appropriate self-care and your own safety plan while exploring this website and during your listening experience. Natural pauses due to dissociation have not been edited out of the podcast, and have been left for authenticity. While some professional material may be referenced for educational purposes, Emma and her system are not your therapist nor offering professional advice. Any informational material shared or referenced is simply part of our own learning process, and not guaranteed to be the latest research or best method for you. Please contact your therapist or nearest emergency room in case of any emergency. This website does not provide any medical, mental health, or social support services.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
1 hr 11 min
February 24, 2019 Friendship Mail
In this episode, Sasha talks friendship. She explores the impact of trauma on trust and all kinds of relationships. She shares emails from listeners and responds to a few of their questions. Then she goes in to the post office to get a birthday package from our friend Julie. This episode contains references in passing to Christmas, Birthdays, and bad dating relationships, but no memories or details are shared in depth.
1 hr 10 min
February 22, 2019 Molly’s God
Molly answers listener questions about faith and religion in the context of DID. Due to the topic and its content, a heavy trigger warning is listed for this episode so please skip it if you do not want to hear a discussion about God. It is not preachy or about converting, but does review our own faith history and explores the impact of abuse and isolation in organizational abuse. These issues are only referenced, not discussed in detail or in depth. Molly also shares how we came to agreement for our faith tradition, and what a faith practice can look like for a system with DID. Molly closes with by sharing a talk she will be giving tomorrow at a Women’s Faith Conference, in which she publicly discloses for the first time that she was abused as a child. There is no detail or discussion with this disclosure, but she shares it to honor the truths she is learning from the Littles about what they have endured.
1 hr 5 min
February 21, 2019 Snow Soccer
The boys go on a walk in the snow, and talk about all sorts of things (with a quick appearance by Sarah). They share about some past adventures and open up about some internal dynamics. They also review Now Time is Safe. He also shares what he learned in therapy about body memories. There are some specific triggers discussed, such as when he finds a switch stick and talks about the therapist reassuring them there are no more whoopings. He shares about the difference between memory time (getting hurt) and now time (the parents are dead). They also talk about palliative care for the outside child, and struggling to connect with that care team because we already have a therapist. They talk about what they learned in therapy yesterday, about babies needing good, safe parents to care for them and the children shouldn’t be punished for needing care. They share about the Girl being confined, and the therapist helping her and how children should not be hurt. They talk about the impact of returning to your abusers, and how callbacks were hard on others inside. They tell how the therapist told Kassi she was “developmentally appropriate” for working out relationships when she was young, and it’s normal that she would struggle when no one taught her how to do it safely. He talks about Kassi’s apology, and how the Littles now have to respond to her while she works on these issues with Taylor and in therapy. They also talk about birthdays, and just a little about why those are hard. He shares an update on the attic progress of improved living conditions, including being without bugs or rodents and having bathrooms and beds. He also shares about preferring not to have our picture taken. This episode has a heavy trigger warning for sensitive issues and abuse references, as they process therapy yesterday, but no explicit or detailed descriptions are given or discussed in depth. They close with a special musical surprise from JohnMark.
1 hr 2 min

About System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

From the publisher's feed

Emma shares about complex trauma, deprivation, and dissociation (CPTSD, OSDD, DID). Educational, supportive, and inspiring, System Speak documents the best and worst of life through insights,…