Transcript 53: Episode
53. Guest: DissociaDID
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
***Interview Begins***
Interviewer: Bold Font
Interviewee: Standard Font
Hi, love.
Hello.
I hope your day’s been a bit better than ours. [Laughing]
Well, you know, this is our life, right?
Oh, yeah. [Laughing]
Okay, so just to get started, I know it may be shocking, but in case there are people out there who don’t actually know who you are [chuckles], go ahead…
[Laughing]
… go ahead and just introduce yourself and your system a little bit and that you’re on YouTube. Just so that that introduction is there in your own way and in your own voice.
Yeah, sure. Alright. Hello, everybody. My name is Kyle. I’m an Alter in the Dissociative System. We run a YouTube channel under the name DissociaDID and thank you very much for letting us be on your little podcast. And we’re excited.
Well, thank you so much. [Laughing] That was so official. Like you’ve done it before.
[Laughing] It’s all in the practice. It comes with time. [Laughing]
Right. So how long have you had your channel?
It’s actually coming up to, this Sunday, will be one year.
That’s what I thought. It was kind of good timing for your interview. Right?
Well, we’re excited about it. Can’t believe it’s been going so long now.
It’s a big deal, I think. I am actually not very good at YouTube. [Laughing]
[Laughing] What do you mean you’re not good at it?
I don’t even know. And it’s not like I’m old or ancient or don’t know how to use YouTube. I’m just not home a lot. I can’t sit with my phone a lot. So it’s really hard for me to do a lot of videos, but any time I search anything, yours are the ones that come up.
[Laughing]
And so I have seen different ones, but I don’t know that I’ve seen them in order or would be most intelligent about your story as it’s presented.
Oh. I’m not going to judge you for that. That’s fine. I’m surprised that our stuff comes up that much. I would have thought it’d all be Multiplicity and Me and Entropy System, because they’re good YouTubers as well.
Those are the two that I’ve seen actually. So I just want to, upfront, just thank you, because it’s been very educational and I know you’ve had a really big impact on the community.
Aww.
And you’ve put a lot of effort into a positive approach about not just understanding what’s going on, but as trying to build a sense of community. And when we have a community where so many of us already don’t feel safe or where so many of us are struggling to learn how to express ourselves and so there can be drama or nastiness or whatever. And I feel like you have tried, at least from my perspective, and I know I really know nothing, but from what I’ve seen, you have really tried to keep the focus on the community and supporting each other. And when you respond to your viewers, you are so supportive of them and connect with them. And I think it’s a powerful thing.
Thank you for recognizing that. That’s so sweet of you to say. I know when Chloe started her channel, that was one of her -- well, I mean, she started her channel, she wasn’t expecting that anyone would watch her videos. It was just for friends and family kind of thing, because people are like, “What is this DID thing you’re going on about?” But as soon as people started watching the videos, her first thing that she said to me, because I was, I think, the second person to upload a video for her, because she was dissociating so much that what she’d feel didn’t make any sense. She got really stressed out about it and she was like no, I want to make sure this information is put forth in a good way, a thought out way, an easy and understandable way that’s not going to freak anyone out.
So, she was very much like, “If you’re going to do this for me. I want to make sure that we build a community like a safe space. I don’t want it just to be another bit of the internet where someone’s putting up videos.” She wanted it to be somewhere that people could come, whether they had DID or not, that was a safe environment. So, whenever we’re putting across information, we don’t try and make light of DID and say it’s all fun and games and stuff like that. Because it ain’t, but we do always try and make sure people know that there can be positive outcomes for people with DID and you do have a community and you ain’t alone. There are people here for you who may be professionals, maybe not, but if you just need somewhere to be heard.
We wanted our area of the internet, if you will, to be a place where people could come. So, we’re very on top of monitoring or comments, any hate comments towards us or anyone else, any fights or anything like that. We monitor it really closely, because everyone deserves a place to be heard and listened to. So we wanted that to come with not just making videos, but a place for people to feel safe.
I think it’s a powerful thing. And even clinically, all of the resources coming out right now about shame and trauma, all talks about how what heals that is connection. You are giving people a taste of that. And so even though you’re on YouTube and you don’t get to hang out with everybody or maybe don’t want to hang out with everybody [laughing]. But when they interact with you, they get a taste of what that feels like. And the more that we are able to do that for each other as a community, the more familiar it becomes and they are able to seek it out in other places - whether that’s finding a therapist who actually is helpful or friends who are safe, instead of reliving trauma over and over again through different incidence that happen. I think it’s bigger than we realize.
Well, not just having DID, having any kind of mental health disorder or an illness is that people find it difficult to express and talk about, because they haven’t learned to understand their illness and the symptoms that come with it in a way that’s free from shame. So, the more people practice or are able to talk to other people online or have a safe place to do that and understand that oh, wait, no, they experience that too. That ain’t so weird. Or like oh, no way, that’s really noble and I don’t have to feel ashamed of that, because they feel that too and they aren’t ashamed. Because maybe they’re further along in their healing process, for example.
But what you see with us and a lot of the other YouTubers like Multiplicity and Me, we don’t pretend. What you see is what you get. We talk to our followers, we talk to our camera, we talk to our people in the comments exactly the same way we would talk to someone if we met you face to face like. So, it’s really easy to practice what you would say to someone else and then repeat what you’ve said online to a doctor or something like that. Because even if you ain’t said it verbally, you said it before. You’ve practiced understanding how you feel and how you’re putting that into words, and once you come to terms with that, it’s a lot easier to speak to professionals about it, speak to friends about it, face to face.
Because it’s little tiny steps. But I do think that being honest and being up front and being as genuine as possible does go a long way to making people feel at ease with their own disorders as well as if you’re being honest about yours, they’re going to pick up on that.
I think it’s a powerful thing. And you hit on something that’s been true for us as well with the podcast. We started the podcast, because videos are just not accessible to us. The way our lifestyle is, we’ve got to be more on the go. And so we were looking for podcasts, and it was difficult to find them. And so we decided just to go ahead and start one and see what happened. And it exploded, which is great and I’m grateful that it’s resonating with people. But what you’re saying is true. I did not realize the healing that would come through my own process of experience.
Right. Like you may have been like, “Oh, this is a space or something that isn’t happening yet. And we want to be able to provide people with what we want”, for example, because you’re on the go and stuff like that. We ain’t ever heard of a DID podcast before I heard of System Speak. And I thought oh damn. Well, that’s not something that we would need, because we use YouTube. But if we were on the go and stuff like that, how brilliant is it that you’ve been brave enough to start up something like that and do it off your own back. And it has reached loads and loads of people in a way that we haven’t been able to, because some people can’t, like you said, sit down and watch YouTube. It’s so important to cater to all sorts of people all over the world. You’ve touched so many lives, and I think that’s something you should really be proud of.
Oh. Well, thank you. What have you noticed about when you’ve done your channel and been in this process that you’ve learned from each other inside through the videos, or editing, or watching your own videos? Is communication getting any better, even though it’s not always pleasant?
Yeah, yeah. No, I get what you mean. I think, honestly, the thing that sticks out the most, you probably saw me then start laughing, but it’s Nadia, when she sits down in front of a camera. None of us knew this, but Nadia...well, we knew she was energetic, right? If any of you guys have seen our video, you’ll know Nadia...there’s not stopping her at all. We’ve got way too much energy in the body, and it’s exhausting whenever someone else is out in front of her.
But ploor Chloe edits all the videos, right? Chloe will sit down for something like 15 minutes or something like that. Nadia will leave Chloe with like 45 minutes and hours worth of film she’s trying to cut down. Because she just does not stop.
[Laughing]
She’s talking and it’s like Nadia, please. I know you want to make friends and I know you love everyone online, but you’ve got to chill out, girl. You’ve really got to chill out. But yeah, doing stuff like this has increased our awareness of each other. It’s improved our internal communication, and while you’re right, that’s not always pleasant and sometimes it brings up things like memories are easier to pass between us without realizing - especially for me, because I’m primary protector and I hold a lot of stuff that other people aren’t ready for yet. It can accidentally let something slip, because our communication is increased so dramatically. And none of us have really had time to adjust to that, because it happened so fast.
As well as, when we started DissociaDID, Chloe, as far as she knew, thought we had 14 alters, because of how far this has taken our internal communication and our understanding of how our own system works, how everyone else feels about not just being online, but about having this disorder, we now know that we have 26 alters, which is in a year, quite a big deal. So yeah, it’s helped us. It’s helped us a lot.
That’s a lot to learn about yourself.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s been a lot. We’ve had a lot in this last year. We’ve been trying to keep up with the channel, but we have had recurring traumas and stuff like that. And it’s important that I think we haven’t given up on this, because our followers ain’t giving up on us. It’s very much a give and take thing like we said on Instagram and stuff like that. Like sorry, we’re going to have to miss a video for a week or something like that, because we’re having a bad time and everyone’s always been like, “No, take as much time as you need. We’re here for you.” You know, all that kind of stuff? “We don’t just see you as someone who pumps out videos. We see you as individuals and we see you as a system, just like we see other people not just as numbers like on a subscriber count, but as real people somewhere in the world living their own life, with their own struggles, at different stages of their journey.” And I think that’s something we weren’t expecting either, is this give and take that comes from people online, and being able to be really reach someone’s life and have someone reach back and have such a positive impact on us as well.
How has that been to process, as opposed to being more alone before? Even if you had local friends or some support. And I’ve seen the video where you had a friend from childhood that was in a video. I saw that. But now to have so many people reaching out to you, how have you processed that? It’s been really hard for us actually.
Yeah.
Even though I know they mean well, and we’re so appreciative of them, but it’s really hard for us to make friends in real life. And so to try to be connecting with people and learning what that means, because we don’t know. We’ve not had that before and it’s been a real challenge.
Right? I completely understand that, because at first it was like, “Oh my goodness, all these people want to be our friend and stuff like that.” And then the numbers kept growing and growing and growing, and people assume things about us or think that they know more intimate things about us or assuming that their assumptions are right and will want to talk to us about things like that. And the thing is, with Chloe especially, because she does run DissociaDID, she runs all the social media, she gets overwhelmed so quickly, but she’s very much a people pleaser.
And right at the beginning, she was like, “I’m going to be one of those people where I’m going to reply to every single message. I’m going to read every message. I’m going to be there for everyone.” And really soon we realized that that just ain’t going to happen. It’s just too much. And people can be quite intrusive, and as much as we appreciate the support so much and we would love to get to know everyone, it’s just not -- I don’t know if you’ve experienced this as well, but people tend to, because they feel they trust you or they relate to you or they feel like they know you better than maybe you think that they know you, because of the stuff you’ve put on your podcast. We get people trauma dumping on us and asking for advice, and it’s woah, you’ve got to be careful with what you’re sharing.
I mean, we have triggers too. We ain’t a perfect system. We don’t know everything. We’re not healed and we’re not even that far along in our healing journey. I wouldn’t say we’re someone to look up to or someone to put on a pedestal. We’re just someone else who’s trying to do something right in the world. We ain’t therapists. We ain’t qualified to be giving personal, individual advice to people, because we might give you the wrong advice and it can get really overwhelming.
And as for people in our life, we have three close friends in real life really. One of them was Anna, who we did a video with. She’s not in Egypt. [Laughing]
[Laughing]
Yeah, I know, right? Ridiculous. But I mean, she’s having a great time there. She’s working out there. She’s doing a great thing. But the others that we have made friends with throughout our lives through various places of the UK doing UNI stuff or stayed off to UNI for work. So we don’t actually really have any friends on our own [laughs], if you will, in our area. So we do have a lot more time than maybe perhaps you would if you say you’re on the go a lot. We talk to people, but it does get very overwhelming. You’re right. It can feel intrusive and it sometimes feels quite dangerous, because you...well, obviously, if you’re messaging us, you probably know a lot more about us than we know about you. And that can be quite scary.
It’s hard. It’s hard. And sometimes I don’t know what is “I’m learning who is safe and who is not safe” and sometimes I don’t know what is safe, because it is safe or what feels unsafe just because I was unsafe in the past.
Right.
And that’s a lot of layers to sort through.
Yeah, it is. There’s a lot of stuff that you pick up from your past and take that through as an unhealthy coping mechanism, because you had to use it to cope with trauma in the past. And trying to work through and unravel that in a safe way that’s not going to make you get hurt again or make you unnecessarily vulnerable is really, really difficult. So, I completely understand that.
How do you set boundaries with some of that, as far as protecting yourself appropriately? Or knowing which systems...and I don’t mean you have to name names. I’m not digging for anything. I just mean how can you tell within yourself when, okay, this is a safe person or this is a safe system? Or this isn’t and I need to just back off or step out of that or protect myself in some way. How are you doing that as a system?
It’s tricky and it’s taken a long time for us to, as a system, agree on how we want to approach stuff like that. But generally, the only friends we’ve made are people that we’ve communicated with a lot in support groups. Or people that we know are good based on recommendation, not recommendations, but we’ve been told by other friends who were friends with them, that they’re good and reliable and safe people. But yeah, no, it’s really tricky to decide, especially if you do have a gut feeling.
And I don’t know about you, but my gut feeling, me as Kyle, not so much us as a system, is usually pretty spot on. And we have had people that we have had contact us and I’ve just got this feeling, and I’m like there’s something just not right here or something. I’m not comfortable with, but I can’t put my finger on it. And almost always, that feeling turns out to be right. And it’s difficult for Chloe specifically and also Sally to accept stuff like that, because it’s like, “Well, you haven’t got any evidence. Like how’d you know you feel that way? You might just have the weird feeling, because it’s someone you ain’t met before, but I don’t know.” Maybe it’s like some kind of primary protector sixth sense or something. But I listen to my gut feeling, because we’ve known so many dodgy people in the past, I guess. There’s just something that I can pick up, not always, but I always go with my gut feeling. And I know that’s probably not very helpful to you guys at all. [Laughing] But um …
I think it's important, because there’s something very valuable about trusting yourself.
Yeah.
And that’s an important thing.
Yeah.
What do you think are some of the benefits that you’ve had or positive experiences that you’ve had with some of the safe people that you’ve been able to connect with?
Well, like I said, I just mentioned this already, we went to see Multiplicity and Me last weekend and we had like a DID System sleepover. And there, there was Me, Myself, and [inaudible], Bobo&Co, and axolotls-in-a-trenchcoat who flew over from Australia. And I think that that was one of the most, I don’t know, I reckon that’s going to have a big impact on us for a really long time. Because that’s the first time we’ve ever met anyone in person who has DID like we do. And if we hadn’t made such strong connections with BoBo&Co specifically, Chloe and Bobo are quite close, I don’t think that -- I don’t even know that that would have happened. But oh my god, it was the most fun day and experience to be with someone and not have to be completely on edge.
I don’t know if you get this, but when we’re with people who don’t have DID, we’re always somewhat on edge of like am I about to switch? Am I feeling switchy? Am I going to get triggered? Am I co-con? Is someone around? Are we going to be co-con? Do I have to explain this? Do I have to be on the lookout for if they find something weird and be ready with an explanation? It was just kind of so -- everything was just so normal. It was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced and it was so validating. And I think that’s the best thing that’s come out of making good connections with other people with DID so far. Because learning that we’re all valid in our own unique ways and how different all our systems are is very nice. Because there’s not one right way to have DID. It’s a very, very diverse disorder and we’re all in it together.
I think that’s part of what makes you all so special - the way that you continue to advocate for that. Because one thing I see happen a lot is not just systems judging each other or drama online, but people comparing from different points on the journey. And when you have children who go through different experiences, when we have now grownups who, or we are trying to be grownups, sometimes [chuckles]...sometimes.
[Laughing]
When we have people who are trying to function and trying to do well, but are in different places of healing, those are not things that we can compare. You can’t put that in a box.
No, definitely. And based on what you’ve learned, not just through when you develop DID, but through the rest of your life, you’re going to learn massively different coping skills, coping mechanisms, ways to bond with people, ways to understand yourself. We get a lot of comments from people saying, “Oh my, so and so, maybe my girlfriend, has DID and I’m not sure if I believe her, because her DID doesn't look like yours or it doesn't look like anyone else I’ve seen on the internet.” And it’s like no one’s DID is going to look exactly the same. There is no right way to have this disorder. There’s not a sort of symptoms that everyone’s going to match exactly. And it’s never going to be just that. Everyone’s life experience is different, and like you said, everyone’s going to be in a different place of healing.
And even through their healing journey, they might be in different physical places of healing. They might be struggling with other illnesses that they haven’t come to terms with yet or are struggling to heal from. Everyone looks different, and that doesn’t make you any more or less valid than the next person. I don’t think it’s right for people to try and judge or try and pick apart someone else’s life story. A lot of people will ask as well,”Well, how can we tell if someone’s faking? And I’m like does it really matter that much?” I mean obviously, yes. That’s not very nice if people are faking, but at the end of the day, why aren’t you focusing on your own healing journey instead. Just let them do their thing if they’re faking, whatever. Karma will get them, I’m sure. [Chuckles] But it’s more important to learn to accept the vast differences that we have between us and cultivate a more loving and understanding environment. Because everyone’s different.
What have you learned that you didn’t know a year ago when you all started the channel?
A lot of things! [Laughing] A lot of things. We didn’t know, I don’t know whether this is a good idea to bring it up or not, but we didn’t know there was so much drama in this community at all. And we’re still quite new to it really. But there are so many people who are at each other's throats over so many different things and it can be quite scary sometimes as well, being sort of a, I don’t know, some people have said we’re sort of a figure head for the community in some way, which is a bit scary. And then everyone looks to you, or us, of like, “What’s your opinion on it?” And it’s kind of like, “Eh, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on, because it’s all new to us.” We didn’t realize that there were so many big, but no go topics, and things like that. And we were kind of slowly understanding that a bit more or maybe talk about it in a more accepting way so that it’s easier to understand for other people like us who may have just coming out of nowhere and being like, what’s this all about? So yeah, we weren't familiar with that kind of stuff.
It’s a hard piece. I agree. It’s a hard piece. And when you put your voice out there like you with your channel, then people expect you to respond to everything.
Yeah.
And I have nothing to do with what you’re talking about.
I know.
I don’t know what you’re -- it has nothing to do with me. That’s my response. [Laughing]
Literally. There was one thing where we had gone to sleep early or something like that, and a lot of other big YouTubers had gotten involved in something, and we came back to it and we’d been tagged in all this stuff that we hadn’t seen any of it, because we had been blocked. So, we hadn’t even seen any of this stuff or replied to it, and I was like, “Oh, alright. Alright then. Nevermind. I guess I don’t have to worry about that, because it’s been solved.” But does that make you nervous as well, people wanting you to have the final say on stuff or wanting your input on something that you might not feel ready to talk about yet?
It does, and my concern with it is that it’s not about taking sides. It’s about being here and being ourselves and supporting each other. And if we don’t demonstrate that, if we don’t work together to heal ourselves, there’s already no one left to take care of us. And I don’t mean that we’re children, but I mean that this is the one thing that we have in common, and there’s no reason for us to become the abusers or become the bullies or to become the haters. [Laughing] We are the people that are supposed to be safe, even if that’s just with ourselves, much less with each other, and that we need a community.
And one thing that I’m trying to do -- I have a lot of clinical interviews on my podcast, we’ve had Colin Ross and Warwick Middleton and Susan Pease Banitt and all these different people guest on the podcast and I’ve interviewed them about clinical things or about DID or different things. And one thing I’m talking to them and trying to start a conversation with ISSTD is about this wound, this gaping awfulness that is sometimes between survivors and clinicians.
Mmhm.
And there are all kinds of reasons for that and I talk about that on the podcast. But we can’t reach out to them and have a voice and advocate for some of the changes that we kind of all agree that we need, even if we all have different opinions on what that looks like, but we can’t do that intelligently or well if we’re squabbling amongst ourselves.
Very true.
To heal, like internally, if we’re acting out externally.
Yeah. That’s right. I think you’re a very inspiring person. I don’t know whether you know that, but I think you are. You’re doing something really important that I haven’t seen anyone else try and do yet, and there is a big, big divide between clinicians and people in the industry who are meant to be trying to help us and the people who do experience the disorder. And you’re right, if we’re all fragmented between ourselves and fighting at each other’s throats, how are we supposed to come together to create a positive change between us and another group of people and another community? We need to stand together as much as possible.
And looking for little things to nitpick about each other or to try and drive us apart further ain’t going to be helpful for us in the long run. It’s not going to be productive and yeah … thank you for doing what you’re doing, because honestly, I don’t think many people would be brave enough to do it, and I think it’s really important.
Well, and we all have this trauma, even if you’re a system who says this is not because of trauma, you still had things that you went through. You know? And so everyone, life is just hard, it’s just hard, not even counting the stuff in our backgrounds and our past or our histories that cause DID or didn’t cause DID. Life is just hard enough already, and if we don’t care for each other well and don’t model that, even if we’re modeling for ourselves or for others inside, it’s such an opportunity to grow and to heal, and I just don’t want to become where we came from. I worked hard to get out of that [chuckles]. Also, I didn’t like highschool the first time, I don’t really want to be back in highschool. [Laughing]
[Laughing] Oh my god. That is so accurate. [Laughing] I ain’t going back there. You can’t make me go back there. [Laughing] Oh my god. It is hard though, isn’t it? Working on healing like that, those things aren’t easy to process. It’s hard to constantly check yourself and think wait a minute, am I being troublesome here? Am I the one being a bit toxic? And you do have to take a step back occasionally and check yourself and think now wait a minute, am I being the best person I can be in a situation? Because it’s not always fair to just expect other people to be aware of whether they’re doing the right thing or whether they’re doing right by you. You need to make sure you’re doing right by you and other people as well, and sometimes that’s hard.
Right. It is. It can be. And sometimes a part of what’s hard is letting go of what’s other people’s stuff, and just letting myself trust that that’s their stuff and it’s where they are and that’s okay, but it’s not necessarily my problem. And I don’t mean that in a harsh way, I mean that in a just letting the universe [laughing] -- like that part is your journey and it’s okay that it’s not mine.
Yeah.
But I’m not going to be mean to you just because you’re having a bad day.
No, definitely. One of the things we’ve learned as well -- not just us, but also witnessing other people and their DID journeys, like our partner system and stuff like that, is learning your responsibility and what ain’t, like you just said. It’s not your fault how someone else reacts. The only thing that you can control is what you’re putting out into the world, how you react, how you formulate your decisions about stuff and the opinions that come from you and your emotional responses, that’s your responsibility. How someone else reacts to that or what someone else takes from that, that ain’t your responsibility. And if somebody’s going through a hard time, yeah, of course, you can support them if you feel like you can, but at the end of the day, well, most of us, I’m assuming, are adults. And we’ve got to learn to prioritize our own health and safety and trust that other people can do that as well - learning to trust that someone else is wanting to and I don’t know, inspired enough to want to take care of themselves is an important step. But I know not everyone’s at that point where they do want to help themselves. But learning that it’s not your responsibility to try and fix someone was a big turning point in our journey specifically - learning that it’s not our responsibility. It’s not our right to try and pull everyone else out of a hole if it’s going to push us further down it ourselves. You know? I mean, yeah. …
What’s that been like for you all to have a partner system, since you brought it up? [Laughing]
Oh, I just heard Chloe go, “Ah!” [Laughing]
[Laughing]
It’s been lovely, to be honest. I mean, I ain’t in a relationship within this partner system, but Chloe and Nadia and to some extent, Nina, are all in individual relationships with this other partner system that we’ve got. I’m just mates with everyone, to be honest. It’s well nice having a relationship with someone and a group of people who check themselves and are constantly trying to be the best people they can be. We see everyday them working on their healing and then practicing the things that they’ve learned to make sure that they’re being as healthy as they can be or working towards their main goal of healing and where they want to be in their life, no matter what happens. They’re working on it, and that’s so inspiring. And they encourage us to do the same thing.
And it’s like we ain’t ever experienced something like that before. We ain’t really ever experienced being on equal ground with someone who just gets it. You know? I mean like someone who just gets it like, “Oh, are you feeling a bit of a block today? Are you feeling a bit switchy? You’ve had a bad night? Cool. We got it. We know what we can do to try and help.”
And even though it’s long distance, there’s a seven hour time difference between us. We’re very devoted to each other as systems, as mates, as sort of -- we’ve got some family bonds going on in there, and as partners who are in a committed relationship. It’s nice to have someone on your side.
That’s what I was wondering about after being so alone in some ways for a long time, to now have that level of support, what’s that like?
It’s bizarre. It’s so bizarre. We keep getting reminders of them saying like, if we’ve done something and we haven’t reached out for help, them being like, “Oh no, you should have rung us.” Or like, “You could have told us.” Or like, “We want to be there. We want to help you. We want to shoulder some of your stuff.” Like I said, yeah, your issues aren’t our responsibility, but we want to help you. We want to listen to the stuff that ain’t so great, even the trauma stuff. We want to be there. And for us, that was like, “Why? Really?” It feels dangerous sometimes to trust someone with something so personal, something that’s so scary to yourself, and give that to someone else and trust them with it.
And also learning the balance between am I going to upset them, am I going to trigger them by sharing this, or will it make them feel better to know that we trust them enough to want them to support us? And it’s this fine line of learning, both of us are learning, all of us are learning [laughing], where we stand with each other, what we want from each other, and what we can do better as a sort of a mini-community and a partnership. We wouldn’t be able to do on our own and that’s been pretty overwhelming, actually, in a good way.
It has been difficult for me to learn to be cared for.
Mmhm.
And to know that caring for someone else is okay. That’s a hard lesson when you’ve gone through the kinds of things that we have.
Yeah. I get that. You deserve to be loved. You deserve to be loved safely, and you deserve to be listened to and respected in a way that’s not just going to be on your shoulders. And I understand that that’s something really difficult to come to terms with, especially when you get that chronic gut feeling of like, “run”, or, “this ain’t right”, or “I don’t know.” You do deserve that, and I understand that that’s hard and a lot of people may not be ready for that kind of thing. But when you do find someone who’s willing to, and safe enough to help you, if you want that, it’s really nice. But it might not be for everybody. But everybody is deserving of love, I think, in a safe way.
That’s pretty sappy for somebody so tough.
[Laughing] I’m tough, but I’m soft at heart, I think.
How are you going to celebrate a year of your channel, besides being on my podcast?
Oh yeah, no, this is the biggest thing we’re doing. [Laughing] Been a goal for a long time. Oh no. I don’t know. We’re just moving into our house, our first safe home. So, I think we’re going to spend the day here and just I don’t know, make it a safe place. And that’s something that we wouldn’t have been able to do without DissociaDID either. So thanks to the support from people that we’ve been able to get to a safe environment, and yeah, we’re nearly there. So that’s worth celebrating too.
That’s a big deal.
It is a big deal. It’s a damn big deal. Oh, sorry. I don’t know whether I’m allowed to say that. [Laughing]
[Laughing] What else do you want to share about your own journey or your journey as a system from the last year?
From the last year? I think it’s worth mentioning that if you feel like you’re doing something that’s right for you, even if other people make you feel like, or tell you outright, that you shouldn’t be doing it, or that it’s dangerous, or it’s the wrong thing to do, or they’ve lost respect, or something like that, because of what you’re doing -- if you feel like this is the right thing to do for you, and it makes you feel comfortable and fulfilled, then you should keep doing that. And yeah, by all means, take on board if someone’s saying, “I’m worried about you.” Listen to that. But at the end of the day, you don’t owe anyone else your life. Your life is yours to do with what you want to, even if people have made you feel like the only thing that you’re living for is to help other people or to serve other people or to be something for someone else, you are yours. And what you decide to do with your life is your business.
And whether you’re in a place where that’s actually happened or not yet, I hope that everyone can aim for that goal, where what they want to do with their life is going to be their choice, and that they can decide to do what they want to do with it in a safe environment, because I don’t think that we ever really considered that we could do something for us ... [Laughing] that wasn’t for other people, and we did. And well, it wasn’t for us at the beginning. But we continued it even when people said, “You shouldn’t be doing this.” You know like, “People, you know, bad people will find out about it. You’ll get in trouble. You don’t have the right to say the things you’re saying, and you’re not a figurehead. Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah.” Or, “You can’t speak for everyone.” And we were like, “Yeah, okay. Well, thank you for your opinion --
[Laughing]
But this feels like the right thing to do. So, you know, do one.” [Laughing] But yeah, no, I think that’s important.
Do you realize -- did you all know when you were starting out that you were empowering yourself the way you have?
God, no. We didn’t realize until we were like six months in. We were like, “Hold the phone. [Laughing] We weren’t doing this well seven months ago.” The more we’ve learned about DID and put forward a positive energy into the world -- like Honey is always saying, “you can do this”, and “we believe in you, even if you aren’t in a good place. You can do this.” And that almost reflects back on us in our system, because even though none of us realized it, were were like “Oh, hold on a minute. We’re a DID system too. Maybe we could do this. We deserve this too. Blah Blah Blah.”
And it strengthened our communication within ourselves, because we know that we need to pull together and be a good system, because we want that for everyone else as well. And it’s just like, I don’t know … it’s not something that we thought was going to happen, and not something that we realized was happening for a really long time, but it has really boosted our relationships with each other, even though it’s rocky a lot of the time.
And you know, we get new people popping up left, right, and center. And we’re like, “Oh, where did you come from?” And they’re like, “Oh, we’ve been here for the last decade. You just didn’t know about us.” And it’s like, “Alright. Okay. Well, let’s start this all over again.” But no, it’s been good for us as much as it’s been good for other people, and I’m so glad there have been good, forever people. And for us as well, because yeah, none of us were expecting it to be anything that would help us. So, it’s nice - a nice bonus.
That’s amazing. Do you all -- do any of you rewatch some of the videos to learn about each other, besides editing? Or you just edit them and let them go?
Chloe’s always the one who edits. She finds it really uncomfortable to watch her videos back, but I love it. I think it’s so weird, like weird in a good way. It’s interesting to see everyone’s mannerisms, and especially comments and stuff like that. People pick up on stuff that I hadn’t even considered. Like someone was watching, and apparently, I’m not sure that this was right or whether they were looking too hard, but apparently when we switch, our pupils dilate and come back down again and shrink. And people say when I speak I reveal more of my lower teeth with my lip when I’m out and fronting. Whereas Nadia very much speaks from like the front of her mouth and as the corner of her mouth is wider or something like that. And Sally always uses her hands and she’ll be constantly either touching her hands or touching her collar bone. Whereas I’ve usually got my head on the side or I’m speaking out the bottom of my mouth and stuff like that. It’s just bizarre how many differences there are that you just don’t realize. And they’re tiny, minute stuff.
I wouldn’t say that we’re an overt system, but I don’t think we’re a subtle one either. [Laughing] But yeah, all this stuff that I hadn’t realized or you wouldn’t know because we usually have a lot of amnesia when we switch, I don’t know what it’s like to watch someone else front unless we videoed it. And it’s like oh woah, seeing the body that you're used to using being used in such a different way is really interesting. So yeah, it’s nice that other people pick up on that as well. It’s interesting to look back on.
We’ve listened to, or I’ve listened to some of the different podcasts, and I had no idea of that perspective until I heard it. And it really helped make a lot of sense of things that had been difficult before. Or now they’re difficult in a new way that I didn’t even realize, and it was easier when I didn’t know. [Laughing]
Oh my god. Yeah. That’s relatable. [Laughing] Yeah. Learning to understand Parts of your system based on how they think. Like a lot of things that say, for example, Nadia might feel, she would never dream of telling us personally. But now we know, because she’s filmed it, and it’s like, “oh, wait a minute. Well, that makes sense why she feels this way now” or “why she does those things sometimes”, or “blah blah blah.” And it does kind of change the way you respond to your own system. I don’t know whether that’s the case for you or whether it’s just changed your opinions on yourself, but yeah …
It’s definitely helped us interact more --
Yeah.
-- and differently, both.
That’s good. I think that’s good - definitely. It is hard to get to know everyone in a system, but how many people have you got in your system, if you don’t mind me asking?
I’m still learning.
That’s fair. That’s fair. It’s like the more we found, the more overwhelmed Chloe was getting, because she was trying to find out everything at once. And she was going to write lists of right, for example, me Kyle, you know, I speak with an Irish accent. I’ve got blue eyes. I’ve got black hair. These are my religious opinions. These are my sexual views. This is my gender. Do I suffer with gender dysphoria? Yeah. And she wanted to write down lists almost like we were characters or something like that, so she felt like she knew us. And it was very overwhelming for her. But I think seeing us interact naturally in front of a camera, those of us who can feel comfortable in front of a camera, has helped her feel more at ease with the fact that we aren’t just her brain making up some crazy character profile, that we were actually people in our own right, and with our own feelings, and things about us can change, or our opinions can change just like anyone else's. And I think that that’s something that people who watch our channel, that don’t have DID, have learned as well.
So people were like, “Oh, in this video, Kyle said he was 18. Now he’s 19. What’s that all about?” And it’s like, “Well, I aged.” And they’re like, “What? I don’t think Alters could age.” And yeah, Alters are able to change. Not all Alters age, but we can be fluid, just like anyone else can be in terms of opinions. And food tastes could change and stuff like that. In a world, appearances can change and yeah, I think that that’s helpful, not just for our host, Chloe, but for people who don’t have DID or maybe for people who do have DID, to see it happen.
Wow. Well, thank you for talking to me today.
Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure. And I’ll bless you. Thank you so much.
[Break]
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