Transcript: Episode 217
217. Recap
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
I'm still thinking about the end of the year. And all we've learned. And this week, I saw a meme online on social media that said, “Don't let the past rule your life.” And I know what they meant, and I know that they meant well. But also, you guys, that's dissociation. Pretending that what was hard wasn't hard isn't the same thing as feeling it and acknowledging it and letting it mean something. I know what they mean is to not dwell on the past or live in the past. But as a survivor, let me tell you that the past lives every day with me, in me, through me. It took us a long time—3, 4, 12 years depending on how you count them—of therapy, to learn how to distinguish Now Time and Memory Time. And while that may be true, that there's a difference between Now Time and Memory Time. And all those first rules of therapy that we learned about Now Time being safe, and how Memory Time can invade Now Time but it can't change Now Time, all of that may still be true. But it's also true that Memory Time was real and did change me. And that I am because of it.
I follow Dr. Glenn Doyle on Twitter because of the raw and real things that are shared. I've asked Dr. Doyle to come on the podcast. But let me tell you some of the quotes of why. Because right after that meme, when I scrolled down and saw Dr. Doyle post, it said “Repeatedly saying ‘it's okay’ when it's not okay is brutal on our self esteem, especially over time.” And I think this is true because of misattunement and relational trauma. Because saying things are okay when they're not okay is not just offensive, it's harmful.
And that's what I was learning this year about toxic positivity. There is some positivity that's good and healthy, like remembering the good things too. And learning how to hold on to both. And realizing that part of what happens with dissociation and trauma is not just learning how to avoid the bad. It's also about learning how to tolerate the good. And those things are important, but they're also things that we can't do yet. They are things that our brain has not developed the capacity to do. And so being mean to myself about not being able to do that, or shaming myself for not trying hard enough to do that, is abusive. Whether that's coming from myself or someone else. You can't tell me in the same breath to learn how to be present, and to feel what I feel, and to see what I see, and know what I know, and then also at the same moment, asked me to deny or dissociate from half of what I know and see and feel. I don't mean it's impossible. I mean, that's part of what has to go slow. And this year for me was all about learning how to feel the hard stuff, the ugliness, the darkness, to face it, because I can't see it if I don't face it. I can't learn to live in it, to tolerate it, to swim in the depths of it, if I don't expose myself to it. And it's been hard and unpleasant. Dr. Doyle says it takes time.
Dr. Doyle says, “Feeling bad is not a character flaw. It's not that you're choosing a bad attitude or being ungrateful. It's not that you're being difficult.” In the middle of this darkness of this year, Dr. Doyle was someone I had never even met, and yet the only one who came to me and said, “One of the most important pieces of work we'll ever do is meeting our own pain with compassion and support instead of self-blame and shame.”
I think that's part of why politics were so hard for survivors this year. It's not just about if you're Republican or Democrat, it's not about that. It's about the conversational hypnosis, telling stories that aren't actually stories, or fables that aren't fables, or news that is fake. It's an actual technique of non-directive hypnosis called covert hypnosis, which is non-consensual hypnosis. And I think survivors can feel it, no matter who you voted for and no matter what's going to happen next. It's a persuasion technique that's been around forever, and why politicians tell anecdotes in their speeches to hold your attention and make you love them no matter what side they're on, the left or the right, or which political party they speak for. And I think that that is something that survivors can feel even more than just watching the drama on TV, or the arguing and debates, or the long lines of voting, or the fallout that's happened since.
So when we had to prepare to vote, we weren't just thinking about a certain party, or particular policies, or whether my children would survive without the level of health care they have now, or why someone thinks that spitting on my daughter with brown skin makes America great again, because it doesn't. What I was thinking, despite all of those experiences was “Why does this feel so violating? What is it that feels so gross? How is someone abusing me? Why do I feel dirty and abused by someone who's never even met me?” And I appreciated when Dr. Doyle explained that. And you can follow on Twitter @DrDoylesays.
I wasn't asked to put these quotes on the podcast. But they were significant to me while I was in a place of looking for words. And I'm grateful that Dr. Doyle is agreeable to coming on the podcast for a conversation. But if it weren't for these messages through the month of October, the end of this year would have been almost as hard as the beginning was.
Another quote was, “The past can be comforting, informative, and inspiring. I'm all for visiting the past in your mind...” I hear people talk about that a lot, and it's hard for me because I'm not yet to a place where the past feels at all comforting or informative or inspiring. It feels frightening and dangerous, and I don't want to go there. But I liked what was said next, “…Go on your terms for your purposes. The goal is not to forget the past, it's to not let it bully you.” There was power in that, I think. Because I know forgetting entirely isn't healthy. And I don't just mean healing, or talking to parts, or cooperation with parts, or anything like that. I mean that there are important things from my past that I don't want to repeat. There are things I don't want to live through again. There are mistakes I don't want to make again. But to learn from these things and to not repeat those mistakes, I have to remember enough of the past to be wise about it. I have to reclaim enough of the past to grow from it, to break the barriers of what has kept me trapped, and held back, and move beyond it and transform into something more than just my past.
That's part of what I got out of 2020 in a good way. Starting out the year focused on preparing for the ISSTD conference. Both to share the plural survey and to go get the award for the podcast was a big deal for me, for us. And when the conference was cancelled because of the pandemic, it could have felt like all of that was taken away. But instead, it was transformed. Not just into a virtual conference. But because I met the people. It wasn't just the ISSTD as an entity. The entity became people, who had faces, connected to hearts, who became friends. It became an opportunity for all of us as survivors to use our voices together, to have a say in how we are researched, and how we are talked about, and in how we are treated. And there's something empowering about that. There's something about connecting survivors and clinicians together in healthy and positive ways that increases the capacity both for them to help us more effectively and for us to trust them more completely.
The beginning of this year also felt like I lost everything that I knew and the only safe places I had. I started out the year in grief and in mourning, and spent much of it in the scary seas in a storm trying to get to the other side. I didn't know what that would look like. I didn't know if I would make it. I was told to step into something I couldn't see. And to reach through the dark for something I didn't know would still be there. And when I tried, it didn't work. And it felt less like swimming and more like falling. The pandemic would have been an easy time to disappear. Anyone listening to the podcast would have understood. I almost lost the podcast, forgetting about it myself, not knowing, having to learn, having to catch up to what we had been doing. And I almost lost my friends, thinking they had lost me but learning I had shut them out. Because connection may be more healing than anything else. But also when you're curled in a ball on the floor, unable to see or feel or move, and you're not allowed to leave your house, and there's no one coming to see you anyway, it makes connection pretty difficult. It was a dark and scary time. Seeing what there was to see was unpleasant and not fun. And it made even for an uncomfortable podcast that wasn't the same as having a good time or laughing at the silliness of what it's like to have DID. It was yucky, and lonely, and uncomfortable, and scary, and hard to hold on to the string to find my way back. But I had to learn to accept that part of me as part of me too. And I had to learn to stand by myself, with myself, with myselves, whether anyone else does or not. And I had to honor truth I could feel even when I didn't have words for them. Because there will be no kind of wholeness—whatever that may mean, for me, or for you—until first, we let all of us be.
So I learned there's no one going to save me. And I learned no one's coming to rescue me. And I learned the only way of having hope for tomorrow is to stay and do the hard work of today. Which includes carrying the ugliness of the past. Honoring it as a valid part of me and what my life has been, even if it's not the same as experiences other people have, even while mourning the experiences I never got to have. But in doing this I also learned that other people are human too, that they have weakness, and challenges, and issues, and struggles of their own. There was one person I thought I had forgotten me, didn't want me anymore because I had failed so badly, and I grieved it deeply only to find out that they just are not good at remembering. And it was hard to untangle that from not being worth remembering. But the husband said some people are good people, but with limited capacity just like me, even if it shows up in different ways. So they choose to use that capacity on some that are able to care well for them. Because it helps hold the capacity they do have. And the kinds of things that person needed are not things that I have anything good to offer. But it doesn't make me bad or them wrong. But it means the repair work is harder, and takes longer, and goes more slowly. And that I get to choose for me, and they get to choose for them, if it's worth doing that work or not. And it's a hard thing to do that kind of work when there's a pandemic, and you're still in quarantine, and there are so few ways to connect.
It's a hard thing for me to know, to believe, to understand, to grasp my mind around the idea that someone would choose me. So it's easier to see the evidence that they don't, and it's easier to slip away than it is to stay. Another friend confronted me on this and said that it hurts her when I don't stay. I don't mean me as opposed to another person from inside, I mean any of us. Because she said we are worth something to her and her life is better with us in it. And so when we disappear she grieves us, just like what happened to us last year. So I asked her to come on the podcast too. That maybe it was time to come on and have a conversation about friendship. Because we both dissociate, but in different ways. And I learned that I was doing to her what I thought people were doing to me. So that's another reason it's important to learn from the past and not forget it. Because I don't want to keep acting it out. I want to keep myself safe, but I don't want to hurt other people. And it's harder to be connected when you're best at being disconnected. So maybe that's part of what we'll learn in a new year.
[Cello and piano duet of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah]
[Break]
Thank you for listening. Your support really helps us feel less alone while we sort through all of this and learn together. Maybe it will help you in some ways too. You can connect with us on Patreon. And join us for free in our new online community by going to our website at www.systemspeak.org. If there's anything we've learned in the last four years of this podcast, it's that connection brings healing. We look forward to connecting with you.