Transcript: Episode 5
Sasha Wrestles with Kindness
[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
Welcome to the System Speak podcast. If you would like to support our efforts at sharing our story, fighting stigma about Dissociative Identity Disorder, and educating the community and the world about trauma, please go to our website at www.systemspeak.org, and there is a button for donations, where you can offer a one time donation to support the podcast, or become an ongoing subscriber. We so appreciate the support, the positive feedback, and you sharing our podcast with others. We are all learning together. Thank you.
(Piano music playing)
Hi guys, welcome! I am so excited to be talking to you and to be doing another podcast. Its going really well and people are listening to it and spreading the news about the podcast, and I guess it’s helping other people the way needed podcasts to. And just one more perspective. So, I’m glad I didn’t step on any toes and I’m glad that we are doing an okay job of it. We’ll keep sharing, and I’m super excited about it so that’s cool.
The other big news is, guess what? Emma has listened to the podcast, all 4 of them so far, and I don’t know what she thought about them or what her response was but there was a note in the journal that we can keep doing them and I know that she did one. I tried to listen to it but couldn’t listen to all of hers, I couldn’t listen to The Good Doctor one either because its so boring, but (sigh). Emma’s is hard for me to pay attention to because she’s so mousy and whiny. But I really liked Johns. I laughed, it cracked me up until I almost wet my pants it was so funny. So, I hope you heard the other podcasts and I’m excited it’s a thing and that its working and that it’s going well.
People have asked me about me the website. I know it shows the link to the website, but the websites not actually going up until next week. It is ready to go I’m just not publishing it because The Doctor is in charge of all my money, and I get an allowance. I don’t know how other systems do it, but we each get an allowance and The Good Doctor-that’s what I call her, Dr. E.- she is in charge of our budget, money, and finances for the family and for our system. I can do my own website, but I have to pay for it out of my allowance. I have to wait until next week because I already used my allowance this week before I knew I was going to do a podcast. So that’s exciting, I hope its okay.
We have a little blog there with links to the descriptions because obviously we don’t want to trigger anyone. We want people to know what they’re getting into before they listen so it kind of gives away all the surprises of what’s in there but it’s really important to me that people know what they’re going to listen to, so if they can sort of prepare for if they want to listen to that or if they want to skip that one. However, people want to take care of themselves is great. We do have trigger warnings on the website and descriptions of the podcast. There are not any stars or asterisks or whatever in the trigger warnings because that’s actually a trigger for us. I know a lot of groups online, they use them for trigger warnings, and I get that, I respect that, and we follow the rules in the group but its really triggering for us so its not going to be on our website. But the general content warnings and the episode descriptions will be there so people can discern for themselves if its an okay and safe episode for them to listen to. We’re trying to keep it appropriate, helpful, and positive so I hope that’s cool and I’m excited that you’re listening to it and people are liking it.
So, besides Emma just listening to other podcasts and doing her own, the other big news is last night I played them for The Husband. Legit right, guys? Like, seriously, I played them for The Husband. We were sitting there, and we were kind of finishing a date, we had watched a movie, I don’t even remember what it was. We don’t get to watch a movie very often because of children, there are so many children, inside children, outside children, there are children everywhere, its like a zoo here, right? So, we had a date, and we were finishing a movie and I couldn’t hold it inside anymore. I turned to him and said,
“I have a surprise for you. I think it’s a good thing, not a bad thing, I don’t want to be in trouble about it and I want to tell you about it because it’s really kind of taking off.”
He’s really like my best friend. You guys, you have no idea, well maybe you do, I hope you’re that lucky. Like the one thing we have done right as an adult is pick him to marry. Like, he’s amazing. I can’t even. Oh, oh!! I mean, you know. Because you’ve been through stuff so you know how bad it can be, right? Or even normal dating, how gross it can be, but, oh, he’s just kind you guys, and respectful to everybody and their different preferences. He’s so attentive and he does stuff for us. Like, he’s just legit, and kind. I’m not a bad person, but I’m not a kind person (laughs). I’m not a terrible person and it’s not that I’m not nice, but he has like a gift for kindness, and he is just the softest, kindest, human being I’ve ever met in my life. I don’t know how we ended up with him but its maybe the best thing of our entire life, ever, is this guy.
Anyway, we got to sit with him and talk and I said,
“I think this is becoming a big thing, so it feels weird to have something I haven’t told you about, but it wasn’t that it was secret keeping, I just wasn’t sure it was going to work or not or what to say.”
So, I told him about it, and he was so excited, so proud of me for trying something new, and proud of me for having the courage to go that far out of my comfort zone because this is super terrifying. He was proud of me for trying to have boundaries- I know, shocking right? - like I didn’t force anyone to participate, and I didn’t disclose other people’s stories, only saying my own stuff and saying what I want to say and leaving out everything else from other people. That’s teamwork, you don’t know how many points I should get for that, like I should have so many therapy points right now you have no idea. Oh, my goodness.
Anyway, I told him about it, and he was so excited, so proud of me, so we just curled up and stayed up an extra hour and a half late to listen to listen to all 4 of them. I got in trouble listening to The Doctors’ because it was so boring, and I was being snarky, and he told me to be quiet because he was really interested. So, I sort of got called out on that... I think I’m the only one who gets in trouble actually. Anyway, he’s like (Sasha mockingly quotes The Husband) I love everybody, you need to be respectful, dada dada dada da. He made me be quiet so he could hear The Doctor, but he listened to all 4 of them that we’ve done so far, and he was really pleased and proud of all of us. He cried, and laughed, and was all serious about it, it was a crazy experience. Some of those things we’ve never really said out loud or talked about distinctly as individuals or let him hear the perspective without us trying to cover up what’s going wrong, so it felt super, what’s the word. Vulnerable. That’s crazy, I was vulnerable (ha). So, we told him about it, we talked about it, and the response was really positive from him, and he was really supportive, kind, and enthusiastic. We’re totally going to keep doing it and next week when the website come out, we’ll post everything there and from there it will be automatically fed to iTunes. So, everything is connected and ready to I just have to hit the publish button. That’s exciting.
Those of you who have tried it out with me and have given me feedback, I really appreciate it because it was a scary thing to do, and I don’t want to just release it to the general public before knowing what people are thinking or if its helpful or not or if its ridiculous. It was scary, there was so much anxiety, but since getting feedback from some of the friends online in some of the survivor groups, and The Husband, and even knowing Emma did one, I think its going to be a good thing. I maybe should tell my therapist about it, I haven’t talked to her about it yet but because we haven’t seen her, which actually is what I want to talk about today. What do you do when you don’t get to go to therapy?
I talked about this in my podcast the last time, the first podcast episode 1. It took us so long to find a good therapist, that I know we have the right one, I don’t know that I could trust anyone else which may be is my own issue and I need to work on that but I’m really grateful that we found her. She’s legit cool and I don’t get away with anything, but I think that’s good for me. And she can kind of match my snark and calls me on everything, so I HATE therapy, but I love her, I adore her...don’t tell her I said that. I really don’t know, like it’s a hard process but I don’t mean SHE’s hard, she’s amazing and I love when we’re there.
So, since we go on Mondays, on Sundays we start getting exciting to be there knowing it’s coming and there’s such relief but, after we leave, its so distressing because we have to leave, and it begins this time of having to work on things without her or process everything’s that’s just happened or deal with that space of being away from her or on our own. Its so much harder or scarier, but I don’t want to be like a creeper. I don’t know how to explain it I hope you guys understand it because maybe you’re in therapy too but, um, its just hard. Because we stir things up in therapy, right? Then after its hard. Like, some things are good, we always sleep good Monday nights, better than any other night of the week because we’ve had therapy, it was so exhausting, and we did so much work internally, so we sleep really well. When we wake up Tuesday morning there’s so much to puke out into the journals and process and adapt to and try to get back into real life with the children, husband all that’s expected of us. So, the transition is hard but by Wednesday we have that down, except it’s like dominoes, everything we processed we have down in the notebooks, but it stirs up the next layer of nasty and ugh! By Thursday, we’re wrestling with it without the therapist but its not our appointment yet. By Friday we’re about to drown in it. By Saturday we might as well quit, it’s the end of the world or whatever (laughs) its so dramatic right? And then by Sunday we feel better because we know therapy is Monday.
So that’s what it feels like for me, but at the same time real life happens. Because of schedules, she had a week where she had to miss, which is fine, then we had week we had to miss not because we were avoiding therapy just kids or something, so we missed 2 weeks. We were supposed to go this week except they had a blizzard, there was a freaking blizzard you guys. Why have we moved here where they have such a thing as blizzard? It was snowing sideways! How is that even possible, how is that even a thing? It can’t snow sideways, like, what? It was crazy! So, because of the blizzard we can’t get to therapy which was the 3rd week in a row we missed, so I don’t know how we’ve handled that and kept functioning. It’s good for us to see that we can but it’s really hard, so anxiety is through the roof and everything’s harder than it needs to be. Emma wrote about how it helps her realize how much she needs therapy because we were feeling so much better but now, we’re starting to feel worse again because we’ve missed it so many times. And now, its supposed to snow again next week, on the weekend. I don’t think right now we have the funds to go early and get a hotel until Monday. I don’t mind running away, that would be cool. Do it functional like (laughs) instead of disappearing. Take a day early, rest, and do intense therapy in the notebooks, then come home legit. That’s a compromise we do sometimes when that pressure to runaway sometimes is really big. We have a runner; I don’t know if you know that. We have a runner who will fugue us out when we will wake up and we’re in a completely different state or life or whatever. We land in airports a lot or wake up other countries, it’s been a problem. But we’re doing better with that and can do it functionally for therapy.
We’ve had 2 kids in the hospital that’s why our allowances are off so its not a week where we can go early for the hotel. I’m rambling but the whole point is we can’t miss therapy another week or I’m going to be crazy. I’m already crazy, I started a podcast and that’s pretty crazy but that’s how desperate I am. So, we’re trying everything we can do to hold it together. I don’t know how to miss another week so I’m really anxious about that, even though I don’t want to go, I don’t want to talk (laughs) she’s way smarter and clever than me like, you can’t away with anything. It’s not like I want to be the one out (laughs) I don’t want to do the session I just want to feel better after the session (laughs) someone else can do the work, I don’t want to do the work.
Because of the holidays, the week after this next session, she’s going to be gone, then we have a session, then we’ll miss 2 more because of the holidays. I can’t even handle it. And the anxiety, just about getting to therapy is insane right now. I mean off-the-charts. I don’t even know how to cope with that. So, what I do is I do the things I know I can do. We can keep the N.T.I.S. on our hand. We have a bear she gave us that The Littles hold. We work on grounding like essential oils, candles, hot chocolate is a good thing for us-we can’t have coffee. We have a painter, somebody can paint. We know the drill, its just hard and the pressure just builds up faster than we can get rid of it or release it almost.
It’s another reason I’m so grateful for some of the groups and friends we’ve made online, not in a creepy way, actual supportive, good people out there who are connecting with others who understand. It makes the difference. It’s helpful. Also, if it’s really bad, we can text or email the therapist, but we try hard not to. I don’t care so much but The Doctor is like
“No, don’t. It’s her time, don’t mess with it.”
Then someone else that’s A Little is like
“Don’t, cause then we’re in trouble and we’re bad” (Sasha mocking A Little) “dada dada dada dada da.”
Which isn’t true at all but that’s the conflict, so we don’t actually do it very much, we don’t want to abuse it, but I don’t think we really believe in that privilege yet, does that make sense? I don’t know. She texted us Thanksgiving, “Happy Thanksgiving, I’m so grateful for you”. That’s what she said. And I was like, what do you want? What are you trying to do? What are you trying to get at? Then The Husband was like, (Sasha laughs) she’s just wishing you a happy holiday, and I was like, why, what does she want, what’s she trying to do? He’s like, nope, she’s just grateful (Sasha laughs). It’s a hard thing, how do you process that?
Sometimes online it’s really hard, when you meet new, safe, appropriate people who are demonstrating good boundaries, not creepers, weirdos, or dangerous people. When people are nice to us its really hard to deal with that which is ridiculous because that’s how things are supposed to be. I know how to deal with people when they’re mean to me, hurt me, abuse, neglect us, or whatever. I don’t know how to deal with people being nice or safe, its so weird. The niceness and safeness are weird but also that I can’t deal with it is weird. It makes me freeze up and it turns into social anxiety except it’s not really that, but I don’t know how else to explain it to people. The harder they try, the more I hide (laughs) and that makes it hard to be a good friend even when you want to or want to try. So, I appreciate when people are patient and understanding of that, my own boundaries to even respond to people. Instant messaging is really hard, it’s very overwhelming very fast, it sucks up all my spoons. You guys know about the spoon theory, right? You only have so many a day and when you have to do hard things it uses them up. Instant messaging sucks up all my spoons, pretty much puts them down the garbage disposal. Not only are there not any more spoons, the old ones you already used are all scratched up (laughs). That’s what its like.
It makes it hard to have friends because I’m a terrible friend myself. To have friends you need to be a friend, like, whatever, but its hard to do and understand why people would be kind or what they want from being kind. Or what they’re trying to get at. It’s a scary thing, not that I’m scared because I’m tough and cool but friendship is hard. I don’t know why stuff from the past makes friendship hard now. I think it’s one reason we are safe with the husband, because he’s chill. He just kind of hangs out, does his own thing, and isn’t offended by us doing our own thing whatever that may be at any given moment- and right now it’s a podcast. So, thanks for listening and we’ll keep going, okay?
Thanks, see you next episode!