Transcript 2 Out of the Woods

Transcript: Episode 12

12. Out of the Woods

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 and dissociation, please go to our website at www.systemspeak.org, where there is a button for donations and you can offer a one time donation to support the podcast or become an ongoing subscriber. You can also support us on Patreon for early access to updates and what’s unfolding for us. Simply search for Emma Sunshaw on Patreon. We appreciate the support, the positive feedback, and you sharing our podcast with others. We are also super excited to announce the release of our new online community - a safe place for listeners to connect about the podcast. It feels like any other social media platform where you can share, respond, join groups, and even attend events with us, including the new monthly meetups that start this month. Go to our web page at www.systemspeak.org to join the community. We're excited to see you there.

 [Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]

[Note: The Husband’s voice is in italics]

 Hello. Hi. We're in the same room. That's pretty special. It's very exciting. It's so rare these days. Unfortunately. But we have to talk about your trauma. Ah, yes. [Laugher]

 Stephen Sondheim died. It's true. It's tragic. Umm, it's tragic. I mean, it feels inevitable. He was 91. It feels like part of the circle of life. But-. That's not his song. No, that's Elton John. Part of his-. I can't think of one that's appropriate in this moment. Well, maybe you can ask George in the park on Sunday. So for people who are not theater nerds, you need to explain who Stephen Sondheim is.

 So Stephen Sondheim is a musical theater writer. Specifically, he writes music and lyrics. And we care about this because you write music and lyrics. I write the script and lyrics, mostly, but I have also done music. Yeah. So I'm going to get nerdy for just a bit. Like, the most revolutionary musical theater writers of the 20th century were Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. Their stuff feels very old fashioned now, in part because it was copied so much. Oscar Hammerstein had a next door neighbor-.

 Wait! Time out. That makes me miss our chickens. Poor Hammerstein. Aww. I'm glad we got to name chickens in their honor. Okay, sorry. Go ahead.

 Oscar Hammerstein had a kid who lived next door. He was friends with his own children. And this kid's name was Stephen Sondheim. And Stephen didn't have a dad who lived at home, and so he sort of bonded with Oscar Hammerstein and learn from him how to write musical theater. And so what Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein did was they, they created what was called the integrated musical. Where the songs and dances were part of telling the story, they weren't just inserted into a plot.

 So before this, before them, musicals were like a bit of a play, and then a song and dance number, and then a bit of a play, and then a song and dance number. But the song and dance numbers did not actually have anything to do with the bits of play. Basically, that's, that's the general idea.

 So just again, just for nerding out and communicating and sharing your world, because all of us as System Speak loves you, The Husband. [The Husband’s laughter] Examples of this would be like an old Fred Astaire movie. Yeah so-. Where there's like a cool movie, but then here, we're gonna dance.

 Yeah, so a lot of those Fred Astaire movies use songs that were written before them, before Rodgers and Hammerstein, but in movies that come after. And so they're doing-. They're like making dance numbers part of the story because it's about a dancer, but the songs—and there are plenty of songs that we know now that are like standards—could have been inserted into any show. They were not specific enough to have to belong to one story.

 But what these guys did-. Wait, did I see that in English? Yes. What these guys did? Okay. What these guys did was literally integrate. Haha, we can say integrate. Blended all of that together so that the songs and the dances that went with them—the songs, the words of the songs and the mood of the songs and the sound and the feel and the emotion of the song—all fit with that musical specifically. Yes. And help, not just not just matched in tone or feeling, but actually moved the story forward. It was a part of the story. That's what was revolutionary.

 Yeah, so like before the musical Oklahoma, a musical would start with a chorus of dancing girls who would sing a song while showing off their pretty legs. Oklahoma starts with one old woman on stage churning butter, while one man off stage start singing a solo. It was like nothing people had ever seen before. That's amazing. Yeah. It's like Germany wearing those full bodied leotards to the Olympics. [The Husband’s laughter] Did that move the story forward? Good job Germany. Sehr gut.

 So what I think Sondheim's major contribution was-. A lot of people think it's how clever his rhymes are. He was a very good wordsmith and his lyrics and his rhymes are pretty amazing. But what I think he brought to the medium was changing the kind of story that you could tell. So instead of just boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl, you would have musicals about a single man surrounded by his married friends and how they all manipulate him in order to manage their own marriages. Or a reunion of old Ziegfeld Follies girls where numbers are performed as by the aging chorus girls and the ghosts of their younger selves at the same time. And the characters have nervous breakdowns in the form of big show numbers. You have musicals about cannibalism, and musicals about presidential assassinations, and musicals about fairy tales where the happily ever after is the intermission break. And in the second act, you learned that all of the choices they made in the first act actually have consequences that go beyond getting their wish. That is why you should never go to the festival.

 That, that musical Into The Woods was kind of life changing to me. I saw it on PBS when I was maybe 12 or something and it opened my minds in a way that I can't really explain. It was really powerful. So flashforward to me is as a young adult in New York City. I was studying musical theater writing. And my writing partner at the time-. I had written a lyric that was a parody of the lyric from a Sondheim show called Sunday in the Park with George, and one of the teachers had liked it and so he sent it to his friend who sent it to his friend, who sent it to Stephen Sondheim, and Stephen Sondheim loved it. And so he invited my composer buddy over, and they had a couple evenings where they had dinner and just like talked all night and drank and had a good old time. That was-. But you didn’t get to go. No, he never invited me to go with him. And so after we graduated, he and I won award, an award that's in the honor of Richard Rogers. And it is, the committee was overseen by Stephen Sondheim. So there is a big awards banquet. And at this banquet, we had these big circular tables, and I was seated directly opposite from Stephen Sondheim. And in the middle of the table was an enormous flower arrangement so that we could not even see each other and we did not exchange a single word at the dinner. Oh my goodness. I did shake his hand when I accepted the award, but we didn't get to talk when we're up on stage. And then, as part of the award we were supposed to have, we had a reading, which is sort of informal kind of performance at a really prestigious theatre there in New York. And my composer, you know, called up Steve, invited him to come to the reading. Steve was really excited to come except that week he was in Japan or China or something. And so he wasn't able to come to the reading. Oh, my goodness. Ships in the night. It-. That's exactly what it felt like. The one last time that I saw Sondheim, I went to a reading of a friend of mine, so it was in a theater. I got there little, like, really close to curtain time. So there was almost no seats left, but I found one. And there is an empty seat next to me. And right as the lights were going down, the seat was filled by Stephen Sondheim. Sitting right next to you in the-. Sitting right next to me in the theater. And so of course, I spent the entire time like watching him out of the side of my eye to see how he was reacting to this show. And I was excited to talk to him at the break. But before the lights even came up for intermission he disappeared and he was gone. He did not stay for the second act, and I did not get to talk to him. Oh my goodness. So those were those were my times passing in the night like ships, me and the SS Stephen Sondheim.

 So for people who do not know-. Before you tell, well, before we process your trauma of his death. I’m so sorry my friend. Before, before we talk more about your experience of it. For people who kind of know music but maybe not the details like that, what are some of them some high musicals that they're familiar with?

 He wrote the lyrics to West Side Story. He wrote the lyrics to Gypsy, which is not quite as well known but it's still kind of a classic. Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods. He wrote the song “Send In the Clowns”; that's from a musical called A Little Night Music. What else has he done that people would know? Can't, it's hard to think of what the other ones are that are best known.

 And you just kept meeting him and not getting to actually meet him. It was like oil sliding off water. We just, did not. We just never made any contact. Even though you were right there. Literally right next to each other. So you sat next to him. You sat across from him. You shook his hand to accept his award. Never had a conversation with him. You had a rehearsal he was coming to. Yeah. And your composer went to his house? Yes. And in all of those situations, you still never got to just chat with him. Never. What is that about? Like in all that we know from like our faith tradition, to energy, this person stuff you study or play with, or like all of this symbols of Clarissa, all of these things. Like what is that about?

 So I always idolized Sondheim because he did so well what I wanted to do. And when I was thinking of going to grad school to study this, there was a discussion board on the Stephen Sondheim fan website. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I know. And, and I was talking with people about, you know, what are options? How do you study this? And I made the comment, you know, I'm not going to be another Stephen Sondheim, but I would like to, you know, do what I can. And people are like, “Oh, no, no, don't, don't talk down about your talent. Don't, you know, doubt yourself.” And I, I thought, “no, that's not actually what I meant. I meant I'm not going to be Stephen Sondheim; I'm going to be myself.” Like, I'm not going to-. There are plenty of writers out there who are trying to copy what Stephen Sondheim does but-. I want to learn what I can from him, but I want to be just me. I'm going to write my own style and my own kind of material. And I think somehow because of that, I always kind of felt like other people needed him more? I don't know. It would have been so cool to get to talk to him about his stuff and  share my stuff with him. I think that would have been like a reunion with someone I'd never met before. But somehow It felt okay. It felt like I had already moved past that somehow. Like I didn't, I just didn't need it.

 So we were in the middle of moving when the news broke that he had passed. And I was trying to wait for you to get home so I could tell you, because they didn't know if you would just be devastated or how you would respond. But I was waiting for you to get home. But of course, the entire world of theater just exploded. Yes. And so there was no way to keep the news from you and you saw it before you got home. How did you feel when you read about that? Or what were you thinking or feeling? Or what did you experience internally?

 It was a surprise but not a surprise. It was not a surprise in that I knew he was really old. He's been looking kind of frail for a while. But it was a surprise in that I knew he had another project he was working on. And so I feel bad for him that he didn't get to finish that project, whatever it was. But I'm glad that he continued to try. When looking at a lot of the classic musical theater composers, he saw a pattern where they didn't tend to create any new interesting work after a certain age. And he kind of slipped into that pattern himself. And I know that his later works were not always as good. And I think that was frustrating. And so he stopped writing for a long time. So I'm, I'm excited that he went out trying to create again. I think that's wonderful.

 Do you think he got to screen the new West Side Story that's coming out? I bet he did. Yeah. Oh, that makes me happy.

 There's also a movie that just came out called tick, tick… BOOM!. That's kind of about the life of Jonathan Larson, who wrote Rent. And Sondheim was one of his idols as well. And evidently Sondheim, back in the day, had called and left a voicemail on Jonathan Larson's phone. And for the movie they wanted to include that and Sondheim asked if he could rephrase it and do a better message than he had done back then. And that feels lovely. Like, a parting wish somehow. Oh, that's so tender. Yeah. Now, tick, tick… BOOM! I have not been able to get myself to watch more than the first few minutes. Because it's about a guy who spent his life working so hard to create something and then died before he got to see it happen. And that feels much more traumatic to me than the death of Stephen Sondheim. I-. It feels like your life? Yes, it feels too close to home. I will, I will absolutely miss Sondheim. But the idea of never being able to get my work out there, that feels like an ongoing trauma.

 It really has been. It really has been. You've been through so much. Like, people don't understand. Like, The Giver, for example, like you poured your heart into that for a decade. Yep. Like that's a thesis. Yeah. That a child. That's, that's a child. And then at the last minute to have-. Right after 10 years, a professional theatre said, “yes, we want to do this.” And that was when we learned that just like a month before, the author had sold the rights to someone else, and we could not produce it anymore. It's heartbreaking. It was, like, the timing is so uncanny. It's like the opposite of serendipity. It's one of those moments where it seemed like okay, there's something I'm supposed to learn from this because it is too perfectly timed to be without meaning somehow. It's like sitting across the table from Stephen Sondheim with that big plant between you. Yes. It would not work in a play because it would not be believable enough.

 I feel like-. I know this completely off topic. But I feel like that's a little bit of what happened to me with my friends with living at the other house. Like, we moved so close to where they lived, but never got to see them or spend time with them because of the pandemic. Yeah. And then as soon as the pandemic started to be over, I mean, in the context of the littles being vaccinated. Right. Not in the context of we're off the hook yet. But we left. Yeah. And so it's like, “oh, maybe I'm going to have real life in person friends for the first time ever.” No. That's not actually happening. And I know there were other complications. And I don't mean to get into that right now. But, but like the same thing of, like, I could not be any more close physically. I could not be any more accessible with all the time in the world. And I thought, like, we would be meeting outside and we would have these bonding experiences, and I imagine all these different things. And none of that happened. But it wasn't for lack of trying. Yeah. I tried so hard, and all the ways that I knew. And we were so close, and so present, and so available, and there was just crickets. And that's-. I know. I don't at all mean to minimize your experience with waiting for an audience, of “why don't I just have an audience?” And yet at the same time, in that little way, I have that taste of it just, it just was not meant to be. Like there's nothing more I can do to make it happen all by myself. Yeah.

 What is that? Like in trauma language or in heart language? What is that when-. Like it's not a betrayal, exactly. It's not a violation, exactly. But it's somehow withheld. Yeah. It’s not a neglect. Like, Stephen Sondheim wasn't being a snot to you. No, not at all. It wasn't intentional. My therapist has talked recently about how, like these friends, this has unfolded as it has because it's their stuff. This is not, it's not because I am bad or because of whatever, whatever, like, all that shame stuff for me. Like, this is their stuff. Just let it be their stuff. I couldn't have done more with that therapist. I couldn't have done more with those friends. I couldn't have done more living where we lived. I cannot make a relationship happened by myself. And so just let it go. She says just let it go and moving forward and trying to recreate and reconnect back to where I was in life. And now we are literally living in the town where we lived before all of this started.

 But for you, like waiting for an audience or those delays, or it just not happening when you're so close. Like you've had producers-. Even just this year, you had a producer with money who's like “I love your stuff,” and you developed two musicals—presented two musicals, two musicals that they loved—and then they're like, “Oh, we're gonna invest in VR tech now.” Yep. What is that? It's that same feeling? What is the word for that when that happens when it slips through your fingers just when you have it?

 I don't know what the word for that is. But I feel like when a pattern recurs again and again, it usually means that I'm still in the process of learning something.

 What are we learning? I'm so tired of learning. Not really. That sounds like murmuring, and we would never murmur. I know that we're here to learn. I get that in my head. But I'm really tired of repeating lessons. Amen. I want to learn. Like, I’m hungry to learn because they want to pass this class. I'm tired of having to run in circles on endure this over and over and over.

 Yeah, I've, I've had to do a lot of internal and mental and emotional work to find peace when it happens, when these things happen. And then you run up against the question of “do I keep trying?” Like, I want to keep trying, but am I just putting myself in a position to fail again? I don't want to give up. But what is the ridiculous thing to do? To keep trying or to give up, right? I'm not gonna give up. But I always have that fear of when is the next rejection gonna come in? Right?

 That's exactly. Oh my goodness. That is exactly how I feel about the previous therapist and the friends. Of, I'm an idiot. Like, I'm the crazy person because I'm trying so hard and I'm being rejected repeatedly. So like, how foolish do I have to be to keep trying so hard and giving away pieces of myself instead of just recognizing, “They don't want this. It's not going to work out. It's not what I thought it was.” Which means everything attached to that feels like it was all a lie. Do I think that they are bad people or that they hurt me maliciously? No. No. But with their challenges and limited capacities, and where they are in life, it is not at all what I thought was being offered to me. This is what goes back to that footprints episode where I tell this story about my teacher giving me a pin, and it turns out she wasn't actually giving it to me. She was asking me what I thought about so that she could give it to another student. Oh, oh, that's sad. I know. I know. And that's exactly what happened. Like with this whole therapy and-. Turned out the person was waving at someone behind you. Yes, yes. I have spent two years of someone waving at the person behind me. It's just embarrassing. It's humiliating. And you still love them. And like you want to have that relationship. So you think, “Well, I can't I can't just cut this off. Because I want to be friends”, right? It's tough.

 When I lost the rights to The Giver, which my kids are studying in school now, which is delightful. Does it hurt your heart when they bring it up? Like a trigger? No, I'm delighted. Oh, wow. So at first I was pretty devastated and I had to grieve in part because I had such high expectations for what would come out of the show and just never, it just never happened that way. And what was most helpful to me in the end was deciding that the experiences that I had already had with it were actually of great value. That I have done festivals and readings of that show all across the country. I've worked with all kinds of different actors and they've all loved it. There have been audiences who've seen the show. And just accepting that that lived experience is worthwhile, even though it's so different from what my imagined experience would be. When I was in my slump, after losing The Giver rights, I said something to myself that took myself off guard. [Laughter] I’m sorry, I have an associative disorder. That's there's a lot of thoughts running around in my head. But at one point, I said, “I just wish one of my shows would love me back.” Oh. And the thing is, that's, that's what I was always looking for in a wife, right? I wanted a girl that loved me at the same time I loved her. And it took a long time to find you. But you were exactly right.

 But also look at what our entire marriage has been like. Again, ships passing in the night. It has not been what I imagined. We have either been one of us with the children and one of us at the hospital, or you at home and me out of the country, or me at home and you with a production, or-. Me at home and you having cancer treatment. Yes. Cancer. I keep forgetting about that. Or, and then the pandemic of “Oh, yeah, we're going to have two years together.” No. You're going to go live with your parents and take care of them, and I'm going to have the children. And then on the days you come to spend time with the children, I have to work because I haven't been able to work because I was with the children, so we're still not together. It has been epic. Our whole relationship. It's been almost 10 years. Do you know that? Isn't that weird?

 But I think part of what works in our marriage is that both of us value what we have rather than getting sad that it doesn't look like what we imagined it would look like. We really value any moment we have together. We appreciate what the other one contributes to the marriage and to the family. So I think as far as the show, one day it will be like when I found you, I will find the show that loves me back.

 Aw. I think-. I mean, I know we're talking about different kinds of love. But I think that's where I'm at shopping for a therapist. I've worked since leaving my previous Kelly-. That's what you call it, Kelly. Okay. Um, there was a therapist who was a guest on the podcast, and every time she talked about a case study she called them all Kelly. And so now I can talk about all my previous therapists and just saying “Kelly.” That's amazing. Right? It's helped a lot. It's been kind of funny. But anyway, I forgot what I was gonna say. Your previous Kelly. Oh, you were shopping around for a therapist. Oh, yeah.

 Leaving my previous Kelly, I thought that we did it the right way. We-. I mean, telling her by letter from the Middle East was probably not the best way. But we had an appointment set up with a therapist who knew DID, who knew EMDR, who was affordable. Everything we thought was set up. We had that meeting with the transition phone call where our previous Kelly talked to her. We thought it was all set up the best way that you can do and it was an easy transition. And then everything fell apart with that agency where that therapist worked. Like it wasn’t even that therapist’s fault. It was the agency and billing and state rules. We were just barely across the state line. And they were like, “No,” and it got all complicated. And then all the different efforts of trying to find a therapist since then? I have had a few therapists that were okay. But there's always something that gives that slipping past in the night feeling of “this is okay, but it is not going to work because it's not what I need.” And so it's not like I'm being, I don't think, I really don't think that-. It's not like I'm just therapists shopping to be shopping. I'm not being overly picky. Things have happened. Like the, the next therapist after the one that we transitioned with, she was not gonna do telehealth, remember? I finally found one. I started with her. She knew what she was doing. She knew EMDR. But she wanted to keep meeting in the office when COVID broke out. And we couldn't because of Kyrie. And then another one was working, but then our insurance changed. Another one was working, but then we moved. Another one was working, but then she died of COVID. And then another one was-. Like, it's just been one thing after another, not just “oh, I don't like this one or I don't like that one.” Like it's, I really don't think it's been an avoidance thing. I think that it's really been circumstantial. But it's also been unfortunate because it's exhausting. But I think in that time it's given us time to grieve our previous Kelly, because that was such an intense and intimate relationship in the office that no longer exists. That I think we couldn't just go to another person and jump back into therapy. We have had to spend two years grieving the loss of her. And part of that has been accepting that she's not coming back, that we can't go back to her, that her in our future is not an option because of the how everything has happened. And so to get to that level of acceptance, to even be able to say those words out loud right now, is such a deep thing. I think we needed that time. But at the same time even the therapist we had for the longest to help us with that, now is going on maternity leave. Um, that’s right. So here we are again. Yeah.

 Yeah, you know what that makes me think of though? What? Is how you always used to talk about Adam naming the animals as a way of like: So this is this kind of animal; that is not the one that I'm supposed to partner with. This is this kind of animal… It's like the exploring all of the not options. Like with dating, it suggests that there's some something out there, whether it's you were learning who you are not supposed to become, or whether it's learning who you should be actually looking for in a therapist so you'll recognize her or him when you find them. It feels like the-. What was that the thing about closing doors? The path that comes by closing the doors? What is that? I can almost remember something. He was like a Native American philosophy.

 Oh. I don't have it in front of me. But, I mean, obviously. We're just hanging out. I don't know. I don't know. I can't remember the author's name. But what you're thinking of was from an article from when we were doing chaplaincy training. Oh, yes, yes. And I think it was like Shakers or Quakers or something thing. Oh, that could be. I think it was the Shakers that had that philosophy. Yeah. That you find your way, not by opening doors, but by recognizing which ones are close? Yes. Because the open doors, you don't have to open them. They're already open. You just walk through them. And you don't have to grieve the closing of a door because it directs you towards the path is still available. Yes. Yes.

 And I think that piece, with the other piece that you taught us last year about how an ending can be an ending without it causing harm? I mean, we've obviously had some endings that caused harm. Sure. But I mean that it doesn't undo all the good. Yeah. So like, when I start therapy, or when I'm interviewing these new therapist or try to get back into therapy to do therapy on me-. Because I spent two years doing therapy on my previous therapists. Haha. Right. So I've been doing therapy for therapy, and finally I'm starting to do therapy on me again. And when I go into it I’m not starting over and not starting at the beginning. I know what DID is. Yes. I know who the characters in the play are. I know pieces of the plot. I know about Memory Time and Now Time. Yes. I know what flashbacks are. I know… These kinds of things. I'm not starting all the way over. Even though there have been so many times where I'm like, “I don't even have access to those things right now.” Yeah. That's okay. We've been in the ongoing trauma of the pandemic and the ongoing trauma of grieving our previous Kelly. But at the same time, when I go through the open door because I'm already on my path, because the closed door shaped my path. Yeah. Then I am already where I need to be and those pieces that I've already learned come with me. Yeah.

 So how does that apply for you, even with writing musicals? Like you've had all these closed doors, and yet you're heading to this amazing date where the musical will love you back. But what pieces do you get to take with you into that? That you don't have to start over?

 I guess I would say that I feel less dependent on like results to feel good about myself. Less like-. I love validation as much as anybody, but I know I'm a good musical theater writer whether or not my show gets on the stage. Which I know for some people would seem like a strange thing to say. But I guess I carry with me the idea that all the things that I'm doing have value. That all progress counts as progress. All achievement counters achievement. In that I need to really acknowledge and value it. I think that's something that you have taught me too. There will be days where I say, “Oh, I didn't get anything done today.” And you'll be like, “No, you did this and this and this, and you are probably exhausted.” And I think” oh, yeah.” I just didn't count any of those things. So I think I've learned to count what I'm doing along the road. Hopefully I get to the expectation eventually, but every step has worth, I guess.

 What do you think we will take with us from the pandemic? I mean, again, I know it's not completely over and Omicron was knocking out delta even. Like, I don't even know anymore, right? But that we've-. Our initial goal, what our initial goal was to make it out with one of us alive. Like in the very beginning of the pandemic when we didn't know how it was spread or how it was going to impact our family or the people around us. Yeah. At the very beginning, when all we knew about COVID was that people got sick and died right away. Like, that's what it seemed like in the beginning, right? Our initial goal was for the children to make it out with one parent alive. That's, that's literally our initial discussion, right? And look, we've got a spare. Oh, my goodness. We have a spare. We've done that part.

 And then our next goal was, okay, so eventually there's going to be vaccines. We stay in quarantine until all of us are vaccinated, even the little ones, because that's what families do is care for each other even when it's hard. That's what parents do when they are devoted to their children and caring for their children, keeping them safe. And I'm not at all judging other families. I just mean for our family, that's what they needed and that's what we committed to. So getting to this phase of all 10 of us, meaning the eight of us, you and me and the six children plus your parents, are all vaccinated and boostered. And so for us, we've made it to that place. That even though it's not all over, we have been holding our breath for this moment. And so what do you think we will take with us from that?

 I'm speaking for myself, I guess. I feel like I came out of the pandemic feeling like our family is a family. That seems kind of strange. When the kids were little, because they were all adopted, for a long time it really felt like, you know, we had six passengers or six little strangers in the house. Like, it didn't feel cohesive. And we loved them, and they loved us, and we all did our best. But somehow having this two year period of isolation where it was just our family, now that we're coming out of it I really feel like a family. Like it feels like we belong together in ways that we never did before. I think that's what I'm taking out.

 Mine is a little more self-centered, because I've had the children on my own so they made me tired. But I think my-. I mean, I agree with you. And we've talked about that a lot. Absolutely. That this was sacred time. It was our Jubilee. It was our respite. There was time together without any demands on us other than stay alive, that we will never have again. Right. And so it was hard, and it was brutal, but we will never get that time or space again. And it was really a very beautiful and sacred thing that brought so much healing to all of us. So we've talked about that a lot.

 I think that for me personally, the thing that I took out of the pandemic was that I was trapped in my own grief because of losing the therapist and the things that came up to grieve. That that sort of triggered all of those, as you call them all the lights all the way. Yeah, all the way back. It triggered all these layers of grief. And it wasn't just that I was trapped in my grief, but there was no way to escape it, really, is the thing. Because the children were home, I couldn't dissociate from it. Because we weren't going anywhere, I couldn't be busy away from it. There was no way to flight away from it. Wow. There was no way to fight it. Because I was right in the middle of, literally and geographically, and in the middle of having to navigate like, are these friendships going to work? Are they not? Are they going to show up like they promised? Are they not? Is this real? Like what they told me, I would be surrounded and embraced and contained and held safe and have something to offer. And none of that was happening by experience. I didn't get to experience that. And so there was no way to flight it or fight it or freeze it. Like, there was no way to get away from that grief I had. It was it was like God and the universe together conspired against me and wrapped me up in this safe safe place where I was externally contained enough to completely fall apart, and to be completely shattered, and completely broken. What happened to me was devastating. What happened to me was in some ways worse than anything that happened to me as a child. Wow. And I don't say that lightly. No. But as a child, I knew those people were bad. But what happened to me over the last two years, those people were good people. I knew they were good. I still think they're good. Absolutely. But the damage that it caused me, I barely came out of that alive. And I think that the only reason I came out of it alive was by circumstance and by faith. And so really, what-. And I don't, I don't at all even mean that dramatically. I mean that authentically and raw. Yeah. That's how hard it was. But because I was wrapped in this safe place with no demands on us, which is really ironic because we had a lot of demands, right? Like, homeschool and feeding and cooking for eight people three times a day. And like all these kinds of things that were so so hard about the pandemic, but also we were just home. Yeah. We didn't have external demands of you need to be at church at this time, and you need to be at school at this time, and you've got, you know. We did all the things, and we did them well, I think. And we fought hard to keep the kids on a schedule and to still dress up for church and to stay even in summer schools so that they would not be behind by the time we got back to public school. Yes. Like, we tried so hard. So yes, there was lots of pressure, and that was very intense, and very difficult. But also there was this beautiful space in which we could collapse, and we could feel everything that I don't think we could have felt if we were just out and about in life. There was something about the silence of that place, and the space around us, and the time of not being involved on social media, not being involved in the world around us, and just being that present. That I think what we learned, what I learned, was how to feel my feelings. Wow. And I feel like that is huge. Yeah. But I learned not just to feel my feelings, but to tolerate them. And I think that is as huge as anything. For me in my world, that's a big, big deal. Absolutely.

 And so I think that's what I take out of the pandemic is that I learned to feel my feeling, I've learned to tolerate my feelings, but also I learned to honor my feelings. And there were things going back years ago, that like this happened and then this happened and this, were these red flags happen. And I'm like, how do I deal with that? Should we talk about this? Do we not talk about this? Do I need to do something about this? That later played out to where I can say, oh, that part of me—whether we're talking about my intuition, or an alter, or a part or personality, or whatever—that part of me recognized that. Yes. And so in learning to know my feelings, to feel my feelings, to tolerate my feelings, that includes trusting my feelings. That I was correct. I called it years before all this played out. Yeah. And if I trust myself sooner, this kind of pain doesn't have to play out because I can set up different boundaries or respond to things earlier or do things differently instead of getting myself into these kinds of messes. Talking about replaying the circles of experience, right? Yes.

 In therapy language, what I have learned during the pandemic is that that is called a reenactment. How many times does the therapist have to take me home, or say they're going to adopt me, or say that they love me, or that they care about me, or that we're friends, and then destroy my life before I say, “hey, I need a therapist who's going to keep me safe and whom I can be safe and keep myself safe with.” Yes. Right? And so, at some point, did I do any of this intentionally, or try to hurt them or anybody, or cause any of this mess, or was it my fault? No. But how many times has this happened before I say, “that is not the kind of therapist I'm looking for”? What is it that I am trying to replace or fix or heal by seeking out people who do this to me? Because any of them would be appalled or hurt to hear that they have harmed me to the degree that they have. I think they're completely unaware of it. That apology letter shows me they're completely unaware of it. Yeah. Because all of this happened before the pandemic, and the apology letter was all about the pandemic. It didn't have anything to do with the pandemic. It all happened before. Yeah. So when I asked that question, seriously, of course it goes back to my parents. Of course it goes back to my parents. But I think it goes back even further, like, the Lowes, or my parents, and their parents. Like, there's so much of this acting out of-. There's so much of these relationships, so many of these relationships, that promise help and then cause harm, that is getting acted out even with therapists.

 So it makes sense to me now that I'm cautious about who I choose as a therapist. And it's hard when you have something like DID so it narrows down the experience. Yeah. And because of my work I can't have someone from ISSTD because I have meetings with all these people. Not just like I'm also a member, but like I have to meet. Like they're my colleagues and my friends, because I'm in meetings with them all the time. So they can't be my therapist. We live where we live in Oklahoma. Like, how many people can help with trauma in Oklahoma? Which is so sad because there's so much trauma here. Yes. So that narrows it down. And then insurance and funds and accessibility and telehealth. And, you know, it just keeps narrowing the window. And so I think that yes it's been difficult to keep trying, and yes it's been difficult and exhausting to find a new therapist, and no I haven't found the one that loves me back—in all the safe and appropriate ways of the metaphor, not the abusive ways that's happened in the past. Yes. But I also think that I am worth protecting. Yeah you are. And that I am worth healing. And that real healing is not going to cause more trauma, even if healing is also unpleasant at times.

 That's a lot. I didn't mean to go on a tangent. I'm sorry.

 I just enjoy talking with you. I'm so glad you're here. Me too.

 What is that like for you going back and forth? Well, I miss getting to stay here and feel like I'm an ongoing part of the family. Is it weird to you that we've moved into a house you've never lived in? It is. Especially since the house is so lovely. Like, I would love to live in this house. How did we end up with another miracle house that like we don't even deserve to be here? It's true. It's been really disorienting to me. I think more so than the other moves. And I think part of the reason is because it's not just a move, it's a move back to somewhere we lived before. Yeah. And somehow that's more disorienting than just moving to a new place. Because we're good at running away and we're good at… running away. [Laughter] But this is a coming home and a coming back. And that is a very different feeling. And I think there's a lot of layers in there. Interesting. Then you have like double exposure of experience in the same city. Yeah.

 Do you want to think about a weird reenactment later? Sure. There's a layer-. I didn't realize this until I just said that to you. But there's a layer of this is where we ran away to when my mother was killed, and now this is where we've come back to with the death of hope of the previous Kelly. Oh, wow. Like that's done. There's nothing we can do to repair that. We can't fix it by yourself.

 This is also where we ran to to meet each other. It's also where we found our children. Yeah. It's where we became a family. And now we're here for your family, and your mom is gonna die. And she's gonna tell Stephen Sondheim he should have paid more attention to me. [Laughter] You should have spent time with my son. My son was amazing. He was very, very special. [Laughter]

 Thanks for talking to us. Say, “Hi, everybody. I missed you.”

 Hi, everybody, I missed you. [Laughter]

   [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.