Hey, hello, and guess what ?!
I have a brand new podcast for you to listen to — a podcast about dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, and the effects of trauma.
Actually, this is only part 1 of the podcast — part 2 is a separate post and a separate podcast — but start here please:
Encouraging trauma survivors to find healing through the arts
(click here to listen directly from the TAASTTA site)
I was contacted by Hanna of TAASTTA some time ago, and while I was in Texas (July 2018), we had our talk together.
TAASTTA — Trauma Awareness and Support through the Arts
What a big interesting, and creative name !!
First — let me say this — Hanna is an amazing woman who has overcome huge obstacles in her own life. I mean, this beautiful woman has seen some terrible things, and she’s overcome numerous tragedies and traumas. Hanna is now doing incredible work helping others, and what an honor it was to have the opportunity to speak with her.
She asked me some tough questions !!!
(And I was soooo nervous!! hahaha…. If you’ve heard me speak before, or talked with me over the phone, you’ll be able hear the nerves in my voice. Because you know… I can chatter pretty easily usually! But, aaah well, you gotta start somewhere and hopefully there is some interesting or helpful information in this podcast despite my mind-freezes. And yes, of course…. you can take comfort, and have a few giggles, in knowing that I’m just a regular, ordinary person, just like everyone else! 😛 )
Hanna knows how important it is to use creative arts in the healing process. Of course, I agree with that 100%. When talking becomes too difficult, by all means, pull out your journal, or your paint brushes, or your chalk, or your music, or your yoga mat, or your clay, or your beading, or your drums, or your guitar, etc, etc. The main point is to express your thoughts and your feelings, and to let your truth have a voice — one way or another.
Talk without talking — tell without telling. Let your artistic expressions fill in the gaps that your words don’t wanna say.
Hanna and I didn’t actually speak that much about the Arts in this particular conversation, so I want to be sure to mention it here. Because yes — healing trauma through the arts is an absolute!
Some of the topics we discussed include:
- Why DID happens, how it starts, how parts are created
- How dissociation feels to different people
- The ability to dissociate is initially learned in childhood, but once learned, adults can continue to dissociate
- Various reasons why people dissociate
- Is the ability to dissociate a God-given gift?
- Why is DID called a disorder?
- What if dissociation isn’t strong enough to block the pain?
- What can you do on your own if you don’t have a therapist?
- Separating yourself from blame and accusations made by offenders.
- What is a trigger?
And if you enjoyed MY CONVERSATION with HANNA from TAASTTA …..
Also know that Hanna and TAASTTA have numerous other podcasts, so please feel free to listen to many of the other discussions she has had as well.
Also, please remember to leave comments and questions here, and / or on the TAASTTA site.
Of course, giving extra encouragement and support to Hanna would be beautiful. We are all on the same team here, and we gotta be kind and supportive of each other, so please feel free to give Hanna a shout out at her site as well.
I hope you enjoy the podcast.
And for those questions that Hanna asked — especially for those good questions where I didn’t give a complete or full answer — by all means, if you wanna know more, just point that question out. I would be happy to know what areas you’d like further explanation. I figure I can give a more thorough answer if I have a little time to think about what I need to say! 😉
Meanwhile, do get involved with your preferred arts, and find ways to express your feelings, your hurts, your conflicts, your pain, your wounds, your heartbreak, and your dreams. Your ART will be beautiful because it will be the emotional truth of you.
I wish you the very best in your artistic healing journey.
Warmly,
Kathy
Copyright © 2008-2018 Kathy Broady MSW and Discussing Dissociation
⭐️We thought you did an amazing job. We love listening to you talk because you know so much. ⭐️
Thanks, Caden. But you know… it would be like listening to someone asking you questions about your profession, and you’ve been doing YOUR job for a long, long time too, so you know…. you know LOTS about THAT. And some of those really difficult things for new people in your profession are very simple for you, because you’ve worked in that area for so long… Same, same.
Even so — it’s always good to learn from the oldie-goldies, hahahaha. 🙂
Thanks for listening !
Kathy
Thank you so much I had a tough session today but I’m going to listen to this later, so encouraging that you know so much about D ID. We have a lot of artistic parts but they’ve never really used art as an outlet so we’re really looking forward to that. Thank you
Thank you, Paulette — I hope you do have the time to listen to this podcast. And if you find listening to videos to be helpful, there are a whole string of those available as well.
I’ve learned about DID because I’ve sat with and listened to 100’s of DID survivors for 30 years… I’ve paid attention to what the real experts tell me, and really,… I’m just saying back to y’all what I’ve learned from you. 🙂
Using art in your healing is sooooo helpful. I do very much encourage you to incorporate your art in whatever ways you can. It could be especially meaningful for your artistic parts —
Be sure to check out the category here called DID System Work / Artwork . You’ll find dozens of amazing examples of DID artwork. I have sooo many more of those to post (sorry I’ve been slow about that, y’all!), but yes, absolutely, by all means, encourage your system to process their healing via your art!
Thanks for your comment.
Warmly,
Kathy
Your knowledge of DiID is so spot on. The way you have insight on all the different family member is amazing. My therapist will remind me of your words. Their is as many as needed. No more no less. She reminds me that no two systems are alike. I’m so blessed that my therapy team is on the same page as you. My family member named Baby loves Listing to you voice . It brings her comfort. Your storytelling and your interview. Keep up the good work.
Thank you, Lori.
I’m glad you had the opportunity to hear the podcast — thank you! And yes, it is a super good thing that your therapy team views DID in the same ways that I do. There are many conflicting opinions out there, of course, but so keep with one unified approach will be the most helpful for you and your system.
Thank you, Baby (Lori’s little one, Baby), for listening to my voice, and I’m glad it’s helpful for you! Have you also listened to all the videos on YouTube? There are about 20 or so videos there. I need to be making more videos… I’ve got that on my To Do list! 🙂
I appreciate your kind sentiments, and please keep reading and writing — I’m glad you’re here!!
Warmly,
Kathy
Hey KBear !!
You are always so much fun to listen to. You have the knowledge and expertise so so many trauma survivors need and so few other therapists have. It’s hard to explain differences between normal dissociation and DID dissociation, you did a very good job. I think a lot of people may think IFS is the same as DID but IMO it is not. I think the interviewer was trying to understand the extreme dissociation in DID while also giving her audience some education about dissociation being a natural defense that everyone has. I think you both did an excellent job.
Keep up the good work !!
Thanks, KenKen –
I kinda do like to teach — it’s just good to let more people know about this stuff, coz yeah, once we’ve found things that work really well, there’s no need for everyone to fumble around looking for what to do. I had a giggle with 2 of my brothers while I was in Texas, and we were realizing we are all moving more and more into “teaching roles” in our careers, and that our mom (a kindergarten teacher for decades) would be sooooo proud that we’ve all followed in her footsteps becoming teachers.
But hey! It’s good to learn!
Thanks for listening. 🙂
Warmly,
KBear
Hi Kathy,
Well, a big shout out to you for a great interview. Your incredible understanding, experience and dedication to the DID community shone through. I think that it is really cute how self-critical you can be (i.e., thinking being nervous came out in your voice). Sounded professional, compassionate and super knowledgeable at my end. ☺
I do not want what follows to be interpreted as critical of the interview but rather to offer my perspective from a purely analytical standpoint. I felt that the questions ask of you were a bit askew. By that I mean that Hanna seemed to have an understanding and agenda (in terms of what she wanted to hear/discuss) that did not feel on target with who you are and what you do. Of course, Hanna would be prepared to direct the discussion as fits her radio show. But, I felt that many of the questions were not answerable or, at the very least, not understandable in the context of dissociation, in general, and DID, in particular. I felt that you did a stellar job steering the discussion back on track but sometimes the questions threw the momentum off. Just my take on the interview.
Anyway, I really enjoyed hearing all of your answers and examples. So well worth listening to. And, yes I did have two topic areas that I would like to offer (maybe as potential blog topics … maybe I have missed them there already?).
1.You spoke of addictions (food, alcohol, drugs) as having a role in DID. I would like to know more about that and how we deal with those. That seems like an out of control area for me so this is a somewhat selfish suggestion.
2. You spoke of the causes of DID – namely trauma in childhood. Sexual abuse is a given. But, maybe you could list the other causes that you have encountered in your decades of work with DID folks.
With humble gratitude,
ME+WE
08/06/18
Great points, Me+We, thanks for listening.
I have to give kudos to Hanna for editing out certain bits (including some background noise where my little granddaughter was tearfully upset that she couldn’t come in and see what Mimi was doing!). And while we were only meant to record a 55-minute podcast, we got to chatting away for quite awhile, and Hanna decided to save all the bits to make it 2 episodes. I haven’t heard the second half yet, but I think I was feeling a little calmer by then.
And YES! Hanna threw a bit of a curve-ball at me asking questions about dissociation for regular people vs how dissociation is in extreme situations. I wanted to ask her — “HEY! Don’t you know my expertise IS with the extreme???” But I behaved, LOL. Besides, lots and lots of trauma survivors show up not realizing exactly how dissociative they are. They think they are only “a little dissociative”, and they really don’t think they have insiders or DID, but then…. with a little deeper look into things, and more detailed questions, it becomes more obvious that yes… in fact, they do. So… it was still good to talk about that, and I need to be a little quicker on my feet, lol.
Let me have a think about your 2 topics, and see what I can pull together. Good questions!
I’m glad you enjoyed the podcast — silliness and all. 🙂
Thanks for listening.
Warmly,
Kathy
I appreciated this interview Cathy, and hearing your voice for the first time. I also agree with Me+We’s comments above. The interview was somewhat at crossed purposes, and the interviewer seemed to be looking for charachter faults and bad choices which explained people’s dissociative behaviour, so it was great that you explained the humanity and the mechanism in it all. I really appreciated your positivity warmth and humanity, which is something I am having a bit of trouble with feeling toward other people because I am so shocked about the depth, scale and types of criminality that I have become aware of in my own healing journey and related research, and in my day to day environment.
Theresa of dis-sos.com has recently reviewed The Haunted Self by Hart, Nijenhuis & Steele, and points out that it is necessary to differentiate structural dissociation from dissociative experiences, and I am coming to agree with her. I think the mixing of these two things caused a lack of clarity in the interview.
Hearing you talk gave me a nice feeling.
Hi Declan,
Welcome to Discussing Dissociation and thanks so much for your comment.
You’ve made a good point about the difference between dissociative experiences and a structural dissociative system — well said because they are two very different degrees of dissociation, and in essence, two completely different situations. I was a bit caught off-guard about that in this particular interview, (I was prepared to talk DID-dissociation and didn’t make the mental shift quickly enough, for my liking), so thank you for the reference to helpful materials.
I know the second half of the interview smoothed out more because we were able to get more on the same wavelength. 😛
I’m glad my words were helpful and positive for you — that’s excellent. Really happy to hear that.
OH — and I have a whole string of other videos , and of course, you are invited to watch those too.
Thanks for listening!
Warmly,
Kathy
Did you put pink in your hair Kathy?
Hi Jill People !!
YES!!! Pink AND purple !! That was a Christmas gift to me from my kids (“MOM, you GOTTA do something with your HAIR!” was more like it, hahahaha) so at the end of December, I got a whole sunset of color at the back. The purple has faded out now, so it’s more pink, but that’s slowly going too… 🙁 . I can always do it again tho’. 🙂
The picture used for the podcast was taken in March, so as you can see, if you look at the next link, it’s softening a lot now.
You can see a picture of my July 2018 hair on this page. 🙂
Fun!!
😀 😀 😀
I love it! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️