Coming Out as a DID System at Work | Your Trauma Wise Career Guide Ep 45

What happens when a trauma-informed career coach comes out publicly as a DID system — and what it means for everyone navigating their career while healing?

In this raw, unscripted episode, Cyndi shares three big life updates: coming out as a DID system on Monica Ostroff's Healing My Parts podcast, attending the Healing Together Conference in Orlando, and the upcoming launch of the Empowered Leader Coaching Intensive. If you're a system trying to figure out how DID shows up in your career — or you're just tired of hiding who you are at work — this one's for you.
In this episode:

* Why coming out as a DID system felt like freedom (and why it matters professionally)
* What the Healing Together Conference taught Cyndi about resilience and community
* How DID shows up differently in careers — and why nobody's talking about it
* What's coming next: the Empowered Leader Coaching Intensive (8-week beta program, 15 spots)

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro & going unscripted
1:30 - Why showing up authentically is part of the healing
5:30 - Coming out as a DID system publicly
9:00 - The DID career continuum nobody talks about
11:30 - The Healing Together Conference in Orlando
15:00 - Creating DID-specific career content
16:00 - The Empowered Leader Coaching Intensive launch

📌 Interested in the Empowered Leader Coaching Intensive? https://www.cyndibennettconsulting.com/til

🎙️ Listen to Cyndi's conversation with Monica Ostroff on the Healing My Parts podcast — Business, Boundaries, and Being Plural: https://open.substack.com/pub/healingmyparts/p/business-boundaries-and-being-plural?r=5g1ein&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

🌿 Learn more about the Healing Together Conference by An Infinite Mind: https://www.aninfinitemind.org/healing-together-conference-1

Cyndi Bennett, MBA, M.Ed. is a trauma survivor and trauma-informed career coach. She hosts Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide podcast and leads the Resilient Career Academy, helping trauma survivors translate their healing wisdom into professional advancement. Cyndi's approach is grounded in her own 21+ years of navigating healing alongside a corporate career.

#DissociativeIdentityDisorder #TraumaSurvivor #TraumaInformedCareer

When you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you grow your career journey:

1. Free trauma-informed career development resources from my website! Visit https://www.cyndibennettconsulting.com for always up-to-date tips.
2. Ready to build a fulfilling career with trauma-informed support? Join The Resilient Career Academy Learning Community, where trauma survivors support each other, share resources, and develop career resilience in a safe, understanding environment
3. Ready for personalized trauma-informed career coaching? Explore my range of virtual coaching packages designed for different stages of your career journey. Visit my website to find the right support for where you are now. [Visit my website: https://www.cyndibennettconsulting.com/1-on-1-coaching]

DISCLOSURE: Some links I share might contain resources that you might find helpful. Whenever possible I use referral links, which means if you click any of the links in this video or description and make a purchase we may receive a small commission or other compensation at no cost to you.

Transcript

Cyndi: [00:00:00] Did you know that trauma impacts how we navigate our careers but most career advice ignores this reality? Imagine feeling confident and safe at work while honoring your healing journey. Welcome to Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide, the podcast that reimagines career development for trauma survivors. I'm your host, Cyndi Bennett, a trauma survivor, turned trauma-informed career coach and founder of the Resilient Career Academy. If you're navigating your career while honoring your healing journey, you are in the right place.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide for episode number 45. I'm Cyndi Bennett, I'm your host, and today we're gonna do something a little bit different. Today we're gonna go raw and real and unscripted, and that is very different from what I'm used [00:01:00] to doing, but it's also part of my growth process as an entrepreneur.

It's been a very busy time. In the last several weeks, we've had a lot of activity getting ready for launching a new product on trauma-informed leadership that we're happy to tell you about. But also on a personal level, we've had a lot of growth moments in the last several weeks and wanted to share them with you because this is the raw and the real.

I've had some feedback from people who are closest to me saying, "Cyndi, I really wish you would just talk to us instead of being scripted." And the interesting thing about that is that it's kind of challenging for someone who is just kind of working through their own trauma. Showing up and being seen as a trauma [00:02:00] survivor is difficult.

That has been a progression for me. I started out with that same feeling of dread of being seen and heard and having a voice way back in 2022, I think it was, writing my first blog. It was hard to come off of mute, to have confidence in what I wanted to say, and how I wanted to present myself publicly and show up in public and allow people to see me and hear me for the first time ever.

It's been a journey. Once you get comfortable with that, then okay, what's the next level? Okay, then the next level's getting on social media. And that is all scary because, you know, there's all kinds of gremlins out there who want to say negative things about you or whatever.

I've gotten to the point where I'm semi sort of immune to that because I don't listen to them. If you're a gremlin and you're gonna [00:03:00] put negative comments in anything that I present, whether it's a blog or a podcast, I will remove it. So it's kind of a waste of time. It's not gonna get me upset, irritated, downcast, or even that I really value your opinion to be honest, because I don't. I know whose opinions I value and those gremlins are not them. So, they don't have the right to tell me what they think of me.

But also the other reason is because I'm not doing this for myself, I'm doing it for all of you, who I adore, and who are walking this journey of healing work in a career with me. So this is for all of y'all. And this is a growth moment.

When I first started the podcast, that was also another step up in my development as a business owner and as a trauma survivor. It's another level of being able to [00:04:00] show up on camera. So, those close to me know that I really had a hard time just making videos for social media. It was so difficult to show up because when I got on camera, like my brain would stop working. The connection between my mouth and my brain was discombobulated, and so I wouldn't say the things that I wanted to say. And so, as a first step of showing up on video, I made the agreement with myself to write a script of what I was gonna say and read it, because I knew that I was a pretty good reader and I could get through the script without it sounding too awful. But also, I would be able to collect my thoughts and really be able to be intentional about what I say instead of fumbling all over myself.

Well now, I am at that point where I am at the next phase of growth where I really have a desire to [00:05:00] show up extremely authentically. For those of you who have dealt with trauma your whole lives, you know what it feels like to hide. You know what it feels like to cover up. You know, what it feels like to mask in public. And I'm kind of done with that. Like I am just done with it. I just want to be who I am, real and raw and whoever that is. And I just want to show up as I am. No pretending. No hypocrisy. No nothing. Just being raw and real. And so that's what you're getting today. I may edit some of this stuff out, but that's okay.

But also I've had an opportunity to really step out and do some pretty brave things in the last couple weeks. I was on Monica Ostroff's podcast, The Healing My Parts podcast, where I had the opportunity to come out as a DID system.

For those of you who don't know what Dissociative Identity Disorder is: it's a trauma [00:06:00] diagnosis that is on the far end, the most extreme end of the trauma continuum. And it's for those who have really suffered a lot. It took me a long time to get to that place where, I mean, it's only been the last, I would say, four years that I had the diagnosis. And it took me half that time to really come out of denial because I didn't want it to be true. And once I got out of denial, it took me a minute to really say, okay, it's time to work on this now. There are some things that are getting in the way and I need to be able to work through those and do the hard things. It's only been less than a year since I've found a new therapist who is helping me now to really learn how to work and collaborate with my system and to understand and communicate with my parts.

And so I say that not to get attention, but for folks to understand [00:07:00] that you can be a system and still be very successful in your career. There are folks that are on both continuums, right? There are folks in the very beginning continuum, very beginning of their healing journey, where the trauma has taken up their life and their job is to heal, that's their job, right? And they're doing the very best that they can with so many things that are coming up for them and emotions and learning how to tolerate them and how to learn coping skills and strategies, and it's taking up all their capacity.

And then there's folks who have, you know, have gotten a little bit further in their journey and have learned some coping skills and have some room and space to maybe hold down a job and want to be able to continue to move forward in that job.

And then there's, then there's folks on the other end where it is really difficult to think about [00:08:00] DID and the concept of careers because it's no longer a one-on-one session, when I'm doing coaching. It's no longer a one-on-one session, it is a group session immediately, and so it's different. There's not one decision maker. There's not one person who has all the talent and skill. It's the sum of all the parts, and it's getting them to collaborate and to work together in order to do what it is that they've decided that they want to do.

It's a continuum of folks. And you'll hear me say this all the time: this is your journey. This is your journey, and this is my journey, right? We all have different journeys. We all get to decide what we want to do, how we want to live it, who we want to share it with, and how far we want to move. And if you don't want to move any further than where you are, that is totally fine.

And if you do want to move further and continue to grow and to [00:09:00] change, there are people that are out there that can help you. You don't have to do it alone. There's a whole community of trauma survivors in this world.

Because the world is made up of 78% of people in the general public who've been exposed to at least one incident of trauma in their lifetime. And knowing the world as it is today, that doesn't surprise me. I would think it would probably be higher than that, to be honest. And as a matter of fact, I was thinking about this this morning, I think that people who have not been exposed to trauma are in the minority to be honest, that's what I think.

And so for those of us who have had trauma, most of our lives, who have had trauma as children, and grown up that way and had our developmental cycle impacted by trauma, and the way that we see ourselves, and the way that we see the world, and how it shows up at work... i'm with you. I'm with you. I get it. It's not an easy [00:10:00] journey, and we have a lot of baggage that we bring into our careers when we go, and the more that we are able to empty that backpack of baggage, the freer we are to be able to do and to be whoever it is that we want to be without the impact of trauma showing up in our lives.

So that for me, has been amazing. I just want to publicly thank Monica Ostroff for really providing a very soft place for me to land and to provide a very safe space for me to come out. The encouragement that she's given me and provided to me as a system who is also a coach, who is also a SVP at a very big financial institution, and those who are really ministering and wanting to serve the trauma community. So I just want to thank her publicly for that.

It was a really big [00:11:00] deal for me and provided really a sense of freedom. Freedom to just be. There's no hiding. There's no pretending. There's no masking. And I just feel so free. I'm so thankful for that and I'm looking forward to seeing what that decision will then look like as I move forward and how I can just show up as I am and be able to speak to the broader trauma audience. So that was the first thing that happened and that happened about three weeks ago that came out. So it was a really big deal.

And then I had the privilege of going to the Healing Together conference in Orlando, Florida this month. It is put on by the Infinite Mind Group and it is a one of a kind annual conference for people with dissociation, and DID, their loved ones, and mental health professionals. It's a [00:12:00] psychoeducational weekend-long conference of learning and healing while building community. And I will tell you, it is a magical place. As someone who is just new to working on her DID system, I never had the opportunity of seeing another system in person before, until my trip down there. It was amazing and also very affirming. People came from all walks of life, from all places in the globe to be there, and they were very accepting and holding space for one another. Littles would show up and find each other and people would be triggered by things, but with support, and everybody was just wonderful and accepting even of all of our differences and how we showed up. It was just an amazing, amazing experience and I want to go back there and meet more friends and build community with [00:13:00] them and to hear their stories, It's just amazing how much resilience are in this community and how much they've overcome to even get to the place where they could go to the conference.

So if you were at the conference and I didn't meet you, put a comment in the comments below and send me your information. Let me know how I can get ahold of you and maybe we can connect. I would love that.

I really have a desire in my heart to bring a lesson or a breakout session to the Healing Together Conference on Careers. I know I've said this before, but as it relates to trauma and trauma survivors, and now especially people who are living with DID, nobody's talking about how it impacts our careers. They're not. I mean, they're talking about trauma. They talk about treatment modalities. They talk about types of trauma. They talk about what's your diagnosis of trauma. They talk about trauma [00:14:00] research. But nobody's really talking about how trauma shows up in your career, and especially if you're a system. Right? How does that show up? How do you work with that? How do you collaborate? How do you get consensus, as a system in order to be fully functional? Because there are many, many systems out there who are amazing that they have parts that just show up and get stuff done, and they are amazing. But there are also. Folks that aren't able to do that, aren't able to hold down a full-time job because recovering from the trauma that they've experienced is their full-time job. And it's everybody in between.

There's different things that are related to being a system and how that shows up in your careers than maybe just a regular trauma survivor who maybe has not experienced that. It still shows up in your career. It just shows up differently. And there are [00:15:00] different skills and different things that you need to think about as you consider what do you want to do in your career? How do you want to build it? Where do you want to go? How do you leverage the amazing skillset that all the parts have to work together and collaborate to do the things that you want to do?

I've got some thoughts about that. I'm thinking about maybe doing a presentation on that and around careers. So if there's something that you want to hear, let me know, drop it in the comments and let me know. And we can create some of these episodes that are related or specific for folks that have DID and DID systems. So I'm really looking forward to that.

So let's see where we are. Yeah, I think that's all we wanted to cover today, but I'm really grateful for all of you. It's been such a wonderful journey so far after 45 episodes, who knew? Right? Who knew? And I'm looking forward to seeing what lies ahead and to [00:16:00] seeing what else we can do.

We've got a new product that's coming out and it's all about trauma-informed leadership. It's called the Empowered Leader Coaching Intensive. It's an eight week program, and it's starting soon. Enrollment will be opening this week. As a matter of fact, it will be opening on Tuesday. So I really look forward to that. It only can hold 15 people. We're just now developing it, building it. It's in beta, so you will be helping to build the course and making sure that we are hitting all the important parts that you need in order to get out of your trauma healing.

We do need trauma-informed leadership in companies, in mental health spaces, in non-profits. We need folks who will care for the frontline people who are interacting with folks that have trauma, because they need your support, they need our [00:17:00] support. I'm very much looking forward to that and seeing how that will go. I'll keep you informed on that.

Let me know, as always, if you have any comments or feedback or things that you'd like to hear on this podcast, let me know. Drop a comment below and let me know what you're thinking about, what you're want to know more about, and and we'll be on this journey together.

So thank you so much for joining me for Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide, this is Cyndi Bennett and I look forward to seeing you soon. Take care.

You're not walking this path alone. Every step you take toward a trauma-wise career is an act of courage, and I'm here cheering you on. If today's episode resonated with you, share it with another survivor who needs to hear this message. Together, we're rewriting the rules of career success. Keep rising, keep healing, keep building.