Mind On Set by NAMI Davidson County Ep01: From Here On Out - Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

In this episode, I meet with Jace Wilder, who is the Youth Program Coordinator with NAMI Davidson County. Jace shares with us about the unique challenges and experiences that can  come along with navigating and living with dissociative identity disorder (DID). 

Resources to Learn More About DID 

A Fractured Mind: My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder by Robert Oxnam

Moon Knight

Timestamps

1:57 - Introduction / Where My Story Begins

15:57 - Turning Points in my Journey

23:30 - Accepting the Illness and the Realities of Recovery

31:32 - Working with Clinicians

35:10 - What Helps

40:32 - Maintaining Hope

43:36 - Resources to Learn More About DID

46:49 - Speed Round Questions

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey everyone, welcome to the Mind Onset podcast by NAMI Davidson County. My name is Sarah Haynes and I'll be your host. For those of you who may not have heard of NAMI before, it stands for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and it is one of the largest grassroots mental health organizations in the US. Specifically, we work with NAMI Davidson County and serve the greater Nashville area, but we are just one of over 650 affiliates that are working in their local communities to provide support and education and mental health. On this podcast, we'll be sharing stories and conversations with people that have lived experience with a mental health condition. And truly our hope is that these conversations will foster greater awareness, connection, and understanding. So whether you've been personally impacted by mental health, have supported a loved one, or if you're just simply curious to learn more, then we're glad you're here and we hope that you'll join us in these conversations. Before we begin, I also want to just point out that some of the things we talk about in this podcast may touch on sensitive topics. For more details and timestamps of the triggers that will be discussed during this particular episode, please check the description below. And of course, please take care of yourself while listening. Feel free to pause or just step away at any time if you need to. And if you find yourself needing additional support, you can also reach out to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which is available 24-7 by calling or texting 988, or you can visit their website at 988lifeline.org. Today I am joined by Jace Wilder, who is also one of my wonderful coworkers here at Nami Davidson County. And Jace will be sharing with us a little bit about their journey today. So Jace, welcome. And we also have the honor of being the first person on our podcast. Yeah, so we're excited to have you here. That kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yeah, so um, like you said, my name is Jace. Um I am from a very small town in Cheatham County called Pegram. Um, but I moved to Nashville when I was 16 and have been there ever since. So um I guess go preds. And um I have mainly just been working with Nami Davidson for a while now. Uh I am the youth coordinator for Nami Davidson County. I have done a lot of work prior in uh policy, health policy specifically. Um, and yeah, so what's really been happening is taking care of my own mental health and also helping young people with theirs.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

So yes, absolutely. I would also love to hear about the YMU program that you're starting. Um, because with you being our youth program coordinator, shameless plug, also want to bring that up. What is YMU? Because it's a new program.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

So YMU stands for Young Minds United, and it is our program for those ages 18 to 30 because we recognize that there is a huge resource gap for young adults who are transitioning out of uh school-based programs or having just family support, even, and they're now being thrown into either college, community college, technical school, or straight into the workforce without any kind of safety net. And what also has been happening that we have noticed amongst young people is just a lot of isolation, uh, especially with social media being so prominent and a big tool that can be really helpful for connection, it can also lead to people not really able to make those in-person connections as well, which are just as important. So, with our program, we're focused on creating an environment where people can build community, where they can talk openly about their mental health with each other and be able to rely on each other, but also giving them a space to try things out for the first time. So, really, at the end of the day, it's about learning, and that means anything from learning about coping skills or learning about different mental health disorders, learning how to have fun while you're in a depressive episode or having a lot of struggle with anxiety or anything for that matter, um, and to challenge themselves because um even coming to one of the meetings is a challenge for most people. So, what we want to do is provide a space for people to learn, maybe even mess up, and still have that support behind them to keep going.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

I feel like too, something I've been learning since kind of navigating the mental health sphere is that a lot of conditions and um challenges can really start to develop in early adolescence and um or just adolescence in general because you're starting to take on so many new challenges, both internally and externally, and so I think this is really great that we're starting up this program and also kind of segues into my next question is when you think about your mental health journey, where do you feel like the story begins in your life?

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yeah, for me, um one of the things that I have always struggled with has been uh depression and suicidal ideation. And I know that's one of those things that when people talk about it, there's an immediate tension in the room because the idea is, well, if we talk about it, it's gonna give people ideas. And that I think almost kind of proves my case for when my mental health journey started. Um I was only about 10, and I remember at the time uh I had already started to self-harm, even though I didn't have a name for it, and I didn't have anyone to talk to about it. Um and I remember I had my first attempt whenever I was 10, and I didn't know where to go. I didn't know who to talk to. I didn't know that this was a thing because no one around me talked about it at all. You immediately were shut down. And so for me, that was my first lesson in mental health, which is that again, you just don't talk about it. And from there, I continued to progress in the wrong direct direction um into more and more mental health diagnoses and issues that wouldn't actually start to be treated until I was 17 and I literally like forced the issue to have to be dealt with. Um, where I advocated for myself and um basically understood that for me in that moment it was a last straw where if I didn't get help right in that minute, I wasn't gonna survive. So I drove myself to Vaderbelt Children's Hospital and I checked myself in, and um that was the first time I ever got treatment for anything, and that's whenever I had my diagnosis for the first time of uh PTSD, depression, anxiety, and at the time uh I also was qualifying for uh OCD as well. Um, and so that's really I think the two main areas where you know I have this beginning where I have all these illnesses showing up, but then I also have this beginning where I'm finally finding the road for myself to recovery.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah, I feel like too, when you talk on the combination of one, we don't talk about it when it comes to mental health, but then two, as a young person, just trying to navigate in yourself all these different things that are coming up and also just trying to gauge what is normal and what's not normal.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Yeah, I mean, like, because I mean that's that's a challenge too of like w I guess when did you feel like okay, things are not right, or like things are just feeling different, or they maybe are a little bit beyond what is manageable.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah, um I think genuinely the best and worst thing that ever happened to me as a teenager was getting introduced to the internet and having free access to that. Um, because both my parents are a bit older. They were on the older side when they had me, and neither of them are exactly uh savvy when it comes to the internet. So they also weren't completely informed or didn't really understand um that there are communities online where you know some of them are very supportive of mental health while others can be very detrimental. Um and I'm thankful that I had access to both of those, though, because it let me understand that there was a name for this stuff and that there were multiple ways in which people could decide to deal with it. Um my first memory of truly being mentally in that space of like this is not right, this isn't a momentary thing, this is not just teenage hormones or whatever, was um when I was probably about 14 or 15, at this point, um I was the last child in the household. And so um basically it was me against my parents because um I do have a close-off relationship with them due to prior abuse, and um at this point I was constantly hearing like internal voices all the time. Some of them were very threatening, some of them were very comforting, and it was really distressful though, because either way, no matter if they were nice or not nice or whatever it was, um, it was still just not something that anyone else was talking about or experiencing because I would sometimes bring it up to friends and they were just like, oh, so you're just kind of making up characters in your head, and I was like, No. Like, it's like I don't actually have control over it. So um, and it it also progressed at that point while I was in my adolescence to starting to have a blackout amnesia where I would basically kind of like, you know, maybe go home from school and you know, start my homework and suddenly it's the next day and I'm in class, and I'm like, okay, well, I don't recall anything. So it's like those mixtures of moments coming together on top of the already existing anxiety and depression, it just it felt wrong. Where it was like this cannot possibly be what everyone else is experiencing, and if they are, then they're dealing with it a lot better than I am. So either way, I felt like there was something wrong.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

I feel like too, with what you're talking about, um, touches on the importance of having community and like a good support network in the midst of when you are dealing with those kinds of challenges. So I'd also just be curious to hear like what what has support or lack of support looked like for you through your mental health journey.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah. Um I honestly think of immediately a conversation I had with my therapist where we were talking about what makes trauma trauma and what makes PTSD develop. And I can see it in like real time with the difference between me having support versus me not having it because I think back to all the things that I now considered uh trauma and are part of my flashback episodes, stuff like that. And the key component of it was that there was no one there to help me process it. There was no one there to support me afterwards, there was no one there to basically kind of like kiss your boo-boo better kind of thing. Um, where um for me that was the worst part was this kind of constant rotation in my head of I can't save myself and no one can save me, so this is just a dead end at this point. And having that constant feeling of like my future is just like this cliff that that drops off where I had because I had no support, I felt like I couldn't even imagine a future where I existed. Um, so that really just continued to ramp up the suicidality and the self-harm and everything, and it really all just came back to me not having support versus now where um yeah, I still struggle a lot. Like um, I I am probably going to struggle for a long time, maybe even the rest of my life. But the difference of being able to tell somebody, hey, I am in a really bad place right now, and I think I need some extra help, and them hearing that and wanting to help take care of you, helping you progress, helping you get back to that state of independence or interdependence. Um, that has been night or day, and it's really allowed me to go from that survival mode where I am just in the trauma or I am unable to process it at all, and I feel so isolated to being able to actually deal with it, being able to actually face these symptoms and question, hey, why is this happening? How can we get past this and all that? And that's not possible to even try to do if you are in survival mode still, and that's what happened whenever I didn't have support. I was just in survival mode.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

I feel like too, when you pair that up against like workplace expectations, school, you know, family and friends expectations, internal expectations for yourself about where you're supposed to be in life or where you want to be in life. I mean, that just adds to all the stress of also just navigating a mental health condition. So um that's one thing I have loved about Nami Davidson or just working in the mental health space is everyone understands.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Everybody gets it and we talk about it and it's okay. And it's like night and day from going from a different organization that where it is still of that kind of mindset of like it's about productivity, it's about getting things done, and there's no time for mental health, but there's no time for it, but it's so important. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah, so yeah, you you really can't, you know, be there and and get the work done or enjoy the process at all, if any. Um, if again, like you're in survival mode or like you're not being given the opportunity to process anything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to go back um to the moment where you said you had admitted yourself to the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. Would you consider that as like um a big turning point in your mental health journey? Or if not, what has been a big turning point in your mental health journey? Do you feel think?

SPEAKER_01 16:14

I think it was definitely a huge turning point, but I wouldn't say it was like the turning point where I had gone from um just in that survival mode and not really being able to process to actually being able to process. Um whenever I was 17, that was like the first time that um I was advocating for myself, where I was saying, like, I don't care what the world's expectation is of me right now, I am going to take care of me and screw everything else. Um, and so when I made that decision, it led to the series of events of having for the first time conversations with psychiatrists about medication and conversations with um different agencies and uh therapists to talk about what has happened up to this point, about what I'm struggling with, all that. And so, because there was all these first times happening, it allowed me to get kind of a baseline for okay, this is what it actually looks like to take care of your mental health. Like it's no longer a laundry list of things that I've never heard of. It is now I have experience in these places and I can continue to build on this. But the biggest turning point was actually whenever I made the decision um years and years later. So I I went into Vanderbilt when I was 17 and in 2017, and then now uh at this point, it was 2024, I think. Yeah, 2024. Um, I was 24 years old, and I went back to Vanderbilt. And that was the first time that I had gone back ever since that first hospitalization, even though there were plenty of periods of time where yeah, I needed to have made that decision again. But I was so caught up in kind of like what you were saying, like work and school and all that, and like upholding this facade, this identity of you know, I I came from a low-income background, I came from a family that had never been a part of higher education. My dad didn't even graduate middle school, like he was pulled out before then to work on a farm. And like having those internal and external uh expectations, like you were saying, and pressure really made it so that I felt like I had to perform all the time and I had to perform to a high level, and the more I climbed, it felt like the higher the expectations kept going, and so I didn't see praise as a okay, you're doing a good job, you can stop here and you know you can live your life still. It was no, I have to now continue going up, and it was endless. It and I made that my entire identity was being the person that um like the nonprofit I was working with, Tennessee Equality Project, like being able to be that person that they relied on for public-facing interviews and for education and stuff like that. And don't get me wrong, I loved working there and it was a great, great opportunity, but not being able to accept help from other people, not being able to delegate to others or um to stop putting that pressure on myself to perform at that high of a level kept me in this corner basically where my mental health wasn't getting worse or better. And well, actually, no, it was getting worse at some points. Um, but it it just wasn't progressing. I was doing therapy, I was taking the medication, I was eating right, working out, all the things that are on that checklist for mental health, but yet I was going nowhere. And then whenever I was 22 years old, I had another suicide attempt, but this time it was very different because I had blackout amnesia, and that was still something I didn't discuss with anybody. It was one of those things where I was very ashamed of it. I had seen people get like completely roasted online for talking about any kind of disassociative disorders, and doctors up and down swearing that they're not real and all that stuff. And so I kept it to myself. And what ended up happening was, yeah, I nearly lost my life because of it. And so I finally opened up to a psychiatrist actually that I was seeing like maybe two days later. He immediately was like, Have you ever been tested or evaluated for any kind of disassociative disorder? Um, because at that point I had already been diagnosed with PTSD, it had been advanced over to um the ICD 11's uh complex PTSD diagnosis. Um, it got upped even more to complex PTSD with disassociative features, and I was just kind of climbing this ladder, but hadn't really allowed for it to go any higher. Because I was like, No, we're not doing that. So when that conversation happened, uh I opened up to my therapist and we had a candid conversation of um, she was like, personally, I know that you deal with disassociation. I personally have not met any uh alternative states, um, which are kind of like different personalities in disassociative identity disorder. Um, and we had that conversation of her saying, I'm not trained in this area. This is not. What I specialize in, I specialize in these types of therapy. And if this is what you're concerned about, I may want to refer you outwards. And I don't know what made me refuse, but I immediately was like, no, we're not doing that. I think part of it was because I had made such a strong connection with her, and she was truly the first provider where I felt like I was being seen and heard consistently, and that she was very willing to be flexible with me while also kind of keeping a no-crap attitude about things too. Um and so I was like, no, if if I'm gonna do this, if I'm gonna talk about this, I want to stay with you. And if we feel like later that I should be referred out after uh you kind of evaluate things, then sure, I'll do that. Um, because I I still do trust what she says. It was just like I wanted to be stubborn for a minute. And um, so that turned into nine months of just testing things out where she started learning more about dissociative identity disorder from her colleagues. Um, she started doing her own research, participating in uh different training opportunities to specialize some of the stuff that she already knew about to dissociative disorders. And eventually we hit that about like nine-month mark, and she basically refused to allow me to not use that label because my avoidance of it was the problem that was going to keep us stuck. And if I wasn't willing to accept that, then like where where do you go anyways? Because you're not giving a lot of room for continuing to try things out or to open up to people and to honestly say, Hey, these are my struggles. Um, because without that label, I was able to still hide behind, no, no, no, I'm still I'm still functional. I will admit to having depression, I will admit to having PTSD, but I won't admit to this. So I can keep it as far away as possible. Um and then after a couple of years, it's became this slow process where I started to uh talk about it with um different providers and groups and stuff like that, but I still hadn't really told a lot of people that were close to me. And then when I turned 24, um, I had made the decision to cut full contact with my mom after a huge fight had happened. I just kind of was like, I'm done at this point. I don't think that this relationship is solvable and I don't feel like it's helping me in any way. I was I was right about that, but all the traumatic memory and stuff like that, as soon as that relationship ended, your brain kind of goes, Well, yay, we're we're free, so you're safe. So here we're done. So we're peeled, so here's everything that ever happened ever, and you're gonna process it right now. Oh my god. So I crashed out, and I at this point I had just graduated grad school, and and everything that I was told was um the first job you have out of grad school, you've got to keep it for at least a year and a half. You can't you can't quit before then because no one will hire you, and all like these like big level like threats that are like looming over you after doing something that is already an achievement. I started working and I just was falling apart, and I had that conversation, and I had to just quit my job, and that was terrifying to have to quit my job because of my mental health and go back in the hospital that I hadn't seen since I was 17. And I remember being obviously like just terrified of like what this meant. It felt like I had failed in all this, but it was this huge turning point of I'm asking for help, I'm being honest about what's gotten me here, and I am willing to do whatever it takes to get back out of this because what that meant was me looking at my identity, the thing that I had built up and made into this giant facade, and looking at it and being like, is this actually worth it? And taking inventory of that and having to challenge myself to be like, okay, we have determined that these things that I only do as a performative uh thing, um, I I don't need to be doing anymore, and I have to let it go. And that somehow led me to Nami Davidson, where I had already been a part of the support groups um for a while and then had uh volunteered and interned, and I got offered a position here, and um in my mind I knew that I was gonna have to talk about my mental health openly, kind of like right now. Um but uh I was like, nah, that's not that's not gonna be an issue. I will just keep this thing in the closet and we'll only talk about this part. That's not how that works, though. Especially, especially when your goal is to get better and to show people that like this doesn't deserve stigma. Like if we're going to end stigma on things, that includes everything in the DSM, not just the ones that have been uh deemed okay for society to see versus the ones that have been completely disowned. Um and so I remember actually right before I started working for Nami Davidson, uh they had their Well Within Awards, and I had won uh one of the advocacy awards uh named after a member um that was part of our support groups who had passed away. And Jennifer Healthner. I remember I went up on stage and I did not write a speech for some reason, even though I knew I had gotten this award. I was just kind of stumbling on my words, and I took the leap and I just threw out there that I had been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, and I remember Don, our uh chief programming officer, being like, oh my god, he did it. Like, like, like just oh my gosh, like you you actually did that. And I think that they had the same thought that I did, which was again, like this is a turning point of me saying, I'm putting down this identity and I'm picking this one up because it's more valuable to me now. And I am okay with what that means. And ever since then, it has just been step after step where I've had moments where I feel like, okay, I've gone completely backwards. I I'm failing at this whole thing again, um, like I'm missing work, I'm like not not getting through basic tasks and you know, struggling. But I realize now, especially with the same therapist that has stuck with me since that moment, that that's part of it. It just is. It's gonna be messy. They always say like healing isn't linear, but you look around and you hear a lot of stories about people who have struggled with um any kind of mental illness, and the way that it is always presented is linear though. And the people that get the most uh camera time, so to say, uh, or stage time or whatever, are the people who have had a linear experience or able to tell their story in a way that makes it sound like it is linear. And the most valuable thing that I really did was say, no, it's not going to be, it's not pretty. I am gonna continue to struggle, and that is perfectly okay because that is what it means to be a human being is to struggle. Like it's it's just kind of part of the part of the thing, part of life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

I feel like the relief and accepting that as well. I mean, that just goes for life in general, I feel like. Because I think going back to what we were talking about in the beginning is we have such high expectations for us and ideas of where we're supposed to be at in life at at different points, and putting, I think, mental health in the mix of that, and everyone deals with mental health challenges, you know? Yeah, and you put that in the mix of things, and yeah, it's just what you said, it's not linear at all, and it's a roller coaster. Yeah. Um, yeah, it is ironic that we always talk about it as if, you know what, yeah, just take this thing or do this treatment and you'll be good to go. Like you'll be fine.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

You you could be done with all this, you'll never have to touch a medication ever again, you'll never have to go to therapy. And it's like that's not the reality for millions of people. Yeah. Like people stay on medication their entire life, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to ask one thing with that, because I think you've had a lot of experiences with different um working with different physicians and care providers and and treatment modalities. Looking back on all of that, do you feel like there are any green flags in care providers where you're immediately like, okay, yeah, I trust you, or hey, this is this is gonna work out? Or like, what are some things that you look for in care providers where you're like, yes, I feel good about working with you?

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Genuinely, it's gonna sound so basic, but like they actually actively listen. And sometimes that's reflected in, you know, some doctors will choose to repeat what they heard back to you to basically make sure that, hey, what I'm hearing is what you said, kind of thing. Um, and I think that's a wonderful practice, but it doesn't even have to be fully that. It it can just be I'm hearing you and I am responding in a way that makes it clear that I understood what you said and didn't take it as anything less than what I might say. Because a lot of times, unfortunately, there is a power imbalance, especially in mental health where the assumption is, oh, well, you're mentally ill, you're out of your mind, you don't know how to process things and make decisions and stuff like that, especially if you have a more complicated or stigmatized disorder. Um, so what makes me feel heard and seen is just kind of being included in the decisions about what's going to happen next. Um, because it's one thing to say, hey, like I'm thinking about this medication and I'm gonna write a prescription now and uh you could go pick it up. Is that all right? That's not the same thing as saying, hey, I'm thinking about this medication, here are the side effects, here are kind of like the pros of it. Uh how do you feel about that? That's a conversation. The first one's not.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Um, and I think that's a huge green flag is whenever providers are able to actively communicate with you. Uh, and sometimes honestly, just be a human being too. Um, I yeah, exactly. It's just like one of those, one of those things where it's like it's so surprising, but it's like, yeah, that's all I'm asking for. Um and I I think of this one doctor I had where he literally just came in the room and he introduced himself, shook my hand, and he caught me completely off guard because he was like, before we get started, uh, can you tell me like one fun fact about you that has nothing to do with your health? And I was like, You never get that. It's like I was so taken aback. I was like, uh yeah, sure. Um, and and then I just asked it back to him too, and it just it really set the stage for what the conversation was gonna look like and it took my anxiety down too because I didn't expect the conversation to go that way. And now I'm like, okay, cool, you're chill. You're chill, I'm chill. And and it really just makes things a lot better.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Yeah, it's wild to think the power of just if someone were to just ask a question and and not in that way of like, oh, how are you? Good, good, good, great, okay, let's get into it. Like an actual question, yeah. The way that just one like two minutes of that in a doctor's office, I can just imagine the difference that that makes. That's huge. I also wanted to ask, in talking about how mental health can be, it's it's a non-linear journey most of the time. Um, what keeps you going every day? Like what gives you hope, or obviously we're gonna have our ups and downs with it. So, like, what keeps you going or helps you stay grounded in the day-to-day challenges of mental health?

SPEAKER_01 35:29

I think that for me, one of the biggest things that I always have in my back pocket is genuinely I am now in a position where I am very, very, very lucky to have a lot of people in my chosen family. And those people keep me going genuinely, because it's almost like a little bit morbid to people who haven't experienced suicidality, but you have to think about it sometimes, especially when things get really bad, which is do I really want to put my loved one, someone who has invested in me and isn't even blood related to me, but has put like everything that they have into me? Do I want to put them through that process of giving them a funeral to go to that they can never take back? Do I want to make them go through that process of constant regret and rumination and carrying on the depression that I was trying to get rid of? And I know that there are gonna be times where I have a depressive episode, and for me, unfortunately, some of them can get very, very severe to the point of needing hospitalization, and they can last for a ridiculously long amount of time. So having that in my brain, though, of the morbid reality is you don't need to be making anyone bury you earlier than you are supposed to be. And the other thing that keeps me going is genuinely also just some small things. It's just noticing sometimes where um you realize, hey, like I heard a song today that I've never heard before. I hated it. I want to listen to a different song to get that one out of my head. I can't do that if I in my life right now. If I in my life, after hearing that horrible song, then like I'm I died with that song in my head. I don't want that. Um and one of the things that I heard that I have really taken heart is do you really want your last day on earth to be the one that you were most miserable in? And I think about that a lot because I'm just like, you know, I've I've had attempts and there's never been a time where I felt actually happy during that period. There was sometimes like this falsehood of relief because you have this idea that you'll never feel pain again, but realizing that yeah, you're you're feeling pain as this is happening, emotionally and maybe physically. I don't want that to be the last moment I have. Like, that's not the way that things need to go. And again, how am I supposed to discover the next song that I like if I'm not here for it? How am I supposed to know what my friend's wedding day was like if I'm not here for it? Um, and so sometimes it's not always about like um the next big achievement or you know, I can go vacation to Bali or anything like that. It's sometimes just like uh, yeah, I I really do actually want to get that latte one more time, so I'm just gonna wait till tomorrow to to do it. And so even just putting it off. So maybe it's not always that I have faith or hope in anything. Sometimes it's just the fact that I want to honor something enough to have it, you know, just have it exist in my life.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Absolutely. Oh, thank you for sharing. That's such a great quote, I feel like. I don't know where you got that from, but that's gonna stick with me.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Yeah, it it really like it it took me back. I was like, oh, I never thought about that.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Every once in a while you just find a good quote when it hits, you're just like, Yeah. Um something that recently stuck out to me, I guess more of a comment, um, and would love to hear your thoughts on it too. Someone also talked about like in the midst of ups and downs and and having more of the darker days when it comes to mental health challenges and and conditions, um, is finding ways to celebrate the little wins. And I feel like one of those little wins that can get ignored sometimes is although the journey of mental health can be so long and variant, every single thing that's happening, you're learning more and you're building on top of that knowledge. And so it creates that awareness of like now you can come in and recognize something that you probably weren't able to recognize before. And so I feel like that's such an important thing to acknowledge with how non-linear mental health is. Just know that every little thing that's happening is building towards a better understanding of yourself and what's going on. I think that leans into the question of like, how do you maintain hope, you know, in the midst of especially on those darker times of like so with that comment, yeah. What what do you think helps you maintain hope?

SPEAKER_01 40:34

Yeah, um, I think genuinely it has been trying to identify those times where progress is being made. I think one of the things that was pointed out to me uh a couple years ago at this point, or actually no, it was last year, um, with uh residential treatment was um even being able to identify that you are in a depressive episode or that you are having a panic attack and being able to name it in itself is a form of progress. Like being able to name things appropriately, your emotions or your coping skills, whether you use them or not, like if you're able to identify, like, hey, in that moment, I wish that I had done X, Y, and Z instead, that is you recognizing that you have the skills or that you know what is going on enough to put a name to it, like that is progress too. And I think that's what gives me hope sometimes is having those times where I identify something and giving myself the credit of saying, like, you you did do something. This wasn't an episode of something that you have gone through over and over again and taken nothing from. Like you said, like I still learned something and I'm still progressing in some way. And sometimes, actually, in the weirdest way, and gives me some sort of hope, is that sometimes when you're doing worse, that means you're doing better. And I know that for me, that's been a huge portion of my journey because um with dissociative identity disorder, one of the things that can come up is because it's a trauma-based disorder, um, your brain is trying to process and your brain is trying to save you from a situation. And having those times where a like an alter or personality is able to maybe crash out completely, that means okay, they're feeling more safe. They are maybe actually asking for help for the first time. Maybe they are identifying like that, you know, this was a traumatic event and that they have a lot of feelings about it. Um and having that hope in there of being like, okay, we're doing this, like we're getting somewhere. Um, even in those moments where it feels like you're absolutely at rock bottom, like it feels like you are trapped, there's no way out, and it's like reminding yourself of like just again, like that ability to identify and to hold on to those good moments in recovery. Um it it's sometimes it's just what you need.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Yeah, yeah. It can be like empowering in and of itself. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, thank you for sharing that. And um we're gonna do a a fun little shift into some speed round questions. But before that, I'm curious too if you have any books or resources, websites, if someone, if a listener of you or wanted to learn more about DID, um, has there been any resources or books or educational materials that you've liked or Jace approved? If so, I would love to to hear. Um in case our viewers are interested in in learning more about DID.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Yeah. So as far as nonfictional, there is a memoir uh called A Fractured Mind that is written by a man who does have diagnosed DID and it talks about not only his venture before being diagnosed and after, but actually goes into the internal world that is kind of created whenever you have this disorder and is written by the perspective of not just him but the other uh alters in his in his mind. And it has been such a relief to see something like that, especially since like he had a career throughout this entire thing and he was a professor and I think that honestly like warms my heart in being able to be like yeah the person down the street who you know owns this big house and all that they could also have it. Or you know whatever. It it's just so helpful. But as far as nonfiction my favorite thing of all time that I still do say is a resource because um they did a really good job of capturing the experience um is Moon Knight. So uh yeah I have mentioned Moon Knight. So anyone who knows me for more than five minutes knows that I love Moon Knight and I actually was introduced to it around the same time that I was being diagnosed and so it ended up being such like a like comfort show for me because I was seeing that yeah it's about an Egyptian superhero blah blah blah but also like this guy is going through the process of healing from his trauma and uh really getting to accept himself and the other parts of him and letting that actually like letting that stigma go and letting the people around him see uh who he actually is and what that actually means to him to be a person with DID. And it just it's so beautifully portrayed in the show but also in the comics as well the different takes that artists have had on it I think also express such unique and beautiful ways to see a disorder that has often been kind of trampled on. So um those are my two big suggestions.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

So yes and we already are gonna have so much in the description but I will also put those down in the description and I really want to watch Moon Knight because it's the second time you've mentioned it to me and five times I'm like I'm bringing the popcorn I'm bringing the top let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

Okay speedrun questions um so this is gonna be something that we do at the end of every podcast quick little witty questions just to to cap things off first question if your mental health journey was a book what would the title be I feel like the title would be um from here on out I feel like there's been so many times where I again like we talked about like where there's been turning points and having those discoveries of just being like from here on out I'm going to live this way or I'm gonna try this out or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

So I love that.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

And then it implies too it's like we're gonna keep going to keep saying all right well from here on out from here on out you can make a whole series this is great.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Alright second question what is a fictional character that you see yourself in and why I I I just gotta I gotta go back to Moon Knight.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

Oh yeah I'm gonna be for real but but also I feel like another one that I have seen myself in that um I I was obsessed with growing up was uh the 10th Doctor from Doctor Who. I think that part of it was because he is kind of the like edgy more emotional version of the Doctor that hadn't really been portrayed in that way before and his struggle to connect with humanity and to be a part of life despite the fact that he had just lost everything not that long ago for him in finding what home means whenever your home is gone I think that having that connection and being able to see that adventure of you can still be witty you can still need to rely on other people you can still feel lost and you can still be the hero at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 48:45

I love that and I have not seen Doctor Who but I have so many friends who have recommended it so I need to get on it. I have so many series that I need to get on. Last question um if there's one thing you could leave with our viewers or listeners today what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 49:04

I think at the end of the day for me I do a lot of things out of spite um that's one of my key motivators sometimes and really it's it's a good good tool which is in my head it's despite everything you will keep on going. In if it has to be in spite of someone do that. If it has to be walking crawling dragging despite despite despite you need to keep going and I think that that has been something that I've held on to for a long time to get me through the worst of times.

SPEAKER_00 49:42

So thank you so much. That was some great words of advice Chase this has been an honor to have you as the first Mind on set by Nami Davidson County podcast guest.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

So thank you for sharing your story today and just happy to be your coworker too I I'm so glad that I get to deal this with you and um yeah you're a great host asked wonderful questions and I look forward to seeing you at staff meeting.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Yeah staff meeting on Monday to everyone listening today thank you so much for being here and holding space in your day for this conversation if this episode has brought anything up for you or if you are feeling inspired or encouraged please feel free to get connected with your local NAMI affiliate if you are in the greater Nashville area you can find information about our community events, support groups and more educational opportunities on our website at NAMIDavidson.org or you can email us at outreach at NAMIDavidson.org which will also be in the description below but you can also find us on our Instagram and TikTok at mind on set underscore ndc but in the meantime thank you all and we'll see you next time on mind onset by NAMI Davidson County