Understanding the Far Reach of Childhood Trauma with Diana Bishop

 Have you ever wondered how childhood experiences shape your life, health, and relationships? 
 
 Join us as we navigate this intriguing exploration with Diana Bishop, a Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, Certified Wellness Practitioner, and Trauma Therapist who offers a candid look into her life, recovery, and the transformative power of understanding trauma. 
 
 Diana’s healing journey, her expertise in health behavior change, and her partnerships with Dr. Vincent Fellitti for over 15 years in various capacities, including the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study.
 
 In our conversation, we deeply dive into the ACE score— a measure of adverse childhood experiences, its health implications, and how it ultimately informs our coping mechanisms and susceptibility to addictions and illness. Diana affirms the importance of the mind-body connection and how it can enhance our physical and mental health care. 
 
 Lastly, you’ll hear how emotions like grief can quietly take residence within us and how crucial resources can aid those affected by trauma in rebuilding neurological connectors and fostering healthy relationships. Tune in for an enlightening exploration that promises to empower.
 
 Here are the resources we discussed in this episode:

Adverse Childhood Experiences Research:    https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html

PACES Connected – positive and adverse childhood experiences research and resources:  

https://www.acesconnectioninfo.com/

 The Body Keeps the Score - https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score

The Deepest Well - https://centerforyouthwellness.org/the-deepest-well/

The Myth of Normal - https://drgabormate.com/book/the-myth-of-normal/

The Polyvagal Theory - https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org/whatispolyvagaltheory?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqv2unNjkgAMVYgCtBh1lDwwOEAAYASAAEgLxEPD_BwE

Connect with Jen:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ineedbluepodcast/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-lee-017097215/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp1q8SfA_hEXRJ4EaizlW8Q
Website: https://ineedblue.net/

The background music is written, performed and produced exclusively by Char Good.
https://chargood.com/home

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Everyone has a story. They just don't always have a place to share it Music. Welcome back. This is Jen Lee, creator and host of I Need Blue podcast. True Crime to True Life.

Speaker 1: 0:21

As a survivor of arm dropery and abduction, I understand the trauma and triggers survivors experience Knowing this and through my powerful podcast, I offer survivors a safe place to share their lived experiences. Survivors need blue to feel they belong, they are loved, understood and my favorite empowered. Please note I Need Blue does contain sensitive topics which could be triggering. Please seek help if needed and remember you always come first. I Need Blue. Episodes can be found on Apple Podcast, Spotify and many listening platforms, including my website, wwwineedbluenet. I would like to thank Shar Good, the talented violinist who composed and performed this opening music. You can find information about Shar Good on my website. As always, thank you for listening.

Speaker 1: 1:25

Let's begin today's episode. We are not broken. Diana said to me with compassion in her voice. Diana knows what picking up the broken pieces is like after a traumatic experience. She is here to share her story, healing journey and message, letting others know they have choices. Something new we will talk about today is the ACE score. An ACE score is a tally of abuse, neglect and other adverse childhood experiences. A higher score indicates a higher risk for health problems later in life. Diana partnered with Dr Vincent Folletti for over 15 years in various capacities. My guest today, Diana Bishop, is a board certified health and wellness coach and certified wellness practitioner with a professional background at Kaiser Permanente that originated in the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study with Dr Vincent Folletti. For over 15 years as senior learning consultant for the Regional Center for Healthy Living, Diana incorporates her expertise as a trauma therapist and in health behavior change to provide wellness programs to employer groups. Diana, thank you for being my guest today and welcome to the I Need Blue podcast.

Speaker 2: 3:10

It's always wonderful to be with you, Jen. It's an honor to have started to meet you and have these conversations. I'm very happy that we're meeting today.

Speaker 1: 3:21

I am very happy as well. We have had wonderful conversation in the past and I'm looking forward to continuing that today. We were mutually connected, which is always my favorite right.

Speaker 2: 3:34

It's so interesting how those things are so important. Relationships are really key in everything.

Speaker 1: 3:40

You are so right about that and you know, one of the things we were talking about before I hit the record button that I think is so pertinent but will also let other guests know they are not alone is you had shared with me how you had to prepare for your episode today, and even though you had shared your story numerous times before there's been a little time gap now in between that, but it's still. I believe you phrase it as every time you share it, it has a life of its own. Can you share a little bit more, dig a little deeper into that for me?

Speaker 2: 4:17

Absolutely. You know, I think the important piece that I've come to understand over time is there's a wisdom in our body, and if we're paying attention to the wisdom physiologically, emotionally, spiritually, all of those things then we have the courage to keep moving forward. But we can't always be at our best all the time. Sometimes there are going to be moments when those traumatic moments on a cellular level get triggered. We use that word triggering quite often, don't we? But there's a chemical reaction within the body, consciously and unconsciously, and sometimes I'm able to be aware of it and sometimes I'm not, and sometimes it's harder to be in better management of it, if you will.

Speaker 2: 5:09

But I did find, for whatever reason, I'm still not sure I walked daily and I was thinking about it again today. Why, in particular, sitting with you a few weeks ago, it definitely created a discomfort, really strong discomfort, in me, and so I think it's important to respect that, and so I gave myself grace, space and grace to be with that and appreciate it and remind myself that, yes, I have come in my walk this far. But, as we say, the body never forgets, right, the body, mind, the spirit never forget. And when they need some TLC, you got to slow it down and do what you need to do.

Speaker 1: 5:57

Space and grace. I love that and it is so true. You know, I guess for you I would describe. Being here with me today is really challenging your comfort zone, like you've shared this before and you're familiar with how to share it in the details. But sometimes it doesn't matter where we are, it's not even about the environment, it's just where our body is.

Speaker 2: 6:25

I think for some people that is very troubling. If we don't appreciate what it is, it's really just allowing ourselves to be human and that I can't be hypervigilant all the time, nor am I expected to be.

Speaker 1: 6:43

Absolutely. I think having grace is so important. It's something I've learned how to do. Actually, since I started doing my podcast, I would look at particular reactions, I would have to things and I would be like why do I have to be like that? Why do I have to do that? Why do I have to say that I've been to therapy for this? I don't understand why that feeling is still in me, why it's quote triggered right. And finally, when I realized you know, wedgen, that's not going to change and that's okay, that's okay. So I learned to have grace for myself, for that reaction that is just so ingrained in me. I'm not hurting anybody else, nothing like that, it's just.

Speaker 2: 7:25

I beat myself up inside for it and now I just forgave myself and I was like it's okay, it's just part of the threads of who you are, and I'm glad you caught in the intro that the beauty of this work, or the courage to move forward, is realizing there's choice and there's emotional freedom that comes with that choice. I'm a big fan of Sharon Salzburg, who is a great mindfulness teacher in our country, and she often in her podcast will laugh and say you know, I've been studying mindfulness and meditation for over 50 years and I still have that troubled mind that will go into that negative space. And I'll say to myself you know what is that all about? You know you're an expert in mindfulness and you're still fussing over not being perfect or being mad at someone or what have you. And I think the beauty of that is to step back to laugh a little bit about the fact that there are just going to be those moments and we can learn from those moments, you know.

Speaker 1: 8:36

Absolutely, and those moments are okay. I want to ask you this, so I Need. Blue stands for four things the B is for belonging, the L is for love, the U for understanding, the E for empowering. How do you feel empowered?

Speaker 2: 8:53

I feel I'm getting to a place of an empowerment. It took a long time due to my past. It's only now that I feel like I'm walking in an empowered place that I feel back connected to my true self. I am very spiritual, so my connection with God is significant in that walk, and so the empowerment is about getting back to my true nature, not the one that got completely thrown off as a kid from all the mess. But I'm 58 and now starting to feel a lot more like myself and feel like I have a voice. There's a really cool card that I just came upon and it says be the voice, not the echo. I've been with the one company that I've worked for for 28 years now, and if I don't start speaking my mind and believing that I actually know something, then that would be really sad. So I've really challenged myself the last couple of years to speak up and be empowered.

Speaker 1: 9:59

I love that Everyone has a voice, and part of the reason I do my podcast is because there is healing and sharing, and when you put voice behind your story, it becomes a part of your healing journey. It's pretty amazing. So again, I thank you for being here today and for allowing me to be a step in your healing journey.

Speaker 2: 10:20

Then now we're connected. It's neat. All the people that you've interviewed you carry their story, we carry your story, we are connected.

Speaker 1: 10:29

Absolutely Question. You were talking about how, now, you're starting to find your voice and in the voices where you find your empowerment, are you comfortable sharing those times when you didn't have a voice?

Speaker 2: 10:47

Sure, and it'll help kind of frame how I got into the professional work with Dr Vincent Folletti. So I, like many people in this world, was brought into a family where my parents were severely dysfunctional due to their own trauma. I mean, you can look, intergenerational trauma in my family. My father is first generation from Russia and his family fled the Cuscox. My parents were significantly older when they had me, so we're talking about, you know, 19, early 1900s. But that family was so traumatized. My father great intellect but no emotional skills, and ended up being a severe alcoholic as a way to self medicate his untreated bipolar disorder.

Speaker 2: 11:44

My mother was raised in a very traumatic home life as well Poor, poor, poor, poor, poor. They went hungry. There was a lot of dysfunction in that family and so I think what happened ultimately? They had no parenting skills and my sister and I there's just the two of us had to try to survive together. There wasn't much of a childhood per se.

Speaker 2: 12:11

One of the best ways to cope with my family was to. Both my parents were very intellectual people, so the best way was to either stay silent and or to have really educated yourself on something in particular and get good grades. And da, da, da, da, da da. My mother would have preferred if we were, you know, soon as she gave birth to us, that we would have become adults, because she could relate to us better. So the abuse in my home was severe neglect, exposure to substance use and abuse. And then my father having severe breakdown. When I was 12, he had a psychotic break and I was left in that. My mother and my sister escaped and I was left in that with him for over a week because my mother thought well, you're his, his favorite, he won't do anything to you, and so on. And so I was left with this person who floored, lay, psychotic, wouldn't sleep, and I was trying to keep him safe at that point. So then the roles reversed.

Speaker 2: 13:27

From a very early age I learned how to. I call it I speak crazy. I speak crazy really well, I know how to do that and I'm very codependent, I'm very compliant, I'm going to do everything possible to make you smile, and so I think this is how I survived in my situation. That led me into to going into the field of mental health and psychology not as a conscious thing, of course, if you look at most mental health practitioners, we're all trying to figure out our own stuff, right, true? So I ended up going to grad school and getting a degree in drama therapy, which is a form of you know, like there's have you heard of art therapy, dance therapy, movement therapy, music therapy? And so I did that and was hired by Dr Feliti, not that long after I graduated, to help support his study.

Speaker 2: 14:22

So here in San Diego, dr Vincent Feliti was just a general practitioner, if you will, family medicine, but he was in charge of the weight management program and the issue that he kept on seeing with his folks was that he was able to bring morbidly obese people down in weight with medical liquid supervision, prescribed liquid supplement bringing people down very quickly 80 to 100 pounds or more within 20 weeks or so only to have them regain it.

Speaker 2: 14:58

So he was trying to figure out why this was going on and he got very inquisitive. This is a man who had no psychiatric training. He just sat down with people and started talking and asking questions, and so that is the sort of the evolution of what became the adverse childhood experience of study that was developed with the partnership of the CDC Centers for Disease Control. He and Dr Robert Anda did this longitudinal study with a huge cohort here in San Diego of over 175,000 people ultimately asking questions so that original study you can look up and go to the Centers for Disease Control and look up adverse childhood experiences and it'll show you the original findings.

Speaker 1: 15:46

You know I want to continue into that conversation, but you used a word that I actually was on a podcast this morning and used the same word, and that is codependency and I in an abusive relationship. I was very independent and then, before you know it, you're codependent. You don't even know what happened, growing up in that environment that you did and basically having to be the caretaker of your father for that time. How did that affect you later in life? Was there codependency in relationships?

Speaker 2: 16:22

Oh my goodness, absolutely so. Interestingly enough, I'm one of the few people who I mean typically you'll find folks that were in very traumatic situations will self-medicate with alcohol or what have you. Clearly in my mind I was never going to do that, but I would get myself into these relationship situations hoping to. It's a form of self-medication I found is that if I can feel like I'm helping you feel better and you need me and I just evolve into whatever you want me to be, then I'm happy, then I'm okay, because I'm not thinking about myself. I'm overly fixated on what you need from me. So that codependency is that dependency on you needing me. It's so interesting.

Speaker 1: 17:12

I completely, completely get that. One of the things that I have found is when we can focus on somebody else and trying to help them make their life better, create happiness for them, then we don't have to sit back and examine our own life, because that is what we are running from is our own life and everything that is deep inside us. So we feel good. Right, it gives us that fuzzy feeling when we know we're helping somebody else when inside we have to focus on ourselves. But that is so hard. That is such a journey in itself, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 17:48

It is because there's a grief process, I think what was lost, what didn't happen, all of those pieces. And, interestingly so, I've been married twice and my second marriage actually became much more of a dangerous relationship. So you and I had bounded a little when we talked beforehand. My husband is prior service military special forces and he did not transfer out of the military. Well, subsequently became violent and I got myself in a whole lot more trouble. As an adult I had my life threatened again in a different way. So there's the childhood trauma and then in my mid-30s became in a relationship because I was so codependent I allowed all this stuff to happen, even though I am a trained professional In.

Speaker 2: 18:48

Any of you who are listening that are trained professionals will giggle because people who would judge us from the outside would go what's wrong with you? You should know better. Why did you stay for so long? All of the typical things where people get judgy about either substance use or domestic violence because they don't get it. So that really was transformative in my life in terms of me facing that codependency. I participated in that fire that became was our relationship originally and I had to take responsibility for it wasn't him doing things to me and it was us doing a dance together. My husband also has, wouldn't you know? I would meet someone and marry someone who has a higher A score than I do, so I have an A score of six or seven, depending on which version of the questionnaire you use, and he and I chuckle and he goes well, mine's a nine or 10, depending on how we go as well and I go. Yeah, you wound up me on that one.

Speaker 1: 19:53

As you brought up the A score. Tell me about that. I'm really curious. I don't think I've ever had one. I wouldn't be curious to see what my score is right. So tell me about that.

Speaker 2: 20:06

Sure, so you can go and search adverse childhood experiences and there are different versions of that questionnaire. It has thankfully evolved over time to really capture social determinants of health and being much more culturally confident. The participants in that original study were overwhelmingly Caucasian and middle class, so it really did have a little bit of bias going into it a bit, but it has evolved over time so we're capturing different scenarios for children. This study is specifically about what happens to you between birth and age 18. The importance of it is that, as we all know, from a biological perspective, there's developmental processes that happen in those. Most of the time we talk about zero to five being the most formative years. But in terms of his research, with trauma and the long term effects, he's really looking at capturing zero to 18. Based on how you answer the questions yes or no Children such as was anyone in your home incarcerated? Was there violence in your home? Was there substance use and abuse in your home? Those kinds of questions right. Were you beaten? Were you sexually abused? Were you threatened? Those kinds of things? Those are the bulk of the questions. Based on how many yes answers, that's your A score Now I want to be really careful about because I know a lot of people are going to or maybe Google searching and going to it right now. Please understand the ACE questionnaire is not a diagnostic tool. It's not determined that there is a direct correlation. It helps you understand that you become at higher risk, or a child will be at higher risk for things like high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, depression, asthma and suicidality and so on, based on that score, because there's two factors here. If we understand coping mechanisms, we're going to understand if someone has again untreated trauma from youth and I'm actually someone who believes that in adulthood this happens as well, but it looks a little bit different in adults that when you are young you watch how the other people around you are surviving and you may pick up. That's the way to survive. So if someone was using substances or violence or something, that's a learned behavior, okay. Also, you're trying to deal with deep pain and if you are not supported and don't understand and don't have the resources, you're going to do things like gamble, have a lot of sex. That is meaningless. You're going to utilize some kind of substance.

Speaker 2: 23:14

The objective here is the reduction of pain. Another good source for this conversation is Dr Gabor Mate, who is an expert in this field as well and talks about the addictive process and that addiction is not in and of itself a weakness or character flaw. It is in search of solving a problem which is pain, emotional pain. So you've got that piece. But this is where I geek out.

Speaker 2: 23:44

Most people have no clue how their bodies work. We know more about how our cars work, how to order things on Amazon, than we do. The mind-body connection and Dr Gabor Mate is a fantastic researcher on this. The mind and the body are completely connected. There is no separation.

Speaker 2: 24:08

What's really causing so much problem in our medical care system? Is that separation or trying to get people to feel like, oh, you're dealing with these symptoms, let me give you this medication, and so on. So, if we understand, if someone has untreated trauma, there is a physiological, chemical change in the body and in the nervous system and in our brain function, because we become dysregulated. So a child who is under attack and anyone who's under attack, it will cause the brain to go into fight, flight or freeze and or fawn, which is the newest one, fawn being that people pleaser part. So those are the quadrants for survival. If I do fight, flight, freeze or fawn, I will survive. They become maladaptive over time and the brain is not regulated. The connectors are dysregulated. We understand that the inflammation load in the body with chronic stress, chronic trauma, untreated trauma, will then also affect blood pressure, diabetes, obesity. These things are completely intertwined.

Speaker 1: 25:23

I absolutely agree with you and it's kind of like I know those things, but you put it into words and a perfect way that I was just intrigued. Just listening to you was like, tell me more, I want to learn more. I've always been curious type of individual anyway, and you talked about treating the symptoms. Like, for example, I have a functional doctor, so they don't just treat symptoms, they want to go to the root of the problem, because otherwise you're just taking a pill after pill after pill and you know then it's giving you more side effects that you need another pill. So really it's about getting to that root cause.

Speaker 1: 25:57

And another thing I was told is Secrets make you sick, which ties into everything that you just said. When you hold in that trauma, things that have happened to you as a child that you haven't addressed, it's a secret. It's a secret you're keeping within yourself and that comes out in adverse ways in your body, like you said high blood pressure, cancers, whatever it may be. So I encourage Others to using the resources you've listed in this podcast and if you would send them to me so I have the name, I'll put that in the show notes as well, because we're not here to make diagnosis, like you said.

Speaker 1: 26:38

But there is there's. There's power and knowledge, and the more we learn than the more we kind of know what we need to do for ourselves, the type of help that we need to seek. Maybe you feel like, oh my gosh, I've gone to therapy so many times, I don't know why I'm not getting better. Maybe because there's a different route that you need to take, and perhaps the information you shared today Will help someone find that path that they need to begin healing right. We have choices. Let's talk about that. We have choices, we do have choices.

Speaker 2: 27:12

That's the beauty. I think that's a sort of sometimes it can be a mixed blessing, because once we get to that place that we understand we have choice, that means that I become responsible somehow. So I want to be careful with how I have that, because I'm not saying that we are responsible for the trauma that was inflicted on us, but I think we have a responsibility to ourselves to understand what has happened and how these are our mind, body, our spirit work can work in harmony and that's why I say we're not broken. This is something I've worked in this field for such a long time. I'm also a coach and so either when I've done group or individual this comes up a lot I feel broken, I feel flawed and I'm never going to be the same again.

Speaker 2: 27:58

I'm sure you've had many conversations around victimhood type of positioning, but I want to really encourage people to to have a curiosity about what can be. I am not defined by my trauma or the things that have happened to me. It's not what's happened to me. It's how I react to what has happened to me and by understanding choice. I have a choice whether or not to learn how to get stronger, to use the tools that a therapist may give me, a tools that anyone might be able to share with me. What I find is really challenging in the work, either when I was doing counseling or as a coach, is that it takes energy to get well and it takes faith and it's going to take a while. Our attention span isn't so good.

Speaker 1: 29:01

Yeah, we want it to feel better, like within 24 hours, when it was like 24 years of trauma, like it doesn't work that way.

Speaker 2: 29:12

Exactly. It doesn't work that way.

Speaker 1: 29:14

Yeah, and the journey at times will be tough, but I really feel it's important to celebrate each little milestone that you get over, you know, celebrate it and then move on to the next one. You know you're doing it. You're the only one that can make the choice to begin your healing journey and then continue your healing journey and do the work. You have to show up and do the work right and that's very hard, but we encourage you right? We are testament as to why that's important and why showing up is important and doing the work, and for you, you found your purpose and I found my purpose. Can we go a little bit back now to your time you spent with Dr Vincent Folletti and delve into that a little bit more?

Speaker 2: 30:09

Sure, that's as I said. That study I think is really worth everybody looking into the original pieces of it. I think the other is he was very much a pioneer and a rogue type of. He definitely ruffled feathers in that original time because most people don't want to talk about this stuff, and so that study within our organization and many hospital organizations, even though we had clear data, showed us the medical risk associated. Nobody wanted to touch it with a 10 foot pole and that was so hard for me to watch. He's, I think, 90. God bless him. He's still trailblazing in his own way. He still speaks virtually around the world, but he, I think, what's?

Speaker 2: 31:02

There's a time and a place. I think that pandemic actually opened up a resurgence of understanding here around it. To be brave, also within the state of California we hired this is the first time that we've had our own surgeon general for the state of California and she has mandated that every family should be exposed to that questionnaire, to be given that questionnaire. She's written a book called the deepest well, and I'm blocking her name for some reason, but you can add that to the show now. She's fantastic and her work in that book, the deepest well, is also worthy of spending time with, because she's a pediatrician and she talks about her journey of seeing these families come into her office, completely torn apart by it, and seeing it intergenerationally, that the you know that the parents were having children. They had no idea how the parent and they had their own unhealed trauma. So what's exciting to me is that his work is getting a resurgence, renewed attention Because there's a time and a place.

Speaker 2: 32:15

It's so interesting again because people stray away. Who wants to talk about or ask questions. Hey, were you sexually abused? Tell me a little bit more about that. Nobody wants to do that and if we understand really why that is, jen, I mean, if you understand ACEs. Aces are extremely common. The medical teams themselves have treated trauma and they are not comfortable talking about it because they are wounded themselves. So there's a lot to be considered with all of this. But the beauty of it all is that there is so much that can be done and it's not fatal if we can catch people early enough and help them rebuild those connectors neurologically, give them the resources for connection to connection and how to have a relationship, how to be parents. These are skills. They are not something we are born with.

Speaker 1: 33:14

Okay, loving this conversation because as you talk, I was like, oh my gosh, I have so much that I could I can say about this as well. But to address what you just said about being parents, as a parent myself, there's no manual. You're just kind of, you know, making your way through and we're relying on what we saw as a child, yada, yada. Every now and then I'll meet someone who they're like I can't, I can't listen to your podcast. It's just like negative, and I don't get offended by that. But it's not that my podcast is negative, it's that it's real. And, like you said, there are some that are uncomfortable because that person they can't listen to it because it's making them feel something, it's making them remember something. So I can't get upset with them. You know, when they're ready, maybe they'll be able to come back and listen to it. But I recognize that that's what's going on internally for them. They may not recognize it.

Speaker 2: 34:14

Yeah, absolutely. Humanity has been acting this in certain ways for millions of years now. Humans are not always kind and evolution is interesting in our access, you know, or one of the only species, or the only species that knows how to utilize tools, and some of those tools became weapons and so on. I mean, there's a lot to this conversation, but I think the compassionate piece here, the message of hope, if you will, is that not to judge, because the truth is most of us have come from a situation and just never got the skills, and our walking around it's the walking wounded, right? I did remember the doctor's name, the pediatrician. Thank the Lord it popped in my head. Her name is Dr Nadine Burke Harris. Dr Nadine Burke Harris.

Speaker 2: 35:12

I often think of my work, jen, as a translator for trauma, and so I'll give you a good example of that. I was doing some health coaching for one of our customer groups with a gentleman, a young man, sweet guy, and in our first session he starts to tell me some things and you know they typically are coming to me to lose weight or something and then I ask him a couple key questions that kind of catch him off guard a little bit. Not enough to nothing to trigger. But I ask him and this is where it's kind of cool, because this I also am very passionate about us appreciating the sensibility between how men have been raised and their own, how men have been raised and their thought process and their neurology versus women, because we expect men to be women. That's another conversation.

Speaker 2: 36:02

But this young man, I asked him. I said what do you know about your neurobiology or how your transmission works? And he goes I don't know, not much. I said had you ever considered that what you were exposed to with your parents created a transformation in your brain? And that's where we would probably want to start here, because what we're seeing is you have adapted to that pain by overeating and he was like it took him a little while right, and then he goes.

Speaker 2: 36:37

Oh my gosh, I didn't know that that was a thing I thought that you know because in his culture, of course, most parents parented that way and he thought he was just weak and that his overeating was just him being lazy. So it was this light bulb. You could see when often this young man is very smart guy and then that pushed him into investigating more about how his body works. And he goes. You helped me translate my experience so I could understand what was happening. I really hope that I can be able to like you with your podcast. This is my greatest hope is that I can continue to help people translate that experience for themselves.

Speaker 1: 37:23

Absolutely. You know, grief is a really hard emotion for people to process and they may not even realize they're carrying that, or they were taught you know you can't grieve, you can't cry all of those other things, and we just carry that in. Is there a illness you think exists that is not caused from some sort of trauma or negative experience?

Speaker 2: 37:50

Well, certainly there's some genetic diseases, right? So birth is certain birth defects. For sure there's certain forms of cancer that are directly related to genetic factors. But I think it's interesting that you would ask that question because the majority of what we see in a physician's office, 80% of what a physician sees is psychologically based as untreated. It's due to the chronic stress. So when you are suffering from loneliness, which is an epidemic and can cut seven years off of your life, it's like smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Loneliness is, but you'll see within a medical practice, if you sit with a person a little bit longer, you're going to hear their stress levels are so out of control and then the body is responding constantly and creating so much cortisol and all those other hormones in excess that the body is inflamed, and so that puts us at risk for autoimmune diseases, ms, fibromyalgia. All of these things, at their roots, probably have much to do with untreated trauma and stress.

Speaker 1: 39:08

Yeah, I've read a lot on those things. For sure, and just with my own healing journey, the fact that I've put voice behind my story, like the dating abuse story I know I had not talked about that, right, I carried that inside for 17 years and before I started this podcast I definitely had a lot more health issues, the autoimmune disorders. Growing up I was heavy, you know you get, then you get teased and it's just a. It's just a very bad situation. But the tagline in my podcast is there is healing and sharing and I have found that to be true.

Speaker 1: 39:52

My own speaking for myself, my own mental health, my own weight control, how I see myself when I look in the mirror now all of those things have improved, not just through my, my work and in my own realizations and you know self talk but from listening to others and, like you, finding the courage to come forward and share their story and we celebrate together. We are not alone. We have choices. You know we can get there. I end every podcast episode with you are stronger than you think in days of darkness where you're like I just I don't know what to do, I want to give up. Don't give up. Don't give up, lean on God, like you said, find God, he is always there. And reach out to someone you know, absolutely reach out to someone.

Speaker 2: 40:49

The interesting thing is, again, when we're in that state of despair and darkness, with depression, there is that again, that biochemical change that makes it so difficult for us to see our true nature. We see ourselves as only evil, or less than or all of those dark things, and we've forgotten or lost contact with what's true about all human beings, which is we have the capacity to love, be loved, to create meaning, to create community. We are not meant to be by ourselves, and depression is isolative in nature and it creates havoc within the system. We're not supposed to be disconnected, so it makes us think that we're under attack. We're under attack somehow. So I really love you know your mission statements, your tagline, all of these things are so important, but I hope that people hold true to them, feel them physically. They're not just words, they are part of us, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 41:59

We are our own story right, our own book. Some chapters are harder to read than others. I have loved this conversation. I could go on and on with you. I think together we inspire people in a lot of different ways. You bring in a lot of the medical that I appreciate, that expertise behind it, yeah.

Speaker 2: 42:23

I'm actually a board certified health and wellness coach and also do want to share because this was on my mind beforehand the absolute trauma and horrible situation that my husband and I found ourselves in many years ago. The beauty of that story. I want to end our conversation with it today, if you don't mind with me sharing that, because of God, we and the support that we found from a chaplain maybe chaplain, by the way helped us walk through an absolute horrific time in our lives and we made a commitment to walk together through that and to see it through, because we have a child. That was the bonding piece there and that not all horrific situations that are involved in domestic violence will be terrible stories that have terrible endings to them and you'll hear me say this time to time again, because I'm a full believer in the recovery process the message of hope is that things can get better.

Speaker 2: 43:31

If you do better. When you do better, when you think better, when you hold on to choice and responsibility and allow for others to help you move forward, then that story can change. So the one thing that's so lovely about I'd like to feel and think about our relationship is that the trauma of both of our childhoods is hopefully ending that chapter so that our son is inheriting a different story. It's not perfect, not by any means, but he watched us because he right after he was born, this stuff happened. He saw us make a commitment and to work things out. We made a decision and so for us that worked, but that he is not inheriting a terrible story of tragic story is what I want to say.

Speaker 1: 44:26

Thank you for sharing that. So I have one last question for you. I know when we started this podcast, you had talked about how you were kind of nervous to come on here and talk with me. Now that we've done this for about 45 minutes, you've shared space with me. How do you feel about being here with me?

Speaker 2: 44:49

I think I just needed that extra time to get ready, and so I feel I feel very hopeful. Thank you, jen. I feel a really strong connection, which is lovely, and I hope that again, that that sense of love comes through in my voice, because that's really what it's all about. So, thank you, yeah, no, I feel wonderful. Thank you for asking.

Speaker 1: 45:17

Oh, you're so welcome. I'm glad that you feel wonderful. Your message today, powerful, insightful. I could listen more because I'm that, like I said, that curious type person. I just want to learn. It fascinates me, but obviously we have to stay within time. If there's not anything else you want to say, I think you did great. I will go ahead and do my closing.

Speaker 2: 45:44

Sounds wonderful. Thank you for inviting me and allowing me to be with you. It's been wonderful.

Speaker 1: 45:50

Absolutely. Thank you for being my guest today. This is Jen Lee with the I Need Blue podcast. Thank you for listening. You can find all of my episodes on Apple Podcasts, spotify, pretty much all listening platforms, as well as my website, wwwineedbluenet. And remember you are stronger than you think. Until next time.

Speaker 2: 46:50

You.