Ep. 43: An Interview with Heidi Armstrong

In this episode, Dr. Tyson and Liz have the privilege of interviewing Heidi Armstrong (injuredathletestoolbox.com). Heidi is a multitalented woman - a mountain biker, open water swimmer, certified dog masseuse, search and rescue volunteer, and mentor for injured athletes. She shares how her experience recovering from an eating disorder pushed her to examine her childhood and opened her creative side. Her words remind us of the emotional similarities between any type of recovery (whether from  injury, disorder, or crisis of any kind) and of the power of a true friend who can “read your label.” If you’re wondering what that quote means…guess you’ll just have to listen to the ep to find out!

Want to send your thoughts and questions to Dr. Ed or Liz? Send us an email at edonedpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Hey everybody, and welcome back to Ed on Ed, the podcast where we dive deep into the topic of eating disorders, looking below the surface and beyond the basic. I'm your host, Liz. I'm ready to learn something new. I hope you are too. It is a muggy, humid day in Austin, Texas, and I'm joined as always by Dr. Ed Tyson, a physician with over 30 years' experience in the treatment of eating disorders. Good afternoon, Dr. Tyson. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_04 0:36

I'm doing good. I'm excited today. We have a special guest.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Yes, uh, it has been a hot minute since we've had an interview episode, and I'm so excited to introduce today's guest. She is a horse girl, a certified dog masseuse, somebody who is an avid mountain biker, swimmer, skier, cross-country skier. Um, just found out she also does search and rescue with her dog. I mean, really, there's so much we could talk about with our guests today. And I'm so excited to introduce you guys to Heidi Armstrong. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me here. So this is a really exciting episode in terms of I'm full of questions that I want to ask you. I was able to read a bit about your backstory on your website, The Injured Athletes Toolbox. And I guess my first question is what draws you to sports?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

That is a very interesting question that I could probably spend several hours answering. I did not have a good childhood and a good upbringing, which Dr. Tyson helped me unearth part of that because it was in my subconscious pre-verbal days. And it cascaded over into my young childhood where I could remember things, and I remember always feeling like a burden in the house, like I wasn't wanted, and I wanted to do anything I could to get out of the house. And my first foray into sports was riding horses. And I met a girl in our neighborhood who rode horses, and then I asked my parents if I could start riding, and incredibly they said yes, because they said no to most everything. And that was my way out of the house.

SPEAKER_05 2:37

So I saw on your website your letter that you wrote to Santa asking for a horse.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

A dog. A dog. Oh, it was a dog.

SPEAKER_05 2:47

Oh, okay. I forgot that. But that's great. So you decided you'd get a horse and you you wanted the horse, and then you got one, and then you just kind of hung around with it, or did you start to actually I I didn't ever get a horse.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

My parents allowed me to take lessons, and I rode one of several horses at the barn. But I started finding jobs for myself so that I could stay at the barn longer and longer and longer. I was this little kid and I would walk around asking the adults questions like, How do you groom a horse? How do you braid their manes? How do you take care of them for shows? And then I'd practice on the school horses. And then once I got good at it, then I'd say, Well, I can exercise your horse and I can braid your horse's mane. But all of this was my way to get out of the house for longer and longer periods of time. So it was, hey, mom, can you drop me off at the barn at eight on Saturday and can you pick me up at five? Because that would keep me out of the house for the entire day. Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

So there's that level to it, but just in hearing you talk about the horses, there's also the level of genuine interest that was sparked from being around them, right? Like it has the benefit of I don't have to be at home, I can be in a safe space, but it seems like there was something else intrinsic that was sparked from being near horses.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Absolutely. It's a language that I had between me and the horse, and we listened to each other and we respected each other and we honored each other in a way that I could not get from my parents. Now, I could get it from my grandma. I tell people that horses and my grandma raise me, and they're the reason why I am alive today.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Horses are so I'm definitely a dog person. And I think a lot of the stuff you're saying about horses really resonates to me with dogs, and all of the work you've done with dogs, I'm sure there's a connection there. There's just something so beautiful about animals that work in close connection with people, the way that horses and dogs do. And it can be this beautiful relationship. I uh recently had the privilege of being on a commercial set where we were interviewing a 104-year-old, um, and he was a cowboy. Uh and you know, you're thinking, oh, this is this really old Texas dude, cowboy through and through, every single question. He was just talking about horses and how much he loved them, and it was really sensitive and soft. It's just like a good horse is a good friend. If you put in what you put in, you get back tenfold. If you treat them with respect, they treat you with respect, and it'll be the best friend you've ever made in your life. It was, it was really moving and beautiful. Um, and and I hear that with you too. It's kind of like not only are you doing an activity, you're making new friends, sort of, with these horses.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

It's also how I learned to trust. I trusted my grandmother, but I didn't trust any other human beings. And horses were my bridge to learn how to trust other human beings.

SPEAKER_05 6:00

If you can get a huge animal like that to do something willingly, the only way you can do that is because of some connection to the horse that is nonverbal but very clear and present. And anybody who's worked with horses that I've seen or talked to, they all talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

That's exactly right. Yeah, horses need to maintain their agency. You can't force them to do things because they can kill you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:34

Just one little kick, and there you go, they do it. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Yeah, teeth, teeth the size of like saltines almost, you know. And they're big hooves, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:45

Just moving their head, they can give you a concussion or knock you out. So you have to trust them as well, and vice versa, and they know that. And I I know people who and you know this very well, people who they're in a certain mood, and the horse just connects immediately to it. Might walk up and just put its head next to the person when they're somber, quiet. And uh I've been to a few treatment centers, even disordered treatment centers that have equine therapy. And I remember a case of a girl from Canada who had been going from hospital to discharge to hospital to discharge something in the last two years. She had only spent like 56 days out of the hospital. And that when she went home, she just couldn't do anything. They finally approved her the Canadian government to go to this uh place called Avalon Hills where they had equine therapy. And I mean, they did it. Their Wrangler was trained by um the horse whisperer. And um he could pick out horses for the girls, because this is uh all female, pick out horses to match them, and it was amazing. I had patients who went there who hated horses when they went, came back and wanted to have a horse. And that girl from Canada would not speak, she wouldn't do anything. And so what he did was he just had her out there with him when he was brushing and combing. And then she started to do more of that. Then she wanted to get on the horse and start to be close to the horse, but she had to be able to be nutritionally sound enough to do that, and that is what crossed the line for her. She finally did it. First time I ever saw that, and I went, okay, I'm a believer.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

But yeah, horses are used in therapy like dogs are sometimes so interesting. There's something about animals too that's different than people, in that they meet you where you are in terms of they're really just responding to your actions in the moment. And that's very different than people who might look at you, have certain preconceived notions, or have known something in the past, or be judging you for X, Y, Z, or maybe even that's just what you're thinking they're thinking. But animals really just reflect and meet you where you are, and I'm sure that was really refreshing for a young you.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. If I had an off day or was carrying a bunch of baggage from the house to the barn, they helped me process it and let it go. Yeah, it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_05 9:40

So then how did you take your uh training with horses from there? Did you do any riding or in competition or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 9:50

I did. I did show jumping and I did some three-day eventing, and I ultimately stopped riding when I graduated from high school because horses are very time consuming, and I knew I wouldn't have time to do that in college. And in the meantime, in amongst all of those years that I was riding, I got into swimming as well.

SPEAKER_05 10:11

Right. And so tell us a little more about swimming. You became an athlete in swimming as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Swimming was also freedom for me. It was a way to get out of the house and it was a way to move my body, and it was a way to teach myself that I could be good at something because I didn't get reinforcement at home for good grades or success in swimming or riding horses or anything, but I learned how to reward myself and positively reinforce myself. And I loved the fact that I had just like at the barn, I had a whole family of friends, and a lot of us were pretty odd and different. I mean, you you're you're probably not wired like everyone else if you're gonna stick your head in water for five hours a day and stare at a stripe at the bottom of the pool. And uh I had family. I had I had siblings, and we we got along most of the time, but sometimes we didn't. I'm an only child. It was novel to have somebody that was that close because I didn't have anybody in the house.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah, that's so interesting. The kind of contrast between like my assumption about swimming, like you're saying, is that it's a very meditative or like solitary experience of being on your own and even like sensorily kind of barriered from the outside. But that that was matched with a team feeling like you're part of this group of people your age who all are kind of like you and enjoy, yeah, enjoy staring at them.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

It's a very hard sport. It's a very, very hard sport. So we were all in the water, turning ourselves inside out, going through the same hell together. Yeah. And we could get out of the pool and high-five each other and say, we did it. We did it. Let's go to school now. And see you after school, we'll do it again.

SPEAKER_05 12:20

Uh and uh you became pretty good in swimming too, is that recall? You swam at UT at the University of Texas. Do you know? I think I actually timed for you one time at a race. Yeah, seriously. Uh, when the master swimmers were helping doing some of the timing. And uh I can remember you on the starting block on I think it was a relay. So, anyway, that's interesting. So you did swimming and you were coached also there. Was that something that helped you with having um coaches or was it mixed bag?

SPEAKER_01 13:00

This is a pretty mixed bag. We had even in high school, we had girls on the team that were shamed for their weight and told they had to lose weight. We had girls that I didn't even realize were so sick. And when we graduated from high school, they went to college and then they went to treatment. And I wasn't around any of the body shaming, and nobody talked about it back then, and nobody said, You're not gonna do this to me. It was a different if day and age. And there were a lot of girls that were not well in college, and people were more vocal about it then, and the stakes were higher, the pressure was very intense, and ultimately I just decided I can't be in this environment anymore. This is not healthy.

SPEAKER_05 13:57

Good for you. So, in spite of your getting so much out of the swimming, you decided that that was not worth the other part.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Yeah, yeah. And in the meantime, one of the guys on the men's team took me on a bike ride. I had gotten a bike at Richardson Bike Mart and the Dallas area and brought it back to Austin. And Petey said, Hey, let's go for a bike ride. And I thought, all right. So I strapped on my helmet and my shoes and my bike that was like two sizes too big for me with gears that were way too hard to ride around Austin. And he proceeded to take me up Mount Benell. Oh my goodness. And I was I was just dying on the way up. And we stopped at the top, and I said, Petey, what where are we? What did you just do to me? And he said, Congratulations, you're at the highest point in Austin. And I fell in love with riding bikes after that.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Wow. For for those not from Austin, Mount Benell is this local landmark. I've only walked up it, but it's quite a long series of stairs to get to the top. Uh, but it has this beautiful overlook over the lake and the hills, and it's really a magical place. Great place to watch the sunset as well. A lot of people go there to sightsee, and I can't imagine riding a bike up it. I don't even know how that's we didn't ride up the stairs.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

The roads just to get there are very steep. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:30

Well, a lot of people, I know Mary trained when you and she went to Switzerland. She trained by walk hiking up that um back and forth, up and down, up and down to try to get used to hiking in the Alps.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:46

So you rode a bike, and I can tell you that's harder than walking up. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

I would agree.

SPEAKER_05 15:54

But your capacity for exercise and and demanding exercise was something you had already really started to really have as a background that allowed you to transition to not just somebody kind of strolling around the neighborhood. So you started training then? Training on the bike. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Then I started riding more and more, and then I got myself a bike that actually fit, and then I started racing because some guys I was training with said, you're really fast, you should start racing. So I started racing. And then one of my friends got me into mountain biking and took me on this trail and said, if you can ride in this part of the country, you can ride anywhere in the world. And I thought, I think I'm about to get hazed. I proceeded to push my bike for about 90% of the ride. And he said, Don't worry, you'll get the hang of this. You'll get better and better. And over time, I got better and better. I learned how to ride all the technical sections, the little stairs up, the drops down, all the rocks that are six, seven inches in diameter, and that's what you're riding on. I learned how to do that. And I did it with the help and encouragement of my cycling friends. And he was indeed right. If you can ride a bike in Austin, Texas, on the trails around here, you can ride anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_05 17:28

And you've ridden around on a bunch of different trails.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

I have.

SPEAKER_05 17:35

I remember you did the Leadville 100.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

I did.

SPEAKER_05 17:39

Which you want to tell us, tell everybody about that?

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah, the Leadville 100 is the most difficult single-day mountain bike race in the world. It is all above 10,000 feet, and there is about 13,000 feet of climbing in the 104 miles, not 100.

unknown 17:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

Oh, four miles.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

You feel those four miles. Yes. Yes. So there's an intense amount of training that and preparation that goes into just standing on the start line.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Well, before we get too deep into mountain biking, I want to kind of focus us back in on, you know, you you brought it up first talking about some stuff your swimming teammates were going through in terms of body image and how that unfortunately kind of connected and spoiled part of the sport. Can you share a bit about your experience with body image, with eating, and how that started in your life?

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Yes. It may not be exactly what you expect because I didn't have body image issues. I just had no appetite. And from my earliest memories, literally my earliest memory is my grandmother trying to feed me. And my family is Sicilian. They are very into food. They are very, very how do I say it's very upsetting to them when children won't eat. It's extremely upsetting. And I remember sitting in a chair and my grandmother trying to feed me, and I remember just turning my head over and over again. And my response to stress is I just don't eat. And it's not because I'm hungry and I'm telling myself I can't eat or I don't want to gain weight or I don't want my body to be a certain way. It's that I'm just not hungry. And to this day, I could probably go days without eating and be just fine. I won't ever get hungry. And when I do get hungry, I will eat and eat and eat because I try to honor that feeling and that feedback, but I just don't have it very often. So I was in my early 30s and I was married. And the person that I married, it turns out, was a combination of my mother and my father. And the relationship became abusive. The worse it got, the less I ate. And I remember standing in the kitchen one day thinking, if I don't leave this house, I'm gonna die. And I packed a little bag and I took my dogs and I left. And then I got locked out of the house for six months. And I think one of the first phone calls I made was to Dr. Tyson. Wow. Because I said, I'm I I need help. I was emaciated. And I knew I was probably having other physical issues too. And I just could not make myself eat. I mean, I would eat and I would end up throwing up, not making myself throw up, but I was so nauseous all the time that I couldn't eat.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

It's I mean, just hearing this, I my heart goes out to you. But there's there's something really interesting in this fact of your family, besides your grandmother, who you have a lot of really positive um feeling towards, but your family having this food as a symbol that you kind of rejected at such a young age, like subconscious of you know, your adult mind at such a young age, kind of pushing that away and rejecting it, and how those things just are coded to the point where yeah, it's the instinct. Like you say, stress, the instinct is there without you even consciously having the thought, I'm trying not to eat. Just your body is telling you, oops, no.

SPEAKER_05 22:00

I'm thinking, isn't that what a horse would do? Turn his head away and just say no. And I was thinking that's when you have nothing else, what else can you do to feel control in your life? And you pick that, and to you it was worth it to not eat. And and I mean you may have truly not wanted to eat, but I can't help but think there had to be emotional connection of that rejection to what it did for you to not eat.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

I wouldn't say that that was a layer for me. It wasn't I never thought I am not going to eat because I want to control something.

SPEAKER_05 22:42

It would be unconscious.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

I I did not have an appetite.

SPEAKER_05 22:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

I just didn't didn't have any desire to eat. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:52

I am when you were an infant, were you hard to feed?

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yeah, yeah. Uh my family is Catholic, and they used to call my dinners novena dinners. So a novena is when you say the rosary nine times, and you can imagine that that takes a very long time. And they would say that it took as long as it takes to say a novena for me to eat dinner. Now, I do remember when I was with my grandmother alone and the rest of my family wasn't around, I would eat. I would sit with her and eat.

SPEAKER_06 23:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

Right. That's a I mean, that's a clue, you know.

SPEAKER_05 23:37

This it's not unusual when well, I have seen cases when people at a very early age, even neonites, because of things that happen, eating became something that was involved in a situation that was uncomfortable. You can imagine neonates, how they get tube fed and they're in the lights and all this stuff all the time, and you got IVs or whatever else going on. And so I've seen people take it all the way back, remembering that wow, I hate hospitals. Why do you hate hospitals? I don't know. And I said, Well, tell me, have you ever been in a hospital? No, never. Never? Were you born in a hospital? Well, yeah. Well, what happened when you were born? Oh, well, I was a neonate for two months. I was in the NICU. And I said, what is it about hospital you don't like? And it was the lights and the sound and the smell, all the things that a new newborn would have, that that stuff registers and it has an effect. And I think our more primitive mind will take and brain will take us, make connections and find a way for us to still maintain our sanity if we can by trying to shut those off, but trying not to remember them or whatever. And then when you could be with your grandma, I wonder if that was one of those things well you felt safe, that it was okay to eat and safe to eat, and not involved in anything else except just being you.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

And being loved for who I am unconditionally.

SPEAKER_05 25:16

Absolutely, absolutely. That she had all that obvious feeling for you, and it was she probably said it in words and actions, but the main thing was just you, the mood and the sense that she gave off all the time. That's and that's wonderful to hear.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

There's a whole side story about gr. Tyson helping me get to being able to say that and understand that it came from when I was really young. So I don't know if you want to talk about that now or later.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

This is a great time to talk about it. I mean, last you said you realized something was really wrong. You were emaciated, and your first thought was to call Dr. Tyson. So let's get into that. What's y'all's connection and why did that pop into your mind?

SPEAKER_01 26:06

I want you to start and then I'll have the start. I remember when I was in college, my best friend Christine saw Dr. Tyson as her primary care physician. And she had something mysterious going on. And she had been to five, six, seven doctors, been told it was in her head, been told she needed to see a psychiatrist, and went to Dr. Tyson, and he was the first physician to actually listen to her. And I think it's not an accident that listen and silent are anagrams of each other. And Dr. Tyson did not interrupt her. He listened to her whole story. And then he has this incredible gift of being relentlessly curious without being judgmental. And he was able to get to the bottom of her situation. And then later on, I had a first injury, and that was a mountain bike racing injury. And that was an injury where I completely lost my identity, full-on existential crisis. And I was rehabbing from that in a physical therapy clinic. And Dr. Tyson was really good friends with my physical therapist, Doug Kelsey, and he came into the clinic, and I finally got to meet him in person. And I'd heard about him for years through stories from Christine and stories from Doug Kelsey, and I finally got to meet him in person.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

What Dr. Tyson, what is your recollection of first meeting her?

SPEAKER_05 27:48

I I remember seeing her working, uh exercising, rehabbing her knee, and that she was absolutely determined. And Doug would talk about, the physical therapist would talk about how she had to work so hard to come back from that. And minute changes along the way is what it was going to take. Nothing big, and it's not going to be quick, it's going to be drawn out. And she was flat out determined as as if she was somebody who was going to swim the English Channel. I mean, that that kind of thing I saw. I remember time you came in and with your first husband, and you the first time I ever heard the word bonk, and you said, I'm bonking early. I said, Why? And you said, I don't know. And wait, you gotta tell us what bonking. Yeah, to tell me what well, she had to tell me what bonking was. It's like hitting the wall. You go and then all of a sudden hit the wall. Am I right there? Yes. Yeah. And by the way, I have thoughts on that, about what that is. Maybe we'll get into later or whatever. But um, so I've listened to her story, and so she's telling me, well, tell me how much were you riding? And she said, well, uh, you know, kind of casually mentioned, well, I think I did 50 miles on Thursday, and I think I did 100 on Saturday, and I'm like, 100 miles, okay. Um, do you have any idea how many calories you burn when you do that? And she said, quote, I know exactly how many calories it was, and you you came up with a number, do you remember? Because you had been tested, you had gone through all that metabolic testing at at UT, and um she says it's like 968 calories an hour, something like that. I went, okay, now tell me what you ate on Saturday. And she listed out some things. I went, Well, I think it's interesting because you you're taking in about 450 calories, and somewhere you're having to come up with almost a thousand just for the exercise. Gee, why would you bonk on something like that? And I got thinking, okay, what about the day before? And it turned out you were consistently undereating and yet still performing such incredible um feats by the amount of cycling she was doing. And remember, people, when she was cycling, she wasn't kind of oh, lovely day. Let's stop and smell the flowers. And no, she was hauling buns. Am I right? You're right. Yeah. And I and then um I remember you came back, and about two or three weeks later, and you said, It's amazing. I can't believe it. Just eating more made me feel better. And I remember her going, Wow, that that really helped.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Yeah, what was your experience of that moment? Do you remember that conversation with him?

SPEAKER_01 31:09

I actually don't remember that. What I remember is after that, things got really bad. That's when I reached the point of saying, if I don't get out of this relationship, I'm going to die. So things got better for a while because I just had more awareness of fueling myself. But things got really bad after that because I got very stressed out and left a relationship with a little tiny duffel bag and two dogs.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

It's something that Dr. Tyson brings up, is often like kind of right after that initial refueling that happens, then like once you're fueled, then the feelings come up. I don't know if that was something for you. Like once you weren't just fighting and your body was fueled, and then all of a sudden the feelings come to the surface. They have the space.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you could explain it to me. No, I'm kidding. I'm being totally so yes. I mean, what happened was things got really, really bad. I got really sick, and I went to see Dr. Tyson. He hooked me up to an EKG. He said, You have heart involvement. This is serious, and I don't think that you need to be hospitalized. You don't need inpatient treatment. You're going to get through this, but you and I need to work through this. And I remember him telling me we need to get to the root of this. And I also remember, oh, he, and then he also said, I don't want you riding your bike. And it was at that point that all of the feelings became overwhelming. And it became very obvious to me that all of the exercise was being used to keep me from feeling all of the feelings and all the things that happened to me as a kid. And I started going to therapy. That was tremendously helpful. And then Dr. Tyson connected me with do you remember Amanda Mellowspring?

SPEAKER_05 33:27

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

She was incredible.

SPEAKER_05 33:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

And at the time it was very hard for me to eat solid food. And we created a plan to get me some calories to start eating again a little bit, celebrated all the small steps. And also, Dr. Tyson, being relentlessly curious, started asking me a lot of questions about my childhood, my earliest memories. And that's how I came up with the memory of sitting with my grandma and just turning my head and not wanting to eat. And he asked me questions about do you remember what your mom's face looked like? Like, do you remember being in your crib and crying? What did your mom do? And I think our conscious brain might say, Oh, I don't remember. But I felt very safe with him. So I let my brain go there. And I remember saying to him, She didn't want me. She felt really disgusted. I was a burden. And through uncovering all of those things that happened to me when I was little tiny Heidi, we were able to more or less pull out the weed from the root instead of just mowing over it. Because when you mow over it, it comes back. And I remember Dr. Tyson giving me a feelings wheel. I still have that piece of paper, Dr. Tyson. I swear I still have it. And I used to carry a little backpack and it was in there. And I ended up laminating it, and I still have it, and I still pull it out, and I teach my clients how to use it. It's the name it to tame it thing, right? And once I started being able to name my feelings and process them with the help of therapy and be comfortable with them and learn how to feel, I became this entirely different person. Like I was living life in color instead of black and white. And I remember when I left my ex, I went and lived with my friend Christine, the same friend I mentioned before. And I remember sitting on the couch and just staring off into space. And she came home one day and she said, My friend's child is being baptized today. You're coming to church with me. And I looked at her like, I'm not going to church. And she said, No, you're going to get up, you're going to go take a shower, and you're going to put makeup on, and you're going to put a dress on, and we're going to church. You don't have a choice. We're going to church. I said, All right. So I went up, did everything she told me to do. And I walked out of the bathroom and she, we were the same size shoe, and she threw these sparkly flip-flops on the ground. And I am not a sparkle person. I'm just not. I'm like the person that has dirt under their fingernails all the time because I'm always riding bikes and working with dogs and stuff. And I looked at the flip-flops and I looked at her and she said, you know, for the last 15 years, I have been so worried about you. So, so worried about you. Because you you couldn't feel anything. And when you can't feel anything, you're dead. And now you can feel so welcome to life. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

There's something too about kind of connecting with baby you and then going to see a new baby. There's something when we think about our own childhoods, sometimes it takes then seeing a kid that age and realizing, oh, I was that when that was happening. Oh, that I was this tiny little precious perfect being when all that was happening. I wasn't a burden. I wasn't, I was a baby. And babies are crazy and cool. Everybody was Gulian and Goon. Yeah. And who should be celebrated? We should have all these people come around to be so excited for their birth, right? Like sometimes it takes those reflective moments to have the full circle realization that that shouldn't have been what you were going through. You're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_05 38:00

The value of a solid friend who tell you the stuff you don't want to hear.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Yeah, yeah. I say when you're stuck in a bottle, you can't read the label. And we all need that's a good phrase. He's gonna remember that one. I was like, he's gonna use that one. We all need label readers in our lives. We have to have them because we lose perspective. And I say, in order for someone to be a label reader, they have to love you and they have to know what they're talking about. Anyone else that gives you their opinion, you can just say thank you. Yeah. And the other rules are you have to listen, you can't interrupt your label reader, and you can't get defensive. Because I think it takes a lot of bravery for label readers to come to us and give us the straight dope.

unknown 38:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:52

Yeah, here's the full label. You gotta read the small print too on it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

Yeah. And I mean, a 15-year relationship at that point with Christine. I mean, it seems like she's at family level at that point. You know, yeah. Like she's your sister at that point.

SPEAKER_05 39:12

If you guys have been together that long and take somebody in Virginia, Virginia, yeah. Yeah, DC. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Richmond? DC area. DC area. Arlington, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 39:26

Yeah, near Washington, DC. For our listeners out there from other countries and so on. So I I um I I I remember you talking about that episode. And I remember Christine came to you and just said, I mean, you you told me about it, but I've watched you be like this. No, you're going to change today. And you did. These these pivotal moments, you know, you hear about the tipping point. Are you going this way or you're going that way? She goes that way. And this is one of those, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

Put on the sparkle flip-flop moment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:05

Do you still have those?

SPEAKER_01 40:07

They were hers. They were hers. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm not a sparkle person.

SPEAKER_05 40:11

Yeah, no, you're still not, but boy, those would be something to put on the wall.

SPEAKER_02 40:15

There's something too about her having been your friend for so long and seeing that pattern of you kind of putting a damper on your emotions, but still having like full and complete faith that you would one day access them and express them. Like that shows a huge amount of love and understanding from her to you to have seen 15 years of a certain behavior and be like, no, she's capable of other stuff too.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

Yeah, I'm holding space for this person to evolve and change and grow.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_05 40:50

You know, you had a really good team too. I want to include that. You had a great dietitian. She's still a very good dietitian, by the way. And um I just knew y'all would be a click, and you had your therapist. And you took advantage of all that. Instead of resisting and all that, you took advantage of it. And you really I remember thinking about you that you had the discipline of an athlete who listened to a coach and let the coach instruct you. If you trust the coach, okay, okay, it says no, you gotta do another 200 fly or something like that. You gotta do 10 more reps. And you're like, what? Nope, you gotta do it. Okay. You get back in, you do it. And so you also had on your team this friend through the ages, somebody who has always been there, loved you, respected you, and knew you so well that all those things came together for you. And you took advantage of it.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Yeah, and I remember thinking the first time I saw you as a patient, that you are not gonna give up on me if I don't give up on myself. And I was not going to give up on myself.

SPEAKER_05 42:17

I could tell.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

And also teamwork is very important. And if I have people invested in me, and your job was a physician, Amanda's job was my dietitian, I had my therapist, and then I had my role on that team too, and I was not going to be the one that let the team down. I did not want to do that.

SPEAKER_05 42:48

That's right. But then we made allowances for you to have your difficulties through that.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

It was never, it was never about perfection, it was about progress.

SPEAKER_05 43:00

You know what I say perfectionism is the pursuit of failure.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

So love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:06

Yeah. And that's the one she may keep it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. She has so many little signs. She has so many of them. I remember a time when you were in what you called activity jail. You remember that term?

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Yes, I do.

SPEAKER_05 43:24

Many, many times you were in jail.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:26

Couldn't do stuff. And you came in one time and said, What can I do? Do you re uh do you remember this? And I said, I want you to draw.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 43:35

And you looked at me like uh what I said, draw. Like, what what do you mean draw? You know, make an image. Well, with what? What do you want me to draw? I said, it doesn't matter. I said, I don't care what you draw with. You can be, it can be sidewalk chalk for all I care. It can be oil. Or it can be spray painting. I have no idea what it is. And I really don't care because that's not the point. And you went, what? And I said, I want you to do at least a half hour a day.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

Every day.

SPEAKER_05 44:12

Every day. See, she remembers.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

I also, through reading your behind the scenes, Christine also gave you a similar challenge. Do you remember that? She told you to take photos, right? Or try physical therapy.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

That was actually Doug Kelsey. That was Doug Kelsey. That was my physical therapist. And he said, uh Yeah. I'm a scientist at heart. I'm a chemist. He knew that. And he is also very curious. And he really got to know me as a person. And he said, You're a scientist. I want you to go get a camera. And this is before digital, or right on the edge of digital. Don't get digital. And I want you to set the camera on manual. And I want you to learn about the physics of lenses and light. And I want you to start taking pictures.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

Yeah. So what were your experiences with that? And then drawing as well.

SPEAKER_05 45:10

Okay. Well, I want to say one more about what happened. And you dutifully said okay, and you had a look on your face of okay, I'll do it. And it was like two or three weeks later you came back and you said, I gotta tell you what happened. Do you remember? You were you said you were riding on your bike or something, and it hit you. All of a sudden, and as I recall it, you said you almost fell off your bike when it hit you. You were drawing about the things you couldn't talk about. Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_01 45:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 45:44

And I remember that that was a sentinel event for me. Then she got the message was not drawing, it's what you wound up drawing. And that was really wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

Have you heard the expression from like a musical where it's like when the characters can no longer express something through dialogue, they sing, and when they can no longer express it through singing, they dance. And that's like the logic behind like when they're dancing versus singing versus talking. Um I think there's there's something there. Yes, one of the things.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

Talk about your experience with it drawing and at first it was very mechanical. It was very, he asked me to do this, I'm gonna sit down and do it. And it was it was nothing, nothing, day after day, nothing, nothing. And I just thought, I'm just gonna stick with this because he obviously knows a whole lot more than I do. So I'm just gonna keep doing it. I'm gonna keep showing up. I didn't like it. I was kind of resentful. But you know, just like you stick your head down in the water and swim a bunch of laps and it hurts really bad, you just I just took the same approach. And then after probably about a week, I started having feelings. And I realized that the drawing and the creative expression gave me a safe place to express those feelings or to not even to really express them, but to feel them. Sometimes I express them, but it was unsafe for me to feel feelings my whole life or to even have feelings. And it was this safe place. It was like being with my grandma. It was safe. And once I realized it was safe and that it was helping things move through me and out of me, then probably by the third week, I wasn't resentful about sitting down to draw. I thought, I want to do this. This is my solace. I need to do this. And ever since then, by the way, I've had to have some kind of creative outlet with my hands. So I do all kinds of stuff with my hands now. And nobody wants to be around me if I haven't done stuff with my hands. I'm a very even-tempered person, except when I don't sleep and I haven't been creative. Yeah. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_05 48:21

That's one of the things that I think is so important is I tell people who come in sometimes the very first day that almost without exception, the people I have seen have had many of these wonderful traits. One of which is they're endowed with creativity that they they may have never tried it. I've had that happen several times. And I was thinking of her the same way, uh, of you that same way that I want you to do something and tell you to go paint or something. I said, just draw. Simple, all that. I want you to draw. And you said, well, I said, just draw. And remember your reaction, but you were disciplined, and you decided you'd do it, and you were disciplined because you had learned from other coaches and so on that this is how you would learn, and you trusted me on that. And that was it, would never happen if she had not trusted me. And um I tell people I train that that is the most important part of the relationship because they've got to have that.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

You have a gift of seeing your patients, really truly seeing your patients. And I recently worked with a physician, he's a a breast physician, and he retired, and he's just wonderful, wonderful. And I would do all my breast exams with him because I have dense breast tissue and I didn't want to run around in the regular system and just get ping-ponged around. So I would go see Dr. Winsett. And he reminds me a lot of you. And in my last visit, he said to me, I've had a lot of people come study with me, medical students, residents. And he said, not all of them have gone on into medicine, and some of it has to do with what they experienced in my office. And this is what would happen. They would come in the room with me and they would stand in the corner and take notes and observe. And then we would go out into my office. They would think that I was going to ask them questions about the medical case, the details of the pathology or whatever. And I would ask them, what color were her eyes? And a lot of them couldn't answer.

SPEAKER_04 50:49

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

And if they couldn't answer that question, he would say, I think you need to think about another career, and this is why. And he was the label reader for a lot of physicians. You are someone who sees people's eye color. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 51:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

That's intense. I got chills from that. That's great that you did that. Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, uh, just to state the obvious, uh, it is not in the DSM to prescribe drawing. You know what I mean? Like that's not, yeah, that's not like the treatment. Oh, yes, of course. Yeah, drawing. Uh it doesn't matter what it is, as long as they're drawing. Um, that's that's something from your experience that you've seen, and something that sparks for me because I'm an artistic person. You know, now I'm lucky enough to have a job in the arts as well. And there's something that happens in art that also can happen beautifully in sports, which is the flow state, which I know is something that you're interested in. But there's something where you can access a part of your brain where you've turned off your editor and you can just let it out. And oftentimes, when you look back over it, you'll be surprised. Like, oh, I guess that was inside of me. I didn't know that was there. Oh, I didn't realize I was trying to express that. I went into it thinking this would be what it is. Um, and it's a very rewarding experience and a very like all-encompassing experience. I'm wondering if you found that connection between the good times in sports and drawing as well.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

Absolutely. Because when Dr. Tyson suggested that I start drawing, I was in activity jail. So I was not allowed to expend calories on exercise because I could not afford to. I was really sick. And I went from, as I said, resentment to realizing that it had value to then realizing that it could replace some of the physical activity I had been doing and give me the same type of flow feeling.

SPEAKER_05 53:08

Didn't you do jewelry next? Or am I thinking of that? Or what was it you did next? I remember you came in and told me something artistic you were doing behind that.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

A friend that helped me through my divorce, Alan Wong, love him so much. He had a rosary that he carried in his pocket. And he was a, he's retired now, but he was a surgical tech for cardiothoracic and vascular surgeons in Austin. Just a deeply wise human being and a great label reader. And he always would always carry his rosary in his pocket, and he lost it one day. And I always wanted to thank him for everything that he taught me and how he guided me through my divorce. And I thought I'm gonna make him a rosary. So I learned how to make rosaries. Right.

SPEAKER_05 54:01

Now that comes back to my and I'm thinking, okay, there you go. She just takes off with doing something else creative.

SPEAKER_02 54:10

But also the symbolic nature of that too. You talked about how a rosary was used by your family as the symbol of how difficult you were as a child. And then to be able to turn it into a gift for a beloved friend is a beautiful moment.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

You know, I didn't even make that connection. That's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. That's really beautiful. And you got to make one.

SPEAKER_02 54:31

I'm sure it took longer than uh than whatever the novena. But it was worth it.

SPEAKER_05 54:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How wonderful. But and now you had um you had another injury, right? You recovered from the first. Yes. But the first one was pretty bad.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

Yes. Uh once I passed the activity jail phase where I was more medically stable, and it was a sinuous journey. It was not a straight line. And as I said, I knew that you would not give up on me if I didn't give up on myself. And I knew that I didn't have to be perfect. I needed to show up. That's all I needed to do and try.

SPEAKER_03 55:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

And I got out of activity jail and I viewed exercise in a much different light. It wasn't a drug anymore. It wasn't something that I had to do. It wasn't my identity anymore. Because you opened the door to me exploring all these other parts of myself that I think my subconscious didn't want to explore because I knew if I went there that all of these feelings would come up and it would be too much to deal with. And once I did that, I was an entirely different person. As I said, I started living in color.

SPEAKER_00 56:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:16

And I rode my bike because I loved it, and not because I had to, not because I would get agitated or edgy if I didn't, but because I wanted to go out and see cows in a field or visit horses, or I was still fast, and I changed the type of racing I did. I went from shorter mountain bike races to much longer races, like six and 12 and 24-hour races, where you're truly you're truly competing with yourself, and you you have to feed yourself. You can't race like that and not feed yourself. And I enjoyed that challenge.

SPEAKER_05 57:01

And you saw a lot of people around you though with eating disorders, I would imagine. Am I right? In cycling and elsewhere. And what was that like to be with your perspective about it and seeing so many around you who were struggling?

SPEAKER_01 57:21

It was hard in the sense that I knew that things could be better for them, but it wasn't my place to say anything. It was my place to hold space for where they were now, and then kind of like Christine did for me, also hold space that things could change for them. And I know that we don't make changes until things get bad enough. And sometimes things just have to get bad enough.

SPEAKER_05 57:48

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

And it was my job, if it was a close friend, to love somebody until it got bad enough and then love them through it getting better.

unknown 57:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 58:00

That's good. But it's really frustrating. I think you and I have talked about when you see people marketing stuff or athletics or whatever, and they're these athletes, and you know that they become these influencers or whatever you want to call them. And you know that some of the stuff they're at they're promoting is really misplaced, if is about as nice a word.

SPEAKER_01 58:31

It is. I just I just have to look the other way. And on my recovery journey, I realized that we are athletes are like a house, and the house has pillars, and there's the mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, and social pillars. And all of those pillars need to be of approximate equal length in order to hold the roof of the house up. And what happens with most athletes is the physical pillar is really, really tall, and it is holding the entire roof of the house up. And it's not structural and it can crumble. Right. And when that crumbles, the whole house crumbles. And what I learned through you and my creative outlets and feeding myself and getting my brain back to a place where I could make good choices and think again, because there were whole swaths of time that I don't even remember because I was so underfueled and so sick. I was able to make sure that all of those pillars stay more or less the same length.

SPEAKER_02 59:54

Yeah, I have a connection in what you just said in something I read from you earlier. You know, there's this concept in uh alcoholic recovery or addiction recovery of hitting rock bottom. You're saying like sometimes it has to get bad enough. And you're talking about this physical pillar and how it can come down. And you've dedicated so much of your life to helping injured athletes, and that is a rock bottom for a lot of athletes. And you wrote that you were surprised, but also not surprised that so many injured athletes later said that injury was the best thing that ever happened to me. So I don't know if you had anything to add to that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

I think that injury and eating disorders too, there are so many parallels between the two of them, and I think we can really interchange them. If we can capture the opportunity in the adversity, be it an eating disorder or an injury, we can begin to look at our house and say, what's out of whack here? What pillars are too tall? What do I need to tend to here to balance this all out? And those of us that can capture the opportunity are the ones that are lucky enough to have a community around us and really good support, like you, Dr. Tyson, and like Amanda, and like my therapists and my friends, because it takes a team in order for that to happen, because the person going through the adversity, the eating disorder, the injury is so incredibly vulnerable, they can't do it themselves. And what I've found is that people that the injured athletes that come to me want to capture that opportunity. They want the support, they want the help, they want to feel better mentally and emotionally. And the ones that don't are usually the ones that are more isolated and don't have the community, and they are they just plow through the injury and they go from one injury to the next.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:14

That makes perfect sense. I think of people I've seen who are locked into whatever sport and don't have the other things you need, especially other people supporting you. Supporting you not because of your sport, but because of you.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:34

That's exactly right. Unconditional support. Correct.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:37

I think of famous people who, let's say a famous singer, you've got a big concert coming up and all the pressure on somebody like that to perform. And what if they don't want to? You've got a hundred thousand people paying for diggers. And when can the people around you say that's okay? You don't need to be doing that. It's better to get yourself well than we'll see what happens then. It's really hard on people.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:06

I don't know. Do you know Phoebe Bridgers? Yeah, yeah. She's amazing. Yeah. And she's incredible, and she disappeared for a couple years. You know, she's you know she's here and there coming back. Yeah. It's exciting. I love what she's doing. She's doing it on her own terms.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:23

She's basically doing like secret surprise pop-up concerts at really small venues in small towns. Like she did one in Roswell. Oh, really? Like unexpectedly. And just like flyers go out, and people are like, is this real? Um, because she could be a stadium size, and she's doing like 300 seat, 400 seat venues kind of around the country. Very cool. Very, very cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:47

Like be in one of those little towns that when that happens, you can oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

People were sitting in coffee shops and they would just get a flyer. And it was like you said, Liz, is this real? Yeah. Is this could this be happening? Is this a joke? We'll at least go check it out.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:05

Maybe it's somebody pretending to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:07

Then what a wonderful way to do it. She left the limelight on her own terms and was gone for a couple of years. Good for her. Yeah. Good for her, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:15

I mean, I think about Alyssa Liu, who just uh the ice skater, yes, who just did amazing in the Olympics and you know, people's champs sort of won everybody's hearts, uh, but quit before that because just working with her father and the other coaches she had didn't love it anymore. And so she stopped and then decided to do it her way and and conquered the world, you know. Um, and you can see it in her skating, like how much fun she's having. That it's like a joy to be out there. Um, doing it, I think, for the intrinsic love of it rather than trying to win the gold.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

But that ends up being what wins it.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:56

Whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:57

Yeah. I remember reading an interview with her and her saying, nobody's gonna tell me what I can and can't eat. Yeah, nobody's going to make me skate for nine hours a day or whatever. I'm doing this. If I'm doing it, I'm doing it on my own terms. And then she comes back with all joy and no expectations. And it it reminds me of how I work with my dog. I go out with her and she's such a happy little dog. Her, she's all jaunty and her tail wags, and she looks at me and she has a sparkle in her eye, and and I do all kinds of stuff with her. I don't ever have expectations. My only expectation is who are you right now and what I can what can I do to support you?

unknown 1:05:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:45

Who's the dog in front of me? Totally.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:48

And for our listeners, tell them a little more about what all you and your dog do.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:55

Chesa and I do a lot. Uh, she's a certain Certified search and rescue dog, human remains detection, or a cadaver dog. And I'm a certified search and rescue volunteer. And I didn't ever want our relationship to be about one thing. And I don't want to load her body in just one way. I want to do a lot of different things with her. I think just like kids that have a lot of different experiences in life and go to different places, they're a lot more well-rounded and adaptable. And I noticed when she was a puppy, she loves to climb and balance on things. So I started doing tricks with her. And we're one of the winners of the national trick dog competition this year. And our performance was uh set to a poem that I wrote about our search and rescue deployment after the catastrophic floods on the Guadalupe River in July 4th. January 4th. July 4th, 2025.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:55

And I love to do agility with her. No pressure. Just go out and do our thing. And I do different kinds of obedience with her. We hike, we swim, we do all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:10

And you know, I see the smile on your face when you say that you guys have won, but it seems like you'd be smiling even if you didn't even place. I haven't just having no expectations. None.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:21

If it happens, it's great.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:23

But it's really on the way, what it's like. Yeah. What prize?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:28

I try to live my life in ways that my grandmother taught me and instilled in me, which is listen, be curious, love unconditionally, don't have expectations. And so I pour into her what my grandma poured into me, and that's what I pour into other people too. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:53

It really is.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:54

Yeah, I love dogs. Well, I was um last night. I I played beach volleyball, and afterwards there's somebody walking around with like a baby bjorn, but it was a little corgi. And I was like, you know, I think I feel about that corgi the way people feel about babies. Sure, sure. Where I'm just like, you know, I'm like, you know, human humanity has done so much wrong, but something has gone right that we invented a baby bjorn and somebody put a corgi in it. And you just see the dog just having a blast and like, I don't know if it's old and can't walk or what's going on, but you know, it's just this beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:33

You know, Liz worked at the Texas Service and Earring dogs in summer.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:38

I thought it was one of my um Was it one or two? No, no, I did it for yeah, I did it for a few years because it was in high school and then I did it for maybe a summer in college. But yeah, that was really fun. You I I was thinking about the food stuff because Texas Hearing and Service dogs, they only take in shelter dogs, they don't do like peer breeds or anything, uh, which meant a lot of the dogs wouldn't graduate to the level, but they would care for them and try to adopt them out. Uh and the strange neuroses that dogs who've been through trauma form was a huge part of my job. Yeah. And figuring out what each dog was going through and food often is one where trying to figure out how to get a dog to eat um can is really hard. And I bet it is. Yeah. You know, it's not on like it's not unlike people. Exactly. They've been through trauma, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:34

I think that's right.

unknown 1:09:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:36

Uh looping back to what we were talking about before and capturing the opportunity and adversity, my injured athletes will often ask me, Well, how do I know I'm better? Better mentally. And I thought about it for a long time and sat back, observed them, remember something that Dr. Tyson told me. And he said, when you can tell your story to other people, that's a huge milestone.

unknown 1:10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:11

When you can eloquently tell your story and all the ins and outs of it. And then I added to that when you can help somebody else going through something similar.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:28

And then when you can look back on that experience and think, boy, howdy, that was hard. That was really hard. But it shaped me into who I am today. And I love who I am today. And I also hold space for the fact that I'm going to evolve into somebody new and somebody else in the future because that's what happens to us. We're always evolving, we're always changing. And I think one of the pitfalls that athletes fall into is the attachment to not changing.

unknown 1:11:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:08

I don't want my body to change. And we talked a bit about women going through menopause, right? I don't want my body to change. I want, I still want to have a six-pack after I go through menopause. I and I'm going to do everything in my power to make that happen.

unknown 1:11:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:27

GLP1 issue. It brings me back to the GLP1 podcast you guys just had. Uh I don't want to get slower. I'm going to keep training harder and harder because I don't want to get slower. I don't want to stop racing. And I think that commitment to not changing is one of the slippery slopes that athletes can get on that can lead to eating disorders.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:01

Oh, I absolutely have the in GLP ones are really being on a GLP one means you're being medically starved. And that when we think about it that way, it's wait a minute, why would we starve somebody? And you have to really think about that. It's so easy to do, and people think well, if I want to be a better athlete, I'd way less. That would be better. Not considering all the other things that are happening. Or is it in your best interest to do it this way or to do it at all. And they can get so caught up in the idea being athletes of, you know, how hard do I have to train? There's so many crossovers between somebody with an eating disorder and somebody who's got um somebody who's an athlete that you want to train harder, harder, harder, and you want to lose more and more weight, or you'll do more more whatever it takes to lose, or in this case, to work even harder. And when they blend together, when somebody's got the malnutrition going on, they can mistake their fatigue or whatever for not working hard enough, or their time's not being as good. And well, I'm not working hard enough. I need to lose more weight, I need to eat less food, not more food. And they get it all distorted and it can be extremely destructive.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:34

And there's this unfortunate thing, if you're at a certain level in athletics, often the team you're playing for, the brand you're playing for will have its own team doctors. And in my opinion, there's always a conflict of interest there when, like you're saying, is that doctor hired by the team to get your time better, or is that doctor hired to treat you as a person? And those, yeah. I mean, it it gets me all the time. We watch football sometimes, and I'm just like, why is a team doctor the one who clears you after concussion protocol? It's like we need a third party or something. We need somebody who's not being paid by the NFL in any way to be the one who's clearing players. There's just a huge conflict of interest. And I think anybody who is a good doctor, a good coach like you, you're thinking, I am treating you as an athlete secondarily to treating you as a person. And if this sport is something you actually care about, I'm trying to give you long-term joy in participating in this sport rather than short-term results that could lead to catastrophe, further injury, illness, whatever.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:48

Yeah, collegiate sports are that's the same trouble with the physicians, is the most important question a student athlete should ask if they get hurt or whatever. Are you my doctor or is the team my doctor? Who is comes first?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:08

Yeah. And I think to give them a little grace, some of those doctors just don't even have, don't even think about that. Like, I'm a sports doctor, therefore, I'm my job is to get you better at a sport. But that's not necessarily always the best outcome for people. Like Alyssa, who I'm sure had plenty of doctors being like, oh yeah, this this will get you faster times if you stick to this food, whatever, restrictive diet that we have you on, and you train this number of hours, your times or your scores will get higher. But it leads to a breaking point. And then to bring up what you're saying, this this fact of change. Um unfortunately, with like super competitive sports, there's this youth. Once it's gone, it's gone. You'll never be there again. And like in some ways, that's true, because we all change, and that's just an inevitability of life. Um but that can be really hard to deal with when your whole life until that point has been about the four years where you're whatever, at the right age to compete at the right level. And then you get past that four years, and you can have, like you were saying, an existential crisis of what now? What what am I doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:25

Who who am I? Who am I?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:28

Um, and the the gut thing of well, I can stay there. I can stay there if I just hold on really tight and do some wild stuff. But you need to have sometimes you need that existential crisis to move forward in life.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:42

And to to change and evolve, yeah, and to to fix your house. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:48

And it'll be harder than the athletic activity you've exposed yourself to.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:52

Oh, it's way worse. Yes. It's the pain that I went through, the emotional pain that I went through recovering from my eating disorder was I call it my beautiful nightmare. Because he has all these things. Yeah. It was a nightmare to unearth all those feelings.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:14

And then it was also beautiful because it was this tremendous unburdening.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:20

Tremendous such a paradox that you would think that's not the way to do it. To get better is you go through these negative things. But you know, like an athlete, well, how else are you going to get better? You got to go through this times where one of the things I uh tell people is I remember a saying at Dad's Club Swim Pool, which is uh in Houston, and has produced a lot of great swimmers. And I was a swimmer growing up, and above the coach's deal um office was a sign that said you've got to know the difference between hurting and being hurt.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:56

That's one of my favorite sayings.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:58

And I l have always liked that. And what you're doing, is it hurting you or you uh or is it just hurting, or is it doing something to you? Another thing I I say to people along the way, when I was asked once to write, what do you consider a cure from an eating disorder? I said finally, the last thing I said was when you can say that the worst thing I've ever been through is the best thing I've ever been through. Because then it says you've faced all that. And that was now you realize I had to do all that to be where I am. And many of them are thankful they have had an eating disorder because they think, what if I hadn't had that? What would I have done instead? Now think about you. If you hadn't found horses and then had a grandmother or whatever, what would have happened? And you even said it, you know, would you even be alive?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:56

I don't think I would be. And and I also had my eating disorder, or it came to a head. I mean, it had been going on my whole life, but it came to a head in my early 30s. And I remember talking to my parents about it, and I was sitting at the kitchen table in their house, and I said, I I said, I have an eating disorder. I'm seeing Dr. Tyson in Austin and told them a little bit about it. And my mom said to me, Well, you've never really liked to eat. That's just normal for you. And my dad said, Well, at least I didn't get blamed for something in this house. And that was the extent of their response to, I have an eating disorder and I'm really sick.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:53

I remember you telling me that.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:55

And I expected nothing from them. I just wanted to tell them. But at this point in my life, I realized the well is dry. I cannot keep going back to the well and expecting my parents to be parents, but also I'm just going to tell them what's going on.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:15

And that was a pivotal moment for you to realize you confirmed it, maybe for the ultimate final point that okay, I can't get the well, is dry.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:28

And I'm not going to get anything from it anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:32

You're exactly right. And I absolutely believe that if I had gotten sick, and by sick, I mean cardiac involvement, massive weight loss, needing medical support. If that had happened to me in my teenage years, I would also be dead. Yeah. Because my parents would have been the ones that said, just eat. This is ridiculous. Just eat the food. Or you've always been a light eater. And I think I just would have just gone away.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:09

And there's something about, I mean, I know I feel this, even though I have a different situation with my parents, obviously. But sometimes when a parent tells you you're this way, it can give you that little extra boost to be like, yeah, your your story is not my story anymore. You know, absolutely. That can be sometimes a candidate.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:29

Your story is not my story anymore. That is I like that a lot. Yeah. I see it so often. Um and when parents for their own dysfunction rather than face that, they pass it on to their kids in some degree or another that can really harm them. And they have no clue unless they get to do something like you. That they find somewhere along the line somebody. Really. Sometimes it may be something like a horse or a dog or a friend. A friend, yeah, that comes along and um that sometimes is all you need, just that much. Somebody to trust you and you hang on to, and you that becomes the thing you go more and more towards.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:32

I also want to say though, like in this moment in your telling of the story, like the initial spark really did seem to come from within you, right? The initial spark of leaving your ex at the time, who you now are like, I see him now as this in some ways combination of my mother and my father. That's what you said earlier. And so the the decision to leave that I think is all combined with this decision to make a change that trickles down to the parents and just how you have been. So I want to say the initial spark, like you were saying, with people you care about who are going through something. That initial spark has to come from within, and then you're there to support, right? And then you're there to through the difficult part of the healing.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:17

I agree. Yeah. And I think the spark is also it's really bad. I have to do something different, right? It got bad enough, it got uncomfortable enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:28

That's someone's gotta get it. That's right. And you look back on your life and you go, if it hadn't been for this, I'd have gone that way. And it hadn't been for this, I'd have gone that way. And this, and you look at it and go, thank goodness, thank the Lord that I'm they were put in front of me or whatever, I had that happen, and to have those blessings in life where somebody does come along and um is there, and you can do that. And you're I remember when you first came to me and talked. Do you remember we you called me up and said, I have this great idea, and this idea I want to do. And we met at a restaurant at um Panera's, right? And you have such a good memory.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:16

I know, it's crazy. I do not have this memory.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:20

And and you were telling me about the you were thinking about doing something for injured athletes. And she's now she didn't come in, but I got an idea. You know, she came in, you know, just told me all about how it worked and how she's gonna do a website, and I'm kind of scratching my head about website. Well, how would this work? This was kind of new and early, and bingo, she did it. Yeah, and now how many years has it been you've had that?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:44

I started in 2013, and you asked about my injury, and I diverted us back to eating disorders. I recovered from my eating disorder, and although I will say that I will always not have an appetite. Now I just know better. I think for whatever reason, I'm just wired that way. I do have to be conscious of eating, eating enough. And now that I'm older, there are actual consequences of me not eating enough. Whereas before, I could go a long time. Uh, and I'm actually grateful for that. I'm grateful that I have guardrails now. And I got back on my bike, I started racing again, and I had a Nordic ski racing crash in 2010 that led to a knee fracture, a pretty catastrophic knee fracture that led to a couple of surgeries that were botched in Austin. And then that led me to the Stedman clinic where Richard Stedman was my physician, and I had six surgeries there. So I had a total of eight surgeries. And by the time I went to the Stedman clinic, I had developed a complication called arthrofibrosis. So arthro meaning joint fibrosis, meaning scarring. So where people have space in their knee, I have a scar and that limits range of motion. And the surgeries were to address the scar that kept growing back because that's what scars do. And I will have to do exercises every day for the rest of my life, and I just call that the price of entry now. And I am grateful that I can do something to affect change and that I can do exercises to help me be functional. But I'm very functional now. Uh I hiked 14 miles last summer in the Adirondack Mountains. So a miracle. It's a miracle I can walk because for four years I was on crutches. I didn't know if I'd walk again.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:03

I remember.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:04

And when I had my accident, I worked in the medical device industry. So I was standing in operative cases for hours and hours and hours, and I was carrying equipment. And I tried to push through the pain the first year after the fracture healed. And I didn't understand that I had arthrofibrosis at the time. But by the time I got to the Stedman clinic, I had to quit my job. And I didn't, not just quitting my job, but my entire life. I couldn't go out with friends. I couldn't do anything with the dog. I couldn't, I was home in a constant passive motion machine with my leg going straight and bending and straight and bending all day, every day. And that's when I fell back on my creativity. That was super helpful. And I'm not much of a TV watcher. And I knew that my recovery was going to be years long, and I wouldn't be able to go back. To the kind of work that I used to do in medical devices. And I was on the bike at the Sedman clinic, and there was an active defensive football player on my left. And then there was a guy on my right who's about 65, and he was a skier. And I asked him, when did you learn how to ski? And he said, I don't remember. And we're all on the bike, facing the mountain, riding at PT. We're all just talking. And I realized, oh my gosh, we we are using the same words to describe our experience. And the Stedman Clinic is a very positive, uplifting place. So people were talking about their love of their sport and how their injury affected their identity and using words like frustration and impatience. And I thought, well, we are three completely different people. We play different sports, we're different ages, but we are living the same experience. And I went home after that visit and I said, I want to do something with this because I had been helping athletes informally for about 10 years at that point. And I conducted research with approximately 200 injured athletes or recently injured athletes. And the youngest was 14 and the oldest was 75. And I intentionally included people that did not self-identify as athletes, people that were avid gardeners, people that walked their dogs with friends every day, people that did Zumba. I think those people are athletes because an athlete to me is anybody who uses movement to identify with themselves or connect with their life. I wanted to include them in my research because I thought that they would suffer in the same way as the three of us on the bike at the Sedman Clinic. And my goal was to gather stories and ask questions and be curious and interview everybody and then figure out what words were coming up over and over again. And the words that came up were frustration, impatience, anger, and sadness. And women tended to identify more with sadness and men with anger. But when I was injured the first time, I had a lot of anger and then disconnection. And that's disconnection from one's self, and then also disconnection from one's social circle, the people that participate in sport with the person that's injured. So you can't go to soccer practice, you can't go to track practice, you can't meet your friends for a run, the social disconnection and isolation. And I also had another arm of my research where I talked to clinicians, and part of that was me talking to Dr. Tyson. And I wanted to understand what challenges clinicians had working with injured athletes. And I took all of my research, plus all the work I had done informally with injured athletes before that time, put that all together and started injured athletes toolbox. And in a sentence, I help athletes overcome the mental and emotional fallout of injury, but also I help them put together a proper care team. I want all my athletes to have a care team of people like Dr. Tyson in their own field, an orthopedic surgeon, a PT, and I know people all over the world who are very, very good clinicians. And I want everybody to have the feeling of if I don't give up on myself, this person is not going to give up on me. Because my athletes don't come to me because they have a simple injury. Most of them have really complex situations. A lot of them have what I have arthois. And I want them to not suffer.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:06

There's something fantastic about, you know, we were mentioning earlier about how, you know, part of how you know you're better is that you're help, you're able to help someone else. And I love how you're like, so I was helping other people, and then I was like, how can I create a giant system to spread it as far as I can be as effective as I can? Um, I love that. That's I think your scientist's brain, like you were saying, like all right, let me identify the variables and craft the perfect solution. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:36

And also I will say that my eating disorder is a total superpower because my athletes will often not have the words to describe what they're experiencing because they're also just starting to feel feelings. And I also a side note, most of my athletes also work with a psychotherapist. And the work that I do complements the work of psychotherapy really well. But they're in the early phases of starting to feel feelings, and they'll start to explain something, and it will get all jammed up in their head. And I'll let them reach a stopping point and say, May I try to interpret what you're saying? And almost always they'll say to me, that's exactly what's going on with me. And that ability or that superpower came from my eating disorder and all the creativity and all the learning how to feel feelings. And I think that anytime we face adversity, an eating disorder, an injury, if we can capture the opportunity that I mentioned earlier, that adversity can become a superpower.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:48

And I think most people or a lot of people learn about what their feelings are, maybe when they're younger and don't do it in quite a self-aware way. But you like really deliberately in your adulthood took upon identifying and cataloging and understanding, expressing your own emotions through like the sheet that Dr. Tyson gave you and drawing. And so there's something about that too, that you did it so consciously as an adult that I'm sure you're able to teach it to other adults in a way other people might just not have the words for or even the understanding of.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:25

Yes. Because I tell people I've walked down this path before you. So I've done the bushwhacking. You can just come in back of me. I'm right, I'm right here.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:36

That's wonderful. Sore shoulder from that, all that bushwhacking. It strikes me when I was listening to this, where you are now, that um just windows healing in from an eating disorder. You know, when you start taking it from it's not just healing you, you're healing others. And uh there you are. You've taken this and what's growing out of it, and you're passing that on, that's still part of the healing that can happen. Um there's got to be some metaphor of that, but it kept coming back, kept coming back, all that, and you kept going after it over and over again and went through hell, and now you're helping all these other people and goes, yeah, go through hell, it's okay, you'll you'll get out of there. And and that healing for you has reached its, I think, the epitome of healing, and that is when it helps others, when it spills over onto them.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:49

I'm curious if uh a lot of your athletes kind of have an aha moment where they came into treatment thinking the goal was just to heal the injury and get back to peak performance, and then kind of have an aha that so much other work is being done that's maybe even more valuable than what they signed up for.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:13

I I'm curious if that's an experience they have. A lot of my athletes have that experience, and I know that it's happening because they'll say to me, I don't feel the same way about tennis anymore.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:29

I don't feel the same way about running anymore. Am I still gonna love it? Am I still gonna want to go back to it? And I'll say, probably, but you're just going to have a different attitude about it. It's going to be something that you want to do and not something that you need to do or you have to do. And you're going to have some space between you and tennis. It's not going to be that you are tennis. I had a client who, when I started working with him, he was in high school and he was a very gifted soccer player. And he tore his ACL and he ended up with artrofibrosis, which is what I have. And there was just something about this kid so wise, so articulate, so committed to getting better mentally. And I worked with him probably about five or six years ago. And he made tremendous progress. And then about a year ago, I co-created an online class for injured athletes. And my colleague and I wanted part of the class to be the stories of other injured athletes. And I interviewed him, and now he's in college, about to graduate. He ended up switching from soccer to tennis, which is a miracle he can play tennis with Arthur fibrosis because that kind of stopping and the joint load of doing all that is remarkable that he can do that. He's been incredibly dedicated to his physical recovery. And he said something that just I wasn't able to respond to it. He said, It took me a while to realize that I got arthrofibrosis, and there is not another injury that you could have that is a more stuck injury. Your joint is stuck, it won't move, it's scarred. And he said, I was also stuck mentally. And my my injury paralleled where I was mentally.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:54

Yeah. He developed looking back on it. It happens so many. But there is a way through.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:05

Thank you so much for agreeing to come on the podcast and sharing your story. I think there's a lot for people to reflect on.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:13

Sure is.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:14

Um, before we go, I kind of want all of us to have a moment to share final thoughts that you would like people to walk away with. I'll share mine first. I think some takeaways I'm going to take from this conversation are the idea of if you are somebody who sees yourself as a support person, this idea of being a label reader and being able to see something about someone that they can't see and trying to find the right time to express that for them and the right time to give them your sparkly flip-flops and give them a little extra push. Um, and also just how that's such a beautiful example of what friendship, true friendship can be. Uh, that's something I'm definitely gonna take with me going forward. And also this thing that what externally might seem like a huge setback, something like an injury or uh getting to rock bottom with an eating disorder, can be the catalyst for tremendous growth and progress. And that that's what living truly is taking that moment and letting it change you and letting something new grow from there. Uh, people, whether they're athletes or just normal people, often have a deep fear and anxiety around change. It's a very human anxiety, but that the aspect of changing is what it means to be alive and be a person truly engaging in the world is to be changed by it. So those are my thoughts.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:47

What about you, Dr. Tyson? What are your takeaways from today's interview?

SPEAKER_05 1:40:53

I again I am impressed with somebody who has an eating disorder and what they've done with it. And I'm the reason I do what I do is I see these kinds of outcomes where they take this, which is a burden that they've had on them, not of their own choosing. And there are ways to get out of that. And almost always they're there. And I encourage people who are in stuck in their eating disorder or are told that they are stuck and they don't want to leave to rethink maybe who is on my side, who can help me through this, who's willing to be by my side and help me through this, and tell me the things I don't want to hear. But to do so in a way that I'll accept it if at all possible. The more that happens, the better. And I certainly want people hearing this to see the reason why we have the podcast, why we have people on here who have gone through what Heidi has gone through, is to let people know you're no different. There isn't one of you out there who's any different. I I I know people come from horrible situations, and I don't deny that at all. But people who have eating disorders are some of the most tenacious, determined, capable people I've ever met. And take a chance when you can to take the step and hopefully find somebody, something, maybe a horse, maybe a dog, a friend. You never know always. And use them to get your secure footing from which you can really grow from there.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:44

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:50

I want people to know that no matter how alone they feel and how bad and dark things are, that they are never alone. And the concept of common humanity and shared experiences, even if we're curled up on a couch, unable to move because we're paralyzed by fear, there is somebody else that has been there, is there now, has gone before you. Think about being connected to a greater network of humanity and support. Even if you have nothing and nobody tangible, you have that. You have that connection and common humanity. And get help. Don't try to do it alone. Get help. Find yourself a team that won't give up on you if you don't give up on yourself. And don't be afraid to talk with a clinician. And if you don't feel comfortable, move on. Ask hard questions. One of the things you taught me is to ask hard questions, Dr. Tyson. And one of the questions that you you encourage people to ask is, why should I trust you?

SPEAKER_04 1:44:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:17

And most clinicians, you ask that question, they're going to be like, Well, why shouldn't you trust me? I'll tell you because I have this degree and that degree. Run for the hills if somebody tells you that. But you will be able to find a team. And that team is going to help you. And then don't give up on yourself. It's not going to be one straight linear progress story. It's going to be up and down, it's going to be sinuous. You're going to have setbacks. Setbacks are very normal. They're part of the process. And what do you say, Dr. Tyson? If you're going to hold a nail and hit it with a hammer, what do you do first?

SPEAKER_05 1:45:00

Cockpack on the hammer.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:01

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:02

Looks like you're going backwards.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:03

Exactly. That's going to happen. And then know that at the end of it all, you are going to have superpowers.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:15

And we have seen and listened to and witnessed all that you've done and you're going to continue to do. And it's been a real pleasure.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:23

Yeah, this is this has been an amazing conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:26

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for this podcast. It is a gift to humanity.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:32

When she said, Well, what can you tell me about Heidi? I was like, Yeah. I was kind of like, well, let me see where to start.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:40

Yeah, something stuff. I was like, okay. So wait, what did she do? And he's like, well, this and this, and then also this and this. And I was like, huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:48

Okay. And she was kind of all right. I said, so I send her your information. I was able to read that. And she was able to go through that. And then hearing more. Yeah. It's just wonderful. It's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:00

There's something also there, too, you know, some of the stuff that can make it really hard for an athlete and somebody who has an eating disorder to let go of that behavior is that it's tied up in identity, that a certain thing you do becomes who you are. And I love how you now have such a diverse amount of things. Like your pillar is not just I am tennis, like you were saying, right? You have so many different things that bring you joy and meaning and purpose in your life rather than just a single thing that you're balancing your roof on top of.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:34

Um and I think I think that's important. And that all started with recovery from my eating disorder. Yeah. And drawing. Uh shout out to drawing. If you're out there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:49

Maybe pick up a pen, pet your dog.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:52

Maybe don't spray paint your house as you're doing it, but uh you know if it works. Some people have gotten popular for that.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:00

So all right. Well, thank you so much, Heidi, for being on the podcast today. Where can people find more of your work?

SPEAKER_01 1:47:08

I am at injured athletes toolbox.com, and then my canine work, canine trigger point massage therapy is canine athletes toolbox.com.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:19

Amazing. So please go check those out if they interest you. And you can always reach out to us. Let us know what you thought of this episode or any previous ones, edonedpodcast at gmail.com. We always love hearing from you guys. Thank you, Dr. Ed, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to be on the podcast.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:38

Well, you too.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:39

And thank you, listener, for taking time out of your day to learn something new and listen to this conversation with us. Till next time, I'm Liz.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:48

And I'm Dr. Ed.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:49

And I'm Heidi. And this has been Ed on Ed. Bye.