Living Well with PMDD

The Impressions You're Making That You Didn't Realize You're Making

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Do you realize the impressions you're making? 🙃

Let's consider the impressions you are making in the world. In this episode, I specifically discuss how GROSS I look as a person from only reading doctor's notes from past appointments. Seriously, THAT IS NOT ME. 

I also see that my approach to doctor's appointments has been leaving incorrect impressions of myself and my health. I used to approach doctor's appointments as: get right to the point. Here is the problem. What do you think? Don't waste their time!! 

Not Anymore. They get to see the happy, smilely Heidi AND her problems. Yes, I may take more of their time, but I won't be leaving impressions that I am living an awful life of suffering. Because I'm not. I am blessed and happy and whole even with my problems. 

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Episode 107: The Impressions You're Making That You Didn't Even Realize You're Making

[00:00:00] Hello, this is the Living Well with PMDD podcast. I'm your host, Heidi Bradford, certified life coach, mom of five, and PMDD survivor. Happy to have you here. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered health advice.

 Hello. Welcome to the podcast today. If you're watching this, you can see that I am in a motel-type room. We are getting ready to leave this space. I am sorry if the video is jiggly here and there. I'm trying not to make it jiggle, but it might be a little bit.

Woo. This is, I believe, the third or fourth time I've tried to record this. Our Wi-Fi is not good here, so the first time it just cut off partway through the Zoom recording. Anyway, other things have [00:01:00] happened, but enough of that. I'm Heidi Bradford, and I'm a life coach. I really like helping people, and I enjoy listening to people, too. I find people's stories fascinating.

Here we are in the middle of the summer already, and it just makes me wanna cry. I I don't already want to be to the middle of the summer. But so it is. I hope you were able to celebrate the Fourth of July. I love the Fourth of July. It was my favorite holiday growing up, and since then I've- I thought, "Is that really true?"

Because what about Christmas? It's just hard because the Fourth of July meant, going to the lake. My grandparents had a cabin up on a lake, and it meant we got to go up there, we got to swim, we got to, hike and catch, water skippers and water ski, [00:02:00] 'cause my uncle would bring his boat.

And then we got to watch a big fireworks show over the lake for the Fourth of July while music was playing and eat licorice, . We would lay on, a blanket on this golf course. And I just have so many good memories.

Of course, Christmas is wonderful too. It's just different. Christmas is, like, homey and cozy, and Fourth of July is, like, adventure and fun.

This Fourth of July, I also thought a lot about religious liberty. I am just so grateful that in America we can worship., That we have as much freedom as we do to worship God. I know that there are still people being persecuted. I know in my faith the saints were persecuted a lot and that they have been in the past. Sometimes people still are.

But sometimes [00:03:00] suffering and those that have gone before us, it helps us to appreciate what we have now, and appreciate and respect them, and the sacrifice that they gave.

I am in the process of creating a community of support for anybody that wants to come in, really. I picture it as a women's community where we will celebrate wins and our awesomeness and also receive some life coaching. So that's kind of what I have in mind. What it will actually be, I don't know. We'll, we'll see.

Right now I'm still offering a one-on-one call. If you are stuck, if you want help with something, just book that call with me, and we will figure out your next best step.

Our topic today is the impression you make, and this is not meant to create worry for you about what [00:04:00] other people think of you. It's meant to just offer you some ideas for reflection and maybe some things you haven't thought about, because I had not thought about the impression that I was making on doctors, for example. Until th- some things that have been happening in my life these last two weeks.

So that's what this is going to be about, the next few minutes. My dad, when I would leave to go somewhere, he would say, "Be good." And the second most heard phrase by me, I don't know if all of my siblings were the same, by me was, "It doesn't matter what other people think." I really appreciate that my dad, that's who he was, and he didn't care what other people thought.

[00:05:00] He loved to research things, and still does, but He wasn't putting on a facade for anyone. He wasn't, um, doing things because he thought someone else wanted him to be a certain way. That is a struggle for me. Sometimes it's less of a struggle, and sometimes it's more of a struggle. And there's just something in me that I love other people, and sometimes I put their opinion above my own.

Sometimes, if somebody says this product is amazing. That's enough for me to just go and buy it. Even if I I don't, even need it. It's like, well, if she thinks that, then I should go get it. It's something that I'm aware of, and I don't do everything that way. I think that would be really weird and not good.

This recent experience of us being on hold for our military move [00:06:00] because the next base is not sure that they have the resources I need. It has caused a lot of introspection and i'm thinking about things that I haven't really thought about. It's been good for the most part. Obviously, I wish it hadn't happened, but, I've kind of gone through this gamut of emotions of initially being totally surprised and bewildered, "Why the heck would they not approve me?

That's really strange," to a surety that this is a mistake and I'm gonna get it cleared up. Then when I got the chance to talk to a doctor who, probably could have cleared it up or... anyway, talked to him after this determination had been made, and he came away not seeing my perspective.

I realized, holy cow, there is something really wrong here, [00:07:00] and we must be missing something then shifting to okay, we gotta figure this out, and we'll do everything we can to kinda defend the position that I'm a healthy person, my mental health is good, um, I attended counseling, but that doesn't mean what maybe you think it means.

As well as collecting... Like my friends and family, have been writing notes and sending me text messages that I compiled into a document. , In this process, between my husband and myself, we were able to finally get access to my medical records.

I haven't had those the whole two years we've been here. But, um, last Friday, right before the Fourth of July holiday, bless this person's heart, this girl, [00:08:00] customer service at TRICARE, stayed on the line with me, went and bothered her bosses about three to five times, like deleting stuff from some other systems to get me what I needed. And by the end of it, I had access to my medical records.

Bless my husband's heart. He spent time Monday just, I don't know how, know even how long it took him. He had to download every record from every appointment separately. He printed them all off. He made a copy for me, a copy for him, and then he started going through highlighting things like, "Ooh, we need to address this. This is noted again."

Anyway, so we have these medical records, and we have this doctor who didn't share my perspective of this is a mistake that can be cleared up like this.

What came from this that [00:09:00] I'm taking away from it. It's the impression that these doctors had of me. Looking at their notes, I'm like Wow. Oh my gosh, that's coming up again?

Yeah, I remember I had one conversation about that, and then it's, like, in your chart, in your notes, and it just follows, and it's like, okay. Yeah, I guess I need to address that.

My mindset with going to a doctor is I have a problem. I don't wanna waste their time, so I'm gonna get right down to it, and then I wanna discuss it.

So what do you think? What could it be?

But these doctors, they see us for a very small amount of time. What else do they know about us? Maybe they get a vibe from us when we're in there. But a lot of them are probably very overwhelmed and [00:10:00] overworked, so they're just hearing what we say, and they're, doing what they can, right? Um-

The impression of who I was based on these notes was not who I am. And it was gross to me to think that someone over the ocean, a different military base, all they saw were these notes, and that's the impression they had of me.

It was, gross. That is not who I am. But having the records and seeing the impressions that were made and the notes that were taken did make it so that I could make, uh, a better impression. A more accurate picture of who I am, and that during these months of grief that I experienced, I wasn't laying in bed at home.

I was still participating in a homeschool co-op. I was [00:11:00] doing, the children's music theater productions three times a week supporting my son. And I was helping in leadership positions in church. None of that is in the notes. Really, even the death of my brother and my good friend and my mom all passing away, that's hardly in these notes, and that's what I was going through.

So I would ask you right now, what impression are you putting out in the world? You can think about your doctors. You could think about what impressions are you making on your children by your words and your actions, and also your friends. My friends, I feel like they have a very healthy understanding of who I am. They see my struggles, and they see the good [00:12:00] times and the smiley Heidi, and really that is the majority of my life. I have some suffering, and then I have a lot of really good stuff going on.

I do not wanna ever give the impression to any person or any doctor of just the bad. I don't want them to have just the bad from me.

Also, what impression am I giving myself of myself?

What am I rehearsing to myself?

What impression do the thoughts that you dwell on give to yourself? Do they give you the sense that you are powerful and that you're capable? And did you even know that you're allowed to give yourself that impression?

There's a powerful feeling that comes with solving problems, and even with [00:13:00] having problems. We kind of,, go into problem-solving mode. That can be good to a point, but we also can give our nervous system a rest. We don't need to always be solving problems.

Our worth is not based on problem-solving, and if we're getting dopamine from just solving problem after problem after problem and look at me, then that may be an area to pull back on, and start getting dopamine from taking walks out in nature, from natural, wonderful things.

That is nurturing to our soul. It's nurturing to our body. It's giving our body a break from stress.

Consider the impressions you're putting out to the world and the impressions you're having on yourself, and let's let go of learned helplessness. Let's let go of limiting beliefs. Let's really push forward in confidence and in a sense [00:14:00] that you can do this, that you are very capable, and that the answers you need, the resources you need, the support you need, that it's on its way to you.

And I hope you will consider joining my community when it opens. 

Thanks so much for listening to the Living Well with PMDD podcast. To learn more about life coaching with me, visit my website heidi, H-E-I-D-I, bradfordcoaching.com. Until next time, keep hoping, keep loving, and remember that you are not alone.