I Turned My Trauma Into Manipulation with Chana Studley, Dr Teralyn Sell, Therapist Jenn Schmitz

The Gaslit Truth Podcast is hosted by Dr. Teralyn Sell and Therapist Jenn Schmitz, exploring mental health, psychiatric medication withdrawal, therapy culture, and informed consent.

In this episode, Dr. Teralyn Sell and Therapist Jenn Schmitz talk with Chana Studley, trauma survivor to hollywood award winner. 

 You’ve been told you’re broken. Chana Studley arrived with police reports, X-rays, and years of panic to prove it. Three assaults in her twenties spiraled into PTSD and decades of chronic pain, yet the most life-changing shift didn’t come from retelling the worst moments. It came from recognizing how the mind’s “special effects” turn memory and prediction into present-tense fear—and how noticing safety lets the body unclench.

We sit down with Hannah to map the journey from being defined by trauma to reclaiming identity and health. She shares the pivotal moment a mentor asked if she was ready to let go of her story, why that felt like betrayal at first, and how it opened a door to resilience. We follow her into Hollywood creature shops, where patching a T‑Rex before dawn mirrored the improvisation of rebuilding a life. Imposter syndrome,

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💊 Ready to Deprescribe Your Psych Meds?

Psych meds have harmed us—and we’re not just survivors, we’re deeply educated in psychopharmacology, psychology, and nutrition. As hosts of The Gaslit Truth Podcast, we guide people safely off psychiatric medications with strategies grounded in science and brain health

🔥 You’ve been harmed. You’ve been dismissed. It’s time to take your brain back—with guidance from people who’ve been there and know their stuff.

Transcript

Welcome And Mission: Deprescribing

Dr Teralyn Sell 0:02

You have been gaslit into believing you are broken and will spend your life being defined by a mental health label. What if innate well-being and connecting your mind and body are actually what you need to recover and have been on your side all along? We are your whistleblowing shrinks, Dr. Terralyn and Therapist Jen, and you have landed on the Gaslit Truth Podcast.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 0:25

Before we set this whole conversation on fire, like, subscribe, ring that bell if you're on YouTube. If this show has ever put words to something you felt but couldn't explain, supporting it matters.

Dr Teralyn Sell 0:37

Absolutely. And just remember, everybody, Dr. Terrolyn and Therapist Jen not only are therapists, but we are also deprescribers. We help individuals get off psychiatric medication safely for the brain and the body. So if that is something that you have been thinking about doing, now is the time. Shoot us an email, thegaslit truthpodcast at gmail.com, and we can help get you started with that.

Introducing Hannah Studley

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 1:00

Please welcome Hannah Studley to the show. After surviving three violent muggings in the 1980s and recovering from severe PTSD, she went on to build an Academy Award-winning career in Hollywood. Now a leader in mind, body, and innate health frameworks. She blends the three principles, a mind-body connection in her work. She recently published her fourth book, Beyond Diagnosis: A Paradigm Shift from Pathology to Innate Health. I'm gonna have to read that one. It's gonna be another one on my pile.

Dr Teralyn Sell 1:29

It's gonna add to the books here, all her books.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 1:32

And previously authored three Amazon number one best-selling novels, including The Myth of Low Self-Esteem, Painless, Trauma and Chronic Pain, and Very Well, Hormones and Menopause. I'm gonna have to read that one too. Hannah is a World Health Organization psychological first responder. She also holds diplomas in psychology and pharmacology and brings 30 years of experience as a coach, entrepreneur, and multi-book author author shifting the mental health narrative forward towards resilience and innate health. Please welcome Hannah to the show.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Wow. Thank you. It's so good to be with you.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 2:07

Yeah. It's always interesting when we read a bio. I'm like, is that is that really me? Did I do all that?

SPEAKER_04 2:13

I don't have time for all that, right?

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 2:16

Exactly.

unknown 2:18

Yes.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 2:20

So for our listeners who might not know who you are, we're just gonna start your story from the beginning. So if you wouldn't mind to fill us in on your story and who you are.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yeah, thank you. So I grew up in the UK and I went through a lot of violence in my early 20s. I was at I was at Manchester University, and it was the early 80s. I was a punk rocker, I had dreadlocks, mohikan, you know, the whole thing. I'm still wearing black. And uh something stuck changed. And um the the first time was in a nightclub. I was dancing, my boyfriend was in a band, they were playing, it's dark, the you know, the lights are all on the stage, and a young man who I I didn't know who he was, he's putting his hands where he shouldn't, and I push him off. The next thing I remember is his hand on the back of my head, and he smashed my head into a concrete pillar and fractured my skull. Like I can put my finger on it. I know you can't see it, but I know I can feel like the where the bone knit it back together again right here. And you know, I was a student, it was, you know, these kind of things happened. It was the kind of the sign of the times, and I kind of got myself back together again and and moved on. And then about three years later, I'd finished college and I was walking, it was about six o'clock in the evening. I was walking from where I'd been living, you know, for the last few years to a new place, and and three men came out of the dark and slammed me on the ground and beat the living daylights out of me. I really thought I was gonna die. I can remember feeling the air run out of my lungs and thinking, if I can't catch another breath, I'm I'm going to die. I was screaming for my life. If they have a knife, I'm gonna die. And they were like two of them were holding me down, the other one was kicking me in the head and the chest, and and then they ran off. And I remember seeing when I kind of picked myself up, I could see someone in the street lamp, you know, it was it was dark walking by on the other side of the street. And and I don't blame them for not stopping. I I've heard horrible stories of people, you know, coming to be a good Samaritan and ending up in worse trouble. But it kind of compounded that feeling of isolation and wind me in why, you know, why did this happen to me? And for I'd say probably a year after that, I I really struggled. My family doctor did send me to the psychiatrist at the local hospital, but it took two panic attacks just to get there. And all she would say to me was, tell me about what happened. I'm like, so I told her the first time, and then she'd say, Tell me again. I think, are you deaf, you stupid cow? Like, and she got me her treatment was you know, keep like like a flooding therapy or whatever they were calling it.

Dr Teralyn Sell 4:52

Like retraumatize you.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Right, keep telling the story. I think I only went twice because it wasn't worth the panic attacks to leave the house and get there for for that. Because at the time I remember I was reliving it very well on my own at home. I I could do that without her help. I needed someone to show me how to not do that, you know, not identify with it, not talk to her. And and I was I I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't eating, you know, I was really struggling. And I think PTSD had only gone into the DSM like that year. So nobody knew about it in Manchester. So that's the best help I got. You know, basically it was have a cup of tea, go home, walk it off.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 5:28

You know, that was like was I would imagine that even because I'm trying to think about that time I I was very young. If it was in the DSM, it was mostly geared towards probably like uh war veterans and things like that. Yeah, yeah. So you you were a population that it wasn't really geared towards at that point either. Yes.

Letting Go Of The Story Identity

SPEAKER_00 5:45

So if they wrote anything in my file, it was very secret, they they wouldn't have told me anyway. So I at a year, like coming up to the year anniversary, I thought, you know, Manchester is clearly the problem. I need to move to London. So I moved out to London because, as well as being a coach for 30-something years, I had uh another career in the entertainment business, and I went to London to start working in the theater. And I'd been there a couple of years and uh I got attacked again. This time I was riding my bike home from the theater. It was about 10 o'clock at night, and I saw out of the corner of my eye, I saw this young kid. He was about 16, and he was on a really little kid's bike. And I remember thinking that was weird. The next thing I knew, he flung the bike at me. So I was riding this way, and the bike came that way, and it hit me in the neck and shoulders. So it was like bam, it was like being shot out of a Canada brick wall. That's what the impact was so ferocious. And he actually broke my neck, like uh C2 and C three, the vertebrae underneath. And um, I'm lying in the street, there were like cars whizzing past my head, and I remember thinking, why me? Why do all these terrible things keep happening to me? So I went downhill really fast after that one. You know, I thought if I I knew if I left the house, I was gonna get you know really hurt. And if you'd come to me and said, Oh, let's go for a walk, you know, let's go to a yoga class, I'd be like, no, no, because I've got evidence. I had police reports and x-rays to prove that the world was a really scary, dangerous place and and you shouldn't leave your house. So I became quite strange, you know, drinking to get to sleep, not eating, you know, really had having a very hard time functioning. And luckily, I finally asked for help. And this women's crisis center in London kind of reached out and kind of rescued me. They kind of picked me up and you know, put me back on my feet and and really helped me to get and and they kind of helped me, you know, train as a coach as well. I done some some of it before, but they really kind of put me in the right direction.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 7:38

What did they, if you wouldn't mind asking or answering, what did they do for you that was so different than the therapy?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Well, the the main thing I can remember is is I had a mentor there and and she said to me, Are you ready to let go of your story? And I was so offended when I because because what I heard her say and what she actually said were like two different things, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Because what I heard her say was it didn't happen, it didn't hurt and get over it.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Right?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Screaming, but it did happen, it does hurt, and I don't know how to get over it. But luckily, you know, there was that opportunity of the window opened of willingness, I don't know what it was, but when I calmed down and my kind of ego got over what and realized what she was actually saying, she was trying to because I'd become the girl who'd been mugged three times. You know, if I could get it into any conversation, I could get you to feel sorry for me, I could get you to think I was heroic, you know, like it was all about manipulation. I was really talented at being the victim by that point. I could give classes in it, you know. I I mean it's funny, I'm not wearing earrings now, but um I didn't used to wear earrings, and people say, Oh, you never wear earrings. Like, oh, that's because when I was mugged, they were ripped out of my ears and my ears got really trashed. They go, Oh my gosh, something. So I could get it into any conversation. I was quite skilled at it.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 8:54

It's interesting that you call that manipulation, like because I I know there's gonna be people listening and they're like, Oh, I cannot believe she said victims are manipulators. I want to explore that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

But I remember an early client I had, she had been abused ritually, like ritual abuse in some island community. Her parents were diplomats and she really, really, really suffered. And she and I, when we realized that we both had this thing going on to get attention, to get sympathy, we we joked that we we could have competed. We used to call it competitive tragedy. Like we could compete for the Olympics in competitive tragedy, you know, I would have got a gold better for England because I I was and I see it now as like absolute insecurity. I mean, I was incredibly insecure and anxious, desperate for you to like me. So if I told you my tragedy stories, then you you would you would talk to me, you would, you, I could have friends. And so when that mentor said to me, Are you ready to let go of your story? It it wasn't she wasn't suggesting denial, but it becomes such part of my identity that I'd forgotten who I really was. Because if I let go of this, who am I?

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 10:05

Well, there was not a before you either, right? It was all after those things happened.

Dr Teralyn Sell 10:10

Yeah.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 10:11

Before you is gone.

Dr Teralyn Sell 10:13

As you're talking, Hannah, all I can think about is all of the clients that we have and that we've worked with who have become what that label is and what that's that story is. Um once chronic PTSD forever chronic PTSD.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 10:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

It's seductive. It really is. I I and I and I in my work I use the word innocent a lot because I innocently didn't know any different. I innocently, I was doing the best. That was my wisdom to like, okay, like me, you know, if if if you guys just knew who I really was, you wouldn't be interested in me. So I have to come up with these like you use all my big stories to to get get you to be interested in me.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 10:57

So if I let go of it was it also protective too, like me, so then you won't hurt me. Could be.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah, it could be. I don't know. Because all the all the violence was, I mean, there was from strangers, and I and I what confused me was like, why me? Why did they pick on me? There was was there something wrong with me? And so you you could turn on me, you know. So so yeah, it was I guess I could have been a part of that too. Yeah.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 11:25

Interesting. Did you your Academy Award, did you win that before or after all of this happened?

Hollywood, Imposter Syndrome, And Resilience

SPEAKER_00 11:32

After because at the time I I was barely could leave the house. And so I I started working in the theater a little bit in in London. And I I basically went from theatre to commercials, TV and then and then movies. And what happened is I I was kind of like building up my courage to go out and do stuff, and I was working on some smaller projects, and I worked with a a woman who was she'd done quite a few movies, and we were working on a commercial together for Motorola. If you remember when cell phones were as big as a brick, yes, I do remember that, unfortunately. And so this it was a print commercial, and it was the the tagline was if you have a cell phone, you're as free as a bird. Like little did we know back then what that meant. Um, but so we were using these wings that for for models, and now you could AI all of that, or even a few years ago Photoshop it. But then we were actually making them and you know going off on location to shoot these photo shoots. And she she said to me, I'm just about to start a movie. Do you want to be my assistant? I'm like, uh yeah. And so she worked for Jim Henson's creature shop, which is Jim Henson Muppets and Biggie Inker and Muppets. And so they had a workshop in London because actually the Sesame Street or the Muppets actually started in London because no American TV station would take it at the beginning. Actually started in the UK with Jim. And so my first movie was the first Flintstones movie. And if you remember that with John Goodman, I do see Donald, wasn't it? And so we built all the creatures in London. And because she was, you know, all the experienced people went out to LA to do the filming, and I just kind of hung around the workshop and I thought, well, you know, that was good, maybe that's over. And then my boss said, Okay, um, I'm calling all the experienced people back. You're going to LA to supervise all the creatures on the whole of Flintstone. So they brought back 14 people, sent me, right? So my first day on set in Universal Studios in LA, I'm talking to Steven Spielberg. Like I'm the expert who's been floating from London. Again, why me? Why me, right? And I was like, I would have these, I don't know if you call them flashbacks, but I had these moments like, oh my gosh, like two years ago I couldn't get out my front door. I was so terrified. Now here I am in LA talking to Steven Spielberg. How did that happen? Right. Exactly.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 13:51

That seems to be the the gold thread in your life. Like, how did this happen? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

And then the movie that the um experienced people have gone back to start working on was Babe. And I joined that team when I got back, and we went to Australia to for six months to film Babe, which was weird, been stuck in a field in Australia for six months. Um with a porta potty. Like, I think Hollywood is glamorous. Sometimes it can be, but sometimes there's people in Australia with a you know, people somewhere to pee. And um and so yeah, we got so it's it's a team thing. I I I you know I couldn't do these things on my own. I I did what's called animatronics. I got I was known for making copies of real animals. And so that that's what we got the Academy Award for, and then I I moved to California after that.

unknown 14:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Okay.

Dr Teralyn Sell 14:36

So so somehow then that morphed you somewhere into because you've got some degrees, right? Like somewhere in here came school certificate. Like, where did all this start then?

SPEAKER_00 14:47

That came later. I mean, that they're they're online programs, you know. So I I was able to do that whilst uh I've always been doing several things at once. So I would be working in the theater or in movies during the day and then coaching, counseling people in the evening. You know, in LA I worked because like when you work on a movie, it's like a three-month really intense project, and then you could have three months off because like the kind of work I did, you know, not every movie has a talking animal in it. So so I can't. True. Maybe they should. I don't know. Yeah, I think so. You know, I I made wings for John Travolta, you know, I did do little with Eddie Murphy. But there's there's I mean, there were big movies, but then you could have three months off in between. And I'm not the kind of person just to sit there. So I started to volunteer in different organizations, you know, to work with kids at risk. And so I worked with a lot of addicts and alcoholics and people with trauma because that was my experience. And so I I kind of had these two lives going on at the same time, and it kind of and I'm really grateful for it now because it kept me grounded in such a you know bizarre profession. Um, you know, so I could go be working with suicidal people woman, you know, I'll be on the phone with someone who's suicidal, and then I'm going, you know, action, okay.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 15:52

Yeah, it's the the changing of state is uh is quite profound. I want to go back to just a little bit because you had said you had, you know, she asked if you're ready to be done with your story, let to let go of that story. And then you had said like some of the story for you was like a a way to manipulate, right? Like, so people are gonna see me hear me, hear my story, whatever. I'm thinking, so you had to exchange that for an even more profound story of like winning academy awards and doing all these, like I think people would want to hear those stories too, right? So I'm wondering how you were able to shift from this is me, this is my story, to this is my new story. And my new story is quite profound as well in all the right ways, right? In all the ways that people want, like a comeback kid story, basically, right? So, what is it that happened in between those two stories? Because it was like, Well, this happened, she said this, and now I'm over here. And I'm like, but wait, there's there's a whole bunch of stuff that had to occur. If you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit, like, how did you have how what did you have to do to actually let go of that identity, so to speak, and those labels too? Because that's like the biggest part is in today's world, people wanting labels, people not wanting to let go of any labels, people collecting labels. So, what did you have to do to to do that? Like, what was it?

SPEAKER_00 17:59

So that's very perceptive of you for noticing my shifting of like now I've got I'm the girl from Hollywood story, right? Yeah, yeah. And and I remember at the beginning when like this first, especially that first movie with with Flintstones one in in Los Angeles, I was terrified that they were gonna find out I didn't know what I was doing.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 18:17

Oh, yeah, you know, imposter syndrome galore, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

So it was I I I see it as like a lot of insecure thinking because I I really was thrown in the deep end. And then my boss knew that, but the the director didn't know that, you know, Steven Spielberg didn't know that. You know, sorry, Steven, if you're listening to this, like you know, it's still really cool.

unknown 18:39

Right?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

But it worked. I can give you a tiny story. I remember in in the Flintstones movie, Elizabeth. I so I met Elizabeth Taylor too, and there's because she played Fred's mother-in-law, and there's a scene where she's held in the dinosaur's mouth, the T-Rex's mouth. Now, the T-Rex had been made by some of my colleagues when we were in London and it's shipped out there. I hadn't even seen it. And I got a message saying there's a big gash in its nose. You have to fix it tonight because it's gonna be on set tomorrow morning with Ms. Taylor in it. I'm like, oh shoot. I'm like, okay. How do I fix a T-Rex gash overnight? I have no idea. How did you how do you do that? Right. So they said it's on stage 27 at Universal Studios, go over there. You're like, yeah, go fix it. I'm like, okay. So I walk into stage 27, back lot of Universal Studios, and Jurassic Park had just come out. So all the crew, the rigging crew that were on Jurassic Park, heard that the expert from London is coming to fix this dinosaur. And all these guys, like I was like 20, 28, 29 years old. That'd be even better. All these guys, and these guys have all got Academy Awards because you can get Academy Awards for technical stuff as well. Hands on another night. So these guys are all tech like Academy Award winners, and they're watching me fix this dinosaur, and I don't know what I'm doing. So I looked at my my colleagues who had left had left a box there, and in the box, I looked in the box, and there was some uh contact adhesive, there was some rubber sheets, like extra bits of skin, and some paint and some talcum powder. And I thought, oh my father taught me how to mend a uh a tire, like your bicycle tire if you get a puncher, right? Same thing, it's latex rubber, glue, contact, right? So I I cut a piece of stuff, I put the contact glue. It was so hot, you know, in LA in a sound stage drawn really quickly, slammed it on, painted it, put some talking powder around to get rid of the sticky glue, and they're all going, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did not sleep that night. I was so terrified that you know it'll peel up in the middle of the Elizabeth Taylor and Steven Snowberg were screaming out the next morning. I kind of I forget the breakfast. I went straight to the dinosaur to see what state it was in.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 20:53

It was okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

I'm like, oh thank God.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 20:57

I'm like, do you remember MacGyver? Like that's what it sounded like. You had to like, does anybody have any chewing gum?

Dr Teralyn Sell 21:03

Like it's so it's so amazing, right? Like you fake it till you make it. And it and that's such a true thing, right? Like it's the power of be of cognitive cognition, the power of a behaviorist action, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Like you just do it. Right. So when people ask me now, how did I go from you know working in Hollywood to being a coach to writing, you know, working in mental health? So I my I can tell you my cheeky answer is that I worked in special effects, right? My whole job was about illusions. You know, Hollywood is about illusions. And so my job particularly was about convincing you that something was real that wasn't. Now, I don't know about you guys, but my mind does that to me all the time, right? We have a better special effects department in our heads than anything me or Steven Spielberg could come up with. Plenty of times my head has convinced me of things that are real and they're they're really not. So that that's kind of how I segued into, you know, and using the special effects analogies to to show people how you know how our minds work, how we can get fooled by things that aren't true or aren't real.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 22:06

So yeah, that's not not to diminish that what you went through definitely was real, those um three traumatic things. But this are you suggesting that the stories around when I say stories, I I don't mean that somebody's not truth telling, but the the stories, the weaving that we do in our brain maybe not be, and maybe those are the things that keep us stuck in those places. Is that what you're trying to say?

Safety, Thought, And Perception

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Yes, because don't don't yeah, I'm not in denial about it at all. I can go into you know graphics about what happened, but it's not happening now, and it's not who I am. It happened to me, and it was terrible, and I don't wish it on anybody, but it's not happening to me now, and it's not who I am now, and I don't need it to be a worthwhile person now. I've got, you know, what I'm doing now is is who I am, you know.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 23:01

I you know, it's interesting. I saw, I don't know, I was listening to somebody talking about this. This is the first time I've heard it, and maybe I should know better, I don't know. But they were talking about trauma, and they said it's the first time you notice that you're safe, that you need to stay in that safety instead of the constant, I will never be safe, I am not safe, I'm still not safe, it's still happening situation. It's like once you decide that you are safe and it's not happening now is when you can actually move forward. And I thought it was kind of profound. Like there's moments of safety afterwards, right? Like you are safe, you are you're not being attacked, you're not, you're you're healed up, you're all these things, you are safe, but your body still registers you know input as if you will never be safe again, you know, just kind of like what you said like I'll stay in my house now because the world is an unsafe place to be, and it's always going to be unsafe, and I'm never gonna be safe in it, and I'm still reenacting trauma through that lens. And then you just said, like, when I kind of decided to put that story down, that story of not ever being safe again, is where you can actually free yourself up to live your life. That doesn't mean it didn't exist, like what happened to you didn't not happen, it still happened, but it's the story of safety and security beyond that.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

So I would go even further, and I would like one of the things I often tell my clients is that we're always feeling our thinking. We live in a thought-created world. So if I so I could be sitting on my sofa in absolute safety and be absolutely terrified in my mind because watching watching a movie, you know, or remembering the past, bringing the past into the into the present right now, or or catastrophizing about the future, even. So it actually it's we're never experiencing our circumstances, we're experiencing our thinking about our circumstances. Because it's what happened to me. I've talked to a lot of people about it over the years. What happened to me for some people was just Friday night coming home from the pub. It got me up. Sure. Got into a fight, got into whatever. Yeah. So so it it's not the experience that like like I say, we're not dismissing anybody's suffering here, but it's not the experience that created it's not the events that created my experience, I should say. It's it was my thinking, it was how I innocently didn't know how to handle it, and then it kind of grew and grew and grew into this monster in my head where I was then terrified to leave the house. But there was there wasn't any imminent danger at that moment, but I was feeling the thinking that there might be. And so where I started to get better and I recovered, if if you want to use that word, is because I started understanding that thought is always moving through my mind. It's a constant flow of thought. We have everybody has a stream of thoughts going through their mind. And so if I'm always feeling my thinking, then it's the thinking that's creating the experience. And that can and that's where the freedom comes because that thought has moved on. Every thought we've ever had has moved on. It's gone. Yeah.

Dr Teralyn Sell 26:14

So much DBT in your words. All I can see is like all the different mindfulness skills and dbt popping, right? Because a lot of so many of them.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

So I don't use any techniques or tools in my work with my clients at all. Because to me, it's about when you understand how something works, you it it takes away so much of the fear, right? When you like, like before you knew how to drive, it's like, oh my god, it's on the freeway, right? And then you know, I shortly after I get in LA, I was learning how to drive with my knees with a burger in one hand and a phone in the other hand.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

A giant phone, like a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

No, she had a big phone at that point.

Dr Teralyn Sell 26:55

It was a big phone in the car.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

But but driving didn't change, but my thinking about driving changed as you get more familiar with something.

Chronic Pain, Three Principles, And Relief

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 27:03

Yeah, I want to point out something too, because when you described the first event that occurred when you were in a club, right? And you described it in such a way, and I think this is this is a profound thing too. Like the perspective that you had about it was very different than the perspective you had about the other two times. That perspective, well, this happens in a in a club, and you know, it was the 80s and these things, you know, like the brush off, right? You were able to kind of like brush it off as if it's kind of like just a standard thing, you know, or whatever, it was still profound. You got very injured, but the the way you described it was very different than how you then subsequently described the other two. So then that first one also became part of the story around the other two, right? Even though the perspective of the first one was profoundly different than the other two. But when when you talk about your history in like a therapy session or wherever you were, suddenly they're all grouped together, even though that first one probably, I mean, this might be a stretch, probably didn't create the same type of PTSD response as the other two did, you know, but collectively, right? But if you're when you were just talking about that, it was so different how you described it as just being kind of like a typical night in a pub and things went wrong, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

But you know how how I see that now is it's the state of mind I was in. Because it's at first one, the state of mind I was in, yeah, it was pretty catastrophic at the time having your skull fractured, but you know, 20 years old, you get on with it, you pick yourself up and go back to school. I remember asking the doctor to give me a can I have like three days off? You know, for the teacher. And then as my state of mind kind of went down, like I I often use the analogy of an elevator going up and down with you know, for for moods, understanding consciousness and moods. So as my state of mind started going down after the second one, you know, I wasn't able to process it or bounce back so quickly because it was building up. And then by the third one, I was in the basement and it's like I went down really quickly. But you know what's what's interesting to me is uh lots of I've been through lots of other things too. Like I was held at gunpoint in Czechoslovakia at one point on a trip to I think you're a CIA agent. I was on the magic bus going to to meet my friend in Greece, and I was on the bus. Did you say magic bus? Is that what you said? I don't remember. Yes, okay. It was set up like in the 60s, a bus left London and a bus left Athens in New Zealand. It was like it was a hippie thing. Magic school bus. But you know, when you're 20 in the 80s, you travel off around Europe, you know, so that's one kind of thing you did. And then I I visited Israel and I was on a bus that exploded. Now, it wasn't a terrorist attack, but we didn't know that at the time because it was a time when buses were exploding. But I never looked at that in my my list of traumas because I got really great help the day after I was able to process it really in a healthy way. And as soon as the adrenaline and the cortisol settled down, I was back in school and and you know, like I was okay. So when I told me and I was on a bus exposure, they go, What? I'm like, yeah, because now I bet there are people who never gonna say it never again, you know.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 30:23

Oh yeah, I was gonna say for you too, it could have been because it was a collective experience, whereas the other ones were very much just a you experience, right? Like, why does this keep happening to me? Singular experience directed towards you, whereas the the school bus was more of a collective unified experience, perhaps.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Possibly.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 30:43

I mean, but I don't know, it was different, but yeah. But again, perspective.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Yeah, it's all about perspective and health, it's yeah, right, because you when your perspective changes, like, and that's what I I see how people can get well much better now, is that when you're the because for a long time I needed the things out here to change, then I'll be okay. Like if you guys changed, I'd be okay. If the ex-boyfriend changed, then I'd be okay. If my childhood was different, then I, you know, it'll be like if the idiot boss would just get off my back, then I'll be okay. And so it's like well-being was kind of over there. And if I did more, if I worked harder, if I was a better person, then I would be okay. And and what I know now is that everybody has this innate well-being, like we were talking about in the intro. And when you see that you can't actually be broken, I mean, yes, bodies can be damaged and and we can get hurt, but uh the me, the what's the the me that's inside cannot be broken or damaged. And then when you that changes your perspective, and you start seeing that that nothing out there has to change for me to be okay, right? Because then it comes down to perspective and my my perception of of myself or my circumstances, and that is up to me because no one can get inside my head except me, right? That is my superpower.

Dr Teralyn Sell 32:06

Okay, so tell us how this principle, this idea, okay, applies to you healing when it comes to pain management. Because you had some significant pain management issues. And I was reading a little bit about them on your website, and again, it was one of those transitions where you talk about how horrific it was and you could barely walk, and you'd fall out on set, and the day you're sitting on a pipe that was sticking out of the wall, right? I'm like, I gotta ask you about the pipe sticking out of the wall. And then you talk about pain management and healing pain in a non-traditional way.

Listening To Whispers Before Screams

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Yeah, I mean that's really what turned things around for me because I had chronic pain for probably 25 years, you know, because whenever I I I went to the chiropractor every month for 25 years, because when I tell a like an osteopath or a chiropractor my my history of all these injuries, they go, Oh, well, that's why your back keeps going out. That's why you've got all this tension in your shoulders and and your neck because of all these injuries. And then I'm not a doctor, so I'd go, okay. And I keep doing the treatments and you know, the massage and the chiropractic and all this stuff. And then when I came about 10 years ago, I came across these ideas that are called the three principles, and I was so taken by it that I went to London to do some training. And I had there was sort of the expense of the course, I was flying backwards and forwards, I had to go multiple times to be there live as well as online other work. And so I needed to save some money. So I I I decided to stop going to the car practice because I thought, okay. And I thought if I get into any trouble, I can always call her again, you know. And at the end of the six-month course, I was sit literally sitting right where I am now. And I was thinking, that's weird. I haven't had a flare-up in six months. Now I was getting one every four to six weeks where I'd be lying on the floor for three days in absolute agony. Bent. I used to describe myself as Marilyn Monroe on one side and Audrey Hepburn on the other side. I'd be so twisted out of shape with in agony. I was rushed to the emergency room from a couple of movies because like I couldn't move my you know body from my my shoulders down, absolutely locked up in agony. And here I was, I've gone six months without any pain. And I had IBS, I had allergies, I had asthma, I had all kinds of all through my life. I'd had all these other physical issues. And I thought about it, I thought, wow. And that's when I kind of dived into the mind-body connection and I started reading a lot of pain research. And and what I just to put all that into like more couple of sentences, what I started to see was my injuries that healed. And and this is something, one of the first things I learned is that all injuries heal. Um, obviously under normal circumstances. So even if you break your finger bone, you know, that the the bone will heal. And within four to six weeks. So why was I still hurting, you know, 25 years later? So what I know now is that my the the stress response was so hyperactivated over any little thing I was, you know, I didn't realize how anxious I was. So that's sending a message to my brain that I'm not safe. And so my muscles are tightening up and there's a constant flow of not massive panic every day, but like a like the imposter syndrome like you've mentioned. Like if there's a constant flow of adrenaline and cortisol going through your body, our bodies weren't designed to sustain that level of stress and anxiety. So your body starts screaming. And I realize now my body was screaming at me all those years to slow down, come out of my head, be safe. You are safe, it's okay. And so these different things were trying to get my attention. And I again I call that wisdom because the wisdom of my body was trying to help me recover, only I didn't understand. And that's again where I'd use the word innocent. I innocently didn't understand. And then when they I started understanding these three principles, which are in like a new paradigm in psychology, which is basically saying, we're never broken, you have innate health, we're feeling our thinking, we live in a thought-created world. And as I started to in have insights and understand that, my pain went away because I didn't need it anymore. And and that that was mind-blowing for me that after all those years of treatment and pain, I I've been pretty much pain-free for 10 years now.

Dr Teralyn Sell 36:24

So this this idea that when you can make that connection and better understand it, it's going to heal and change you from within, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I've I've worked with now with people, like I said, I'm not medically trained, but I've had people call me, have you worked with someone with plantar fasciitis? I'm like, oh Google that, what's plantar fasciitis? It's footprints. So, you know, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, migraines, insomnia, uh, even fertility problems. Because what I started seeing was it doesn't actually like I asked a doctor once, a medical doctor, why is it some people uh it can manifest as migraines and other people as IBS? He said, we don't know. And actually it's not a useful question because that's like, you know, why does one person take alcohol, another one takes drugs, another one's cutting, this one's doing food. It's they're all coping mechanisms.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

And so my mine showed up as mostly back pain, but some stomach stuff and and allergies and asthma. And I see now it's just that was just the language of my body trying to get my attention. So when I made that connection with the thinking, I it did and and my and I feel safe in my mind now and have for a while that it just it wasn't necessary anymore. You know, so that's where the healing came. Yeah, it just it's fascinating.

Coping Mechanisms And Early Warning Signs

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 37:45

That's well, it is because I know there's uh so many chronic pain patients out there that are going to resist this idea because it's so close to what they've been hearing. Again, when you said before, like this is what they said, but this is what I heard them say, right? So what you're saying is, you know, there's such a profound piece of thoughts and the psychology behind this. What's gonna be heard is it's all in your head. That's what that's what's gonna be heard, right? So this is the this is the problem when we have like psychologized the shit out of everything, is that people then hear the message that it's just all in your head, and they're like, pain is not in my head, it's in my in my foot, you know, it pain is not here, it's fibromyalgia, it's not it's not psychological pain. And I think what people do fail to understand is that physical pain and emotional pain are you know, they're siblings. Yeah, they're in a marriage for yeah, they're they're married.

Dr Teralyn Sell 38:50

So you've got the other, you've got a quote on your website, which I think is profound, and you are probably like the fourth or fifth person that's come on the show that has said this just in a kind of a different way. It says, if you listen to your body whisper, you won't have to hear it scream. That was somebody said that on the podcast a long time ago. We've had we've had a few people come on talk about feather. First it's a feather, then it's a brick, then it's a semi-truck. Yeah. Um, this uh this idea if your like your body is actually going to tell you everything that you need to know. And we're not paying attention to it, especially when it's at the whisper level.

unknown 40:08

Yeah.

Dr Teralyn Sell 40:09

And if we would actually slow the fuck down and pay attention to the whisper level, that's right where we need to start taking some action and not be so reactive because reactive has come when we're screaming. Reactive has come when the semi-truck has run us over. Reactive has come when yeah, it's it's not that it's too late, but that's when we all of a sudden go, oh now I guess I need to pay attention.

Why Freud Was Wrong

SPEAKER_00 40:32

Right. And and I would I would say the same is true in mental health too, because that's a lot of the work I do with my clients now is is watching. Like, imagine like going down a mountain. So, like, you know, or or down to the basement. What I started noticing is like the back pain, the the you know, my life's never gonna get better, it's never gonna change, you know, that stuff. Those thoughts and stories start showing up kind of middling to to lower level. And so I got curious what's going on before that, so I can catch it before it gets to such a painful place where I'm lying on the floor in agony. So, what I noticed for myself is one of my early signs is losing my sense of humor. Like, because I know when I'm up in a good mood, I'm pretty I'm I'm I'm not. comedian but I can be you know goofy and you know and and sort of you know fool around and stuff but when I start to lose my sense of humor that's me like putting my toe on the down escalator where you know because if and if I don't catch it and and sometimes I do and some you know sometimes I might not but the next thing is I'm finding everything really serious and don't you dare make a joke out of my problems and my pain. And then it's you know then I'm blaming my mother and then you know and and then it's always your mom's fault. And then and then it's the story is like no one understands it's never gonna get better it's always like this you know like never always kind of you know statements kind of showing up it starts getting intense it starts getting heavy a sense of urgency got to fix it got to change it got to do something now we're googling you know some guy on the other side of the world who says like have a clonic and that's gonna fix it like oh yeah I'll try that next I've heard all kinds of things yeah and so yeah and so we're basically like falling down the mountain and then you know mental health diagnosis start showing up like you know OCD and and bulimia and anorexia and all these kind of things. Like I said I I see them as coping mechanisms because if you're living in that intense feeling in your thinking then I want out. So whether it's alcohol or or drugs or you know pot or cutting or you know shoplifting it's like there's no end there's no end to the repertoire of you know coping mechanisms we can come up with. So what I've learned now about all those things is that they're they're actually the solution not a good one right but because they like a cup of drinks might have started out as a good idea but then it's a bottle and then it's two bottles and you know or you know the shoplifting is a bit of a thriller the first time but then it's you know turn then you're being arrested. You know it's like so all these coping mechanisms they start again I would call them wisdom because they start out as like like that's the best we can do to to cope with these intense horrible feelings. So what if I can catch it further up so that I'm not in such a risky you know destructive place whether to myself or to my relationships or and so catching so I know now that when I start getting a little bit serious or a bit snippy you know my I lose like patience goes out the window or I get a bit intolerant. I'm like uh oh what's going on here we go maybe I'm a bit too bad you know maybe you know scaring myself with some thinking or something and and so now I can catch it. It's funny like I've become sensitive like that. Whereas in the past I was like sensitive like like me like me. Right now the sensitivity is is in my favor is like I've got a sensitivity to what's the quality of my thinking? Where am I going with this? Now I still have free will to have a pity party if I want to right right but now I know I'm doing it. Right right and so it kind of it's a big difference.

Dr Teralyn Sell 44:00

Tell us why go ahead oh sorry Terry. I have to ask this because I don't have a few minutes left and I'm just intrigued and I know this is going to be a hard question and like the time frame but tell us why Freud was wrong.

SPEAKER_04 44:13

I love we don't have enough time I know but no there's she's she's there's a there's a title you know why I'm asking this question.

Dr Teralyn Sell 44:20

I that title intrigues the shit out of me why is he wrong?

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Well I think he he had some very very strange ideas very strange like peanut like like ladies it in like a minute guys here's what's happening. Okay go really I mean you know some of his ideas were so bizarre but I'll tell you what Freud was good at marketing.

Dr Teralyn Sell 44:47

If anybody wants to study marketing study Freud because we are still talking about him and he had some very strange ideas I can't I cannot understand why in our field this guy from the late 1800s matters. And what other fields are we hinging our practice on something from 1890. Yeah Freud wasn't good at marketing we were good at marketing Freud the profession was good at marketing Freud but yes you have a publication and I was intrigued by this title and I'm assuming it has something to do with all these these altered states of consciousness and how we're always going back to these things and how little that actually is helpful.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Yes I mean that that's a big part of it but if you notice on the cover of my book there's a a black and white picture of a woman her name is Bertha Pappenheim otherwise known as Anna O. Yep like supposedly Freud's first client or Breuer's client and Freud told the world that he'd cured her what actually happened was she was abandoned. She ended up in a sanitarium in Switzerland with you know having electric shock treatment and heels put on her and stuff like that. She got herself out she became a social worker set up orphanages and they called it white slave trade then but it was what we know is sex trafficking and she rescued women and children and she gave them homes and nobody's heard of her. She stood up to the Gestapo and rescued children from the death camps and took them to the UK. Nobody's heard of her so I put her picture on the book so in the book as well as the contemporary story set in Los Angeles I kind of feed her story in between so that you know we can hear and and give her the respect and credit she deserves because that's who we should be learning from you know someone who sacrificed themselves whereas Freud you know as soon as his theories didn't work he was on to the next one because it wasn't popular.

Dr Teralyn Sell 46:30

Yeah yeah and her story is a little similar to yours actually when you're talking about the resiliency that occurs and what actually happens when you you get when you let go of of somebody else telling you what's wrong with you with putting the labels on you and you find that inner sense of strength and agency essentially so there's a parallel between the two of you that exists which is pretty Freudian if you ask me but anyway I mean I don't know it's just super ego talking like who the hell cares like really here's the iceberg no we're not like that we're still teaching it today anyway that because I just had to ask that's like my selfish question like I gotta ask about this.

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 47:09

Yes. So I mean I really I really think this conversation it was complex but I think for me it's really summed up in learning how to be more resilient right in that resiliency is letting go of labels or the need to label and letting go of identity of patient right like I'm or injured I'm the injured one I'm the patient I'm the patient constantly I've got all these labels to prove it and that's when we let go of I am a resilient human being and I need to tap into that resiliency. And I think we need more training on that less on Freud more on resiliency.

Dr Teralyn Sell 47:49

Come on now you know right and your thoughts the part that I pulled from all about but you can't be resilient if you don't have the thoughts your thoughts are going to manifest themselves in in some kind of reactions right and you're it's all based off the emotion and so if we can if we can tackle that part of it first right goes back to the old thought feeling behavior idea.

Takeaways, Books, And Ways To Support

Therapist Jenn Schmitz 48:08

Yes by the way yeah if you're going to therapy and all you're doing is rehashing trauma over and over and over and over and over and over again all you're doing is reinforcing the trauma yeah you're not actually healing. So if that's what you're doing in trauma you might want to rethink your trauma therapy because that's no good. That's no good. So what am I hearing?

Dr Teralyn Sell 48:32

Somebody's alarm is going on it's like either it's an alarm or an ice cream up it's we're wrapping up that's what it is for us. So Hannah music yes it is I know I'm like she's got some theatrical shit going on in the background that's like cueing us to go okay we got a minute left everybody dinosaur is gonna pop out from behind her head. Get ready everybody Hannah for being a part of the show coming on telling your story it's very profound very impactful and the work you're doing is is changing lives it's pretty neat. So if you guys haven't checked out any of her books or her website ch a n a studley.com check out Hannah Studley Chana gotta say channel there's people what what C-H-A-N-A. So thank you Hannah for coming on the show. We appreciate having you and for those of you my voice is hurting from smiling so that's always yes good that's a good thing right that's an excellent thing. And everybody that has listened thank you for making it uh to the end here we appreciate you make sure you reach out give us some stars buy us a coffee if you want to support us also get on YouTube subscribe watch our stuff I was almost going to swear I don't know why I'm keeping it together here. Watch our stuff everybody and if you need to send us your gaslet truth at the gaslet truth podcast at email dot com. Send us an email I can't even say it all at the end here. Thank you again Hannah for coming on the show we appreciate you okay