Sick and Tired
Empowering women during life’s transitions.
Sick and Tired
Episode 8: Childhood Trauma: Mental Health and Relations
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How Childhood Trauma Affects Mental Health and Relations with others.
#drjanbell #sickand tired #healing journey #youareenough #childhoodtraumamentalhealth
YouTube Channel: @drjanbell https://youtu.be/VLJ3YuFLCCQ
Introducing Dr. Jan, speaker, healing coach, podcast leader, educator, Dr. Jan Bell, the advocate for the sick and tired.
SPEAKER_00Hi, I'm Dr. Jan Bell, the host of the Sick and Tired Podcast. Welcome back to our conversation. It is May Mental Health Awareness Month. And because it is, we are going to talk about mental health. I hope that this will be a conversation that you will be interested in because sometimes we don't even think about, we've all been through some sort of trauma as we are thinking about mental health awareness during this time of the month of May. Welcome, Dr. Dunn, to the Sick and Tired podcast. Will you please just come and just tell us a little bit about you as we uh continue our conversation?
SPEAKER_03I would be honored to. Let me start off by saying with this being Mental Health Awareness Month, I want people to know, um, those that don't know, all of us have mental health. That's not reserved to somebody that's in a residential facility behind locked bars. You know, you either have um mental health and well-being, um, or you could have mental illness or mental disorder, right? Um, and so I just want everybody to kind of be aware of that. Um, and everybody I believe has experienced some level of trauma, um, maybe at different ages or stages of life, and nobody takes trauma unscathed. So I'll just put that disclaimer out there in the beginning. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00That's wonderful. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03I am a licensed professional counselor and a supervisor. So people who want to become, they're already counselors, but if they want to become licensed, they have to do supervised um 3,000 hours. So I do that as well. Um, I run a private practice, which I've been running for about 20 years, um, real life counseling and consultation. And then I am also a an assistant professor um in counseling um and clinical mental health at Midwestern State University, and I also adjunct at SMU University. Um proud mama of two boys, they're grown, thank the Lord, and I have uh four grandbabies. They're not babies anymore, they're they're growing up as well. Um, but that is that is my joy, um, is being able to watch them grow and hear my children tell them things that I used to tell them and could listening to, right? Um so it's those full circle moments that I'm really enjoying um having that. So I've worked in the school districts, I am a school counselor as well. I'm no longer in the schools, but I do do professional development, so I keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening with school age children and teachers and and all of those things. So I'm excited to be here. I have you know several projects that I do in addition to what I call my day job, um because I love giving back. Um, and I think I have an ability to talk about some tough stuff um with them, kind of kick gloves sometimes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I'm honored to be here, super excited.
SPEAKER_00And we need you, uh, and we need more conversations like this. So thank you uh for coming and just sharing your expertise with us as we uh try to go through these this time of healing, healing journeys, our life transitions, and just be being able to just hear something different. Or maybe it's not even different, maybe there's something that uh when you when you talk about it, you'll you know, some of us will say, Yeah, you know, yeah, that's been going on with me. And uh, you know, or you know, or I've been through this and I'm so glad to hear someone talk about it. So thank you for being here. So you know, Dr.
SPEAKER_03Jane, let me just say this. One thing about trauma is it will make you think you're the only one going through it. Yeah, it isolates you, right? So then who do I talk to to tell them I've done this horrible thing? And we we kind of own like I shouldn't have put myself in that position or I should have been doing better, right? And and it just spirals out and we get further away from getting the help that we need. And I want to be able to, like you, create more spaces to have these conversations and make it safe, make it safe for safe. It's a place where we're not judging anybody, we're embracing everybody so that we all can be better and live our best version of ourselves.
SPEAKER_00You know, and and and my hope, um, you know, my my vision also is to be able to get women together as you are talking about having that safe space to talk because there's a lot of places that we don't have the places that we can come and talk about, you know, trauma.
SPEAKER_03We can be the worst to each other, yeah. You know, we can, you know, we we talk about it all the time, like we're crabs in a pot sometimes. We'll step on your head and climb on your back to get to somewhere desirable in our mind, right? Right at the expense of other people, and I think I think we need to do more of creating spaces where we're coming together to link arms with other women, whether we've experienced what they're experiencing or not, but be able to be that sounding board, that listening place that's safe and non-judgmental. We gotta work.
SPEAKER_00And that's all of the that's the reason this is all about this um, you know, this beginning uh with the podcast, and and hopefully we expand it where we can get together, even you know, as as we're talking. Uh, you know, I had uh one of my friends that was a psychologist to do the last podcast, and I've already had questions about how can we get together as women uh in a group where I can ask more questions about you know stress fatigue. And I'm knowing that it's gonna be the same thing with you. So I'm hoping that we can get together sometimes and get our schedules together, and we can do some kind of um a place where we can go and we can sit and talk so that we can be better people, you know, and we can we can love ourselves more, and that is what uh it's about it's about being in uh the inner healing that we need in order to just move forward. So that is that I think that is your vision, and it's actually my vision. I think God has placed us together, you know, it so that we can we can sit and we can talk about that. And so thank you again for being here. So, how do you as a counselor uh define child uh childhood trauma? Because that's what we're gonna be talking about tonight as we move on into our adults. But what is your definition of childhood trauma?
SPEAKER_03Well, I tend to give really watered-down definitions, you know, there's those textbook definitions, but they get too wordy sometimes and too heady, and people that are experiencing, I want them to be able to see themselves in it. So think of childhood trauma as an event or something that has happened that makes a child feel unsafe, unseen, and unsupported, right? Um, and it's not just about that event that happens to the person, it is how your body responds to it. So in my household, there were three children. I was the middle child, I had two sisters on both sides of me, and we all could have experienced the same thing, but it might have only traumatized one of us, right? So, how our ability to cope with those events. Um, so I was just saying that you know, several people can experience the same incident, same situation, but it not be traumatizing to everybody. Everybody has a different um ability and skill set to cope with life on the outside um of who they are on the inside.
SPEAKER_00So you said earlier that uh you know you can have three children and only one child uh is traumatized. Tell us a little bit more about that. How does that happen?
SPEAKER_03Um, I'm not really sure all of the heavy science behind it, um, but what I know is some people have different coping skills. They've tapped into those. So in my house, we were all four years apart, except for that first and last, we're eight years apart. So my sister, four years older than me, we would like to think that she's acquired more coping skills. She's seen some things before, she knows it's gonna be okay. My younger sister, four years younger than me, it might just blow her whole world. She can't wrap her brain around it. Um, it's making her feel unsafe, right? Um, and so I was the rebel in the household, so I stayed in trouble, right? Um, and even to this day, as as good grown adults, my sister, my younger sister and I talk about it. My my older sister detached, she just disconnected, went in her room with a book, and then he pays her. Oh, y'all are fussing, who knew, right? Um, I kind of knew at 5 30 when my dad pulled in, I was gonna be in trouble for something. My little sister was a nervous wreck. Just hearing that garage door go up would set her into a tizzy because she'd be like, Patrice, did you do your chores? Did you do this? Did you do that? Just him raising his voice would alarm her, right? She didn't want to see me get in trouble. Um, so we just all have different very coping skills, and it still manifests kind of that way, um, present day with us. I'm not I'm not a rebel anymore, but I'm about to already have that label as a child, right?
SPEAKER_00And so, and you know, as as children, I mean, we we are really children walking around in adult bodies, you know. We and and so some of those things never never never go away.
SPEAKER_03They just kind of I am still a boat rocker. I just do it in a professional way now. I'm a boat rocker. I still I will buck against the system a little bit, but right, right.
SPEAKER_00And sometimes, and and maybe that was what you learned as a child, you know, how to do that in order to be to help us, you know, some of the women in the world. So we need more of those kinds of women around. So tell me what what experiences uh count as trauma besides physical abuse?
SPEAKER_03Oh well, there could be just relationship trauma. Um, I just had a client leave my office that went through um infidelity um in her relationship, and then she stayed eight years. And Dr. You know, Dr. Jen, we've talked about why we stay so long, right? She stayed eight years after that, and he was kind of flaunting it in front of her. Um, she was trying to do the Christian thing and stay and pray and all of those kinds of things. Um, there is what we call like a trauma, which could be like Hurricane Katrina. So I did a lot of work. I was here in Texas by then, but I lived in New Orleans for about 10 years. Um, so when you experience those natural disasters, there is nothing, nothing in your life that will prepare you for that. The devastation. Um, I remember just the smells of hurricanes. Like when you come back home from a hurricane and everything is wet and funky, and you don't have electricity, so then your body odor is I mean, it's just horrible. And Hurricane Katrina, they had bodies floating in the water, right? Being able to heal from that. Um, sometimes there's generational trauma, and I kind of relate that to New Orleans as well, because I remember working in the schools in New Orleans, and the young girls, I'm talking ninth grade, eighth, or ninth grade, their goal was to get pregnant and get their own project. Like that was my grandma has one, miss, my mama has one. So when I have my baby, I'm gonna qualify for housing in the projects as well, right? That's some generational trauma. Of course, we hear about racial trauma, cultural identity, and in this country, you know, we we bide ourselves on being the melting pot. That's not always a pleasant experience, right? And people can be cruel. You think about middle school age children, those mean girls, they're saying things to you based on what you wear. If there's some culturally traditional clothing that you wear, or one client that I had would her parents would pack her lunch, um, and she was Indian, so it'd be strong curry and that kind of stuff. And the kids would give her a hard time because they're like, Oh, what does that smell? You're not used to it, it doesn't smell like young that's lunchtime, you know. Um, so that's hard. Some people have medical trauma. Um, I think about the little girl um who's been on documentaries Gypsy Rose, where her mother had Munchausen's disease, and had her go through all these operations and testing and removal of her teeth. And I mean, that's traumatic. And then things like grief and loss, you know, we lose loved ones to young people. We talk about childhood trauma. Sometimes it's just their best friend that they've been friends with since kindergarten and they move away in fourth grade. That's a loss. That is as if somebody has passed away, right? And you don't get a lot of practice with grief and loss, um, unless you know you've just had that unfortunate happenings that a lot of people that you love and cared for had passed away. When I worked in Dallas, there would be times where the kids would come in in the morning and they just would be on 10 automatically, but it was because there was a shooting in the apartment complex the night before. That affected everybody in that apartment complex, not just the family of that person. Everybody, everybody knew this is my auntie, this is my ex's, you know, my my mom's ex-boyfriend, all of them. Um, and so it can show up lots of different ways, and it can affect people lots of different ways.
SPEAKER_00Sexual abuse is also uh one of those trauma things as well, correct?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. I have uh a client who was actually sexually tortured, um, starting at about the age five from her father. He would have her have sex in front of her brothers, he would sodomize. I mean, it was just it was, you know, I would I would always say, I think I've heard it all until I heard the next story, right? Um, and she's good and grown, and she has all of the the side effects of that kind of trauma. And she was one, she was a little, she had a little hutsu in her. She would go and try to tell people, but because he was a well-respected man in the community, he was ex-military, they went, they immediately went and told her dad, and then she'd be in trouble again, you know. And he was he was physically abusive, emotionally abusive. Um, he's no longer here, and I think that's harder for her to kind of work through the process of dealing with that because he can't be held accountable for anything that he did. Um, and it still haunts her. Um so he's died, yes, he's passed away. And she's glad about that part, but can't, you know what we talk about closure sometimes. I'm not really sure how I feel about that, but she can't ask the questions or try to hold him accountable for what he did in that part.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So you talked about uh, you know, the trauma of hurricanes and the trauma of you know kids bullying the kids. Um so so so as children, you know, we take that into our adult lives, right? And how does that reflect in in our adult lives just period as you were talking about the friend that uh I mean your your client that was uh abused um in for for so long? How how how does that reflect it just first in our lives period? I mean, how do we uh you know work through that? And then how how does that uh help and how does that work or how do you see that in relationships with other people, uh, especially men and women, or you know, just women, men, however, just a relationship, period. But how does that work? How do you see that in your practice? You know, how is it that you have been traumatized? And it's like an unhealed trauma, uh, and we carry it in our lives until, you know, I mean, we've grown, and that unhealed trauma is still there, and then we have these things that we call triggers, right?
SPEAKER_03That kind of resurface it, like we can squish it down for a while, especially if it's unmanaged, right? We just squish it, we keep squishing it down, kind of like that bag I have in my kitchen for the the Walmart bags, right? You keep squishing those bags down there until it just starts popping out, right? Um, I will I will tell you, um, I think the biggest evidence of that in in my adult clients or even just older clients, because if you were traumatized at four and five, it's showing up by adolescence, right? Um, but you think about the developmental stages of people, um, and there is a point in those adolescent years where they're trying to figure out who they are, you know, which part is my mama, which part is my daddy. Um, there's issues if those people aren't present or you never knew them, but we're trying to develop who we are. Who how is this gonna work? What am I gonna look like 10 years from now? What am I gonna believe in 10 or 15 years from now? And depending on the type of trauma and the the duration of the trauma, it starts to affect how you feel about yourself. And when you look in the mirror, you don't like what you see, or you start to see what this other person has made you to believe. I am astounded at the horrendous things some parents say to their children because they have unmet issues, right? They haven't dealt with their own stuff, but would that be like generational that you were talking about earlier? Yeah, some of it's generational, some of it that my mom has experienced um domestic violence or alcohol, substance abuse, right? And so um, especially I've seen it where the moms are having substance abuse issues, and this the child, because of what they've experienced, they overcompensate. So now they're straight A students, right? And they're doing well, people are talking to them about, and the mom is like, Well, I don't know who you think you are, you're not all of that, you're gonna be no good, just like your daddy, blah blah blah blah blah. And you think about very young children that have heard this over and over and over. You're you're a child, these are the people who are in charge of caring for you. Why wouldn't you believe them? Right? If my mama, if my mama keeps saying it, surely it must be true. I'm no good, and that must mean my daddy is horrible because she keeps telling me I'm gonna be just like him, and I know that's not a compliment, right? The other thing that shows up is the inability to trust. I can't trust these caregivers, you know. Any moment, especially when it's like unpredictable trauma. Like, I don't know if my mama's coming home drunk. I don't know if when I walk in the door from school, if if my daddy's gonna be hurting my mom, right? And am I gonna feel safe? It's horrible when for a child home is not safe. That's supposed to be home base. We played that in hide and go see. You go home when you want to be safe, right? And that's not the story that these kids are are living, so inability to trust, and then when they get to be adults, you can tell me what you want, but I already know that love is a dangerous place, love is not for me, right? And so some of us, because it's not safe, then we never we we avoid commitment, right? And I'm gonna tell you now, just so in case I slip up, when I vision this, a lot of times I think of women because I work with a lot of women, um, but I've seen it with men, it's not like they're void of this, but so if I slip up and say she or mom or whatever, that's just that's where my mind is going. Um but they they don't trust, um, they assume they have an expectation to be betrayed by caregivers, by significant others, you know, that that sting of infidelity is is hard, you know, it doesn't go away easy, right? And and you're questioning yourself, you know, well, why wasn't I good enough? Why would you hurt me like this? You promise to take care of my heart, you're not doing that. Um I think when you don't Trust the anxiety causes you to constantly be analyzing every everybody's moves. Was he just doing that because he wants something from me? Is he doing that because he's trying to cover something up? Like we're always thinking the worst. Anxiety will give you 27 narratives in your head, none of which will be positive. They will all be negative, right? Um there's also the fear of abandonment, right? If I had a mom who goes and binges on alcohol for three or four days and she's just not there, right? And then I'm left taking care of siblings or the household or making sure I get to school. Um individuals who have experienced trauma don't deal with conflict very well, and that can go on either end. So either I just don't do conflict and I avoid it, right? And we start as people pleasing things, like let me just try to be nicer, let me cook a nice meal, let me do whatever to avoid you getting upset, right? Or conflict is comfortable for them, they feel comfortable in the chaos. So if everything is going well, they will start a fight, they will intentionally do something that rocks your boat. So now they know how to act, they know how to feel, they know how what to look like, they know the expression on their face, everything. And and I you could probably record those fights, and they would be pretty much the same every time, right? Because they just get comfortable with it. Um and we talk about trauma. Now that's kind of a newer term, but you find people that will trauma by. So when I have clients that go to residential facilities, they tell you don't make friends with the other patients in here, right? Because you're gonna find, oh, your mom acts like that too. Now we start now before we leave, we're in love with somebody, and it's really over that trauma. That is something that you have in common, but that you know, we start to confuse that with love, right? Because now that feels like that's a love thing. It's not um so they they think that intensity that they're feeling, they confuse that with intimacy, right? Or we talk about that chaos, they think now we got chemistry because you get me, right?
SPEAKER_00Because that's what you're used to.
SPEAKER_03That's what that's that's something that we're uh and that's it's like the trauma retrains your brain, like it it affects your brain chemistry that you say this is normal. Like I thought my childhood, like everybody's everybody's household's not like that. I had a perception of my two best friends' parents and how they interacted with them. Um, and this is back in the day, everybody got whipping, so those that was like you act up, you're gonna catch a whipping boy or a girl in the house. That was commonplace when I grew up. Um, they put you in jail for that. Yeah, we would get yeah, we didn't, yeah, they would have been up under the jail, right? That would be inside the house, outside the house. There was no fear.
SPEAKER_00Remember those switches we used to have to go get at? I have you seen a uh a switch uh bush lately? I haven't seen a switchbush in such a long time. They must have gotten rid of them.
SPEAKER_03Listen, my my mother-in-law would put a vase on the kitchen table and she'd go pick the switch and put them in the water so they could stay, they wouldn't dry out too much, right? She'd be ready, just wishing you would act up, right? I said, Lord have mercy. Um but you know, but we we had this perception of how everybody else's house is going. I thought this is just how dads discipline their daughters. I didn't know, right? Um, and I tell people there's a difference from getting a spanking and getting a whooping, right? Those that know know that there is a difference in that, but you know, you just assume everybody everybody's household is like that. Um and some of us, you know, we were we were raised that what happens in this house stays in this house. You don't talk to the school counselor. I wish you would talk to this. I don't even know we had a school counselor not to talk about that, anyways. I don't think we had a school counselor till till high school, and that was that was solely to get you to college, yeah. Get up out across that stage, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, so you know, but when but but back in that day, uh they they were doing stuff uh to us, and you know, they're spanking our hands with rulers in school.
SPEAKER_03So you could get my friends who got spanking with the the yard stick in the hallway, just to meet, and then you can go home and you're gonna get another one.
SPEAKER_00And if you act it, if you were acting up down the street, uh block down, mom, they everybody knew it, you know. So by the time you got home, mom and daddy already knew it.
SPEAKER_03You don't have it in the go ahead and start walking home because you already know my dad was gonna come outside, my dad would whistle, and I could hear him three or four streets over. And if I didn't, my friends would be like, Patrice, your dad is whistling for you. And if you everybody knew the whistle, everybody knew everybody knew that that's your daddy going to the house, you know. Yeah, they already knew, yeah, but you know, to answer that question, it can affect trauma can affect your ability to communicate in future relationships, and I'm talking friends, family, romantic partners, it can affect intimacy, boundaries. I promise every client I've ever had has boundary issues, right? And again, I told you, I think everybody has experienced some trauma, the ability to receive love. Bless my mama's heart. I think that was as much love as she had around her, she couldn't absorb it. It was like she did not feel like she was worthy of that. I remember at her funeral, standing room only, people outside the church, everything. And I said, Mama, I just pray that now you see how much people cared about you. Couldn't see it while you were on earth. I hope from heaven you catch a glimpse of this and can receive some of that. I mentioned that it affects your self-worth, how you see yourself, right? Not allowing other people to determine who you are, but how you see yourself, um, and your parenting style. I, you know, I've taught parenting for 35 years, and I always say if you love the way you were parented, you will imitate it. If you hated the way you were parented, you're gonna go to the opposite, completely opposite parenting style. And I will tell you, I don't think that there's um value in the extremes of either one of those. Like there's there's a comfortable place in the middle, and then just your friendships. How do you, you know, some people can make friends, they just can't keep friends. Um, some people I have some clients that will tell me straight to my face they don't have any friends. I don't need any friends, I don't have any friends, they live life in a silo and they're okay with that.
SPEAKER_00So um and that has come from some childhood trauma that they've had in the in the in the past.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. And maybe you know, it could have been something that happened to them, you know, as teenagers, um, but it still has that effect. I I think um that the earlier it happens, the more intense the trauma is. Okay, right. We got it's like that ball of yarn that's all knotted up. We got more knots to unravel the further back that it goes.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I think you and I were sharing the story of the of uh Billy Porter, um, you know, and uh listening to his story. Um, and we and you and I were talking about that and how sad it was to even hear him talk about his past, yeah, even as uh an adult. You know, he's a mature, very, you know, qualified man uh that does wonderful work, very gifted guy. But just just to hear a story, you know, I I told you that when I heard it, it made me cry. So we have these, I think you're right. And you know, and it tell me if I'm uh wrong or not, but it seems it appears that we have all, like you said, have come from some sort of trauma, and the world is like that because the way that we were brought up, and we were all brought up some way, and some of us liked it, and some of us didn't like it, and some of us are indifferent with it. But but at the same time, that is who we are. You know, I am who I am because of the way I was raised, you are who you are because the way you were raised, and we need to kind of accept that, don't you think?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you do that to embrace it. You first of all, you gotta identify it. Like there is a practice that I talk about peeling back the layers of the onion to figure out who you are at the core, and each one of those layers has a direct line to something that has happened in your life. Either you call it modeled, you learned that behavior. Um, you know, I was telling somebody today, I think even anxiety can be a learned behavior. You've watched your mom be a nervous Nelly about everything, and then you just kind of adapt that, right? That's how you respond when life isn't going um well for you. And Dr. Gene, I wanted to say uh I saw the Michael Jackson movie, yeah, and I saw so much of this in that movie, right?
SPEAKER_00Um, yes, there's a lot of it there.
SPEAKER_03Yes, there's a great tragic end to his life. I'm not taking anything away from that, and the movie didn't go that direction, but he was a genius. I mean, he I mean, I saw it more after I saw the movie, but I knew he was an extremely talented person. But what Michael did in the face of his childhood trauma is he turned it inward, right? He didn't share a lot. He talked about no, I want to be a mystery, right? But he he turned that inward and spent time with his animals, which didn't talk back, they gave him unconditional love, he felt safe with them. Everybody's looking at uh-uh, this monkey's getting ready to get off this truck. I don't know what that means, right? He felt safe, he was like, he was safe in that environment, but he was able to take that trauma and be this amazing person. Now, we think a lot of times that people that have experienced trauma going to prison, they're gonna, you know, not live long, they're gonna be with substance abuse issues, and that is the case with some people, but I'm I'm here to tell you that it can go the other directions, it takes a lot of work. I still say Michael needed some help, he needed he needed some help to kind of sell help him sort out that he wasn't what he felt, right? His dad made him feel less than inadequate. Um, and I just you know, I think about the little little Michael that was getting these ripples from his dad, who was this big burly man. I mean, that's paralyzing, you know, and it sends so many mixed messages to us, but embracing it that this is you know, I always say my story, I I embrace my story, you know. It wasn't I don't reach it on anybody. Let's be clear I don't reach that on anybody, but if you do the work and we've come too far, there is too much help out here available for not identify it and go get the work so that we can live our best life. I don't know, I don't think we're gonna live the best life like somebody else is living, but live your best life, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think that that's that's that's important, but that takes work, as you have said earlier, that that you know when we when we decide that we need to um you know not we we need to decide not to um you know let it go on and on and on, we like we have to identify it as you as you said. And I still say that and I agree with you that we all we have all been through something. Um but in your practice, in your the over 30 years of of talking to people, how how um do you feel that we are now uh coming to um to to a place in our lives that we we need to we're saying, hey listen, yeah, you know, I probably need to go and do something with that.
SPEAKER_03I think I think we're making strides in that direction. I think movies like Michael Jackson's movie normalizes it. Everybody, you know, we're thinking, oh, the Jacksons, they're they're famous, they're on TV, and yeah, they're making movies and money, and and and that's what we equate success to, right? So we're starting to normalize it. Social media puts us in people's homes, we're seeing other people with those things, and so I think when I think about my clients, I think they identify with it. Um, I don't think all of them are at the place where they think there's a better way to live, that there's a way out of this or to overcome this. Like this happened, you don't have to stay on this side of it. There is freedom if you get on the other side, and that's what I'm I'm linking arms with them to help them get on the other side of that mountain of trauma that they had to experience. And sometimes I'll be honest with you, my work with men, they don't like that word trauma, okay. Right?
SPEAKER_00Oh, they don't like the word trauma.
SPEAKER_03Oh no, if I if you say something about trauma or being afraid, fear, what are you fearful of? That that attacks the manhood trauma, and so why do you think so? Because I think we just condition boys that way, you know, they're not supposed to cry, suck it up, um, you know, so you're soft, right? And so it's it's really hard for them to tap into that vulnerability. However, if you get with a good therapist, they're gonna create that safe space um where you can let your mask down. If it's not, but for the 50 minutes that you're in my office, I want you to be able to drop that mask because that's how we're that's how we're gonna accelerate your healing, right? And I mentioned that we all have these these uh triggers. That's just your your body telling you that your trauma needs some attention.
SPEAKER_00So give us an example.
SPEAKER_03Give us an example, okay. What's an example of a good trigger?
SPEAKER_00Trigger, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, somebody's talking really loud. I told you it people start screaming, like my parents were always fussing and screaming and throwing stuff when they would argue. So now you could be screaming at the football coach at a football game and they cower. You know how you do like a dog that is used to getting hit, they kind of cower before you even raise your hand, right? Yeah, so that's a trigger, that's just an old wound saying, Hello, I'm here. Wow, you're not attending to me. If you would take care of this, we could get we could get past this. Um, you think about um PTSD more veterans that come home and then I get these notices every fourth of July. Y'all be careful with those fireworks. It it triggers these veterans, it triggers your animals, right? So be aware of those kinds of things. Now, I'm gonna say this because I think I have dealt with clients who will call everything trauma.
SPEAKER_00Everything, thank you.
SPEAKER_03That's yeah, that's yeah, and so so now that becomes my scapegoat. Oh, I just I have had so much trauma in my life, and I'm like, Well, how much work have you done on it? Because telling me about it, I appreciate it. But if you haven't done the work, what are we waiting on? What do we wait? Right? If you do you truly want to get past this again, remember it gets very comfortable, and I'm safe in my trauma, I'm safe in this chaos because I know how I know what it looks like when it's coming at me, I know how to respond to it. Um, and so everything's not trauma. Um, but you know, uh if you're calling everything, I had a client that everything she had was anxiety, and I said, Well, is that just stress, or maybe that's just worry, right? Or maybe that's just you didn't do what you were supposed to be doing. Now you ain't talked about it, right? And so I forbid her to use the word anxiety for a whole week, you know, just don't use it because when our ears hear us say that stuff over and over, then that that fights everything we worked on in that 50-minute session. You just took all of that away because you keep talking to yourself about the wrong thing. And yes, I'm not saying that the trauma didn't exist, we will acknowledge it, but what we're gonna do is work through and take its power back. We're not gonna keep giving, we're not gonna feed that flame. We're gonna take the power back and decide who we want to be. Uh when we grow up.
SPEAKER_00Who do we want to be when we grow up? So is it true that some people remember little about their trauma? And if that's true, why?
SPEAKER_03Because our our bodies were fearfully and wonderfully made.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03And and and our bodies will protect us from things we're not ready to deal with. Okay, right. There is trauma now. We I'm not talking about kids are not playing nice with you at recess, I'm not talking about that kind of trauma, and I'm not saying that that can't be life altering. That's how we have some food shooting, like some kids just can't handle it, and they come back and they do something horrific. But your your mind will protect you from things that you're not ready to deal with, right? Some of the sexual trauma is so outrageous. I've had client, I had a client that worked for social media. So when they ban videos, things that you're not supposed to be posting, those would go to his office and they would have to watch them. Then they got to call the police or the FBI and they gotta, you know, all of this stuff. Traumatic stuff. Every single case he had was traumatic, and you go through multiple cases in a day, but he saw infants being violated, um, people taking their lives in violent ways, right? But that played on him now. That's kind of some vicarious trauma, like you didn't actually experience the trauma, you witnessed that, right? Um, and so if it gets too much, I wish I could have turned it off for him, and he didn't remember it, but he remembers all of it very clearly. My work is first responders, police officers, firefighters, the same thing. They'll walk up onto a car crash, body parts be everywhere. Sorry to be so graphic, but that burns in their brain. Every time they close their eyes, they envision that they envision their family members being in that car accident, right? So it plays on them. So your body is saying, Let me, you're not ready for this. So there are two different modalities that we use in therapy that can slowly bring those memories back under somebody's care, um, so that we can protect you from it almost like transports you back to that time, like you're living that all over again. It might have happened to you at five or six years old, but if you just if those just flood in, it's gonna transport you right back there, and that's not gonna probably prove well for a grown adult that has to go to work and take care of families and all of those kinds of things. So there is a very systematic procedure at helping you unrival, unrival that, yes.
SPEAKER_00So I wanted to go back you um because you mentioned childhood, uh, the the school shootings, it's usually a younger person. Do you think that that person has gone through some sort of trauma before they actually go to you know, go these these guys go to school and start shooting? What what is your opinion about that? Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Now, I don't know if with everybody, I'm kind of fascinated. I do a lot of truth crime stuff. So I've always been fascinated. Like, what were you thinking? Like you went shot up to school. What were you thinking? Right, been fascinated with that since I was a little kid. My dad used to say, Do I need to be concerned? I'm like, no, but I think it's fascinating, you know, split personalities and serial killers. And so I absolutely think there's trauma. So if you look at Columbine, these two boys had been bullied since they started school, and you know what they did? They trauma bonded, they found each other. You've been bullied, I've been bullied. Maybe not the same kind of bullying, maybe not by the Same people, but we're sick and tired of it. Right. And so you get somebody just as twisted as you are thinking, and and they end up doing that. The the challenge that I had, and I remember having this conversation with administrators after college art. I'm telling them, I know some students in this building that I would be concerned about because they're not managing being bullied well, and they will, you know, and then they're just a little odd. So they say things, they have almost like this adult mind, but they say like really advanced things, so they'll make threats of doing something if they don't leave me alone, if they do this one more time, and I'm like, hello, we just had to live through Columbine. So what is the policy or procedure when I have these kids that I'm concerned about? They didn't want anything to do with that because you're gonna upset a parent, right?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, and parents do get upset, and they they need to be taking more responsibility for their children. Absolutely, and I would want to know.
SPEAKER_03I mean, if my kids are running around on hinges and you know, unhinged, then I want to know that. But everybody, you know, parenting that's a whole nother, yeah. That that'd be another podcast. We'll talk about that.
SPEAKER_00Right, right, right, right.
SPEAKER_03That's another place we can do. We're we're dropping the ball in that absolutely better.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we need more conversation as you say it. Well, healing the inner uh child. Um, so kind of give me an example of um it sounds like there's a a hard egg that you need to crack, um, with like the first person that comes, I mean the person that comes to you the first time, and and there is, and you can see it because you have, you know, you know that you have the expertise for it, you've been trained for it, and and you see that this this person has some kind of trauma in their lives. Uh, when you recognize that, how do you go about uh helping that person to see that this was, you know, this is not yesterday. I mean, uh, you know, 24 hours ago, this was kind of back there, and and now this is what I see. How how do you talk to a person that's just now entering, just entering into your office, and you know that there's some work to be done uh around trauma?
SPEAKER_03So I will tell you that I rarely use the word trauma. Oh, good. Okay, because I'm not sure that everybody has the same working definition for that word, okay, right? But most people will assume that there's a negative connotation to trauma, right? Um, so I have the gift to be able to develop rapport with my clients in about 10 minutes. It takes some people three or four sessions. I can do it in about 10 minutes, right? I try to design my office in a way that is inviting um and peaceful and and just safe, just makes you feel safe, right? And so um sometimes I don't mention it. Now I will have self-diagnosed clients come in and they'll be like, Oh, doc, we need to talk about my trauma. I'm like, trauma, what you know, tell me more about that, right? And if I if I feel like that's not actually trauma, then I'm gonna say that to them. Um, and sometimes I will say, Well, you know, when you mentioned your trauma, I'm gonna say your words, not mine, right? Um, because they'll go home and tell somebody, you know, the doctor said I had trauma. This is why we're gonna we're gonna work through this, right? Um and everybody I think is is usually by time they come to me, if if it is trauma related, they are almost in a crisis state, right? So they want a quick fix, let's get it. But it's not the trauma that we're fixing in that moment, we're fixing your reaction to the trauma. Okay, so they're coming in because I don't know. I can't, you know, one of my new clients who came in. The last three relationships have been physically abusive. Girl, if I could have made one eyebrow go up, it would have gone up because I was like, what? Like we're repeating that same behavior. Why? Because it's our trauma is familiar, that's familiar place. Now, I've only seen her twice, but I haven't peeled back enough to say, Well, what's a relationship with your parents like? Now I know she doesn't have a good relationship with her mama, she's already hinted at that on session one, but I haven't heard anything of a dad, right? So I don't know if it was a bad breakup or there was physical abuse. I don't know, but she's not ready to go there yet, and she might be ready to go there, and I'm just gonna let her keep talking. She'll eventually give me what I need to start putting those pieces together. I tell my students all the time, that's our skill set to be able to take in everything they've given us, process that, then we come up with a plan. But when we're good at it, they don't even know that we're working out the plan, they just think they came back and we're talking about stuff again, right? We're gonna go through. And and my goal is to help them connect the dots to current behavior and their past. Um, I operate as a therapist with cognitive behavioral therapy, which takes our thoughts, which uh attaches to our feelings, our emotions, and then to our okay. So, one of the the theoretical orientations that I operate out of is cognitive behavioral therapy, and and I use just a simple acronym to teach it to my clients, which is T, like the drink, like coffee and tea, T E A, which is your thoughts, which lead to your emotions or your feelings, which leads to your actions or your behavior, right? So I always kind of go through that with my clients, and then I'm saying, listen, if you don't like the behavior, let's go back to fill figure out what you are feeling. You know, we we learn happy, mad, sad, and glad in elementary school, and then that's kind of where we start. There's hundreds of feeling words. So let's really take a deep dive into what you're feeling. Pause and and really just sit with it. And when it's uncomfortable feelings, we don't like to sit with it, we try to push it away. That's why when we cry, we get a tissue and we, you know, we try to push those uncomfortable feelings away. We try to smile when we're embarrassed, right? We don't want to feel discomfort, right? But if we sit with that emotion, and then we can go back to what the thought is. So a lot of us have what I call stinking thinking, right? And so we have to go back. I'm not enough. Well, I think that because I was told that for so many years. Now I feel like I'm not enough, I'll never be enough, right? And so, how do I behave? A hot mess. I just behave like a hot mess. This is what people expect of me, especially as an adult. The time you get to adult behavior, nobody expects me to do anything. I'm that sister. I have one um one, I say one client, but it's a set of triplets, very different behaviors and personalities, but they ping off of each other, right? Um, and so we all have stuff um that we need to unwind, but it starts appear. It's what are we telling ourselves about that trauma? What are we, you know? And I always say, now when you were four, you couldn't control that and you couldn't tell your mama nothing, and you really couldn't set boundaries. Now you're good and grown. What would we say to that little person? How would we respond now to that and try to empower them to come back and do the things because a lot of times we had those thoughts in my mind. I did that with my daddy. I had I was saying lots of things in my head, I wouldn't dare to let it fall out of my mouth. I got a whipped one time, Dr. James, because my dad said I looked like I was getting ready to catch an attitude. I said, Oh, I said, Well, I thought I was masking that, but apparently I was not, right? Right, right, right. I didn't do that anymore. I fixed that, you know, fixed.
SPEAKER_00Well, tell me now, you know, we talked a little bit about um, you know, uh being adult and the relationships that we have uh as an adult. How about personal relationships? How does that um, you know, how how and you talked about triggers, you know, all that in triggers, but as far as having relationships, how long, I mean, do you find uh those that have these issues um of not unhealed uh trauma? Uh go getting into relationships, they don't work, they do work. Um, you know, and how um successful do you think that um the the clients that you have, have they been to a place uh at a place or getting to a place where they can go out and say, hey, this is a new me? And and and still having to understand that there, that that you know, whatever happened to us back there is still there. But I'm gonna start living my life in a different kind of way.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Um, so in in relationships, just in general, right? Whether or not I had one today with uh can't get along with co-workers just to save her soul, bless her heart. Um, and so one of the things that we're going to do when we've experienced trauma that has not been unpacked is we live in survival mode. And so, and we almost become these proactive victims, like I'm gonna get you before you get me. We will sabotage decent relationships with decent people, right? And what I try to tell people, everybody makes mistakes, like you're not gonna find that friend that is mistake free. We're just humans, and that's what we do, right? We're gonna make mistakes, but whether or not it's intentional, if it's meant to bring you down, or did they just have a lapse of judgment, whatever. Um, in terms of the success, it's funny to me because again, remember, a lot of what I deal with with this issue is women, and I have worked with these women long enough that they start to walk different, their shoulders are back, their head is up. They came into my office that first time with their head down. I had one and we were virtual. She she would get on the session with her lights out in the bed, lights out, you know, and I could see little glimpses of her move every now and then, like the camera light or whatever, right? But I have the ability and I find the necessity to empower these women, they they are powerful in that trauma, in that moment, you're powerless, right? And so I want to help reassure you that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Yeah, you are enough, you are enough. See you, and I hear you. I don't and when listen, when I hear you, that don't mean I agree with what you're saying. When we start off, y'all say some silly stuff, so I don't always agree with that, but we can work through that um as well, because some what we stop doing is like we say or we have this silly idea of what we're gonna well. I'm the next man that I get with, and blah blah blah blah blah. So then my job becomes let's let's walk that out a little bit, let's look at how that's gonna play out, and let's see if you still think that's the best move for you to make, right? And then I'm hands off, they got to make the decision. Sometimes they're gonna make it and it's gonna go wrong, and I'm gonna I'm gonna be there, non-judgmental, I'll still be there. Um, but I do, and I love you know, um, when they come back and they're like, My husband said, What you've been doing in that counseling, because you don't talk the same as you used to talk. You used to never let me get, you know, you would let me get away with that kind of stuff. Now you always have something to say, right? Um, and I'm so they get tired.
SPEAKER_00The whole deal is that they get sick and tired.
SPEAKER_03That's right.
SPEAKER_00Doing it, doing it the the way that they've been doing it, and they want to do something new, absolutely different, gotta change it up and fulfilling, uh, empowered is you, you know, the word empowering is and listen, I the goal is that I'm not always gonna be that cheerleader in your corner.
SPEAKER_03My clients will tell me I was out and I was getting to do something, and I heard your voice in my head. I see, yes, that's where I want to be, right there in your head on your shoulder, right? Telling you this, you already know what I would say, right? Um, and I I want that for them, but I I need them to encourage themselves. I need you to believe in you. I believe in you because I have the ability to see potential in people, and I tell my client, I don't tell everybody that because I I don't always see the same thing in everybody, but if I'm saying it, I'm saying it because I see it, right? I can tell you that you're beautiful inside and out, but you might not feel that, but I'm telling you what I see, and I've developed that trusting relationship with you. See if I'm gonna be the first relationship that you've had since that trauma where you can trust, because I can promise you, what you see is what you get, what I say is gonna be what I do, and they've got to start identifying and figuring out how to assess people because everybody doesn't have your best interest at heart. So, how do you identify those who have your best interest at heart? I always say in kindergarten, we spend a lot of time helping our kids be a good friend, go find friends, make friends. We want to have a big birthday party when you turn six, right? Because we want to invite everybody, but we never teach them how to end relationships. What happens when your second grade friend is not being nice to you anymore? How do we end that? Because in elementary school, and you probably know this, you're either a friend or an enemy, they don't they spend more time and focus on their enemies. Look at her sitting over there. I don't know why she wore that shirt today. Her haircut looks stupid, blah blah blah. Sit there and talk to your friends, you're missing out on that because you're focused on the enemies, right? But I want to build them up from the the inside, and you said something about that trauma. We're not denying that the trauma happened, but there is a place to unpack it, right? Intentionally, intentionally unpack that trauma. And I always I'm very visual, we're gonna put it in a cute little box because the box would have to be cute for me. Put it in a cute little box and we're gonna put it on the shelf in our mind, right? And if if we think that it's gonna serve us some value in our life, then we can pull it down. Other than that, leave it there and go on and live your best life, right? You know, because tomorrow is not promised to us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and the box is is is uh again, you know, the the whole the whole um you know vision and and and the need for um for us to be talking today and for me to be a part, you know, wanting to do this this uh this um this podcast is because I want I want us to remember that we don't have to be the same, that we can get sick and tired of being who we are and we want to do better and we want to be better. And like you said, like we are enough. I don't think we say that enough uh inside that you know, that we are enough, that we don't need to be any more than anything that anybody else wants us to be.
SPEAKER_03If we learn to like ourselves, right, we'll always be in good company. Yeah, learn to like yourself. You you'll find yourself very often rarely being lonely because you I entertain myself. I walk around this house laughing at myself, talking to myself, right? We have a good time, and I like who that is. One of the things about sick and tired, uh, you know, when people say, Well, when is enough enough?
SPEAKER_00That's exactly right. That's the definition.
SPEAKER_03Ask that question right there. If you are asking that question, enough is probably already enough.
SPEAKER_00And been enough a long time.
SPEAKER_03Well, well, much longer than it should have been. Absolutely this long to recognize, right? Yeah, and and so I I encourage my clients to get sick and tired. I want you to get mad. Yeah, like I'm not doing this anymore. I don't like how you talk to me, I don't like how you make me feel, I don't like the impression you have about me. I've told some people you don't even know me. Because if you think that's what I would do or I would say, you don't know me. And when I when I'm sick and tired of getting treated that way, then I'm out. Right, I've got to change. And and and listen, ladies, listen, listen, doing about face, we don't need to do a slow roll, we turn the other your freedom is on the other side of that. Absolutely, and and and and usually whatever is keeping us there is false, it's a mirage, yeah. And and and you can't love people in and out of bad behavior. The only person you can control is you. You you can't you can't change that other person what they're gonna say, and they might change for a day, they might change for six days, but I can tell you they can't sustain that because that's not truly who they are, they haven't identified it as a problem. The problem is you getting on them about treating you that way, so now they're trying to get you to be quiet, so they're gonna morph for that six days, and then you're gonna be right back in that same. So love yourself. That's all I can tell you. Love yourself, embrace your past. Um, and I always say every bad thing that's ever happened to me, when I go back and review that, I'm like, what did I learn?
SPEAKER_00What did that's a good question? It's always a good question.
SPEAKER_03I learned about relationships, and what did I learn about myself? Right, and and and and now, you know, the Bible says, you know, everything the enemy means for bad, the Lord will use for good. For good. So as bad as that relationship was, as bad as that trauma was, there is absolutely good in it. Now, if you missed it, you dismissed it. I promise you, you know, working with the counselor, you can go find the good in that.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00What is about you? Right. And and you and the the piece that um, you know, that I want to go back to is when you're working with the counselor. I, you know, I I sometimes I don't I think that we feel that we can we can get over these things if we can do it by ourselves. But uh, you know, God has given these gifts to you and and you know, so many others to sit down and go over, go go to somebody. If you want to feel better, go to somebody. There's nothing wrong with that. Uh, and I think that you know, even in the I can I can talk about in the black community from you know, for me, you know, like you said, what happens in the house stays in the house. And we didn't believe it. We don't, you know, we're we're better at going to therapy than we did we did before. I mean, and I think that's great, but there are still many of us that need to go through therapy and we won't because we feel like we can work it out ourselves. Well, if you can work it out yourself, at this point, it should have been already worked out.
SPEAKER_03Well, there's a lot of stigma still attached in the African American community. Um, and you know, traditionally, when when there is a problem, you go to the church, yeah. Um, and people will tell you you're having those problems because you're not praying enough. Yeah, what's your prayer life? How much time are you reading the Bible? Right? Um, and I think there's enough work for everybody. The church can work and the counselor can work at the same time. Um, and so it and I and let me just let me say this to find a good counselor, because a lot of people like, I went to this lady and I didn't like her at all. Okay, I always tell my clients, it's like finding a good pair of jeans. Sometimes you got to try on a couple pairs before you find the right fit, right? And so just don't think it's a one and done, and you're gonna go in there. And all therapists are not created equal. We have different theoretical orientations, we have different ways of developing rapport. Um, office space is real important to me. That I just want you to feel like you're at your girlfriend's house having a conversation. Kick your feet up, let's go, let's talk about it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, um, and you know, the counseling that you that you mentioned about uh, you know, the clinical counseling versus the counseling that we do in the church. And you know, I still do a lot of that counseling, and I and I remember doing a lot of it when I was, you know, clergy in the church. But I knew, and I think that that's a problem that some of us don't re realize, or we don't want to, you know, we we we don't want to just say that we need to know, and I'm talking about clergy and I mean or counselors that do not have you know the the the certificate uh to do the clinical piece. We need to know when it's time to stop. Yep, yeah, then get it and then get it then get in touch with the clinical person because we can only go so far. And uh, and you're right, you know, we we have this thing, the stigma about you know praying a lot, and and praying a lot will tell us that we need to go get some help. You know, that that's my that that's that has happened in. My life in my prayer life that need to go and get help. Well, um, Dr. Patrice Dunn, um, here we are at the uh the the awareness, May Awareness, uh Awareness, Mental Health Awareness Month. And as we are coming, you know, to the end of this wonderful conversation, what is it that you can tell women about our conversation uh with childhood uh trauma? And you know, there will be, I'm hoping there will also be me and I always say that, that are listening to it as well because they have also experienced that. But what are the words, what are the last things that you would like to say to us to help us to move forward in our journeys?
SPEAKER_03Um, I I run a program um called Become Her, and it's all for women. And I think you know, it is about women, and I know you can relate to this as most of us can. We wear so many hats. We show up for everybody every day, regardless of how we feel. We're we're putting those hats back on every single day, and um we lose ourselves. Some of us started wearing those hats very early and they never found themselves. So when they become empty nesters or divorced or retired, they don't know who they are, so they're just lost, and so I encourage you to reach out, do the work that needs to be done, because you don't have to wait till your kids graduate from college to figure out who you are. It's healthy for them to see you working out who you are, living your best life, developing your dreams and aspirations, right? And so, and we struggle, you know, divorce happens to to many people, right? Um, we don't all marry our high school sweetheart and live happily ever after. Um, and so you know, having that place where women come together um and talk about those things. Um, and that's kind of where my podcast starts, is like, what are the what am I hearing from these women that I talk to? What are they struggling with now? Um and so I I I'm encouraging them, all the women, to take a look at yourself. And it's never too late. I've always done things later than than the average person, some things I did early, some things I did later. Um, but it it is possible, and it is possible to have we, you know, little girls, we fantasize about our wedding and kids and all of these kinds of things, and life doesn't always work out that way, right? Right, and so I think we can we can support each other in those disappointments, um, and it's okay to be sad, and it's okay to be angry, um, and then you get back up and you get out there and you live your best life, and and I'ma say this, um, and I mean this respectfully to everybody. This life that we're living is not about us, and so sometimes as traumatic as our experience has been, it's not about us. I can promise you, I am a living witness that the trauma I have experienced in my life, it wasn't for me because I'd have been like, Lord, you can skip me on that that foolishness. I didn't need to go through that. I could have learned this lesson if you just called me and told me, right? But I had to learn some of those lessons and I had to go through that journey because professionally, what I do, I have to be able to tap into my client. So, you want to come talk to me about infidelity? I can talk to you about that, I can talk about disappointment, I can talk about having less than perfect children, I can talk and relate to you about those things, and for that I am forever grateful. I can always see it in the moment, but I am grateful now that I experienced what I did. So just remember it's not about you. I know there are places where we need to be a little selfish, but the majority of it is not for us.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, and then I need for you to tell uh the um, you know, the the women out there who are listening, men who are listening, how we can get in touch with you. We'll also have it uh printed on uh our uh on our screen, but I want you to tell them how they can get in touch with you because you are a good person to go to.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Um, let me see if I can remember this. Um my my web page is Dr. Patrice Dunn.
unknownDr.
SPEAKER_00D-U-N-N.
SPEAKER_03D-U-N-N. Uh-huh. And Patrice is like Pat Rice. Um, dressed dunn.com um is probably the easiest way. And I think on most of the social media handles, I'm that same Dr. Patrice Dunn. So I and I'll be looking forward to hearing from some people. I'm I'm excited.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. And that's and that is the reason another reason why we have these conversations to be able to let everybody know that there are people that can help us.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Uh, and uh, you know, so you've been wonderful. Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to our growing relationship together. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03I'm super excited about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, how we're gonna learn from each other and we can make a good girlfriend. Absolutely, absolutely, for sure. So I just want to thank you, um, the audience that we have today. I want you to go and you subscribe to Dr. Jan Bell. Um, and we uh I'm on the YouTube channel. And when you get there, um, you know, hit the uh subscribe button and we will do more conversation. Of course, I'm on all of the major uh podcast platforms. And listen, we are he, we are here together. And remember, as I always say, we're on this journey together, and together we can make it. Thank you, Dr. Dunn, and we look forward to seeing all of you later. Please continue to stay tuned and thanks.
SPEAKER_01Thank you.