September 3, 2024 • 12 mins
In this heartfelt episode, our host delves into the profound topic of loss, particularly how it intertwines with diseases and injuries like TBI, MS, and PTSD. Sharing personal experiences, they explore the emotional and physical tolls these conditions can take, and the difficult decisions and feelings of isolation that often accompany them.
Through candid storytelling, the host reflects on their own journey of loss, including the impact on family relationships, career, and self-perception. They highlight the importance of not letting one's mind become a prison, encouraging listeners to find freedom through mental resilience and new interests.
Drawing inspiration from Viktor Frankl's experiences in a concentration camp, the episode underscores the power of a liberated mind even in the direst circumstances. It is a powerful reminder that while losses are inevitable and painful, they also have the potential to make us stronger and more resilient.
Tune in for a poignant discussion that offers comfort, understanding, and a reminder that you are not alone in your struggles. This episode aims to provide tools and perspectives for navigating life's toughest challenges and finding a way to move forward.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, guys. Welcome to my podcast. So, this podcast, I want to talk about loss.
These diseases and injuries kind of go hand-in-hand with loss.
Loss in your life happens a lot.
And with TBI, MS, and PTSD, sometimes it happens more than you want.
(00:27):
I know because I've experienced quite a bit of loss in my life because of my
diseases and injuries that have hurt a lot,
but it happened. A lot of it was my fault.
Could have been avoided. But because of the way I viewed myself and the way
(00:51):
that I felt about my situation, they happened.
So I would caution you to not picture yourself as you're so bad off that you
don't want people around you. See, I had a time when I was on trifumelate.
(01:11):
I can't remember what the medicine was called, but it was killing my white blood
cells, and I was very, very sick, and I thought I was dying.
So I had a situation with my father when he was dying of brain cancer,
and I was with him, and I just burned a terrible image in my brain.
And I didn't want my kids to be around me when I died.
(01:34):
Really didn't want anybody to be around me because I didn't want to leave that
horrible image with them.
So for years, I drove them away as I slowly withered away in my house.
And I just didn't want them to see that.
And it turned out it was just a medicine. And when I got off it,
I started feeling better.
(01:54):
And so but i over that
course of those years i became kind of a ghost father
to them i wasn't really involved in their life and
when the next big explosion happened in my
life i just wasn't i wasn't present it wasn't i wasn't important to them so
it was very easy for them to just cut me out and say i don't want to deal with
(02:17):
him so what i'm saying is don't picture yourself as somebody that's not worth hanging around.
You know, when I lost my last two sons, when they quit coming to visit me,
that was a big loss for me.
I love those two guys and having them come visit was really nice, but they're gone.
(02:39):
So that kind of, those kinds of losses can hurt a lot.
When I lost my job, when I first became disabled, for one thing,
everybody asks you, you know, do you feel disabled? Should you be disabled?
You don't want to make that decision, man. I'm telling you right now.
I never wanted to say, oh yeah, I'm disabled.
(02:59):
But when I couldn't make it around the plant in Texas, it was so hot that my
legs stopped working. I guess I had to make that call.
But you don't want to make that call, number one. Number two,
when you're actually sitting at home with nothing to do, after you have gotten
up at 4.30 every morning and worked till five o'clock at night every night and
(03:21):
we're on call and, you know, we're busy all the time,
it is a horrible, horrible feeling.
And everybody's like, well, you're free to do anything you want.
No, I'm not. I can't drive. I can't walk.
I can't, I can't, I can't do anything I want. What are you talking about?
(03:41):
How am I supposed to do anything I want? Well, you're free to go anywhere,
do anything. No, you're not.
You're less free than you were when you were working 24 hours a week.
There's no freedom in that, but there is.
See, that's the trick, right?
There's a book written by John Frankel, I think is his name.
(04:03):
And it's a very interesting book and I don't know if I got the guy's name right.
Frankl, I know, is his last name. He was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration
camp, and he was guarded by these two Nazi guards.
And he wasn't treated like everybody else. They guarded him very special, specifically.
(04:25):
And they guarded his cell every day the whole time he was in the Nazi concentration camp.
And at the end of the time when they liberated him, the two guards said that
this guy was freer than they were because his mind was free, right?
He actually drew pictures and I know he was locked up in a concentration camp
(04:47):
and everything was horrible around him, but he allowed his mind to be free, right?
So I'm not saying that your situation is great and it's going to be wonderful,
but I'm saying that if you let your mind be free, study things,
find new things to do, explore things.
You don't have to be trapped because that's the first thing that happened to
(05:12):
me is my first thought is I'm trapped. I can't do anything.
And that is a terrible feeling of loss. That feeling of loss comes with,
oh my God, I'm trapped. wrapped. I can't do anything.
No, you're free to do anything you want.
You really are. But don't let your mind put you in that box.
(05:36):
And that the last thing I told you in the last podcast was that paradigm.
Don't let your mind put you in that box.
And the losses do happen. They are real and you will really feel them.
You feel those losses. They're there and they hurt.
But number one, there's nothing you can do about it.
(05:57):
And number two, you got to move on from it.
And the way you move on from it is that you free your mind and you let yourself
experience new and different things.
And in doing that, you'll learn that life is not so bad.
And And maybe you'll meet new people. Maybe you'll do new things.
(06:20):
Maybe the situation will change.
You never know. I mean, sometimes good will come into your life.
Sometimes bad will come into your life too. I'm not saying that there's not
bad people out there. I've run into them.
But with any luck, you'll find something that you enjoy doing with people you enjoy being around.
(06:43):
And you won't feel so contained. You know, I mean, even in the beginnings of
these diseases and injuries, they are limiting.
They begin limiting you very early on.
And that can feel very containing and very unhealthy and very unfair.
(07:07):
But you don't have to accept that. You can move forward.
Sometimes sometimes i get very
down when i look at my life right do
you guys ever feel that way you look at your life and you're like holy crap
was there anything good about my life you know there i have kids out there they're
(07:30):
all doing pretty good so that is a good thing about my life but for me personally
was there anything good about my life you know i joined the military at 17.
I had a head injury. I ran into a guy that hated me. I went from 4.0 evals to double odd evals.
Then I went to medical. The guy had heart injury, and then he turned out being
(07:53):
over me in the medical department, and he hated me there.
And then I finally got out of the medical department, went back to the C,
got my evals back. Then...
I ended up in Desert Storm and got hurt there, and then I went back to medical,
and then some lady misdiagnosed my MS.
Then I ended up in the worst possible place in the world for my MS, working in McAllen.
(08:19):
Then I ended up working for a guy who didn't care about anybody and sent these
banana bottles to South America that were leaking,
and whatever we put in them had antidoto no TNA written on it,
which meant there was no antidote in it.
And that stuff came back and we had to grind it up.
And two of my guys got leukemia. I mean, just, it goes on and on,
(08:42):
just horrible things in my life.
But when I think about it, I'm still here and I, I'm still here talking to you.
About trying to sort your life out and survive.
And that, that is my story, right?
My story is that no matter what or how bad it gets or what horrible things you deal with,
(09:10):
you can still reach out and tell other people that you're stronger than how bad your life was.
I mean, all that does is temper you like steel, right?
And when you finally get to that point, point you realize that no matter what
(09:32):
life throws at me, all it does is make me stronger.
And that is actually a beautiful point, you know? Okay, sure.
Here I am, you know, everybody has, everybody really has said,
screw me and left me because I have these issues and problems and nobody really
(09:53):
understands how they affect you.
My wife has stood by me, God bless her soul, but that's it.
It doesn't matter because, you know, I have been tempered like Damascus steel
when it comes to those kinds of pain and sorrow.
And I'll keep going on and nothing in this world is going to stop me.
(10:18):
And that's just the way it is. And I want you guys to learn that no matter how
hard it gets, no matter what the loss is in your life, it makes all it does is make you stronger.
Right. And I don't hate the people that have left me.
The people that have left my life, they just can't understand how these things can affect you.
(10:45):
You know, MS and a TBI, they affect the way that you respond to things, right?
They actually can affect your emotional response. They can affect your personality.
They can affect your impulse control. they do all
kinds of weird stuff so trying to
(11:05):
explain that to somebody that doesn't understand anything about
those particular diseases and
illnesses it's not worth trying to talk to them man they won't even they won't
even begin to understand what you're saying you know what you're telling them
basically is there are times i don't even know what i'm doing myself and it's
(11:27):
It's very hard to control what's happening.
And this stuff is difficult.
And then they got me on these antidepressants and yada, yada,
yada. It just goes on and on.
Anyway, if any of you guys experienced these kinds of losses or are in the process
(11:51):
of experiencing these types of losses, you're not alone.
Alone you're just not alone and i'm
going to tell you that there's probably thousands of other people
who have gone through similar events just
remember you're not alone out there and that other
people that share your issues understand where other where people that don't
(12:17):
may not have any idea what you're experiencing okay i'm going to sign off for
now i just want want to let you know that i'm here tools for healthy living
if you want to send me an email and take it easy.
Hello, guys. Welcome to my podcast. So, this podcast, I want to talk about loss.
These diseases and injuries kind of go hand-in-hand with loss.
Loss in your life happens a lot.
And with TBI, MS, and PTSD, sometimes it happens more than you want.
(00:27):
I know because I've experienced quite a bit of loss in my life because of my
diseases and injuries that have hurt a lot,
but it happened. A lot of it was my fault.
Could have been avoided. But because of the way I viewed myself and the way
(00:51):
that I felt about my situation, they happened.
So I would caution you to not picture yourself as you're so bad off that you
don't want people around you. See, I had a time when I was on trifumelate.
(01:11):
I can't remember what the medicine was called, but it was killing my white blood
cells, and I was very, very sick, and I thought I was dying.
So I had a situation with my father when he was dying of brain cancer,
and I was with him, and I just burned a terrible image in my brain.
And I didn't want my kids to be around me when I died.
(01:34):
Really didn't want anybody to be around me because I didn't want to leave that
horrible image with them.
So for years, I drove them away as I slowly withered away in my house.
And I just didn't want them to see that.
And it turned out it was just a medicine. And when I got off it,
I started feeling better.
(01:54):
And so but i over that
course of those years i became kind of a ghost father
to them i wasn't really involved in their life and
when the next big explosion happened in my
life i just wasn't i wasn't present it wasn't i wasn't important to them so
it was very easy for them to just cut me out and say i don't want to deal with
(02:17):
him so what i'm saying is don't picture yourself as somebody that's not worth hanging around.
You know, when I lost my last two sons, when they quit coming to visit me,
that was a big loss for me.
I love those two guys and having them come visit was really nice, but they're gone.
(02:39):
So that kind of, those kinds of losses can hurt a lot.
When I lost my job, when I first became disabled, for one thing,
everybody asks you, you know, do you feel disabled? Should you be disabled?
You don't want to make that decision, man. I'm telling you right now.
I never wanted to say, oh yeah, I'm disabled.
(02:59):
But when I couldn't make it around the plant in Texas, it was so hot that my
legs stopped working. I guess I had to make that call.
But you don't want to make that call, number one. Number two,
when you're actually sitting at home with nothing to do, after you have gotten
up at 4.30 every morning and worked till five o'clock at night every night and
(03:21):
we're on call and, you know, we're busy all the time,
it is a horrible, horrible feeling.
And everybody's like, well, you're free to do anything you want.
No, I'm not. I can't drive. I can't walk.
I can't, I can't, I can't do anything I want. What are you talking about?
(03:41):
How am I supposed to do anything I want? Well, you're free to go anywhere,
do anything. No, you're not.
You're less free than you were when you were working 24 hours a week.
There's no freedom in that, but there is.
See, that's the trick, right?
There's a book written by John Frankel, I think is his name.
(04:03):
And it's a very interesting book and I don't know if I got the guy's name right.
Frankl, I know, is his last name. He was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration
camp, and he was guarded by these two Nazi guards.
And he wasn't treated like everybody else. They guarded him very special, specifically.
(04:25):
And they guarded his cell every day the whole time he was in the Nazi concentration camp.
And at the end of the time when they liberated him, the two guards said that
this guy was freer than they were because his mind was free, right?
He actually drew pictures and I know he was locked up in a concentration camp
(04:47):
and everything was horrible around him, but he allowed his mind to be free, right?
So I'm not saying that your situation is great and it's going to be wonderful,
but I'm saying that if you let your mind be free, study things,
find new things to do, explore things.
You don't have to be trapped because that's the first thing that happened to
(05:12):
me is my first thought is I'm trapped. I can't do anything.
And that is a terrible feeling of loss. That feeling of loss comes with,
oh my God, I'm trapped. wrapped. I can't do anything.
No, you're free to do anything you want.
You really are. But don't let your mind put you in that box.
(05:36):
And that the last thing I told you in the last podcast was that paradigm.
Don't let your mind put you in that box.
And the losses do happen. They are real and you will really feel them.
You feel those losses. They're there and they hurt.
But number one, there's nothing you can do about it.
(05:57):
And number two, you got to move on from it.
And the way you move on from it is that you free your mind and you let yourself
experience new and different things.
And in doing that, you'll learn that life is not so bad.
And And maybe you'll meet new people. Maybe you'll do new things.
(06:20):
Maybe the situation will change.
You never know. I mean, sometimes good will come into your life.
Sometimes bad will come into your life too. I'm not saying that there's not
bad people out there. I've run into them.
But with any luck, you'll find something that you enjoy doing with people you enjoy being around.
(06:43):
And you won't feel so contained. You know, I mean, even in the beginnings of
these diseases and injuries, they are limiting.
They begin limiting you very early on.
And that can feel very containing and very unhealthy and very unfair.
(07:07):
But you don't have to accept that. You can move forward.
Sometimes sometimes i get very
down when i look at my life right do
you guys ever feel that way you look at your life and you're like holy crap
was there anything good about my life you know there i have kids out there they're
(07:30):
all doing pretty good so that is a good thing about my life but for me personally
was there anything good about my life you know i joined the military at 17.
I had a head injury. I ran into a guy that hated me. I went from 4.0 evals to double odd evals.
Then I went to medical. The guy had heart injury, and then he turned out being
(07:53):
over me in the medical department, and he hated me there.
And then I finally got out of the medical department, went back to the C,
got my evals back. Then...
I ended up in Desert Storm and got hurt there, and then I went back to medical,
and then some lady misdiagnosed my MS.
Then I ended up in the worst possible place in the world for my MS, working in McAllen.
(08:19):
Then I ended up working for a guy who didn't care about anybody and sent these
banana bottles to South America that were leaking,
and whatever we put in them had antidoto no TNA written on it,
which meant there was no antidote in it.
And that stuff came back and we had to grind it up.
And two of my guys got leukemia. I mean, just, it goes on and on,
(08:42):
just horrible things in my life.
But when I think about it, I'm still here and I, I'm still here talking to you.
About trying to sort your life out and survive.
And that, that is my story, right?
My story is that no matter what or how bad it gets or what horrible things you deal with,
(09:10):
you can still reach out and tell other people that you're stronger than how bad your life was.
I mean, all that does is temper you like steel, right?
And when you finally get to that point, point you realize that no matter what
(09:32):
life throws at me, all it does is make me stronger.
And that is actually a beautiful point, you know? Okay, sure.
Here I am, you know, everybody has, everybody really has said,
screw me and left me because I have these issues and problems and nobody really
(09:53):
understands how they affect you.
My wife has stood by me, God bless her soul, but that's it.
It doesn't matter because, you know, I have been tempered like Damascus steel
when it comes to those kinds of pain and sorrow.
And I'll keep going on and nothing in this world is going to stop me.
(10:18):
And that's just the way it is. And I want you guys to learn that no matter how
hard it gets, no matter what the loss is in your life, it makes all it does is make you stronger.
Right. And I don't hate the people that have left me.
The people that have left my life, they just can't understand how these things can affect you.
(10:45):
You know, MS and a TBI, they affect the way that you respond to things, right?
They actually can affect your emotional response. They can affect your personality.
They can affect your impulse control. they do all
kinds of weird stuff so trying to
(11:05):
explain that to somebody that doesn't understand anything about
those particular diseases and
illnesses it's not worth trying to talk to them man they won't even they won't
even begin to understand what you're saying you know what you're telling them
basically is there are times i don't even know what i'm doing myself and it's
(11:27):
It's very hard to control what's happening.
And this stuff is difficult.
And then they got me on these antidepressants and yada, yada,
yada. It just goes on and on.
Anyway, if any of you guys experienced these kinds of losses or are in the process
(11:51):
of experiencing these types of losses, you're not alone.
Alone you're just not alone and i'm
going to tell you that there's probably thousands of other people
who have gone through similar events just
remember you're not alone out there and that other
people that share your issues understand where other where people that don't
(12:17):
may not have any idea what you're experiencing okay i'm going to sign off for
now i just want want to let you know that i'm here tools for healthy living
if you want to send me an email and take it easy.
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