Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, my friends.
Welcome back to the podcast.
Um, I really wish I had areally fun topic to talk about,
but I actually decided to talkabout something that is hard
because I don't think it getstalked about enough and I, whew
(00:21):
, I'm having surgery tomorrowis not the topic, but I am
having surgery tomorrow. Uh, ifanyone's been, if you guys have
been following, I hurt myshoulder almost two months ago.
I've been wearing a sling. I'vebeen trying to figure out how
to , uh, uninflamed. Wethought, you know, this is
(00:41):
inflammation. I got an x-rayand they said the x-ray was
fine. So there was a lot ofconfusion about what was wrong
and how to heal it. And Ithought maybe this is
tendinitis and a flareupbecause insurance , um, is a
little tricky to get approvalto , uh, get an M r I . So I
got an m r I two weeks ago. Forthose who don't know, X-rays
show bones. So if you have abroken bone, you need an x-ray,
(01:05):
but if it's a tendon or aligament, you need an M R i .
If it's soft tissue and x-raysare way cheaper. And so MRIs
require a more rigorousapproval process. And so I
finally got approval to go infor an M R I and they said, yep
, your shoulder is torn liketwo places. We gotta sew it
back up and anchor it,otherwise it's gonna keep
(01:27):
dislocating. I was like, cool,cool. So I spent all of last
week , uh, processing that andpreparing for surgery and
planning for surgery. And luckyme, I've already had two
shoulder surgeries in mytwenties, so I very much know
what to expect. Um, I made alot of food and put it in the
(01:50):
freezer. I bought , um,disposable plates. I bought way
more cheese, puss and chocolatethan I could ever need. And
kind of like a prepper. Nowthere's like a whole section of
the pantry downstairs that isjust like bulk food because I
really wanted to not have toleave the house and have foods
that I could eat for the nextfew weeks. I'm gonna be in a
(02:10):
sling for six weeks, butcertainly the first week and a
half are, I'm hoping those arethe hardest. And then it starts
to get better. But I actuallydon't know. Um, I went to the
Salvation Army and bought somebutton down shirts and some
cardigans , um, and justsetting up my room to be really
ready for all this and wrappingup my day job and making sure
everything is handed off andhas backup and all this stuff.
(02:31):
So there's been all thislogistical stuff, which
honestly I excel at. I this isa benefit side to being a
deeply anxious person, is I'malways expecting everything to
go wrong. And so I anticipateall the problems that could
possibly happen and think aboutsolving them before I even get
to the event. So by the timethe surgery happens, I'm like,
yeah, I'm ready. I've like,I've read the instructions
(02:52):
three times. I've done all thethings I needed to do. Um, I
feel really good about that. SoI'm kind of in that place now.
And the reason I wanted to talkabout it, you know, today is
because part of what happenedlast week was I was having
these, I thought they weredeeply anxious moments where I
just like couldn't get clarityin my brain and couldn't like,
(03:14):
see straight and was just like,what is going on? And I finally
realized that I really havelike medical trauma and it's
not a really well-known thing.
And I know that the word traumais now being sort of from never
being used is now being used alot. So I'm not like medically
diagnosing this. I just kind ofwanna talk about what trauma
(03:36):
is, what it looks like, andwhat the healing process of it
is, because that's what Irealized we don't talk about.
Um, so kind of the, theoverview of trauma, it happens.
There's kind of like threethings. One is that you think
you're gonna die. One is thatyou feel like you have no
agency over whether or notyou're gonna die. And no , I
(04:00):
guess two things. And so a caraccident can be traumatic. Um,
you know, often we talk aboutrape and victims of sexual
assault feeling reallytraumatized. And often , uh,
the two most associated arewomen and sexual assault or men
and sexual assault , uh, ornon-binary. And sexual , sexual
assault in general is theproblem that causes trauma. Um,
(04:23):
and also , um, soldiers andmilitary coming back from war,
those are the places wherethere's like this sense of
something terrible is happeningand you can't fix it. And what
trauma does is because thebrain feels so overwhelmed that
it has no solution and doesn'tknow how to like get through
this moment, it sort of likesteps out of time and locks it
(04:45):
in and then afterwards goesback to living. And it's
incredibly adaptive 'cause itallows you to go through really
overwhelming, terrifying,unbearable things. The problem
is that normal memory workssort of like a river. You broke
your arm when you were six andit gets like processed and then
(05:09):
it becomes the river of yourstory goes into, you know, when
you talk about having brokenyour arm when you're six, most
people are just like, it's,it's a story, it's an anecdote.
You don't feel the pain, youdon't feel the fear of falling,
you don't feel that stuffbecause your brain has
processed it. And the braintakes stories and events and
and sort of catalogs them. Andchronologically there's a word
(05:33):
in there, right? Makes, putsthem chronologically. And once
they've been filed away,they're , you know, stories and
events that you can rememberand recall, but you won't have
that same immediacy. Trauma issort of the opposite because
your brain shut down and wasn'table to process that. It is out
(05:54):
of the river of yourchronological storytelling. So
when people have flashbacks orwhen people feel , um, like
they're repeating that traumaand it's being triggered in
them, they go right back tothat moment of complete. It's
like more than panic, right?
It's more, it's more thananxiety. It's more than panic.
(06:14):
It's like life or death. Youcan't, you're frozen. You can't
figure out what to do and youdon't feel like you can fix
anything about it. So you'rejust in this state. And what's
hard about traumatic memory isthat it always flashes in this
way that brings the personright back into this state of ,
um, complete overwhelm and shutdown . And They're discovering
(06:42):
that, you know, I don't knowagain that I not diagnosing
myself as medicallytraumatized, but they are
learning that, especiallypeople with chronic illnesses,
people who've spent a lot oftime, it's my third shoulder
surgery who spent a lot of timegoing to doctors and being told
nothing is wrong, who spent alot of time getting poked and
prodded , um, and feeling asense of vulnerability , um,
(07:08):
and, and, and panic that mybody is broken and nobody can
fix it. Or the people who canfix it don't know how to fix
it. And now I just feel likepanic. I feel, I feel like I'm
trapped in my body and I feellike there is no solution. I am
just trapped in this body thathurts. And I had surgery 15
(07:29):
years ago on my shoulder andthey sent me to physical
therapy. And the physicaltherapy made everything hurt
more. And I would tell that tothe physical therapist and they
said, we don't know why you'redoing the most basic exercises.
And I said, okay, but it hurts.
What do I do? And essentiallythey said, we don't know how to
help you. And so for a year Iwas on anti-inflammatory
(07:53):
medication, which really upyour stomach. And I just
stopped using my shoulder. LikeI just, nobody had a solution.
So I stopped reaching forthings, I stopped lifting
things. I just did what I coulddo to get through that. And so
this new surgery is bringing upa similar anxiety of a lot of
pain post-surgery. And thenthis fear of what if I'm left
(08:15):
with a sho ? What if I'm leftwith a shoulder that I can't
heal that nobody can fix thatis just in pain all the time?
And that to me feels incrediblypanicky and overwhelming and I
don't, I don't know how toprocess that, right? It just
my, we go into our lizardbrain, we go into our animal
fight or flight, survive or diebrain. It's not logical. I can
(08:37):
tell it. Yes. I really like mysurgeon. Yes, I really like my
team. Yes, I am, you know,doing , um, doing the best
research and the best care andthe best. You know, I'm going
into this aware that therecould be a possibility and like
the most prepared I've everbeen, the most wise I've ever
been. 'cause I've learned somuch on my medical journey. But
(08:57):
the part of me that is freakingthe out doesn't hear that. And
that's part of what's really ,um, hard about trauma. And this
is where , um, BesselVanDerKolk wrote this book that
blew up, I think 10 years agocalled The Body Keeps the
Score. And it was based on hiswork with , uh, P T S D in Army
vets , um, at a VA hospital.
(09:19):
And what he was finding was alot of the group therapy and a
lot of the attempts to helppeople coming back from war
zones was to have them talkabout it. And he actually found
that talking about it moreretraumatize them , it put them
through that experience allover again and it didn't
actually help. And so whatwe're learning is that just
having logical, you've gotthis, you're safe now doesn't
(09:43):
talk to the part of our brainthat is in lizard mode that is
just fight or flight. I doesn'thave language. And I bring this
up because there are actually ,uh, a lot more tools available
to us. We know so much moreabout trauma and so much more
about how to heal it and somuch more about what can be
(10:04):
done when it's experienced. Ithink, again, not a doctor, but
from my own research andunderstanding of trauma
healing, what we've come tolearn is , um, the goal is to
be able to bring up thatmemory, bring up that sense
memory experience, and createenough safety in us now that
(10:28):
the brain knows it can handleremembering that knows it can
handle going through thatmoment and then rewires it to
come out the other side. That'shard work. And the first part
of that is actually a lot ofsomatic. So body-based
exercises, because what we alsoknow is fight or flight can't
(10:50):
actually connect to the logicalbrain That right is gonna tell
you that you're safe and isgonna go back into that story
and see maybe a different wayin which you did advocate for
yourself, or in which case Idid fix my shoulder as much as
I could and I did get itfunctional for 15 years, you
know, and all the ways in which, um, I made it through that
experience and came outstronger for it. Um, right now
(11:13):
that just feels like, yeah,yeah, yeah, I roll. Um, and the
reason why is because whatneeds to happen first is
calming that triggeredreaction. And so we're learning
a lot of these things. Um, andso I realized that I started
for myself. You guys know Ilove a checklist and you guys
(11:33):
know I love stickers. Andbecause I was feeling this
sense of overwhelm because Ifelt like I was just counting
down the days until someone wasgonna put me under anesthesia
and cut into my shoulder. Andthat was super triggering to
me. Um, I started a build backbetter plan and it had all of
these things that I could do,like making sure my right arm,
the unaffected arm was strong'cause it's been doing extra
(11:56):
work because my left arm hasbeen broken and torn for a
while . Um, making sure I waswalking and drinking water and
journaling and just the thingsthat I sort of do regularly. My
brain was having a really hardtime like remembering it. Just
the experience of beingtriggered is , um, you fall
(12:16):
outside of time. Like you justend up in this space where you
fall outside of like who youare now. You, you fall outside
of this , um, identification,this recognition that you know,
I am a grownup. I pay my ownbills, I have decision making ,
strategy and um, agency in thisprocess. And you revert to
whatever part of you was inthat situation that feels
(12:36):
completely powerless andcompletely afraid and
completely in danger. And sothat messes with your sense of
time, that messes with yoursense of focus, that messes
with your sense of being ableto deliver on stuff. Um, and
you sort of just, for me, itoften feels like this.
Everything goes white as thoughlike I can't see or hear
(12:58):
anything. Everybody thing sortof buzzes. Um, and it always
feels like my atoms are abouthalf a foot away from my body
and they are just vibrating atsuch an incredibly fast speed
that I can't, like I'm justbuzzing in a way that feels
incredibly dangerous and Idunno how to sit still. And I
don't know how to go anywhereand I dunno what to do and I
(13:20):
dunno what to think and let ,like all my problem solving
capacity is not just forsurgery, but everything go out
the window. I'm suddenly notable, I don't know how to bring
myself back from that. And sowhat we're finding is that
there are a lot of things thatwe can do. Not one of them on
its own necessarily brings usback into our body. It's um, I
read this thing that was greatand also terrible, which is ,
(13:43):
um, of all the somaticpractices, each one of them
maybe brings you 10% back intothe ground and into your body.
And so it's the accumulationand the compounding effect of
doing a lot of these. So someof the somatic practices are
yoga, tai chi, anything thatconnects your breath to your
body, putting your feet in thegrass, sitting in the sun , um,
(14:07):
meditating. And I'll also saysome of them work for people
and some of them don't. I findmeditating not helpful right
now. I find pacing way morehelpful and getting my thoughts
out. Um, listening to music,singing is a really, really
good one actually. Anytime thatyou make vibrations, it could
be chanting, it could behumming, it could be clapping,
it could be snapping. All ofthat actually produces
(14:30):
vibrations. And vibrations helpreset the brain. So singing is
really good. I find listeningto podcasts easier. I have a
hard time reading when I'mtriggered. It's just like my
brain can't, it just can'tconnect , um, visually, but it
can listen. And I often thinkof it as if I just play
nonstop, you know,self-development , um, uh,
(14:52):
podcasts, which for me are theones that I love the most to
listen to and help me feel themost grounded. It like reaches
me in a different way thanreading reaches me. I find when
I'm triggered, journaling justfeels impossible. And that's
strange. 'cause if you know me,I pretty much journal. Like
it's ridiculous how much Ijournal. It's my favorite way
to like really work on my brainand really figure out who I
(15:12):
wanna be next and how I'm gonnabecome that person. And I
cannot journal when I'mtriggered. I just, I just don't
know how. And so, you know,there's, I'm also learning,
there's a spectrum of beingtriggered. You could be
triggered at a one or two whereit's maybe I could journal,
right? It's like things arestarting to feel really , um,
they call it hyper aroused.
Like things just feel a littletoo much and like, I might
(15:34):
explode and I don't know how tohandle this situation. Um, or
just like being in my body andbreathing right now. Um, or you
could be like at a five wheremaybe everything sort of starts
to go haywire, but you're kindof able to show up for some
things. Or you could be at a 10and you're just completely
like, I'm in bed, I'm turningoff the lights. I am , I just
talk to me tomorrow, right?
(15:54):
Like it does run the spectrum.
And part of what I'm learningto do is to , um, check in with
where I am on the spectrum sothat I'm more available to
myself and be like, okay, all Ican handle right now is like,
sit in the sun. Great. You gota sticker for sitting in the
sun. And I swear that's what Ido. Like, just to give myself a
sense of agency, to give myselfa sense of progress, to give my
sense of myself, a sense of Idid a thing today and I can't
(16:18):
remember what, and I can'tremember what was happening,
but I did this thing. So Ireally wanted to come today
because I feel like, yeah, Iwas trying to explain this
actually to a friend of mine.
Like what I was going throughand realizing I thought I was
just being super anxious. Ithought I was just being super
(16:38):
like overwhelmed. And Irealized, no, I know how to
manage my anxiety and I knowhow to manage overwhelm and I'm
actually incredibly preparedfor this. I've asked all the
questions and I've taken allthe notes and I've prepped all
the food and I'm ready. Andthis level of stepping outta
myself, this level of, I feellike I just don't know what
time it's been. Like I forgetwhat day it is, which is not
(17:00):
like me. My brain is always onstuff. It's always super aware
of what date and day it is. Andsuddenly I like couldn't
remember this kind of, I don'tknow if you guys felt this, but
this was a lot of what covidfor me in the beginning was
like , um, the lockdownspecifically that utter panic,
that utter sense of non-agency,of something dyers happening
all around me. And it iskilling people by the thousands
(17:22):
and there's nothing I can do.
And my brain had a really hardtime staying grounded. My brain
had a really hard time , um,not freaking out and, and
feeling like it was trying torun away from a situation
without actually moving. Likethat's another way that I know
I'm triggered is like, I feellike every part of me wants to
run. And it also feels likeevery part of me is freezing in
order to protect itself. Andthat push pull of those two
(17:45):
things is unsustainable. And soI just feel like I'm exploding
out of my skin. And one of mygoals in this podcast and in
being an artist in general isto really give language to the
experience of some of thesemore nuanced but also lesser
known , um, mental healthchallenges. I think we all have
trauma in our lives. There'swhat they call capital T
(18:09):
trauma, which is often, youknow , uh, someone coming back
from war or someone surviving asexual assault or , um, like
the things that you were afunctional human being before
and this thing happened to youand now you like can't remember
how to function, you just don'tknow how to go back. But they
also have little T trauma,lowercase t trauma. And that
(18:31):
can be things like bullyingbecause our sense of self,
especially let's say in middleschool, which is where a lot of
this happens , um, is so muchpredicated on our social , um,
relationships and to be bulliedand exiled. The brain perceives
being exiled from a group asdeath because we still think
like animals in a tribe. And ifwe are exiled from that pack ,
(18:54):
we can't survive, right? So itmight not be affecting you
every single day. It might notbe stopping , um, as much of
your productivity or I hate theword productivity, but as much
as your cognitive ability toshow up for yourself and be
creative. But especially if youget in a situation where maybe
you're feeling that again, thisis where people have outsized
reactions to small, seeminglysmall situations. Like maybe
(19:16):
your coworker says somethingand you misunderstand it and
you have this incredible shamespiral over this incredible,
like, you can't see straight,you're just filled with rage,
right? People experiencetriggers differently and what
their fight or flight lookslike can be something
different. And so peopleexplode into a rage. This is
why a lot of P T s D and vetsis rage explosions because
(19:36):
they're having this experiencethat they don't know how to
survive. And their , theirsystem is going into fight or
flight and they're choosingflight, they're getting
aggressive. Mine tends to beshut down, but everyone's
different in how they do it.
And it's, it's this thing thatI hope we talk about more. It's
this thing that I hope we'reable to have better language
(19:59):
for our insides becauseeveryone looking at someone
else's outsides doesn't have aclue that that's happening. And
I think that's very much to ourdetriment. 'cause we're all
experiencing some amount ofhardship and loss and grief and
um, unexpected difficulty. Andwe're all having to process
that. And we're all doing it inour own ways. And there's so
much to be learned from eachother. And I think this is
(20:21):
where the part of going throughthis experience returns me to
what I prize most about beingan artist. What to me is the
most precious thing, which ishow do I communicate an
experience that I don't havelanguage for? I'm inside of it.
And because I spend a lot oftime thinking about my internal
(20:42):
experience and really workingon healing myself, I forget
that others have no idea whatthis is, have never had trauma,
don't have triggers, don't havethe same sense of like
suddenly. And again, like I'mhaving surgery, I kept thinking
for a lot of people, she'slike, oh, I'm having surgery.
That sucks. I'm scared I don'twant to, but they're just, you
know, gonna go about their dayand I'm literally feel like I'm
(21:03):
falling on my knees or fallingunderwater all the time. And
I'm like, what? You know, it's'cause it's an outsized
reaction to an event that'scoming up. It's retriggering so
much old , um, medical testingand being stuck in MRIs where I
felt absolutely no agency andwanted to run. Um, having
surgery and feeling like I gotput under the knife. Like
there's just so much that mybody has gone through. And
(21:27):
because I didn't have the toolseven of just sitting with my
body and letting it processthat very animal of the body
fear of being cut into, ofhaving pain, you know , uh,
sort of like, you know,post-op, like you're inviting
pain or you're being put inpain 'cause it was, your body
was cut into that. It's, it'sterrifying. The body feels that
(21:49):
fear. And so it needs thatprocessing in order to come out
the other side and be like, ohyeah, this is a thing that I
did and now my body is betterand now I'm just working on
rehabbing and now I'm justworking on being this stronger
version of myself. So I thinkalso , um, I will bring this
back to being kind of an artistin the world. There can be
(22:10):
lowercase trauma from puttingyourself out there and being
turned down right from being,from having something that
means a lot to you. Maybeyou're have a gallery opening
and nobody shows up and it'syour last gallery opening that
can have little t trauma thatcan be so overwhelming. And so
, um, you don't even know whereto begin to process all that
(22:30):
emotion and all of thatoverwhelm and that sense again
of , um, rejection, of beingexiled from the group is always
gonna be processed by ourbrains as death. Even though in
this world that we live in,most of us are really, really
safe in terms of at leastphysical threats. And so
you're, you're potentiallygonna end up in a place where
(22:51):
it's really hard to process togrieve that process and then
start the next project. And Isee people get stuck, myself
included in moments where Iauditioned a ton of times and
that never came to anything.
And now I'm having a reallyhard time with like auditioning
more or having monologues orworking on scripts because in
my head it interpreted allthese times when I auditioned
(23:11):
and I could have been amazingand I could have been terrible
and we don't know, but I didn'thear anything. And the story
that my brain made of notbelonging, of being outside of
this system of creativity thatI really wanna belong to has
just caused so muchinterference in my brain that I
don't have a clean slate fromwhich to create a new project
from which to go forward. Andthat's some of the work that
(23:32):
I'm doing now. So I don't knowthat it would clinically be
called trauma in the same way,but so much of the same work,
so much of creating safety inmy body, not just by saying,
Hey, you're safe, but let's putmy feet on the ground. Let's
sit on the floor. Let me put myfeet in the grass. Let me do ,
um, meditative breathing. I dolike the breathing, you know,
(23:53):
box, breath , um, which is whenyou inhale for four, hold for
four, exhale for four, hold forfour and start again. There's a
lot of versions of that withlike sevens and eights and
different numbers, but the actof controlling your breath
triggers your parasympatheticsystem, which allows your whole
nervous system to calm down. Soall of these are downregulation
(24:15):
techniques. All these are waysfor your system to go from this
place where it just feelscomplete and utter fear of
death to a place where it cankind of come back to this
moment in time, come back tothis body in time, come back to
seeing what's actuallyhappening right now versus
living in this moment that gotfrozen before that is , um,
completely flooded with panicand overwhelm. So my hope for
(24:40):
you is that you have no ideawhat I'm talking about and uh,
therefore this is my hope thatit opens up language for those
who are experiencing this, whohave trauma from all different
kinds of places. Um, and also,you know, if there is something
about your journey as anartist, someone who wants to
(25:01):
share stories that you'vewritten or is working on their
first novel or second novel,maybe their first novel didn't,
you know, get published. Ifthere's something about that
experience that's reallyholding you back, I would just
invite you to start seeing ifthere's some way of creating
safety for yourself and reallythinking about it as this
overwhelm that your cognitivebrain can't process and
(25:22):
therefore needs a differentpathway into helping it really
make peace with that experienceso that you're free to be
flexible and creative and flowyin the way that your best work
does come from. Okay, thank youfor being here. I am assuming
all good wishes for my surgeryfrom you guys. Um, I'm
incredibly well prepared and Iknow that I'm going to build
(25:45):
back better on the other side.
Um, and I just reallyappreciate you spending the
time with me. Take care .