Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Trauma Theverists podcast. My name is guiming
Person and I interview incredible people who share the story
of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
and our sponsors. So five four, three, two and one,
(00:23):
Our folks, welcome back to the podcast. I'm very excited
to as my guest today. Jordan Hansen. Jordan, welcome, Thank you,
thank you for having me. You're welcome. Jordan is the
founder of Jordan's Artful Wellness, Massage Therapists, yoga instructor, and
brain injury survivor whose life was profoundly changed after sustaining
(00:43):
a severe injury from transcranial magnetic stimulation or TMS. Drawing
from personal recovery, she blends her professional training in bodywork
and nervous system regulation with a lived experience to support
others navigating trauma, chronic illness, and neurological INDI. Through writing, advocacy,
and community education, Jordan is raising awareness about misunderstood brain
(01:06):
injuries while empowering others to approach healing with compassion, patience,
and curiosity. Joy let's do this all right before we
get going share with all listeners where you're from originally
and where you are currently.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I am originally from the East Coast in North Carolina,
and I currently am in Washington State, south southwest Washington.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Okay, all right, so let's get into it. How did
all this start for you?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So, I mean, like, mainly what brought me here is
obviously the advocacy for brain injury. So I was recommended
TMS or transcrinomagnetic stimulation from a psychiatrist, and I was
recommended as psychiatrist via my talk therapist, and she basically
(02:03):
said that I had an unstable mood at times, not
necessarily cyclical, not necessarily deep dark waves of depression, but
just enough that she thought some medical intervention would be helpful.
So I sat in with a.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Psychiatrist for two hours.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Of an intake, and I was told that I had
an overactive amygdala and this new device called TNS would
help me not only better myself and my overactive amygdala,
but better me and my future chance of being a mother,
a spouse, and things of that nature. So for me,
in my time, when I had done five years of
(02:46):
other types of therapies like EMDR talk therapy, and things
of that nature. I was kind of convinced that this
was the next next step for me. Usually it's thirty
six treatments is what's recommended.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Upgrades of the shop.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
How old were you, Jordan, I was.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I was thirty thirty three, okay, and I was, you know,
obviously recommended it and then thirty six to fifty six
treatments and I only did three before I voluntarily quit
because the symptoms adverge symptoms were so incredibly severe upon
(03:23):
the first treatment.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
What hold hang on? What was what is TMS? Give
our listeners a kind of.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Overview, So again, transcernental magnetic stimulation not very clear in
the name, but essentially what it was described to me
is that it is a device and some of them
are helmets.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Some of them have like wands.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
And arms that go over to usually the left side
of your head, since that is your prefrontal cortex, where
the mood center is. That's what they're targeting with electromagnetic energy.
And it is supposedly supposed to stickulate dormant areas of
the brain, and because I had an overactive magdala, they
(04:06):
were trying to stimulate every other area around to allow
my magdala to calm down, so to speak, so that
it's usually there's a bunch of different protocols with a
protocol that I did was a nineteen minute session and
you do it consecutively for about six eight weeks, every
single day.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Usually weekends are off.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Now when you're receiving this treatment, are you feeling anything?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So they is described that it should feel like a
woodpecker or a rubber band snapping on your head, but
for me, it was much much more severe.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Actually, I described to.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Both the technician and a psychiatrist on day one in
the room that it felt like Thor's hammer slimming down
on an ice pick. I mean, my eyes instantly welled
and I frozen in fear because the pain was so it.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Now that that is not the actual device doing that, correct, correct.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Yeah, it's it's a magnet that's just resting on your head.
So it's the energy that's going through the magnet penetrating
the skull to the brain tissue.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Wow. Yes, So what happens your experiences for the first
time and you're like, all right, I'm going back tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
So the halfway through in the nineteen minute session, the
psychiatrist asked me on a pain scale one to ten,
ten being hospital, how are you feeling? And I'm a
little wordy with my explanations, so I kind of gave
her a backstory that I have a very high pain tolerance,
but I'm thinking it's an eight or nine, and she
decided to continue with the rest of the nineteen minutes.
(05:46):
So I have a people pleasing nature, and also I'm
a marathon runner, so I have that not no pain,
no gay mentality, but that push through it because the
end goal could be worth it, and that's kind of
the drive. The idea of being a better spouse, being
a better future mother kind of kept me going. So
(06:08):
I after finishing that nineteen minute session, I left the
clinic instantly burst into tears, and then upon arriving home,
I froze. I was disassociating, and I was drooling, just
staring at the wall, and throughout that rest of that
evening I was dropping things. I was tripping up and
(06:29):
down the stairs. Meanwhile, you know, you gave a wonderful
intro for me. I am a yoga instructor and I
used to teach with my eyes closed, so those types
of behaviors were very, very abnormal for me. When I
went in this day too, because it was back to
back subsequent treatments. I explained all of this to the
staff and they told me that I was just overly
sensitive and I should trust the process and keep going.
(06:52):
And I did, And that's what got me through day
two and day three was I'm the pro pro and
I should just I should.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Push through and hopefully it'll be better. I'll get used
to it. So I did make sense. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Unfortunately for me, what got me to stop at three
instead of doing the full course of recommended thirty six
to fifty six treatments was the fact that I was
training for a marathon and I was six days away,
and had I not had that race on a schedule,
and had I not been able to run it, I.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Think I would have kept going. So I had to.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Drop out of my race because I had such incredible
pain from the TMS sessions. I was extremely fatigued. I
was slurring my words. I could not speak in full
coherent sentences, which is very abnormal for me. My friend
at the time was in school to be a doctor
of physical therapy, and she noticed my feet were really
(08:03):
heavy and I was tripping as we were walking the dogs,
and so all of these changes, because I was training
for a marathon in such good shape, was the perfect
red flag for me to say, Okay, listen to your gut,
listen to your intuition. Something went wrong and you may
not know what it is, but this is not a
good treatment for you. I've met other people that have
(08:25):
undergone this treatment and continued, all of them despite the symptoms.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
So I do feel lucky for.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
That, despite the same symptoms.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Correct, Yes, yes, I've met so many.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
How do you so you stopped? I did? What did
you do?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
I slept a lot, so first, the first month, I
was probably sleeping nine to twelve hours during the day
in addition to the ten to twelve hours at night.
I mean I was sleeping twenty four to seven essentially,
is what it felt like. Maybe an hour or two
that I wasn't and I dug deep into googling.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Any adverse effects.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I mean, I felt so alone and so scared, and
I don't know if it was the exact right key
stroke at the exact right time, but I came across
a gentleman's blog on not in America who described a
situation exactly like mine. Five years prior, and he had
(09:26):
these same exact symptoms. He actually went under the full
course of treatment thirty six and he kept going, but
he had the same time.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
How would you, How could one keep going? I don't care.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I think it's the hope of wanting to better yourself
so much that you and now in talking to other
people that are in the same situation I am in,
but don't quite believe that they are having adverse effects.
There's something called the TMS dip that describes a lot
(10:01):
of the symptoms that I was experiencing, and most people,
according to the science that's behind TMS, would experience this
dip around this second or third week sometimes session, like
in the teens to twenties, and it's the same thing.
It's irritability, it's cognition deficits sometimes extreme exhaustion, and so
(10:28):
a lot of people are seeing that there's this dip
and they're hoping that Okay, by session twenty five it
will stop.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
I'll get used to it.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So there's a little bit of that, there's a little
bit of this hope and drive to be better. Because
most people that are recommended TMS, unlike myself, have been
battling with depression for years and years and have tried
tons of different medications, and unlike myself, I hadn't tried
any medications. So I feel like for them, there's just
(10:55):
this more hope that if this doesn't work, then they
don't know what else, what other cards are on the
table for them. And so this gentleman that I met with,
he went through the full four course and it was
the same time for reasoning he wanted to get better.
But he has since spoken out and created a support
(11:16):
group that I belong to now of thousands upon thousands
of people that are injured and some have hearing loss,
vision loss, brain injury symptoms exactly like nine and they
are struggling every day to get better. So if I
had not found nor scheduled a zoom interview with him
(11:36):
to understand his story and how he healed, I don't
think I would have the encouragement that I wasn't alone.
And that's what he really brought me, which was really helpful.
I mean, it's strengthened numbers is a really powerful thing,
especially when you're on the outside of a medical intervention
(11:58):
or procedure that is said to be eighty three percent
effective and zero systemic side effects. I felt absolutely crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
What do they know or do you know what was
actually happening. I created those adverse symptoms.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So scientifically, the only thing I have is the gentleman
that I mentioned who created the support or his name
is Jans Hall, and he's worked with several scientists and
physicists who have tried to study what is going on
in the brain. And he's worked with a lot of
people who study ECT as well, because this is kind
of like the lower, less invasive version.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Of E's going to say that sounds like it.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, absolutely, So he's done studies on the level of
energy that enters the head via TMS on the electromagnetic.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
And it's like one and a half tesla, and he
did all.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
These amazing conversions to understand what it was and basically
just to put it down in terms that I understand,
it is about one or fifteen hundred times stronger energy
wise than the when they did ECT. They found that
level of energy that damage is cells TMS is one
(13:19):
thy five hundred times stronger. So there is energy admitting
into your head that's damaging cells and a staggering number.
So that's the science that I believed in what happened
because I now have scans that prove it. I have
MRAs and spect images that show large divots and cellular
(13:41):
and vascular damage on the left side of my head,
so I tend.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
To side with that. I've also talked to people that.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Are very pro TMS and have made their careers on it,
and they say the science isn't just there, So I
honestly think it depends on who you speak to, and
it's unfortunately very misunderstood to be so clear.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
That leaves the question, then, what injuries did you sustain
are you living with now?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So most of them are traumatic for injury symptoms.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
So I.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Have convergence in sufficiency. My eyes don't work together as
well anymore. I have diplopia double vision.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
I have my.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Right eye because the energy was on the left side.
A lot of times our body crosses, you know, with
what controls the.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Side of our body, and.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
The brain corresponds, So my right side is my main
issue with my vision. I have recovered a lot with
speech therapy.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
My main deficit is following.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
I have to now have subtitles if I'm going to
have or watch a movie or have some longer form content,
I have to either stop, pause, ask questions, have some
sort of subtitles that I can follow along more clearly.
And the physical deficits of that work more linked to
(15:09):
my vision. So a lot of the heaviness of my
walking and tripping and things like that were mainly due
to my vision deficiencies, more invisibly now.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
That I'm more recovering from after a lot of those.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Other symptoms are extreme fatigue, and that also comes cognitively
and just in a function in general. When I do
too much in a day, I'm down for the count
for four hours. My even four hour naps don't feel
like I'm really rebuilding and recovering. I get very slow
on my cognition and thinking and speaking, so word finding
(15:49):
feels like I'm hitting and slamming a wall. I cannot
think of simple words, and I usually I have notes
everywhere I go now because of because of this, so
I can look over look at my highlight and try
to focus on a word, so I can kind of
hide it a little bit better. But those are the
main symptoms that I'm living with now. The convergence and
sufficiency I don't think will ever be one hundred percent,
(16:12):
but I'm very thankful that I've recovered as much as
I have.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
But yeah, you look up TBI.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
I ticked every single box except a loss of consciousness
and nausea for me.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Damn Yes, Yes, it's.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
The Jesus Jordan and that's so now you're working with
to help other people. Yes, talk to us about that.
How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I kind of in that the gentleman that I mentioned,
James Hall, and speaking with him for the first year
after my injury, he told me to focus on myself
and focus on my healing because it was so misunderstood.
And I mean he was so right. I walked into
doctors' offices and I got chuckles when I said teams
(17:05):
caused my brain injury. And I finally met people that understood.
I met neuroaptometrist, who was just such a godsend. My
physical therapist.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
She was kind of my.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
One woman superhero for so long because she saw all
the deficits that I carried and helped me until I
started to find other people that understood my injury. So
I think because I struggled so much with being believed
that I realized if somebody wasn't wired the same way
(17:38):
I was or didn't have the support system that I did,
or didn't find the friends and connection that I did
throughout this process, how would they heal? And I so
badly wanted to be that person that they could see
video footage that I took or pictures or read my
blog or connected with me online to understand that they're
believed and they have somebody here. And that was kind
(18:00):
of my drive of Okay, I want to get better first,
because I can't support and fill somebody else's cup without
knowing the struggles that I had to go through and knowing,
you know, everything I needed to do, so that I
can then inform them on hey, these are my steps
that I took, and I took I kept a blog
monthly so that if somebody could find me that way.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
I'm now active on social media and.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Rudd it and YouTube and things like that to try
to share my step by step. And in the beginning,
I look back at it and it's a brain injury survivor.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
That has cognitive deficits trying to tell people what they're doing,
and so it's not as clear and succinct as I
wish it would have been, but it's true and it's raw,
and that's really what my drive was is I couldn't
imagine having less.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Than I had to get me through. And that's what
I wanted to provide for people. If they just didn't
have the support system or the family to understand what happened.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I wanted to be there for them.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Experience sounds traumatizing to me. I mean, to have experienced
what you did with TMS and then to not be believed,
you know, to be made to think that you're nuts
and crazy and they'll just keep doing it. That to
(19:21):
me sounds like it would it would be traumatizing. Were
you able to Are you still able to run marathons?
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Not?
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Not?
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Right now, I'm slowly getting back into it. So oh gosh.
My Pete.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Had not cleared me to run yet, but I have
been communicating with her because I just it's, you know,
towards that it falls, my favorite time of year, so I
just can I please just try? And so we have
this path that my heart rate can't get above one
forty five, which means very short, very little, because my
heart's not as from anymore. So it's not even a mile,
(20:04):
it's maybe five minutes maybe, and then lots of walking
still so I have not been fully cleared, but I
hope one day I can, you know, sign up for
a marathon again.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
How I mean, I just realized that, you know, I said,
not being believed seems traumatic and all that stuff, but
just experiencing those those adverse symptoms and being able to
reflect back on that seems like it would be traumatizing too.
(20:38):
Like you have the awareness to know what happened to you.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Absolutely, I kind of. I just spoke to several other
people the other day.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I'm very stubborn, so a lot of them are like, oh,
you've you know, made lemonade it out of lemons and
things like that.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
And I'm like, well, I don't know if I necessarily.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Want to give it to something that harded me so much,
because I look back and I see an industry that,
in my mind, feeds off of people who are.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
At a very vulnerable state.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Their anxieties through the roof depression is they've been struggling
with it for years and years, they've been on and
off medications. And you asked me earlier or how it
actually works, and I feel like I was very murky,
like I don't think I gave you a crystal clear answer,
but that was what was what I was told, and
(21:35):
it was also the research I've done, and that's what
I have written down, Like, I don't know how it
works any better than that. And I can just see
the red flags from the beginning, stepping into an office
and being recommended a treatment after a two hour intake.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
But my history wasn't taken.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Medications I've been on, weren't, you know, as psychiatrists by
the psychiatrist. Yeah, and in fact, my notes were falsified.
She said that I was on zoloft. So in order
to be approved for a TMS, you have to have
two failed attempts of medications, and I wasn't on anything,
and I hadn't never been on anything. So there's just
(22:21):
a lot of red flags. And then there's people that
are believe in this procedure and are doing it right.
I've talked to people who've made their career on it,
and I just think that we don't understand enough when
we're pushing these two people, and it can be very
traumatic for very vulnerable states. And yeah, I think that's
(22:44):
why I am so passionate about sharing my side because
it didn't go well and I didn't fill to eighty
three percent effective.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, oh my god. I mean, just remind everyone was
speaking with Jordan Hansen. So how are you working with
people in what ways?
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I created a Reddit community where I post, not weekly anymore,
but I try to post pretty frequently to share stories
that I've found, science, legal advice, my personal story as
it comes out, and things like that.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
So I connect with people.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
There both messaging, I have a blog and a website
that I keep up with, and fortunately people have found
me from all over the world, which is pretty cool.
I have friends in France that have undergone this and
I've been connecting with them, and then I do a
lot of zoom conversations with people, and most of those
people I've met either in the social media side or
(23:48):
the support group. So Victims of TMS action group that
James Hall started that's on Facebook, and we're not as active,
but we try to pop in and just meet those
new people.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
So those are the.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Three places that I'm most active in connect with people.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Are you able to work not right now.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
I'm slowly coming back into it.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
So I have friends that are absolutely incredible and amazing,
and they own a virtual yoga fitness company and so
I'm allowed to teach virtually one class a week right now,
and I've started to take on some of their subbing
opportunities so I can kind of boostuff from one hour
(24:35):
a week to more and kind of see how I do.
But I've been doing that for just under a year now,
and that's kind of helped me engauge from last year.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
When I started, I would.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Be passed out for two or three hours after teaching,
even though I wasn't interacting in person. The memorization that
comes in with teaching a yoga class, or just coming
back and reminding mysel of what body parts are because
I forgot what muscles were muscles immediately after my injury,
so I couldn't even remember what a quad was and
(25:10):
basic muscle groups. So that's slowly been coming back and
I can kind of see that after I teach one class,
I maybe can walk the dogs, or maybe I can
just sit, but I don't have to nap. And so
as I'm starting to see that growth, I'll add more
on my but I'm not able to do a full
forty hours.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
You're even part.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Time, And remind me when did this happen?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
It happened June of twenty twenty three, so just over
two years ago.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Okay, did you or are you pursuing any legal action?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
You know, guy, I started to in the beginning immediately.
I think I got my denial letter in November of
that same year, and I remember crying because it was
close to my birthday and I just didn't understand how
people couldn't see the harm. And I've talked to a
few other lawyers throughout this process, and I just learned
(26:10):
how difficult it is. And I think one of the
questions that I've talked to lawyers are about, is Okay,
if you do get to an agreement of yes, we
do believe that you know what you said is true
medically and all of this it is a malpractice. But
(26:30):
then I had to sign paperwork that basically absorbs the
clinic and the psychiatrists from any harm done so it.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Doesn't go on her record.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And the more I sat with that, I might also
not be able to advocate or share my story, and
to me that that's really important. I want to be
able to help people that have gone through the same
thing I have, and I've kind of taken.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Get a backseat to that because I think in Washington.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
It's three years, and I thought that by year two
I would have found somebody and we would have started
a case. And I think I just kind of came
to terms on my two year anniversary. Opposite, I did
a one to eighty and just thought I'd rather speak out.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
And share my story.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
I understand that. Well, I mean, you're doing an amazing
job here speaking. Yeah, Jordan, my god, it's so crazy.
I mean, I never I never known that much about TMS.
I've certainly heard about it. It's been around forever. When
(27:38):
was it? Do you know when it was like invented?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
So from my understanding, NeuroStar in the US was the
first to kind of push through the five to ten
K loophole, so they're not so it could be labeled
as a class too, not as a Class three device.
And I believe that was in two thousand and eight,
(28:01):
so it was pretty recent actually, but there were other
devices that were very similar to TMS well before that,
in my understanding.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
So okay, all right, well let's let's wind down here.
How do people learn more about you get in contact
with you?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:29):
So, as I mentioned, I do have a blog in
a website. It's Jordan's Artfulwillness dot com.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
On there, I have links.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
To my Instagram, YouTube, and the Reddit page, as well
as James Hall's information about the tag Victims of TMS
action group that takes much more of a deep dive
in kind of on the science behind TMS and the
injury itself.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Okay, and we'll have that link up here at the
show notes page at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com. Jordan,
my god, I mean, you are so inspiring and really
appreciate the work you're doing and thank you for coming
on here.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
It's a pleasure to speak with you, and I always
it's an honor to share my story and people that
are willing to ask questions and listen, So thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Awesome, all right, we'll be in touch.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Thank you.