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Rebuilding A Human From Scratch with Angie Peacock · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
0:11
Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
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Speaker 1: So five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited Apple Today. Angie Peacock, Angie, welcome.
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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me awesome So.
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Speaker 1: Angie is a US Army veteran and trauma informed coach
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Speaker 1: whose work is shaped by firsthand experience with psychiatric injury
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Speaker 1: and recovery. I've serving seven years as a signal specialist,
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Speaker 1: including the deployment IRAQ. She was medically discharged due to
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Speaker 1: severe illness and PTSD and became dangerously over medicated. Her
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Speaker 1: withdrawal and recovery journey was documented in the film Medicating
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Speaker 1: Normal for She later led a nationwide grassroots outreach effort,
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Speaker 1: engaging more than one hundred and eighty audiences. Today, she
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Speaker 1: supports individual rules navigating medication withdrawal, trauma related to over medication,
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Speaker 1: working with those hard by the very system they turned
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Speaker 1: to for help, and advocating for meaningful change in mental
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Speaker 1: health care. All right, Angie, just a little bit about
1:12
Speaker 1: you before we could go and share with the listeners
1:15
Speaker 1: where you're from originally and where you are currently.
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Speaker 3: I'm from Saint Louis, Missouri origin originally, but right now
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Speaker 3: I am in Uma, Arizona.
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Speaker 2: I live in a van full time, so I travel
1:24
Speaker 2: a lot.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So how the heck did all this start for you?
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Speaker 3: It started well, obviously, I had childhood trauma that kind
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Speaker 3: of buttered my wheel, so to speak.
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Speaker 2: But I joined the military at eighteen obviously.
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Speaker 3: Obviously, Like looking back, you know, I just could think
1:43
Speaker 3: of what led me to that military decision. You know,
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Speaker 3: I didn't come from the greatest upbringing with opportunity and
1:49
Speaker 3: socioeconomic support, so military sounded like.
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Speaker 2: A good idea. Then I went. I was deployed to Iraq.
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Speaker 3: I was also sexually assaulted in the military, which is
1:59
Speaker 3: pretty common for women, more than it should be. And
2:04
Speaker 3: so it was like one trauma after the next after
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Speaker 3: the next, and then I was eventually medically retired, medically
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Speaker 3: evacuated out of Iraq and given a diagnosis of pushma
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Speaker 3: extress pretty quickly, and that ended my military career after
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Speaker 3: seven years.
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Speaker 1: So what happens next? How do things unfold?
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Speaker 3: So I went to the system that I was told
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Speaker 3: to go to to get help, because that's kind of
2:29
Speaker 3: the narrative, like when you don't feel good and you
2:31
Speaker 3: have mental struggles, go to psychiatry and therapy. And I
2:34
Speaker 3: went straight there. I was the perfect patient. I took
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Speaker 3: notes at my meetings, I attended all my sessions. I
2:41
Speaker 3: took all the medication they prescribed. I did EMDR, I
2:45
Speaker 3: did CBT CPT twice. I did EFT, neurofeedback, biofeedback, acupuncture.
2:53
Speaker 3: I tried spirituality. This is after I got out. This
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Speaker 3: was after I was medically retired. Yeah, I went on
3:00
Speaker 3: my own spiritual journey trying to figure out what's wrong
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Speaker 3: with me. I earned a bachelor's in psychology, Like what
3:06
Speaker 3: in the hell is happening?
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Speaker 2: Like why am I like this? I feel so as
3:12
Speaker 2: you get out?
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Speaker 1: Are you on meds at this point? Yeah?
3:15
Speaker 3: I was discharged on It started with a BENZO, which
3:18
Speaker 3: we now know is contraindicated for post traumatic stress. I
3:22
Speaker 3: guess they didn't know that at the time, but then
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Speaker 3: I got worse pretty quickly, and they kept telling me
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Speaker 3: that you're developing post traumatic stress. But looking back, it
3:30
Speaker 3: was actually adverse reaction and tolerance from those meds. They
3:33
Speaker 3: just did not do well with my system at all.
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Speaker 3: And then all that was seen is like, this is
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Speaker 3: more mental illness, this is developing illness.
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Speaker 1: Was anything quote unquote helping at all of all those
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Speaker 1: medalities you were trying? Was there anything that was like Okay.
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Speaker 3: I mean, I mean I looking back, like I thought
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Speaker 3: the meds were working, but it was it was working
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Speaker 3: at a huge expense. Like I didn't feel good emotion
4:00
Speaker 3: I could not function, I could not leave my house.
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Speaker 3: I couldn't work, like I was disabled, literally disabled. And
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Speaker 3: I know I look normal and I sound normal, and
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Speaker 3: everybody's like, you're doing great. You couldn't have possibly been
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Speaker 3: seriously mentally ill. Yes, I was, like I was hold
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Speaker 3: up in a house, living without a lease, couch surfing
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Speaker 3: for a couple of years, and like not leaving my
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Speaker 3: house for four years total with agrophobia like severe my
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Speaker 3: pushmac stress was considered persistent, chronic and severe and not
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Speaker 3: likely to improve.
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Speaker 1: And were you getting treatment through the VA.
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Speaker 3: It was both with VA BET Center and civilian providers,
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Speaker 3: and they all kind of just you know, remarked that
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Speaker 3: it was all kind of standard of care. They call
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Speaker 3: that like legacy medicine, Like whatever a doctor or therapist
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Speaker 3: said before me, we just kind of sign off on
4:44
Speaker 3: that and continue treatment in that direction.
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Speaker 1: Where were you living at this time.
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Speaker 2: Saint Louis, Missouri?
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Speaker 1: Okay, So all right, so proceed So how do things continue?
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Speaker 2: So there's some hope here.
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Speaker 3: So in my search through all these books that I read,
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Speaker 3: I mean I read like Terror Brock and.
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Speaker 2: What is It? Byron Katie, all.
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Speaker 3: These like spirituality books, somehow I came across Bussel Vanner
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Speaker 3: Koch's booked The Body Keeps a Score. And I tell
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Speaker 3: you what, that was the first time that I even
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Speaker 3: had an inkling that somebody could recover from trauma at
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Speaker 3: least a little bit. Because honestly, the way systems are now,
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Speaker 3: and maybe it's not implicit all the time, but when
5:23
Speaker 3: you're taking a medication every day, and when you're going
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Speaker 3: to therapy appointments once a week, and you're filling out
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Speaker 3: the questionnaires in the waiting room, and when you're deduced
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Speaker 3: to your diagnosis, you don't think there's much of a
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Speaker 3: life out there for you. You feel ill, you feel
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Speaker 3: like a victim. You feel like I can't really do
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Speaker 3: anything to help myself. This is like I have a
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Speaker 3: chemical imbalance of some kind, and like I'm just I'm
5:42
Speaker 3: too traumatized, you know. So that book was like my
5:45
Speaker 3: first like, wait, yoga might help me. I didn't think
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Speaker 3: of it like that, you know, just a little idea,
5:51
Speaker 3: but I don't think I was well enough to even
5:53
Speaker 3: like do anything about it at that time.
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Speaker 2: So I was lucky.
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Speaker 3: I met a VA doctor who was kind of young,
6:00
Speaker 3: and he was a little progressive, and he was like,
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Speaker 3: who put you on all these meds? Because at that time,
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Speaker 3: this was two thousand and six, so it's you know,
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Speaker 3: twenty years ago, nineteen. But he's like, eighteen medications is
6:12
Speaker 3: too much.
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Speaker 1: You know.
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Speaker 2: It's hard for me to even say that out loud.
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Speaker 3: Eighteen they had me on eighteen medications, okay, And you
6:18
Speaker 3: might think that's crazy, but I meet people all the time.
6:20
Speaker 3: On thirteen twelve five, you don't even know if they're
6:23
Speaker 3: coming or going okay. So he said, this is too much.
6:27
Speaker 3: We need to get you off some of these. So
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Speaker 3: he put me in the hospital, took me off ten overnight.
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Speaker 2: It was not fun.
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Speaker 3: I experienced withdrawal back then, and then it took me
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Speaker 3: another ten years to kind of deprescribe. And really my
6:38
Speaker 3: goal was not to get off all meds. I am
6:40
Speaker 3: not anti medication. It was just too much. I was
6:43
Speaker 3: not doing well. It was obvious. So he let me
6:47
Speaker 3: kind of guide the pace of that. And as I
6:50
Speaker 3: got lower and lower in dose and off the cocktail
6:53
Speaker 3: that I was on, I started to emerge and I
6:56
Speaker 3: would just get like a little bit more hope and
6:57
Speaker 3: a little bit more functioning, and I was able to
6:59
Speaker 3: do more, and I went to meditation retreats and I
7:02
Speaker 3: tried to do like equine therapy, and then I went
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Speaker 3: back to school and then I was like, wait, I
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Speaker 3: think I think I'm coming out, you know, I'm coming
7:09
Speaker 3: out of this.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So during this time, did you have any friends
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Speaker 1: we're in a.
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Speaker 3: Relationship, No, no socialization. I literally did not have sex
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Speaker 3: for sixteen years because of all of this, like zero
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Speaker 3: like anedonia, you know, numbness, you know, and a lot
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Speaker 3: of it.
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Speaker 2: It gets confusing.
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Speaker 3: And one of the reasons I wanted to come on
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Speaker 3: and talk to you is because I went and did
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Speaker 3: see se training Semitic experiencing training for a year, and
7:39
Speaker 3: it kind of bothered me that it wasn't even a
7:42
Speaker 3: consideration in some of these therapy trainings that medication could
7:46
Speaker 3: be playing a role in the patients that we see.
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Speaker 3: I do hear some therapists talking about that, like I
7:51
Speaker 3: don't know if I'm treating side effects or if I'm
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Speaker 3: treating the person. I don't know if I'm treating trauma
7:55
Speaker 3: or side effects. You know, there is a little bit
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Speaker 3: of that questioning. But for me, it was absolutely clear
8:00
Speaker 3: and obvious. But no therapist ever asked me about that,
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Speaker 3: Like it just wasn't even considered in any kind of
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Speaker 3: differential diagnosis, you know. So I got led down a
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Speaker 3: lot by the system in that way.
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Speaker 1: There that sounds like this doctor, this youngish guy, was
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Speaker 1: kind of a lifesaver in this sense. Yeah, things start
8:25
Speaker 1: to look up a little bit. What happens after.
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Speaker 3: That, So then what happens is probably the worst thing
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Speaker 3: that ever happened to me in my entire life. Worse
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Speaker 3: than combat, worse than sexual assault, worse than childhood trauma.
8:36
Speaker 3: My last medication. Uh, my doctor was letting me lead
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Speaker 3: the taper. This is a different doctor now, and he's
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Speaker 3: he's like, you know, just cut off zero point two
8:44
Speaker 3: five milligrams every six weeks. You know, it was kind
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Speaker 3: of just haphazard. It was a guess, you know, not
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Speaker 3: evidence supported. There is no really taper guidance in the
8:52
Speaker 3: United States that's worth its salts. It's all just kind
8:55
Speaker 3: of trial and error. And so I was following these
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Speaker 3: directions and then all of a sudden, I got suicidal overnight.
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Speaker 3: It's final exams from a bachelor's of Science and psychology
9:03
Speaker 3: at Washington University in Saint Louis. I can't think, I
9:06
Speaker 3: can't study. I'm like, why am I suicidal? Like there's
9:10
Speaker 3: no reason to be suicidal? Like my life has been
9:12
Speaker 3: better than it's ever been and I'm about to graduate,
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Speaker 3: Like what is going on here? And like I didn't
9:17
Speaker 3: have the frame of reference at the time to be
9:19
Speaker 3: like maybe it was this taper. It was too fast,
9:21
Speaker 3: and like it shocked my system. My system doesn't like it,
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Speaker 3: you know, I don't I don't know, and he didn't know.
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Speaker 3: So then a series of events happened. I got a
9:29
Speaker 3: new therapist who tried to diagnose me with generalized anxiety disorder.
9:32
Speaker 3: And at this point I'm so insulted. I'm like, can
9:35
Speaker 3: we stop with the diagnosis? Like that does nothing for me.
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Speaker 3: I am suicidal and I've tried everything that you people
9:42
Speaker 3: have told me to do, and I've gone to all
9:43
Speaker 3: the retreats, and I've gone to all the therapy, and
9:45
Speaker 3: I've done everything you've said, and look at me, I'm
9:47
Speaker 3: the worst as I've ever been. Then my doctor prescribed
9:51
Speaker 3: or tried to prescribe me lithium, and I was like, no,
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Speaker 3: I don't want any more drugs, please.
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Speaker 2: Then I admitted myself to the.
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Speaker 3: Psych word and I said to them, obviously, I'm more
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Speaker 3: anxious than i've ever been. The medication that I'm on
10:07
Speaker 3: is not working. And so then they took me off
10:09
Speaker 3: cold turkey of a benzo that I had been on
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Speaker 3: for six years, pretty pretty religiously at a low dose,
10:15
Speaker 3: and then my whole world turned upside down overnight. I
10:19
Speaker 3: entered a state of hell that I did not even
10:20
Speaker 3: know existed, and it felt like PTSD on steroids. And
10:23
Speaker 3: so benzo withdrawal can kill people, and we've seen it
10:27
Speaker 3: in jails many times from cold turkeys. But basically I'm
10:31
Speaker 3: a person that lived through like a severe, severe withdrawal.
10:35
Speaker 3: So I fought for my life for three and a
10:37
Speaker 3: half years. I went back to school. In that crazy state,
10:40
Speaker 3: I developed a movement disorder called acathesia, where a person
10:43
Speaker 3: can have suicidal and homicidal ideation. It was out of
10:47
Speaker 3: this world. I would never believe that it existed unless
10:49
Speaker 3: it happened to me. But there was a voice inside
10:52
Speaker 3: of me that was like, age, you're gonna make it.
10:55
Speaker 3: Keep fighting. And then the film company found me medicating
10:58
Speaker 3: normal and they kind of videoed me my healing progress
11:01
Speaker 3: along with four other people that were going through the
11:03
Speaker 3: same thing, and they were interviewing experts in the field
11:06
Speaker 3: and a Lemke from Stanford's in our film. I actually
11:11
Speaker 3: did a panel with Besser Vanderkolk, which was like a
11:14
Speaker 3: full circle moment, like wow, I found his book twenty
11:16
Speaker 3: years ago and now like here I am talking on
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Speaker 3: a panel with him.
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Speaker 2: This is amazing. But they kept me going.
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Speaker 3: So there's another narrative here where veterans die by suicide
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Speaker 3: twenty two per day, and that kind of haunted me, like,
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Speaker 3: oh my god, I'm going to be next like this
11:31
Speaker 3: is I can't take this as too intense. And then
11:34
Speaker 3: I just thought to myself, like I can't in my
11:36
Speaker 3: life because I got to tell the story that over
11:39
Speaker 3: medication of people with trauma can do more harm than
11:42
Speaker 3: good for some of us, and we need inform consent.
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Speaker 1: Jesus. You know, it's hard to listen to you and
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Speaker 1: not think, I mean, you were such a badass. Thank
11:59
Speaker 1: you too, Yeah, welcome. I mean you've got through all this.
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Speaker 1: Somehow there was this voice, like in deep inside like
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Speaker 1: you can't. Can I give up?
12:18
Speaker 2: Doesn't matter how bad it is.
12:20
Speaker 1: Where did that come from?
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Speaker 2: I think it was divine. I don't know, because, uh,
12:26
Speaker 2: I didn't have support. I had a therapist.
12:28
Speaker 3: She was an EMDR trainer, like she trained trained therapists,
12:32
Speaker 3: and I would go to her once a week and
12:34
Speaker 3: she couldn't really offer me much help, you know, but
12:37
Speaker 3: she believed me and she didn't send me back to
12:39
Speaker 3: the hospital. And I knew better, like don't tell her
12:41
Speaker 3: everything because she's a mandated reporter, you know. So it
12:45
Speaker 3: was like little things like that, like this film company
12:47
Speaker 3: would come back and film me every six months, so
12:49
Speaker 3: I had that marker. Then it was her once a week,
12:53
Speaker 3: and then I had a coach through window Worror project
12:55
Speaker 3: that would talk to It.
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Speaker 1: Was her once a week. What the fact that she
12:58
Speaker 1: believed you?
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Speaker 3: She believed me. She like looked into it. If I
13:02
Speaker 3: brought her something, she would read it. I think she
13:05
Speaker 3: even interviewed for the film, but we didn't, you know,
13:07
Speaker 3: she didn't go in there. But she would talk to
13:10
Speaker 3: like a neuro psychiatrist, Like she would go to some
13:13
Speaker 3: conference and she would ask them and they'd say, yes,
13:15
Speaker 3: benza withdraw is a thing, and yes it can be
13:17
Speaker 3: severe for some people, and yes you will recover. Just
13:20
Speaker 3: give her time, you know. So I had these like
13:23
Speaker 3: little nuggets here and there that I was just hanging
13:26
Speaker 3: on to with you know, claws. But also there was
13:30
Speaker 3: a voice inside it was like, you know, part of
13:34
Speaker 3: it was fear, like I was too scared to end
13:36
Speaker 3: my life. Obviously that's a huge decision, you know, And
13:39
Speaker 3: it was like just hang on, please, just another day,
13:42
Speaker 3: one more day, maybe tomorrow'll be better.
13:46
Speaker 1: If I may ask, how close were you to end
13:49
Speaker 1: in your life?
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Speaker 3: Oh god, I mean I can remember one night I
13:53
Speaker 3: was on my hands and knees like I felt it's
13:56
Speaker 3: not psychosis, but it's close. But like I was in
13:59
Speaker 3: such a state of like nervous system shock that I
14:03
Speaker 3: had these impulses and urges to do things where it
14:06
Speaker 3: felt like I couldn't even control it.
14:07
Speaker 2: It was just gonna happen.
14:09
Speaker 3: And so there was one night in particular, I was
14:10
Speaker 3: like crawling on my hands and knees to my bed.
14:12
Speaker 3: I was so sick, and I was like, I don't
14:14
Speaker 3: think I'm gonna make it through the night, Like I
14:16
Speaker 3: think it's just gonna happen, because my body just can't
14:18
Speaker 3: sustain this level of suffering. And then I woke up
14:21
Speaker 3: the next morning like I can't even believe I'm here, Like,
14:23
Speaker 3: how is that even possible?
14:25
Speaker 1: You know, during this time you were prior to this,
14:29
Speaker 1: you said there were no friends you were talking to. No.
14:34
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm telling you, I lived as a disabled,
14:36
Speaker 3: mentally ill person on benefits, barely leaving my house, doctor's appointments,
14:41
Speaker 3: professional patient, Like, honestly, that's it.
14:45
Speaker 1: At what point did you start to reach out to
14:49
Speaker 1: people to share this for anyone?
14:52
Speaker 3: I think the film, like, I mean, besides my therapist,
14:55
Speaker 3: my sister knew a little bit. I had like a
14:58
Speaker 3: family friend that would come visit once a month, that
15:01
Speaker 3: was it, and they didn't And I kind of downplayed
15:03
Speaker 3: it because I just felt so out of my mind,
15:06
Speaker 3: like I did not want anybody to know because I
15:08
Speaker 3: knew that that was like a ticket back to the
15:09
Speaker 3: pech wort and like they're gonna put me back on medicine,
15:12
Speaker 3: and I tried all that, so it was a dead end.
15:14
Speaker 3: So imagine a person, you know, I know what I'm
15:17
Speaker 3: saying is stigmatizing, Like, but think about a person who's
15:21
Speaker 3: classified as mentally ill, diagnosed with multiple diagnoses medicated and
15:25
Speaker 3: then you're saying the medication doesn't work. It actually hurt me,
15:28
Speaker 3: and now I don't have a choice but not to
15:29
Speaker 3: take it. I wish I had that luxury, but I
15:31
Speaker 3: can't like it fried my system, you know. So I
15:35
Speaker 3: think the film just getting out in public and touring
15:38
Speaker 3: with them, whether I felt good or not. Like I
15:41
Speaker 3: was out of my mind in front of like lights
15:43
Speaker 3: at like film festivals in Sedona, Arizona, with two hundred people,
15:47
Speaker 3: like trying to talk through my experiences, and then people
15:50
Speaker 3: in the audience would stand up and say me too,
15:52
Speaker 3: this happened to me. The people that I went to
15:54
Speaker 3: for help made it worse, you know, all the talking
15:57
Speaker 3: about my trauma made me worse, and like where do
15:59
Speaker 3: we go from here? So it kind of helped me
16:02
Speaker 3: work through some of those experiences.
16:05
Speaker 1: As you are probably well aware of and as you experience.
16:10
Speaker 1: There are differing beliefs on the efficacy of you talking
16:17
Speaker 1: about one's trauma or not needing to talk about when trauma,
16:20
Speaker 1: and again people are different. Yeah, but for you, it
16:24
Speaker 1: said you said didn't help at all.
16:27
Speaker 3: I think you know what it felt like, and this
16:30
Speaker 3: is important for a therapist listening it felt like, and
16:32
Speaker 3: maybe you'll see this in your own clients.
16:34
Speaker 2: But the medication I was on made.
16:37
Speaker 3: My body an embodied experience and processing the emotion pretty inaccessible,
16:42
Speaker 3: like it was a very mental activity. There wasn't an integration,
16:46
Speaker 3: so it felt like the trauma is always here.
16:48
Speaker 2: I can't put it away.
16:49
Speaker 3: I keep talking about it, you know, I'm explaining it.
16:52
Speaker 3: I can tell you what happened, but I can't really
16:54
Speaker 3: feel that. And so we say in the system that
16:57
Speaker 3: that's what helps people process things through therapy, is the medication.
17:00
Speaker 3: But I would argue that it actually blocked me from
17:02
Speaker 3: doing that. And if you think about it, my traumatic
17:06
Speaker 3: response was normal and natural, and I needed help and
17:09
Speaker 3: support in that natural healing process, but it was kind
17:11
Speaker 3: of robbed for me. So I had to go back
17:13
Speaker 3: and do some things later, other things were put in
17:16
Speaker 3: perspective because it was so traumatic to go through this experience,
17:20
Speaker 3: you know, but I couldn't process.
17:23
Speaker 1: In listening to you, Angie. First of all, I want
17:27
Speaker 1: to thank you for being here and sharing this. I mean,
17:33
Speaker 1: there are no words for what you've been through. I
17:36
Speaker 1: can't imagine it. Hell, it feels like almost like at
17:43
Speaker 1: every step of your experience, what there wasn't problem, Someone
17:51
Speaker 1: wasn't listening, someone effed up? What there was a failure
17:57
Speaker 1: of some kind, almost seemingly every step? What was it?
18:02
Speaker 2: I don't know.
18:03
Speaker 3: I feel like I could argue I had some of
18:05
Speaker 3: the best practitioners there are, but they don't have that
18:09
Speaker 3: frame of reference. That the way I explain it, like
18:11
Speaker 3: when I do CEU training, I think of it like this.
18:14
Speaker 3: You are wearing a set of glasses and it's the
18:16
Speaker 3: DSM five. Okay, there's nothing wrong with those glasses, but
18:19
Speaker 3: I want you to take them off for a minute
18:20
Speaker 3: and set them aside and put another pair of glasses on.
18:23
Speaker 2: This is iatrogenic illness glasses. Okay.
18:26
Speaker 3: So what I'm seeing, maybe not is postma extress, but
18:30
Speaker 3: these sensations in this person's body could be coming from
18:32
Speaker 3: the medication they're on. That is part of their context.
18:34
Speaker 3: Why am I not asking questions about that? That's what
18:37
Speaker 3: was missing from every single person.
18:39
Speaker 2: I saw.
18:41
Speaker 1: An openness, an awareness, a willingness to look outside the box. Yeah,
18:48
Speaker 1: I mean I speak with clinicians all day who are
18:52
Speaker 1: aware of the limits, the severe liness of the DSM. Yeah. Right.
19:03
Speaker 1: For those listeners who maybe haven't seen the film or
19:06
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with it, give them the nutshell. What was
19:11
Speaker 1: the film about?
19:12
Speaker 3: The film is following a couple and three singles, people
19:16
Speaker 3: that have done their very best to listen to all
19:19
Speaker 3: the mental health professionals that ever came in contact with,
19:22
Speaker 3: took their medication as prescribed. You know, this is not
19:24
Speaker 3: about addiction. This is just mental health medications. And for
19:27
Speaker 3: one reason, Normal, Yes, medicating Normal. It's free on YouTube
19:31
Speaker 3: right now, It's free, and it's on Amazon Prime. And
19:35
Speaker 3: then we have experts in there, psychiatrists Bob Whitaker from
19:38
Speaker 3: mad In America, Peter Girscha who formed Cochrane Collaboration, like
19:42
Speaker 3: the highest scientific organization there is. And so basically the
19:47
Speaker 3: thesis of the film is when profit driven medicine intersects
19:50
Speaker 3: with human beings in distress, there is a conflict of interest,
19:53
Speaker 3: there is guild interests, there is money behind this, There
19:56
Speaker 3: is you know, simplifying very real human emotion and problems.
20:02
Speaker 3: But they're not a medical problem for most of us.
20:04
Speaker 3: It's not a chemical medical problem.
20:08
Speaker 1: When you think about all this, I don't look back.
20:14
Speaker 1: What was it that helped you?
20:18
Speaker 3: Good question? Oh my god, I don't even know how
20:19
Speaker 3: to answer that. I think it was like blind trust
20:24
Speaker 3: and faith that I don't know about this. I don't
20:28
Speaker 3: know what's going to happen. But I'm too scared to
20:30
Speaker 3: go back on meds. I'm too scared to kill myself.
20:32
Speaker 3: I have to look at people that healed from this
20:34
Speaker 3: before me. So I relied a lot on the online
20:36
Speaker 3: community of people that had come off meds, other coaches
20:39
Speaker 3: that are in the space, a therapist, doctors, researchers that
20:42
Speaker 3: know about this.
20:43
Speaker 2: Though.
20:43
Speaker 3: That's where I put my faith. And I was like,
20:47
Speaker 3: what if I'm wrong? And I'm like, but I don't know.
20:49
Speaker 3: I tried everything else, like this is the only avenue
20:52
Speaker 3: I have, and so I really leaned into. My body
20:56
Speaker 3: is a self healing organism. My spirit is stronger than
20:59
Speaker 3: I can even understand, and my little mind is not
21:03
Speaker 3: going to figure this out, and I need to stay
21:05
Speaker 3: out of my own way and let my body try
21:07
Speaker 3: to figure this out. And it did, and I got lucky.
21:09
Speaker 3: And you know, this is ten I'm ten years off
21:11
Speaker 3: meds now. That was not my plan. It just kind
21:15
Speaker 3: of happened to me. And I have learned more about
21:17
Speaker 3: suffering than I ever wanted to know. But it really
21:21
Speaker 3: is kind of simple, like the system knows how to
21:24
Speaker 3: regulate when given support, but that's usually not medication for
21:28
Speaker 3: most of us.
21:32
Speaker 2: And I know that's hard to hear.
21:34
Speaker 1: When you said you you put your faith in the
21:37
Speaker 1: online community, where were you looking?
21:40
Speaker 2: Like just quick read on Facebook?
21:43
Speaker 3: There was a bunch of there was like if you
21:45
Speaker 3: type in a drug name on Facebook, there's a group
21:47
Speaker 3: for it, which is kind of scary. So like Simbalta, Benzo's,
21:51
Speaker 3: you know, all these online communities, and there's there's a
21:53
Speaker 3: forum called Surviving Antidepressants that's been around for twenty years
21:56
Speaker 3: of people that were tapering antidepressants and just working through
21:59
Speaker 3: the process. All these case studies of all these people
22:01
Speaker 3: that had been coming off, you know, and then I
22:03
Speaker 3: would listen to the researchers and I'd be like, oh,
22:06
Speaker 3: this is a thing.
22:07
Speaker 2: This is real.
22:08
Speaker 3: And then the filmmakers would say I talked to I
22:10
Speaker 3: interviewed this person for the film. They said, you'll make it.
22:13
Speaker 3: Just keep going, keep going.
22:14
Speaker 1: You know.
22:14
Speaker 3: It was like I was fighting for my life literally,
22:16
Speaker 3: because you got to think, what are these medications doing
22:20
Speaker 3: to the body after a person being on them for
22:22
Speaker 3: so many years and then you just get yanked off overnight,
22:24
Speaker 3: Like that can't be good, you know. And my system
22:28
Speaker 3: was such a it was like a snow globe, like
22:30
Speaker 3: everything was just mixed up and trying to rewire, you know,
22:35
Speaker 3: and I just had to let it happen.
22:37
Speaker 1: And with all of this that we've talked about, I
22:41
Speaker 1: guess one of the questions I have is what helped
22:44
Speaker 1: you or what is helping you work quote unquote work
22:49
Speaker 1: through your trauma.
22:52
Speaker 3: Well, most of it resolved, I think because of what
22:55
Speaker 3: I had to do to get through this experience. And
22:56
Speaker 3: it was things like breathing guided meditation. Why I would
23:01
Speaker 3: chant mantra all the time, like I am healing, I
23:03
Speaker 3: am healing, I am healing, just getting through the minutes.
23:05
Speaker 3: And then it was a lot of panic attacks, a
23:08
Speaker 3: lot of anxiety, and I really just had to learn
23:12
Speaker 3: there is not a quick fix for this, Like I
23:14
Speaker 3: have to just work through it as it comes and
23:16
Speaker 3: just be like a vessel of where this suffering and
23:19
Speaker 3: energy and sensation passes through and don't resist it and
23:23
Speaker 3: don't fight it and don't try to fix it. Just
23:25
Speaker 3: let it do what it's got to do. It's moving through.
23:28
Speaker 3: And I lived like that for years, you know. And
23:30
Speaker 3: I sometimes I tried to go to therapy and I
23:32
Speaker 3: worked with a couple like really validating people that wouldn't
23:37
Speaker 3: make me like doubt what I just went through and
23:39
Speaker 3: believed me. Like validation was very, very very important because
23:43
Speaker 3: I was so hurt that I was like, please don't
23:45
Speaker 3: gaslight me again. Please, I can't take it anymore, you know.
23:51
Speaker 3: But it was really acceptance allowing just letting it move
23:54
Speaker 3: through and trying to live a little bit of a
23:55
Speaker 3: normal life and be around people and coregulate with safe
23:58
Speaker 3: people and you know, avoid toxicity and doom scrolling and
24:01
Speaker 3: all the things.
24:04
Speaker 1: What did it look like when you started to let
24:07
Speaker 1: people into your life, friends whomever? How did that happen?
24:12
Speaker 3: It was kind of like a secret, like I don't
24:14
Speaker 3: I don't lead with this is the conversation, Like listen,
24:16
Speaker 3: what happened to me. I used to be mentally ill,
24:19
Speaker 3: and now I'm not, Like, no, we don't go there.
24:22
Speaker 3: But I moved in a van. So I live in
24:25
Speaker 3: a van and I travel full time as part of
24:27
Speaker 3: my healing. Like I just felt so traumatized where I
24:31
Speaker 3: lived when I went through this experience, like I cannot
24:33
Speaker 3: live in this house, Like I gotta go, you know.
24:36
Speaker 3: So I left to tour with the film, and so
24:38
Speaker 3: it was a lot of like meeting new people on
24:40
Speaker 3: the road and just socializing that way. It was it literally, guy,
24:43
Speaker 3: I know this is wild, but when your nervous system
24:45
Speaker 3: is so crash like that, it was like I was
24:48
Speaker 3: rebuilding a human being from scratch. So like I would
24:50
Speaker 3: have to like teach myself how to talk to people.
24:53
Speaker 3: And then because I had been like out of the
24:55
Speaker 3: world for four years, I was like, what do people
24:57
Speaker 3: my age where, Like what do they talk about? Like
25:00
Speaker 3: I have to study them and see how do I
25:02
Speaker 3: go back into the fabric of life. Like I was
25:04
Speaker 3: in a time capsule for fifteen years altogether from the MUDs.
25:08
Speaker 3: And since I've been out of the military, I hadn't
25:10
Speaker 3: even worked. I was on disability for eighteen years.
25:13
Speaker 1: You know.
25:14
Speaker 3: So it was slow and just I led my impulses,
25:17
Speaker 3: Like impulses would tell me like I want to go
25:20
Speaker 3: walk in the park, I want to go to the
25:21
Speaker 3: farmer's market, and I would just follow these little impulses
25:23
Speaker 3: and the healing process just unfolded.
25:25
Speaker 1: You know.
25:26
Speaker 2: I think we need to stay out of the way
25:27
Speaker 2: a little bit and just listen.
25:30
Speaker 1: So, but when you started like literally meeting people or
25:35
Speaker 1: making friends, what did that look like?
25:38
Speaker 3: I looked like a ghost, like just in shock, just like, Hi,
25:42
Speaker 3: my name is Angie, Like very awkward.
25:45
Speaker 2: I don't know what's to say. I don't know how
25:46
Speaker 2: to answer that.
25:48
Speaker 1: Well, did you must have started hanging out with people?
25:52
Speaker 3: No, I mean it was like I would get my
25:54
Speaker 3: social interaction out of film screening and then maybe people
25:57
Speaker 3: would line up after the screening to talk to me
25:59
Speaker 3: one on one, and then every once in a while
26:02
Speaker 3: they would ask me to dinner or do you want
26:04
Speaker 3: to meet for coffee in the morning, and then I
26:05
Speaker 3: would just like do these little one on one but
26:07
Speaker 3: it was always around this topic, you know, like survivors
26:10
Speaker 3: of it that kind of thing.
26:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, and did very start to branch out?
26:14
Speaker 1: Yeah?
26:15
Speaker 3: Then so now it's like I go to events for
26:18
Speaker 3: van life and campfires and music venues and concerts, and
26:22
Speaker 3: then I'm still I would say, probably because the depth
26:26
Speaker 3: and breadth of what I've been through and the work
26:28
Speaker 3: I do now, it's like, I do find a little
26:30
Speaker 3: hard to relate to the average person my age.
26:32
Speaker 1: I do.
26:33
Speaker 3: I don't have kids and a partner, but I get
26:36
Speaker 3: my social needs met.
26:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what are you doing now?
26:40
Speaker 2: So good question.
26:41
Speaker 3: So I did a tour with the film for like
26:44
Speaker 3: three or four years, and then during pandemic, you know,
26:47
Speaker 3: we had to go online and do a bunch of
26:49
Speaker 3: online stuff instead of the in person screenings.
26:51
Speaker 2: And then I just decided, well, I'm I'm living out here.
26:54
Speaker 3: I don't really want to go back to Saint Louis
26:56
Speaker 3: and get an apartment again. So I stayed on the road.
26:58
Speaker 3: And then I just thought like, so I did train
27:00
Speaker 3: to be a therapist, so I have a master's in
27:02
Speaker 3: social work. Clinical outpatient mental health was my specialization, and
27:06
Speaker 3: trauma and I did SE for a year and then
27:08
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't really think I want to
27:10
Speaker 3: be a therapist, but I do have an interest in
27:13
Speaker 3: coaching people that are going through the same experience. So
27:16
Speaker 3: I just kind of threw a little fishnet and like
27:19
Speaker 3: out to people that I was working with at the
27:20
Speaker 3: film and I started get clients, and I started working
27:23
Speaker 3: with them and just helping them build resilience and helping
27:25
Speaker 3: them navigate, like how do I go through withdrawal? Harm
27:28
Speaker 3: reduction principles, family support, talking to their doctor for them,
27:31
Speaker 3: writing letters, helping. So I build support groups for people
27:36
Speaker 3: that you know, all my support groups are full right now.
27:39
Speaker 3: There's a lot of people going through this, and so
27:41
Speaker 3: part of me coming here was just to bring awareness
27:43
Speaker 3: to this that there are some of us that have
27:45
Speaker 3: chosen or not chosen to come off medication, not to
27:48
Speaker 3: any fault of our own. We're not anti med but
27:51
Speaker 3: we do need support. And the trauma therapist is the
27:53
Speaker 3: one that seiz us the most, I would say, and
27:56
Speaker 3: we just invite that you ask questions about what we're
27:59
Speaker 3: going through.
28:01
Speaker 1: Well, that leads up to my next question here, which
28:04
Speaker 1: is for the therapists and door coaches out there who are
28:08
Speaker 1: listening to this, what do they need to hear?
28:13
Speaker 3: I think the first step is to know that you
28:16
Speaker 3: can ethically ask about medication. You are not there to
28:19
Speaker 3: tell a person to come off obviously, but it should
28:22
Speaker 3: be part of their history of getting to know them.
28:25
Speaker 3: What are their beliefs about their medication? Do they feel
28:28
Speaker 3: they are being affected by it? Just feelings about it.
28:31
Speaker 2: It's fine.
28:32
Speaker 3: That's even if you had that into the equation, that
28:35
Speaker 3: would be great because I can tell you.
28:37
Speaker 1: If theist or coach shared their experiences about the medication.
28:40
Speaker 3: No, just like if when you're asking questions of your client,
28:44
Speaker 3: like we're gonna work through from trauma today, we're doing
28:46
Speaker 3: se or whatever, they should know about any medication they're taking.
28:50
Speaker 2: I would say it just needs to be on the table.
28:51
Speaker 2: That's it.
28:52
Speaker 3: You don't need to like pry or ask deep questions
28:54
Speaker 3: about it or anything. But I just think it needs
28:56
Speaker 3: to be part of the equation when a person when
28:57
Speaker 3: you're treating someone with trauma and medication you know, I
29:01
Speaker 3: don't know, and then help them find good resources. So
29:04
Speaker 3: there's lots of good resources now online. There's a I.
29:07
Speaker 2: Can hold it up. Actually it's sitting there next and
29:09
Speaker 2: there's it's really messy, but the deep prescribing guidelines.
29:13
Speaker 3: So their doctors should have this because a lot of
29:16
Speaker 3: doctors right now are just taking people off really quickly,
29:19
Speaker 3: you know, So if you have a client that's very dysregulated.
29:23
Speaker 3: You know, I found out recently the suicide Hotland does
29:26
Speaker 3: not even ask questions like have you had any recent
29:28
Speaker 3: medication changes that I need to know about? Like that
29:31
Speaker 3: should be known, you know, I just think it's it's
29:34
Speaker 3: been convenient and I don't know the answer. This is
29:36
Speaker 3: an open question about what we're not trying to practice medicine.
29:41
Speaker 3: But to tell all therapists they should not ever ask
29:43
Speaker 3: about medication. It should not be a topic. Stay in
29:45
Speaker 3: your own lane. I think that cheats us out of
29:48
Speaker 3: part of a person's context.
29:50
Speaker 1: You know, well, it's one thing to ask about medications.
29:54
Speaker 1: It's another thing to give information about it if you're
30:00
Speaker 1: not a doctor or that isn't your lane. There are
30:03
Speaker 1: two different things. And you're right totally. People who are
30:09
Speaker 1: are therapists and I'm not sure about coaches, but should
30:14
Speaker 1: be asking about what's going on? What are you what
30:17
Speaker 1: are you want? Yeah, And and those seem like pretty
30:23
Speaker 1: straightforward recommendations.
30:25
Speaker 3: Like read the pamphlet of your drug. Have you talked
30:27
Speaker 3: to your pharmacists? You know, there's a couple of different questions.
30:30
Speaker 3: What is your goals for treatment with me? If we
30:32
Speaker 3: do ten sessions of se you know, like, how do
30:37
Speaker 3: you you know?
30:37
Speaker 2: I don't know.
30:38
Speaker 3: I don't know the answer. It's within the comfort of
30:40
Speaker 3: the therapist. But I think therapists are saying that you
30:43
Speaker 3: didn't get that. No, and clients are not getting that.
30:46
Speaker 3: Like you'd be surprised how many therapists I've tried to
30:50
Speaker 3: talk to you in four years that were supporting clients
30:53
Speaker 3: that had never heard of this, that never considered it,
30:55
Speaker 3: that it was not even in the frame of reference,
30:58
Speaker 3: and so they would book a con sitation and say like,
31:01
Speaker 3: how do I support this client in therapy? And I'd
31:04
Speaker 3: be like, for instance, if somebody's in benzo withdrawal, the
31:07
Speaker 3: time to do trauma therapy is not now. The person
31:09
Speaker 3: needs to stabilize chemically and biologically before you do anything
31:13
Speaker 3: like that. But that could be misinterpreted like those wrong
31:16
Speaker 3: pair of glasses.
31:17
Speaker 2: This is trauma, this person has PTSD, let's get after it.
31:20
Speaker 3: And it's like, okay, but you didn't ask about meds
31:23
Speaker 3: or any changes, you know, So I just I think
31:26
Speaker 3: I've seen like on Pessy, there's like pharmacology for social
31:30
Speaker 3: workers or pharmacology. Just take a class, just get a
31:33
Speaker 3: little bit of medical health literacy.
31:35
Speaker 2: From a pharmacist. You know, just a little bit.
31:37
Speaker 3: Put that in your pocket, That's all I'm asking.
31:41
Speaker 1: No, it's interesting. I mean, we haven't even touched upon.
31:46
Speaker 1: You're just being sexually assaulted in the service that whole thing.
31:56
Speaker 1: So who are you working with?
31:59
Speaker 3: Who's I am working with people that are actively tapering
32:04
Speaker 3: psychiatric drugs of all kinds, antidepressants, benzodiazepines which we prefer anxiety,
32:09
Speaker 3: and a few with antipsychotics. And I will tell you
32:11
Speaker 3: our country is over medicated. One in five people are
32:16
Speaker 3: medicated right now. One in four are women. Mostly the
32:20
Speaker 3: age groups that I'm working with is like age thirty
32:22
Speaker 3: to sixty. Women are making new decisions about their health
32:26
Speaker 3: and their mental health, and a lot of them were
32:28
Speaker 3: put on during postpartum and now they're in menopause, and like,
32:32
Speaker 3: why am I still taking lexipro for thirty years? What
32:34
Speaker 3: in the hell's going on here? The doctor just signs
32:36
Speaker 3: off on the script for years and years and years,
32:38
Speaker 3: and then women comes of age and says, why am
32:41
Speaker 3: I here, thirty year olds? It's I want to get
32:44
Speaker 3: pregnant and breastfeed. Why did anybody give me informed consent?
32:46
Speaker 3: About this, But I was medicated when I was eight.
32:49
Speaker 3: You know the impact of that early decisions.
32:51
Speaker 2: It's kind of.
32:52
Speaker 3: Sad, and so I'm just kind of supporting them while
32:54
Speaker 3: they do it. They work with a medical professional to
32:57
Speaker 3: handle their taper, and I'm the support side and just
33:00
Speaker 3: you know, why are you doing this? Usually the answer
33:03
Speaker 3: to that is like, I want to feel healthy, I
33:05
Speaker 3: want my emotion back. I've felt kind of cut off
33:07
Speaker 3: from myself. I want to get back in my body.
33:09
Speaker 3: You know, these are very pure intentions. These are not
33:11
Speaker 3: people that are like big farm of down you know,
33:15
Speaker 3: it's not like that. It's yeah, it's very sound, normal
33:18
Speaker 3: people that I work with.
33:20
Speaker 1: How are you staying strong now? How are you staying
33:24
Speaker 1: quote unquote healthy now? What's working for you?
33:28
Speaker 3: What works for me is healthy food, walking, strength training,
33:32
Speaker 3: burning man, hot springs, travel, mountains, open space, quiet time, sleep, all.
33:40
Speaker 1: The battle those off so quickly. I love it.
33:44
Speaker 2: That's what I do everything.
33:46
Speaker 1: Excuse me? Awesome, Angie? All right? How do people learn
33:50
Speaker 1: more about you and what you're doing?
33:52
Speaker 3: And yeah, you can find me on my website. It's
33:55
Speaker 3: engpacock dot com, Instagram, and TikTok of the same.
34:00
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll have that up here at the show notes
34:02
Speaker 1: page at the Trauma Theaoris podcast dot com. Angie, come on, amazing,
34:07
Speaker 1: you are so thank you.
34:10
Speaker 2: It's not me though, thank you, it is me.
34:14
Speaker 1: You are inspiring it.
34:17
Speaker 2: I will take it.
34:17
Speaker 1: You're you're amazing, you really are. Come on, come on,
34:22
Speaker 1: it's it's incredible you come on here and share your story. Yeah,
34:27
Speaker 1: and I love to have you back.
34:29
Speaker 2: Thank you. You're awesome too. And you know I was
34:31
Speaker 2: listening to you while I was in the draw in
34:33
Speaker 2: my social work program. So thank you because you kept
34:36
Speaker 2: me alive a little bit back then. God you didn't
34:38
Speaker 2: even know it.
34:39
Speaker 1: I didn't. Thank you.
34:41
Speaker 2: Thank you. We'll be in touch, all right, thank you,
34:44
Speaker 2: so all right.
34:44
Speaker 1: By