Latest / Love, Happiness and Success with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby / Nervous System Overload: Why You Don't Feel Safe in Your Body | Amy Kurtz | Happiness | E528

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Nervous System Overload: Why You Don't Feel Safe in Your Body | Amy Kurtz | Happiness | E528 · Love, Happiness and Success with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby

0:11
Speaker 1: Quick hello before we dive inn NA, big thank you
0:15
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Speaker 1: are in the show notes for this episode. Now let's
1:23
Speaker 1: get into it.
1:30
Speaker 2: My hair was falling out. I gained thirty pounds in
1:32
Speaker 2: thirty days. I couldn't keep food down. I was so sick,
1:36
Speaker 2: I was gasping for air, and it was like everything
1:39
Speaker 2: in my body said, this is an emergency.
1:44
Speaker 1: On today's episode of Love, Happiness and Success, we are
1:47
Speaker 1: diving into something we have not discussed before.
1:53
Speaker 2: I shifted from being a carefree teen to like a
1:57
Speaker 2: teen and pain, which I now loo back and see
2:01
Speaker 2: how hard that was in so many ways because I
2:03
Speaker 2: was just trying to be like everybody else my age.
2:16
Speaker 1: The reality of chronic health, conditions, of illnesses that you're
2:21
Speaker 1: still recovering from, of things that you are experiencing that
2:26
Speaker 1: really are impacting your health in a significant way, even
2:31
Speaker 1: if your doctor might not always be able to pinpoint
2:35
Speaker 1: the why.
2:36
Speaker 2: I just was never going to buy into the narrative
2:38
Speaker 2: of how to be sick and tired. That was just
2:41
Speaker 2: not how I was going to live. And so I
2:43
Speaker 2: wanted to really flip the narrative and show people how
2:46
Speaker 2: to make that a transformative experience for them, because it
2:49
Speaker 2: can be I mean, adversity in any way. And I'm
2:52
Speaker 2: sure you agree with this is it shows you what
2:56
Speaker 2: you're made of.
2:57
Speaker 1: This is the lived experience many people that touches every
3:02
Speaker 1: single facet of our lives. Your feelings of happiness, what
3:07
Speaker 1: happens in your relationship and how you show up there
3:10
Speaker 1: and certainly how you function in your career. This is
3:14
Speaker 1: incredibly important, and on today's episode we are speaking with
3:18
Speaker 1: Amy Kurtz. She is a health coach and medical advocate
3:23
Speaker 1: who specializes in helping people navigate this very unique life space. So,
3:29
Speaker 1: if this has been part of your experience or is
3:32
Speaker 1: the experience of someone you love, I'm so glad you're
3:34
Speaker 1: here and there's lots in store for you today. If
3:38
Speaker 1: this is your first time tuning in, welcome, I'm your host,
3:41
Speaker 1: doctor Lisa, Marie Bobby. My background I'm duly licensed as
3:44
Speaker 1: a marriage and family therapist as a licensed psychologist.
3:47
Speaker 2: I am also a board certified coach who is always
3:50
Speaker 2: looking for actionable solutions that you can put into practice.
3:54
Speaker 2: And on every episode, I hope that you walk out
3:58
Speaker 2: of here with at least one powerl takeaway that will
4:01
Speaker 2: move the needle for you. We release episodes every Monday
4:05
Speaker 2: and Thursday, so thank you in advance for subscribing, sharing
4:10
Speaker 2: things that feel inspiring to you, and leaving a review.
4:14
Speaker 1: Your participation is how other people find me and the show,
4:17
Speaker 1: So if you get something out of this, thanks in
4:19
Speaker 1: advance for passing it on. Okay, so let's dive in.
4:23
Speaker 1: I'm so pleased to introduce our guest, Amy Kurtz.
4:27
Speaker 2: Amy is a hatchet author of her new book is
4:30
Speaker 2: called but You Look Fine. She is a certified health coach,
4:35
Speaker 2: a patient advocate, and also a human who has lived
4:40
Speaker 2: through a lot of what she teaches about. And now, Amy,
4:45
Speaker 2: you're a guide helping other people find their way forward
4:48
Speaker 2: through this, aren't you?
4:49
Speaker 3: Yes?
4:50
Speaker 2: Hopefully no? Well, thank you so much for being here,
4:53
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me so Amy, I feelake.
4:58
Speaker 1: If it is okay with you, you perhaps an entry
5:02
Speaker 1: point into understanding this whole concept, and of course your
5:06
Speaker 1: work could be with your sharing a bit about your
5:10
Speaker 1: lived experience in this space and perhaps even your journey
5:14
Speaker 1: to becoming an advocate if you're open to sharing it.
5:18
Speaker 2: Sure. So I was fourteen when I started to have
5:23
Speaker 2: signs of discomfort in my body, and being a fourteen
5:26
Speaker 2: year old girl is hard enough, and adding really intense
5:30
Speaker 2: back pain to it was the first time I felt
5:34
Speaker 2: myself pivot around something I was physically experiencing, and then
5:41
Speaker 2: I would I had the privilege to go to a
5:43
Speaker 2: lot of different doctors and nobody could pinpoint what the
5:47
Speaker 2: root cause was, and so I just was starting to
5:50
Speaker 2: take anti inflammatories and I shifted from being a care
5:54
Speaker 2: free teen to lateen and pain, which I now look back,
6:00
Speaker 2: I can see how hard that was in so many ways,
6:03
Speaker 2: because I was just trying to be like everybody else
6:05
Speaker 2: my age. Sure. And it wasn't until I was twenty
6:08
Speaker 2: five that I took a trip abroad and I had
6:11
Speaker 2: a really extreme health crisis. I had my hair was
6:16
Speaker 2: falling out. I gained thirty pounds in thirty days. I
6:18
Speaker 2: couldn't keep food down. I was so sick, I was
6:23
Speaker 2: gasping for air, and it was like everything in my
6:26
Speaker 2: body said, this is an emergency. I had been in Israel.
6:29
Speaker 2: I must have eaten something. But the point was that
6:33
Speaker 2: it felt like the tipping point. And that's how doctors
6:36
Speaker 2: that have seen my case often describe it. Is that
6:39
Speaker 2: I came home, I went to very western minded physicians
6:44
Speaker 2: and specialists, and then I took myself away from everything
6:48
Speaker 2: I ever knew in my life, and I went through
6:51
Speaker 2: Eastern medicine and landed somewhere in the middle along the
6:53
Speaker 2: way to functional medicine. But even at that point, I
6:58
Speaker 2: was diagnosed with hypothyroil and celiac, which are both true. However,
7:04
Speaker 2: I realized now that I was really growing spaghetti at
7:07
Speaker 2: the wall to see what would stick, and just trying
7:09
Speaker 2: to get better. And I was laser focused on that,
7:12
Speaker 2: and I thought I was better because my baseline was
7:15
Speaker 2: off and I had felt so much better than I did.
7:19
Speaker 2: So in that time, I wrote my first book, Kicking Sick,
7:21
Speaker 2: which is a love letter from my heart to at
7:24
Speaker 2: that time, the one and two Americans struggling with the
7:27
Speaker 2: chronic health condition one is two Americans. That was then okay, anyway,
7:36
Speaker 2: this book, that book was really a love letter from
7:38
Speaker 2: my heart. When I saw that number, I was like,
7:40
Speaker 2: I want to put everybody I've learned, from everyone I've
7:44
Speaker 2: seen that's help me, and all these other women in
7:47
Speaker 2: this book to help people thrive through a really intense
7:52
Speaker 2: health experience that could otherwise be sidelining or totally life defining.
7:57
Speaker 2: And I just was never going to buy into the
7:59
Speaker 2: narrative of how to be sick and tired. That was
8:02
Speaker 2: just not how I was going to live. And so
8:04
Speaker 2: I wanted to really flip the narrative and show people
8:07
Speaker 2: how to make that a transformative experience for them because
8:10
Speaker 2: it can be I mean, adversity in any way. And
8:13
Speaker 2: I'm sure you agree with this is it shows you
8:17
Speaker 2: what you're made of, and it also allows you to
8:20
Speaker 2: reach greater depths within yourself if you allow it to.
8:25
Speaker 2: And it was during the press for Kicking Sick where
8:29
Speaker 2: I felt like I look like this picture of glowing
8:32
Speaker 2: health and happiness, and I would go home every night
8:35
Speaker 2: and be like, I have no idea how I'm going
8:37
Speaker 2: to muster the energy to get back out there. I
8:41
Speaker 2: don't have it in me. I felt so exhausted and
8:45
Speaker 2: I just felt like I was taking off a mask
8:47
Speaker 2: that I was wearing because the time schedule demanded it.
8:51
Speaker 2: And it was then that I realized I really didn't
8:53
Speaker 2: have the full complete picture. So I'm mustered up my
8:58
Speaker 2: strength and my energy and just was like, I'll give
9:02
Speaker 2: it one more shot. I went to my thirty sixth doctor.
9:07
Speaker 2: Tenacity is one of your strengths. I'm hearing until my
9:10
Speaker 2: family says so. Anyway, So I went to him. I
9:14
Speaker 2: mustard up all of my strength and hope and finances,
9:19
Speaker 2: and I was just hoping that he would have a
9:22
Speaker 2: different answer for me that made more sense to me. Intuitively,
9:26
Speaker 2: and I carried my Harry Potter anthology of medical records
9:30
Speaker 2: with me and he did all his testing and he
9:34
Speaker 2: looked at me like in a super steady way and said,
9:36
Speaker 2: I'm very clear what's going on here. You have lead
9:39
Speaker 2: stage cheological line and co infections. And it was like
9:43
Speaker 2: everything answer, everything inside my body knew it was true.
9:49
Speaker 2: So it was such a powerful moment because it showed me,
9:53
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I didn't give up on myself. I
9:55
Speaker 2: was so proud that I had gotten myself there because
9:58
Speaker 2: there were so many, so much invalidating and gaslighting and
10:02
Speaker 2: bad behavior that anyone would could have given up. But
10:06
Speaker 2: I did it. And I felt relieved to have a
10:10
Speaker 2: diagnosis that I could do something about. Yeah, And I
10:13
Speaker 2: also felt just such an intense wave of grief come
10:17
Speaker 2: over me that lasted for a while. And he said,
10:22
Speaker 2: you'll feel like you have a new body. The treatments
10:24
Speaker 2: will be hard, but you just trust me. You're going
10:27
Speaker 2: to climb the mountain and then you're going to see
10:29
Speaker 2: that it's going to feel so much better. And I
10:31
Speaker 2: did it, and I've worked so hard and then what
10:36
Speaker 2: happened surprised me. So I'm the type of person I've
10:39
Speaker 2: always been into self development. I've been in therapy, I
10:43
Speaker 2: did talk therapy. I thought, I've always been working on myself, right.
10:48
Speaker 2: But we live in a society that says you're either
10:50
Speaker 2: sick or you're well, and that there's nothing in between.
10:53
Speaker 2: And that's both detrimental to a patient, but also kind
10:56
Speaker 2: of insane to think that there's not a spectrum there
10:59
Speaker 2: because because what happened to me when I was twenty
11:02
Speaker 2: five is a rug was ripped out from under me.
11:05
Speaker 2: And it was like the whole time, I thought, this
11:10
Speaker 2: is me as an actress, that's my life, that's my plan.
11:15
Speaker 2: I'll get back, I'll get right back to it, right
11:17
Speaker 2: back to it. And I kept seeing it as before,
11:21
Speaker 2: and then I'll go right back. When I was better,
11:23
Speaker 2: nothing was where I left it. Your experience changed you,
11:29
Speaker 2: and everything that I had hoped I would go back
11:31
Speaker 2: to was gone. I mean it was over a decade
11:33
Speaker 2: later and everything had changed. Like they say, get back
11:36
Speaker 2: on the horse, there was no horse. It left or
11:40
Speaker 2: I felt like I had watched this cruise ship that
11:43
Speaker 2: I thought would be my life leave the station. And
11:48
Speaker 2: so I got a lot better, and I started to
11:52
Speaker 2: feel bad in a new way. It was like, is
11:54
Speaker 2: that what the grief was about?
11:56
Speaker 1: The lost time, the lost opportunities, not being able to
11:59
Speaker 1: get back on that particular cruise ship.
12:03
Speaker 2: I think that the loss of your identity as the
12:06
Speaker 2: loss of the dreams that you had for your life,
12:09
Speaker 2: the loss of the ability to choose what direction you're
12:14
Speaker 2: going into at what time, Yeah, is very painful. And
12:20
Speaker 2: I think a lot of that, at least for me,
12:22
Speaker 2: and the people that I've interviewed for this book, have
12:25
Speaker 2: just shelved it. I'll deal with it later. I'll deal
12:27
Speaker 2: with it later. I'll deal with it later. So what
12:29
Speaker 2: happened to me was it came crashing down because I
12:33
Speaker 2: physically was better, but it was like my mind had
12:38
Speaker 2: gotten the memo. So I explain it, like you're in
12:42
Speaker 2: such a survival stress that you're literally a hamster on
12:45
Speaker 2: a wheel, just going trying to get better, trying to
12:48
Speaker 2: get better, trying to get better. And then my body
12:54
Speaker 2: was better, it was off the wheel, but my mind
12:57
Speaker 2: hadn't gotten the memo, and so it it manifested in
13:02
Speaker 2: severe anxiety, severe fear that everything was going to come back,
13:07
Speaker 2: a type of like obsessive hypervigilance. When I would get
13:11
Speaker 2: scared or have an onset of any symptom. And it
13:15
Speaker 2: wasn't until my husband said something to me that I realized, like,
13:20
Speaker 2: oh my god, what I've been through is a trauma.
13:22
Speaker 1: Yes, that's just what I was sitting here thinking about. Yeah,
13:26
Speaker 1: exactly and.
13:28
Speaker 2: I but nobody had ever said that, and so it
13:32
Speaker 2: made me start to think, like, Okay, what do I
13:34
Speaker 2: Where do I look? So I started to look and
13:37
Speaker 2: I started to interview physicians, and a lot of them,
13:40
Speaker 2: once I brought it up, would say, oh, yeah, I
13:43
Speaker 2: have seen that. It's like when the patient is in
13:47
Speaker 2: remission or they're better, but they're not acting as if
13:51
Speaker 2: they're better. And I said, yes, that's exactly it. What
13:53
Speaker 2: is it called? No one could tell me. Then I
13:56
Speaker 2: started interviewing thousands of patients and people would say, oh
14:00
Speaker 2: my god, that is exactly how I feel. But because
14:04
Speaker 2: there had been no language and no solutions or framework
14:08
Speaker 2: for how to deal with the recovery part of illness,
14:11
Speaker 2: nobody even knew they were experiencing it. And it's something
14:15
Speaker 2: that I have named medical trauma brain or MTB. But
14:20
Speaker 2: the experience of living with it feels like what I
14:22
Speaker 2: call the shadowlands, which is I was out to dinner
14:26
Speaker 2: with my friends. I was laughing, I was having a
14:29
Speaker 2: good time, but my brain was locked somewhere far away
14:35
Speaker 2: that felt like a sandstorm doesert. And I was also
14:38
Speaker 2: grappling with the fact that I went from like twenty
14:43
Speaker 2: five to forty like that. So it was a lot
14:49
Speaker 2: to process. And I started to realize the more I
14:51
Speaker 2: talk to more patients that this is a very universal feeling,
14:55
Speaker 2: and it's not just for patients with invisible illnesses like
14:59
Speaker 2: I have had. It's what you look fine, but also
15:02
Speaker 2: for people who have suffered with acute illnesses like a
15:05
Speaker 2: stroke or cancer or a horrible car accident. It's a
15:09
Speaker 2: universal trauma, is where I've heard a lot of it, yes,
15:13
Speaker 2: one thousand percent, because there's this expectation that you just
15:19
Speaker 2: get back to it. Everything's changed, literally, everything has changed.
15:24
Speaker 2: So that's what made me start to write my new
15:26
Speaker 2: book about you Look Fine, And I hope that it
15:30
Speaker 2: gives that now one hundred and ninety four million Americans
15:35
Speaker 2: in our country living with chronic disease a roadmap for
15:38
Speaker 2: the recovery part of illness, because the expectation is that
15:44
Speaker 2: once we get the right diagnosis or we're cured, or
15:47
Speaker 2: we're in remission that we should just be fine, but
15:50
Speaker 2: it's over. It's so life altering in every single way,
15:56
Speaker 2: and there's until now been real no roadmap for or
16:01
Speaker 2: how to deal with the aftermath of something like that,
16:04
Speaker 2: having been at the mercy of a black and white
16:07
Speaker 2: system and of stuck in a gray abyss Amy, Oh
16:10
Speaker 2: my gosh, thank you so much, first for sharing your story,
16:13
Speaker 2: but also for your work. I mean even just the
16:16
Speaker 2: fact that you are not just creating language, but this
16:21
Speaker 2: conceptual framework that helps people understand their experience. And it's
16:27
Speaker 2: so important.
16:28
Speaker 1: Because, and this is well documented, if we don't have
16:31
Speaker 1: words to describe what we are feeling in the way
16:34
Speaker 1: that makes sense to ourselves or other people, it is
16:37
Speaker 1: very nebulous, and it doesn't mean that it isn't real,
16:39
Speaker 1: but it's even hard to wrap your brain around or
16:42
Speaker 1: validate for yourself. And so that you are creating this
16:47
Speaker 1: for others, you are giving them a way to understand
16:50
Speaker 1: their own experience, communicate it to other people in their lives,
16:54
Speaker 1: but also serve as a guide someone who is walking
16:57
Speaker 1: on this journey.
16:59
Speaker 2: Maybe don't have everything figured out.
17:01
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe you do, but just even to
17:03
Speaker 1: have someone a few steps ahead of you who can
17:06
Speaker 1: serve as a role model is such a powerful thing.
17:08
Speaker 2: And hearing that in your work, so oh, thank thank
17:11
Speaker 2: you for it. Thank you for that. I really want
17:14
Speaker 2: to validate patients' experiences.
17:17
Speaker 3: And.
17:19
Speaker 2: I hope that this book makes people feel so much
17:22
Speaker 2: less alone in their suffering. Yeah, thank you for saying that.
17:28
Speaker 2: I'll share that.
17:28
Speaker 1: As a therapist, I've had my fair share of clients
17:32
Speaker 1: that have been grappling with this, and I think there
17:37
Speaker 1: are two pieces here that you're talking about that are
17:40
Speaker 1: so profoundly important. First is the internal strength to be
17:47
Speaker 1: able to validate your own experience and advocate for yourself
17:54
Speaker 1: and keep going in the face of a culture that
17:58
Speaker 1: is sometimes very actively negating your experience. But you look fine,
18:05
Speaker 1: the test results don't show anything that's wrong, or if
18:09
Speaker 1: somebody is well enough to function in kind of basic
18:13
Speaker 1: ways right, that in itself can be so so challenging. Amy,
18:19
Speaker 1: you know what, this is a good opportunity for us.
18:22
Speaker 1: We need to take a super quick break. But on
18:24
Speaker 1: the other side of this, I'm wondering if we can
18:27
Speaker 1: go into that to share some of these hard one
18:30
Speaker 1: strategies to support someone's internal ability to know this is real,
18:37
Speaker 1: This is my experience, This is true, even if a
18:41
Speaker 1: lot of other people are like fighting with them about that.
18:45
Speaker 1: Is that?
18:45
Speaker 2: Okay?
18:46
Speaker 3: Yeah?
18:59
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22:07
Speaker 1: we're back with Amy Kurtz, author of But You Look Fine,
22:16
Speaker 1: a health advocate, health coach, medical trauma expert, and Amy.
22:22
Speaker 1: Before we took a pause for our break, we were
22:24
Speaker 1: talking about how hard it can be for so many
22:29
Speaker 1: people to validate themselves in the face of these forces
22:36
Speaker 1: that want to tell them they're wrong. Take us into
22:42
Speaker 1: that and what you teach people about how to be
22:46
Speaker 1: self supporting in a culture and a system that isn't.
22:50
Speaker 2: Going to do that for them. Yeah, it's a great question,
22:55
Speaker 2: and it sort of depends where someone is on their journey.
22:58
Speaker 2: But here's the reality. If you went to a doctor
23:02
Speaker 2: because something felt off, it is, and if somebody makes
23:06
Speaker 2: you feel as if you're making it up, then they're
23:09
Speaker 2: not the right doctor for you. There are so many
23:12
Speaker 2: doctors to choose from, and we as women specifically and
23:16
Speaker 2: also in our society, are taught to defer to the
23:19
Speaker 2: person in power. But the truth is, there's nobody that
23:23
Speaker 2: cares more about you getting better than you, and there's
23:27
Speaker 2: nobody who's going to make it happen more than you.
23:30
Speaker 2: And what I think happens that gets complex within this
23:35
Speaker 2: medical landscape is that there isn't enough patient agency. The
23:40
Speaker 2: patient becomes submissive because the doctor knows best, and sometimes
23:47
Speaker 2: that can make you sorry. Sometimes that can make you
23:51
Speaker 2: question yourself. I mean, I cannot tell you how many
23:54
Speaker 2: times someone said things like but you look fine, or
23:56
Speaker 2: do you need a xanax or saying all of these
24:01
Speaker 2: invalidating statements that almost in my case, made me question myself,
24:06
Speaker 2: and that's been healing for me as well. The ultimate
24:11
Speaker 2: most important part about being a patient is reclaiming or
24:16
Speaker 2: keeping your agency. You are half of the healing equation
24:20
Speaker 2: and eighty percent of the things that you do for
24:24
Speaker 2: your health are completely up to you and they are
24:27
Speaker 2: entirely out of the doctor's office. So I really hope
24:31
Speaker 2: to empower patients that if your body nobody knows your
24:35
Speaker 2: body better than you. And if you're not seeing somebody
24:38
Speaker 2: who values your opinion and would like to know what
24:41
Speaker 2: your experience of something is, then that's okay. You wouldn't
24:46
Speaker 2: marry the first person you date, would you, no hope.
24:50
Speaker 2: So being really clear, like I work with people a
24:54
Speaker 2: lot on this, which is you have to get really
24:57
Speaker 2: clear on what it is in a dynamic with someone
25:01
Speaker 2: like a doctor, that you need to feel safe. And
25:05
Speaker 2: that might be different for me than it is for
25:07
Speaker 2: you or it is for the listener. But being getting
25:10
Speaker 2: to know yourself intimately and making a list of your
25:14
Speaker 2: let's say, five non negotiables that you need in someone
25:17
Speaker 2: you're seeing that you want to go all the way
25:19
Speaker 2: with because it really is a partnership. And if it's
25:22
Speaker 2: not viewed as that's unfortunate because it takes your autonomy away.
25:27
Speaker 2: You can always walk away from invalidating or gaslighting. You
25:32
Speaker 2: can always start again. And ultimately, you were smart enough
25:38
Speaker 2: to get yourself there in the first place. And if
25:41
Speaker 2: you're where I was before I wrote this book, you
25:44
Speaker 2: made it through the hardest part. That's the hardest part
25:47
Speaker 2: is getting yourself better and being stuck in a gray
25:51
Speaker 2: zone with an invisible illness in a medical system that
25:55
Speaker 2: sees black and white. That is so painful to have
26:00
Speaker 2: people doubt your experiences. And I love modern medicine. I'm
26:04
Speaker 2: the daughter of a doctor. I'm not saying that anything
26:07
Speaker 2: is wrong with that in any way, but medicine is
26:10
Speaker 2: obviously life saving. But there's such an influx of chronic
26:14
Speaker 2: health conditions that are complex, that are multiple systems, and
26:19
Speaker 2: that is has been confounding. So that's why I ended
26:24
Speaker 2: up seeking a functional medicine doctor for myself and also
26:27
Speaker 2: starting a health coaching practice with functional medicine doctor, because
26:31
Speaker 2: the patient needs more support than they are getting in
26:36
Speaker 2: the office.
26:37
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, and Amy, what's really becoming clear to me
26:41
Speaker 1: is that your work really has two parts, and one part.
26:46
Speaker 2: Is supporting people on this incredibly harrowing journey of battling
26:53
Speaker 2: back towards health, finding the right support to attain health.
26:58
Speaker 2: And there's like that set meant that leg of the race,
27:01
Speaker 2: the marathon, so to speak.
27:04
Speaker 1: And then comes the trauma, recovery, the grieving, the reclamation
27:09
Speaker 1: of a self and rebuilding. And so that's almost part two,
27:12
Speaker 1: which is so powerful and important.
27:15
Speaker 2: For those of our friends here with us right now.
27:17
Speaker 1: Though who are in that part one, who are suffering
27:23
Speaker 1: and they are unwell, and it is in the gray,
27:26
Speaker 1: and they haven't found answers and they haven't found the
27:28
Speaker 1: right doctor yet. I would what you say to somebody
27:32
Speaker 1: who is perhaps struggling with the very very first part
27:35
Speaker 1: of this internal narrative that is so disempowering. Well, maybe
27:41
Speaker 1: it isn't that big of a deal. They say, there's
27:43
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with me. I don't feel good. But maybe
27:47
Speaker 1: I'm making this up because I think that's what it
27:49
Speaker 1: can turn into.
27:50
Speaker 2: People.
27:51
Speaker 1: Can you have to advocate for yourself even internally. You
27:55
Speaker 1: have to be your own champion in order to say no,
27:59
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a list of what I need to.
28:01
Speaker 2: Have in the doctor. You need to feel like you
28:04
Speaker 2: have a right to that.
28:05
Speaker 1: So what would you say to someone who's struggling in
28:07
Speaker 1: that primary place, who's had so many people negate their
28:11
Speaker 1: experience that they're struggling to believe inside themselves if this
28:15
Speaker 1: is really true and valid.
28:17
Speaker 2: Well, I've experienced that a lot myself. A lot of
28:20
Speaker 2: my writing in this book, I tell stories about how
28:24
Speaker 2: I started out being so tenacious and so clear about
28:27
Speaker 2: what I was feeling, and then based on certain behaviors.
28:31
Speaker 2: I would start to question myself because this isn't post
28:37
Speaker 2: traumatic stress because it's not one incident. It's also not
28:41
Speaker 2: complex post traumatic stress because that's an incident that happened
28:45
Speaker 2: multiple times over and over. But in this case, the
28:48
Speaker 2: threat is your body exactly, and it can make you
28:53
Speaker 2: have a deep mistrust of it. But what I would
28:55
Speaker 2: say ultimately is it's really important to be seeking help
29:00
Speaker 2: with a mental health professional while you were going through
29:04
Speaker 2: a physical challenge, because one, there's so much to process,
29:10
Speaker 2: but two, you can get lost along the way. I
29:13
Speaker 2: felt like I was wandering around the land of the
29:15
Speaker 2: lost and the only person who was going to get
29:18
Speaker 2: me out was myself. And yet for some time my
29:22
Speaker 2: experiences were not only invalidated, but also I was doing
29:27
Speaker 2: way too much. I think in a very simple, simple
29:32
Speaker 2: way to describe it is like it goes back to
29:38
Speaker 2: your very basic instincts and listening to your body and
29:42
Speaker 2: working with your nervous system, because if you're locked in
29:45
Speaker 2: fight or flight or survival and you're trying to get better,
29:49
Speaker 2: you can't hear all of the body's signals, and that
29:53
Speaker 2: was a real missing piece for me. This is very
29:57
Speaker 2: simple for people I might be getting off track, so
29:59
Speaker 2: you can stop me at it time. If you want
30:00
Speaker 2: to love a tangent aiming, let's do it. So your
30:04
Speaker 2: body is sending you signals all the time. It tells
30:07
Speaker 2: you you have to pay, but so often you're like, oh,
30:10
Speaker 2: I got to do this, I'll hold it, or I'm thirsty,
30:13
Speaker 2: too busy to do that, so I'll just drink later,
30:16
Speaker 2: or I'm hungry. And it's really thinking about yourself as
30:20
Speaker 2: this inner child, right like how would you let that
30:26
Speaker 2: kid go through a hard challenge? How would you want
30:31
Speaker 2: to connect to yourself every day on a basic level.
30:34
Speaker 2: That's not about running, but about tuning into yourself. There
30:39
Speaker 2: are so many things that I think are missed because
30:41
Speaker 2: we're running, not living that it can be very it
30:45
Speaker 2: feels like your self trust is eroded. Yeah I get that.
30:50
Speaker 2: I get that.
30:50
Speaker 1: And it's like you get disconnected from yourself your physical experience,
30:55
Speaker 1: and perhaps that is that step one is just to
30:58
Speaker 1: re establish a unconditionally loving relationship with yourself where you
31:03
Speaker 1: would give yourself as much consideration as a child who
31:06
Speaker 1: is saying something hurts or I need to pee, and
31:08
Speaker 1: just tapping into that, that's that foundation to believe that
31:13
Speaker 1: you're worthy of care and health and to keep going
31:17
Speaker 1: and to find a medical professional even or a treatment
31:19
Speaker 1: that takes what you're going through seriously and offers real
31:23
Speaker 1: solutions and helps you sustain the journey to finding that.
31:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
31:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So I have to ask another question. This
31:33
Speaker 1: might be an annoying question.
31:35
Speaker 2: I'm going to ask it anyway, looking back through your journey,
31:42
Speaker 2: So I think you said thirty six or thirty seven
31:45
Speaker 2: tries to find the right person. I'm sure you learned so.
31:49
Speaker 1: Many things along the way, and I am also sure
31:54
Speaker 1: that everybody wants the magic answer to avoid that and
31:59
Speaker 1: there are problems, wait, some just trial and error experiences
32:03
Speaker 1: that everyone going through this has to deal with. And
32:08
Speaker 1: are there any things that you learned along the way
32:12
Speaker 1: that if you had a time machine and could go
32:14
Speaker 1: back to the beginning and had to go through that
32:16
Speaker 1: process again of finding the medical professional who was like, yes,
32:20
Speaker 1: advanced stage neurological lime disease, what would you have done
32:24
Speaker 1: differently that somebody else who's in the early stages of
32:28
Speaker 1: this could use to maybe not push the magic button,
32:31
Speaker 1: but maybe shave of year three off their process.
32:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think there's a couple things. How easy
32:40
Speaker 2: does it? Like slow and steady. There's a lot of
32:43
Speaker 2: people that will throw a lot of things at you
32:45
Speaker 2: and you don't even know what's working anymore. The other
32:50
Speaker 2: thing is, there are so many times in my own
32:53
Speaker 2: story like this is just an example, but I think
32:55
Speaker 2: it will really resonate with people where I'd go to
32:58
Speaker 2: get blood work and the same nurse would stick me
33:01
Speaker 2: like five times, and everything inside myself was like I
33:04
Speaker 2: should be asking for somebody else, but I didn't because
33:08
Speaker 2: I wanted to be a good patient and that's not
33:12
Speaker 2: the way that anybody is going to get better. The
33:14
Speaker 2: other thing is, I think it's crucial to be working
33:17
Speaker 2: with a therapist who has experience in trauma. I'm not
33:21
Speaker 2: a doctor. I've learned a lot from world renowned experts
33:25
Speaker 2: that I got to interview in my new book, like
33:27
Speaker 2: doctor Gobbor Matte and Peter Lovine. I would say that
33:32
Speaker 2: it's really important to figure out, like I said before,
33:37
Speaker 2: what you need in a doctor. I wasted a lot
33:40
Speaker 2: of time with people that weren't going to help me
33:45
Speaker 2: in the way I knew it. That's what I'm well,
33:47
Speaker 2: It's like, how do you know what to ask for? Though?
33:50
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously the very short answer is an expert
33:53
Speaker 1: in lime busy.
33:53
Speaker 2: But if you don't even know that is potentially what
33:56
Speaker 2: you have, Like, how can you get clear about oh,
33:59
Speaker 2: okay to look for? If that makes sense. Yeah, So
34:03
Speaker 2: I think it's really important before appointments that you're really prepared, right.
34:07
Speaker 2: You want to be seeing a doctor who has seen
34:10
Speaker 2: people like you before, has a curious, open mind, trusts
34:14
Speaker 2: your opinion and validates your experience, and is always willing
34:23
Speaker 2: to send you to someone else if they don't have
34:25
Speaker 2: the answers for you. Yes, if you're not getting that,
34:30
Speaker 2: those could be a lot of red flags. And I
34:34
Speaker 2: just accepted a lot of red flags because I thought
34:37
Speaker 2: that's what I had to do. And looking back, I
34:40
Speaker 2: think while it's very common with chronic lime disease to
34:44
Speaker 2: be misdiagnosed, I wish that I had always validated and
34:49
Speaker 2: listened to my instincts no matter what anybody said to me.
34:52
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you for sharing that, and just for someone
34:56
Speaker 1: in that space to just have a guide in this
34:59
Speaker 1: moment that.
35:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also I was going to say, you have
35:03
Speaker 2: to be a really organized patient because a lot of
35:06
Speaker 2: times you'll feel rushed a lot of times you won't
35:09
Speaker 2: be you won't be feel as if you have control
35:13
Speaker 2: because it gets emotional when you're talking to a doctor
35:16
Speaker 2: about something. So I would say, write down everything you're
35:21
Speaker 2: experiencing it from it, walk away, come back the next day.
35:25
Speaker 2: Make sure it's concise and clear. List all your medications,
35:29
Speaker 2: have them sent to the doctor a week before. Write
35:32
Speaker 2: down your history, have all of your questions ready. If
35:36
Speaker 2: you can have an advocate or someone who loves you
35:39
Speaker 2: with you to make sure all of your questions are answered,
35:42
Speaker 2: that would be great. And before you leave the office,
35:44
Speaker 2: make sure that you ask the doctor specifically, how do
35:47
Speaker 2: I get in touch with you directly in between appointments.
35:50
Speaker 2: Those are things that nobody tells you to do, Otherwise
35:53
Speaker 2: you would be trying to call the office and hope
35:56
Speaker 2: for the best. Usually. Can I just add something here
36:01
Speaker 2: and I just want to insert this because I feel
36:03
Speaker 2: like this is an important conversation from my space that
36:08
Speaker 2: hasn't had quite enough.
36:10
Speaker 1: So these are fantastic recommendations for how to vet a
36:14
Speaker 1: medical professional who can help you.
36:16
Speaker 2: I also heard you say.
36:17
Speaker 1: How important it is to have a relationship with a
36:20
Speaker 1: therapist who can support you mentally and emotionally as you're
36:24
Speaker 1: going through this. And I also just want to add
36:27
Speaker 1: that it can be very difficult for people to assess
36:32
Speaker 1: the goodness of fit for a therapist. A lot of
36:35
Speaker 1: times it is very easy to connect with a therapist.
36:38
Speaker 1: He's a lovely human, but who may be practicing outside
36:42
Speaker 1: their scope or who might not actually know how to
36:47
Speaker 1: help you with what you need help with. And so
36:49
Speaker 1: one of the things that I also advise people to
36:52
Speaker 1: ask is they're interviewing potential therapists, a million dollar question
36:57
Speaker 1: with a therapist and maybe a medical provider as well,
37:00
Speaker 1: but is to ask, how would you help me, what
37:08
Speaker 1: does the.
37:09
Speaker 2: Path of healing or restoration look like with you?
37:15
Speaker 1: And expect that they should be able to describe something
37:19
Speaker 1: that sounds coherent and that makes sense and is based
37:23
Speaker 1: on something, because I think, especially in therapy, it can
37:27
Speaker 1: be so vague and mysterious and sort.
37:31
Speaker 2: Of process oriented. And it is also.
37:35
Speaker 1: Like with any medical professional, like about hower differential, where
37:39
Speaker 1: you're like, well, they're a doctor, so they must know
37:41
Speaker 1: more than I do. But a therapist should be able
37:44
Speaker 1: to articulate in words how their approach works and if
37:48
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense at the very least get another opinion.
37:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, and also to educate themselves of mine
37:59
Speaker 2: to therapy and body based therapy. They're two different things.
38:03
Speaker 2: I hopped all the way around, but and I found
38:06
Speaker 2: the mix of things that work for me. But what
38:09
Speaker 2: I wanted to say that that ties into so much
38:12
Speaker 2: of what we've talked about, is that we live in
38:15
Speaker 2: a country that sees the physical body as separate from
38:18
Speaker 2: the mental emotional self. And that's so insane and detrimental
38:25
Speaker 2: to the patient to act as if their physical body
38:29
Speaker 2: is completely separated from their mental emotional experience of what
38:34
Speaker 2: has happened to them. And so this is something where
38:39
Speaker 2: I saw a light bulb going off when I would
38:42
Speaker 2: say it almost feels like a ghost is behind you,
38:45
Speaker 2: like you just can't escape the experience. For a cancer patient,
38:48
Speaker 2: this could look like extreme fear going back for their
38:52
Speaker 2: scan once they're in remission. For a line patient, it
38:55
Speaker 2: could be a twinge of joint pain or being in
38:58
Speaker 2: a tick heavy area. For a room retort arthritis patient,
39:02
Speaker 2: it could be hand pain. But the flood, it's like
39:06
Speaker 2: you're you feel like you're on this slide back to
39:09
Speaker 2: where you were before, and to have somebody who can
39:13
Speaker 2: help you navigate that water would save a lot of time,
39:17
Speaker 2: I think.
39:18
Speaker 1: Talking about that phase two and on the other side
39:21
Speaker 1: of our next break, I'd love to dive more deeply
39:24
Speaker 1: into that part.
39:25
Speaker 2: How on the.
39:26
Speaker 1: Other side of this, when physical healing has been achieved,
39:32
Speaker 1: how you guide people through that process of metabolizing the trauma,
39:38
Speaker 1: processing the grief, and coming to the mental and emotional
39:42
Speaker 1: process of healing. Because you're right, the journey is not
39:46
Speaker 1: over until you get the rest of the way there,
39:48
Speaker 1: and also before we do shift. I also just want
39:51
Speaker 1: to say, and I hope that this feels hopeful for
39:55
Speaker 1: you for other people listening. I feel that in certain
39:59
Speaker 1: areas of I feel that the mental health field, there
40:02
Speaker 1: are things that are starting to change, an increased recognition.
40:07
Speaker 2: For how things like metabolic conditions can affect mental health,
40:14
Speaker 2: how someone's nutrition can affect their mental health, or the
40:18
Speaker 2: impact of chronic stress over time, and what that does
40:21
Speaker 2: to the.
40:22
Speaker 1: Way we think and feel and behave. I feel like
40:25
Speaker 1: in some areas it's starting to change. We have a
40:28
Speaker 1: long way to go, but I just wanted to offer that.
40:32
Speaker 2: Yes, and also that's an empowering thing if you're a
40:36
Speaker 2: patient and you're suffering through something. There is always something
40:40
Speaker 2: you can do to improve your quality of life. You
40:43
Speaker 2: can start eating an anti inflammatory diet and see how
40:46
Speaker 2: you feel. For me, that was so profound. Then movement,
40:50
Speaker 2: there are studies that show that active movement, if you
40:55
Speaker 2: have the capacity to do it, okay, as effective as
40:58
Speaker 2: a xanax or stressed reduction techniques at night, prioritizing rest,
41:04
Speaker 2: making sure that you take moments to meditate or do
41:08
Speaker 2: breathwork or anything like all that's totally up to you.
41:12
Speaker 2: So that's also something that I feel a lot of
41:16
Speaker 2: people lose track of, is that they do have so
41:19
Speaker 2: much power. The air they breathe, in the house, the
41:22
Speaker 2: products that they use, whether they're toxic or non toxic.
41:25
Speaker 2: There's a lot at your fingertips. All you have to
41:29
Speaker 2: do is try And those are things that a doctor
41:32
Speaker 2: can't do for you.
41:33
Speaker 1: You have agency and you don't need anyone to give
41:37
Speaker 1: you permission or to tell you to do that.
41:39
Speaker 2: You can just go ahead and do that.
41:40
Speaker 1: Thank you for saying that's okay, So quick break. And
41:44
Speaker 1: then on the other side, I'd love to talk.
41:46
Speaker 2: More about that. The trauma recovery process.
41:50
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44:32
Speaker 1: So we're back with Amy Kurtz, author of But You
44:36
Speaker 1: Look Fine, new book that that talks about the arc
44:40
Speaker 1: of healing from a chronic physical condition and also the
44:47
Speaker 1: mental and emotional restoration that comes afterwards.
44:50
Speaker 2: So Amy, let you take.
44:52
Speaker 1: Us into the second leg of the journey. When you've
44:57
Speaker 1: attained or pretty close to physical health and now and
45:02
Speaker 1: only now it's safe enough in some ways to be
45:05
Speaker 1: able to recognize what you've been through, the grief of
45:11
Speaker 1: where you are now versus where you were, the ambiguous losses,
45:15
Speaker 1: but also that very real experience of what it's common
45:20
Speaker 1: to so many trauma survivors that the other shoe has
45:23
Speaker 1: not yet dropped, that there's this vigilance in this year,
45:28
Speaker 1: that it's going to happen again, it's going to come back.
45:30
Speaker 1: You're not safe yet, may take us into that.
45:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I smiled when you said that, because that's
45:38
Speaker 2: what my husband said to me. Is I always felt
45:41
Speaker 2: it that he said. I always felt like there would
45:44
Speaker 2: be a second phase for you, and for me, it
45:47
Speaker 2: felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to
45:49
Speaker 2: drop all the time. I could never fully feel safe
45:53
Speaker 2: in my body. And it's a mistake to buy into
45:56
Speaker 2: this fallacy that once illness is over, you'll be back
45:59
Speaker 2: to your old self. I mean we experience this with COVID.
46:02
Speaker 2: It's like get back to normal. There is no normal
46:04
Speaker 2: after you've been through something that profound, and it's really
46:08
Speaker 2: important to not pave through your pain or put on
46:12
Speaker 2: a mask to make other people feel more comfortable. I
46:16
Speaker 2: really think it's a mistake to accept this notion of
46:19
Speaker 2: the binary of either your sick or you're well, because
46:22
Speaker 2: it's not black and white. And the truth is so
46:24
Speaker 2: many patients are suffering in this gray zone, this aftermath
46:28
Speaker 2: that they don't know how to deal with. But for me,
46:33
Speaker 2: one of the most helpful parts of it is that
46:36
Speaker 2: there's a key balance to strike, and that's processing the
46:42
Speaker 2: grief of who you once were with the dreams of
46:47
Speaker 2: who you'd become, because it's all different. And I think
46:53
Speaker 2: that grief is the loss of anything that's important to you,
46:58
Speaker 2: and in this case it was My future was so
47:02
Speaker 2: different in every way. Like I said, it was like
47:06
Speaker 2: I blinked and I lost over a decade of my
47:09
Speaker 2: life and I don't even know where it went. It
47:11
Speaker 2: feels out like this blank space. What I learned is
47:15
Speaker 2: key for myself is that regulating your nervous system is
47:19
Speaker 2: how you heal trauma, and my book outlines just the
47:24
Speaker 2: right amount of therapies. I went from a CBT therapist
47:27
Speaker 2: who helped me incredibly to AMDR therapist I like them
47:31
Speaker 2: blended together. I learned a lot of things that I
47:35
Speaker 2: could do online to help myself. I looked up Peter
47:38
Speaker 2: Levine's exercises and I started to do them and just
47:41
Speaker 2: started to get in touch with my body in a
47:44
Speaker 2: different way, because after illness, your body still feels like
47:48
Speaker 2: a threat and that doesn't change until your mind knows
47:51
Speaker 2: that you're safe. If you don't feel safe in your body,
47:55
Speaker 2: you can't ever fully heal. And this condition's complicated wires,
48:00
Speaker 2: really a complex approach, But what I've done in this
48:04
Speaker 2: book is tried to present a simplified approach and like
48:14
Speaker 2: where I've identified the key components from various modalities that
48:18
Speaker 2: together are highly effective. This is what changed my life,
48:22
Speaker 2: and my hope is that a patient will read it
48:27
Speaker 2: and be able to take what works for them, because again,
48:30
Speaker 2: we're all different. There's no one's size fits all approach.
48:34
Speaker 2: But it was really essential for me to understand how
48:41
Speaker 2: to rewire my brain after sickness and also how to
48:46
Speaker 2: grieve the life that I thought that I would live.
48:51
Speaker 2: But there's also, like we were saying before, such beauty
48:55
Speaker 2: in the aftermath after the storm is over. Because if
49:01
Speaker 2: this didn't happen to me, I would never have written.
49:04
Speaker 2: And I wrote because I was looking for a creative outlet,
49:07
Speaker 2: because I used to be an actor, and I wouldn't
49:11
Speaker 2: have connected with the thousands of people who have written me,
49:14
Speaker 2: who have said thank you for validating my experience, and
49:17
Speaker 2: that is so beautiful, and I feel I'm in exactly
49:20
Speaker 2: the right place now, but it took a while to
49:23
Speaker 2: get there, and there's no space for patients to have
49:31
Speaker 2: emotions or feelings about what is happening to them. And
49:36
Speaker 2: I think that not being a part of the system
49:39
Speaker 2: is really detrimental needs to be And I love the
49:43
Speaker 2: way that you're organizing this and to three different parts
49:47
Speaker 2: almost which really does follow the trauma recovery process. And
49:51
Speaker 2: first of all, and I think.
49:52
Speaker 1: This is conventional wisdom, is that it is unreasonable to
49:56
Speaker 1: expect that you would be able to recover from a
49:59
Speaker 1: T trauma while it is still happening when you are
50:03
Speaker 1: in the situation that is so threatening, like you need
50:08
Speaker 1: to get to safety, like objective safety, before the trauma
50:12
Speaker 1: healing can happen.
50:14
Speaker 2: But you also.
50:15
Speaker 1: Used the perfect phrasing that the rewiring of the brain,
50:19
Speaker 1: because I think what many people don't understand is that
50:22
Speaker 1: living through a capital T trauma like you have, like
50:26
Speaker 1: a medical trauma, a health trauma, it actually changes the
50:30
Speaker 1: way that your brain works, and part of the experience
50:33
Speaker 1: is to have hypervigilance and a reactivation of these fears
50:38
Speaker 1: and not feeling safe even if objectively you are safe,
50:43
Speaker 1: and so to be able to go through this process
50:45
Speaker 1: in an organized way using a variety of like evidence
50:48
Speaker 1: based modalities, which it sounds like you wove together. But
50:52
Speaker 1: then for most people it's only after the trauma is
50:56
Speaker 1: healed that they can really fully connect with grief. And
51:02
Speaker 1: then I think the best possible outcome that we can
51:05
Speaker 1: hope for from a grieving process is to achieve meaning
51:11
Speaker 1: and find purpose in your story and what happened. And
51:16
Speaker 1: I just I love the way that in your work
51:19
Speaker 1: you're lining this up for people so that they have
51:22
Speaker 1: this not just a pathway, but also hope.
51:26
Speaker 2: There's hope in that. Is that what you found? Yeah? Yes,
51:32
Speaker 2: And that's what I hope too gives to people is
51:36
Speaker 2: the healing is theirs for the taking and there is
51:41
Speaker 2: hope on the other end. I mean, I think that
51:44
Speaker 2: so many people just live in this place where they're like,
51:47
Speaker 2: now what, And we really have a loneliness epidemic in
51:53
Speaker 2: our country, I think, and I can't think of anything
51:56
Speaker 2: that's lonelier than living with a chronic complex and visible illness,
52:01
Speaker 2: because even it's not just the sickness, it's the managing
52:07
Speaker 2: others reactions to you. Being sick makes you feel like
52:12
Speaker 2: you have to put on a mask to make other
52:15
Speaker 2: people more comfortable. And this is something you and I
52:18
Speaker 2: talked about briefly when we started. It's the axis from
52:21
Speaker 2: which everything you function from changes. Every relationship. It's like
52:27
Speaker 2: a crucible. It literally is like everything changes. Some friends
52:33
Speaker 2: will completely disappear. Others will have no idea how to
52:36
Speaker 2: handle it or what to say. Nobody talks about that.
52:40
Speaker 2: Nobody teaches you how to do that and thrust into
52:43
Speaker 2: this new way of living that nobody's giving language to,
52:49
Speaker 2: and that's so isolating. Think about the word invisible. It
52:53
Speaker 2: means that other people can't see it, and so there's
52:57
Speaker 2: always this dynamic of like, right, are they not believing me?
53:01
Speaker 2: And it's okay, thank you? Is it okay?
53:05
Speaker 1: If we continue on just for a couple more minutes.
53:07
Speaker 1: I want to be respectful of your time. But I'm
53:09
Speaker 1: so glad that you're bringing up this piece because a
53:11
Speaker 1: big part of what we talk about and do on
53:13
Speaker 1: this podcast really is connected to relationships and connection. And
53:18
Speaker 1: so take us into this because I would imagine there
53:24
Speaker 1: are a couple of different pieces here. First of all,
53:26
Speaker 1: the isolation that you described how to navigate relationships when
53:34
Speaker 1: you are unwell, and then how the other person is
53:39
Speaker 1: experiencing you do they not believe you what's going on?
53:43
Speaker 2: But then on the other side of this relational equation
53:46
Speaker 2: is and I wonder if you could speak to this.
53:49
Speaker 1: Dealing with a really powerful, profound chronic health condition, it
53:53
Speaker 1: probably is hard to be the kind of partner that
53:59
Speaker 1: your spouse means and wants and deserves, or to show
54:02
Speaker 1: up like a friend in the way that a friend
54:06
Speaker 1: might want when you're really not okay, and to be
54:10
Speaker 1: able to sustain connections through that. But that is its
54:13
Speaker 1: own kind of journey.
54:14
Speaker 2: I'm guessing can you speak with that?
54:19
Speaker 1: And I'm sure that you talk about it in your
54:20
Speaker 1: book and there's not like a here's the answer, but
54:23
Speaker 1: what so, what's your.
54:25
Speaker 2: Take on this? I feel that people have to have
54:28
Speaker 2: conversations that are uncomfortable, and that not knowing is okay.
54:34
Speaker 2: But everything that my life was changed, and that changed
54:40
Speaker 2: my relationship to all of my friends I was in
54:43
Speaker 2: my twenties. We all went out all the time and
54:45
Speaker 2: now I'm just in bed feeling so crappy. But I
54:50
Speaker 2: had honest conversations with my friends that meant something to me.
54:53
Speaker 2: Some many disappeared. That shows you a lot. It's really
54:57
Speaker 2: sad while it's happening, but it also creates a tremendous
55:00
Speaker 2: amount of space for the right people to come in.
55:04
Speaker 2: But I would have conversations where I would say, hey, like,
55:07
Speaker 2: I can't do this thing anymore, but you're so important
55:10
Speaker 2: to me. How can we stay connected through this? Like
55:13
Speaker 2: who nobody does that? But the fact that I did it,
55:18
Speaker 2: my friend was like, yeah, well we love seeing shows together,
55:21
Speaker 2: so let's do that. So we do that together. We
55:24
Speaker 2: kept the thread. When it's regarding your intimate relationship, that's
55:30
Speaker 2: so challenging. But I find the most important thing is
55:34
Speaker 2: to be able to make sure that you're boundarying the
55:39
Speaker 2: time you're talking about how you're feeling, because it can
55:42
Speaker 2: be very overwhelming for a partner, and making sure that
55:47
Speaker 2: you're making time for quality time even if you can't
55:52
Speaker 2: do much, even if it's just laying on the couch
55:54
Speaker 2: and watching a movie together, holding hands, or creating space
55:58
Speaker 2: around this thing that has shifted your dynamic so much
56:03
Speaker 2: it's crucial staying connected outside of your illness as much
56:06
Speaker 2: as you can, and with family, I mean or loved ones.
56:11
Speaker 2: So many people just feel so shut down because people
56:17
Speaker 2: think that they're being supportive by saying any better. They
56:21
Speaker 2: haven't caught that yet. Bobby's sisters friend's cousin had this
56:26
Speaker 2: thing and tried that you should look into that instead
56:29
Speaker 2: of I'm gonna say this super simply. I've actually been
56:31
Speaker 2: sharing this a lot, and I don't know why, but
56:35
Speaker 2: I was talking about my lime diagnosis and how I
56:38
Speaker 2: was feeling so much better and how much time I
56:40
Speaker 2: had lost or felt like I lost, and someone I
56:44
Speaker 2: love stopped what she was doing, walked across the room
56:48
Speaker 2: to me, hugged me deeply and said, I'm so sorry
56:54
Speaker 2: that you've been through so much pain. And I just
56:59
Speaker 2: wept because is that All I ever wanted was for
57:02
Speaker 2: somebody to validate my experience and see me and not
57:07
Speaker 2: be uncomfortable and make it about how they're experiencing it.
57:12
Speaker 2: And I wrote a piece in Oprah Daily called What
57:14
Speaker 2: Not to Say to Someone with Chronic illness. But there
57:17
Speaker 2: are really ways to be supportive for anyone listening that
57:21
Speaker 2: loves someone. It's like it can look as simple as
57:23
Speaker 2: what do you need from me? How can I support you?
57:28
Speaker 2: Is there anything that I can do to make this easier,
57:30
Speaker 2: or anything you want to talk about, or how how
57:34
Speaker 2: can I show up for you? It would change your
57:37
Speaker 2: entire relationship with the person. It would make them feel
57:40
Speaker 2: so much less alone, so much more connected to you.
57:43
Speaker 2: It's authentic, It's true, and a lot of people are
57:48
Speaker 2: uncomfortable having uncomfortable conversations, but the truth is being sick,
57:53
Speaker 2: especially when you're young, is uncomfortable for everyone, not just
57:59
Speaker 2: the patient. So it's like, if you want to experience
58:02
Speaker 2: intimate connection, you have to go there, and you have
58:07
Speaker 2: to just be brave because you want better for yourself.
58:11
Speaker 2: What would you say as a therapist? Could not add
58:13
Speaker 2: anything to what you said. I think that's beautiful.
58:16
Speaker 1: No, really, I mean to have courageous conversations about hard
58:20
Speaker 1: things and to find a way to have a healthy
58:26
Speaker 1: connection and to have this type of intimate relationship, be
58:30
Speaker 1: with a partner, with a friend that really lets them
58:33
Speaker 1: in and maintains this bond even if one person.
58:40
Speaker 2: Is really not okay.
58:42
Speaker 1: But also to know none of us are getting out
58:45
Speaker 1: of here alive. Right to be in any type of relationship,
58:49
Speaker 1: there's going to come a point in all of our
58:51
Speaker 1: lives when we're not okay, when we're the person who
58:54
Speaker 1: needs that compassionate understanding, And so how do we negotiate
58:58
Speaker 1: this on both sides of that equation?
59:00
Speaker 2: I think is very important. Yeah, Amy Kerts, this has
59:06
Speaker 2: been such an amazing conversation. I'm so glad that we
59:10
Speaker 2: had the chance to connect and thank you so much
59:13
Speaker 2: just for sharing your mission and your message with us
59:16
Speaker 2: here on love, happiness and success. And I know we
59:18
Speaker 2: need to wrap this up, but before we do, just
59:20
Speaker 2: tell our friends here with us where they can continue
59:24
Speaker 2: this conversation with you and learn more what your work
59:27
Speaker 2: and just get more like direction for how to handle
59:30
Speaker 2: some of this. Yeah, I really feel like I've tried
59:35
Speaker 2: my best to create something that will support you in
59:39
Speaker 2: reclaiming your agency and recovering from an illness in my
59:46
Speaker 2: new book, but you look fine trapped in the hell
59:48
Speaker 2: between Sick and Well and How to Break Free, which
59:50
Speaker 2: is out June ninth. They could buy me on Amy
59:53
Speaker 2: Kurts dot com. I'm on Instagram underscore Amy Kurtz, and
59:57
Speaker 2: I just would say to anyone that's listening, who it
1:00:00
Speaker 2: was still here, and who feels like this is resonating
1:00:04
Speaker 2: for you, like millions of us are suffering in silence
1:00:08
Speaker 2: with an invisible wound. Doctors don't diagnose it, Nobody talks
1:00:12
Speaker 2: about it. Suffers don't admit to it. And it doesn't
1:00:14
Speaker 2: have to be this way. It doesn't have to be
1:00:16
Speaker 2: this way. There are so many things that you can
1:00:19
Speaker 2: do to find freedom.
1:00:21
Speaker 1: Amy Kurtz, thank you again so much for spending this
1:00:23
Speaker 1: time with us today.
1:00:24
Speaker 2: I really appreciate it.
1:00:32
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening, and until next time, stay strong,
1:00:35
Speaker 1: stay kind, and keep those relationships as loving and healthy
1:00:40
Speaker 1: as possible.
1:00:42
Speaker 2: Take care,