Latest / Finding New Waters / Dr. Kate Truitt: Trauma, Grief, Burnout, and the Brain | Finding New Waters Podcast

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Dr. Kate Truitt: Trauma, Grief, Burnout, and the Brain | Finding New Waters Podcast · Finding New Waters

0:00
That actual motion is giving the brain more serotonin and
0:05
oxytocin and dopamine and GABA. So it's giving our system a dose
0:10
of these feel good chemicals that can shift our system in a
0:16
really, really quick and very powerful ways out of stress.
0:21
Cortisol can lower our blood pressure, heart rate, increase
0:24
heart rate variability to all these incredible things within a
0:27
couple minutes. All right.
0:29
Welcome back everybody to another episode of Finding New
0:31
Waters. My name is Bea Reeves.
0:33
I'm the Director of Business Development here at New Waters
0:35
Recovery in Raleigh. Our very special guest today,
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Doctor Kate Truitt, very lucky to have her.
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I met her at a conference about a year ago, nine months ago out
0:46
in Ramona, CA, this thing called the Empower Collaboration, and
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she just had this way about her. She's very soothing to talk to
0:56
and to listen to and when she presented I was very engaged.
0:59
And I can't say that for everything, mainly because I'm
1:01
not used to sitting still for so long.
1:03
But she definitely had my attention.
1:06
And I've chosen not to try to say in the introduction
1:11
everything she does because it's just, there's too much.
1:13
So I'm just going to turn it over to to Doctor Kate Truitt
1:17
and let her talk. Welcome, Kate.
1:19
Thanks for having me. You know, I was, I was
1:21
reflecting be the last time you and I connected, I was still on
1:24
a cane. And so it's, yeah, nine months
1:29
and it's been a long road. So it's really great to see you
1:31
again. You too.
1:33
How are you in that regard? Yeah, I'm doing better so it's
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to fill your audience in almost a year ago to the day actually
1:41
the one year anniversaries in just a couple days.
1:43
I I was hit by a drunk driver who T boned me after they ran a
1:47
red light and broke my neck brain injury crushed my spine.
1:53
So it's been a a long road, but I'm feeling me again.
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And I think that's one of the things when no matter what type
2:00
of recovery, somebody's navigating that moment where
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self starts to show up again. And it's literally, I feel like
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sometimes I'm waving, going. Hi, Kate.
2:09
I missed you. It's good to see you again.
2:12
And it's, it's such a precious, precious experience and one full
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of hope. Yeah.
2:17
Well, I'm so glad to hear that because I, you know, I obviously
2:20
noticed that you were on a cane when I met you and I.
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It was hard to miss. It was hard to piss and I for
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those who can't, you know, see this right now.
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I mean, she's she's a beautiful woman and and was on a cane and
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I didn't know I knew there was had been an accident, but still,
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sometimes people have a cane anyway.
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And so I'm glad that that is you're on the mend and, you
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know, coming up on this year and you know, a kind of obvious
2:46
point about this and you talked about it out there too, is, you
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know, you've been through this. Your your life is dedicated
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professionally to trauma work and yet you've had this major
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trauma. How is that?
2:57
How are you able to use your take your advice I guess is one
3:00
way to ask it. Yeah, yeah, No, not so well at
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the beginning. I I think that's one of the
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ironies of being an expert in a space.
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And one of the the burdens that we carry is the pressure that is
3:12
so easily put upon us to be like, I, I know the things to
3:15
do, I should be doing better. Why am I not using the tools?
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And luckily I have a great village around me who really
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reminded me to be gentle and to lead with self compassion and
3:27
care. And it this was my friends often
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joke like I became a trauma expert and a resilience expert
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largely. And I think a lot of people joke
3:37
about this in the field of psychotherapy of just to kind of
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unwind our own stuff. And my life's journey has been
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one where there's been a lot of these really complex moments
3:46
that this one was particularly hard though, because the driver
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had five previous D YS and she had made it very clear in her
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social media and in other legal proceedings that this was a way
3:59
that she was endeavoring to complete the act of suicide.
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And so it, it felt particularly complex and existentially
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unsettling for me, given what I have dedicated my life to, that
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I was the person who just happened to be in the wrong
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place at the wrong time that night.
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And so it's, it's been a, there's been a lot of grappling.
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On the other hand, I, I wrote it, I wrote a book.
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Well, I was in recovery on burnout and self compassion.
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And, you know, it's designed specifically for mental health
4:34
professionals. So I painted a purpose.
4:38
Nice. Well, you mentioned you have a
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village around you and I know from the, you know, from just
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meeting you the once, but knowing a little bit about you
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that your village is certainly nationwide, worldwide.
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I mean, you know, you've been, you know, on the BBC and you
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know, God knows the people you've affected and the ripple
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effect around the world. But where is your physical
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village? Where, Where are you from and
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where do you live now and all that?
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Yeah, and and we've a lot of crossover in our villages which
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is really cool. So I am was born in Milwaukee.
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I'm spend some time in Colorado, and I would say Kansas City is
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where I really consider my developmental home.
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And then when I was 18, I left Kansas City for Los Angeles and
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I have never left. So I'm still here now.
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I have a clinic based in Pasadena.
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And it's astounding to me that I've been here for gosh, that
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was 1998. That was a hot minute ago.
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And yeah, but it's, this is certainly home now.
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And my, my family moved out here from Kansas as well, so it's
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really lovely to have my people nearby.
5:44
That's cool. Did you move to LA at 18 to
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pursue academia or where? Where did?
5:51
You, I got a scholarship and a modeling contract and the, the
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modeling contract was definitely the, the focus until I, I
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modeling in the Midwest was very, very different than
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modeling in LA. And I had AII almost actually, I
6:11
had a cardiac event that almost killed me.
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I had a pretty, I developed pretty severe anorexia, which
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was, I started modeling at 13. And so it was just part of this
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was the, the Cape Moss heroin chic days.
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And after that happened, I exited the modeling arena and
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dove into academia with everything that I had, basically
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took my compulsive obsessiveness that I had to, you know, look
6:38
perfect and show well and turn that into education and research
6:44
and everything that I'm doing today.
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So it was an accidental, I don't know, like reward for something
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really terrifying to find this path forward.
6:58
Well, so you mentioned you, you had a modeling contract and a
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scholarship. And forgive my ignorance, those
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two things did not come as a bundled package, correct?
7:06
No. Well, they, they can if you're
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highly perfectionistic. And as you know, people perform
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for worth, which was definitely what I learned in my childhood
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was love came through the lens of worth.
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And in order to get that love, worth meant performance success.
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However, that showed up. So for me, those two made sense.
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And then eventually I found some sort of balance.
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I I think people in my village would disagree, but that's OK.
7:46
Yeah. Well, everybody I know who works
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in our field, not that I'm a medical or clinical, we're all,
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you know, the verge of burnout. None.
7:54
And this isn't something to brag about.
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It's just true. And we all talk, you know, back
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to the practice, what we preach and, you know, take our own
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advice. We're all telling each other all
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the time, you know, have set boundaries and, you know, only
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speak for me, but mine are not, I'm not very good at it.
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You know, I can set them all I want, but it's really the most
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important part is is to keep them because so much of what we
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do is people in crisis. And it's like, well, if my
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boundaries are going to be get in the way of somebody getting
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help when they need help, then I don't want to live with that.
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Yeah. And and we carry that.
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Out, yeah. Yeah.
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And, and I, I think that one of the things I really learned and
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the variations of recovery and survival that I've navigated
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personally is that I, I, I feel a responsibility because I have
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been able to come through so many times when the universe
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flattened me. And to give that back feels like
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a responsibility that I have to humanity.
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And so I know that for me, that's where my boundaries get
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very fluid is, you know, my gratitude for still breathing
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and wanting to help. And to to your point, though, I
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think that's one of the biggest call to actions for our
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industry, whether mental health, whoever you are, if you're in
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this field, and we're all contributors to this field,
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every life we touch is how do we model the, the reality of what
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it takes to do this work? Because we do really hard work.
9:24
We we sit in the biggest part, the biggest wombs of people's
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lives. Exactly.
9:32
Well, so you and you, the book you wrote while you're
9:35
recovering from this DUI hit and run.
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What? What's that book called?
9:38
Yeah, that is you, you, I think you got a micro version of an,
9:42
an early release version of the Empowerment Club, but that is
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this one is that my brain partnership toolbox that is
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literally for addiction, mental health and trauma treatment
9:53
professionals. And it's literally for what
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we're talking about. It's a actual workbook that is I
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I'm a neuroscientist as well as a psychologist.
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And so it's about bringing the brain into our own process of
10:08
doing the work that we do. Rather, whether we're in the
10:12
field of addiction, any trauma exposed work, mental health
10:15
support, how do we give ourselves permission to not
10:18
bypass ourselves, to allow ourselves to be in relationship
10:24
with burnout and actually heal that burnout at a neuroplastic
10:28
level? And what are a few things with,
10:31
you know, just some, you know, Cliffs Notes for people who are
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listening, who maybe don't have the book yet or, or, you know,
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driving and listening, they're like, I'm on the verge of
10:41
burnout. What are just a few things
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somebody could just sort of stop and and take a look at and maybe
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implement? Yeah, yeah.
10:47
Well, I think that one of the biggest pieces which seems so
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simple on the surface is really self compassion.
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The their little tidbit about self compassion is that it's a
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skill, it's not innate. We come into this world
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biologically wired to be compassionate towards one
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another, but for anybody who's struggling with self compassion
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to do that, it's OK. It's OK.
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And turn that energy inward. Unless that was taught and has
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been practiced, that can feel very foreign or our brain can
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even reject it and it can feel dangerous.
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So interesting that it's a skill and not an innate that has to be
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learned, but and we're wired to take care of each other, but not
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ourselves. And kind of kind of I think what
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you're alluding to about your childhood is, you know, this
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that probably wasn't in the vocabulary.
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Is that kind of what you're saying?
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You know, I had great parents and same like it wasn't like,
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you know, pat yourself on the back and go, you know, tell
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yourself it's OK. It's like they'll tell me that,
11:47
but not for me, not they weren't teaching me.
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And I don't think they chose not to.
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I don't think they had that, you know, the the insight to even do
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that. You know, I don't think that was
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even something they decided to ignore, just it wasn't around in
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terms of how they were raised, etcetera.
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Yeah, I think you and I are about the same age.
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And I and I, I really appreciate be that you brought in that
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generational piece. My parents were certainly not
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taught to give themselves grace or forgiveness.
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They were raised, my mom was raised in a farm in northern
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Michigan that if you didn't grow it or kill it, you didn't eat.
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So there wasn't a lot of spaciousness for they're there,
12:28
a little one. It was, you know, breaking the
12:31
ice in the morning so they would have something to brush their
12:34
teeth with. Completely different world.
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Yeah, I mean, my I would definitely came from a stiff
12:42
upper lip sweeping under the rug, but also very, very good.
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But that was just normal, you know.
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And, you know, a lot of get your ass in gear was, you know, that
12:54
was sort of the motto rather than it's going to be OK.
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But you know, you know, in in a strange way, my dad, who died
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almost exactly 8 years ago, was eight years ago, a few days ago.
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And he, you know, on some level, he, despite his kind of stiff
13:10
upper lip way of doing things in a lot of kind of do as I say,
13:14
not as I do on some level did have the faith that I was going
13:19
to be OK. I just don't think in a million
13:21
years he saw me getting sober is the way is the is the path.
13:27
But back to your to what you do in general.
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I have one thing I wanted to mention just so I don't forget
13:34
is the Goldie Hawn mind up that just that stood up stood out to
13:38
me. And I think you mentioned that
13:39
when I'm when I met you and heard you speak.
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But will you talk to us about that a little bit?
13:43
Yeah. So Goldie who?
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I think we all know who Goldie is.
13:46
She's a goddess amongst humans. She, she has a wonderful
13:49
organization that she launched right after 911 in response to
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the trauma that so many of the children in New York City were
13:58
living and navigating through. And it's a organization that now
14:02
is global. And I'm on their scientific
14:06
Advisory Board. It's on many boards that I'm
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very honored to sit on. And it's really about bringing
14:12
mindfulness into schools. And then and a part of what I do
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is my role as the trauma expert is how do we make sure that what
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we're bringing in and integrating into these schools
14:21
is trauma informed and is really aligning with the unique process
14:26
of each developing brain through the heartbreaking reality that
14:30
most kiddos these days are living through or have lived
14:35
through some type of chronic stress.
14:38
And so how do we have that both and experience of building the
14:41
resilience, which is a huge part of the work that mind up is
14:43
about as emotional literacy, teaching kiddos to quietly turn
14:47
inward with with self compassion and build self-awareness.
14:52
And then how do we also do that in such a way that when their
14:55
brains are feeling on fire or a little excitable or agitated or
14:59
even there's a lot of rage or fear, bringing in additional
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tools to calm those nervous systems down?
15:07
Very cool. Building the future generations.
15:10
Well, you know, I, I'm a, I'm a big meditator and I get these
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sort of affirmations that come after I've, I do Transcendental
15:18
Meditation. I've been doing it every day,
15:20
twice a day for three years. Well, thank you.
15:23
And I do it. But so I, I'm don't, you know,
15:26
it calms me down and gives me energy at the same time and I
15:29
just don't question it. Some days are better than
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others. I mean, there are times where
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I'm like, seemingly everything is going great in my world and
15:37
then I sit down to meditate and all I do is think about all the
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stuff I don't want to think about.
15:40
Then there are days when I'm like, Hey, everything's falling
15:42
apart and going pear shaped and I sit down and have the most
15:45
blissful Zen like experience ever.
15:46
So you never know, but but they're all the some of the
15:49
affirmations that come up after the meditation's over.
15:52
I mean, they're kind of repeat them, you know, every 15 or so
15:55
times where one of them is always this, this number about
15:58
if so and so this amount of people would just meditate, then
16:02
the world would be at peace. And there are there's apparently
16:05
some science around like when people are all meditating, then
16:08
it's just that it can't there, you can't help but to have peace
16:12
in that population. And I know there's been a lot of
16:15
effort in the last however many years to get not necessarily TN,
16:19
but kind of what you're talking about mindfulness and just to
16:21
teach people that these skills because they're these are
16:26
techniques and skills too. I mean, everything I've learned,
16:29
I've learned that it's all in there, but it's not innate for
16:32
us to go find it. Is that about accurate?
16:35
Yeah, yeah, well, and so I'm not a meditator.
16:38
I have tried, I've, I'm neurodivergent.
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I'm my, my ADHD is wild. And now with the brain injury,
16:45
I'm just like, oh, this is fascinating.
16:47
But to your point of what you just said, our system is
16:50
innately endowed with so many incredible biological skills
16:55
that haven't been fully tapped into.
16:57
And so one that I do a lot of teaching around and writing and
17:01
research around is what's called mindful touch, which is we have
17:06
these little receptors in our skin that I won't get too geeky,
17:09
but they're called C tactile fibers for anybody wants to
17:11
know. And when we gently, you know,
17:14
give ourselves a moving hug. So just fingertips for anybody's
17:17
listening audio, fingertips on the shoulders, moving your hands
17:20
down to your elbow and repeating that motion I called a moving
17:24
hug. That actual motion is giving the
17:29
brain more serotonin and oxytocin and dopamine and GABA.
17:35
So it's giving our system a dose of these feel good chemicals
17:38
that can shift our system in a really, really quick and very
17:43
powerful ways out of stress. Cortisol can lower blood
17:48
pressure, heart rate, increase heart rate variability to all
17:51
these incredible things within a couple minutes through just the
17:56
simple act of you think about self compassion again, giving
17:58
oneself A gentle, soothing hug. And it's, it's so powerful.
18:03
And then when we combine that with specific cognitive
18:07
interventions, and this is where a ton of my research, I have a
18:10
Research Foundation is focused on is how do we do the both and
18:14
of putting that mindful touch to work to address stress, to
18:18
address burnout, to heal trauma and to build resilience.
18:23
Because we are innately adowed with so many things.
18:26
We just haven't paid a lot of attention to it.
18:31
Well, thank you for just doing that, that exercise.
18:34
I, I remember we did this out in Ramona and just doing it
18:38
briefly, I could, I could feel it and it may, it may have been
18:41
that it reminded me of the exercise then, which is a bit
18:43
longer. But I mean, The thing is, I
18:46
mean, there's scientific proof for what you're talking about.
18:49
But so much of this stuff too, it's like being willing to do
18:53
these things that are there and not just trying to think our way
18:56
out of everything, you know? Yeah, well, our thinking brain
19:00
is pretty new to the game. It's only been around 30 to
19:04
70,000 years, depending on which scientists you take a look at.
19:09
Whereas like our amygdala, which is fight, flight, freeze, fawn,
19:14
300 million years. That brain part came on board
19:17
before the dinosaurs. We can't think our way through
19:20
it. We just can't.
19:23
That is a very interesting way to put it because, you know, I,
19:27
I talked to people in different ways in stages of recovery who
19:32
are trying to out think and that that's, and it's typically not
19:37
always, but sometimes people who are very scientific that think
19:40
they can think their way or outsmart.
19:43
You know, I'm like, in the case I'm talking about here are the
19:45
drugs and alcohol, you know, and to, to have that in my, you
19:49
know, in my toolbox would be very helpful for people like
19:52
that. Use it.
19:55
It's not owned by anybody. It's just science.
19:57
Yeah, yeah. But I find it to be incredibly
20:00
powerful when my own brains looping and I'm trying to think
20:03
my way through and for all the all the patients I walk
20:06
alongside. Our brain wants to keep us
20:09
alive. And the part of our brain that's
20:12
in charge of that doesn't have thought, right.
20:18
For addiction, the part of our brain that is in charge of
20:20
making sure we don't feel pain, guess what?
20:22
Same part of the brain. Right.
20:26
Wow, so trauma is your focus, Fair to say.
20:33
Yeah, trauma and grief and chronic pain illness, but I
20:37
mean, all those things have trauma, yeah.
20:40
OK, I trauma we hear griefs to to me and I think to a lot of
20:47
people just sounds like part of the just being alive.
20:50
You know, there's going to be grief and but trauma, while I
20:56
agree that everybody's had some form of trauma, it doesn't it
21:01
doesn't seem like it's much. It doesn't seem like it's just
21:04
kind of to use like innate and being part of being the human
21:07
experience the way grief is. Can you talk a little bit about
21:10
the differences, especially between we hear about big T
21:13
trauma, lower T lowercase T trauma and just kind of I feel
21:18
like the word it's not a buzzword, it's beyond that.
21:21
But but in in the treatment world, it gets thrown around a
21:23
lot. And I mean, I'm sure I've been
21:25
guilty of misusing trauma informed, trauma focused.
21:28
Could you do like a quick, you know, just a little session on
21:33
on a few definitions, for lack of a better word?
21:36
Yeah. And I'm, I, I really take the
21:39
idea of big T versus small T trauma off the table.
21:43
But for the audience, big T trauma can, is usually
21:47
colloquial leak, referring to those things that we would all
21:50
agree is a horrifying trauma, you know, tear like what
21:55
happened to my, me with a car accident, a broken neck.
21:57
That's, that's, that's traumatic, you know, being
22:01
bombed in a war or living through a natural disaster, The
22:05
fires that we had here in California, whereas small tree
22:08
traumas are conceptualized, again, not through me, but in
22:12
the common language as being these other traumas that people
22:17
witness that just don't have the shock and awe.
22:21
And the literature And in the research that we've been doing
22:24
for the past 1020 years, what we've seen in terms of the
22:28
neurobiology is that our amygdala, which is the core
22:31
foundational part of our brain that's designed to keep us
22:33
alive. That's the 300 million year old
22:35
brain part operates with what we call 3 core values.
22:39
And those values are first and foremost, am I safe?
22:43
The second value is do I belong, has connection, lovability,
22:48
safety, having a village. And then the third value is, do
22:52
I have agency or choice? Can I make something happen in a
22:56
given moment? And what we see in the work that
23:00
we've been doing with our patients and in the research is
23:03
that a trauma really can be any times, any time one of those
23:07
core values is deeply threatened.
23:10
And the brain feels and encodes an experience of being
23:14
critically unsafe, real or perceived.
23:18
The experience of being rejected can for some people be a trauma
23:22
if it's, you know, ostracization from one's community, being
23:26
kicked out of the family, disowned those that can be
23:30
deeply traumatic because that's a threat to the amygdala score
23:33
value of belonging or being completely helpless and unable
23:39
to make change in one's life. That can.
23:42
Those experiences where that develops can also be very
23:45
traumatic. And so as you look at the new
23:48
lens of narrow biology and what we're seeing, trauma is how the
23:53
brain is perceiving direct threat and encoding if we
23:58
survive that threat, whatever it was that helped us survive.
24:03
And so it pays attention to what's the threat and how are we
24:07
still alive. And those are the things that
24:11
become the neuro pathways going forward, whether they be
24:15
vigilance around possible future threat or how is our brain
24:20
building a predictive pattern towards ensuring survival.
24:26
And are different is the the treatment?
24:29
Does the treatment of trauma depend more on the person or the
24:35
type of trauma? Both.
24:37
Does that make sense? OK.
24:39
Yeah, I think each, because, I mean, if you just think about
24:42
those 3 core values, if it's a threat to safety, a specific
24:48
type of treatment might be really, really helpful.
24:51
But if it's a threat to attachment or belonging, then
24:56
we're going to want to have a treatment that is more
24:59
reparative in terms of attachment and connection and
25:02
rapport and healthy relationships versus somebody
25:06
who has learned helplessness after encoding a sequence of
25:10
experiences of feeling completely powerless.
25:13
So growing up in a household with a lot of rage as a child
25:16
where they can't make change. So each, you know, our brains
25:21
are beautiful snowflakes for each of us.
25:24
I mean, the nice thing about a snowflake is it's still just
25:26
frozen water. And so we can understand a lot
25:30
about the underlying neurobiology and tailor
25:32
interventions. And that's what trauma Informed
25:33
is really focusing on is how are we tailoring our interventions.
25:37
And my model is the neuro triad model, which is designed
25:40
specifically to teach clinicians, practitioners to
25:44
understand the nuances of these different experiences on how
25:47
one's brain has encoded and what the encoding of the trauma is
25:52
requesting in terms of treatment and how do we tailor
25:55
interventions to that. Interesting.
25:59
And so are you in your practice, are you more working with
26:04
individual patients or are you teaching strictly or you tell
26:08
us, I mean who, who are you? Who are you seeing?
26:11
Yeah, both. I have a clinic here in Los
26:13
Angeles. So I have an incredible team of
26:15
clinicians and each clinician is specialized in an area.
26:20
So I have one clinician who's an ADHD, anxiety, OCD specialist.
26:24
I have a clinician who's attachment, trauma, addiction,
26:28
substance use and abuse specialist.
26:30
I have a chronic pain grief specialist, so on and so forth.
26:34
And then everybody's trained in the neurobiology.
26:37
So we do a lot of treatment. And then we also, like I shared,
26:41
we do a lot of research and then I speak all over the world.
26:44
I'm also a writer, clearly. So a couple new books coming out
26:48
pretty soon here. So we, we, we wear a lot of
26:51
hats. I think the through line of all
26:54
of the work that we do is how do we bring the science into
26:59
people's lives? Because the idea of
27:02
understanding that we can't think our way through trauma
27:05
because the part of our brain that has the trauma doesn't
27:07
speak whatever language we're thinking through, that reduces
27:11
shame for people. And so if we just can bring in
27:14
the science, Shane goes down, opportunity goes up.
27:19
Gotcha. And grief, Back to grief.
27:23
What what how are how are grief and trauma similar and how are
27:27
they different? And what are the sort of
27:29
misconceptions? Yeah.
27:31
You know, I was thinking of what you'd said earlier about.
27:33
Yeah, grief is a part of life. I mean that nobody gets out of
27:36
here alive, as we well know. And by the same token, our
27:42
society that we live in right now has is terrible at death.
27:46
I mean, we have a billion dollar industries focused on staying
27:49
young forever, whereas we go back to the 1600s.
27:54
Death really was a part of life. And so society today doesn't
27:59
have the language or the skills to navigate life and loss in a
28:03
successful way. So a lot of what should be
28:07
normal death can feel very isolating, alienating, which can
28:12
then become traumatic. So grief inherently is a
28:15
learning process. When we have a natural loss of
28:21
some type that is not traumatic, our brain goes through a journey
28:25
of learning. It has to learn that what used
28:27
to be here no longer is. And Doctor Mary Frances
28:30
O'Connor, who's a friend and colleague, is one of the world's
28:33
foremost experts in the neuroscience of grief.
28:36
And that's really what she has over the past 25 years figured
28:39
out is grief is about learning because the brain doesn't know.
28:44
It takes time to have the update that my dog's no longer going to
28:48
greet me when I come in the door.
28:49
If somebody loses a dog or if somebody gets a divorce, their
28:53
brain takes time to get updated to the fact that the person that
28:57
they were with for two years, five years, 20 years is no
29:01
longer same thing walking in that door.
29:06
So healthy grief isn't is a learning process and it's it's
29:09
messy and it's hard and it's viciously painful.
29:13
Traumatic grief is when grief gets paralyzed and the brain is
29:17
not able to integrate and learn and move forward.
29:21
And then that can cause a whole host of other problems.
29:24
OK, got it. And what do you think about when
29:28
you hear about somebody in the addiction space or, you know,
29:33
somebody to try in recovery who's talked about grieving the
29:38
substance? Is that something that you
29:41
acknowledge? What are your thoughts on that?
29:43
OK, Yeah. I mean, do you, what do you
29:44
think? What?
29:45
Do you think I don't know? I mean, I think I said I went
29:48
through a grieving process, but I don't know if I've just like,
29:51
thought that was what I should say.
29:53
I'm not saying I don't believe in it or anything.
29:55
I, I, I, yeah. Because because it's basically
29:58
you're, you're the same point. I had to have my learn that that
30:02
thing was not waiting for me not only when I got home, but when I
30:05
woke up, you know? And so, yeah, there it is.
30:08
Yeah. So I do believe it.
30:09
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, the the purpose of
30:12
a substance is to turn the volume down on pain and then our
30:18
brain builds, and I mean think it was a math equation.
30:22
The the brain builds a math equation that goes, I'm
30:24
anticipating pain, I'm not going to go use the substance.
30:27
And then the brain rewires itself neurochemically to just
30:29
go substance. And then all of our chemicals
30:32
create a new normal towards substance.
30:35
If we dial it all the way back to why somebody usually starts
30:38
using to be avoidance of pain, acceptance and different social
30:42
circle, it goes back to the core values really safety, belonging
30:45
and agency. Yeah, I mean, as you were
30:48
listing those, I was like, huh, All right.
30:50
I knew I had some, you know, causes and conditions, but you
30:53
know, it's it's I mean, and I mean, I've, you know, this is
30:56
this is Gabarmate who said that trauma is the real gateway drug.
31:01
Is that is that his quote? Yeah, yeah.
31:06
And that's why I think that I wanted to ask about the even,
31:08
you know, even though maybe that's not something, I don't
31:11
even know if it's like an official designation, the little
31:14
T and in the uppercase and lowercase T trauma, but that
31:18
everybody's got something. And it's kind of and you know, I
31:22
know that I come from more of the substance use background,
31:26
but I just everybody I see in, you know, in the rooms and
31:32
treatment, it's just, there's always something nobody, just.
31:37
Yeah. Well, and I, I, you got to cover
31:39
up something. And what the research highlights
31:41
be is that the, the, the research supports what you just
31:46
said. And the differential is
31:49
literally for many people, one person who shows up and full
31:56
core press cares for somebody. And the presence of one person
32:00
in a child's life can be the transformative action from
32:05
addiction to not, from trauma to not.
32:08
And when we know that so many people have a, you know, many
32:14
adverse childhood experiences with each loading of an adverse
32:18
childhood experience for your listeners who are not familiar,
32:20
you can go and take a quiz on how many you have.
32:24
And there's an entire thing called know your number.
32:27
Each each experience builds on the other ones and creates more
32:31
and more vulnerability until this kind of Chung and tongue in
32:34
cheek. But there's a straw that breaks
32:35
the camel's back. There's a straw that breaks the
32:37
amygdala's back. And when that happens, that
32:41
opens up any of us to greater vulnerability or mental health
32:47
concerns. And I, I lived with PTSD from
32:50
2009 to 2013. After the car accident, I
32:54
definitely skated back on those diagnostic terms.
33:02
I knew how to handle it better, even being an expert.
33:05
I was an expert in 2009, I was widowed.
33:08
My, I shared this to Ramona. My, my partner died of an
33:11
accidental overdose a week before a wedding.
33:13
And I'm the one who found him and I couldn't save him.
33:16
And you know the reason I share that it doesn't matter how much
33:20
we know if our brain is vulnerable, we can, we can
33:24
develop trauma. And that's where big T and small
33:27
T for me. I just kind of shove them aside
33:29
because I'm like, it's really about vulnerability.
33:34
Which circles us back to what you were saying earlier.
33:36
Are we using our tools? Yeah, thank you for sharing that
33:41
piece, too. I didn't, you know, I didn't
33:43
know what was going to come up here, what was appropriate.
33:46
But yeah, I mean, that's but that's part of your story.
33:48
I mean, just holding on to that does nothing but fester, right?
33:54
Yeah. What do you what do people in
33:58
your position talk to people with traumatic experiences about
34:02
the concept of forgiveness? You know, we, we start with
34:09
coming home to self. That's, that's always the
34:14
gateway conversation of are there things that a survivor is
34:21
holding themselves accountable for that is unfair, unkind,
34:28
unjust, that it was outside their control.
34:34
And then when we look towards the people who've survived
34:36
trauma, especially this type of trauma where there's
34:38
perpetrators, people who've caused harm.
34:40
And like the young woman who hit me, right, like she was
34:43
intentionally trying to not just take her own life, but to harm
34:47
somebody else. That was her goal.
34:50
And, and those types of perspectives, I can use myself
34:54
as a case study or I've worked with so many different
34:56
individuals. Forgiveness is not so it's not
34:59
a, it's not a mandate, it's not a requirement.
35:02
It's a does it feel possible or viable?
35:08
And if not, that's OK. That said, is there a way that
35:13
we can work with the resentment, the rage, the feeling out of
35:17
control? Because when somebody
35:18
perpetrates upon us, when we're put in that victim role, being
35:23
out of control is huge. And that's terrifying for our
35:26
brain. And so how can we give even
35:29
permission to somebody, say, for them to you say, and to own that
35:33
they're, they've been a victim and our society has bypassed
35:36
victimhood even because it just doesn't feel good.
35:41
It's like, well, it's OK to be a victim when you've been a
35:43
victim. Can there be forgiveness for
35:48
that? Yeah.
35:50
And forgiving oneself, of course, you know, in these big,
35:57
they're cases where people very publicly over time, forgiving
36:01
somebody for, you know, Mass, whatever, some, some horrid,
36:05
something horrific. And I mean, I never, I could
36:08
never understand that. And then I went through a
36:13
process of forgiveness for injustice is real or imagined,
36:17
which nothing like that and nothing like you've been
36:19
through. And so when I'm talking to
36:22
people in in our world, in my own personal recovery world,
36:27
yeah, I often talk about the powerful process that was for
36:31
me. But I'm also want to be careful
36:33
to not assume that somebody's going to be able to forget, like
36:38
you assume that somebody be able to forgive a drunk driver trying
36:40
to kill herself. And you at the same time.
36:42
I just wonder about that in terms of trauma in general.
36:46
And you just explained it very eloquently, so thank you.
36:49
Yeah, yeah. And it's AI think it's a both
36:50
end and, and to speaking to being in this field.
36:55
One of the things that we see in the research that we're doing,
36:58
we do a lot of work on what we call clinician bypass and
37:00
survivor bypass is that we give a lot of forgiveness and grace
37:06
because we can see the bigger meta picture of why somebody is
37:10
causing us harm. And that's often times where our
37:13
blurry, our boundaries start to get blurry again.
37:17
And so that's where forgiveness can in some ways become toxic
37:20
because it becomes a bypass of saying it's not OK for somebody
37:25
to cause me harm. And then it's the both and of
37:30
and I can see why they're doing it.
37:31
I don't have to hold rage. I don't have to have resentment
37:36
or anger. And I can learn from this and
37:40
hold my boundary. Now my situation is different.
37:43
But for somebody who's having an an relationship with somebody
37:47
that's toxic and that person keeps running over their
37:49
boundaries or, you know, being verbally abusive or emotionally
37:52
abusive, it's OK to say I can see why they're behaving the way
37:56
they're doing. I don't.
37:57
And I don't have to hold all the toxic emotions.
37:59
I don't have to forgive them. But I can hold my boundary, or I
38:05
can forgive them and still hold my boundary.
38:07
Either or. Right, right.
38:09
Forgive. And and just because I forgive
38:11
somebody doesn't mean I have to like, let it happen again or.
38:14
Yeah, and that's a forget. Part.
38:17
People think it's like if I forgive, I'm letting it go and
38:20
it's like, no, no, no. You can.
38:21
You can remember your brain learn, you can remember and
38:25
forgive. That's OK.
38:26
Right, Yeah, when I hear forgive and forget, that's when I the
38:29
forgive part, that just that's for me, you know, in my own
38:33
mental health and and serenity. And but the forget part, I'm not
38:38
necessarily going to do that. Not like I'm going to hold on to
38:41
it and be watching you, but just I don't need that to happen
38:43
again. I didn't mean I want that to
38:45
happen again, but I just don't want to keep reliving it like
38:48
you said with in terms of resentments like that replay.
38:51
Yeah. And that's more of the vigilant
38:52
where the amygdala is still driving the show a little bit.
38:57
So that's part of the trauma work or part of the the clinical
39:01
work of how are we helping somebody create that space.
39:06
What is it like for you when you especially in in your most in
39:11
the, the accident, in the hit and run for you?
39:15
Do you find when you need your own help?
39:18
Do you go directly to people that you've been working with a
39:20
long time? Or do you feel like you need to
39:21
go to somebody who's a little bit more kind of anonymous, for
39:24
lack of a better word? Yeah, I, I'm not a good use case
39:27
for this because I, I, I am a trainer.
39:30
And so I've trained thousands and thousands of people, not
39:34
just in America, all over the world.
39:37
So when, when the accident happened, I, I was in this
39:39
really bizarre push pull of most, almost all of my mental
39:43
health relationships are dual relationships as I know
39:48
everybody professionally, most people I've trained in some way
39:51
shape or form or done research with or something.
39:55
So for me, I really had to work hard to find a safe person who I
40:03
had no idea who I was. And that was also something that
40:05
I wanted because I wanted that opportunity.
40:08
To not have the work influenced by my professional sphere.
40:12
And so it did took some time, but when it's not something
40:15
acutely traumatic like that, I'm, I'm very happy to, you
40:20
know, my village is amazing. And, you know, I think it's
40:22
great to have a lot of psychologists, psychotherapists,
40:26
coaches, people on, you know, in the rolodeck and just failed to
40:31
pick up the phone and say this is what this is what's going on.
40:33
It's really hard. I hear you that, but that's
40:37
interesting because I, you know, we, we, we know, we kind of
40:41
know, especially you, but we know, we know who to call for
40:46
other people, you know, but when it comes to us, sometimes it
40:49
gets a little bit, it's a little bit more difficult.
40:51
So and scary just yeah. Scary because it's hard to in
40:56
this field as a professional to open up to another professional
41:00
and say here here's my dark underbelly and trust that are
41:07
they going to really protect that and honor it or might
41:12
something trickle out or what does it mean about me that I'm
41:16
struggling? And I think that's one of the
41:18
biggest questions that we do it. We do a lot of work.
41:20
Very honored in my clinic to be the providers for
41:23
psychotherapist. And that's one of the biggest
41:27
things that we hear from people is that sense of how can I, it's
41:32
kind of inner judgement of can I honestly sit across from a
41:35
client and help them if I'm struggling as a human?
41:40
And the answer is yeah. And we know that.
41:43
Yeah, yeah, it's reminded me of actually a, a story I heard with
41:48
a a woman. This was an early COVID.
41:50
This was a meeting on Zoom that I just was listening to, just
41:53
kind of checking a box. It's like hitting golf balls.
41:55
And I was like, OK, I'm not really paying that much
41:57
attention, but I'm but I'm but I'm do I'm on a meeting.
42:00
This counts. And I remember that this woman,
42:03
she said, you know, she was probably 5-6 months into into
42:06
COVID and she had lost her yoga studio and was struggling
42:11
financially. But her daughter, who was 1617
42:16
in high school was going through her own stuff.
42:19
And I just remember, I don't, I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but she
42:22
just said, you know, I've got to realize that I, I have you, my
42:26
recovery community, I've, you know, in this case, you have
42:28
your medical community to help me with that.
42:31
I've got to be strong for my daughter.
42:34
She doesn't need to know all the stuff going on with me right
42:36
now. The same way like, you know,
42:38
your patients and our clients don't need to know what's going
42:41
on with me or you. We got, we've got people to help
42:43
us with that, but we got to be able to be professional and be
42:46
there for our loved ones and our, and you know,
42:48
professionally. I hope that made sense.
42:51
Yeah, no, I mean beautifully, beautifully shared.
42:53
And the reality is, as soon as we stop being human, we're no
42:56
longer going to be effective in the work that we do.
42:59
So we have. We have to carve out that
43:00
precious special space for our humanity and honor it.
43:06
Absolutely. And even, you know, in in the
43:08
case of your accident, the hit and run, I mean, you were forced
43:12
to get help for that. But in general, it sounds like
43:15
you have over the years, you know, sought your own therapy
43:19
and everything else. And it's kind of like we, we're
43:21
always talking to clients, patients.
43:27
We got to always try to put it in the in the first person.
43:30
I got to take care of myself first or I'm no good to you or
43:32
anybody else in the analogy with the flight attendant in the
43:36
oxygen mask and you know, and the, but yet I'm guilty.
43:40
And this goes back to the burnout at the beginning of the
43:41
conversation. I am guilty of the burnout part
43:45
and living on that edge of just kind of running too hard when
43:48
I'm but all day long. I mean, I guess I'm just sort of
43:51
doing what my dad told me. Do as I say, not as I do a
43:53
little bit when I need to. Take my own advice and take care
43:58
of myself so I can be the best version of myself for others,
44:00
you know? And I'm I don't resonate at all
44:02
being a woman who wrote a book on burnout while in a hyperbaric
44:06
oxygen chamber getting treatment.
44:08
So I. Mean, you know I.
44:11
I mean, I'm definitely, you know, pot and kettle.
44:14
And it's it's a rewiring and part of that awareness, like
44:19
what you just said is like my dad sounds very similar to your
44:22
dad and is having that space to be like, OK, that's my dad's
44:26
predictive pattern that I learned to travel in.
44:31
How do I get myself into a new pattern?
44:34
Yeah, for you met Transcendental Meditation twice, twice a day.
44:38
And that's huge. Like I'm, I'm a Walker, but if I
44:41
don't walk, that's my meditative space.
44:43
If I don't walk, I know my entire nervous system starts to
44:46
do a slow drift and to goodness knows what.
44:49
Like what are our patterns that we give ourselves permission
44:52
for? But also not shaming us for the
44:53
moments where we know we're running really hard and fast,
44:57
but getting curious about what's the Sprint about.
45:03
Yeah, and we're lucky to be working in this field, you know,
45:06
and I mean, we do different things, but I'm, I'm lucky I get
45:09
to meet people like you and have people like you on our podcast.
45:13
Well, this seems like a good place to wrap it up.
45:16
And we we did end up kind of coming back full circle.
45:18
So always ask our guests, you know, just how do, how do people
45:21
find you? So we have a ton of free
45:25
resources. We're incredibly sure aware.
45:27
One of my guiding mottos is psychotherapy as a privilege and
45:30
mental health as a human right. And so for anybody, wherever you
45:33
are in the world, I have a YouTube channel.
45:36
It's NIH and World Health org approved.
45:39
So it says this is actually a vetted source for data, which
45:44
these days is very important to me.
45:46
Instagram, Facebook, all that good stuff.
45:48
If you go to Doctor Kate truitt.com, there's a huge free
45:52
resources page where we have grief workbooks, we have
45:57
neuroplasticity workbooks. We have all sorts of different
46:00
tools that are designed not just for clinicians, but also for any
46:04
of us who are on our own journey.
46:05
And as humans, we all are on a journey.
46:08
And they're not just trauma focused, they're also about
46:10
personal empowerment. And then as I shared, I'm, I'm a
46:14
writer of a number of books to go on Amazon.
46:16
Just plug my name and you'll see my books.
46:18
The one that just that we're talking about the Brain
46:20
Partnership toolbox. It's, I think it's not.
46:22
I put it up for $0.99 on Kindle or if you have Kendall
46:25
Unlimited, it's free. That's very intentional.
46:27
And then if you buy the paper copy, it goes back into the
46:30
research specific to Burnout for Clinician.
46:33
So if you choose to purchase, I just know that all those dollars
46:36
are going right back into the research to help our field.
46:39
And so and if they want, everybody's in LA and they would
46:41
like to work with my team at Doctor druitt.com.
46:45
That's where you'll find. Us there's a lot going.
46:47
On. Well, it's a good thing I didn't
46:50
try to introduce that on the front end because I would have
46:53
been stumbling and fumbling. Well, thank you so, so much.
46:57
It's great to see you again. I can't wait to see you again
46:59
IRL as the kids say, but awesome Doctor Kate Truitt.
47:04
Thank you, Kate. Thank you, Bee.
47:05
It's great to see you too. I'll talk soon.
47:07
Awesome. If you liked what you heard
47:09
today or just want to know more, give us a call on 9196708119 or
47:15
visit us at newwatersrecovery.com.
47:18
Thank you.