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Turning Point Ep. 3 "Fight, Flight, Freeze....Faith" · Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

0:22
SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music Podcast.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: My name is Aaron.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, and thank you guys so much for coming back for another week.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: This is episode number three of the Turning Point series.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about fight, fight, and freeze, and then faith.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: The Turning Point series is a 10-episode series.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: This series, we are not emphasizing the drama.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: We are not sensationalizing the trauma that people experience.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: This is typically made up of guest interviews where we talk about people's stories because we all have a story, but it's what happens after the climax of that story that really determines the person we are or the person we are going to become.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: This series is highlighting and emphasizing and embracing the turning point in people's lives.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: The point in time where the tide started to turn and shift and things started to look up different, better, or maybe a whole new outlook.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: We're talking to people that have had significant life changes, the loss of a child, the loss of a job, the loss of a spouse, whatever that is, traumatic events, whatever it is, we're talking to them, we're hearing their stories, and then we talk about the turning point of their life and the way things got better.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: As you know, everything on this podcast is designed to be entertaining, educational, or provide value.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: And that's what this series is all about.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, like I said, tonight's episode is going to be on fight, flight, freeze, and faith and the impact that that has on us as human beings and why we are impacted so deeply when certain things happen.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: When I was considering a guest for tonight's show, I was trying to find somebody who can talk about this, somebody who is a subject matter, maybe not expert, but at least has been through the process.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: We can talk about it from a clinical point of view, which is what I considered, but I really wanted to find somebody who has been there in the trenches, done it, and came out on the other side.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: And the more I thought about it, the more I thought that tonight's episode is an interview with me.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: This is an episode where I'm going to talk through this fight, fight, freeze, and faith portion because I believe that I'm qualified.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm qualified based on my experiences, based on where I was three, four years ago, based on where I've been for the previous 25 years, and then where I am today.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Even just listening to this podcast.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: If you go back to episode number one and listen to episode number one, and then slowly transition to this final episode, I think episode number 136, you will see the transformation, the birth from the cocoon, if you will, has given birth from a fight, flight, and free state into a freeing little butterfly.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: That's what I am.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm a fragile little butterfly in this new world.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: And that is what I want to talk about tonight.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: If you guys are longtime listeners of the show, tonight you're gonna hear some of my past situations.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna know some of these subject matters.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: But I think that is very, very important because it's those past things, those past traumas, those past experiences that I've had that make me qualified to discuss where I was versus where I am.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: It's the therapy sessions, it's the help, it's the faith, it's the family, it's the friends, it's this podcast that has helped develop me into the human that I am today.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: And I am not out of the woods yet.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't have this figured out like I say on most of my podcasts.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm figuring this out with you, with me, with my family.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: We're working through this together.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: But at least I can look back in my rear view mirror and see what yesteryear used to look like.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: And at one point I would tell you that my rear view mirror was larger than my windshield.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: That is no longer the case.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: That is a critical distinction in my journey.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: What is fight, flight, and freeze?
4:14
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about those.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: The human brain is very complex.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: And we almost have two brains.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: We have a survival brain and we have a everyday brain, right?
4:27
SPEAKER_00: The survival brain, its job is to keep us alive.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Its job is to keep us upright, walking, determining threats, responding to critical things.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: The everyday brain, that's the one that keeps us fed, keeps us comfortable, processes things at a slower rate, and just keeps us working on the day-to-day, keeps us living.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: If we didn't have that reptilian, that survival brain, when a threat came up, by the time we slowly processed it, and by the time we analyzed whether this house fire was really something I needed to run from or not, we might be burned up and dead.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: And likewise, if all we had was the reptilian brain, the one that thinks fast, the one that keeps us from getting hurt, the one that senses danger.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: If all we had was that reptilian brain and not an everyday brain, then we would constantly be on edge.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: We would constantly be hypervigilant, we'd be looking for threats, we would think the world was going to kill us.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: We would always be responding to a threat, whether it was real, perceived in a healthy human being, the reptilian brain and the everyday brain, they trade off.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: They help each other out, they back each other up.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: When there's a threat, the reptilian brain kicks in, saves our bacon, and the human brain analyzes what really occurred.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: You step out in front of traffic, they honk, your reptilian brain makes you jump back on the curb, your everyday brain takes over and says, Man, I almost got hit by a car, I should be more careful next time.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: That is how the two interact on a daily basis.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: But what does this have to do with fight, flight, and freeze?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, in a situation where the reptilian brain is working too hard and too much, that is where we get stuck in this fight, flight, and freeze state.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: And let me break those down for you.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: When we see a threat in front of us, and let's take a bad guy in a parking lot, you're walking across the parking lot at night, and somebody steps out from behind a car.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Immediately our hackles go up.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: We are aware of our surroundings, we see this person, and we start sizing this person up.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: That is your reptilian brain engaging and saying, we need to pay attention to whatever is in front of us right now.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Now, we may determine that I am bigger and badder than that threat, and I am willing to fight it.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: So there is your fight state.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Based on the circumstances in front of me, I feel like I am an equal opponent to whatever the threat is, and I am willing to take it on, and I'm willing to go to that threat and challenge it.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: That is fight.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: Now, that same threat steps out, and there's three of them.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: They have guns, they're dressed in masks, and it's a dark parking lot nearby yourself.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: This is a situation where you might think, okay, one-on-one, I might be able to take them, but not three on one.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the best interaction and best course of action for me would be to run and to flee the area.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: That is the flight.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: But what about freeze?
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Freeze comes in a couple of different ways.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Freeze can come because you are faced with those same three bad guys in the parking lot, and one of them shoots a gun towards you, shoots a round towards you, nearly misses you.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: Now, your nervous system is going to respond to this.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: And when it does, a couple things can happen.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Your body is telling you to run, but you might not be able to because your nervous system is overloaded and you might freeze.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: You could have a vagal nerve response, you could just shut down and freeze right there in place and not move.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: In the law enforcement world, we'll call this condition black.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: There's different color codes of conditions or mental awareness in law enforcement.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: You have white, means you're completely unaware of your surroundings.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: You have yellow, which means you're alert and aware of your surroundings.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: You have red, which means you are ready to fight and you are taken on the threat.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: And then you have black, which means you're completely overloaded and you're helpless and you cower and you don't respond at all.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: It's not that you're being cowardly, it's that your nervous system shuts down and you literally play possum.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: Possums have that name because of playing possum, because that is their response to it.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: That's their freeze.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: A fainting goat, when you scare it, it faints.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: That is its natural reaction is to faint because of this part of the nervous system and the part of the way the brain works.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: That is one way to freeze.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: The other way to freeze is what I referred to a minute ago.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: When I said, let's pretend your reptilian brain is working constantly.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: It is on overload.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Your everyday brain doesn't even get a chance to come to the party, but your reptilian brain never shuts off.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: And that is a state that I found myself in in law enforcement, and I think a lot of my peers in law enforcement do as well.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: It's the state where we always think the world is out to get us, where we believe that there's a threat behind every door, there's a reason to be scared, there is a reason to be triggered, there is a reason to protect yourself all the time.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Now, imagine the fire alarm constantly ringing, but there's no fire.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: There's a thing in your brain called the amegula.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: The amegula is a little part of your brain that is basically the fire alarm.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: It's the watchdog.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: It's the when somebody pulls up in the driveway, it barks to alert you that there's a threat or maybe somebody out there.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: It's the fire alarm that doesn't stop ringing whenever there may or may not be a fire.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Now picture it like this: the dog is constantly barking and it never stops, constantly barking and barking and barking inside my head.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Or that fire alarm is ringing, ringing and ringing, and there is no fire.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: But I don't slow myself down and think, okay, there's no threat outside, and there's no real fire, so I just need to relax.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm constantly responding.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm running, I'm running, I'm running against that brick wall all the time inside my brain, responding to that fire, looking for that threat, peeking around the corner, whatever it may be, and there's never a real threat there.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: After a while, that becomes exhausting.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: And after a while, that starts to wear you down and you become that hyper-vigilant state because you're always looking for that threat.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: This is another way to describe the freeze state.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: You are stuck in that fight and flight mode.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: You're constantly analyzing whether or not there is a real or perceived threat and should you respond to it.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: So that is what fight, flight, and freeze is all about.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Now, faith.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: How does faith come into this?
11:19
SPEAKER_00: It's not a part of the brain.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: But you're going to hear about faith in a few minutes, and you're going to hear about what an important part that was in my journey.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Now, since we've explained fight, flight, and freeze, we've spoken about the reptilian brain, we've spoken about the everyday brain.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk a little bit about my story.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: The first time I experienced anything in the fight, flight, freeze nervous system response stage was when I was 13 years old.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: When I was 13 years old, I was on a ride-along with the police department.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: I was an explorer, which is part of the Boy Scouts of America.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: And during that call, we got a dead body call.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: That was the first death investigation that I participated in.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: That was the first of many because I ended my career as a homicide detective.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: But during that first call, on the way to the call, as a 13-year-old child who has never seen anything like this before, except on television and in movies, my mind was racing.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: The anxiety was up.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: I was wondering what it was going to be like.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: I was scared.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know if I should get out of the car.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: What do I do?
12:23
SPEAKER_00: What's a dead body really going to look like?
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Will there be maggots?
12:26
SPEAKER_00: All this stuff is going on inside my head.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: When we arrive at the scene and I approach the body, which had been laying outside for about seven months, instantly there was silence.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: There was calm.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: There was no response.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: I gloved up.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: I helped the officer palpate the body and bag the body and carry the body up the hill.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: There was no, all that anxiety, all that anticipation, all that anticipatory stress that I experienced on the way to the call was gone.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't recognize or realize why I flatlined.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: Why did my emotions and feelings go away?
13:02
SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand it.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until years later that I recognized those same feelings as a police officer.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: When I would arrive at a high stress call, or I would see something traumatic, or somebody would die in my arms, it wasn't that all that feelings that I had prior would go away and I was flat and numb and cold.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: It's these repeated exposures and experiences, these near-death experiences, whether it's yourself near death or somebody else near death, or maybe it's a car crash, or maybe it is uh somebody yelling at you at work or your boss or whatever it is.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to minimize.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: Mine were extreme based on what I did.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: But we have medics out there, we have firefighters, we have military people, we have people in the office place in toxic work environments, we have domestic violence survivors.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, to highlight something that a lot of people can wrap their mind around, to get it out of my world, but maybe into your world or world you recognize is that domestic violence situation.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: You have that domestic violence suspect and the domestic violence victim.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: And every day when the suspect comes home, he beats up on the victim.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're that victim.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're that suspect.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: But that domestic violence victim lives in such a hyper-vigilant state that every time the person pulls up in the driveway or the person walks in the door or things just aren't exactly right and they walk on eggshells, they're constantly think they're going to get beat.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: And whether the threat is real or perceived, they're constantly on guard.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: They're constantly exhausted because they are ready to defend themselves or they are ready to run and hide.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: That is an example that a lot of people unfortunately can understand when I talk about this hypervigilance and the fight, flight, and free state.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: They are frozen in fear of that offender beating them up one more time, whether the person's going to or not.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't even have to be the offender that drives up in the driveway.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: It could be Uber Eats, but they hear the car and they automatically go into panic mode and they live in that state inside of their brain.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: Whatever those are, you have your repeat exposures.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: You have your fire alarm ringing in the background.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: And that was my fire alarm.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: This overload, this flood of emotions, and then I would go numb and cold.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: And that is what I experienced for decades.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: It was normal.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: This is the normal pattern of behavior.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, in this pattern of behavior, what was happening on the inside of my brain is that fire alarm was constantly ringing.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: That amegula was firing up, and I wasn't getting good sleep to reset my amegula.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: So the constant fire alarm was ringing, and this happens year after year after year.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: And before you know it, I'm stuck in this pattern of fight and flight.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm stuck here and that I'm in that free state.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: That is what I experienced.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: Now I didn't know what was happening, I didn't recognize it.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand it.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: And quite frankly, I didn't believe it because I thought that this was a bunch of hogwash.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: I thought that PTSD was for quitters and losers, and it was an excuse to get out of real work.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: And I just did not process or analyze or accept the fact that I might be injured as a result of my repeat exposure to trauma or death or other people's worst days.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until I was forced out of law enforcement with some medical issues.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: And those medical issues were I got into a fight at work, I broke some ribs, I went to the doctor, my blood pressure was through the roof.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: And during that conversation, I was talking to my doctor and I was telling her about the constant nightmares I was having.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: I was telling her about being chased through my dreams by something that I couldn't see.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And every day I was getting into a shooting in my dreams, and I'm getting three hours of sleep a night, and I have been for months.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: I was telling her about my partner being killed in the line of duty.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: In 2003, I was directly involved.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: We never spoke about it.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: I was telling her all this stuff, and she diagnosed me with PTSD.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: And I told her she was wrong, and she told me she was right.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately she won and she told me I need to take some time off work to get my head straight.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: Kind of like just a couple of weeks to flatten the curve.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: Well, we all know how that went, and that is exactly the way that my job went.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: I took some time off, two weeks turned to three, three turned to a month, and before you know it, I didn't go back to work for 14 or 15 months until I went back to clean out my desk.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: It was during that time that I started seeing a mental health professional.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: I started seeing my therapist, and I was told again in therapy that I have PTSD, and again, I challenged it.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Again, I didn't believe it, and I called everybody else a liar except myself.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: It got so bad that I became hospitalized because I was having right side paralysis, where I was having like mini strokes, and my right side was going numb and I was falling down and couldn't drive and sometimes couldn't speak because I was having this paralysis.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: And imagine just your entire right side, nothing but pins and needles and tingling.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: And all of this was stress-induced.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: All of this was stuff because in my mind, I'm being told that I'm PTSD and I'm out of work.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: And in my real life, I feel no, I got more murders to solve.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: I need to get back out there.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: And this is a joke and it's for quitters.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until I accepted the diagnosis that I was able to start that healing process.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: When I'm thinking about this episode, I think about what did healing actually look like?
18:36
SPEAKER_00: And if I were to answer that question, I would say this.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: First, I had to accept.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: First, I had to accept that there was an injury.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: First, I had to accept that the exposures I had through work affected the way that I was a parent, affected the way that I lived, affected the way that I was a friend, affected the way that I spoke, affected the way that interacted with the public and with everybody else.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: It affected every aspect of my life.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: I had to acknowledge that I had been working out of that fight, flight and freeze state for so long.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: And that would become readily apparent for just a little while longer.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you about that in a second.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: When I came into this whole experience of PTS and the acceptance process, words like fight, flight, and freeze, or trauma, or triggered, or PTSD, those were all bad words.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Those were words that I had never heard or had never rolled off of my tongue.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: People get triggered because they're weak Nancy's and they just aren't tough.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: They don't have a backbone, they don't have a spine, grow a set of balls, and you're not going to be triggered.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: That was my mindset.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: And how wrong was I for feeling that way?
19:47
SPEAKER_00: First, I had to accept in order to start the healing process.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Then I had to identify that I had a problem.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: A problem that was not necessarily permanent.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: A problem that I could work through with help.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And I had to be willing to accept help.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: As the first responder in my story, I was not the one that went and asked for help.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: I was not the one that called 911 when shit went south.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: I was 911.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: I was the one that showed up and helped you when your world was in chaos.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: And now all of a sudden, the world is crumbling in around me.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, everything that I have known, my entire identity, my entire life, my entire being is crumbling in, and I can slowly watch it falling down and burying me.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm the one that was asking to need for help to get out of the situation that I was in.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: Because if not, I likely could have killed myself.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: I likely could have died because my heart was going to explode, and I needed to ask for help.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: That asking for help and accepting help for me was part of a healing journey that was likely the hardest, but it wasn't my turning point.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Once I was aware that I had a situation that needed to be dealt with, and once I started that healing process, that is where I climbed that peak and I got over the top of the mountain.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: That is the climax of my illness.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: And from there, it has been a long and treacherous journey for the last three, four years of healing.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: But I've got finally to a healthy place.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Now, what does healing look like?
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Healing looks like all sorts of things.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Healing can look like therapy.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: It can look like self-help groups.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: It can look like reading a book.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: It can look like finding faith and finding the Bible and finding God and recentering yourself.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: It can look like EMDR, which is a therapy modality.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: It can look like neuromodulation.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Neuromodulation is something that really helped me.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: And for the lay person, here's what it is let's pretend that your brain is a dresser drawers in your bedroom.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: And each drawer contains one contained socks.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: One contains underwear, your pants, your sweaters, your pajamas.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: You understand.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: Over time in your brain, things get disorganized.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: So now that dresser drawers, people keep putting stuff back into it.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: You keep putting stuff back into it.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: And before you know it, you have shoved every article of clothing into the top two drawers, and the bottom four are empty.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: And everything is jumbled up and out of place, and nothing is where it belongs.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: And you can't even get those top two drawers open because you have so much stuff stuck in there.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Neuromodulation.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: Your brain emits brain waves that can be picked up on sensors and turned into an audible signal.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: So neuromodulation, you sit in a room with your therapist, and she, in my case, put a bunch of sensors all over my head, and it listened to my brain waves.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: Now, those brain waves are picked up by a computer, turned into an audible signal, and I'm wearing earbuds, and they're played back into my ears.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: And they sound like somebody strumming the chords on a piano very softly.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, what happens is as this is happening, your brain is taking that information and it's reprocessing it.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: It's emptying out that top drawer and it is slowly putting things back where it goes.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Each time those brain waves come in, it puts something back in the correct drawer, back in the correct drawer.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: And before you know it, you slowly start to regulate your dresser drawers.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: You slowly start to reorganize where everything should be in your brain.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: The dresser drawers are like the different parts of your brain.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Your frontal lobe, your this lobe, your that lobe, your bunch of words I don't understand, right?
24:38
SPEAKER_00: But we got all got parts of the brain.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: And each part of the brain is responsible for a different set of functions.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Much like the sock drawer holds the socks and the pants drawer holds the pants.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: So as you start to reorganize these things, that is when you start to get your life back.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, when everything was stuck in those top two drawers, for me, that was my fight, flight, and freeze state.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: I was stuck in hypervigilance.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: I was stuck in the world was a threat.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: I was stuck in the ways of my life based on the career choices that I had made.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: I was stuck being a permanent asshole to everybody around me.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: For me, when I could take a look at the graph and have it explained to me how everything was stuck in my top two dresser drawers and the rest of my dresser was completely empty and not being used, and how neuromodulation was going to reorganize the events of my life, reorganize my dresser drawers, that is something that was, well, it spoke to me.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: It's something I could see, it's something I could understand.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: And at first I thought it was just a bunch of hocus pocus and hippy-dippy crap, until it started to work.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Until I started to feel mood swings, until I started to find parts of my life, parts of my emotional system that I had never had.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: I had never cried in years.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden I cry when the wind changes direction.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, that is not coincidental.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: That's because those socks were getting put back in the cry drawer.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: That for me was a very pivotal point in my healing process because it's something I could see.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: The effects of my job, the effects of my life, the way I had lived for decades.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: I was 45 years old when I went through this process.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: I had been in a uniform since I was 13 years old.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: Do the quick math.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: That many years is what it had taken to put myself into this fight-flight-free state and cumulatively stack up and just stuff things into the drawer, drawer, drawer, drawer.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: And then I was able to heal myself or not heal myself, but get help.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: The other things is you need to surround yourself.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: I needed to surround myself with people that were not involved in law enforcement.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't be the guy that says, I'm not going to drink anymore, but I'm going to go hang out at the bar because those things don't match up.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: They're incongruent with each other.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: And in my case, I didn't choose to stay away from the police department.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: In my case, the police department chose to stay away from me.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: And at first I blamed them.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: And in hindsight, I believe it was a divine intervention and a God thing that they were not involved in my daily life because I wouldn't have healed the way that I did.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have come out on the top side.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: Because all I would have been thinking is I could still be there.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: I could still be doing that.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: I could still be wearing that uniform.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: I could still be out there kicking ass and taking names.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: But instead, I'm broken on the sidelines.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: When the fact is I wasn't broken at all.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: The nervous system, that numbness that I felt, the fight, flight, and free state, I wasn't broken.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: That was my nervous system trying to protect me from the environment that I was in.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: It was trying to protect me from the cues and the things that I was seeing and having to experience and trying to protect my brain.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't broken.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: It was God's way of protecting me from the environmental stuff that could have killed me.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: No different than that reptilian brain that I spoke about earlier.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: When I step out into that lane of traffic, the car honks and I jump back, that's my reptilian brain protecting me.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: This is my nervous system protecting me from my environment.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: And frankly, from myself at times.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: So now once I understand all of this, and once I understand where I'm at, then it becomes finding stability, right?
28:24
SPEAKER_00: We've moved from survival to awareness to healing.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: And now we're talking about stability.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: So finding that stable life, reconnecting, decompressing.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: For me, I had to decompress.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: And I decompressed at a local bar called Caps and Taps.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: I would go to Caps and Taps every day for probably a year and drink beer.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: Now, that might sound unhealthy to some people, but I wasn't a big beer drinker.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: I'd go have one or two.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: But what I would do is I would interact and socialize with people that were not in the cop world.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: A cup, a little bit of beer inside of me, I would decompress.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: I would loosen up and I could become friends.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: And I became with friends over that year with people that I would have never spoken to as a cop because they were beneath me.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: I became friends with people with piercings all over the place and tattoos and heavy necklaces, and I'd have been like, damn, that dude's a crook.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: But instead, he became a dear friend of mine.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: I had to regulate and find new friends and new stability.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: And I had to get back into church and find a life group and a faith system that could help me reorganize and just level out and surround myself the people outside of my old world.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: That stability took back and brought back the husband that my wife hasn't seen in 25 years, and the father that my kids didn't even know they had.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: It brought back a side of my personality that I had never seen.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: I forgot that I could be that funny.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: I forgot that uh I just forgot it all.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: I was so wrapped up in being a high strung prick.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: And it was so nice to find that stability and to find friends and to find life again and to feel light and happy.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm continuing to work on all of this.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: When I talk about faith, there was one pivotal point in my healing process.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: And as we work through these different things with EMDR and neuromodulation, right?
30:41
SPEAKER_00: There are issues, there are triggers, which is not a bad word anymore, of things that come up.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I had to deal with was my partner getting killed in 2003.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Now, for 21 years, I held on to that and blamed myself for my partner getting murdered on Christmas Day, which happened to be his wife's birthday.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: If you guys want to hear that full story, there's a podcast called John Watson, The Moose, The Mentor, and the Morning.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: It's on my podcast.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: But I blame myself for that.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: And when we're working through that in therapy, we were hitting a brick wall.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't release, I couldn't allow myself to be forgiven for that moment because of my actions that I felt led to his death.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until my therapist said to me, Aaron, stop.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: Who was on scene with John that night?
31:30
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Well, John was the bad guy and the bad guy's girlfriend.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Who else?
31:35
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Well, Jesus was.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Exactly.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: What does that tell you?
31:40
SPEAKER_00: I said, That tells me that this day was written in the books long before I ever had anything to do with it.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: God had me exactly where he wanted me at that moment, and he had John right where he needed John.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: And it was John's time to go home.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: And nothing I could have done or said or prepared for or planned could have changed that journey that God had John on that night.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: And it was that pivotal moment in my healing process where I would say the tide turned for me.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: If I was able to get over that self-blame, that survivor's guilt, that remorse by looking upwards instead of looking inwards.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: For me, that was the turning point of my healing journey.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: What did survival mode feel like for me?
32:36
SPEAKER_00: It felt normal.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: It's all I ever knew.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: I would make jokes about dying.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: I would joke with my kids every single night about I'm going to have a heart attack tonight.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: You might as well just come in and scratch my back and give me kisses because I may not wake up in the morning.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to die right here tonight in bed.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: And that was a joke I made daily.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't funny.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: It was what I was feeling on the inside.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: It was the normal feeling that I lived with for years that I wasn't going to survive it.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: The behaviors that showed up during my time of survival and then into healing was I felt like I had heart issues.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: I was hyper-vigilant.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: I had very low tolerance for people.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: I was filled with anger.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: I was filled with rage.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: I was dark.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: I felt like there was no happiness, no light in my soul in my life.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: I felt like I was dead inside.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: That is what I felt like for so, so many years.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: I turned to vices.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: I turned to doing things and being somebody that I truly wasn't.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Things that were totally against my morals or my ethics.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: I became somebody that I didn't even recognize.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: I turned to making myself feel better because nothing else in the world was.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: I didn't like being around my family.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: I was driving wedges between me and my wife and my kids.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: And that was okay for me.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: I was allowing my world to crumble while I worked hard to save everybody else's life.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: The thing that helped me the most in getting out of that was forced into medical leave.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: I was forced to recognize, identify, become aware, and start the healing process.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: I had a choice to make.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: Once I was aware, I could either heal or I could kill myself.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: Those were the choices.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: And I don't believe God put me on this earth to kill myself.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: I believe that my pain was there for a purpose, which is why I'm even doing this episode and this podcast at all.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is derived off of my pain being used for a purpose.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: So I can maybe help somebody else who is maybe feeling something similar.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're in my same walk of life or you're a tow truck driver or pharmacist, it doesn't matter.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be a cop to understand the ideas of what I'm working through here.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: Therapy, neuromodulation, being able to actually see the drawers being in disarray, see how the drawers in my dresser, two of them were stuffed full and the rest were empty and not being used, and to reorganize that stuff inside my brain.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: That was huge for me.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: Faith played a huge role in my healing process because I am a Christian.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: I do believe in God.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: I've been a Christian my entire adult life.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: And I believe that without God, I would have been plucked from this earth a long time ago.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Faith or no faith.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people out there who don't have faith or don't believe or say, I don't believe in God or whatever it may be.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: And if that's you, ultimately that's your choice.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: But I would encourage this, I would encourage you to believe in something.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Believe in something outside of yourself.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: For me, I was chasing a failed technique.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: I believed in myself.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: All I did was look inwardly instead of outwardly, inwardly instead of upwardly.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: All I was worried about was Aaron.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: And chasing that failed technique nearly killed me with anxiety, high blood pressure, and a gun in my mouth.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: Faith has always allowed me to rest in something outside of myself, something outside of my control, something that I can't see.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: What I was doing, and maybe what you're doing isn't working.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: You find yourself in the same circle, the same cycle, the same oodle loop, and it's not working.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: That is what creates chaos.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: Chaos equals anxiety, stress, fight, fight, freeze, and death.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Death to you, death to your relationships, death to your family, death to me and my family.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Faith allowed me to believe, allowed me to pray, and allowed me to ask God to come back into my life and restore the areas that I so viciously beat up, deprived, and destroyed for so many years.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: Habits.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Habits that helped me was slowing down.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: You know, I ran as a hummingbird for so many years, going so fast all the time, getting involved in everything, my little wings flapping a thousand miles an hour, my heart rate racing, my blood pressure high, and I know that hummingbirds have a very short life.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: And for me, it took changing that into a hawk, slowing down, assessing things, slowly flapping my wings, reducing my heart rate, and sailing and soaring into life.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: That is what helped me get through some of my worst times.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: And it's continuing to help me.
37:32
SPEAKER_00: Continuing to work on myself.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: I think continuing to work on myself.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: Therapy is hard.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Therapy is painful.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: Therapy hurts.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: Therapy sucks ass on some days.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: It sucks to think that you are part of the problem.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: It sucks to think that your pride is so huge you can barely walk in the room.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: And that is the reason you've been such a prick for so many years.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to think that you are the one that has caused issues or problems in your marriage and you're the one to blame, not everybody else.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: But identifying that and working through that is what makes is what helped me, and I'm not over it yet, but what has helped me continue to work through this and heal and become the person that God wants me to be.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: It's worth it.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: It all leads back to that stability portion that I spoke about a moment ago.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: If I continue to chase the failed technique, I will never reach stability.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: I will constantly be suffering a life of chaos.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: And at some point, I had to recognize that if I continue down this path, it is going to kill me.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: Chaos bad, stability good.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: It's that simple.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: I'll get it tattooed on my forehead, maybe.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: It's that simple.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: As of now, I feel like I'm continuing the healing process.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: And what does it feel like to me?
38:47
SPEAKER_00: It feels like I have friends, it feels like I have family, feels like I have faith, feels like I enjoy my job.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: It feels like I can breathe.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: It's freedom in one word.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: It's a life outside of a rat race.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: It's a life outside of darkness for me.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: And that is what has been so freaking amazing through this journey.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm no longer stuck in that fight, flight, or freeze.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: I've reorganized the drawers and I've leaned on faith to get me to where I am now, to help others, to share my message, to be transparent, honest, vulnerable.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the podcast.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: You're going to hear me cry more times than not.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: And that is freedom.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: That comes from the healing process that I'm involved in.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: And I love it.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not there.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: I've still got a lot of work to do.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: You know, every day I get triggered about something, it seems like.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: And I gotta, I gotta use the tools in my toolbox to get through it.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: But it's a constant process.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And at least I'm moving towards the right direction.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: And I've got a goal that's headed the right way.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: If I had to tell others something about this whole journey, I would say you may not see being stuck in fight, fight, or freeze.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: You may not see your partner being stuck in it, but you can definitely feel it.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: You can feel what it feels like to be dead inside, to be living life just to check a box, to be scared of your own shadow, to be playing possum or fainting like a goat.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: You can feel those things.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: Now that you know what that is you're feeling, maybe it's time to identify it.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: And I would say when you identify it, great.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: Now we've identified there's a problem.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: You've identified that you stink, you smell, your body odor's gross.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: Now go take a shower.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: Once you've identified the problem, fix it, solve it, work through it.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be painful, but you can get there.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: And on the other side, you're going to love yourself so much more.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: And so will the people around you.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: That has been my experience.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: My experience isn't like everybody's, and I get it, but that's been my experience.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: And with passion and with love and with all the encouragement in the world, I say, take the bull by the horns and kick its ass because you only get this one life to live.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: And I have been the guy in the woods with a gun in my mouth, ready to end my life.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: And I am so thankful that God saved me.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: What was the one moment?
41:30
SPEAKER_00: The one moment for me when the tide began to turn.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: That is my conversation about John Watson and faith.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: That is my moment where life began to turn around.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: It became bright.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: And I could feel healing occurring.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: What would I say?
41:48
SPEAKER_00: I would say this in closing.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: It's okay if you find yourself in a position where you don't want to be.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: There are people out there that can help.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: If you have a friend or family member that is in that position, there's people out there that can help.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: It is not about sensationalizing the trauma or the drama.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: It's about finding your turning point.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: And getting to that turning point is going to be work.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: But once you get there, the life on the other side is so much better.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: So much better.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's not easier.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's harder because you could coast in your previous life.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: You can't coast here.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: You are constantly downshifting and upshifting to get up and down the hills of this thing called healing, but it's totally worth it.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: I am so thankful for doing this fight, flight, freeze, this turning point series.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm so thankful to be emphasizing the positives and the healing and the getting over it and the helping others in this process, guys.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank you guys so much for listening.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: This next week, we're gonna have another guest on.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: We've got another, I don't know, seven episodes or something in the turning point series.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: Please listen to them.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: I hope you guys find an education that are trying to provide value.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: I love you guys.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: Find yourself, find faith, find the person that you used to be of midsite.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, that is immersed in this podcast.