Latest / Wellness in Today's World / Ep. 17: “The Chair and the Valley”: Rewriting Your Story After Trauma

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Ep. 17: “The Chair and the Valley”: Rewriting Your Story After Trauma · Wellness in Today's World

• 0:05
  Welcome to "Wellness in Today's World," the podcast that we talk about psychology, wellness, and everything in between.
• 0:13
  I'm your host Debra Kawahara and with each episode we have a thoughtful conversation of what it really means to live well.
• 0:22
  Before we begin today, a gentle note for our listeners: Today's episode includes discussions about hospitalization, trauma, and recovery.
• 0:32
  We approach these topics with care, but please take care of yourself as you listen.
• 0:38
  If you need to, pause or step away.
• 0:41
  With that, I'd like to introduce our guest today, author Banning Lyon, whose book, "The Chair and the Valley: A Memoir of Trauma, Healing, and the Outdoors," follows his deeply
• 0:55
  personal journey through hospitalization, trauma,
• 0:59
  and the long road of healing that follows.
• 1:03
  It's also a story of finding restoration through nature and learning how to live with, rather than erase, the impact of trauma.
• 1:12
  My hope is that this conversation is honest and reflectful.
• 1:17
  And whether you're on your own wellness journey or simply curious about what healing can look like over a lifetime, I hope you'll find something here that resonates for you.
• 1:28
  With that, I'd like to welcome Banning to the podcast and I am so pleased that you are here today.
• 1:35
  What prompted you to write this book?
• 1:37
  Was it a moment or did you envision the book or was it something that took shape over time?
• 1:45
  The book, I think originally started as a product of, of therapy.
• 1:51
  My current therapist, who I, until a month or two ago, I had been seeing for 13 years or something...
• 1:58
  Early on in seeing her, I think the first few months, she recommended that I free write a lot.
• 2:05
  I honestly just kind of blew it off.
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  At that time I was not open to therapy because of my past.
• 2:10
  I was barely willing to even go see a therapist, because of my past.
• 2:15
  And I just didn't take a lot of her ideas or thoughts seriously.
• 2:18
  And so through her constantly, gently sort of hassling me about free writing,
• 2:24
  I began doing it, but throughout most of my life my friends or people who knew even a little bit about me said I should always write a book, but I never really took that
• 2:32
  seriously.
• 2:32
  It wasn't until an event took place on a backpacking trip that I was guiding because I was working as a professional backpacking guide.
• 2:41
  An event took place that I don't necessarily want to elaborate on because I think readers will learn about it in the book, but
• 2:47
  it was then that I really realized that my story was not really just my own, that there are thousands, if not millions of people who suffer from trauma or a history of abuse that
• 3:01
  we have sort of been trained or as a survival mechanism, we blame ourselves.
• 3:07
  We take responsibility for that trauma or abuse.
• 3:10
  I learned about that in a very personal manner on a trip that I was guiding, and I walked away from that event feeling almost morally obligated to write a book because of my past
• 3:21
  and my life and the people who've made it possible.
• 3:24
  And I wanted to sort of, for lack of a better term, pay it forward.
• 3:28
  And the people who had really helped me and given me a hand in my life, I really wanted to do that for other people.
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  And so the book really, I think, was kind of born out of that sort
• 3:38
  complex set of ideas and circumstances.
• 3:40
  So the writing seemed like it started in therapy as a way to process things and then naturally then came into the book.
• 3:50
  I guess I was wondering, because you know some of these things were so impactful when I read it and I can only imagine you having to write it and revisit it.
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  How was that process for you in terms of needing to kind of keep
• 4:08
  going over it and I'm sure you had to do the editing process and things like that.
• 4:13
  So how was that for you?
• 4:15
  We don't have enough time to even begin to broach this topic.
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  I was not a writer when I began writing a book.
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  I was naturally talented as a writer, but I did not understand the craft of writing.
• 4:28
  I did not understand the nitty gritty, the art and craft of writing.
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  And so,
• 4:35
  it took six years to write the book.
• 4:37
  My writing work ethic was really kind of cruel and mean.
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  A short day for me was an eight to 10 hour day of writing.
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  A long day for me was 12 to 15 hours or more.
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  I wrote seven days a week.
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  I wrote, I did that for six years really with no breaks.
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  I had four nervous breakdowns.
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  I became actively suicidal.
• 5:03
  I went into Afib twice.
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  Writing the book was a horrifying experience that I...
• 5:13
  I oftentimes even after getting the publishing deal with Maria Shriver, I was not sure whether the book had done me more harm or more good.
• 5:25
  It's only now that the book has been out for a year that I feel like it's been a net gain.
• 5:31
  It's actually been a benefit to me.
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  Uh-huh.
• 5:34
  But the process of writing the book and constantly revisiting my memories of what happened to me, and not just to me, but to the people that I care about and love, like my friends
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  from the hospital, the abuse that I witnessed, it was very, very, very, very hard.
• 5:56
  And during that entire process, I was married, and in many ways, my wife sort of lost me to this book.
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  I kind of went in a cave and sort of vanished for six years.
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  And I would only come up for a couple hours a day.
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  I would sit down at dinner and feel like I'd stepped out of a time machine.
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  And here I am, you know, in my 40s instead of being 15 locked in a hospital.
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  So she was dealing with this guy who was just in a daze half the time.
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  It was
• 6:25
  a very terrible process.
• 6:27
  I am so sorry to hear that.
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  I mean, it almost sounds like you had to re-immerse yourself in these events and then it almost, well, not almost, re-traumatized you as you were having to go through and writing
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  and remembering all of these memories and experiences that you went through.
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  absolutely what it was.
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  I was having to re-traumatize myself in order to recall, accurately recall all the emotions and the detailed events that I remember.
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  And I do have this very hyper-detailed memory.
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  You know, it's interesting how some people respond to trauma.
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  Some people like my sister just block things out.
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  It's like somebody hit record over your favorite show on a VCR and it's just gone.
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  Like the footage is gone.
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  There are parts like that for me.
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  And obviously, I couldn't include them in the book because I don't have enough
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  memory of them to feel like I could build a usable scene or moment, but the vast majority that I do remember I had to piece together and sort of relive over and over.
• 7:37
  Yeah, for sure.
• 7:38
  Yeah.
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  Well, I hope today that we can talk about it without it impacting you to that degree.
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  One of the things that I mention and this is one of my survival tools and I do want to mention this since in many ways your audience is mainly going to be professionals or
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  ahead.
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  people who are dealing with patients that are dealing with mental illness or depression or whatever else.
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  One of the tools in my toolkit that I like, it's my go-to is
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  I am really, really, really good at compartmentalizing things or just dissociating.
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  And so the other day I spoke at an event in Seattle to 500 people about this and I hardly remember it because I was just completely dissociated.
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  And so there are times like this where I'm able to simply just kind of hit the switch and be like, this is just, you know, I'm going to be sort of emotionally distant.
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  And there are times that it catches me off guard and something might really gain some traction and catch me off guard.
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  But I'm pretty good at being able to control that stuff; dissociation has its own sort of personality and sometimes it just turns itself off.
• 8:57
  But yeah, I'm pretty comfortable talking about this stuff.
• 8:59
  Okay, well, we'll go along and like we said to the listeners, I'm going to say it to you: At any time if you need to pause or take a break,
• 9:08
  let's do that okay?
• 9:10
  This is about taking care of you and taking care of our listeners.
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  So let's start.
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  I'm gonna kind of do probably more of a timeline because that's easier.
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  How would you describe your life prior to the hospitalization?
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  Just you as a
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  you know, a young kid and kind of going in, you know, being a teenager.
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  My young life was idyllic.
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  I had...
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  I still to this day think I had probably the best childhood of any kid in the world.
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  I'm very much a Gen X kid.
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  I had very little supervision.
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  My parents were both professionals.
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  My dad was a pilot.
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  My mom was a travel agent.
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  I remember the very first time when I was a kid that I heard the phrase, "latchkey kid." And I was like, "Oh, what's that?" And my sister or my mom or somebody was like, "That's
• 10:00
  you!"
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  I would just come home to an empty house or, you know, people who are gone.
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  And, and I just, I was kind of my own parent.
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  And I had a lot of freedom and when my parents were home, we spent time together.
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  I would have time with my dad and the time with my mom, which was rare that we were sort of a nuclear family.
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  it wasn't until my parents divorced when I was 10, that my family just completely fractured and
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  Hmm.
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  dad left the next day, moved to Salt Lake City.
• 10:37
  I didn't see him for a year.
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  Mm-hmm.
• 10:56
  so I sort of became what my mom called "the man of the house" at like 10 or 11.
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  I lost my family.
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  I mean, I completely lost my family.
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  I think that was the very first time in my life that I had this inkling of...
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  I just knew, I think in some sense, even as a child, as a 10 or 11 year old, that the destruction of my family was going to lead me down a path in my life that I didn't really
• 11:28
  want.
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  It was going to be a much harder life than I had imagined.
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  And that I was going to have to begin to kind of wall myself off.
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  And it was around this time that I began to feel like kind of like a cyst, like this thing growing around me, like a wall.
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  And that was really the very first time in my life, but it wasn't until a few events when I was 13 and 14, when that wall grew very thick, very fast.
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  So before the hospital, I mean, I wouldn't necessarily describe my life as being
• 12:05
  Mm-hmm.
• 12:07
  a lot of people who had really, you know tough lives when they were kids.
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  In the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't necessarily describe my life as being dramatically out of the ordinary before the hospital.
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  It wasn't till the hospital that my life just went completely sideways off in a trajectory that I never
• 12:28
  would have imagined.
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  As a teenager, I was a frustrated, scared, kind of lonely teenager that ultimately was relocated to Texas because of the circumstances of my life.
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  I wouldn't say that I was happy, but I certainly wasn't...
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  Uh-huh.
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  I feel like I had kind of found my little tiny corner of the universe.
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  I wasn't going to accomplish much.
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  I was sort of on a path to becoming a pretty standard, you know, C student who was maybe going to graduate from high school, might experiment with drugs, would just kind of become
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  like an average person
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  because I was living, in many ways, kind of an average life.
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  It wasn't until the hospital really, like I said, that things went completely sideways.
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  Yeah, it just, I mean, as you were talking and I read, you know, what I read, you seemed like a regular teenager.
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  You found your people kind of to...
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  who you were going to hang out with and you did kind of what you wanted.
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  And it sounded like, you know, given the circumstances, adult supervision was not
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  there completely.
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  I had no supervision, zero supervision.
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  So no guidance?
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  Yeah, no guidance, no support.
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  So you were trying to just make it as best on your own at 10 through a 15 year old.
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  You did the best that you could.
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  You were trying to connect.
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  I learned everything
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  about those ages entirely on my own.
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  I remember the first time my mom tried to talk to me about sex, I was like 17 and I was like, "Mom, you're way too late.
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  Way too late.
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  Don't even, don't start."
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  I had a lot of opportunities to do things I should not have been doing and I didn't do them.
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  My best friend, at that time, who I actually gave my skateboard to, he would dabble in heroin from time to time.
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  He was doing a lot of drugs.
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  He had an abusive family.
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  He was way worse off than me and he was going to a magnet school in Dallas.
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  You know, I had a lot of people in my life who were worse, worse off than me.
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  And some people in my life were, had, you know, a much better life than me.
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  So I, I would have considered myself a really average middle of the road teenager when I got put in the hospital.
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  Yeah.
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  So let's talk a little bit about the hospital and...
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  Not specifically, I mean, to me, it was just how it was described.
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  Your experiences were horrendous.
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  And I have to say, it made me angry and it made me sad as I was reading it.
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  Just as another human
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  to human, but also as a therapist, that what you had to endure almost reminded me of when I read things about prisoners of war, is how I kind of related to what I was reading as I
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  was reading the part about the hospitalization.
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  So what I wanted to ask you about though is, you've had some time away from that
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  time in your life and as you reflect on the hospitalization, how do you even make sense of that time in your life?
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  What do you think about that that occurred?
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  This is a really hard question to answer.
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  So kind of an interesting
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  fact, and I don't think she would mind my sharing this.
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  The doctor, he will remain nameless.
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  The doctor who was the lead physician, the lead psychologist, psychiatrist on the unit where I was held, he was not my assigned doctor, but I saw him nearly every day because he
• 16:20
  would come in and see his patient.
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  He would sit in on our group sessions.
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  He died last year in October and his daughter reached out to me shortly after his death.
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  And she said, "I wanted to make amends for what my dad did to you because he was a terrible human being.
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  And I know what he did to you all in the hospital was wrong."
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  She has reached out to...
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  She's a therapist, and she's reached out to a lot of my friends from the hospital to make amends for what her dad did.
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  And she asked me during our, I think first or second conversation, just what you asked me: "Why do you think it happened?
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  Like, how do you make sense of it?"
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  There's two answers to that.
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  One is that as human beings, and I think this is one of the dangerous aspects of how our minds sort of work, is that we will assign reasons to things that don't really exist
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  because
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  it brings us a sense of control or comfort.
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  And I think that's one reason that trauma survivors tend to blame themselves, because it gives you a sense of control.
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  You're like, "If I had done this differently, I wouldn't have been raped.
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  If I had done this differently, my parents wouldn't have hit me or abused me.
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  If I had done this differently, this terrible thing would not have happened.
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  And it gives you this sense of...
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  of control.
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  But in doing that, we are essentially blaming ourselves.
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  We're assigning responsibility for the abuse and trauma that we survived to ourselves, which is not accurate.
• 17:57
  The second answer to your question, other than the first being that I think we assign reason to places where there often is none, is that there are times where things are
• 18:08
  simply...
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  There is no sense to be found.
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  Something was simply cruel or somebody was just malicious or hurtful.
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  Any sense to be found in it probably will never be found because those people are dead or gone or simply will never answer
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  the questions that you need them to answer.
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  And so then it's incumbent on the survivor to find their own sense of meaning in what happened to them.
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  And I think that's where things get important is because a lot of times survivors of trauma and abuse are left holding these disparate broken pieces that they are trying to
• 18:48
  make sense out of.
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  And my answer to them is find the answer that you need.
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  Find your own answer.
• 18:55
  You don't need to find the answer that, you know, "Oh, my dad was an alcoholic.
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  Therefore he beat my brother or beat me." I don't think that answer really ultimately is what's important.
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  I think the answer that's important to the victim themselves is, what can I do with this?
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  How can
• 19:15
  I take these pieces and make me a better person and a happier, more fulfilled person?
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  And how can I then take that and make the world around me a better place?
• 19:27
  Like that's ultimately what matters.
• 19:30
  Why it happened?
• 19:31
  Like, you know, people can say, "Oh well, the doctors and staff that ran our hospital were cruel or selfish or whatever."
• 19:39
  I don't know.
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  I will never have that answer.
• 19:42
  I don't know.
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  God knows I've spent countless hours of my life trying to come up with an answer as to why, for example, my doctor made me sit in a chair in my room and face the wall of my room
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  for up to 12 hours a
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  day. And they called it "chair therapy." What reasonable human
• 20:07
  Yeah.
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  what can I do to take that and find something in that horrible experience that is going to make me a more fulfilled, more enlightened, more happy person?
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  And then what can I do with that to then maybe make the world around me a more beautiful place?
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  One of the things that you touched upon is how trauma impacts people so differently, you know, how we respond.
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  And that part of that for you, at least, and
• 20:42
  kind of your message is: is Okay, this has happened and that there may not be a reason why, just...
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  it happened.
• 20:52
  But that what do you do with that?
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  How do you then take that and make some meaning out of it for yourself?
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  And I guess I'm going to ask you in terms of your own experience: How did you do that?
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  And come to a spot where you feel like you're making meaning and making this place a more beautiful world.
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  I can go down so many different rabbit holes and take up too much time trying to answer a question in different ways, but...
• 21:21
  I'll again, I'll draw from two instances here to try to answer this question.
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  I studied philosophy for a long time when I was in college and there's a piece written by Plato, it's called the "Meno." It's a scene of Socrates trying to have a discussion with a
• 21:39
  child about, can you teach somebody virtue?
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  Can you teach somebody to be a good person?
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  And ultimately his answer, the very first sentence of the last paragraph, if I recall correctly, says that virtue is granted to us through divine dispensation, that we are
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  born, his answer is that we're born good people or bad people.
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  We're just born the way we are and that there is no changing, like deeply fundamentally changing that portion of who we are.
• 22:08
  I think we all...
• 22:10
  are wired a certain way in regards to how trauma affects us.
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  And while there are ways to heal the trauma and there are ways to maybe change that wiring a bit, we fundamentally have like our resting heartbeat, the sort of response that we go
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  to regularly.
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  It oftentimes is kind of destructive and that's how mine is.
• 22:35
  Over time, I've had to learn to kind of respond differently to it.
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  I tend to kind of take something terrible and relive it over and over and over and over.
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  And in doing so, I'm trying to maybe find an answer or an alternative reality.
• 22:55
  Like if I had done this differently, then this maybe would have happened or...
• 23:07
  Yep.
• 23:07
  it becomes like a muscle memory.
• 23:10
  I did that most of my life with a lot of the experiences that I went through and it became this sort of masochistic, cruel way of reliving my past and trying to maybe make sense of
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  it.
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  So, again, to go to the second school of thought that really changed, I think, very much for the better of my life.
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  When I was 13 or 14, I fell in love with punk rock.
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  There is a lot of really beautiful concepts and thoughts in punk rock.
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  A lot of the early music that I listened to,
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  Black Flag and Corrosion to Conformity and lots of other bands, there was this message in their music of always going against the grain, like never giving up, rising above.
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  Like there's even a song by Black Flag called "Rise Above." In a lot of that music is this sense of I'm going to push back against the forces that are trying to tear me down or hurt
• 24:07
  me,
• 24:07
  redefine me.
• 24:08
  Ultimately as a trauma survivor there came a time where I got so fed up with my trauma defining my life and tearing me down and me tearing myself down using these memories and
• 24:24
  things that I had just grown to
• 24:27
  hold onto as like this attachment, this thing that had, this core idea or identity that had become this key part of myself, like a foundation of a house.
• 24:37
  I got so tired of those things defining my life that there was just a time where I was like,
• 24:44
  Yeah.
• 24:45
  Thank
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  I'm so f------ tired of tearing myself down and, and hurting and hating the people that have hurt me, that there's gotta be more to life than this.
• 24:58
  And that's how I sort of found forgiveness for me.
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  Forgiveness was not a product of, I love you.
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  Therefore I'm going to forgive you.
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  Forgiveness for me was like, f--- you.
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  I'm done.
• 25:10
  Like I'm, I'm moving on.
• 25:24
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:25
  that's where the very, very, very long, very difficult process of real therapy for me began, like trying to redefine therapy.
• 25:34
  I really do credit punk rock with forming that core part of who I am.
• 25:41
  You know, when I was 13, and my frontal cortex was trying to grab onto things in the world and assimilate them, punk rock was right there.
• 25:50
  And so I took that and I used it like Legos to build this very fundamental core part of my identity.
• 25:56
  And it's one of the really beautiful parts of who I am that I'm very, very grateful for.
• 26:01
  Like punk music saved my life.
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  And it was those ideas of rising above and persisting in the face of adversity that I really credit for ultimately being able to carry me through the hospital and through the
• 26:14
  other tragedies that I went through in my life and finally believing like I can rise above this stuff.
• 26:20
  I mean, what it speaks to in terms of as I'm listening is you were able to then harness your agency and empower yourself to say, you know what, I am not going to let this trauma
• 26:36
  be kind of me.
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  And be, you know, and that you decided, you know what, I'm gonna rise above this, I'm gonna define myself, I'm gonna take it into my own hands and decide for myself who I wanna
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  be and what my life consists of.
• 26:54
  Absolutely, and you used a word there that is so critical and this is...
• 26:59
  If there's any message that I want to impart on like people who are, you know, want to go on to become therapists or psychologists or help younger people, it is that sense of
• 27:09
  agency.
• 27:10
  Never take a kid's sense of agency away.
• 27:13
  Never.
• 27:14
  Like the minute you begin to,
• 27:16
  to treat a kid like, oh being 18 is just a phase, or being 15 is just a phase, or whatever you love is just a phase, or you discount the things or people that are important to them,
• 27:29
  or you even worse, take away their ability to be independent or make choices for themselves.
• 27:34
  The minute you have that sense of agency taken away, especially in a therapeutic setting,
• 27:39
  it becomes really, really, really toxic because you're imparting your own beliefs and opinions on somebody else without accepting their feedback.
• 27:51
  We had no sense of agency in the hospital.
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  And when we did, on the few occasions, try to share what we wanted or what was important to us,
• 28:02
  we were either not listened to or that stuff was taken away.
• 28:06
  And so it's the sense of being able to control your own sort of destiny and have some say at least to some degree of what path you want to take and what might help you is so
• 28:19
  crucial especially I think to younger people.
• 28:23
  And that, I think in many ways, was one of the most harmful and most damaging things about the hospital,
• 28:29
  apart from the sort of physical and emotional sort of mistreatment that we were experiencing, I think was that sense of losing our agency, having no, just being subject
• 28:43
  to whatever these people wanted to do to us.
• 28:46
  Yeah.
• 28:46
  And I guess that's part of that piece of time in the hospital, when you did try to assert yourself or try to empower yourself and have agency, they punished you.
• 29:01
  Correct.
• 29:02
  They would strap us to a bed or make us
• 29:04
  sit in a chair.
• 29:06
  They would immediately do whatever they could to snuff that out, to stifle our ability to assert ourselves.
• 29:13
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 29:15
  And lots of kids were put in restraints for that.
• 29:18
  Yeah.
• 29:19
  For me,
• 29:21
  my sense of agency became a very quiet game of manipulation.
• 29:26
  I had to finesse my doctor and ride this very strange balancing act with feeling like I was navigating her when she thought she was navigating me
• 29:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:55
  pretty much all of us knew that in the hospital, that this was not...
• 29:59
  you don't strap somebody, you know, one girl in our unit was strapped to a bed for 18 months.
• 30:04
  She had no baths.
• 30:05
  She had no self-care.
• 30:08
  She had to have physical rehab to be able to walk again.
• 30:11
  It was medieval.
• 30:13
  And when, when you see that for long enough and you, you live around that long enough,
• 30:21
  I mean, at least for me, it was obvious like this is not designed to help us.
• 30:26
  Like nobody's leaving here better.
• 30:28
  All the things that they're doing to us are tearing us down and hurting us.
• 30:33
  So, you know, what's that lead you to believe about your benefactors?
• 30:38
  Are they actually caring for you and trying to like help you or are they tearing you down
• 30:45
  and trying to just keep you here?
• 30:47
  And that was my conclusion.
• 30:49
  My conclusion was: nothing about this place is intended to make us feel better.
• 30:54
  What they're doing is just keeping us here until our money runs out.
• 30:59
  And as a teenager, I was like, OK, well, that's just the game.
• 31:02
  Like, that's just, it didn't even occur to me that this was, it was like, this is just the system.
• 31:09
  Like, so I'm just, I got stuck in the system and I'm just going to have to wait till I'm...
• 31:15
  Yeah.
• 31:17
  You know, it just seemed like it was inhumane and just wrong.
• 31:22
  It was just outright wrong.
• 31:25
  And what, I guess, given kind of you now, you're adult and you're a parent yourself, what would you tell parents in terms of, yeah, there are kids that definitely need...
• 31:39
  you know, need to be hospitalized because they're going to hurt themselves.
• 31:42
  But what would you say to those parents out there that are going through this
• 31:47
  process and what would be important for them to be aware of and to keep kind of tabs on?
• 31:55
  You know, this is a really difficult question.
• 31:59
  And the goal of my book is not to demonize therapy.
• 32:06
  I think therapy is really beautiful and really beneficial.
• 32:10
  But the emphasis that I want to make to people, to listeners, or people who read my book is that, and I mean this quite literally, it sounds silly, but I mean this very literally:
• 32:19
  Finding a therapist is like dating or a marriage.
• 32:22
  It's a relationship.
• 32:24
  It's a functioning relationship.
• 32:26
  And if you go in and you don't feel fireworks, then leave.
• 32:30
  Find somebody else.
• 32:32
  It's not some...
• 32:37
  Yeah.
• 32:49
  Yep.
• 32:51
  As a parent, don't just take your kid and plug them into a therapist.
• 32:56
  Find a therapist who earns their trust or a therapist that your kid likes
• 33:00
  or at least doesn't hate and, you know, don't just take them to somebody and throw spaghetti at the wall hoping that it's gonna work.
• 33:10
  You're asking your child to have a relationship with someone.
• 33:13
  So you better have a good feeling about that person and your kid better have a good feeling about that person.
• 33:19
  That's absolutely crucial.
• 33:21
  Like there's no bargaining over that.
• 33:24
  That's a necessity.
• 33:26
  When I was a kid and I was not a parent,
• 33:29
  I had a lot of sympathy for my mom, knowing that she was responsible for having kept me in the hospital.
• 33:36
  I knew even as a pretty...
• 33:38
  and granted I was like a relatively seasoned teenager, like I had lived a lot of life, so I was, I kind of could read people pretty well.
• 33:49
  I knew that my mom had not kept me in the hospital because she was malicious.
• 33:54
  She was worried about me, and I understand
• 33:56
  that.
• 33:57
  But at the same time, I would have to ask her, like, how could you see like somebody strapped to a bed in the hallway and not kind of be worried about that?
• 34:10
  You know, my mom was not privy to a lot of the things that were happening in the hospital because
• 34:14
  our visits were supervised and we were not allowed to tell them a lot of what was happening to us or they would end the visit and send the parent away.
• 34:22
  You know, I didn't know this until years later, but the doctors kind of basically terrified the parents at a debrief after the visitations and say, you know, parents would
• 34:32
  be like, "I want to pull my kid out of here." And the doctors would say, "Oh, well, you know, if you pull your kid out of the hospital too early,
• 34:39
  It's frozen.
• 34:40
  You'll come home and find them dead." My mom was subject to all this stuff.
• 34:45
  And so I think, if this is a situation that you're looking at and your child does need help,
• 34:57
  Yes.
• 34:58
  could we get you that you might want?" Again, give them some agency.
• 35:01
  I'm not saying let them make all the decisions,
• 35:05
  but I'm saying give them a hand, give them a part of that.
• 35:10
  Give them 30% of the decision-making process.
• 35:13
  Factor them in somehow and let them know that you're factoring them in.
• 35:17
  Don't just ignore them and do whatever you think is best for them.
• 35:21
  I cannot imagine my daughter or daughters being in a situation like that and me not having some alarm bells going off.
• 35:31
  And so I think there comes a time as a parent where you have to find a balance between, my child needs help, but something about this place
• 35:43
  seems off, something's wrong.
• 35:45
  Like I wasn't going outside.
• 35:46
  I didn't go outside for five months.
• 35:48
  How could my mom think that that was...
• 35:51
  My mom had to have had some alarm bells going off being like, like therapy doesn't look like this.
• 35:57
  And that's another thing that I want to really share with your listeners too, is people think, oh well, these institutions don't exist.
• 36:04
  The stuff isn't like, things aren't like this anymore.
• 36:07
  Yes, they are.
• 36:08
  I mean, there are a lot of institutions that still use restraints, that still use them for extended periods of time.
• 36:14
  There are no federal regulations for oversight that are really meaningful for regulating facilities.
• 36:22
  It's all state.
• 36:23
  In fact, one of the people right now, believe it or not, people laugh when I say this, but one of the people right now doing the most to protect patients in inpatient situations is
• 36:32
  Paris Hilton.
• 36:34
  Paris Hilton was abused in a Utah facility.
• 36:37
  And ever since then, she's used her platform to advocate for patients' rights.
• 36:41
  So these facilities are still around and people are still taking advantage of patients.
• 36:46
  And so don't just take your kid to an institution thinking, oh, well, those medieval places aren't around anymore.
• 36:52
  They are.
• 36:52
  And so be involved in your kid's therapy.
• 36:56
  Don't just hand them over to a therapist like they're a daycare worker.
• 37:03
  Don't just trust them with your child.
• 37:04
  This is your child's life and wellbeing.
• 37:07
  And so, check in on them, ask questions, be nosy, go and spend time with them on the unit.
• 37:14
  If they don't let you spend time with them on the unit, take them out of that hospital and take them somewhere else where you can spend time with them.
• 37:21
  Have an active role in their therapy.
• 37:23
  You know, I think you said several points that I think are really important.
• 37:29
  One being that therapy is...
• 37:32
  a mechanism is the relationship, right?
• 37:36
  And so if you don't have that critical ingredient that you as a parent,
• 37:41
  feel like, okay, they seem good, they seem trustworthy, they seem competent, but also your kid.
• 37:49
  If your kid is not forming a relationship, then is the therapy gonna be effective, is what I heard you said.
• 37:57
  And that is important.
• 37:58
  Two, I think is...
• 38:00
  Yeah, you said something really important that as a parent, you should be able to talk to your kid about what is happening,
• 38:08
  you know, so that you can at least evaluate is this okay?
• 38:13
  Just like you would a physician and them doing any kind of medical procedure on your child.
• 38:20
  You may remember this from the book, I didn't see my dad for 26 years.
• 38:25
  And our first lunch together, after 26 years, our first lunch together, he recalled an instance where we were talking about the hospital and he was asking some questions like,
• 38:35
  what was that place like?
• 38:36
  And he said he had a couple of memories of it because he had only been there once or twice.
• 38:40
  He said he remembered meeting with my doctor and saying to her, "Look, as a pilot, passengers get on my plane and trust me to hold them and care for their safety." And he
• 38:54
  said, "Right now, I'm having to do the same with you.
• 38:59
  You cannot hand me an MRI or an x-ray and point at it and say, here's your kid's depression.
• 39:04
  Here's your kid's suicidal ideation.
• 39:06
  Here's their...
• 39:07
  PTSD, whatever it might be, you have to simply trust that doctor." And so because of that, therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists hold these really, really special, precious
• 39:22
  positions in our society where we have to simply hand ourselves or our children over to them
• 39:42
  Yeah.
• 39:44
  seeing this person,
• 39:45
  and check in with them or yourself and be like, is this helping me?
• 39:48
  Am I on the right trajectory?
• 39:51
  Am I getting what I want out of this?
• 39:54
  Therapy is frequently not fun, so don't ask yourself at the end of the session, "I liked today," because a lot of times it's like, "No, today sucked."
• 40:03
  Right.
• 40:05
  and you're gonna have aches and pains.
• 40:07
  But over time as the weeks and months pass, like is this an upward trajectory?
• 40:12
  Am I gaining something from this?
• 40:14
  Do I trust this person?
• 40:15
  Do the things that they say or recommend or even the way they listen to me resonate with me?
• 40:20
  Do they do things that make me feel uncomfortable or
• 40:30
  Yes.
• 40:32
  she noticed that I didn't like it when she took notes;
• 40:36
  in the hospital, they would write in our charts and sort of scrutinize us.
• 40:40
  And she said, "You keep looking at me when I'm writing in my notes." And I said, "Yeah." She said, "Well, why?" I said, "Well, it reminds me of the hospital; it's kind of scary."
• 40:48
  And she goes, "Oh!
• 40:49
  Well, I'll stop." Like that's a person who has compassion for me is paying attention.
• 40:53
  Like that's the kind of relationship you should have with a therapist.
• 40:58
  If you don't have that kind of relationship with therapists, find another one.
• 41:01
  Yep.
• 41:03
  Yep.
• 41:06
  Okay, I want to ask you one thing because I know this is really important and it's in your title.
• 41:10
  You know, nature played such a huge role in your healing.
• 41:15
  'Cause I remember seeing in your book while you were in the hospital how it just even felt to be outside But then later you found this as a really healing mechanism for you.
• 41:28
  So talk to me about how you were able to connect with nature and then how it evolved over time for you in terms of the healing process.
• 41:45
  you
• 41:46
  I can talk about that because as a backpacking guide, I witnessed that, you know, I witnessed people who were like, "I'm going to hate this trip.
• 41:52
  I don't want to backpack." And at the end of it, they were like skinny dipping in some lake in the middle of Yosemite.
• 41:57
  And they were like, "This is amazing!" I think we all have some, some kernel of this, but for some people it becomes a more fundamental part of who they are.
• 42:06
  For me, it started very young, primarily with my dad.
• 42:11
  So I was raised in Southern California, not far from a place called Silverado Canyon.
• 42:16
  And my dad would take me hiking off trail in Silverado Canyon, and we would get lost in the hills.
• 42:22
  We would come back at like, we would miss dinner and come back at like eight at night.
• 42:26
  My mom's like, "Where the hell were you?" And I had this huge smile on my face.
• 42:29
  I'm like, "I caught a snake!" And, you know, I remember even as a very young kid, like kneeling down in the dirt with my dad and looking for like millipedes,
• 42:41
  You know.
• 42:43
  smell of wet earth and the breeze and you know the rain or sitting under a tree and eating lunch and staring at the sky.
• 42:51
  All that became like a really fundamental part of my life at a very young age and it just kind of became sort of a happy place for me.
• 42:59
  Something I tell my clients, my backpacking clients, is that that's our home.
• 43:04
  Like I'm sitting, you can see it in the background.
• 43:07
  I'm sitting right now in a framed house that's filled with drywall and paint and has a roof.
• 43:14
  Like that's a house, but it's not our home.
• 43:17
  Our home is outside.
• 43:19
  Like we evolved to live out there, but we live in here now.
• 43:24
  And so we tend to think of this as our home, but it's not, it's our house.
• 43:29
  Like our home is out there.
• 43:31
  And there's a deep fundamental part of who we are that knows this.
• 43:35
  And that's one reason that we love staring at the stars or watching a fire.
• 43:41
  Each of us has some outdoor connection that will reawaken that, that like it'll rekindle that love for the outdoors.
• 43:50
  Yeah.
• 43:52
  the smell of the ocean.
• 44:07
  Yeah.
• 44:21
  you
• 44:22
  My dad did a lot of
• 44:29
  Yeah.
• 44:36
  Yeah.
• 44:39
  You.
• 44:40
  in a meaningful amount.
• 44:43
  I had been in the hospital 10 months by the time I was allowed to sort of leave
• 44:47
  really the hospital hall.
• 44:49
  Before that, I was only allowed outside once and it was for a medical appointment where I was allowed to walk across the street, without my shoes, escorted by staff.
• 44:58
  That two or three minutes outside, and this is something that will make me tear up like, or it can, because I'm sitting here staring out a window right now and it's a lovely day
• 45:10
  and there's...
• 45:10
  this beautiful tree's right in front of me.
• 45:12
  You know, I will never, ever forget those two or three minutes.
• 45:18
  It was like I'd come out of a coma and reawakened to find this world that had almost been taken away from me.
• 45:26
  And now here I was experiencing it as somebody who was able to appreciate it.
• 45:31
  Not as a naive little child that didn't really deeply
• 45:35
  respect or appreciate what he was experiencing.
• 45:38
  But as a 15 year old who had had this taken away from him and who loved it so much beforehand.
• 45:44
  And so those two or three minutes still so vividly live in my memory.
• 45:52
  Like there were these little sparrows chattering in a bush and bickering with each other and I could hear the leaves rustling around.
• 45:59
  And there was a flagpole, like a hollow aluminum metal flagpole.
• 46:04
  I could hear the rope whipping it, it would make that dinging sound and I could hear the flag flapping in the breeze and I could hear the cars on the highway in the distance.
• 46:16
  That day was this sort of crystallization of so many beautiful memories in my life kind of all coming into this singular moment of deep, deep, deep
• 46:35
  Wow.
• 46:49
  Wow.
• 46:51
  hard to not just
• 46:56
  Yeah.
• 46:58
  And like, here I am grumbling about being stuck in traffic.
• 47:01
  And it's like, I'm in the most beautiful place in the world.
• 47:04
  And so I'll roll down the windows and take a deep breath.
• 47:07
  And I'll take that moment out of my past, you know, that 15 year old self who's standing in his socks on a sidewalk in Texas, listening to the sparrows bickering in the bush.
• 47:17
  And I'll take that moment, hold it in my hands and be like, isn't this place so incredibly
• 47:22
  beautiful?
• 47:23
  And so...
• 47:24
  I'm going to be very cautious as I say this so I want to tread really lightly.
• 47:28
  But to me that is probably the most beautiful part of choosing to have a journey of healing through your trauma because you can take that horrible moment from your past,
• 47:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 47:48
  Mm-hmm.
• 47:50
  somewhere really beautiful or I'm with somebody I love, or it could be something silly.
• 47:54
  Like I'm having a really good latte sitting on a bench in New York, whatever it might be.
• 48:01
  You can take that horrible memory out and say, I'm not there anymore.
• 48:05
  That's not me anymore.
• 48:07
  Like I'm here.
• 48:08
  I'm free.
• 48:09
  I'm safe.
• 48:10
  And so that juxtaposition, that contrast is a part of the healing journey that I think is probably the most beautiful part.
• 48:20
  But it's a long journey.
• 48:23
  When I lost my fiance when I was 23, if somebody had told me that I was gonna feel that way in the future, I'd be like, f--- you.
• 48:33
  How dare you?
• 48:39
  Yeah.
• 48:40
  Yeah.
• 48:41
  that.
• 48:41
  I absolutely applaud that.
• 48:42
  That's part of the journey, but you get far enough into it and that stuff begins to fade and it turns into something really beautiful.
• 48:52
  And I think that's really crucial to keep in mind.
• 48:56
  And I think that's something I would say, you know, if somebody picks up my book and they're on the verge of taking their life,
• 49:06
  Yeah.
• 49:09
  you can kill yourself tomorrow.
• 49:10
  Like, just keep waiting for the tomorrows.
• 49:13
  Because the tomorrows will pass and you can always do it tomorrow.
• 49:17
  And then, you know, it's like, oh, a year of tomorrows has passed and I don't want to do it anymore.
• 49:22
  And then five years of tomorrows has passed and I'm in a relationship now and things are better.
• 49:28
  And 10 years of tomorrows have passed and I'm not an alcoholic or a heroin addict and I've got a child now.
• 49:41
  Right.
• 49:44
  going to be hard days again.
• 49:46
  But there will be better days again.
• 49:49
  And you can't just wait always for the hard days.
• 49:52
  I'm a living product of this process.
• 49:55
  And in the future, I might have really hard days again, and I might be like, f--- you again.
• 49:59
  And it's not just all sunny and happy, but that part of the beauty of being a human being is living through this.
• 50:08
  And we're all living through this together.
• 50:10
  It's not just you.
• 50:12
  Like the person next to you on the bus is going through this s--- too.
• 50:16
  And that's, I think in many ways, another message in my book is that...
• 50:20
  And I just gave this speech in Seattle last week where I said, like, all rooms are filled with those same people and stories.
• 50:27
  Like, we all are suffering.
• 50:29
  We're all going through really hard times and some harder than others when you try to look at it objectively, but we, we're all suffering.
• 50:37
  And so when we begin to share our stories, we give each other some comfort and recognize that you're going through this too.
• 50:45
  It's like being in a boat alone on the ocean, stranded,
• 50:49
  and you turn and look behind you and it's like, oh, there's somebody in the boat with me.
• 50:53
  Then suddenly you realize there's hundreds of people in the boat with you, like you're not alone at all.
• 50:58
  As you were talking, it's like the message that you're trying to give is, yes, there will be days that are hard.
• 51:06
  And maybe, yeah, you're at a point where it's like, f- this.
• 51:10
  But that there's other days that
• 51:12
  you may feel joy or you may feel elation and...
• 51:17
  You know one of the things that I kind of heard from you is that you have this deep sense of gratitude now of the outdoors, you know, and the beauty, the freedom.
• 51:31
  I'm even going to say the liberation that you have felt at that moment, right?
• 51:37
  And that to return to that time and time again
• 51:41
  because you know that you'll be there again.
• 51:43
  It's always there for you.
• 51:44
  Yeah.
• 51:45
  The outdoors is always there for you.
• 51:46
  And it doesn't have to be Yosemite.
• 51:49
  It doesn't have to be a state park.
• 51:51
  It could be a tree
• 51:58
  Yeah.
• 52:04
  Okay.
• 52:06
  as long as you have access to some tiny little corner of the outdoors, it's always there for you.
• 52:11
  And it's not judging you.
• 52:12
  It doesn't care who you are.
• 52:14
  It doesn't care anything about what you're going through or your background.
• 52:18
  It's indifferent to all of us.
• 52:21
  It doesn't matter if you're some famous celebrity or you're me.
• 52:27
  A bird can s--- on one person just like it s--- on another.
• 52:31
  We are all equal when we're outdoors.
• 52:35
  I think, again, that's part of the beauty of it is that it's indifferent to us.
• 52:39
  It doesn't judge us.
• 52:40
  It's living for its own sense of beauty and it has no care about what we think about it or our presence there.
• 52:47
  It's just doing its own thing and we get to witness it.
• 52:52
  What does life hold for you now?
• 52:54
  Now that you've kind of written the book, you've gone through this process, you're still going through this process.
• 53:00
  Kind of what does life look like for you now?
• 53:04
  Well, I'm a parent, so I've got two daughters and I'm a husband.
• 53:08
  You know, the book is going out, living its own life.
• 53:11
  It hasn't been the bestseller that I hoped it would have been, at least not yet.
• 53:16
  You know, I know that books, it's a long journey.
• 53:18
  It's a marathon.
• 53:19
  It's not a sprint.
• 53:20
  Some parents, I think, feel like they don't want parenthood to define them.
• 53:24
  They don't want to be just a parent.
• 53:26
  I'm fine with that.
• 53:27
  Like, give me just parent.
• 53:29
  Like, I love having that be my identity.
• 53:33
  I love being a dad.
• 53:34
  I love being a husband.
• 53:36
  I probably will write another book someday.
• 53:38
  It will be a kinder process.
• 53:40
  I won't be so cruel and mean to
• 53:42
  myself. And I'm going to continue to support this book and help as many people as I can with it, which really is my
• 53:48
  goal. I do hope it ultimately gets more traction and can help a lot more
• 53:54
  people. And I'm willing to do what I can to support that
• 53:57
  endeavor.
• 53:59
  But really, other than being a husband, a dad, and an author, that's it.
• 54:05
  I'm fine with that.
• 54:08
  Yeah, how wonderful, how wonderful.
• 54:12
  So let's end with one question that I'd like you to kind of tell us: From your life experience, from the book, from whatever, what would you want the listeners to take away
• 54:28
  from your story and your journey?
• 54:31
  Probably the number one thing and there's several things, but I think the number one thing I would want anybody to take away from my story is that our trauma does not have to define
• 54:42
  us.
• 54:43
  It doesn't have to become this core part of our identity.
• 54:47
  And that's a process because a lot of times it begins with a wound like that defines you.
• 54:56
  And it becomes like this infection and you begin to live this life and build over it.
• 55:01
  And then in many ways, part of the healing process is overcoming that, that trauma.
• 55:08
  And then that becomes part of your core identity.
• 55:11
  You know, I'm not a trauma survivor anymore.
• 55:13
  Like I, I overcame that.
• 55:15
  But then you're still using that trauma as a way to define yourself.
• 55:21
  I'm kind of at a phase now where that is beginning to dissolve and it's almost like what happened to me just doesn't even matter anymore.
• 55:31
  I've worked on it and worked on it and worked on it through therapy and writing the book and so many other things, and found other ways to redefine myself, whether it's being a
• 55:40
  backpacking guide or a dad or a husband or an author.
• 55:44
  That core part of my identity does not need to bear weight anymore.
• 55:49
  It doesn't need to be the foundation of the house.
• 55:52
  Like I have lots of other things that can support who I am and be that core part of who I am.
• 55:59
  And that was a really scary part of writing the book because I had a good friend.
• 56:04
  I still have a good friend who, he guides people through
• 56:07
  therapy with psychedelics.
• 56:08
  And he asked me once; he said, "Would you like to do that?
• 56:12
  Like soon?" And I said, "I would love to but not while I'm writing the book.
• 56:16
  I need my trauma right now.
• 56:17
  Like I can't let it go.
• 56:18
  I don't want to let it go." And I remember thinking, who would I be without my trauma?
• 56:23
  And so that's, I think, what I would want people to really, the number one thing I would want people to take away from the book is don't let that trauma define you.
• 56:33
  Like don't, because then you're letting somebody else define you or something else define you, not you.
• 56:39
  You know, go through the slow process of working on that and slowly dissolving it and healing it and find something to fill that space with that's you, that you want there.
• 56:52
  It could be surfing, it could be weaving, it could be backpacking, it could be whatever, ice skating, I have no idea.
• 57:00
  You determine what you want to be that core part of your identity.
• 57:04
  There are a lot of things I would like people to take away from the book, but that's the briefest I can keep that answer is that your trauma does not have to define you anymore.
• 57:14
  Powerful, powerful.
• 57:16
  You know, Banning, I just want to thank you so very much for being here today and also what you went through in order to share your story.
• 57:25
  The book is compelling.
• 57:27
  It's powerful.
• 57:28
  It's informative It's "The Chair and The Valley: A Memoir of Trauma, Healing, and the Outdoors." Thank you for sharing the gift of your life,
• 57:39
  because I think it's beautiful and you're beautiful.
• 57:43
  Thank you, that means a lot to me.
• 57:45
  Yeah, yeah and if today's episode spoke to you, please feel free to share it with someone who might benefit or take a quiet moment just to think about your journey on wellness.
• 57:58
  I thank you for being here listening to "Wellness in Today's World."
• 58:03
  Until next time, remember: Wellness is a journey, not a destination.
• 58:08
  So please take care of yourself and we'll see you next time.
• 58:11
  Bye bye.