Latest / Voices for Voices® / When Trauma Returns: David Solomon's Mental Health Battle | Episode 221
Transcript
- 0:03Justin Alan Hayes: Welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
- 0:07Justin Alan Hayes: I'm your host, Founder and Executive Director of Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes.
- 0:13Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for joining us on this and our over 215 additional episodes in our catalog.
- 0:22Justin Alan Hayes: Additional episodes in our catalog.
- 0:23Justin Alan Hayes: So, if this is your first episode, welcome and please subscribe, follow and share.
- 0:31Justin Alan Hayes: And if this is just another episode that you've been following the whole way, we hope you'll quite the listener and viewership.
- 0:41Justin Alan Hayes: We want to thank you and again, if you're able to follow, share, let your friends, family know about this.
- 0:49Justin Alan Hayes: We can get closer to helping those 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.
- 0:57Justin Alan Hayes: So thank you for all the love and support up until this point and as we go forward we couldn't do this without you.
- 1:07Justin Alan Hayes: As we become accustomed to, we like to pivot and turn and talk about maybe a topic or two for what may seem like an extended period of time and that I'm sure you've noticed on the probably the last, oh geez, maybe maybe 10, 15, 20 episodes, where, where, where we're really honing in on human trafficking and again that can come on so many different levels, you know, whereas labor or sex, or there's just so many talk about grooming, and it's just all, just all incredible that people get away with this and that we we don't, as a nation, have, as of now, the right safeguards in place to help victims individuals, whether they're children or not.
- 2:20Justin Alan Hayes: Children have been a victim of any type of abuse, and that's hard enough, as it is, to go through that.
- 2:32Justin Alan Hayes: I don't know that that's like.
- 2:33Justin Alan Hayes: I haven't personally been through that, but what I have been through is trauma hitting rock bottom mental health-wise, and every day is a journey.
- 2:46Justin Alan Hayes: You know, since 2017, you know, we've been on the like, the upswing since then, and we just we continue to have good days and we continue to have days, and sometimes extended periods of time that are not degraded, where we have to really reach deep to do the minor things get a shower, brush our teeth, little things that some of us may overlook and say, oh wow, I can't believe they can't do that.
- 3:24Justin Alan Hayes: That is so easy.
- 3:25Justin Alan Hayes: Well, that may be so for a lot of people, but it doesn't mean the people are lazy if they're not doing it.
- 3:37Justin Alan Hayes: There's something going on chemically in the brain that has been affected at some point and another, and so that's why we have we try to have a team of individuals to be with us, to walk with us, to give us some guidance and support.
- 3:58Justin Alan Hayes: Let us know how we're doing, if we're steering maybe in the not right direction, but in any event, to have somebody just to really talk to, and that conversation, as well as conversations I've had, is a conversation that our guest today has had by multiple conversations and he's going to share about that and it's going to be a deep dive in the mental health, mental health awareness.
- 4:34Justin Alan Hayes: Once you get through a form of trauma, whatever that may be, that doesn't mean that everything's over, everything is back to normal.
- 4:48Justin Alan Hayes: There are things and they can keep creeping up back into our minds and take us back to that point in time where that trauma was really really the heaviest, and one of those words, one of those phrases, was mentioned today in the conversation with our guests where he wasn't free to do human things himself, that there were others that were dictating his every move and what he could do, what he couldn't do, and so he's going to talk about that in this episode and, if we need to, we'll go on to a second episode, but we should give a good opening to this episode so you have an idea of where, where we're coming from, that this is mental health and trauma related, but it also is related to kind of the flashback time and how not only does the individual who's gone through trauma still go through the trauma, but the extended individuals friends, family, colleagues, people, people you work with you know they they end up being part of it, whether we like it or not.
- 6:18Justin Alan Hayes: So, david Solomon, thank you again for joining us on on the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
- 6:26Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for having me.
- 6:28Justin Alan Hayes: You're welcome.
- 6:29Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, yeah, you just want to really just dive right in uh you know, we had a conversation earlier and yeah, so our listeners and our viewers.
- 6:37David Solomon: Yeah, you know I've been going through a series of healing.
- 6:44David Solomon: About two days ago I woke up and part of my face was paralyzed In fact it still is and I learned from the doctor that this is all caused by trauma that you want to forget and put aside, and it cost me dearly two nights of no sleep and not being able to eat straight because of it.
- 8:01David Solomon: I talk to other survivors and this does happen when you get in a relaxing state, when you heal.
- 8:12David Solomon: Over time it can hit you Like a lupus flare-up that my wife has, or a flare of arthritis that you go through and it won't get better until your body accepts the fact that it's over.
- 8:48David Solomon: So it's just been a humbling experience to go through that and learn through that, and I couldn't do it till now because I wasn't in a healthy place.
- 9:21David Solomon: My wife and my son have given me that, that place of healing and that place of belonging and that, that home.
- 9:31David Solomon: You know, no matter where I am, no matter if I, you know, in a in another foreign city and doing a project, I can always come home to my best friend, my wife Amanda, and she will always be that home.
- 9:53David Solomon: And so I realized that I've been home Despite all the stress and all the trauma, and when you finally get to a relaxing place, so to speak, you destruct emotionally because your body can't process things and that's a very hard thing to deal with.
- 10:43David Solomon: A hard thing to deal with.
- 10:47David Solomon: I think you know, before we're talking about trafficking and talking about what happened to me and other people it wasn't easy, but I could put it in the past and other people.
- 11:05David Solomon: It wasn't easy, but I could put it in the past.
- 11:09David Solomon: I could cry for hours and then say this happened and I'm okay and I can't do that anymore and and I can't do that anymore.
- 11:28David Solomon: And that's a little challenging to learn.
- 11:34David Solomon: You can only put the problem to bed so many times before you face the Goliath and have to slay it like David did mentally, spiritually, physically.
- 11:49David Solomon: Heartbreaking to learn that.
- 11:51David Solomon: So I got tears just from saying that.
- 12:12David Solomon: So I guess I thought you know it happened.
- 12:26David Solomon: I was trafficked, time to move on and tell my story and it won't affect you and that just that isn't the truth.
- 12:43David Solomon: I forgave the person that trafficked me and that didn't stop it.
- 12:52David Solomon: I did everything right that a Christian young man should do to prepare for being a husband and a father and, more importantly, a leader of the household, but also other people that look up to me too, and I've been mocked for it.
- 13:18David Solomon: I have, but I follow God.
- 13:23David Solomon: A lot of people may laugh at that, but I I do no matter what.
- 13:28David Solomon: If he says run, I will run.
- 13:30David Solomon: If he says walk, I will walk.
- 13:31David Solomon: If he says stay, I will stop.
- 13:34David Solomon: And from the beginning of two days ago, I faced the reality that God wants me to go through this and all the hurt and all the pain.
- 14:02David Solomon: He wants me to learn from it, because that pain and that suffering can help someone else who has either been trafficked or caught or beaten or bruised in a rough place.
- 14:18David Solomon: There was someone on YouTube a year ago who said I don't break down with emotion, and it's true.
- 14:39David Solomon: I buried that.
- 14:42David Solomon: I wanted to be strong, I wanted to be a rock, I wanted to be a soldier, I wanted to live in the future and not the past, and the problem is you can't run away from your past anymore.
- 14:59David Solomon: So I want to share what I'm going through, and I imagine half a million writers right now are going to have a similar reaction reaction.
- 15:26David Solomon: So I already had a lot of trauma, that I was trafficked and we don't need to go into names or details, we can just say it happened.
- 15:44David Solomon: We can just say it happened.
- 16:04David Solomon: The real trauma came when I came back to my town in Oregon City.
- 16:06David Solomon: You see, my traffickers called me Cody and they wouldn't let me pee, use the bathroom unless I said I was Cody.
- 16:13David Solomon: And I made the blatantly stupid mistake of saying fine, I'm Cody, let me use the bathroom.
- 16:22David Solomon: And that was my stupidity.
- 16:24David Solomon: So when I escaped, it was a small town and anywhere we went Fred Meyer, blockbuster, a restaurant, wendy's, the grocery store it would start creeping in that things were on hold for Cody.
- 16:53David Solomon: And then there would be calls for Cody and then police would do welfare checks for Cody.
- 16:59David Solomon: We would have the Oregon City Police show up for a welfare check about every two days for a period of four months, seeing if Cody was okay.
- 17:18David Solomon: And it just got overwhelming when I went to my own church, overwhelming when I went to my own church and my friends and my church family turned their back and said you're a Cody, you're a liar, you're a cheater, you're a loser and go die.
- 17:40David Solomon: And that was manipulation at its best and it hurt.
- 17:51David Solomon: My mom had just beaten terminal cancer and she was weak.
- 18:03David Solomon: She needed help.
- 18:06David Solomon: All we got was abuse.
- 18:10David Solomon: So the trauma that people talk about with Cody is true.
- 18:19David Solomon: It did bug me that people call me Cody because I'm not Cody, and when you call someone that and you torment them, every time someone calls me Cody, I think of being locked in that cage and being raped Because that's what they would do.
- 18:42David Solomon: I had an individual call me Cody two days ago and that's part of what set this off, and they knew that that was a sensitive subject and they knew that it wasn't true, but they did it anyway to annoy me as a bully, because they didn't like something I said.
- 19:21David Solomon: That's not a true friend.
- 19:26David Solomon: That's not a true friend, and so I want to make it clear.
- 19:32David Solomon: It's not because it's a name Cody, it's because of the memories of Cody that just traumatized the living brains out of me.
- 20:06David Solomon: Fast forward to 2020.
- 20:08David Solomon: My mom was very sick.
- 20:15David Solomon: She had been poisoned.
- 20:22David Solomon: I rushed her to the emergency room and I didn't even get to say goodbye.
- 20:40David Solomon: I didn't get to.
- 20:47David Solomon: I didn't get to see her again.
- 20:57David Solomon: I was tackled to the ground by about nine Panama City police.
- 21:07David Solomon: I was beaten, I was knocked unconscious.
- 21:20David Solomon: I woke up in a police cruiser and I said where's my mom?
- 21:28David Solomon: And he said she's gone.
- 21:31David Solomon: And I said why am I here?
- 21:34David Solomon: I want to see my mom.
- 21:41David Solomon: And he said you're never seeing her again, you're under arrest.
- 21:43David Solomon: And I said what?
- 21:46David Solomon: Where are we going?
- 21:47David Solomon: And he goes we're going to go somewhere, you'll figure it out.
- 21:58David Solomon: I can't tell you how loud I screamed in that cruiser.
- 22:02David Solomon: I can't tell you how loud I yelled.
- 22:04David Solomon: I can't tell you.
- 22:07David Solomon: We got to the place.
- 22:17David Solomon: I was shaking, I was throwing up.
- 22:19David Solomon: I had just lost my best friend Basically died in my arms who stuck by me through everything when no one else did, who comforted me through all the car accidents, who helped me through the six-month coma, who gave me strength and showed me what faith was.
- 22:52David Solomon: And when I didn't have any friends, that visited me in the hospital and when I lost my memory, when I had amnesia, when I was blind, when I was paralyzed, she was there and no one else was.
- 23:09David Solomon: I was taken to a maximum facility psych ward.
- 23:21David Solomon: I was denied food, they put me in a coat, they locked me in a padded room and that is how I spent the night, processing that I had just lost my best friend.
- 23:43David Solomon: Next morning I got up I had never seen anything like it.
- 23:56David Solomon: All these people were just on drugs and it was so.
- 23:58David Solomon: I've never touched alcohol To see that People shaking and convulsing.
- 24:21David Solomon: So, Horrible, horrible.
- 24:28David Solomon: I got bullied for being the only white person in there, so I got beaten up pretty good.
- 24:42David Solomon: I was held for seven days.
- 24:46David Solomon: I couldn't find anything wrong with me.
- 24:56David Solomon: The police said I was dangerous because of my color and my religion.
- 25:19David Solomon: They marked me as a terrorist, radical sociopath, murderer and I was charged with the manslaughter charge on my mom.
- 25:50David Solomon: And instead of going to a prison I would spend my life in psych courts with no advocate, no lawyer, no one.
- 25:59David Solomon: It was COVID.
- 26:02David Solomon: Nobody cared.
- 26:03David Solomon: Everybody wore a mask, but not in there.
- 26:06David Solomon: Mask was a weapon.
- 26:09David Solomon: That was a harsh reality.
- 26:22David Solomon: Those seven days.
- 26:23David Solomon: Those seven days, I got one phone call.
- 26:39David Solomon: So I asked for a phone book.
- 26:39David Solomon: I said yes, sir, yes, ma'am.
- 26:40David Solomon: Nobody said two words to me because they had never seen anything like it and the staff even knew I didn't belong there.
- 26:54David Solomon: I would sit in a corner and cry, keep to myself and be terrified.
- 27:05David Solomon: And I was terrified.
- 27:22David Solomon: And a lawyer I finally got a hold of on the seventh day.
- 27:33David Solomon: He got me released, but it came at a price.
- 27:36David Solomon: They took my mom's belongings, her vehicle and everything else.
- 27:48David Solomon: That was no thank you.
- 28:01David Solomon: There was no apology, I guess, for getting the wrong person.
- 28:15David Solomon: The charge was reversed, Phone was taken from me.
- 28:23David Solomon: Everything was never returned, except one thing my mom was cremated behind my back.
- 28:32David Solomon: I was denied the right to see her even till now.
- 28:38David Solomon: That was just the beginning of the trauma that I've been through.
- 28:52David Solomon: I made a stupid mistake six months later and I legally wasn't supposed to talk about it until about two months ago.
- 29:08David Solomon: But a person called my mom the C word.
- 29:23Justin Alan Hayes: I was in.
- 29:23David Solomon: Maryland and I was grieving.
- 29:26David Solomon: Somebody made fun of my mom.
- 29:31David Solomon: I lost my temper.
- 29:33David Solomon: I threw a smoothie at their face.
- 29:40David Solomon: I lost my temper.
- 29:40David Solomon: I threw a smoothie at their face.
- 29:45David Solomon: It hit their chest.
- 29:52David Solomon: That is sexual assault, armed and battered and attempted manslaughter in the state of Maryland, and I was arrested and detained in a jail, at first for about an hour, never been in trouble my whole life freaking out.
- 30:11David Solomon: And then I was taken to prison Maryland Max Prison state prison.
- 30:18David Solomon: And then I was taken to prison Maryland Max Prison State prison.
- 30:22David Solomon: I was charged for attempted manslaughter in the third degree and it was something Again COVID.
- 30:33David Solomon: The police thought that the blueberry and strawberry smoothie on the person was blood and it wasn't so.
- 30:48David Solomon: But the person that I threw it with made a whole thing and said that I'm bleeding now and help me.
- 30:57David Solomon: And they were drunk and high on drugs, which was stupid of me to even carry on a conversation with that person, but I don't do drugs and I've never drank.
- 31:18David Solomon: That is the stupidest mistake I've ever made in my career in my life.
- 31:22David Solomon: So I went to prison for 12 hours.
- 31:28David Solomon: I got out by a miracle of God, literally, but they weren't going to let it go.
- 31:41David Solomon: It went on for nine months.
- 31:42David Solomon: My own lawyer would not represent me once he found out about my trafficking case.
- 31:53David Solomon: Some people testified that I was a dangerous person that I have named for millmakers actually, and they were going to put me away for 40 years, stayed in Maryland for what I did 40 years and the judge had never seen anything like it in his letter.
- 32:24David Solomon: The person lived in another state and the court was willing to pay them to come out to prosecute me and that has never happened the way it did.
- 32:40David Solomon: They were willing to pay that person to come out.
- 32:47David Solomon: So nine months of hell, nine months of hell, I had to wear an ankle bracelet or ankle monitor.
- 33:02David Solomon: Sorry, I had to be terrified.
- 33:06David Solomon: People don't want me talking about this because at the end of the day it was let go and it was a mistake.
- 33:18David Solomon: And because of COVID, again people made mistakes, people assumed things during COVID and it was wrong.
- 33:36David Solomon: Do you think I got an apology?
- 33:38David Solomon: No, I got a criminal record for two years and then an apology two years later.
- 33:45David Solomon: Oh, we're sorry that happened.
- 33:47David Solomon: So I haven't been able to talk about this legally until this ended because legally until two months ago they could still take me to prison for the freaking smoothie that I threw.
- 34:06David Solomon: So when people blast that on YouTube, that was traumatizing because people look at that and go, oh, he's a criminal.
- 34:21David Solomon: He's a criminal, he has a criminal record, he went to prison.
- 34:24David Solomon: I did for 12 hours.
- 34:25David Solomon: You neglect that.
- 34:26David Solomon: That's the trauma that has paralyzed my jaw.
- 35:00David Solomon: That's the trauma that has made me sick During that.
- 35:05David Solomon: It drove me to death because in the prison I got a hold of a nasty infection because they don't wash anything and because it was COVID.
- 35:14David Solomon: They didn't give us masks and they just threw us in a cell that was dirty and nobody cared.
- 35:20David Solomon: So I got sick.
- 35:22David Solomon: I ended up hospitalized for that.
- 35:26David Solomon: After the fact, about a week after Couldn't keep any food down for about three weeks, got pretty bad.
- 35:37David Solomon: It got to the point where my doctor, who's a man of God, he similar circumstance.
- 35:54David Solomon: He said the hate in my heart for the person that trafficked me was so great and if I was going to go to prison because of a smoothie and a court was willing to do it and no matter what anybody did, no matter what letter was written there were 400 people that wrote letters on my behalf as a character.
- 36:29David Solomon: 400, think about that number.
- 36:33David Solomon: I was crying.
- 36:37Justin Alan Hayes: Why don't we cut this one short at the end and we'll come back to continue this conversation?
- 36:44Justin Alan Hayes: That's fine, great.
- 36:47Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you, our viewers, our listeners, for checking out this episode, and please come back for the second part of this conversation.
- 36:57Justin Alan Hayes: Until next time, be a voice for you or somebody in need.