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Is it Depression.... Or Something Else? · Mental Health and the Mission of the Church

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: Do you spend a lot of time on your spam email or do you move on?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_04: Half of what pops in my mind I don't believe.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_04: I have tons of spam stuff in my inbox, right?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_04: Of my mind.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_04: It's not even true, right?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_04: I I don't need to give it a lot of attention.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's Dr.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Baron Short.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's a psychiatrist with expertise in brain stimulation, and very much so on the cutting edge of using science to combat various forms of mental illness.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's recently shared a bit of his story on our podcast.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: But on this episode, him and our main guy, Pastor Chip Judd, who, as you know, has great expertise in counseling, both of them hear out some close friends of Chips as they unpack some of their challenges with their mental health.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Pastor Chris Rusto shares some about his experience battling severe OCD, while our regular host, Joey Spencer, shares about his current journey of tribulation, including a recent day full of anxiety.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: This episode represents the heart of the podcast that it is truly a look at mental health from a scientific and spiritual perspective.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: When you're on a journey of pain for so long, there's like a level of acceptance to that.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to be on this journey tomorrow.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to be on this journey in two days.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to be in this journey in two weeks.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: About the time we had our first son when I was 27, Abby was like, whatever this is, and we didn't know what it was yet, is so intrusive right now in our lives that you've got to get help.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_03: Not like I'm going to leave you if you don't, but it was like, okay, this is causing the person that I'm the closest to to feel like I'm not manageable.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen so many people that have a noticeable relief when they realize I didn't do this to myself.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like I remember saying to Joey when he was at his worst point, there's nothing wrong with Joey.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's something wrong with Joey's brain.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to say to you guys out there right now, you might be struggling with you or someone you love, with depression, OCD.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: All of that often has physiological brain stuff going on, and talk therapy won't fix that.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Casting edema now won't fix that.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna jump right into Dr.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Short providing some context for the conversation before the recording officially began.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Something we thought would be valuable for you to hear.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Mental Health and the Mission of the Church.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and and and Chip, uh that that definitely provokes me to think about um uh our first talk where you were talking talking about uh what are the D's or different levels, and I did give that some more thought.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_04: And so maybe worth just saying, and then we can put it in perspective for things like OCD and depression.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_04: But uh for Chris, what we were talking about is that we're multidimensional beings who exist at different levels, and then we can address those different levels.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_04: And so as a physician, I'm primarily focused on the biological level, and that there are various neuropsychiatric conditions that are a biological brain disease, and to ignore that is a big problem for anybody to ignore that, religious, non-religious, and that we're getting better and better at how to address that, but we're also at the beginning.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_04: Also, the other side of that, that it's not just brain stuff, we're not just brains, and in psychiatry, it's not just stimulating or modulating the brain with medications or some of the stuff I do, but that there are true psychological disorders that, like a medication or something, is not gonna fix, and it actually takes some work with the mind and emotions and our psychology.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_04: And and Chip has tried, my understanding, bring a lot of that into the church to say you know it's not just a spiritual problem, too, it's you can have a true just psychological problem.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_04: And then kind of another layer, or however you want to think of it, is our social level, right?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_04: And our the third D for I was thinking about that would be disconnection, right?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_04: So social disconnection uh and loneliness epidemic we're in causes a major problem for us.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_04: We're um as a brain doc brain electrician, I'm like, we're all like neurons and we want to organize into networks, right?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_04: And so when we're disconnected from each other, there's there's gonna be a price to pay.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_04: There is.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_04: And then the fourth, thinking about the spiritual, right?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_04: And so I was I was trying to think of a good D for that chip, and so I thought of disorientation, right?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_04: So if you if I thought about if I just walked out of a room and I didn't know where I was, I'm gonna act from a place of survival, I'm gonna act from a place of fear, I might try to get more from some, you know, more because I don't know what's really going on.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_04: But as I align and orient with the ultimate concerns, as I orient with like I'm here for a little while and then I leave, right?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_04: And what I do here matters, and God makes that matter, gives us the ability to make that matter, gives us the gift of free will and to mess up left and right in order to get to suffering enough that we want to realign.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: My my brother's been thinking, man.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_04: I did.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_04: You provoked me to think about it, so I was trying to come over with a good D.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_04: So I like spiritual disorientation, which um as a human, that's our default, right?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, thank you to the Mental Health Admission of the Church podcast.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited again.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, a guy who I just am so grateful that we've been brought together by the Lord, uh, Dr.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Baron Short, and uh of course a couple of my really good friends that you'll uh you'll meet in a minute.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Joey, of course, you know.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: But uh we're gonna talk about a couple of specific mental health disorders.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, dude, we are so blessed to have a doctor, a psychiatrist that lives on the cutting edge of science and all that it's kind of unearthing, you might say, and yet he's also uh one of us in the sense of a believer and in love, in love, in love with Jesus.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just gonna be it's just gonna be good, I promise.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be cool.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Joey, let's take it away, man.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Dr.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Short, just like we're we're very fond of you, but just FYI, the three of us, Chris, Chip, and I, we're like, we're also like family, and so it will hope it doesn't make you uncomfortable if we make make fun of each other's mental disorders and you know, just as long as it's in love, I I'm all in love and joy.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm about 90 about 90% in love.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_05: Close enough.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: But but yeah, listeners, what we'd like to do today is essentially for me and Chris, both of us pastors, we him and I worked a lot together at CCOS for years and years and years.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: Now he's pastoring a different church in this same area.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so Chris, myself, and Chip, we know each other very well.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: And what what our aim is is for Chris and I to open up about some of our current or past struggles and get Dr.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: Short's take and maybe even through this episode get a feel for what he believes is biologically going on in our brain, and I've got a lot of questions, and I'm sure Chip's gonna think of tons of things to ask as well.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: But first, Chip, I got a really serious question.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: If me and Chris were hanging on a cliff and you could only pick one of us up, pull one of us up, which one would you pull up?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just because of the str just because of the stress of the decision, I just walk away.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't do either.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's it's decision fatigue, man.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just I just I just walk away and you know you're in God's hands, man.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'll see you on the other side.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: So, Dr.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Short, I talked to Chip about this and in real time last week.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: I got a pretty difficult text to read, and it was a bit of a blow.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: But I've been in therapy with a very, very gifted therapist, and I've you know, I can call Chip anytime I learn a lot from him as well.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I was able to put it in its proper place.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: My therapist talked to me about how not to be emotionally connected to the person who sent it.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so in my head, I was like, okay, this is more like a a leaking dishwasher.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's uh it's an inconvenience, it kind of sucks, but I don't have to get emotionally wrapped up into it.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I I also told myself there's nothing that I can really do about anything.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I did all the cognitive behavioral therapy, addressing the cognitive distortions, but I couldn't shake real heavy anxiety really for most of the day.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't paralyzing by any means, but I'd say painful.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: And like I said, I talked to Chip, and I I don't know if you remember exactly what you said, Chip, but it was kind of like a Joey in your current life scenario, you know, the things that you're going through, sometimes it's just gonna catch up with you.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Your body is you're you're doing all the right stuff, but sometimes your body's gonna remind you, hey, you are in a tough situation.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: Something something to the effect of give yourself some grace, man.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: You're going through a lot.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: My question for you, Dr.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: Short, is there times when because I feel like there's times when I just have to make it to the rest of the day and go to bed and know that tomorrow my anxiety is gonna be gone.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I I'm thankful to say at this juncture in my life, and I'm st I'm still on medication, but with that being said, depression really isn't as much of a factor.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think when I get super down, I'm experiencing what people experience when they're just sad and they don't have really a clinical dis you know, they don't have like a depression thing chemically going on, but I do feel like I struggle with anxiety, and there's times where I'm like, okay, this is just how I feel, and I can't really do anything about it.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I will say my therapist told me to try to think of the anxiety as a feeling, and she even said, Once in a while, take some ibuprofen, you know, your your anxiety, you're inflamed, and treat it like a symptom, but don't consider your world as falling apart because that's how it's making you feel.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Just see it as this is how you, you know, it's like a stomachache.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_04: How about I say a few things and then can kind of clarify?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_04: So, in in terms of even thinking about the 4D model of disease, disorder, disconnection, and disorientation, I I I want to highlight you mentioned you could feel very sad and that that is different than major depressive disorder where people are totally stuck in bed, dark thoughts of not being alive, can't concentrate, can't eat.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_04: Uh which I've been through.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: I've been through.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_04: I bring it up because people who have had major depressive disorder will appropriately get scared because they'll feel sad and they'll go, Oh no, it's coming back.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I I will see people that say that and sometimes it's coming back, and but more commonly it's they're feeling, you know, and they're feeling something in relationship to life that's incredibly painful and it's actually sad.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_04: And so I differentiate those of you know, we can get kind of sad and feel kind of terrible, and it actually feels pretty similar to major depression, but it tends to lift within a few days, you know, a week.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_04: It's when things stick around for weeks.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_04: Now the brain has gotten stuck, right?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's where other biological interventions um are helpful.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_04: And as I as I mentioned, medications definitely can be helpful um and they have their place.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but I as a as a I'm a different kind of psychiatrist in many ways, and I'm much more into like brain stimulation and technologies like transcranial magnetic stimulation, uh, which is FDA proof for major depress uh major depressive disorder and for OCD, um, which we'll we'll get to.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um so when people get stuck, when the brain gets stuck, it's like okay, let's let's not ignore that, let's treat that um and be compassionate about it.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_04: It doesn't mean you've done something wrong.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_04: That's the other thing.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes people feel bad, like, ah, I messed up.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't like no, you just like if you got pneumonia, you didn't mess up, right?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_04: It's just like get get treatment and get help.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_04: And then at the kind of psychological disorder, the difference is is also a type of stuck, right?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_04: So you're kind of like, hey, if I can sleep it off, get through it, that's not stuck.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_04: That's trying to manage and work with it, and that's different than than um being stuck.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_04: And and to actually say, I would say, no matter how spiritually aligned we are, uh, we're gonna feel pain.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_04: And at least in my own personal experience, the more aligned I get, the more I'm handed, the more pain comes my way of things that I haven't processed either within myself, within my relationships, or how I relate to my community and uh and and to God.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_04: So the goal is not pain-free.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_04: That's uh not a useful goal.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_04: And so then the anxiety, I think it is useful to think of anxiety as at least like a signal.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_04: And anxiety, and you say, Where what did what did God give us this for?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_04: Well, in prior times when we lived out on with you know on a tent uh without big structured buildings, there were lions and bears that would come and eat us unless we did something to protect ourselves.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_04: And it gave us a system of fight and flight, right?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_04: And so I'm ready to go.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_04: I tell people every week, I go, we don't have bears and lions attacking us anymore.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_04: The bears and lions are in our mind, and they're usually about the future, and they're usually about like, is this gonna work out or how is this gonna work out?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_04: It's the uncertainty, or even worse, it's the mind in its way to try to protect us, is saying, Oh my gosh, it's gonna be terrible.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_04: Here's all these bad things, and then let me quickly get into a protection program.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_04: And so the body hears the message of the mind and says, I'm on, I need to be in fight or flight mode.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_04: Once we're in flight, when if we catch it really early, we can mentally change the direction, but it's like catching it early.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and that takes practice, right, to really do that.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, real quick, let me interject.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: So, with that with that text message, yeah, it's likely that had I, and I'm not beating myself up, but I could have had the insight right away to like read that text and not let fight or flight go off, but just put it in its proper place right away in a way that I may have done it a little bit too late and my body couldn't recalibrate.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_04: And then to have compassion when that happens too, right?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_04: That um we're on a journey and we're learning and growing, and the and the things that we're most attached to or the people or what we care about the most, or actually where our biggest triggers are gonna be, right?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_04: The ones that affect us the most are where our triggers are.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_04: And so once the train has left the station, you're not gonna think your way through it.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_04: It's more, it's like it has to calm down.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_04: The body has to calm down on its own time.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_04: You can't force it, and in fact, that's what makes it worse.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_04: We're like, oh, I need to be calm now, and you're like, now the body's like, here's the extra threat.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_04: So it's actually learning to slow it down, take some breath, reach out to our friends and family, take a walk.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_04: You could actually push the body hard, like go do some sit-ups, push-ups, like way to burn off.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_04: Basically, the body says, I have this extra energy to do something with because you told me there's a fight and flight response, so I'm ready.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: So rather than saying something's wrong, it's actually my body's ready.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_04: It just it it got signaled when it there's no bear I need to go fight, right?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_04: And and to have compassion about that and to actually be okay with it wearing wearing off.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I think these those are the moments too where they challenge our our spiritual orientation, you know.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_04: So we don't know what's gonna happen next.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_04: We know that tragedy is coming in our future.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_04: We know we're all gonna die.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_04: We know everyone that we love and care about is gonna die either before or after us.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_04: We don't think about that very long, right?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty cheery.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm done with this podcast.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's Joey.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's pull the plug on this sucker.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_04: But this is a reminder of, you know, there's another world, there is another dimension.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_04: And this is a reminder of that, right?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_04: In my line of work, thankfully, in psychiatry, we do lose a lot of people.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we lost 70 children in Charleston from suicide last year, 800 people.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my gosh.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_04: Uh adults, uh, or just people in general in South Carolina.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_04: Um so we lose people, and it hurts as a physician to lose people.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_04: It hurts as a human, but it is a reminder that kind of thinking now on the spiritual level, the kingdom of man is we're immersed in it.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_04: We all are, and it pulls us in and it grips us, right?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_04: We're having to continually repair and work on like an ari reminder of what Christ is bringing into us, right?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_04: And that it's actually in the place of disorder and suffering that the light of love persists.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_04: That love can come in and through us.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_04: And if we don't feel that in the moment, to not beat ourselves up, right?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_04: We're human, right?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_04: We're doing our best we can.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_04: So the bigger message at all those levels are compassion, right?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_04: And and then trying to work work in different ways.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_04: So I'll kind of pause there and see what kind of comes up.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let me use you for a minute.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not getting off topic very much, but maybe a little.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to like tell me if I'm messing up doing this.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: What I want to explain to someone when an emotion is appropriate or inappropriate, I basically use these three thoughts.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Does it fit the situation, its intensity, and its duration?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's how you determine if an emotion's appropriate.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: It fits the situation, its intensity is you know relative to the situation, and the duration.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Is that a fair way to put something?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_04: That is fair.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_04: That is fair.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_04: My friend Fred would say if you throw a pebble in the water and you have a tidal wave come back at you, you know that's not appropriate, right?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_04: So, but if in that same sense, if you threw a pebble and there's a ripple and it runs its rippling course, that's what you would expect.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's so hard to I think when you're on a a journey of pain for so long, like there's been so many times when I've reminded myself you're on a painful journey, and there's like an a a level of acceptance to that.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna be on this journey tomorrow, you're gonna be on this journey in two days, you're gonna be on this journey in in two weeks, and it's profound to me, I think that uh this is the first time I think I've gone through a difficult season and recognized I think instead of thinking, how am I gonna get out of this?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's no, I'm in this.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I will say, you know, we're we're going on a a little more spiritual, but I say this in a obviously not a real jealous way, but Dr.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Short, your ex your recent experience with Jesus, it's like I I hunger.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I was praying in the car today and I'm like, God.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like of all the seasons, like I I need your presence so bad.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's just interesting to me that I feel like God's not stupid.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, God's making some sort of a choice, and I feel like God's almost making a choice for there to be more silence than anything.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I am persevering from one day to the next.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not turning to anything unhealthy.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's just a grind, and it's like, Lord, I'm I'm doing all the things and I'm seeking you.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm asking and seeking and knocking, and it's just kind of like with a smile on my face, I'm like, I don't I don't know why you're so quiet.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: I could really I could really use you now.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_04: Reminds me of the uh what they call the dark night, right?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_04: Dark night of the soul, where we are in those places and we're where where is he?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_04: We could really use a hand.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_04: And I think in those moments, at least in part, it's where our our brothers and sisters are here in support.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_04: Um for me, I've done a lot of mental mind training that I think put me at risk.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_04: I think it was at risk of training my mind in a particular way and then having an immense amount of suffering that I had no h way to handle that just cracked me open.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_04: So it was that I think that was part of it.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's part of what I would love to see more i you know in in the Christian in our church, etc.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_04: Is this kind of contemplative um practic practices and approaches that it's not just a and you know, correct me where I'm wrong, but like it's not just about belief, but it it's about knowing.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_04: And experience because that will just trump our thought and belief all day long.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_04: And I would also say, Joey, what comes up to me is that it's beautiful you're staying in it and staying present with it.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_04: And that's how the pain processes.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_04: Because it's actually when we avoid and try to push it away that that's where our problem comes.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_04: The problem is not the pain, it's the avoidance of it.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_04: And rather than saying I'm gonna I mean, you may be in it, you know, days and weeks and etc.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_04: But that generally, I don't know how does that feel when you say that.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_04: Because for most people that's that's a tough one.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_04: Rather than say, I'm in it today, I'm working with it today, right?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_04: Rather than thinking how long it'll be.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_04: Because you don't ultimately know, and you never know when grace is gonna hit either.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_04: Could hit today.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I actually I mean this this stuff is on the forefront of my mind.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: I and I'm I'm not I personally I'm not trying to get some sort of a big following in any regard.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's more therapeutic to me than anything, but I've been writing a little more often and just putting it on Substack, and the last thing I wrote was brokenness isn't the problem, it's the solution.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: I just kind of differentiated between broken and brokenness.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like I don't think we should succumb to the word broken because that means uh er you know, it doesn't sound like there's any repair in the future, but you know, brokenness and facing it and walking through it and choosing not to distract yourself from it.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I've you know, Chip is aware that I've had some in my past some more unhealthy ways of coping, whereas now I think it's more of like a trying to mentally distract myself.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: I uh I don't know, f fantasize about the future and how things are are going to be when I'm on the other side of this journey, and it's like, yeah, well, what's the point of that?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm it's just s for me it's a little bit of an escape, and it's like, no, I'm this is where I'm at right now.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it totally resonates with me um as far as what you're saying about pain.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: I was just gonna ask you, Chip, uh what what your thoughts are on why God uh is silent sometimes, you know, in the times of most need.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let me let me say something in general that Dr.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Short may not fully you know be aware of.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've known Joey now for gosh close to fifteen years.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Both he and Chris.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that's so awesome and wonderful is and Joey may not fully be aware of it.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think he is, but maybe not fully.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: Until Joey got uh ha had the big deal in nineteen uh twenty nineteen and was hospitalized and they got a medicine cocktail that is really working.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: From then till now, I've never seen Joey as consistently uh in a good place as as he's been.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now the other side of the coin is you get a few years into that and he's been dealing with one of the hardest things you'll ever deal with in your life.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: My point being it's night and day.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's no telling w what would be going on right now if Joey had not come through that med medical profession science finally coming through and and bringing him a per prescriptive cocktail that I mean I can attest to from the outside, it's it's incredible how well Joey's done, even through this this situation he's in.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: And a big factor of that is the seven years of therapy too.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: Throw that in there, it's just sure.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Which is you know, if you think about what p Dr.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Short's talking about with the with the layers of things, you know you you're you're addressing all the layers.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think back to your question, Joey, about God being silent.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Jesus says take up your cross daily and follow me.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what does a cross symbolize?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: A cross symbolizes death, burial, and resurrection.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you just said it, Joey, I think you've done a superb job of not numbing your pain by making destructive choices.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think God wants you to realize, and to be honest with you, I'm I'm in a similar thing with with some of the things God and I are working on.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's really easy for us to get a dopamine squirt.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we can for me, I can buy a book, I can eat a pizza, I can whatever.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, I can micromanage my feelings, but what it does is it pulls me away from what I'm feeling.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And what I'm feeling might be needed, necessary, and whatever.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and Joey, here's the thing to think about.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everything God's doing today is preparing you for tomorrow.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's an important thought.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Everything God's doing today is preparing you for tomorrow.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And Joey, for you to be the kind of man and leader and family person and all the things God wants a year from now, five years, ten years, twenty years, thirty years from now, he wants your ability to rely on him and see him in the midst of no matter what you're feeling.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's times when it isn't that he's not there, but he's not gonna rescue you from something that's really, really good for you.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you're doing great.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think you should you should celebrate internally that you're not self-managing your pain.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: What it's gonna do is it's gonna you for you to stand.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, scripture talks about after you've done all, stand.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: And um that's what you're doing right now.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: After you've done all, stand.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, every once in a while you're like, hey, can we talk you know this this or that through me?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, that's perfectly normal.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're turning like like Dr.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Short said a minute ago, you're turning to the community God's built around you rather than making a dumb choice that sets you back in more ways than one, by the way.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're doing great, Joey, and I'm sorry that it feels crappy, but not entirely, because God's preparing you for the future that He has for you.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I just read a statement in a book I'm reading right now, and and he said uh basically um entering the kingdom is not easy.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: We teach it like it's easy.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Getting saved is pretty easy because Jesus did all the work.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: But entering the kingdom, entering into the fullness of what God has for us.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody who thinks that's easy, they they haven't started yet.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're doing great, Joey.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I hate that it's kind of a bummer at times, because all the time it isn't, and it's good to remember that.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've been around you in the last few weeks or days, and you you're you're having fun, you're excited, you're whatever, into what you're doing.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you're right where God wants you, man.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh again, not to get preachy, but the prodigal son said, give me my inheritance, and all he did was open up the door to lots of trouble.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: The turnaround was when he in the pig sty said, Make me as one of your servants.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: When you shift from give me to make me, don't give me a million dollars, make me a man you can trust with a million dollars.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Don't give me a pain free life, make me a man that can handle the pain life presents so that I can keep doing what I'm called to do.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you're there, Joey.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, every once in a while you might lose your grip on the on the baton of the relay race.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: But um dude, there's just seasons that aren't fun.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Part of the reason the body of Christ is so immature is we we hit the eject button.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: We we go dopamine up or we go get worse and get entangled in an affair or drugs or some other addictive behavior that self-medicates, and you're not doing that, Joey.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: You could use some mild forms of entertainment, etc., to get a little dopamine, but you're not doing anything to to totally numb yourself out and disconnect another connection type issue.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's crazy.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: Before we turn our attention to Pastor Chris here, you said something, Dr.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: Short, uh it was very profound, but uh if it was so profound, I don't know why I can't think of how you said it.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: But but but but but something about how important community is, and I think you even said on like a molecular level, I I maybe maybe how we because I'm a brain electrician guy, right?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_04: Oxytocin and all that the neurons wire you know wire and and fire and wire together, and we're we're social beings, we're built to be interconnected with each other, yeah, and without it we will be sick.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so there's there's times where I, you know, and I have a few people that I can do this with, but oftentimes sucks for Chip, but he's the one that I end up calling, and it's it's crazy because I know he's not gonna be able to wave a magic wand.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: He's not gonna be able to say necessarily the magic words, you know, he'll say some things that are helpful, but I'm always surprised how just a five-minute phone call, I hang up and I'm like, I'm a little lifted.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: I just needed to talk to somebody.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I didn't I knew I wasn't gonna get the answer to get me out of this because it's a journey, but man, it was good to talk to someone that cared about me.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and I have to go spend time with God to get it get it off of me.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm kidding.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm honored, dude.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I love the journey.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_04: But it but it seems like that's where we are, right?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_04: We have a brokenness you know, we have fragmentation, we sin, we miss the mark, and that's it's actually hey, we're doing this together, you know, like we're not alone in that.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_04: And we have different seasons to help each other out, right?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_04: There as as Joey was talking about um kind of latter part of last year, I was not in good a good place at all, you know, and I was used being the strong guy and the one people come to, and I was not that guy, and and that does something to your identity too when you're not that guy.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_04: But from Chip's perspective, it's like that's the work who's working with you because God says, I don't want you to be that that guy.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_04: It's like got it all together.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_04: That's not what I'm asking you to be.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_04: I'm asking you to be something much more real and loving and look for the fruits of spirit within you and and and and align uh with Christ and uh and let this love come in and through you and help do your part to bring to further bring the wholeness of God into this world.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_04: And so we play our part.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_04: And so and and I would just echo, you know, hopefully, Joey, that what Chip is saying, it's a it's a huge perspective to be like, hey, I'm not going back to the old way, I'm getting like whacked hard in where I really matters, and I'm not going back to my old ways, but damn it, it really hurts.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_04: You know, like I'm trying and you're getting new tools to work with that.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, man.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that is the ultimate testimony to the ongoing work of salvation.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was saved, I'm being saved, I'm yet to be saved.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Joey, dude, I've I've watched you for 15 years virtually.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: You're just not the same guy, man.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Medication has brought you to a level ground, but you're you're building from there.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: Medication's brought you to a normal level of functioning.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know about normal.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you ever can only do it.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to be normal.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about it.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: We try to be normal.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: But uh but I think you're building on top of it really, really well, and it bodes well for your future.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: The trick is we we we we want to pull the plug and like I'm I don't I don't want this, I don't like this, and and then we do something dumb to bring up bring it to an end, and uh it's worse.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Chris, tell Dr.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: Short a bit about your struggles and I'd say snapshot of your background, what it looks like at its worst, how much progress you think you've made, you know, navigating this.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: This is an interesting question.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: Is it an ailment?
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: If he's struggling with OCD, would you call it an ailment, a mental ailment?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Is that a helpful word, you professionals, doctors?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_04: Brain disease mostly.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_04: But there it is has a psychological disorder component to it, and it hits social and spiritual as well, but it's primarily a brain disease.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: Go ahead, big Chris.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, I'm thankful to be with you guys.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I don't know when it started.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um when I was nine years old, my mom passed away from cancer, and at that point, there was something in me that said, I'm uh, I think my nine-year-old self, I just wasn't as close to my dad.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_03: I th something in me at that point was like, I'm on my own now.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_03: So that that there was a there was something in there, and I don't even know that I, I mean, I couldn't have even articulated it, but there was something in me that was like, I'm on my own now.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_03: And so um I sought, you know, validation in all kinds of places, mostly from from people, you know, popular crowds, all that kind of stuff through high school.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: And then at a radical encounter with Jesus when I was 18.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: I had a crazy dream where I was like in a dark soul descending into a dark chasm with other dark souls, and there were huge faces ascending into a light in front of me, and one of them was my roommate who is a Christian.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_03: He's a doctor now, but I walked into his room at around midnight and he prayed with me to receive Christ.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_03: And I remember him letting me read his Bible that night, and I like the words were on fire.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, I had read the Bible a little bit to impress this girl, Tatiana, after I um right after I graduated high school.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: I I just read it to impress her, and it was like reading a glossary.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_03: It was terrible.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then that night I was reading it and I was like, the words are on fire.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_03: So I woke up the next morning.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_03: I remember looking at myself in the mirror, and my face would look different.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like I had never felt any life inside.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_03: But then I stopped.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_03: I smoked weed like a few times after that, and they were the worst highs ever.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_03: Because the little bit of Bible that I had memorized combined with whatever paranoia the marijuana brought, I was like, I was certain I was going to hell every time.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I had started watching pornography when I was like 12 years old.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so I stopped the porn, I stopped the marijuana, I stopped getting drunk.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_03: And then all of a sudden, and I don't know really when the OCD hit.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_03: I was diagnosed when I was 27.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_03: I'm 43 now.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_03: The battle definitely started raging because immediately, what and at this point, undiagnosed, kind of fast forward, I came on staff with COS in 2004.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I got married in 2007, especially when I got married and had somebody with me all the time, Abby, my dear, dear beloved wife, who is actually a therapist now.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, she panic attacks started hitting.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: I was super focused on the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: I was like that.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_03: I was, and I had no idea that I had any kind of mental disease or anything.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I was like, that's all I could focus on.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: For I mean, gosh, it's eight years, 10 years, something like that.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, every passage of scripture.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I still have some of the verses memorized.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: It was like, apparently, there is some crack in the salvation landscape that you can just step on and you are doomed for life.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_03: And I didn't have any sense at that point that I was looking through a broken lens.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_03: I thought everyone else was wrong.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: I thought I was like, and I would hear people talk about the Bible being a love letter.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, it is the most terrifying book ever.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what are you people looking at?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: So then um things started to get to a point where when we've had about the time we had our first son when I was 27, where Abby was like, okay, I this is this is whatever this is, and we didn't know what it was yet, is being isn't so intrusive right now in our lives that you've got to get help.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like it would, and it started to hit me, not like I'm gonna leave you if you don't, but it was like, okay, this is causing like the person that I'm the closest to to feel like I'm not manageable.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_03: So then I I so at that point I saw a psychiatrist for the first time.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you a question.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Just for people who are listening, what kind of behavior, just a couple of examples, what kind of behavior made her say that?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like what what kind of things were were you doing?
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the worst was panic attacks at that point.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at about how often?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_03: Oh man, I they were I would I wasn't on any medication and they just came whenever.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I would be I on one time I almost passed out.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_03: I remember like my vision getting closed in.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_03: And there there have been many different themes of the OCD, but it's like, could I do something wrong to the baby?
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: You know, was what was one of them that that was that was there.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like, is that even is that possible?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: All right, explain that a little bit.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: When you say like you had a a thought out of nowhere about hurting your baby or something.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_03: Well, like, yeah, like I remember one time, and it some of it is embarrassing to talk about, but I mean I'll r I remember this one.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_03: I remember we had Isaac, and this is right around this time.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_03: I can't remember if I had seen a therapist at this point yet.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_03: I had a thought about it, it is really hard for me to talk about, but I had a thought about Isaac in the oven, like me putting him in the oven.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_03: And then the very next thing I did was I took one step towards the oven.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_03: Not with an intention of doing it, but I was like, did that step, the fact that I didn't stop walking, did that step mean that I want that?
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then it was like tailspin.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I should be locked up.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: I I'm working at a church.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: I've been working at Seacoast for six years at that point.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_03: I should be locked up.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: I shouldn't be entrusted with who do I need to confess to?
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_03: Compulsive confession.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_03: You know, who do I need to bring this to?
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously, I want to murder my what if I want to murder my baby?
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_03: Am I certain that I don't?
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I went and got the diagnosis, but the counselor that I met with, and I don't need to spend a lot of time with this, I just wasn't convinced.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_03: At that point, I was still convinced that counseling was fur, I had a perception of it that if I enlist in this, I'm admitting that something is terribly, terribly wrong with me.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_03: And that was just not something that my apparently that my brain psyche was prepared to handle at that point.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_03: So I got on Lexapro um and just uh didn't experience any kind of initial help.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_03: And honestly, at that point, thought that because of that quick encounter with counseling and specifically medication.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_03: I remember I when that when that first psychiatrist told me that the medication would help, I, I, I cried at the first meeting because I like, I thought that the place I was in, I was gonna be in forever.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_03: But then when the medication didn't immediately alleviate anything, I was like, I apparently this just isn't gonna work.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_03: So then fast forward, I become the campus pastor of the Columbia campus.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_03: I keep grind grinding kind of similar to Joey in the sense that I wasn't turning to pornography.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't turning to any, I just was going, I mean, sometimes I'd have I the panic attacks at this point were still unpredictable, but I was meeting with Chip at this point before I went to Columbia.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_03: So I had I would bounce around in Mount Pleasant from one pastor's office to the next, usually asking, you know, something along the lines of, have I lost my salvation?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_03: Is that possible?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_03: Studying Arminianism and Calvinism, trying to figure out, trying to figure out, is there some can somebody give me a verse?
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_03: Can somebody just tell me?
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: I'd go to intensive prayer sessions.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_03: I remember old Vern Jensen sitting with him and Migsy for an hour in their house as they prayed, you know, going to cleansing stream, people praying for me and casting spirits out of me.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I don't know what's wrong, but I will, I, you know, I don't have the theology for this.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if I'm being attacked by a demon.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_03: So I remember one lady on staff at Seacoast looking me in the eye and saying, spirit of fear, I command you to leave in the name of Jesus.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_03: And at that point, I'm like, I don't know, maybe there's a spirit of fear in me.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, that feels weird.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: Part of me was looking at the lady, and I don't want to say her name because I know she was well-meaning, but part of me was like, so and so, it's me, Chris.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think I don't think I've got, I don't think I'm possessed.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_03: But anyways, I was bouncing around to anything that would help.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then once I took a once I moved away from Mount Pleasant to Columbia and didn't couldn't bounce around from Chip's office to Michael's office to different pastors, I that's when I started um seeing a professional counselor.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I haven't stopped in over 10 years.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_03: And then once I came back to Charleston and began overseeing the West Ashley campus, that's when I started seeing my current psychiatrist and found the cocktail of meds that took panic attacks largely off the table.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm and I I'm I've changed counselors a couple of times, but I'm with a wonderful counselor right now that I've been with for five years.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_03: The panic attacks, I've got a couple as needed medications and then a couple, and then a few staples, which I'm happy to share if um if that if that's of interest.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_03: Now a bad day.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like I think what's the most the most helpful thing recently is I also see a lady who is a professional counselor, but she she her but what she what she meets with me for is spiritual direction.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: So a lot basically she'll spend time praying for me, and I'll sit in silence in her meetings just to listen to God.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_03: And the thing that I've become the most concrete with lately is just that God's, and this sounds so basic.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I've gone to I've got my MDiv, I've gone to seminary, and it's like this feels like like Christianity 101, but I'm like, I'm I'm convinced that God's with me every moment of every day.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like it like it finally hit in a way, like that early, like people would tell me something like that.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_03: And because of that agreement with my when my mom passed away, I'm like, I'm on my own.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_03: So you could tell me God's with me, He loves me, but I developed it was like pouring water on a rock.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like I was like, no, I'm on my own.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: I made that agreement a long time ago.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_03: So when Life would squeeze, you know, it was like, you're you're gone, God.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_03: You're not, you're not here.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so I I've become convinced that he like Matthew 28, I'm with you always.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_03: Not sometimes, not part of the time, always.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm convinced that even in my uh my hardest OCD moments, that Jesus is always in the, he's always in the boat.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I believe it's it'll get to the other side.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_03: What it looks like now is yesterday, and this is being again super vulnerable.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I was waiting on my car uh at uh at a car dealership.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_03: One of the perpetual things, uh, it's just weird how the OCD, I still don't really understand it, but how it'll bounce around from one thing to the next, it was that my zipper might be down.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I went to the yesterday while at the car dealership, I went into the bathroom twice to check my zipperless shorts, thinking there may there may be a zipper on it.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_03: Am I sure?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_03: How sure is sure enough?
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: And and on the heels of that, I felt so just down because I have seen significant progress over the years, but when something like that happens, I'm like so so, Chris, thank you um for sharing.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_04: That's absolutely your the vulnerability.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_04: I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna co-share with you some vulnerability that uh Chip and Joey don't know.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_04: Dr.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: Short, let me let me say something real quick.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Chris, we man, we love you, dude.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: We love you, we appreciate you your courage, your your willingness to share, to help other people.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um dude, we don't we don't carry any uh thoughts of a negative nature.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: You're a you're a trooper, you're a hero, you're a soldier, you show up day after day pursuing God, pursuing ministry.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, I love you, ma'am.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_04: And Chip, I want to comment on that.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_04: So that is where the the church and the community has a place to either accommodate, shame, or heal somebody dealing with OCD, right?
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_04: So you either accommodate and and keep in the confession thing uh or or you shame them and say, Oh, you have a spiritual problem, or you play a role in healing.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_04: So just saying that you love and respect and care for them, that's part of that's the healing.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_04: So that's beautiful.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_04: So thank you for doing that.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um, that was actually one of the points is thinking about the bias psychosocial spiritual.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_04: Like I'm glad you brought that out right front and center.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm gonna personal and then just kind of talk uh uh OCD education and then come back to you.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_04: So probably in my early 20s, I would have probably met criteria for OCD.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_04: Some of mine was uh uh hyper metaphysical, religious, like what's you know, what's really going on?
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_04: But I would spend a lot of time, and I remember I would like hold my head and like just I I wish it would stop, you know, it just like keeps going and going and going.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_04: And later it became more of a checking phenomena, right?
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_04: And so um, and the and and the the reality is OCD there currently currently that may change, but currently there's no cure, so it's basically like dampening down uh the symptoms.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_04: And so for me, what what's left over now at 52?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_04: I I still have a to-do list and I can spend a little too much time on it, or um, I'm a checker, I could check the door.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_04: I now have an electronic lock on the door, and I have my family engaged in a useful way where this this thankfully has not been as much of an issue lately, but some years ago, where I could get kind of stressed and I'm like checking more and stuff, and then they start looking at me and smiling, and then I go, Oh, am I doing it again?
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_04: And they go, Yeah, you're doing it again.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_04: And it takes the eat because part of it is the seriousness of it, right?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_04: The grip, the grip on it is what really hurts.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_04: That grip, when you grip so hard that your body goes into fight or flight, that's the panic, right?
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_04: The panic is because you've gripped your mind has gripped so hard the body just says, Cool, I need to pop, I need to be ready.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_04: Who do we need to fight?
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_04: Who do we need to run from?
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_04: But it's the it started with the grip.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_04: And so one of the secret sauces of OCD is like this is a mind trick, right?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_04: I give people example of uh email, right?
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_04: I go, you get all this email.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_04: Do you ever get spam email?
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_04: Do you ever get spam email?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_04: Do you spend a lot of time on your spam email or do you move on?
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_04: So we can do it out there on a screen, but on our mind screen, it's really hard to go, wow.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_04: I tell people every week, half of what pops in my mind I don't believe.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_04: I have tons of spam stuff in my inbox, right?
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_04: Of my mind.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_04: And the secret is like discerning when it's just spam, right?
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, it's not even true, right?
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_04: I I don't need to give it a lot of attention.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_04: But what happens at the brain level, so for for folks not familiar with OCD, even in my training, I was taught um the common things were sex, dirt, and Jesus.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_04: So people have contamination fears, um uh they have sexual things.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_04: They might have a thought like, I'm gonna have sex with my sister, and they're like, Oh my gosh, this what's going on in my mind?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_04: I need to say ten Hail Marys, right?
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_04: They say ten Hail Marys, and then the thought, and they feel better for a little bit, could be a few minutes, could be an hour, comes right back, and now I gotta do 10 Hail Marys.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_04: And so um essentially there's uh kind of do fancy talk for a second.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_04: There's a circuit in the brain called called the corticostriatal thalamocortical circuit.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_04: So circle circuit in the middle of our brain.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Chris, if you memorize, memorize that word, you'll be healed.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_04: I started okay and then So the circuit is overactive in our brain, and it's a circuit that helps that is influenced with habits and rewards.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_04: And the way I think of it is like a sensor that's too sensitive.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_04: There for everybody, there's the function of like, is something okay?
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_04: The certainty sensor, like, is this okay?
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_04: And then, you know, like, oh, did I lock the door?
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_04: Let me go check.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, I locked it, and you just walk away.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_04: But somebody with OCD, I mean, I've gotten in the car and driven away.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_04: Thankfully, this has gotten profoundly better, and go, but did I?
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_04: Or was that like from yesterday?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_04: Let me go back and check, right?
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_04: So the circuit is hypersensitive in the brain for people non-familiar with OCD, it just comes back.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_04: You you go do the thing to feel better, and then it just comes back.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_04: You yeah, I see you holding your head, right?
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_04: It's like you know, right?
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_04: It just keeps coming back.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_04: So then what do you do about it, right?
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_04: What are treatments for it?
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_04: So at the biological level, we'll talk about biological and psychological, and then we and Chip has already touched into the social spiritual, and we can we can go go there as well.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_04: But at the biological level, we're trying to dampen down that circuit.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_04: And so medications like the SSRIs, the serotonin reuptake inhibitors can dampen that activity.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_04: The challenge is that it works only in like half of people, and doctors don't always tell people that you you might be in the lucky half and you might not, right?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so if that doesn't work, um there's another biological therapy um I'm gonna come back to for a reason that in the stuff that I do.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and then there usually people will go to therapy, uh, and that's now at the psychological level, and there's a specific type of therapy called ERP.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_03: Exposure response prevention.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, and so most people who say they've done ERP actually haven't done ERP because ERP is like you almost need to be a little sadistic to do it to people, right?
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_03: I've had a little experience.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, yeah, it's tough.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_04: So basically, what you what you do in ERP is you, as a good therapist, what they will do with this is they will make a provocation hierarchy, they'll find the small things that affect you all the way to a top 10, you're gonna jump out the room or whatever, right?
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_04: And you work at the small things and you work your way up.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_04: And so what you do is you do the things that bother people.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_04: So if somebody had a contamination fear, um and you might say, let's take your phone and um I'm gonna I'm gonna touch it and then I'm gonna have you hold it.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_04: And then you can't go clean your hands, you can't go soap up.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_04: And so what you're doing is you're preventing the compulsion.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_04: Because what happens is um essentially is that the brains, the fire alarm is being sent off, and and basically we're going to a compulsion, we're fanning the smoke, but you know, the smoke comes back and the alarm goes off.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_04: And so we we basically have to change the strategy by seeing repeatedly, not once, and not at an intellectual level, but at a heart experiential level, that the thing I'm obsessing about, if I don't do the compulsion, the world doesn't stop, I didn't die, and nobody got hurt.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_04: And you might know that intellectually, but you got to know it experientially.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_04: So ERP does that and it works great.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_04: However, it doesn't work for everyone either.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_04: So then people come see me, right, in our group, and what we're doing is a type of combined thing.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_04: So what people are usually still on medications, they may still have an and hopefully still have an ERP therapist, and then what we do is we do TMS or transcranial magnetic stimulation.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_04: So I've talked a little bit about this, but it basically is a way, it's the currency of the brain, and it's part of 21st century neuropsychiatry, and most psychiatrists don't even know about it or don't know much about it, and most definitely don't do it.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_04: But basically, um we have we provoke somebody, so we might do the you know the dirt thing and get high anxiety uh for a few minutes, and then we'll stimulate that circuit.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_04: So that circuit is in overdrive, we've activated it with the behavior, and now we dampen it, and we give people a 20-minute treatment, and we'll usually do you know 30 or 40 sessions, and what we'll see is about half of people have a significant response.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_04: And so they're not in remission, they're not like symptom-free, but they're like have people that like haven't gone to a grocery store in three years, and now they can go to the grocery store.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_04: I have people haven't hung out with their family or their friends anymore.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_04: I give you a great example of a guy who had a contamination fear during COVID.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_04: He came in and um we we were doing the phone things and doing all kinds of stuff.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_04: He came in for treatment, and I see his hand kicked out on the side.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_04: He's got this helmet on where we're doing the treatment.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_04: I go see him there's because we have our nurse kind of helping set up after we found the measurements and the dosing and everything.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_04: I go, why do you have your hand out?
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_04: And he goes, I touched the toilet.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_04: I go, What'd you do?
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_04: He goes, I touched the toilet.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, wow, that was really good, you know?
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_04: Why don't you take your hand and put it on your lap?
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_04: No, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_04: And he did it, right?
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_04: And so so before the treatment, he was using eight bottles of hand sanitizer.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_04: He had not hugged his dog or his mom, who he loved dearly, and not hung out with any of his friends.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_04: So by the end of treatment, he was hanging out with his friends, hugging his mom, hugging his dog, and he was going around and he shook all our hands.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_04: You could see on his face it wasn't completely comfortable.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_04: He could do it though.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_04: And he didn't go wash his hands, he wasn't doing the compulsion.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_04: So that's where we are in the biological therapies, and we're at the beginning of doing some stuff with ultrasound.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_04: So people are used to ultrasound to take pictures, but you can also use it to modulate the brain, and we can get deeper in the brain.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_04: So we're at the beginning uh of being able to really uh move the needle on the brain level, but it's a brain mind thing.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_04: Um, we also have a few folks that have deep brain stimulators where we actually have a neurosurgeon put a circuit or put a lead in the brain, deep in the brain, where that circuit is overactive.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_04: Just like a pacemaker for the heart, they have a pacemaker for the brain to lower down that activity.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_04: We actually do it in depression too.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_04: I have people with electrodes on the front of their brain to kind of modulate.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_04: Permanently?
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_04: I see somebody tomorrow that we has internal pulse generators like computer batteries, and then they have uh electrodes on the front of their brain, and I can change Yeah, I mean, it would be dead.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_04: These people would be dead without it.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_04: So um the the one of the guys that had the the deep brain stimulation for OCD, he was a guy, how would I say it?
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_04: He he never felt like he cleaned himself well enough.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_04: So he would flood the septic tank, he'd wipe his his butt so much that he would flood the septic tank.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, he was one time in the hospital, and after three hours in the hospital, and he was wiping his behind and he was bleeding, and he's like, I'm not done, I'm almost there.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_04: And I just literally had to grab his arms and say, No, you're you're done.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_04: We we've we've got it, we've got to get you out of the bathroom.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_04: So there's severity ranges.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_04: How's he doing now?
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_04: He's not uh clogging the septic tank anymore, he's not in the hospital anymore.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_04: He has a deep brain stimulator to help with that.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it's per he's got an inserted thing?
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, it's a permanent permanent device.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: So there's no completely fixing that for him.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's never gonna be a time in his life outside of a miracle where he's just like, I don't struggle with that and I don't need help for it anymore.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_04: No, I think I think I would say just where we are now.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_04: So if I I if I were to go really hyper about what we can do, it's it these are bioengineering problems, and this is a circuit-based disorder, and so we just have to get better at modulating the circuits.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_04: We're at the beginning, not the end.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'd ask the same thing about Chris when it comes to his OCD.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're seeing in the future that you guys can figure out something with his brain and just wipe out this issue where he just doesn't even struggle with it.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, I we're but before I retire, what I hope I'm able to do is people come into my office, we uh hear about their symptoms, and then we put them in a functional MRI scanner.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_04: We see what circuit is particularly inactive or overactive, and then we can modulate that with different forms of brain stimulation depending on where the circuit is.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_04: And we're already doing a form of that.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_04: So I've talked about the St.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_04: TMS that Nolan uh Williams uh uh invented and co-founded, um, where we're at the beginning of that, where we can find a depression circuit and get people out of depression in two and a half days.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_04: And uh one of the South Carolina insurance companies will start a uh there's planning to start uh covering that um this this coming month uh for 15 and older.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_04: So uh so we're gonna change how we even treat severe depression.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um and so just like where I'd like to see us get with that is um just like people can get like have a heart attack or a mild heart attack and they got a stint, and people used to not talk about having heart attacks, and now they're like, oh yeah, I was in a heart attack and I got to went in the hospital, I got the stint, and now I'm doing a whole lot better.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_04: And that's where I see us going with neuropsychiatric conditions, like, oh wow, I was so depressed and I wanted to kill myself, or wow, my OCD was so bad.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_04: I I kept thinking I'd might I might kill my kid, or I jumped, killed somebody driving my car, but it was so bad, but finally I got this treatment, I feel great, been doing fine.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_04: So that's where we're trying to get.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what about people who are on medication for it and are dependent on it and say, hey, can you do something with my brain so I don't have to be on medication?
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's a great question.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_04: So I think uh it's complicated in that a lot of these things get covered by either they're too expensive to pay out of pocket, so they're covered by insurance, so then they have economic policies to say you have to be on the meds and have done these things before you get brain stimulation.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_04: But I think in the future future, we will get so good at how to stimulate the brain, why would we do these at that time will be inferior treatments when you just have a thing that'll cure it or fix it?
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you a question.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: If someone wanted to inquire about what you guys do, how would they go about that?
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: Do they have to be referred by a doctor?
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or like let's just Chris, if you don't mind, let's say Chris is like he gets off this podcast and he's like, dude, how can I go talk to this guy?
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: Is that possible?
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: How does it work?
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, so um, so first, as part of this podcast, I'm not speaking on behalf of MUSC.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_04: I'm speaking as a as a person that's interested in these items.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_04: Temporarily putting on my uh MUSC hat, you could call, you could con uh one of the physicians or therapists could refer people to our brain stimulation service at MUSC.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_04: If it's through MUSC, they can just even put a referral through our computer system to brain stimulation services.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_04: Um they can call one of our numbers.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: So that would be the key phrase brain stimulation services.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: Brain stimulation services.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: Chip, we're just gonna put his cell phone in the show notes.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, there you go.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_01: I like it.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_01: I like it.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, we're gonna find out how much he loves people, man.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I mean, actually, you know, it's fun, much like if somebody had, you know, an alcohol use disorder, and then they have some cred with people with alcohol use disorder.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_04: I at least have some cred with people getting treatment for OCD.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_04: Because I'm like, hey, I I know, right?
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not like symptom-free.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_04: I'm it's profoundly, you know, probably 10%, 15% of what it was.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but you know, I can kind of joke with people and I go, you know, we're gonna do the provocation hierarchy thing, like if it's contamination or whatever.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_04: And I'll say, trust me, this will bother you a lot more than it'll bother me.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_03: One of the most relieving moments when I get to heaven is gonna be God saying, Chris, they're actually you didn't hit a single person with your car.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_03: I'll be like, I knew it, but I need I finally got the certainty because that has been a recurring.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like Oh, so you do get the car one.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_03: So people will turn around, you turn around and maybe, oh, did I and the and the I've gotten I've gotten better at I've gotten better at not turning around.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_04: So if you came in for treatment, that's exactly what we would do.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_04: We'd you know, we'd pick a variety of things, but if it was about the car, we'd like, so you drove, Chris, you drove in today, right?
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um, did you hit anybody?
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_04: And you go, no, I didn't.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_04: I'll go, are you sure?
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_04: Are you sure?
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_04: Are you sure?
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_04: No, I don't I really don't think I did.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_04: I I don't know, Chris.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_04: I think I might even saw something on the news about some of the You would do that?
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, you do that.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_02: So you tell people ERP stuff?
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_04: So you're like, I'm not trying to be mean.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_04: I'm trying to activate the circuits of your brain so then I can stimulate it.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_04: And then I'm not gonna do that when outside of that setting, but I'm trying to trigger that anxiety.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now weird connection, Joey.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I was trying to say about your question about God and where you're at and all.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's times when God appears mean.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_01: But what he's doing is strengthening something in you, straightening or strengthening something in you that you need to get where you're trying to go and where he wants you to go.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and it isn't fun.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_01: But if you keep the the macro picture, the micro is more uh manageable, embraceable, or whatever.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_04: Chip, that's profound.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_04: Like that's part of the orientation, right?
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: They kind of zoom in out like that's pretty profound.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_01: The way you're using that word is an issue I think the church is really, really, really, really, really poor at.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're really poor at connecting the micro to the macro, the day-to-day fluctuations of life to the bigger picture, uh the bigger narrative that God's up to.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_01: Let me say something while I'm thinking about it.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_01: You guys listening, man.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we do this thing?
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: We do this because the church is doing better, but historically the church has not done a great job of understanding, first of all, and then communicating uh things like we'll use OCD and and anxiety that there is a physical component to it.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I found in my own work with people, I mean, to be honest with you, I started in that over-spiritualized place back in the 80s.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_01: In the 90s, I got my master's and started to learn, oh wow, there's a whole lot of layers of understanding here.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then he and then honestly, I didn't still understand the predominant importance of the brain itself until probably to my shame, you might say, into the 2000s.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_01: But since then, I've seen so many people that have a noticeable relief when they realize I didn't do this to myself.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like I remember saying to Joey when he was at his worst point, I said, Joey, there's nothing wrong with Joey.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's something wrong with Joey's brain.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it helped Joey.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_01: It seemed like it did.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the at that moment, I don't know if, you know, whatever, I don't know if you could register help.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_01: But the people around him had all their theories about what he ought to do, and I had to I had to like almost shield him from them.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd say, okay, here's the deal.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing, nothing, nothing of these plans and well, we're gonna send them here, we're gonna send them there.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: None of that's gonna help till we get Joey's brain back functioning well.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_01: I just found it very helpful, but I also know it's a it's a it's a challenge for Christians, it's a challenge for pastors.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're right there, but usually it takes someone you love and care about.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_01: Having a mental disorder that is physiological, biological, and that forces you to look at it from different angles.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to say to you guys out there right now that you might be struggling with you or someone you love, with depression, OCD, Joey's journey with anxiety and depression, uh bipolar disorder, even as far as uh uh psychotic things like schizophrenia and some of that kind of stuff.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_01: Correct me, Dr.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_01: Short, but virtually all of that often, now some of it always, all of that often has physiological brain stuff going on.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_01: And talk therapy won't fix that.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_01: Casting a demon out won't fix that.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm a believer in healing, so you can pray for healing, just like you pray for your hand to heal, you can pray for your brain to heal.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: But in the meantime, if we could just raise the grace level in the church toward ourselves and each other, by understanding that some of what we're dealing with, some of what we watch people deal with, is physiological in nature, and they didn't choose it, and they can't change it just by you know knuckling up or white knuckling their way through it.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's why we do this, man.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I can't remember exactly now how to quote it, but there's a scripture that says basically your grace increases as your knowledge increases.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have more grace for people if you understand what's going on better.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's what we're after, man.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: And Dr.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_01: Short, that's why we we love you, man.
• 1:08:10
  SPEAKER_01: You you you communicate this stuff, you ooze grace.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: You just oo it just comes out of your pores, and you've got such delightful truth.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_01: So John 114, Jesus was full of grace and truth.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh you're a pretty good ambassador, dude.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty good, pretty good ambassador.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_01: I love I love the way you bring stuff together, man.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_04: I I bear my cross daily.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_04: That's uh I I come home.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_04: Come on.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_04: I every day I'm choosing truth or deception.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_04: If I choose truth, I see the kingdom, I feel the kingdom here.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_04: It's not just someplace else, it's here now, and then I can live from love.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_04: The love can come in and through me, and then love can be expressed in our relationships and our activity.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_04: If I choose deception, then I feel separation.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_04: If I feel separation, I feel fear.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_04: If I feel fear, then I have a thousand compensations to try to deal with that.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_04: And so every day and every moment is a choice.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I fail every day in that moment, and when I recognize it and I realign, I'm back on track.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_04: And God loves me and loves us all for that.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_01: Couple questions.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, did you come up with that on your own?
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_04: Which part?
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_01: The uh truth versus deception and how it cascades.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, that was probably a hybrid between work with God and with Fred.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_04: So I I definitely had the love and fear and its trajectory.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_04: I think he helped me see truth and deception.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_01: All right, what would be an example of a deception perspective that pushes you that direction that you described?
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it would be an example of choosing deception over truth.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and this would, I'm gonna borrow one from Fred.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_04: He would say wanting things to be fair.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_04: Like, hey, so it doesn't mean we don't strive to create fairness in the world.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_04: But if we're really after fairness and you took something from me, well, now I'm gonna take something from you, right?
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you get us to the point of eye for an eye, right?
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_04: Or worse.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_04: And and and Christ is not asking us in the kingdom of man to just do what's fair.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_04: It's okay to strive towards that.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_04: He's actually asking us to to transcend that, right?
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_04: Like if he's on the cross for us, right?
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_04: If he's if if God is willing to do that for us, what are we willing to do for God, right?
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_04: And if we're really willing and the love comes through, then we want to just be an instrument.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_04: We quit asking for ourselves.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_04: We're just saying, how can you know so that's the ultimate unfairness?
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, right.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_01: And but it's the disparity of equality.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, you know, somebody slighted you.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, d the the deception's everywhere, actually.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_04: I I would say, where is it not almost?
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, that's pretty good stuff, man.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Joey, what are you thinking, man?
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean the the question I had, and honestly, I have a but this would be so easy to do a part two, but we should probably wrap.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_02: But a lot of the brain stimulation stuff that you do, Dr.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Short, would you say you're trying to do something that therapy won't fix?
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I had that question before Chip said what he said when he was addressing the listeners and basically saying, look, there's things you can do with the brain that therapy, prayer, these sorts of things aren't going to do the trick.
• 1:11:38
  SPEAKER_02: There's got to be some medical approach.
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of what you do, is it done because therapy's not going to do the trick?
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_04: And there's a big and in there.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_04: And, you know, when you get the brain back in a healthier state, um, then there usually is stuff to work with in our minds, our relationships socially and spiritually.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_04: But our brain was so stuck, it's it's it as a biological living being, that's the the that live the biological foundation.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_04: You have to get in a healthier state to do the work.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_04: So specific to depression, you know, if you're so down and out, you can't even think or remember anything, right?
• 1:12:22
  SPEAKER_04: So you got to get out of that to work on that.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_04: Or even with OCD, we will have people go and do this TMS for OCD and they get great gains that they weren't getting in ERP.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_04: And so now they go back to ERP.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_04: They're like, wow, I've made some real gains.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_04: I want to keep going.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_04: And they actually keep getting gains because they've gathered momentum, they've made changes in their brain and mind.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_04: So it's not an either-or.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_04: It's more of a if we existed all these domains, it's like, where do we need help now?
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_04: And then what does that transition to?
• 1:12:57
  SPEAKER_04: Much like organs of our body, we don't just go to cardiologists only, or pulmonologists only, or neurologists only.
• 1:13:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's like you have all these organs in your being, in your body, and so you would address their uh overall health, but also individual.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_04: Same at a body, mind, relations, spirit, it's like those are all existing at the same time.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_04: You just may need to intervene in one particular way, place at a time, and then transition to another, right?
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_04: In our overall growth and and wellness in alignment with Christ.
• 1:13:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, probably what ECT treatments did for me and getting me out of my mental health crisis and then therapy and medication and growth.
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I don't I don't do ECT treatments anymore.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_04: So But specific to that, I'll say people may be on medications and we combine it with ECT, and people say, Well, I don't want to be on the medicines because the ECT or because the meds don't work.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_04: And I go, Well, we actually have science to say the ECT plus the medications will be more effective than the ECT alone.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_04: And then we can get them completely out of depression and they go, Great, I don't want to take any more medicine.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_04: I go, well, hold up a second.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_04: The science shows if you stay on medication, it will help prevent a severe relapse.
• 1:14:17
  SPEAKER_04: And they go, but the medicines didn't work.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_04: I go, but your brain is in a healthier state.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_04: It these are these meds are now used as a maintenance therapy to help prevent a relapse.
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_04: Now is the time to start working on your behaviors and your sleep and your way of relating to emotion, a way of relating to thoughts, a way of relating to this where the this additional flourishing can occur.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Hope you've enjoyed this, man.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being on it, Mental Health Mission of the Church.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Couple of thoughts.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions that were triggered today, make them comments, whatever.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Correct me on this if I'm wrong, Dr.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Short, but Dr.
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Short's consented, uh, and we're so appreciative to be a fairly regular part of our podcast here.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_01: So uh your questions will help us kind of drive this in directions that are most helpful to you guys.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, subscribe, uh, subscribe to our YouTube and our podcast channel.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Then you'll get emails and all that telling you what's up and what we're doing and all that kind of thing.
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna probably down the road do some live stuff where um you know you can actually participate in some level.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_01: We hope it's helpful, man.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_01: We we so hope it's helpful.
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you, Chris.
• 1:15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Joey, for sharing your stories and Dr.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_01: Short.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_03: Do I owe you guys anything?
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, we're gonna send you a bill.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_01: We'll send you a bill.
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_01: We'll we'll send you an invoice.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Don't give us edits in the mail.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_01: We want it, we want it paid.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_01: That gummet chip.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now he's gonna be checking the mail every five minutes.
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, man.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And Dr.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Short, we are so appreciative, man.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're just a treat.
• 1:15:54
  SPEAKER_01: You are really a treat.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_01: So bless you guys, and we'll see you next time.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_04: Awesome.
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you guys.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Mental Health and the Mission of the Church.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_00: If this episode was helpful, share it with someone who might need it.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can also follow Chip on Instagram at Chipjud and find free resources for your spiritual and mental health journey at chipjud.com.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time on Mental Health and the Mission of the Church.