EP:4 When The Walls Fall Down Part 2. Critical Debriefing with Leslie Yancy.

Are you aware of the mental health struggles often facing those in dynamic, high-stress roles such as the military and medical professions? In this episode, we welcome back Leslie Yancy, as we shine a light on the shortage of resources available, the transformative power of critical incident debriefing and the stigma attached to seeking help.

If you've ever wondered how to navigate mental health transitions, how to support others in traumatic events, or how to advocate for individualized medical treatment, this episode is a must-listen. Get ready for an enlightening and essential conversation that might just lead you to view these issues from a new perspective.

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Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:15

I think, kind of where I want to start with is doing the other half right. Let's talk about resources. It's hard to accept that you go through your whole life and you're functioning I'm putting quotes around that right and then you hit points in life that life slows down. There's a transition that slows you down. So for us it's getting out of the military, For you it was leaving the hospital, right, and those moments give us time, which we all want more of, and then we're like oh crap, and we start thinking, and so it's at that.

Speaker 2: 0:54

What I noticed is, at that point in time, what are we going to do with that info? Because I've seen all kinds of things. I have a family member that completely had a breakdown and the rest of the family is like, oh my God, she's being so dramatic and she and she's not any better and she's insomniac, and it was just one thing after another until I find out through her. She told me directly that 50, when she had the breakdown it was from massive childhood trauma and I mean like stories that were horrified people and I went oh my God, her perfect little world, her perfect house, her perfect children, her perfect life. I mean everything was perfect. It looked like a Norman Rockwell picture. You know, right, that was her trying to hold it all in and she couldn't. And then it came out at a transition point in her life. 50 kids are all grown. You're now finding yourself again like I'm going through that. You know like, ooh, what am I doing? You know, my kids are getting older Like a bit of an identity crisis, yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:02

Yeah, you had that identity crisis, and then you start right, and then you're a little wiser, and then you're like, oh shit, and at that point, what are we doing, right? So I think now is a time that we you have come on before and talked to us and said, hey, we've got all. This is how we get there, through various roads, but very similar, you know, environments, and this is how we get there. Now, what do we do about it?

Speaker 3: 2:31

Right. I think that's what we're not doing a good job of, even in the first responder healthcare community and in military as well, is that transition period of we're no longer running and gunning or boots on the ground. We have to transition with age, with ability, with physical ability. We have that transition period and mentally we are not prepared for that. So that's one thing that we're not doing very well, especially, I know, in the first responder community, when we're no longer physically able to do all the things that you know our job entails. So we move into, you know, positions that are less physically demanding and then people have that mental, like you said, that's when it slows down and that's when they start processing things and I think that becomes a really hard period and we're not addressing that.

Speaker 3: 3:28

I think we're so focused on warm bodies to with the healthcare crisis, with you know the shortage that we have in law enforcement, we're just focused on getting young, warm bodies into these positions and we are not focusing on anything downstream, and that's something we definitely need to be better at.

Speaker 3: 3:53

I kind of think that we it needs to be changed how the programs and I know federal law enforcement does some programs when they're in the academy as far as mental health and taking care of themselves. My son just started medical school and he did. They did a big presentation on them as far as mental health and self care, but you know, it's a couple hour lecture. It's telling it to kids who truly have no idea what they're in for. So it's kind of like, oh yeah, we're going to stick this in here so that we check mark a box, but it's, we're not really providing any services or any resources. We're just telling you, hey, this is going to be an issue eventually. You know, I don't know that we're doing like any actual programs to support them throughout, you know, their career.

Speaker 1: 4:52

And they, both military and private side alike, are so mission focused on getting whatever the task at hand is done that we fail to acknowledge that a lot of times. Or if we do, it just kind of a quick hey, this is, it exists and maybe or maybe not, you'll, you'll deal with it later and kind of dismiss. And I mean, on top of that too, there's, I think, a lot of reasons why people don't go and get the care, and we kind of touched on that in the last episode. But you know the whole being embarrassed bit. People are embarrassed to go and get help, raise your hand and say I'm not doing okay. I have seen other situations where people proactively, you know, recognize that they're a little bit off the mark and not functioning too well and it ends up backfiring and before they know it they're kind of the village pariah. There's a whole lot of reasons that people wind up saying no and not wanting to get care, failing to see that that long term goal of okay if I instead say yes, none of these other things matter.

Speaker 3: 5:56

Yeah, and one thing that I have taken part in that was extremely beneficial. Critical incident debriefing and I'm sure that you know you guys are used to that on the military side it's not widely accepted First responders is where we're seeing it. Healthcare I've never seen it implemented, but I was in a situation a few years ago and a local police officer was shot and we brought in the medics that worked on her following the incident. And when I watched them walk in, physically you could just see the guilt. What if I'd done this, could I have done this differently? And these were young men. They look like kids to me because, of course, I'm a mother of 20 year old, so they all look like kids to me.

Speaker 3: 6:51

And you know, we sat them in a circle, we went through, got them talking. Hey, you did exactly what your training told you to do. You handled the incident as professionally as you could. And as we went through that process I physically, I could see them physically change. I saw them relax, I saw them just it was kind of like just a physical sigh and my brain just started spinning and I thought, you know, if this critical incident debriefing hadn't taken place, those young men would have carried that for the rest of their lives.

Speaker 3: 7:32

They would have thought if I'd have done this differently, if I'd have done this, or maybe this person would have survived if we had gotten there sooner. And that right there just justified that it needs to be standard protocol with these incidents. Studies have shown that the brain is less likely to turn an event into a PTSD episode later if we do process those things as quickly as possible after the actual initial occurrence. So just by taking an hour sitting down talking these guys through this situation, it possibly could have saved them. You know a lifetime of issues and I don't understand why that isn't, you know, widely accepted, why that isn't just protocol. Why is that not protocol for everyone?

Speaker 2: 8:32

So I just want to take a minute here and introduce our guests, because we always have good conversation and we always jump right in. So Leslie Yancey is back with us again. Thank you, Leslie, for coming back. Thanks for having me. Yes, I love it. We talked so much the last time and the podcast was awesome. I listened to it and I still learn stuff listening to it.

Speaker 2: 8:54

And so we all agreed we had to do a part two, because we went through how we get to these points as medicine and being in the military, medical and just medical in general and you made a major point in the last podcast. Sometimes in childhood we actually become primed for that. If we were in rough childhoods or if we were in abusive situations or just something traumatic happened to us, it can prime us to get into these more adrenaline filled jobs, right. And so we went through all of that. But what we didn't have time for was to talk about like okay, so we're here and we realize that we are maybe not adapting in the most optimal way. I don't want to use the word broken, because I don't really think we're broken. I think we've just learned to adapt in ways to allow us to survive in the most optimal way, right, and so we talked all about that, but we really haven't talked about the resources that are available. And that's what you were just touching on. Is that we have like crisis action teams, and I will say that, yes, we probably do it more in the military, but I don't think it's that good in the military either.

Speaker 2: 10:18

Okay, so, for example, when I was stationed overseas, I had a situation where I was in a leadership position there and we had a technician get in a car accident, a severe car accident. She a week later passed away and the person in charge of that area was actually on vacation. So they called me and they're like, hey, this person had an accident, is not looking good. We're bringing her family out. I had just come back from vacation. I was like, oh my Lord, so I come back. The leader person, the leadership position, comes back and she's not really making great choices. So we have a person that's at some schooling there at the base, but still not on our unit. She's there at her school, they tell her what's going on, she emotionally falls apart and she's like I need to go to see my boyfriend. That's an hour away and I'm like that's not a good idea right now. It was actually more than an hour in a city and you're emotionally charged. I'm like we need to bring everybody together and we need to get them debriefed and we need to talk through it and we got a lot of people, but the person in that position let her go and it cost her her job. They removed her from position because of that.

Speaker 2: 11:57

What I saw in this specific scenario is that this was a person that she was unique, Like I don't know how to describe it, but once I understood everything going on and explained her. But she was kind of mature for her age but immature in other ways, and she was early 20s, so that kind of I'm a grown up but I'm still a kid Right. And so she kind of didn't get along with everybody. Not that they hated her, but they didn't all really dive with her. And then we found out later that she was trying to adopt her sister to get her out of a really bad situation. Oh, wow. And that explained to me the I'm trying to become mature but I'm still at this age, and that was like wow, that clarified everything for me. But a lot of people when that happened, you know, they were like well, you know, I had an argument with her the day before, or I mean, I didn't really know her and the same thing, you could see that guilt and that, that guilt for lack of any other description, and so we were able to help process some of that. We did bring in a team, a mental health team, to do that.

Speaker 2: 13:08

But if you scroll ahead years from then, another scenario happens. A friend of mine ends up in a car accident, passes away. The office is this was a very well loved person and very well respected, and I was trying to do the same thing, like where are they? And I kept begging the chaplains like could you come in and just walk around? You have to build trust before they're gonna open up. And oh, yeah, but you know, I'm really not assigned here, I have to go do this. And oh, you know I'm leaving that. And in my head I'm all like I don't give a fuck where are you going or what you're doing. Get me somebody here now. Yeah, there's a new one. Yeah, it overrode everything in my book and there are sense of urgency was not there and I took a toll on that team.

Speaker 3: 14:02

Yeah. So I had a similar experience with a. I talked on the first podcast about a coworker that died dramatically. And one thing that I always express when I do public speaking is you don't plan for an emergency. During an emergency, You're already in place, because when you look at the size of you know your roster, you know statistically, you know tragedy is gonna happen. It's not if it's when, because you're dealing with you know like we had a staff size of 55, just in our department and there was nothing in place. So I always really stress that if you are a manager or that is your role you are the gatekeeper for when this tragedy occurs and you need to know what resources are available for your employees.

Speaker 3: 14:57

So, the same thing happened. You know we had the hospital, had they had someone on staff to help, and it's not that this person wasn't, they weren't trained in this in particular. You know they came up, asked if anyone wanted to talk, kind of the same thing that you saw, didn't? We didn't work with this person. You know Pretty much. Hey, if you want to talk, I'm available. Well, of course, none of us. We're all hardasses, we're like why do I want to talk to you? You?

Speaker 3: 15:36

know like I don't and we had nothing. There was no common grounds between us and this individual. So there was, it didn't feel like a safe space at all to go in and talk. And then that was when, you know, like on the first podcast I mentioned, we were just all in a downward spiral and looking back I can see that, but at the time we were just in survival mode, right, so yeah, so that's one thing that I really stress now is that if you're management, you need to know what resources are available when that emergency happens.

Speaker 1: 16:13

So that they can properly manage the crisis, when it's not trying to figure that out as it unfolds. Totally it's a phrase prior. Proper planning prevents piss poor performance. I can't say that I can't say. I know what the hell you're doing. Going into it and have a plan Right when shit hits the fan, absolutely Right. And then exactly.

Speaker 2: 16:36

I think one thing so that when I was leaving the military I was on some various working groups and one of them and it started. So in the military we have the subcultures, right, and so we have special forces, you know, and the more subcultury you get, the more mentally taxing it is right. And so we were all talking and they said one of the things that they were doing was they were starting to put well, not starting, because they'd been going on for a while, but they were continuing to put therapists and psychologists and whatnot embedded with these units. And it's a very, very smart idea. Why? Because you're building trust and those subcultures they are putting literally their life in somebody else's hands and vice versa when they're getting out there and doing stuff.

Speaker 2: 17:37

So then you come back and maybe you had a rough deployment. It messed you up a little bit. You need to process it. Do you really think you're gonna be comfortable going across base to the Joe Schmoe who you've never met, therapist, and go, yeah, dude, so like this kid got killed and there was so much fire I'm not sure if I'm the one that did it or not right, I mean, really you're gonna go say that to someone you don't know, got it. No, there's no rapport. So why aren't we doing this in the hospitals themselves? Even on the military side we had at one of my bases, we had a mental health unit. It was just a very acute three day kind of thing and I actually were friends with some of them. They come down and chat and whatnot. Why don't we have them for the hospital? Why aren't they coming down and making friends and learning about people and just being the pulse of the hospital or the clinic.

Speaker 2: 18:40

Absolutely, or the whatever.

Speaker 3: 18:43

And we saw we would have one member of pastoral care, for you know that was on call and you have one person. So of course he's dealing primarily with families. You know families that are in the VLIVE for traumas that have came in. They were great. They were great for that and we were so appreciative that they were there to help with those families when those traumas rolled in. But as far as support for the staff, that was not what they did.

Speaker 2: 19:16

That was just what there was to us. You know, when our big incident happened, when we had the car accident, we lost one of our coworkers. I will tell you that there was somebody that was not in our office but was right next to our office and was in a different section, but we worked with them all the time and her office happened to be a walkthrough. It was really weird. But you would walk from one hallway to the other, like through her office, and she was actually an LPC and by trade. That's not the job she was doing, but that's a trade. And I know a number of us and I was one of them.

Speaker 2: 19:58

I would walk in there and close the door and just sit and she'd just look at me, like are you okay? I'm like, I just need a break, yeah, I can't breathe right now, and she's like, and she would just say this is a safe place and you can sit. And she didn't necessarily say anything all the time. Sometimes she did, but she was in that mix too, because she knew the person and so. But I'll tell you that's what that was the band aid. I needed to be able to keep going to do all the stuff that I needed to do, but I would just sit and then sometimes I'd just cry yes, it was more like a tear shed and then like suck it up, you got things to do, you know right.

Speaker 1: 20:40

It's more helpful than how many times have you been in a situation where you're not doing too well or need some help and somebody maybe a boss that's uninvested? Well, let me know if you need anything.

Speaker 2: 20:53

Let me know, yeah, like yeah, who's going to?

Speaker 1: 20:55

who's going to take you up on that offer? If it's just checking out glass, it's not helpful. Yes, and it happens all the time. Yeah, let me know if you need something. Yeah, cool.

Speaker 3: 21:06

Thanks. And I feel like in the on the health care side, I actually had a chief financial officer of a hospital. He kind of went toe to toe with me and he said Well, leslie, if this is true, if this is so mentally harmful on health care workers, where's the statistics? Show me the statistics. And I said Well, let me tell you something. I said, if I show you the statistics, what are you going to have to do? And he knew that then that would be a finance, a financial cost, because then we're going to have to do something about it.

Speaker 3: 21:44

I said no one is going to support these studies because once they come out, then these health care systems are going to have to do something about it. So that's never going to be allowed, that's never going to be a study that supported at these, you know, these learning institutions. It's like it's ever going to be something that is documented. That, only, the only research that I have found was a study that tied ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages to people in nursing professions. So there, there, I did find that study and that it was. There was a much higher risk of ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages to people that were in the nursing profession.

Speaker 3: 22:30

So, yeah, so, and you know, like cortisol levels, things like that, are not something that's normally checked, that's, that's not, you know, a normal blood draw. Normally that's an out of pocket cost If you were to have those, those numbers checked. So you know, and I, I like, I said, I mean I held my own and said, look, nobody's going to support this because then you're going to have to do something about it. You're going to have to improve that work environment and we're more worried about finding warm bodies than we are, you know, preserving them down the road.

Speaker 1: 23:05

I love the idea that you had earlier, though, about the, the debriefs after a situation occurs. Because, kind of going back to the numbers, if we could embed that within our hospital systems and do that early intervention sit process and talk it through how much money we can get, save the organization or whomever years down the line when they're having to go impatient once, twice, three times, who knows? Versus an hour long processing session.

Speaker 2: 23:33

You know what I mean so same argument we have in the military. Matter of fact, I I one of the arguments I would have in some of our meetings. I was usually a never the popular comment maker and so one time I made the comment I said you know, if Congress really knew how much it costs to take care of the military appropriately, they would choke. But they don't know because the military, all the way up through, fudges these numbers that you know. You can make statistics say anything, and they're real and I've seen it firsthand. And they're like adjusting numbers just to slant the approach, not to make it seem so harsh. I'm like, yeah, you kind of can't do that. You need to just let the numbers speak for themselves and then we decide what we're doing about that. But nobody wants to do that, for the exact same reason that you just said.

Speaker 2: 24:29

Then they have to put the dollars to it, and the military's dollars go to the fighter planes, the ships, the tanks, the you know the people fighting the battle. It doesn't go towards getting them better. If they're that broke, then they and I say broke because that's how they'll look at it If they're that broke, then they need to get out and that's their solution. Right, that's their solution. Well, we'll put big band-aids on that arterial bleed and suck it up as much as you can, and when that doesn't work anymore, we have this nice thing called the medical board for you and we will send you on your way and let the VA have you.

Speaker 1: 25:12

Yeah, you're welcome. They don't want to address the elephant in the room. It's much easier to just leave it.

Speaker 2: 25:19

And we're not set up that way, that by design, the military you know if I give them any little defense on it we are assets. As harsh as that sounds, we are not walking into a kumbaya circle. We all know that. We are walking in as an asset, with a skill that we need to do stuff, and for the medical community in the military, it's a very stressful one. We've got to keep our warfighters, warfighting, right. Yes, we don't take care of ourselves. We've got to get them to the front lines, we've got to make them well. So by design, we are not set up that way and they don't want to be that way.

Speaker 1: 26:03

I think we do a great job of taking care of one another, either, no.

Speaker 2: 26:07

Oh no, we either. Young, oh my God, that's like a whole. That's like a whole other podcast on eating. We can do a series with you at this point 100%.

Speaker 3: 26:20

But you know, on the flip side of that, though, no one goes into the military, no one goes in as a first responder, no one goes into healthcare, and I hope no one goes in and expects it to be an easy job. So there has to be, you know, some self responsibility to say I need to make sure I'm taking care of myself. I can't expect everyone else to fix me, or I can expect to have resources available and never use them and then expect to be better, because I also see that a lot is. You know, I work with people all the time and I'm like we come up with with a game plan hey, this is what we're going to do. We're make sure that that we, you know the in order to stop the sleep disturbances and things, we're going to have a process and we're going to, and then they just don't do it. They don't.

Speaker 3: 27:20

People have to help themselves. Help themselves, yeah, and we have a huge lack of accountability in these populations as well. So it's it's kind of like we we got to address that as well that if the resources are there and we're giving you the resources, please, please, take advantage of that, use that and and make yourself better Don't just say, well, the military ruined me and there's nothing I can do about it.

Speaker 2: 27:47

Yeah, exactly, I mean I think I'll add on to what you said. What you just said was you know if you you have to help yourself, help yourself, yes, before you can't help yourself. Because really what is happening is like then they get to a point, and so one of the the programs we used to run the military taking care of all the garden reserve, when they got injured, to get back on orders or keep them on orders and then and then either a get them healed up and back to their job or be through medical board, right, and a lot of times when I would see like a special horses person coming across, I'm like, oh, they're more times than not, they're going to be an MEB. They don't know it yet, but they're going to be. Why? Because they are holding out, yes, so long and they will do whatever.

Speaker 2: 28:42

Like I had a pilot that had a horrible back and he was like horrendous back and he needed, he really needs to be MEB. And his unit guard unit was like no, we can, we can do this with you and that with you. And I'm like, hey, listen, when you're, when you're all done, they're not coming to your door Sundays bringing you dinner. Seriously, what are you doing here? And I said you know, have you had any treatment or anything will come to find out.

Speaker 2: 29:18

When he was deployed, one of the docs there did radio frequency ablation on him so he could manage. And you know, I tell him. I said, hey, that's great, is it documented? Nope, because it's one of the embedded doctors and just trying to keep them going. And the other thing to think about, I said, is that the only thing RFA does is block the message coming through right places still injured. So now you are at a higher risk of hurting yourself even because you don't feel pain. Yes, so you're going to get that RFA and go sit in the seat that's causing all the compression and all the issues. And now that you can't feel that, I said you know what you're going to be like in another couple years? And I said, yeah, I'm going to be able to walk or two.

Speaker 3: 30:09

Yes, he was like uh you know, and that probably goes back to us only identifying as our professions, right, that's all he was concerned about was was staying in and, yes, being a pilot, and we're trained.

Speaker 2: 30:26

We're not trained. There's no I in this, you know, even though military spelt with an eye. There's really no I in there. Right, it's a team, and so if you are not able to do something, you're letting your team down and you tell me I'm Z. How much guilt does that come with?

Speaker 1: 30:43

Oh my gosh, can't tell you how many times. And see people get injured or sick and reach out for care and do what they need to do so that they can stay in the fight, and they get they get shit for it All of a sudden man, you should be here at work, you shouldn't be at appointments and right getting getting the raw end of that deal and they're made to feel like they're doing something bad by trying to get better. You're milk in the system, are you're? You're being a baby about this. Suck it up, you'll be fine, do it later, do it on your time. Before too long, especially with the mental health cases, they end up becoming problem children.

Speaker 3: 31:23

Yes, yes, and on the healthcare side there's such a shortage, always a shortage, and it all comes down to budget. And so the same thing is if, if I call off because I am truly ill and unable to perform my job, then, yes, you feel guilty because you let everyone down when the way that we should be thinking is it's not our fault that they do not have appropriate coverage. That doesn't fall on us, but we absorb that. Like there should never be a time where they go short because I'm not working. There should be someone else to step in and fulfill that role. And that doesn't fall on us, that falls on management, that falls on the person that is setting the budget for staffing. That falls on them, but we absorb all that.

Speaker 2: 32:20

And we don't set up that way, and I mean in the military you don't you don't hardly get an overlap. I mean, I remember when I was a nurse manager and I had people that needed you know, they were PCS thing, they were moving to a new base and the other person coming in was going to be like three weeks after them. And I have to figure out, well, it's not just three weeks because they got to come in, they have to get house, they get set up, they got to get oriented Right, or more sometimes. And so I have to figure out well, let's see, that's like a month or so before they're fully up and running, depending on what level they are.

Speaker 2: 33:01

And many times I was the one covering the shifts and I'm at the time I was a nurse manager and I have to cover shifts and have to be the nurse manager, and then I would get crap on both sides oh well, you didn't do your nurse manager, whatever report. Okay, sorry. And oh, why aren't you covering? There's nobody to cover the shift, can you cover it? Yep, sure enough there is nobody else at this point, or I don't have people.

Speaker 3: 33:29

You're rushing people into positions when they're not ready.

Speaker 2: 33:33

Yeah, and that's way more dangerous and then that's very, very scary, and I was very good about orientation. We even went so far. So overseas there's a little I don't know if this still exists, but at the time there's Red Cross volunteers and what people don't realize like all kinds of volunteers, and some of them are nurses, and the way it worked over there was you could not use them as a primary nurse because they were 100% volunteer and so all you could do was use them to enhance, you know, your schedule or to get a nurse to help you, Plus set up a little. But I had, and I had two nurses that I won we got rid of because she lied, she didn't even have her BLS and she was. She was no kidding you.

Speaker 1: 34:24

Did she stay the holiday again once?

Speaker 2: 34:25

No, she was trying to get in because she was pregnant. She was a nurse, but she didn't have her. She was new and didn't have her BLS yet. She was pregnant and she wanted to get on our floor to get to know the staff. So she had somebody to deliver that she knew that's convenient, so lying about your BLS is good. And then somebody else who got ended up moving. But finally the third person came and I digress a little bit, but she came in and was solid as a rock and we're short.

Speaker 2: 34:52

Three nurses were short and I'm like, okay, and this person was rock solid and told me she was listen, my husband's over here, he's a doc. He was a doc in the building. I am bored out of my mind. I don't. They didn't have kids at the time. Let me do more. And I was like I'm limited by this or that.

Speaker 2: 35:11

So I went to the chief nurse. I'm like, listen, here's my thought. And she goes. I hear nothing. And she turned her head for me and I used her as a full time staff and I would only use her no more than two times a week. Ask her for the third on occasion. But I was super conscious of it, but she wasn't a person that would shirk anything so I could trust her. But, right, that's a luxury, right, and I broke a lot of rules to do that. But in the real world, what do you do when you're short? You're caught between staff yeah, mental wellness and patients that aren't. That could potentially become more injured or hurt or even worse, if there's not enough staff there, if they're not receiving the quality verse point out when is the solution, right? So I think, well, I'll ask you this when do you see the solutions?

Speaker 3: 36:11

So I think that it's going to take a lot of people with just a personal initiative to get these things rolling, because it's kind of like a catch-22 as far as if you're in a management role, like you were, I think people are going to have to take this up on themselves to say, hey, this is the resources we have available, this is what we're looking at. It's almost like management is in a hard spot to establish those things. So I kind of encourage people that, hey, if this is something that you feel strongly about, I mean, it's pretty much people are just going to have to rise up and start establishing this themselves. I mean, I don't know what the answer is. I don't know what the answer is and I don't know how. I don't think that anything will be universally accepted. So that's, it's kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't, type thing. I don't know what the answer is, but it definitely isn't working the way that it's going. Now, what do you?

Speaker 2: 37:21

do when you get a client like a one-on-one client, that's like help, like what, on the micro level, what do you offer them? That way?

Speaker 3: 37:35

So when I get a client in, you know, we do an initial intake. We start kind of like discussing how their mental health is currently affecting just their overall life, so that we can kind of hone in what what our major focuses need to be. You know, like I mentioned, sleep earlier. Of course, if we have sleep disturbances, that just throws everything into a spiral. So I, you know, I initially start off with a lot of education, and the reason I do the education is just everyone kind of comes to me with the overall thought that I shouldn't be having these problems. So you know, when you start throwing in the education and you say, hey look, this is actually out of your control If you've been exposed to these traumatic events, the body and brain actually can't process these.

Speaker 3: 38:32

It's just, you know, it is how the body works. It's not made to process these types of events, so you know. So that's normally how we start. I start looking for resources in their area. I'm also a peer support with a group that I work with them while they are finding a good placement for them, as far as you know, with a psychiatrist or a licensed therapist. So sometimes I bridge the gap between getting them established with someone, because sometimes that weight is so long.

Speaker 1: 39:07

But we just triggered a thought. We know that when we're treating PTSD you kind of have to do it from a multi-modality approach meds, therapy, usually psychiatrists in the mix too. As far as being a trauma recovery coach, what's the difference between going that route versus therapy, or is it better worked with both?

Speaker 3: 39:33

I think it's better worked with both. I think that they're comfortable with a coach, especially one with, like, the trauma-informed background Because, again we talked about, just any therapist isn't going to be a good fit. You have to find the one that is a good fit and sometimes that's a lengthy process. So there's several groups that I know that work with first responders and healthcare workers and get not only make sure that their insurance is accepted, they visit these locations. If, say, it's a, you know, a retreat type therapy where they go somewhere for a weekend, a week, a couple of weeks, they visit those locations to make sure that it's a good fit for that first responder. You know we don't want our police officers going into a clinic where people that they may have had run-ins with in the community are at, so lots of times they try to get those outside of their general area. So I think it works well because we kind of fill in gaps. I also set up like plans, like I said. We start discussing what their problems are and it's kind of like I help them kind of line out their you know their mode of attack, like what is the most pressing issue, then what's the next, and then what is the outcome? What is my expected outcome of this? So it's kind of like they work through the issues. I just kind of guide them and give them goals every week and then you know.

Speaker 3: 41:23

But unfortunately, what I see a lot is people are really working and they're doing well, and then they fall off and then a couple months later they'll cycle back around. It's like the minute they start feeling a little bit better, they stop working on themselves and that's just something. It's a constant process. You constantly, because most of us are still in environments where we're adding on. So you know, I always say you know, 20 years in the woods it's going to take us a long time to get back out, because we've went that deep, so we've got to come back out. So definitely, you know, getting with someone that is continually checking up on you, keeping you, you know, accountable that's kind of what I feel like my job is, or my role is is keeping them accountable for continuing that work on themselves.

Speaker 1: 42:14

The consistency is key is what I'm hearing. It's kind of like the gym. You can't go once or twice a month and expect to get thin and sexy and you've got to keep at it on a very regular basis to have any kind of success.

Speaker 2: 42:27

Well, and you know we didn't get to this point overnight and that it's funny, because I do acupuncture and I love acupuncture and I've been dealing with a knee for better part of a year. I can only get so far and the knee will start shooting pain. I have no point of injury, it just started hurting one day and I'm like what in the heck is going on, and I'm sure age has nothing to do with it, so don't even say it, shut up.

Speaker 1: 43:00

You might have a couple of years on me, but you're still running circles.

Speaker 2: 43:04

Yeah, maybe on the computer. I was like, oh, and it kind of hindered my life a little bit because I like to go out for a run, I like to lift weights and you know, et cetera, et cetera. Well, anyway, I went to my acupuncture. And the first time I went to her, which is like month to month to month to go she takes her, she checks your pulse and she looks at your tongue Not kidding you two things. And she looks at me and says this is going to be a long road and I'm like gee, thanks, and she goes. Well, you didn't get here overnight and so it's going to take a while, and that's all she said. And then, months later, I asked her like you know where am I at and how does this look? And she said I have to build your energy in order for your body to heal itself.

Speaker 2: 43:49

And boy, that one hit me hard. I was like damn, I depleted myself so bad of myself that I've got to find myself and get enough of myself back in there to be able to actually heal myself. And I'll be damn. I had acupuncture just before I came over here and I had the session before. I was telling her about my knee and she did acupuncture on it and I was showing my husband I could squat down. It's a little niggly, but I don't have that sharp pain anymore. And so she did it again this time and I have been going to her for I don't know six months, every other week, six or eight months that I've been going to her and slowly but surely it's getting better.

Speaker 2: 44:34

No medication is involved, but my body is starting to heal itself and I've been out of the military for I'm going on three years and it's taken all that time in different phases, different levels, different capacities for my body to finally start coming back together. Yeah, detox, that's right, that's what my name is.

Speaker 3: 45:01

And I think that's one thing that a lot of people don't realize that when we live on that sympathetic nervous system and it's constantly going, we become very immunosuppressed. Oh yeah, so you find you know so many people, like you said, autoimmune diseases, inflammation, different, they run rampant and they were like, oh gosh, why am I sick all the time? Why am I, you know, having all these issues? And it's literally because of stress, it's because we're not taking care of ourselves.

Speaker 3: 45:34

And, to your point, I have had to be very purposeful in learning to listen to my body and you know, like the intrusive thoughts, nightmares, things like that, they go away. And the minute I start getting stressed, overwhelmed, exhausted, that's when they start finding their way back. And now, instead of, you know, maybe taking some sleeping pills or, you know, some people may drink different things like that that is a big red flag, leslie, you're not taking care of yourself. You need to get yourself under control, because you know we can't function without sleep. So I think we have to learn to be very in tune with our bodies and I don't think that, you know, western medicine is very good at teaching us or telling us, or explaining that to us.

Speaker 3: 46:32

No training. And you know, I think a lot of people like, if you were to mention acupuncture, they'd be like oh, voodoo. You know, like this isn't normal, give me a pill Like everyone wants a pill for something. And and you know, our bodies will communicate with us if we learn to listen to what it has to say. So you know, that's definitely something that is part of this journey is learning to listen to our bodies and deciding when enough is enough.

Speaker 1: 46:59

Amen. I think our bodies will support us. For a little while you can compartmentalize and ignore, sit in denial for a little bit, but eventually the body's going to tell us outwardly that there's something wrong and we need to address it. Either the weight gain or loss People deal with IBS, people developing skies on their eye Hives you didn't come out with eyes.

Speaker 3: 47:28

90 percent of our serotonin is produced in our gut. Yeah, look at that.

Speaker 2: 47:33

Yeah, who takes a probiotic? I mean, I give my kids. I take one daily and I give it to them why? Because exactly the guy they call it was it the third brain is the gut. Yeah, the brain guy. It's probably different, but I'm just saying overall. But you know, to your point on, like, we don't treat root cause. Western medicine is not built to treat root cause unless they see it immediately. Like oh, I saw the car run over your leg. You probably have a broken leg. Well, great, yeah, we got you there. But like, for example, I'll use myself.

Speaker 2: 48:09

I went to the doctor. I feel like, as I'm coming out of the military, I get diagnosed with fibro. That's super awesome. Fortunately it's pretty mild on the scale, so to speak. Still sucks, though, and I'm, my joints are aching, all that stuff.

Speaker 2: 48:25

And I ask my doctor for labs. You know she's a nurse practitioner and she draws my labs. My vitamin D is 26. Yeah, do you know what was told to me? I? I shit you not. You need to take one to 2000 units of vitamin D the rest of your life. That's it. No redraw, no recheck, and I'm like that's not going to build me up, right.

Speaker 2: 48:51

So I call my girlfriend who's a women's health nurse practitioner, retired, and I said I'm pulling you out of retirement for a minute, listen, here's my issue. And she's like, hmm, 50,000 for 12 weeks, recheck at the end of 12 weeks and adjust. I'm like, okay, I did, and I had to go kind of. I told her that I was doing some research and I saw this and I wanted to try it. I didn't want to be rude and tell her I went to someone else and so I did and within two weeks my joint pain alleviated, I was awake, I didn't have that fog, that heaviness feeling. And so at the end of 12 weeks we redrew it.

Speaker 2: 49:37

And can you now that I'm going to tell you, just for context, the extreme end of it if you're creeping at 100, you got to kind of start watching it. 125 to 150, you're probably way and overloading. You got to back down right, mine was 53. And you already feel better and it barely doubled. Yeah, so I say I'm 5,000. I just manage myself because I'm a nurse and we're just stupid like that. We just do our own thing. And so I was like this works better. And sure enough, I got off for one week. We went out in the RV and I'm like I'm not going to bring all that stuff. And I came home and paid for it for two weeks. I was so sore. My husband's like don't you ever come off that vitamin D again.

Speaker 1: 50:25

Yeah, taking away from that is the power of self advocating, because had you ever absolutely questioned that and gotten the second opinion and just took the advice of, okay, 2,000 units for the rest of your life and said, okay, what about your married business? You wouldn't have gotten to this point.

Speaker 2: 50:41

No, and I mean I'm just lucky that I had knowledge, because I am a nurse and so I already knew enough to be dangerous, so to speak, and I was like that's crap, a thousand or 2,000 unit isn't even going to get me up.

Speaker 3: 50:56

And I think, like you said, being an advocate, it's not a cookie cutter treatment for anybody. It's everybody's journey as individual to them. So you know if you may have to go rogue and find out what works for you it may not work for everybody, but finding out what works for you and then being purposeful in doing that.

Speaker 2: 51:19

And consistent, right, yes, yeah, you can't go. Once I saw a show and they were doing alternative medicine and they went to China and they had acupuncture One and they're like, oh yeah, it's a little better, but it didn't really work. Come on, you've got to give time. We are not built in a society that gives time, no Consistency. So, for the sake of time because I'm looking like we're probably pushing close to that hour there these are the things that I hear in our conversation. I hear consistency, advocacy, be willing to find out what works for you. Yes, and I know nobody wants to hear that. There's like, oh my God, and I'm like I get it. When you're so down and out and you go to somebody and you think please fix me, and they don't, it's exhausting to think, oh my God, I got to go through this again, but there is someone there, there is going to be a match. It just takes time and you'll know, you will energetically know this is working for me and it doesn't matter what anybody else is doing. You know, right, everything doesn't work for everybody. It's okay, yeah, but I think we don't.

Speaker 2: 52:35

And giving space, we don't do that in the medical community. There's no space because we're short, the community doesn't have enough people, and when that person goes away, then the person that's already stressed out is now picking up more, yes, and so now they start to become resentful because they're like freaking Sarah can't pull their own shit, right, they suck it up now and now I got to pick up her crap and I'm already at my max and I'm drinking at home, right? So if enough of us this is, you know the world, according to detox, whatever that's worth If enough of us set boundaries and say we're not doing this right, there's going to be a change. Because guess what, when the medical community doesn't have medical people, they're going to have to figure out something else. And I've seen it in the military this new generation of troops that are coming in. They demand more. They're not taking the bullshit, they are more about like, yeah, I'm going to go take my leave.

Speaker 2: 53:47

I'm not building up 100 days and think I'm a rock star and don't think you're going to call me while I'm on that Right and I'm not picking my phone up when I'm on leave, like they're demanding better and the military is now scrambling to figure it out because recruiting is in the tank. I just read something where it was like I don't know if it was a study or just a poll and they were asking retire veterans, would you tell your children or your friends children or grandchildren to join the military? And we're hearing over and over no. We're ending our legacies. Right, that's pretty bad. We're ending legacies and I have friends that their kids are becoming nurses and I'm like I look at them and go yay. And then back in my head I'm like God, good luck, get your hand on the phone.

Speaker 2: 54:40

Yeah, here's your crash pad, you know, because it's scary. Yeah, I tell all my friends, don't get sick. You don't want to be in the hospital right now. You really don't, right, right, it's a rough time, yeah.

Speaker 3: 54:53

Yeah, and I always say that too when I do public speaking. You know we would wear a lot of the oldie goldies would wear these badges of oh, we've got 300 sick hours saved up, and oh, I've got the gold star, and it's like nobody cares.

Speaker 2: 55:10

As you're eating your doughnut, smoking your cigarette Exactly, and then you drink all your.

Speaker 3: 55:14

Bidena, like no, take your, that's your time, it's your time, take it, Use your sick time, and that may be a mental health day where you sit out in the sun. You know, like I had one of my best friends. She'd say you don't use your sick days when you're sick, you use your sick days so you can do something fun, something fun for your mental health. So that was that was her, her theory. So she's still in, so she's lasted on that theory.

Speaker 2: 55:44

Well, I can't knock it. I mean people. I think if there's any solution long term, it's got to start all the way back into the schools. If we're looking at medicine right, we've got to get better in the schools. I mean they've done a little bit. I think doctors are now limited to how many call hours they can do or how many hours they can be on straight. It's still obnoxious number, but but it's better. I mean that was like a badge of honor, like oh, I worked 120 straight hours.

Speaker 3: 56:17

I'm like, yeah, I don't want you at hour 80 or hour, or do I want my family member to have you at that hour?

Speaker 2: 56:25

Yeah, and I've been the one you know to say you sure you want to run Potosin on the preterm labor patient when they might say, mag, you know, and I'm like you, sure about that, yeah Right, Good kid. I mean, that's what happens. It's not a badge of honor, it's. It's ridiculous. We're human beings, we are, we have limits, we break, yeah, and, and we can't do that to ourselves anymore.

Speaker 1: 56:55

I think this generation that's coming through the pipeline now has that part figured out, which gives me a little bit of hope that maybe, maybe, things will improve.

Speaker 2: 57:03

My friend's daughter went to med school and I applauded her. She would go. She traveled, she went to Brazil during med school and then she took a year off and did a. It wasn't a year off, she actually went to Peru, I think, and did a research project. And you know, her mom's like what about med school? I mean, she's like it's going to be there, I'm going to do this research project, and she, you're going to be a year behind your classmates, so what? And she told her mom, she goes, I'm not doing, I watched you, I'm not doing what you did.

Speaker 2: 57:41

And she did all through med school. She's now in her internship, she's just starting there, but she traveled. She went and worked at a like a suit it was in Bosnia or Serbia or one of the places, and she worked at a shelter there and she traveled to Brazil. She traveled to all these places while she was in med school and guess what? She's still a doctor Right, smiling and smiling and doing it, doing it better, doing it better that her friends that ram jammed and stressed out over it.

Speaker 3: 58:16

Yeah, and you know we talked about when we started off. We talked about breaking generational trauma. You know, and maybe ladies like us are breaking that for this next wave of workers coming through and military members coming through by doing things like this, you know, getting the word out. Hopefully we're a small part of that getting better down the road. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2: 58:44

Because we think generational trauma and we think families. But it's actually way more than that, like you pointed out careers, jobs. You know life, life's an algorithm, you know, yes, and it's what we choose. You know, on our way to make that algorithm work or not, whatever Because sometimes it don't work. Sometimes it doesn't work and then you shoot people in the ass by mistake. I so want to meet your friends. Like I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I so want to meet your friends.

Speaker 3: 59:19

Oh, it couldn't be a recorded conversation. That's why I would never record it.

Speaker 2: 59:25

I just want to meet her because I'm just curious, she's like my type of people and then buy her a beer.

Speaker 3: 59:30

It would be a good time. I can guarantee that. Oh, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 59:34

All right, let's wrap up when you got Emzy.

Speaker 1: 59:37

Leslie, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us again. I feel like this has been great conversation and I'm with you. I'm hoping that little situations, conversations like these that we're having, kind of paved the way for future successes later on down the road, for people to stop wearing that trauma and burnout like a badge of honor and take care of themselves, fill their cups up so that they can stay in the game for the long haul. Thank you so much for doing what you do as a trauma recovery coach too. I'm sure that you're touching the lives of many and improving their lives and it's like a ripple effect you take care of one, it's going to take care of somebody else and it's just going to keep growing and growing. So you're putting positive energy out into the world and I just wanted to acknowledge that. Thank you so so much for that and for meeting with us. This has been a pleasure.

Speaker 3: 1:00:32

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2: 1:00:36

All right, Well, do you have anything else, Leslie?

Speaker 3: 1:00:38

before we wrap up I don't just am, I think, everybody I'm easy to find. So you know, don't suffer in silence. There's too many of us for anybody to ever fill a loan. So definitely reach out if you're in need or you know need directed towards resources.

Speaker 2: 1:00:54

Yep, life is abundant, not scarce. So all right, everybody, we're done. This is Bullets to Bedpans. I am detox and I'm here with my co-hosts, medicmz, and we're out. Peace out, everybody. Have a great week.