 Hey, what's up dudes and dudettes drew here from the anxious truth joined again once again It's been a while my friend Monique coven all the way from the great white north. You're not that far north though Sort of as close as you could be with being in a different country anyway It's those of you who have seen Monique's smiling face on my podcast for know her Otherwise, we'll go over some of a little bit about you. I think at the end, but basically Monique well, it's everybody where to find you Monique is a CPTSD coach certified and all that stuff and we've done a bunch of these together and they're always good and everybody loves them and I Enjoyed do with them. So here we are Great, I'm glad to be here. Yes on a Saturday morning. What are we gonna talk about? We're gonna talk about I think generalize anxiety disorder PTSD and whatever other Yes, diagnosis and labels that we want to talk about and how They are sort of given this name of Disorder at the end. Yeah, and how that word disorder Really changes changes a lot for people automatically with that word disorder. Yeah start to feel different about what's happening for us Yeah, I think you're right Like we talked a little bit about this when we came up with the topic and I think you came up with the topic No, we both did the same day, which was so funny We both posted something about how normal the experience is and it there's nothing actually Wrong or disorder about it and I wrote something about PTSD and CPTSD and you wrote about anxiety I'm like, okay, we gotta talk about this. Yeah, and it was a similar thing Which is that so much of what happens in both of those situations the responses the the expression of it Nice the expression of it is is normal like that's what a human being does Yet somehow when we put that label on it disorder illness disease, I've heard it called all of those things Like some of people think like oh the way I feel is abnormal. I'm not supposed to feel this way Yeah, but you know that that's not true Yeah, yeah, and I think that I think I posted something about yeah PTSD or CPTSD is actually a Normal reaction to an Abnormal experience that you may have and it's not a disorder It's a reaction and when you stick that that label disorder and let's say it's a mental health professional or a doctor, whatever I'm gonna only talk about my experience. But what I remember hearing was I heard well Let's talk about when I was first given the label of generalized anxiety disorder. I didn't hear generalized anxiety. I heard Generalized anxiety disorder. Yeah, it's like I have a disorder and then you know all kinds of thoughts and fears Rise up from the word disorder like something is wrong. Yeah, that's true And I think I often have people who get really freaked out by diagnosis and a label So that plays into that too, but in the end it would have been so much better What you actually wrote was post-traumatic stress disorder is not a disorder. It's a normal reaction, which was so good And and people get led into believing that the way they are feeling whether they're feeling afraid like you know in terms of anxiety or You know panic disorder that sort of stuff or or PTSD and they're feeling fear and they're having all those bodily sensations Like that that's the problem. The problem is what they're feeling. Yeah, and it's never what they're feeling. That's the problem yeah, and and also That something is actually gone haywire with their body and their body is broken flawed not working help. That's so scary Something when actually, you know, as you know with anxiety as I know with anxiety and as I know with PTSD Our body is responding actually normally so with PTSD These are adaptions that we have had to do in order for our body to keep us alive and to keep us safe It's a natural response. Our body was protecting us and it went into these mechanisms and that is actually normal There's nothing disorderly about that So right right and so in the end Yeah, and you know like you've heard me say it about a zillion times that it's never how you feel That's how you react to how you feel, you know, at least in what I'm talking about and Getting people to put their brain around that they're not ill or broken Just develop some bad habits Yeah, yeah, and the the anxiety I know for myself the feeling of the anxiety or the PTSD symptoms the symptoms are so Overwhelming and scary that we get stuck in that but we don't realize that you know those the expression of it is just our body responding to fear if we're having a lot of anxious thinking or We're thinking we're in danger our bodies just responding to that normally Yes, that's true. That has nothing to do with you know some sort of disorder I could be using the disorder, but nothing is broken inside That's making you feel this way. Yeah, that's why I really like it You share that a lot on your in your you know, and I love that Could you imagine had we gone to a doctor and we're all already stressed because we're feeling all this thing these things We don't know what's wrong. We feel and I know I was met with Instead of like, you know telling me, oh, it's alright. It's a normal experience. Your body is just really how different that would have been for me it would have given me a sense of Empowerment it would have normalized my experience. I think it really would have been helpful And I'm really hoping that we're gonna kind of start to see that I hope in the future with with the mental health profession and Yeah, well, maybe it is heading that way. I mean, you know I think but you might be a little bit more involved in it than I am but it would be nice It you know, I and I hate to like go I'm gonna go on a rant on this but I think a lot of times at least the people who are following me they wind up in the realm of medical doctors and their general practitioner and You know, there's very little sensitivity or understanding of the cognitive part of what's going on with the patient And you know, they whip out a prescription pad not that this is a rant about medications And they treat it like it's like it's the flu or they've gotten some bodily disease. Yeah Exactly same here and I remember my first experience Very cold And it was like, okay, what are your symptoms? Alright, it wasn't like the whole person It wasn't like, you know, it was it was what's going on? Like, what are your symptoms? What's wrong with you? And so you're like, okay, well, I'm feeling this and they wanted me to describe the symptoms exactly And then you feel like you're your symptoms. You're no longer a person. I'm a symptom You know, and it just it was it was not a good experience for me I left instead of feeling calmer under with more understanding again with more a little sense of empowerment I left feeling oh my gosh That is wrong with me Right. I have a disease. This is terrible Back in the day, you know from in my story, I was told well, if you were diabetic You would take your medicine, you know, you would take your insulin you have a chemical balance and balance So all that stuff. But that what you just said I am my symptoms or I am my thoughts So many people are trapped in that like this. No, no, no, this is just me. I have a problem. I have a disorder I have a problem here like well, you know, let's talk a little bit about I think how this relates to the PTSD thing You know In terms of why somebody might feel so you had you had a terrible Experience or sequence of experiences in the past and it has led you to this point today Where you react in given circumstances or in given context with these Terrible feelings and emotions and physical sensations But you know, let's talk about why that's a normal way to feel given your experience I'm sure you've had to explain this to your your clients Of course and of course to my it's to myself, right which first Normalized the experience but I think if we don't get educated and like I said because It wasn't that long ago where the professionals that I were I was dealing with did not they weren't trauma informed So it wasn't helpful um, so, uh What was your question again? So good, uh, I've been there so many times trust me What How would you I know you've had to explain this to clients and to yourself Why why is it normal for somebody who has been through that traumatic sequence of events to feel what they're feeling today? What is that? Yeah So for when we have an oh, I'll just say when we have an overwhelming experience such as trauma and trauma is When we have an experience that's not a regular experience. It's overwhelming to our capacity to cope That's considered trauma and for many people They were either Raised this way so they had a very traumatic childhood where there was a lot of chaos There was they didn't have um a safe connection with their primary caregiver So attachment is a very huge issue when it comes to trauma a lot of people did not have that Safe attachment and what happens when we don't have that is that Our brain needs to be as babies. We need to be regulated by that primary caregiver. So when we're not feeling Safe or we're not feeling regulated. It's our primary caregiver that comes and soothes us when we don't have that We're already our brain gets primed for threat for fear and very very young we become looking out for for threat And what tends to happen then when we have trauma and trauma everything is a threat and we're always on guard So you can kind of see how our we have already become prone to being afraid right and um, and so We develop Adaptions so that we can feel safe and the adaptations are sometimes disassociation. So Um, many people who have had trauma in childhood. They're like, I have so many blank spots I don't remember so much that was because our brain did something To keep us safe our bodies did something to keep us safe They took us away and we went somewhere else and that is actually such an amazing Ability of our body. It's completely natural It did what it needed to do to keep us alive and that's an adoption And so if we if we've done that over and over and over and over again our body just threat Oh, I'm scared. Goodbye. We go somewhere else Then it becomes our bodies get used to doing that it becomes a habit it becomes conditioning And so I know for myself Here I am I became an adult so glad that all that's behind me. I'm gonna have a great life now calm peace joy bliss Well, what I found was I couldn't do it I could not stay in the present moment And I had no clue why nobody helped me with that. So I thought something was wrong I was given the diagnosis of you know, a disorder generalized anxiety disorder first Um, but but what I learned later was that was a natural Adoption of my body and my brain to go away. That's why I can't stay present. My body feels very unsafe Inside I'm always feeling unsafe. And so I explain how normal that is. So that was just one example of adaptations But we have many adaptations are okay Well, we've learned that we better keep our mouth shut and not speak up. Otherwise we're in trouble So we people please or we you know, all of these different kinds of adaptations To keep us quote-unquote safe right and what ends up happening is we are so far removed from You know, you've heard people say authentic self. But what authentic self really means is Being ourself saying what we really want to say instead of keeping our mouth shut or You know trying something we really want to try but not trying it because we're so scared or you know, whatever right Just kind of showing people That these are adaptations and that we can learn By first awareness like because many of us are living so it's under the radar where we're 95 of our behavior is subconscious So we're operating and we have no clue why right, but we're just doing it But becoming aware. Okay. These are adaptations. I'm experiencing and I'm operating and we become aware And that's where we can kind of have the choice to start to change And then with this feeling of not being safe. It's about learning how to be safe in our body So likely and of course, you know, I'm big on the on the cognition on the box Yeah I'm feeling so it's a lot of that I think that is such a such a good explanation these last few minutes I gotta believe are incredibly valuable to anybody's gonna listen to that because you explain that incredibly clearly Thank you very much And I think the big takeaway from that to go back to our thing I'm trying to sort of normalizing this a little bit is it has nothing to do with the fact that you were either born with Some disease or broken or illness or you you got l or your brain is broken You can bring it even if you want brought to bring it all the way back to infant days And some people do want to do that and that's fine. It's still an adaption a learned thing You know, like there there's their cues in the environment. We read the cues We behave accordingly and how we read those cues make a difference So the way you learn to read them at 10 years old or five years old or three years old Is the way you read them at 40 years old too unless you become aware of it and start to change that direction So I just posted something um a couple of I don't know when I put some of the pops in my head and I posted I write it I'm making it as I go along. This is a good thing to say Um, but it was something about that that I thought I was just going to outgrow that stuff and become like a happy, you know Um embodied adult and we don't outgrow it. We don't outgrow it like you said, right? Like the passage of time alone doesn't change anything and that is such a huge thing too So be empowered at the idea that Whether the issue is that there's some trauma in your past or you've got an anxiety disorder compounded by trauma It's still a thing you learned and something that you learn you can unlearn But but you do not unlearn things just by waiting for time to pass that doesn't happen There's no automatic immune response. I say all the time. Um, because you know addressing your thing I thought I would go out of it. I hope it gets better just sitting and hoping it gets better Like, you know, if you get the flu we retreat you lay in bed You blow your nose for a week and your body has an immune response and the flu goes away Right, so it's kind of a passive thing. You just wait and your body will take care of it This is never that you can't just wait Because it won't change if you just wait Yeah, because our brains are um, you know, they're they're they're I don't know they're conditioned Um, we've got that lower brain that that that has learned so many things and goes right into it And when we become aware of that that that's what's going on. It's helpful But I always come back to and this has been so It's been so hopeful and peaceful to me is that I believe we come into the world With this innate resilience and this well-being that's there That's our you know, our essence, right? But then we learn and they and they get covered up with adaptations and beliefs and all kinds of stuff But as we like let go of those things and we start to relearn some of the things that um We we not relearn but we unlearn I should say Some of the things we get more in touch with with That place that well-being I think in the end so much of it is the innate Inability of every human being to learn and adapt and change Wow, you see people all the time prisoners of war Adapt like people who are incarcerated incarcerated adapt people who live with true chronic You know disabilities physical disabilities and illnesses adapt So we are incredibly adaptable. We can learn to do almost anything people with traumatic brain injuries Learn to talk again. They learn to walk again So the fact that you have always been maybe afraid to go out of the house or Fearful in a given context because of your past experience does not doom you to always be that person Like that is changeable. Then yeah, I have a little little example I've shared it on my podcast and maybe even with you But I just it's a little concrete example of how we can be one way and then change So I used to be terrified of this particular highway That I that I have where I live And I would get sick to my stomach at the thought of it And it was like you have to cross like five busy lanes to get there And I was like I think about it before and I would speak, you know, so sick nervous and anyway So I would do it and I would be terrified and whatever and then again And then I got a job where I had to cross that highway Every single day and it was uncomfortable at the beginning, but I tell you By I don't know how long it took whatever it took. I was the first one to be zooming across that No fear nothing That's a great example of how we can be one way and so Sick and think that things will never change while we're in it And then two months later. That's just an example. Yeah completely different on the first one crossing over with no fear How does that happen same bridge? Yeah, same bridge same highway same unique just a different reaction and a different Understanding of the context and the situation. So yeah, that's a thing and I think you know A lot of people sometimes and that's why I love to talk to you because you know A lot of people relate to things I'm saying and often I am Directly to things like panic disorder and agoraphobia where there are physical sensations They're afraid people are afraid to leave the house or do certain things and they say Yeah, but what about all the emotions and everything that comes along with my trauma and they want to sort of like No, I can't fix it because I have trauma and I hear this on the daily But in the end even people that are dealing more mentally with maybe getting into a mental space of You know backing away mentally and emotionally for protection Even that I believe the same principles apply So somebody who has learned to shut up because they might say something wrong And be judged and be called unworthy or or or silly or stupid Can learn to start to say things. I can we have a mutual friend that is doing that in a spectacular fashion And like this person is a textbook example of For the last 25 years of my life. I have kept my mouth shut Let me try saying a little something here and it's scary and it's and it's terrifying What you do it and then you discover like, okay, this you know The same dangers and threats don't exist that existed 25 years ago It's safe. I can put my toe in the water and then more and more and more and then next Do you know the person who was terrified to be in the ocean so to speak metaphorically is swimming like a champ Amazing, right? So Yeah, yeah It applies to it applies to everything um I do think with trauma though I'm I just been I did a podcast on this and and it's been on my mind like crazy. It is important when we have had really horrific experiences like Child to trauma that was overwhelming My feeling is that it's really important if we didn't have a safe connection and the safety of Our first relationships. I believe healing can begin in that kind of a relationship So when that can repair that sort of not being not feeling not Feeling comfortable because you don't trust Having a safe relationship where you can share what happened with someone who is a compassionate witness something Something changes within us when it's shared So I think that that's an important thing to talk about to have that kind of support when you've had that kind of trauma Yeah, I would agree with you 100% you know and you know that that thing that says well I have trauma so I can't do that's like well, you're gonna have to work on that too unfortunately and and sometimes So let's address this for a second Sometimes I think when I'm dealing with people who are say agoraphobic They are deathly afraid to walk out in the front yard or sitting on the steps or go to the supermarket Whatever it is But some people who I know are suffering from a traumatic past They're not deathly afraid necessarily go to the supermarket even though they may have developed agoraphobia as an outgrowth They are afraid of experiencing Mentally what they experienced in the past. They are terrified to confront it and and feel it again and sit with it And sometimes and I could be you correct me because you are way more no more than I would do about this But it seems like part of that healing process is to be able to sit with somebody whether it's your therapist Your coach or count whoever it is And relive it but in a place where somebody will say Oh, yeah, that was terrible that should have never happened to you Like yes, you have a right to be angry upset afraid all of those things But they still do have to you know kind of confront it. You can't run from it forever Yeah It totally does but the way that I see it and again, I can only speak from my own experience was that I what I went through was really um It was it was horrible and there was I was alone and isolated and I there was no help and nobody and That was really that was like an added trauma and it wasn't until I had someone else who really sat with me and and um She she understood what I was experiencing and suddenly that experience was shared And the burden was shared and and I don't know. I think that comes back to This human need we have for connection and it was it it's it's a repairing So, yeah, I think that that's really important Maybe it helps reframe the experience when you have somebody there to share it with you and and validate it to a certain extent Or acknowledge it that it was real You know, maybe sometimes It the overwhelm of it can be started take away a little bit So you can actually reason it a little bit more When you're alone with no net and no compassionate witness and no support and no validation and no caring at all How are you supposed to actually reason what needs to be reasoned out of the experience? I don't think you can it just becomes purely emotion purely emotion So maybe when you have somebody to share that with you can actually get to that point where you could say Oh, yeah, that was really terrible, but that's not today That was that was back then and I'll have to say sometimes there is no reasoning Like and but and even having another person say nothing But just you see in their eyes an expression that I see what happened to you and it was horrific Like I'll give you an example now. This is an extreme example And I don't mean it any way to compare the Holocaust to I'm just giving it as an example of trauma So I worked at a social worker for many many years with Holocaust survivors And I heard firsthand atrocities that they went through and But there was something in the telling the sharing of the experience that When you share it with another human being something that is an atrocity Again, I don't have words why I don't get it But in the experience of the sharing there comes a sense of I'm not alone I'm understood This atrocity is shared Something happens to us. So I really I'm big on that. I think it is so Important to share the experience. I think you can't you can't argue against that Jeb, you know, it's it seems so obvious. I mean even me. I'm a dynamo behaviorist I would say yeah, you got to do that like that what you're saying matters like this all works together It all works together It's not you know, while maybe the nuts and bolts of of exposure and things like that can get you to the supermarket You have to go through the other stuff To get to a true place a full recovery that sort of thing Yeah, yeah, and again It's all normal like all of these things are are normal. It's just sometimes people are dealing with You know abnormal situations. So really it was the situation in the context Or the initial reaction or just a slight little brain error that we make it gets blown into an abnormal situation But never an abnormal person in these in these Cases. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, so I don't know. I mean we've been out of 25 minutes. You had you said so much good stuff here I can't wait to put this one. Yeah So always so helpful. I love chatting with you. It's fun. Yeah. Yeah, it's all good So I don't want to go too much longer about 25 to 30 minutes as far as we usually want to go What else do you want to add anything in particular that we can think of on this? I I always always want to add because I I felt like I wasn't given that so I always try to Provide hope and I think we just did that when we said we normalized it And we gave hope that we may have been this way for x number of years decades But we can change Neuroscience proves that we can change. So there's hope in this. There's hope that we can Have a different experience of life. So I always like to leave with that. Yeah, I think so too I'm gonna leave with this the fact that I appreciate that you and I do this because Because honestly you We do come at it from different ways and we may have different ways to frame it But in the end I love that we always can find a way and I and I put that squarely on you We always find a way to bring it together somehow and put it out there as it as almost a unified message Or at least complimentary and I really appreciate you for that. I do. Oh, I appreciate you. Thank you Yeah, so all right. So how do people how bad if somebody wants to find you how they're gonna find you I know how to find you but I don't matter Yeah, so I do offer virtual coaching Um, and you can find me. I have a podcast call. We changed the name the healing the healing trauma And cptsd podcast. So that's the podcast and if you want to find me on My website it is cptsdcoach.com. Thank you And um, and I have a facebook and I have an instagram account It's all on from your website, right? Yeah, yeah, it's all there and I love to share a lot on there like through like Something comes up in my head. Boom. I'm on there. Yeah, and it's always good. I urge everybody Whether you there's trauma or not like monique is a bit of a shiny light in a day I think just the message is always really good. So there you go All right, we're gonna do we'll do more of these for sure without a doubt. So thanks for coming by. I appreciate it Later everybody. All right, let me be the awkward stop button guy