PTSD MYTH #5: "A clinician said _____ about my situation"

And she saved thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives because she chose not to listen to a doctor. Hey everyone, welcome to PTSD TV. Today is a continuation of our myth marathon, so we are on myth number 5, I believe. And this episode of PTSD TV is sponsored by Broken to Unbreakable, which is my PTSD and CPTSD recovery program. So for those of you who don't know me, I'm a recovery coach. I suffered with my own CPTSD for 15 years and now no longer do, which is why I'm able to help people all over the world make their own recovery journey. And this lovely man to my left here is Brad Schipke.

I am Kayleen's significant other, and I also had CPTSD. I was there for, um, every step of her journey and recovered myself as well.

So today's myth is a clinician said blank about my situation. So that's the myth: a clinician said blank, insert whatever this clinician, doctor, therapist, whoever said About my situation. And this is a really dangerous one.

And therefore I can't heal.

And therefore I can't heal.

And therefore I will never get better and never recover because— and maybe you've heard this from more than one clinician, you know, because clinicians have said this or doctors have said this, or, you know, a doctor and a clinician and your therapist and somebody else. And that has happened before, um, with people that we know and that people that we worked with. So It's a really dangerous myth.

It is a really dangerous myth. And they're like, with all our myths, you know, they're, they're especially dangerous because they'll stop you right in your tracks of recovery. And they are the most common things that we see in the PTSD community. And they are so, so dangerous because they just get kind of told around and people say things and, and people really don't truly deeply think about what they mean or the implications that they have. So that's what we're going to be addressing today. This is maybe one of my favorites to address because it is such a powerful one and it truly does stop people in their tracks and it can be the thing that stops you from ever recovering. So it's really, uh, a really dangerous one and a really special one.

It's a dangerous one because of the authority bias that these people have or that we have about or that a lot of people have about authority figures like a doctor. Oh, they know better than me, right? They're the expert. I know nothing. And that's kind of the way that everybody has been taught in society is like, from since you're a little kid, your parents know everything and you know nothing. You go to school, your teacher knows everything, you know nothing. So you're left in this position of always looking up towards the authority and never really trusting yourself, never really trusting your own insights, your own intuition, or your own discoveries, or your own experiences, like your own experiences, your own observations in your own life. And And you never learn to trust yourself and your own thought processes, which is really, really dangerous. 'Cause then you're just being pulled around by these, all these, um, so-called authority figures that know better than you. When in reality, you know, that's not always the case. And we're going to tell a really cool story, um, kind of debunking that, um, later in the episode. Um, but it's, it's a really, really dangerous place to be.

Yeah.

And I think a really good— that's kind of like why this myth kind of exists, um, is because we have that authority bias. But why, why would people even say this? Why would a clinician say this to somebody who's hurting? You know, why would a clinician say this? Aren't they supposed to be the expert? Aren't they supposed to know that, you know, PTSD can be healed from? Why would expert— why would a doctor— why would Um, anybody, a psychologist or a—

That's a great question. It's a great question. Um, you know, I, I think there are a number of reasons that someone would say this, and there, there are a few kind of just top reasons that come to mind. And one is that there's a lack of knowledge on the subject. And, and when, again, everyone that we talk about, you know, we're talking about doctors and therapists and, and, and all these sort of clinicians and and these people who, who care very much, they dedicate their lives to trying to help people. And so why would they say something so damaging and so dangerous? Is because they could have a lack of knowledge on the subject. You know, not everyone you go to see is going to be specialized in trauma, or even if they are specialized in trauma, every individual is so different, and they work with hundreds, sometimes literally thousands of individuals a year. And so when your attention is split like that you really can't get the full picture and you don't understand the full picture, okay? And so another reason would be, you know, you go to a psychologist, you go to a therapist, and you spend a certain amount of time with them. And let's say you go to a doctor, right? And you're maybe looking for a diagnosis or you're looking for some advice. I know like for me, when I go to my GP, just my general doctor, you know, we spend no more than 8 minutes together, right? And so how can you know the full picture of what's going on with my body, right, is one thing. And you can say, okay, run these tests, run these tests. get more information, but with my brain in, in just a few minutes, even in just an hour, even in a few hours. And so I think like what it, what it sums up to is a lack of knowledge, a lack of wanting to, you know, they don't want to hurt you. And so they say, well, okay, why don't, like, why don't you just kind of learn to live with this? And it seems like, you know, all these treatments that we've been trying aren't working. So, you know, you're treatment resistant and we're gonna have to learn how to manage this. And, and it's not really them giving up on you so much as, as they are sometimes afraid to take the next step and to say, well, what are some maybe unconventional things that could work? Or they don't have enough time because they don't spend enough time with you. And there's really all sorts of reasons, and none of them are malicious. They're not trying to hurt you. Um, but I, I think the, the biggest and most important thing, and you mentioned this at the beginning a little bit, Brad, is like, you know, you, this is your life and you are the person that you spend the most time with and you are the one that knows you best. And it's really easy, you know, you trust a doctor, you trust a therapist, you trust someone in a position of authority, and so you take their advice when they, when they give it to you. And it's really easy to do that. We all kind of have that authority bias within us. But it can be really dangerous. And trusting someone or liking someone or even knowing someone is not necessarily grounds to take good advice, to get good advice from them.

Mm-hmm.

And so you ultimately, at the very, very root of everything that we talk about here is You need to trust yourself and you need to be an independent thinker and an independent healer. And so, you know, some clinicians that, you know, they say something like this and they don't truly understand the power of beliefs. And they understand maybe a lot about science and a lot about, you know, what goes on in the brain and how the brain changes and trauma. And like, they might have a great knowledge base but not understand what a statement like that could actually do to a person and what an opposite statement could do to a person. And I know some clinicians are bound by, you know, they can say certain things, they can't say certain things. And so there's all sorts of reasons that someone would say this, um, but they, they are such damaging statements.

Mm-hmm.

And the power of your mind, the power of your belief system is beyond comprehension— what you can do when you believe in something and when you know that you can achieve something versus When you're told and you believe that you can't achieve something. If you, if you don't believe that you can fully recover, if you believe that you're treatment resistant because someone told you you're treatment resistant, how much action, how much effort are you going to put into your healing journey? And it's not your fault, it's not their fault, it's just kind of the way that it works. Because if you don't believe, you know, you can do that thing, you're not going to take very much action towards it, and that's going to feed the belief that you can't do it because you're not going to see any results. So That was a really good question.

Yeah. If you believe recovery is impossible, or if you believe the people who are telling you that recovery is impossible, then recovery will be impossible for you. And I kind of want to go into this. I was thinking about this while you were talking. Everybody views problems through a different lens, right? So I'm going to give like kind of 4 different examples and doctors. And I can't remember what's— who— what is the doctor that assigns pills to for mental health?

A psychiatrist?

Psychiatrist. I was thinking psychologist and I just couldn't think. Psychiatrists and doctors view the world through their training, what they were trained with. And that's kind of like medication. That's like, oh, you have mental health? What medication is going to solve your mental health problem? And when that doesn't work, it's kind of like, oh, you're resistant to the treatment that we know how to give and the only thing that we know how to give. And a really cool example about this is that Kayleen and I watched a vegan Or it was like a plant-based documentary a while ago. And the doctor in it kind of admitted that in medical school, they don't teach you anything about nutrition. So if the solution to your problem is nutrition, a doctor can't prescribe you nutrition advice because they never took a nutrition class when they went through medical school.

Right.

So they view it through this specific lens, through their training and the specific thing, and they don't really look at outside this scope. So they have a very narrow view, which is very, very good at certain things, but it's not good for everything. So they see it through this and they automatically think, okay, this is the problem. I'm gonna— even if the solution's over here, I'm gonna take the problem and try to force my solution onto this problem and try to fix it. My second example is a book that we got from somebody about dream therapy. for PTSD. And in the book, they were saying, hey, we've been treating people for 20, 30 years. And I don't really remember if like they saw like very small changes or something, but this dream therapist, you know, they're trained in dream therapy and they see every single problem as a dream therapy problem. So they see PTSD and they try to fit it into this specific narrow solution, right? So when you try to take this problem that isn't solved by dream therapy and try to solve it with dream therapy, it's not going to be solved with dream therapy.

Um, that's a great— I want to build off of that, I think, a little bit, just because you got kind of my mind thinking like that. You know, if you go to, uh, let's say a pastor, right? You go to someone religious and you say, I'm struggling with, you know, nightmares and flashbacks and I have PTSD, what do I do? They're gonna, they're gonna maybe assign you some prayers, they're gonna pray for you, they're gonna maybe gather with you in their community. If you go to, uh, a psychiatrist, you know, they're, they're gonna kind of dig into things. If you go to, um, a specialist in EMDR, they're gonna say, you need EMDR and you need to, you know, do this, this, this, and this. And, you know, if you go to someone who practices yoga or who, who does like tai chi and they heal through tai chi or they heal through animals or they heal through, um, through hiking, like they're all gonna assign their specific things. So if you went to someone who healed their PTSD through hiking, they're gonna take you hiking until you heal or you don't. If you, if you go to, uh, you know, a center that, that they, they heal PTSD through swimming with dolphins, you're gonna go and swim with dolphins and that is the solution that they're gonna give you. And so If you go to someone and they're a yoga practitioner and you're saying, I'm struggling with this, they're going to say, okay, do this, this, this, this, and this. And it's all going to be yoga.

And if it doesn't work, you're treatment resistant and you can't heal. That's kind of the jump that they make is like, I'm giving you everything that I know how to do and it's not working. Therefore, you must be treatment resistant, which just isn't the case. They just like, this solution, the solution that I'm giving you for your problem isn't working. It doesn't mean anything. You're resistant to this one treatment that wasn't even supposed to work anyways, clearly. But it doesn't mean that it's impossible to heal. That's just kind of a— I think it's a scary jump for a lot of— it's a logical scary jump for a lot of people to make. But another 2 examples would be— Kayleen brought up EMDR. And I was going to say Francine Shapiro. If you went to Francine Shapiro, she would be like, No, you just have like because she specialized in PTSD and she has helped millions of people around the world with EMDR heal and get better. You know, so she has she has a lot of references of people healing. She wouldn't say, "Hey, you can't do this." Be like, "No, like you just need to find this thing." She would still look look at it through her lens, but she would have a different perspective on it. And then the last example is us. You know, people who have been through PTSD, who have actually done it, who actually know from our own experiences that it is possible, like, you will never hear us say that you cannot do this. So I guess, like, you always have to be, be on watch of where you're getting the information from. And there's always another solution. There's always another solution. There's a solution to every single problem on earth. And maybe this is a good segue to Martine, and I don't know if you want to tell this story.

I do, but really briefly, I want to backtrack just for a second because I love that you said, like, if you come to us, we're— what I want to just differentiate really, really quick is like, if you go to, you know, a yoga practitioner, they're gonna assign you yoga, and then if it doesn't work, they're gonna say, okay, well, it doesn't work for you, you know, you probably can't heal, you have to cope or whatever. Yeah, of course, that's a broad statement, but We're never going to tell you that you can't heal because of a situation or because of other things that you've been through or anything like that. You're never going to hear those negative beliefs from us. But something that I think differentiates us and something that we try very actively and very hard to do is to build independent healers. So we're not going to necessarily assign you a solution. Something that we do and something that I do through the Broken to Unbreakable program is make you an independent healer. So I'm not saying, hey, here's the solution. I'm saying here is an ultimate resource that will build an amazing mindset, give you amazing routines, teach you how to build amazing routines, and help you process your past and then go beyond that, all in your own way, in your own life as an independent healer. So I put all the power in your hands, and that's something we work very actively to do, is to put the power in your hands so you can take the information and basically build off of it and build it into your life in the way that it fits best.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that is a good segue into Martine. So Martine is a woman, she's the CEO, founder?

Founder of SiriusXM Radio.

SiriusXM Radio. So if you don't know SiriusXM, it's— they basically put stuff in space, satellites in space, and you can go— I don't know how it kind of translates globally. I'm pretty sure it's a global thing, but at least here in the States, you go all over the country because the satellites are in space, and it's the same radio channel. So on the SiriusXM dial, you know, like channel 4 is whatever, it's pop radio, and that's throughout the country. So you don't have to always be scanning for channels, and they do different shows and stuff on SiriusXM. But it's a really, really very, very successful company. And she started that company, and it's been wildly successful, and no one believed in her. And there's a whole story behind that company, but that's not why we brought her up, because she is a—

A force.

Phenomenal woman. Honestly, we could talk for literally probably hours on her because she has done so, so much. But the reason that we're bringing her up is because people consistently in her life told her she couldn't or that something wasn't possible or that it couldn't be done. And then she consistently and still continues to consistently prove them wrong in a huge, huge way. And one example, and we were just briefly talking about this and I don't have the drug off the top of my head and I don't have the actual name of the disease, but her daughter was diagnosed with, I think some sort of heart condition. And there was no cure to this heart condition. And I forget exactly what the condition was. And I forget what the drug was that she ended up finding and inventing. But basically, her daughter was going to die. I don't know if it was by the age of 10 or something like that. And she did not accept that as an answer. And she did not accept that as a viable thing that happened. And there was a very small percentage of the population that that got this disease. And so what she did is, is she was told by doctors, by people, that, well, there's no cure and there's, there's nothing you can do. So, you know, just do your best to live with the situation and make the most of it. And she did not accept that. And she worked day and night to try to find, okay, what is the cause of this disease? What happens in this disease? What needs to be fixed for this disease to no longer affect the people that suffer with it. And she was able to find a drug that, we'll just call it for our purposes, bridged the gap and actually fixed what the disease had broken. And, you know, she was not a doctor. She was not in the medical field. I mean, she invented satellite radio.

Yeah.

Like really not in the medical field. And, you know, basically went to these researchers and this company that had this drug and they were using it for a different application. And was saying, I need this for my daughter and for the people that suffer with this disease. This will cure that disease. And they said no, and they turned her away, and it was this whole big thing. And anyway, long story short, um, you know, when she was able to get her hands on the drugs and they were able to start to do trials, they basically said like, this will be the most expensive thing that you do because there's not enough of the population that can afford this drug treatment to, to run a viable business. Basically, it's too expensive. And yeah, you'll save those however many percent of people, the 1% of people that have this, but, uh, you won't be— they won't be able to afford it. And there, there was all this kind of controversy around it. But anyway, she was able to do it, and she started this company. And now that company now has saved, I think, I literally think, hundreds of thousands of lives. She saved her daughter's life, of course probably most importantly to her, and started this company curing incurable diseases that affect such a small, uh, portion of the population that basically no one else spends the time, the energy, the money, the resources to actually focus on them. But of course, that was near and dear to her heart, uh, with her daughter. So now that's what she does. And I, I could honestly go on for hours about her because now she like prints lungs and like she's this phenomenal, phenomenal human being, and we're lucky to have her. But, but the point being is someone— and she was not a doctor, she was not in the medical profession.

No.

Um, a doctor, a clinician, someone— more than one person said, this is incurable, there is no way that you can save your daughter. And she basically said— she took the power into her hands and basically said, I'm not going to accept that because this is my life, right? And this is my daughter's life, and I will not accept that as an answer. And she worked day and night and was able to save her daughter's life. And it's a really inspiring, it's a touching story. But the most important thing that happened is that interaction of, this is not curable, and then basically in her mind or audibly, however it went down, I won't accept that. And so when a clinician says to you, you are treatment resistant, when a clinician says to you, that might work for some people but it won't work for you, your PTSD is different, You need to know that this is your life, and it is so, so important that you take the power into your hands and you choose not to accept statements like that. Your belief system is so astoundingly powerful. Human beings can do amazing, miraculous things sometimes when they believe in themselves. So you can't let someone take the power out of your hands. And again, they don't mean to do something like that. When someone makes a statement like that, they might not think about the implications that it has. And sometimes that very statement is actually the most important statement in your life because it can take you from a place of, okay, this is incurable. And I can say it can take— it can take you from a place of being like, well, you know what, kind of F that. I'm not going to accept that. And it can almost light that fire in you. And so of course there's good and bad to everything, but you, you need to make sure that when you're hearing statements like that You're taking that and you're running with it and you're starting on a new journey and you're going faster and you're working harder rather than throwing your hands up because it's incredibly dangerous.

Yeah. And if Martine listened to the doctors, not only would her daughter not be here, but thousands of other people would not be here. And who knows what would have happened to her herself. If Kayleen listened, because we got all that same data from people, be like, oh, just accept this as your new reality. You just need to manage this. I mean, you hear that in every, like everywhere, even in PTSD books that are supposed to help, that you're just going to have to cope with this. If we listened to that, we wouldn't be here.

That's right. We wouldn't be doing this. We wouldn't be here in our, in our lives, in our emotional lives and in our relationship. We wouldn't be together as a relationship. Yeah.

And look at, look at how far, I mean, look at what Martine accomplished because she didn't listen. I mean, We haven't accomplished anything close to that yet.

Even close.

We intend to do very big things with our life, but we wouldn't be accomplishing, we wouldn't be here to be able to help you right now. And just think about you right now. If you're listening to somebody who's told you that it's impossible, if you believed that, just imagine if you don't believe that. Imagine if you do say, F you, I am going to do this no matter what you say or what anybody else says, I'm going to do this. And imagine what you can do for the world. Imagine what you can do for your family. Imagine what you can do for Everybody in your life, if you just like, you know, basically say, fuck you, and I'm gonna do this no matter what, no matter what you say, I'm going to do this. Like, you can change the world and you will change the world if you do that.

Just like Martine, right? And she saved thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives, because she chose not to listen to a doctor. She's not a doctor. Yeah. That's the coolest thing. She saved thousands of lives and is not a doctor.

Even cooler, she has impacted our lives. We're telling her story, which inspires the crap out of us, which hopefully is inspiring the crap out of you to do big things. So like the ripple effect of that one decision for her to not listen to the doctors that told her it was impossible, not only saved thousands of lives, but like each of those people who were saved, how are they going to impact the world? How is their story going to impact the world? How is your story of healing going to impact the world? You know, it all starts to this massive, massive ripple effect that really, and that's how big change happens. It happens like, you know, we've been impacted by a lot of people, right? By a lot of really great people. And then we do our best to help impact more people. And then you go and do your best to help impact more people. And then it just like, you know, if every one person tells 2 people about something, it goes exponential. I mean, unfortunately, like this COVID thing right now, but that's a good example. Probably shouldn't have said that. Maybe we'll cut that out, but we probably won't. It gets infectious like that, though, in a really positive way. So I mean, you can look at it as a negative thing, or you can look at it as a positive thing.

It's a good example of the the work that you put in eventually exponentially pays off if you're consistent. So so but the the theme right moving on moving on from that is you know you want to be independent. You want to take the power in your hands. You don't want to let a diagnosis define you. No matter who tells you, uh, it is or it isn't possible, you want to make up your own mind. This is your life, and you should live it as such. It's your life. It's your PTSD. It's your mental health. It's your, your relationships. It's, it's everything, and it's yours. And you're the person that spends the most time with you, and so you're the person that knows you best. I don't know you best. Brad doesn't know you best. Your doctor doesn't know you best. Your spouse doesn't know you best. Only you know you best. And so you have to be an independent thinker, an independent healer, and you have to take the power into your hands and make decisions because it is your life. This is your life that, that other people are, are playing around with, and you can't let them play around with it. You have to be the one making the decision, saying, yes, I'm going to do this. No, I'm not going to do this. You have to take the power and have it in your hands and hold it in your hands and never let that go because it is the most important thing you have.

Yeah.

And you have to trust yourself and, you know, hopefully trust us and lean into the information that we're telling you. It is possible. Even if— I've worked with people who, you know, their clinician said— who literally tried everything and their clinician said, you're treatment resistant and you're just gonna have to live like this and essentially you're hopeless. And I've worked with people, and within a couple of months, they've they've made complete 180s because they're not hopeless because they're not treatment resistant. They're just not getting the right information in the right order with the right steps with the right action. That's all that it is. It's it's misinformation. It's information that's out of order, and it's it's lack of knowledge on what is truly going on. So even even if you've actually been told this by by any any clinician insert clinician doctor therapist whatever. uh, whatever they said, if they said you're treatment resistant, or if you had multiple people say, well, you're hopeless, you'll never recover, or, oh well, you also have a TBI, or, well, your brain has changed differently, or— don't, don't listen to that. Take that and run with it and run away from it into the direction of you can heal, you can recover, you can do anything that you set your mind to. Just like Martine, okay?

Yeah.

How was she able to, you know, launch satellites into space and create this awesome entertainment industry of satellite radio and then turn around and cure an incurable disease and save her daughter's life. Think about that. That's wild.

What if somebody told you they were gonna do that? That's pretty, that's pretty crazy.

If someone, if someone said to me, and I like to think I'm so open-minded and I work hard to do this, if someone said to me, I'm gonna launch a satellite into space and I'm gonna make a radio station. I'd be like, okay, yeah, all right, great. And then if they turned around and said, um, at the same time I'm gonna cure an incurable disease, at the same time I'm gonna start a foundation that cures incurable diseases with the money that I make off of this satellite thing, at the same time I'm gonna 3D print organs, at the same time— this woman honestly is Superwoman. I'd be like, okay, that, you know what, that seems, that seems like a lot, and I'm rooting for you. But I don't know. Right. And I'm pretty open-minded. So if, if she told people that, you know, before she started her journey, I mean, she already got so much backlash, but, but just, just really just take it one step at a time and know that you can do this and you can do anything.

Yeah.

I think that's the ultimate, the ultimate summation of today.

And never let anybody tell you that you can't do something.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the most important thing.

Yeah. That's it. Well, I think that's all I have.

That is all I have for today. That's great.

Yeah, if you guys enjoyed this episode, and if you wanna learn a little bit more, or you want a little bit more help from us, right now we're doing free one-on-one consultations where you can call us and talk to us. It will help you kind of bridge that gap, help you take those steps to become an independent healer. And you can schedule a call with us by going to overcomingptsd.info/call, overcomingptsd.info/call. And you can pick a time and talk to us.

And there'll be a link in the description below here. And we'll kind of show you what it takes to be an independent healer And what actions you need to take and stuff like that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So that's what we have for you all. Thank you so much for joining us here. Uh, we, we love having you all here on with us and we love doing these podcasts for you. We don't usually— we do it live, at least on the Facebook group. We're alone right now in our living room, so you're not on with us, but you will be on with us. Um, but, uh, we'll continue our myth marathon going forward. But if you've ever heard this, if, if anyone in your life has ever told you this, or if you know that other people have heard this again, We see these myths in PTSD communities. So if you see these myths in communities, please feel free to share the episode. You know, our ultimate goal is to reach everyone with PTSD. There's a lot going on in the world right now. There's there's a lot of people that are getting hurt and and really need information like this and just just information about mindset and about beliefs and about just things that you can do and and things that you you do have control of. So please feel free to share this. We love when you share it. We appreciate. Each and every one of you. And that is all that we have for you today, and we will see you for the continuation of our Myth Marathon. Today was Myth 5, uh, tomorrow will be Myth 6.

Myth 6, and we have 3 more for you.

That's right.

I think 8 total.

6, 7, 8.

Yep.

All right.

Any last word, Kayleen?

Bye-bye. Bye.