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Wednesdays With Watson: Faith & Trauma Amy Watson- PTSD Patient-Trauma Survivor
Welcome to "Wednesdays With Watson," a compassionate and insightful podcast dedicated to exploring the complex journey of healing from PTSD, the role of faith in recovery, and the profound impact of trauma on our lives. Hosted by Amy Watson, a passionate advocate for mental health and a trauma survivor, this podcast aims to provide a safe and empathetic space for listeners to learn, share, and find hope.In each episode, we delve deep into the multifaceted aspects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and its far-reaching effects. We bring you riveting personal stories of resilience, recovery, and transformation and expert interviews with psychologists, therapists, faith leaders, and individuals who have walked the path of healing.Our mission is to break mental health stigma and encourage open dialogue about PTSD and trauma. We explore the profound connection between faith, spirituality, and mental well-being, offering insights into how one's faith can be a powerful source of strength and healing.Whether PTSD, faith, or trauma has touched you or someone you know, "Wednesdays With Watson" is here to inspire, educate, and provide practical tools for navigating the healing journey. Join us on this empowering quest towards reclaiming peace, resilience, and a renewed sense of purpose.Today, subscribe to our community of survivors, advocates, and compassionate listeners. Together, we can heal our hearts and find the path to recovery, one episode at a time.
Wednesdays With Watson: Faith & Trauma Amy Watson- PTSD Patient-Trauma Survivor
Friendship and Faith: Overcoming Trauma's Shadows
How do you unjumble memories when PTSD has scrambled them? In this special re-release of our first-ever Wednesdays with Watson episode, we revisit the profound conversation with Chrissy, an essential figure in my journey. Together, we unravel the significance of having a "memory keeper" and the transformative power of Psalm 91 during our most challenging times. Expect an enlightening dive into the science behind PTSD, with practical insights into the roles of the hippocampus and amygdala in memory processing. Trust us, this is not just an episode; it's a lifeline for anyone grappling with trauma.
From navigating the minefield of emotional triggers to understanding the complexities of C-PTSD, we leave no stone unturned. Chrissy and I share our raw, unfiltered experiences, emphasizing the importance of community, faith, and the unwavering support of loved ones. We also discuss the silent battles that many face, the necessity of open dialogue, and the critical role of supportive friendships in the healing process. Our shared stories highlight the invaluable lessons of patience, love, and grace, even in moments of intense conflict and vulnerability.
As we prepare for new content and formats this September, we invite both new listeners and long-time followers to revisit these impactful episodes. This journey through our podcast’s first season stands as a testament to God's faithfulness and the transformative power of friendship and faith. Whether you're seeking understanding, hope, or simply a relatable story, this episode offers a heartfelt exploration of trauma, healing, and the enduring relevance of being seen, heard, and valued. Join us in this reflective pause, and prepare to be moved by stories that remind us all of our intrinsic worth and the incredible power of community.
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SEEN KNOWN HEARD LOVED VALUED
When it feels like you've lost your way and the road disappears in the haze, when your fading heart needs a northern star, I'll walk with you to the other side.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, and welcome to Wednesdays with Watson. It is July of 2024. And you are in for a little bit of a different experience If you are a regular listener to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast. Over the next two months, over July and August, we are going to put the podcast on hiatus. However, we are going to re-release some episodes from the first season that most of you probably have not heard, and so we're going to combine some of these episodes, many of which I left off on a cliffhanger. So back in the day, people had to wait two weeks to find out the rest of the story. The day, people had to wait two weeks to find out the rest of the story. As you're listening to what we are going to share with you today, just keep in mind who you hear talking to you right now and how unbelievably faithful God has been, because, even when I look back to four and a half years ago, when I recorded these episodes, I am such a different person so much healing, so much hope, so much growth. And part of that has been because of this, which had become a bit of a passion project for me the Wednesdays with Watson podcast but most of it is because of my church, my community and counseling, which, from the very beginning, became the tagline for this podcast, along with Jesus, who is the star of my story. And so, as you listen to these first set that we're going to drop today, we will be doing that all through July and August, and you will know, if you're a new listener listener why all of these things matter to me. As for me, during July and August, I will be behind a computer getting my dissertation proposal ready. As some of you know, I am all but dissertation done with my doctorate degree in educational psychology, with a focus on trauma and community care. I'm looking forward to what that means for the podcast. We have brand new content and a brand new format coming at you in September, and so, until then, though, especially for those of you that are new, enjoy these dropback episodes so that we can see how faithful God is, how faithful God is. Hey, everybody, and welcome back to Wednesdays with Watson. It is Wednesday, and if you have been following the podcast, you know that I am Amy Watson and I am your host, and we record these episodes every Wednesday, so you may be listening to it on a different day, but either way, thank you. I am so appreciative of the time that you have decided to invest. I've been so excited about the podcast in general and some of the communication that I'm getting with people via email and social media, and if you hang on to the end of the podcast, you'll see all the ways that you can get in contact with me.
Speaker 2:I am super excited about today, in this first season, our podcast, ptsd, jesus and Me, where Jesus is the star of my story, as well as trauma-informed counseling, as well as my community and, speaking of community, one of the reasons why I am so excited today and this name will not be at all unfamiliar to those of you who have been listening to the podcast but I am so excited to welcome our very first guest on Wednesdays with Watson, my friend, my sister, my business partner, chrissy.
Speaker 2:Hey, chrissy, and welcome to the podcast. Hey, I'm excited to be here. I am so excited to welcome you to the podcast, and so I just wanted first, before I started, into a little bit of the teacher mode and then we're going to have a conversation about why you're on the podcast today. We've called this Memory Keeper because, as I will talk about, in some of the science of PTSD, memories are often different than as they actually occurred, and so the Lord had placed you in an opportunity to be a memory keeper for me in so many ways, but I wanted to start out because you are an Old Testament fan, am I right?
Speaker 3:I am.
Speaker 2:You know that's always confused me about you.
Speaker 3:I love the Old Testament.
Speaker 2:I always used to say but Jesus isn't in the Old Testament but, he kind of, is he?
Speaker 3:is it just looks different? Yeah, it's the promise of him coming.
Speaker 2:But early in those days, in some of the stories that these guys have already heard, you shared a special song with me and I just want you to tell us, before we start into some of the science of this and then after the science, the really cool part of conversation that we've already recorded about how you're my memory keeper and I'm so grateful for that Tell me what song that was.
Speaker 3:So we were in the same Sunday morning class and I got the opportunity. I say opportunity, but really I was scared.
Speaker 2:You were terrified, I was terrified. I was sitting next to you. I remember that.
Speaker 3:I got the opportunity to teach one morning and it was a summer in Psalms and I taught on Psalm 91 and it's always been a favorite of mine on Psalm 91, and it's always been a favorite of mine. Really, it hit home for me when I was 24, and I went on a Young Life wilderness hiking trip and it was a week long and you're completely out of touch with all of humanity but certainly can't get word out if you're in trouble, and the entire week I was extremely ill and we were climbing mountains, hiking 30 miles. It was very intense and it was gorgeous and I was sick, but there was no way for my mom to know that. But the whole time I was there she was praying Psalm 91 over me, and especially verses five and six.
Speaker 3:You will not be afraid of the terror by night or the arrow that flies by day, of the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, or of the destruction that lays waste at noon. And it was a battle day, night, noon, it didn't matter, I was battling. And it was a battle day, night, noon, it didn't matter, I was battling. And so often I feel like these verses are appropriate for PTSD. It's different battles. It's the terror by night. It's an arrow that flies by day, and so it's been appropriate my whole life.
Speaker 2:And even more so now. By the way, I didn't know the answer to that question and the fact that your mom prayed that over you. I might not have even remembered that, and that's precious for its own reasons. But yeah, I've dubbed it the PTSD prayer because those verses that you just read really describes the day, from morning to night, of a post-traumatic stress disorder patient, and so thank you for introducing me to that song.
Speaker 2:I'm going to start really quickly and some of these things, chrissy, you'll recognize. I know sometimes you'll text me and go what was that again? Because we both learned this initially from Dr Pettit and then, of course, I've done my research. But we're going to be talking hippocampuses and amygdalas here for just a few minutes before you jump back on with me. And the reason why I want to do that is because the reason why, on this first podcast, you're here is to help me unjumble some memories. On this first podcast you're here is to help me unjumble some memories. And so, in order for our listeners to understand why that matters is, why do you need to help me unjumble those memories? And so here I go into teacher mode and then I can't wait to continue our conversation. You guys know that I love playing both the role of storyteller and also the goal of this podcast is to educate you about post-traumatic stress disorder or complex post-traumatic stress disorder. The only difference really in those two diagnoses is being that complex post-traumatic stress disorder, as a result of repeated trauma over a long period of time, is which is what I have, but the symptoms are the same, and so, before I bring Chrissy on and I've got a very special reason for doing that today one of the goals of this podcast is to talk about and share with and bring on people who have been instrumental in my healing story, and that is what this is. This is a healing story.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's hard to listen to, but I always encourage people. You hear my voice, you can go to my website, you can see my smile, you know that I am good Doesn't mean life is always easy, but that I am on the other side of my journey with post-traumatic stress disorder, or at least given a nice gut punch and nice body blow. As I always mention, there are three components, and because I'm a writer, I love an alliteration, hence the Wednesdays with Watson, and then also the three C's that are central to anything that I am trying to do here, and that is my church, my community and also trauma-informed counseling. So, as we've talked about post-traumatic stress disorder over the last several weeks, we have talked about different hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder, the last one being flashbacks, but disassociation detachment talked about all of those things and no doubt, if you are a patient of post-traumatic stress disorder whether you've been diagnosed or not you recognize some of those things. If you love somebody with PTSD, you recognize some of the things that we've talked about Today.
Speaker 2:I want to talk about something that is super interesting and super fascinating and something that Chrissy brought up to me as she was listening to the podcast over the last few weeks, but before I begin that story and before I bring her on to tell her part of the story, I want to be your teacher for just a second. As a kid who raced home to watch Emergency every day after school and every medical drama and everything, I always wanted to be a doctor. Took every class to be a doctor, have an undergrad degree to be a doctor, but then sick people make me sad, and so I am not a doctor. However, I love the study of these things, and so I want to help you understand two things, really important things that happen in trauma patients, and even some understanding as to why sometimes the same traumatic event can affect a person and manifest itself in post-traumatic stress disorder. A person and manifest itself in post-traumatic stress disorder, and then some people can look at that exact same event and not be affected by post-traumatic stress disorder. This is also my opportunity to weekly remind you to remember not to compare your pain. Don't compare it with mine, don't compare it with your sister's, don't compare it with your cousin's. Your pain is yours. The grace that God has for you is for your pain and your pain alone, and mine and mine alone. So please do not compare.
Speaker 2:There's two components to our brain that is associated with memory and that trauma affects, and those two organs are buried deeply in two different parts of the brain, so deeply, in fact, that one of them is difficult to get to. As a matter of fact, if you had a tumor on this, the doctors would say to you it's better off of not digging in the middle of your brain to address this issue. There are two parts of the brain One is the hippocampus and one is the amygdala. Now, the hippocampus its physical location is very, very difficult to get to, as I mentioned, but it has a bunch of jobs in life. But as it pertains to trauma, the hippocampus is actually the physical location where memories are stored, and so we will witness something or we will see something say like one of.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite memories of all time as a Jaguars fan is the first time we went to the playoffs and Morton, who played for the Atlanta Falcons at the time, mr Automatic, and all he had to do was hit this chip shot, like this 22-yard chip shot, field goal, and the Jaguars were lost. But if he missed it, we were going to go to the playoffs in just our second season. And I will never forget where I was when I watched Morton Anderson, who is now on the Hall of Fame, miss that field goal. My hippocampus took that really pleasurable memory and it basically the hippocampus's job. One of its jobs in life is to direct memories where to go, and that is one of my strongest memories. So the hippocampus then directed it to the amygdala, and the amygdala is the real warrior in the fight against post-traumatic stress disorder, because what the amygdala does is it took that memory and it decided whether it had interpreted it. So it interpreted it and manifested itself physically in a very positive, a very happy memory. So the amygdala is the real warrior.
Speaker 2:Now we know that trauma affects both of these organs by shrinking them, thereby decreasing their efficacy to at first bring in the memory and then interpret the memory. And so you'll see a lot of post-traumatic stress. Patients interpret a memory as traumatic that isn't traumatic at all, because the actual size of that organ has shrunk as a result of trauma. Or recent studies have shown, some people are just born with smaller amygdalas and hippocampuses, which may explain why some people are affected by trauma and some are not. Now I bring all of this up to you because both of these are really important in how we lay down memories and how we interpret those memories and how we can report those memories back at a later date.
Speaker 2:Trauma, without a doubt, absolutely affects both of these organs. This is where the fight or flight comes in and some of the neuroplasticity stuff that we'll talk about when we bring Dr Pettit on. But essentially, the reason why I explained those two things to you and those two organs to you is because they do affect the way we lay down memories and it is the reason why, a lot of times a trauma victim, say, for example, will get on the stand in a court of law and they will literally not be able to remember parts of it and the person will get off because they thought that they'll say the offender, the person that attacked him, had a red shirt on with blue jeans, and maybe he had white shorts and a t-shirt. Maybe he had white shorts and a t-shirt, but because of the way the trauma affected the amygdala and the hippocampus, things get left out, things get misplaced, things get jumbled. And so this is where I bring Chris in, because emotional memory processing is by these two organs that, when they are shrunk, when they are not the size that they need to be whether we're born that way or trauma has made it that way it absolutely makes memories weird.
Speaker 2:And so, as Chrissy, who is one of my beta listeners, has listened to the podcast over the last couple of weeks, every single one of them, she came to me and said hey, this is how I remember it. And over the course of several weeks, we realized that I am, in fact, exhibiting exactly what I'm explaining to you, where both of these organs in my brain, as a result of repeated trauma over 35 years have been affected, and so Chrissy is my business partner, she is my sister, she is my friend, she is a bunch of stuff to me and, as you've heard on the other podcasts, she was instrumental in so many things and so welcome to the podcast. I appreciate you doing this. Everybody who knows me knows how much I love you and how much I appreciate you and how much the Lord really has used you in my life. And I referred to you last week I'm not sure which one is Jonathan and David. No, actually I know which is which. You are, jonathan, because you continue to give me your battle gear and you did during those times and so I want to bring you in on this for this podcast, for sure, and probably the next one, because we want your perspective.
Speaker 2:Many people have emailed me or texted me or interacted with me on social media and they said you're helping me understand somebody I live with with post-traumatic stress disorder, and right now, chris, we're in the middle of a pandemic, we're in the middle of racial tensions, and so there's no doubt that PTSD is going to be on the rise. You don't have to have a story like mine to have PTSD Right now. You just need to turn on the news, and so the mission, more than ever, is to bring people on also who love patients of post-traumatic stress disorder, who will walk with them, because it, like any other mental illness, is very difficult for everyone person who is not medicated, who has not been through the trauma. It is hard for everyone, and so, as I was praying about this podcast and bringing you on, I remembered a movie that you introduced me to that happens to be one of your favorite movies, and that movie is the Prince of Tides.
Speaker 3:I've always loved the Prince of Tides, which, if you know me, it's not my typical watch. It's not my typical watch. I like Fluffy. I really enjoy a movie that has a happy ending.
Speaker 3:But there's something so powerful about that story and it has always stuck with me, and there are a couple of things that are said in there that are very true and applicable in this situation. One of them is at one point the lead character says the silence is worse than the event that happened to him, the trauma that happened, and I think that's why this podcast is so important. We need to talk about it. God meant us to live in community. Forcing a trauma victim to be silent is worse than what has actually happened to them.
Speaker 3:So the first thing I would say is listen. And the second thing that has always stuck with me from that movie is Barbara Streisand's character says you were her memory. Even then this is her as a child and her brother was her memory because once she had been traumatized, her memories were jumbled at best and so forever he had been a memory keeper for her and I from the very beginning, as things unfolded with you, amy. That movie and that line had always stuck with me and I took it to heart, like the Lord had said, that this is going to be your role. You will be a memory keeper, you will be her memory and you can be helpful in that way.
Speaker 3:I didn't understand the science of it, but I knew there was a hiccup because I know you and you're very smart, but the lapses in memory did not make sense with the person I knew, and so we have naturally, I have become your memory keeper.
Speaker 2:Even today, with little things and we'll go back to this in a minute but you were a significant memory keeper, better than a journal, probably better than things I actually wrote right, because I was writing things that I remember.
Speaker 2:But what is so powerful to me about that quote in the Prince of Tides and we're not telling you what the event is, because it's a great movie and you should go watch it we don't want to be a spoiler, but the silence is worse than the actual event, and one of the things is that you, along with other people, refuse to let me be silent.
Speaker 2:And so, as I told that story about living with you, I remember the first time I came into your house and I put the key in the door and how weird that was, because I had come from living, being married for 12 years and then living in what I dubbed as the ghetto to your house, and I just remember how weird that was. But you really refused to be silent on the issue and I've always appreciated that. You have an incredible sense of justice, but I've always, always appreciated that Now you and I have a really funny thing going on and it's actually taken on a new life, even with our counselor, with me being a wordsmith and you having a word budget, but we came up with a word that worked for both of us and it basically is a ceasefire a lot of times for us. We call it trauma-brained. Tell them what we mean by trauma-brained.
Speaker 3:If things get, if they escalate unusually, like if you're getting in an argument and suddenly someone's ready to drop a nuclear bomb or push a fire extinguisher off the wall, correct or throw coffee against a wall, right, right.
Speaker 3:Then what I try to do, knowing that whatever is firing in your brain or could be in mine, is off, it's off. It's firing on a million cylinders instead of one, right, then I try to bring my voice down and I think we both have decided okay, hey, hey, trauma brain, Trauma brain, and say it laughingly. If that doesn't work, then I say it soothingly. We try different ways of getting through all those firing cylinders that are saying I can't handle it, throw all the nuclear bombs. Throw all the bombs, I can't deal, I can't deal Whatever can get through. Throw all the nuclear bombs, throw all the bombs I can't deal, I can't deal Whatever can get through. So, if it's calm, if I can say hey, I think this might be trauma brain. Or if we need to say hey, this is trauma brain.
Speaker 3:Either way, whatever way we need to, the key is to hear the person and not the argument. And you really do need to to to be paying attention to when, especially someone who has complex post-traumatic stress disorder is picking a fight to. And by picking a fight I do mean that this is not intentional, it is a defense mechanism because their brain is literally thinking I could die, I've got to survive, I've got to survive. Yeah, this fight or flight, right, so it is literally we could fight over the color of the floor, 100%.
Speaker 3:And we have yes and screaming, and so you've got to back yourself out of the situation and recognize that there is something else at play. And we're at the point now where I can say, okay, something else is bothering you. And oftentimes you're getting to the point now where you can say I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's half the battle and that's huge. Yeah, that's huge. One of my favorite things that you say and I would, as Chrissy is speaking to people who love survivors of post-traumatic stress disorder and people living with post-traumatic stress disorder is a couple things. One of the things that you say to me all the time, and it is absolute, like somebody just gave me a shot of a tranquilizer because it calms me down. Tranquilizer because it calms me down, because one of the issues with the amygdala and the hippocampus is everything I don't have the ability to de-escalate stress, right, so we just came off of we're in the middle of a pandemic or towards the end of a pandemic. But what a lot of people don't know is, as I mentioned earlier in the podcast, you're my business partner and we've been in business for 10 years together and when that happened, my brain shut down, 100% shut down, and so it's a trigger. And so you live, unfortunately, with triggers and I often apologize to you, I'm sorry, or I'll say something like this is my broken brain. When you hand me your phone and go in the car and go, do I turn right or left, or north or south? You know better, because those things don't happen. But one of the things that you always say to me that just brings me to a place of safety and not feeling like I'm backed in a corner and not feeling like I have to defend myself is you will say you're not okay. Just use those words. You're not okay.
Speaker 2:And first that really made me mad Early on. That really made me mad because of course, I was okay, I've been okay all these years, I'm successful, I get up in the morning. I got up in the morning Even though I was doing some things that weren't great. That offended me at first, but it's such a loving thing to say to me is you're not okay, why not? And you're really good about helping me back up and walk back.
Speaker 2:Like this trigger happened. And it's not like the trigger triggers. Then many times a trigger can trigger three or four days and down the road and so so, yeah, I think, deescalating the whole thing and just and it really takes the 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love to stick with people I've had people walk away and so if you love somebody with this much trauma, the best thing you can do for them besides take them to the throne of God is stay. And to Chrissy's point about that quote in that movie that she loves so well, don't be silent. And so you refuse to let me perform my way out of a trigger. You refuse to do all of that.
Speaker 3:One of the things that is really important to ask is tell me what's going on? Yeah, and often you may not know what's going on. Even if I can say, hey, I don't think that actually the color of the floor is what's bothering you. Can you tell me what's going on? Tell me about your morning, and so, even going back into the morning, then suddenly something starts to trigger, it starts to unlayer itself. Well, this morning I kind of okay, well, I got that phone call, but that bothered me because yesterday I got that email. And then, and then, suddenly we, we unpackage and unpackage and suddenly, well, what's really bothering me is X, right. So tell me what's going on is a very simple phrase, but it seems to work 99% of the time. Tell me what's going on.
Speaker 2:Because what I hear is I love you and I care, yeah, and early on, I want to hear you, right, I don't want you to be silent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, because the silence is worse than what you went through and there were so many times that we actually had knock down, drag out arguments. Because I will never forget a precious memory, and it must have been about around Valentine's Day, and this was at when I first moved in with you and I'm air quoting again for three months but we had those little candy hearts that you like so well and you just would not leave it alone Like you would not, let me not talk about it and we were throwing those candy hearts back and forth to the room and catching them and making it funny. But I can't stress enough and Chrissy's one of many people who do this but because I've done life with her so closely for so long, and again, we're business partners and we're getting ready to talk about how we met and how I gained a family at 35 years old and so. But I wanted to have that part of the conversation. And then really that's not scripted, that's organic, but I think that that quote from that movie has has really framed you.
Speaker 2:I think that the Lord also really builds some people different. Well, he builds us all differently, but you have an incredible sense of justice and so some of the funny parts of my story will be, when we went to court, actually, and we were all afraid that we were going to get you out of jail. So we know that memories with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as PTSD, are affected, right, we know that. So one of the things that you said to me, in a loving voice and a nod, that your first podcast sucked, amy, was. I remember how we met a little bit differently than you do, amy, yes, and so, for those of you who have been listening to all the podcasts, you know my version of how we met, and for those of you who are picking this one up for the first time, you'll hear it in reverse.
Speaker 2:But this is a very specific example of how my brain and those memories get blogged up, and so we're going to talk about two of them today, and this one being the first one. So you tell us the story Now. Before I do this, let me just say that, for those of you who met Chrissy, know that you will really be hard pressed to find a more shy person on the planet. You will be hard pressed to find a person she probably could go days without uttering a single word from her voice box, and I, however, in the exact opposite of that. I'm an extreme extrovert. Number eight on the anagram.
Speaker 2:I can't remember what you are, but quiet is what you are and shy and introverted, and so I say that because what's coming next and hopefully I don't remember it all wrong what's coming next is nothing short of a miracle because you are so shy. So tell the people your version of this beautiful Jonathan and David friendship.
Speaker 3:Well, we both ended up at the same Bible study. That part is true. That part is true, okay. However, amy remembers that we met at that time and we did not meet at all. We were in the same Bible study, but it was large enough that we never actually met.
Speaker 3:I did not know her name, I just saw her and then the school year started. She started teaching, I started coaching and all of my students players kept saying we have this new teacher. She's awesome, she's so cool. Did not know a name. I started going to Sunday school and this person was in there, still no name, and no name attached to the new science teacher, which is what the students called her instead of hey, there's just the new science teacher, she's so cool, it's new science teacher.
Speaker 3:So we, the very first time I talked to Amy was after she was. She led our group that day and I went up to her and had to wait 185 minutes for everyone else to talk to her and I sat there and I sat there quietly and then went up and said thank you so much for sharing. It meant so much. Blah, blah, blah. That's the first time. And then I said I think that you teach and I coach and I think we have some of the same students, at which point we began to talk Sunday mornings a little bit about our students or go to a basketball game together or whatever. The memory that you have where we really clicked was not until that December and that part of the memory is correct.
Speaker 3:That part is true, yes, but by that point we had actually been friends for a while. Sorry guys. But that memory stuck and it was a pivotal moment because we talked about football and about Maine and you had just gotten out of the hospital.
Speaker 2:And let's talk about that just for a second. That was not the psych ward, that the story that people have heard. I was having some heart issues.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so I knew there are some things that I'm good at, even in my shyness, and that is that I can dive in, and so when it's a deeper topic, I knew that I had some things I could talk to you about, and so after that you said let's go to lunch. Once we had lunch, it was game on. We became friends, and so that would have been December, january, and from then on, from January through May, was our epic California road trip Awesome, which was so awesome.
Speaker 2:Chris drove the PCH Highway and I didn't die. Yeah, it was amazing, it was so beautiful.
Speaker 3:So in those five or six months is when we really, really bonded. And it was at that time that I said I did call my mom and I did say hey, I'm thinking about asking Amy to come move in with me. And she said great, make it a set amount of time three months for her sake as well as your own, so that you don't hurt your friendship. And so I did. I invited you to move in for three months, fully knowing that it was not going to be just three months.
Speaker 2:I kind of remember it was a passive ask.
Speaker 3:It was. That part is an absolutely correct memory. It was a. Hey, I was just thinking, maybe just for the summer, you know, just for a couple of months. It would just kind of get you on your feet again. Why don't you come move in with me?
Speaker 2:So I so it wasn't. I did think we met that night at the Bible study, but I, you know, clearly we met a little bit later and I remember a little bit about hearing about the cool volleyball coach and the JV and I had some of those kids and so it was. It was really quite miraculous of how we came together, and your favorite subject on the face of this planet which makes me honored to be your friend and it makes me honored that you wanted to be my friend that day is your depth in Jesus, and that's one of our C's is there's no way that I would be here, there's no way you would have been equipped without Jesus, and so I really am so grateful to the Lord for, you know, the opportunity to teach into that Bible study. That really is kind of what hooked you.
Speaker 3:You're like I want to be her friend. Yes, because she loves my Jesus. Yes, absolutely yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:And yeah, we were 100% inseparable and I was just remembering probably what maybe you experienced as the first quote air, air quote trigger for me is when we went to san francisco. I already had a camera and you bought a camera, but I bought a really expensive lens. Yes, because of the time change and all that stuff, I was kind of out of it. Anyway, make a long story short, we went to a restaurant after that and I broke the lens and it was a disproportionate response to breaking the lens to, to say the very least. Do you have any memory of that? Because I think it speaks to some of this hypervigilance when things like that come up in response to stress yes, it was.
Speaker 3:I mean, honestly, it was such an overwhelming, almost a fear, and I think that it was so close to the domestic violence that that would have been. I think that I knew at that moment that I needed to do whatever it was to help solve it for you. So the first thing was we'll go buy a new one. It's no big deal, it's not a problem, it's no big deal, we'll just buy a new one. But as we looked at it, we realized that the only thing that had broken actually was just the UV protector on it and it turned out that it was not broken and that was a gift.
Speaker 3:But in that moment the only thing I could do is take it out of your hands. You're okay, I'm okay, we can get another one, it'll be all right.
Speaker 2:Anything to sort of to break through the moment and neither of us had a clue what PTSD even was at that point, and you barely knew me.
Speaker 3:I knew you had suffered. It didn't take a diagnosis for me to understand that you had had a lot of hardship, and so I knew that the best thing I could do for you was help you understand that this is not the end of the world. This is a lens. We can get a new lens or we can cry over this one, but it's okay, you are not in trouble. And I think that was the key is that no one's?
Speaker 3:angry. No one's upset with you. You didn't do anything stupid, you're not an idiot, and those were the things that I was trying to get. Breakthrough is I felt like you. You were a afraid and be thought I'm so dumb.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I was so mad at myself because that lens was so expensive and, yeah, I think, looking back on it now, yeah, the response from my ex-husband would not have been good, clearly, you know, and so I think that was maybe one of the first times that. But what I've always wondered and this really, I've asked you this question over the years in so many different forms and I don't know that you can articulate it, because there's some things that the Lord just does and we say, okay, you know Some of the people listening to this and some people that we both know and love, who are mutual friends of ours if at all you could articulate why me, why did you choose me?
Speaker 2:Why me, why did you choose me? In the 13 years that I've known Chrissy, I've never asked her that question. Her response to me didn't really surprise me, but her response to me deserves more time than we would have in the podcast, as I want to be respectful of your time. The verse that I referenced in my conversation with Chrissy is John, chapter 15, verse 13,. Although I'm sure it's found in the other three Gospels, where the Bible says greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friend. And of course we know that ultimately Jesus laid down his life for us, friend of sinners. And so sometimes when we read that verse, we think of literal laying down our life for us, friend of sinners. And so sometimes, when we read that verse, we think of literal laying down our lives for our friends. And certainly that is definitely a friend, without question. I think we all would agree with that. But laying one's life down oftentimes means carrying those person's burdens along with them, and I feel the importance to mention this to you, because what Chrissy did for me and the parts of the story that you've already heard and parts of the story that you haven't heard is a little akin to if you were on a hike with a friend and you both have backpacks and your job is the goal is is to pick up unique rocks. And you're hiking up the mountain and one friend sees that the other friend is struggling, and so they start to put their rocks in their backpack just for a little while. And that is really a snapshot of living out, laying down your life for a friend. During a time when I still needed to hike, I still needed to live, chrissy was the person that God called to take my rocks and put them in her backpack just for a little while.
Speaker 2:I do think it's important to note that it is super risky for lack of a better word in situations like this, because we have an enemy who does not want healing to occur and certainly doesn't want us helping each other heal, and so it's really important in close friendships like this that you guard against the enemy. You guard against leaning on each other too much, making sure that Jesus is still the star of your story, making sure that you are pointing each other to Jesus, and so, while Chrissy very practically came alongside and continues to, even to this day. She is not more important than the star of the story. She happens to be a player that the director, the great producer, jesus, has decided to put into my life, but it is super important, and something that we make sure that we do, just in the way of taking care of our friendship, is making sure that we're staying on the right side of that. I think in situations with PTSD, and particularly with stories like mine, there can be a tendency and I hate to use that word because I don't feel like that's true here but there can be some opportunity for codependency to enter in on either side. So it is really important for those of you under the sound of my voice who are walking along with someone with PTSD, or even if you are the patient, that you remember that that person is put into your life to be a player, but not to be the star, and it's really important that you guard against some of the things that the enemy wants to bring into the story, thereby really destroying all the good that has been done. Chrissy will be with us for two more podcasts. We thought that it would only be one and then two, and it turned into three, and the Lord really just continues to be in the place of telling this story and helping people with PTSD.
Speaker 2:As always. Please hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform streaming service. If you are so inclined. Leave us a review. Those are always helpful. Throw us a couple stars if you're so inclined. All of those things help us come up when someone is researching this topic, particularly if they're researching a Christian worldview on the topic of post-traumatic stress disorder. Days get lost in time.
Speaker 1:Wherever you go, you will always know I'll walk with you to the other side.
Speaker 2:Hey, everybody, and welcome back to Wednesdays with Watson. By now, you know that my name is Amy Watson and I am your host, and this is our first season, our inaugural season of the podcast that we have called PTSD, jesus and Me. This is a story of my journey, my diagnosis and my healing, even today, so that we can provide hope for those of you out there who are suffering from PTSD or love someone who is. I continue to focus on the star of my story, which is none other than Jesus and the way that he has provided for me and the three C's my community, obviously, my church and trauma-informed counseling.
Speaker 2:Today, we're going to focus a little bit more on that community portion of it as we sneak back into a conversation that Chrissy and I had over the course of about two hours. We've named these episodes Memory Keepers, because one of the hallmarks of PTSD is the inability to remember things clearly, congruently, concisely and sometimes correctly. Congruently, concisely and sometimes correctly. And so welcome as we join back in to the conversation that Chrissy and I had where we left off last week, as Chris was explaining some of the more difficult portions of loving someone with PTSD and the necessity to do some hard things, including seek help yourself as the person who is in support of the patient. So sit back, relax and sneak into this conversation with Chrissy and me.
Speaker 2:If at all you could articulate why me? Why did you choose me? Why?
Speaker 3:I think that at this point you recognize that the Lord gives me some instincts, 100%, and I can't say that it's me at all. It's only the Lord. So there's no sense in bragging on it, other than to say he's given me a gift of instincts and I just knew. That's really all I can say. Sometimes there's just that instinct and and I felt like that's exactly how our whole family was I don't remember anybody talking about hey, amy should be part of the family. It was just, she's just part of the family. There was never a conversation, it just happened, and I think that all of us just felt that rightness and that this was part of the Lord's story. You just naturally fit in and that's so highly unique and improbable and all of those words. It could only be the Lord.
Speaker 2:And now some of those people would pick me over you. Yes this is true. On any given day, on any given day.
Speaker 2:I do agree that you've got that gift of instinct, but I know that you know what's so precious to me about this and about Cheryl and about Chris. Now, you and Cheryl were new right, so y'all come onto the scene in my heart in this part of my story, probably more prevalently than people who had already been on the scene, but it feels like even talking about it 12 years later. It feels like the biggest hug from Jesus, Like you know what I got you and I'm going to use the church and I'm going to use the community and they're going to be the body. As I mentioned in the last podcast, I moved back to Clearwater where I went to college, and I didn't have a family, and so it'd be one of the first things I'm going to ask Jesus after that Mercy Me song.
Speaker 2:I can promise you one thing I will say is why me, I don't feel worthy of this family, of this love and of this unconditional friend who has been through so much with me. And so it's a good transition for us, because perhaps one of the most traumatic things for all of us involved you, me and Cheryl combined is that admission to the psych ward, and so I had only lived with you for about three weeks at the time, Two, 14 days. Back to the memory issues. I had only lived with you for a few, for a few weeks. Did you, had you, did you notice anything different during that time that I lived with you, those two weeks from the time when we were friends that summer?
Speaker 3:Yes, so when you moved in, one of the first things that I had noticed that I would come over and just in the morning say, hey, how are you? And everything. And you would say, I'm having flashbacks at night. And I really was like, oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know what a flashback was, other than I thought, basically what I heard is I'm having nightmares, which was like, oh, okay, well, me too is I'm having nightmares, which was like, oh okay, well, me too.
Speaker 3:And then the only other thing that I very specifically remember you saying is some days it's hard just to get dressed and get ready for school and you don't tend toward the depression, and so that was unusual and that was probably the actual only warning flag I had because, again, I thought flashback meant nightmare. So to some degree I pushed that to the side. The only clue I had was that I was like well, is she tired? Is she struggling? That was it. And it was like two days later that you were in the hospital. So you did have one counseling session, as you mentioned, with Dr Pettit prior to being hospitalized, and I do remember you coming to me after that first session and saying that he said it would get worse, way worse, before it got better, and one of the reasons I remember that is because I was shocked I had no idea. You thought counseling was going to fix it all.
Speaker 3:Yes, I thought that, like having surgery, the healing would immediately begin. And once you got the antibiotic or whatever this counseling, and once you got the antibiotic or whatever this counseling, once you started going, life would get good, and not just good. Great, it would all get better. And that it would get worse was so. So you started the three-month countdown.
Speaker 2:At that point my mom was right she only needs to stay Three months.
Speaker 3:But that was a Friday and on Wednesday you were in the hospital, so it was that fast.
Speaker 2:So let's set this up for a second. I posted a picture on my Facebook page of Cheryl and me, which, ironically, we didn't have any, so she brings my memory. I'm pretty sure this part is right. I went down to talk to Aaron, the assistant principal, and he brought Cheryl. She shows up with me to get some clothes before they take me into the hospital and tell us what she said to you.
Speaker 3:She, she's pulled me aside and said did you know? And I, I, there were a lot of things going through my head. One was, of course, of course I didn't know. If I knew, I would have told somebody. But the that the real thought was oh man, should I have? Am I stupid for not knowing? And so for other people who are, are are living with people who have post-traumatic stress disorder, or even if your friend is in a domestic violence situation and you didn't know, it's okay. It's okay, don't feel stupid. The key is let's move forward and help one another. But I felt so dumb that I didn't know. I had no clue.
Speaker 2:Well, and you're a fixer. I'm a fixer.
Speaker 3:But, more importantly, I cared. I couldn't believe I didn't see any warning flags, and I didn't. I didn't see one.
Speaker 2:We didn't know each other. I mean, we had known each other for about.
Speaker 3:I mean like, but it's really honestly, there have been times over the years that I've known you for years and there were things that just there are times you just don't know, and it's okay to just miss the clues, right? Sometimes we're just going to miss the clues and that's okay, and again, why we're doing this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we want people to know, you know, we want you to at least ask the question internally and because, while we're all born evil, I do believe there are more good people in this world than bad in terms of wanting to help, like you, like you did, and so so there are some of you out. There are more good people in this world than bad in terms of wanting to help like you did.
Speaker 2:And so some of you out there are going to be listening and the chances of you coming upon somebody with post-traumatic stress disorder is going to be high and everybody's going to operate differently. You were called to a very specific part of my life Now you came to see me every day in the hospital and that was interesting. Yes, the hospital was, yeah, in the hospital and that was interesting.
Speaker 3:Yes, the hospital was. Yeah, it was hard. It was hard. Talk to us about that a little bit.
Speaker 2:And some of this I'll hear for the first time.
Speaker 3:When I would come in there. It was just hard. But it was about the fifth day and I and I knew they had said all you had to do was eat. And I said, go eat and they'll let you out of here. And they did, and that was the day you came home and again, being the rainbows and butterflies, I was like well, we've been to the hospital.
Speaker 2:It's all going to be good from here, yeah.
Speaker 3:One of the things that that has been coming to mind for me in in community is it's not just the person with PTSD who is going to be traumatized, amen. So I I equate it to if, um, if you're a parent and your, your child is raped, um, the child is clearly the one who has been traumatized, but as a parent, you, you're traumatized too. So recognize that and get your own help. Get help. One of the things that has been so helpful for us is that we did have the same counselor, right? If that isn't possible, at the very least I would recommend that you do some joint sessions so that you can discuss and understand what are some things you can do to communicate better, to understand the situation.
Speaker 2:So so far none of my memories have been lies or inaccurate or made up or any of those things, as is sort of somewhat common. Particularly in younger kids. They'll remember it differently and it really sometimes just never happened. So the last podcast I talked about going and filing for a domestic violence order of protection and leaving at sunset and driving over a bridge just because everybody can use a laugh. Why don't you tell us what I did in that situation?
Speaker 3:When we left the hospital on day five, it was not sunset. There was no bridge. I think she's wrong on that, guys. No, it's absolutely correct, because I know where the hospital is. There are no bridges. We drove home in traffic. It's not a pretty part of town necessarily, it's just so. What do you suppose I'm remembering there? I think that your memory wants to paint some positive to what is a hard memory.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's powerful. So putting it at sunset over a bridge, as I'm telling you the very hard news is your brain's way of saying here's some hope in some very horrible news. I was supposed to keep a secret from you and it did not work.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about what's secret for those of you that might need to go backwards. And so, on day five, when we finally decided that if I ate, they'd let me out of the hospital and, by the way, this is a nice, good place for me to tell you that oftentimes, eating disorders are also the byproduct of post-traumatic stress disorder, something that I still struggle with today and so, when they let me out on day five, you had some information, along with Cheryl and Michelle, and I had reached out to them, so I got me some emails. So tell us how you found those emails.
Speaker 3:While you were hospitalized, you didn't have any electronics Right, and so you had said can you just keep an eye on my emails and make sure that I'm not missing anything major? As I did that, I got those emails.
Speaker 2:And so the emails that she's referring to is. I had been divorced for about 18 months and they were awful emails.
Speaker 3:Yes, they were systematically more and more threat. So I I reached out to Cheryl and Michelle and said, okay, what do I do? And the first thing they said is okay, well, amy's in the hospital, hospital. So the only thing we would say for sure, don't tell her. Don't tell her the second she gets out of the hospital. At least give her a chance to get home and get settled and and I mean this has already been traumatizing enough for her and I was like absolutely good point, I will not tell her immediately. I'll let her get home and get settled and and sleep, sleep and eat and just sort of get settled in and feel okay.
Speaker 2:We left the hospital we crossed the bridge at sunset when we left the hospital.
Speaker 3:Yes, the fake bridge in the non-sunset.
Speaker 2:As soon as we left, there's pouring down rain and we were on the mainland so.
Speaker 3:So it's not 2.5 minutes later and Amy looks at me and goes okay, what's wrong? Because I have zero poker face and Amy who is just coming out of the hospital and they've probably given you a handful of drugs already. Oh for sure, already recognized.
Speaker 2:For the ride home, dude over the bridge.
Speaker 3:With my horrible poker face. Even amy could tell that I I was holding something back. And of course, then I just blurted out and john sent you these threatening emails, so I was not able to keep the secret from you. Uh, it was not that day that we went to the, it was the next.
Speaker 2:It was the next day.
Speaker 3:It was the next day.
Speaker 2:Jumbled memories right Jumbled memories Now it doesn't help that John Watson gave us plenty of memories to get mixed up, To combine. So the next one, we go home and I'm not sure if I sleep that night or not, I don't remember we knew that we had to go file for a restraining order the next day, and I've also had to do that three times. And so in the last podcast I combined some memories, One of the things and I want to make sure that this is an accurate description that I do remember about. That first time in Pinellas County so in Clearwater, not where we live now they made me fill out paperwork and in that paperwork, from childhood to that day, I had to tell them every time I had been sexually abused, physically abused, and then certainly there was a whole other sheet where I had to talk about the marital abuse, and I remember that stack of paper being fairly thick.
Speaker 2:But the thing I remember being the most traumatizing about that is every. They wanted me to document, every hit, every punch from John.
Speaker 3:Yes, that part I do remember specifically because it took a lot of time and it was very difficult and you did have to be very specific and it was important for the case that you trudge through and do it diligently. And so I sat there with you and continued to prod you. Hey, you got to tell. Is that every time you have to keep telling more stories? And that was very hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because there were words that I had to use on that paperwork, like rape, that you don't anticipate in writing in context of a marriage Correct, and so I remember leaving there fairly traumatized.
Speaker 3:Again, again, after having just been in the hospital, yeah, after just being in the hospital.
Speaker 2:And then about that time is when I received the phone call from David Kilgore who said hey, you know, teachers have decided to give you enough time, so you can take another 30 days off. And then this was the October that my car insurance went up exponentially because I had three car accidents. Am I remembering that?
Speaker 3:properly. That is, that is correct. Now the the paperwork that we filed. That was all that's all correct, but the person who was rude was not there I blame the wrong person.
Speaker 2:That was another time when.
Speaker 3:I had to file Another time and a different person, so this person was pretty nice. It's a different process there, and so I do not remember a person at all.
Speaker 2:I just remember handing in the paperwork and then we went away for a couple hours and they came back and I was granted the restraining order and a court date Temporarily.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, the temporary restraining order and a court date, which, of course, the court date for those of you who are listening who may have experienced domestic violence. That's traumatic all in itself, and so about that time after filling out that paperwork and them making me effectively write with my hand and my memory every time, over 12 years, that I had been hit, knocked, punched out, and all of those things was incredibly traumatic. So I go into 30 days of intensive outpatient therapy, I have three car accidents and now is the time when I would normally tell the listeners about the court date. We went to court. So we went to court and it was you and me and Krista Witt and Michelle and Mama Bootsy. I think that was all that was there. We filled up pretty much a whole bench and we walked in and again this lady walked up to me and said hey, I'm an advocate, do you have any questions? And I didn't feel real supported by her at all.
Speaker 3:I didn't think we needed support.
Speaker 2:No, we didn't know what we were doing.
Speaker 3:I mean it felt like cut and dry. He threatened your life. Yeah, I win. Right, right, yeah it felt like why am I even here, can I?
Speaker 2:not just phone this thing in. You know they didn't let us phone it in, right, you know that time anyway. And so, um, so we went to court. We didn't know that they go by it. First of all, the people with attorneys get heard by the judge and then they go through the alphabet. So we're sitting there and of course, john at the time is a slam dunk. He's a wuss, he's all bark, no bite, he's not going to show up, we're good. And had my name been Adams, that might be the case, because we were sitting in that bench and I will never forget hearing those court doors open and I looked back and saw him for the first time since I left him.
Speaker 2:I have a lapse of memory at that point which you can fill in in a minute. I remember just being like it was a seriously old crap moment. And then it was my turn to go up to the and I couldn't hear the judge, and so he was way far from me and I couldn't hear him. Michelle went with me, had grabbed my hand. She's sobbing because she cries when she's mad. I'm terrified, I'm shaking.
Speaker 2:The only time I've ever been to court was to watch my mom's parental rights get taken away. So, yeah, I was terrified. But John? So John walks in with his attorney and I know this is not going to go well. We've got very little memory of the interaction between John and his attorney and the judge. All I remember is he kept. The one word I kept hearing the judge say was we're going to reschedule this because this is like a Zamboni, this is not a level playing field. You need to get an attorney. I had no idea what a Zamboni was, but he told me I needed to get an attorney. Yes, and then I don't know why you got so mad and we had to pull you down because you literally popped up like the bailiff was going to come get you.
Speaker 3:My memory of that is the Zamboni reference was that he said we need to level the playing field. Okay, it's not fair. So the Zamboni clears the ice. Right, need to level the playing field, it's not fair. So the Zamboni clears the ice. So him having a lawyer and you not. He wanted to level the playing field. It was actually to your benefit. So it was a good judge, it was a good decision that day. The thing that had really ticked me off is a he showed up at the last minute, sauntered in and then his attorney was belittling, was basically saying I was overreacting, little lady, she's, she's overreacting. Yeah me, thinks me, thinks they'll protect too much.
Speaker 2:That's Shakespeare. The Shakespeare quote yeah.
Speaker 3:He put that in the actual rebuttal yeah Right. Paperwork, whatever you want to call that. And it was even more condescending when he got up there, so everyone had exited the room for the most part.
Speaker 2:And he said the judge said go get an attorney. Yes, and so, and John had to wait while I followed the attorney and the bailiff out to the judge's chamber to get the date. So you were in.
Speaker 3:I don't know what made me other than all of you, the smirk on his face. I remember you saying he went by, yes, and I think he smirked and I jumped up because I was just, I had had it, I'd had it. And yes, bootsy, chris, everybody was pulling me down Chris offered to see me in jail if I ended up in jail.
Speaker 2:And Mama Bootsy said I'm claustrophobic so I'm not coming to see you. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I was just so angry. I was so angry because we had just gotten through so much and he had no idea and I was ticked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and only love can produce that kind of anger for somebody that you didn't know for for a long time. And so I know that this is a friendship that the Lord put together. And I remember laughing about that and I remember Mama Booty saying she wouldn't come see you, so court was rescheduled. By that time I was going back to work and the way I remember that restraining order going down so that temporary restraining order, because I'm going to end this on another hallmark of ETSD, which is silence, because I got silenced in this situation. This on another hallmark of ETSD, which is silence, because I got silenced in this situation and the court date came and you were kind enough to lend me money to hire an attorney and the attorney was willing to go to bat, and I can't remember whether John broke the restraining order, but somehow he got through to me and said please don't do this, and so I dropped it. Yeah, tell the people from your perspective. And so I dropped it. Yeah, tell the people from your perspective why you think I dropped it.
Speaker 3:I think that when someone who is supposed to love you, who's taken a vow before God to love you, has harmed you, it makes you question your own value. It makes you question your own value and in that moment I think it might've been a last ditch effort to make him see you as valuable, precious.
Speaker 2:All the things he had not.
Speaker 3:Exactly Because you were giving him it was more than just dropping a restraining order. He said I can't get a job, I'm going to lose everything.
Speaker 2:I can't find somewhere to live you had an opportunity to give him everything, basically you held all the cards here and you explain it like that is really like, if I can, if I can do something. In that case, like you were talking, I was able to do something for John in terms of he was making it very clear that he couldn't get a job and that he didn't have anywhere to live, and so, yeah, I think you're right. I don't know that I would have answered it that way. One of the reasons why I do the behind the mic video is because I want people hearing the difficult things on the podcast. When you hear my voice it sounds like, hey, she's great. I want them to see the healing that's occurred. But you've had a front row seat of all of it. In particular, you've had a front row seat of this issue of value.
Speaker 3:It is the first battle. Am I lovable? Is there something wrong with me? I don't know that. You know that that's the target, that is the biggest bullseye for Satan.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, because he doesn't want me to know who I am, or my value in Christ as an image bearer Correct, or just because I exist? Right, because you exist. We as human beings are created for community. We're created to be heard and to be known and to be seen and to be valued. If you would have asked me that question, why do you think you would draw up the restraining order? Because it's approach, avoidance. I don't like conflict, but I do think at its core it was value and it was one last ditch effort for me to say to John by my actions, I love you and I forgive you and hoping that he would move on, but value is something that might be something that I fight for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3:I wonder if it is something that we all will fight all of our lives. I don't know a lot of people who have a really, really good grasp on their value, intrinsically from God Right, not from their job, not from their family, not from being a mom, a sister, just because.
Speaker 2:God made you and Satan to your point. This is the thing that he will attack, and he does not want us to understand that we are made in the image of God, which itself is valuable period in the discussion. And so you know this is a hallmark of the human condition. Really, value is the last thing that we pay attention to, and it should be the first, because it's the only way I can own who I am in Christ, and so I'm so glad that you brought that up.
Speaker 2:Let's talk a little bit more about the reality of flashbacks and night terrors, probably the most prevalent hallmark of post-traumatic stress disorder. You're unable to differentiate between time and space, and so I would wake up and sometimes still do wake up and it's 1978 in that dark room with that serial killer abusing me, and I have, and when you have, when you're in early parts of healing a post-traumatic stress disorder, I was unable to say it's 2008. I'm at Chrissy's house in Clearwater, Florida. I'm 36 years old, I'm safe. I know that you were hearing me or somehow you knew I was having PTSD. I was having flashbacks. I don't know that. We knew what they were and the hospital had diagnosed me with PTSD, but I still didn't believe them. I asked them years. I asked Dr Pettit years later.
Speaker 3:I understood it. At this point I'm cluing in, so I'm in denial. So you're still in denial. I'm cluing in and I'm talking with.
Speaker 2:Dr Pettit, are you?
Speaker 3:researching. So you're talking to Dr Pettit, I'm talking to Dr Pettit about it and trying to understand flashbacks, how do I help and those types of things. And so I started out with my door open and it was a split design. The house was, and so we were across the house from each other, but I left my door open to listen for you to go help. And then I ended up in the living room to try to be closer so I could hop up and help and by the end of it I ended up in your room. There was a recliner in that room and and there was just no way for you to heal without somebody literally there. There was just too many years of trauma. At the point I, you it was really 35 years of pretty solid 31 days or 31 years of trauma.
Speaker 3:Right. So there, and you had. You had hit a rock wall by the time you had gone to the hospital, and so we were in the middle of you dealing with it. I'm not saying that every situation is going to call for somebody being in the room. However, if your child has recently been harmed, it's highly likely this may be your solution.
Speaker 2:Certainly and my case is there's more trauma than normal. I also want to know, for people who are listening clearly you leaned on the Lord, clearly you leaned on the wisdom of your mom and Dr Pettit, yes, who kept it real for you. At one point, dr Pettit said to you, chrissy, I only want her to have to breathe, eat and hydrate.
Speaker 3:But your job was only to breathe. But your job was only to breathe. My job was to help you eat, to hydrate you, to do your laundry, to gas up your car to take you places, Literally at that point, it was life and death.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%. We were at that point. It was an extreme situation and called for extreme measures, which meant your brain was so taxed that, literally to get everything to calm down, the requirement was hey, her job is just to breathe, just keep breathing. And so I was able to do that. I mean, for me that's easy. You've been preparing your whole life for that, right? So I, I did everything else, and and and that was fine, were you?
Speaker 2:leaning on people in our life group.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say that one of the hard things in these situations is still the silence on my part. I didn't feel like there were a lot of safe places for me to share. Wow, that's good.
Speaker 2:I mean that's not good, but that's a good word.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that it's not easy stuff to talk about. It wasn't mine to share, Right. So I had a big problem. I couldn't share your story without your permission and at that point I didn't have your permission. You didn't want clearly to go blast out to everybody what was going on, clearly to go blast out to everybody what was going on. You were barely making it, you were just breathing.
Speaker 2:Were you ever scared that I was not going to make it Absolutely?
Speaker 3:Every day. I assumed for the first and honestly I would say, the first year of our friendship, so post-hospitalization that next year, every day, I assumed that you would not make it. I assumed that this was a gift, that I had a short-term friendship with you and that the Lord had given me a moment, a moment with you and that it would be very short-lived. I did not think he would make it.
Speaker 2:And, you know, looking you in the eye, which of course they can't see, but looking you in the eye, that's hard, and the first words that I wanted to say were I'm sorry, but what I am going to say is thank you. Perhaps one of the coolest things about doing this podcast is experiencing conversations like Chrissy and I are having and you are actually getting to hear. It was a conversation where we sat down and really just tried to organically chat through some of these things that both of us have been through in this journey with PTSD. What's so cool about it is to actually see personal growth, whereas I'm able to thank Chrissy for helping me instead of apologizing or feeling like I need to overcompensate for it. We mentioned value quite a bit at the end of this podcast, and that is something that we will probably devote an entire podcast to. But Chrissy's answer to that question was interesting to me, and my response at first would have been a response of a couple years ago, where I apologized for putting her through some of the things that she walked with me, but instead I got healthy enough to thank her for walking with me through it. I got healthy enough to thank her for continuing to remind me of my value and I'd like to remind you of yours too.
Speaker 2:Next week will be the last and final podcast where Chrissy joins us, at least for now, never gonna let you down. Hey, everybody, and welcome back to Wednesdays with Watson. By now you know that I am your host, amy Watson, and we have called the inaugural season of the podcast PTSD Jesus and Me Definitely seeing the evolution of the podcast and even the evolution of some healing for me like stuff that I never even anticipated. And so, with that being said, the last few podcasts we have had a guest on who is back with us today. Welcome back to the podcast, chrissy.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for doing this. I know that this is a little bit outside your wheelhouse, so I do have a question for you because I have fielded this question for about 10 days now and I'm tired of answeringhouse. So I do have a question for you because I have fielded this question for about 10 days now and I'm tired of answering it. So I didn't put you on the spot because I know better than that. But one of the questions, since you know you have been on the podcast for the last I guess this is the third week and some people keep saying to me and different versions of this question is how did you get the most shy person on the face of the earth to do this? And so I tried to answer it. My guess is that you will be able to give them a better answer to how this is actually happening right now.
Speaker 3:I am shy, I am introverted, but, uh, when things matter, I, I, I want to be one who speaks up and I felt strongly that I should lend my voice, because I hope and pray that if there are others out there in my position as kind of a caregiver to someone with PTSD or in other situations, that perhaps by speaking up I could help them, and I hope that people out there there'll be somebody who says oh my gosh, me too. I feel that way and that's helpful for how to be the person living with someone who is struggling with PTSD or any number of things For sure.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and that's been my experience and really some of the people that asked me the question asked it a little bit in tongue-in-cheek, because we all know that about you is that when it matters, you will speak up, and so one of the things that I think has surprised both of us is how hard this has been. I have spent the better part of my life pretty much putting myself out there. My story is fairly phenomenal. I say phenomenal, what I mean by that is phenomenal that I'm still breathing and that goes back to that that. See, jesus, my church is the reason why that is still happening. But, all that to say, we started doing this and then you and I started talking about it and I've been surprised about how hard it's been. Has that surprised you at all, like this part of the experience and talking about some of this?
Speaker 3:It has been. I really feel like when we started talking I thought, well, this isn't so bad, we're just chatting. But the after effect of talking about these, these hard times both dredging it up and dredging is the wrong word but revisiting those days has been surprisingly hard. But then there is this moment of feeling like, oh my, that's out there for the world. And I just realized that, beyond being shy and introverted, I'm a private person and so this has been hard. And yet I am just as passionate about making sure that this podcast gets out there, Because I do think it's important.
Speaker 2:And so there has been some discomfort, I think, for both of us for sure, but it's it's worth it if it helps someone Some of my- is yeah, I agreed with you there and I think that's the whole reason why I'm doing this. You know, I started this, this podcast, in the middle of the right. Now, today is July of 2020. But whenever whoever is listening to this has started this podcast during the pandemic of 2020. And really I just needed a creative outlet. I didn't know what it was going to do, but I've always wanted to be a good steward of this pain.
Speaker 2:I think what has been surprisingly difficult for me, and even where we left off on the last podcast, as you were explaining to me, we were talking about the reality of flashbacks and night terrors and some of the things that were necessary for me to make it to literally make it and not end up back in the hospital when I was thinking back at those times and I ended the last podcast by saying I want to say to you I'm sorry, but what I will say is thank you. And I was really shocked at how hard that moment was for me. When I recorded the behind the mic video on our new YouTube channel. I actually got emotional talking about this. It hurt my heart to hear the depths that you were sent when I asked you that question Were you afraid that I was never going to make it? And so the Lord continues to do healing in this story, and we initially called these podcasts Memory Keepers. I think today we will start a series called A Trenchmate's Perspective, and here's why I still want to continue to tell some of my story, but I think that we have identified the importance of your voice in this process, as difficult as it has been, of your voice in this process, as difficult as it has been.
Speaker 2:As I mentioned, I continue to get emails from people that are sitting in your position, chrissy, where they or or they want, or people like me want to help people like you and their lives understand more, and so, because of that, I want to first, in this podcast, we're going to drop back into this conversation that you and I had about six weeks ago, and then there's going to seem to be a little bit of an awkward break where we're going to continue to talk about that same subject, but let's sneak back into where we left off last time and then we'll pick up from there, and the first words that I wanted to say were I'm sorry, but what I am going to say is thank you, and I know that we're not all rainbows and butterflies now. You still live with triggers. I'm so grateful to the Lord, who just found a way to bolster you up, to be there during such a time as this or that, because I would not be here, and I always talk about my desire to be a good steward of the pain, and that's why we're sitting here doing this. We're going to play these few podcasts and we've got harder stuff to tell.
Speaker 2:I want to encourage people out there that don't have a Chrissy though. You're going to find it in a community. Go to meetings. You're going to find a community. There's hope. But I want people listening to this because this is an extraordinary story. This is an extraordinary story. This is an extraordinary story. Most people listening to this may be tempted to be discouraged and say but I don't have a.
Speaker 3:Chrissy, but neither did we. So I didn't have an Amy until the day I showed up for that Bible study and then showed up for Sunday school. I didn't want to go, I'm shy. Sunday school, I didn't want to go, I'm shy, I didn't want to go. But I showed up and this is what the Lord did. And so today you may look and say I don't have that in my life. But you went, but I went and you don't know what story the Lord is going to tell. And this is a miracle. This story is a miracle and God can tell a billion more in a moment because he's able to. And so just because you don't have it today doesn't mean that God isn't going to provide that today doesn't mean that God isn't going to provide that when you showed up in Clearwater after leaving John, you didn't have a job, a church or me, a family. And God showed up.
Speaker 2:Boy did he right, right Boy did he.
Speaker 3:But for people who are listening and don't currently have those things, my logical brain immediately goes well, I don't have it, it'll never happen. That's not. That's not giving god a chance. Give him a chance, trust him, start showing up.
Speaker 2:Don't be silent either, even if you're the person who has suffered because it's worse than the event yes or the person who has suffered Because it's worse than the event, yes.
Speaker 3:Or the person who is living with someone who is hurting. You're living with it. Get help too Huge. If you're a caregiver in some ways, if you are walking through this, you need a place to talk to and a place that's safe to say. This is hard and I don't know how to deal with this, or I keep triggering these things. How can I help? You need a safe place too, and that feels weird to say, because really you're the one who's been through something.
Speaker 2:Well, it's the whole. Put your oxygen mask on first.
Speaker 3:Yes, I needed a safe place as well, and I had that in Mama Bootsy and in a small group of friends and in Dr. Pettit and in my faith, yeah, but it's imperative for both parties to make sure that you are taking care of yourself and that you have some safe places to share.
Speaker 2:And this is really safe places to share. She, she, huge, so huge. I had spent a lifetime of lying to protect myself, and so you would ask me a simple question like how much did you spend on that bike that you shouldn't have? And you just really, really wanted to know how much was that bike? You didn't care, you weren't in charge of my bank account, but I would lie to you about that Absolutely. And so how did you stick with me? You forgave me over and over and over and over, and it doesn't matter why I lied, because you've said two things to me over the years, and one of them is you often remind me, give yourself grace for those few good decisions you made to get a Chrissy Lothridge in your life.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I got up one Wednesday night and went to that Bible study. I got up one night, one day and went to that Bible study Cheryl's life group. I accepted the invitation to teach there. And that's not all me. That is that old footprints in the sand. Jesus picked me up and carried me and said you're going to go here, here and here. But you also had to forgive me a lot and so can you speak to. Yes, you need a safe place, but I had to have hurt your feelings.
Speaker 3:And again you go back to the safe place, but you know I would lie to you about the price of a bike. The lying, of course, for me, being a true speaker is the hardest part and will probably always be the hardest part for me, because we still struggle with this.
Speaker 2:I don't bold face lie, but if I feel backed in a corner, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And that took years for us to realize that if you get backed in a corner you'll lie. And so then I have to.
Speaker 2:I would frame the question in such a way that you were out of the corner, well, and I felt safe to tell you the truth.
Speaker 3:So I would say something like man if I wanted a bike, I'd spend a million dollars on it.
Speaker 2:And then you'd tell me the truth. You'd be like, well, it was only 1.4.
Speaker 3:Right, right, so then it became a win, right? So any way that I could reframe it so that you weren't looking like a bad guy, I knew I'd get the truth out of you. Well, I sure would eat a whole box of cereal instead of having the broccoli that I was supposed to have for dinner, and then you'd say, yeah, that's what I did too.
Speaker 2:And so we still fight this because we still have an enemy who does not want this message out there, and I everybody thinks he's the father of lies for a reason and confusion. And confusion.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and lies especially. You will find it with PTSD and with domestic violence, especially because you've learned to survive on lies and with the childhood you had, you learned to survive on lies, and so to change that pattern overnight is it's not possible, barring a miracle. One of the things I want to make sure that I say at this juncture, because you asked a specific question, is why did I stick with it? It is 100%. I saw the person. I saw who you are person. I saw who you are, Just like any person.
Speaker 3:If you're looking at them and seeing their sin and not seeing the person, then you're missing out. You've missed the whole point. I saw you. I didn't see your lies, I saw you. I saw my friend. I saw this amazing, amazing deep faith. I saw this amazing, amazing, deep faith, wonderful outgoing person, and so I wanted to dig in and get rid of the lies or any other problems, as we were facing different issues. If I stepped on a landmine, I wanted to find out what I had stepped on and why, and how can we get better, how do we find healing so that you could be the best version of you? Because I knew from the day I met you you had a voice and that you could preach the gospel and that others might gain the Lord because of your story, but, more importantly, because of you. So, while you're telling your story on this podcast, the more important thing is you're not a superstar because you've suffered so much. You're a superstar because of who God made you, and don't miss that. I do miss that, and don't miss that.
Speaker 1:I do miss that and I think that a lot of people want to.
Speaker 3:It is hard to not make a big deal about what you've been through. You were babysat by serial killers. Ba-ba-ba.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's hard not to make that a headline, but who God made you is a big enough headline, and it's enough, it's enough.
Speaker 2:It's more than enough. Yeah, like, even if I didn't finish the book, which we all know I'm struggling to do, even if this was the last podcast, it's enough. So, yeah, that was, chrissy, at the end of that original conversation that you and I had about six weeks ago, that I don't know about you, but we've we've edited this and listened to this so much. I'm not sure, actually, what will actually land on people's phones.
Speaker 2:So we landed on, if I didn't do anything else with my life, if we didn't do another podcast, or I never wrote another word or whatever, that I am enough and that that enough conversation came out of a very organic conversation that was unexpected, quite frankly, about and you and I have been trying to find a way to explain this but the unintended, the negative I wanted to use the word consequence, but side effects, yeah. So so some of the negative, because they really are negative side effects of PTSD, because we went off kind of on this organic conversation about one of the issues that you, as the person walking along closest with me, had to deal with was dishonesty and lying and and things of that nature, and so that really sat with both of us and we thought, huh boy, we need to. We need to spend some more time with this, wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 3:Yes, and I, I think, re-listening to it six weeks later, I wanted to make sure that it was abundantly clear that your lying was not a character issue. It wasn't who you are. It was a sin, and to differentiate, because there are times that you may meet someone or be in a relationship with someone who is toxic I'm air quoting or harmful or malicious or all of those things, and you might need to extricate yourself from the situation. This was not that situation, and I just want to make sure that people can understand that we're all sinners, so all of your friends at some point are going to hurt. You probably lie to you, and if you were to toss them out and say, well, you lied to me, I'm done, we're done, you're a liar, you're going to miss out. You're going to miss out on everything that the Lord has for you in that friendship and that relationship, and so it really takes some discernment to know the difference between someone who is sinning versus someone who is a blank, whatever it is.
Speaker 2:And there's an obvious reason like that kind of thing. Some of these things and we're going to talk about them some of these things are out of character for that person and I think that we've talked before already about the importance of you had some people speaking into your life that you trusted and who would have told you to exit right and exit quickly in the event that it was bad for you. But one of the questions I am getting a lot on social media is how do I help my person understand? And one of the things that I'd like you to say a little bit more, because I can actually visualize this in myself, is you talked about a PTSD patient, particularly somebody with childhood trauma like I had as a wounded animal.
Speaker 2:Somebody with childhood trauma like I had as a wounded animal, and it's very difficult to do life alongside wounded people in general. But you've talked a little bit about that. How can? So when I get these emails, I was like how can I help my mom or my sister, my aunt, my friend, understand me? Talk to me a little bit about that, because that I heard you and I felt that as a PTSD patient when you talked about the wounded animal analogy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you know. The more I think about it, the more you know. You really do realize that that is a lot of what's going on. The first problem with a wounded animal is you can't communicate, and similarly, I was not communicating with you effectively to say I am safe, I am here to help, and so a lot of the hard work is figuring out how to communicate and how to let the person know this is a safe place.
Speaker 2:And I will say we. So we're going to start talking about page turners, and we've got a lot of pages to turn in this story that only the Lord can tell. Just like everybody else's story out there, my story is no more phenomenal or important than yours, and I say it all this idea of doing life with the person and really what you're signing up for when you do that, because there are behaviors that exhibit themselves, and this dishonesty thing for me was one of them, and when I felt so, you, you, we laughed, and I can't remember whether this actual audio actually made it onto the podcast or not at this point, but we were laughing because you're like well, it only took us 185 years to figure out that if I backed you in a corner, it only took us that long to figure that out, and so that's what I want people listening to. This is like as somebody walking alongside with somebody who has a negative side effect, like feeling like I'm backed in a corner, I need to protect myself, so I'm going to lie about the price of a bike.
Speaker 2:How can you help that person? Because I can tell you from my standpoint, when I stopped feeling judged by you, whether or not you were judging me or not, but when I stopped feeling judged, when you came alongside and I can't remember whether you actually said it or I just knew it like this isn't who you are lying about the price of that bike. So what's really going on? Kind of like that old version of what really happened to you when I stopped feeling judged and you came along. I'm a sinner too, or I lie too, or I do this, that too, then, and only then could I go. This is a problem.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that that is what needs to happen in anyone's situation is find those key elements. What is the root of the issue? I knew for you one of them early on. I did figure out was you felt like if I said that's a lie, that I was saying you are a liar and it was a character attack, and so I would immediately say I am not attacking your character, I don't believe this is who you are, but this is not truthful. The judging came later, where I could specifically address hey, I'm not trying to judge you, I would do the same thing or I would do something similar in your situation too. But let's talk about what the truth is, or however you word it. But the key is to find out what is the deeper thing that is really haunting the person. This really goes for everybody In any situation.
Speaker 2:If somebody is behaving out of sorts, if you've punched someone's buttons, stepped on a landmine, in general there's a reason, and if you can figure out what that is, we're talking about the unintended side effects of PTSD and one of them for me was slash is, you know, this desire to protect myself by way of not telling the truth when I didn't feel safe, when I didn't feel safe and so. But I want to continue to talk about some of those and really bleed that into a little bit of what happened after. Right, so I had gone back to work and was not doing well. That ministry that is, that church and school, about 45 days out said, hey, you know what? You're not, okay, go home. And they honored my contract and I went home and we continued to really struggle with some of those night terrors and things that we talked about.
Speaker 2:But I knew that I needed to. I had to have a job and in the classroom, as much as I loved, it was not going to be that job for me because of some of the stuff that I was going through. And really the Lord just extricated me from that situation because, quite frankly, that classroom, those kids, that ministry had become an idol for me and had become a deterrent for me to not address some of these things that we're talking about, and one of them being the dishonesty. The other one is performance, and I had spent my whole life performing my way out of the pain, and so one of the things that we can weave into every one of these unintended side effects of PTSD is we can tie it back to. I had no ability to understand my value. About 99.9% of the people that just heard that sentence also has no ability to understand their value. And I go back, chrissy, to Stacey and her birthday verse, and when I met her in the psych ward and the verses said when I met her in the psych ward and the verses said you are more valuable than many sparrow and how I.
Speaker 2:Just at that point in my life, and even most days at this point in my life, I didn't get that, but I knew that after I healed a little bit. So I spent that summer pretty much healing, and we had already talked about what would, what would be next. I knew that the, that the, the classroom, wasn't going to be the place for me, and so I had to find a job. We had been talking about starting a business before I moved to Clearwater and taught. I had done this exact same business for about 12 years, and so after that summer, we started our business, watermark Management Group. And do you remember, chrissy, how we named the watermark? You remember how much fun that was?
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, we didn't know what we were going to name it and we just used a iPod and hit shuffle.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we hit shuffle and we said the first song that speaks to us. That's what we're going to name the business. We were starting, a business where there was all kinds of opportunities for redemption, based on how I had spent 12 years of my life and my career in that domestic violence marriage, and so starting this business really was an opportunity to redeem those years. But it also fed one of these unintended consequences slash side effects of PTSD which I was using as an analgesic. I was using it to cope with the pain, because even the handfuls of medications still weren't getting that done for me, and so this was an opportunity to perform. But we were riding down the road and the song came on by a group called Watermark, and these are the lyrics that made us name our business Watermark Management Group.
Speaker 2:Because of who you are and who I am. In you, you make all things pure. Because of who you are and who I am. In you, you make all things true and who I am. In you, you make all things true, you make all things new. And of course, everybody knows how much I love that verse Joel 2.25, where the Bible says that I will restore the years that the locusts have stolen from you. And so, chrissy, I want to thank you for talking today, and we're going to really make this a springboard off into these unintended side effects of PTSD, because I continue to get messages from loved ones, and so we will pick up in a couple weeks, continuing to talk about some behaviors that some of you may be seeing and the people that you love, and then this Trenchmates perspective.
Speaker 2:I'll walk with you to the other side. Hey everybody, welcome back to Wednesdays with Watson. If you have been following along with this journey by now you know that my name is Amy Watson and I am your host. I am so excited to be back here with you today. We have named this season of the podcast PTSD Jesus and Me, and today we are mid-season, and that is so hard to believe. I am so grateful for those of you who have spent time with me on these podcasts, who have messaged me, and even for those of you who have shared it and helped get the podcast out there. Sincere gratitude to you. But we are mid-season and, guys, we talked about the podcast evolving at the beginning and certainly it is doing that. We are learning, we are growing. One thing I can tell you is that today's podcast is for 100% of the population of planet Earth, and so I want you to kind of sit back and drop into this beginning of this conversation. These two words are on my website, and they are on my website and they are two words that are so important to me, and I want them to be important to you because they are true. This is the first podcast of the you Matter series, because you do matter. Let's go, guys.
Speaker 2:2 am, that is the magic time for me. My body seems too light to wake me up at that time and any horrible thing that can happen or that I can remember. I guarantee you, if I look at the clock, it's 2 am and it was about 2 am right before or, excuse me, about two hours after the last podcast record actually dropped and I woke up with full-on flashbacks and I, as very common with flashbacks, don't remember what they were, but I was also so riddled with shame I literally put my head in my hands and I thought to myself what have I done? I just basically laid my soul bare out there for the world to hear. The voices of shame were shouting and a lot of them sounded like my voice and they were telling me Amy, you are your mistakes, you are that person with those unfortunate negative attention-seeking behaviors that come with PTSD. Shame was telling me that night, in the middle of the night that's who you are and you just told the whole world that you have an attention-seeking behavior and you plan to continue. So I just kind of laid there for a few minutes and I wondered wow, can I unpublish this podcast. I looked at the stats and only one person had listened to it, but I didn't actually even know how to unpublish it, because I don't publish it my, my, my producer does and so I was like, well, um, okay, well, I can't unpublish it. So maybe I should try to start stop getting my heart from pounding Like it's racing somewhere really quickly, cause it was just pounding from the flashback and from this sense of shame that I heard and that I felt. I laid there and I thought what, seriously, what have I done? What have I done? Also, I kept hearing various mostly well-meaning voices from my childhood, their voice actually saying you should be ashamed of yourself, and I was. I am indeed ashamed, but I also know that that's the game and we can't lose that game, and so I want to fight. Here's a spoiler alert, by the way Jesus wins in the end.
Speaker 2:I knew when I started the podcast that I have dubbed my pandemic podcast that PTSD was an important topic. Jesus is so important to the story as it's his, not mine, I know that and you know that, and I say that hopefully on every one so important that I put his name in the title. But this middle of the night flashback was as bad as I had really had in a long, long time. You know, as Chrissy and I sat and chatted for hours in that closet. It was fun, it was a blast, we laughed and had lots of good memories and it was cool to reflect on the faithfulness of God. But we did that for hours and it stirred up all kinds of emotions. So I got up that night after the podcast had been up for about two and a half hours at that point and jumped in the shower. The cold water in the middle of the night woke me up a little bit and kind of reset me to some degree. But I walked out on my porch. My back porch is screened in. It's one of my favorite places on the planet and the summer air just kind of helped also wake me up from that panic, because it was it's July in Florida and the air is thick and it's heavy and I couldn't help but think that the climate matched that of my heart.
Speaker 2:I was so mad at myself for telling you guys about my attention-seeking behavior on that podcast that took that unintended turn with Chrissy. The one that we talked about was dishonesty on the last podcast of the night. Remind me who is actually in control. And then I just remember the words of this song that I love so much If you gave your life for them, so will I. If creation seeks to praise you, so will I. And so, if you hear my voice right now, you are them to me. You are them to me, I will. I will lay down on this and we will keep fighting just for one of you.
Speaker 2:So now it's like 3.30 in the morning. I walk back into my house and finally just relented and took some medicine and finally fell back asleep. But those voices of shame were loud. They were telling me that I was worthless. They were telling me to stop doing this podcast, to stop writing. They were telling me to stop telling the world that you don't have to live in shame and guilt. I hoped a few more hours of sleep would reset me. Sometimes that happens when you fall back asleep Because I planned to leave the podcast up, because I knew it to be obedient.
Speaker 2:But I also understand that I'm going to be working through this shame thing and it's here to stay. It wants to take my value. It wants to take yours too. So what we aren't going to do is quit, because you matter and I matter, and so we're going to continue to stay with this, we're going to continue to evolve, we're going to continue to heal, because I started this podcast to give people hope hope that you can heal from unspeakable trauma. And, yeah, mainly this season is for PTSD patients, for people who love them, for people who minister to them. But this very podcast, as I said in the intro, is for 100% of the population. I have started, as I just jokingly said, I've started calling this my pandemic podcast. Apparently, it's a pretty popular thing, as you can't even buy a mic on Amazon right now, but anyway, I started this podcast at a time you know who knows where we are in this pandemic the beginning, middle end but I started it and right now, on this day that I'm recording it is at a time when hope seems to be at an all-time low.
Speaker 2:I firmly believe that hope is the bond that we all seek for the pain, but we always seek it in other things. And then hopelessness, when left unchecked, is tragic and leads to all of these attention-seeking behaviors that we're going to talk about and a whole lot other things. The Bible says that hope deferred makes the heart sick. It's so true. It's so true for all of us. I know that because I get messages from people all the time now who have questions and are seeking help, and I'm way in over my head because I know that I'm only qualified to tell you my story and things that work for me, but the message is the same from everyone who messages or emails they are running low on hope.
Speaker 2:2020 has drained us of our earthly hope Every single person on this planet and dimmed our light, and so everyone is feeling a little needy. In some ways, that isn't a bad thing. Needs drive us to solutions. I think it's the solutions that we need to watch and we will definitely be talking about that. So, because this podcast is for 100% of the population, here's what I want to make sure that I want to continue to repeat over and over in this podcast is we all want to be seen, we all want to be known, we all want to be loved, we all want to be heard, we all want to be valued.
Speaker 2:And here's the great news, guys we are all of those things. I am no different, and as a result of even sitting behind this microphone and the feedback that I get from it makes me feel those things, all those things that I just mentioned Seen, known, loved, heard and valued. But as much as I love my people, I have learned the hard way that my eternal hope and value doesn't come from people, but from God. And so I want to bring shame back into the conversation, because shame can't take it, because shame didn't give me my value. God gave me my value. Did you guys know that it only took 25 verses in the Bible? So Genesis 1.26 addresses our value, where God says that we are made in his image.
Speaker 2:25 verses into the Bible, value gets addressed. We are made in his image, which is so amazing and so unable to be comprehended. Psalm 139 describes how precious we are in his sight and that we are formed in his image again. But it only takes six verses for the psalmist to acknowledge that. Whoa, this idea of value is way, way in over my head. Depends on which translation you're reading, but it is everything from. You know it's too lofty for me to understand, it's too much for me to understand. But Genesis 1 26 does tell us that we are made in that image, equally loved by him, with a special purpose, with special giftings and, yeah, with special pain, special, unique pain. That word unique is there on purpose to remind you not to compare your pain with mine or anyone else's.
Speaker 2:In my sphere of influence, I hear a lot of horror stories, especially as it pertains to domestic violence, and even I'm tempted to compare my stories. Don't do it, guys. It's a dark road and it just makes shame grow, grow, grow, grow. Shame grows in the dark, and that's a dark road. I wasn't given any of the things that you need to walk your road and you weren't given the things to walk mine, and that's why we don't compare. But we can help each other and that is the point. Community it's one of the three C's Because, besides me wanting you to know the peace that only comes with knowing with Jesus, my biggest wish for you is that you get connected with a community. Please go, get connected with a community, I beg you.
Speaker 2:Chrissy is one of my community Ride or Die members and, as I mentioned, we had a blast recording those three podcasts. Those conversations are simply too much to recap and so I would certainly encourage you to go back, but it was really fun and interesting and painful and all kinds of weird emotions. That experience of her unjumbling some of my PTSD memories was all of those things. I already mentioned several times now the shame that I felt after hitting the publish button and by that I mean my producer hit the publish button. But that podcast was also fraught with other issues. We had so many audio issues that everything that you can imagine happened. So I knew that it wasn't an award-winning audio experience. But the last part of that conversation took that unexpected turn and the content was too anointed for me to reproduce and so we left it. And I'm telling you guys, I still regret it this very moment. I'm fighting y'all. I'm fighting.
Speaker 2:I've been working through the shame because on that podcast we began to talk about what you will hear me refer to a lot in the next several podcasts as attention seeking behaviors, and in that particular podcast, chrissy and I had some hard conversation about one of my own attention-seeking behaviors which I had battled most of my life, and especially in the early days of my friendship with her, by way of dishonesty. Certainly, I have and continue to work through some of these things in counseling and obviously I understand why I use dishonesty to deflect to ensure safety, especially in the middle of my domestic violence marriage. Or because I was this honesty to deflect to ensure safety, especially in the middle of my domestic violence marriage, or because I was just needing to feel seen, known, loved, heard, valued. I don't know that even this time last year I would have had the emotional health to do what we did by hitting publish on that podcast, or even understanding this idea of attention-seeking behaviors and why we have them. And so I often think that Psalm 139.6 was written just for me, because that whole concept of value is way too lofty for me to understand. My real enemy and your real enemy, the father of lies, confusion and chaos likes to make us all forget our value, and you're not going to be any different from me, whether you have PTSD or not.
Speaker 2:When we forget our value, we begin to exhibit attention-seeking behaviors, which often turns into the shame that I keep talking about when we forget our Genesis 126, status made in the image of God, attention-seeking behavior has the opportunity to abound and I want you to remember that, that community that I keep talking to you about here's something that you really need to do. You need to make sure that that community also looks like accountability. You need to make sure you have some people in your community that will call you out and that will call you higher and that will make you mad to the point that you will evaluate. So make sure your community, some people in your community, looks like accountability. As I've mentioned three times now, this podcast is for 100% of the population, because even if you don't have PTSD, you have attention-se seeking behaviors. That just makes you human.
Speaker 2:Now, shame drives some of this, for sure, but then it's the hamster wheel. Where shame becomes comes from a variety of attention seeking behaviors and it just becomes normal to feel shameful all the time. What also becomes the norm is our is our complete inability to take care of ourselves and all the things that we do, with things that we value, when we forget our image-bearer status. We really have this inability to remember that we are seen, known, loved, heard and valued. I know the devil loves dark corners. He likes us to live in this guilt and shame and, most of all, he is a master salesman. He convinces us of needs that we don't have and then he gives us ill-fated solutions to needs that we actually do have. These are the kinds of things that nobody talks about, but they're common to every single one of us. Most of us just go to sleep with it on our minds at night, and I've decided to tell the world hit record and have it published and then fight the shame and the inability to remember my value after it. But I am doing that because I'm tired, guys, so tired of watching. I'm tired of doing this and I'm tired of watching it, of living in guilt and shame, because it does not have to be that way at all. I am going to continue to keep locking myself in this closet and I'm going to keep doing this because he gave his life for you. The least I can do is share authentically with you, even when it brings the opportunity for my own shame.
Speaker 2:I spent so many years frustrated and so loathing about this idea of attention seeking behaviors, and never really more so than when I was just 14 years old. When I was 14 years old, I had been living with foster parents for about 18 months parents for about 18 months and on June 6, 1987, those foster parents who had taken care of me when the state removed me from the state of Florida but from my mom. They took care of me for 18 months, but they had their own ministry and their own family, were good people and because of some of these attention-seeking behaviors I needed more help than they could give me. And so June 6, than they could give me. And so June 6, 1987, I found my 14-year-old self standing underneath a sign that said Faith Children's Home. It was just another abandonment in my mind at that point. It was a day that still makes my heart beat fast and my voice tremble because, even though those were the best years of my life, that was a hard day.
Speaker 2:So my foster parents left and it was lunchtime and I made my way into the main building where all the children were housed, and it was because it was lunchtime, as I mentioned, everybody was there, huge, these two huge rooms with these big, long wooden tables where everybody sat, and two big rooms, one of them where everyone ate, and then a big kitchen, obviously an industrial size kitchen, because you know there were a lot of kids to feed, and so I. They were eating shrimp or something that was donated from Taco Bell, and that's a whole nother story for another day. All I know is I didn't want any Taco Bell shrimp, and so I found a place to hide in between this industrial size refrigerator and this cabinet, and there was a little red chair in there, almost as if it were inviting me to um to sit, to sit there so that the new kid could hide. And so I did. I kind of sneaked back there a little bit and it was dark and I could hear all the goings-on of what was happening, and I certainly didn't understand how I could hear the laughter of children, but I did. I heard all of those things. So I'm just kind of processing all of this in this little dark space that might have been a foot long, where I could just barely kind of shimmy myself in there.
Speaker 2:I was not who I am today Outgoing gregarious will take over a room. I was very shy, very wounded and really didn't want anybody to see me, so pretty much the complete opposite of what I am today. And so when this head popped in my little oasis, there I was. My eyes probably were the size of saucers and it was the whitest hair I had ever seen in my life, with a southern accent that I couldn't reproduce if I tried this. She said, well, hello. And I just stared at her. I didn't even answer her back and she had the, as I mentioned, the most southern accent of anybody I've ever heard in my life. She hailed from Maggie Valley, north Carolina. She said to me has anybody told you today? Again just staring at her, but had been taught enough manners to go, ma''am, she said, has anybody told you today that they love you? I'm quiet here for a second because I remember in that moment I had the. My foster parents certainly had told me they love me, but there was something different about this. So I just looked up and said, no, ma'am. She said, well, I love you. I'm Mama Gowan looked up and said, no, ma'am. She said, well, I love you. I'm mom McGowan.
Speaker 2:That day, even though it wasn't overnight, created an incredible bond between mom McGowan and me. She and dad had started the children's home that day, that day where she just gave me what I just wanted some attention, some attention. She saw me, she loved, she saw me, she heard me, she valued me, she knew I was there, I felt known, I felt all those things I keep talking about, and so it created a bond that I had not known up until that point, but it also created a bit of a monster. A couple weeks ago I gave an example on substance abuse where one is too many and 10,000 is not enough, and so in some ways, when I got attention from Mama Gowan, it was like that I sought to fill all of those pains and that abandonment and all that stuff that I had gotten to at 14 years old seven abusers, you know, abandoned by my mom, really every kind of abuse that you can think. I was seeking to fill those empty spaces with her, and it didn't matter how much attention she gave me. I wanted more.
Speaker 2:My lies to her were kind of like they were to Chrissy. They were just lies that would get me attention, lies that would physically put me in her proximity so that I could be around her. But when I would exhibit those attention-seeking behaviors and in that case a lie and I'd lay in bed at night and our room at the children's home had six twin beds and there were sort of five other people in the room with me, me and so we learned to cry silently and I would lay there at night feeling guilty about, about lying, because I and I was so convinced that I was worthless, because I needed her attention and that frustrated me so much that I needed that attention. I didn't understand that I simply had unmet needs, that I was doing whatever I could do to meet them. Just a human condition, not necessarily just a PTSD one.
Speaker 2:I don't know how many of you at night put your heads down and feel some of this emptiness that I'm describing, or feel guilty about whatever form of attention-seeking behavior you had that day, or feel guilty about whatever form of attention-seeking behavior you had that day. But I know that I have spent so many years self-loathing and not living to my potential because I simply could not understand this need for attention from other people. Why couldn't God be enough? Perhaps I was just too broken and I really did believe that Until recently, recent years, my tribe and my community have locked arms with me and ushered me to him through simply living their lives and making sure I was at least attempting to live mine, making me feel all those things that I am valued, loved, seen, known, heard. And so those were nights as a, as a young Amy, that I didn't understand this need for attention, and so this attention seeking behavior came out in ways to put me near her. But it didn't matter how much attention she gave me, because I didn't understand my value. What mattered was the attention that she did give me, so the amount of attention didn't matter, attention that she did give me. So the amount of attention didn't matter. But what mattered was the attention she did give me drove me to the cross and to Jesus as the only person who can even sort of make this pain bearable. And we would have these great lean-in conversations, and I love some lean-in conversations. I still have them with Mama Gallen and we still have that bond. I do love a lean-in conversation and that is why I love community so much as Chrissy and I were unpacking a little more of these side effects or consequences of post-traumatic stress disorder depends on which one of us you ask.
Speaker 2:I say consequence, she says side effects. We realized that some of them are certainly pronounced in people with trauma. But, as I've mentioned, I think four times now, if everyone were being 100% honest, we all have times, places and spaces where we just need and because we're resourceful human beings, we will do what we have to do to fill those needs, like I did at the children's home, even as worthless as it made me feel those nights in that twin bed. Think about it, though. From a very early age we are built this way. This is evidence like if you watch a baby throw their bottle on the floor, only for you to pick it up and hand it back to them. That will go on for as many times as you will pick the bottle up and hand it to the baby. There's no malicious intent on the part of the baby. The baby just wants to be seen. A tent on the part of the baby. The baby just wants to be seen, known, heard, loved and valued. Same with us we're just grown-up babies throwing a bottle on the floor, but when the parents actually pick the child up and hug them and love them, now they feel valued. The need is met. I don't need you to pick the bottle up off the floor for me.
Speaker 2:So as Chrissy and I were talking about this and we have these lean-in conversations all the time, like I used to have with mom Miguel and as we were talking about this, she said something that stopped me in my tracks. She was actually talking at that point about her own trauma, some of which she has agreed to share in due time, but I was literally leaning into that conversation. But then she said something that made me sit back in my chair, and this is what it was. She said what if I am too broken to fix? What if your listeners feel too broken to fix? So I kind of just stared at her and got up and left, to be honest with you, because I knew that she was trying to spur my creativity. But I also knew that she wanted an answer from me, somebody that she trusts as her own ride or die community. So I thought as I walked back over to my house, because Chrissy and I are neighbors, man, I started this podcast for Susie Smith and Mary Wright and now one of my best friends in the whole world, with tear-filled eyes, has just asked me if she was too broken to fix. So I walked into my door and I was like, yeah, I know that feeling. I remembered it from that twin bed at the children's home where I thought it was worthless because I craved Mama Gallen's attention, mama gallon's attention. I remembered it from the shame I felt early in the years of my PTSD diagnosis as I continued to pile attention seeking behavior on top of attention seeking behavior. We're going to talk about quite a few of those, by the way.
Speaker 2:I remember feeling too broken to fix. I remember wishing I were too broken to fix because that meant I could live my life with plenty of excuse and zero purpose. But the reality is as hard as I try. I know that I love a God who redeems the years that the locusts have stolen. I've stopped asking why he stole the years and I look forward to great anticipation to watch him continue to grow and restore the years and purpose and if you hear my voice right now, you are my purpose.
Speaker 2:This being too broken to fix concept, coupled with the unintended side effects of PTSD or negative consequences or whatever we're calling it, or just being human in general, can be lethal and I knew that. And I knew that, like I said, while she was trying to spur on my creativity, she just wanted an answer to my question. So, yeah, I left her house, but it sent me directly to scripture because I wanted to be able to tell you, to tell her, hey, I wanted to be able to tell myself that I'm not too broken to fix, because, remember, I'm still feeling shame, because I've told the world about some of my shame or some of my behaviors that made me feel shameful, about some of my shame or some of my behaviors that made me feel shameful. I remembered the story in the Bible of the lady who was healed simply because she touched the hem of Jesus's robe. So I went searching for that story and I found it in Mark, chapter 5.
Speaker 2:She was a lady with a bleeding disorder, and the Bible tells us that she had been healing, seeking healing from this order for about 12 years. It is thought that she spent all of her money and all of her resources trying to fix this bleeding disorder that was probably gynecological in nature, and so, as we know, in that region, especially during that time, women basically were to be seen and not heard None of the things that we're talking about today. It is thought that her bleeding disorder, as I mentioned, was gynecological in nature, and so that would have put her even more of an outcast, bringing more opportunity. For here's that word again shame. I bet she also felt broken. I bet she didn't feel seen, known, loved, heard or valued.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing that stopped me in my tracks, though, because she made a decision one day to get up, leave her house and find Jesus because she heard he was going to be in town. Now he wasn't coming in town to hang out, he was en route to another miracle. She just knew he was passing through. I bet if I could have asked, she probably would have phrased her question just like Chrissy did. She had been seeking a solution for her brokenness for 12 years. Am I too broken to fix? And a solution for her brokenness for 12 years? Am I too broken to fix?
Speaker 2:But what was so amazing to me, and I want it to be to you too, is that, in a last-ditch effort, she made a decision to go looking for Jesus. Think about that for a minute. Think about what would happen if, in your darkest days whether they're PTSD days or human days you got up and went looking for Jesus. The Bible says that when she touched the hem of his garment, jesus felt the power go out of him. He said who touched me? And when she answered, it was me. He said to her your faith has made you whole.
Speaker 2:I was sitting on my porch the next morning and I was reading the passage again, the way Jesus chose to answer that question your faith has made you whole infers that she was broken, doesn't it? Certainly we are all broken. It is the human condition and, as I mentioned, ptsd only pronounces that. I think about this decision, this lady's decision to go find Jesus, and how that decision changed everything for her. I could relate to that too, because I was reminded of those early decisions to seek community, to go to church. I wish I could say that I sought Jesus the way that lady did in her brokenness, but because I made a few decisions to seek community, jesus came with them.
Speaker 2:So as we move on with the second half of the season, I want to say that I say to Chrissy and I say to any of you asking the different form of her question no, you're not too broken to fix and the best way I can see getting air quote fixed is to go looking for community and value. If you lay your head down at night and think about the things that you did that day to garner attention of another, you need to feel very normal, especially right now in the middle of a pandemic, but also know that you don't have to feel that way. Your faith can make you whole. Our mission here is not done. I am not quitting. I'm going to keep telling you shameful behaviors. I have spent this entire podcast setting up the rest of the season.
Speaker 2:The next few podcasts, will continue to feature consequences of post-traumatic stress disorder as they exhibit themselves in all sorts of attention-seeking behaviors. Because, as Maya Angelou said, when you know better, you do better, and knowledge puts shame in its most famous representative and the bright light of revelation. So I want y'all to come with me because we're going to do this thing together. Those of you who feel like I do right now, like your shame defines you and you can't remember your value, I want you to stay with me, because we are going to be straight up, real and raw. We're going to be transparent. We're going to be true.
Speaker 2:We can have PTSD. We can love people with PTSD. We can minister to people with PTSD. We can be human. We can love people with PTSD. We can minister to people with PTSD. We can be human. We can need attention, we can need hope, but none of that has to rule us.
Speaker 2:So we're going to call it out of the corner.
Speaker 2:So shame has been defined as this.
Speaker 2:I am a mistake, not I made a mistake. So we are going to call shame out of the corner. We're going to legit call it out of the corner, we're going to shine light on it and, like I said, we're going to be real. We're going to be raw, we're going to be transparent, we're going to be truthful, and so over these next two weeks, I'm going to be praying for everyone who hears this to know that shame is not who you are. Shame is not who you are. You, my friend, are far from a mistake and shame has no game with you or with me, and definitely has no game with the one who made you.
Speaker 2:You matter. It's been on my website since I opened it. You matter. Do not forget that. Keep fighting, keep praying, keep remembering you're made in the image of God. Don't feel weird when you can't understand that concept. You can borrow my faith right now if you don't have any of your own Great song by Bebo Norman. I am looking forward to being back with you guys in two weeks where we will dive deep back into these attention-seeking behaviors. Chrissy will be back, so you don't have to hear two versions of stories. Until then, I want you to live loved. I want you to live chosen. I want you to live courageous. More than anything, I want you to remember you are seen, you are known, you are heard, you are loved and, most of all, you are valued. You are a precious child of the most high God.
Speaker 2:Hey guys, it's me again and we are still in 2024. Thank you for listening to these throwback episodes of the Wednesdays with Watson podcast. We would love it. If you subscribe to the podcast, you can do that right there in your app, Wherever you are. You can follow as a checkmark at the top right hand corner of Apple podcasts and then just right in other apps you can just follow or subscribe and help the show grow.
Speaker 2:As we go into September, we'll be having new content, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, and a new format as well, as I get closer to finishing my doctorate degree. One more thing by means of housekeeping, if you are so inclined. The Patreon link is in the show notes, and so if you want to support what we're doing here, which is to help people who cannot afford counseling, please just click on that link and you can support us for as low as $5 a month, as many of my listeners do. And so until two weeks from now, when we bring you some more drop back episodes I don't want to say drop back there when we bring you some more throwback episodes. I want you to remember what I always say, and I never leave a microphone without it. You are seen, you are known, you are heard, you are loved and you are so, so valued. And ask yourself today can you answer the question in the affirmative, just like I can? Has he been faithful for all?
Speaker 1:of your life, when your weary soul needs a hand to hold. I'll walk with you to the other side.
Speaker 4:Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh.
Speaker 1:Never gonna let you down, Never gonna let you down, oh, as the years go by and the days get lost in time. Wherever you go, you will always know I'll walk with you To the other side. I'll walk with you to the other side.
