Episode #16: Support the Recovery Journey from PTSD

Hey everyone! Enjoy this latest podcast on my personal journey to recover from the symptoms of PTSD!

DISCLAIMER: Do not think that you can immediately stop your medications or treatment. Seek first your physician to discuss options before starting any new recommendations. I do not seek to cure, prevent, treat, or diagnose your condition. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

I discuss my personal journey in wellness to support my symptoms of PTSD due to my military service. You are NOT ALONE! We can create a network of people to support each other in life after trauma!

Please enjoy this podcast.

Here are the show notes:

Frank:                           00:00                Hey everyone and welcome to unconventional wellness radio is powerful and inspiring podcast set to revolutionize and disrupt healthcare. It's trying to put you in the driver's seat and be the force of change necessary for the lifestyle you've always wanted. Hey, what's going on Y'all? This is frank, rinse certified PA and the creator of this podcast, unconventional wellness radio. And today I wanted to talk on this podcast with you about a protocol or what the protocol is that what I do in order to be able to support my life with ptsd. So if you look back at past episodes, I have a podcast that is called the veteran's story. A combat veteran tells a story. And what that is, is that is a very long podcast, but it's because I laid out the entire situation and everything that was going on with me that related to my ptsd.

Frank:                           00:58                But I'll give you the highlights here. You are very welcome to go check that previous podcast for all of those details, uh, of my story. But the long short is that I served in the US army for quite some time and I was a, uh, I was deployed to the Middle East and there was multiple events that had happened while I was on that deployment. But one of which is that I stepped on a pressure plate ied. And fortunately I'm here to tell you that it did not explode. Now, there were some other events that had happened as well while I was on that deployment. But my life going into Iraq was absolutely not the same as when I came out of it. And so now since I have been retired from the service, I was medically retired in about 2013. And so for the past couple of years I've had the pleasure of trying to learn how to live life with trauma in my experiences.

Frank:                           01:56                And how do I relate as a civilian. So I just want to let you know, bottom line up front, there is absolutely no way that you are in this alone. I want you to know that as a person who has been able to overcome and support a lot of the symptoms that I have because of my ptsd, I have been able to do it through natural means and I want you to know that there is hope for you as well. And so what I wanted to do was describe what a protocol is for myself. I have done a lot of different things. Unconventional wellness talks about having the correct diet that is especially great for you. Talking about getting out, getting sunshine, moving, getting active, go for a hike, go for a bike, get out with the kids, play also how to get really great sleep, how to reduce your stress, and then also how to detoxify your life in your body.

Frank:                           02:52                And so all of these things where you're going to talk about an unconventional wellness, but all of these I used in order to be able to really get a firm grip on my situation and how I can best achieve the life that I have always wanted. And so what I offer to you is this. I have created an ebook. It's a very quick four or five page download that you are very welcome to have. All you have to do is go to the website, unconventional-wellness.com, so unconventional-wellness.com, and if you give me a quick little email, I will be able to ensure that you will get this download. That way you can start trying to also support and recover from your traumatic experience. Now, let me talk about that really quick about traumatic experience. Now granted, I am telling you that I had a, you know, military related experience.

Frank:                           03:55                Well folks, I have been talking to so many different others about their traumatic situations that have happened to them and they weren't in a military sense. So I want you to know that this isn't just specifically for those that have served in the United States armed forces. Now this is for anybody who has experienced something so horrific or terrible that they are now dealing with symptoms that are related to it. There is a lot of research coming out that is showing that somebody who witnesses a traumatic event or is in the traumatic event themselves, their brain patterns are actually changing. There is a physical change that are starting to happen inside of people's brains that does not allow them to respond appropriately to stimulus that reminded them of that experience and so there is a lot of great data, a lot of great research out there about some different methods that are being used, but quite honestly, I have determined that I want to take charge and do something positive for my life because I didn't want this to ever define me for the rest of my life.

Frank:                           05:00                There are far too many people that I feel that are counting on me just like they're counting on you and that you can absolutely recover from this frustrating trauma. Now, it is a lifelong journey. I want you to understand that this is not something that I have a magic bullet or that I have some sort of a pill or anything that you can take. This is a choice that you must make every moment of every day in order to be able to learn how to live with this traumatic experience in mind. And then how do I recover from it? So it is personal. I don't know what your situation is. You may have gone through an entirely different situation that caused your ptsd or traumatic experience. And so by all means, I am definitely not saying that this protocol will work for anyone in particular, but I know that foundationally it can work for a lot of people.

Frank:                           05:53                So I said two things. One, you're not alone and then secondly, you are definitely worth it. So here's the problem with PTSD. Uh, there is a book, it is known as the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders or the Dsm five for short, and that actually this is the goto reference that clinicians, that if they're out there and practice, they use this book in order to be able to diagnose ptsd. It is now actually under a trauma and stressor related condition. It used to be actually listed underneath a different thing, but now it's has its own subcategory. Okay, so when it comes to ptsd, there is actually just not symptoms associated with it. There is something that spurs it off. This is known as a sentinel event. The sentinel event is the horrific experience that you yourself actually witnessed or you yourself experienced. That's what actually happens and it may take a little bit of time for the symptoms of that experience to actually start being those symptoms that are associated with ptsd and so the four major categories of ptsd according to the Dsm five are that you have flashbacks, nightmares about the event, your distressed or stressed when you remember the event or you even have actual physical symptoms where you could have a quickened pulse.

Frank:                           07:14                You can actually sweat, you can become very nervous looking and things like that. Avoidance is your second major symptom. That is something where you are actually avoiding situations or conversations or thoughts or feelings or something like that. You try to make yourself numb to the event and you actually get yourself busy into forgetting the events. Well, once I got out of my situation, I just wanted to give you a personal story here is that once I got out of my situation, I actually got admitted into physician assistant school, well, physician assistant school. There's this mantra about how it's like drinking from a firehose while that created such buisiness inmate that I was able to avoid a lot of the feelings that I had because of the situations that happened while I was in Iraq and so I would offer to you that you might be doing something similar.

Frank:                           08:08                You might be getting yourself super busy and super engaged in things in order to avoid the feelings or the thoughts or even the conversations that may come up that are related to that traumatic experience. And therefore I understand where you're coming from. The next thing is that you have hyper arousal, so like it might be more jumpy. You might be easily startled. There might be problems with focus and concentration. You might actually be more prone to getting more irritable. I mean like, you know, take your situation and think about before the situation happened or the sentinel event happened. You know, how were you may be driving or how were you with people or how were you with a standing in a line or something like that, right? Are you actually more irritable or frustrated, uh, today because of that situation where that might mean that you have the symptom of Hypo arousal as well.

Frank:                           08:57                And then also there's some things, the last category is undesirable thoughts or beliefs, and so you know, the, that based upon the severity of your symptoms, you may actually find yourself where you are not having joy in some of the things that you once found pleasurable. So you might actually avoid stuff like sex. You might avoid social situations with friends, uh, you might actually completely ignore certain hobbies that you used to have. And so there's, there's those undesirable thoughts or beliefs. Okay? Um, also, you might actually forget a lot of the very important details surrounding that traumatic experience or that sentinel event. Okay? So these are the four major categories. Moving onto the amount of folks that have ptsd. It's estimated that more than 8 million people, or at least 8 million people, PTSD in the United States, estimated that 7-8 percent of Americans over the course of their lives will experience ptsd.

Frank:                           09:57                And so what I want you to know once again is that you're not alone. I get it. I understand where you're coming from. I don't understand the situation and she may have gone through. I don't understand how a traumatically affected you, but I want you to know that I'm right there with those symptoms and with those things right along with you. And so I want to offer to you my protocol. Okay? This protocol, like I said, as a downloadable Ebook, it's a quick seven page reference guide and it allows you to understand where to start in order to be able to start recovery. Now we're going to talk about a lot of different things in addition to this. This protocol is just what I do. This is my own personal testimony, but it really is important that you eat right, that you exercise, that you get out, excuse me, enjoy sunshine, drink clean water.

Frank:                           10:40                Um, you know, and remove toxins and get good sleep, right? Because these are very important things and so this is just my protocol that I dish that I do in addition to all of those things. And so now living with ptsd years later, it's been, I believe at least a decade that I've had my symptoms is that I actually start my morning waking up early. I actually wake up at zero five or 5:00 in the morning every morning and that's not because nightmares are waking me up. That's not because of my body is telling me to do. So that is because I want to wake up and reflect on my day. That's the first thing I do is I get into the word and I actually have some personal prayer and meditation time that I do starting in the morning. The reason why is because nobody's awake yet. None of the actual situations of the events of the day have started to happen and it gives me an opportunity to be in my quiet space.

Frank:                           11:33                And so it is really great to not have any distractions so I can actually move into that. Then I started considering some stuff with supplements and essential oils. I love the fact that we are now allowed plant based medicine so readily available, uh, in order to be able to handle that because I don't think that it's just a physical thing. I think that both of your mind and your spirit are both super important to take care of in order to be able to help with your recovery process. I look at it as we're a triangle, right? And each one of the points of that triangle is mind, body, and spirit. Okay. I've actually made a roller bottle recipe. This is something that if you're new to essential oils or you've never actually used essential central oils before, I actually love using a blend that I've created called the warrior blend.

Frank:                           12:21                Okay. In addition to, I also like to utilize that warrior blend throughout the day in order to support these symptoms. Right? Um, I love using different things in the afternoon. I love different types of citruses and I love putting lemon in my water and stuff like that. The reason being is because it's uplifting, it's invigorating, and it really helps the body with homeostasis or actually getting back to what is called a steady state in the evening. I also have a certain thing that I just like to go over with my family. We sit down at the dinner table, we try to have a family dinner most nights of the week. I'm absolutely on Sundays. We definitely have our family meal and we like to sit around and talk about highs and lows either of the day of the week. And so what that means is we just want to talk and see how everybody's Day went.

Frank:                           13:09                It has been able to create such a wonderful supportive environment in my family than I am super grateful for the highs and lows. And then I make sure that my bedroom, when I'm getting ready to go to sleep, I make sure that my bedroom is free of distractions. I ever moved tablets and screens and all these sorts of things out of my room. Um, I sometimes wear blue or blue light emitting glasses, or I should say those that block the blue light because blue light is mentally stimulating. Here's one other big trick pro tip, by the way, put your thoughts because I know that that's what's keeping you awake at night is that you need to put your thoughts in a journal. Write them down, put them away. That way they remove from your mind and they move out of your mind when you're getting ready to go to sleep.

Frank:                           13:57                I know that that is absolutely something that keeps me awake at night, so I have learned the trick of being able to actually put my thoughts into a journal because guess what? They'll be waiting for me in the morning and I will be able to sleep more soundly. I've taught myself to sleep more soundly because that stuff is in that journal. Okay? Make the environment comfortable. You want to make it where it's a nice temperature that you're not going to be too hot or too cold. Make sure that it's dark. Okay? Make sure that you have a bedtime routine like involving of toothbrushing and taking a shower and you know, maybe doing some devotionals like I do at the end of the bar at the end of the day or something like that. Okay. These are the sorts of things that have really helped, but I, as I told you before, this is all inside of that downloadable ebook.

Frank:                           14:45                Please check that out. Unconventional Dash wellness.com where you can sign up for getting that Ebook, get that downloaded, that way you can start trying to put this protocol and practice. So, uh, I hope that that was of some benefit to you. If you have any questions, please comment, subscribe to this podcast. Let me know what your questions or comments are. I am here with you and your journey and being able to help support these symptoms because you're not alone. You are worth it. You deserve it. And we want to make sure that you get that recovery that you need. So like I said, I'm frank. I love doing this podcast and we cannot wait to catch you on a future podcast with unconventional on this radio. Take care everyone.