Understanding PTSD | Awake at the Wheel | Ep 44

because our working with first responders, oftentimes what I find is that, of course, the stuff that they've experienced and witness at work was was traumatic. It's stuff that our brains, frankly, are not designed to to see and deal with. But it's the way in which it is dealt with after the event that can often feel more traumatic, if you can believe that. Hello and welcome to Awake at the Wheel. So in today's episode, we're going to be discussing the topic of trauma. So for me personally, this is a very important topic. As our listeners know, I work with mostly first responders and many of whom have been diagnosed with PTSD. So my day to day work day consists of working with people who've been through incredible trauma. But with that being said, there's also a lot of talk on the Internet about trauma, PTSD, people misusing the term, people putting out misinformation about PTSD and trauma. So we're going to spend some time today looking at some of the information that's out there, some of the videos that are out there. And as we've done in the past, talk about, you know, what is valid, what is maybe not so great information and what you can do with it. So let's check out the first one. One of the hardest parts of my job as a therapist who went through neurodivergent people is gaslighting them. And this is how it goes with having your individual person who wants to know if they're autistic or ADHD or something like that. We're doing an assessment. And I always assess trauma. I use three different measures to look at that trauma. And yeah, they will come up on like the PCL, which is the post-traumatic stress disorder checklist and cross the threshold. So I say, ha, you've got all these trauma symptoms. Also, your presentation is completely consistent with complex PTSD. And they'll say, Well, I don't have trauma. What do you mean I wasn't abused? And so this put me in the position where I have to sit to explain to the person how be neurodivergent in this world is inherently traumatic. It's like you're in an abusive relationship with the world. Your typical dominance hierarchies are perpetuated through aggression. And the reason you have suffered so much is because you have been placed in the bottom of that hierarchy. When you make attempt to climb that hierarchy, your position is reinforced through aggression and other means of manipulation that is psychological abuse. And that is why people have trauma symptoms. So I have a person who has come starting to understand the experiences from the basis of them being a problem. And I'm turning around and saying, You have these conditions, but the problem is how you've been treated as a result of them. It's that part that's the part that takes the longest to process. Okay. So we actually touched on a lot of this in our episode about ADHD. So, you know, the fact that being neurodivergent in the world can lead to a lot of challenges in terms of self advocacy, creating anxiety, creating negative self narrative. So certainly some validity to that. I have some concerns. So with the at the extremes that this therapist took her statements to. So the PCL five, what that is, is a checklist of the DSM criteria for PTSD. However, that is only a screening tool. So the fact that she was saying that this leads her to believe that someone has many symptoms of PTSD, I have some issues with that. So, yeah, maybe they have some symptoms of it, but to make such a definite statement to a patient is concerning because if you put that idea into their mind, sometimes a client may not continue listening and they may then self label. And you know, there's there's problems that come along with that as being neurodivergent trauma. I think that's a really broad when again, she is in many ways oversimplifying it. As we've discussed before, there's a lot of stress and navigation that comes along with it. But is it traumatic? I don't think so in all cases. What I'll also say, though, that I think was valid and we spoke with this in our episode about ADHD, is that it's really important to check in on symptoms of past trauma, a history of past trauma, to see if that is a better explanation for one's symptoms than something like ADHD. Okay. So yeah, a lot to unpackage there and you know in the previous session or previous episode, sorry you know the drinking game word was self narrative and internalization and the way that this person was talking, I am really worried that she is basically breeding a victimhood mentality in know. Yeah, right. And the hierarchy and oppression and well now I don't know how she actually goes about helping patients deal with it, but as you say in the previous episode, and just so people are just so they're clear, we were talking about ADHD and how there is a lot of overlap with autism. And we use the term, you know, neurodivergent like this therapist was as well. So that's why we're talking about that. And when we were talking about it, it was like acknowledging how difficult it can be to function in the world that as an accommodating and unsympathetic and different from the person and the person's experiences. But if someone listened to us talking about it, there was no talk about victimhood and oppression and climbing the hierarchy and and abuse, right? Yeah. She talked about the importance of resilience, in fact. Exactly. We're focusing on that. And again, I don't want to you know, in any way besmirch this therapist approach because I don't know how it actually plays out. But hearing those buzzwords and everything does make me a little bit concerned that she's really, you know, again, giving a almost a futile feudalistic or fatalistic type of mindset because we are what we speak. So if a patient's hearing this, you know, like, oh, well, you're going how how does someone say, well, how do I climb the hierarchy if I'm at the very bottom and everything? And there was abuse. I have abusive relationship with the world and everything. It's it's the. World we you that as as insulting if a therapist said that to me and again using my own example from you know, my lived experiences of the challenges that come along with navigating the world with vision loss, I would take issue with somebody telling me I'm at the bottom of the hierarchy. No, I'm not. And neither is somebody with ADHD or neuro divergence. They have challenges to overcome. But don't don't put that label on a client. That's terrible. Exactly. And so she talked about cPTSD. So a lot of people are talking about that. And it's funny, if you asked 100 people or if you said, see cPTSD, cause I know it's either with my students or patients. A lot of people think the C stands for childhood. Okay. Because a lot of what we're talking about is childhood, either trauma or, let's say, chaos. I just want to go back a step. So see cPTSD is not an actual diagnosis. It's not in the DSM. People should understand that. I there are links that I've sent to people in our clinic. It's just so many of my patients. And I find that as we've talked many times, knowledge is power. So when people read this and they go, Oh, that does sound like my experience. I'm not saying this is 100% your experience. I'm saying read it. And if you have family members or friends or a partner, you know, maybe they can read it as well to sort of understand what you're going through. So the idea is that with PTSD, right, you've had one. It can be one or more of you, just one traumatic incident. And we will talk about how one develops PTSD from that. Right. But that that leads to the subsequent development of these symptoms, which we'll talk about. But with PTSD, either it's not just one, but it's a, you know, a series of or a prolonged or extended exposure to traumatic incidents or as I have seen and I can't say that for a fact because I'm not in the people's brains. But if it is constant pressure, I see pressure. I mean, normal pressure, like intense pressure. If it's if it's chaos, if there's unpredictability, instability, neglect and so on, it may not be trauma per se, but if you're exposed to it for an extended period of time, it can in theory. And from what I've heard, because again, because I'm not a neurologist before, I've read and seen that it can have similar impacts on the brain and it can make you susceptible to whether it's PTSD like symptoms or anxiety or depression, because the brain is so malleable, especially at young ages. So again, when the brains get all this pressure and feeling constantly under attack and the child's constantly hypervigilant, they're always kind of on edge walking on eggshells or landmines and so on. Right. I can see how that can later on manifest in a variety of ways, some of which do look like PTSD. And I think what this therapist was maybe alluding to in the video was the difference between small T and big T trauma. So small T trauma is often what we think of with adverse minor adverse childhood events. And I'll use air quotes for that because they can still stick to us. You know, for example, one could be doing a presentation in front of their class and they're humiliated by a classmate, but it can then be internalized and stored in a similar fashion to Big T trauma, which are things that we often will associate with the word trauma, such as car accidents and assaults and, you know, big catastrophes. But the interesting thing is that oftentimes our brains can interpret and store those things in the same fashion. Right. And again, it's so important for people to understand that people misuse terms, you know, whether it's depression or anxiety or ADHD or something like that. And, you know, it's the either they're over pathologizing or they're basically minimizing people with people's experiences when they have these real conditions. So with trauma, I cringe when I hear people talk about something being so traumatic or words are violence and so on. I really do cringe. But at the same time, we have to understand that even if something is not the classic presentation or classic classic incident and so on, that it can, as you said, be experienced very similarly. And we don't know, we're not in that person's head. And and conversely, once again, if someone has had many adverse experiences as a child or as a teen, whatever, if you have a therapist who's telling you, oh, well, yeah, that's screwed you, you are, you've been traumatized, now you're at the bottom, blah, blah, blah. That as well is going to is going to affect how they think about and how they process and deal with whatever they were, you know, that they went through. And like you said or and like, we don't know how this therapist conducts herself with her clients. But I think that this is a perfect example of when you are a therapist, when you're a professional, you have to purport yourself and present yourself in a way that is genuine and accurate online, right? Like I, we do our absolute best to be as nuanced and clear and accurate in everything that we say in this podcast. And to see another professional say such generalizations. I find that concerning because, you know, we've spoken about, you know, trust experts and when you're looking at things online, make sure that it's, you know, vetted by a professional. But this is a professional who is making over generalizations, in my opinion. Exactly. And it's not such an important point. It's not just her direct patients who are hearing this from her. It's anyone who sees that video and then they have confirmation bias so much. It's incredible. So much of what we talked about in a previous episode was playing out in this one little video. Yeah, Yeah. So with that, let's watch the next one. Ten signs of PTSD. One Flashbacks of a traumatic event to avoiding places, people, or activities that remind you of the traumatic event. Three Upsetting Dreams or Nightmares about the Traumatic event for avoiding talking or thinking about the traumatic event. Five Feeling Emotionally No. Six Being easily startled or frightened. Seven Always being on guard for danger. Eight Feeling detached from family and friends. Nine Self-destructive behavior. Ten Angry outbursts or aggressive behavior. so this one had some good information. It's been a while since I've administered the PCL five, but I feel like that's a lot of or at least however many were there. A number of the questions that are on that PCL five, which is the checklist for PTSD symptoms. Again, though, the challenge with this is context and confirmation bias that somebody very well could be experiencing all of those symptoms, but it still isn't PTSD. As far as the purpose of that video, I'm not sure if it was more so to just bring awareness to a combination of symptoms and what it could mean. But again, my biggest challenge with that one is context was really missing. Right. And I think one of the symptoms that was missing was this inability to see a future. Okay, that's normally in PTSD. There's adding one more. So it was basically he went through the symptom checklist of the DSM for the most part, I think anything else missing but the inability to think and think of the future, as you said, emotionally numb. But that's not necessarily the same thing. Right? It's not necessarily how it's worded either, Right, in the DSM. Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's not just the context, as you say, but once again, confirmation by someone says, oh, I avoid certain things or I am emotionally numb or I'm having problems with family and so on. Yes, but that can be a million other things. So again, I like education, but even that I mean, I almost sound like he's it's not to not to, let's say, question his motives or anything like that. I'm assuming he had good intentions, but I think it would be much more, let's say, effective just this me because I'm just more, let's say, succinct in this way. Not that can tell from my verbosity, but just having the symptoms up above a pop up. You have him doing this, pointing to his head and acting a certain way and everything like that. I just I find it silly. I almost found it like trivializing what we're talking about. And then I'm sorry, I just have this thing with music and people play this kind of music. That's just me. That's me personally. That's a me thing. It's not him, it's me. I get it, all right? But it's. There are better to me. There are better ways of getting things across. But I understand that today's society, that's what kids and other people are used to seeing. That's how they get their information, right? It has to be. It can't just be provided to them. There has to be another layer of the, I don't know, sprinkles or something on top. And this is the thing. I guess that's kind of what I was getting at to her is not really understanding like what the goal of that video was. But you're right, not everything has to be necessarily provided, you know, by professionals in a clinical fashion. But I do think that it would be helpful to bring awareness or self-aware ness to what people may be experiencing. Perhaps someone watching this video thought that those were all normal things to feel, but then seeing it all, you know, presented together could provide a light bulb moment for them. But yeah, in any event, I think that there's there's, there's some challenges with information being presented that way. Right. And look, again, not everyone is going to make a video sitting down like we are going through the points trying to have nuance in everything. But at the same time, when you don't do that, what is the real benefit of it? Like again, or the cost benefit to say, I get as you say, the benefit, someone says, Oh, that could be pizza do great cake does that now, I don't know, maybe on this video in the description maybe there's you know here's a link here's to check out you know more about it's or it helps or something that's hopes I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. But so many people do this. And again, I'm not speaking about him because I don't know anything about him, but people just realize, oh, this is trendy. They follow on like you can get apps and so on that show you what are the trending words, You can Google it and something like that. And golf, PTSD. So I know if I click, if I have these words here, I'm going to get more likes, I'm going to get more, you know, views and so on. So I'm hoping that that's not what people do. But we know for a fact that's what many people or that's why many people are doing this. And once again, cost benefit analysis, the benefit for you is you got, you know, likes and it maybe ad revenue benefit for some people as maybe they're going to be made aware that what they were experiencing maybe is a sign of something else. But the cost is so much misinformation, so much confirmation bias and so much over pathologizing of, you know, of normal experiences, let's say, and just a lot of confusion and chaos. Yeah, And I guess the point from that is there there are better sources of information about PTSD and trauma beyond, you know, a few seconds long video with a bunch of words in it. All right. And terrible music. Sorry, That's me. It's a it's a me think. And but but the only good thing about that right now is at least it listed most of the symptoms of PTSD. I thought we were going to do that, but that video provided it. So there you go. And one thing we've talked about this in other episodes as well, including today, which is not just the context, but understanding that just because somebody or it's just because you might have a particular symptom, it's not just the presence of the symptom, right? It's the severity, It's how it's affecting you and people. If they don't have that nuance, they just go, Oh yeah, I avoid things. Well, yeah, maybe you avoid it because it made you uncomfortable. That doesn't mean PTSD. Exactly. And that's such a great point that you make that the existence of the symptoms isn't sufficient. It has to be at a clinically significant level, which is, you know, usually in the 90th or more percentile of the severity of those symptoms. So they've got to be pretty significant and pretty debilitating, interfering with life and so on. But let's try go to the next one and see what it has to offer. Okay. Some of our households were just as functional because everybody was undiagnosed neurodivergent like growing up in a household, like that, it just feels like a chain reaction that's on a loop because this is what will happen, right? Someone will do something that is unknowingly a trigger to somebody else's senses, and then those two people will start beating. And then like if one person is significantly older than the other person, the other person will try to analyze what the other person's saying. They're a neurotypical man because they're so used to being high masking, but then the younger person doesn't understand that yet. So it's just constant miscommunication. Also, the person who did the trigger might not be triggered by the same thing that the other person is triggered by. They don't understand why the person's fucking trigger my biggest triggers are touch. I'm very weird around touch. Either I'm extremely like sensory seeking with this or I'm just like, I don't want to be touched by anything, not even my own clothes. If I'm trying to focus. The noise is kind of a trigger for me, but it's usually like touch, and I especially don't like touching things on my hand. I literally just had to smack my thigh. I, I hate touching things with my hands. And then people just they wear gloves. What gets in the glove? I'm not going to touch the sweat. It's just never ending. Well, like I had a family member growing up whose sensory trigger was chewing. Even when your mouth was closed and you were chewing, this person would be like, I'm going to punch you in the throat. If you keep chewing like that and you're sitting there like, Am I just not supposed to eat around this person? And then like, I don't mind people chewing. So then I would just think that that person is crazy. I need some help. But then if they asked me to do something that involved touching something, I would throw a fit and they couldn't understand that one cause that wasn't their trigger. And this is why it's going to take such a long time to unpack. Neurodivergent in the black community. Every time I think about it, I feel like I just light up or something because then you got to bring epigenetics into it because you have to bring epigenetics into everything and you kind of have to like comb through. Whether this is reaction from slavery has just been passed down and then we also have to think of like just like cultural things that we do just because it's just it's a lot and just shouts out like heavy shouts out to all, you know, neurons spicy black people, but especially like the neural spies, the black folk who are doing like research on this. And they're like getting like firsthand stories, like from people just, you know, shout out to you, especially being in like, the academic world. I did my sixth year for undergrad to grad and baby. We still recover when I'm wealthy. One day I'm going to find so many black neurodivergent things because we need to. Okay, so if I could if I can move past all the buzz words that were in that video because holy where there are a lot of them and I feel like they were very distracting, made it sound like she was making a point when not making a point. But that aside, there certainly were some valid points to what she said there. Namely, what stood out to me is the thing and I know, Oren, you and I have spoken about this in our work, is that people trigger each other and don't realize that they're triggering each other. And that cycle of triggering each other back and forth is something that really, really can contribute to deterioration in relationships, whether it's marriages or families or whatever the case may be. So I will certainly give credit for the validity of that statement. But how it devolved into then an argument about slavery and I want to be very sensitive here because I recognized the role that that history plays in the experiences of future generations and not going to pretend that that doesn't play a role. But I really fail to see the point that she was making there and, you know, othering herself and people who belong to the same group as her when looking at neurodivergent. Because the fact is, yes, our experiences do dictate the way that future generations do experience whatever it is, but the brain is the brain for the most part, you know, not even for the most part, biologically speaking, the brain is the brain and the way that it functions and, you know, engaged in dysfunction, for that matter, is the same. So I really took issue with the direction that that took. And I think that it was going perhaps suggesting some sort of I'm tripping over my words because I don't want to say something offensive here. But I just thought that it was so bizarre that she took it in that direction. I guess I'll leave it at that. Okay. Now you're going to get me paranoid about tripping over my words. So. All right. So a few things here. It's interesting. Like, wow, that would have fit in perfectly with our previous episode about neuro divergence and so on. So I'm going to infer from this and from the previous the first video that we saw that maybe this is a trend right now. And by the way, when I say it's a trend, I don't mean that it's not happening that we haven't seen this, but maybe online buzzwords are popping up like neurodivergent and trauma. Okay, Maybe that's why we're seeing these videos and people are jumping on it. And. Right. Which once again, education, really helpful and resources very, very helpful. But when there's so much information, it can be overwhelming. It can drown out some bad information, can drown out good or she basically what she did and again, I'm not I'm not going to crap all over her, but I'm going to try to extrapolate from this, you know, to a more general issue, which is it seems like people are taking these very important themes. Yeah, whatever the buzzword happens to be. And they're layering onto it their own personal agendas, right. Because she's got her neuro spicy black folk agenda. Right. And this is the problem with intersectionality and you're touching upon this, okay. Where they're trying to say, well, because of A and B and C and D, and how they intersect and this and that and that, you know, and then hierarchy and oppression and so on. They're using that to further their agenda as opposed to saying, Hey, here are some common factors here. As you say, the brain is the brain. So and look, again, I'm not going to if she if she's trying to promote a certain agenda, which is, I think, really niche here. Okay. Like that is pretty niche. I get it. Fine. But it would also be nice if people would say, you know, again, whatever color you have, whatever, blah blah, like whatever color, skin and so on. Like this is what's happening here, you know. And I don't know what her background she did four years undergrad two years ago. I'm not sure what is maybe like, Oh yeah, who knows? You know, maybe racism studies. I don't know. I really don't. But the fact is, instead of trying to unite people, instead of helping people, you know, get a pool of resources and help each other, everything that particular video, I'm going a bit on a tangent here, but it seems to divide basically. Well, yeah, and that's kind. Of what I was trying to get at is exactly that where it's an important topic, but it somehow turned into this very divided sub topic. Yeah, very exclusionary basically as well. Yeah. And again, I get it. People have agendas that they're trying to promote. But the thing is, people are uncritical consumers of this information oftentimes, so they're not recognizing like, all right, fine, that sort of thing. That's her. That's what you're trying to do. Okay, but can I take A, B and C from this and maybe, you know, learn more about it? Other people, they wouldn't they just might get turned off. Okay, this is not my thing. This has nothing to do with me. And if it is their thing and if this is relevant in some ways, if they take the whole package, you go, yes, this is so important. Well, maybe your experience is not really aligned with what she's trying to say, but you're just saying that it is. And now that becomes your narrative. Sorry. You have to go your self narrative. Okay. But that must be it. And once again, and this is the thing that you and I have talked about since day one, and it's one of the reason that we started this podcast. It's instead of empowering people, I'm afraid it's just helping people internalize a victim mindset. Yeah, yeah. Right. And another thing I'll point out, and perhaps I'm nitpicking here, but I think it's worth mentioning that Neurodivergent is certainly a term that is used, but it's not like it's not in the DSM, It's not something that is, you know, I'm diagnosed as being neurodivergent. And I think to some degree everyone has some sort of neurodivergent within the context of how these people describe it. So when she's comparing neurodivergent people to non neurodivergent people, what exactly does that mean? What are you referring to? Because again, most people have some sort of uniqueness to the way that they interpret the world, whether it is, you know, based on their brain biology, whether it's based on their experience, whatever the case may be? I don't think there is such a thing as a non neurodivergent or what she's saying normal person. Right? And yeah, I've always said that, that is like I said, I've seen normal. It only has one person and that person is boring as hell. Everyone, I don't know what normal looks like. I certainly was not exactly in normal or as normal, so I don't know. Okay, now a few things here. Again, this is a perfect it's just interesting how this all kind of follows my previous podcast, but this term neurodivergent, which I sort of said in the previous podcast, one thing, just so people are clear, I don't think any professionals disagree that it's autism 100% and now ADHD, I'd say 99.99%, 100% of the people agree that those two. And I would even say learning disabilities, we could probably throw in there. I would agree 100%. I would agree 100%. Okay. And I don't know if all the experts do, but I think it would be really high up there. Great. But then just so people understand, interestingly, because what we're saying is it's something that's neurological. They're neurodivergent. The brain is not operating as the majority, although in your case, what you're saying, it's we're all neurodivergent, but let's just say the certain pattern. So I'm just going to add it now, there's OCD that a lot of people are okay with and bipolar disorder. Okay. That they say that is something it's neurological. This is you know, so they take that as well. So we have ADHD, autism for sure. And then with OCD and bipolar disorder, it's not 100% consensus. But more and more people are saying, I can see that. And if people watch the previous episode, they'll understand this whole thing with OCD and neuro divergence. But then the another one, just so people understand that good intentions can sometimes Cohen weird directions one other one and they say, well, look, these people are born this way. The theory is, so why don't we call this Neurodivergent as well? Do you want to guess which one it is? And by the way, the people in the other four categories, they say you're going to lump us in with this group. Oh, my gosh, that's horrible. Any idea what it is? Personality disorders? Yes. Which one? One in particular? That's actually good because it all sort of like that. But there's one in particular that nobody wants to be associated with. BPD. No. Although I think no, although yeah, although with more research saying that it's more it's genetic and everything like that as opposed to trauma based, I think that more people would go with that. Okay. But there's another one. But yeah, I'm sure people would not want to have people with borderline personality in their group. All right. And we've talked about. Oh, maybe narcissistic personality disorder are the ones that they wouldn't want in their group. No. You're so close, though. No, come on, Turn it up a notch. Okay. All right. Histrionic personality disorder. I'm running out of options. Use this. The last one, of course, to be antisocial personality disorder. Oh, okay. But but here's the thing, though, because like with narcissism, are people born that way or are they raised that way with borderline personality? Is a genetic or is it due to the trauma? Right. But with antisocial personality disorder. And for people who don't know, we may have talked about this before, but psychopathy is not in the DSM, as, of course, as we know. But the closest thing is antisocial personality disorder. And in the DSM, in the text part, they do mention that that's the to anti to psychopathy. Right. Because the belief is that psychopaths are born this way. So as opposed to sociopaths, although there's a whole confusion about, you know, what's the difference in sociopath. Well, we all go down the rabbit hole. But the point is. Right. But they're saying that because they're born that way, should we not call psychopaths or people antisocial personality disorder? Neurodivergent. Now, here's the problem with that. And again, we start off with trauma, but because we're seeing these Neurodivergent videos, I hope that it's okay that we'll just kind of like weave the thin. All right. Which is and here's the problem. Just because I think you and I've talked about this in other podcasts, just because someone's born a certain way doesn't mean that we condone what's going on. Right? So the problem is and they actually did this they tried to do that over 20 years ago, was obviously 25, 30 years ago. I won't get the whole story. But there was a murder case where the the lawyer tried to get his client was guilty, for sure, of murdering his ex. But and it was quite obvious. All right. But the lawyer's trying to say, well, he was a psychopath. He was born this way. So, you know, we can't discriminate. And they were trying to get a lower sentence because it's in that way. Well, just because you're born a certain way doesn't mean you don't know right from wrong as an example. Okay. So when people start using Neurodiverse, they start broadening it and they go, well, psychopath. So then people start saying or antisocial personality, people start saying, Oh, should we then not have some compassion for them because they were born that way? And then should we allow, you know, allow them to get away with certain things or should we not, you know, maybe mitigate the sense like a a mitigating factors or reduce the sentence or so on Luka magnotta, anyone can Google Luka magnotta, one of Canada's most notorious monsters. All right. His lawyer tried to say, well, he has, you know, certain personalities disorders, And the jury asked the judge, should a personality disorder be considered a Oh my gosh, there was a term for it. But they basically said, should we consider it a like it looks the same as a psychiatric disorder, therefore maybe not have culpability, Maybe he's not responsible for his actions. All right. And the judge who wasn't well informed said yes, yes, personality disorders are in the DSM. But again, I'm kind of going off on a tangent, but I'm trying to say this is why when we have people who are reckless, whether it's professionals or people making videos, that people get all this information and they aren't able to filter out, they're not able to do a deep dive and see what it really means. Sometimes there can be some terrible consequences and again, the fact that it got into a courtroom where they were wondering, since this guy has certain personality disorders, Luca magnotta had histrionic and borderline personality disorder. I think narcissistic as well, like, should that then be a mitigating factor? Like, no, just because you have these disorders, it might make you more prone to doing certain things, but it doesn't absolve you of your responsibility. So anyway, so the only thing is when we're using these terms, if we so carefully neurodivergent, as you say, what do you actually mean? And one final point and this is just again, this could have been in the previous episode, but when people this and this I'm going to be careful with my words here. Okay. And I work with a lot of autistic people. Okay? And when I say this, I am so careful with how I use my words, but I know that so many people are not careful whether in their usage or their perception, which is I often say that when I'm talking about the say, people's, let's say, connectedness with others, people's empathy and compassion and so on, I will say that not all autistic people, but, you know, depending on the level of functioning, some people autism have, you know, like I say, no capacity for empathy. It doesn't make them a bad person. They were unfortunately born with a terrible condition. So if they have such severe autism that, you know, they don't have that empathy. Okay. And by the way, I don't their brains I'm going based on what the you know, the people who know more about neurology than I do are saying. Right. So I'm not saying, oh, they're terrible people. But the fact is, psychopaths also have no capacity for empathy. Right. So there's a lot of I'm saying right now, I've seen it online, you know, it's in the media and well, in movies and so on, where people are almost equating psychopath psychopaths with autistic people. Right. So we have to be so careful about this. And once again, whether it's outright stated or whether people act a certain way with this person. Right. For this you know, this person doesn't have empathy or they're weird or something like that. And the kind of, here we go again, the kind of internalization and the self narrative that is produced by such interactions because you as humans are social animals, who we are is usually in relation to others. It's our role in society is our it's our connecting with other people. So if people are act a certain way with us, even if they're not treating us like a psychopath per se, but if they are creating a distance, if they're being less tolerant, if they're being more judgmental, that can have such an impact on the person's sense of well-being, which to the last video person I tried to chase together. To her credit, that's what she was trying to say. I mean, that was the one one of the few good things I got from her video, which was, hey, let's recognize that there's a lot of, let's say an unseen undiagnosed issues that someone might be dealing with and that might help explain why they're acting the way they are rather than just saying, oh, they must be an A-hole or a psychopath. And this is the thing, though, and yes, we will give credit to that last creator So to the point that she was making, I believe she was trying to say that, you know, there's explanations for people's behaviors. But I think that videos such as this and others that we've discussed confuse explanation with excuse. Right. So it's really great for us as a society to understand where people's behavior is coming from, understand people's experiences, to explain it. And I, you know, even when working with clients, dealing with trauma, because that's what we're talking about today and I think that's what that video started with, was talking about trauma. It certainly is a great to understand oneself, understand, you know, how experiences dictate the way that we interact with the world around us. It's absolutely important, but it doesn't excuse it. It doesn't just give us license and to be in a hole and do whatever we want and to tie that into another challenge. And I foresee this turning into is, you know, yes, science dictates our profession and dictates the way the DSM works. But you and I have talked before about the controversy of the DSM and how society can also dictate and societal changes can also dictate the way in which mental disorders, mental health disorders are interpreted and, therefore put out there in the DSM. So I think it's incredibly important for not only professionals, but also just general society people in the general population to really be careful about what they're saying, how they're seeing it, how they're demonstrating things and how they're putting things out there, because these larger societal changes can then change the way that professionals operate. Oh, 100%. And that's a whole other topic. We've actually seen this happen over the last couple of years. Okay. We're science is taking a back seat to political correctness or ideology. So I will hold my tongue and not go further than that. But it's such an important point. Now, by the way, I think we have one more video. Mm hmm. And maybe we could watch that, because one thing I want to say that people really need to understand is sort of how PTSD may develop. Okay? Because it we know for a fact is not trauma equals PTSD. So I want to clear that up. But maybe this last video, maybe we'll touch upon that. I have no idea. So let's see. Okay. my anxiety slash PTSD, self-induced whiplash, crossing my double joint fingers, chills. Okay, well, I don't even know what to say about this one, because it doesn't that doesn't mean PTSD. Like I said, it's an oversimplification of such a complicated, complex, debilitating disorder. And, you know, perhaps these things that she's dealing with can be debilitating. But I'm more inclined to think that perhaps that's a feature of OCD and not PTSD. I mean, having worked with a lot of individuals with PTSD, they may experience obsessive compulsive thoughts or they may have compulsive, sorry, obsessive, intrusive thoughts, but I'm not really sure what this video is was getting at with that. But that being said, here again is another example of perhaps somebody watching this and then falling victim of confirmation bias of like, oh, well, I have I think she called them tics in the video. I have these tics that I engage in. So maybe that means I have PTSD. So like really, really problematic stuff because that doesn't in and of itself mean anything. Yeah, I first of all, I was thinking as well, like whether OCD or other types of similar behaviors, like with tic disorders or, you know, even Tourette's syndrome, for example, like, you know, the physical manifestation, whiplash and so on. Right. Which, by the way, a little side note here, just to our point earlier about the impact of these things on on people we know and there's this whole talk right now about all these young use. I think it's usually females who are now manifesting Tourette's, either the term it's not real, they see it online and for whatever reason, we can go into that, but we won't this time just because we've done this in other podcasts right. But they are so heavily influenced the social contagion of these type of things, which and then again, I'm holding my tongue. But the fact that it happens in these cases, like with Tourette's or whatever else, that they think it couldn't happen in other phenomena as well. Ridiculous. So anyway, the point is this to me, it seemed like you're and I don't want to I don't know this young person. Right. But we've talked, I think, before about this, which is and I'm going to use the term loosely, but the narcissism. Okay. Almost a histrionic the histrionics of somebody wanting to say, look at me, look at me, look at me, here's my issues. Okay? Now, if she had done it in a way that was and again, I'm not telling people how to do the videos, maybe she's getting far more clicks than we do from her views. Maybe it works all right, but at what cost? Talk about the cost benefit, because here's a thing. If she had said, hey, you know what? I have trauma and I manifest these symptoms. And even she said all of them, even if they're not actual trauma symptoms. But she says all that. And so people think I'm weird or people think this or that. And hey, you know what? If you're a friend of mine and you want to ask questions, I'd be happy to talk about it. Or conversely, you know, it's a very personal matter. I know it might seem a bit odd or whatever, but for me or for someone else, maybe think twice before making a joke about it or before asking. Maybe it's intrusive. Whatever message trying to get, make it a message that was not a message that was just like, look at me, Look at me. Only weird symptoms. There's zero context. Zero context. I think zero value, literally zero value. And again, I don't want to be empathetic. Perhaps she is dealing with something serious. You know, I don't want to take away from that. But no, the video provides zero value. Right. And again, the fact is, when people see this, this is what they're thing about the social contagion. If people say, hey, she just got like a million views or whatever, what are people going to do? Well, worse than making up symptoms. Okay. Well, is if you do have a serious disorder, I think we may have talked about another podcast. Right. Going out there and revealing such personal matters to other people. If you are older, if you feel more comfortable in your own skin, if you say, you know what, I'm not going to let this define me, I can go out there and I can tell people, here's my, you know, here's what I'm dealing with, whatever. And using it for educational purposes or self advocacy or anything like that. Great. But these young people who are doing this, that's not part of their agenda. It's so reckless. It can be so harmless. And and one day, if they look at I think, oh, my gosh, what was I doing? Well, it's on the Internet. Is there someone may see it or very many people may have seen it that might be archived somewhere and you can't escape it once it's out there. And once again, I'm not just talking about her. I'm talking to anybody who gets influenced by this and does the same thing at younger and younger ages. And yeah, absolutely. Speaking generally here in response, I think that that's in fact harmful to one's self advocacy and self discovery journey, putting stuff out there and it being out there forever and ever and being so I don't even know what word to use from grandiose about the way that you are presenting yourself and, you know, whatever it is that you're dealing with. Having worked with so many people going through again the journey of understanding what it's like to have PTSD and how startlingly life has changed from, you know, before PTSD and after PTSD. And again, I'm just basing this on the thousands and thousands of hours I spent with clients. But that notwithstanding, I am yet to experience one. Who is that excited about sharing things online about these very, very private, painful things that they experience. In fact. And, you know, it trivializes it in many ways. It almost as almost a parody in many ways. And again, for someone who has this seeing that, it's like, no, that's not my experience now. And again, we're not we're all trying to make it a shameful thing. But you should. Right? But you deal with the process. You deal with your trauma or whatever other issues you're dealing with. You deal with it in the way that is right feels right for you. Once again, if young people from very young ages or anyone sorry, from the youngest of ages are seeing that this is how people are doing it. And once again, whether it's just well, because they get lots of views or whether they think that is somehow validating their experience. However, the person on second internalizes and creates a narrative around what they're seeing. It's not helpful in many cases. So so yeah, there's perhaps a lot of misinformation about how PTSD is developed in and the onset of it. So our producer has chimed in and found a video, a popular video on Tik Tok that discusses this. So let's check it out. And then or and I will talk about it from our clinical perspective. I want you to be empowered to understand why two people can go through the same traumatic event and one of them will develop PTSD while the other will recover from the event. I'm about to tell you, it's information that we've learned through studies that were done on combat vets and survivors of sexual assault. When we go through a traumatic event, we put meaning onto that event. But some folks grew up in homes where they were taught that things go wrong because they did something wrong. In other words, you fell down. Well, why weren't you looking where you were going go from broke up with you? Well, maybe next time you'll be nice to the next girl. There's this instinct towards self-blame that has been registered in someone's brain that puts them at risk in a situation of trauma. If something terrible and overwhelming happens that they had no control over and their brain says, you deserve this. You did something to create this, which keeps that trauma rotating and rotating the nervous system. Because if it's my fault, then I am the trauma. And if I am the trauma, it'll never end, he says. Is that even if you're the type of person who is wired to blame yourself when bad things happen, you can heal from that. You have to look at the shame and the blame that don't belong the situation and find a way to feel the powerless. Feelings and grief can work. Okay, so that one's not bad. I think that you know what? What she was saying is, you know, the fact that trauma is a result of maladaptive process memories. So our amygdala all day long is taking things in. Registering is is something that, you know, should be alarming. Is it something that can just pass through and be stressors and memory or what do I do with it? However, sometimes and like she alluded to, depending on our previous experiences, the way that our amygdala is going to interpret certain events may then cause it to not store adaptively and triggers. We hear the word all the time triggers, but triggers in our environment come up and remind us of that event that happen and make us physiologically, psychologically feel like that event is happening again and again and again. So overall, I think she did a pretty good job of explaining, you know, how trauma can be turned into PTSD, that chronic condition of PTSD versus, as you know, your neighbor may go through the same thing and it not turn into that. So, yeah, I think that one was pretty good. Yes. Yes. She stole everything I was going to say. So that must have been good. It was good, yes. And but, but so and she used the word shame, blame and shame. Yeah, that's exactly we're going to say. Because when I tell students now, first of all, she left out a couple of things. So it's not just experience that would make someone more susceptible to interpret a certain way. That's never leave out genetics and who knows how it plays out. But there can be that. But for the most part it is the experience. And what I was going to say was it's not the trauma per say that leads to PTSD, it's the interpretation. And that interpretation comes from. And she again, she was so close, She, she I think she hit like 90 something percent. Yeah. Okay. So I just want to add a couple more things to that. So it's how we interpret it. As you said, and as she said. All right. It's the narrative we create around it. But here's the thing. Sometimes it's based on our experiences, but other times it's based on how the people around us react to what happened. Yes. And that's the key. As she talked about sexual abuse and when I do to all my assessments, so so many assessments for children's aid and for the courts, it broke my heart when a child would report some type of abuse, whether sexual or physical abuse, to a parent. I'm going to put quotation marks on a parent. And that parent either blamed the kid or disbelieved the kid. Right. Or something like that, which I don't think it will or did nothing about it and so on. And it's just again, it's the interpretation. People have to understand we are what we speak or what others speak. And once again, the self narrative that's created, the internalization of that, that has such an impact. And it's not just about the trauma itself, but then it would be about the whole my relationship to the world. If something bad happens to me, am I going to be disbelieved? Is the system not going to take care of me or protect me or bring justice? So yeah, that's the point that she was missing was not just, you know, a historical. I want to elaborate a bit on that because our working with first responders, oftentimes what I find is that, you know, of course, the stuff that they've experienced and witness at work was was traumatic. It's stuff that our brains, frankly, are not designed to to see and deal with. But it's the way in which it is dealt with after the event that can often feel more traumatic, if you can believe that. So to your point, absolutely, the way that things are handled after the traumatic event often will set the stage for whether or not this develops into something chronic or if it can be properly adaptively processed. Right. And you'll know this more than I, because you work with far more first responders than I do. But from what I've seen and heard over the last number of years, you know, the cultures have changed where people are allowed. It's not weakness to, you know, to say that, no, I'm really having a hard time dealing with this because and look, every movie or TV show about this has has done this. But, you know, these things are based on reality, which is the people who don't have that supportive culture or that that mindset that, you know, I just went through something really, or I saw something really horrific and it could have an impact on me. The people who don't get that type of support system or feedback, they're the ones who are going to try to deal with their trauma through substance abuse, right. Or through gambling or something else that prevents them from having to relive that experience in their mind. So it's really important to know that that's example, again, of culture shift. That's where, hey, where our field and other related fields have done a pretty good job of educating. And, you know, you and I have talked about this. That's one of the reasons we did this podcast is to help educate and, you know, we're just two people talking about when whole fields talk about this or people within those fields really advocate and say, hey, here's the problem. We know what the problem is and here's some ways that we might be able to solve this problem. And I'm just going to take a little whack at the people I don't have much patience for, which is it's far more productive to say, here's a culture shift, here's a narrative or a language shift. Here's a different shift in or you're sorry, here's a different approach to dealing with these problems, which is very adaptive, which puts emphasis on self agency self-empowerment. Right? That's far more helpful than saying you are a victim. You know, your oppression, your the color of your skin, your ancestors. Because of all of this, you will always feel this way or you can't help it or something like that. Again, they may have good intentions, but they always say good intentions executed poorly lead to terrible consequences. And that's what we're seeing so much of, especially with these online videos. And I'll say one more time, we're not just talking about some people who don't know anything, you know, yammering away on Tik tok. We are also seeing supposedly professionals, whether they're mental health professionals or academics or educators, put quotation marks on all of these. Right. Just they are the ones who are spewing some of the same garbage because they are allowing ideology to trump science or best practices. So my little rant there had to say sorry. So as far as you know, what people can do with the information that they're getting online, I don't want to be redundant because we've done a few of these videos now where we're looking at what's out there. But I think that when it comes to things like complex conditions, like PTSD, perhaps a good lens that people can look at videos through is if it's short and there isn't a whole lot of information, you can probably assume that it's not helpful, useful, valuable. That said, more information doesn't necessarily mean that it's great because that middle one that we watched where the woman spoke about the spicy neurodiverse or whatever she called it, that one was pretty long and full of jargon and buzzwords. That's not necessarily good either, but I would say that if there is nuance that you can very clearly detect in the information being provided, you can make a safe assumption that it's probably pretty good information. At least that's what we saw in the four samples that we view today. Right. And the only thing I'll add is we've talked about this so often, which is if it's something that's really complex, if it's something that seems overwhelming, I hope you can find at least one person, whether it's a professional or someone in your life, who's not going to judge you, who's not going to shame you, who's not going to expose you in any way. I hope that they you and or they can find the resources necessary. And sadly, again, we keep saying it, governments on all levels have failed to provide enough funding to help the so many people who are struggling. And in this case, today's episode is talking about PTSD. And I do believe that in a lot of the first responders guess structures in Ontario, at least I can't speak to the rest of the country or other countries, but I think more money is now, you know, for through insurance and, you know, is is being provided to help them deal with this, because what first responders go through, in many cases, it's unimaginable. And it's not just once or twice as others. And by the way, when we talk about frontline workers, it's not just them. Let's say it's a social worker who's working with, you know, kids who've been abused or have to go to a home where it's just, you know, just horrible things have happened. Any mental health professional, you know, is exposed to so much. So again, what can you do about it? Nurses, we work with so many nurses who've been through a lot to health. Nurses, nurses, doctors. Right, Exactly right. So so what can you do about it? Recognize that it's a potential problem. Recognize that just because you've been exposed to something doesn't mean that it's going to be traumatic. I always say I famously say this to my students. I have it in my book, upcoming book, which is I drowned when I was seven years old. I died. I and I you know, I was thinking about this a little while ago, but fortunately, because of the way it was framed, it never traumatized. I love water. All my dreams of of, you know, being underwater are the most magical, fantastic thing. But I literally drowned at seven years old and I knew I was going to die at seven years old. I knew I was out of it. There was no one else around. I was going underwater. I you know, I don't remember I don't remember blacking out. But at one point I knew that's it. I'm done. Those are seven years old. But fortunately, fortunately, it never traumatized me. So and likely because of the way that it was framed after the fact. 100%. Yeah. Okay. A little side note here. The only thing that I was terrified wasn't a no joke. I was in the hospital after the trip to take me to the hospital, and they said that your mother's coming. I said she pissed my brother first. And my brother, I defied her orders not to go into the water. So my brother, I, being the kind of kids that we are, we went to the water and and that was the only thing I was afraid of. I wasn't I wasn't even focusing on the fact that I had died and had to be resuscitated. None of that. And the fact that my mother didn't kill me, I was like, Hey, life's pretty good. So all right, didn't die from drowning, didn't die from killing you. Let's get it. Exactly. So. And one other. No, just to just not to pound myself in the back. But again, it's all about the framing. When I had my open heart surgery, I was literally dead on the table. My doctor, my surgeon told me we had to put you under because your heart was far worse than we imagined. And so he said, You're allowed to say, technically you did die. I said, Oh, second time, okay. And my doctor told me, he said, People who have the kind of surgery you had, even without the actual dying on the table, he said, usually six months later, have this moment of depression or they almost have like PTSD type reactions because the magnitude of it all, it's them. Okay? The fact that they came close to death or my case died, it just overwhelms them. And he said, you know, don't make any serious decisions in this period and don't like, you know, just said be prepared for that. Right. I'm not the type of person who looks at what almost happened or what could have happened. I have trained myself, by the way, I am so neurotic that normally I would be that type of person. But over the years, I've trained myself not to focus on that, but to focus on the gratitude to thank goodness it didn't happen. And the reason I'm saying this is I'm using my own story. But the fact is this is another thing that people can do. As terrible as something may be, we try to find some little pockets of gratitude or, you know, or something else like that. We make sure we don't focus on, oh my God, it could have been worse. Just like, you know, thank goodness it wasn't. And what can I do? You know, how how do I take advantage of the fact that I do have these resources or I didn't die or whatever else? Hey, new lease on life, Whatever it is, we may not have had control over the experience, but we do have control, some control over how we process it and what we do with it. So that's just one more thing that people can do. Absolutely. And to that point, you know, at the moment the literature says that we don't know for sure what causes PTSD, but one of the most reliable things that we have is exactly what you described as the way that we began, the way that we deal with it after, the way that we process it, the way the people around us interpret it and help us through it. So if we can take that and, you know, shift our mind from the catastrophe that almost happened to the all the good things that are present in our lives. Despite that, I do believe that you're 100% correct that that is going to send people on a much healthier trajectory to processing it effectively. Right. And much as always, it's much easier said than done. Whenever I work with patients, I tell them I say these are just words at first. But the more that you use these words, the more that you try to live as if I say you will internalize, you know what you're saying, and it will have a change. You have to play the long game and have hope. And hope is so important. And by the way, a little final here before we wrap up, just the flip side of that. Years ago, and I think we were talking about maybe the previous session, talking about how unethical people try to take advantage of or manipulate certain things. Well, many years ago, when they were trying to figure out which drug it was. Okay. But the at I'm not joking. Like I saw the ads they were saying only 40% of people who suffer. I think this is like 25 40% of people who who suffer a traumatic incident develop PTSD. Okay. And so what they were trying to say was that it's a it's a a chemical imbalance. And of course, if something is a chemical imbalance, how do you turn the pill for chemical? Yeah, exactly. Okay. And the way it was and I can't remember because it was many years ago, but 20 years or more ago. Okay. But the way it was worded and by the way, I had patients who were coming to me and saying, is this true? That's how I learned about it. And they showed me the ad is is this true? Is it a chemical imbalance? Because the way is worded, each patient who saw that. All right. Goes working in a group, working with people's trauma, and it spread around like it going around the hospital. And so, you know, people are talking about this. They all felt so much shame. Yeah. Like, what's deficient with me that I developed PTSD? So anyway, I just want to put that out there as one more layer for people to consider. And this was, you know, like I always say, good intentions. As I said, a few minutes ago, But the good intentions, this was not good intentions of the drug company trying to shove a pill down people's throats. And the way it was framed, like I said, it was just it was reprehensible. And to me. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So anyway, so I wanted to just as a reminder to everybody, just to end on a positive note. Right. For all the bad information, for all the, the, the terrible narratives. Second then become self narrative for all those that are out there. The fact is, with effort, with compassion, with self-compassion, especially, you can find better ways to process your experience. And there is objective reality. You and I know there's a capital T truth and there is objective reality, but there's a big part of interpretation, and what you and I are trying to help people do is find a better, more adaptive, more healthy ways of interpreting your experiences, not in fantasy la la land, but in ways that will help you move forward from even the worst experiences. Absolutely. Yeah. So as always, we want to hear comments from our listeners, questions about this topic. Any future questions that you'd like us to address in the podcast about trauma, where we're happy to see those. All right. And on that note, as always, until next time, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.