Up next in 10
Surviving Complex PTSD, Life in Post Traumatic Growth Part 1
4K views
Feb 6, 2025
Welcome to Adaptable | Behavior Explained! In this episode, we explore Patrick O'Horo's raw and direct account of his mental health journey. From tackling complex PTSD to embracing EMDR therapy as a client to now being an EMDR clinician, Patrick shares the highs and lows, dismantling blame, and finding transformative support. Patrick also touches on the significance of men's mental health, offering a poignant perspective on breaking stigmas and fostering understanding. This episode is a direct and personal dive into vulnerability, resilience, and triumph over mental health challenges. Stay tuned for Part 2! I'm Kelly O'Horo, Attachment based EMDR Therapist, EMDRIA Consultant, and Advanced Trainer. I'm a mom of 5, Nonna of 5, wife, and a healer. I have the honor of spending my workdays walking along side people while they brave their healing journeys. I try to live with the generous assumption that we're all doing the best we can with what we know. Therapists are teachers for the "life stuff" and "emotional vocabulary" that may not have been learned due to gaps in our care givers capabilities. In the last 15 years I've learned that people are freaking amazing, resilient, and inspiring. Most importantly, we are hardwired for connection and for healing! I hope to bring an authentic, compassionate, and unpolished approach while we explore a variety of topics such as parenting, marriage, relationships, dating, trauma, attachment, adoption, depression, addiction, anxiety, and love! There's a why for all behaviors and an explanation that makes perfect sense as emotion is at the root of it all. -- Links -- https://kellyohoro.com https://linktr.ee/kellyohorolpc https://youtu.be/rLnARKekvgo https://www.emdria.org/find-an-emdr-therapist/
View Video Transcript
0:08
hi everyone Hi everybody thank you so much for tuning in today to adaptable and the series counselor Cafe I'm
0:14
especially excited to have with me here today to discuss trauma and Men's Health
0:20
and my personal hero my husband Pat ooro I will have him introduce himself um in
0:26
a moment uh I wanted to just thank you for being part of our viewership and if
0:31
you like what we're doing here please make sure that you subscribe and maybe like or share an episode it'll help us
0:38
give you more content that you like and help they come right into your feed for future episodes so let's just dive in
0:46
and talk about why I have this awesome man here today Pat tell me a little bit
0:51
about yourself introduce the the viewers uh well uh my name is Patrick ororo nice
0:56
to meet you again after 25 years um I am am happily married to uh a woman who I
1:03
adore I am a father father figure uh to five young men I'm a recent graduate in
1:11
clinical mental health counseling and uh really transitioning from a period of uh
1:17
my own trauma work into post-traumatic growth and uh now a professional career in counseling to help others thank you I
1:24
have gotten to have a front row seat to the journey that you have taken and and
1:31
uh I'm warning you I'm going to be choked up on this episode I can already feel it coming um you know I mentioned
1:36
before that you're my hero and to get to watch The Metamorphosis that you have gone through uh in your own Journey has
1:43
been truly honestly the honor of my life and so um I want you to tell us a little
1:49
bit uh about why you are a good person to talk on the show about men and mental
1:55
health and overall Wellness yeah um well I think uh you know to to start I had a
2:03
really atrocious childhood uh I'm the son of a very abusive alcoholic uh
2:10
father and uh the rest of my family system was kind of congruent with that right it's pretty dysfunctional
2:16
childhood and um I I didn't really have Role Models I had to learn to adapt and
2:24
survive and really always had a picture for myself of of the type of family that I
2:31
wanted to have but it was just so distant um from the life I was actually living and it wasn't really until I met
2:39
you that um I was able to reassess uh the way in
2:46
which I was moving through the world and learn uh about myself um develop a um a
2:53
growth mindset as opposed to a survivor's mindset and really my goal was to to break the cycle you know for
3:00
for our sons and uh have them have a better life and through that journey of
3:06
personal development and emotional healing uh wanting that so bad for other
3:12
men um and and realizing that there's just not a lot of role models that that
3:18
teach men how to balance what it's like to be a man in society and the roles and
3:23
expectations that we have in family and the gender and the gender stereotypes gender stereotypes as well well as the
3:30
ability to to have what we all want which is secure attachment to the people that we love to embrace our sensitivity
3:38
and our vulnerability without losing our strength um and our agency right you I
3:46
talk about people who are kind of Flying Blind when it comes to role models of either gender and I say to my clients
3:53
all the time you know you came into this world and you really had no blueprints there there isn't a rule book about how
3:59
to move forward and and do it correctly and then when it comes to emotional and
4:04
mental health you know our generation our parents that was not something they were yet exposed to and so what ends up
4:12
happening is you know our generation is like how do we do this and you know you
4:17
talked about uh your stepdad and how you you kind of got a glimpse of an example
4:24
of the differences in one from your own dad and him but also maybe a little bit about the gender stereo type yeah I
4:30
think um you know as I mentioned my my my father he was very abusive but he
4:36
really embraced this you know John Wayne tough guy kind of persona right he was
4:42
very uncomfortable with any type of weakness or vulnerability and seeing that in me even as a small child um
4:50
brought up uh a power over response um which was really bad and I think like
4:56
many generations uh like every generation we we look at our caregivers and we want to do it differently sure
5:02
and we try to to change it for good or bad you mentioned to me one time years
5:09
ago something about like to give the audience an example of just how
5:15
overly uh insensitive or lacking in vulnerability your dad was about stuffed animals can you share with the you know
5:22
my my dad was um in simple terms he was a Bone Breaker and uh as a little child
5:28
I was always sensitive what I'm learning now and what I've learned through my journey right is you know the original
5:33
me is actually a very sweet sensitive young man but um my father wouldn't allow me to have things like stuffed
5:40
animals I remember my mom had a stay in a hospital um and and brought me a
5:45
stuffed animal and I I loved it and uh you know she gave it to me and she said
5:51
hide it from your dad and that was the first time I kind of really realized I was probably maybe 9 years old and you
5:58
know why would I have to hide this thing that that I care for you know from him
6:03
um and I think that that was also a reflection of myself that I learned that I had to hide who I was in order to stay
6:11
safe and the need for connection you had to hide that deeply seated human need
6:17
for connection from yourself and others for fear of retaliation and you know
6:23
I've always wanted a family you know even as a young man I wanted the family that I didn't have and so it was really
6:30
in congruent when I started having children of my own right and wanting to tap into that
6:35
sensitivity um and empathy for them and um kindness and loving kindness with
6:42
them and not having had the opportunity to practice that sure because it was more important that um my my father
6:50
didn't feel shame for his lack of ability to be vulnerable and sensitive
6:56
so circling back to you know the example of of Kenny can you share yeah so Kenny
7:02
was a um a man that I had my mother and I had a very short time in our life he
7:07
he passed away shortly after um my mom and him marrying but uh the little bit of time that I did have with him uh he
7:15
was a just a sweet sweet sensitive man he was just the opposite of Macho uh
7:21
when he was around my mother and a really good story you know something that always brings a smile to my face as
7:26
I remember he would be around my mom and if he had to go to the restroom he'd be like oh I have to go tinkle you know and
7:32
he'd kind of pitter patter off and he'd go to the bathroom but if he was doing a project with me you know a teenager you
7:38
know working on a truck or something you'd be like I got to go take a piss you know and for me like I saw that
7:43
Duality right and I think at the time I I I conceptualized it as you have to
7:50
have different personas or faces depending on your audience um but also
7:56
just like you know it wasn't just about manners or eate right it was really about a man trying to be sensitive but
8:04
also really struggling to relate to another man and and not being able to be
8:11
authentic because he was the tinkle guy he wasn't the take a piss guy right um but he shapes shifted depending shap
8:17
shifted to try to to connect with me and that was something that really really stuck with me that I you know I'm an
8:23
observer of people it's a byproduct of being traumatized you watch everybody and you get really good and I got really
8:31
and I got really really good at a young age um and so just noticing that behavior that mannerism that he had uh I
8:38
think it did influence me in my journey to beginning to find
8:44
balance um but I think I adapted to it improperly or maladaptively originally
8:50
right I learned to put on different masks like that over compensation yeah and it became really problematic for me
8:56
as life became more complicated as my family system grew and became more complicated and you know you switch mass
9:03
but when your nervous system goes you end up back to this original state or this traumatized state that was really
9:09
in congruent with a lot of the masks that I was wearing that I was presenting to my family I was pre preventing or presenting to society as well and I I
9:16
want to just chime in a little bit here with that adaptation of surviving for those who haven't watched
9:23
some of the previous episodes on how we work and the nervous system and our lyic system you are choic
9:29
you are choiceless in a moment where you might like to behave in a way that would
9:35
be more congruent with that original Self who's sweet and tender and nurturing yet because of the adaptations
9:42
needed to survive your story you show up in a way that's totally in congruent with that original Self and even the
9:48
desires that you held from a values perspective so you talked a little bit
9:54
about Desiring to break the cycle in your own family system can you tell us a little bit about that journey and and
10:02
your you know maybe even your fall down moment yeah and I think it really ties
10:07
into you know the last comment with around the nervous system um so for my
10:12
story it um my AC of scor is I say 10 plus and what I mean by that is is
10:18
chronic and systemic uh just violent physical abuse neglect abandonment just
10:25
repeated repeated repeated and so at an early age um I started to become really
10:31
dissociative um my benevolent experience is really when I look at it is one and
10:37
because I count my imagination my ability to dissociate and to just go into my mind and create a world of
10:44
safety that didn't actually exist so for those who don't know what a benevolent experience is let me just chime in there
10:51
uh basically that's an experience that one has that helps to create and support
10:56
resilience so when somebody has a few people in their world that they can count on or support they can then handle
11:04
the the things that are more traumatizing in nature more adaptively and more in a resilient way and so we
11:11
want to look as therapists at not just what happened that was bad but also what happened that was good so we can get an
11:17
understanding about how a a person is going to tolerate and adapt to
11:24
further upsetting or stressful scenarios I like to think of benevolent experiences as almost like the First
11:30
Responders that we get for the emotional injuries that we have when we're young like right did you have a friend or a
11:37
school counselor or a coach or an activity did you have something that you really love to do or you know and and
11:45
what was that that helped me heal so you know it's it's not what happened it's not what's wrong with you it's what happened to you and often trauma is a
11:51
result of not just what happened to you but what happened after so the benevolent exp or what didn't happen
11:56
after I fell down I scraped my knee I was held nurtured kissed and touched or
12:02
I was I fell down I hurt my knee and you know my dad said get up and stop crying those are the differences in how
12:09
we adapt and if I can expand on that um you know from my experience when I was around 10 years old I broke my shoulder
12:16
playing football with bigger kids and I came into the house and unfortunately my dad was the only one that was home his
12:23
inability to tolerate my distress um instead of coming to me and being con
12:28
concerned about my injury and caring for me he beat me until I stopped crying
12:34
yeah and that really started my journey into dissociation right of of ignoring
12:39
pain and of ignoring danger and compartmentalizing it um to shut that down and so and I think I'll we'll we'll
12:46
show the picture of that little boy if that's okay with you um because it really puts uh it really connects you
12:55
know all of us yeah and it was part for the course I mean it's a that was a
13:00
remarkable one um because of the extent of the original injury um but it was part for the course for my childhood um
13:08
and then you know at some point uh you know we can talk about this later um but you
13:14
know at some point I became the identified um perpetrator problem the problem in in the family system story
13:21
and and that that caused a lot of other problems so you know as I look at my my journey um into breaking the cycle right
13:29
in the nervous system was now having that original sensitive self that wanted
13:36
uh to love my children to want it to be the the man or the father that I always
13:41
wanted and um really falling falling down a lot um because I just couldn't
13:48
fight my nervous system you know I I couldn't fight uh anger I couldn't fight
13:53
powerlessness enough and I saw danger everywhere and I expanded that bubble of
13:59
danger expanded to my my children and so my ability to show up when they were hurt or they were in danger or they were
14:06
disregulated wasn't the nurturing father it was it was this alarmed you know
14:14
power pic power over father and um you know I'm not trying to vilify myself I
14:20
was doing the best I could with what I had um which continue to be a very dysfunctional you know cycle so for for
14:27
those that don't know you know my first three sons um were for my first marriage which which also had uh a lot of its own
14:34
problems and um so I was I was just fighting the world and it's really
14:40
really hard um to do that and um and move closer to people right I as hard as
14:47
I was trying I was moving farther and farther away I was in the military as well so there was a lot of expectations
14:54
around what it is to be in the military and have authority and command well in
15:00
further solidifying Power Over Control you know uh things will be this way
15:06
there will be no questioning there will be a certain order of operations and so you fell into that culture as well and
15:11
perhaps some of that structure was probably comfortable and nice for the first time in your life to have some
15:17
structure and at the same time not not nurturing caregiving type of leadership
15:23
for sure in the military all of our older Sons you know eventually grew up to join the military and I I imagine
15:29
that it was quite comforting it probably reminded them a lot of their childhood um for sure yeah we had a much more
15:36
controlling authoritative parenting approach earlier in our marriage with our kids because I was a classroom
15:43
teacher so I knew how to manage a whole lot of kids and you were a military guy and so rather than coming from a much
15:49
more nurturing place I think we had a much more authoritarian and everyone everywhere said man your kids are so
15:54
well behaved and I thought that's because now like they're they were all afraid to get in trouble like we were
16:00
just not easy to to deal with I think you were really good at getting them in line and I was really good at ensuring
16:05
they stayed in line you know and so you know it goes back to those roles right of uh within a family or within Society
16:12
these expectations that we have on men creating Safety and Security and having
16:19
Authority and maintaining order um and how that contrasts with our
16:27
ability to sit in vulnerab ability right to have emotions and to express and share those emotions right so my my
16:33
children's I I I consider myself a tender father um but tender doesn't
16:39
outweigh angry and aggressive right especially when they're moments after moment after moment after moment in
16:46
their nervous system it really takes five good to one bad to outweigh it and it just wasn't in proper balance for
16:52
them to have been able to absorb all that tenderness so so as you move toward
16:57
your family and try to be that caring nurturing kind of parent you know those
17:02
other controlling behaviors created a lot of resistance and fear in in our Offspring and and me and so we what you
17:10
want is to move close to us and what we feel is unsafe so we have to move away which is it's further increasing shame
17:17
in you because it's the opposite of what you genuinely desire and want yeah and I think on on that
17:23
point I'm sure there's people you know I know there's people out there that appear to be blind to those things even
17:30
if I look at my father who appeared to be blind to those things I think he
17:36
wasn't I think there was a part of him that felt a great amount of Shame about what he was doing I don't think you can drink a bottle of Jin a day and and have
17:44
that not be related to trying to hide the I know you cannot drink a bottle of Jad uh and and cure it right um and so
17:51
we do see it we do see where we fall down even if we can't express it or we don't know what to do about it uh we
17:57
feel alone in it um thankfully in my journey um I was able to come up for
18:04
some air to create uh to to decide that I needed um to make some changes in my
18:11
life and then you know Along Came you and um and that helped me to start
18:17
working towards understanding the attachment injuries that I had and working towards earning secure
18:23
attachment but that you know it's a story for another day probably so you know if you can share because a lot of
18:30
our viewers have things that they've done that they that they they can't even
18:36
face in themselves and uh I call those those fall down moments those moments where you are so low you can't help but
18:45
do any you can't ignore it the only choice you have is to face it and address it or crawl in a hole and die or
18:51
turn into a a heroin addict because you just can't possibly face so tell tell us
18:58
the story or the stories that related to you know your fall down moment and your journey towards aggressive mental health
19:05
and wellness for yourself yeah I mean I've had many um I think the one
19:12
where um I really changed Direction
19:17
um uh was was uh what we refer to as Raleigh um for for context um yeah
19:23
please tell the back story yeah I think we were 10 years into our marriage and and
19:29
uh uh lots of adoptions lots of complexity uh lots of pressure from the
19:35
inside world and the outside world and things like that and um you had gone
19:41
begun your uh journey into becoming a mental health counselor and I remember specifically a walk we were on in the
19:48
morning and you shared with me that you'd learned a statistic that people
19:53
and not just you know people in graduate school but people that are on their mental health Journey and for becoming a
19:59
counselor becoming a counselor right but for many people um that starts when you
20:04
know they go to school and You' shared that there was really kind of a high divorce rate or separation rate with people and that it wasn't just because
20:11
of what they learned and they were educated it's because they started making a change in the homeostasis of
20:17
the system right learning about boundaries and codependence and their needs well and if I can share a little
20:22
bit about part of what I think leads up to you know the Raley moment is I then
20:27
go to because the grad school says you should go to years of therapy before you're a therapist if you're going to be a
20:34
conscientious practitioner you have to clean your own side of the street and take care of business so I start going to therapy and I didn't know how I was
20:43
adapting to my environment as a child and then also in my marriage I was
20:49
incredibly codependent everything was about what is going to help keep peace
20:55
what is going to make sure you don't get upset or the kids don't feel abandoned or alone or or or and so I became an
21:03
extraordinary egg Walker and so in my or eggshell Walker rather when I went to
21:09
therapy and I started doing EMDR therapy specifically I can remember my my therapist I I said I
21:17
can't even get my underwear and panties on for the day without worrying will my husband think it's attractive and if if
21:24
he doesn't will he leave me I mean I was so afraid of losing you and he goes you know you can wear
21:30
whatever underwear you want and you can always change your underwear should you want to you know become intimate with
21:36
your husband and I thought huh I never thought about it that way you know I mean and that or or
21:42
you know if you're tired you can go to bed because you don't have to wait up because he likes nights and I fall
21:47
asleep on the couch every night and he finds that annoying and so I'm like I can go to sleep if I'm tired and I can
21:54
wear whatever underwear I want matching my clothing and you know line need
21:59
requirement or whatever I was thinking but I never even made those decisions without considering what might happen I mean I was so deeply codependent and I
22:07
remember I started doing things like I'm going to go to bed you know I'm going to go to bed honey I'm tired and I'll never
22:13
forget the first time you looked at me you go what's wrong and I said I'm just tired and you go well why would you go
22:20
to bed without me and and I'm like cuz I'm tired and I'm so tired of being tired I really need to get more sleep
22:26
than I get and I mean you already started thinking oh no something's wrong
22:32
our marriage is over she's heading down a path of disconnection from me yeah
22:37
well that was my story right that was my entire story through childhood and early
22:42
adulthood was uh when are they going to leave me or when are they going to hurt me or when are they going to abandon me
22:49
um and so you know I'm always looking for those indicators and the other shoe to drop in your life you know and I
22:54
think that that all those changes in me I was just trying to learn how to put my oxygen mask on because I never knew how
23:02
and that meant for you here we go again well and for me on that walk you know when you mentioned kind of this you know
23:08
arbitrary statistic about about it and you know now I know it's integrated into
23:13
our practice right like we tell people when they come into therapy you're going to make changes and we want to make sure that the family system is aware be
23:20
careful what you wish for you're going to get it yeah and so for me it was a it
23:25
was oh no I better get busy work working on this or you know I'm I'm seeing it coming I'm highly adaptive so I'm going
23:31
to get on top of this right away and I remember the first counselor you know I'd had a lot of experiences as a child
23:39
in the mental health system whether that was inpatient outpatient counselor and I
23:45
have to say I'm sure everybody was trying their best but the theme was
23:51
what's wrong with you and it was very behavioral based like you know do better
23:57
and things will be better right people will accept you more and that just created a lot of masks it created a lot
24:03
of behaviorism it wasn't really congruent uh with my nervous system right and so I
24:09
remember the first counselor I went to I went to her for a very short time she wasn't an EMDR counselor but I was we
24:14
were just doing history taking and I was telling her you know I was smoking a pack of cigarettes a day by the time I was 11 and uh our youngest son uh he was
24:23
about the same age and she stopped me and she's like well you know stop what would you do if your son came home and
24:28
he was smoking a pack of cigarettes today a day and I was like oh that would never happen right like I would have
24:34
addressed like that's that's so weird and that was the first time I had any
24:40
context that it wasn't me right like that who lets their child smoke
24:46
cigarettes and I'll never forget the time you told me I just wasn't allowed to steal my dad's and I had to do it outside that was the rule and I'm like
24:53
you're 10 I had to buy my own cigarettes right that and and there was no conflict it was like like oh you smoke you know
24:59
don't take my cigarettes and go outside I I you know it's like a breakfast club I literally would get like a carton of
25:04
cigarettes at Christmas right as a young child I bet those were a Christmas gift
25:10
right you know what I got for Christmas this year it was a bannering year at the old Bender family I got a carton of
25:17
cigarettes the old man grabbed me said hey smoke up Johnny okay so go home and cry to your
25:23
daddy don't cry here okay and to me that was just my life um so this was the first time I had context even though I
25:30
would never imagine that life for my children it was the first time I had context that my parents were
25:37
just not the best parents it was it was a bit negligent and uh and that really blew my
25:44
mind and kind of opened up the depths of which I was injured and the type of work
25:52
I needed to do and so I sought an EMDR therapist um um my first one didn't work
26:00
out very well I um I think with her I think she kind of
26:06
overidentified with this kind of military first resp responder PTSD approach and so it was just really
26:14
accentuating the the things that are outside that I need to adapt to and it wasn't addressing the complex PTSD I had
26:21
which was what was going on inside of me and not my environment and this was at a
26:26
time of life where I you know I was about 40 years old my father had just passed away which brought up a lot of
26:33
stuff he was extremely powerless and I was the only one of the only people that care for him in his last days so there
26:39
was lusion emotions in that in that and and responsibility and Duty and
26:45
obligation and uh then he left me with a huge mess that you know robbed two years
26:51
of my life at the same time we're having marital conflict I was traveling a lot for work our oldest son was in an
26:57
Airborne combat medic who was deployed to Afghanistan I couldn't answer the phone uh people knew not to come to our
27:04
house unattended and ring the doorbell because I would just go into a panic that something was wrong so my nervous
27:10
system was just on tilt I was out of capacity and I remember he was coming
27:15
home and at the time the Army uh didn't really tell you exactly what day to be there to greet him you know they kind of
27:20
give you a window and uh he's coming into uh North Carolina which is where my
27:26
mother and sister live so we decided to camp out with them the area for a week
27:32
like literally stay in my family's house for a week while we waited for the phone call to go get him and in hindsight that
27:39
was a really bad idea it brought up it just exacerbated the problems and uh my
27:45
son arrives he's on tilt excited to be home and wants his car wants his stuff
27:50
and we also it was like come wait come wait so we're like also sleep deprived
27:55
on top of nervous because you know I'm going to tell a little bit behind this like a couple of weeks before he had
28:03
called and told us about a near-death experience where he had almost he had a
28:10
buddy of his had stepped on an IED he had been blasted himself and he was blast yeah and so he can't save the guy
28:15
he's the medic so he's so traumatized and we just wanted him out of there yeah it just both of us were in total panic
28:22
over get him the hell out of there was my son home and um so I I remember the
28:27
day he came home and uh the plane lands it was so bad it's like the the the
28:32
tires on the plane caught on fire right cuz it was so hot and you know we're waiting for like an extra hour while
28:39
they cool the tires before they de play it was just you know on top it was like this crazy janga stack and then he gets
28:45
off the plane and we'd had a weekend plan for the family to reunite and all he wanted to do was get his stuff and
28:51
long story short I ended up sleep deprived up with him for 2 days um and
28:56
we finally meet up with the family and Raleigh
29:02
and uh I remember getting in a fight with you over
29:09
Q-tips just Q-tips and um we're just in our normal cycle of just going back and
29:16
forth placing blame and escalating and I'm standing there in you're sitting in
29:21
a chair and I think you'd had enough and you came flying up out of the chair in my face
29:28
you were being really rageful at that I was awful I was awful my normal awful
29:34
triggered self and something about you coming up and flying at me and I said to
29:40
you what are you going to do hit me I mean I taunted you honestly and I did
29:46
um I remember now um there's a scene in the movie Anchor Man where uh Ron
29:53
bergundy loses his dog and he's in this phone booth and he's just in a panic and
29:59
he's calling for help and he's like I'm locked in this glass box of emotion and I use that all the time now because I
30:05
realized that dissociative compartmentalized self uh at that time that I was locked that the
30:12
the true me was locked in this glass box of emotion and I remember my hand coming
30:17
up and grabbing you by the face and almost lifting you and panicked
30:25
inside to stop and Powerless to do so and I remember throwing you at the
30:33
bed and you bouncing off the bed and then flying towards this glass end table
30:40
and you know one side effect of my trauma is that I just see things happen
30:46
before they happen and I just in that moment I I thought I was watching myself
30:52
kill you that I you know I I saw and and you missed that t table by an
30:58
inch and I remember just dropping to my
31:04
knees um I knew I had uh I had failed to
31:11
contain the pressure that I had contained for so long and I had just
31:17
lost everything that mattered to me and uh I know you were in shock and I
31:25
remember leaving the room we had a joint rooms with uh with my son who had just returned from Afghanistan and he heard
31:32
all of this and I walked into the room also in shock and I remember he looked
31:37
at me and he's like Dad mom's not the threat she's just
31:44
not she's just not a threat and um you know the the one thing
31:50
I got from the counselor I'd been seeing at the time was this uh analogy of this
31:55
movie Battleship not my favorite movie um for a couple of reasons but you know it's it's this
32:02
movie about an alien invasion and one of the reasons I didn't like it is that the USS Missouri a battleship uh is a
32:09
centerpiece in the movie and I served on that ship uh uh during the Gulf War I
32:14
was a combat vet from that ship and of course they didn't get it right on the ship but one thing that movie did get
32:20
right was that the aliens their threat detection system they they weren't just destructive they
32:25
had a mission and when they would see a threat they would assess the threat and
32:31
the targets would get highlighted as green yellow and red and if they were red they would engage him and if they were yellow they would watch them and
32:38
remember this one particular scene where you know one of the aliens kind of attacks you know people and you know the
32:46
people would put the weapons down and it would go from red to yellow and I was
32:51
like that's that's what's missing in me is once I see red your sensors are all
32:57
I'm done I can't deescalate and you see red when it's really green yeah like you
33:03
don't you don't actually have a weapon right you just the only weapon that you have is my attachment my and my fear of
33:11
losing that connection right and thankfully you had a lot of Grace I
33:17
think uh you know it's your story to tell but well if I can say I knew in that moment that wasn't you yeah I was
33:24
like I don't know where my husband went because yeah he loses his and he's controlling and he's you know whatever
33:31
but he's not violent he's never been violent to me he's not violent to our kids this was he was just scary and I
33:37
never was afraid cuz I'd never been hit in my life before and so I never was afraid of you or really anybody and so
33:44
I'm like oh what happened to him where did he go so I knew I knew that and I
33:50
also had been through weekend one of EMDR training and was starting to become a trauma therapist in my own right so I
33:55
knew you were dissociated you weren't you you and so I had cognitive information and it was incredibly not
34:01
okay so both things were true at the same time well and I know where I went I was in the glass box of emotion right I
34:08
was on autopilot I have this analogy now of uh you know one of the ways that I survived my childhood and I talked about
34:14
that kind of dissociation that I had is with violence as a young boy is that you
34:19
know my body is like this fighter jet and this cockpit with all of this Telemetry and signals and information
34:25
and it was so horri I had to pull the ejection lever and but
34:31
I've just been kind of attached to my body with a tether right and not in
34:37
control and trying and wishing um and uh not in the cockpit not in the cockpit
34:43
though and so you know my mental health Journey has been you know learning how to
34:49
tolerate you know and and it's not just a fighter jet it's a fighter jet that is on fire like it's remarkable that it's
34:55
even flying that it's still still in the air and so it makes sense to eject but you know my journey has been I got to
35:01
crawl back in there and learn how to tolerate it and learn how to troubleshoot all of those indicators and
35:07
get control of the vessel right right which is your body yeah and um and so I
35:13
think that weekend Raleigh you know led to a period of
35:19
surrender of uh you know Decades of me going I can fix it I can control it I
35:26
can manage the behaviors and real I I would say another thing that happened was a metamorphosis of because you know
35:33
it's not that I hadn't said it's too much you're too controlling you need to let go like those things have been said
35:38
for a decade but you couldn't see it and I remember you saying I see it you said it to me I see
35:45
it well and if I could I mean it wasn't that I couldn't see it it's
35:51
that I thought that I was the only one that could fix it m
35:57
and I didn't see the value or the ability for others to help and to
36:02
understand it and I think there's also there was a lot of blame too because that's how we discharge our pain and discomfort and so when things would
36:09
would be go Ary you know my experience was you know he shouldn't have done this you shouldn't have done that why are you
36:15
you know there was definitely blame there and so it was like well you know I I remember thinking like he can't he
36:21
can't see that this response is too big for this scenario typically afterwards
36:27
some sometimes take accountability for those moments but but like in the moments there was no getting through to
36:32
you and this Mo that day was that fall down day you know you crawling back and laying your head in my lap I mean I I
36:40
was like he you know he's there's no way he doesn't see it now well it was and again I I don't think it was that I
36:46
didn't see it I I think that I I knew when I failed to rise I knew when I let
36:54
other people down or things got too big I think I was misguided in that I could
36:59
overcompensate for those things in other ways and I also think that because I
37:07
was my perspective was was based on trauma sure that there was a lot of
37:13
things that I thought were ecologically valid right well right that it wasn't just me that it was the environment and
37:20
I think my first um you know EMDR therapist was really kind of It kind of
37:26
reinforced that oh there's all these ecological things of course you're responding that way of course you know
37:32
you're escalating and you're seeing the damage but we weren't doing the repair and we weren't connecting it to my early
37:37
childhood story right we were really approaching it from like the first responder perspective or you know the
37:44
military of course you're hurt because the bomb went off but we weren't looking at you know all of the damage so I
37:49
remember we came back our whole trip it was just I was like priority urgent and
37:55
important priority number one is is getting to the core of what what's going
38:02
on with me um I owed it to you I I knew at this point it it was definitely on me
38:07
and there was no ecological reason for me to do what I did and thank God I um
38:14
I'd already kind of connected with another provider and I was able um to find an EMDR therapist who is a
38:23
real Craftsman she's she's very um attachment informed and
38:30
intelligent and studied and she also understood dissociation you know and and
38:36
as we began to know each other we realized that I met the criteria for dissociative identity
38:42
disorder thank you so much for tuning in today I know that was a whole lot of vulnerability and I hope that you found
38:49
it helpful we will be showing you a part two of this episode so please make sure you catch that uh cuz there's so much
38:56
more to come from this awesome man p horo and I would like to remind you to
39:02
make sure to lead with love it'll never steare you [Music]
39:24
wrong
#Counseling Services
#Men's Health
#Mental Health
#Troubled Relationships