Episode 11- Kristen

Kristen Walker, a licensed marriage and family therapist, shares her profound journey through chronic illness, Lyme disease, and mental health recovery. This episode explores the impact of chronic illness on identity, the healing power of EMDR therapy, and practical strategies for resilience and self-love.

You can connect with Kristen regarding therapeutic support at www.eastvalleyfamilytherapy.com

This podcast is dedicated in loving memory of Declan Shaw ONeil and Jennifer Lynn Barry <3 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey everyone. Welcome to episode 11 of Grief and Gratitude. It's your host, Mandy, and I'm here with Crystal. Hi, Mandy. Good to see you.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

11, right? We've made it to episode 11, which is pretty great. We're here today with Kristen Walker. She's a licensed marriage and family therapist. She's also someone I met uh over 25 years ago at a daycare. So she knew not only me, but my twin sister, who, you know, my story was about. Kristen is here with us today to talk about chronic illness and how it's changed her. So, Kristen, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Thank you. Thank you guys for having me. It's such a blessing. It's always, well, just jump in, like it's always hard to know who to talk to or who to like really share your story with around grief. And for me, it's around the grief of myself, like learning how to um live with a chronic illness for such an extended period period of time, like learning how to let go of this version of myself that I used to know. So let me go ahead and jump in. Yes, I met Crystal, oh my gosh, back in the early 2000s, right? Like 1999,000. Yes. Prior to that, I had just come back from Arizona. So let me even rewind further. I am a native of Vermont, born and raised. And in 1997, I graduated from Trinity College with a degree uh in elementary education and psychology. And I moved out to Arizona to start teaching on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. So my very first classroom was a sixth grade group of kiddos, and to this day I am still friends with them. Through that process, I met my um by then partner, and we moved back to Vermont. So I went out to the reservation as part of Mercy Corps, which was affiliated with a program called AmeriCorps. I don't know if we hear much about that anymore. And I was volunteering as a teacher on the Catholic school grounds on the reservation. And so I made $200 a month. But as a result of that, I was able to pay off a good chunk of my student loans from my bachelor program. And then through that process, I met my partner, and we decided at the end of my term to move back to Vermont and see what we could do. And in that process, I met Crystal when I started working second shift at a daycare with her. And oh, what an experience that was to even learn that that was an option and then to embrace it and work through with all of these kids. And Crystal and I just developed a great relationship and we hung out outside of work and bonded and had so much fun and all those things. So then fast forward to I think 2001, we decided to go back to Arizona and try to, because in Vermont it was really hard to get a public teaching position back then. And then in Arizona, I knew I could. So I went back to Arizona and started teaching at the public school back on the reservation. Um, let's see. So I'm just trying to keep all this organized. So in and I taught back in Arizona for 10 years, and then in 2011, we decided again to go back to Vermont. My family is all still there. My mom, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my brothers, yada yada. So we went back to there and um I ended up getting a job at Hardwick Elementary School as their special educator and school counselor because during the time in Arizona, I went back to school and got another um two more master's degrees, one in special education, one in school counseling, and started working in Hardwick. And then in 2011, I got pregnant. And all this time within my personal life, we were trying to get pregnant and I couldn't. So here I am. I think I was 37 when I finally got pregnant with my daughter, and had her in 2012. Six months later, I vividly remember trying to pull myself up two flights of stairs at Hardwick Elementary School. I couldn't do it. And this was so I had her in July of 2012. This was October of 2012. I was so winded, I felt like I was gonna pass out. I was weak, I was dizzy, and I was like, something's not right. So I went and saw my doctor and I was like, is this normal pregnancy stuff? Is my body still trying to acclimate and get its shape back and all these things? And she ended up testing me for Lyme disease, and I tested positive. I had no idea about Lyme disease. I didn't even know it existed. I was so ignorant and come to find out like it's so prominent in the East Coast states. And I remember one of my friends telling me, You've got to get tested. Make sure you get 30 days of antibiotics. Don't let them just give you a week. You need all the antibiotics in your system, you need to fight it. And at this point, I'm overwhelmed. I have a newborn baby. I'm trying to breastfeed, and I'm learning that I have a disease. And I had no idea what was going on. Within a month's time, uh, I think my milk dried up. I could no longer breastfeed. Um, fast forward to a couple months later, I started feeling so weak in my arms. I couldn't even carry my daughter. Uh, there was one day when I had to call my her dad home and and he had to take care of her because I couldn't do it. I was so afraid of dropping her. Like I remember wearing braces on my arms with the pain being so intense. So that was learning how and what Lyme disease was through multiple rounds of treatment, holistic treatment, fighting with every doctor, tooth and nail, to be seen, to be heard. And I even had my primary doctor say, Oh, you had the normal treatment, you're fine. I don't know what's wrong with you. I was like, Well, that's not right because I still feel this way. I had no milk, I couldn't move. All the pain in my body was so intense all the time. The only way I can describe it is it felt like my body was stiffening up and turning into stone and that someone was sitting on top of me. And on those days, it was so crippling, I was bedridden, I couldn't move. And then here I have my newborn daughter that I'm obligated to take care of. So here I'm I'm trying to layer these pieces of grief that were starting to grow. So I'm learning how to navigate a chronic illness. I'm trying to be a new mom, and I felt like I was failing. And I couldn't, I I sucked at being a wife for sure, because like I was barely holding on to take care of myself. Let's see, in 2000, so I was going to multiple treatments. I started seeing Lyme literate doctors both in the Chittenden County, and then I just started driving two to three hours to um, oh no, I can't remember the name. It's called Sojourn. Winchester? Down South Vermont, is that right? Sojourn. And I started seeing treatments for um getting treatments holistically with them. Of course, none of that was covered under insurance. So every time I would have a visit, I was shelling out four to five hundred dollars. I started to feel a little bit better. And then through further research, well, I got a great job in 2014. I landed a job for the Milton School District called the Mental Health Grant Coordinator. And what they had just gotten awarded from the federal government a million-dollar grant to beef up their school counseling program. And I got chosen out of everybody else to run the grant, to implement it. I was hiring, I was supervising, I was managing the grant and all the funding. It was it was such a great job. I loved it so much. And in that time we moved to Westford, which was actually my hometown where I was born and raised, and I was living in this great logged cabin, and and then uh, but still my my body was failing. Like I was missing work because I couldn't go in when it was super cold. Uh the arthritis-like symptoms would would kick in really strong, brain fog, anxiety started growing, depression started growing, just feeling like I the big burden word constantly come such a burden. No one wants to take care of me. I'm failing as a mom. So all those negative thoughts are starting to pour in. So in 2015, after much consideration, and my my daughter's father also getting diagnosed with Lyme disease because he got bit, um, we decided to move back to Arizona because it became necessary for the weather. It is warmer while the extreme heat is bad for us too. The extreme cold is really bad. Like it really hurts. Like the pins and needles kind of like yucky. So in 2015, we moved back to Arizona. I was able to get a local public school school counseling job, had that job for a year, and I missed a lot of work. My disease is still happening. When through this time, I've also tried to apply for disability twice now and got denied both times. Um, so at the end of 2000, this 2015-16 school year, they decided not to renew my contract. This was the first time ever in my entire life that I got fired from a job. And I've been working since I was like 12 because I've started babysitting. And I never got fired from anything. But that was a really big blow. Like that further exemplified those negative thoughts about myself, like that I was no good, I'm a burden, I'm worthless, and and I didn't know how to survive. At this point, my my ex is my now ex was also like his health was failing, but frustrations were starting to grow in me with that because he wasn't doing anything to help himself. And here I am trying to try all these natural treatments, I'm trying to change what I'm eating, I'm trying to move, I'm trying to be proactive and preventative as much as possible. Whereas he's just, you know, just defeated also in that mental state, but not trying to pull himself out of it. So in 2016, I got a name of a disability lawyer and filed for disability again because now I had some evidence that said you lost your job because of your disease. And then toward the middle of that summer, I was awarded disability, but there was a big six-month period of time where we were living hand, foot, and mouth. Like our cupboards were empty. We had to access all the resources within our community to get food to be able to feed our daughter. We lost our home, we had to foreclose, we lost vehicles that were repossessed. We had nothing, and I had no way to like like keep going. And and I felt like my now ex was just he had already given up too. And neither one of us were really supporting each other in that, but just kind of butting heads with it. And and so I started going deeper into depression. And then toward the end of that year, and even after I got awarded the disability, I started becoming suicidal. And at that point in time, I did choose to go to therapy for myself to work through these pieces. And it was at that time that I found out about a modality called EMDR. And this is my shameless plug, but EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization reprocessing. And it was a modality that was originally designed to help veterans coming back from the war with PTSD. Now it's universally applied for anybody with multiple diagnoses that helps to clear out the negative cognitions you might have in your head. It helps to alleviate the survival mode that automatically kicks in when you're triggered. And I can stand here and testify that after six years of that therapy, I'm in a better place, a much better place. That doesn't mean that I don't have regression. That doesn't mean that I don't have hard days, but mentally I know that I'm worth it. Mentally, I know that I deserve everything that I've fought for because I've had to climb out of those depths of depression. I've had to look at myself and look at the people around me and be like, what do I have worth fighting for? Because I know there were times when I didn't feel I had anything left. There was nothing worth fighting for. I would rather take my life than continue to be a burden for my family. So in that time, also while going to therapy, while feeling in this depressed state, I stopped driving. My anxiety was so high. Like I said, I did get awarded the disability, but I also chose to go back to college. And here comes my third master's degree in marriage and family therapy. And I was able to complete that master's degree in five years. And here's why is because that college worked with me to give me a 504 accommodation plan. And I was able to extend out the course load and the length of time I had to complete assignments, and they worked with me because of my disability. So I would tell any adult questioning whether they can go back to college to try, to try because colleges also have to work with you if you have a chronic illness. Having this chronic illness has taught me so much about myself, but to this day, 13 years later, I still have moments of grief where I'm like, where was that person that I once knew? That person that could work all day and then go out and socialize with her friends afterwards, that could work through the weekends to get paperwork and things done and still like go off and have adventures now. There's this thing called a spoon theory. And I don't know if you've heard of that, but usually like a typical person would have eight to ten spoons in a day. If I'm feeling healthy, I have six. And things that would maybe take like a quarter of a spoon for a typical human that doesn't have an illness, like for me, taking a shower would take like one spoon on a good day, maybe two to three spoons on a bad day. So I still have bad days. I still have days where if the weather, the moon, things like that, high levels of stress, they all exacerbate my symptoms and it comes on really strong where I still do have to take time off. But going into this field has helped me have the flexibility that I need. It lets me empathize and understand where my clients are coming from that might be elderly, that might have a chronic illness. And it's taught me how to love myself with every piece that is present for me today, even though I miss, I miss that person that used to be. I miss because like constantly, day to day, I'm still reminded, oh, you could keep going. Like, oh, you're fine. Just hang out with us. I can't. I don't have anything left. Often my social life is what is lacking right now in my present day. Like I can go to work, I can pretty consistently like average, you know, full time, but there are days in my week, again, because of stress levels or the weather or things like that, that I I have to cancel, but I have flexibility to reschedule. So my clients are amazing to work with me in that piece. And I, oh, just to end on everything. So in 2021, I graduated with my master's degree. In 20, right in that same year, I got my associate license. So I passed my exam. And then just last year in 2025, I became independently licensed. So that means I completed all my supervision hours. And I don't know if you're familiar with LMFT, but it is pretty grueling to get all those hours. Like you have to have 1900 hours just at relational. And that's working with couples and families and stuff. But I wouldn't have it any other way. Part of the reason why I chose to go into marriage and family therapy is because I felt like I couldn't do enough in the school system. And so I do specialize in treating in children and adolescents, but I work with families and couples and individuals as well. So that's kind of my story in a nutshell. Oh, let me kind of recap too, because like what helped to pull me from the depths not only was therapy really helpful, but I started having this shift of like positivity. I would get like my mom or my ex-mother-in-law, or people would like bombard me with like the memes or like little quotes, like positive things, like shifting your mindset or attracting more of what you want. At first, I was like, quit sending me these things. I don't want them. Like I'm not ready to hear them. I'm not ready to read them, but they kept coming. And and finally, like my mind started opening. And I was like, okay. And then I started noticing. Once I think it all kind of started gradually shifting once I was awarded the disability, because I wasn't in such a state of financial stress that I could start opening my eyes to be like, okay, how can I heal myself internally? What can I do that I can control right now that to help those pieces? And that was really what happens, that shift. Like I started keeping a gratitude journal, writing down three to five things, even if it was the same three to five things every damn day. I wrote them down and and that helped my mind to grow. That helped my mind to shift and it helped me to look for the things in every day to be grateful for. I took a lot of mindfulness training through my college too, and that also helped me because I applied those things. How can I be more present? How can I be more present and grateful for this moment instead of focusing on what was or where I hoped I was or how I may have failed, or you know, all those negative pieces that creep in. And like I said, they do still creep in. I do still have bad days, I do still have moments of regression, I do still like curse out this disease probably once a month, every time the full moon comes. But it's taught me a lot about myself and and honestly, I wouldn't change my journey.

SPEAKER_03 16:35

Thank you so much, Kristen, um, for sharing. I think this is the first story we've heard too. There's like so many layers of grief, right? From loss of self, right? Who you knew yourself to be before, and then also it almost like not being heard or understood, and then having to fight for yourself, but not feeling like yourself, the denial of disability, the partner, the end of the partner, the working so hard to have a child, finally getting there at 37, and then this stepping in, right? I think you've over the years had to manage a great, great deal of grief. So it's it's also amazing to hear you say you wouldn't change it, right? That it is it is your journey, and you've learned so much in that, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:31

I didn't really have a question. I just had two things that I wanted to mention. One was just the gratitude journal, which I think is wonderful, and I think everybody really needs to do take at least three things and the positive thinking and how that really does change your thinking instead of instead of thinking negative, just change it to positive and how it it really changes your perspective over time. And then the other thing was um that I never even thought about the 504 plan for college. I don't think a lot of people know about that. And I'm really glad that you brought that up because hopefully people listening um will understand and and share with others that that is a possibility. Because I know, well, my daughter has a 504, and I didn't know that they have those for college. Yeah. And my son had an IEP, and I don't know if they have those for college.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

They'll give you modifications, but not as not as applicable as as a 504 plan would be. Honestly, a 504 might transition easier because you you do exit out from an IEP at 21, I believe, depending on the disability.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

But a 504 follows you forever.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Yeah. So no, that's wonderful. And I just wanted to bring that to attention so people know that 504 plans are possible in college.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

So that that's really wonderful. And thank you for mentioning that.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

Yeah. Thank you. And is that something you knew going in like when you were applying, you knew that's something you could carry. Well, of course, because your background in education, right? That that definitely served you. I guess to go back, what really struck me was considering kind of your grief journey within trying to become pregnant, right? And you had mentioned that that took some time. So it was consistent. How long? You said it was six months, or how long after having your daughter did you begin to have medical issues?

SPEAKER_00 19:33

I didn't notice them until October. I wasn't officially diagnosed until the like right around Halloween of 2012.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

So your daughter was how old then? When you were diagnosed? Oh my gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah. So she got to breastfeed for about six months. And then, you know, like as a mom on like, I want to do it, you know, I want to go all in and do it as long as I can. I was proud for getting that much, but it's still this piece, like I that that sticks with me. And just feeling that way. Like I I feel like, you know, some of those attachment moments, like maybe I missed out on some of those pieces.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

Yeah, that was another area because if you're I know even if I'm feeling sick now with my children who are older, right? You can kind of tap out. And I'm wondering for you, especially with your education and your your want and your desire so much to be a mother, but to become unable, literally physically, mentally, emotional, unable to attach to your daughter as right from your your history. You knew you wanted to. Who were you able to rely on at that time, or could you rely on anyone if it wasn't? What did you do with that? Who did you reach out to consistent?

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Most often it was her dad if he was around. He was often traveling, and this was mostly in Vermont. So we were living at the time in Morrisville and Johnson, and he's traveling like to Chittenden County for work to do construction and stuff. So we had quite a lengthy drive if he was far away. I I like I said, I remember like that excruciating pain down my arms. Like I couldn't even lift her car seat out of the car to bring her in the house. It took both hands. And I think I even at that time I had pulled a muscle because I was doing it wrong or I was already weak. And like with Lyme, it eats away at all your system. So it eats away at your nervous system, it eats away at your joints, the muscles, like it just starts slowly decaying things unless you do something to combat it. And so that's the antibiotics help with that. But the longer the lime stays in your system, the more of an opportunity it has to eat and chew and like dig in and bury itself.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

And you referenced a lime literate doctor. Yeah. Because I've I've known um a handful of people, one being my mom, who is diagnosed, and I think around that I things are getting more well known, right? And well cared for, as most things do medically. But I'm wondering what brought you to a Lyme literate doctor? Like how was it your own research? Was it someone you met? How did you find the right doctor for you to care for you?

SPEAKER_00 22:10

I started joining social support groups like on Facebook and stuff and then going in person. And then they they recommended, like I said, when my friend Maggie was telling me about it, she's like, You've got to get antibiotics. Cause at first they were like, You just need a week of antibiotics and you're gonna be fine. Well, I went back to my primary doctor and said, No, I want 30 days, and then let's see if I'm gonna be fine. Because that was what Maggie had said to do, like, fight for that piece. I go back to her in 30 days, and I'm like, and that's at the point where my milk had dried up and I still felt awful. She's like, Well, I don't know what your problem is. You should be fine by now. We did the standard protocol, and that's when I was like, okay, I need to find a Lyme literate doctor. So that's I just started, you know, combing and researching and trying to find anything I could grab my hands on. So I did find a local Lyme literate doctor in Colchester, started to see her that was covered by insurance, but that was more rounds of antibiotics. And I don't know if you guys have been on consistent rounds of antibiotics, what it does to your system. So I'm trying to feed probiotics and I couldn't keep up with the antibiotics at one point. Doxycycline was the worst. Like if I was out in the sun, I just started feeling nauseous and like I was gonna faint and pass out. So I'm taking doxycycline, being treated by the Colchester doctor, and then started traveling to Sojourns in Winchester. And I remember driving down there and like just feeling so nauseous and so like carcassic. And I hadn't had that happen since I was a little kid. And I just ugh the sun, it was that that was nasty. So I stopped doing the antibiotics and shifted to the homeopathic route. And I started with cowed a cowdin protocol. Every month I went down to sojourn's it, like I said, it was about $400. And then I added in um this thing called raindrop therapy, which is actually like massage therapy, but she was using herbs and oils on my back, and that was supposed to pull out toxins and oh my god, it just felt amazing. And then I found a Lyme literate physical therapist, which they work out of PT360, which are they're amazing. So I don't know if you're familiar with PT360 and again Chinton County, but I started going there. They had pool, I got I started doing Tai Chi in the pool, they have a biomat and I laid on that. Like I got massaged in physical therapy, you never hear about that. But for Lime's, that's so helpful because it releases toxins and and pulls out the knots and things like that, and it just keeps everything flowing the way it needs to. But if it gets stopped or stuck up, then that's when the pain and inflammation rises. So yeah, I did I did those treatments. And then when we came back to Arizona, I did another round of cowdim protocol. And so I've done that two times, and you do that for nine months at a time, which it consists of taking these tinctures, drinking them 30 minutes before every meal, and you you tear them based on which week you're in to increase the level, and all these tinctures are so again supposed to pull out toxins, kill the spirochetes. So anytime uh you're doing that and burning off toxins, you're also depleting your body and draining you. So you physical exhaustion, physical pain, you've got to take detox baths, you're resting, all of those things. While I believe they helped, but oh my gosh, it was so intense to go through those different treatments. And I never knew what I was trying, like I never knew if it was the right path, but I knew I had to try something, and I knew I I couldn't keep where I was at, I couldn't stay where I was.

SPEAKER_02 25:36

So I so with Lyme disease, is it your body goes into like a remission? You always have it kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

That's to my understanding, yes. Again, it it depends on the treatment. The longer the Lyme stays in your body, the harder it is to get out. So if I had found out as soon as I had gotten bit that I had Lyme, it probably could have been treated and taken care of, and I wouldn't have been in the chronic state that I'm in now. But I had no idea. No, I don't take antibiotics anymore. And in fact, like I'm 85 to 90 percent better at this stage in my life because I believe but the natural homeopathic treatments. Now, if I have a flare-up, I can treat it with a bath. I might have to have a day of rest. Massage still does help. Um, doing lynch node drainage, dry brushing, all of those types of like homeopathic things that I can do at home can kind of keep it okay. I can be okay.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

So you mention, um, well, you tried, you weren't giving up. You tried everything and everything until you found right what worked for you. And then you also mentioned your partner also getting Lyme's disease, right? And sounds like the opposite to you, right? So I wonder, even personality-wise for each to their own, right? But for you to be a human that like you're you're a fighter. And then to see someone not fight would fight with you, like can you just speak more to that? And because would you say beforehand the the marriage felt relatively good? You're both well, I guess we don't have to go f go that way, but you know what I mean? Like, did it very much was that the thing that really drew you apart too?

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Maybe underlying it was probably a like a bigger rooted behavior that drew us apart, but it came from that place of give up, like not fighting, like just staying stuck versus trying different things that it like that defeatist attitude wore on me, but that came out in in multiple ways.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

And for you, would you say that was always kind of within your personality?

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Yeah, I I I have I mean, when you look at when I I first started like working, it was always ingrained in me. Like if I wanted things, I needed to work. Like it wasn't gonna be handed to me. I was never gonna be given anything. That's why I took the babysitters course. That's why I took the first aid course and I started babysitting, making five to ten dollars an hour, like as much as I could. That afforded me to buy my first car. Like I bought my own first set of wheels and all like nothing has ever been handed to me. I've always had to work for things. I ne I don't I don't accept handouts. Like it's so hard for me to to do that. I thought we were on the same page, my my then partner and I, I thought that we both had that drive, that determination, but through the years, and and I was married to him for 18 years, but through that, like I just saw the give up more often. Talked a good game. He duped me, but I mean, I don't want to, you know, in the event that that he listens or m or my daughter listens, I don't want to put him down. He he is a good dad.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

I just I think in relationships, and you must know now as a licensed marriage and family therapist, right, and doing the work, we can find a partner that can be a match for us and good for us in certain circumstances, and then other circumstances arise and the shit gets real. Yeah, right. And we learn no longer fit. And yes, and so for you, in in all those layers, right, of of managing your chronic illness, of being a mother, all the education you continued to pursue, which is just so commendable. And I think in some ways probably benefited you, right? That drive.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah, and it didn't like let the brain fog, because with Lyme, that's another thing that comes in, the brain fog where you almost lose cognitive abilities. I feel like me going to school kept my brain active. I was exercising my brain. And then I was also gonna say that's like I kind of touched on that suicidal piece and the anxiety piece. Like, so while I was going to school, as I mentioned, I wasn't driving because I was so anxious about everybody else on the roads. So I refused to drive for three years. But I was also like going to therapy for myself at that time, like I said, suicidal in a state of depression that I now believe was contributed or added on because of the Lyme. Like Lyme itself makes mental challenges arise. But then, of course, being in the illness and everything I had going on exacerbated that, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

And you you had mentioned that nothing really helped you get out from your grief until you tried EMDR. Can you um explain a little bit about what that is? Um, I know you explained it a little bit, but like it's not a medication. It's not like how does how is it done?

SPEAKER_00 30:46

So it's neurological. And actually, if you're really interested, I'll share a link that I use with my clients all the time that really explains EMDR perfectly through the EMDR International Association. Um but what it does is when you think about how you might have injured yourself physically, so you maybe have uh you broke your arm. What are you gonna do? You're gonna go to the hospital, you're gonna see a doctor, you're gonna get it set, you're gonna get it fixed, and you're gonna wait for it to heal, right? All of that's happening on the outside. When you get injured from trauma, same thing, but it's an internal scar. What EMDR does is heal it. EMDR takes maybe, as I mentioned, that survival mode. It takes you out of that survival mode. So you're not still automatically kicking into a fight, flight, or freeze response. Instead, it lets you slow down, assess the present situation, and then respond. So uh differentiating two words I use a lot to differentiate these pieces is reaction versus a response. In my mind, I feel that a response is more slower, it's more thought out, it's more calculated, and it's it's not giving into an initial overdrived, overwhelmed reaction that can come about as a result of a trigger. Triggers happen because of something in our past in the trauma. The best example I can give is say you might have gotten bit by a dog. Actually, I'll tell you my story. I got bit by a German shepherd when I was maybe six or seven in at my property in Vermont. And to this day, every time I see a German shepherd, I have a little bit of a like, like, like I catch my breath, right? If I hadn't healed that trauma, I would think, because of my amygdala, that every dog I come in contact with is dangerous. And my amygdala and my system is gonna go into protective mode, shut down, and tell me to run away. It's I need to flee the situation because it's dangerous. Or maybe I need to fight the dog because the dog is dangerous. Those are those automatic responses that just kick in to then protect you, to keep you safe. But it's not always grounded in the present reality, right? Because not all dogs are like that. And so with the EMDR, what it does is heal that piece to know that you can slow down, that you can assess the present moment and not have to react in that state or survive. That answer your question, I have I could keep talking.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Yeah, no, I'm just wondering, like, how is how is it performed?

SPEAKER_00 33:07

I can tell you, okay. So what happens is we use um you have bilateral stimulation. What bilateral stimulation does is cross your midline to rewire your brain to know while you're processing the traumatic experience that you're safe in the here and now, it also takes a negative belief you might have about yourself as a result of that traumatic experience and replaces it with a positive one, such as I'm not safe, I'm not worthy, some of the things I mentioned about my negative thoughts, I'm a burden, I'm no good at this, I'm not good enough. Those things often influence us after trauma. So then we want to replace it with a positive belief instead. So as we're replacing it, what's happening is you're you're going back and forth. So there's different ways you can do it. You could follow my fingers and your eyes are going back and forth to follow like the bouncing ball. We have buzzies you can put in your hand and the little buzz bounces back and forth in your hand. I often just use tapping and let the clients guide themselves so they can tap on the surface and they're just watching their hands go back and forth. All that is is bilateral stimulation. While that's going on, your brain is going back to think about that traumatic event. Your body is going back to that traumatic event, and so are your emotions. And so you're reflecting and you're processing that event to clear out the disturbance, or when I use when I do it with kiddos, the yuckiness of it to then be okay with it. We're not erasing the memory, we're not erasing the emotion or the body sensation that might be attached to it, but we're changing the way you think about it, letting your body heal from the event to know that now you're safe. Now you can assess a present situation to not know that you're safe and not have to kick into survival mode because of something that happened in. It's very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 34:54

Do you I love it? Do you know? I think EEMDR, I mean, I would say at least in Vermont over the last five years has become right, it's it's growing because it began, right, with those coming back from war with PTSD symptoms. Yep. But I've now had shared clients that have received or been suggested to EMDR who have been incarcerated for many years, right? Yes. For heals addiction, yes, addiction, sexual assault, being unable to protect a child or partner from sexual assault, secondary traumas, yes, yes, loss, loss of child, loss of partner, yes, and EMDR, to my knowledge, does something that maybe could not have been managed in talk therapy, right? Talk therapy alone for some reason wasn't doing it alone in that either combination or EMDR alone did the thing. So I think for anyone, thank you for mentioning the link. I think we should share it. Is that something you practice? Do you provide EMDR?

SPEAKER_00 36:06

I'm I'm certified to administer EMDR. I got so all the certifications, yes.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

Um I was wondering for you when you began um EMDR, what got you there? Me personally? Yeah, you or or you in practicing it, right? But first, how did you get there? And then being certified, you know, how how do you use it in your practice? How do you decide it's useful to a person?

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Most often I find that anybody that comes in to describe any type of trauma, EMDR is a great fit for them. There have been some clients that where EMDR does not fit, it it doesn't feel well. But the thing that I do love about it, and I think that's this is to circle back to my thought that I lost, is that the beautiful thing is the client doesn't have to retell the traumatic experience. They process it on their own. I don't need to know everything that happened because that's often re-triggering for the client that experienced the trauma. But they're processing it in the EMDR on their own terms. And what I'm doing is helping them to get in touch with their thoughts, to really get in touch with their body because that's really important. There's such a somatic piece going on where the trauma is stored, as well as paying attention to those feelings that are attached to it. They're just going through the event, replaying it like a mind movie as many times as they need to, but they don't have to tell me all the details. They don't have to retell the story, which is often what's keeping the infection alive. It's gentle.

SPEAKER_03 37:36

That's yeah, with many people in the field, but also with clients, um, I've had this conversation. And what I've heard many clients say, I have this, he's mid-20s, right? He's been in incarceration, uh, abused by the system in many different ways. And I was with him the other day in a facility, and he said to me, If I have to fucking tell my story to one more person, Crystal, and it just like, like, what are we doing here? We're making someone retell and go back. And even worse, right? If you're incarcerated, I mean, here, let me leave you two in this place that you're constantly in fight or flight. So the ability for EMDR to have the choice to share as much as you want or don't want and still receive the benefit, maybe more so.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Incredible. I think that's what's and again to circle back to the first question that you asked about how did I know? Like that's what helped me to heal my own traumas was not having to retell it like every detail verbatim. Like it was more just focused on. So you also bring up an image piece too. So as a therapist with the EMDR, you're assessing the target or the traumatic experience that the client has brought into the room. And so you have them identify that negative cognition, you have them identify an image that's attached to that event, the emotions that are attached, as well as the body. And so they're paying attention and and awakening that as in connection to that traumatic experience. And then they're processing it through the bilateral stimulation. And that's how I knew, like, as I stopped, sorry to interrupt you, Mandy, um, I stopped feeling like I was in survival mode all the time. I stopped being so reactive. Like, and and this when I was in therapy was also when I started to awaken to my worth and and what I did and did deserve and didn't deserve. And that's when I did realize how I was being treated by my now ex was not okay and I wasn't gonna stand for it anymore. Did I give him every opportunity to meet me where I was at and work through his own things to take accountability? You're darn right I did. But the moment he said that therapy was worthless was the final straw. Because not only did that mean all the work I had done on myself personally was worthless in his eyes, but also meant my profession was worthless in his eyes.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

Asking about EMDR, but I just find it very interesting. You you said it was the only thing that really helped you. What had you tried before? Where you you taught therapy, medications? Yep. Yeah. And then your doctor decided let's try this. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

Yeah. They um where I was going to therapy, one of the therapists had just become certified, and they're like, I think you would be a great fit. And they also knew, like, through this whole process, that I was going to college and I was becoming a therapist. They knew what my background was. So they're like, Yeah, they took me on. And now it's unfortunate that that therapist doesn't practice in town anymore.

SPEAKER_03 40:40

So and just to rewind a second to the piece where you said your partner, him saying that, and it's also your profession, right? I'd never really thought about it that way, but it's like someone saying politics doesn't matter when politics takes a right away from a human being, right? So of course, if that is your profession, that person is telling you that is meaningless and that directly impacts how they see you and it changes things. Yeah, I had never, I've never thought of that. And it, yeah, it's very much like the whole politics is just politics. Well, no, it's not, right? Here we are. I wanted to ask with the EMDR in the beginning of your story, you are really describing the anticipatory anxiety, I believe, where because it was almost like, is this am I gonna make it today? Am I gonna make it today? Right? What is it? So you're constantly in fight or flight. Do you believe, had you known of EMDR sooner, that that would have been supportive in your journey, or it wasn't until later in your journey that you needed EMDR?

SPEAKER_00 41:51

I think when I got it was the perfect time, in all honesty, because going through the therapy and EMDR. So, like in terms of the timeline piece, I was in therapy. By the time I was ready to graduate and start, I had to travel like two hours to start my internship because there was no supervisors local to me. I had to start driving. I had to stay down in the valley with family. So I pushed myself. But I know it was because I was actively in therapy, getting EMDR, that allowed me to know that I was okay to do it. But boy, was it scary. I remember just, oh man, just get back in the car after three years of not driving. Like it was, I was, yeah. Even to this day, like pulling out in front of someone or pulling across traffic, like I will wait extra long. And I know it makes people mad behind me, but my life matters and I don't care.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

Absolutely. Yeah, no, absolutely. I wanted to bring it to gratitude. When you think of back on your journey, what are you most grateful for? Or what advice would you have to someone supporting someone with chronic illness? What was the most helpful or supportive of you to get you through your journey?

SPEAKER_00 43:02

I really do believe it is just focusing on those moments that you can take as a blessing in every day. And I'm not gonna lie, there were some days where all I was grateful for was the sun shine, shone, shown, the sun shone in that day. Or or like I woke up. Maybe I was bedridden all day, but I was awake. And there were days, day after day, I was writing the same thing. Like I went to sleep, I woke up, my daughter's here. You know, whatever it was, even if it seems like I was scraping the bottom of the barrel, I was grateful for it. And again, the more my eyes opened to look for those blessings in every day, the more I was able to see. I kept seeing more of them in terms of like, like I said, my daughter made it to school today, or she had a great day. Like, even if it was me being grateful for what she was experiencing, she almost helped me heal in that regard because I could look through her eyes and see the freshness, the newness of life, and live vicariously. Through her, you know, like especially around the holiday season, because that was hard, right? Because, like, you want to do all the things that again a parent is expected to do through the holidays, but even just staying up all night on Christmas Eve to wrap presents and get them under the tree before she woke up was such an arduous task with someone that's so chronically ill. You're always so tired. Her birthdays, even we would try to go over the top, but man, we were depleted the next week just to take care of the birthday and to have a party to give her something that we knew she deserved and and we wanted to do it, but just the toll that it took on us afterwards.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

You did. Well, and I think it centered on finding something, yeah. Right? Something to be positive of and holding that and writing that down. Mandy, I don't know if it did for you, but I'm thinking back our episode 10. This amazing man, Dan, did an episode with us. It will be out on Sunday. And he, you know, I think stereotypically, like men and women can be different. And sometimes for him, what he expressed was kind of that came later to be positive because he was so angry. And the memes, no way he would have shut that shit down. Like the, you know, like how for females, right? I think sometimes it's hard to know if you're on the other side of things. Should I continue to push, or is what is this person telling me to do? Right. And it sounds like in your case, the opposite of what I think Dan was saying, like you people just continued. And those that loved you and cared for you maybe knew, and they just kept sending the thing. And eventually it ended up working for you.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

And then you were writing down when I wanted to, it was my boundary. Like that was my choice. I didn't have to open it. And while I might have stewed and hemmed and hawed on the inside, it wasn't like I vocalized it to them. And it really was my mother-in-law and my mom. I was like, cut it out. But like you said, like their intentions were best. And to like I've been reflecting on that piece, like about grief in and of itself. It is so hard to know how to help someone through grief. But if you can just hold space in some way for them while they're grieving, I think just be there, just be present in it with them is often the best thing that you can do, or push a little bit out of their comfort zone because they're gonna start to see that sunshine again for them. And that's what it took for me was something to let my eyes open up to the sun to see, to feel.

SPEAKER_03 46:36

I think that's a great thing to end on. Yeah, absolutely. Do you wanna say we will in the show notes, Kristen? We're gonna share your practice. I'm gonna reach out to you too. But being a licensed marriage and family therapist, there's a huge need. And from this um discussion with you, I hear, right, there's many modalities you work with and also um a holistic approach as well, right? And being open to that. So Kristen does practice in Arizona and also provides virtual therapy to those in Vermont. We'll have that in the show notes. So please look into that. And Kristen, thank you so much for sharing your story. Yes, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Thank you for having me.