Trauma Talk with Final Girl Em

Katrina Mondragon, MS, LPC, LMHC and Special Guest Final Girl Em!!!

Sponsored by Katrina Mondragon, PLLC (Est. 2016)

Every Friday episodes are released of Therapy Unlocked, a podcast by IDK, where we work to unlock the mind- one conversation at a time.

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

I don't know if I actually want this to be posted or not, but I want trauma thrown out as a diagnostic. I do too. I don't think it's appropriate because I don't think it's a disorder in the way that it's portrayed. But go ahead. Trauma can cause a lot of symptoms. But had I not been labeled as a battered woman, I probably would have gotten care a whole lot earlier for my narcolepsy and my pots and all the other things that were going on with me that had a 100% verifiable medical cause.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

I dislike that we separate the medical from the mental because the mind and body are connected as Vanderkoelk and many other psychologists have shown through their work. Yeah. If we treat the whole body, we can figure it out a whole lot better. And if we just blame, oh, you were trauma, you were involved in trauma, so you must have been traumatized. I'm sorry, not everybody who experiences trauma gets traumatized.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Well, and I'm not saying this is the reason, but strangulation can lead to pots and getting hit on the head can lead to narcolepsy. Okay, so there was trauma there. A medical doctor should have said, hey, there was trauma there. But because there was trauma there, I need to do my due diligence to check for harm to the body, not label it as trauma or hysteria and send you on your merry way. I have spent the majority of my life in abject physical misery. Like, I would not have because I started going to the doctor when I was supposed to. I went to the doctor and I told my doctor, this is what's happening to me, or this is what's happening to me, or this is how I feel. I took detailed notes. I made records and I brought those things with me. And almost every single time I was kicked back to a mental health concern, a change in my mental health medication, a referral to therapy, a referral to psychiatry. Yet another question oh, is it this? Is it this?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Is it and the narcolepsy diagnosis? What is it most uh misdiagnoses?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Depression.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

You're not depressed. I am not depressed.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

I'm not depressed. I have never, I have never met the criteria of thought processes for someone who is depressed. Every evaluation I've ever had, you sit down at the time of therapy, you have an evaluation, you talk about your thought processes. No, I think you know because you call me when you're stressed out. I am overtly positive. Right. She gets me to laugh when I'm crying. It's great. I'm overtly I in fact, ominous positivity might be my brand. It will work out because it has to.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

I'm more cautiously optimistic. Like, can figure this out. I just don't necessarily know yet.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

I'm delusionally confident I will figure it out. In fact, I I have even said before, you know, I don't have it right now, but I believe in myself, so I'll go ahead and do that, and then followed through and gotten the thing done. That is not the behavior of a depressed person. Not that I have anything against right.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

But major depressive disorder is a lot more along the lines of hopelessness, healthlessness, worthlessness, negative automatic thoughts, and intrusive images and thoughts that just will be loud sometimes, is what I hear people describe.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Right. So I have instances like that that have been explained to me as depression. It turns out I can go into REM sleep in like less than 30 seconds, or even when I'm standing and cooking dinner. So quite often I'm literally dreaming. Like, that's just crazy bad.

unknown 3:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

So, for those of you who don't know, the narcolepsy is a new diagnosis that she's just obtained recently. And I think I have no okay, I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

I thought I had Oreo teeth. No, I did. I just recently found out that I have narcolepsy type one with catoplexy, which is a sudden loss in muscle control, and I have had that show up for many, many, many, many years. But the overall point, not so much being the narcolepsy, as I have multiple comorbidities like falling under my Ailers and Low syndrome. In more than one area where I've ended up diagnosed with a medically verifiable issue, like posterior tachycardia syndrome. Before I got the medical diagnosis, I got the hysterical woman diagnosis. Like, before I received any medical care, I first received mental health care that I did not ask for. Like, do I have mental health? Like I say, everybody does. Everybody has mental health, right? I definitely have anxiety for sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

The thing that isn't talked about though is the risks of therapy. And if you put somebody who doesn't need therapy into therapy, there is a potential to harm that person. So I don't know what your experiences were with therapy, but like there is a risk of things getting worse with therapy.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah, so I think that's an important thing to touch on. I do think that has been the case for me. I am sitting here, I just recently met with a sleep doctor, and I have been thinking on the scenario, reflecting on my life, and thinking to myself, through no fault of their own, my therapist has gaslit me during my life.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Have you ever heard cognitive behavioral therapy called like gaslighting oneself into feeling better? I like that. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

I don't know what it is, but that's the joke. I would say, I would think that acceptance and commitment therapy is kind of gaslighting yourself into feeling better. It will turn out good, accept that, you know. But that said, you know, I would describe how I couldn't get out of bed, or I'd be in bed for six to eight hours a day, or I couldn't keep up with hygiene tasks or household tasks or etc. etc. etc. And I would receive the feedback and the input that it must be because I am majorly depressed. And that feedback was wrong. It was incorrect.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

It was not wrong. So newsflash, therapists can be wrong. I've been wrong before. I think I've misdiagnosed before, and that's okay because we are human.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

So there's the danger too in those, in those seeking out your own therapeutic diagnosis, seeking out your own diagnosis for a mental health issue, having PTSD, having OCD, having whatever it is, right? Because you're also not a medical doctor.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

You're not a therapist and you're not a medical doctor. So you have to look at the problem from both sides to make sure that you know you've found the correct root cause and the correct method of treating it because it is not fun unless that are inaccurate.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

And even if somebody is not diagnosed with like, let's go borderline. Let's say somebody's not diagnosed with borderline, but a clinician is referring them to me. I work especially well with people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. And that label is so antiquated that, like, when people refer them to me, they're like, I don't mean to push this person off on you. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you don't have to apologize for sending me a referral, first of all, and second of all, like the borderline term is so outdated. If complex post-traumatic stress, not disorder, but stop at stress, if complex stress, complex post-traumatic stress would be put in the diagnostic and statistical manual, then insurances might pay to have the whole body treated, is what I think. I don't know this for sure. Yeah. But a single instance trauma is what they're calling for post-traumatic stress. And then the chronic post-traumatic stress is another caveat to the post-traumatic stress diagnosis. But I think that you're right in that it is not useful to just label and say, Oh, poof, you have a trauma you're traumatized.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

At no point in time has my PTSD diagnosis served me. Not well. If anything, it has resulted in less medical care, it has resulted in more stigma and judgment, it has resulted in unnecessary therapy that has ended up causing me harm.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Do you know the trifecta for, I mean, this isn't only the trifecta, but like the trifecta that they say for post-traumatic stress is the uncontrollable nightmares, the avoidance of even one's own inner experience is what I've heard some people say, and then the hyper-vigilance, the being on edge, the being alert, the being on guard 100% of the time. That's like the trifecta for PTSD. That doesn't mean all, that's just like a lot.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Well, I don't know how you feel about this, but there was a time in my life after, you know, a period of significant pain for me that all of those things really felt like they applied so very strongly for even a very long period of time. And then over time I did get better.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

I am better. I am better now than if if I were to sit down with 26-year-old Emily, I would feel awful for her because she went through experiencing of the emotional experiences in years.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Years, years, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

No, I had I had one or two during my pregnancies because heightened hormonal state can kind of just really lean into that.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Do you call that re-experiencing of emotional thing? I call it a flashback. Okay. Flashback. I call it a flashback.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

And for me, the way that I'm able to sort that out, and I'm not sitting here thinking that that is narcolepsy, is because there have been plenty of instances of those other symptoms you just described. However, I eventually did get better. Now, if you have that PTSD diagnosis slapped on you, and then you mentioned one that I have heard before too, chronic PTSD, right? You have that slapped on you. They are more willing to turn around and go back to that and say, Oh, that's just your PTSD. Well, I don't think my PTSD is much of an issue for me anymore at all.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

You know, I really I don't. It's not a lifelong condition to some. Like it is treatable, it's not like your insulin not being produced in your pancreas, you know, that that you're always going to be insulin dependent. No.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

But when I sat there and I described to my professional, I won't even say which one it was, the experience of you know, essentially having, you know, a nightmare while I was awake, I was not awake.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

You were having a cataplexia asleep, and they took it and learned it.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah, yeah. When I described the experience of waking up and having sleep paralysis, they took that as a mental health issue and a PTSD issue, but it was literally cataplexy and an inability to move. It was literal sleep paralysis, not mental sleep paralysis.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

It is two different things. See, and as a clinician myself, I highly encourage everyone to see their primary care physician, their specialty physicians, and like anyone in their life who's involved in their treatment team, because some people see rheumatologists, podiatrists, neurologists, whatever it is that they may see. And those people are your team. They're there to work with you, not tell you how to live.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Well, and here's here's an important caveat, too. I am not blaming anyone. Should any of my medical team swipe by me? I'm not blaming anybody, not any particular person. Possibly, though, a system. Possibly, though, a structured system of uh we already know misogyny. We already know that there is excessive racism and misogyny in the medical field, in in all, you know, just bias that people don't even unchecked biases that they don't even realize they have.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

There are some doctors that think the more melanin you have, the thicker your skin is, and that's scary to know. We were at a gynecological surgery for myself.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Oh my gosh. She's gonna tell this story. I remember this. The surgeon said to myself that you cannot feel pain in front of the vagina. To me, a woman, in front of my sister, a woman, and a female nurse. He said, Well, whatever what that you can't feel pain in the vagina. Women don't feel pain in the vagina. I said, Excuse me. And he just kind of scuffed it off and then left the room. And prescribe anything, and did not prescribe anything. The the nurse did have to apologize.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

The minute he left the room, she looked at us both and went, I'm so sorry. He's a man.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Truly believed could not feel any. I beg to differ in many regards, sir. But also, what do you think your wife feels? Like, I know for a fact, dude was married. What do you think? Wait, you can't feel anything in there? Wait, that I feel I need to send her a card. Like, it's it's it's problematic to think that a woman cannot feel inside her vagina. That's it, you're married and you think that I can't feel in there. Okay, I don't think you're very good at that.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Yeah, and then you had to call, I think, your primary, who was a woman.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Well, we just the doctor on staff said, Oh, there's nothing ordered here. I'll fix that. Good. So who it was rectified and I was fine. But yeah, that's there's unchecked biases going throughout the medical field. And then I think the other thing to blame for that is is heavy on that trauma situation. You know, it's people people are quick to say that someone is having a panic attack. A lot of my, you know, cohort of people who have posteoorthatic tachycardia syndrome have been slow down, roll that back, and say that word again. Posteo posteoorthatic tachycardia syndrome. Nice. Also known as POTS. A lot of POTS will be misdiagnosed with anxiety for this happened to me, significant portions of their life. Because yes, their heart rate is up. And as a reminder, POTS is an AS disorder, an autonomic disorder. Autonomic nervous system disorder, absolutely. Yeah, it causes tachycardia, but it is not tachycardia. Tachycardia itself is not the condition. It is a disorder of the autonomic nervous system, but it is often misdiagnosed as anxiety. In myself, I had it misdiagnosed as anxiety. I even had to have EMSA come out. This emergency medical services come out to my home because I thought I was having a heart attack. I was in just I had crazy chest pains, and my heart rate was like 260 or something when they hooked me up to the machine. No, this was EMSA hooking me up to the machine. This is before I ever even got us. I do now, but I didn't at the time. And I was begging them not to let me die. I was looking at my husband at that time, thinking, how is he gonna do this by himself? I could hear my children. I mean, by all accounts and regards, I thought I was dying. And they said, You're just having a panic attack. Go chill out, take a Xanax. They told you to chill out, quite literally, and then they left. There was no medical record made of that either. It was there was nothing ever put in my chart. There was no medical record made of that. I made a medical record of that by contacting my primary care physician and explaining everything that went on and saying I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

I would suggest to anybody who needs a record of evidence to get your own diagnosis, whatever that may be. I had five years of documentation until I got my autoimmune diagnosis, and that was document, document, document. So if it's not written down in the medical field, oh by the way, it didn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

I have even opened the messenger field on the chart application for my medical practice at my doctor's appointment to write down anything I thought was very relevant or necessary. And I will say something along the lines of just to clarify, this is what we went over during the appointment, right? And then hit send, and then it's saved in my chart.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Like, and by the way, you can do that with doctors, you can do that with therapists, you can do that like anybody who has a portal. I think I even have a portal. You can send me a message directly through therapy appointment, and then save it in the chart.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Yep. Yeah, it'll it'll automatically save. And that's the thing that that a lot of people are not aware of. They think one, they have to take the first answer they're given. You do not, you do not have to take the first, second, or third answer you're given. If you want to, you can go get 70 answers until you find out what the heck is wrong.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

That's that doesn't mean you're doctor shopping or hobby.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

No, no, no, no, no. I I went back to the same doctor again and again and again and again. And I went to specialist after specialist, but I think the best way that I can describe it is I was given many reasons for the things going on with me. I have been given so many reasons, in fact, that they almost seem contradictory. I I I received so many reasons, but none of them changed the reality of waking up in the body that I was in and experiencing the symptoms that I'm experiencing. So until they could make my life functional, I continued to return and say, no, this is still not working. Reason or not, we have to figure something else out. And honestly, I think I think the only reason I ended up getting this last diagnostic test is because I've already had all of the rest of them. Like, you know, I've already I've already done all of them. So there wasn't much left other than to say, well, maybe it's there, maybe it's something wrong with your sleep.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

I don't know, you know, and and which is wild because I had a sleep study, like when I with my doctor, one of the first things they checked with me was, let's see how you're sleeping, if you're getting enough sleep. And they did an at-home sleep study where I hooked myself up and they were like, Okay, you don't have sleep apnea, but let's bring you into the lab and see if there's something else going on. And I went to the lab, which was weird, it was right across the street from my physical office, and then they hooked me up to all the electrodes and things, and from nine to five I slept. They sent me home, and well, I have upper respiratory resistance syndrome, but that's neither here nor there. I see I did that one too. Yeah, I had to take that test too. Yeah, the fact that they treated me like a human, I think is I was lucky.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah, and sometimes we are, and sometimes we're not, and it can be really hard to tell whether we're getting adequate medical care or we're getting a biased, insufficient amount of medical care. I think a lot of people are stuck in that area where we've received a bias and insufficient amount of medical care. And because that person has the white coat or that person has the credentialing, we choose to believe that is the reality we have to experience. I remember around the time that I got my Aylers Download's diagnosis, it was said to me, not by my primary physician, but some it was said to me by a medical professional to accept my reality and learn to live with it. Because it was not going to change. Had I done that, I would not be arriving at where I am right now. Don't accept if it's not. And between between then and now, I my pots is in remission. My, you know, like I manage the dislocation and the sublexing of my joint so much better. I do not currently well, that when I have no control over, it just happens when it happens. But you know, that is what it is. I know better how to take care of and treat my body, and I have subverted a massive amount of pain and discomfort. Like, do I still have an issue? Yes, but I'm working on it, you know? Like, had I accepted that first answer, which a lot of people do, right? I would still be sitting where I was sitting. And I think that the reason I did not have a sleep apnea test earlier is because I am not heavy. And I'm not saying that you got it because you are heavy. I'm saying that they start BMI at the point of starvation because that's where I was and and kind of am. I mean, I'm not starving now, but the size I got to, the size I am now, is because I was starving. So they start saying you have acceptable BMI when you have quite literally starved yourself, when you have literally starved. I don't recommend it. Don't do it, it's not worth it. And also, BMI was a made-up, it's entirely made up. Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

My BMI is like over 40 and I'm like fairly healthy. The one thing I have is like an autoimmune condition which is really managed well by a biologic.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Like I was off to whoever way healthier blockers. I was way healthier when I was heavy. I was healthier at 287 pounds than I am today at 152.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

It's in the blood work. If you haven't had blood work lately, go to the doctor and have his labs done. Yeah. And if they tell you no, ask them to write it down.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Oh, yeah. That's a this is a recurring theme. Ask them to write it down. Make them write it down. Remember, kitties, you are the boss of your medical care because you are the boss of your body. And if anybody says you aren't the boss of your body, then they're the wrong person to talk to. That's all the time we have for today on Therapy Unlocked. Please join us next time as we continue the conversation. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and join us as we continue the journey to unlock the mind, one conversation at a time.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

This podcast is really for education and amusement. That is the test of this video.