Mental Illness Awareness Week: What I Want You to Know

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has designated October 6-12 as Mental Illness Awareness Week. I was diagnosed with PTSD, Depression, and Bipolar Disorder by the time I was 18. Here’s what I want people to know about mental illness, based on my personal journey:

There is no blood test for a mental illness diagnosis. I was diagnosed based on symptoms presenting during a stressful life stage, when I was very ill physically.

I tried numerous medications to suppress the symptoms. Some helped a little. Some made my symptoms worse.

I felt completely disconnected from my body and life for years. I didn’t trust my feelings. I hated my brain.

I allowed my label to become my identity, resigning myself to a life of brokenness and mental instability.

After the birth of my daughter twenty years ago, I started making small changes to my lifestyle, seeing improvements in my mental health as a result.

I never realized how sleep, movement, relaxation, and nutrition practices played a huge role in my mental health. This was a game-changer.

When I discovered the gut-brain connection over ten years ago, everything fell into place. My symptoms were no longer compartmentalized. I felt validated.

I share my story in hope that we can grow in awareness that recovery is possible. Putting a severe mental illness into remission is possible. I’m living proof of this.

I hope that one day, practitioners will place as much of an emphasis on getting to the root of symptoms as they do in diagnosing from a checklist and suppressing them. We can’t have awareness without solutions. But until then, I’ll keep sharing my story—and all the tools I’ve picked up along the way.

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How Trauma Impacts the Brain at Different Life Stages

Dr. Marc Hauser’s scientific research, including over 300 published papers and seven books, focuses on how the brain evolves, develops, and is altered by damage and neurodevelopmental disorders, with an emphasis on the processes of learning and decision-making, as well as the impact of traumatic experiences on development.

This episode focuses on his research and brain-based methods for teachers, clinicians, parents and anyone working with children who have different disabilities, including especially those that result from a history of traumatic experiences.

Dr. Hauser’s new book, Vulnerable Minds: The Harm of Trauma and the Hope of Resilience offers a hopeful new pathway to understanding children’s trauma and providing effective interventions to build healthier communities.

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Evidence-Based Tools for Trauma

Dr. Christine Gibson is a family physician, trauma therapist, and author of The Modern Trauma Toolkit. She’s on social media as TikTokTraumaDoc with over 130k followers. She runs an international non-profit Global Familymed Foundation, a cooperative, and a new company to train professionals how to manage workplace trauma – Safer Spaces Training.

In this episode, we dive into the topic of the nervous system and how it plays a role in the entire body to help us feel regulated and safe.

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Learning to Heal From the Spiritual, Mental, and Physical Impact of Trauma

Former two-time guest Andrea Jones and I join forces to get real about how trauma symptoms impacted our lives in the past year. We talk about how these symptoms impacted us physically, mentally, and spiritually, because of course – we are designed as very interconnected humans and you can’t bump one part without impacting another.

If you are experiencing mental or physiological dysregulation, or maybe even a block in your spiritual walk with the Lord, this may be a great way for you to consider how stored trauma may be playing a role.

Download and listen here or find wherever you get podcasts.

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Big News: Book Contract and Website Makeover Coming Soon!

Time to share some big news! I just signed a two-book contract with Tyndale Publishing!

It has been my dream since I was a very young girl to be a writer. Before I even dreamed of marrying and having kids, I wanted to write words. Lots of words. I wanted to open people up to worlds and ideas they hadn’t thought of before (there’s a very large container in my garage filled with spiral-bound evidence of this).

Then life happened. Trauma. Mental health mayhem. Meds. More trauma. A surprise pregnancy.

I thought that I needed to give up my dream, let it go and send it back with my other childhood fantasies (like winning an Oscar or singing The National Anthem at the World Series – ha)!

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PTSD Awareness Month Part Two: How I Supported My Body with CPTSD Symptoms

Last fall, after trying out a new mind-body therapy, my body was triggered into complex PTSD symptoms. These symptoms included: hypervigilance, disturbing flashbacks and nightmares, irrational fear, irritability, disconnect and distrust in my personal relationships, low self-worth and hopelessness, and an overall sense of waiting for the worst thing to happen.

Due to years of unprocessed, stored trauma, these symptoms were almost debilitating and lasted for close to eight months.

Because I know that trauma is not just in my head, and moving out of trauma involves engaging the whole body, I utilized a handful of tools to find regulation again.

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PTSD Awareness Month Part One: How PTSD Affects Your Health

While most everyone will experience trauma at some point in their lives, not everyone who experiences trauma will experience PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) symptoms.

Complex PTSD (CPTSD) is caused by ongoing trauma that lasts for months or years, whereas PTSD is caused by a single traumatic event.

However, both create symptoms that negatively impact the body.

Symptoms of PTSD include:

Anxiety or depression
Intrusive thoughts or flashbacks
Feelings of low self-worth
Feelings of hypervigilance
Mood swings
Panic attacks
Feeling triggered “for no reason”
Easily startled or frightened
Zoning out or losing chunks of time
Guilt or shame
Irritability, outbursts, angry behavior
Trouble concentrating
Trouble feeling emotions, feeling numb

Both PTSD and CPTSD can cause a person to feel alone, damaged, worthless, and completely different from other people – so you may feel like nobody could ever understand you or what happened to you. This makes relationships and friendships extremely difficult, and isolation (or playing possum) is real.

The physical effects of PTSD are far-reaching and not limited to the following:

It alters gut bacteria and creates digestive issues, which may lead to inflammation or poor neurotransmitter function long-term.
It creates anxiety and hypervigilance that come out of seemingly nowhere. This may feel like chest pains, headaches, or stomachaches.
It increases resting pulse rate and blood pressure – or drops it too low. When the body is in a high cortisol, sympathetic dominant state, blood pressure and pulse rate can be higher, but over time, the low cortisol compensatory effect may lead to very low resting heart rate and pulse, which creates symptoms of dizziness or vertigo.
It creates restless sleep and impacts cortisol awakening response, leading to blood sugar imbalances.
It can make you crave quick-fueling foods like processed carbs, sugar, or drugs/alcohol for numbing.
It can cause numbness and tingling throughout the body, dizziness, or out-of-body feelings.

If you are experiencing or have experienced these symptoms, it’s not all in your head and you’re not alone. Finding treatment for the root cause is draining. BUT. There is hope. I’ll share more on that in part two.

Unlocking the Biology of Trauma

Dr. Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH is the leading medical expert on how life experiences get stored in the body and restoring the body to its best state of health through her signature model and methodology, The Biology of Trauma™. She is a double board-certified medical physician in Preventive Medicine and Addiction Medicine. She is also a Certified Functional Medicine physician and has training and certifications specifically in neuro-autoimmunity, nutrition, and genetics for addictions, mental health, and mood and behavioral disorders.

Dr. Aimie offers science-based solutions on how to rewire the nervous system with The Biology of Trauma. Accelerating the healing journey through recovery to resilience, presence, and aliveness. Dr. Aimie is the founder and CEO of Trauma Healing Accelerated, offering her foundational online course: “The 21 Day Journey to Calm Aliveness”, which is an experiential journey into the nervous system that is open to all as well as her 8 module certification course for practitioners, “Biology of Trauma” that teaches the protocols of addressing The Biology of Trauma on the different systems of the body.

Download and listen to this episode here or find wherever you get podcasts.

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What You Should Know About the Psychedelic Renaissance

Matt Zemon is the Co-Founder of HAPPŸŸ, a mental wellness company that specializes in psychedelic-assisted ketamine therapy along with digital therapeutics that promote life-transforming outcomes. As an entrepreneur in the well-being sector, Matt was the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Psychable, an online community connecting people who would like to explore the healing power of psychedelics with a network of practitioners and psychedelic-based treatments, and the co-founder of Take2Minutes, a nonprofit dedicated to helping individuals improve their mental health and well-being.

Matt is the author of Psychedelics for Everyone: A Beginner’s Guide to these Powerful Medicines for Anxiety, Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Expanding Consciousness and received his Master of Science in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health with honors from King’s College London. In this episode, we take on the slightly controversial topic of psychedelics for mental health, and how they’re being used today when all other options fail.

Download and listen to this episode here, or find wherever you get podcasts.

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The Missing Puzzle Piece to Your Mental Health Struggles

More people are struggling with mental health issues than ever before, and more people are looking for lasting solutions by addressing the root cause through multiple modalities. Sanare Today is a revolutionary set of thirteen clinics that combines therapy, natural medicine, nutrition, and coaching to help people thrive.

Rachael Bevilacqua is the Vice President of Sanare Today. She has a master’s degree in clinical counseling from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and is a personal trainer. Her passion for combining revolutionary therapy techniques, food, and movement comes from her experience as an athlete, coach, and clinician.

Dr. Kate Henry is the Director of Functional Medicine at Sanare. Kate’s study of nutrition, botanicals, and lifestyle medicine allows her to offer unique expertise and cutting-edge solutions for mental and physical health conditions including depression, anxiety, insomnia, ADHD, and more. She’s passionate about doing the medical detective work to help people find their root cause and become free of the things that are holding them back.

In this episode, we dive into the world of integrating mind-body methods to improve mental health for good. Download and listen here or find wherever you get podcasts.

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