The human element of recovery from mental illness and addiction | Apryl Pooley | TEDxMSU — Transcript

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1. 0:15good evening my name is April pulie and
2. 0:18I'm a PhD candidate in the MSU
3. 0:20Neuroscience program I research the
4. 0:22effects of traumatic stress on the brain
5. 0:25and I started on this path in October of
6. 0:282011 when I did the most important
7. 0:30internet search of my life the internet
8. 0:33what some people think is the antithesis
9. 0:35of human connection actually brought me
10. 0:37back to humanity when I Googled four
11. 0:40letters PTSD post-traumatic stress
12. 0:43disorder I was in my first semester as a
13. 0:46doctoral student when I did this search
14. 0:48and I had heard about PTSD and Veterans
15. 0:50but I didn't really understand what it
16. 0:52was or why it was such a big
17. 0:54deal and when I learned that it could be
18. 0:57caused by a variety of experiences not
19. 0:59not related to military combat I was
20. 1:01intrigued things like car accidents
21. 1:04domestic violence and rape I thought it
22. 1:06was a war disorder and when I read the
23. 1:08list of PTSD symptoms that day I was
24. 1:11floored because they read like a
25. 1:13definition of my own life nightmares
26. 1:16hypervigilance startling at sudden
27. 1:18noises or movements sleep problems
28. 1:21irritability and the most jarring one to
29. 1:23me intrusive recollection or reenactment
30. 1:26of the event in memories daytime imagery
31. 1:29or dreams
32. 1:30now I had heard the word flashback
33. 1:32before but I always thought of it as
34. 1:33someone falling to the ground during a
35. 1:35thunderstorm or fireworks but this
36. 1:37description of a flashback really hit
37. 1:39home intrusive recollection of the event
38. 1:42in daytime imagery every single morning
39. 1:46for the eight years leading up to this
40. 1:48moment I stood in my bathroom for hours
41. 1:51sometimes three four hours going over
42. 1:54and over the events of the night I was
43. 1:56raped at a fraternity house when I was
44. 1:5817 years old it was like I was staring
45. 2:01into the mirror watching a movie of that
46. 2:03night in slow motion just trying to
47. 2:04figure out what happened and why I would
48. 2:07get up at 6 a.m. just to maybe be able
49. 2:09to make it to my 10: a.m. class because
50. 2:11I knew that every morning I would have
51. 2:13to go through watching that movie and
52. 2:15answering this list of questions like I
53. 2:17was being interrogated why did my
54. 2:19friends leave me there what happened in
55. 2:21the 16 hours I don't remember why was I
56. 2:23paralyzed when I woke up is this just
57. 2:26what happens when you drink should I
58. 2:27call the police should I go to the
59. 2:29hospital was I really raped would my
60. 2:31friends still be friends with me if I
61. 2:33hadn't told them what
62. 2:35happened every morning for 8 years I was
63. 2:39staring into what I just learned was a
64. 2:41Vortex of flashbacks and now I was
65. 2:43staring at what would soon become my
66. 2:45official psychiatric diagnosis
67. 2:48PTSD I felt so comforted by the fact
68. 2:51that all of my problems could be
69. 2:53explained by this four-letter acronym
70. 2:55and that maybe I wasn't really just a
71. 2:57crazy mess the feeling that something
72. 2:59horrible was going to happen any minute
73. 3:01like I was holding a live grenade that
74. 3:03was PTSD my jumps and screams at the
75. 3:07phone ringing the doorbell chiming the
76. 3:09postman putting letters into the mail
77. 3:10slot my heart pounding up into my neck
78. 3:13for hours at a time waking up every 20
79. 3:15minutes at night to check my
80. 3:17surroundings that was PTSD and up until
81. 3:20this Revelation I thought I had just
82. 3:22been dwelling in the past and feeling
83. 3:24sorry for myself because I just couldn't
84. 3:26get over it I thought I was just a
85. 3:28worthless alcohol because the only way I
86. 3:31could get out of the bathroom in the
87. 3:32morning or attempt to sleep at night or
88. 3:34to be alone or to be with people was to
89. 3:37drink and I was very drunk when I did
90. 3:40the search for
91. 3:41PTSD in fact it had been over 5 years
92. 3:44since I had gone a single day without
93. 3:46being drunk but the hope and comfort
94. 3:49that I felt at finally figuring out what
95. 3:51was wrong with me didn't really last
96. 3:53long because at the end of the search I
97. 3:55learned that there really isn't a very
98. 3:57good effective treatment for PTSD that
99. 3:59that symptoms can persist and continue
100. 4:01to worsen over the course of a lifetime
101. 4:04and that suicide rates in PTSD patients
102. 4:07are among the highest of any demographic
103. 4:09group The Only Hope really seemed to be
104. 4:11counseling and I wasn't about to go
105. 4:13around telling a bunch of strangers all
106. 4:15of the bad things that had happened to
107. 4:17me it was like I had just been given a
108. 4:19death sentence so I finished the rest of
109. 4:21the Whiskey in my bottle and I walked
110. 4:23down the street to the Quality Dairy to
111. 4:25get
112. 4:26another but being the scientist that I
113. 4:28just happened to be I could not give up
114. 4:30there I had to look for my own answers
115. 4:33as to what PTSD really was and how maybe
116. 4:35it could be treated I thought maybe I
117. 4:37could be part of some new experimental
118. 4:39group so I read hundreds of Journal
119. 4:42articles examining the effects of
120. 4:44atypical antipsychotics benzodiazapines
121. 4:47ssris and even cancer medications on
122. 4:50PTSD some of which showed promise in
123. 4:53animal studies but more than half of
124. 4:55PTSD patients failed to respond to these
125. 4:57current standard treatments
126. 5:00but the most striking thing I noticed in
127. 5:01this research was that almost all of
128. 5:03these studies were only looking at human
129. 5:06men or male rats nobody was looking at
130. 5:09how these treatments work in women or if
131. 5:10PTSD is even the same in women and maybe
132. 5:13I was just looking for something
133. 5:15specific to women because I couldn't
134. 5:17understand how what happened to me as a
135. 5:19teenager could be the same as what
136. 5:20happened to men in Vietnam as many as
137. 5:23one in 10 women suffer with PTSD but
138. 5:26this seemed to be overlooked by
139. 5:28everybody I certainly had never heard of
140. 5:30it as a rape
141. 5:32disorder medical research is
142. 5:34historically notorious for predominantly
143. 5:36studying men some scientists say that
144. 5:39the differences between men and women
145. 5:40really only matter with regard to
146. 5:42reproduction and some say that it's
147. 5:44impossible to really scientifically
148. 5:46study women because there's just too
149. 5:48much going on with their periods and all
150. 5:50those
151. 5:51hormones
152. 5:53seriously so I just kept doing my own
153. 5:55research uh reading every article on
154. 5:57PTSD I could find and this went on for
155. 6:00about a year during which time I did end
156. 6:02up finding a really good therapist but
157. 6:05even with going to therapy too sometimes
158. 6:07three times a week and commitment to
159. 6:10sobriety I was still suicidal I was
160. 6:12relapsing all the time I wasn't sleeping
161. 6:15I wasn't eating long story short I
162. 6:17wasn't getting much better so I just
163. 6:20kept thinking if only the right research
164. 6:22had been done research on women research
165. 6:24on the actual brain mechanisms of PTSD
166. 6:27there would be a cure for me and I
167. 6:29wouldn't be failing at my recovery right
168. 6:31now I wanted to see more data mechanisms
169. 6:34of action and have a step-by-step plan
170. 6:36for how to get rid of my PTSD and my
171. 6:38alcoholism once and for all I was a very
172. 6:41stubborn scientist but I'm also very
173. 6:43impatient and science was moving a
174. 6:45little too slowly for me so I finally
175. 6:49realized that my life is not a textbook
176. 6:52and Recovery is not an experiment with a
177. 6:55beginning and an end and I acknowledged
178. 6:57that I really had no idea what I was was
179. 6:59doing that I finally began to find some
180. 7:02relief I started working with my
181. 7:04therapist doing breathing exercises
182. 7:06journaling exercises letting myself
183. 7:09scream at the top of my lungs I did EMDR
184. 7:12therapy where I followed This Little
185. 7:13Light back and forth while I thought
186. 7:15about traumatic memories all of these
187. 7:17things I considered to be pseudo science
188. 7:20but my nightmares and flashbacks
189. 7:22actually started to go away I began to
190. 7:24startle less easily but my real healing
191. 7:27came when I started connecting with
192. 7:29other people there were so many people
193. 7:32out there so many women who like me had
194. 7:34been raped or abused and had no idea
195. 7:37that the reason they couldn't just get
196. 7:38over it was because they were suffering
197. 7:40from PTSD I had to tell them I thought I
198. 7:43had this big secret that if all these
199. 7:45traumatized people knew they had PTSD
200. 7:49they would be okay but it wasn't sharing
201. 7:52my scientific knowledge of PTSD that
202. 7:54helped people it was sharing my story
203. 7:58which is exactly the opposite opposite
204. 7:59of what I wanted to do I wanted to show
205. 8:02people diagrams of the brain and bar
206. 8:04graphs of stress hormones this is your
207. 8:07oh no I'm missing a slide this is your
208. 8:09brain on
209. 8:10trauma but as the people I was talking
210. 8:13to started sharing their stories I
211. 8:15started sharing mine not my personal
212. 8:18story but not my science story but my
213. 8:20personal story of rape of abuse of
214. 8:23addiction all of the darkness Within Me
215. 8:26of which I was so ashamed but once it
216. 8:28was out there with everybody else's
217. 8:30Darkness it didn't really seem so dark
218. 8:32after all and that's when I started
219. 8:35getting involved in all of these things
220. 8:37like lobbying for Women's Health Care
221. 8:39policy I shared my story at Survivor
222. 8:42Gatherings and art shows I started
223. 8:44getting involved in helping victims of
224. 8:46sexual assault on campus I started a
225. 8:49Blog about these issues I wrote a book I
226. 8:51joined activists and advocacy groups and
227. 8:53I'm telling you this because this is
228. 8:55when my shame and my guilt went away
229. 8:58shame and guilt are two of the most
230. 9:00Insidious forces that can take over your
231. 9:02life after trauma and destroy your
232. 9:04selfworth your ability to form
233. 9:07relationships with other people and even
234. 9:09your will to live I was so ashamed I had
235. 9:12gotten raped I was ashamed I didn't call
236. 9:14the police I felt guilty for the years
237. 9:16that I wasted on drugs and alcohol and I
238. 9:18felt guilty for the brief moments of
239. 9:20emotions that I did feel because they
240. 9:22were filled with
241. 9:23anger I don't think any amount of
242. 9:26science will ever find a cure or a pill
243. 9:28for shame guilt that doesn't involve
244. 9:30sharing your story your human experience
245. 9:33with another human being we need to be
246. 9:36seen for who we are to be heard to be
247. 9:39accepted and to be believed there's a
248. 9:41human element to recovery that we often
249. 9:44forget it's not surprising to me that
250. 9:46the single greatest risk factor for
251. 9:48developing PTSD after trauma is lack of
252. 9:51social support more than any
253. 9:53contribution made by one's genes other
254. 9:56biological characteristics of an
255. 9:58individual or as aspects of the trauma
256. 10:00itself it's social support that has the
257. 10:02largest influence on whether someone
258. 10:04will develop
259. 10:06PTSD socially supported people are
260. 10:08allowed to talk about what happened to
261. 10:10them to experience and express their
262. 10:13emotions without judgment or ridicule to
263. 10:16cry and scream and do whatever their
264. 10:17body needs to do to discharge all that
265. 10:19energy with proper social support human
266. 10:23connection immediately following trauma
267. 10:25the likelihood of recovery is
268. 10:27exponentially greater
269. 10:29but even though it had been almost 10
270. 10:31years since my trauma when I found this
271. 10:33kind of social support I still suddenly
272. 10:36found this peace that I didn't even know
273. 10:38existed I didn't even know I was looking
274. 10:39for it after nearly a decade of
275. 10:42alcoholism I've now been sober for 2
276. 10:45years after a decade of loneliness I'm
277. 10:47now married to the love of my life and
278. 10:49after a decade of PTSD I can now finally
279. 10:52sleep at night so as it turned out it
280. 10:55wasn't that there needed to be more
281. 10:56research in the field of traumatic
282. 10:58stress to help me I needed to find my
283. 11:01way back to humanity but with that being
284. 11:03said even though science and medication
285. 11:06alone will probably never fully cure
286. 11:08PTSD I am still chipping away at it
287. 11:11because I do believe there's value in
288. 11:13understanding how the world around us
289. 11:15and within us Works maybe we can at
290. 11:17least make a find a way to make this
291. 11:19journey a little less painful when I was
292. 11:22in it as I like to say my life revolved
293. 11:25solely around my will to
294. 11:27survive but when I was able to shift my
295. 11:30focus on a will to help other people I
296. 11:32found peace sobriety and love and I
297. 11:34wouldn't have had the strength to do
298. 11:36that if it wasn't for the people in my
299. 11:37life who helped me first the will to
300. 11:40survive is an innate human driving force
301. 11:43but the will to help other people and
302. 11:45make the world a better place is
303. 11:47precisely what makes us human and that's
304. 11:49what we should all be striving for so
305. 11:52despite my attempts to avoid connecting
306. 11:53with people because I was ashamed of who
307. 11:55I was and because I was scared it ended
308. 11:58up being Humanity the very same Humanity
309. 12:01that I thought had betrayed me that
310. 12:03ended up saving me and I am so grateful
311. 12:05for every person who has told me that my
312. 12:08blog post or my book gave them the
313. 12:10courage to face another day because
314. 12:12that's what this is all about using all
315. 12:14of the resources we have whether it's
316. 12:16the internet or medication or counseling
317. 12:18or science or art or music or yoga to
318. 12:21bring the people who have been so
319. 12:23traumatically severed from Humanity back
320. 12:25to us because each and every one of us
321. 12:27matters and I have to end with a picture
322. 12:30of my family because without them I
323. 12:32would not be here today thank
324. 12:36you