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Well-Being Ep. 45: Treating PTSD and Finding Hope

• Boundless • Season 4 • Episode 45

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Discover the path to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) recovery! In this episode, join our host, Scott Light, as we sit down with Morgan Maffett, a licensed social worker at Boundless, and Maggie Kinkopf, who shares her powerful lived experience with PTSD. Dive into the transformative power of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy as our guests discuss its effectiveness and their journeys to healing. Prepare for insightful stories and a deeper understanding of the innovative approaches to helping people overcome trauma and improve their lives. 

Scott Light:

Welcome everyone to"Well-Being," a podcast brought to you by Boundless. Boundless is a nonprofit that provides residential support, autism services, primary health care, day programs, counseling and a whole lot more to children and adults. Our mission is to build a world that realizes the boundless potential of all people. I'm your host, Scott light. So this month we are talking about PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder with two great guests. Morgan Maffett is a licensed social worker here at Boundless, and Maggie Kinkopf is here to share her lived experience and some treatments that she has found helpful as well. Welcome to you both.

Morgan Maffett:

Thank you.

Maggie Kinkopf:

Thank you,

Scott Light:

Maggie, love to start with you. If you don't mind here. Tell us more about your lived experience with PTSD. Tell us about it if you would, please.

Maggie Kinkopf:

Yeah, sure. So when I was in high school, starting around 14, I started experiencing depression and anxiety. And during those high school years, I also experienced a series of traumatic events-things that happened to friends and just scary things in high school. So after high school, I went to college at Ohio State, and I thought I was, quote, unquote, fine, and then those events hadn't impacted my life. However, probably in the second year, I became acutely aware that I was doing things that meant that the trauma had had an impact on me. One of the most obvious things to my friends or family would be like avoiding things that would remind me of the events. Hypervigilance - feeling like something bad would happen. So I sought treatment at Ohio State's Student Health Center, I guess, their student counseling center. There, I didn't actually get diagnosed with PTSD until I saw their psychiatrist. And he finally diagnosed me with PTSD. And it was a huge relief, knowing what I was experiencing for all those years and feeling validated that what I was experiencing, was shared by others, as well as myself, and that I could actually do something about that and get back to a life where I don't have to feel those symptoms anymore. So at first, they did talk therapy with me and that was really, really traumatizing. Because as you can imagine just explaining to someone your trauma over and over again, is just bringing all that up to the forefront of your mind. And it was really hard to go back to normal after those sessions. So then they told me,'Oh, there's one therapist, and they do EMDR.' And I was, I was like, I'll try it because, you know, it sounds interesting. It sounds like it would work. And it did. So after that experience, I was able to go on with my life and not be so affected by PTSD. And since that experience, I've also gone to therapy as well. And done EMDR for anxiety and things of that nature as well.

Scott Light:

And it's helped?

Maggie Kinkopf:

Yes, it helped very much so. And just, it was incredible to see the difference in myself. And to just experience. It's like a physiological change when you are healing from PTSD. You feel it, you feel it in your body, your body feels much different, much more at ease. Your heart's not racing all the time, you're not worried that something bad's gonna happen, you're not in, you know, thinking crazy thoughts about you know, if something bad will happen, I guess.

Scott Light:

Morgan, there have been several times if we had a camera, in our studio here at Boundless people would have seen you nodding your head as Maggie was sharing her story. Just as a licensed social worker, what are your general comments after hearing her lived experience here?

Morgan Maffett:

I see all sorts of clients, I mostly see clients who have post-traumatic stress disorder. That is what my focus was in school, and I'm going back to school now and that is my focus again is working with individuals who have trauma. And the amount of people who come into the office and they're afraid to tell me things like they're afraid to say like, it's like they're reliving things, or they can't sleep at night, or they're, they're not able to do the things that they used to do and it's I've ever had some, especially teenagers say like, they're afraid that I'm going to send them to the hospital or that they're crazy or that they're not going to be okay again, and it's almost like they don't want to admit that something's wrong, because they don't want someone to tell them that something's wrong and it's never going to be okay again. And I even had one kiddo in my office yesterday and we were talking about how just because things are bad now doesn't mean they have to be bad forever. And if this technique does not work for you, we will find other things. And a good clinician will do what they can with the information they have. And if that's not helpful, we'll find people who know more than them, or different things in them to help them because nobody deserves and should have to live with those symptoms. And the symptoms of PTSD are actually physiological, and 90% of them are actually in the body and not in the brain. And so, and that's always the biggest one as people will be like, no, like, I'm fine like, I don't have nightmares, I don't have these things, but I'm like on edge all the time. And then you get talking with them, and they're on edge, and they are having nightmares and they just didn't want to admit it.

Scott Light:

Yeah. Going back to the head nod. Maggie, you were nodding your head. Were you thinking some of these things, some of these same things, as Morgan is talking about this, the things that she hears from some of her clients? Did some of these same thoughts go through your head as a young person?

Maggie Kinkopf:

Yes, definitely. It was hard for me to get diagnosed as well, because I was sort of in denial about the things that happen as being traumatic, if that makes sense. They're not like traditional traumatic events. So when they would screen me, they would ask me has this or this happened to you? And I would be like, No, so then they would just move on. And it took me a while to really realize like, all the symptoms I was having. And when the psychiatrists gave me the list, I think it's like 20 items or so, and I started checking off, I was really realizing, Oh, I am having like nightmares, I am on edge, I am hyper vigilant. And in a way, when I finally came to that realization, it was a relief.

Scott Light:

Morgan, you were interviewed for a story that's still on the Boundless website, and it's titled "Shining a Light on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." And in it, you went back, you looked at the history, and even after World War Two, this was called Shell Shock. So let's talk a little bit about that and maybe to set a baseline here, as we're starting our conversation, the history of PTSD, and then also would you help to define it for our listeners?

Morgan Maffett:

Yeah, so what we know today as post-traumatic stress disorder was a syndrome called Shell Shock Syndrome that was made to describe the symptoms and feelings that war veterans were experiencing when they came home. A big group of people came home from war and their families and the people that loved them, recognize that they were not the same people that left them. And so originally, it was a way to define and explain all of the symptoms that these people were sharing with one another. And then as time went on, people were starting to realize that those symptoms were not only had for people who went to war and people who were active duty and war. These were symptoms that people who were victims of assault or had learned about a friend who was hurt or killed. There are so many different things that you can experience or witness or learn of, that can cause your body to experience traumatic stress disorder. An example from my own life is I had a friend who was killed as a child, and me learning of that I developed symptoms of PTSD, which is why I decided I wanted to work with people had PTSD, because I didn't get treatment for that for over a decade after, till after it happened. And the longer you let these things go, and the longer the symptoms are in your body and in your brain, the worse that it gets and the harder that it is to adjust and to heal from what you've experienced.

Scott Light:

Let's do this, as we again set a couple of baselines, maybe it's, maybe let's do a little myth-busting here about PTSD. And we'll do it through some true and false. And Morgan, you're your expert, but Maggie jump in here as well. So,

first one:

true or false? Anyone can suffer from PTSD.

Morgan Maffett:

True.

Scott Light:

Anybody right?

Maggie Kinkopf:

True, and I correct me if I'm wrong on this, but I think that sometimes people are more susceptible. If they have other like how I had depression and anxiety at the same time. I think that really contributed to me forming PTSD.

Scott Light:

Okay, true or false? PTSD is forever?

Morgan Maffett:

False.

Maggie Kinkopf:

False. And I just wanted to add that as a patient, I somehow believe that it was forever when I first got it, and that was really devastating to me. Because it feels like this insurmountable thing and that you're going to have it forever. And when I realized that, you know, it can go into remission, and it was a relief. And also, there are times, even though I'm in remission with PTSD that some of my symptoms do come back a little bit. However, I learned a lot of coping mechanisms, through the EMDR through therapy. And so it's very, if I was just talking to somebody who who just got diagnosed, I would say, you've already been living with it, it can only get better from here with treatment.

Scott Light:

Okay, next one, true or false? PTSD always happens right after the traumatic event.

Morgan Maffett:

False.

Scott Light:

Expand on that a little bit, if you would.

Morgan Maffett:

So your body can experience, and a lot of the time it does experience, a shock. So if you are somewhere and something really scary happens, it's likely that your body is going to have so much adrenaline inside of it, that it's going to do what it needs to do to keep you safe. And even once you're safe, you might be a little anxious, you might be a little on edge, but you still might not experience symptoms of PTSD. So PTSD can only be diagnosed when it's been experienced for up to six months. Anything less than that it's acute traumatic stress disorder. But some people don't experience those things until a couple months or even a couple years after it's happened.

Maggie Kinkopf:

I would agree with that. I think it was also hard sometimes to realize if you have PTSD or if you have a different mental illness going on at the same time.

Morgan Maffett:

True. I would say that it's true that people

Scott Light:

Last true or false question: PTSD poses an even greater risk for people with I/DD. who experience I/DD can be more susceptible to one experiencing trauma in the first place. But also the way that their brains can process things that are happening, can make things feel or actually be a lot more significant or scary than someone who is neurotypical. So let's expand on that a little bit if we can, Morgan. How would it manifest differently for someone for example, who has autism?

Morgan Maffett:

That's a great question. So, for autism specifically, so we have two parts of our brain. We have the left parts of our brain that is very logical, so like two plus two equals four, the door is brown, things like that. And the right side of your brain is where you can process things like emotion, feelings, sensations, body language, sarcasm. Those are all right side brain things. So when you experience something traumatic, the right side of your brain goes in overdrive. It doesn't matter what color the door is if something scary is going on in the room that you're in, so your body goes into overdrive that way. And so someone who has autism and experiences autism, the way that the right side of their brain functions already functions differently than those who are neurotypical. If you've ever worked with a client who has autism, you would notice body language. Reading that is really hard social skills are not typically as easily used and understood. And so then to have that part of their brain, that emotion and sensory part of their brain to be overactive already, when they're having a hard time understanding things that you and I might typically be able to pick up on. It can be a lot more overwhelming, it can be a lot more scary.

Scott Light:

It would seem to me to that means that for clinicians like you here at Boundless, you really have to customize your treatment plan.

Morgan Maffett:

Absolutely.

Scott Light:

Yeah. Maggie, you walked us through when I asked you, I think it was the very first question about your lived experience. Let's come up to EMDR- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. That worked for you.

Maggie Kinkopf:

Yes it did. Um, so with the first therapist I worked with,

Scott Light:

Tell us about it. literally all he did was he put two of his fingers together and then he had my, he told me to follow his fingers with my eyes. Basically just watch his his fingers. At the same time I was, he said to bring up one of the traumatic memories and he would talk to me beforehand to get me to the traumatic memory part but the nice part about EMDR and the part that I was really excited about was you don't have to talk about every single aspect of the traumatic memory. So it's a lot less stress, because you're just remembering it and you're not having to recount it to somebody. Interesting. Can you help us define EMDR?

Morgan Maffett:

Yeah, so Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is used with bilateral stimulation. So it can be following the fingers with your eyes like you did, it can be holding these things that vibrate back and forth from one hand to another, it could be headphones that ding back and forth. And what it's doing is it's utilizing the neurons in the brain to let the left part of your brain and the right part of your brain communicate better. So like I said before, when the right side of your brain is overactive, the left side of the brain doesn't get a chance to express like, you're safe now, we're okay now. So giving the left side of your brain a chance to communicate to the right side of the brain some, a lot of the times it's like, this is what happened. And so at first, it's, this is what I experienced, this is what's going on, this is what I felt in my body then, this is what I feel now. And then eventually that becomes that happened then, I can move forward. I do at Boundless specifically, because we do have a lot of individuals with intellectual disabilities, I use the pulsators, or the things that vibrate back and forth in your hand. Because there are some restrictions with the eye movement. So like, if you have any sort of neurological disorder, it's not recommended to use the eye movements, because it can cause significant like headaches, it can cause other problems that it's just, if we can use the pulsator as we might as well just use the pulsator. So that's really the only one that I typically do here. Um, if somebody wanted to do any of the other ones, I'm able and trained to do those. But it's giving the left side of your brain a chance to communicate that you're safe now.

Scott Light:

Maggie, was it from the first treatment on? Was it a light bulb kind of a moment for you? Or did it take several treatments to where you thought, okay, this is going to be good?

Maggie Kinkopf:

I think the first from the beginning, I noticed the difference. It might have taken like one or two sessions, but then I pretty much was feeling a lot better, like after the sessions. As opposed to when I was doing the talk therapy, I'd feel really bad after the sessions. These sessions I felt a lot more like calm. And one of my therapists described it as, like, you'll still have the memory, but it will be more like a Monet, it'll be less vivid, less intense. Which was also kind of comforting to me, because one of the fears I had was, am I going to completely forget that this happened to me? Or what's going to happen once I let go of this trauma? And I'm not sure why exactly that was one of my responses, but I think that that's common among trauma survivors is that sometimes we're afraid to let go of the trauma or reprocess it. It was an anxiety of mine to wonder what is going to happen exactly when my brain re-processes this trauma.

Scott Light:

That's an interesting comparison to an impres, do I have my art history right? An impressionist painting? So so a little? What Morgan, a little fuzzy, is that is that the way to kind of think about it?

Morgan Maffett:

So, the way that I describe it to my clients, I really liked the Monet example, the way that I explained it to my clients is it's, it's going to become less of a nightmare and more of any other memory. So, I like to explain it like, it's like, you'll be able to go back to the filing cabinet and pull out the memory when you want to. But it has a place and it's going to stay there unless you decide it's going to come back out.

Scott Light:

Something else that we had a pre-podcast discussion here and Morgan, you were saying that this treatment is oftentimes a first treatment in Europe. And oftentimes they last treatment here in the US. Why is that?

Morgan Maffett:

That's a really good question. I don't know the answer to why. I do know that it is, EMDR is getting a lot more attention now in America than it has before. It's definitely one of the most beneficial therapeutic techniques, especially because like you were saying that like you didn't want to talk about it. There are things that we process in our brain that our words can't put feeling an emotion to. But as far as like it being more popular in other countries, I don't really have an answer for you on that.

Scott Light:

Yeah, it's always interesting just kind of comparing, you know, which treatments, therapies and other regions of the world take on and which ones they don't. Maggie, do you wish that EMDR had come into your life earlier? And maybe the, you know, maybe the obvious answer would be yes. But I mean, could you have taken that on though as a, as a high schooler, or a young college student? I

Maggie Kinkopf:

I think so. I mean, I can tell you that I did this in 2017 and at the time, I had never heard of it. And I think there was only one therapist at the OSU Student Counseling Center that did it. And now, I prefer to go to therapists that have that training. However, it is difficult sometimes to find people who are trained in EMDR. But I think it's a really incredible therapy. And I recommend it to anyone I know who might have like some kind of even panic disorder, just trauma. Maybe it's not PTSD level, but it's trauma. It will really help.

Morgan Maffett:

That's a good point too. EMDR is not only for people who have PTSD. It is the gold standard for PTSD, but there are lots of people who benefit for like panic disorders, anxiety, depression, any sort of disorder that causes like negative beliefs about yourself. So what EMDR also tackles is negative cognitions, which are just negative beliefs about yourself, which we all have cognitions. But if your cognition is, I can do this, or regardless of how this turns out, I will learn from it. Compared to I'm stupid, I can't do anything right or I'm not safe, or I'm not lovable. That is the, that is the thing that we spend the most time on is identifying, those targeting those and growing with those. So anything like that, that has any negative sort of who am I? EMDR can be very beneficial.

Scott Light:

Let me come back to that story where you were interviewed Morgan, and you also talked about grounding techniques, that can be an important part to any PTSD treatment. What are those?

Morgan Maffett:

Yeah, so all therapists kind of have their own spin on them. My favorite one is called 54321, which is kind of just becoming aware of what's in the room around us, that'd be what are five things you can see, describe it, five things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste. That's one. For EMDR specifically, though, there are a couple standard practices that we do and so one is called the safe place. So doing EMDR, even though it can leave you more calm than talk therapy, is still overwhelming, and is still a lot. And so we have a resourcing speed, where we would do the bilateral stimulation, so where they follow the eyes, or how fast the buzzers are going, where, before we do this EMDR someone will describe to us where they feel the most safe in life. And then we will describe that place back to them and help them get into a place where they can feel safe, calm and comfortable before they leave the office. Another one is called the container, where the client describes where they would like to leave this big feeling or this big thought.

Scott Light:

And Morgan, as we wrap things up here for our listeners, where can they find out more about EMDR.

Morgan Maffett:

So, for more information about EMDR itself, EMDRIA, so emdria.com has a lot of really good information about what EMDR is, how you can start seeing a clinician, as well as what to look out for in the clinician that you might be seeking. Another place where you can find EMDR clinicians would be to look up EMDR therapy on Psychology Today.

Scott Light:

Okay, thank you both for being here.

Maggie Kinkopf:

Thank you.

Morgan Maffett:

Thank you.

Scott Light:

Thanks to our listeners as well. Don't forget you can always be part of episodes to come you can email us your questions or comments at podcast@iamboundless.org. This is the Well-Being podcast brought to you by Boundless.