Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
#13 Uncovering the Untold Impact of TBI on Women: A Conversation with Paula D. Walters
Join us for a powerful episode as Paula D. Walters, a passionate advocate and survivor of traumatic brain injury (TBI), sheds light on the unique challenges women face in TBI recovery. Paula shares her personal journey of resilience, the gaps in trauma-informed care, and why education and awareness are critical for better support systems. Discover how her advocacy is changing the conversation around TBI in women and what we can do to help. Tune in for an inspiring and eye-opening discussion on the hidden struggles and triumphs of women living with TBI.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is sponsored by The Mac Parkman Foundation
Support The Mac Parkman Foundation by donating today!
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Overview
03:05 The Impact of TBI in Women
06:24 Paula's Journey and Advocacy
13:26 The Lack of Education and Awareness
18:19 The Challenges of Diagnosis and Treatment
23:49 Lifelong Consequences and the Need for Change
26:10 Understanding the Impacts of Trauma on Brain Health
29:04 Challenges in Finding the Right Doctors and Treatments
37:43 Advocating for Survivors and Raising Awareness
Learn more about Paula and her work by clicking the links below!
Website: www.thecourageoussurvivor.com
LinkedIn: Paula D Walters
Instagram: thecourageoussurvivor
YouTube: @PDW-thecourageoussurvivor
Produced by Security Halt Media
Welcome folks to another episode of our podcast, Broken Brains, with Bruce Parkman, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation, where we look into the issues of repeated head impacts and repeated blast exposure and its effect on the brains and mental health of our children, adults, veterans and athletes. And on this show today we have an amazing guest, ms Paula Walters, here. So excited to have Ms Walters because she represents something that we really haven't talked about on this show too much and we need to, which is the issue of women and TBI and how it affects them.
Speaker 1:Ms Walters has been a paramedic for 20 years. She's a dedicated advocate, speaker and survivor who draws on her own painful journey through the medical system and the lasting impacts of child abuse, domestic violence and trauma on her mental and physical health. She's been through a lot and through her pain and her social media platforms, blog and podcast, the Courageous Survivor, she shares her story of resilience and healing and offers hope and inspiration to fellow survivors. And she works to put together a system, which is so important here, that's collaborative in nature and supports survivors on their path to recovery, and she serves to act as that source of strength and to encourage these people and all of our stakeholders in society from first responders, health care professionals, advocates to come together to better support these issues. Her story's been shared nationally. You can hear her on her podcast. You can also find her story on such prestigious publications New York Times, spective News, npr and the Christian Broadcast Network. Ms Walters, thank you so much for coming on our show today. We're so excited.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me and bringing light to this subject. There's a lot of new data coming out about how impactful this is for women and I really just appreciate that you're taking the space to talk about this, because this is a really dangerous intersection and there's not a lot of people really kind of just really stepping in and addressing it, kind of just really stepping in and addressing it.
Speaker 1:And they're not, and it's something that we really need to dial into here. Women are heavily underrepresented. In every major study that I've looked at, whether it's been on the issue of brain damage, especially in sports, in the military, Women are completely overlooked. And then when you start talking about the issue of domestic abuse, women take 90% of that as a population. Right, we all know that. And to your point, let's just get started. I mean, you know, and to your point, let's just get started. I mean, why are women not? I mean, women are obviously about half our population, right, why are they? Why have they been overlooked?
Speaker 2:on the issue of, you know, TBI and you know, and the resulting mental trauma and physical trauma that women go through.
Speaker 2:I really don't know, because it seems like it should be so easy because, you know, if men get hits to the head in sports, women are doing the same sport and they're taking hits to the head as well, I think, as far as in the domestic violent child abuse in that realm, I think it's just one of those things that people don't want to talk about, those subjects anyways, they make people uncomfortable and I think that that is a big part of it.
Speaker 2:I know that when I in my journey, I in my journey when so I had Dr Bill Smock, who's kind of a big doctor as far as he's a forensic pathologist and does a lot of he actually was the doctor who testified in the Derek Chauvin trial for strangulation. He's the one that kind of opened the door to my brain injury and kind of helped get me to the doctor who helped me, but nobody. I kept telling people, you know, that I had had a near-fatal strangulation and nobody was talking about it. And so these symptoms that seemed like brain injury, that could be brain injury, was getting masked as oh, you're perimenopausal, you have anxiety, you have depression, all of this mental stuff.
Speaker 1:Everything but.
Speaker 2:And the symptoms are very, very similar and so if you don't have doctors that are informed, then it's going to easily get shoved under the rug and kind of put onto those two topics. And that's where I kind of got stuck. And it's funny because I tell people when I speak the hardest relationship that I've had to leave has been the one where I've been gaslit by my medical providers.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about your journey. I mean's for our audience here. Tell us your background and how you became such a vocal advocate and a national voice for this issue. So what happened to Paula?
Speaker 2:So I was raised in a very rural area in northwest Ohio, was a victim of child abuse and never really thought anything of it, like I didn't see myself in that aspect. But in 2006, that is kind of when my journey took a hard right turn. I was the victim of a near fatal strangulation, ended up going into the ER that I worked in. So I'm working as a paramedic on the fire department and EMS and also in working in the ER and there's a lot of complications to it because it was an officer and stuff. But you know, when I went in to the ER I show my picture very publicly and it's on all my sites but when you look at it there's. I had petechiae all over, which we now know is. You know that is a sign of definite strangulation. I got diagnosed with bruised contusions and the hard part was like I didn't. I didn't look bad as a paramedic, I didn't think I looked hurt, you know. I mean I had some superficial black eyes and bruises and stuff. But back in 2006 we didn't know a lot about the petechiae and I had a forensic nurse who did a phenomenal job of like kind of warning me about that, but it was like I wasn't sick and then all of a sudden about that, but it was like I wasn't sick and then all of a sudden after that I started just having all these, all these medical problems start popping up. I started having problems with my heart rate, with my blood pressure, especially my you know, my gut, my autoimmune system. So I started getting diagnosed with POT, neurocardiogenic syncope. I mean I was like aiogenic syncope. I mean I was like a fainting goat. I would just, you know, stand up, pass out. And then I started having, you know, I got diagnosed with irritable bowel and then I started having problems like with now I know is executive functioning, but being able to regulate my emotions, so inappropriate kind of responses, somebody would say something and I would just start crying or I would get angry and more than normal. And so it started kind of having all these problems and I started feeling like I was drunk on a boat, so like I started all of a sudden getting sick in the front of the truck, especially when I was riding in the back with patients. Something that I had never had is I started all of a sudden getting sick in the front of the truck, especially when I was riding in the back with patients. Something that I had never had is I started having motion sickness, getting more clumsy. So going out and walking and stepping down off the curb, I started noticing that I was having problems, you know, kind of being able to keep my balance. So it was like all these things.
Speaker 2:I started going to the doctor and so then they're like oh you know, you're a paramedic, you have anxiety and depression, let's put you on Xanax. And then they put me on Prozac. Then they started, you know, talking about giving. You know they gave me medicines for my blood pressure. Then they started giving me medicines for my heart rate and talked about putting a pacemaker in me and then, you know, give me stuff for my gut. It was just I had hospital after hospital after hospital visit and test. I mean I'm over $350,000 in medical expenses from 2006 till 2019 when I went out and saw a functional medicine doctor I had to do medical bankruptcy. It just it was I got diagnosed with.
Speaker 2:So, as I got sicker and sicker, they kept putting me on medicine and medicine. I had almost two dozen medical diagnoses and was on almost two dozen different medications and I was so sick I just I was tired all the time and I ended up getting to this point where it impacted my job. So they took away my ability to be a paramedic and then they took away my driving and told me that if I saw 50, then they took away my driving and told me that if I saw 50, that I would be on disability and that I would probably not be able to really function on my own. And that was kind of rock bottom, because I had a really difficult time with that, because I kept begging them, I kept saying like I'm not this sick, like something's wrong, I don't believe that I have this debilitating MS.
Speaker 2:And I started researching and I came across a girl named Amy Zelmer on social media and she talked about her brain injury and the symptoms. And so I reached out to her through her Facebook group and asked her you know, like hey, do you think that you know me, having been strangled and kind of beat up, could give me the same symptoms? Because I have a lot of the same symptoms as you. And she said, you know, yeah, and so I reached out and I got to the point where, before I went out to see a functional medicine doctor, I sat down and told my family, like if they can't help me. I don't want to live anymore Like I was that sick, I had a plan anymore. Like I was that sick, I had a plan. Um, it was horrible. Like every aspect of my life had been impacted to where you know. Walking down steps, every day thing seemed to be so overwhelming. Having the fire department at my house because I forgot that I put something in the stove. My short-term memory was going.
Speaker 1:I just felt like I lost myself, and so you know for a lot of the folks out there whether you know strangulation and child abuse right. I mean, I grew up in a very, very violent home, very familiar with that aspect of life, and I think that's why we're probably much better parents than the ones that raised us. You know, this is a significant issue because you know, ms Walters, what you just went through is what we see all the time, with children that are acting out, parents who don't know why, because they don't know they played too much sports. Or men in jail, women in jail. Right now, there are studies showing that up to 80% of incarcerated people, male and female, have a history of TBI.
Speaker 1:But it goes down to the key issue here is the lack of education and awareness. I mean, we come across people with bags of medicine because they treat the symptoms because, well, when you put a pill in your body it causes another issue. So they treat that, but they don't go back to the key area, which is you brain dysregulation. You have damage done to your brain. So tell us about the functional doc. What did they, what did they specialize in? And and and what? What were the you know significant issues that got you back on on your feet or on your way forward, cause we're we never truly heal right. We're always right, always healing right, you know.
Speaker 2:I, yeah, I'll be, I'll be working on my healing, you know, for the for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:But you know it's funny because when I went out there, when I went out to Minneapolis so Amy lives in Minneapolis so I went to see a functional neurologist. So Dr Eric Reese and Dr Mike Hennis from the Neural Connection have changed my life. Dr Eric Reese and Dr Mike Hennis from the Neural Connection have changed my life. Like I went out there and there were these conversations that I had never been asked and it was like they looked at everything from, you know, a mile up, kind of looking down at my life. So they asked about my diet, about, you know, my sleep. They asked about my past, you know, they asked about the trauma. So I had seen I think I'd seen 14 different medical specialists across three different states. So I lived in Raleigh, lived in New Orleans and then, you know seeing people around here in Northwest Ohio, and never was I asked about trauma as a paramedic, as nothing, and this is kind of something that they honed in on.
Speaker 1:And you see trauma every day. As a paramedic, I mean yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know I used to think I was. I not that I was special, but like I thought that I was like a one in a million case. And as I've started going through this um I you know, I spoke at conferences where there's been a lot of military women, um, and and just survivors, and I'm learning that, like they're 86% of women are are domestic violence victims and and have been strangled and I'm like you know, 86%. What was that?
Speaker 1:Did you say 86% of women have been strangled?
Speaker 2:Strangled Like at one point in their life right, not not in their marriage or something like that Right At some point in their life, when you're talking about strangled or um and hit in the head, so like you're talking about all these either traumatic or anoxic injuries to the head, and so as I'm learning more, I'm like there's tons of people out there like me.
Speaker 2:And when I went to the functional neurologist, like they don't take insurance, so that's it's hard for people to get there and but you know, when I got out there and I worked with Eric and Mike in the first hour and a half, so I went out there in an hour and a half, my first visit.
Speaker 2:So I went out for a week long intensive and in the first hour and a half, like they said, you know, you've got, you know problems with your, you know your autonomic, and then they're like you got stuff with your proprioception, your vision's off, and they explained it and they could basically tell me at the end of that hour and a half kind of the areas of my brain that were causing these symptoms. And by the end of day one when I left there. So you go out there and you go for one week other than your hour and a half initial visit, you go for hour visits. So I think I had a total of 14 visits that week. I felt like a completely different person and I mean I feel the best I've ever felt, even better than the 20, 25, 30 year old Paula, one one just understanding. Like that I'm not broken, that I can, that I can fix this you know like kind of heal from it.
Speaker 2:Um, but I also control my own. I also kind of control my own journey. I it it. It's a lot of work, but, um, it just like I could see, I could you know I went out there not being able to walk a straight line. So they have you, they put this dot on a on a wall and they have you walk towards it and you're moving your head while you're looking. That made me so sick. Just that movement Plus I walked like a drunk. I felt like I was getting a roadside DUI test is what it kind of felt like Am I in trouble?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I left there. I left there being able to pass all of them.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and and and. Here's the saddest part. And this is where this one statement from my doctor is what it made me so mad that I was like okay, like I can't do anything to change him, but I can tell other people about what happened to me. And when I went back to my neurologist who said, who took away my driving privileges, who took away my paramedic? And I said, text me he was. He was absolutely against me going to see functional medicine heck, yeah, he was oh.
Speaker 2:And when I came back he said to me and I will, I can close my eyes and hear this, like he just said it. He said there is a reason why the fda does not approve that type of treatment. And he said it's witchcraft and I will not remove your diagnosis and I will not let you return to work.
Speaker 2:MS has ebbs and flows and you're just in a good spot. And even as of today, even though I am five years out, my medical record still says that I need to see a psychologist because I am unable to accept my poor prognosis.
Speaker 1:Well, I got a lot of people in my network would tell you a neurologist to go jump off a bridge, because that is another issue that we're having out there. I mean, I got so many questions, but I mean what I want the audience to understand is that what Paula's going through with her brain damage is what is happening across this country, and not only in violent relationships but as well as sports and in military service, and we have an entire your neurologist is representative of probably man, the majority of the doctors out there that refuse to accept that there's other ways to heal the brain, or that are pushed back with by big pharma or, you know, or the FDA, which is kind of big pharma in my opinion, sometimes because they don't think innovatively, you know, and we have tons of treatments out there, from hyperbaric oxygen therapy, vagus nerve stimulation, photobiomodulation, the psychedelics that are regenerating brain growth that are just off. You know you can't do it. You can't do it Even though we have thousands of people going. These things changed my life. You can't do that because you know I'm going to take away your driving. So you know.
Speaker 1:This goes back to a really key point, paul is that when you go in front of a doctor and you've been strained okay, or you're acting out and maybe you know that you played too much, you headed too many soccer balls you go to the doctor. They don't have any billing codes. And that is the key to this whole issue here that unless they have a billing code then they can't get insurance coverage, so they don't even want to talk to you. And now you're talking about medical bankruptcy. How crazy is that that we have this entire population of suffering women that are going to the medical system that we trust that cannot even properly assist them? Did they even try to do like look at your brain for any damage with a PET scan or a functional MRI or any imagery at all? Or they just went ahead and assumed that you know that, you know that you were just? This is a psychological issue. It has nothing to do with your you know brain being damaged.
Speaker 2:Well, so they. So they did a bare study like that kind of does the hearing. They did EEGs, they did MRIs. They did a Bayer study that kind of does the hearing. They did EEGs, they did MRIs, they did CTs and what they found on my MRI was that I had lesions. So once they saw that they were hell-bent that I had MS, now, after I went out to see Eric and know Eric and them, I came back and I had another MRI. He did order another MRI and the lesions were gone. Now part of that was diet change. So one of the things before I went out there they had asked me to do to be gluten-free and dairy-free, which I still am. My brain is very sensitive to that. But one of the things that we learned through some lab work that they did do out there was that my blood-brain barrier had been broke. So there was, like these tests, I guess, a neurozoomer.
Speaker 2:And so it like looked at all these things and my blood-brain barrier had been broke, so I'm probably more sensitive to stuff. But I've had three consecutive MRIs since then without the lesions and I've had three spinal taps that are all clean and they still will not remove that diagnosis of MS of MS.
Speaker 2:What's really frustrating is people think people do not understand the lifelong consequences about these doctors giving us the wrong diagnoses. So when I go to buy a house and I want to get life insurance to protect my assets, they pull your medical record. Well, guess what? You're too sick, we're going to deny you for life insurance because you have all of this stuff and you're so you're not a good investment for us. That is, I mean it's. It is like it's lifelong consequences to have these diagnoses tied to you because you can't get them removed.
Speaker 1:And then you know and unless you go to another neurologist who's just going to go, listen to the first one you know the problem that I have with this and just for our audience too, the blood-brain barrier is what protects your brain tissue from being infected by the contents of your bloodstream. Okay, there's a membrane there that will not let harmful particles in. But in Paula's case, once that barrier is ruptured, now that whatever's in your blood gets into the brain and can cause all kinds of issues. The other point I'd like to point out, paula's like all the tests that you just took MRIs and EEGs they cannot see the type of damage that you sustained at the microcellular level. That's why we have SPECT scans now.
Speaker 1:Dti scans, functional MRI scans, qeegs are all different ways of looking at how the brain functions. But if they're not used with a neurologist that understands what is happening to your brain, then you get. They just go to the book and say well, according to the systems, the book says this, and I'm not changing my mind because I'm too proud and I don't want to admit that I might be wrong or that the FDA might be, and to your point to have to deal in life now. I mean, just think of how hard it is to unfreeze your credit nowadays. Like once you freeze your credit, you unfreeze. I mean it is a nightmare. I've got to get ready to do this to get my stepson alone right. I can only imagine what it must be like to try and get a life-changing diagnosis. Like, you can't drive off your records, so where is that right now? I mean, are you getting any help from the legal community or something? I mean because there are practitioners out here that should be able to reverse that based on the progress that you've made.
Speaker 2:Well, so the doctors have. So having a functional neurologist give me a basically a clean bill of health did actually help. And I did have one female primary care doctor who once I got the note from a functional neurologist that said, hey, here's this. She tested me herself and she went and she gave me the OK to be back to work. So I'm back to work full time. I've ran, I've done a, I've completed a half marathon. I sent my neurologist a picture of me at the finish line with my Neener, neener, neener.
Speaker 1:Good for you.
Speaker 2:I, you know, other than seeing that primary care doctor who returned me to work, I have not seen a traditional medical doctor and I won't. I just I lost a lot and plus they don't understand you know I do the blood brain barrier and understanding the impacts of trauma, like what it has, you know, kind of just going all the way back learning about, kind of you know, my stress hormones and my and about my brain injury. They educated me about making lifestyle changes that have have opened doors to me that I feel so amazing.
Speaker 2:And I can't thank them enough for that. Like I really feel like I paid for a master's in my body is what I feel like I have now.
Speaker 1:Yep, no, I, I bet I mean there's, you know I, I and I know firsthand from you, know men and women that I've served with and myself, that once you make those dietary brain, you know, brain focused uh changes that you can do, you know so much better. I mean it's, it's uh, and for yourself, it's just. It's just for yourself, it's just taking it to the whole level. But we've got two large areas of ignorance. We're talking about Number one, about women as a whole who, for some reason, when they come in, you know, when it comes to brain damage and especially in sports, in the military, are completely overlooked. And then, on the subject of domestic violence and child abuse, nobody wants to talk about it. That's that hole down there. Nobody wants to go there, but we all know it exists. We all know that domestic abuse occurs, we all know that child abuse occurs, but there's such dark issues that it's just something that nobody wants to discuss.
Speaker 1:You're a voice for this right. I mean you're shining a light, just like we like to say. We're shining a light on this area of, you know, children dying and veterans I mean veterans and athletes killing themselves or suffering in silence that nobody wants to talk about. Right now You're doing the same over here. So how's I mean? It sounds like the reception has been awesome. I mean you're in some major publications, you've been all over the place, you got your own podcast. So I mean, how's the? I mean, how's it been for you being able to enable it's got to be so empowering, being able to enable other women and victims to be able to come forth or at least see that there is a path ahead, because when you're at your lowest point, it is so dumb down there, you know.
Speaker 2:Well and I just I either meet it. There's no middle ground. People either love my message or they absolutely, you know, hate it. I always close up my speaking engagement with when we see anybody with behavior that doesn't is out of context. We really do need to change change the conversation from what's wrong with them to what has happened to them. You know, military people, just just everybody. And one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about this is because there are men and women out there who are losing their jobs, losing their children, losing, you know, taking their own life and taking these diagnoses. And then they're getting more and more pills and they're getting very lost in the system and, I know, at rock bottom. If I wouldn't have happened to go looking on social media and find the right person, I can say with 100% certainty I would have taken my own life.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was just at that point. And we have a mental health, we have an addiction problem in this country, we have all of these problems and we're looking at being slap happy with these medicines and these diagnoses and we're not addressing the root problem. And, unfortunately, one of the big things is accessibility to these tests that you were talking about earlier and to these doctors. I mean, it seems like such a simple, simple thing for me is why are we not, you know, why are we not having these doctors like Eric and like Mike, who can be approved by insurance? But then again, you know, sometimes I have this question of are we putting profits over people? And when I say that, I get a lot of Well, we are.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know personally, I know psychiatric nurse practitioners that don't get compensated unless they actually prescribe medicines. That is a profit motive. I mean, they're doing their job, they're trying to get these people medications, but then their company doesn't get reimbursed because they didn't write a prescription for a drug. There's actually an estimate that the United States consumes 85% of the pharmaceuticals in the world. Okay, so there is a profit motive, absolutely, and we've got to get beyond this. But I want to go back to your point about what's wrong versus what happened, because I think there's a point on both issues. We have to go back to what happened, to your point. Right, we have to look at what happened because we have to address these issues of domestic violence and of child abuse and we have to, you know, get these you know perpetrators in jail. We've got to get them in anger management. We got to get them. You know, we got to make things right on what happened. And we have to understand what happened, because we have to look at what's also wrong, because what's wrong with these folks, when they are acting out, when they are impulsive, when they have suicidal ideation, is they have damage to their brain that we are not even looking at Now. You go to the doctor, paula, right now. They're going to check your heart, they're going to check your lungs, they're going to tap your knee to make sure your leg flexes. All that they don't look at your brain, and your brain controls 100% of the issues that are going on in your body Anxiety, depression, dopamine, serotonin levels, all the third-party order effects. Everything that we're doing, all the symptoms they're treating, are because your brain is just not right. It's either damaged or the chemistry's off or whatever. But we don't even know unless we go there, and 100% of the doctors we go to for an annual checkup is not asking how's your brain health? They'll ask you do you feel safe in your home, how many drugs you're on, but they don't ask you how's your brain. And there are some simple things we can do for just blood tests and an exam that can look at your brain. Have you had a car accident in the last year? I mean, what's going on up here? Because if we don't look up here and what happened to get this damage, like in your case being violently strangled how are we going to get to the root cause of the problem, which is our brain. If we're not treating the brain, then we get all the cascading impacts on your life that drove you to the point where you decided to make change.
Speaker 1:And we love change agents on this show. We just love it because somebody's got to say this ain't wrong, and we all get hammered. I get hammered all the time because I'm the guy that's trying to make contact sports safer. We love our contact sports. And then you're one of the key people that we've met on the women's side that's out there yelling and screaming about hey, we have to take a look at this because we got a problem.
Speaker 1:So when you talk to parents now, we have a lot of parents that are out there and you know they're moms, right, I love moms. I love those angry mama bears, man, because when they know something's going to hurt their girls or kids, right, they ain't going to happen. So you have, you know, you have your message on, you know, brain health and then identifying with TBI and understand that now that we have a huge gap out there, when we talk about parents of, especially, women, women parents, right, moms, new moms, right, we start talking about brain health. What would be your message to them about, you know, taking care of their kids from. You know making sure that they get to the right doctors, or something that there's other things out there, you know making sure that they get to the right doctors, or something that there's other things out there. You know what would you say to them?
Speaker 2:I'll often so. I do a lot of training with CPS and their caseworkers and foster parents and I tell them like when you're going to be taking your kids to, before you even make an appointment, I know, before I make an appointment with any holistic doctor and I want to see anybody. I have the conversation about people being trauma informed and you know, what is your first?
Speaker 2:what you know? Do you give medicines like what you know? And I'll just have conversations with them about you know? Are you, are you a medical or you know medicine first person? Medical or you know medicine first person? I? So, because of being a paramedic, I, you know, have to have my physicals and sometimes. So I did find a family practice doc, and that's one of the first things I went in is I went in and asked him you know, if I want to have these tests and I don't want to take medicines, are you open to giving me other options? And when the one said no, I said okay, well then you're not for me, because if you're not willing to even explore anything else, then I don't want to go to you. And just being able to look at, like somebody that looks at the whole health, whole body health, I mean, it's not just as easy as pill your diet does threat your environment. You really do have to look at the big picture when it comes to people.
Speaker 2:And there's not a lot of doctors. I'm actually getting ready to go out to Los Angeles later this month and I made this fly that has all these different silos on it and I put all the different specialties. We really have to go. We need a one-stop doctor and I know that it's your family practice doctor is supposed to be that person, but they don't have enough in depth. You know, when I went to see Eric and Mike, they really did have this kind of you know, bird's eye view. You know their specialty is neurology but yet they understood the importance of the gut exercise. You know they understand the whole body metabolically and I think that that is important and that's really who we need to be getting our kids to, because, if you know, we have a lot of kids. When I go talk to CPS there are kids that are eight, nine years old, that are on eight, nine, 10 medications.
Speaker 1:They give it away like candy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know they're like well, they have ADHD and their behaviors and all this stuff and we're setting these kids up for failure. Could you? Keep putting them on these meds and I asked them I'm like, if these kids have been on these medicines for two years, when do you think it's going to start working Like? If prescription medicines work. We wouldn't need keep needing them anymore, right?
Speaker 1:No, and and and the black box warnings on some of these drugs and and the get off them is is them is like getting off of alcohol or opioids. I mean, I've got friends right now that are struggling with getting off medications and they're adults and we're putting these kids on these adult medications because it's easy, there's a pill and they don't look. They don't even look at the kids. Have you been? You know you're talking about caseworker children, foster kids who have been exposed to domestic violence. All right, if they're getting smacked upside the head every day because of whatever reason, that leads to brain damage, that results in mental illnesses like ADHD, like impulsivity, you know, rage, aggression all this stuff emanate from a damaged brain. And is it all of them? No, but if we're not at least assessing them for that possibility, which is statistically pretty high if you come from an abusive household, as we both know, all right, then we're not helping these kids out, we're just giving them medicine. I mean, it's just horrible, and I think you know what I would. I mean, we now understand that we have a huge education problem out there, right, and your journey, just like the journey that we're on here, is opening up new pathways to healing that we have got to, new pathways to healing for issues that doctors and nurses are not trained to understand. How do we fix that? I mean, there should be some kind of you know, continuing medical education, cme credit, you know, three-hour class on domestic violence, trauma and brain health or something like that, because we've got to do it.
Speaker 1:This stuff is not taught in our medical schools. So you know, and you go to a neurologist who's you know this is like, so beneath them, right, it's like domestic abuse. I want to talk to a car crash, I want to see, yeah, so you know, but this could be easily diagnosed and handled by a nurse or a doctor. So, in your journeys right now, how open has the medical community been to? Are they opening up now? Are you getting you know, is there, is there? Has there been any improvement?
Speaker 2:I mean you violence, human trafficking child abuse and PTSD, but like brain injury, the intersection of brain injury and domestic violence. And I have literally just been told in the last two weeks that I didn't get picked up for one out of five conferences picked me up and the wording has been that, well, we don't really see enough of this to bring you in and pay for that. These are first responders. You are talking about our police, fire and EMS. Like, as a paramedic, I have no requirement for continuing education on any of those populations and there's one paragraph in our paramedic book about DV. So I think that there needs to be for police, fire, ems, nursing and doctors.
Speaker 2:I think that there needs to be a lot more education around this Because because, again, the fallout is lifelong, so we have to open up mental health providers and everybody having these conversations of talking about trauma. I can tell you I am so thankful that in my journey that when I was kind of stuck in the worst parts of my journey that it was before, everybody had phones. So I fear about how I was at a Bob Evans and ordered food, got the wrong thing, got bacon instead of sausage and I threw my food on the floor, yelled at the waitress, threw water on her and walked out. Wow.
Speaker 2:It is this accountability part and I'm ashamed about that. But understanding now that A the impacts of trauma on the memory and that brain function of like, oh, I could go to jail from this. Like this is assault, like that whole thing, I could go to jail from this. Like this is assault, like that whole thing. I mean that was technically assault. And so we have to start having those conversations because you know corrections, I speak to some of the. You know, like I spoke to the Ohio Department of Corrections.
Speaker 2:And it's the amount of people that are in prison who maybe their crime, although it was wrong, was rooted in something that could have been. Hello.
Speaker 1:Hello.
Speaker 2:That was something that wasn't their fault.
Speaker 1:Right, yes, correct. Who wants to open up that box? When you start talking about? We have one million incarcerated veterans. We have a huge female incarcerated population. Just think if we had to go back and say wait a minute, this woman went through an entire childhood and marriage of domestic abuse was punched in the head. We all know that CTE, which is the chronic traumatic encephalopathy, has been found in victims of domestic abuse. Because the impacts are the same. All right, just think if we had to go back and say, wow, we have women that served in the military and or we got, we got.
Speaker 1:We have an issue here that, to your point, they committed a crime. Now, outside of murder, where you just can't go back and stuff like that can. But even we, we we're talking to a judge right now who is so appalled that the entire judicial system is not trained to even ask these questions. The lawyers don't ask, they don't represent, they just try to get the least amount of time. Then they get in front of a judge who can't ask the right questions because they're not educated. But women and men are incarcerated for extensive amounts of time for something that might not have even been their fault. It was their action, but the cause, which is the brain damage. I mean this is like a whole show unto itself on how do we address this? Because that's a whole other area that nobody's trained up on. Just think judges, lawyers, police officers. And then I'll go to one more point and then we'll close out.
Speaker 1:But the other part is when I was at an ayahuasca ceremony for first responders. I'm a military, I've been in four different combat zones, I've done my job, yada, yada. But when we think about police, we think about all right, they get shot. Police are in dangerous positions, right. And then when we think about police, we think about all right, they get shot. You know, police are in dangerous positions, right. And then firefighters and paramedics. Until I was at that ayahuasca ceremony, it never hit your job, right To go on scene like who are the people that's picking up the pieces, right, who are the folks? After the fire?
Speaker 1:And I started, I got an entirely new level of respect for our, our, our firefighters and first responders that I only reserve for police and military because of bullets and guns, right. And I was like, oh my Lord, no wonder you're partaking in this area. And then the conversations I had with them. The jobs that you are required to do adds a whole nother level of trauma to this thing outside of the brain stuff. But I mean, but yeah, we have a lot, a lot to do. So tell me what's next for Paula Walters. What do you got going on? How can our audience follow you and stay in tune with you and your message?
Speaker 2:So I am on social media, I'm on pretty much all the social media platforms and my under Paula D Walters or the Courageous Survivor, and I'm really. You know, I kind of redid all of my platforms because I really want to go after talking very specifically about what we've talked about today. So I was just about domestic violence and child abuse, but there has to have this intersection of the brain injury part and I really have decided I want to go after the speaking because last year I was in front of New Jersey's judicial conferences.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And there were prosecutors and judges, and one of the judges I keep his comment on, you know, in front of me on my office wall and he told me. He said the listening to your story has changed my life and he said I have never looked at people that come in front of my bench the way that I will from now on and I think that, like I think that that made me be, I have to be in front of everybody, from a 911 call until we get to survivors, everybody, all aspects. We have to have this education. What you and I have talked about today and brain impact has to be told to all of those people, because we are making lifelong decisions for people and those people have to fight.
Speaker 2:I think about how hard I had to fight to get to the right place and to be able to get to where I am, and I got professional courtesy. You know what I mean. I worked in the very ERs that I was seeing doctors. So what about the people who don't really have a voice and have no connections at all? And so that is why I'm like I will never say no. I feel like God gave me this purpose. I will never say no If somebody sends an invitation, if I can get in front of people, because this is where it is. There are tons of people like me, millions of people like me, thousands and thousands and thousands of women and men and children who are being lost, and they're losing their life or they're taking their life, or their whole life is being pained because the right people don't know the right information.
Speaker 1:Ms Walters, I cannot thank you enough for coming on this show and thank the Lord for your message and for your presence out there.
Speaker 1:That's just helping to carry your story of resilience and just toughness, perseverance and getting you to a point where you can advocate. There are so many people that need to hear your story and to learn from that, and it's not just the victims. It's also, as you said, the judges, the police that are arresting these people. The parents of children that are acting out, husbands and wives of their lovers and partners that are acting out, wives of their lovers and partners that are acting out. We've got and then the nurses, doctors and those darn neurologists who don't know any better. Right, we have a big mission to do in this country and you are absolutely helping us out. I want to thank you so much for coming on this show and sharing your story and sharing your knowledge with our parents, and we really appreciate you coming on and we look forward to supporting your journey, having you back on the show and we will be tracking you on social media everywhere you go.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, thank you for your service and thank you for having me. I appreciate this space.
Speaker 1:No problem, ma'am, and thank you so much. Take care of yourself, we'll talk to you later.