In this episode of the Discovering Our Scars Podcast, hosts Beth Demme and Stephanie Kostopoulos discuss chapter 9 of Steph's memoir, "Discovering My Scars." We unveil the profound power of vulnerability as we navigate the choppy waters of past traumas, workplace mental health, and PTSD.
Full transcript and show notes here: https://bit.ly/dospod148
Buy Discovering My Scars
Audiobook: https://amzn.to/2XCe9a3
Paperback: https://amzn.to/2O4U5dh
ebook: https://amzn.to/2r8mPsA
In this episode of the Discovering Our Scars Podcast, hosts Beth Demme and Stephanie Kostopoulos discuss chapter 9 of Steph's memoir, "Discovering My Scars." We unveil the profound power of vulnerability as we navigate the choppy waters of past traumas, workplace mental health, and PTSD.
Full transcript and show notes here: https://bit.ly/dospod148
Buy Discovering My Scars
Audiobook: https://amzn.to/2XCe9a3
Paperback: https://amzn.to/2O4U5dh
ebook: https://amzn.to/2r8mPsA
Welcome to the Discovering Our Scars podcast.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Where we share personal experiences so we can learn from each other. I'm Steph and I'm Beth. I've been in recovery for 17 years and am the author of Discovering my Scars, my memoir about what's done in the darkness eventually comes to light.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:I'm a lawyer, a turn pastor, who's all about self-awareness and emotional health, because I know what it's like to have neither of those things, beth and I have been friends for years, have gone through a recovery program together, and when I wanted to start a podcast, she was the only name that came to mind as co-host.
Beth Demme:I didn't hesitate to say yes, because I've learned a lot from sharing personal experiences with Steph over the years. We value honest conversations and we hope you do too. On today's show, we're going to have an honest conversation titled Discovering my Scars Chapter 9.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Then we'll share a slice of life, and the show will close with questions for reflection. We'll invite you to reflect on the conversation in your own life.
Beth Demme:Chapter 9. Chapter 9 of your memoir Discovering my Scars, the inspiration for our podcast, discovering Our Scars, yes, yeah.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:We're going to continue right along, so we're going to listen to the audio of the book and then we'll pause between to kind of do a deeper dive. Chapter 9, 43,829 hours. I was 25 years old and had been physically free from Nicole's place for 43,829 hours, In other words, five years. My body was in the free world, but my brain was not. Every day was hard. I lived in fear of going back to Nicole's place and of what happened to me while I was there. I would hear the screams and alarms in my head. I would feel cold and instantly be transported back to my hospital room. I wasn't free. One thing that helped my racing brain music I played the song set me free by casting crowns over and over.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:During this time. I even made a video depicting scenes from my childhood of me in my dorm room right after my release, including my fresh scars. Little did I know at the time how powerful that juxtaposition was. Each day I felt like the shell of the person I was during the 74 hours of my experience five years earlier. I couldn't keep up my I'm a happy human show anymore. I knew something had to happen. I had to get away from work and look inward. I loved my job at Apple, but I considered quitting it because I was not sure I could get the time off that I needed. Do you ever feel like you're putting on a happy human?
Beth Demme:show. Yeah, sometimes I do. I mean not not for days at a time, you know, but for an event or something. I might be like you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna kind of what do I say? Or what do we say? Like I've heard people say like I'm gonna park it. I've even been in meetings like where it starts out that way what do you need to park to be fully present here? I have never heard that word before Park. Is that a new thing? I don't know.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:It's like wait, what do you need In past or meeting? Oh okay, what do?
Beth Demme:you need to park in order, yeah. So what are you gonna park so that you can be fully present for this meeting?
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Something you told me a while back that I'm good at.
Beth Demme:What's that word? So compartmentalize, yes, yeah.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:You've said that to me before that I'm good at that.
Beth Demme:Yeah.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Like putting things like okay, you'll deal with this now, then you're gonna deal with this. Is that like the same thing as parking something? Yes, that's like the new cool pastor word, so yeah. So what are we?
Beth Demme:gonna park over here. What do you need to park? I need to park my to-do list. I need to park my you know, this person who I'm worried about because they're in the hospital or whatever. I need to park this so that I can really be here. So that's kind of maybe the the the short term idea of I'm gonna put on a happy human show because it's saying there are things that are distracting me or dragging me down, but I I'm gonna intentionally set them aside for right now. But it sounds like in your book, like this is not just a temporary thing, like this is day after day. You have something that is pulling you back in time and and you're having to Now that I have an opportunity to do that, I have a package called the technical who fake it.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Well and I think that's interesting the word like what are you going to park? Because you don't. You know, with a car you don't just keep it parked, you have to keep it moving. And so you're talking about temporarily parking, but then when you get, when you're done, then you're going to move it and work on it. And so for me, this wasn't working on it, it was just this was the show I was putting on and, um, not actually dealing with the stuff that needed to be dealt with.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Yeah, one day I got the courage to talk to our new store leader, marco. He and I had a good working relationship. He respected me, my team and my leadership. When the meeting began, I had no idea what I was going to say. All I had was mustard seed faith.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:I told Marco I loved my job and wanted to keep it, but I needed some time to focus on me and my mental health. I told him I would like to take a month off and go back to Tallahassee to have some time with my doctor. When I finished sharing which I did calmly and concisely he looked at my face with kindness and compassion in his. He told me I could go, I should go. He didn't want to lose me as an employee. He fully supported me taking time off for myself. He said he would let me put vacation and sick time together so I could go get paid with my job waiting for me. When I got back. This was a mustard seed moment. It was a moment that didn't seem real, but it was real because it had been God's plan for me all along.
Beth Demme:Okay, I wanted to pause there because you say in the book he told me I could go, I should go, and we've had a lot of conversations about how no one can shoot on us. But this was a good should. That was a good should.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Yeah, I knew you would call that out. Yeah, I even texted should to my mom the other day and she was like I'm not going to shoot on you and put should in all caps. I was like what do you think I should do or something? She's like I will not shoot on you. I love that it's become such an ingrained thing that we like yeah If we hear should, oh no, no, no, no.
Beth Demme:I. You would be surprised how often I use that. Yeah, yeah, like that's my advice to people oh, don't let anyone shoot on you, yeah.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:And it's true, because it's something that I think societally like, we just like we do things because we should do them. It's like wait, step back, do you want to? Yeah, is this something you want to do? Like, and don't let somebody tell you what you have to do or need to do. What do you want to do? Is this important to you? And don't just do it because you should.
Beth Demme:But this is an example of a good should.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Yes, it was. Yeah, I like that. When the time came, I packed and drove to Tallahassee in my green Honda CR-V. During the drive, I began processing. It felt like life stopped. I was taking a break from the path of success. We are told to travel from birth. Get a job, work, get a mate, get a house, get a kid. I pushed on the breaks. No one ever added. Work on yourself. Learn to be, take time to look inward and make sure you are mentally well, happy and the person God made you to be.
Beth Demme:Okay, I want to stop you again. We're never going to get through this job, right, that's right. Um, I wonder if this has changed, um, if this is changing generationally, and maybe if COVID pushed us to change this way of thinking a little bit, the idea that you have to just go, go, go, go go. You have to set a goal and and it has to be like a straight line from where you are to that goal, and pausing to work on yourself is not okay, because I feel like I feel like people are better at working on themselves. Now I'm really nervous to say this.
Beth Demme:So, gen Z and maybe Gen Alpha, which I think is the one after Z, anyway, they, they seem to be all about working on themselves. Like, I have a really wonderful almost 20 year old who works for me and she has no problem texting me and saying I've had a really hard few days and I need time for my mental health and we have a flexible schedule, so it's all. It's easy for me to always say, okay, no problem, come in the next day or, like you know, do this at home or whatever. Um, but she just she wouldn't hesitate to say that, and I don't know if it's because I'm a pastor and she works in a church, or if it's because that generation is better at it, or if maybe COVID moved the needle on it in some way.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Why are you so nervous to say it?
Beth Demme:Well, I don't want it to sound like I'm being critical of her, because I'm really not. She always gets her work done. She's an excellent you know employee, um great young woman Like. I'm super happy that she and I get to work together, so I don't want it to sound like I'm being dismissive of her needs.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:But that's interesting. Why do you think that that is making her seem like like less than, or that like?
Beth Demme:why do you think that it's not? That is that I don't want it to seem like I think she's less than because she's doing it, but see, when you said the story, I didn't think anything of.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:I didn't think that at all. But you think, by sharing the story, that it makes you sound like she's less than.
Beth Demme:Yeah, like I don't want it to seem like I'm not supportive of the idea of her taking time for her mental health, because I'm all about it, my point really was just that she's she wouldn't hesitate to say I'm going to take time to work on my mental health.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:When you say that to me I hear great job like knowing yourself, knowing your boundaries, knowing what you need to be the right employee for at your job. That's what I heard. Yes, but when you said it, you think that I'm hearing that she is not a hundred percent dedicated to the job.
Beth Demme:Well, I mean, even in the book, like you were, like I don't know how I'm going to handle this with my job telling them that I need to take time off and that you, you were taking a break from the path of success you know. So that's my question is do you think that this is different now? If you were in this situation now, do you think it would be different?
Stephanie Kostopoulos:I do think that the younger generation, I do think like millennials, like I think we, you know, break down walls to say, like this is important, like when I was, like in, you know, traditional nine to five, like mental health was not a reason for being out of work, like Apple, now they, you can take mental health days.
Beth Demme:Yeah.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Like and we were all doing it before, but we felt bad about it when we were calling it a sick day. It's like, well, I'm not sick, but I am, but like and you can just call out for mental health day and I think that is great, but we, I think millennials, we're at that cusper. It wasn't understood and we had to like try to make those changes and I think the younger generation is benefiting from us. Like saying this isn't okay, working a thousand hours a week is not okay, like I need a break. I don't know a lot of younger people. I do know my girlfriend works at a vet office and they have like younger people that work there like in their twenties and yeah, she's told me stories of where the younger people are like I just need a mental health day, which can be annoying because you need like employees.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:But it's also that balance of like it is a balance. I think. I think it can be overdone, I think it can be done perfect. I also, at the end of the day, it's not my place to to judge someone's journey and what needs to happen. If I worked in a night, traditional nine to five today, maybe I would have a different opinion on that and like setting boundaries in a workplace of what that looks like. But no, I think that's super important that mental health is brought up in a very normal way, just like being sick with you know flu or something I think you know needing a mental health break should be discussed in the same manner.
Beth Demme:Yeah, see, when I was, when I was working like as a lawyer, when I was working full time, in that way you didn't take time off Like not even for the flu, right, like you came in, you made everybody else sick because any taking any kind of like unplanned time off was completely unacceptable. You had to plan your vacation in advance. Everybody had to know, and that really needed to be the focus of your life and what your life was organized around, instead of it being that work was just a part of your life.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Yeah, and and that was similar when I worked at Apple was like you know, you get this and this, but this is when you're required to be here, and so, and it was. I do think it was. I think millennials are that transitional kind of generation in that sense of, like you had that strict. The generation after us has, like you know, way less strict or more open, and so we were kind of that transition where we were like dealing with both sides of that. A few days into my time away, I got ready for my session with Dr Jill. As I took a shower that morning, I thought about how strange it seemed I was going through all this effort to take time for myself and yet I didn't even know what was wrong with me. But I guess that was the point to try to figure it out with Dr Jill. I wanted to tell her how I felt depressed all the time, how I didn't trust people and how I had flashbacks to the hospital at random moments.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Then it hit me Everything was related to the 74 hours. Everything I had been feeling these last five years could be traced back to those moments. It's as if I never left Nicole's place and the system still had control over me. The memories, feelings and overwhelming emotions had a hold on me and brought me back to Nicole's place every day, as I stood in the shower with warm water pouring over my head. I had another flashback. I was back in the ice-cold shower. I had to take in at Nicole's place the first night with my arm wrapped in plastic to protect the stitches. There were no hot and cold handles in the shower. As I walked toward the shower head, ice-cold water suddenly blasts down on me. It was motion activated. The water didn't begin to get warm until I was done with my shower. The feeling of complete sadness, fear and longing to be home filled me.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Then, just a few hours before I was to see Dr Jill, it popped into my brain Is this post-traumatic stress disorder? Is that what's wrong? I knew PTSD was large in the military community. I knew it had to do with trauma and flashbacks and that there was a treatment plan. I pushed that thought in the back of my mind. Then I had breakfast and went to see my psychologist. Dr Jill had moved into her new office building since my first sessions with her. She had a small, inviting waiting room with soothing spa music playing. She called me back and I sat on a large couch with her across from me in an armchair. I told her everything that was circling in my brain. In the first 20 minutes she diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress disorder. My PTSD had resulted from the 74 hours. When she said the words, a huge weight lifted off of me. I had a name for what I had been suffering from and it wasn't all in my head. It was very real. It was debilitating, but we could treat it.
Beth Demme:What a relief, right To know what it is it's like. Oh, there's a name for this and now I can, with help, I can tackle it, rather than it just being everything is bad and I have to put on a happy human face and I'm just not. Something is just not right. Something about having a name really helps, doesn't it?
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Yeah, I mean, I definitely remember feeling the relief of that and just that, because obviously I kind of like thought that just that morning. But also, as we were reading this, it struck me I think it just now struck me I was taking a shower in the morning. I never shower in the morning, I always shower at night. So this is so strange to me. I have no idea why I was showering in the morning, yeah, like what. And then like I, because I wouldn't have had that like flashback, mm-hmm, it's just so like wow, cause anyone that knows me knows like I never shower in the morning unless I don't even know why. Like I have no idea why. Yeah, that is so strange to me, but I guess it was like what needed to happen. It was just like you know it all it all is how it's supposed to happen. Yeah, I definitely just I felt like a relief and like oh, this is something I've heard of, we can treat it.
Beth Demme:Right, she, like Dr Jill, knows what to do with PTSD. Okay, good, yeah, yeah, all right.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Now I had my what. Knowing what the problem was, I needed my how. How do I treat this? Dr Jill told me there was not a magic pill, although it could get back on depression meds, but she didn't think that would help. Based on my history, the way you treat PTSD is to talk about the traumatic events. Dr Jill told me what I thought. Talk, talk about the things that tear me up inside and feel like knives jabbing through my heart if I acknowledge them. So simple, yet so terrifying. All right, so now I'm not so happy. I thought we had some magic pills and stuff.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Right, right, so now you're saying all you do is talk, right. So I went from like yay, we have an answer to whoa.
Beth Demme:No, no, no, that does not seem like the pill I wanted. I don't want to bask in these memories. They're terrible memories. They make me uncomfortable. I don't want to live in that moment again and again, but your body, for five years, had been waiting for you to really deal with it.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Yeah, and to release it. And that's all you do is you say it to release it. And that was no. No, I was not excited about it. Yeah, I went to my magic pill and the PTSD goes away. So what you can do, well, actually there's not a lot of like the flu. You can't really take a magic pill.
Beth Demme:There's not really magic pills for many things. Well, I think people would say, like there's a pill for high blood pressure, there's medicine for diabetes, there's, you know, like some of those things you can manage with medication.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Yeah.
Beth Demme:But this and it's, like you say, so simple yet so terrifying. Like it doesn't sound like it would be hard to just talk about something, but sometimes there are things that are really hard to talk about. Talk about the worst moment of your life and go Right, right, but it works, it does.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Oh, it is yeah, cause I'm on the other side of this. Yeah, it totally works. But even now, like reading it, I'm like, yeah, that's not fun, I want to cookie after at least. Yeah, truly though now I think about it Like I could have like gotten something special after each of the sessions to like, but I didn't. I just you didn't need it.
Beth Demme:Yeah, you just powered through.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Powered through Dr Jill, helped me understand that what happened to me was not right and the hospital is at fault for my PTSD because of its lack of proper treatment. During the 74 hours. Everyone seemed so disgusted by my wound. I just couldn't understand why this was all they focused on until I started meeting with Dr Jill again. She told me they thought I was trying to kill myself a failed suicide attempt. It may seem obvious to you reading this now, but I honestly had no idea. This is what everyone was thinking. For me, self-injury is unrelated to suicide, but after Dr Jill made this connection for me, I started to see why everyone had concluded this.
Beth Demme:I just want to affirm that yes, it is obvious to everyone who's reading this. Of course, they thought that you were trying to take your own life. That's why they made comments about how deep you had cut and the whole hamburger comment and all that and why they were so I mean, still, they did not do what they needed to do. Nothing about it was handled right. But I think even the police officer thought that. So I just wanted to say yes.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Dr Jill reminded me that I'm not a cutter. I should have never been sent to CRC, she said, because I was not trying to kill myself or harm others. I was engaging in non-suicidal self-injury NSSI the act of feeling so much and not having physical pain to show for it. My coping was to make the internal pain real.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:According to the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5, the diagnostic feature of NSSI is an individual repeatedly inflicting shallow yet painful injuries to the surface of his or her body. Most commonly, the purpose is to reduce negative emotions such as tension, anxiety and self-reproach, and or to resolve an interpersonal difficulty. The injury is most often afflicted with a knife, needle, razor or other sharp objects. Common areas for injury include the frontal area of the thigh and the dorsal side of the forearm. A single session of injury might involve a series of superficial parallel cuts, separated by one or two centimeters, on a visible or accessible location. When I read into NSSI, I realized I was a classic textbook case. It's like they wrote the diagnostic all about me. It was comforting to have an official name for my coping.
Beth Demme:Again, it's comforting to have a name for it. Yeah, I would imagine that you feel less strange, maybe like oh, I'm not the only one and this isn't something that Dr Jill's never seen before Like this is something that is known and understood.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:The odd thing, though, is it was a fairly new realization within the diagnostic for a psychologist. Like their DSM-5, like there's five versions of that, I mean there might be a six now. Every time there's a new published one, they have new diagnostics and things like that inside of it, and so this was new for the fifth version, so I was kind of dealing with this while it was becoming known. Also, and even though it is known in the it's official diagnostic, it's still not like when I tell people about it they've never heard of it, like medical professionals, like they are like what, and so I mean it's in the name, not just a thing of injury.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:it kind of self-explanatory, but it still is not like something that is like regularly known and used in common language because it's there, but it's not something that has, like, hit social media or anything in that sense that I believe I don't like super follow that.
Beth Demme:but but also especially five years before this. It definitely wasn't part of. It was not understood.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Yeah.
Beth Demme:You also say that Dr Jill reminded you that you're not a cutter, so can you tell me what that means?
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Well, cutter is the term kind of she used for someone that was suicidal, like cutting themselves to, you know, for possible, like suicidal purposes, and it's very much a distinguishing factor. So if someone is trying to, you know, die by suicide, they cut in a way that would like cut the vein. Yes, and mine, as they say in the description, is like the parallel cuts lower down, like where I cut or where I, you know, self-injured was not a way that could result in.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:If it resulted in suicide in some capacity, it would have been an accident Like it wouldn't have been, but not I don't even think that could have happened with the way it was done. Yeah, I don't know if that's still like the proper terminology, but she would use the word cutter as someone that was suicidal.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Suicidal and so not suicidal self-injury is the opposite. But people still use those terms like actually, sometimes my dad will call me a cutter and I'm like, okay, like oh, I heard about someone else, it's a cutter like you, or something like that. I'm like, good job, psychologist. I correct him. I'm like, well, was it not suicidal self-injury? Like how was the? What kind of cuts, were they? But yeah, so. So there are people that still will use the terms interchangeably, and then I'll correct them. People are like oh, yeah, yeah, that's what I mean.
Beth Demme:Yeah, Okay great.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Over the next few weeks I followed my PTSD treatment plan. I talked, I wrote, I scribbled real and raw feelings and burned them, as Dr Jill instructed me to do. I talked to my parents and my friends. I let it all out. Getting the hellish events out of me was freeing. So was crying. Dr Jill liked to prescribe a good cry. During our sessions over the month, dr Jill would remind me with a reassuring smile that you are not crazy. The police don't know how to handle these kinds of situations, so they bring all patients like this to the same place. The place you are in sounds like a place here in town and it's not a hospital you should ever be in. They drug people and put them back in the streets. Every session was hard. They were draining, emotionally and physically exhausting. After going through it, I knew I could have never done it. While still working at Apple Mustered Seed, faith helped me get to this place of healing.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:As my time in Tallahassee was coming to an end, my mom recommended a new primary care doctor for me. A few years earlier I had stopped taking Zoloft because, having been on it for years, I began to feel it controlling my emotions and making me unrealistically happy. It was a weird and scary sensation. I wanted to go back on birth control as my depression got worse around my cycle, but I had been too afraid to see a doctor to prescribe it. Dr K was my mom's doctor and went to our hometown church. I was so nervous and scared to see her. I told Dr K about my past and what I wanted to do medication-wise. She listened and her tone and body language weren't judgmental. All the emotions hit me while telling my story and I started to cry. I cried because she heard me, she saw me and she didn't judge my scars. She gave me the prescription for birth control and restored my trust in medical professionals. She has been my primary care doctor ever since. I do want to say she's still my doctor today, and so I've known her since this, which was years and years ago, and recently we've talked about the podcast. But I realized that I was gay and so I, when my last set, my last doctor's appointment, I told her and I was like not sure how she would respond because well, first I thought it's going to be cool. I mean, she's a doctor, like that's like she's professional, that's normal. But also I knew her from my church and I know a lot of church people that are judgmental about things that are outside of their worldview and so I really wasn't sure and when I told her it was just like I had told her. I was straight and it was very cool and chill and actually every single person that I had cared to tell in my life has been cool and chill about it. But yeah, so just like she was with this same thing, just like Great cool, I made great progress that month and the months after I was able to see doctors again and take care of my health.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:I also started to get acupuncture for chronic neck and shoulder pain and unexplainable pain I've had since childhood. I had dozens of sessions with my acupuncturist and I'd become really comfortable with the process. But one day something went wrong. As I lay there, she put the needles in like normal, but this time she put a few in my left arm, not near my scars, just on the same arm. As she inserted them, I had a flashback to the needle they used to numb my arm right before they put the stitches in at the ER. She finished putting in the acupuncture needles and left the room for 45 minutes, as she normally did.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:But this time I felt paralyzed. I knew I could hit the emergency button and she would come back in and take the needles out, but I couldn't move. I couldn't think. The acupuncture needles felt like knives. They burned and froze me.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:For the next 45 minutes I went back five years in time. I was back in that tiny emergency room getting stitches. I felt the pain. I smelled the medical scent of the room. I heard the nurse tell me to sit while the doctor worked. I tasted my salty tears because the pain was so great. I felt the pain, but I also felt the numbness and the sensation of my arm being stitched with needle and thread. I felt the pull and tug. I had the same sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Finally, my acupuncturist came back into the room and removed the needles. Like normal. I kept myself together long enough to pay and get to my car. Then I broke down. I ugly cried all the way home. I had never had a flashback that bad, that real. I was afraid to go back, worried it would happen again. Having worked through my PTSD does not mean it's gone for my life. Dr Jill told me it would stay with me and I might still have flashbacks, but by working on it the memories would not haunt me and the flashbacks would not completely shut down my world. I would recognize the feelings and work through them. Dr Jill was right. The next week I did go back and I summoned up the courage to tell my acupuncturist what happened. I told her about the 74 hours. She was so understanding and kind to me. She never put needles in my left arm again and I never experienced a flashback in an acupuncture session again.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:That flashback sounds really horrible.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:It was yeah, I can still fully remember that reading through that.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:It was.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Yeah, I can feel what that felt like in laying there with that.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:But yeah, that's what flashbacks are like. I mean, honestly, I haven't had a flashback in a while. Like I can't think of the last one I had and it's been like I still deal with NSSI thoughts at times, like when things are just like, when things are seeming like falling apart. So probably, like maybe six months ago, I had the thought pop in my head and talk to Jill about it and I didn't engage in it, but I did have the thoughts and she always reminds me like you're gonna have the thoughts. It's very much doled over time Like it's not, as it's not something I stress about, it's not something I like get overly concerned about. But if I am having multiple things that kind of tear me down, I can really get to that place and I just have put so much work into it that I just remember to keep putting that work into it and just go through my healthy tools to get through them. But yeah, I haven't really had a scar kind of pain in a really long time.
Beth Demme:I wonder if there was something about this session with the acupuncturist that obviously I mean it sounds like it was really really hard, but I wonder if there was some sense in which it was a release of some of that, so that it wouldn't continue to wait for you to feel it and address it. You know, and because you were engaging in so much health care and so much healthy work, you know, with the acupuncture and with your psychologist and with the journaling and with you know that like that was the moment at which your body could say, okay, now I release this.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Yeah, that's an interesting look at it. Yeah, I mean in the sense of like there was like moments that there was just always gonna be things down the timeline that needed to be released in the proper way and you know, maybe this was the way that this was always needing to be released. Yeah, that's interesting.
Beth Demme:Yeah well, I've said it before and I'm sure I will say it again, but I think that it's so brave of you to relive this by putting it down on paper and by writing the book and by now revisiting it. I think that that takes courage and I think that people can, even if you know they'll have their own story. But I think it is relatable and I think it's good that you've been courageous to share this.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Thank you, pastor Beth. So, beth, we did an episode kind of about holiday season and we just that's where we are.
Beth Demme:we're in the holiday season.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:We're in it and we just kind of got through Thanksgiving and all that. So was there anything different that happened this year for your Thanksgiving?
Beth Demme:Yeah, any new members, we had a dog at Thanksgiving which is really unusual.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Wait, your house.
Beth Demme:At my house oh.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:That's big. We also had like 20 humans at the house. Oh and humans.
Beth Demme:Yeah, but my daughter Hannah, who's been a guest on the podcast. She got a dog a few months ago and yes, that's big.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:You guys are not dog people.
Beth Demme:We're not dog people.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:You and your husband.
Beth Demme:And both of my kids said as soon as I move out, I'm getting a pet.
Beth Demme:Yes, and they did Rebels. I love it. They did so. My son got a cat and Hannah went to the county shelter and adopted a dog and he's very sweet, very chill, and his name is Scooby Scooby-oo, because he's sort of looks like Scooby. Mainly he's the same color as Scooby, and not so much in the face but in his body he looks like Scooby.
Beth Demme:And when we knew that she was gonna, that she was gonna make a dog a part of her life, my husband was very much like I need everyone to understand that the dog cannot come to the house. My gosh, we are not going to take care of the dog. This dog is not going to be our responsibility in any way. This is a hundred percent on her. And I was like okay, whatever. And he communicated that to her very clearly and I was like that's really between them. And then it got to be Thanksgiving week and we wanted her to be with us all day on Thanksgiving and she was like well, I am taking care of Scooby and so I'll need to bring him no-transcript. Suddenly her dad was like okay, no problem. And Scooby was at the house Thanksgiving day and all day Black Friday because she and I and other folks in the family went shopping and then all day Saturday, because she also had plans all day that day.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Did your husband babysit when you were he dog sat, he dog sat, he dog sat. What did Scooby do?
Beth Demme:during the day. He well, he's like very chill, like he'll walk around some and then he'll sit down, and you know, he's just got that kind of dog, yeah, so he just like chilled with your husband.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Yeah, he just chilled, it was really easy. Did he hang out in the gr-? Was your husband working on cars or anything? No, he was watching football.
Beth Demme:Oh okay, yeah, yeah. So they sat and watched football together basically. But what was really funny is when I I was kind of telling some people at church about it, I was like I can't believe it. But Steve was like yeah, he can come over on Thanksgiving. And they were like you didn't know he was gonna say that and I was like no, I mean he's been pretty adamant, consistently adamant, about this and they were like we totally knew he was gonna change his mind.
Beth Demme:We totally knew that he would do whatever Hannah wanted him to do and I was like, oh, that's a good point. I should have looked at it from that angle.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:But he didn't even say like, bring his crate, keep him crated, do you say?
Beth Demme:anything like that. No, he did ask her to get something in case Scooby needed to be in the yard like a long like, like a long dog run kind of thing, yeah, a tether yeah, but it ended up we didn't even use that Like she put it. She went and she, you know, put it in the ground on Thursday morning and everything, but he stayed in the house the whole time. He did not stay with us overnight, but he was there all day for three days in a row.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:So when Hannah goes out of town, you'll definitely be keeping him overnight, right, that's what it sounds like I don't know.
Beth Demme:Maybe if we could crate him, maybe.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:Well, doesn't she crate him?
Beth Demme:No.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:During the day, not anymore.
Beth Demme:Not anymore. Oh, okay yeah.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:So you could also gait him in an area, like I do with Tosh at night yeah that's true, and I mean she's super chill with that. She actually likes that comfort of having that like space, but it's not like a super small crate or anything, so you could gait her in like an area of your room or something. Maybe we could, although she hasn't asked you to keep him overnight but it sounds like it's gonna happen.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:It's gonna happen. You guys are gonna have your own. My mom was never a dog person, my parents aren't and my mom, like when I told her I wanted to get Greyhound, she was like, okay, that's your house you know, and she absolutely loves my Greyhounds. When I had, you know, I had Mack and Tosh and and she just like loved just playing with them and everything. And Mack passed away, you know, almost a year ago, and my mom's always like, when are you getting?
Beth Demme:a second. You know she's, she's ready for me to have more dogs and, yeah, I could, she.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:I could see her possibly having a dog one day. Although she likes me doing all the stuff and she's good to play with them, right, she does enjoy that aspect.
Beth Demme:Yes, I still do not want a dog, but I'm happy to hang out with Hannah's dog. And I don't mind helping out more because I care about Hannah than because I care about the dog, if that makes sense, like I care about the dog because it is important to Hannah. Yes, yeah.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:I think my mom cares about me but loves my dogs. I think you can't not like when you, just when they like cuddle with you, it's like okay, well, here's my bank account information. Get what you need.
Beth Demme:I did intentionally go and buy treats because I was like and I will be buying Scooby's love with treats. Scooby's love, that's what I did. Yeah, so well, actually, hannah actually brought some over and she labeled him that Scooby's love, yes, but then I went and got him some better ones, oh, Full moon.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:That brand makes really good like natural dog treats. It's like just chicken and they have my target. Like you could eat it. It's human grade.
Beth Demme:They call it human grade, but no, I have not eaten that much. Yeah, I'm not going to try that. I'm not an adventurous eater anyway, so not going to eat a dog treat.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:As we now say, adventurous eaters mean you'll eat dog treats. Well, you know, to be fair, my girlfriend works at a vet's office and she says they have tried a lot of dog treats there and she's an adventurous eater. So maybe you're right Adventurous eaters mean you'll also eat dog treats.
Beth Demme:Yeah, I just have standards. Even if it's human grade, it might not be Beth grade.
Stephanie Kostopoulos:I love it. At the Niveach episode we end with questions for reflection. These are questions based on today's show that Beth will read and leave a little pause between for you to answer to yourself, or you can find a PDF on our website.
Beth Demme:Number one is there music that you go to when you're dealing with hard realities in your life? Number two are there times when you feel like you're putting on a happy human show? Number three have you ever had a flashback? Describe what it felt like and what it was about? Number four can you relate to the idea that having a name for something, a diagnosis, makes it easier to deal with? And number five on a scale of one to 10, how much do you trust the medical profession? How does that impact how often you see a doctor?
Stephanie Kostopoulos:This has been the Discovering Our Scarves podcast. Thank you for joining us.