Self-Healing, Self-Regulating, and Medical Trauma

Transcript:

Jen Hardy:

Welcome to the medical gaslighting podcast. We are here to empower patients by giving you a voice and also educating the rest of us so that we can have more positive experiences with our medical care. Today, we’re gonna do that by talking to Elizabeth Kipp, who’s a stress management, and historical trauma specialist. And she has not only experienced medical gaslighting, several times, like when a doctor physically pushed her to the floor? But she also helps people get through the trauma. And she’s got several tools that we can use to help us have a better experience. Here she is. There we go. Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining me today and being willing to share your story. I know that it’s It’s not easy, but we appreciate you being here.

Elizabeth Kipp:

Well, thank you so much for the invitation. I, I, I appreciate the space to talk about this topic. I really feel I I I literally was just over the client who had been through a lot with, it’s not my story, but it’s it’s in the space. It had ulcerative, has ulcerative colitis who’d had a lot, a lot of surgery. And you know what was interesting was when I said to her, wow, you have a lot of medical trauma. She just burst into tears. Why? Because That was the first time anybody had acknowledged it. Right? And then we’re not talking about the physicals. It’s it’s obviously there’s physical involved, but it’s the it’s the psychological. So in the space of a hospital and in the current, you know, United States and Canada medical paradigm, because I’ve been in Canada as well. they look at to the physical, the best they can. within their model. Right? They looked physical, but they don’t they don’t really, they don’t include the psychological I I I had to learn how to walk four times, four different times from 4 different, like, surgeries and stuff. And, and they just expected me to get up and do that, but there was no cheerleading or acknowledgement how hard it was and and how, you know, powerless I felt and how I had to, you know, there was none of that. So we’re supported, like, in one way, but we’re not supported in others. And even in the one way, the support is can be can be a little bit dismissive. Yeah.

Jen Hardy:

Yeah. Absolutely. And and, you know, I that’s that is true. I have never I’ve never had anyone acknowledge that either. And I think, wow, when you said that, I was thinking the same thing. That’s pretty incredible because so many of us have gone through huge things, and no one acknowledges You know, even even being in the hospital. And but for, you know, the last time, I I had a heart attack and a stroke last fall. And I My husband wasn’t able to come with me because we also have 2 autistic kids at home, and it was a thing. And this this this honestly, the trauma of being there alone, not knowing what they’re doing, having people lose your test results and not letting you go home. Like, there’s all these things. Right? and no one acknowledges how traumatic that is. So I really appreciate that you’re that you’re doing that. I think that’s something really important for people to realize because once we realize it, then we can deal with it. Right? We can’t deal with it until we realize it’s an issue.

Elizabeth Kipp:

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. The other thing that that I I just wanna kind of bring some balance in here is that, the medical trauma hits everybody. It hits the doctors, the nurses the the people that that that clean up everybody that works in a hospital or as a patient in a hospital is subject to this energy. So, I I just literally wrote, for authority magazine, they had an article they had a they have a whole platform in the in the 3rd, 30 magazine on, reimagining wellness

Jen Hardy:

5

Elizabeth Kipp:

top things you do to to, to uplevel the health and wellness industry. And my first one was, acknowledging transgenerational, intergenerational trauma. And my second one, I think was medical trauma was recognizing medical trauma. The third one was medical burnout, and and there was another one was an integrated model which to speak to. We’re speaking to it now. The integrated model. We have to think about Mindbody and Spirit as one system because they’re not separate.

Jen Hardy:

Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, Western medicine is treating the body, but not the mind. You know? And there’s times that we need we need that. You know? because I know my my husband’s having some issues right now and people are saying, well, you need alternative things. Well, actually, what he needs though is oxygen. And that is something that there are good, great things about Western Medicine. You know, if we break a bone, we can go to the emergency room. We can get it treated. Whatever. Right? I mean, there there are important components But we are missing some vital things. So let’s say somebody’s listening and they think, oh my goodness. Medical trauma. Now how do I heal from that? Do you have some some simple? I know it’s a silly, but things that people can start with at home. to deal with that.

Elizabeth Kipp:

Yeah. So so I I, as I my journey was I was on a long journey with chronic pain for 40 years.

Jen Hardy:

And my goodness.

Elizabeth Kipp:

Based on a, based on a a a back injury, I broke my 5th lumbar. It broke in two front to back, and it slipped forward.

Jen Hardy:

80%

Elizabeth Kipp:

into my pelvis and pull the leg nerves with it. And I am walking, and I’m a yoga teacher. Wow.

Jen Hardy:

And you’re a miracle.

Elizabeth Kipp:

How does that work? Right? But I’m not I’m not the only one. It’s like, it it’s doable. the body has miraculous healing powers. if we’re given the space to believe that. And I wasn’t. I was given the space of you will be in level 7 out of 10 paying for the the rest of your life, and you will be in a wheelchair when you’re 40. And I had a science background and knew better because I I I vowed to their expertise, but when that stuff started coming in, when that that, prognosis started coming in, I was like, Hello. You’re making an error. You forgot where you are. You’re in you’re in the scientific model, which is all about probabilities, not facts. and paradigm shift, and you’re telling me more about the limitation of your model than you’re telling me about healing. So that was a big, that was a big thank thank goodness. It didn’t matter. I I still had doctors that would save me, oh, you know, it’s all in your head. And I would go, yeah, because that’s where we process brain the brain processes pain. That’s where it’s happening. So they couldn’t get away with staying there with me. I was like, I was like, you can’t say that to me. They did say things like, oh, you need to learn to relax and and, which was not helpful.

Jen Hardy:

No. Because how are you supposed to relax if you’re telling me? I’m gonna be in all this pain, and I’m not gonna walk. You know?

Elizabeth Kipp:

Even in the moment, you have to you can’t relax if you, you know, you can’t it’s it doesn’t work like that. Anyway, I healed finally 10 years ago. Thank goodness. And, and I started studying the things that I was that were helping me heal, and then I went into the trauma field because I had a whole bunch of unresolved trauma in my system that I was unraveling So medical trauma, big t trauma, little t trauma, it’s all the same. it all what happens is it’s not what happened to us. It’s what happens inside of us because of what happened to us. and as we’re speaking to is the aloneness that we’re experiencing because of the trauma. So, yeah, people were there to help us with our physical, but we were totally alone with the psychological, right, and the emotional. They don’t dress that. So that didn’t get looked at. So we have to learn the the for the viewers, right, we have to learn to reconnect How do you do that? Well, there’s a hierarchy to healing. First, you want to address the nervous system and bring it into regulation. In in trauma, we get the nervous system gets dysregulated, activated, hyper vigilant. Oh, when’s the next threat gonna come or shut down altogether on dissociated. Right? It’s kind of we we were kind of 1 or the other. We’re out of balance We wanna learn to regulate the nervous system. And there are simple tools to do that. One would be just 3 minutes of just left nostril breathing. just breathe through the left nostril in and out long, slow and deep, keeping that exhale a little bit as longer, a little bit longer than the inhale Up to maybe twice as long as the inhale, that stimulates the calming center in the brain. When you breathe in just the left side, So that’s calming, and that gives the nervous system the signal, oh, I’m safe after all. You can’t think your way into the nervous system feeling safe. You have to actually do something. You have to activate. You have to do some kind of modality that gets the signal to it. It doesn’t happen at the level of the mind. You have to address the body at the body, the level of the body. Right? So first regulate, then you want a sense of connection. And then you can learn, and then you can you can you can think you can think clearly, but you can’t think clearly if you’re not regulated, if you’re all like this, and if you’re feeling disconnected. So doctor Bruce Perry who’s a trauma, expert use this alliteration, regulate, relate reason. So that’s the order. And that for me was that was it was a great, strategy now I have a strategy. Now I know what order to do things. Right? If I’m an upset, I have to address My my my nervous system first, I have to look at what’s happening with my breathing before I can think about what just happened. I I can’t Right? And I have to think about how can I get with somebody to help me, or how can I come back to myself instead of dissociating, trying to jump out of my experience Right? If that makes sense, that’s just a really quick quick quick approach to kind of getting a handle on what’s happening there.

Jen Hardy:

It does. And, you know, and that that regulate relates reason goes for so many things. mean, it’ll work for medical trauma, but also, I mean, I’m thinking of kids that are having a hard time. Oh, yeah. — autism. We are dealing with that. And and it’s, you know, they’re that’s what their OT said. They there’s no having a rational conversation when they’re not regulated. There’s not. And and it’s like that for us too. And it’s like when like you were saying, when someone says, well, just relax. Just calm down. Well, Okay. First of all, you saying that is has the opposite effect. Right?

Elizabeth Kipp:

Right. Exactly.

Jen Hardy:

And, you know, so this is this is great. This is very good that you’re giving us some tools. What do you have another tool that we could use to help us regulate a little bit?

Elizabeth Kipp:

Really, the thing is the breath. Or I I always start people with the breath, and it not just left nostril breathing. just long deep breathing, making sure that that exhale is as long or longer preferably maybe twice as long as the inhale really tones, what would say, tones the vagus nerve and the vagus nerve is connected into up into those 10th cranial nerve for people that don’t know is connected up into the the face, the ears, the throat, down into the heart, and then from the heart down into all the organs. So it’s the Vegas needs wondering. So it’s this, and information goes, from the brain down into the vagus nerve and from the vagus nerve up. So there’s this highway of information. And The breath is right in the middle. The the lungs and the heart have a have a ligament in common have a have a like a a space where they’re connected. So what happens with the lungs affects the heart? And what’s interesting is what’s happening with the mind when my mind starts getting like, ah, like that. I’m so trained now. I’m so used to it. I’ve got into my programming now. that I asked myself, what am I doing with the breath? And usually my breath is short or maybe I’m holding it all together if I’ve gotten a real fright, right, So let the breath out and just breathe. That is such a powerful tool and and people are like It can’t be that easy. Well, actually, it is. It actually is.

Jen Hardy:

That’s amazing. Okay.

Elizabeth Kipp:

I I really encourage people to to to to to run the experiment on yourself. Try

Jen Hardy:

567 8

Elizabeth Kipp:

long deep breaths when you’re feeling activated and feeling your nervous system calm down. And if it doesn’t do it after 8 minutes, the 8 8 8 repetitions of that, do it for 3 minutes. and see what happens. an 11 minute practice of of long day breathing, once a day for 40 days will change your life. that’s how, a powerful that that is. It’ll it’ll change. It’ll change the way you meet the world. You’ll be much more calm. It’s very interesting. Yeah.

Jen Hardy:

That is. Yeah. Yeah. So I have a question. So you you had this breaking your spine. I can’t even imagine breaking your back like that. how did and they told you, you know, you’d be in a wheelchair by the time you’re forty. You’re not in a wheelchair now, though. And I’m guessing that you’re not in 7 out of 10 pain. So how did you find a way to get where you are today?

Elizabeth Kipp:

Oh, man. So I took a long time. first of all, I had the love the question. I had the understanding because I I was trained as a scientific researcher. So I knew how to I I really know how to kind of attack a problem. And so when somebody lays down, this is how it is, the first thing that I do is just in my nature. I guess in my training is when does that not apply? You know what? That’s just where I go. So so that’s a very helpful, thing. Right? So to kind of remember that. The other thing is we heal and we live in the all that is and we heal in the all that is, and science can only come in on that which it can measure observe and describe. which is only in part of the all that is. So remember the limitation of the person sitting in front of you telling you about healing. And it that would go that wouldn’t that would go for an acupuncturist or a reiki person or a, you know, whoever, you know, a doctor, a nurse, they have their scope of practice, and that’s where they’re That’s where they shine. Outside of that, don’t expect them to to step outside of that because especially in when there’s insurance involved because there’s all kinds of, gates and and and barriers that they have that they can’t go outside of because of you know, their medical practice and the vows they’ve taken and so forth. Yeah.

Jen Hardy:

And I love that you said it a probability probability not facts. So — Yeah. — what they’re saying when they say, you know, 5 like, for instance, if you get diagnosed with something and they say your prognosis is 5 Well, that’s the probability, but that’s not the facts.

Elizabeth Kipp:

That’s right.

Jen Hardy:

And so just because they say that there’s a finite thing, whatever that thing is, it doesn’t make it the effect or it doesn’t make it concrete is what you’re saying.

Elizabeth Kipp:

That’s right.

Jen Hardy:

That it’s the chances of the general population that might happen, but it but you could far outdo what they’re saying. And I think Also, what I believe and what I what I hear you saying as well, a lot of it has to do with what we believe on the inside if we believe that we can overcome. Because once we give in, we’ve given in. You you you can still succeed, but the chances are lower, I think. of overcoming, especially.

Elizabeth Kipp:

Yeah. The the the problem with chronic pain, which is what I suffered from, and, 5th of the world suffers from it according to the WHO before COVID. so that’s who knows what it is now. And that’s across all socioeconomic measures, so including children. A lot of this 20 20 percent of the population in chronic pain.

Jen Hardy:

Wow.

Elizabeth Kipp:

So, what does that mean? chronic pain is any pain that’s felt 15 days out of 30 for more,

Jen Hardy:

30

Elizabeth Kipp:

or more that’s where you don’t feel good. Sorry. Chronic pain is a pain that’s felt 15 days out of 30 for 3 months or more. any pain, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, it all hits the same and brings the same signal into the brain of hurts. The brain can’t tell the difference between a broken bone and a broken heart. All the same. Why is that important? because chronic pain acute pain comes and goes. Chronic pain sticks around, as that we defined, and it changes the way the brain perceives things. And so the brain becomes anybody who’s had a the chronic pain experience will know this recognize this brain fog, negativity, chaos in the brain. Like, I can’t I can’t I can’t sort out my environment. you can’t get settled. It’s it’s actually a trauma responses can turn into that if they’re not if if it’s a trauma response that goes on for the interval we described, that that that’s kind of chronic pain. what was the question? Sorry. I’m gonna laugh on you today.

Jen Hardy:

That’s okay. That’s a I don’t remember.

Elizabeth Kipp:

I think you’re asking me how I healed.

Jen Hardy:

But that’s right. Yes. Well, that was originally. Yeah.

Elizabeth Kipp:

Yeah. So so, anyway, so I was suffering from that and And I I I realized I was gonna have to look outside of what was being presented to me from my doctors. And I they help me. And I’m not saying they didn’t. They helped me where they could, but I knew I had to go outside. So I was acupuncture massage. I did yoga. Then and it it took took a long time. I was on a lot of medication for a long time. And then I found doctor Peter Prescott who wrote this book chronic pain and innovative mind body approach. when he was alive, he passed away in 2016. I think it was and but he left this book and I was his patient in

Jen Hardy:

2013.

Elizabeth Kipp:

And he looked at me as an integrated, you know, mind body spirit system. And he said to me, I don’t need to look at your X rays or your records. I wanna know who you are. And I was like, Who are you? And where have you been on my life? And he understood the nature of chronic pain. He was a brain, like a neurophysiology researcher guy, and an addiction specialist, coming pains also addicting can be addicting. And so he knew how to he brought in modalities that healed the changes and opiates and benzodiazepines don’t do that. Right? And the doctors that I was working with until I met Doctor Peter, a press cop was they didn’t have any of that information. So they had a scope of practice that didn’t include the information that people had. This is why it’s so important to understand who am I talking to and what is their field and where can they help me and where where where am I going outside of their helping zone? Right? So he had a program, a pain management program. I walked in there with 40 years of chronic pain. And 52 days later, I walked out with no pain.

Jen Hardy:

Wow. That’s amazing. —

Elizabeth Kipp:

astonishing, and it wasn’t just me. It’s not like I’m so special. He had a 94% success rate in that program.

Jen Hardy:

Wow.

Elizabeth Kipp:

So it, you know, we we could heal from chronic pain. We just don’t have to we just have to understand what we’re dealing with. I mean, I remember the last new doctor I went to before I saw Peter He didn’t like to be called doctor. He was a very laid back guy. everybody loved Peter. He’s amazing. The last doctor I saw was a new GP because I my old one, you know, retired of whatever. and I’ll never forget. I and I I had had surgery, and I still had a lot of pain in my low back. and she had me walk. She she was sitting at the desk here, and she had me walking this way. And as I’m walking away from her from here, she got behind me, and she went down with her arm right in the in the small of my back where my surgery was, and I went down on my feet. Oh my goodness. It was like You know, well, I just wanted to make sure you you really were hurrying. And I was like, you know, I’m just like, you know, what what the hell? You know, I just I was so traumatized by that that somebody would actually do that to me that I just froze, which is a trauma response. I just had no words at that point. I was just I was like, immobilized from that. I barely got out of there with, you know, with my, like, brain. Exactly. I was just finding the before to get out of there was hard enough. Right?

Jen Hardy:

I can’t imagine.

Elizabeth Kipp:

But I’m just saying, like, doctors, I don’t know what pressures they’re under. but I’ve had some I’ve had some I’ve had some some real I’ve had some real trauma just with them trying to like navigate their space. And I I don’t understand and they won’t explain themselves. What I mean, Peter explained himself, but nobody else seem to explain themselves.

Jen Hardy:

Right.

Elizabeth Kipp:

So it’s a there’s, you know, it’s a it’s a problem, and which is why I wanted to come onto the program was to kind of lay out the landscape as I saw it. and and in the hopes that someone people will hear this and and and and and kind of like realize we need to make change.

Jen Hardy:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, the medical community with the amount of medical gaslighting that’s happening and things like what happened to you where the doctor just pushes you over because she doesn’t believe you. You know? I mean, what is that? I think there’s, you know, there’s there’s things that definitely need to change there. But I think as patients, There are a lot of things we can do and not that it’s ever our I don’t think it’s never a patient’s fault. Like, I mean, what could you have done? Right? But we can educate ourselves and we can learn some alternative things like what you’re talking about so that we can if we need to deal with the medical community that is somewhat rough right now. We can do it in a better way, and that’s better for ourselves.

Elizabeth Kipp:

Yeah. We really need to be informed. we need to empower ourselves with information and understand that we have choices. that we’re not.

Jen Hardy:

We have choices and we have power. It’s not it’s not like it used to be in the fifties where doctor was god. Whatever they said you had to do. You know, we have We we have ways of researching now, and we can find out. You know, I actually had a doctor. I was diagnosed with a major chronic disease, and he said, oh, just go home and Google it. He wouldn’t even tell me about it. And I thought, you know, so many doctors tell you not to do that.

Elizabeth Kipp:

Oh, another one.

Jen Hardy:

It’s a thing. Yeah. Oh, goodness. Yes. When that happened with that doctor, did you ever go back to her? No. Okay.

Elizabeth Kipp:

But the thing was, I mean, I would explain something that was that is troubling to me. and I I’ve made peace with it. I’m not doesn’t still trouble me, but at the time, because I’m a person of action, and I I got a hot button on injustice. So I so I’m like, you know, that that would if I had a growing edge around, you know, those have been calm down, It would be around injustice. I just like poof. So when there’s an injustice, I I like to take action. but I knew in that moment I couldn’t take action because it was just her and me, and it was a he said it was a she said, she said, because the woman He she she said she said thing, and and nobody would believe me because she didn’t believe me. So, like, wow. So that I really felt kind of trapped there and I don’t know how to get out of that, but I don’t think I would have done anything different I I just never it never occurred to me. That would happen.

Jen Hardy:

because who would expect that? Okay. And so knowing that sometimes things don’t go exactly like we plan, at the doctor’s office. What would be something that people can do before they go? Maybe they’ve had medical trauma or they’ve been gaslit before. And They want to make sure that they’re in their best place before they get there. What are some things they can do

Elizabeth Kipp:

with that? I I I meditate. this is really important. I do. And I as again, s work. That would be the breathing meditation would be great. 11 minutes. A long deep breathing would be helpful. And I would take an advocate with me. I would take, like, husband, best friend, somebody knowledgeable, maybe a friend that’s a nurse, whatever someone so that you’ve got backup. That was very helpful for me in that space, because I would get in there. I guess so just regularly, I couldn’t think straight. but, you know, because I was the patient. But my husband, you know, was afraid for me, but he wasn’t so dysregulated he could think straight So he, you know, we so that that’s helpful. I I just those 2 things are important. Yeah.

Jen Hardy:

I love that. And, you know, I think the idea of Maybe even getting to the doctor’s office early and doing that 11 minutes in the car right out front right before you go in. Because otherwise, you do it at home and then you drive. And if that’s stressful, you’ve got another thing. Plus you’re there early. You know, you’re not late for your appointment. And then you know that you’ve done what you can do, and you’re in a much better frame of mind.

Elizabeth Kipp:

Yeah. And the doctor can be late, and and I was literally just at my doctors, what, 2 weeks ago for a yearly, whatever, and I had to wait in the waiting room or had to wait for him as in patient place, right, he was gonna come and examine. And I had to wait, and it was kind of a long wait. And I could feel myself starting to get nervous. And for no reason, it wasn’t a thing. It wasn’t like there was anything it was just an an exam, but I just have enough that hasn’t been resolved in my own system that I started to get twitchy. Then I sat there and did the long gate breathing. and I was fine. And I even looked at my Fitbit, which had the has a heart rate on it, and you could see it went weird like this, and it went right down.

Jen Hardy:

And, you know, I think that’s a good that’s a good thing for for someone who’s listening to do. When you go to the doctor, if you feel anxious when you get to the doctor. You start to have those feelings recognizing that maybe there’s something there that you need to deal with. after the doctor’s appointment, you know, and that getting through that is going to help you in a lot of other areas later. So those feelings, that’s your body telling you something.

Elizabeth Kipp:

Absolutely.

Jen Hardy:

I think we definitely need to pay attention. That is fantastic. Okay. So I love everything you’ve said Our time is about out. What would be a piece of advice? I think bringing someone with you to the doctor that was great advice and the breathing. Is there anything else that you would want a listener to know? before we go.

Elizabeth Kipp:

The greater, greatest healer healer in your life lives within you. It’s not the doctor or the nurse are out there. they can stitch up a wound and instead of bone, and they can give you optimal, conditions to heal. They can suggest those, give you the guidance, but the body’s the thing that does the healing. I got very confused about that. I thought the power was out there, and it’s it’s in here. So recognizing that was a big part of of me finding balance in my own healing journey.

Jen Hardy:

That is that is fantastic because it’s so true. Well, Elizabeth, if people wanna reach out to you, where can they find you?

Elizabeth Kipp:

Oh, you can find me at my website, which is elizabethdashkip.com. You have to put a hyphen in there between my first and last name.

Jen Hardy:

Okay. And how do you spell Kip?

Elizabeth Kipp:

kipp like Peter Pan, elizabethdashkip.com.

Jen Hardy:

Okay. And I’ll have a link to that in the show notes. That was so informative, and I’m so thankful to hear about that because, you know, just because the doctor says you have a certain thing that’s going to happen doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. there’s people who will suffer more than the doctor said, and there’s people that can outperform anything. And do I believe that it’s all in your head? I don’t because if it was Well, number 1, no one would ever die. And number 2, you know, children wouldn’t be sick. Right? So but The thing is that when we have this positive mental state and a belief in ourselves that we can heal then we are much more likely to heal. And I love what Elizabeth’s talking about. I have all the links to all of her information in the show notes and on the website. And I encourage you to check that out because this is some really good information. It’s very positive. She had a lot of negative things happen, and she’s turned it all into positive. And I just want to encourage you to think like her. I want you to remember, regulate, relate, and reason. The three steps are so important Thank you so much for listening. Stay tuned because our next episode is illiquidy, and she has got a story to tell.