Neurodiversity and Trauma, with Megan MacKay | EDB 336

Autism self-advocate and therapist Megan MacKay returns to discuss her work helping those experiencing PTSD and CPTSD.

Megan MacKay works as an addiction and trauma psychotherapist. She is a CSAT, LCPC and LPC in the states of Arizona and Montana. Megan is also a Clinical Mental Health Consultant at Trapper Creek Job Corps, and a Board Member for Returning Youth Initiative. She also is a host and Board member for 101.5 KFGM, Missoula Community Radio. 

For more about Megan’s work, visit:

https://www.innerstatehealingandrecovery.com/

https://bloggingforrecovery.wordpress.com/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmackayaz/ 

Listen to 101.5 KFGM at https://www.1015kfgm.org/

FULL TRANSCRIPTION

DR HACKIE REITMAN (HR): 

Hi, I’m Dr Hackie Reitman, welcome to another episode of Exploring Different Brains, and today we have returning to us all the way from Missoula, Montana. We’ve got Megan MacKay, a great therapist who’s doing so much. Thank you for being with us again, Megan.

MEGAN MACKAY (MM):  

Thank you for having me, it’s an honor.

HR:  

Now, one area where you do a lot of work is and is in the realm of trauma. Can you talk a little bit about what you do in that arena of trauma?

MM:  

Absolutely. I am an EMDR trained therapist. I am getting trained in somatic experiencing, and they’re traditionally trained therapist too, as well. You know, coming out with your CBT, DBT, talk therapy stuff training, right out the gate from graduate school. I’m also certified in a couple of modalities that focus on developmental trauma, intimacy disorders and relational abuse, and so with those factors combined, I can address a lot of issues for people who were affected at various stages within their life, figure out what’s going on there, like, is it an attachment thing that’s affecting all of your current relationships? Is there trauma in that? Is it trauma or abuse, because they’re not the same? What kind of trauma is it? How can we solve that? How can we break through for this person to get that to that resolution where they can climb over the mountain of being constantly triggered and responsive in those loops of the PTSD reaction cycle, to not have to suffer through those again? And how that works looks differently for every person.

HR:  

Can you explain to us the difference between PTSD and C PTSD, so that we understand the difference between these two entities?

MM:  

Absolutely Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a cycle of triggered responses from somewhere where a an event occurred for a person, where A fourth horrified feeling state was frozen, in a sense, and stuck in the body. It’s like a memory, a feeling state memory. So if you think about what’s the first time you ever humiliated in front of people, if you thought about it and retold the story, you’re probably going to express or experience the same feelings that occurred at that point in time. Were you rejected by somebody that you had immense feelings for? How did that feel? That is like those experiences of post traumatic stress disorder, times 100 and so whenever something triggers or recalls that memory, and that memory comes up, it’s going to trigger that feeling, state response too. So like, oh my god, I’m there. And like, we say, trauma has no time. So even if it’s an event that happened 30 years ago, like Vietnam veterans, for example, to this day, their break was water, all the way back to that time when the event occurred, and they go through the survival response that they took at that point in time, because it feels so real to to. To try to save themselves again. In a sense, it’s automatic, it’s unconscious, and it’s a cycle that gets stuck until you find the point in at which you can understand and intervene in it and bring the intensity of that reaction down to close to zero.

HR:  

So that’s gotta be something that’s big in any kind of first responder. I’d imagine.

MM:  

Well, big T’s and little T’s, with the big T traumas being the major events that are cast catastrophic and horrifying, like earthquakes, watching someone die in front of you being mugged or raped. The little T events are those chronic, recurring ones that affect and erode a person’s sense of reality and self over time, like school building or psychological and emotional abuse.

HR:  

You know, when someone has a job that requires them to be exposed to trauma, what can they do to prevent you know, PTSD and sequela such as that?

MM:  

Have a trusted person to talk to face. It. Don’t deny it, the reality of it, or what happened, or try to stop and compartmentalize. Know that you have feelings, and it’s okay to have feelings, and they’re just feelings. They’re not facts, um, and now, at the end of the day, whatever the event was, you survived it somehow, and then it already happened, and you can’t change it. There’s no going back, but you certainly can’t get through it, resolve it and get better.

HR:  

Interesting, just feelings, not facts. Interesting, interesting. Let’s talk a little bit about PTSD in the autism community. Are any of the in your view, as a self advocate? Are any in the causes and symptoms unique to just the autistic population or No?

MM:  

I wanted to highlight I didn’t quite touch on complex PTSD. And going back for a second, complex PTSD, meaning somebody already has a background of Adler at adverse life events such as some sort of developmental issues that majorly impacted them growing up, and then they, let’s say, go to a first responder job or go into war. That’s like a seven layer cake of trauma versus a one layer cake. So when you get to those individuals with neurodivergency who have grown up like my era, throughout the traditional school system, where they had no idea what this was, because of older generation. I remember the 80s, and we were always reprimanded for things we could not control, for parts of ourselves that we didn’t understand, that we always, you know, try to do better, tried to fit in, tried to do more, didn’t get the big picture. Had parts and holes in the learning process that were never bridged, and then being shamed for it. For example, those are usually the traumas that I see on the forefront as individuals with neurodivergency of any kind. It’s not just limited to autism, like ADHD, for example, sit still in your seat for eight hours and don’t do anything while their brains are uncontrollably searching for stuff, for stimulation.

HR:  

Tell us about your work with first responders experiencing PTSD or CPTSD.

MM:  

so still connecting to the CPTSD part. A lot of times, people in neurodivergency have some sort of PTSD by nature. You don’t you really see the two connected most of the time. Now, getting into the first responder population, it’s going to be that layer cake. And so if you heard the stories of what these individuals who do these big things every day to keep us safe and keep others safe, then you would probably feel the horror that they have harbored inside for a very long time when you’re talking about dealing with death or abuse cases. For domestic violence, car crashes, you know, emergency rooms and we’re not talking about just policemen, but firefighters. I consider nurses and doctors first responders, especially if they work in the hospital, er setting. You know, anyone dealing with these major, big events that they see a lot of loss and grief on a daily basis. They don’t quite they’re getting better at learning how to help people in those occupations get the help that they need, but there’s still a very strong need for support in those aspects. Debriefing doesn’t do it, and especially if they’ve been doing it longer over time, into the depending on the intensity of the work or the job. You know, are they picking up body parts on a daily basis, or they like the corner? You know, how, how intense is it? How do you get help for that? Talking about it might be more re traumatizing. You’re going to want to get further into it in terms of the subconscious and the unconscious in order to access this feeling states and find that resolution, in terms of bringing that dysregulation down from an overwhelming, oh my god, shut down feeling like being horrified, to Okay, that is an event that happened in the past, and it was terrible, but I survived it, and I’m here now, or I got to help people through it. And you know, it was not in my control. I was not responsible for having a more rounded perspective. But in essence.

HR:  

Megan, how can people learn more about you? 

MM:  

I have a small business here in Hamilton, Montana. It’s about an hour south of Missoula. Website is interstatehealingandrecovery.com. That’s the name of my business. So you can reach out to me through the website, I have a blog, bloggingforrecovery.com, where interim it’s a little bit of my journey and experiences with important mental health topics like boundaries, attachment styles, relationship stuff, so you can email or call. I’m always happy to talk about these things with people and or I have a radio show that I host, and I’m on the board for community radio station 101.5 kfgm. It’s Missoula community radio. You can find that on 1015kfgm.org, where you can live stream at my shows every Wednesday, 2pm Mountain Daylight Time. 

HR:  

And the name of the show?

MM:  

Grizzly Talk. Thank you tough talk for challenging topics. And I also have the recorded shows on YouTube for grizzly talk for the past episodes that I’ve done. So it’s under grizzly talk tough talk for challenging topics, too.

HR:  

And what is one thing that you wish that everyone knew about trauma?

MM:  

It gets better. You can’t work through it, conquer it, hopefully not drink it away.

HR:  

Well, Megan, it’s been a pleasure to have you here again at different brains. Megan MacKay, keep up your great work. Please stay in touch and we’ll see you again soon. Thank you. Thank you.

MM:  

Exploring Different Brains is a production of different brains. Visit us at different brains.org. You.