A Different State Of Mind With Katie Scoggins

Well,

Katie,

Thank you so much for joining us on coming back today.

I'm so excited to have a referral from our very own Morgan Brown,

Who was in an earlier episode of season two on the show,

And she sent you our way.

So I would absolutely love if you would start us off by telling us your lost story.

Thanks,

Shelby.

I'm really happy to be here.

I'm glad that Morgan connected us.

So my story is in the summer of 2016,

I was hit by a truck in my van twice.

The first one was in May and the second one was in September.

And in both of them,

I got concussions.

In the first one,

I got whiplash and I kind of denied that I had a concussion and was about to leave for a van trip.

And I went to go work some events and just continued with my van trip.

And I came home a few months later to attend a wedding and was hit head on this time,

Getting another concussion and going into complete shock and just barreling down into this dark tunnel of,

Okay,

Now you have to face these brain injuries that you've had.

And I still had a few months of denial after the accident,

But it was one of those things where the symptoms and the whole thing just kept building up and up and up.

There's only so long that I can run from these things that are happening to me.

So in March of 2016,

I went to the hospital for all my brain things.

I had a freakout.

I had all these symptoms piled up at once.

For the first time,

Really,

I was really,

Really feeling them.

And that's when I acknowledged the concussions for real and kind of went into a depression.

I had anxiety attacks.

I was sensitive to light.

I realized I had PTSD from the second accident,

Which was kind of a near death accident after I took some time to look at it.

So March was when I started really getting serious about my healing.

That sounds so traumatic.

I mean,

I know you already threw the PTSD letters in there,

But to have all of this happen in such a short span of time,

Did you ever just have a moment where you looked around and you're like,

Is this my life?

Like,

What the hell?

That's exactly the first words that happened in my mind after my second accident.

I'm like,

This is not actually happening.

This is just a joke.

It's interesting because that's one of the side effects of a concussion or a brain injury is to not see clearly and not understand and stuff.

So there's this moment of the clear me is like,

This isn't actually happening.

And then the concuss me is trying to figure out what's going on at the same time.

Oh my gosh,

That is so wild.

And I'm kind of curious about the other people that were in your life.

You live in your van,

Correct?

I did in 2016.

I'm now living in an apartment.

That's so cool.

I know like nomadic lifestyle is something that a lot of people dream about or fantasize about it.

Like,

Oh,

I'll take a year off and do this.

But I'm curious about the other people maybe in the van community or even in your family or friend group.

Were they concerned with you?

Did they not want you to continue a trip or drive anymore?

Just kind of the response to all of this happening so close together.

Yeah.

So after my first accident,

I went to work for the summer camp for adults called Campgrounded where I have like a few of my van sisters.

Morgan's one of them.

And I have another one named Emily and we talked about it a little bit.

But I think since at least after the first one,

Since I wasn't taking it so seriously,

They were like,

Oh,

She seems okay.

Everything's okay.

And it was a little more lighthearted right after that concussion.

I left four days after that accident to go work for this camp.

And then right after that,

I traveled for,

What's that,

Three months straight across the country with another friend.

It's funny looking back at my experience with her,

This poor girl.

I retrospectively noticed my temper being different,

Totally not me and just my need to sleep all of a sudden and stuff.

And she was really compassionate.

I don't know if she understood what was going on with me,

But she was just so easy to travel with in my,

Like this,

Ignoring the healing that my brain was trying to do.

And after the second accident,

I connected with some of my van friends and people who just know me as a traveler and stuff.

They were like,

Hey,

You keep bringing this subject up of feeling out of control or feeling anxious and stuff and this isn't you.

You had two brain injuries within four months.

You need to,

Maybe you need to stop and take a moment and heal your brain a little bit.

I needed a reality check from those friends and they know me and they know me as this adventure buddy and they saw the changes before I did,

I guess,

And I needed that little call to reality.

So were they the people that actually woke you up to doing something or going inward with it or did something else happen that was like,

Oh shit,

I got it.

Yeah,

Actually it's funny that we just keep talking about Morgan in this episode and she was just on your podcast,

But Morgan was the voice of reason that brought me to it.

We were video chatting.

We have used this thing called Marco Polo and it records like a couple of minutes of you and you send it to them and then they record a couple of minutes back and I left her this long message of like ranting,

Like,

Hey,

I know this is going to sound crazy and weird,

But will you just listen to me rant?

I just like need someone to hear these words.

And I left her this long message talking about being so confused and lost and it's weird because that's not like me and like feeling out of control and like I can't be present,

Which was like hearing those myself say those words was weird because I practice being present so much.

It's one of the reasons why I travel and it's one of the reasons why I do the work that I do.

And she was like,

Hey,

Skoogs,

That's the name that she calls me.

Like you remember?

Oh,

I love it.

That's my camp nickname from our work together.

She's like,

You hit your brain two times and it's been like she had a double brain injury or something in high school and she,

It's years and years ago,

But she remembered like having to be turned off,

Like no TV,

No reading,

No talking to multiple people at the same time.

She's like,

Maybe you just need to rest because I was working on a project and stuff and I was wanting to travel every single month I was traveling at least one or multiple trips and she's just like,

You have to stop.

And I thought about it.

I'm like,

Okay,

I'll take a week break from my work.

Just looking back at that,

That's ridiculous because I basically just took a year off.

We're both laughing because it sounds like enough in the moment.

But then it's like,

No,

That's definitely not enough.

Oh my God,

It's so funny.

Silly me.

So I took a week off.

I was house sitting for my friend watching her dogs and actually working at her job,

Which I used to work at too.

And what got me to go to the hospital to get my first moment of help was these fluorescent lights.

I went crazy every day after work and I noticed once I went to the hospital,

The fluorescent lights were triggering me to have these.

I got tested for seizures because they thought I was having silent seizures from them.

So being in an office with fluorescent lights and hearing Morgan's voice tell me,

You need to rest your brain,

Made me think maybe I should go to the hospital.

And I had seen a doctor for the whiplash and we kind of touched on the concussion a little bit,

But since I just ignored the concussion,

I never truly was able to heal from it.

My neck and back still hurt from the whiplash,

But that was just something that I'm just dealing with.

I'm slowly moving through that pain and stuff.

But yeah,

Morgan's voice was the voice that got me to go to the hospital in March and like start this process of seeing neurologists,

Seeing a massage therapist and all these doctors trying to figure out what we can do with these symptoms.

In the long run,

It was just like I got basically no help from the medical community,

Unfortunately,

Just because concussions are a mysterious thing and it's hard to find someone who gets that state of mind,

I guess.

It's almost,

I almost feel like it has to be a doctor who has gone through a brain injury to really get it because it's such a,

It's a thing that you can't explain to someone.

I'm picking up on a phrase you just said,

Which is a different state of mind.

And I'm kind of curious,

What did this period of time look like in your life where you literally had to shift from this was what was before to a different state of mind,

To concussion mind,

To healing mind,

To acknowledging mind?

What did that feel like for you?

The beginning,

I was so resistant.

Just looking back,

This was me a year ago.

A year ago is when I went to the hospital for the first time and I just can't even believe how resistant I was to it.

It kind of reminds me of how I reacted right after the accident.

I was in an accident.

I was the most injured in both accidents.

The first thing I did was get out of the car,

Make sure everyone's okay,

Get safely off the road.

I handled and took charge and took lead of the situation.

And so that's kind of how I look at how I handled my brain injury.

Just handle it,

Take control.

It's okay.

Just kind of making it happen.

And that is not how healing the brain works.

You can't just make it happen.

You have to let go.

You have to stand back.

And what I learned,

What I feel like one of my things I moved through the most was this emotional detox,

I guess.

I learned to feel.

I learned to just like,

If I feel like crying in one second,

I'm going to start crying and let it go out.

And I let myself feel the depressions.

I let myself feel the anxiety.

Let myself have panic attacks.

And I wrote about it and I talked about it.

I never really identified as a person who would feel so much and express it.

Not that I didn't want to talk about it.

I loved holding space for people who had all the feelings and stuff,

But I wouldn't let myself go there.

I guess this different state of mind was just feeling more.

Yeah,

And it's so funny with grief because we all want to tell the story like five years from now after it's all happened,

But living through it is like nothing any of us ever wants to do.

We're like,

There's no space to handle it.

There's no concrete answers.

It's just like being thrust into this place of,

Well,

I guess I'm surrendering now,

But that doesn't feel really good either.

I'm definitely picking up on that resistance to want to shift to a different state of mind because we don't in our general day to day,

That's not where we live or that's not where we're taught to live.

Totally.

I guess another part of my resistance was almost if I accept that this is how it is and I dive into that barrel,

I felt like I was going to get stuck there because I was so attached to this pre-concussed brain of mine.

I'm sure,

I'm positive I've had concussions before.

I've played sports my whole life.

I've been rock climbing and done MMA and fallen off of bikes and stuff.

I know I've hit my head before.

And it's like as you build up on the number of concussions you have,

It affects your brain in such a different way and that's why it's so mysterious.

So there's no going back to the brain pre-concussion.

I'm like a year and a half,

Almost two years since my first accident and I still have random bouts of sensitivity to light.

I'm still wake up depressed and just anxious for no reason.

And I find myself missing that old version of myself.

And it wasn't honestly until the past few months where I was like,

This is okay.

I have the tools to handle it.

I'm just here.

It's fine to be in a funk for the day.

Before in my healing,

I was just yearning to go to that pre-concussed state,

Like have my old brain back,

My 2015 brain back.

You know?

Absolutely.

And that makes so much sense to me.

And I have a question that's coming up now that's not going to be well,

Well phrased,

But I think you might be able to get at what I'm getting at.

And the question is,

How are you learning to live with yourself?

Like as this new person?

I guess I've had this question asked before.

I met my current boyfriend the month that I went to the hospital to handle my brain and stuff and understand what all these symptoms were.

And our relationship is basically,

The foundation of our relationship is my brain issues.

And so everyone's favorite love story.

But yeah,

I think the reason why our relationship got so deep so fast,

Because I was in this completely authentic,

Vulnerable state and like,

Hey,

Hanging out with you is fun and stuff.

I would go rock climbing when it was quiet.

And he was working at the rock climbing gym at the time,

And he listened to my story.

And he was one of the first people who just sat and listened.

People got really uncomfortable when I was talking about my symptoms and stuff.

And I would get in these rants,

Like catching up with a friend or something I haven't seen in a while.

And I'd look into their eyes and I'd be like,

Oh,

I think I just handed them too much information.

But Victor,

My boyfriend,

He held it really,

Really well.

And I was back home,

Kind of alone,

Not that I'm alone at home.

I grew up in this area,

But so many of my closest friends are scattered across the country or traveling and stuff.

So I felt alone because I wasn't traveling.

And I felt alone because my friends who knew this stuff were far away.

And he just totally,

He held space so well for me and all my panic attacks,

All my in the middle of a sentence,

I'd be like,

I have no idea what I'm saying.

I would get mad at myself for forgetting words or losing track of time or not remembering a person.

And he just did not react and was just so present with it.

One of my rituals,

Basically,

When I was in the depth of healing my brain,

I'd be visiting him at the gym or I went to yoga at the gym or something.

And I'd be just suddenly like,

Freak out.

I'm like,

I'm going to go to my van.

I drive my van around every day and I have a bed in the back.

And so I would go to my bed in my van,

Put a pillow over my face or an eye rest over my face,

Either sleep because I just couldn't handle the noise,

I couldn't handle the light and stimulation or I would cry these deep belly cries.

And he would come after work and find me crying and just hold me there and just tell me like,

It's okay.

I know this is hard.

I know you're feeling it.

It's okay to cry.

It's okay to feel all these things.

And he would just whisper in my ear all these things.

And I've never had that solid of a grounding before because in my mind,

I'm telling myself,

Okay,

Stop crying,

Wrap it up.

And I kind of play like the tough guy a little bit on myself.

And he was just so sensitive to that.

I think I'm forgetting what your question was,

But seeing him as a mirror was something that really allowed me to go deep and actually feel all these things and move through them and not ignore them.

And I just have so many memories of me laying in my van and him coming in there just to lay next to me while I like desperately look out my window crying for a reason that I might have not known about.

I love that for you.

And that's such a that's such a beautiful picture of what more of us need.

I think in our grief is just even to have everything that we're feeling and going through even if other people don't understand it to have it acknowledged and to have that space and even our bodies held by other people is really powerful.

I'm interested now to know how all of this affected your work because I know doing yoga,

You sound like a very active woman,

Meditation,

Doing writing,

Things like that.

How did this entire story shift the way you worked,

The way you saw clients,

The way you saw yourself as a business owner?

I had to stop for a while.

Before my during my first accident,

I was on a sabbatical from work.

So I wasn't working.

I was just doing events and projects that I loved.

So I had no timeline,

No rules.

You're just doing it.

And after my second accident,

I tried really hard to start a new project and dive deep into a new thing.

And it wasn't happening.

And it was one of the things I was resistant to and angry about.

So in March,

After I went to the hospital,

I needed a little bit of routine.

And I didn't acknowledge that.

But looking back,

I know I needed a little bit of routine for my mind.

I took an old job that I had as a massage therapist back.

And so it wasn't what I wanted to be doing.

It wasn't like the traveling,

The events,

Teaching workshops.

I really miss teaching.

And I would teach a little bit here or there.

But I knew I wasn't reliable to show up and hold space and host for a couple dozen people or so.

So I took an old job back.

And after a couple months of being there,

I realized that the work as a massage therapist was really healing from my nervous system.

There's a little bit of interaction before and after.

But it's mostly quiet.

And it's mostly just this intimate thing.

I'm working on their body.

This was another thing that helped me be really okay with,

Okay,

You can exist as a human and have these brain traumas.

So it wasn't until a few months ago,

Maybe November,

I started back up on my projects.

And I learned how to balance it a little more.

I was only working part time,

Like three days a week as a massage therapist.

And I would just drop in a little bit of these new projects that I'm working on every week.

And now I'm working on my projects like three or four days a week and working as a massage therapist three days a week.

So it had to stop for a while.

And then I had to compromise and go back to something else that I didn't want to do.

But I just love teaching and being in community so much more than my massage practice.

And so now,

As I've gotten better,

I just slowly started melding the two together.

And I'm hoping to leave my massage job soon to just go back to doing my work online and my work with workshops and teaching yoga and meditation again.

I love your outlining of this whole process because it's something that I found to be very,

Very true in my own story as well.

After my mom died,

I worked as hard as I possibly could and thought I could do it all and thought I could handle it all.

And then after I moved to Chicago,

I got really,

Really sick and everything had to come to a screeching halt.

Like,

With the exception of the day job,

I had to drop the other two jobs.

I had to drop the online business.

I had to drop hobbies and choirs and bike ride,

Like all these other things that I did on the side.

And there's this fear when that happens,

Just like there's a fear of actually acknowledging the fact that you're wounded.

But if I acknowledge that this is my life now,

It may never end.

And there's this fear of,

This will be permanent,

I will never work again,

Or I will never be in the same capacity that I was again.

And I love hearing this start to finish,

But you're still kind of – I mean,

We're always continuing to round out a little bit more.

We're still continuing to,

For lack of a better term,

Like climb the stairs.

You're always evolving into new positions and new goals with your work and things like that.

And there is something to be said about coming back into work again,

Post-loss,

That can make us feel like capable people to be able to create again and output and contribute.

Does that make sense?

Yeah,

I totally agree.

Yeah.

So I just absolutely love that picture for you.

And I don't acknowledge that a lot on the podcast.

I tell people a lot of the times you're working too hard,

You need a break,

Which I think is true for about 90% of people.

But there's also this like 10% of people who are afraid to go back into it because they won't be the same person that they were before.

And I'm like,

It's okay,

You can go back in.

There's this,

You know,

There's a shift in capability,

But you are always capable of something in the world.

I'd love that for you.

There's something that I picked up on a couple questions back that I kind of want to circle back to.

And it's these moments that you described where you would be in the gym or you'd be out somewhere and like lights would be too bright or noise would be too much.

And there was this overwhelming extra sensitivity sensation.

And it seems to be coming up a lot more in our culture in general,

This conversation around people that are extra sensitive,

Whether it's to sensations or social interactions or like material that could possibly be triggering.

And I'm wondering if you've ever like lumped yourself in with this category of like,

Quote unquote,

Special snowflakes or people who need this extra attention and or kind of how you feel about the extra sensitive in our world,

Because I think we all have the capacity in some form or another to be more sensitive than we are.

And a lot of people just brush it off and ignore it.

And then there's like this negative dialogue of,

Oh,

You're too sensitive and you can't handle blah.

I'm just really curious to dive into that whole conversation and your perspective on it.

There's a lot of directions we could go here.

I've never identified with being extra sensitive until recently.

Like that's part of my resistance is like allowing myself to be sensitive.

And one of the biggest lessons from my brain injury was giving people permission and like giving them this,

I don't know,

This bubble,

Like feel all your things.

It's okay to feel these things.

And now that I've felt so crazy and out of control and just in front of so many people,

I feel,

I don't know,

I feel like I really,

Really want to just sit there for people and just let them freak out right in front of me and not let them project onto me and do that,

But just hold space,

I guess,

For them to feel the things,

Talk it out.

And just like,

I don't know,

I've had times with my moms where she went through a hard time and she talked about how she's feeling crazy and stuff.

And I just have these moments of realizing like I'm so comfortable sitting in this space for her because she just needs to feel all these things.

And I have moments flashing to where I'm freaking out in my van and Victor did that for me was I'm being,

I'm acting insane,

Like I just went from being totally calm and control in public and I step into my van and I freak out.

That's a very heavy thing for an unprepared person to watch and he was able to do it for me and that just gave me this calling to like want to be there for people to feel sensitive because I just think it's so important to feel our shit is what I say.

We get so busy in day to day life,

Outside of grief and outside of my concussion and outside of all the things like that,

But we just go through our day so quickly and all these things are building up inside of us.

Even if we just have our schedule so full of like,

Got to go to work and do the thing and do the dinner and see the people and we're just kind of almost like putting on this show for the world sometimes.

And we run out of time to like feel what's going on in ourselves.

And that's one of the things that I love about teaching a mindfulness practice,

My meditation and the yoga and writing and just spirituality in general.

It kind of forces you to slow down and look at that and then slow down again and look at that and why aren't you wanting to look at that and feel that and give people permission to write about it and get clear about it.

I feel like I could rant on and on about this because that's kind of like my passion now is allowing people to feel all the things and then get clear about what they're feeling and then layer that back and like dive into it deeper and deeper and deeper within reason.

Like not trying to overwhelm people.

On the other hand of that,

You also have permission to stop feeling all the things.

Like I remember one time I was freaking out and Victor was like trying to ask me questions about it.

He was trying to learn about me and stuff and I'm like,

You know what?

I am so tired of feeling all the things and crying and freaking out.

I want to ignore it today.

I want to not feel today.

And so yeah,

When you learn to kind of dive into your feelings a little bit more,

You can kind of see like maybe I do want to feel,

Maybe I do want to explore all this stuff and also I'm so tired I can stop right now.

Give yourself permission to both sides of that.

It's permission to feel and to really dive in and to not feel at all.

But it's almost permission to take the power back.

Yeah,

Exactly.

If you can pinpoint some things for us,

What exactly and all of this do you feel like you've lost in terms of what did you grieve?

And then maybe on the opposite side of the coin or in tandem,

Hand in hand,

What do you feel like you gained?

I feel like I lost what I already spoke about is this old vision of myself,

Being in control and able to handle and kind of that lion-headed attitude that I had.

And some things that I don't think about often are just like I have to double check if I'm ready to go to a concert.

I love live music.

I bought a concert ticket a couple months ago and I was there and I was like,

Well,

This is so overstimulating.

And I had to decide if it was good for me to stay or not.

So little things like that.

Like I have to be picky about my diet because if my gut is not healthy,

Then my brain freaks out and have to double check if I'm going to a space full of people that are going to make my brain feel good or not good.

I guess I've lost freedom to just be careless,

Which isn't an actual loss.

That's good for me in the long run is to be more mindful of what I'm doing with my body and my mind.

So I guess that turns into what I've gained is this,

Like I was just talking about this permission to really feel.

And I always say this,

I feel that noticing that I feel really empowered as the person that I am,

I feel like I have to give nobody an apology for existing how I am.

Kindly,

But just yeah,

I just give myself to exist exactly how I am.

I was telling someone the other day how I gained so much more compassion for people.

I feel like essentially I feel like I'm seemingly the same person I was before my accidents.

But like I was saying,

Withholding space for people,

Just this deep desire to do that and this powerful drive to do my work.

I feel like I'm more on mission to do good and serve others and less just floating around a little bit.

I feel more on mission and called to serve a little bit more because of all the things people did for me during this.

I realize more people need that than we realize.

Yes,

You are absolutely 1000% right that we all need more space than we're giving ourselves.

I'm thinking now to kind of where you are today,

Just like sitting across the mic today.

What is the biggest thing or collection of things that is helping you come back?

I think that the seed of what held me together through all this,

On top of all the things I've talked about,

Was my spiritual practice.

I've studied holistic wellness and spirituality for several years.

This was the first time that I really had to,

I was forced to be in it and be held accountable for actually doing the work on a daily basis.

What my day-to-day looked like when I was suffering and crying and stuff was waking up,

Letting myself cry,

Or go meditate or go journal.

Since I had this long process of every day desperately clinging to something to get out of,

Move through feeling in the funk,

It's carried over into now where I feel like I'm functioning fairly normally in society again.

I go to work and when I feel tired,

It's almost like that habit that I learned.

I go to meditate or I go to take a salt bath or I look at my diet for the week and realize that,

Oh,

I wasn't eating well.

It's like that habit that I built during the hardest part of it is still here.

When I notice my brain and my body doesn't feel very well,

It's like I instantly go back to that.

I am more aware of my self-care.

Yeah,

Totally.

If you encountered a person or I guess as you're encountering people in your day-to-day life that are on that edge of resistance to acknowledging,

This is what happened,

I got to dive into this,

Something's got to change,

What would be your message to them?

The guidance that I give people are these tools of mindful breathing,

Meditation,

And writing.

I find the thing that's easiest to relate to all people is writing because everyone can write.

I've been encouraging people to,

When they want to come rant to me,

Say they feel comfortable to rant to me or something,

Go to your journal or go to a piece of paper and just write it out and see what's going on there.

We have so much going on in our minds.

Sometimes it's hard to realize how much is going on in our minds when you don't take a piece of paper and a pen and pull it out of your brain and put it onto a piece of paper so you can see it in another way with your eyes and your hand is filtering what comes out of your mind and onto the paper.

So I'm feeling overwhelmed and just in this place of not knowing what to do anymore.

I think every single conversation that I've had recently,

The first thing that I think of is just write about it,

Just get it out and see what it is.

Then I have questions and a conversation to have about that,

But the first step is really just honestly writing.

I love writing and I actually sometimes refer to it as mind dumping.

Yeah,

That's what I call it too,

Brain dumping.

Exactly,

Brain dumping,

Mind dumping,

The whole thing.

I used to call everything that would exist in your head before you wrote it down as mind circling and then the act of writing is mind dumping.

So I absolutely love that because it's so true for me.

I don't think I'm going through a lot and then I start writing in the morning.

If I write more than one page in a journal,

If it goes to three,

Four,

Five,

Six,

I'm like,

Oh,

Okay.

All of a sudden you get this recognition of like,

I've been a lot more stressed out than I've given myself credit for.

I'm rolling a lot more around in my head than I'm giving myself credit for.

Even just that writing is an active space because it takes time to write through and sift through everything that's in your head.

But when you see it written down,

It actually takes up physical space out in the world and you're like,

Wow,

Okay,

There's some magnitude that you can measure there.

So I absolutely love the practice of writing for this.

That is so cool.

Yeah,

It's been such a good tool for me.

It's like a smack in the face most of the time,

But in the long run it's been very helpful.

And that's really,

Well,

You need that sometimes.

Sometimes you need to get smacked in the face and other times you're like,

Okay,

I just need a tool that's going to be helpful for us.