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How Do You Handle Anxiety?
Crystle Lampitt • 2022-03-01
Dylan Carnahan:Welcome to the Simple Questions Podcast. I'm your host, Dylan Carnahan, that was Good Looking Out by Larsen. Larsen is an alt-rock band from Kansas City. The band is composed of six friends, each of whom brings their own flavor and taste to the table. Formed in 2016 by brothers Sam and John Kenny, Larsen blends the styles of its six members into an amalgamation of rhythmic, funky, and rock and roll vibes. The question for this episode is, how do you handle anxiety? You will learn in this episode where anxiety comes from, anxiety triggers, and ways to overcome your anxiety. Our guest was a former TV journalist for KSH-Tv, hosted the Daily Morning Show, Kansas City Live, hosted Behind the Spotlight, is a TEDx speaker, a licensed psychotherapist with a specialization in trauma, and has her own counseling practice, CL Wellness. I introduce to you, Crystle Lampitt.
Crystle Lampitt:Okay.
Dylan Carnahan:You have had a really interesting professional career. What made you want to get into counseling?
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, so for a long time, I worked in television and really enjoyed it. It's when I got my undergraduate degree in. I think I was like everybody else. I wanted to edit music videos. That was going to be my jam, and I wanted to be a documentary filmmaker. I had a lot of really cool big ideas, or I think I did, and I did. I did do those things. I actually worked for documentary filmmaker for a while and then eventually switched to working on air, doing the morning newscast and the local morning show. But then I kind of reached the burnout levels. So just as a side note, I actually did kind of go into this. I was fortunate enough to do a TED talk last year, a TEDx talk last year. And I went into more detail about sort of that transition, because essentially I was getting to definitely burnout. The environment was really stressful for me. The hours were really stressful, the pay. It just wasn't, after a while, it was great in my 20s, after a while, it got to be a lot. And it was also just kind of bleeding over into my personal life too, where I didn't really have a lot of time to be social. I didn't have a lot of time to see family. And this is kind of my own thing too, but my own trauma history led me to choose some really quite abusive relationships. So getting out of those relationships and getting out of some of these really unhealthy environments required me to pretty much change everything around my life. So it started with, you know, how can I get a healthier environment? And then it turned into, oh man, I need to change my career. And so that's what happened. I went back to grad school at age 30 and was just like, all right, I'm gonna do this. And now I have a practice and I have wonderful clients and I love it. I think it was what I was supposed, I mean, I don't know. It's what I was meant to do in this chapter. We'll say that. I think television made a lot of sense for a long time, but I'm so grateful that it led me here.
Dylan Carnahan:And we're glad to have you there as well. How did you become a licensed therapist? You had to go back and get education. That's a pretty big leap.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, it was a trip. I worked. I was still working at the station before fully switching over. So I was lucky enough to do the part-time program. Are most of your listeners in Kansas City, by the way?
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah.
Crystle Lampitt:Okay, good deal. So then you'll know what I'm talking about. So there's KU and then there's the KU Edwards campus in Overland Park. And I was lucky enough to get into their social work program. So their clinical social work track. And that's right in my backyard. It was not far from where I lived and I was able to do it part-time. So it took me three years rather than the usual two. And in those last two years, I was also doing my clinical practicum. So I was getting my clinical hours in, all of that experience. And yeah, all in all, it took three years. And in addition to that, I did some specialized training in complex trauma. So the really chronic recurrent trauma, not just PTSD, but what's called CPTSD or complex PTSD. And so I did just a bunch of training. I mean, for three years, that was pretty much what I lived and breathed. I go to work at, I try to be there. I was late quite a bit, I'll just say that. But the morning show that I hosted was at 10 a.m. And so I would try to be there by 8.39 and I would work until 4.35. And then I would usually do my clinical internship until 9 p.m. So I would go straight from work to my clinical internship and I did classes on the weekends. So it was brutal for a few years, but I survived. At least it was temporary.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. What kind of work did you do in this clinical?
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah. So I actually interned at a practice called Resolve. They're in Prairie Village. And it's a practice. So I literally saw clients. I got to be there for two years, which I really appreciated because I wanted to do clinical practice. So when you go the clinical social work track, you can do a lot of things. You can become a social worker. You can work in policy. You can work in local government. I mean, there's a lot of things you can do with a degree, but I always knew that I wanted to be a therapist. So they just threw me right in and they were like, okay, we're gonna start giving you clients. So I was a little nervous that they were really trusting me with people's mental health. But yeah, I saw clients for two years there. So day in and day out and got some really good experience. Wow.
Dylan Carnahan:Kind of transitioning, what is CL Wellness and what do you do at your practice?
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, so it's just my initials. As you can see, I'm very creative. Yeah, I went with CL Wellness just honestly because of that. And it's really funny. You know, I've never, obviously had never done this before, but looking for a therapy practice name, just about every single one is taken. Everyone is like North Star Counseling, you know, Compass, you know, like Oak Tree. I mean, like every name in, yeah, very Zen, very, I was like, man, every single one is taken. So I just use my initials. And, you know, I had hoped that, cause eventually, you know, I'm gonna start offering workshops and teaching. I really like the educational and the speaking component of it as well. So I wanted to keep it broad. You know, I didn't want to be like clinical trauma.
Dylan Carnahan:That pigeon hole yourself.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, yeah, I kind of wanted to keep it open. And so I just, I run my solo practice. So I do everything from, you know, scheduling, booking to admin paperwork. It's a lot, but I love it. I primarily specialize in trauma, but also work with a lot of anxiety and depression, because a lot of the symptoms of trauma, I mean, they really overlap. So they're pretty similar. And a lot of times when people have an anxiety or depressive disorder, what they're actually struggling with is unresolved trauma. So it's pretty cool to be able to see the root of what's happening and to see some of those symptoms actually dissipate when we identify the trauma.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, you're able to impact someone's life.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, it's definitely a slow for most people, I would say. I mean, not to say I see some people make rapid growth and I really hold it as my clients are the experts on themselves. You know, I really don't like to take the approach of, let me stare you down with my clipboard and I analyze you. And I'm not a big fan of that approach because it feels pretty disempowering. So I really hold that when my clients are making growth, it's because of them. It's because of their own capacities. And I see the therapeutic process as this is us creating a safe environment and the appropriate conditions for healing to naturally occur. So if you get a cut on your arm, you're gonna check it out and see, does it need medical care? Do I need to go to a doctor? Does it need an extra bandage or some antibiotics? What do I need to support the natural healing of my arm? And I really see trauma in the same way as trauma being an injury. So our brain can heal itself. It has a natural drive to, we just have to create the appropriate conditions and the safety for that to happen. So we're really kind of exploring what's getting in the way of this person feeling better and how can I create an environment that might support their healing, which is why I talk so extensively about safety. It's actually really, really important that you feel safe with your therapist. That's kind of the best way to get the work started. But when people grow and they try to do the whole, oh, it's because of you. I'm like, thank you, that does make me feel good. And I wanna point out that that is your brain's natural capacity and that is you and your resilience and your resources and can we celebrate that? And I'm thankful and honored, I mean, truly to be a part of the process, but I really see it as, clients are experts on themselves. They've lived in their body their whole lives. I'm here to hold space and some curiosity and maybe point some things out along the way.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, you bring up pointing things out. Now, for someone that has anxiety and maybe they don't have the best awareness, can you talk about how you might know if you have anxiety or not?
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, so there's anxiety and then there's anxiety disorders. And some amount of anxiety is normal and healthy and important. And the way that I really see anxiety is it's truly a signal that our body is giving us. So rather than seeing it as, oh, that's something I shouldn't experience or something that I have to battle or overcome or control, I really like to see anxiety as something we should listen to, something we need to pay attention to because it's often alerting us to something important. And so, for example, a typical anxiety experience might be, oh, I'm really anxious about taking this test. Well, that's important information, you know, that-
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, it's an indicator.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, exactly. It's the check engine light going off on your car. You don't go, let me ignore that. You go, let me investigate this. And if you're feeling anxious about taking a test, yeah, that probably makes sense. It probably means that you really care about whatever it is you're going for and that it's important and that it is bringing up some uncertainty for you. So what can we do to mitigate that? How can we help that? When it comes into thinking of any disorder as a spectrum and even the word disorder, I don't use a ton in my practice because I think it is unnecessarily pathologizing.
Dylan Carnahan:It has some weight to it.
Crystle Lampitt:It does and it automatically makes you think something's wrong.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, there's a negative connotation when you say that, right?
Crystle Lampitt:Right, it kind of just has that sense of heaviness. Like I'm broken, I need to be fixed. When really if we can see your brain's number one job is to keep you alive. So if it's alerting you to some things, it's working. It's doing its job and it's doing its job well. I understand the desire to maybe have less anxiety and sometimes we get frustrated about the way that it's doing that because if you think about like an anxiety disorder, one of the most common ones is generalized anxiety disorder where you're essentially, you're anxious about many, many things. So the symptoms of this would be you're restless, you're on edge, you're worried about so many things, but they're not necessarily rational or impending. It's not just like, oh, I'm anxious because I have a test coming up.
Dylan Carnahan:It's a heightened sense.
Crystle Lampitt:Constantly activated, yes. And to get that diagnosis, you would be experiencing it more days than not for six months, at least six months. And if we can see that as, oh, okay, well, that's interesting. Why am I experiencing this? It's still less pathologizing than going, something's wrong with you. You have a disorder. So I do try to A, differentiate between, is this just a, is this a typical amount of anxiety that most people would experience, or is it interfering with your life? And when we give it the label of a disorder, it's usually persistent and pervasive. So that's what we're looking for, is it's happening more days than not, and it's interfering with your ability to function in multiple areas of life. So maybe it's getting in the way of work. Maybe it's getting in the way of socializing. Maybe it's making you isolate or shut yourself in because you're so afraid to be out in the world. So that would be like an agoraphobia. So other ones, social anxiety, we have the specific phobias, like people who are afraid of spiders or afraid of flying. And then there's a separation anxiety as well, which is pretty common in kids and also can happen in adults, interestingly enough. But these are all collectively under the anxiety umbrella. And I get it. No one wants to have a panic episode in the middle of an exam or panic while they're driving. So I understand that there is some frustration with, thanks Brain for doing your job, but could you do it in a nicer way? And we want to work with it. We want to understand, well, why is that coming up? Rather than going straight to something's wrong with me, I'm broken. We usually want to get curious as to what is it about this environment or this experience that is making me feel unsafe or uncomfortable. And we want to get curious about it.
Dylan Carnahan:You're approaching with a healthy level of skepticism as opposed to this negative kind of cloud, if you will. You brought up a panic attack, like panic attacks. What are some symptoms of anxiety that people may experience?
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, so there's generalized anxiety, which is that broad strokes anxiety where you're worrying about things more days than not for at least six months. With a panic disorder, it's pretty common to have anxiety with a panic disorder as well. And a panic episode, if anyone has ever experienced one, sometimes it gets mistaken for a heart attack. So sometimes people end up in the ER thinking they're having a heart attack. And the reason why this is, and I like to do a lot of education on the way that the brain actually works. So if you're not watching this, I would definitely Google Dan Siegel's hand brain model, but sort of my rough iteration of it is if we can think of this as the brain, and this top part is the cortex, the neocortex, which is where all of the rational thinking happens. So this is problem solving, this is compromise, this is diplomacy, this is the part of your brain you wanna be using when you're making important decisions.
Dylan Carnahan:Your higher order thinking comes from there.
Crystle Lampitt:Exactly, executive functioning, all that stuff happens up here. Underneath that, we have the middle part of the brain, the amygdala, which is in the limbic system, and it's much more emotional. And the amygdala is that smoke alarm. So the amygdala's number one job is to scan the environment for threats and to let you know whether you're safe or not. And if it detects a threat, and when I say threat or trigger, I don't mean just like a tiger. A threat could be a facial expression. You can feel threatened from somebody's facial expression or body language or a certain tone of voice. And especially if you have trauma, a trigger could be a smell. It could be a certain environment where something traumatic happened. So this is what I mean when I say, okay, if your brain, your amygdala detects that, it's going to flip your lid. So what essentially happens is the cortex goes offline and your amygdala starts sending signals down your brainstem to the rest of your body to fight or flight. And that's that fight or flight where you notice your heart pounding, you might start sweating, you're gonna notice your major muscle groups are getting a lot more blood because it's designed to help you stay alive. You are either supposed to fight the threat or flight from it. And if your brain decides neither of those are options, there's actually going to be another option which is shut down or freeze. So it's kind of like playing possum. And these all have really important survival mechanisms attached to them where if I play dead, if I play a possum, maybe the wolf will leave me alone, maybe the predator will leave me alone, or I get to dissociate so hard from my body that I won't feel it if I'm about to be beaten. So it's kind of a very primal animalistic part of the brain, but a lot of times that's what's getting triggered in a panic episode. So all of that to say, if something happens and I start panicking, you'll notice it really mirrors a lot of that fight or flight response. And so people think that like, oh, I'm just worrying about nothing, or I'm just over-exaggerating. What's actually happening is your brain has detected a threat or it's detected something that feels off and it's sending you the signal that, hey, we need to check this out. And so when you notice those physiological responses, it's important to pay attention and to be curious about them rather than just thinking of it as a mental or cognitive process because it's really quite physiological and it's very physical.
Dylan Carnahan:It's all encompassing your whole body.
Crystle Lampitt:Exactly. And anyone with anxiety or anyone with panic will tell you how much it impacts their entire body and nervous system. So that's why it can be quite debilitating if you're trying to live your life and you're not understanding where these panic episodes are coming from. So it can be pretty frustrating to deal with, but I like to start with the perspective that, hey, this is your brain doing its job. And if you're alive right now, that's a sign that it has done its job pretty well your entire life. So can we at least acknowledge its attempts and its intentions, which is to keep you safe and to keep you alive.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. Now you mentioned earlier kind of about finding the root cause for some of these things and how that's like an epiphany, how you can help people through that. Where in some instances does this anxiety come from for people? When that, where's that coming from when it pops up on the dashboard, if you will?
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, so it's interesting that you asked that because if you look at anxiety, anxiety looks a lot like the fight or flight response for many of us. Depression can look a lot like the freeze response. So they're actually physiological responses. If you think of what depression is, for a lot of people, it's lack of motivation. They don't wanna get up. They don't wanna leave the couch. They can barely take care of themselves. They're not even doing the basic hygiene things. And so a lot of times these symptoms can be based in trauma. And so if you have unresolved trauma and you may not realize it, you could be getting triggered constantly into a state of anxiety or depression but not be aware of it. And unfortunately, we don't always get to know exactly what the triggers are because a lot of times trauma happens really, really early on, especially attachment trauma or relational trauma. So we're talking like the first five years of life of which you're not gonna have cognitive memory up. You're gonna have that implicit memory or those body memories. So there's-
Dylan Carnahan:You'll have those associations.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, yeah. And it's kind of a vague, maybe it's a physical sensation, but there's no image or thought or memory attached to it. So the example that I use with clients is, if you're a two-year-old and you're exploring the world as two-year-olds do and you touch a hot stove, your body's gonna go, oh, don't do that, that was painful. That was hot, we should not do that in the future. And so you'll have kind of a sensation, somatic memory of that. But you won't necessarily remember being two years old and that happening. So trauma, the way that I like to think of trauma is, yes, there is the shock trauma of PTSD, right? Which is usually a singular, like pretty extreme traumatic event, going to work, getting in a car accident, those types of things. But there are also subtler traumas. And if we can think of trauma, not so much just as PTSD, but if we can think of trauma as anything that is too much, too fast, too soon, that overwhelms our coping capacities, or not enough, which also overwhelms our coping capacities. So things like neglect, things like abuse, even emotional abandonment, chronic emotional abandonment. These are things that depending on your nervous system, which is influenced by your biology, depending on your nervous system, it can manifest as trauma. It can be experienced as trauma. And so we don't always know what it's from. Some people come into my office and they know exactly, they have a pretty good idea. Like, well, when I was a kid, I was in foster care, I had abusive parents, I went through X, Y and Z, I worked with a lot of sexual trauma. So some people have a pretty clear idea of where it's stemming from. And so we wanna track that and look at, okay, what types of flashbacks are coming up? Is it a body flashback? Is it an emotional flashback? Are you feeling like you are back there at the event and it's happening all over again when you have these panic episodes, for example? Other people don't necessarily have such a clear idea. And the good news is you don't have to. You don't have to remember every single thing. You don't have to know exactly what happened to you to be able to heal from it.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, that's super interesting, especially just kinda how you just form that. And it's not, you may not be able to crystallize it.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, yeah. It is kind of unique the way the brain works.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, I mean, it hijacks you at certain points, albeit you may not like that.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, yes, this is true.
Dylan Carnahan:And in having to live with, say, a traumatic experience or maybe just, hey, I have a work call in 30 minutes, what level of anxiety would be normal?
Crystle Lampitt:Like, as in just kind of, if you have a work call, what anxiety is going to be like typical?
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah. So just to increase people's awareness of, I guess, symptoms of, say, anxiety disorder or just to delineate between what is considered normal.
Crystle Lampitt:Typical versus maybe on that pathological spectrum. Yeah, and so everyone is so unique and different, right? But again, I wanna look for, is it persistent and pervasive? And is it preventing you from getting on important work calls? Because if somebody was like, well, I'm really anxious about this conversation with my boss because our last interaction was really not great and I'm worried that I might get fired and I kind of screwed this thing up last week and that might make total sense. That might actually be kind of like, yeah, I'd be freaking out too. And anticipation of this phone call, that could be really scary. But barring all of that, let's say there's no evidence for your boss to be mad at you. You're actually doing quite well at work. But maybe you just don't like interacting with people in general. That can be indicative of a social anxiety disorder to where it's limiting your ability to connect with people. Maybe you're not engaging in relationships. Maybe you never wanna leave the house because you just don't wanna be around too many people. It's too overwhelming. And so we wanna look for impairment. There used to be in the... So it's the DSM is what we use, the diagnostic and statistical manual is what we use to diagnose mental health disorders. And in previous iterations, there was what was called the global assessment of functioning or the GAF scale. And they got rid of it because I think it's kind of subjective, right? Like you're essentially assessing how well is this person functioning. So, but that used to be kind of, and it's still definitely used in the framework for diagnosing, looking at how much is this impairing your functioning. And some people depending on their nervous system development, depending on their environment, sometimes they actually have reasons to be anxious. So I work with women recovering from abuse, abusive relationships very often, and they don't have an anxiety disorder. They have an abusive partner. They're living in an unsafe situation. So their nervous system is getting activated all the time. That's not a disorder. That's actually-
Dylan Carnahan:It's not inherent. No, it's not a disorder.
Crystle Lampitt:That is your brain trying to protect you from someone who feels threatening, who you live with. Like that. So I like to really make sure that I'm assessing for the whole picture. We have to look at the whole system and what is happening, not just in the individual, but what's happening in their environment, what's happening at work, what's happening at home, what's happening in their community and their culture at large. So I like to have a more macro perspective for that reason, because this is where I get into that like, with using the word disorder too often is because people automatically think something is wrong with them, rather than noticing there might be something wrong with the systems that they're existing within. And rather than pathologizing the individual, we need to be looking at what environmental failure is happening that is causing you to have these symptoms. And it's amazing because sometimes if it's just, it's not ever this simple, but if we can identify that, oh, it's the environment, it's not me, that actually reduces their anxiety a lot because they stop thinking that something is horribly wrong with me and they start understanding, oh, this doesn't fit me, this doesn't fit for me. And so even in my own life, I found that finding a better fit for me, finding a better schedule for me, finding a better career for me, that allowed me to sleep, spend time with family and friends, that allowed me to take time in relationships to assess, is this a healthy person? Versus just rushing around and going and going and going constantly has significantly helped my anxiety. Because I'm realizing like, oh, these things were just not a good fit for me. And maybe they made sense at one point in time that they don't anymore. And so as I continue to evolve, I wanna honor where my body is at. And it's amazing how you could have easily diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder, but when we repaired some of these things, it actually kinda didn't fit anymore. That disorder wouldn't have fit anymore. So it is tricky, but I do think-
Dylan Carnahan:It's just very dynamic.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:You run into a lot of variables, like the examples you give. I mean, profession, I mean, your house, I mean, your social, physical, digital environment comes into play.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah. And the DSM has very, very specific criteria that you would have to meet to get that label. And so you could still technically, with all of those things being true, even if it was environmental, you could still get the diagnosis of an anxiety disorder. But I don't know that that's always helpful or healthy, because I think if we're not careful about how we discuss diagnoses, it becomes pathologizing it, and it can also become something that someone then uses to further this idea that, oh, well, I have anxiety, so that's just who I am. And people can really identify with it, rather than being able to see it as, oh, no, this is something that makes sense, given this context. And this might be a part of my current experience, but it's something I can change, and it's something I can work on, versus, well, you just have this disorder, and that's just, that's your life sentence now, you know?
Dylan Carnahan:You're like reinforcing this negative paradigm of helplessness.
Crystle Lampitt:Yes, exactly. And I don't love that. I like to empower my clients as much as possible, while still honoring where they're at, and still honoring that. And diagnoses can absolutely, we need them. They are helpful. I do want to say that, that we need them, and they are important for kind of categorizing. But humans are way too complex, more often than not, to be able to fit into one category. And there's usually a lot of factors at play. So we want to look at how much is this really affecting your life? And if you have anxiety from time to time, but you're still able to get your work done, you're still able to socialize, you know, you're still, you feel pretty good most of the time, we probably aren't gonna, you know, label that as a disorder. But if things are coming up more days than not, so I'll even tell people, so like every week, out of every week, seven days, are you feeling anxious, worried, restless, agitated? Another common physical symptom of anxiety is stomach aches. So GI disturbances, muscle tension, a lot of people have really bad muscle tension because they're just holding so much in their bodies. Are you experiencing that at least four days out of the week, you know, every week on average? And while it's not a perfect indicator, that kind of gives people an idea of like, oh yeah, probably like six days a week, I'm up late ruminating, I can't even sleep hardly, I'm so agitated.
Dylan Carnahan:They can quantify and you know, reflect and it gives them like a tangible, oh, okay. And then you can kind of use that as a guide, if you will.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:Now you brought up earlier, you said unhealthy versus healthy, just in passing. Now in kind of again, trying to increase someone's level of self-awareness, what are some unhealthy ways people cope with anxiety?
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, I would again, kind of go to everyone's different. You know, of course, like even like, yeah, positive, negative, healthy, unhealthy, there's a lot of subjectivity and a lot of variables involved with any of those terms. And I do think language is important because language is certainly not neutral. But speaking in broad strokes, something that would be quote unquote unhealthy, or maybe I like to use unproductive or unhelpful are gonna be things that exacerbate your anxiety in the long run, right? So maybe it offers you a relief temporarily, for example, drinking. It's great to have an alcoholic beverage from time to time. Maybe it helps you to relax. Maybe it helps you get to sleep. You've had one or two glasses of wine. Okay, and it feels like it's something very manageable. It's not something that's controlling you. It's not something that you're craving 24 seven. It's not your only coping tool. It's a thing. But if you start using it every night, every day, and then you start having four or five, six glasses of wine, and now you can't sleep without it, now we're looking at that, okay, is that really helpful in the long term? And so are you feeling, the way that I like to ask people this is a skillful use of a coping tool or a skillful use of a medication even. It's gonna help you feel more like yourself. It's going to feel aligned and it's gonna bring you closer to yourself. An unskillful use of a coping tool or a medication or whatever is going to make you feel further away from yourself. It's actually going to not feel aligned with you. And so you might notice some cognitive dissonance, it's not gonna feel aligned with your values, you're not gonna feel really comfortable with it long term. So, that example of drinking, you might feel perfectly fine after one glass of wine and be like, this is great. But maybe you start binge drinking and now you're missing your niece's birthday and you're not seeing your friends because you're so hung over or you're missing work. At some point, you would get to a point where you're realizing this is not me, this is not who I wanna be, this doesn't feel like me, this doesn't align with my values, I value spending time with my friends and family, I value showing up for them and here I am not doing any of those things. So that can be an indicator that that is maybe an unproductive or unhelpful coping tool.
Dylan Carnahan:That's a great mechanism to think about things, that light of alignment. Because again, a lot of this stuff is very subjective, which can make it difficult to, I guess, talk about.
Crystle Lampitt:Yes.
Dylan Carnahan:Because I think you bring up language. You have to make some assumptions almost just to articulate something, right? Which is unfortunate.
Crystle Lampitt:Totally. Yes, absolutely. Language has its limitations.
Dylan Carnahan:Exactly. And bringing that back into an individualized perspective and saying, hey, what you're doing, how well does that feel like you? Is that you? Yeah. You feel aligned? And bringing that person back as the focal point. That's a really great way to think about things.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah. I find that it's helpful because sometimes what we run into also is that people don't quite know who they are. They don't quite know what their values are. And so, OK, this is another layer, right? But we want to dig in. We want to explore that and be really curious about that and start to look at, so if we track what you're doing day to day or what your patterns are, would you say they are more aligned or not aligned with the way that you want to be or the way that you perceive yourself as being or the way that you could be? And I think it's important to be able to identify, you know? Some people are kind of like, I don't know. I don't even know what I value and I'm not really sure. And so, there's nothing wrong with that, you know? That's another opportunity and another doorway for us to explore, well, you know, what do you, what's important? What do you like to do? And does that, is what you're currently doing aligning with what you want for yourself? And sometimes we find, you know, massive gaps around what people say they want and what they say they value and what they're actually doing. And so, we just get to be curious about that. We just get to look at that and go, okay. And there's usually a reason too, right? There's usually a reason why we're not doing this, the things that we say we wanna do, because there's usually some part of us that is invested in staying the same. And staying the same feels comfortable and safe and protective. And a lot of us have patterns that maybe aren't the healthiest, quote unquote, but they feel good or they protect us from pain or they have helped us survive in some way. So the example I use with this one is people pleasing. People pleasing is one of those things where you're like, man, I wish I didn't do that all the time. But if there was a situation or many situations in your family where people pleasing and keeping the peace kept you safe, of course your brain's gonna learn to repeat that.
Dylan Carnahan:And of course you're gonna be safe. You've been reinforcing that behavior over and over again, and much as you're saying it's clearly working because you're present, you're here, you're alive.
Crystle Lampitt:It's working. So there's usually a part of us that really wants to change this, right? But there's another part of us that kind of uses that people pleasing as a nice little comfy security blanket. And so I try to tell my clients like, we're not mad at that. I'm not mad at the part of you that wants to people please from time to time. That mechanism has kept you safe and that has kept you alive. So we wanna honor that. And are there tiny slivers where you do feel comfortable, not people pleasing? And sometimes people will say, oh yeah, well with my husband, I actually feel really comfortable speaking my mind. Okay, great. So we know the capacity is there. What's driving that people pleasing behavior presently? And is it an environmental thing? Is it a trauma pattern? What's going on here? And so just to be able to invite that curiosity, I think shifts the perspective for people a lot so that they notice it happening. They notice it as a life-saving or preserving mechanism and that reduces a lot of the shame. So rather than thinking, well, I'm broken and I'm messed up, they think, oh, I'm a human who has a brilliant brain that has kept me alive. And how can I be curious about this brain and about some of these mechanisms?
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, no, again, I think that your personal, your perspective, your paradigm, that that really dictates how you view things. And so it's very important, especially, I think, self-dialogue. And speaking of self-dialogue, what are some other helpful ways that you can cope with anxiety?
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, so I think everyone has kind of their individual things. And depending on what type of anxiety you're dealing with, right? So I'll kind of talk on the more general side of things. If it's panic, so when I see panic, that's often a signal that your nervous system is not feeling safe. So we want to get to safety as soon as possible, whatever that means for you. So it could be snuggling up under your weighted blanket. If that's accessible, with something like panic or just anxiety in general, I really like to teach grounding skills. So a grounding skill is anything that engages your five senses. And everyone has kind of, I like to ask people, what's your strongest sense? Like what's the most powerful sense of yours that you feel most connected to? And for some people, it's taste. It's like, I love food. I love eating and that's just, it's a self-soothing thing for me. For some people, it's smells, so we could find a sense that they really, really like, like lavender or citrus. And that's something that they could have on hand. You could have a little aromatherapy bottle in your purse if you wanted. So that if you start to feel anxious, if you even have panic, you can smell that. I know I have a friend who, her favorite smell was coffee. So she would carry around like a little ziplock bag with coffee beans in it. And that was just a really easy way for her to kind of down regulate that nervous system. So I like to focus on things that are accessible, you know, obviously like the weighted blanket thing. You can't carry that thing around with you everywhere, you know, but maybe you can focus on your environment. You can, you know, visually focus on one exercise is like name five things in the room that are blue, you know, so focus on five things that are blue and you know, the wall, you know, bottle of lotion, whatever. When when there's a pretty severe panic episode, one of the it's a little bit more of a jarring intervention, but cold therapy is holding an ice cube. So holding an ice cube either in the palm of your hands, putting it on your wrist, putting putting it on the back of your neck or a cold washcloth. If it's snowing and cold outside and you can even just go stand outside for a few seconds, you know, don't don't give yourself hypothermia. But but essentially it's really jarring and what it does is it puts you back into the present. So it puts you back in touch with your senses and lets your body and your brain know, hold on, you're safe. You're actually safe. So it diverts the attention from the perceived threat or trigger and brings it back to your body and back to the present. So when it's really intense, squirting lemon juice in your mouth seems to work for a lot of people. Again, you can't always carry that with you, but you can have that in your fridge. You know, you could have one of those little bottles and I guess you could carry it.
Dylan Carnahan:So you're really looking you're looking for a pattern break, if you will. Right. You're you're saying I'm in this heightened state and whatever your personal preference, whatever maybe is accessible, whatever resonates with you the most, you can leverage that to get you back.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:If you will.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, exactly. And it really depends on the the intensity of the anxiety. So the way that I sometimes will will help people track what's happening for them is using a scale. So I think some people like numbers, you know, and so if we if we go on a scale of zero to ten with ten being I feel very activated. So a ten means you are maybe having short breath. You are having that muscle activation. You are having some stomach cramps. Potentially, you are panicking. You are very, very activated. Zero, you are feeling good, you are feeling resourced, you know. Your rest and digest or that parasympathetic system is kicked in. You could share a meal with a friend. You would be very receptive at a zero. Like that's where you want to have that's when your cortex is online and you want to have like those serious conversations when you are pretty resourced, right? When you have gotten some good sleep, everyone is happy. So if you can kind of rank yourself in any given moment, like where am I at? Okay, like how activated am I feeling? Anytime you're at a six or above, your lid is probably flipped. So if you're at a six or above, that cortex is probably offline and some of those capacities for rational decision making, probably not in the best place. But the good news is, let's say you're at a six, your only job is to try to get to a five or below. So a five or below, you're probably you're better. You're in a better place where you can start to downregulate and you can start to access those other functions. And it gets easier, right? So sometimes it's like you squirt the lemon juice to get you downregulated enough to then call a friend and then process it with a friend. So I like the body-based interventions though, because, you know, panic and anxiety, a lot of times when they are in that sort of disordered spectrum, they're not really rational, you know? They're not always rational. We can say that they make sense in the given context of what our brain knows and the inherent intelligence that our brain has and our nervous system has, but it doesn't always work to just tell yourself like, there's nothing to worry about, because now you're bypassing yourself, right? And now you're just further invalidating yourself.
Dylan Carnahan:You're avoiding.
Crystle Lampitt:And it just, right.
Dylan Carnahan:It's just avoidance.
Crystle Lampitt:It's just, oh, it's fine. You're lying. You're lying to yourself. That does not work. It's just like telling someone to relax, like just relax. Like when has that ever worked? You know? And so rather than going with a cognitive intervention first, I like to try the body-based ones because your five senses bring you back to your body and kind of help you reconnect. And then, you know, we'll figure out what works for you. Do you phone a friend? Do you go, you know, work on some work or a mindless activity that helps you engage in a cognitive way, but doesn't stress you out too much? So everyone kind of has their unique things, but I like to start with grounding. I really like to start with the five senses. Mm-hmm.
Dylan Carnahan:Now, say someone catches you and you have your, you know, coffee grounds next to you, and you're bringing yourself back from a six to a five, or maybe, you know, you have, you know, you have an anxiety disorder and you'd like to tell, you know, someone close to you about how do you tell someone and have that conversation?
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah. I'm glad that you're asking this question because, number one, I think it's important to de-pathologize anxiety for the individual first so that they really understand this isn't my brain being broken. This is actually my brain doing exactly what it's supposed to do. So I'm a big fan of educating others. So, you know, if I'm telling my partner, hey, I've struggled with anxiety, especially, you know, if it's due to, like, PTSD, you know, to whatever degree you feel comfortable, it's important for your loved ones to know what's going on with you so they can help you and so they can support you. And so I'm a big fan of really deciding how much you feel comfortable sharing, right, because you also don't owe this explanation to anyone. Like, I don't care if I've got my lemon juice in my coffee grounds and I'm doing all sorts of weird, I don't know, stretches and someone walks in and is like, what are you doing? I'll be like, none of your business. I don't know you, none of your business. But if it's, you know, someone that I want in my life and that I'm hoping could maybe support me through some of these things and who is a safe person who has shown me over the course of time, they're a pretty safe person. I like to invite people to explore how much do you want to share? How much do you feel comfortable sharing? How much do you feel safe sharing? And then we really start from just a place of vulnerability, using I statements, you know, sometimes this is a thing that I experience or when X happens, I feel triggered, especially in those intimate relationships when your partner might be triggering you, because it happens, happens to everyone, happens to everyone, even if they don't have anxiety. So really being able to use the I statements. So, you know, when you're, when we are arguing and you leave the room without explanation, I feel really triggered and hurt and abandoned, and it triggers my anxiety. And I really need a heads up in the future. If you're going to leave the room to tell me where you're going, or at least tell me the intention of, Hey, I'm going to leave for 20 minutes just to down regulate, and then I'm going to come back. And that can lower anxiety quite a bit. So finding, you know, what's the intention? Is it just to let someone know? Is there a specific goal? Is there a specific, you know, I'd really like my partner to show up better for me in this way. To be able to speak to your needs. So this is what it looks like for me, because anxiety looks different for a lot of people. You know, sometimes if I get panicky, if I get short short of breath, I might need you to hold my hand. You know, I might need you to just sit next to me. A really common one that I hear when people are sharing some of their journey with their loved ones is that they do not want advice. They do not want the other person to jump in with a solution and say, well, have you tried this? Or, no, you know what? I'm sure you don't really need to worry about that because, you know, everyone gets nervous about taking tests. They do not want, most of the time, they do not want your input. They just want you to say, I'm here. And that, you know, speaking to the other side of this, as the person supporting someone with anxiety, one of the best things you can say is that makes sense and I'm here. Or thank you for sharing that. I mean, truly just simple, simple, validating statements that help the person to feel heard is really all you need. And if you're not sure, you can always ask, hey, do you want feedback or do you just want me to listen? And I really like using that one as well, because sometimes we don't know how to help someone. And so it is nice to be able to say, hey, how can I support you, rather than assuming, well, you should try this or well, don't worry about that. So yeah, I do think it's, to whatever degree you feel comfortable, I do think it can be really helpful to speak about it in a vulnerable way, in an open way, you know, with no shame, and to help others understand, like, this is a physiological mechanism. This isn't me being broken or messed up. This is just, this is something that I experience, and here's maybe a need that I might have related to that. And so I know that that maybe is hard to access for some people who are not ready to have that conversation, but my hope is, you know, the more we talk about it, the more people can start to speak openly and just own that this is part of being a human sometimes, and that's okay.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, I think, you know, as far as the exposure and of conversations like that or people talking about anxiety, it kind of makes you heighten the stakes quite a bit in your mind when you have this scenario that you're envisioning of saying, telling a loved one, you know, that you're thinking like, oh my gosh, they're going to say this. You're kind of playing these scenarios out. And the same thing if you're someone that gets told that, right? You know, someone confides in you and you're like, oh my gosh, what do I say? And it's, I think kind of your overall message is saying, well, how much do you want to share? What was shared with you? And just trying to be candid and communicate, you know? And I think that kind of deflates kind of the stakes, if you will.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, reduces the intensity and hopefully reduces the shame and the stigma because I really think if there's one thing we can do better in the mental health field is to really increase awareness so that we can reduce stigma and so that people can understand that you're not broken, you know? There's nothing wrong with you. Something has happened to you, and that's probably why your nervous system is responding the way that it is. And I think the more people just really understand that it's a very physiological process, the less it becomes about strength or weakness or shouldy thinking like, well, I should be better able to do X, Y, and Z. It just that route gets really muddy and unhelpful and just kind of shame inducing. So I'm not a big fan of that. I really want people to feel more empowered in the way that they take care of themselves and in the way that they share their experiences with safe people.
Dylan Carnahan:Now, if you were, say, diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, how often is medication a solution for something like that?
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, and medication is another really personal decision. So as a therapist, not being someone who prescribes meds, I'm always, always encouraging people to talk to their doctor about it, talk to your psychiatrist. One of the ways that, because, you know, thanks to the pandemic, one of the ways that I'm sharing with people about how to get in with a doctor sooner rather than later if they need to is to start. Sometimes your general practitioner, if you have a family doctor or a GP, sometimes you can actually talk to them first, especially because a lot of psychiatrists have months-long waiting lists. So sometimes your general practitioner may, got to check this, you know, with your particular practitioner, they may be open to actually starting you on a medication, especially if you're on a waiting list for a psychiatrist to follow up. So a doctor is going to say, hey, what are your symptoms? Yep, let's try you on a low dose of X, whatever the medication is, and then let's check back in after a couple of weeks or, you know, whenever you have that psych appointment. But there's a few options as far as meds for anxiety. There is the more acute treatment that is usually a benzodiazepine like Xanax. So that tends to be used more as needed for a panic episode, for example. And then there are the other options like SSRIs, which are those antidepressants, which are actually also used to treat anxiety. And so typically, depending on, you know, what else is going on, other medical tests, what other medications you're taking, typically you'll be started on a low dose of one of those. And then you'll just be monitored to see over the next few weeks, you know, do you tolerate it well? And the big warning with those is that with adolescents, there can be higher risks. And so I just like to encourage parents to do their research. You know, a lot of parents like to try getting their teens or their kids in for therapy first and seeing if maybe some coping skills can help before introducing medication. But if it's needed, again, if it's done in a skillful way, skillful way, it can be really helpful.
Dylan Carnahan:Now, you mentioned throughout our whole conversation, we brought up a lot of different things, but what resources are there for people wanting to learn more about handling anxiety?
Crystle Lampitt:So, I mean, there's plenty of books. I don't really know if I have a favorite that's directed at anxiety specifically, but I will say my favorite book about trauma, which is very linked to anxiety, is The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Vanderkoek. I joke that it's like the gateway drug into becoming a therapist because everyone who reads it is like, oh my God, I have trauma and this all makes sense now. And it's a wonderful, wonderful, de-pathologizing book, and it really explains more of that mind-body connection and just how physiological mental health actually is. So I highly recommend The Body Keeps the Score. I also actually have a book list on my website. So if you go to my website, clwellnesskc.com, under my, I think it's under my about section, I have like Crystal's Library or something like that. So I have a list of my favorite sort of mental health books. But that's a really good one to start with. Podcasts, obviously. One that I really like is called the Transforming Trauma Podcast. Again, it's a trauma podcast, but it's done by the creators of NARM, which is a modality that I'm trained in, stands for the Neuro Effective Relational Model. It's really, really cool stuff. If you're in for a deep dive, I would highly recommend the Transforming Trauma Podcast, which again can touch on some of the anxiety symptoms. Then check your local listings for a therapist. I mean, most therapists know how to work with anxiety. They have done at least some training in anxiety and some of the methods used to treat it. I would like to add, ideally having a trauma-informed therapist can be a more holistic route to go, because like I said earlier, a trauma-informed therapist isn't just going to be looking at the way your symptoms are presenting, they're going to be looking at the systems that you live in. They're going to have a little bit more of that macro perspective and a little bit more of that depathologizing perspective, which I personally very much appreciate. But honestly, some help is better than no help. If it comes down to getting a telehealth appointment with anyone who has availability, that's going to be better than getting to a place where you need to call the crisis hotline. But there is so much material out there. I would just encourage people to try not to go too deep into the WebMD rabbit hole with the self-diagnosing, because a lot of times that just scares us more and stigmatizes things more. My Instagram, I like to post quite a bit of mental health content. I would be happy to, if people want to reach out, and I can't do any sort of mental health work via social media, but if they're needing a referral or if they're needing a resource or something like that, I'd be happy to support them in that way.
Dylan Carnahan:Well, that is a great segue for how can people find out more about you and the work you're doing at CL Wellness.
Crystle Lampitt:Yeah, so exactly. My website, clwellnesskc.com, and then my Instagram I'm pretty active on. I try to be pretty active. I like to share content. It's really educational content, and my name is spelled a little bit funny though, so just a heads up if you're listening. It's C-R-Y-S-T-L-E-L-A-M-P-I-T-T. That's my Instagram handle, so please feel free to follow, and I hope that you read something that resonates. I am a big fan of trying to speak out and destigmatize mental health. So yeah, those are probably the primary ways that you can connect with me if you would like to.
Dylan Carnahan:Thank you so much for this conversation. It was very informative. You were super candid and knowledgeable, and you shared your experiences and kind of your journey as well. So thank you so much for being willing to come on and talk about it.
Crystle Lampitt:Thank you for having me. And thanks everyone for listening.
Dylan Carnahan:See That wraps up our conversation with Crystle Lampitt. We talked about tricks you can use to ground yourself, the difference between anxiety disorders and anxiety, and how to have a conversation about anxiety. Go ahead and go to clwellnesskc.com if you're interested in having a counseling session with Crystle, and follow Crystle on Twitter and Instagram. Do not forget to listen to Larsen's music, on Apple Music and Spotify. And lastly, subscribe to the Simple Questions Podcast to get notified when our latest episodes are released. Thank you for listening and remember to keep asking questions.