Radically Genuine Podcast with Dr. Roger McFillin

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:03:06
Speaker 2
Doctor James Henry, welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast.

00:00:03:09 - 00:00:04:17
Speaker 1
Thanks for having me.

00:00:04:19 - 00:00:31:24
Speaker 2
So it's been about a decade. It was in 2015 that you came out as a transgender woman. And from what I understand, reading your Wikipedia page, you became the first known openly transgender active duty officer in the United States Armed Forces. And here you are ten years later, sitting in front of me, there's been a I guess, a federal indictment, and you're have transitioned back.

00:00:31:24 - 00:00:36:05
Speaker 2
It must feel like you have lived like multiple lives at this point.

00:00:36:07 - 00:01:00:16
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. I mean, even before the transition in 2015, there's a lot of backstory to that. And I never imagined being in the studio today sporting a beard, you know, talking to you about a federal indictment, you know, and having served our country for, like, over 20 years, since I was an 18 year old. So. Yeah, it's pretty wild.

00:01:00:18 - 00:01:13:02
Speaker 2
Well, let's go back. Let's, reflect on the story and how you got to this point. So 2018, take us back to 20 or take us back to you being 18 years old, and and we'll go from there.

00:01:13:02 - 00:01:43:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, sure. It was a different, world back then, 2000. I was a sophomore in college, engaged to my high school sweetheart. I've been dating for four and a half years at that point. And, really looking forward to adventure, you know, seeing the world and, showing how to be a man, you know, and in the army and just learning how to be a doctor, treating people in harm's way.

00:01:43:06 - 00:02:04:06
Speaker 1
That was kind of my draw to the military. I didn't want to have that. I wanted to learn how to take care of people in austere environments. So coming down anywhere in the world and I want to be able to treat people, my dad had done something similar in the 80s with a group called Samaritan's Purse. He was an orthopedic surgeon.

00:02:04:08 - 00:02:37:02
Speaker 1
Really inspired me to want to do something similar, faith based or not. In my mind, faith is action. You know what? What is the fruit of that faith? And so the army seemed like a great place to learn how to do what I was dreaming about, trying to learn what to do. And I was dreaming about. So, yeah, I mean, I was completely naive, and this is pretty 911 so I graduated from Airborne School the Friday before September 11th happened.

00:02:37:08 - 00:03:02:21
Speaker 1
While I was about to Fort Benning, Georgia. I learned what an Army Ranger was. And watching these guys are, Ranger school, you know, information, with their yellow reflective belts and their rucksacks, you know, like, how are you like that? These guys are bats. And, 911 happened. And the week after I graduated from airborne school on a five jump jump.

00:03:02:21 - 00:03:35:22
Speaker 1
I've never jumped out again since 2001. What? I'd love to. Especially the last four years at Fort Bragg, just the opportunity never presented itself. And, In 2001, everything seemed to crystallize for me as far as who I wanted to be, what I wanted to do. I was involved in, organization at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, called Reserve Officer Training Corps for ROTC.

00:03:35:22 - 00:03:54:17
Speaker 1
I got a three year scholarship for my sophomore through senior years, and then afforded me housing. I got married, paid my tuition, and it set me up for a job. You know, after I graduated, along with all the people that I spent most of my time with outside of class, you know, all the other ROTC cadets, we all know what we're going to do.

00:03:54:17 - 00:04:16:18
Speaker 1
We got out and September 11th and everything got really serious. And, and, our lead instructor was a retired first sergeant from the 75th Ranger Regiment, and he had been in the first Gulf War, and he was built like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Everyone remember this guy? For sure. Moore became a police officer in the Army, and this guy would make people cry.

00:04:16:18 - 00:04:43:24
Speaker 1
He would, you know, he would yell at you in the face like a full metal jacket experience. That is, I think, what he tried to create for us, and it was actually really worked. And I've never been in combat, but, I faced a lot of, fears and, So that was that was the environment that I was trained in.

00:04:44:01 - 00:05:08:10
Speaker 1
We did this thing called Ranger Challenge. We were in South Carolina. We competed against other universities in North Carolina and South Carolina. Carolina. And we're the Citadel. Crushed the Citadel. You know, that year we got invited to an international military competition at West Point called Sanders and, competed against us in countries 30 different West Point teams and then four other RCC teams that got invited, you know, from across the United States.

00:05:08:12 - 00:05:15:07
Speaker 1
I loved it. I mean, it was just some of my happiest memories are doing the adventurous military training.

00:05:15:10 - 00:05:16:24
Speaker 2
It seems like you were born to do this.

00:05:17:01 - 00:05:26:20
Speaker 1
I yeah, I mean, I, I loved it, I just it's like I came alive, you know, in the woods with a pro mask and a rucksack and an M-16 in my arms. All right.

00:05:26:20 - 00:05:37:04
Speaker 2
I have to ask the question because I'm sure the audience is asking too, regarding gender dysphoria. Were you experiencing that at this time in your life or when you were younger?

00:05:37:06 - 00:06:10:18
Speaker 1
Definitely younger. Okay. You know, it's interesting how that all developed. I spent a lot of time trying to understand it, trying to understand. The, from a research that out is out there. And honestly, most of the research is really poor, you know, low numbers. It's not really randomized. It's really hard to do that. It's just people, I think, at least in my, my own experience, were clinging for hope.

00:06:10:18 - 00:06:29:02
Speaker 1
You know, you you want this to just go away, your your doubt and your own sex, your desire to be the other sex or that you identify with the other sex, desperate for it to just the the shame and the isolation that comes with that experience.

00:06:29:03 - 00:06:32:02
Speaker 2
What ages would you say that you experienced it earlier?

00:06:32:03 - 00:07:00:02
Speaker 1
Stages. I mean, my earliest memories are related to, you know, probably like a five year old wearing my cousin's clothes, having a great time with my female cousin and my aunt, you know, pretending that I'm a girl and, you know, my my family had no idea that this was happening. And they came to pick me up and, and, my older girl cousin, probably four years older than me, heard about what happened that that day.

00:07:00:04 - 00:07:22:00
Speaker 1
That's disgusting. You know, and in my mind, it's like, this was so much fun, you know, imagining being a girl, being a mom. And then it was like this, confusion. How can something that's so fun be so bad, you know, and so then this shame kind of developed in this isolation. Like, I can't talk to anyone about this fact.

00:07:22:05 - 00:07:37:03
Speaker 1
We moved from from my home in Pennsylvania when I was almost six to Florida, where I grew up, North Florida, and I met a girl named Jeanie. You know, I was like, I can't be called Jeanie anymore. This is shameful. You know, like.

00:07:37:05 - 00:07:39:04
Speaker 2
It was. Were you calling yourself Jamie? Yeah.

00:07:39:04 - 00:07:54:02
Speaker 1
Everyone call me Jamie my whole life up until that point. And then I asked everyone to not call me Jamie because I didn't want to be associated or whatever, you know, with being feminine.

00:07:54:04 - 00:08:19:11
Speaker 2
Okay, okay. So, I just want to understand it from the perspective of, of a young boy. And the data seems to demonstrate that, gender dysphoria is a real condition, but it's actually, you know, typically or traditionally been quite rare. Trans gender ism. And those who really experienced it had experienced it predominantly boys and experienced it from as early as they can remember.

00:08:19:11 - 00:08:50:06
Speaker 2
Similar to your story. But one of the things that I really reflect on is, the idea that you could be born in the wrong body, right? So it is an idea. So I'm more interested in the experience of somebody who is enjoying, you know, feminine activities or traditionally feminine activities, and even at that young age, did you have this like desire or wish that you were born a girl or you were a girl instead of a guy?

00:08:50:09 - 00:08:51:19
Speaker 2
Or was it more confusing than that?

00:08:51:19 - 00:09:20:02
Speaker 1
I think it was confusing because, it's more like there are off limits. Things are off limits, you know, depending on on what your sex is and culturally. And so if you gravitate towards these things that are off limits for your sex, oh, then you must be in the wrong body. You know, you got assigned the wrong sex at birth, otherwise why would you be gravitating towards those things?

00:09:20:04 - 00:09:32:16
Speaker 2
So it makes it dichotomous. It's clear, like if you're if you're a boy, you do these things. If you cross over and you enjoy the things that girls do, then, you know, then you're feminine. Or maybe there's other pejorative terms.

00:09:32:17 - 00:09:56:00
Speaker 1
Another story, say, yeah, I was probably seven, eight years old. I loved ballet, and I remember watching videos of Mikhail Baryshnikov, you know, on VHS with my sister, who's 11 years older than me. And just think, this is this is magical. I mean, this is like peak human performance. Yeah. How can you be so physically athletic and beautiful at the same time?

00:09:56:02 - 00:10:18:10
Speaker 1
You know, and and so I, I, I really enjoyed dancing and I was dancing in our living room and my, my sisters dancing said, what are you. Yeah. I'm like seven, eight years old. I have no idea what this term even means, but I know I don't want to be one, you know. And so here is another sort of like something I love.

00:10:18:12 - 00:10:31:18
Speaker 1
It gives me so much joy. Which it turns out dancing is way better than antidepressants and treating, you know, underlying depression. But I'm, I'm supposed to be shamed. Shame. Now for something that I love.

00:10:31:23 - 00:10:32:08
Speaker 2
So you're.

00:10:32:11 - 00:10:32:21
Speaker 1
17.

00:10:32:22 - 00:10:40:19
Speaker 2
Year old. You're exposed to that right away. Like doing something that feels natural to you, gets shamed based on gender roles.

00:10:40:21 - 00:10:58:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. And then, athletics. I didn't play baseball. No, I didn't do football. I didn't do basketball. You know, in the United States, it's like the big three. You can't do that. How can you call yourself male? I gravitated towards swimming and running. You know, I never did competitive dancing or anything like that. I would have loved it.

00:10:58:11 - 00:11:28:15
Speaker 1
I'm sure. But for me, running became my outlet. My dance, it became an art form. You know, I would watch East Africans run, you know, on the television, like, that's like ballet. And it's acceptable. Maybe not as acceptable as baseball, basketball, football, but it's acceptable. And I found talent in that. I found in it. And now it's kind of like, you know, I started running, my grades improved, you know, from A, B, C students or an 80 students.

00:11:28:15 - 00:11:34:15
Speaker 1
They're all a student. You know, my self-concept was around. I'm I'm a talented runner.

00:11:34:17 - 00:11:43:04
Speaker 2
So as you got older and you went through adolescence, did this exacerbate any of that gender dysphoria or did it diminish over time? How did that.

00:11:43:04 - 00:11:44:06
Speaker 1
Was? It was.

00:11:44:06 - 00:11:44:19
Speaker 2
Way worse.

00:11:44:23 - 00:12:05:01
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. I don't know what brought me to this, but I found a box of my older sister's clothes on her in the stairwell in her house in Florida, and I was, like, drawn to recreating this experience I think I had when I was five, you know, and I. And I took a lot of these clothes to a I was on a farm to a barn.

00:12:05:01 - 00:12:35:15
Speaker 1
Right. Set up against woods and I would dress in these clothes and gone in the woods by myself just to kind of relive that experience. Where at night I would wear these clothes in my bedroom, you know, you know, ten years old, pre puberty. And then I don't know why it gave me some sort of sense of relief or like, but if it did come for it, and an outlet from the world.

00:12:35:15 - 00:13:01:03
Speaker 1
That was scary, you know, and I didn't understand, when puberty was coming on, you know, sixth grade, I remember praying to God, not other people, to take my penis away. You know, I remember in English class, it excused myself to the bathroom because I thought, oh, God, actually did. It took took my penis way. No, it's still there, I recall,

00:13:01:05 - 00:13:24:13
Speaker 1
Finding a book on my father's bookshelf. He's an archaic surgeon, but he had tons of books and one of his textbooks from medical school, 1973. I mentioned this in a Jama article that I wrote on human sexuality, finding the term transsexual for the first time. Again, this is pre-Internet, and I was like, wow, that's me, that's me.

00:13:24:13 - 00:13:50:04
Speaker 1
This is the narrative. And it had like this caveat that you will never have children and you will never have real social relations. You'll be an outcast. Whoa. Not only did I feel ashamed, you know, the dancing and the dressing. Yeah. But if anyone knew that I had these issues, and I'm afraid I will, it's like a.

00:13:50:06 - 00:14:19:19
Speaker 1
Won't be allowed in society any. And then there's horror movies, a play on this. There were different TV shows that I saw with my older siblings. You know, Ricki Lake, Jerry Springer. You know, let's just mock people who are experiencing gender in a different way. You know, our sure. That came out in sixth grade. And it's just sort of like, wow, I have I am a I've had something really wrong with me, and I can't let anyone know that.

00:14:19:21 - 00:14:41:17
Speaker 1
And then I was very religious growing up, reading the Bible on my own all the way through a Bible plan. I'm going to read the whole Bible. We're talking 19 years old. I'm reading the Bible, and I get to a part early on. You know, I think it's in Leviticus. People who wear clothes of the opposite sex are an abomination to God randomly.

00:14:41:22 - 00:15:00:17
Speaker 1
Oh, so not only am I and I can, I can forecast the society I'm an abomination to God. You know nothing. Did I know what that word meant? You know, as a 19 year old? No, but it's not a bad. It's not a real bad.

00:15:00:19 - 00:15:19:11
Speaker 2
So this was something that you realize that has to be kept a secret. You had to keep it to yourself. If you spoke about it, you were you. You were at risk of being, outcasts, being called names. And then you're also dealing with your own faith, you know? How does it make sense like that? God made you this way.

00:15:19:16 - 00:15:20:09
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:15:20:11 - 00:15:29:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. And how do you how do you think about that? As maybe a young man, an adolescent, about why God may have put you through something like this.

00:15:29:13 - 00:16:02:06
Speaker 1
So that that terminology didn't really didn't exist back then. People being born gay or born transgender. That came out later, I think with the internet and everything else. So, in my mind, it was just sort of like something that separated me from everyone else. Other essentially. And if I want to be one, I need to keep this under lock and key.

00:16:02:08 - 00:16:15:17
Speaker 1
And so that really, You know, set up a lot of the narrative over the next 20 years.

00:16:15:19 - 00:16:25:17
Speaker 2
Regarding your sexuality, did you find yourself, as you went through puberty, or did you find yourself being attracted to the same sex, or were you attracted to women or both? How's that working for you?

00:16:25:19 - 00:16:52:21
Speaker 1
Both? You know, I reflect on, you know, all of my friends were male. But I remember getting kind of around puberty thinking I could marry my best friend if I was a woman. You know, like, and and what did that be? Amazing. So I would I would fantasize about being the wife of our best friend. And so.

00:16:52:23 - 00:17:22:23
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's hard to conceptualize all of that. And, yeah, I think part of it reflecting now, I think looking back at my religiosity and everything else, there's a term and Christian New Testament calling the church the Bride of Christ. And I'm like, how can I be male and be a Christ? I don't understand how this works. And so it's just very confusing, you know, and now I don't feel comfortable talking to anyone in life and have these questions to begin with.

00:17:23:00 - 00:17:32:03
Speaker 2
Was there anyone you did talk to about it? Did you ever, like, see a therapist, for example, or talk to anyone within clergy? Or was it just something that you kept to yourself?

00:17:32:05 - 00:18:22:14
Speaker 1
So Valentine's Day 2017 I've been dating this girl now for almost four years, and I disclosed to her kind of this narrative that I shared just now, and, I don't really know how how she took it, per se. We got engaged five months later, and then I had a confession with the priest. I was Episcopalian, at that point, and I remember talking to a priest and, and before, because I was like, is this, like, going to prevent me from getting married to my girlfriend?

00:18:22:16 - 00:18:38:08
Speaker 1
Fiance? At that point, it's like, no, things will work out, things will work out. And I think I truly had the belief that being married, being in the Army, right. They would somehow lead me out of this.

00:18:38:14 - 00:18:55:12
Speaker 2
So was that part of your intention? I think you skipped your senior year, from what I understand. And then you had goals of doing all this, as you were mentioning earlier, was it part of reclaiming your masculinity in some ways? Was you hoping that you would be relieved of this conflict you were experiencing?

00:18:55:14 - 00:19:20:08
Speaker 1
It was almost like I was putting this party partizan the feminine aspects of me, or the animal in a box. You know. And then all I had left was animals, and I couldn't let anyone see that part of me that was feminine. I love to dance. All right. I love to paint. I painted as a kid.

00:19:20:10 - 00:19:45:09
Speaker 1
I took art lessons in eighth grade, and that pretty much put that away because I didn't want to be perceived as gay. And, yeah, I mean, I it's almost like you're you're going in one direction to get away from something terrible, dark aspect, you know, so, like fleeing from the darkness.

00:19:45:11 - 00:19:56:16
Speaker 2
Like literally running away, literally running. Yeah. And I mean, you really dove into running. I think you still run today, right? I do, yeah. And so that's a way of kind of coping with what you were dealing with.

00:19:56:18 - 00:19:59:11
Speaker 1
It was back then. Yeah, absolutely.

00:19:59:13 - 00:20:20:11
Speaker 2
All right. So from what I understand is you end up at Walter Reed and you're actually treating combat casualties for, like, over a decade. Prior to that or leading up to that, did you go through any episodes where you might have, like, really struggled with your mental health and, you know, if so, like, can you tell us about that and how you resolved it?

00:20:20:13 - 00:20:49:20
Speaker 1
Yeah. So everything was going great in my life up until 2008, and I had the dream job that I wanted. I married the girl that I wanted, and we were expecting, our first son. And, I was actually trying to train for an the qualifying time and everything, as a resident,

00:20:49:22 - 00:20:52:04
Speaker 2
So you were that close to the time.

00:20:52:06 - 00:21:17:12
Speaker 1
The year. So I, as an intern, without any real training and coaching and I'm sleeping. Yeah, I'm doing these, like, 30 hour shifts. Yeah. Every third night, some months, I place, like, 27th in the Marine Corps marathon. Beat half of the Army's team. My first marathon. This was like, on my off day. I did a 30 hour shift Friday morning till Saturday morning and then ran a marathon Sunday.

00:21:17:14 - 00:21:18:02
Speaker 2
Press.

00:21:18:04 - 00:21:18:07
Speaker 1
On.

00:21:18:07 - 00:21:19:05
Speaker 2
Monday. Impressive.

00:21:19:10 - 00:21:39:09
Speaker 1
And it was like, a dream of mine to run a marathon. I had I'd set an age group record at the a national championship race in Jacksonville, Florida, where I grew up in a 15 kilometer distance, and I was 14. And, and my coach at the time was like, you're gonna be a really good marathoner someday, but wait till you're 25.

00:21:39:11 - 00:21:56:23
Speaker 1
Else also hurt your bones or whatever. So, like, I had this decade long sort of like, stretch where I was like, I want to run a marathon. I want to turn 25. Sure enough, that was my 25th birthday when I ran that, my first marathon. And it was it was mind going to me that I ran as fast as I could.

00:21:56:23 - 00:22:01:24
Speaker 1
It was like 236, and about 558 for a mile.

00:22:02:02 - 00:22:05:21
Speaker 2
And that's my half marathon time.

00:22:05:23 - 00:22:23:22
Speaker 1
And, and it was like with very little training. Yeah. It was, it was more training over a decade versus I want to do a marathon. You know what? I'm going to do these long runs on the weekend. And there's a schedule coach and I'm telling everyone about my training. No, it was like, I don't think people even knew I was going to do it.

00:22:23:24 - 00:22:49:19
Speaker 1
And I just, I, I saw some of the, the Army team the day before the expo when I was getting my, my ID number. And it's like, hey, look, about you guys tomorrow. Yeah, sure. And next thing I know, I'm running with, stride for stride and beating one of them up the gym on Memorial. There's a climb at the very end, the last point to, miles of the marathon across the sky.

00:22:49:22 - 00:23:15:21
Speaker 1
Beat me at Fort Lewis like the year before. And a shorter race. Oh, good. You know, and it was it was hard for me because I was already, It was hard for me after September 11th and how much I enjoyed Ranger Challenge and Sandhurst to do medicine. I thought it was my calling since junior high and not something like infantry, you know, and I had to make a decision.

00:23:15:23 - 00:23:38:14
Speaker 1
Similarly, in the medical training, I was like, I had a talent, I think at least doing the qualifier. But I have to also do my day job. You know, I can't just run 100 mile weeks I never was able to do. I don't think I ever did more than 60 miles a week in a given, make it a week.

00:23:38:14 - 00:23:48:08
Speaker 1
So it was, all that to say, I was hoping the following year to to improve my time and to really train like under my old.

00:23:48:10 - 00:23:56:02
Speaker 2
And what, what year was this? We get a this is still 2008. And up to this point you haven't really had any of these any mental health issues.

00:23:56:05 - 00:24:25:03
Speaker 1
No okay okay. No no no no no. And so November 6th, 2008. Well back up August of 2008 I'm doing I did a 22 mile long run. Didn't really build up to that distance. Like I probably ran too fast and I got an injury kind of wreaked injury. Iliotibial band friction syndrome. You get knee pain and it takes some time to cool down and a little bit of stretching and all this stuff.

00:24:25:04 - 00:24:46:24
Speaker 1
And so I took up biking. I got most of my miles running to and from work is about three miles, one mile, and I wear a backpack. Nice artwork, and I do my sheriff. I run home and that's how I was able to stay in shape during medical training. When ahead of me, I, got a bike and I was biking to and from work, and when I was biking home, the time change, it just happened.

00:24:46:24 - 00:25:13:03
Speaker 1
I'm not a fan of time changes at all. The election 2000 election just happened on Tuesday. This was Thursday. And for some weird reason, the the street, the bike route going home had been repaired while I was at work that day, and for some reason they didn't mark off like ten by 20. You know, pavement. And so there was like a dropoff where they they didn't put any pavement down.

00:25:13:05 - 00:25:36:02
Speaker 1
And, you know, like on the highway, right. You wear a motorcycle as was wasn't motorcycle was a regular road bike. I hit it just right. Thank God I went to airborne school, protected my head, fractured both my wrist and my pelvis. And I thought I just located my wrist. I tried to set it on the scene. Ladies came out of their house, said that, it sounded like trash cans rolling down the street.

00:25:36:04 - 00:25:57:02
Speaker 1
I called my my wife up to pick me up. She drove me to the emergency room. I want to read because I was only like two miles away. And they all focused on this rest, and they didn't even think to look at other aspects of my body. You know that I had traumatized, you know, just this wrist. There's a scar from a plane, from that rest.

00:25:57:04 - 00:26:17:04
Speaker 1
So when I got home and I took off my bike shorts, I thought a flash came off with it from road and road rash. They just give me a narcotic. Several. Schedule a surgery next week. Here's much narcotics. So over the weekend, I'm helping my wife prepare for a piano concert. And I'm having pain in my wrist holding up a bench.

00:26:17:06 - 00:26:36:13
Speaker 1
That's me. And then I'm folding my legs like this. I'm having pain in my groin. I'm like, well, I swear this is on narcotics, right? And so the following week, I go back and they're like, well, surely you didn't break anything else, but we'll get a Cat scan of the rest of the pelvis. It's a five week scan MRI.

00:26:36:13 - 00:26:54:09
Speaker 1
My pelvis. That was like so long. One of the machines was down and the Naval Medical Center, I guess, had a back, so I actually went to Fort Meade. Was in Laurel, Maryland, is about a half hour drive from Wall Street to get the MRI. It took five weeks to get it.

00:26:54:11 - 00:26:58:00
Speaker 2
It's a is this typical for servicemen and women?

00:26:58:01 - 00:27:25:02
Speaker 1
I did not know at the time. Almost certainly us. Yeah, yeah. And it really opened my eyes. You know, a patient for the first time, like, oh, there's a lot of waiting and uncertainty that happens. And so when I, when I got a call from the radiologist, they told me I broken my, my acetabulum. I was really angry because I, I quickly went to this place where I was like, hey, I work here.

00:27:25:02 - 00:27:45:01
Speaker 1
I know everyone here, I know the system works. And this happened to me. What's happening to the 17, 18 year olds, you know, so I remember I got this damn, like, such ferocious, you know, and I was just given narcotics and just sent on my way, you know, and it just made me so angry in it. I went to the War Department, and the front desk lady is like, no one's here.

00:27:45:01 - 00:28:03:18
Speaker 1
They're on a conference. I was like, that's bullshit. There's always an orthopedic surgeon on top at this hospital. I want you to call. Come. So while I'm waiting, I go and talk to my program director. He's like, hey, do you want to see a second? You seem really upset. Do you want to see the psychiatrist? You know, I deployed with this guy.

00:28:03:18 - 00:28:08:08
Speaker 1
He's an internal medicine doctor and a psychiatrist, and he's a ranger. And I'm like, oh.

00:28:08:11 - 00:28:16:18
Speaker 2
Okay, wait, let me get this correct. Right. So you have some justifiable anger. Yeah. And they ask you if you want to see a psychiatrist.

00:28:16:20 - 00:28:19:10
Speaker 1
Yeah. That's how that door got opened.

00:28:19:12 - 00:28:21:24
Speaker 2
Okay. Take us from there.

00:28:22:01 - 00:28:54:01
Speaker 1
So, I wasn't exactly walked over to his office. And this is early December. I remember having an appointment with the psychologist for an intake, and, And then I saw the psychiatrist, and he's like, a price on, ten minutes. Right. You see the psychologist for a half hour? An hour trying to get the. I was going on because a psychiatrist at a time is prescribed, you know, and so he prescribed me 100mg of.

00:28:54:01 - 00:28:56:14
Speaker 1
So I've never taken a psychotropic in my life.

00:28:56:14 - 00:28:58:22
Speaker 2
For what reason?

00:28:58:24 - 00:29:11:03
Speaker 1
I have no idea. I have no idea. But he wanted to rent me up quickly, so I didn't read this on the bottle. I don't remember him telling me this, but he wanted me to start with that. He wanted me to split the pill.

00:29:11:05 - 00:29:16:08
Speaker 2
Can I ask what you shared with him that led him to make that decision medically?

00:29:16:10 - 00:29:32:20
Speaker 1
I don't recall. Other than that, I'm really angry about the medical care that I received, and and I said, like, because if I'm treated this way and I know everyone here, I know the system works, how the hell are people getting treated that are 17, 18 coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan? They're like, you're crazy.

00:29:32:24 - 00:29:33:13
Speaker 2
Valid.

00:29:33:13 - 00:29:36:10
Speaker 1
Here is an SSRI because you're here. Clearly.

00:29:36:12 - 00:29:44:00
Speaker 2
So sometimes they do more extended intakes. Did you did you open up about, you know, your struggle with gender dysphoria?

00:29:44:00 - 00:30:06:22
Speaker 1
Not I was like locked down on that. Okay. And it was flaring during that period of time where I'm not working, I can't exercise. My wife is bathing me and riding my bike because I have two broken wrist and she's pregnant. Who had withdraw from her job, her dream job, being a piano professor. That's an Esther. She withdrew to health care for me, you know.

00:30:06:22 - 00:30:21:02
Speaker 1
And so. I went from, like a highly functional person to having a bad experience in health care, to now being given just narcotics and an SSRI.

00:30:21:04 - 00:30:21:12
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:30:21:12 - 00:30:29:03
Speaker 1
Unfortunately that. Yeah, the next day the orthopedic, she was like, oh, that's great SSRI replace the loss of exercise that you can't do.

00:30:29:05 - 00:30:30:20
Speaker 2
That was what was said to you.

00:30:30:22 - 00:30:32:11
Speaker 1
Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

00:30:32:14 - 00:30:49:13
Speaker 2
Oh yeah. Unbelievable. Unfortunately, you know, that's certainly not just for our servicemen and women. That's like, this has become standard care that an SSRI is given for almost anything like blanket, prescription for anyone who's experiencing emotions for the most part. Right.

00:30:49:15 - 00:31:09:14
Speaker 1
So anger is scary, right? In that in a male especially, like, this person might become violent, you know? So we need to check a box for the lawyers that we did something. That's how I see it. It's, it's a cover your ass sort of. Well, these are tools we have in our toolbox. It's going to take too long to actually help this person.

00:31:09:14 - 00:31:12:11
Speaker 1
So I'm just going to cover my own ass. And here's a pill okay.

00:31:12:11 - 00:31:14:09
Speaker 2
So you did choose to take it.

00:31:14:11 - 00:31:41:05
Speaker 1
So I waited two days. Okay. And I talked to my mother in law and my priest. I did not talk to my dad, about it. And I wish I had a better relationship with him because that would prevented all of this. And my mother in law and my priest recommended me. Take that. My priest down in psychology training at a, seminary in Boston.

00:31:41:07 - 00:31:50:00
Speaker 1
He didn't actually get licensed to be a psychologist, but he kind of saw himself as, like, a psychologist in priestly robes. You know, it was a disaster.

00:31:50:00 - 00:31:58:07
Speaker 2
And it's kind of antithetical to the, I think, the, you know, ideology of the Catholic Church or, you know.

00:31:58:09 - 00:32:03:07
Speaker 1
Anglican and, you know, is the it was.

00:32:03:09 - 00:32:25:21
Speaker 1
The worst advice that I've ever received in my life. Okay. And having waited two days and not actually remembering if he did tell me to split the pill in half, you know, I, I didn't want to turn it off. I took my two milligrams. Right. And so now I have insomnia. I'm tossing and turning in bed. I'm even more angry than I was before I took the pill.

00:32:25:23 - 00:32:38:05
Speaker 1
And, I'm not going out doing drugs, eating, spending money, you know, and any of the things that would be considered mania. Yeah.

00:32:38:07 - 00:32:40:08
Speaker 2
But you're in a more agitated state.

00:32:40:13 - 00:32:43:07
Speaker 1
More agitated than I was before I went to the psychiatrist.

00:32:43:09 - 00:32:46:15
Speaker 2
So they might they might describe that as hypomania.

00:32:46:17 - 00:32:48:01
Speaker 1
I don't know what they described it as.

00:32:48:01 - 00:33:05:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. That's how they're going to view it. Even though it's a drug induced hypomania. They're they have been trained or I say they have been indoctrinated into belief that if you provide somebody in SSRI, they take the SSRI, they experienced this agitated state. Well then there's an underlying bipolar disorder.

00:33:05:13 - 00:33:10:17
Speaker 1
Even though it says in the DSM you cannot diagnose the secondary to medication side effect.

00:33:10:19 - 00:33:13:21
Speaker 2
And it's a very clear side effect of an SSRI. Right.

00:33:13:24 - 00:33:16:09
Speaker 1
Okay. 100mg of course.

00:33:16:09 - 00:33:36:20
Speaker 2
Yeah. So this is speaks to I think the ideology of of, of modern day psychiatry. Right. Everything is about this diagnosis of a severe mental illness. And they'll get you there. Even if you don't start there, they're going to find a way to get you there and then be under their treatment. So you get a drug induced hypomania.

00:33:36:22 - 00:33:38:17
Speaker 2
What happens next?

00:33:38:19 - 00:34:04:14
Speaker 1
So 48 hours later, my wife was actually emailing my program director, the guy who had referred me to the psychiatrist. Thank you so much for seeing James. And, you know, and for offering him, a referral to psychiatry and getting in so quickly. And as she said, you know, over, over her shoulder, I'm like, Will you tell him that I'm starting medication?

00:34:04:14 - 00:34:23:17
Speaker 1
I don't feel well on it. And so she does. And I get a she gets a phone call within five minutes of signing that email from a chief resident. So this is a guy who just finished a trauma residency, a year prior, and he asked my wife, where's the gun? Because the man takes it and we had a nine over.

00:34:23:22 - 00:34:48:08
Speaker 1
I didn't have any bullets in the house. I was under lock and key. But where's the gun? So now I'm like, wow, now they think I'm manic. Like, I know from that question that they think that I'm a danger, not that I'm having a bad side effect to this drug. So I see the psychiatrist within an hour of that, you know, alongside my wife for the first time.

00:34:48:10 - 00:35:16:00
Speaker 1
My wife helps me with the generators. Point to the psychiatrist in that appointment is like. And that just shocked me, because I'm already dealing with I my first clinical rotations, inpatient psych ward at Walter Reed in 2005 for six weeks. And I know what the outcome is of people who have severe mental illness in the military.

00:35:16:04 - 00:35:43:07
Speaker 1
You get kicked out, you get Matthew retired or you're kicked out or whatever. And so. Now I'm like, I'm not even getting anything retired. I'm just going to get separated for them, knowing I struggle with my gender. So I'm my wife's pregnant, three months pregnant. I don't have a medical license yet because I'm I'm a resident. So you have to finish internship after medical school to to apply for a license.

00:35:43:07 - 00:35:51:11
Speaker 1
I haven't been approved yet, so I'm thinking everything I've just done the last nine years of my life professionally is about to go up in flames.

00:35:51:13 - 00:36:23:16
Speaker 2
So what a betrayal, I imagine. Yeah. I mean, there's betrayal on both ends. There's betrayal from the medical system that you're a part of, that you have sworn an oath to right the United States government and, you know, a Hippocratic oath. And then you're facing with the system here, which fails to diagnose the legitimate physical condition that's delays your treatment, the righteous anger that comes from that in its impact on you over five weeks now gets misdiagnosed as like a depression.

00:36:23:18 - 00:36:32:23
Speaker 2
They provide you a drug, the drug, which is a high dose, and it wasn't the prescribed dose, but it's still a high dose. That could be 50.

00:36:32:23 - 00:36:35:03
Speaker 1
Would have for someone who's never taking that drug.

00:36:35:05 - 00:37:03:23
Speaker 2
Yes. It doesn't even matter. It could be a lower dose. It can still induce these symptoms. So a known drug reaction induced by an SSRI then becomes a mis labeled as mania and bipolar disorder, which necessitates another appointment. And now your wife who's concerned reveals that, hey, maybe there's more psychological problems that are under underneath this. And they reveal this to the psychiatrist.

00:37:04:00 - 00:37:07:02
Speaker 2
She she she reveals it to it. All right, what happens next?

00:37:07:04 - 00:37:21:12
Speaker 1
So my wife's birthday was the next day. Our anniversary was three years after that, you know, and I'm like, I really don't wanna be on a psych ward on her birthday and our anniversary. And I, I'm like, begging the guy not admitting to the psych ward.

00:37:21:14 - 00:37:36:05
Speaker 2
Was that his decision? Like, that's what he wanted to do. It's doing with no actual evidence of imminent risk or danger to yourself or somebody else just having a hypomanic reaction to a drug. Yep. And then, of course, disclosing gender dysphoria.

00:37:36:07 - 00:37:58:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. And honestly, like, he I don't think he really latched on to the gender dysphoria. I think it was more he's trying to clinically decide, is this person safe or not. You know, which kudos to him. You know, like that. That's really what doctors should be doing when they're determining admission or not. This is the same thing I'm saying.

00:37:58:03 - 00:38:14:08
Speaker 1
Given that he had never met my wife before, and I think he had some sort of trust in her that, you know, she would keep me safe. Over the weekend, he prescribed me Abilify and called it in, that day. I don't recall the dose.

00:38:14:14 - 00:38:16:16
Speaker 2
So new drugs to the drug reaction.

00:38:16:16 - 00:38:21:23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, right. Stuff is off. Here's Abilify and Klonopin.

00:38:22:00 - 00:38:29:15
Speaker 2
Just for the audience. Can you let everyone know what Abilify is? And. Okay. Antipsychotic and, what is Klonopin?

00:38:29:17 - 00:38:56:00
Speaker 1
Yeah. Benzodiazepine. Basically. Alcohol in Advil. Yeah. And so, that was the agreement, you know, that I would go home and start these meds. And then I had a follow up on Monday, you know, because it's Friday afternoon. And so I got home and I actually was able to sleep without taking any drugs. I napped from like probably two in the afternoon until dinner time, you know, by six.

00:38:56:02 - 00:39:21:13
Speaker 1
Better actually, like, finally got some sleep. And then after dinner, I decided to take the Klonopin, and I slept, like, 12 hours, and I think it was a half an overdose. I don't recall, the exact dose. And I'm like, I wake up Saturday morning, I'm like, why would I take this little thing? This makes no sense because I feel like I'm normal again.

00:39:21:15 - 00:39:42:17
Speaker 1
And so my, mentor as an intern, actually, had just left Walter Reed to work for a pharmaceutical company, and he was an infectious disease doctor, and he would be my name. Right. So my wife and I are walking our dogs, and and, I knocking his door and I said, hey, let me talk to you about this situation, and I really appreciate your advice.

00:39:42:19 - 00:40:07:01
Speaker 1
And he invited me in and my wife and she's like, you know, here's a retired Air Force colonel. And he was like, I'm trying to do the same thing to me. I had a rock climbing accident, you know, and I hit my hand. He's got a scar on his forehead. And they tried to put me in a antipsychotic when I was, like, really angry about the care that I got.

00:40:07:03 - 00:40:34:04
Speaker 1
As an Air Force medical doctor. And I'm like, okay, here, this is the deal. Don't take the Abilify because they're going to say you're feeling better because you're on this Abilify. And then see them on Monday is like, right? And he's not in the system anymore. So he can give advice like that. There's no way in hell anyone who is being paid by the federal government, you know, under their license would be able to give that sort of advice.

00:40:34:06 - 00:40:58:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, I don't want to be too conspiratorial here, but this is the US government. Obviously. They have, a wealth of knowledge about what these drugs do. It almost feels like they're using it as a punitive measure for control. When somebody is acting outside the boundaries and limitations that you're trained to do, you don't question authority, right? I mean, you're trained that you follow rules.

00:40:58:09 - 00:41:18:04
Speaker 2
And if you act outside like you become angry, your, at the system or your government or, anyone who is in, you know, authoritative position at you, then it does certainly seem like like the diagnosis and the drugs can be used as a control mechanism.

00:41:18:09 - 00:41:18:24
Speaker 1
Absolutely.

00:41:19:04 - 00:41:23:10
Speaker 2
Okay. Did you feel that? Did you get an impression of that?

00:41:23:12 - 00:41:42:22
Speaker 1
I, I did years later, but not in that moment. Okay. As I recall. Yeah. It was more the fear of losing everything. Yeah. Being medically oriented or, you know, administratively separated by volunteers. Then this morning, I want to disclose to anybody.

00:41:42:24 - 00:41:48:23
Speaker 2
Yeah, these diagnoses are a career killer. Like you get labeled bipolar disorder, then you're you're mentally ill. Yeah.

00:41:48:24 - 00:42:08:01
Speaker 1
What's funny that Friday, when they want to admit me and and they didn't there was a holiday party that night and I was receiving an award, a teaching award. And all the medical students and family, I guess, were giving me, and I told my program director, but I've been through a lot this week. I can't come to the holiday party.

00:42:08:02 - 00:42:35:18
Speaker 1
I'm sorry. You know, and so I go from receiving an award to now, he might just kick you out of the army because you crash the bike and we give you our products, and you're angry about it, and we gave you SSRI, and you had a side effect that is, 18% of people get insomnia unnecessary. And the last time I checked and yeah, we gave you a really high dose and yeah, probably we didn't diagnose you correctly following our own DSM, but you need to be kicked out.

00:42:35:20 - 00:42:38:00
Speaker 2
Okay. Take us, take us from there.

00:42:38:02 - 00:42:44:13
Speaker 1
So,

00:42:44:15 - 00:43:29:12
Speaker 1
I then. Had to really figure out how am I going to get out of this pickle and. I took, like, two weeks of leave in Florida visiting my in-laws, and I wrote a letter to my parents and my siblings saying, I don't want to see you this holiday. They were down in Florida as one of those signs. Because any time and space to heal, I, I was blaming all my generals for how my family, for most of my life, and I thought if I cut them out of my life, then I wouldn't have mental health problems with my gender anymore.

00:43:29:14 - 00:43:56:12
Speaker 1
That's completely false. Quite the opposite, actually. And so during those holidays, I was trying to figure out what to do, and we had had an ultrasound, on my wife, and they were having a boy. And I was just so excited about being a dad. And I think that gave me something else to focus on. I was more than six weeks out from injury, so I could actually start doing some gentle exercise.

00:43:56:14 - 00:43:57:12
Speaker 1
On my head.

00:43:57:14 - 00:43:59:20
Speaker 2
Are you taking any of the drugs they prescribed?

00:43:59:22 - 00:44:10:07
Speaker 1
I had such bad reactions in narcotics, too. I mean, just nausea, constipation. I mean, I just I was miserable. It was worse than the injury.

00:44:10:09 - 00:44:14:19
Speaker 2
Did you have follow up appointments with the psychiatrist? And and how did they respond?

00:44:14:20 - 00:44:33:08
Speaker 1
Yeah. So the following Monday, he was really angry at me. And I explained to him why, you know, I got this advice. And honestly, I felt great Saturday morning and, he, I think.

00:44:33:10 - 00:44:37:24
Speaker 1
He was really angry at me. And I remember walking out of his office.

00:44:38:01 - 00:44:38:15
Speaker 2
Because you didn't.

00:44:38:15 - 00:44:57:04
Speaker 1
Comply. Because I didn't comply. And I and I remember saying, you know what? I need to go take care of my pregnant wife. And I stepped up and left. He's a current, I said, this is what I said. Oh my gosh. So I know you're you're the colonel and I'm a captain. I know you're an attending and I'm a resident, but if you were a civilian, I would sue you.

00:44:59:08 - 00:45:02:13
Speaker 2
That's a bipolar reaction right there.

00:45:02:15 - 00:45:04:15
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah.

00:45:04:17 - 00:45:21:02
Speaker 2
Clearly I mean I'm, I'm not being sarcastic either. I mean this is like legitimately what we see in the community that if you resist their ideas and their treatment then it is more evidence of mental illness. Like now you're meeting the criteria.

00:45:21:04 - 00:45:35:15
Speaker 1
Yeah. And then I'm like, wait, what criteria are you. You have a mean. You'll use it at least at least use a manual. I mean, not you're just subjective projection of your own childhood wounds on me.

00:45:35:15 - 00:45:39:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. And listen, the manual is subjective, so that's part of the problem.

00:45:39:08 - 00:45:47:12
Speaker 1
But at least it's something that we can all look at and be like, you either meet a diagnosis or you don't at least do that. The bare minimum.

00:45:47:14 - 00:45:56:03
Speaker 2
Well, I mean, the problem in language. Yeah. When you try to, when you try to create the complexity of the human experience and put it in.

00:45:56:05 - 00:45:59:01
Speaker 1
It to this. Yeah. You know, it's a disaster.

00:45:59:02 - 00:46:34:02
Speaker 2
It allows itself for subject tivity. So, normal, unexpected reactions can really get mislabeled through the lens of which they're, they're trained. So let's just face it like a, a caring, compassionate, scientifically minded, ethical psychiatrist or mental health professional would be excited or at least relieved or happy for you that you're starting to feel better and the next step would be let's let's just monitor this to make sure it was to sleep deprivation.

00:46:34:04 - 00:46:51:11
Speaker 2
And as a result of the drug. Let's let me just follow up with you for a couple weeks and make sure your life's back in order. My goodness, you were used to running. It's a big part of your routine. Your lifestyle has been changed. You're struggling with the with how the medical system responded to you. Right? Like that's compassionate care.

00:46:51:13 - 00:46:56:07
Speaker 2
But instead there's an anger towards you because you didn't comply.

00:46:56:09 - 00:47:03:09
Speaker 1
He ordered an MRI. That's really this, you know, or MRI. My brain and I got that within like an MRI.

00:47:03:14 - 00:47:06:12
Speaker 2
Well, what's he going to find from it? From an MRI of your brain?

00:47:06:12 - 00:47:23:21
Speaker 1
I have no idea. But they thought maybe because my bicycle crash. You know, I told him I didn't hit my head. I was wearing a helmet, you know. Well, we'll get an MRI anyway, you know, tax dollars at work. And they got it within a week. It took me five weeks to get one of my pelvis, and I fractured, but it took a week to get one of my brain.

00:47:23:23 - 00:47:44:01
Speaker 1
It really made me even more angry. Yeah, I'm like, this is ridiculous. And so I, I recall coming back from the two week vacation down in Florida, and I was like, I don't believe this diagnosis at all, you know? And I laid it out, you know, but, we'll fine. We'll have see a psychologist and we're going to do neuroscience testing.

00:47:44:06 - 00:47:47:21
Speaker 1
Okay. So,

00:47:47:23 - 00:47:49:04
Speaker 2
Why neuroscientist.

00:47:49:06 - 00:47:59:18
Speaker 1
I guess to figure out if I have bipolar disorder or not, because I'm like, I don't understand how you can diagnose you. You want to DSM, but you can't diagnose someone's secondary medication.

00:47:59:20 - 00:48:06:13
Speaker 2
But also, how do you diagnose bipolar through neuroscientist thing? I mean, I'm a psychologist. I never learn that.

00:48:06:15 - 00:48:39:17
Speaker 1
I don't know, not my lead, but, I do the neuroscience testing. This is like early February. I think at this point I said it was early November and I recall telling the psychologist he's a trainee, okay, so he hasn't finished a psychology training. And I remember before I went to the appointment, getting a phone call and him saying, where are you?

00:48:39:19 - 00:49:02:17
Speaker 1
And I'm like, what do you mean, where am I? Where am I? I'm I'm in the resident rooms. Like, you've got an appointment this morning and I'm like, no one told me, you know, and I'm like, so I go over there as quickly as I can. It's just a separate building from the main hospital. And, already we're on a bad foot.

00:49:02:19 - 00:49:25:15
Speaker 1
You know, because I don't even know that I had an appointment booked for me. No one told me, and I knew I was going to have another psych testing eventually, but I didn't know when it was beginning. Okay. And I'm. I'm doing physical therapy. I'm doing occupational therapy for my wrist and and, we just started off really poorly.

00:49:25:15 - 00:49:49:21
Speaker 1
And I remember one of my co-residents was like, make sure you get an attending psychologist, because if they're just doing it for to train, I mean, like, how are you going to get there right here? And I, I remember I mean, I'm like, why am I seeing a psych intern and not an attending, you know, he's like, well, I'm overseen by an attending.

00:49:49:21 - 00:50:00:03
Speaker 1
And, and I'm like, I get it. But like, I work here and like a doctor and I, I don't know, I don't really appreciate being sort of like, trained. Know.

00:50:00:05 - 00:50:18:09
Speaker 2
Well, I mean, now you're starting to, you know, present with signs of oppositional defiant disorder, maybe some ADHD, maybe that you're maybe that irritability is, you know, lingering signs of hypomania so they can slap you on with bipolar, too.

00:50:18:11 - 00:50:41:15
Speaker 1
I do think in the medical profession, there's some narcissism. I mean, clearly in my own, you know, I've done all the MMPI narcissistic freaking up 20 years ago when I did this. No psych that's I've never done that before. And I think it's it's almost like it doesn't have to be that way. It does not have to be that way.

00:50:41:17 - 00:50:58:07
Speaker 1
But I had to go through this experience to learn that I'm not better than anyone else. I'm not worse than anyone else. You know, that I'm deeply insecurely loved, and no one can take that away from me and to not see others. But I wasn't there. That. Yeah, you know, and it doesn't.

00:50:58:09 - 00:51:16:04
Speaker 2
And it seems like you're in a position of trying to protect yourself. Right? You're certainly in a defensive stance, right? Because of an, you know, it's valid. I mean, I think it's an a valid reaction to kind of everything that you're going on. So it makes sense that you're, you know, a little bit sensitive to anywhere where you could be misunderstood.

00:51:16:07 - 00:51:16:12
Speaker 2
These are.

00:51:16:12 - 00:51:32:21
Speaker 1
High stakes, very high stakes license yet. And I loved being in the military up to that point. I saw it as like family, you know, and my wife's pregnant and, on the regular, you know, and so it was very scary.

00:51:32:23 - 00:51:34:24
Speaker 2
So what were the results of all these evaluations?

00:51:34:24 - 00:51:36:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. Adjustment disorder.

00:51:36:07 - 00:51:38:07
Speaker 2
Okay. So it actually turned out in your favor.

00:51:38:09 - 00:51:41:20
Speaker 1
You're not in my favor. And they're like, just go back to work, you know?

00:51:41:20 - 00:51:48:05
Speaker 2
So how are you and your wife at this time, given what she reported that the psychiatrist.

00:51:48:07 - 00:52:14:14
Speaker 1
Yeah. If our our marriage was never the same, but even, like a week and a half before that, what are we going to have, like, a month before my accident on a bicycle? I had a lesion on the shaft of my penis, and I'm, like, an insult to anyone else. This is bizarre, you know? And my wife is pregnant, and I asked her.

00:52:14:16 - 00:52:26:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, this is really for for. But I. Have you been with anybody? You know, what I should have done is just gotten tested for the eyes. You know, seeing a doctor, like, not bring it up with her.

00:52:26:23 - 00:52:28:12
Speaker 2
Did you end up doing that?

00:52:28:14 - 00:52:49:11
Speaker 1
I did, yeah, and it was just a candle infection. And it was likely caused by masturbation, to be honest. Not anything to do with her other than not having enough sex marriage. But it. How can you do that? When we were working, I was working a 30 hour shift every third night for a month.

00:52:49:13 - 00:52:50:13
Speaker 2
It's tough on a marriage.

00:52:50:19 - 00:53:00:14
Speaker 1
Hour shift every first night. And I'm coming back and it's not like normal bread and butter, you know, heart failure stuff. It's like people my age getting blown up.

00:53:00:16 - 00:53:03:23
Speaker 2
Yeah. So you made that accusation of your wife? I'm sure she didn't handle that well.

00:53:04:00 - 00:53:09:16
Speaker 1
It was more like Harvey. It was a question, but it was obviously taken as an accusation.

00:53:09:19 - 00:53:10:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's tough to hear.

00:53:10:15 - 00:53:18:04
Speaker 1
So our marriage is never the same after that. Because I'm sure she had the same thoughts. Of course. Yeah. You know, how can I trust you? Yeah, yeah.

00:53:18:05 - 00:53:33:17
Speaker 2
Anyway, so there's a lot of breakdown in trust, you know, starting with what feels like a betrayal when she reveals something very private to you. Put your job at risk and your family at risk. And then something like this happens. It kind of. Everything's put in motion for the marriage to be broken down.

00:53:33:19 - 00:53:34:18
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00:53:34:20 - 00:53:40:04
Speaker 2
And so, yeah, you're also talking about the lifestyle of being, were you, sergeant were.

00:53:40:06 - 00:53:40:19
Speaker 1
Internal.

00:53:40:21 - 00:53:53:18
Speaker 2
Internal medicine? And the stress of having to work in those environments 30, 30 hours, you know, in a in what is that like in the 2 or 3 days, three day span of like 30 hour.

00:53:53:20 - 00:54:00:24
Speaker 1
You know, like I would get to work at 6 a.m. and stay till noon, then I'd stay awake. Yeah. Yeah.

00:54:01:01 - 00:54:01:22
Speaker 2
Unbelievable.

00:54:01:24 - 00:54:02:13
Speaker 1
Right?

00:54:02:15 - 00:54:03:19
Speaker 2
Yeah. Unbelievable.

00:54:03:21 - 00:54:08:17
Speaker 1
They don't do that anymore. Finally they turn it into 24 hours. Anything I don't.

00:54:08:19 - 00:54:19:20
Speaker 2
So it's hard to be. It's it's hard to be emotionally stable when you are working those type of hours in sleep deprivation. Yeah. Under stressful conditions.

00:54:19:23 - 00:54:43:15
Speaker 1
This is what's funny because so I, I love the I see like the way that all the organ systems work together. Like it was just I can do the math in my head really quickly. I helped people, you know, I love the team environment with the nurses and, teaching the medical students, interns and residents. So I applied to fellowship to do pulmonary critical care.

00:54:43:15 - 00:55:08:00
Speaker 1
And, and, I loved it. Not so much the pulmonary side of things, but the ICU side of things. I loved it, and I was good at it. But towards the end of my first year of fellowship, Things were starting to write down. I really needed to be honest. I had one week of vacation. You know, at one point I was writing three papers at a time, covering in the ICU and inpatient consults in the outpatient consults.

00:55:08:00 - 00:55:29:06
Speaker 1
And, they're shutting down the hospital. Walter Reed Army Medical Center in DC and transferring all of our care to the rest of Maryland at the Naval Medical Center, which is now Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. So this is all going on. At the same time, people's emotions, I think, in the department were elevated. I don't think it was just me and I.

00:55:29:08 - 00:55:54:04
Speaker 1
And we had to pick a research topic, you know, and presented to the other fellows and other attendings and, and what we wanted to do research on. Right. Come to this idea, I don't know how probably on the run, you know, that. What if we could really help people with post-traumatic stress coming out of the ICU, and I, you know, I was thinking, you know, we don't really ever talk to patients after they leave.

00:55:54:04 - 00:56:08:18
Speaker 1
I wonder if they had the opportunity to talk to someone who was in charge of their care after their discharge about, you know, why do I have this scar on my neck? Well, I don't have a scar on my wrist. You know what? What happened? You know. Right.

00:56:08:20 - 00:56:37:04
Speaker 1
How are things going to turn out? You know, down the road, as opposed to being a helpless victim and powerless person on a ventilator? You know, and sedated or handcuffs on an ICU bed? They can kind of take some, some ownership over their body, at least understand why that had to happen to save their life. And so my idea was a month out from the discharge that they would be able to talk to you as a person who was the attorney on record about the care that they received.

00:56:37:06 - 00:56:59:05
Speaker 1
And we could randomize it. And, you know, if they met a threshold of stress relating to there's a vacancy, a psychologist or some other person could intervene. So that wouldn't become a chronic issue. You know, it can it can be an adjustment as far as, you know, post-traumatic stress disorder. And that could actually help set them up.

00:56:59:05 - 00:57:13:02
Speaker 1
The rest of their life, you know, so that they're not in this chronic state of hypervigilance. And I was mocked. I was mocked by the other fellows in attendance. This is how I received it.

00:57:13:06 - 00:57:13:17
Speaker 2
How so?

00:57:13:17 - 00:57:26:20
Speaker 1
No one else is interested in this idea. What are you thinking? You know, like, do you think we actually want to do that extra work after a month out, like spending, another 15, 30 minutes with a patient?

00:57:26:22 - 00:57:27:23
Speaker 2
So what year is this?

00:57:28:00 - 00:57:32:06
Speaker 1
This is 2011 April 2001.

00:57:32:08 - 00:57:46:19
Speaker 2
So historically speaking, I mean, we're dealing with these elevated rates of PTSD with veterans who are returning from the middle East. And, we're struggling as a, as a nation to be able to meet the needs of combat veterans.

00:57:46:21 - 00:58:14:05
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. Yeah. But they were more interested in doing drug trials. Okay. For, some of the sleep medicines, helping people use their sleep apnea machines and, like, it blew my mind that they, they're so interested in things that don't really matter. Well, what profit for a pharmaceutical industry, you know? Yeah.

00:58:14:07 - 00:58:21:22
Speaker 2
I was just going to ask what your what that meant to you as far as a culture in which you were working in.

00:58:21:24 - 00:58:51:13
Speaker 1
The experience and having the idea to prevent GSD onset and then being laughed at, I, I think I was at that point really confused, you know, because, I thought it was a really good idea. Kind of gets back to dressing up as a girl, you know, as a five year old or loving the dance. Like, for me, I like to see where the, the physical and the and the spiritual meet the metaphysics of it all, the meaning of it all.

00:58:51:17 - 00:59:14:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. So for me, it was like an ideal research project. I had another two years of fellowship, and in my mind, I'm the one doing the research. Why do I need an attending? I'm already a doctor at this point. I've already finished residency. I'm a board certified internist. Why do I need an attending to improve my pulmonary critical care research project?

00:59:14:03 - 00:59:38:10
Speaker 1
So somehow it probably upset me to the point where they could tell that I was upset. The same program director who's a appointed critical care doctor. Hey, you want it? Why don't you see that psychiatrist again? Make sure everything's okay. This is two years after the fact. So I see the same psychiatrist. It's like there's no way you're bipolar.

00:59:38:10 - 00:59:57:22
Speaker 1
You like you would have. This would have shown up with all that sleep deprivation, working 30 hour shifts and being a young parent, you know, like. Right. Yeah, I think I just am burned out. Be honest. Like I've been training them. I don't know, like my whole life I've been in school.

00:59:57:24 - 01:00:04:04
Speaker 2
And you're questioning a lot too, right. You were really kind of disillusioned at this point.

01:00:04:06 - 01:00:35:13
Speaker 1
Disillusioned with the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, separate issue. Osama bin laden had been killed. And I'm thinking, why are we still here? Why am I still treating people getting blown up in Afghanistan? This makes no sense. I thought it was to, you know, get them back for 911. Yeah. Like it was just confusing to me. And then even the election of Obama in 2008, I thought he was going to pull us out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

01:00:35:14 - 01:00:36:10
Speaker 2
He ran on that.

01:00:36:11 - 01:00:50:18
Speaker 1
He ran on that. Yeah. So here we are, 2011. It's all bin Laden's been killed. And I'm like, what's going on? Why am I still treating people blowing up, missing four limbs, but they're still alive.

01:00:50:20 - 01:01:14:16
Speaker 2
And I don't think we talk enough about the psychological impact on medical providers who are facing that. And how it interfaces with, like, foreign policy decisions, you know, so there you are. You're actually struggling with U.S. foreign policy, obviously. Clearly, because we're still in the Middle East, you're still facing the carnage of that and the psychological effects.

01:01:14:18 - 01:01:34:19
Speaker 1
On top of that, they're shutting down Walter Reed, a 100 year old hospital with all of its traditions. Yeah, I don't know, because I read an article training there to put us in a in a different hospital in Bethesda, and it was just like to save money, which they didn't save a penny. Right. Bragging Walter Reed it was.

01:01:35:00 - 01:01:35:19
Speaker 1
But yeah.

01:01:35:21 - 01:01:53:20
Speaker 2
But you're also interested in how to advance your your research interest is to be able to devote yourself to a research project that could potentially serve, serve veterans. And also, it it would have done like, a lot, I think, for your mental health, your well-being and your motivation to serve. Yeah, yeah. But instead it's.

01:01:54:01 - 01:01:57:02
Speaker 1
Purpose. And instead of feeling like, what are we doing?

01:01:57:04 - 01:02:06:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, I want to get, you know, just take your temperature. Then at that time in your life about what it's like to, to be you, given what you've been through at that point.

01:02:06:07 - 01:02:40:13
Speaker 1
Last time I was so burned out, and so I went on a two week vacation that I had earned. Okay. And, I remember going on a 20 mile hike that I used to do long runs, training for marathons and camping along the hiking route. And I came back and I just felt like a new person, you know, spent some time in nature, like just kind of reliving old, old paths that I really enjoyed, you know, those marathon runs and, we were finding a, a pre-K for my son in a montessori school, and, I don't know, I just, I felt like I was ready to get back into it, just having a two

01:02:40:13 - 01:02:59:20
Speaker 1
week hiatus that I had earned. It wasn't like extra vacation. And I came back and I worked in the ICU for two weeks. Okay, after that two week break, they let me work in the ICU and are thinking, I call it. It made no sense to me. And then I see the psychiatrist in a in a follow up outfit while I'm working in the ICU.

01:03:00:01 - 01:03:18:22
Speaker 1
It's just bizarre. He's like, I think you do have bipolar disorder. Because I talk to the other attendings in your presentation have been disorganized, and you're just not keeping up with your work. And I'm thinking, yeah, fine. Like, at this point, I'm board certified internist, and I have a license, and I have my son, and I'm like, so based.

01:03:19:02 - 01:03:25:04
Speaker 2
What evidence is this based on that? You know, he could subjectively say, I think you may have bipolar disorder.

01:03:25:06 - 01:03:26:05
Speaker 1
No.

01:03:26:07 - 01:03:33:11
Speaker 2
No, some, some, some challenges with completing work, some disorganization like, yeah. Could it be more than that?

01:03:33:12 - 01:04:06:08
Speaker 1
I presented a patient that, had been discharged to an attending and, I had not actually physically seen the patient yet. I tell you, I was wearing three pagers, okay? And I knew I had a paper chart on this patient. I knew the attending had already seen this patient before. And so we're looking at the films. I remember we usually start just looking at X-rays and Cat scans, you know, before we actually even talk about a patient, we just look at the films, you know, to figure out what's going on.

01:04:06:09 - 01:04:30:03
Speaker 1
And things like, have you haven't seen this patient yet? I'm like, no, honestly, I haven't. You know, I there was a patient who was needing to be, bronchus get a bronchoscopy looking in their lungs in the ICU under anesthesia versus and on bronchoscopy suite on the outpatient side. It was just. There's too much going on. Just don't know.

01:04:30:05 - 01:04:37:15
Speaker 1
And there's some disorganization when you're presenting a patient that you haven't actually seen yet.

01:04:37:17 - 01:04:38:05
Speaker 2
Yeah.

01:04:38:07 - 01:05:02:10
Speaker 1
But I didn't know how to handle the stress of that situation. Why am I wearing three pagers, you know, and coordinating seizure? I didn't know how to ask for help. Like part of being, a respected doctor is that you don't need help. Anyone comes to you for help. Once you say you need help, you lose a lot of respect.

01:05:04:05 - 01:05:06:13
Speaker 2
And that's really conditioned medical school isn't it. Oh yeah.

01:05:06:18 - 01:05:08:15
Speaker 1
Yeah. Oh yeah. And in the army.

01:05:08:17 - 01:05:09:09
Speaker 2
Of course the army.

01:05:09:10 - 01:05:36:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. But this was like both of those things together. So I know that attending had a big say in rehashing the diagnosis, but I'd already done neuroscience. I said no, do I know? I also, I ran a marathon in November and feeling as a fellow like I thought of as a fellow, this is how they got me into into this fellowship.

01:05:36:12 - 01:05:53:13
Speaker 1
I thought I would have more time to run, to get some more time with my son. That'd be different than residency. To be better than residency. I could do research, you know, time to read all this stuff. And I'm like, all right, I'm gonna get that on the qualifier, you know? And so I ran Philly Marathon in 2010 and in 2003.

01:05:53:17 - 01:06:18:19
Speaker 1
Okay. So I don't know, 550 per mile. And it was my second marathon from the one that I had done as an intern because I had recovered from my, I bicycle crash at this point. So a bicycle crash event two years before. So this is my second marathon, and I dropped my time a couple minutes, and then I actually got, a free.

01:06:18:21 - 01:06:35:17
Speaker 1
Pass or whatever to run the national marathon in DC in March. So I'd have to pay to, I got to start at the front, you know, I'm like a seated spinal stance, and I'm thinking I can win this thing. You know, my training was pretty good over the winter, but I only ran 235. I hit a wall at mile 18.

01:06:35:17 - 01:06:59:08
Speaker 1
I was just running too fast, you know, and and, And I just felt miserable. The last eight miles, most people thought, like, 22. I hated it, 18 miles. It was just a miserable run. And, you said you ran a half marathon at that time. The way they devised the finish line is the marathoners and half marathoners were finishing in the same place and literally finishing at the same time as the half marathoners.

01:06:59:08 - 01:07:15:03
Speaker 1
And I can't get to the end of the shoot just to, like, sit down. I was just miserable. And anyway, they're like, you're running too much. So you're fairly manic.

01:07:15:05 - 01:07:17:05
Speaker 2
That was their assessment. Yeah.

01:07:17:07 - 01:07:57:04
Speaker 1
Yeah, you're running too much. I'm like, I'm running no more than I did as an intern. No more than I did as a medical student. It's my it's my same sort of routine. Like they they couldn't conceptualize it. I had been training for the marathon for ten years, you know, and once you're in a certain shape, you can maintain it with less, sort of like, stress on the body, like there's a way to maintain fitness, mind you, I was really trying to get into this, program that the Army had.

01:07:57:06 - 01:08:24:17
Speaker 1
If you if you run an Olympic qualifying time, you can basically run full time. You can take like a break of service and you're still active duty, but you're an athlete. Okay? So that was kind of my, my goal. And. Anyway, they thought the running and the idea about PTSD. And so off the wall and, there's this organized presentation for that, patient.

01:08:24:17 - 01:08:53:08
Speaker 1
I hadn't seen it putting those puzzle pieces together somehow I am bipolar. And so they put me on Abilify again, and I basically conceded I wasn't going to fight it this time because I was like, oh, there's a secondary gain in the military. Okay. If you get a diagnosis that will give you, a medical retirement for the rest of your life, and you get medical benefits the rest of your life for you and your family.

01:08:53:10 - 01:09:04:02
Speaker 2
So there's, so there really is a, a benefit to being able to obtain the diagnosis. Oh, yeah. Is it all diagnoses are just limited diagnoses.

01:09:04:04 - 01:09:09:16
Speaker 1
So they have a rating system. So the more severe it is, the more money you make. Wow.

01:09:09:20 - 01:09:11:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. Perverse incentives.

01:09:11:19 - 01:09:22:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. And so at this point I'm like I'll be able to work as a civilian, you know, with my birth certification and license and I'll get a medical retirement.

01:09:22:03 - 01:09:46:19
Speaker 2
So this, this reminds me of of something and the challenges I faced in my work. I have seen combat veterans outside of the VA, for PTSD treatment. And each person I met was not interested in being able to become what we would call like symptoms in remission because they thought was going to impact their benefits so that.

01:09:46:24 - 01:09:56:00
Speaker 1
It would impact their benefits. Okay. Yeah. You have to be, medically l to receive.

01:09:56:02 - 01:10:04:14
Speaker 2
So do you think there's a concern with this, with talking about psychological suffering in terms of illness, like a biological disease? Because we're putting it in the same camp?

01:10:04:16 - 01:10:18:05
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah. There's that's a huge problem. Yeah, but even the biological disease, you know, when you're talking about pain, I mean, my dad as an orthopedic surgeon, I've seen backs. He wouldn't do surgery on backs. So it's it's just.

01:10:18:07 - 01:10:19:09
Speaker 2
The outcomes are horrible for.

01:10:19:10 - 01:10:39:22
Speaker 1
The horrible. Yeah. But also there's just these secondary gains, you know, to not even it's subconscious all the time. The same people do this consciously. But you know if you if you can get those narcotics or you can get that disability check, why would you go off that unless you really want to be the ultimate goal.

01:10:39:23 - 01:10:45:07
Speaker 2
Did you want out at this point because you conceded to that bipolar diagnosis?

01:10:45:09 - 01:11:03:01
Speaker 1
I was just going to let it see where see where it went. Okay. You know, because I thought it was absurd. I was like, you guys could call me a paranoid schizophrenic. I don't care at this point, but clearly this relationship is broken down. You're mocking me because I have an idea that I think can help a lot of people.

01:11:03:03 - 01:11:09:19
Speaker 1
And you're. You're you're giving me three pagers. You know that running is a big part of my life, and you're mocking me for running.

01:11:09:21 - 01:11:15:21
Speaker 2
And you're not fitting the profile of being a good soldier for the most part, right?

01:11:15:23 - 01:11:18:02
Speaker 1
I don't know, it depends on how you define a good soldier. I mean.

01:11:18:04 - 01:11:23:24
Speaker 2
A good soldier complies, follows directives and acts within the boundaries.

01:11:24:01 - 01:11:39:15
Speaker 1
Yes and no. A good soldier is physically fit and morally sound and can disobey unethical, illegal orders. But you have to have the mindset to know what those are.

01:11:39:17 - 01:11:43:16
Speaker 2
But in reality, what happens when you do that across you?

01:11:43:18 - 01:11:46:01
Speaker 1
They may even send the FBI after you.

01:11:46:03 - 01:12:00:16
Speaker 2
We'll get to that. Okay. Can you take me to the The Meadows? I think you were admitted into the Meadows. Explain to my audience how that came about. What was the goal and what was the treatment?

01:12:00:19 - 01:12:04:10
Speaker 1
Yeah. So,

01:12:04:12 - 01:12:23:20
Speaker 1
The Meadows is a facility. Michael Phelps went there. I think he he, it's a five week program that helps people deal with childhood trauma. Helps diagnosis uncertainty, helps them get into a rhythm. If they're addicted to some substance, to basically get.

01:12:23:20 - 01:12:26:02
Speaker 2
Off of it. Did the Army send you there?

01:12:26:04 - 01:12:46:21
Speaker 1
Initially, no. My. I was paying out of pocket to see a civilian psychiatrist. Because I really didn't trust the psychiatrist at this point. There was there wasn't really a therapeutic relationship. He put me back, and I couldn't even function like clicking a mouse. Then he switched from the lithium, knowing that running is a big part of my life, knowing the side effects of lithium could destroy your kidneys.

01:12:46:21 - 01:12:53:13
Speaker 1
I could be on dialysis for life if I run. That's not going to be.

01:12:53:15 - 01:13:16:06
Speaker 2
All for a situation where you're not having hallucinations, delusions. It's not like you're, unable to sleep. You're not deteriorating. You're functioning quite well. They're taking a normal behavior, like a commitment to running, which millions of Americans commit to as part of their lifestyle. My wife included, who's run who runs marathons.

01:13:16:11 - 01:13:18:00
Speaker 1
And actually, to be better than I am.

01:13:18:02 - 01:13:21:00
Speaker 2
No doubt. Right. And they pathologize that.

01:13:21:04 - 01:13:21:16
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01:13:21:18 - 01:13:38:20
Speaker 2
It's pretty much explains that anything can be pathologized when that level of authority decides that they want to create mental illness, and to pathologize you and to, I think really it's to devalue you. Dehumanize, dehumanize.

01:13:38:22 - 01:13:49:17
Speaker 1
Other. Yes. To make your voice not heard. To. Yeah. Destroy any sort of trust.

01:13:49:19 - 01:13:59:03
Speaker 2
Which is the power that these psychiatrists have. And it's the power of the psychiatric diagnosis. It really can take away your freedoms.

01:13:59:05 - 01:14:15:09
Speaker 1
In many ways, in many ways or your family, you know it your job. Yeah. It's it's unbelievable the amount of power that someone can have in a pen. Yeah, on a piece of paper.

01:14:15:11 - 01:14:40:13
Speaker 2
And that's why I think, like, medical ethics and sound scientific scrutiny is, like, so important in being able to hold professionals accountable. Because when you have diagnoses that are based on such subjective, interpretations, you really have to be accountable to be able to provide somebody a severe mental illness diagnosis that affects their career, their families and their freedom.

01:14:40:15 - 01:15:04:13
Speaker 2
And if you don't have really clear data to support that, and they've and there's a line where that line is crossed into legitimate danger to themselves or somewhere else. If that doesn't happen, then doctors, in my opinion, have to be held accountable. And that's what we see a complete loss of accountability in the medical authority. You make decisions like that, especially when it comes to mental illness.

01:15:04:15 - 01:15:26:07
Speaker 2
You know, that person's opinion is is going to be held as primary and all other competing evidence can just be misinterpreted and misconstrued. And, I think and discussed it discussed in ways that, you know, really don't meet the experience of the person who's receiving those diagnoses.

01:15:26:09 - 01:15:54:23
Speaker 1
Meadows was recommended by a civilian psychiatrist that I, pay out of pocket to see. And we shared similar faith. And he's written a couple of books. His name is Kurt Thompson, and he's an M.D. and, he kind of as I was waiting for the medical evaluation Board to conclude and the physical Evaluation Board to conclude, you know, whether they were going to discharge meaning at the time, that sort of thing.

01:15:55:00 - 01:16:17:17
Speaker 1
I really didn't trust the military at this point. Their health care, he saw when the military gave me a 50% disability rating and then two months and said I would have my district papers within a month. Okay. Two months later, they actually said, no, we're going to keep you despite the disability rating, but you're going to be in a non employment status.

01:16:17:19 - 01:16:45:20
Speaker 1
At this point. My marriage had falling apart. My, my ex-wife had been diagnosed with depression, was unnecessary and basically lost all sex interests and interest in our lives and all, you know, and I had been in a relationship with her for like 18 years at that point. And, I don't know, something like that. We've been married for 12, had a child together.

01:16:45:22 - 01:17:23:03
Speaker 1
It's like everything was crumbling. And, and that year of waiting, because we had no idea how long it would take the medical board. It's a lot of paperwork that's done outside. And it's just a waiting process. And so Thompson was like, hey, Oh, man, there's so much to this. But my I went to an appointment when when the Army decided to keep me, I was going to go, all right, and I was going to go to New York City, and I was going to, transition to be a woman.

01:17:23:05 - 01:17:25:04
Speaker 1
All right? And just not be sound like.

01:17:25:06 - 01:17:37:11
Speaker 2
Well, what led you to that? I think you're missing some. We're missing some piece of the story that you would get to that point. Because obviously that can be interpreted, that maybe you were manic or you've, you know, there was impaired judgment.

01:17:37:12 - 01:17:52:20
Speaker 1
I absolutely I was in a state of not knowing how to survive, because.

01:17:52:22 - 01:18:13:17
Speaker 1
The whole prior year, I thought I was going to be medically retired with bipolar disorder. Now they want to keep me despite the diagnosis, on active duty. Basically to be marked every day for the next ten years while I pay back my rank in medical school time.

01:18:13:19 - 01:18:15:19
Speaker 2
So you had another decade to serve?

01:18:15:21 - 01:18:31:07
Speaker 1
Yes, sir. Okay. It's like a prison sentence. It's like being handed down a prison sentence. And I had been exploring transitioning genders that summer in 2012.

01:18:31:09 - 01:18:38:22
Speaker 2
Okay. But I just want to make sure that I'm timeline because we didn't we didn't really talk about the medals. Is this leading up to the Meadows?

01:18:38:24 - 01:19:03:02
Speaker 1
Okay. Yeah. So. My my dad, who I didn't have a very good relationship with, and my ex-wife had called him to persuade me to go to the psych psychiatry and Thompson. So I was like, I don't know what. Like, I should have just been admitted to the hospital at this point because I wasn't suicidal. But I was like.

01:19:03:04 - 01:19:07:10
Speaker 1
So beside myself, the fact that the Army wanted to keep me,

01:19:07:12 - 01:19:09:21
Speaker 2
So there must have been a lot of hopelessness, I would imagine.

01:19:10:00 - 01:19:10:09
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah.

01:19:10:09 - 01:19:18:07
Speaker 2
Your marriage is breaking down. You're provided this diagnosis, but you can't leave. And now you have another ten years. Yeah.

01:19:18:08 - 01:19:53:05
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Trapped. And, my dad talks to me, I'm at a campsite in Maryland, and, it's my dad's. Like you, you should really see the psychiatrist. And, and I trusted the psychiatrist. I'm wearing women's clothes, and I'm about to drive, away, you know, to New York City to disappear. Because I can't imagine going back to Walter Reed and,

01:19:53:07 - 01:20:21:04
Speaker 1
My ex-wife called the program director who had seen me see the psychiatrist the first time he talked. Me go see the psychiatrist. So I go and see the psychiatrist. The only time at that point in my life that anyone had ever seen me wear women's clothes. It's around, I don't know, August 10th or something. In 2012. And.

01:20:21:06 - 01:20:42:15
Speaker 1
He's like, you know what? I know a place that could be really helpful for you, for the Meadows and and sent patients ever before. And they've had really good help there. And, I'd like to send you there the diagnostic uncertainty and, and, and just sort of figure out what's going on because. Yeah, I mean, all intents and purposes, I would desperate I mean.

01:20:42:17 - 01:20:43:07
Speaker 2
And it's the first.

01:20:43:07 - 01:20:46:03
Speaker 1
Like a trapped animal in a corner. That is how I looked.

01:20:46:04 - 01:20:50:17
Speaker 2
And it's the first time that he sees you dressed in women's clothes for everything.

01:20:50:17 - 01:21:07:04
Speaker 1
I mean, I'm trying to figure this out. That's probably why I was meeting with him, because I wanted to understand. Why am I like this? And why was seeing someone in the who shared my feeds? Because if I saw someone who was gender affirming, I knew I would be on drugs and hormones. You know, I'd be on hormones and have surgery.

01:21:07:06 - 01:21:15:01
Speaker 1
Because that's the standard of care. Yeah. So I think it's egotistic behavior is the way that but in my mind it was.

01:21:15:03 - 01:21:18:17
Speaker 2
And there's a cultural shift that's happening at this time around transgenderism.

01:21:18:18 - 01:21:20:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. 2012.

01:21:20:07 - 01:21:43:00
Speaker 2
Yeah I mean it really is in the midst of for me as a psychologist, where you're there talking about gender affirming care, where they're not viewing it from a person who might be struggling or suffering, or it could even be something that people have multiple ways of resolving. It's being viewed as almost again, a discrete medical condition. It's who you are.

01:21:43:00 - 01:22:04:14
Speaker 2
You're slapping an identity on that person with the belief that your only path towards overcoming that suffering is to change, change, or change your gender. Like submit to surgery, submit to hormonal changes, and then that would relieve the discomfort. And that's really being pushed medically during this period of time.

01:22:04:16 - 01:22:27:16
Speaker 1
Yeah. And so I and harking back to my, reading of human sexuality, you know, from 1973, I, I will lose everything. And that's even worse than, what I'm experiencing now, like, going back in the Army. But I was just so confused. I didn't know how to move forward. And so for Thompson, I don't think that either.

01:22:27:16 - 01:22:47:01
Speaker 1
And so that's where the medicine in the army went in, pay for me to go. Even though they took Tricare, they wouldn't refer me there because you're bipolar, you know, and I'm taking in the military during, like the at this point, and. It, it was tough because.

01:22:47:03 - 01:22:51:07
Speaker 2
Could that have any did that have any adverse effects. It did it.

01:22:51:09 - 01:23:17:00
Speaker 1
Yeah. It was like I wasn't taking anything. Okay. But there was this fear of Stephen Johnson syndrome, you know, like, having scarlet skin can tell you, so that's a risk. But I was appeasing everyone else, right? Because there they wanted to be reassure them on something so that I was safe to be around that. That was why I took the medication to get the approval.

01:23:17:00 - 01:23:32:16
Speaker 2
For this false sense of security. Even even though these drugs would increase the likelihood there would be some kind of dangerous event. Right. It's, provides everyone like he's medicated. He's under treatment. Yeah, and it's a sense.

01:23:32:17 - 01:24:07:04
Speaker 1
Authority is taken over him so that he can be a part of society. And again, this came from you can recall a year prior a PTSD research project proposal, having a poor presentation and then running a marathon. Yeah. So in that period of time from when I was a fellow to going in and I was my best friend at church, had cheated on his wife with a man that he had same sex attraction, and he was basically my best friend.

01:24:07:06 - 01:24:29:23
Speaker 1
And I met him in 2006, and we were going to pray this way together. Right. So he he got married in January 2007. So as a fellow, I'm dealing with the fallout of his the breakdown of his marriage. I mean, he was there when my son was born, like the hospital. His wife was my wife's best friend.

01:24:30:00 - 01:24:37:05
Speaker 1
I was encouraged to shun him because of his behavior through this religious community that I was a part of in DC that I had helped start.

01:24:37:07 - 01:24:38:08
Speaker 2
Doesn't sound Christian.

01:24:38:11 - 01:25:00:05
Speaker 1
No, no, no. And about a year after shunning him, I just couldn't do it anymore because I just felt like such a hypocrite. You know, I'm I'm dealing with my own gender dysphoria, and, And I'm really writing on the wall. I'm like, why would these people not just treat me the same way? Eventually? Why do I want to be a part of this?

01:25:00:07 - 01:25:29:08
Speaker 1
And that was all happening in 2012, me reengaging with him, and, you know, it was like after coffee, like when I was going to when I found out that the Army wanted to keep me and I was presenting female at the psychiatry unit, I actually met with him that weekend in, in DuPont Circle in DC. And, he was like, you're beautiful.

01:25:29:12 - 01:25:51:22
Speaker 1
You look like you want to, you know, swim or something like this. You know, I know he was very kind to me, but it was very confusing to me because I'm like, I do I want to go down this path as I'm waiting for the Army to send me, to the Meadows, because they were refusing to allow me to even go.

01:25:51:24 - 01:26:15:03
Speaker 1
Eventually my dad paid out of pocket for me to go, and they reimbursed him. And my company commander gave me the convalescent me to be able to go for the 35 days. But I didn't leave until, like, October 2nd. So from the beginning of August, October 2nd, I'm living on base at Walter Reed in Bethesda. Waiting to go to this appointment, not seeing patients waiting to go to the Meadows.

01:26:15:03 - 01:26:24:19
Speaker 1
You know, and I'm doing a lot of research, again, trying to understand my gender dysphoria because, like, the cat's out of the bag. Everyone knows I have this problem.

01:26:25:00 - 01:26:30:09
Speaker 2
In your family. Of course. What was the response from your parents?

01:26:30:11 - 01:26:47:03
Speaker 1
I told my parents in 2006. My dad's response was, I hope you don't get kicked out of the army. My mom's response was, I don't understand this at all. You know, my in-laws response was actually like, everyone has their own issues. You know, this is just Europe's. This is your cross to bear. No, I thought it was very gracious of them.

01:26:47:05 - 01:27:01:06
Speaker 1
So that was 2006 when I came out to them. This is 2012, and I'm just waiting to go to the Meadows, and I, I discovered this term auto kind of failure. And I said, you know, with this, tell.

01:27:01:06 - 01:27:01:15
Speaker 2
Me about it.

01:27:01:15 - 01:27:17:08
Speaker 1
Okay. It's where you, the the transgender community hates this time because it creates gender dysphoria to be a paraphilia. Okay. Autoerotic philia is essentially getting turned on by the thought of yourself being a woman.

01:27:17:10 - 01:27:27:00
Speaker 2
Okay. Traditionally, that was the transvestites, right? Trans transgenderism was viewed from that perspective. A sexual fetish. And that was in the DSM.

01:27:27:02 - 01:27:50:20
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly where they're without. All right. Yeah. So I told you in a story like growing up before puberty, you know, so I'm thinking I'm a true certain transsexual. But then after that I would masturbate to the idea of being a woman, particularly a bride, not just any woman. And in a religious context, I.

01:27:50:20 - 01:27:52:24
Speaker 2
Mean, it was. So that's what was sexually exciting to you.

01:27:52:24 - 01:28:15:06
Speaker 1
That was what was sexually exciting to me. And so I'm like, this is it. This is there's a thing that I have a diagnosis. This is the diagnosis, you know, like I and I was so excited to share it with. Now my ex-wife and the priest, not the psychology priest, but a different one that I've discovered is the term that describes the experience I'm having.

01:28:15:08 - 01:28:21:24
Speaker 2
So can I can I ask you why is that so controversial in those circles?

01:28:22:01 - 01:28:33:17
Speaker 1
I don't know, I think because they. I guess the transgender community wants to be normalized, you know, like.

01:28:33:20 - 01:28:36:11
Speaker 2
Does it does it delegitimize it.

01:28:36:13 - 01:28:44:04
Speaker 1
In a lot of people's eyes, they would just say this, you're just a pervert, you know, you might as well be a pedophile.

01:28:44:06 - 01:28:47:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, but it's not. I mean, it's not the same as being pedophiles.

01:28:47:11 - 01:29:05:22
Speaker 1
Finding clothes, but the mockery, you know, that, these trans excuse, radical feminists terfs as the term that a lot of the transgender community describes, people like J.K. Rowling, you know, it's,

01:29:05:24 - 01:29:07:21
Speaker 1
Paraphilia is are bad.

01:29:07:23 - 01:29:17:16
Speaker 2
So do you think this has led to the rise in trying to normalize transgenderism? And do you believe that's had an impact on vulnerable youth?

01:29:17:18 - 01:29:41:09
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Hi. Yeah. No, I, I, I'm deeply disappointed in the trajectory of the transgender community over the last decade. Yeah, I mean I yeah, I don't I don't want to talk about it right now, but I want to get to the to the Meadows. But that really excited me that I understood what was going on. And, and,

01:29:41:11 - 01:30:23:11
Speaker 1
I had a meeting with this priest and my now ex-wife, and they said, if you cross-dress again, we're going to excommunicate you from the church and encourage divorce. You know, this is September 10th, 2012. Yeah. No way for a month to go now. So, like, I'm trying to get help, guys, like, I'm, I'm literally just waiting for paperwork and they didn't want to hear anything about the I don't affiliate, you know, that I was like, oh, I actually have a diagnosis now that explains, you know, what's going on in my head, why I'm, and shame for so long, you know, and so then I'm on my way back to Walter Reed and the feds.

01:30:23:13 - 01:30:45:19
Speaker 1
They don't listen to me at all. You know? They just wanted to unload. These are the punishments. They didn't really want me to heal. They just want me a white knuckle. Something that I've been dealing with since childhood. And I wrote an email to my the psychology priest that preaches at the moment, and I asked why?

01:30:45:19 - 01:31:10:24
Speaker 1
And I'm like, please don't talk to me. Come near me while I'm waiting to get help. You know, I'm a I'm afraid I'll physically harm you in your presence because I did not feel heard at all. This is not a threat. I signed it with deep love and gratitude. She took that email to get her protective order. And next thing I know, I'm in a courtroom, you know?

01:31:10:24 - 01:31:23:05
Speaker 1
And of course, she was awarded protective order is. No. This guy's got bipolar disorder. He's transgender. The army just took him through a medical board. He's waiting to go to a rehab facility for.

01:31:23:07 - 01:31:24:16
Speaker 2
Definition of unstable.

01:31:24:19 - 01:32:01:13
Speaker 1
Unstable? Absolutely. And so the protective order, awarded gave my wife $6,600 a month of my $7,700 a month paycheck for a year. That was unbelievable. And no child care plan. And we have a son. You know, I didn't even say goodbye to nothing. It was, like, so brutal. And my ex-wife's attorney actually argued for the the payout to her to go up because we had committed to, like $900 a month to the church.

01:32:01:15 - 01:32:18:20
Speaker 1
And the priest was really there testifying against me in court. He he took out the lines saying, I'm afraid I'm going to physically harm you and put it in in a word document said, look at these things that he said. And I'm like defending. I signed it with deep love and gratitude, and I don't want to be in your presence.

01:32:18:22 - 01:32:44:12
Speaker 1
I'm trying to get help. I'm trying to go to the Meadows. After that all happened, the army kind of bent and they said, fine, you can go. So I ended up there, beginning of October, a five week program. They talk about childhood trauma. When I talked about my childhood, they're like, why don't you just transition? And I was like, cause I'll lose my job or lose my spouse.

01:32:44:14 - 01:33:03:10
Speaker 1
My entire social network. I can't do that. We'll fine. We'll look at it as like a sex addiction, you know, in this auto kind of silly, framework. The thing is, like, I don't need anything to masturbate. Like, I don't need any article clothing I don't need. It's just all in my head.

01:33:03:16 - 01:33:07:16
Speaker 2
But what's the definition of sex addiction? What makes it an addiction.

01:33:07:18 - 01:33:12:00
Speaker 1
That you need more and more of it, and you don't get as much of an effect.

01:33:12:00 - 01:33:25:14
Speaker 2
So is that occurring like and are you is the behavior becoming more and more risky and putting yourself at jeopardy? Yeah okay. No no no. Yeah. So it's just another label that doesn't fully fit your experience.

01:33:25:16 - 01:33:42:15
Speaker 1
But I, I was desperate I was desperate for help minus getting surgery going on one of the ones and becoming a social outcast. You know, as a openly transgender woman. And so I went to toss up means for two years leading the meetings,

01:33:42:17 - 01:33:43:06
Speaker 2
As a sex.

01:33:43:06 - 01:33:45:10
Speaker 1
Addict. Yeah.

01:33:45:12 - 01:33:58:13
Speaker 2
And it seems like you're adopting multiple identities based on the professional to have sex. Right? First it's bipolar. Now it's, a sex addiction. Yep. Okay.

01:33:58:15 - 01:34:37:16
Speaker 1
Yeah. And, after my divorce was finalized, this is like, in August of 2014. I had to go to court to get joint custody of my son. You know, a psychiatrist testified for me on a safe, stable, bipolar, you know, patient was going to all set meetings this, you know, the crossdressing stuff isn't in the picture. And so I got joint custody myself, and and, but when a divorce was finalized, which I was still holding on hope that we would be able to reconcile,

01:34:37:18 - 01:34:57:20
Speaker 1
One of the gay members in this whole set me was, like, a sex addict and one sex partner. And you're not in porn. Why are you here? Like, I have so many transgender friends. I'm just like, you know, like, I guess you're right. So I went to this clinic in DC, and they prescribed you, and they helped me change my name and gender legally.

01:34:57:20 - 01:35:10:03
Speaker 1
And they basically I got connected with hundreds, if not thousands of transgender people in the military, like, overnight. And.

01:35:10:05 - 01:35:11:21
Speaker 2
So now you're healed.

01:35:11:23 - 01:35:17:11
Speaker 1
You know. Yeah. The shame is gone. Are you? No, no, no more shame.

01:35:17:13 - 01:35:18:12
Speaker 2
So that's removed.

01:35:18:14 - 01:35:26:21
Speaker 1
That's removed, which, you know, is there's freedom in that.

01:35:26:23 - 01:35:28:14
Speaker 2
What's the other side though?

01:35:28:16 - 01:35:44:06
Speaker 1
The other side is that I was going to be a patient for life, and I didn't really address my underlying, trauma that I experienced both from a bicycle crash, these broken relationships, you know, with my wife.

01:35:44:08 - 01:36:20:10
Speaker 2
You're. Well, your life fundamentally changes through your exposure to the psychiatric system. So you go from what seems to be a, you know, a high functioning physician athlete, with a stable marriage. But has this, this paraphilia. Yeah. Is that the right word? Probably to describe it. Right. And then it turns into it evolves into bipolar disorder, medicated for, family falls apart and transitioning.

01:36:20:12 - 01:36:21:02
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01:36:21:04 - 01:36:24:03
Speaker 2
I mean, that's a pretty dramatic shift.

01:36:24:05 - 01:36:29:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. It took 2008 to 2000, 14.

01:36:29:21 - 01:36:46:05
Speaker 2
Okay. I am interested in what happens psychologically when you do undergo that transition. So you did take hormones? I did. And and then you transition to a female. I want to know, does your quality of your life improve from making that that shift?

01:36:46:07 - 01:36:52:01
Speaker 1
I was in a psych ward within a month for like 3 or 4 days. Yeah.

01:36:52:03 - 01:36:52:24
Speaker 2
So no.

01:36:53:01 - 01:37:11:06
Speaker 1
No, no, I had so much fears as far as coming out that I was doing this with my family, that I was actually transitioning and with my job, because I knew it was not allowed in the military. But the military was kind of in a bind because they were already keeping me with a bipolar diagnosis.

01:37:11:08 - 01:37:40:24
Speaker 1
So and there was an Obama administration and then so thinking someone about gender dysphoria, I was like the poster child test case for someone serving with gender dysphoria. Military. Yeah. You were. And so there were people who were really rooting for me to succeed. I, the psychologist that I was seeing at Walter Reed, a psychiatrist, I was seeing a Walter Reed.

01:37:40:24 - 01:37:58:11
Speaker 1
They were cheering me on with the transition. And, psychologically, I felt great. I was connected to this LGBT community in DC, you know, and invited all the parties and, like, it was amazing dancing all the time.

01:37:58:11 - 01:38:09:08
Speaker 2
And you're loved. Right? So you moved from and and yeah, you moved from an environment of judgment, of being slapped with a mental illness diagnosis to now you're being celebrated.

01:38:09:10 - 01:38:26:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. No. And and, in the midst of that, I met my wife, at Walter Reed. She's a Red cross volunteer waiting to start a anesthesia residency, and we had mutual friends. Well.

01:38:26:08 - 01:38:50:02
Speaker 1
We had a I had a coworker who knew her family, through work outside of the military. And the coworker was an immigrant from Egypt, an Orthodox Christian. She was a first person at work that was like, you transition genders. Genesis. Like in December, 2014. And I'm like, I am. And she's like, look, I talked to my priest and others and like, I don't see any problem with it at all.

01:38:50:02 - 01:39:17:21
Speaker 1
Like, it's, just part of who you are, you know? And this is from an Orthodox Christian woman from Egypt and, and, another woman, from work who was a Christian, you know, converted to Islam, Caucasian, married an Ethiopian man who was Muslim. We became like best friends through our care of wounded warriors and music therapy and art therapy and dance therapy.

01:39:17:23 - 01:39:50:15
Speaker 1
This is before my transition. She was, like, so supportive of me and, and helped kind of navigate the legal, you know, administrative aspects of all of this. So psychologically, I couldn't have been happier other than that admission or the admission was because I stopped the progesterone. I essentially had PMS like it was like a person in a male body experiencing PMS for the first time without having a network of other people who were experiencing it with you and can tell you it's going to be okay.

01:39:50:17 - 01:40:32:06
Speaker 1
But, it and the fear of coming out to my parents and my job. So like while I was in the psych ward, I got a coming out later to my parents that I was actually transitioning. And I don't know if it when I met my, my wife, she didn't care about my gender at all. It was bizarre to me, you know, and I think she would have said at the time she was bisexual and, she witnessed how I cared for patients in the hospital, and taking time to listen to them, I treated all comers.

01:40:32:09 - 01:40:50:05
Speaker 1
I would take the worst cases, you know, people that were like a ticking time bomb. So angry at the medical establishment and I'd be happy to see them, you know, and I felt like I was, like, diffusing bombs, you know, people that were so angry, because I would allow them to vent their anger and not be defensive.

01:40:50:07 - 01:40:52:00
Speaker 1
Yeah.

01:40:52:02 - 01:40:58:22
Speaker 2
The power of being listened to. Right. But the power of of trying, of being understood and the power of human connection.

01:40:58:24 - 01:41:20:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. And so that's how I practice medicine. And my, my wife witnessed that and fell in love with me. And I thought she was very attractive, too. I over that period of time on hormones, didn't know where I would end up, men or with women. I went on some dates with some men, some dates with women, and you know, I didn't.

01:41:20:08 - 01:41:49:22
Speaker 1
I don't really know where I would land. But my wife and I got pretty serious pretty quickly, and, she met my family, like in Florida mid-May of 2015. We met in March, and I met her family because they were local in Maryland, and she seemed to fit in really well and with my family, despite being from the Soviet Union.

01:41:49:24 - 01:41:50:20
Speaker 2
She's from the Soviet.

01:41:50:20 - 01:42:19:18
Speaker 1
Union and came to the United States via Italy. She was there for two years after the Soviet collapse in the United States when she was ten years old. And, Yeah, it was it was like a love for life, like animals, kids, nature, all of all these things. And had religious beliefs that weren't judgmental and constricting, suffocating, similar to the Egyptian mold.

01:42:19:18 - 01:42:45:14
Speaker 1
And it just it was like seeing religion in a different way than even an Episcopalian. It was being more celebrates, LGBT, you know, they don't have the flag, you know, you know, the front yard of the of the church or the docks weren't like that. They're like, God is mysterious, you know, and like, we're all on our own trying to try to understand God, and that's okay, you know?

01:42:45:14 - 01:42:53:12
Speaker 1
And as long as you're on the journey to to know God better, you're welcome here. You don't have to take a political stance.

01:42:53:14 - 01:43:03:13
Speaker 2
So just, again, open, loving, respectful, like almost professing, some of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

01:43:03:13 - 01:43:31:23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was blown away. And we got engaged on June 26th, 2015, the day of the Obergefell decision, not same sex marriage being allowed in United States across the land. And we got engaged the same day. And part of that engagement is that I would go off hormones, you know, not with the intention that I would never go back on hormones because I felt good on them.

01:43:31:23 - 01:43:59:07
Speaker 1
Other than that period of time, the first month, I like the changes in my body. You know, I felt that I looked attracted a lot of the pictures in the media or after I've been off off performance for a year or two. But I was celebrating, you know, and I was in the media with BuzzFeed and MSNBC and other networks, and, it just.

01:43:59:07 - 01:44:03:12
Speaker 2
First known openly transgender active duty officer in the United States.

01:44:03:13 - 01:44:24:12
Speaker 1
So I was able to get my gender marker changed in the system that we used in military use, a court order from DC that changed my gender, in my name. And so that that all happened very quickly. We got married in September 27th of 2015. So we met in March, engaged in January, September, and we'll be celebrating ten years.

01:44:24:14 - 01:44:28:02
Speaker 2
And so you get off hormones upon being married.

01:44:28:04 - 01:44:28:23
Speaker 1
Being engaged.

01:44:28:23 - 01:44:29:14
Speaker 2
Being engaged.

01:44:29:17 - 01:44:32:02
Speaker 1
You want to have kids. Okay. Biological reality.

01:44:32:06 - 01:44:35:05
Speaker 2
Yes. And do you then transition back to being male?

01:44:35:07 - 01:44:36:02
Speaker 1
Not yet.

01:44:36:04 - 01:44:42:11
Speaker 2
Okay. And what's what's that like for you where you're not on hormones but you're presenting as Jamie. Well.

01:44:42:13 - 01:45:16:16
Speaker 1
It was awful, you know, because, I was sort of caught in this conundrum where, I, there were a lot more male attributes, you know, just my physical body, my testosterone shot up, and, and I didn't feel good at all, but I was doing it because I wanted to have children with my wife. I didn't like how I looked in the mirror, and I didn't like how I felt.

01:45:16:18 - 01:45:33:13
Speaker 1
It was until the summer of 2016, and I was like, I wonder what you look like in male clothes, you know? So a year later, after I stopped hormones. So we went to Starbucks together, Barnes and Noble, and I'm wearing some clothes that I had on the trash bag, and I'm, like, holding her hand, and I'm kissing her in public.

01:45:33:15 - 01:45:54:08
Speaker 1
And she was living in Pittsburgh at the time, but we were in Maryland, and that happened. And I would take my son on the weekends. I had them on the Pittsburgh, and I presented male after that, and I'm rolling in the grass with him and like, just playing, you know, and my wife was like, you know, you're a lot more affection in public and more playful.

01:45:54:09 - 01:46:36:07
Speaker 1
Your side we present male. You know, this was in the summer of 2016. Yeah. You're right. And then the ban got lifted. Around that time and. I made the choice. And I regret it now, in the fall of 2016, to continue to be basically a political activist, you know, on I. I regret that because I think I was in a place where I could have been comfortable presenting male, you know, in the fall of 2016 because of just the different ways that I had been.

01:46:36:09 - 01:46:42:16
Speaker 2
But in that type of in that type of political climate, what are the ramifications of transitioning?

01:46:42:18 - 01:47:01:16
Speaker 1
I had no idea. Lose my job. Yeah. And then all of this media stuff that I was in 2015, what were you honestly. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I was at the time. I mean, son speaking from the heart and from my experience. Yeah.

01:47:01:18 - 01:47:18:17
Speaker 2
I'm trying to imagine the degree of identity confusion that creates, but also fear because you're celebrated as an activist. You're a national figure and you're being supported by a large community.

01:47:18:19 - 01:47:41:08
Speaker 1
So this is what's wild. So I had stopped hormones in June of 2015. I stopped in December of 2015. So I had persuaded the psychiatric establishment. But I wasn't bipolar at all. Never had it. It was all genders for you the whole time. And they accepted it. Yeah. And I was like so now I've made a point where I can get back.

01:47:41:08 - 01:47:58:13
Speaker 2
Because now it fit, now it fits in their ideology. Right. Because you see these psychiatric diagnoses they become in vogue at different periods of our culture. Right. And now gender dysphoria is in vogue. And now that discredits bipolar disorder. You were just suffering.

01:47:58:15 - 01:48:08:05
Speaker 1
So you can have bipolar disorder and gender dysphoria, you know, but I was again, using the DSM. I mean, like, I never really met criteria for bipolar disorder back in 2012.

01:48:08:07 - 01:48:13:16
Speaker 2
And you have a lot more credibility now as a, as a transgender activist.

01:48:13:18 - 01:48:14:03
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah.

01:48:14:07 - 01:48:18:07
Speaker 2
Right. Like people would, would fear you.

01:48:18:09 - 01:48:21:23
Speaker 1
Because I have connections in the media and politicians.

01:48:22:00 - 01:48:31:17
Speaker 2
And everyone. Everyone's afraid of being transphobic. You're you're afraid of being racist because that's how we deal with these issues in our culture.

01:48:31:19 - 01:48:59:12
Speaker 1
When in fact, I'm just developing a new identity as a husband and a father. Yeah, and finding joy and holding my wife's hand in public and rolling in the grass with my son and realizing, you know what? I don't have to do this. I don't have to be a patient the rest of my life. If I can find joy in those moments, why do I need to take medication and have surgery that's going to sterilize me across my life, and I'm literally watch out.

01:48:59:12 - 01:49:02:03
Speaker 2
You're starting to think independently.

01:49:02:05 - 01:49:34:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. So then Trump gets elected in 2016 and and then he his famous, you know, tweet of kicking out all transgender members of his in July of 2017. You know, what are you going to do and know I'm still on as political activist, sort of like grasping for some relevance. And when I have a son who was just born in June of 2017 with a lot of medical potential, medical issues, you know, my wife's on maternity leave, I was like, I can't do anything with me.

01:49:34:15 - 01:49:55:08
Speaker 1
I have got to focus on my wife, my son. And so I didn't take any interviews after that tweet, you know, and I was I was angry about the whole situation. But at the same time, like I was fighting to, I was like, here's even more reason for me to fight to be deployable. All right. So this is your active duty.

01:49:55:10 - 01:50:16:13
Speaker 1
You want to be the blue one is your deployment means you can go anywhere in the world into an austere environment. And for me as a doctor, provide medical care. I'm not a medication, so they can't use that against me. And I no longer have the bipolar diagnosis and they can't use that against me. So I volunteered for a deployment to Mosul, Iraq after that tweet.

01:50:16:15 - 01:50:26:03
Speaker 1
That was my rebellion. And I went to treatment unit for Irwin in California in February, of 2018.

01:50:26:05 - 01:50:27:11
Speaker 2
Presenting is male.

01:50:27:13 - 01:50:28:03
Speaker 1
You know.

01:50:28:05 - 01:50:28:18
Speaker 2
That's female.

01:50:28:22 - 01:50:56:05
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I present female at work. It's honestly it's gender neutral. Like you're in the military, you're wearing camouflage, you know, but, but I would wear makeup, and I grew my hair out, you know, and I, Yeah. So many things I regret. So anything. Right. But I find out, I ran the Boston Marathon, I think, in 2018 as a woman.

01:50:56:07 - 01:51:05:21
Speaker 1
Okay. And, it was in this woman's running magazine, and there were people that had fully transitioned that it was like the first year that the Boston Marathon approved transgender women to run.

01:51:05:23 - 01:51:06:23
Speaker 2
What do you think about that now?

01:51:06:24 - 01:51:30:19
Speaker 1
I regret it 100%. You know, it's not that I didn't have the times to run it as a male either. I mean, it's just it's unfair. It's unfair. It's unfair on many levels. Yeah. And and I regret it deeply. You know, that I did it in 2018, but the Sunday before the race, it was on a Monday. I find out that they didn't approve me to the point because there are no transgender support groups in Iraq.

01:51:30:21 - 01:51:45:19
Speaker 1
So I've been attending this transgender support group, helping, you know, like run the group. But it would go on my medical record that I was attending these meetings and like this ridiculous. You're not going to let me deploy because there's not a transgender support group in Mosul.

01:51:45:21 - 01:51:58:10
Speaker 2
The fragile ization of of people, always shocks me, right? Like, the only way you could be okay is if you had a support group present, like you could. You could not cope in any other way.

01:51:58:12 - 01:52:24:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I've been off medications at that point for two and a half years. We're not going to point. And so instead they sent me to Fort Bragg and and right before I'm in Fort Bragg, I was invited to speak at the Pentagon for Pride in June of 2018 on courage. And so I accepted the invitation, and I gave a presentation and my presentation was, it's online.

01:52:24:03 - 01:52:30:18
Speaker 1
You can watch it. Was.

01:52:30:20 - 01:52:56:06
Speaker 1
Being a transgender doctor in the military is a lot like. And I used a quote from an existentialist philosopher from France. So while that I'll it's a lot like being a butterfly trout and collection and down but still alive, you know, and wanting to learn because I still had this calling, I thought to be a doctor, an austere environment.

01:52:56:06 - 01:53:26:14
Speaker 1
I still saw people, wounded warriors, you know, from Afghanistan. And yet, and I love my son, and I still love my ex-wife. You know, I had conflicted feelings about that divorce, you know, and and it, And now I have a new wife that I love deeply, and and I have a new son, you know, and I just felt so trapped in this political environment.

01:53:26:16 - 01:53:59:21
Speaker 1
And so I talked about, suicide prevention, and and I talked about, you know, how to the question is why? Why should we live, you know, and and I ended up, you know, towards the end being like, I need to find someone who knows more than me that can train me to do meaningful life, you know? And for me, right now, it's Jesus Christ, you know, and I seen as a pride at the Pentagon dressed as a woman, by the way.

01:53:59:23 - 01:54:25:02
Speaker 1
So I got sent, later that summer without my family, they couldn't come. And, I drove back and forth between Fort Bragg and Rockville, Maryland for four years. Every week, 338 miles. Leave Monday morning, 230 in the morning to get to work by 730. You know, I leave at 430 in the afternoon on Friday to get home at 930 to pick up my son from his mom so we could spend the weekend together.

01:54:25:04 - 01:54:37:07
Speaker 1
I listen to over 130 books, listen to a lot of podcasts, and hours a week in the car. One of them was Carl Young's autobiography, and that actually is what helped me the most. But.

01:54:37:09 - 01:54:38:18
Speaker 2
Actually reading that right now.

01:54:38:20 - 01:55:03:16
Speaker 1
No way. Yeah. That's incredible. So his discussion about animal and animal, so I was like, you know what? There's nothing wrong. I, I can have animals and animals. I don't need to be afraid of it anymore. And on top of that, my wife would tell people, Janie is the most masculine and feminine person I know. And I'm like, what greater compliment than that?

01:55:03:16 - 01:55:15:22
Speaker 1
I'm. I'm an integrated person. I can be a compassionate, dense, filled person. You can also want to go to war and protect my family and my country. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with either of those things.

01:55:15:22 - 01:55:20:17
Speaker 2
So these identity markers, these labels, you think they ultimately harm our society?

01:55:20:17 - 01:55:23:02
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Yeah. But what about.

01:55:23:04 - 01:55:47:18
Speaker 2
I mean, this is a cautionary tale for so many. I'm curious to know, you know, if you could go back and, and, do it all over again, right. And let's say you could choose how the environment responded to you, your family, your culture, your military, your country. What do you think you needed and how do you how would it have changed the trajectory?

01:55:47:20 - 01:56:09:22
Speaker 1
I mean, I, I needed a safe place where I knew I wouldn't be ostracized to express what I was dealing with, you know, free of shame and judgment. I mean, I think that's where we all. That's what we want when we see a psychologist or we see a psychiatrist or we see a primary care doctor. It's just these are so rare to find.

01:56:09:24 - 01:56:28:24
Speaker 1
And, and even within my family unit, I was afraid because of the religious upbringing that I had that would be rejected. And and oddly enough, I was rejected by my in-laws, but I wasn't by my biological family. My dad is my best friend. Right? When he retired from, he got a seminary degree and his last paper was on transgenderism in the evangelical church.

01:56:28:24 - 01:56:58:21
Speaker 1
He's read more about it than I have. I mean, probably 30 books, stories. Today, even though, like, you know, I detransition it's still a topic of interest to him and understand them. Me because he loves me. And like that, knowing that I'm a beloved son is really was the gateway to heal everything else, to be rooted and established and love by your own biological father.

01:56:58:21 - 01:57:23:05
Speaker 1
But also, in my estimation, my career. That is where the healing really happened for me. And then having a healthy marriage that could withstand a storm of the federal government, you know, and to have these beautiful boys that we brought into the world and to see the joy and then as we jump on the trampoline doing our affirmations before school, you know it, we do these affirmations.

01:57:23:05 - 01:57:32:12
Speaker 1
And the first one is I am loved. We do it on trampoline, holding hands, and we do probably 30 different ones. I mean, you are love. We do. We are loved.

01:57:32:14 - 01:57:39:01
Speaker 2
Are you are you comfortable in your body? As James, at this stage in your life?

01:57:39:03 - 01:58:07:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, there are some residual. I mean, I'd say like 99%. You know, I there are times when I'm not in a good place, you know, with, with my, with my current wife especially, you know, where I'm just like, I want to escape, you know, or with the federal government, you know, I had to work through that, you know, like the escape for me was becoming a woman.

01:58:08:14 - 01:58:13:18
Speaker 2
So you think there's a part of, like, a coping mechanism there about not dealing with your reality?

01:58:13:18 - 01:58:17:18
Speaker 1
Correct. Absolutely. So for me it was a post. Yeah. Very elaborate post.

01:58:17:20 - 01:58:48:07
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean it speaks to the complicated nature of all this. And you know, what we've done in our culture to try to put people into categories and develop identity markers. Often we I mean, often is just does a disservice to them and doesn't speak to the complexity of this. I just think about young developing adolescents right now and the push to, prevent puberty or to transition before you can even consent, and how how evil that is because of the implications.

01:58:48:07 - 01:58:51:15
Speaker 2
I mean, it's really an anti-human perspective.

01:58:51:17 - 01:59:09:08
Speaker 1
Yeah. No, it is like I, I have met so many wonderful transgender people, you know, so many wonderful people in the LGBT community. But I will say not one stood with me during the hardest time of my life. You know, in 2012 or 2022, you know.

01:59:09:10 - 01:59:28:01
Speaker 2
What happened there? And this, I mean, this is I'm looking at time here for, for both of us. So and I and I know there's could be some pending litigation and, I don't want this to be the central focus of our of our podcast, and I actually what the messages. But this gets a lot more complicated, doesn't it?

01:59:28:01 - 01:59:31:07
Speaker 1
Does the stakes get higher? Yeah.

01:59:31:09 - 01:59:33:11
Speaker 2
What happened 2022?

01:59:33:13 - 01:59:44:01
Speaker 1
My wife and I were federally indicted for, supposedly allegedly wanted to maliciously harm the United States using private health information.

01:59:44:03 - 01:59:45:02
Speaker 2
What does that mean?

01:59:45:04 - 02:00:09:07
Speaker 1
I don't know, it was a it was a theory by a prosecutor in Baltimore, who somehow I got an email my wife sent from her Johns Hopkins work account to the Russian embassy saying we are for life and we don't want to cut Russia off from the international community. When she said reason that me and my husband the same day that she wrote that email on March 1st, 2022, I wrote to doctor's orders.

02:00:09:11 - 02:00:39:08
Speaker 1
My ten year prison sentence was ending. I knew in August of 2022, and I had lined up a job to work in emergency room at Johns Hopkins. Doctors Without Borders is a very appealing organization for us to use our skills to help in an environment where everyone's running away and and so for six months, the FBI spied on us, found nothing negative, and then created a sting operation where they pretended to be a Russian intelligence to try to extract medical records from us.

02:00:39:10 - 02:01:05:02
Speaker 1
And the next thing you know, in a, in the news is there's a federal indictment. Two doctors in Baltimore wanted to maliciously harm the United States, sharing private medical records with Russia. It was. Oh, and by the way, the first transgender army officer is one of the doctors. And, despite everything I've been through, I love the United States.

02:01:05:02 - 02:01:22:09
Speaker 1
I love our Bill of rights. I love that we have checks and balances. I would not be a free man if there were no checks and balances in the Bill of rights. And, I'm proud of the care that I gave thousands of combat veterans at Walter Reed.

02:01:22:11 - 02:01:24:17
Speaker 2
So what is the evidence they had against you?

02:01:24:19 - 02:01:48:08
Speaker 1
They photographed some of my handwritten notes that I had done years before at Fort Bragg, because I had already left Fort Bragg in July. The sting was in August. I had nothing on me. They were extracting these records with threatening our family, threatening Anna's family in Russia, threatening our children. My marriage was threatened by this entire situation of Russian intelligence trying to get us.

02:01:48:10 - 02:01:52:21
Speaker 2
Was there a concern that you were a Russian asset or your wife was a Russian asset?

02:01:52:23 - 02:02:13:24
Speaker 1
Yeah, but that's what the federal government thought about both of us. Despite spying on us for six months and having no evidence of that, they created this environment where we felt threatened and coerced for them to take photographs of frivolous records of no one of importance. They couldn't even identify them without the Army's help, because I used a DoD ID number, not a Social Security number.

02:02:13:24 - 02:02:33:10
Speaker 1
And on a first day, you know, it was a DoD ID number. And I knew that when I took the photo that they would not be able to find these people. But of course, it was the FBI and was already kind of intelligence. And because my wife saw the camera that the undercover agent had on the very first visit, she was afraid that this was not someone from the Russian embassy.

02:02:33:10 - 02:02:39:07
Speaker 1
This was this was FSB. And this is dangerous. Yeah.

02:02:39:09 - 02:02:43:04
Speaker 2
Did you and your wife still have relationships back in her homeland?

02:02:43:04 - 02:02:57:14
Speaker 1
And she has three living grandparents. Okay. And she has a great aunt in Ukraine. Innumerable. She has family, both sides. You've been helping Ukraine for two years. Her best friend at work was a Ukrainian doctor at Johns Hopkins that she helped for two years. Like, for her, it's a civil war.

02:02:57:16 - 02:03:01:19
Speaker 2
So do you think this was paranoia on the side of the the United States government?

02:03:01:20 - 02:03:04:10
Speaker 1
I don't know, we'll find out. Yeah.

02:03:04:12 - 02:03:06:07
Speaker 2
So where things stand now.

02:03:06:09 - 02:03:32:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. You know, we've retained an attorney to hopefully, find out answers. You know what? What beyond what's publicly known as far as the constitutional rights that were violated and the acts of Congress that were violated by the DOJ that led to the dismissal of the case with prejudice, we we believe that there are other constitutional rights that were also violated, like the other laws that were violated to create the sting operation and target us.

02:03:32:08 - 02:04:02:05
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, your story, where there's violation of US citizens rights by the US federal government is is becoming very public news right now. And a lot of major podcasts where people are talking about where their, their own rights were, were violated, set up, you know, stings to try to garner information against US citizens that were somehow were, you know, identified as a threat to the to the establishment.

02:04:02:05 - 02:04:05:08
Speaker 1
There is no way these medical records could be used on the United States.

02:04:05:10 - 02:04:07:15
Speaker 2
And that doesn't make sense. I don't understand.

02:04:07:17 - 02:04:10:18
Speaker 1
The federal indictment didn't even make sense on its face.

02:04:10:21 - 02:04:12:01
Speaker 2
Do you think there's more to this?

02:04:12:05 - 02:04:14:04
Speaker 1
Absolutely, absolutely.

02:04:14:08 - 02:04:17:12
Speaker 2
What? What are we missing here? What am I missing?

02:04:17:14 - 02:04:39:18
Speaker 1
Yeah. So, During the pandemic, I violated the 50 mile radius from Fort Bragg. So the general gentle crawl is certainly complimentary. Restricted everyone to 50 miles within Fort Bragg. Unless you lived in Raleigh. And you could you could drive to a populated city in Raleigh and spread the virus. But if your family lived in Rockville, you couldn't.

02:04:39:21 - 02:04:45:10
Speaker 1
Why? Raleigh? Because a lot of people live in Holly and work at Fort Bragg. Okay. Our community.

02:04:45:12 - 02:04:46:01
Speaker 2
Okay.

02:04:46:03 - 02:05:06:03
Speaker 1
Yeah. So anyway, I, I had already been driving back and forth for two years and, you know, my custody of my joint custody and my son and I was just home for spring break in March of 2000, 20. And, my ex-wife said, if you come up and try to get in, I'm not, I'm going to report you to the Army.

02:05:06:08 - 02:05:28:00
Speaker 1
If you're driving back for me, go right ahead of any doctor. And so I drove up to Maryland, as I did every weekend for four years, and she reported me to the inspector general at Fort Bragg. That was a national security threat, because I'm driving up to have my son for a spring break, so I don't know if that's what.

02:05:28:00 - 02:05:47:09
Speaker 1
Open it up. I also reported two patient deaths at Fort Bragg that happened because of neglect of behavior. We pretended like we had a dialysis machine and we did it. And a patient died. And then there was a, handoff mutation in the E.R. to an interventional cardiologist. And, they didn't tell them that they had this patient.

02:05:47:09 - 02:06:12:09
Speaker 1
They've gotten two years of fluids and basically suffocated on these fluids in an interventional radiology suite. Complete neglect, malpractice. And I was part of the quality service division at that point, and no one in the hospital was doing anything about either of these holding anyone accountable. So I reported it to the Joint Commission, and I don't know if that, as a whistleblower, 2021 led to this, or was it just the email that my wife sent to the residency?

02:06:12:09 - 02:06:33:06
Speaker 1
I don't I don't think it was because I follow someone for six months, find that something negative and then gone to doctors, you know, to get them convicted. It just makes no sense. I like some anesthesiologist who hasn't done an epidural in three years. I was relieving a few doctors from having to care for people already in an emergency room.

02:06:33:06 - 02:06:45:20
Speaker 1
That was my job as an internist. Was there really useful things in society there? I mean, human suffering? Well, I played for ten micro Russian spies. It was bizarre. There has to be more to.

02:06:46:01 - 02:06:50:01
Speaker 2
Yeah, this must be surreal for you. Are you scared?

02:06:50:03 - 02:07:16:13
Speaker 1
Not right now. I mean, there's so many other things going on in the world to be afraid of the Middle East and things from Russia and whatever else. I mean, it's there's a lot of other existential things that to me, afraid of. Then the human dynamics and what's going on in that space.

02:07:16:15 - 02:07:25:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, but I mean, treason, right? Ultimately there's a there's this treacherous and like, where can the U.S. government take this?

02:07:25:11 - 02:07:28:18
Speaker 1
It's dismissed with prejudice. And they can't appeal it.

02:07:28:24 - 02:07:30:03
Speaker 2
They cannot appeal it.

02:07:30:05 - 02:07:44:05
Speaker 1
They put it under notice that they were going to appeal the judge's decision, dismissing it because they violated the Classified Information Procedures Act and their speedy trial. And, but they withdrew their appeal, three months later. And so it's done.

02:07:44:07 - 02:07:44:23
Speaker 2
It is done.

02:07:45:04 - 02:07:47:02
Speaker 1
Yeah. On their end going after us.

02:07:47:08 - 02:07:48:19
Speaker 2
Got it. Okay.

02:07:48:21 - 02:07:51:15
Speaker 1
Not done. And going after them.

02:07:51:17 - 02:07:55:04
Speaker 2
Understood. Okay. That that makes more sense. Why you wouldn't be scared.

02:07:55:06 - 02:08:19:20
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I mean, is the FBI. Am I on some list somewhere? Almost certainly. You know, I would I like to get off that list. Absolutely. Yeah. I served our country for two decades. I'm not a threat to anyone. I wasn't a threat. My grandfather served in World War two. My father served in World War one. I think I deserve to be treated like any other American.

02:08:20:01 - 02:08:26:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. Despite being a woman who was a naturalized citizen. Two kids, you know. So.

02:08:26:14 - 02:09:09:02
Speaker 2
Yeah, I want to reflect a little bit on this episode, which, of course, is your life. And I'm deeply appreciated, deeply appreciate your willingness to be vulnerable and share a lot of these details. I guess what are some of the the takeaways from you now as, just as a medical professional who works in this culture and understands the unique challenges that the LGBT community faces, how it intersects also with conservative America, what ultimately is the most compassionate and ethical way to be able to respond to people who are suffering and and just struggles with their gender identity?

02:09:09:04 - 02:09:28:14
Speaker 1
I think a big part is patients with a with a seek and in that research have shown a lot of these kids that struggle their identity, you know, they, they don't like 90% or something of we sweetest studies like it's once they grow up and they get get through puberty. You know I struggle through my period. You know, I struggle.

02:09:28:14 - 02:09:52:02
Speaker 1
I wasn't at all, you know, but it took learning new things and new it and having new experiences to heal. Some of that deep time that I experienced as a kid. There's scars, you know, and scars, in my opinion, just shared that you've lived, you know, and and they can be beautiful, you know, and there's nothing wrong with having scars.

02:09:52:04 - 02:10:17:18
Speaker 1
But these big gaping wounds, there are predatory people out there that can make those wounds worse and fester and go gangrene. And you want to have the wisdom to know who the predators are from, who is not in a predator and creating a knowing that it's just really hard to trust right now. It's really hard to trust after the pandemic.

02:10:17:23 - 02:10:41:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. And that politics is not getting so intertwined with health care that it's hard to know what is, what's true and and what's not and what's helpful and what's not helpful, you know, so patience, I think, is the key for all of this because I think it will we will find a way forward, not today, but five years, ten years, 20 years down the road.

02:10:41:21 - 02:11:10:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, a lot of this is common sense. And in so many ways, I started a nonprofit that really focuses on informed consent and medical freedom. And the further we deviate from giving a person time and having acceptance for the struggle that they are going through, and having patience and love and compassion for that person, the further we get away from that, and we rush to pathologize medical eyes and drug, the sicker we become as a society.

02:11:10:12 - 02:11:35:18
Speaker 2
And so much about your story could have been alleviated. The problems that you've actually had to face would have been alleviated with with time and understanding and some support, humility. Listen on both sides. Mistakes are made. And what happens when you start interacting with medical professionals and you feel like that person is your enemy? Well, then it's just human nature to to become defensive and protect yourself.

02:11:35:20 - 02:11:42:10
Speaker 2
And it just sets up a dynamic between a professional and a patient, which is antithetical to.

02:11:42:24 - 02:12:05:00
Speaker 2
What a healer should be. Right? And somehow we have devolved into that as a society where we are setting up a relationship between healers and patients that is divisive. And that's a that's a direct consequences of the assembly line health care that exists, you know, ten minute appointments, quick diagnoses.

02:12:05:02 - 02:12:10:06
Speaker 1
Possible that to create an intimate doctor patient relationship and.

02:12:10:08 - 02:12:32:07
Speaker 2
And we're just we've become disconnected from nature. We become disconnected from each other. And there's a lot of what you shared today, which was wisdom about love and the importance of, caring for each other and hearing and hearing each other and understanding each other without without the labels, without the diagnoses, without the divisiveness, and ultimately, here you are.

02:12:32:07 - 02:13:00:05
Speaker 2
And you can be open. Yes, struggles exist, but I'm also understand myself better, right? You understand yourself as when things become challenging and stressful that you have an urge or a desire to want to escape that reality. And there's a way in which that that's that's done. But this is also rooted into a very young age, that when you wanted to experience things that were natural to you, including dance and art, that feminine side of you was judged.

02:13:00:07 - 02:13:26:23
Speaker 2
And so a deep rooted shame becomes, I think, a core of all these aspects of the self that leads you to hate yourself. And these things are so important for good therapists to understand that. Unfortunately, I feel like the education system for many therapists is pseudo indoctrination. And, it we need to get back to some of these core mechanisms of what does it means to be a healer.

02:13:27:00 - 02:13:29:21
Speaker 1
Same in other school. Yeah.

02:13:29:22 - 02:13:43:09
Speaker 2
Well, Doctor James Henry, I mean, I really do feel grateful that you, you know, you drove out here and you had the willingness to tell your story most certainly was a radically genuine conversation. Thank you.