How to ReWrite Your Mental Health Story When Your Physical Health Fails with Angie Read Author of Invisible Scars

[00:00:00] Brad: Humor. We're blessed today to have an incredible author guest with us today. Her name is, uh, Angie Reed. She is the author of a book about overcoming and dealing with, uh, with the impact of stroke called Invisible Scars. And her, her latest book is called Identity Crisis, which has to do with overcoming challenges in her career.

[00:00:21] Brad: She's also a life coach. Uh, Angie Reed, welcome. Uh, welcome to our conversation today. Oh, thanks

[00:00:28] Angie: so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

[00:00:30] Brad: You mentioned to me about a stepfather who really touched your life and kind of, um, helped you kind of set the tone in your life to see things in a life a little differently than the, uh, than a present bad circumstance.

[00:00:45] Brad: Tell a little bit about, uh, your uncle, your uncle and how he, or I mean, your, uh, stepfather and how he touched your life.

[00:00:50] Angie: My stepfather came into my life when I was. And then we had him for six years and, but he passed away from cancer, [00:01:00] um, in the, in 1985. So I was 15 and so it was very formative years that he was a part of my life and he was such an important, important person in my life.

[00:01:12] Angie: He always had the best sense of humor. I mean, it was one, it was definitely the epitome of dad jokes, um, before anybody called them that we used to call them just Charlie jokes. And I, I wish I could remember anything specifically, but they were so bad. We always cringed and we like, Oh, Charlie. That's, you know, and, um, he always made us laugh even in his depths of sickness.

[00:01:36] Angie: So he had to have his leg amputated up above his hip bone. And so had to, you know, walk with crutches. He wasn't able to get a prosthetic fitted, um, but he always had his crutches with him, even if he was lying in the hospital bed in our living room, which is where he, we had him for most of the time. So he could be a part of the family activity and the comings and goings instead of back in his [00:02:00] bedroom.

[00:02:00] Angie: And I would lay on the living room floor watching TV with him and sometimes he would just lean over and take his crutch and kind of poke me under the armpit.

[00:02:10] Brad: Did you find that, did you find, was your, were you annoyed by that or was it just, uh, there's Charlie again or whatever that kind of thing?

[00:02:18] Angie: Yeah.

[00:02:18] Angie: Well, you'd think I would be annoyed as a teenager. Um, but no, it always made me laugh. And I just, I always loved the fact that he was able to bring humor to, to some pretty. Horrible situations. Um, he always had the best sense of not only humor, but just always looking at the bright side of things and helping me like, look at the bright side of things when I was, when I was younger and growing up, and I think that that set the tone for the rest of my life.

[00:02:46] Brad: And you've, it's been a neat, it's a sound like that setting the tone. You said he passed away and you were 15. So this was, you know, some pretty formative times in your life. And a lot of times those things that happened to us earlier in life helped to set indeed set the tone [00:03:00] for what happens later, because later in life, uh, You were having some success in your career and some things were cruising along relatively well, and you had some difficulties to, uh, some challenges to, to deal with at a pretty young age.

[00:03:13] Brad: So, uh,

[00:03:14] Angie: Yeah. So at the age of 46, I had a massive right side ischemic stroke. Um, just one morning, I, you know, I was going about my daily life. I was an active, healthy, otherwise healthy mom and, um, career woman and very, very focused on my career for the most part. And woke up one morning, was determined to get up and go to...

[00:03:35] Angie: Work like I normally did, but I couldn't get out of bed. It was very confusing. I mean, at the time it's like, why am I not able to get out of bed? And I was jerking the bed a little bit, trying to get myself up and out of the bed, your mind isn't processing like, Oh, Hey, my left side isn't working. So I'm not able to get up.

[00:03:54] Angie: It's just, I was just confused. Like, why am I not getting up? And my husband, I woke him up [00:04:00] because I was jerking the bed and he said, what are you doing? And I said, I'm trying to get up and take a shower. Uh, he said, you sound like you're drunk. Are you drunk? And I said, well, it's 6 30 in the morning. I'm, I'm not drunk now.

[00:04:13] Angie: And then he was kind of confused and he said, well, you sound drunk. I'm going to get up. He got up and turned on the light and saw that the left side of my face was had the telltale signs of a stroke drooping. And so called 9 1 1 and I just went through all the process of going to the emergency room and then being taken to a specialty hospital here in Kansas City, uh, St.

[00:04:34] Angie: Luke's that specializes in stroke treatment. And I had to have an emergency thrombectomy, which is a laser guided scope surgery that they go in through your artery and your groin and the laser guided scope goes all the way up into your brain, pokes through the clot and pulls it out. Um. I was able to have that.

[00:04:55] Angie: It was a life saving surgery to be sure with probably within an hour of [00:05:00] my husband noticing my symptoms. I don't know how long it was after that, but it was very shortly after that. I was in the ICU, the neuro ICU, and the nurse was asking me to raise my left arm and I was able to raise it, which was crazy because it just like felt like minutes before I had no.

[00:05:18] Angie: control over my left side. And so this was, this was hugely, um, unexpected because like I said, I was a healthy, active woman, didn't have any of the risk factors. It just, it hit me out of the blue. Um, and I had to be on short term disability for quite a while.

[00:05:35] Brad: What a shock, you know, what a shock to not only you, but your husband and you.

[00:05:40] Brad: You said you had children, uh, and that the, and you had to deal, deal with it with your workplace and other things as well. It had to be just throw your world upside down, right?

[00:05:49] Angie: Yeah. The first thing on my mind that morning, which is crazy was I have to call in to work, I have to call in and let them know I'm not going to be there.

[00:05:58] Angie: And then I was thinking, you know, [00:06:00] as the paramedics were taking me out of the house, I was concerned that, like, my oldest son was 18 was getting ready to go to college in a few in a month from that. And, um, he was able to help me. And watch me so I wouldn't get out of bed as my husband was calling 911 because I was so determined to get up and go to work.

[00:06:20] Angie: Um, this is how much of a work drive I had. And, um, and then I was concerned about my kids. My middle son, who was gosh, he was 16 at the time, came out of his room just as the paramedics were taking me down the stairs. And so that had to have been. For him, of course, and then my daughter who was going into eighth grade was slept through the whole thing and didn't have that, you know, experience and wasn't didn't have to watch.

[00:06:49] Brad: Yeah. Wow. God bless her. I miss all that. My goodness.

[00:06:53] Angie: I can only imagine that those memories are kind of singed into their brains because I know some of my memories from my stepdad [00:07:00] going through his cancer treatment and cancer, you know, all of the, the craziness that came along with this treatment and being in hospice in the house and all of that is burned in my brain.

[00:07:09] Angie: So I,

[00:07:10] Brad: yeah, there's sadness enveloped with shock and enveloped with, um, the upheaval of your. life and you're concerned about your kids. You're concerned about your work at the, at, at the time. And, uh, and that your body is just shutting down and they had to go through these, I mean, my goodness, dramatic procedures within a very short timeframe after.

[00:07:34] Brad: Discovering that you were sick and uh, so that was just sort of kind of the start of the process though, wasn't it? I mean you had to get through the crisis of the moment and then you had to go through the process of how do you live your life and how do you recover because uh, I've been around enough people involved with strokes that um, sometimes they come back quickly and sometimes they don't and Sometimes not at all.

[00:07:57] Brad: How did that play out for you the recovery [00:08:00] of those?

[00:08:00] Angie: Well, since I got such quick, early intervention and had the clocks, clots removed so early, I did not have as much of the scar tissue on my brain as many do, and I didn't have as many lasting physical deficits. So I did go to rehab daily for about sometimes up to 3 hours a day, where I would just do back to back to back physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy.

[00:08:27] Angie: And so that was, that became my full time job because I was on disability at the time and I was focused on getting back to me, getting all my strength back and just being physically recovered because at the time I thought that was the only thing that I needed to do. It was the mental health problems that I experienced a few months later.

[00:08:50] Angie: And basically right after I went back to work, I was, I'm a writer and a communicator by trade, and I had just finished writing my very first book, which was a marketing book. [00:09:00] And I wanted to get back to work so that I could finish editing it and get it off to the publisher. Right away. And, um, so I got back to work.

[00:09:09] Angie: I felt fine. I looked fine. I did not look like I had had a

[00:09:13] Brad: stroke. So give, give me some idea about how it kind of timeframe, a week or two, six weeks from your stroke, you got

[00:09:19] Angie: back to work. Yeah, this was about eight weeks. I, you know, I didn't, I hadn't challenged my brain like you do when you're at work those whole eight weeks, it was all about the physical recovery.

[00:09:29] Angie: Sure. And I get back to work. And I start reading my book and looking at some of the edits the publisher had for my first pass. And as I was trying to read my work and edit it, I realized my brain was not up to speed. My brain was not quite computing and it wasn't. I wasn't able to work at the pace that I had been before.

[00:09:53] Angie: And it was, it was kind of jarring and shocking to me because I thought I was ready, I thought I was fully healed. [00:10:00] And then I just started getting kind of some panic attacks and feeling like I was, um, when I was going to work that I was. A failure and feeling that I was not good enough anymore and that something was wrong with me.

[00:10:14] Angie: And I, I didn't know what it was. I thought, well, maybe I have lasting brain damage from the stroke and I don't know about it. Um, as the weeks went on, I just started getting more and more depressed. Because of the anxiety over not being able to perform at work. And it just snowballed by, so I went back to work in September after my stroke.

[00:10:35] Angie: And by Thanksgiving, I was just a shell of myself. I was going through. Horrible anxiety and depression, although at the time I didn't know that's what they were. Um, but there are two conditions called post stroke anxiety, PSA, and post stroke depression, PSD, that are very common among stroke survivors, but they don't really talk about this in the [00:11:00] hospital or in this.

[00:11:00] Angie: It wasn't addressed in my rehabilitation regimen, but I ended up having what I call my nervous breakdown because I became unable to function. unable to think clearly and I started having racing thoughts and actually I wasn't living in reality. I was convinced my book was horrible. I was convinced I was going to be sued over potential plagiarism or not citing my sources correctly.

[00:11:27] Angie: I was convinced that I would be fired and then I would be a laughing stock. And just, I, like all my worst fears, I was convinced they were happening.

[00:11:35] Brad: So you went to some pretty dark places, it sounds like, really, you know, and maybe some places that were not quite, um, how should I say, uh, in alignment with where you were at before when you were writing the book, for instance, you may not have had some of the same fears.

[00:11:51] Brad: You were having some unfounded type of fears. Is this anywhere close to where you were at? Very much

[00:11:56] Angie: so. And it was a shock to my family. It was a shock to my friends. It's [00:12:00] like, who is this person? This, this is not the confident Angie. This is not the happy go lucky You know, positive Angie that, that we have grown to know and love.

[00:12:09] Angie: And this is somebody else and something very serious is happening here. So actually my sister stepped in to help get some intervention. Um, I started seeing a psychiatrist who helped me find, um, like a medical regimen of psychiatric meds to help me control my anxiety and depression. But, um, first step really, I had to be admitted to inpatient psychiatric care twice.

[00:12:36] Angie: Because I was in such a dark place at one point, I consider taking my own life. That was the scariest, darkest day of my life. And I, you know, I was convinced that I would never go back there. And as I was, you know, thinking through how I could do that, I had lined up all of my pill bottles on the bathroom counter and I just decided I was going to take them all, but I [00:13:00] thought to myself, this is not the legacy I'm supposed to leave.

[00:13:05] Angie: This is not the legacy of Angie Reed. This is, I just can't do this. I can't do this. And so I didn't, and it scared me. So much so afterwards that I was just like, how does a person like me, a very positive, upbeat person go from being normal to being in this dark place? And. And I, and then I understood why people do take their own lives, because if you can't, your brain is lying to you.

[00:13:32] Angie: Depression and anxiety are lying to you. And they're telling you things that are not true, but you are 100 percent convinced of them. Like me, I was 100 percent convinced I was going to get fired. I would be a laughingstock. My book would be a huge failure, just. catastrophizing everything. Um, after I got out of inpatient care, I joined an intensive outpatient program and IOP for anxiety and depression, a [00:14:00] very intense group therapy.

[00:14:02] Angie: That program saved my life. It seemed like

[00:14:04] Brad: you did two or three things here, Angie, that are very important that you had, even when you were going through some suicide ideation type of thing, You didn't get so wrapped up and lost like some folks when they go through suicide ideation go, you know, they have the deep dips and those depressive moments they come out of a little bit and they don't want to go, you know, the, the, the pain of going back to the depressed state is sometimes when people, you know, carry through with a, uh, suicide attempt, but it seems like even somewhere you are starting to, you know, recognize and aware of the process in some form or another and that not everybody does that.

[00:14:41] Brad: So that's good. And then you took some pretty massive action. You know, you said you were hospitalized and went through this deep therapy and that type of thing. And, and that's, That's important because not everybody does that. And I think one of the things I want to want us to understand and hear from your story is you can go to these deep places, [00:15:00] deep, dark places.

[00:15:00] Brad: You, it's kind of almost a natural response to something like a stroke, but to get out of it, oftentimes, You got to have an awareness. You can't really do it on your own. So tell me a little bit about how relationships, maybe family relationships, professional relationships, therapeutic relationships, were a part of, um, getting back to functioning for you.

[00:15:24] Angie: First saw my psychiatrist. He said, we will get you through this. We will solve this. And just his certainty about that just made me go, okay. Yeah, I trust him. I, I, this is. A nice guy comes highly recommended and he's telling me we will get through it. And he said, we, so I knew I had a team. Um, my sister, one of my sisters went with me to that first appointment.

[00:15:48] Angie: And so my sisters, I have two older sisters and both of them have experienced psychiatric issues in their lives before. It actually runs in my family, but I had kind of been [00:16:00] spared. Up until my stroke. Um, and so they had both had personal experiences with some of what I was going through, not exactly the same, but some of it and just knew that, you know, they needed to jump in.

[00:16:14] Angie: They saw me in crisis. They jumped in to help rescue me. Also my husband, I mean, he was watching something that he had never seen before. He had never witnessed somebody going through such psychiatric, you know, craziness and, um. He was scared. He was really scared because he felt like he was losing his wife.

[00:16:33] Angie: I was spared the stroke. I was, I lived through that only to want to die three months later. And that is, that is a crisis and we cannot allow people that have illnesses to recover from those illnesses, or at least to get through the immediate, the initial crisis only to want to end their

[00:16:54] Brad: lives. You had a dramatic change of personality as you said a couple times in our conversation You weren't really [00:17:00] the same Angie you were prior to the stroke.

[00:17:02] Brad: You were a different person So he's this is not what he signed up for, right?

[00:17:11] Angie: But until you're truly tested it's hard to know I mean I was down I was so, so sick with anything. If you have a physical ailment, like a broken bone, you will go to the doctor and have it set now with mental illness, so many people just see themselves as a personal failure or see it as a personal, just a problem that they're having, not something that they, not something that they need medical help.

[00:17:36] Angie: I've always known because I've seen it in my family that you have to get help. You cannot solve these things on your own. Now, there's a lot of things that you can learn to do to help manage your mental health. But when you're in severe crisis or you have a chemical imbalance, you probably do need to seek a professional, a psychiatrist who can help prescribe medication.

[00:17:58] Brad: Well, I love that you did that. You [00:18:00] took action for yourself. You took, um, charge of your health, your mental health and your physical health. And you sought out, you know, professional advice and you also leaned in a little bit to family, your sisters, you mentioned husband, your children, all that's good. But then you did something, then you did something about it in terms of, um, Being something productive out of this process.

[00:18:20] Brad: You, you wrote a book about it. So let's, and so tell me about what led you then out of this whole experience to start writing your, your book, Invisible Scars, and what are some of the things that you learned that you're sharing with others that, um, can be of help to them?[00:19:00]

[00:00:00] Brad: We're back with Angie Reed and we're talking to her about her life experiences and dealing with, uh, her own medical crisis of overcoming and dealing with, um, the impact of a stroke in her life, which has led her to a really being in a person who's really focused in on healing and wholeness and mental health and all aspects of this.

[00:00:33] Brad: And we've also been talking with Angie about. How, you know, family plays a part in this and how, uh, an attitude with a little bit of cheerfulness, a little bit of humor is a part of this as well. And one of the things you were sharing with me, Angie, was how you just had a really cool relationship, uh, uh, with your, uh, with your stepfather, uh, which, uh, who passed away from cancer, but it really impacted

[00:00:58] Angie: you.

[00:00:59] Angie: Uh, but [00:01:00] he made a huge impact in my life. He was such a kind, gentle, happy soul. When he was at his sickest, I mean, he had to have his leg amputated up above his hip bone. So for the last three years of his life, he had one leg and used crutches to get around. And, um, he always found the, the, the humor in.

[00:01:21] Angie: And things that you might not otherwise find humor in and like to make me laugh and, and smile and was always telling silly dad jokes before anyone called it that, but, um, found a way to use humor to get, I think, just to get through the crisis. And there were a couple of stories, really funny. My mom told me the other day, at some point when he was sick, somebody asked him, and I don't know why, I don't know what the context was leading up to it, but they asked him how many pairs of shoes he owned.

[00:01:50] Angie: And he said, zero. And my mom said, I knew it was going to say that. He's like, I own zero pairs of [00:02:00] shoes. I only have the right shoe of every

[00:02:05] Brad: pair. So cool and insightful and. Kind of biting in a way, wasn't it? You know, just

[00:02:10] Angie: they were talking about something he was having to purchase and they said something about it costing an arm and a leg.

[00:02:17] Angie: And he said, well, at least it wasn't that bad for me.

[00:02:22] Brad: Just a foot or just a leg or whatever. Oh my gosh. Well, sound like quite a character. Quite a character, huh? I just, I love that when we have, uh, characters in our life who also have character in their, you know, in their soul, uh, as well. And that's, uh, it's how I have that, that helped you on that.

[00:02:42] Brad: That helps even now carry you through some of these crises that you've been through some of those memories and those applicable principles that you take with you even now. And you've had these. crisis with your health, uh, with your stroke and then, uh, some career crises as well. And [00:03:00] you've responded by writing and sharing, uh, your book is called Invisible Scars.

[00:03:06] Brad: Tell us a little bit about that book. But as

[00:03:09] Angie: I was writing it, I just realized it just, the story just kept growing and growing and I just had more to say. And I really. It kind of morphed into something that I wanted to be able to use to help other stroke survivors who may have been going through what I did.

[00:03:24] Angie: I was very lucky that my physical deficits were minimal after my stroke, but my mental health deficits were, were astronomical, and nobody warned me or prepared me for the, for the crisis that was coming. After I survived the stroke, I had debilitating. Anxiety and depression. And it landed me in the hospital a couple of times, um, for mental health help.

[00:03:50] Angie: And. I had always been a very happy, positive person, had never really struggled with anxiety or depression before. About two months after my stroke, I [00:04:00] went back to work and I thought I was ready to go. I didn't look like a stroke survivor. I didn't have the physical deficits that you typically associate.

[00:04:07] Angie: But when I got to work and wasn't really able to read a sentence and comprehend it, What I didn't realize at the time, it was really the anxiety and depression that were impacting my brain more so than any cognitive deficit that took me a long time to come to grips with because I, I was sure that I had lasting brain damage from the,

[00:04:26] Brad: from the stroke.

[00:04:27] Brad: So you kind of had to process the physical health part and then understand that some of this was manifested in really your mental health aspect. And you were kind of in a little bit of a gray area as it were, weren't you, to try to sort that out. I

[00:04:41] Angie: was, and as somebody who typically does try to find the humor or does try to look on the bright side of things, I was unable to find any brightness during that time.

[00:04:51] Angie: Unable. And that was so unlike me, so it didn't feel like myself anymore. So that's a lot of what I write about in the book is just sharing [00:05:00] that post stroke anxiety and post stroke depression are very real. They're common among stroke survivors. People just start talking about it. I want stroke survivors to know they are not alone and that if they can get some help and do some things on their own, if you're not able to get a therapist, it's, it, you can do so much to manage your own mental health and get out of that dark place.

[00:05:21] Angie: Well, let's

[00:05:21] Brad: talk about a couple of those things. Yeah. You mentioned anxiety and depression and you, you're not alone in this. And yet some people feel alone.

[00:05:28] Angie: First, just give yourself time. You're not going to boil the ocean in a day and a brain injury will take time to heal from. Mental health wise, there are so many things that you can do to get yourself out of a rut.

[00:05:41] Angie: So one is really establish and keep a routine. A routine is the best thing you can do for your brain and mental health and just get out of bed, get out of bed. Don't stay in bed. Even if you're tempted to, you will be tempted to when you, when you're depressed is to stay in bed [00:06:00] and kind of just. Wish it all away and hide under the covers.

[00:06:03] Angie: Don't do that. It's hard to face every day. It's not easy, but get out of bed, open your windows, look at the sunshine, hope to just start each day with a plan of action, knowing what you've got on your plate that day and follow through on your commitments, stick to your routine. But I think there's just something therapeutic about writing something out.

[00:06:25] Angie: Um, just kind of free. Free flow, whatever is on your mind, any concerns that you have, any hopes and dreams, any fears that you have, write them down because writing them down releases their power over you. It gets out of your body, out of your brain, onto a piece of paper, no matter what you do with that piece of

[00:06:48] Brad: paper.

[00:06:48] Brad: You know, you wrote a book about, uh, about your journey through a stroke. And let's apply it now. You've got a recent book that's come out about another important area of [00:07:00] life, which impacts people's mental health as well. Your recent book is Identity Crisis. And, uh, so let's go there, especially kind of lessons learned from your stroke experience that you applied here.

[00:07:13] Brad: So.

[00:07:13] Angie: When I first started writing Identity Crisis, it was based on Me losing my identity or thought thinking I lost my identity, feeling like I was in an identity crisis after I had my stroke and thought I would never be able to work again or work in communications again, where I used my brain in that way.

[00:07:31] Angie: And I was so closely aligned with my career and what I did for a living that I, when I had my stroke and thought it was taken away from me, I wasn't sure what my. What my next chapter was, I didn't know if I, you know, had a purpose anymore in the world. I, I was too closely aligned to my career. Now I can see that hindsight is 2020, but I was too closely aligned to achievements, accomplishments, and career, you know, [00:08:00] career acknowledgement.

[00:08:02] Angie: And I, When I didn't have that, I fell into a hole of not knowing who I was and not having anything to kind of fall back on. I didn't know what my purpose was. Uh, so it took. It took really working through my mental health to, to understand and working through the whole crisis that happened with the stroke to understand that I needed more in my life.

[00:08:26] Angie: I could not rely only on my career to, to give me fulfillment. And don't get me wrong. I'm a mom. I have three kids. And I, of course, my identity and so much of what brings me fulfillment is being a mom and, um, that's a big part of my identity too, but my kids were a bit older when I had my stroke, so I was no longer mommy.

[00:08:49] Angie: Um, so that's why I started writing Identity Crisis, just talking about the things I learned and just how to, how to find your purpose in life and to move beyond what happened to [00:09:00] you.

[00:09:00] Brad: People are wrapped up in their life, and when a stroke happens, or cancer happens, or you lose a job, or any number of things like that, it is a disruption of everything, and much of it related to who you identify as.

[00:09:16] Brad: It impacts your physical health, your body, your ability to do... Things physically, as you've mentioned cognitively, it impacts how you process things cognitively at other people of other manifestations of their, uh, cancer or their process. You know, sometimes it's eyesight or hearing or, but it's also has to do with relationships.

[00:09:32] Brad: Your workplace, your family relationships, your marriages, all that kind of thing are impacted. And, uh, in the context of what you shared here, what are some lessons learned for that person out there who may be going through their own identity crisis?

[00:09:46] Angie: You know, that we are so much more than what we do for a living.

[00:09:49] Angie: If someone were to ask you who you are, or to tell me more about you, and you were not allowed to mention your career in any way, shape, or form, or your title, your professional title, how would you [00:10:00] describe yourself? And that's kind of challenging for most people, honestly. And it's still challenging for me, but I try.

[00:10:08] Angie: I try every day to remember what I'm most grateful for. So it's also having an attitude of gratitude. Gratitude will get you through the darkest times. You will always have something to be grateful for, even if it's hard to find it and hard to identify it, there's always a few things to be grateful for.

[00:10:25] Angie: Actually more than a few things. I start every day by writing out 10 things I'm grateful for and 10 things I'm really good at.

[00:10:33] Brad: Let's be, let's be personal about it just for a minute. Angie, what was one or two things on your list for today that you're grateful for?

[00:10:40] Angie: Today I'm grateful for sunshine coming our way.

[00:10:42] Angie: It's been very rainy and kind of dreary in Kansas City the last couple of days, and it's supposed to be a little bit nicer today. So I was thankful for that because sunshine can help boost your mood no matter what. And every day, and I continue to say this, I usually say it day in and day out, I'm grateful for my [00:11:00] kids health, happiness, and safety.

[00:11:02] Brad: What are a couple things that you're good at that you put down today?

[00:11:06] Angie: I'm a good mom. I'm a good writer. I'm a good coach. I like to coach people in how to find confidence after crisis, but somehow I've always been able to overcome whatever crisis comes my way and then find a way to. Make the best out of it or make the next best chapter in my life as good as I can.

[00:11:27] Angie: And I think that goes back to, you know, losing Charlie at such a, an impressionable age, I was 15 going on 16. I

[00:11:34] Brad: believe put a finer point on it in terms of the applicable transferable nature to our listeners that so many people, Angie, and I think you're. Your experience is apropos to many people where things are cruising along relatively okay, you have a disaster and you have to get out of that depression and that anxiety and all that bad stuff.

[00:11:55] Brad: I call it the grim, you know, the grim parts of life. What we [00:12:00] are kind of catchphrase for our podcast is turn the grim to a grin, which is just joyful life. And, uh, But you've got to be very intentional about it. And the intentionality you've mentioned here is those affirmations that, because the basic message we often get is often kind of bad news or negativity, whether it's in the news or in our own life.

[00:12:20] Brad: And so I think a lot of people experience, you know, bad messages and loneliness. But you got to be, and then be very intentional to deal with those. You're going to deal with the personal messages with some positive stuff, and then make some positive connections as well. How, resonate with me. Do you react?

[00:12:37] Brad: Does that make any sense to you and kind of what you've been teaching and all about?

[00:12:42] Angie: Absolutely. And I also tell people to create a positivity force field around yourself. It's so easy. I mean, the first thing. A lot of us adults like to do in the morning is turn on the news just so we can, okay, what's happening in the world?

[00:12:57] Angie: You know, how do I see it today? But honestly with the [00:13:00] news being 95 percent negative Yes Sometimes it's better to not turn on the news in the morning or not Necessarily to read the paper first thing in the morning. Don't you don't need to start your day off with the horrible Start your day off with the positive.

[00:13:14] Angie: I like to start out with at least 10 minutes of meditation as well. Yeah. Um, just to get my head in the right spot and to just center myself. And then I do my journal. I do my gratitudes and my .

[00:13:26] Brad: So you mentioned several practical steps and let's, I'd love to do this, Angie, several practical how to steps for our, our listeners to, to do meditation, journaling, the, you know, uh.

[00:13:37] Brad: Ten things to be grateful for, ten things I'm good at, uh, also the, uh, You know, not doing the news and things like that. So some things to do and some things not to do, because I'd love what you, the, you know, the sub, the subtitle, uh, of your book, that you are not your career. And that indicates to me, so many people take identity from something external, [00:14:00] whether it, whether it sometimes many, for many of us, it is a career, but for other people, it is, you know, like, uh, When I used to, when my kids were growing up and they were in sports and music and things, Oh, there's Andrew's dad, you know, or, or there is, uh, you know, there's, uh, there's Adam's, uh, idiot dad yelling on the sidelines when he played the sports and things like that.

[00:14:23] Brad: Yeah, he's the loud mouth in the stands, you know, that kind of stuff. I was known that way. You know, if you see what I'm saying, that's exactly some of that's cool, but the point is we still need our own identity. We are not. You know, uh, I have a title, I have an earned doctorate, it's on, you know, I keep it on my wall back there, but it's not who I am, you know, uh, I have, I was a pastor for 43 years, but that's not exactly who I am.

[00:14:48] Brad: It's a piece of it, but it's not who I am. Uh, but we, uh, our identity is not a hundred percent based on external forces. We have to really be intentional about. Our inner life [00:15:00] and, uh, let that

[00:15:01] Angie: flourish. Yeah. And you're absolutely right. Like to be happy, you have to peel away some of those layers of the external.

[00:15:09] Angie: You know, the expect, external expectations of you or the, um, limiting beliefs you have because of external, uh, situations in your life and to really get at the core of who you are and what makes you tick, what makes you special and being able to play up on that and, and find, so finding that and then really exploiting that as much as you can, because.

[00:15:35] Angie: You're right. We, so much of what's externally happening in our world impacts what we, what we think is our happiness, but we're really in control of our own happiness if we do some of these other things and really look within, uh, I have more tips too, besides journaling, meditating, routine, exercise is very important too.

[00:15:55] Angie: It releases the feel, the feel good chemicals into our brains. [00:16:00] Even if you, you know, exercise or do, you know, um, anything that's going to make you sweat or something, which I consider exercise. You can get up.

[00:16:09] Brad: Hey, if you're breathing, you can do something and I even, you know, if you can fog a mirror, I just tell people even towards the end of life, you know, uh, sometimes I say, you know, just kind of focus on your breathing.

[00:16:19] Brad: If you can breathe. Do, do something. And for most people though, they can do something, whether it is writing in a journal or making a phone call to a friend or a Facebook post or something like that. Uh, you can to give thoughts to people or pray for them, whatever you need to do. You can send your good vibes, uh, their, their way.

[00:16:39] Brad: There's always something you can do as long as there's, you know, something firing in there, your brain there and in your heart and your head and, and your, your soul. But you mentioned here, Angie, about how one of the things that, uh. Pumps you up and jazzes you up is coaching and helping being helpful to people.

[00:16:56] Brad: Let's just say that there's a Person in my [00:17:00] life of career person who's had a disruption of their what kind of things are you going to be? It's having a conversation with this woman in my life who might be sending to

[00:17:11] Angie: you I I want people to acknowledge trauma in their life and if they're going through a hard time you don't have to put on a happy face and pretend everything's okay.

[00:17:20] Angie: It's okay to be upset and it's okay to be hurt um and it's okay to you need to be able to express those feelings so that you can work through those feelings. And then the next is really finding out what is your ultimate driver in life. What is your big why? What, what drives you to accomplish the things you accomplish or do the things you do?

[00:17:42] Angie: What is your big why? Whether that's your kids, your grandkids, you know, leaving a legacy for your family. That's, that's one of my big things is, um, in my darkest time. Um, after my stroke, when I was having mental health crisis, I did go through a period where I considered taking my own life, but [00:18:00] I thought this is not the legacy I'm supposed to leave.

[00:18:03] Angie: Figure out what that why is there, what their purpose is, if that's what you want to call it. And then being able to take the steps to explore how to get there and how to build passion around that. And then how to build your self confidence by going through and reminding yourself of the successes you've had in your life.

[00:18:20] Angie: It's called success stacking. Remind you of all the different things you've been successful at over your life, and it could be as small as passing a, a, a class in school or something, and you can just write it out and write out your successes in a stack. So you can see throughout your life. You have been successful.

[00:18:39] Angie: You have overcome hardship. So you have done this before and you can do it again and well,

[00:18:45] Brad: that's uh, that's awesome. I love that finding your your big why and building on that stacking on that. I love that. I just got a feeling when people come to you. It's a good thing. It's a good, it's a, it's a good thing.

[00:18:59] Brad: Well, you know, [00:19:00] you mentioned one of the good things in your life, Angie, was your relationship with your stepdad, Charlie, how that's kind of as a thread going through your life, especially as you kind of, you had this overall countenance about you of seeing, you know, kind of the brighter side of life, which was devastated during your stroke and other things that you've had to deal with in your life.

[00:19:21] Brad: And sometimes going back to, Those members are the things help bring you back a little bit. I know you said you had a story you wanted to to share about

[00:19:29] Angie: Charlie. He liked to always poke fun of me and um, and make me feel, just make me laugh no matter how he could.

[00:19:36] Brad: But we say poke fun, you mean he physically would poke you or you know, say something snarky to you?

[00:19:43] Angie: He physically poked me and he, he would take his, the end of his crutch and like, poke me under the armpit and just make me laugh when I was. Like we would hang out in the living room. His hospital bed was in the living room because he was on hospice toward the end of his life, but he wanted to be around [00:20:00] family, not sequestered back into his room.

[00:20:02] Angie: So as much as we could, we kept him in the living room until it became the very, very end and he needed to be away, um, in his room. But he used to just, I'd be sitting on the ground watching TV and he would. Poke his little crutch over under my armpit and make me laugh. And it was just like, Oh, Charlie. Um, there were other times when I, I was the ugly duckling growing up.

[00:20:26] Angie: I was not the prettiest. I have two older sisters and they were always prettier than me and older than me. So they would, they had boyfriends before I did. They were going to prom and school dances before I did. I remember one day I was sitting in the basement, listening to my records on my record player, um, back in the eighties, obviously.

[00:20:45] Angie: But, um, I was feeling really down on myself thinking, I'm not pretty. I'm kind of chubby and I'm never going to have dates like my sisters do. And, and feeling just very down on myself and he must've known, he [00:21:00] must've sensed it. He came downstairs and just started talking to me and said, I remember he said something about, he told me the ugly duckling story and he said, you will turn into that swan someday.

[00:21:11] Angie: He goes, you just need to And, um, it just, I, I just remember that I built my self confidence up at a time when I truly needed it. I, you know, I was going through puberty. I was 11 years old, 11 or 12. Yeah. And. That's when you need that positive influencer in your life. And he was that for me. And he always made me feel seen and made me feel so much love.

[00:21:36] Brad: probably every, whenever you hear, uh, if, if you get poked or if somebody does a poke emotion or whatever, I get, I bet you that kind of brings back some, uh, memories, uh, for you about. Uh, the good kind of being poked, you know, uh, not provoked, but, uh, but poked, but, but poked in terms of being kind of tickled or kind of, uh, or a memory of that good thing and how he, uh, I [00:22:00] love stories of transformation and that's, uh, the ugly duckling to the beautiful swan is kind of a classic story of that.

[00:22:06] Brad: And he made that come to life for you. Didn't he? That is awesome. That is awesome. Well, you, you've done a wonderful job taking the vulnerability of your story, your stories about stroke and about mental health conditions and but suicide ideation and about careerism and family life and all kinds of things.

[00:22:28] Brad: And I want to say, you know, yeah, God, I admire that so much because it takes so much for someone to be that vulnerable to put it out in books and to share and podcasts and things like that. That is an amazing thing. And that is a gift to others. That's the kind of thing, Angie, that helps other people to have that opportunity to have that message of, uh, of affirmation that you share here, that, you know, transformation from ugly duckling to something beautiful.

[00:22:53] Brad: So if people want to get ahold of you, be in contact with you and learn more about what you are about, get your books or [00:23:00] learn more about you, how can, how can they do that?

[00:23:03] Angie: Yeah, all my books are available on Amazon and you can look up Angie Reid. It's R E A D. And so all of my books are listed under my author page, but you can also look them up individually.

[00:23:14] Angie: So, Invisible Scars, Stroke Survival, Recovery, and the Unexpected Mental Health Impact. Also, I have a short book, I call it a little booklet, it's called Mental Health Hacks, 10 Easy Hacks to Help Manage Anxiety and Depression. And that really was written for folks in mind that might be in the middle of crisis, and can't.

[00:23:39] Angie: Can't bring themselves to read a longer book. And, uh, it's very, you know, some of the things that I did that helped me on my journey. So I document those and I call them hacks. And then my latest book is Identity Crisis. You are not your career.

[00:23:53] Brad: It's been a pleasure, uh, being with you and you have added so much to our cancer and comedy, uh, [00:24:00] audience with your great stories and with your, with your personality and what you have offered with your intellect and everything else.

[00:24:08] Brad: Her books that we've talked about here today are Invisible Scars at Identity Crisis. She is author Angie Reed, who will put connections to everything she is all about at CancerAndComedy. com. Angie Reed, thanks for being our guest today on Cancer and Comedy.[00:25:00]