Episode 44: Tales from the Blast Factory, Installment 1 – A Green Beret’s Battle with TBI

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

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It's chronicled some of their lapses, and it's chronicled their return home. And in this time period, these wars are not by any means over, though some people say they are. But in this time period where we've seen a lapse in combat operations, the media has been chronicling their return and examining this group of veterans. And what we see in the media's analysis of veterans in general, in many cases is a group that has been victimized by war. A group that's suffering from post traumatic stress.

A group that's suffering from depression. A group that's suffering from the symptoms of traumatic brain injury. But in so many cases, all we see are the defeats.

The veteran being victimized by his circumstances. And what we rarely see or what we really hear about is the veteran rising above his circumstances and shunning the title of victim. I think that in today's culture, it's become very popular to become a victim. It's become very popular to take on some sort of title that puts you in an oppressed class. And when we think about veterans in this light, I think it does them an immense disservice. And the real damage here is done to those young men and women who we don't hear about, Who may not have the best of circumstances right now, but who need some sort of glimmer of hope. This episode is the first in a series of episodes we're gonna be doing here at the Warrior Soul podcast called Tales from the Blast Factory.

And it's titled as such because this is the title of a book that's been written by my cohost, Andrew Marr, that's due out probably around early fall twenty seventeen. And that book chronicles his story as a special forces Green Beret, who operated in Afghanistan over three different tours, and who came home with traumatic brain injury. And the reason why I think that Andrew's story is so important is because it highlights a number of different issues. Number one, Andrew had traumatic brain injury, but was never directly hit by an IED or an explosive device or by small arms fire. He came home from Afghanistan without a scratch, and yet he suffered from traumatic brain injury.

And this is important because what science is finding is that those of us who've been exposed to low level explosions, Andrew served as a breacher. Basically, for those of you who never served, he was one of the guys who helped to blow doors off buildings before the rest of the team came in. And he indirectly bore the brunt of a lot of low level explosions over years. And this caused chronic inflammation in his brain, which gave him traumatic brain injury. And from that, what we can garner is that there's probably a lot more young men and women who suffer from similar injuries than we actually hear about.

The next thing is that we hear about Andrew's experience and what types of symptoms that came about because of this type of injury. And these symptoms looked a lot like post traumatic stress, suffering from emotional outbursts, becoming very angry, violent at times, and not knowing why. And then the third thing I want you to understand is that Andrew rose above his circumstances. And he searched for a way to fix his problems and his issues. And today, he's returned to his elite performing status, and is a member of our team here at Warrior Soul.

And there's a lot more stories out there about veterans who were able to rise above their circumstances, who didn't take as truth that they've just been given a bad hand, or didn't take as truth that they would be physically or mentally impaired for the rest of their lives as many medical professionals had told them. Andrew actually went out there and he did something about it. And now he wants to bring this information to our community to help each and every young man or woman who suffers from similar injuries. So, as you listen to this episode, I really want you to put yourself in his shoes. In this first installment, we're going to get into Andrew's time as a special forces operator.

His time serving in Afghanistan. What it was like to be on that team and to be dealing with that kind of op tempo. And then I want you to think about all the passion and the emotion he put into his job. The fact that one day somebody told him that he couldn't do that job anymore. And then I want you to think about that aftermath.

We're going to get into all the way up to where Andrew is just beginning to feel the symptoms of his injuries. And then in the next installment, we'll talk to you a bit more about how he solved them. So with that, after a couple of quick short announcements, we'll get into episode number 44 of the Warrior Soul podcast.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

We need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

Chris Albert 00:11:53 (link to this point)

Dude, you've got your book coming out very soon. And, I just wanted people to be aware of what's going on with it. It's called Tales From The Blast Factory. You go into a little bit about what it's about, what's, you know, I know it talks a little bit about your story, but you can give people an idea of what's going to be in it and what kind of impact you think it's going to have.

Andrew Marr 00:12:19 (link to this point)

Yeah, it kind of chronicles a little bit of my life as a special forces Green Beret, and what what that looked like, what that op tempo look like, and a little bit of a peek behind the curtain to kind of give the reader understanding of what that lifestyle is like, when you're living by the honor code, and the brotherhood, That kind of that fraternity and what that looks like. And then it kind of speaking from going from an environment or a lifestyle that is based in certainty, and then going into the field of the unknown and uncertain as far as the future and what that looked like for my life. And specifically, you know, had a number of traumatic brain injuries that led to a medical retirement and a lot of physical, you know, emotional, psychological, cognitive issues resulted from that. And when it was going on, there wasn't a whole lot of information out. There wasn't a Warrior Angels Foundation, there wasn't a Warrior Soul podcast that put out the leading information, you know, on these subjects to have a good understanding of what actually was going on, what causes these types of these types of symptoms in somebody and where does that originate from.

So when I first started having problems due to a TBI, it was months after my returning from my last deployment and started to have new new problems that were never apparent before. And when I raised my hand to ask for help, and you only raise your hand when there's no other place or no other no, you can't go anywhere else. And problems were happening in my life, my family was being affected in a way that I knew that what was going on wasn't sustainable. So I said, Okay, I need help. I'm on fire.

I don't know what's going on. I can't perform. I can't think, I can't remember having issues with balance and double vision, blurry vision, migraine headaches, just a whole, you know, wide range of new issues that have never been there before. And the basic model, you know, to manage symptoms with medication and then try to work it out through, you know, talk therapy. And at the end of the day, you know, like I said many times before, I woke up to find myself on 13 medications, you know, seeing a number of different specialists and doctors, through the military medical model, nobody was communicating with one another, nobody was looking at this as how does this affect the individual on a whole, you know, what is the underlying condition?

People are just looking, medical professionals are just looking at things from their perspective, you know, piece of the pie, which was very minute when you're looking at, you know, a whole, you know, and we're we are dynamic, you know, beings, and you have to look at it on that whole level. And it was a process of saying, okay, well, you know, what what's being given to me is not working, it's making my life worse. And then confronting the fact that I, what I was doing, what I thought was my purpose in life, which was leading men into combat, confronting evil face to face and eliminating it, you know, I thought that was living out my life's purpose. And so when that was taken away, when, you know, the medical system said okay you're gonna have to have a medical retirement, you can't afford to have one more blow to the head, you know, on top of all the other problems I was having, now I have a major identity crisis going from again, like that known that what was certain to the unknown to the uncertain, and started to go down that slippery slope where you get kind of caught up in my life is never going to be the same, Everything that I knew is now different.

Everything that gave my life a purpose and a meaning and a significance isn't there anymore. And so my physical health was, you know, was was derailing, my mental health was derailing, taking away what I thought was my purpose and my significance, I was left with this mindset that my life now lacks significance, it lacked meaning, the my thoughts and my actions for the first time weren't in a line were not in an alignment, and I couldn't figure out why. It wasn't that I was consciously wanting to perform certain actions, but they continued to be performed and oftentimes as a direct detriment to myself and to my family. And so it kind of talks about going through that uncertain process that I think readers will identify with anybody who's transitioned from one way of life into another, especially the military going from what was known in the military transitioning to being a civilian. But it's like it's that on steroids because we weren't given that benefit of going through a two or three year transition.

It was like in the emergency room fighting for life, my children are also going through life threatening illnesses at the same time, going through a medical retirement in the middle of that, and then six months later finding myself as a civilian and my head was still spinning. So it wasn't time to map out what's the best scenario, what's ideal here for our next you know evolution of life, and so it kind of talks through that process and then we looked for, we started looking for new answers or alternative answers to what was being given to us. Again that's psychotherapy and medication, which again had me, if I started off in a bad place needing that, you know what I mean, that took me two or three orders of magnitude to a worse position. And so the book talks about how we explored with different alternative, you know, means of therapy, how we came across Doctor Mark Gordon and his protocols, what that did for me in my life, how we were able to then start up a nonprofit foundation to bring that same level of healing to other people who are in the same predicament.

But, you know, it talks about kind of the hardware issues that were faced through traumatic brain injury, and then this kind of a software issues that we faced, which was really confronting failed belief systems and understanding how to elevate your internal state regardless of what's going on outside of you. And so to be internally greater than your external circumstances and to the external situations of life. And it goes through a, the book goes through a step by step process of how I identify these things, how I kind of confronted these monsters, and was able to, you know, carve a path out that brought this reemergence of a life worth living again, you know what I mean? One that was at the foundational level was built on purpose and meaning and significance and and how to find that again, one when when you thought it was all taken away. And it was a process of going back and really going inward.

And understanding that I just got some feedback here's thrown off my

Chris Albert 00:20:43 (link to this point)

Sorry.

Andrew Marr 00:20:44 (link to this point)

Thought. Where was I at, Chris?

Chris Albert 00:20:48 (link to this point)

You were talking about understanding, and then I just put it on mute. So I think

Andrew Marr 00:20:54 (link to this point)

Yeah. So it was the process of looking at and how to find meaning and how to find purpose again. And my dad gave me some excellent advice when I was just about at rock bottom, and I was talking to him on the phone. And he said basically this, he said, Son, I can't understand everything that you've been through. I know that you're hurting.

But if you could just find a way to make your life about helping somebody else, about putting value into somebody else, I think you'll find that'll put value into you, that will repurpose and purpose your life again, just like it always has been. And I found that at the most basic level, that's what it's about, getting outside of yourself. Because when you live by the hormones of stress, you get kind of locked into this, what about me in my immediate environment and this immediate line of time? And that's all you're worried about. Me, my immediate environment and the immediate timeline that I forecast in front of me.

And it's really very selfish behavior when you're wrapped up in it. But when you're wrapped up in it, or you're wrapped up in these cycles of life, it's kind of hard to get a different perspective on it. But I was able to do that. And, you know, I think the process is being able to learn from our mistakes and then to make a better decision, you know, next time. And that's the process of the evolution of growth.

So it's to learn, it's to grow, it's to serve and it's to love. And the book you know chronicles that period of my life and how I came to these conclusions. And at the end we wrap it up with lessons learned, biology lessons learned, dealing with the TBI, and then kind of these more life lessons learned, and then give practical applications for each one. So I think the reader, whether military or not, will really identify it. Some new things that maybe not are known on a wide scale as far as regarding to TBI and PTS, I think there'll be information in there that will be really illuminating to people who are traveling similar terrain.

But, you know, in a nutshell, that that's what the readers can expect to get from the book.

Chris Albert 00:23:26 (link to this point)

Just when I'm speaking over here, I'm just gonna keep your side on mute, and then we'll switch back and forth, brother. It's cool. You know, I want to unpack a few items there. And, you know, there's there's there's a lot going on there, you know, we have this idea of that transition, you know, when you're in the military, everything is clear cut, You know, you have a job, you have your training, you have, your family at home, and and you have a purpose. The day they told you that you would not be able to serve as a Green Beret anymore.

Do you remember that day?

Andrew Marr 00:24:06 (link to this point)

I do.

Chris Albert 00:24:07 (link to this point)

And what was your first thought? What was your first, what was the first thing you thought that you'd you'd be doing? Or what was the first thought that you had?

Andrew Marr 00:24:20 (link to this point)

Shock. Complete shock. And like I said, I got in this position where it was it was focused on the self in as negative a way as possible. And it was like, you know, what am I supposed to do now? Or how am I going to do anything else? And nobody understands me.

Nobody understands, you know, what I've been through, and, what do you mean I can't do this anymore? This was my life's pursuit. I was confident of it, and, you know, it was just I didn't know how to process that. And, you know, so even more so, it was heavily medicated and drinking at that time. And that was probably just further exacerbated by by that news.

But it was just a sinking and self sorrow, and not not worried or or not even considering, you know, what are what are the solutions? What are the possibilities? What could this mean? How could I how could I use this for the benefit of not only myself or others? You know, it was all it was all just kind of an utter and complete shock and chaos, was the delivering of that, you know, we were at, went to what's called NICoE, the National Intrepid Center of Excellence, and that's the leading place for TBI research.

And it's done out of Walter Reed, and it was a four week inpatient program that I went through there at NICoE. And I remember, you know, when I was going through it, and they were showing me, you know, different doing these different, psychological, you know, testing, and they showed me a picture of seven objects. And, I had ten seconds to look at it. And then, they took them away, and they asked me to draw it, the the seven objects or whatever it was. And I draw the first object, no problem.

And I go to find the second object, or draw the second object, and I just draw a complete blank. And I was mortified, because that was the first time it really got brought to my attention. I was like, my god, this woman just showed me seven simple shapes. I looked at it for ten seconds, she pulled it away. And I can't even remember what the second shape was.

And I must have looked like somebody had just died in front of me. And she we went through that process two or three more times with the same, you know, the same results. And I just started crying, man, because I thought my life is over. I can't even remember a second shape, basic shape to draw it. And, and it was, it was very, it was scary, because all you hear, you never analyze the brain before that, or, you know, you hear a brain injury, like, my God, that's so serious.

What, you know, what all does that entail? And then, you know, thinking, man, I don't have any working memory. What's life going to be like? And it was, scary, and it was difficult and unnerving and, you know, all at the same time, going through difficulties with, you know, physical pain and the cognitive deficiencies, and then the burden of knowing that I'm heading out on my way out. And I don't, you know, I think I have a short circuiting brain and having issues with family.

Was just, it was a difficult period that took a while to pull out of.

Chris Albert 00:28:03 (link to this point)

You did, multiple tours in Afghanistan as a Green Beret. And, you worked as a breacher with with explosives, you know, and tell me about the points leading up to where you knew there was a problem. Like, was it while you were on deployment? What was your job like while you were on deployment? Or were you experiencing these things during your during while doing your work?

Was it just something you woke up one day and it was there? Or was it a gradual thing? What how did that come about?

Andrew Marr 00:28:42 (link to this point)

Good question. So kind of start with while I was operating. I never noticed any problems on deployment or on that last deployment. And but, know, I talked to a lot of guys, top level operators, and they might be having a lot of these symptoms, but they're still able to operate at a high level. And that's because they have programmed through years of training this neural network of how to operate in these certain parameters.

So CQB or jumping duties and these other things are so ingrained through muscle memory and years of training that the operator, the individual is able to still function at that high level because they're not having to learn new information. They're just applying what they already know and they can do that even if they're deficient or insufficient in key hormones and are plagued with total body chronic inflammation or neuroinflammation. And so that's why a lot of people are able to still kind of function as an operator, but their outside skills, maybe their people skills, their ability to learn new things, read for extended periods of time, cognitive abilities, things like that seem to start to really suffer. And so that's how you can tell know, maybe if there's some areas there that you're not really aware of, but they're manifesting as problematic in other areas of your life. And so the operator will say, well, I can still operate, you know what I mean, at a high level.

So fuck whatever else you're saying because I'm still I'm still, you know, operating at that level. And that's the reason why people are able to continue to do that job and have these problems, or have had a number of TBIs and suffer elsewhere, but still being able to do that. My job in Special Forces, I was an engineer, and on deployment, you know, that has you working in and around explosives. I was the main breacher for my team. And so, you know, I was the point man, so I usually created all the routes that we were gonna use, both infill and exfil and, you know, primary alternates, stuff like that.

And then everything to do with explosives, you know, was my specialty. So dealing with IEDs, whether it was blowing in place or taking your part, you know, examining evidence and then that backup to hire to get more intel and then, you know, breaching points of denied entry for anywhere we needed to go in addition to my other operator duties. Those are kind of my specialties there on the team. And so that has you in and around countless explosions over the entirety of career and we never thought much about it. But we now know that that explosive blast wave that's propagated from that explosion moves out in a three sixty degree area and fills up every air filled organ of the body and essentially rocks that back and forth know, causing what would be known as multiple concussions through a single minor explosion.

And it might not have any negative consequences initially, but when you're in that constant state, whether your brain's continually getting rattled, then it creates this what's what Doctor Gordon calls non neuro permissive environment, And then the brain can't heal itself. The body can't heal itself. And then we start this slow process of of the all the symptoms that you hear about as a result of traumatic brain injury or post traumatic stress. And and that's kind of that line of there.

I know that answered two of the questions. What was the third part of that question, Chris?

Chris Albert 00:32:57 (link to this point)

Well, I wanted to I guess the big thing here is, you know, I wanted to get a lead into to where you started to feel the symptoms.

Andrew Marr 00:33:08 (link to this point)

Okay.

Chris Albert 00:33:09 (link to this point)

Yeah. You actually started to feel.

Andrew Marr 00:33:11 (link to this point)

It wasn't until three or four months that I was back from that trip that I started having issues and it was gradual. First thing was libido. And it's not a minor thing, that's why I bring it up, I talk about it. Think I was 32 at the time, and got back and no sexual desire, you know, whatsoever, which was the antithesis of, you know, everything that had been there that constructed a self, myself prior to that. And so it was difficult because you know my wife we have four kids we had four kids at the time we have five kids now.

That was difficult for her because you know she's her thought process there is, okay, well, either you don't want me or love me anymore or there's somebody new, you know, which couldn't be further from the case. And I'm like, for fuck's sake, man. Like, I just get back off a very taxing trip. My body's not working. I was just I I just thought, like, we had taxed ourselves so hard on that last trip that it was gonna take some time for the my body to come back online.

Like, that's all I could figure out. And then so libido went. That caused a lot of strife at home. Next thing was energy. Just was totally depleted.

No energy. Attention span, you know, started to go. And again I couldn't there wasn't wasn't anything I could really point to that said this is this is, you know, something that's causing these things to happen. And then what but the straw that finally broke the camel's back outside of the physical pain, the cognitive issues, was the emotional problems that I was now having that was manifesting. I would get emotional in public, and I had no control over it, and no reason why.

So starting to cry in public, and again, I didn't know why, I didn't know what was causing it, I certainly didn't want to be that way. Again, I was living what I thought was my life's purpose. I was so happy to do the job that I was doing, to be around the people I was being, living, you know, married to the woman that I wanted to be with. My home life was incredible. I was just like, there's no reason to be depressed.

I have no reason to be depressed. I have everything to live for. But now I'm starting to get caught in these constant states of depression And it manifests as having, you know, a crying attack in public or at home against with my family. And then, you know, not for the first time, you know, kind of being consumed by dark thoughts where, you know, people would probably classify me as an overly positive person. And, you know, for the first time in my life, was like this constant battle between good and bad or, you know, good thinking or not, you know, not supportive thinking.

And I became aware of it, and I was just I didn't understand where it was coming from. And that fight to try to, you know, win in your own mind, man, that is exhausting and will rob you and deplete you of everything else. And so that was going on, and so it was kind of the cultivation of those things. Tired of having these emotional outbursts that I didn't have any control over. And then I realized, you know what, man, I'm a liability now to the people that I love and the job that I do, so now it's time to say hey I need some help and you know those were kind of the deciding factors that led you know to that conclusion and that was probably over the course of I don't know forty five sixty days And then, you know, the first thing, you know, we did was put me on a benzodiazepine and antidepressant, and then, you know, the the cocktails just started to come after that, and things just got worse and worse and worse, but that was the process.

Chris Albert 00:37:37 (link to this point)

That's, that's crazy. That's that that's absolutely insane. You know, a few things I want to get into here, and it's just so much here that that I think that everybody out there needs to be concerned with. And and we're gonna make this into a series, of of shorter episodes where we're we're gonna do different parts of this story because it's just so big. But, I want to get into the idea that you never were knocked out really except for once.

You you weren't directly hit with anything. You didn't, bear the brunt of a a direct explosion. And I want to get into this because there's this idea here that Doctor Gordon's proposed that you've proposed that TBI and PTSD are connected. And when we're getting into this, you know, for the people at home, you know, I've known him for for about a year now.

And we've been working together for a while. And he is overly positive. He talks positive all the time. I mean, you can't put the guy in a bad mood. And knowing him in this state, not, not knowing him in in the state he was before, I can't imagine that.

So Andrew, tell me, how ubiquitous is this? How common is it amongst service members do you think in your mind, as far as people who may have suffered a similar bout of brain inflammation?

Andrew Marr 00:39:25 (link to this point)

Don't know the extent that I was experiencing that. Can you mute that? There you go. You know, when I was at the point at the breaking point, let's call it, there was other people in the unit that were also at that breaking point, but there's different continuums or, you know, places that lead up to that. And I would, again, this is just, you know, from my experience, but knowing what a life of an operator is like, everybody is working towards, you know, that breaking point, so to speak.

When you're in and around explosives on a daily basis, know, shooting on a daily basis around heavy weapons systems, Carl Gustafs, you know, stuff like that on a daily basis, and then throw in, you know, maybe you're eating well or maybe you're not, so that could be a contributing factor. You're exposed to countless environmental toxins that we know are neurotoxic and also pro inflammatory. And then your software, your social, your belief system could be conducive of a great mindset or could be contributing also negatively to how you're operating in the world. So when you look at it like that, and in constant deployment cycle, constant op tempo cycle, and the stressors that causes on a home life, well, we're talking about a potential recipe for disaster if it's not treated appropriately, and for me it wasn't treated appropriately because there was never any talk about reducing inflammation or checking hormones to make sure these are in ideal physiological states that would set me up for success to do the things that I wanted to do. So we know that everything I just talked about leads to what we call the non neuro permissive environment.

And so when you constantly are in that and you can't come back to a balance or you can't take time off and refuel and heal yourself, then it's how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop? Well, I don't know. For me, it was just under, you know, nine years of doing that on day to day basis in in SF. Some guys, it might be know, and that's because I played college lifetime of playing football all the way through college, you know, that led to that. So, you know, head injuries was nothing new to me, but we never looked at them as anything unless you had a, you know, an object sticking out of your head.

It wasn't an issue. And, you know, we now know that that's not the case, that they can build up and have a compounding effect over time. And so I can't say with any empirical evidence or peer reviewed articles what those numbers are, but I would say it's seventy five percent of the people in special operations at least probably are deficient in hormones that as a result of you know this neuroinflammation of the brain that causes that dysregulation. And how can you not be when you live that lifestyle? And this is not a complaining or whining about that lifestyle.

What this has been about is coming to new information, coming to new answers, identifying the problem so we can find a solution. And the solution is simple: anti inflammatory protocol and certain things to make sure your hormones are balanced through an objective lab analysis and we can keep people in pristine conditions. Or we can identify objectively if there is a chink in the armor and work to render it and heal it immediately in real time. And that's just not being done yet. But when you think about the process, it's only a matter of time.

That's what we're working hard to do now to get these things implemented, where we're putting our service members in the best possible situation that they can be when they're asked to go and do these very difficult jobs. We want to give them every means that they can to not only do the job, but to perform and be a husband and a family, you know, man or woman when they're when they're back home with their families. And that's, that's, know, one of the main central, you know, issues or things that that gives my life purpose and meaning now is to get this information out to the people who it can really affect. Because I think that you know from sixteen seventeen years of war now, so many lessons learned and paid for in blood, we can apply these lessons learned to put out a better product and this is one area I see that we can easily implement and improve our performance and our quality of life.

Chris Albert 00:44:37 (link to this point)

Yeah, I think, you know, when we think of the different types of jobs that exist in the military right now, and particularly the ones that that have been big over the last decade, you know, people manning 50 caliber machine guns, the types of shaking that could go on, you know, doing that, being exposed to that type of fire, as well as being exposed to, you know, constant rattling, constant explosions and things like that. This, this could definitely be a very ubiquitous, ubiquitous thing. When, when you came to Doctor Gordon, and you explained your symptoms, what was in your head at the time? Did you think that you were just undergoing post traumatic stress?

Did you think that that there was a TBI related issue when when, when you had, when you'd approached him or when he approached you? Did you know the entirety of what was going on then? Or how much did he explain to you at that point?

Andrew Marr 00:45:45 (link to this point)

Well, I had been and was diagnosed with having post traumatic stress, but I never bought that. And it bothered me. It bothered me not because I thought anything less about it, it bothered me because I wasn't, I wasn't having difficulties getting over, you know, anything, I wanted to go back and do the job I thought I was, you know, meant to do. You know, that's what it was all about. I didn't have any problems doing the difficult job I was asked to do.

Took great pride in doing that. Because I believed in it. And I believed in the men to the left and to the right of me and my role in bringing them back to their loved ones. And so, you know, that really compelled me to probably go out and probably, you know, I mean, everybody to go out and do things that were that really looked at by most of society as, you know, crazy, or a suicide mission or something like that. But when you kind of live by that code, you know, you're willing to take these risks to do things.

And I so I was just like, I don't I don't have any, any problems with with the jobs that we've done. It it's not causing me you know, I'm I'm not losing sleep over. I'm not I'm not necessarily having, you know, nightmares. You know, we definitely had, you know, things go south and thing know, when you're in the game that long, man, you know, you're gonna you're gonna have experienced loss and tragedy and suffering, but that's the story of life. So I just didn't buy into this post traumatic stress disorder.

Because I wasn't pointing to anything that was, you know, holding me up. And that definitely does happen. And it's a real thing. Doctor Gordon, you know, thinks it's from his perspective, I understand it right, that it's purely a hardware issue.

And the post traumatic stress manifests as you know, crossed wires or, you know, parts of the brain not being able to talk to each other or the electrical signal being too strong or too weak. And that manifests in different ways as post traumatic stress. While I definitely think that the research has shown that that's absolutely true. There is also a software, you know, portion of that, and that's wrapped up in, you know, the stories that we tell ourselves. And so if people continue to relive a negative event, or a physical trauma, or you know, something that that was very malevolent that they were a part in at some level, then every time they relive that by thought, they're producing that physiological, that biological, neurochemical response in their body.

And the body, the internal structure of the body doesn't can't tell the difference between happening now. And is this a memory so it makes the chemistry to reflect that level of mind. And so when you grasp that, you realize that post traumatic stress, it can is totally self induced by thinking and reliving certain situations over and over and over again. And if you're doing that one hundred two hundred times a day, and that's turning on those that that chemistry that affects you in a negative way that puts you in a fight or flight mechanism, well, now that's opening you up, and that's weakening your immune system, and it's opening you up to sickness and disease. And that is definitely a real thing that can be brought on independently of any hardware issues, any issues with neuro inflammation or down regulation or dysregulation of of hormones, produced in the brain and or body.

So, you know, I wasn't aware of of any of this when when things were happening to me. All I knew, all I thought, Chris, was, man, I have got some screws loose now. Because I said before, my thoughts and my actions for the first time aren't in alignment. You know? And I can think of a time when we were at it was my wife was taking me to the airport and we had our three youngest children in the car.

Two in car seats and she's breastfeeding another one. I went in to get our youngest daughter some food from a fast food place. And I got into an altercation in the parking lot with essentially a teenager, and you know, ended up dropping them in the parking lot and throwing them into oncoming traffic. And then the the, you know, the people there at the establishment, you know, took didn't didn't agree with that, and and rightly so. But, know, then they challenged me, and I and I end up dropping, you know, a number of people in this parking lot, and I you know, had to do evasive maneuvers to get out of there.

And you know, as I dropped the last dude going to my car, I see my wife and my children looking at me in horror. And I'm just thinking, my god, what has happened? What is going on? And that was the first time it really resonated with me like, hey, not only am I at risk, my health is at risk, but everybody that I come in contact with is now at risk because I'm unable to to handle these situations accordingly because there was just no means or no reason to turn to what what, you know, what happened, what what transpired. But that's where it went, you know?

And so I just thought, man, I have screws loose, and I I don't know what's going on. They, you know, they tell me I've had a number of head injuries, and I'm never gonna be the same, and I just refused to accept that. So we just kept looking. And then meeting doctor Gordon, hearing his podcast, Joe Rogan and Matt Gosney, and where he dissected, you know, Matt was on 17 or 18 medications and, you know, a number of TBIs. He had was shot and in a bad explosion and talking about, you know each of the things that Matt was having problems with, how it directly related to neuroinflammation and the specific hormones that were deficient or insufficient for Matt.

And when they corrected those, all his problems went away. He was able to come off all his medication, and doctor Gordon was able to kind of show me again through my lab analysis, you know, what why I was going through the things I was going through, what that was related with as as far as damage to certain portions or parts of the brain, and the the deficiency of of certain hormones, how that directly relates to, you know, this area or cognition or proper social behavior or sequential behavior, you know, all these other areas. So it was just like an education, drinking from a fire hose, but it was so awesome because everything was rooted in scientific evidence in a way that I could understand, and more importantly, a way a way to fix it, you know, a solution based on my individual needs, and not through, you know, medication, but putting back in the body what the body needs, what it's not making on its own. And and then, you know, let's see what happened. And what seeing what happened was giving me my life back and almost, you know, in rapid succession.

Chris Albert 00:53:29 (link to this point)

Awesome. We're gonna, we're gonna stop there for today's session. And what I want you guys at home to think about is how much of what you've been told has had an impact on your belief system? And how has your belief system limited you? And we'll be back next week, and we're gonna talk more with Andrew about the impact on his family.

We're gonna talk a bit more about the medications that the the establishment was giving him and the impact of those medications. And we're going to be talking more about these potential solutions. I want to thank you for listening to this first installment of Tales From The Blast Factory. And wherever you are, whatever you're doing, get out there and live your best life. If you guys like our content here on the Warrior Soul podcast, if you enjoy our episodes, or even if you don't, please head over to iTunes and leave us a review.

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