#464 Cass on Top

Cassandra has type 1 diabetes and I don't remember why I picked this title - let's find out together.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon MusicGoogle Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio PublicAmazon Alexa or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT


**DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 464 of the Juicebox Podcast. Hey, it's a palindrome for 64. Same frontwards as it is backwards goes for letters to palindrome. Anyway, today's show, I remember loving when I recorded it. And as I edited the show, I loved it too, so much so that I made myself a note to call it cast on top. But in this moment, for the life of me, I don't remember why I did that. Here's what I do remember, off the top of my head, Cass was diagnosed as a child, she's an adult now living with type one. She's from the Canada, a place called Toronto, apparently. And she was really delightful. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. You do not however, need a doctor's okay to push subscribe in your podcast app that you can just do right now.

before the show get started, can I make a personal plea here for a second? If you're gonna send me a note that's going to make me cry? Can you warn me at the beginning of the note or something I don't know we have to come up with a code word so that I'm not looking at notes and grocery stores and tearing up. I'm thrilled that you guys are doing so well. And I love that you thought me now and don't stop sending me the notes but I don't want to cry and grocery stores.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one, go to touched by type one.org To find out more about my favorite diabetes organization. The episode is also sponsored by the content. The episode is also sponsored by the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. And you can find out more and get started with dexcom@dexcom.com forward slash juice box and slightly new link for Omni pod. It's Omni pod comm forward slash juice box remember it used to be my Omni pod comm now it's just Omni pod.com forward slash juice box you have all bought enough on the box they can afford to buy their name on the online now. I'm just kidding about that. I don't know why it used to be my Omnipod. But I have to admit it did confuse me at first, but don't worry, we'll get used to it. I'm the pod.com forward slash juicebox go there and find out if you're eligible for a free 30 day trial of the dash system. Are you kidding me? Like actually use it for 30 days for the free? Like have a non shield I'm saying you get the Omnipod dash, it's free and you can use it to manage diabetes for 30 days. Go find out if you're eligible omnipod.com forward slash juice box links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox Podcast comm I even think you can get a free demo pod at that link if you don't want the dash thing. Alright, that was a lot. I got carried away here with the Omni pod link thing.

Cassandra 3:25
I'm Cassandra. I'm from Toronto, Ontario. And I'm a type one diabetic.

Unknown Speaker 3:31
How old are you?

Cassandra 3:33
I'm 28. I'll be 28 on Boxing Day this year.

Scott Benner 3:36
Boxing Day is like your Christmas right?

Unknown Speaker 3:38
Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 3:40
What do you guys do on the boxing day?

Cassandra 3:42
Everyone just goes shopping and spends a bunch of money but my my family we just kind of get together celebrate my birthday and yeah, that's pretty much it. It's very it's very easy. But boxing day here in Canada is like a big thing. Everybody goes shopping crazy. Like lineups are out the door at like 6am it's absurd. Wait, okay, so

Scott Benner 4:01
hold on a second box. So it's Black Friday. Is it or no Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated the day after Christmas Day. Thus being a second day of Christmas tide. It originated in the United Kingdom. And it's celebrated a number of countries that previously formed part of the British Empire. Okay, so you see, do you celebrate Christmas as well? Yes, gotcha. So you do Christmas and then you go spend a bunch of money the next day.

Cassandra 4:25
And that's pretty Yeah, that's exactly exactly what it is. There's like a bunch of sales in Canada all through the stores and everybody just kind of goes goes crazy and splurges Yeah,

Scott Benner 4:35
they do that the day after Thanksgiving. I mean, I don't but I've seen people in the news do it. There. Yeah, they're like struggling for like $200 flat screen televisions and trying to kill each other. I though I guess this year that might not happen.

Cassandra 4:50
Yeah, that's true. Right? Because of everything going on. Yeah, but uh, yeah, I guess it's kind of like black like they call Black Friday right? When there's all those sales but yeah, it's

Scott Benner 4:58
we're already learning things here. Because I was certain Boxing Day was more of a, like a religious thing, but obviously the religion of money is the only religion I see here. So okay.

Cassandra 5:10
I don't know honestly, it could be a religion and I just don't know about it. But here in Canada, like Boxing Day is known as like everyone goes shopping or does everything online after Christmas?

Scott Benner 5:19
Let me get the right.

Cassandra 5:21
Okay, I even know some people that like on Christmas day they'll wait till midnight at midnight for the Boxing Day sales just so they can go crazy and splurge. So

Scott Benner 5:29
I see that happen here, as well. Okay. All right. So we found that let's dive a little farther into my ignorance for a second. You said, I'm from Toronto. And I thought are people really from there? But I guess they are right people are born there.

Cassandra 5:42
Yeah, well, you know what it is, is everybody kind of when you think of Toronto, Ontario, like everyone knows of Toronto, like the big CN Tower, right. So I'm actually I'm not from them from a little city around there. Brampton, Ontario is where I'm originally from, but everybody always knows Toronto. So I guess that's why I'm from Toronto.

Scott Benner 6:01
It's so cool. How you take the Oh, right out of it when you say it to

Unknown Speaker 6:04
Toronto. Yeah.

Scott Benner 6:06
It's Toronto. Like, it's Yeah, that's cool. I see. Okay, so my ignorance out of the way, and we're on our way, we're moving right along. How old were you when you were diagnosed with Type One Diabetes?

Cassandra 6:18
I don't even remember it. I remember the days. So it's March 24 2004. I was grade five. So think it was about 10 910 years old.

Scott Benner 6:26
Hold on a second. 2004. Right. Yeah. 10 to that is 2014. Yet another 10 is 2024. That's too far, because it's only 2020. Now, so we go back to 2014. We've got 10. Now we start counting by ones 2015 1617 1819 20. That'd be 16 years ago. So it's was 16 years ago. And you said you were How old? 2028 over you 12 or 11 or something like that? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 6:51
yeah. around there. Yeah.

Scott Benner 6:53
Did you see how he did that?

Cassandra 6:55
Yeah, that was really good. Yeah, that's not my forte.

Scott Benner 6:59
Seriously, Are you being serious that it was really good? Because you're in trouble? If you think I would I just did this.

Cassandra 7:05
Well, it's funny, because that's actually how my partner does math. I like the way you just did. You're like, okay, 24, subtract it. Like, that's exactly how he does it. So when you're explaining it, I'm like, wow, that actually all makes so much sense. Because that's how he explained it to me.

Unknown Speaker 7:18
I believe the there's other ways to do it that are better, but

Cassandra 7:23
he does it. And he's actually really, really good at maths.

Scott Benner 7:26
Listen, Cassandra, it's very possible that he's just better at math than you are. And you think he's really good. You'll know for sure. When you commingle that money for real and it starts to disappear. And you'll be like, Hey, wait a minute. He might not know what the hell he's talking.

Unknown Speaker 7:41
Oh, my God, it's so

Scott Benner 7:43
you're on 12 years old in a fifth fifth grade ish. You know, I take him by surprise that it run in the family?

Cassandra 7:50
No, so diabetes does not run in my family. Like, none of my grandparents don't have it. My parents don't have it. From what I'm aware of my great grandparents don't have never had it. Gotcha. Um, more like heart disease and heart condition runs in my family. But But no, not diabetes.

Scott Benner 8:06
Right. Okay. Okay. So just a little out of the blue now that you know, and you've had it for a while. Do you see any other autoimmune issues in your family line? celiac? gluten intolerance, thyroid issues, anything like that?

Unknown Speaker 8:19
No, none of them.

Unknown Speaker 8:20
Were just a random one out of the group, huh? Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 8:22
was the lucky one.

Scott Benner 8:24
I'm the lucky one. That's from a movie. I don't know what it is anymore. But it's sticking in my head now. Okay, so 12 years old. Nobody knows what they're doing. How does it go?

Unknown Speaker 8:35
Well,

Cassandra 8:36
my parents like so my parents got divorced when I was seven years old. For me, it was scary. Like it was a little I it was a little scary experience. And when I first became diagnosed with diabetes, I didn't take it seriously at all. So when I first got diagnosed, I know that the numbers are different, like in the state, they calculated differently. But mine in Canada was 40.5. When I was dying, I'm pulling up my calculator

Scott Benner 9:01
Cassandra, hold on one second, the calculator that by the way, is available at Juicebox podcast.com. forward slash conversion, and then you tell me what your blood sugar was again.

Cassandra 9:12
So is 40.5 when I was originally diagnosed, so it was about I think of for you guys is like 747 5729

Scott Benner 9:19
with an A one an average a one C of 27. Yeah, yeah. Hi. I guess it's very, very

Cassandra 9:26
high. That's when the ads when I was diagnosed,

Scott Benner 9:28
you remember how they brought it down in the hospital was very slowly over days.

Cassandra 9:32
It was very slowly over days. I was I think when I when I was first diagnosed. So I went to a walk in clinic and he was the one who actually told me, the way he explained it was horrible. Like, he basically told my mom that he's like, I'm shocked. She's not in a coma. And he's like, you need to go to the emergency department right away. So my mom was just like in panic, she's like, Oh, my God, okay, like, Okay, let's go give her just super weird and shock. What's the reason my mom goes,

Scott Benner 9:56
What's that old saying? Cassandra where they say when only you can hear it. It's a And when everyone can hear it, it's talking. Like, why would I get the doctor being shocked? I don't get him saying it in front of you or to your mother who's about to go through the, you know, her child being diagnosed with Type One Diabetes.

Cassandra 10:15
Right? Like even my mom, she just couldn't believe like the way he just explained it and like we weren't even sitting down like I remember I actually remember like, I had just gotten really sick in that washroom. And then I went back and I sat down and my mom was standing up and he was just like, the way he just explained. It was just like, yeah, you gotta go the emergency room like she's, I can't even believe she's not in a coma. Like he actually I remember hearing those words out of his mouth, and I was just like, shocked. It was a coma. I was like, what's like, what is that?

Unknown Speaker 10:41
Weird Shane deady. Thanks a lot.

Unknown Speaker 10:45
Like, okay,

Cassandra 10:46
cool. Like, what's that? I'm like, Where are we going? So was he

Scott Benner 10:50
also the sheriff? Or is was that being a doctor? His only job?

Cassandra 10:54
I think that was just being a doctor. Yeah, right. Like,

Scott Benner 10:58
now what am I What does that show I'm thinking of that was in Alaska in the 80s. And there was a moose walking down the street. You're so young, you're not gonna remember any of this. Old people right now are like, Oh, I know what he's talking about. I just imagine that like after he's done doctor, and he runs over and like, you know, writes tickets on the meters down Main Street. And so I realized that's not where you live, but it's how it feels to me.

Cassandra 11:20
It's crazy yet.

Scott Benner 11:22
So you you had right off to the hospital. From there. Yes,

Cassandra 11:25
yes. Yeah, we went, we went there. I was in there for what I remember. I think it was about two weeks. They did do it slowly. I had, like, I remember everything like a nurse would come check my blood sugar every night. And ya know, I remember them just explaining everything to me. So I was fairly young. So I don't remember a detail to detail. I'm sure my mom could explain it, like precise. But um, yeah, I know, I just remember being diagnosed and it was all very new to me. Like they were explaining like how I had how often I have to check my blood sugar and everything like that. And I, they were just trying to explain it to me. But as I got older, I kind of just did my own research. And I started going to like my di bedich appointments on my own. And then that's what kind of like, made me like understand, like, Oh, my God, this is actually a lot more serious than what I thought it was. So after in high school, like late in high school, that's when I started to take things very seriously.

Scott Benner 12:16
Okay. Do you think in those early days in the hospital and at your, you know, at that age, do you think that all that explaining, none of it really got into your head at all?

Cassandra 12:27
No, yes. I don't think any of it got into my head

Scott Benner 12:29
at all. And so you just you just left there with what I count these carbs and I give myself this insulin I eat.

Cassandra 12:38
Yeah, like I just, I didn't really understand it. I know my nerves like the nurse that was there. She was great. Like, she was great. I remember her name was Amanda. She was great. I still remember her till this day. But it was just a matter of I don't know, I guess it was just a matter of so young. And it was also my like, the lifestyle that I lived. I didn't realize how serious it was until my mom was like, okay, like as we now need to start going, we need to go the grocery like that day when I was discharged. My mom took me to the grocery store and she changed everything. Like I used to eat white bread. It was very different. And then I remember right away we switch to like the thin like this thin slices of the weightwatchers bread. And I was like mom like what is this? Like, this? Isn't this isn't bread.

Scott Benner 13:16
I see old ladies make this toast? And it's not fun It can you bet you ever noticed the weight watchers bed? When you toasted? It bends? It's like It's

Unknown Speaker 13:25
weird. You're like, Mom,

Scott Benner 13:27
I don't think there's flour in this. Wait, what are we doing?

Cassandra 13:30
Oh my What is this? This isn't bread and like, yeah, so like I remember just things drastically changing. And then like, I went so basically, when I got to high school, it was all about being thin, right? Like, that's what that's what I remember. I was like it was always about being thin. And when I was a younger girl, like from grade five to grade eight, I was not i'm not not overweight, but I was a little bit on the heavier side. Like I wasn't a super thin kid. And so when I got to high school, I noticed and that's one thing that I always noticed is when I had high blood sugars, like I would look a lot slimmer and I wouldn't eat as much and I wasn't as hungry as much. So I went through this phase where I would not give myself insulin like pretty much all day. And I would go to school, I wouldn't eat lunch, I wouldn't eat breakfast. And I would have like a bottle of Pepsi. I remember that was always my lunch. I'd have like a bottle of Pepsi. And then I go home and one day I'll never forget this. I got I felt really really sick. I walked home that day in my walk home was about a 45 minute walk. And I walked home that day and I felt very very nauseous. When I got home I felt super sick. And I did I got really sick. And then I remember checking my blood sugar. And it was about I think like in the high 20s like 2425 and I got super sick and I was like man I look and then my mom came down and she's the cast what's going on and I remember telling her like mom, I don't feel well my blood sugar is really high and she asked me what to eat that day. And what I've been doing and I totally explained everything to her because me my mom have a very open relationship. I never hid anything from her there. was never any reason to. And so when I told her I'll never forget, she was just explained to me like Catholic, you can't be do this. You're literally killing yourself. And then shortly after, like I think about two weeks later, I met, I went and I did a carb counting class because my mom had thought like, maybe a pump is a better option for me. So I'm not always coming like taking out my syringe and giving myself injections.

Scott Benner 15:21
Okay, well, let me stop you for a while you just you were consciously not injecting because you were trying to stay thin, or because you were just not paying attention. Or I was

Cassandra 15:33
embarrassed. I didn't. Yeah, but my main my main goal, like not giving injections was to stay thin. Okay.

Scott Benner 15:40
And so, so that, you know, is categorized as an eating disorder. Yes, yeah. And do you feel like that went on for how long?

Cassandra 15:49
Um, I would say probably majority of my high school. So I would say probably grade nine grade 10. I did that. And then once I realized, like, I kept constantly getting sick, and I did not enjoy the feeling. That's, I would say probably at the end of grade 10. That's when I ate changed. Like, I completely stopped and then I started taking care of myself.

Scott Benner 16:08
24 blood sugar's for 32 in the United States, just for people's like context. And so your Did your mom, recognize your mom didn't recognize Oh, hold on a second. I have a little problem here with Why is it saying this to me? Oh, sorry. Sorry about that. Just jumped in and asked me if I wanted to use my air pods, which I'm assuming someone else in the house just opened up air pods. That was very odd. Everyone's working from home and going to school from home and I don't like I know. I like being here. My house by myself and everyone else goes somewhere.

Cassandra 16:40
Right. enjoying your time a lot? Yeah.

Scott Benner 16:42
What is wrong with them being here? But my question was, your mom wasn't aware that you were trying to manage your weight by not taking insulin, right?

Cassandra 16:53
No, my mom was a single mom. I like I've actually, like my mom's never owned. We never owned our own home. I've actually lived with my grandparents my entire life. So I lived with my grandparents at the time, my sister and my uncle and my mom. And my mom was a baker at Longo. So, um, like, she was like, my mom was always constantly working, taking overtime like it was even like when I became diabetic, I had dropped a lot of weight significantly, and my dad when I went to go see him one weekend, that's actually he noticed and he was like, Listen, like she's dropped significant amount of weight, like you need to go take it to the doctors, and that's what led my mom to go take me to the doctors. Okay. So with her being so busy, it was hard for her to notice. But if she did notice any little things, she would always talk to me about it.

Scott Benner 17:38
Can I I'm trying to understand that contextually for a second, like 14 years old. How tall are you?

Cassandra 17:45
I'm five, four and a half.

Scott Benner 17:47
So when you were they think when you felt like your weight wasn't where you wanted it. Where was it versus where was like, how many pounds like difference was that? I guess?

Cassandra 17:58
Yeah. Okay, so when I was before I became even diabetic, like I would say I was probably like I was probably 171 at like one before. Yeah, so I would say 171 80 when I was in grade five, grade six, so that goes by I was a pretty like, I was pretty heavy girl. And then when I became diabetic before getting to receiving treatment and insulin, I had dropped I would say about 2030 pounds within a month span. Right? Wow.

Scott Benner 18:28
Yeah. Okay, and so that to you, whether you were sick or not, you were like, wow, I'm way closer to the weight I want to be

Cassandra 18:36
Yeah, I'm looking great. Okay, nicer clothes, everything spinning better. loving us is

Unknown Speaker 18:41
really moving along. I

Scott Benner 18:42
don't know why people are calling this illness. This is really fantastic. And you even understand now obviously, and for people listening that even though that you were when people say oh, I lost so much weight before I was diagnosed, they were just they were you know, their blood sugar's were higher they were in decay. And that's the you know, one of the things that happens there obviously is you're wasting away you're dying, you know?

Unknown Speaker 19:03
Yeah, like

Scott Benner 19:04
you're in severe dehydration, right? So it's well, it's just there's so much going on. And and your body is just withering away. Like Like if you if you're not diagnosed, you end up dying at a much lower weight even than 20 or 30 pounds off of your number. Yes. And so you did you notice it? Like even at that age? Did you start using insulin and think oh, I'm gaining weight again? Like how did you figure out that someone tell you like I'm fast? I'm such I'm such an a middle here because I don't want to tell people Hey, by the way, if you don't take your insulin, your blood, your your weight will go down, but I assume that's something people know. But how did you figure it out?

Cassandra 19:44
Um, I just I don't know. Like, I just I know like, for me, it was my clothes like, um, back then. I was it was very, I was very superficial. I was very into like, I cared a lot about what people thought of me. I was very insecure. I didn't have like my self confidence. Like there was no confidence in myself whatsoever. And so basically, the way I noticed was just literally through my clothes. And I noticed like when ROM after becoming diabetic, like, when I went back home and like I was trying to like live the normal, like live vessel, the lifestyle as a diabetic, like my clothes was starting to get a little bit more snacks, I was putting back on that weight again, right? Like, well after giving me insulin and getting the treatment I needed. So I wasn't saying I was gonna gain all that weight back because I was technically eating healthier. So but I was I was putting back on my weight. Because I went back to those old habits in

Scott Benner 20:35
a way because not sure how did you connect that to the insulin? Like how did you figure out like, oh, if I don't take this insulin, my weight will stay down? Do you remember?

Let's talk about today's sponsors. And let's talk about them honestly, from the heart, shall we first This one's easy, touched by type one, an organization doing wonderful things. For people with type one diabetes, it's super easy for you to find out about you just go to touched by type one.org. You can also follow them on Facebook, and Instagram. That's all they want you to know. They just want you to know they're there and go check them out. So once you're done with that, you're probably going to want to look into the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. dramatic pause for the music. The Dexcom g six allows you to follow the person using the CGM. Imagine this if your child is reading the CGM, and you're somewhere else, you can see their blood sugars live and in person, I can actually see four people's blood sugars right now, because I'm watching for different people. I see a blood sugar of 160 to one of 81 of 103 and one of 116. Now you're probably not going to be following for people ever, but you might want for people to follow you. Maybe your husband, maybe your brother, your sister, your school nurse, trash truck driver, because he just looks like a good guy, who do you want on your side? Anything, right? You're at the mall, some lady makes a cupcake at the mall. And you're like, I love this lady. I wish she knew what my blood sugar was, you could actually let her follow you if you want to do the cupcake lady at the mall. I mean, that's technology right there. It's amazing. They can fall on an Android or an iPhone and see your blood sugars in real time. If you want them to see them. If you don't want anybody to see them, you don't have to share them with nobody. That's up to you. It's your information. But it's information, it's going to help you make decisions about bolusing. Eating, correcting blood sugars, so much more, you're gonna see the speed and direction in real time of your blood sugar. And that's how great decisions are made with information with data with the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor dexcom.com forward slash juicebox get started right now. Next comes for anyone using insulin, you could have type one or type two. And by the way, if you get your insurance to the Veterans Administration, in the United States, I think you might be very happy with the coverage. Go check it out. Okay, now you're going to have your Dexcom and be able to see your blood sugar and what it's doing. How are you going to make it do the thing it's doing? How are you going to make it stay stable? How are you gonna get your basil so good that your blood sugar just sits super stable when you're away from a Bolus or food? How are you going to Pre-Bolus and stop those spikes at mealtimes? How are you going to make small adjustments to your insulin? How are you going to do all this? I think you should do it with an omni pod tubeless insulin pump. That is the decision I made for my daughter. And I would make it again right now today, the Omni pod tubeless insulin knob and they're willing, if you're eligible, go check out if you are they're willing to send you a 30 day supply of the Omni pod dash system right now for you to actually use and try. That's amazing. They also have a free demo pod where you can just get one to try on and where that's nonfunctioning, but if you want and you're eligible, three, free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash Are you kidding me? On the pod.com forward slash juice box you'll you'll know soon just head over there you felt a tiny bit of information and on the pod is going to get back to you. Next thing you know you're going to be wearing an insulin pump that is tubeless it doesn't have to come off for adult roughhousing or bathing or swimming in the ocean or jumping up and down or kicking a soccer ball or doing a commercial a temper salt is not a thing but I'm running out of time so I got a little nervous there on the pod.com forward slash juicebox Dexcom comm forward slash juicebox touched by type one.org This is the sponsors support the show back to casandra where she says Cassandra, back to Cassandra Come to think of it though she also says trunk toe so maybe we shouldn't be listening to Cassandra when it comes to pronunciation or is it pronunciation or consideration, I

Unknown Speaker 25:00
don't know.

Scott Benner 25:03
How did you connect that to the insulin?

Cassandra 25:05
Honestly, I don't remember. I was in high school. So I just noticed, like, again, like I have a diet like I had that Pepsi. And to me, needless to say, it's not even I wouldn't even see maybe it was, I'm not giving the insulin, maybe it was just like the fact that I wasn't eating. And so I had that loss of appetite. Because when I noticed, like when my blood sugars are really high, I don't crave any food, I don't crave anything except water. And so I'm pretty sure that's like the standard for most diabetics, when your blood sugar is pretty high, you just want water constant, like I was always thirsty. And I was always like, because I was drinking so much water, I was always constant going in the bathroom. So it's not even needless to say that it was not giving the insulin, it was just the side effects of not giving the insulin that maybe made me drop the weight. So I right, so I would have related to the insulin, so I would just put it in my head, okay, if you don't give that insulin, you're going to drop that weight. So I kind of, maybe that's what it was I related the two, if that makes sense. So

Scott Benner 25:59
it starts out with you not really knowing how to use the insulin and your blood sugar getting high, then you see it happening. And then you connect the dots there. Why did you not? So it's hard. It's not hard for me, I understand because I talked to so many people. But when I think of my daughter's management, and very likely how we're going to find out eventually that you manage your blood sugars. Now, I don't I don't understand a world where your blood sugar goes up and you look at it. But that was just common, right? Like you did whatever you were supposed to do. And then you didn't think about your blood sugar again until it was time to eat again. Is that how you did it?

Cassandra 26:36
Yeah, so like, I would go home like after my school day, I go home and I give myself like a big injection to like, correct all that stuff. Like, if that makes sense. I'd go home, I'd give myself an injection just to correct that big high that I had at that moment and then go back to normal. But that's not that's not a healthy way to do it. Right?

Scott Benner 26:53
It was that novo rapid back then.

Unknown Speaker 26:55
Yeah, yes. Yes.

Scott Benner 26:56
I see. You had to slow acting and so on. You were using overwrapped as your path acting fast acting. You get up in the morning, you did you test in the morning?

Cassandra 27:04
I would, um, I would sometimes like it's honestly, it would depend on my mood. It would really depend on my mood, because like, again, while I was also a very angry child when I was younger.

Unknown Speaker 27:17
Let's hear about that. I want to hear about that.

Cassandra 27:19
Right? Oh, yeah. No, I was a very, very angry child. Again, it was just my parents going through a divorce and all like all that stuff when I was younger, so I feel like when it came, like even not that they were afraid of me, but I was very like, I'm not I was never I was very outspoken. So if my like mom would be like, Oh, go test your blood sugar. Like I'd be like, No, I don't have to like I would always I was always I would always seem to have something to say back and sorry, mom.

Scott Benner 27:46
You were a pain in the ass is that you're telling me?

Cassandra 27:48
I will I honestly like God bless my mother. Yeah, no, I was I was really bad. I was very stubborn. And I would I would give attitude back. I always have something to say back. Yeah, so it was like I wasn't easy child to manage either. I guess like I definitely would diabetes, so I can't.

Scott Benner 28:03
So she's a she's a single mom. There's a lot going on in the morning. She's probably trying to go to work. You're trying to go to school. She's telling you, you know, you can't do this to yourself. But she's not exactly like following that up with but what you should do and in the moments when she does try to explain to you what to do you just like Lady Get away from me. Yes. Wow. Yeah. Great times. Huh?

Cassandra 28:23
Right. Yeah. Mother? Yeah. No, it's horrible. Yeah, no. And it wasn't like, even in elementary school. Like, I love like, I love how involved you are. With your daughter's like treatment. Like, you know, you guys like verbalize it to the teachers and the nurses and everything like that. Um, it was a whole different situation for like myself, like my, I think my mom may be told, like my principal, in elementary school, but like, my teachers were not involved. My nurses were not involved. So it was just a very different time. And it was just like a different experience. Right? So it was more like, it was me my it was basically me doing this on my own. And then as I got into high school in grade 11, that's when I took matters into my own hands and like, things completely changed for me after that,

Scott Benner 29:06
let's find out why that happened. But first, I want to say you've dispelled the rumor that Canadians are just a bunch of very kind people, and that you're, you know, you're you're nice to your mom. And and by the way, I'm trying to imagine what your mom said to the principal, like, hey, if she passes out, you know, call 911 and she's got the she's got the sugars, you know, like, I wonder what she said and that the principal just went like, alright. You didn't say you want to talk to the nurse, or should we make a plan for they were just like, Yeah, okay. Yeah, so Okay.

Cassandra 29:42
It was different. It was a different, very different time. But um, I don't know, like, I don't know if like maybe like if they were more involved, if like, I would have been more aware of my blood sugars and like, maybe in high school, I wouldn't have done the things I done. I did sorry. So I'm wondering. Well, no, like, I was took

Scott Benner 30:00
me six years right to want to take control of things. So when what makes that happen?

Cassandra 30:06
Yeah. So it's actually so funny. So we reach so my, my pediatric doctor, she changed my life. Her name was Dr. Goldenberg. And it got to the point where she would see how high my blood sugars were. And she would call me every day at dinner. I'm like, did you trust your blood sugar? Did you give insulin? She did that for me every single day. For I think, three or four months. she'd call me every single day at dinner. And like, what were your readings today? She made me read them out to her every single day. And all like throughout the day and the time. And then if I didn't test my blood sugar, she'd be like, why didn't you test your budget and she was like, a strict doctor and which I felt like I needed because I was kind of our heart. I was kind of a difficult pain in the butt to say I was a hard ass.

Scott Benner 30:45
Is that what you're? What? So you didn't feel like you could yell at her?

Cassandra 30:53
No, like, I was kind of afraid of her if that. And I that intimidated me So, but in a good way, like I till this day? I absolutely respect that my doctor for doing what she did. Yeah. Because she made me come out of my comfort zone. And she made me realize that like, Okay, I need to take this seriously. And so I remember one day, she sat down with me when I went to go see her, and she didn't let my mom in the room. She's like, I want to talk to you, woman. And she's like, Listen, if you don't start taking care of yourself, you're going because my number one fear. She asked me what my number one fear is. And my number one fear is to go blind. I'm terrified of losing my eyesight. And she's told me that that is a symptom. Like if you do not take care of yourself, that can be a side effect. And I was like, Oh my god, like, I don't want that to happen. So after doing some research and things like that, she thought maybe going on a diabetic pump would be something to help me stabilize my blood sugar's but for me to do that, to go on that pump, I had to already manage and stabilize my blood sugar's off the pump. So that kind of made me Okay, so I'm like, Okay, I got to get things in order. So I can make things better. So after having that talk with her that kind of woke things up for me. And right after that, I think maybe a month later, I went to a carb counting class. And when I went to that carb counting class, it was a big class with a group of people. There were seniors there, like people of all different ages, different races. It was amazing. And a gentleman he had lost two fingers and an eye. I said on one of his eyes, and I, we had asked him like, how did that happen? And he told us it was from diabetes. And it was because he didn't manage his blood sugar's when he was younger. And he was just explaining his story and hearing other people's stories that woke me up to this thinking, like, Oh, my God, I have to take care of myself, I don't want these things to happen. I want to be able to see the rest of my life. And I want to be able to have children one day, so

Scott Benner 32:40
somebody yell at you, at some point of balance the scale out, I think, Well, you know, isn't it interesting that you had the fear, but until you like until somebody like double down on it, and then you met somebody who your fear actually came true for that, it's not enough to just know it could happen. For some, it's interesting how people's minds work, isn't it like, and by the way, that your fear isn't being mauled by a bear or abducted by an antelope? Or elk or whatever you guys have up there? I think that would be it's interesting that that isn't your fear. If I lived in Canada, my fear would constantly be bear attack, just so you know. I would walk around, we

Unknown Speaker 33:16
have no bears where I don't care.

Scott Benner 33:18
If you're lying to me, I know there are bears there. And well, it's funny too, because, you know, we love to generalize. And you'll hear plenty of people will will be vocal in communities and say, you know, scaring people about their diabetes is not the way to get through to them. And I happen to think it wouldn't be my first choice either. Right? I, but it worked for you. Isn't that interesting, right? Like, like someone like you're the one in high school that went to the Scared Straight program, sat in the room with the felons and was like, I am never breaking a law. You know, like, I don't want to end up like this. And then and so it did. Really, it's interesting. It worked for you that I guess the problem is like, how do you discern the kid who needs to be scared straight? You know, I'm making little quotes with my fingers. And And who do you and how do you know the people just need to have it explained to them one way? Because do you think, like, so you're listening to the podcast now? Right?

Unknown Speaker 34:15
Yes.

Scott Benner 34:16
Do you think a 14 year old casandra and I met at some point, and I was like, hey, Cassandra, look, if you just Pre-Bolus and get, you know, let's get your Basal insulin right. And we'll count these carbs a little bit. It'll all be okay. Do you think you would have needed to be scared at that point?

Unknown Speaker 34:32
That's a great question. Um,

Scott Benner 34:35
there's no way to know I'm just wondering like your top line reaction to that idea.

Cassandra 34:39
You know what, I still think I would have I don't know you know, why? Because like, I I listened to your, like your podcast now when I hear of different situations. Like, there's some things that I hear people think of, like one of my favorite stories that I've heard so far is the one were having sex before having sex like as a diabetic, and I never think A lot of things like ROM one of the topics that when the girl was saying like how she wish she goes on top thing, like she uses more exertion and things like that. I'm like, wow, like as a diabetic, like I've never thought of things like that. I've never thought about going low. And so I don't, I don't know, like maybe when I was younger if I had heard these different situations from different people like you listening to the podcast itself. Yeah, maybe it would have woken me up a little bit and then like, okay, Catholic, ah, take this seriously. But I don't I've always I've realized that about myself that I am like that I learned from things like that. So like, again, Mom, I love you to death. But like my mom, like I've learned from her mistakes, like I've seen the mistakes that she's made in her life. Because my mom had me at 18. Like, I basically grew up with my mother. And so I've watched her grow up, and I've seen them sticks that she's done. And so I've learned from those mistakes. And I'm like, I don't want to make those mistakes myself. And I haven't till this day. And so I'm wondering, I don't know, I feel like sometimes I'm for me to learn in a hard way. Like, especially like big life lessons. I couldn't need to be scared straight away.

Scott Benner 36:01
That's interesting. That makes sense. Also, I think, and we're learning that the podcast is made you a lazy lover too. So like if I if your partner was here, right now, what do you say? Oh, my God, like she has wanted to be on the bottom a lot more lately. Does that happen to you? Have you been like, why am I making my blood sugar low and working so hard? Dammit.

Unknown Speaker 36:23
No,

Cassandra 36:25
no, um, no, I just, it's just things that like now. It's just the perspective like those are just things like I would never have thought about like, Oh my god, like, I could have a low while I'm being intimate with my partner. I've never, you know what I mean? Like, I've never thought about that before getting intimate. So like hearing that from like somebody else's perspective. I'm like, oh my god. Like that's so interesting to think that people actually do think of things like that. Gotcha.

Unknown Speaker 36:47
And so right in

Scott Benner 36:49
cash, you're still on top, but you're more cognizant of it now. Oh, and by the way, obviously, this episode is gonna be called casts on top I just realized Okay, by the way, I'm just gonna I'm gonna just jot that down right now. Actually, I don't want to lose that thought. We're done right there. Cast on top. And by the way that you said it's perfect. is fun, because now I'm wondering what else you think is fun. But

Unknown Speaker 37:16
oh my god, my partner's gonna die right here.

Scott Benner 37:20
Listen, cuz now we all learned he's lazy. I don't know what other way to put it. Honestly, the guy just lays there. Okay, so we saw you, you get scared into doing what you you know, to paying more attention? What does paying more attention mean in 11th grade? Like, how did you bring yourself into a better place?

Cassandra 37:40
Yeah, um, so I was more on top of like, checking my blood sugar. So for me, like I checked my blood sugar before every meal before driving, like almost anything that I do. So when I back then like, I would not check my blood sugar. I would probably check it once a day. If that. And so I that's like doing like basically just being a diabetic like just taking care of yourself. Like, that's what I realized I had to do so I would check my blood sugar's more, I was more on top of my insulin, I became more aware of my diet. So grade 11. I had gotten up to I think about 210 pounds. I got, like, I went from, like, dropping all the way to then going through like that big change where I wasn't giving insulin and then Okay, I'm like, Okay, I gotta take this seriously. And so I did gain weight, but I didn't, I did not gain weight because I was taking care of myself. So I just want to make that clear. Yeah, I started gaining weight just because like, I started getting into old habits, like I started eating out almost every other day. And then I was like, okay, like, we need to seriously buckle down. take this seriously. It's not just about checking your blood sugar and giving the insulin for what you eat. It's also your diet. So yeah, lifestyle. That's when everything changed. So I basically start I started off with working out on boat six days a week I started doing is like turbo jam with chalene Johnson.

Unknown Speaker 39:02
That sounds very Canadian for some reason.

Cassandra 39:06
I'm like, Oh, my God was I can't remember his name. But he was like the big like, he was like the big black guy that were like his big scrubs and the big Nike shoes. My mom used to remember his day, but Bill Gates.

Unknown Speaker 39:17
Hold on a second slow down. We got to go to Google. Talking about is this Oh, is this a workout thing?

Cassandra 39:23
Yeah, I'm like he was like kickboxing. I Oh my god. I can't remember

Scott Benner 39:27
but we're gonna figure it out. Wait, do you see this?

Unknown Speaker 39:33
Oh my god. I

Scott Benner 39:34
see this Google search. Hold on. All right, well, for clarity black guy in scrubs just gives you the picture of the actor from scrubs. But that didn't,

Unknown Speaker 39:45
by the way.

Unknown Speaker 39:48
kickboxing workout.

Unknown Speaker 39:55
Billy blanks really very good.

Scott Benner 39:58
You get you figuring it out. Billy blanks. Well, he's huge By the way, or did they just put him next to a very tiny person? It's hard to tell. He's a big man. And this man taught you how to be

Cassandra 40:10
healthy. This man is where that's where it all started him and chalene Johnson is I started doing those workouts. I started getting more top of my diet like the big thing was I stopped eating out. And I stopped pop like I loved guys. I loved Coca Cola. I don't even remember the last time I've drinking Coca Cola. It's been years. It's

Scott Benner 40:32
just drinking straight sugar and soda. It

is. Did you know you weren't eating well. While that was happening?

Cassandra 40:40
I did. I did. I did. And I didn't like I knew like, I knew McDonald's and all that. I knew it was bad for you. But like even now, like, I know, it's so bad for you. But it just it tastes so good. I know. I know. It's bad. But no, like I said I was working with LMC diabetes and endocrinology. I don't know if they have that in the States. But um, my diet it basically they give you an endocrinologist, which is your doctor and a dietitian. So my dietician aman. She was absolutely amazing. Like I could reach out to her about like, different things that I was eating and she'd be like, Okay, try substituting this for this. I could textures like she was honestly. Amazing. She worked with me. And then I remember she actually moved to Australia. She left the company. She moved to Australia about two years ago. And I'll never forget when she left when she left she told me like you are one of my llinas clients. I now I weigh 143 pounds. I started at 210. Wow.

Unknown Speaker 41:37
Oh, good for you.

Scott Benner 41:39
I don't think these are the breasts that shillings mother gave her as I'm looking through your your guru is your online

Unknown Speaker 41:50
definitely not hers.

Scott Benner 41:52
I mean, they're hers. She paid for them. They're hers fair's fair. But okay, so she, you're because it's funny that you're telling the story. I think it's kind of interesting for young girls to hear too. Because you're I only I only know what you look like from like, I literally looked you up on LinkedIn real quick. Because, you know, and you are, you appear to be a fit person in their late 20s. Like, there's nothing about you that I couldn't look at your photo and think that you used to not be a fit person. Like, I don't think I could figure that out from your photo. You don't need me for that.

Unknown Speaker 42:28
That's so sweet.

Scott Benner 42:30
It's just honest. And I think it's important to hear too, because, you know, look, fair's fair fair's fair for shaelyn and fair's fair for this. I think this podcast is about understanding how to use insulin. And from there you need to eat whenever you're going to eat. I'm not in charge of what you eat. Right? I think that I take that tactic because there are plenty of people who don't have great diets and to start off when they have diabetes and they're struggling to control their blood sugar's by telling them hey, you know what your problem is, you don't eat well. Like that's just doesn't seem like a recipe for success to me. I would rather I would rather people learn how to use insulin, and along the way, say to themselves, Hey, you know what? ends up being true here. I'm way better at managing a healthier cleaner diet than I am at managing pop tarts. And and then they can decide for themselves if they want pop tarts. Again, not up to me. Right. But because I talk about it that way so much. I do every once in a while hear people say, oh that guy he says you can eat whatever you want. I'm like, that's not what I said. What I said was you can Bolus for anything. I didn't you know, I didn't say you could eat whatever you want. Everything was just gonna be okay. Like it's you know, you might you might be a very you could end up being an unhealthy person with really good blood sugars.

Cassandra 43:55
And that's exactly what it's so true. And that's and I think that's what people also don't miss consume too is like people always assume like, oh, you're a diabetic. You can't eat this. You shouldn't have this. Guys, let me tell you, like people will tell you I work at a hospital. I'm one of the administrators there and people will tell you I'm the doughnut queen. Like I I love donuts. I'm donuts and burgers is like the way to my heart but I just I eat it in moderation. And I like you said like I just I Bolus for it. But also keep in mind, I do lift very heavy weights and I work out about four times a week. So like I do balance my lifestyle and I eat very lean protein as well. Like I have a very high protein diet. Okay.

Scott Benner 44:36
Your body is eating up those carbs when you're using them for something. Oh yeah, like if I eat a doughnut it just it just goes in settle somewhere. It's not i'm not using it up later picking up something heavy. Well, yeah, I mean, I just I really want to come back around on that one last time. Like there's a difference between understanding how to use insulin being so good at using Insulin that you can pretty much conquer anything that you put in your body, and those things being good for you, in other ways. Like, there's, there's a problem. Sometimes people with diabetes have where they either see themselves as you know, diabetes all the time, or forget to see it. Some of the other times, it's the, I don't know, I'm not saying that correctly, but we somehow have decided that if our blood sugar doesn't get high than what we ate is okay. And, you know, for, like, if you want to talk about, you know, personally immorally I don't care what you eat none, I'm not, that's not my game, you know what I mean? But you also you also can't walk around telling me like, Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm heavier than I want to be, or I'm not as in shape as I want to be. But my blood sugars are great, but I'm doing a good job of keeping them great and eating, you know, Cocoa Puffs at the same time. So, you know, like, you got to pick one up and, and decide just that it matters to me, my nutrition, or it matters to me, not my nutrition, as long as I manage my blood sugar as well. And maybe again, these don't have to be mutually exclusive. You could do both, you know what I mean? And, and you could also have a doughnut sometimes, and, you know, you just can't eat a doughnut every day for the rest of your life. That's not going to work out. Well.

Cassandra 46:18
Exactly. That's, yeah, no, 1,000% Yeah, like, I feel like if you just if you do eat, like, I feel like if you go, if you do eat well, kind of just your blood sugars will, will kind of be kind of just balanced out like it it kind of it almost kind of goes hand in hand. But that's not needless to say, like, you can't go have a Big Mac at McDonald's and just Bolus for that once in a while. You know what I mean? Like, you definitely have to enjoy the little things in life. And, and that's another thing like, I don't want people to always look at me in the vehicle that's cashis the diabetic know like, cuz that's not that's not just all I am, that is a part of who I am. But that's not all I am. And I'm not like before I used to be very embarrassed like I used to, if people will ask me if I was diabetic, I would lie and say no, like, I because people would see me take my tester and test my blood sugar and get my syringe I'd lie and say no, like, what

Scott Benner 47:05
did you think? What do you do want them to think when you were like,

Cassandra 47:08
I would be? I'd be like, Oh, don't worry about it. Like, I would just I would like I was so rude. I would tell people like it's not your business, like people come up and be like, Oh, is that? Are you telling me a bunch? That's not your business? Don't worry about it. I

Scott Benner 47:21
wasn't sure where the line was. You're like, no, this is heroin. Leave me alone. Like if you were just like, I would rather people think this then I wasn't sure where your line was exactly like what it is. You were what you were willing to say? Because there's not a lot of excuses for diabetes. You know, that leads you in a different direction. No, I started to have a really good time with you.

Cassandra 47:42
Right, but like, but now it's funny because like now I'll be at the grocery store and like I where I'm on the Omni pod. So like people will see my little pod on my arm. And I've had people come up to me and be like, oh, like my daughter just turned diet like is just dog became diabetic like and they've asked me about my experience. I've had people at the hospital when I'm walking in the hospital, like a gentleman has come up to me and be like, well, his daughter is 10 years old and she was just diagnosed and he was asking you about my experience. And we taught it ended up being like a quick conference. It supposed to be like a quick conversation right between the elevators and we ended up talking for like a half hour.

Scott Benner 48:13
That is really nice. I think that's terrific when people can help each other like that. I also love that you almost misspoke and said his daughter turned diabetic and I was like that's such an interesting way to think about like, I turned eight years old. I turned diabetic.

Unknown Speaker 48:26
I turned a diabetic. Yeah. I turned

Scott Benner 48:30
a gold mine. What did you say at the beginning? I'm afraid I won't have something to talk about. Yeah, I know. I gave up on matching your energy like 10 minutes in I was like, Oh, hell just let her talk. I'll be fine.

Unknown Speaker 48:42
I tend to ramble on sometimes. So just stop me. I

Scott Benner 48:45
don't know. I was just like, I tried to keep up and I was like, she doesn't need this. Like she'll, she'll be okay without me. That's it's really, um, it's a great story, too, because you really did. I mean, we skipped over it too. But I'm assuming 14 you just started getting your period too, right?

Cassandra 49:03
Yeah. Yeah. Great stuff. No, grade eight is actually when I got it. I don't even know how old I was. So yeah, around that time.

Scott Benner 49:09
So you're still not understanding diabetes. And then you start this starts happening as well. And I'm assuming by your urine your mom's life must have been? How is it now? By the way? How do you guys get on now?

Cassandra 49:23
Oh, me and my mom. Yeah. Best friends. Oh, my God, my daughter

Scott Benner 49:26
anymore. Are you still yelling? Oh, I

Cassandra 49:28
have so much respect for her. I love her so much. And like, honestly, thank you for every like, even though she may not have been as involved as she would have wanted to be. I know she did the best she can. And I love and thank her for everything that she

Scott Benner 49:40
did your mom Your mom is listening to this right now. And she's like, look at her given with one hand and taken away with the other one right away. She's like my mom, she's my best friend. She escaped into everything she could, but you couldn't let her have it for a second. That's wonderful. I like it's very nice. And as a parent, I understand. I watched my children do stuff like that all the time. You know, they're like Look, he looks too happy. Oh, I'll remind him of something he's done wrong. By the way, you know, I have to tell you it's funny if you were born in the 70s you wouldn't have yelled at your mom. When you were 14. Yeah, you would have had a whole different life you would have been like, that lady's gonna hit me and you I'm gonna shut right up. She be like, take more. So you just said Yes, ma'am. No problem. I'll take care of it.

Cassandra 50:24
It's so true. And honestly, I swear to God, like that's why I was like that with her. But with my dad, I was terrified because that's the way it was. My

Scott Benner 50:32
dad wasn't taking it out.

Unknown Speaker 50:33
You want the shoe? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 50:37
Know, maybe,

Unknown Speaker 50:38
maybe the shoe ends up being the title of the episode, although cats on top still very strong contender

Unknown Speaker 50:45
for this shoe,

Scott Benner 50:46
were you ever I'm now wondering what you do with the show. But I am wondering to wish Did you ever live with your father or spend a significant time with him with

Cassandra 50:54
the diabetes? Um, no. My data. I saw him every other weekend. So it wasn't it was enough. No, I didn't really see him that often. Like my mom did teach him like basically what he had to do. But again, like when I was with my dad, my dad had just gotten remarried. So my dad was kind of just going out with my, my ex stepmom and like, kind of just like, enjoying his life. So I was just kind of sitting there watching the kids. I was more of like, I had to manage things on my own

Scott Benner 51:22
cash. Look at you slipping in that your dad's marriage didn't work out. Yeah. Very sly. Everybody. Now, that homewrecker didn't it didn't work out there.

Unknown Speaker 51:34
I see what you're saying. Okay. You're great. You should never let your family listen to this Bible. I

Cassandra 51:41
know, they know. I'm like the base. So they're ready for it? Yeah,

Scott Benner 51:45
they're not no one's been surprised yet at home. I know. What What's up, you know? So he didn't really he was just kind of following rules from your mom, were you actually doing them when you were with him? Um,

Cassandra 51:58
you know what? That's a great question. You know, honestly, I don't, I don't remember. I also have, I'm the oldest out of one. So I have my sister and then I have two half brothers and a half sister. So when I was there, I was kind of watching everybody. So in all honesty, I don't. I don't remember. I don't remember ever having any really seizures with my dad or anything like that.

Scott Benner 52:19
What about high blood sugars? Were they lower with him? Because you were doing what he told you to do? Or do you just like yes him to death and just do things the way you normally did?

Cassandra 52:27
I think when I was around him, I did things the way I was supposed to do. But then like the moment I went home, and but when I did things I was supposed to is more like out of fear not because I wanted to. Yeah,

Scott Benner 52:36
I understand why that's interesting. Okay, by the way, you said something earlier, I just figured we might as well touch on it. While we're here. You said something about your dad. You sound like your parents divorce made you mad? Yes. Yeah. Do you have any clarity on? What about it really bothered you?

Cassandra 52:57
Yeah. Um, so when I was younger, I was I was a daddy's girl. So when I remember seeing my parents fight, and I remember, my mom kind of made my dad leave. So I had a lot of resentment and the way like, I'll give the full story, I have no issue talking about it. So what happened was my dad had tried to commit suicide while in front of me and my mother. And so I had witnessed it with my own eyes. I remember till this day, and so I kind of blamed even though I saw him do that. I blamed her for everything. And then as I got older, and I've kind of got to see and my mom explained things to me more I realized it wasn't her fault. It was kind of my dad's full. So immediately, I don't hate my dad. It's an open conversation. Like I still have an open communication with my father. But um, yeah, back then I just kind of I hate like, I know, hated them, but I hated. No, I did I hated I hated both of them. I hated them for like, undoing our family. And then like, when I became diabetic, I was like, wow, we could have been doing this together. But instead now like, Dad remarried. And I have to, I felt like I kind of had to do it on my own. Because my mom was just so busy taking care of me, my sister. And then my dad was just kind of on his own doing his own thing.

Scott Benner 54:09
Yeah, it was really honest. And given that I just put up an episode with a kid who's bipolar and has tried to kill himself a number of times, and all the other stories that people have told, that was one of the most stories anybody's ever told on this podcast. I'll bleep myself out later. Seriously, like you. Thank you for being that honest. And wow, that that was really, you took me by surprise with that. Your mom, your mom thought your dad wasn't stable, and she wanted him to be away from her kids.

Cassandra 54:41
So and it's funny because he was actually diagnosed, I think, a year and a half ago, bipolar and mild depression. So he's on medication now, but it's funny because that's exactly what it was, too. Yeah. And so yeah, she does. She just felt like he was unsafe for me. Like are her family. Yeah. And so she asked him to leave but at the time, I was so young. I didn't understand what Are you making dad leave? Making dad leave? Right?

Scott Benner 55:04
You made my dad leave here and so now you're mad at her. So anytime she says something to you, you argue with her because you're just looking for a way to hurt her. And then you get older realize that hurting her is hurting you fix yourself fix your relationship with your mom. This is really a lovely story. Really? I mean, except for the part where you live in Canada. It's almost perfect.

Unknown Speaker 55:25
Oh my god.

Scott Benner 55:30
Oh my god. So have you ever written a moose? Yes or no quickly? No. possible to write a moose.

Unknown Speaker 55:38
Things are huge. You

Scott Benner 55:39
couldn't get on a moose right?

Unknown Speaker 55:41
There beautiful

Scott Benner 55:43
luck, just real quickly while we send ourselves. Let's just see if there's any pictures of people riding a moose on

Unknown Speaker 55:48
my car real quick.

Scott Benner 55:52
And let's hope it's not a sexual position I'm not aware of. Okay, it's not a sexual position as near as I can tell, like

Cassandra 55:58
a naked Canadian girl on a moose.

Scott Benner 56:02
I got a picture of Teddy Roosevelt riding a moose and Canadian border patrol. Well, there's Is this a real picture?

Cassandra 56:13
There's one thing I do notice though, is Canadians do say a lot like I will.

Scott Benner 56:18
Not a thing we made up that's for sure. Oh, my goodness, you can write a moose.

Cassandra 56:26
I would never try it. I'm not that country. But by all means.

Scott Benner 56:31
It's so possible this episode is now going to be called you can ride a moose but oh my

Unknown Speaker 56:35
god cast

Scott Benner 56:36
on top is such a strong contender that there's no way to know how I'm gonna go until the very end. There are people here taking photos sitting on this is wonderful. what's what's the plural of moose? I hold on a second. I'm gonna find out.

Unknown Speaker 56:51
Nice.

Scott Benner 56:53
You keep guessing while I look. The only correct plural of moose is moose. So more than one moose is moose. Moose, that's not as much fun as I was hoping to see them. Over there. I wanted to say mostly I wanted to say Moses's or musas. This is is really what I was waiting towards. But I didn't sound right. As I was thinking it just in case all of you think I'm stupid. You're so funny. Yeah, you can see really, if I did a podcast, but anything except diabetes, you'd be like, I don't like that guy very much. He doesn't say anything. It would just be me wondering if mousse is plural or not. And although you know what, we'll try it at the end, when this diabetes thing runs out. I'll give another I'll try one more. Try to be like what the Scott think it'll be boring, but odd. Okay, you've said a lot here. I want to wrap my head around everything. And kind of like talk about how things are obviously you're gonna you're a fitness person. What does that really mean in real life? Like, how frequently do you work out? Um,

Cassandra 57:56
so when I first started, when I first started, actually, the journey a lot easier is that my sister did it with me. So my sister was actually around the same weight as I was, and then we kind of lost the weight together. We started doing workouts at home and then we started going to the gym. So now now on my life, I probably I used to work out about five to six days a week. Now that I'm at a good weight, I work out maybe three, four times a week.

Scott Benner 58:23
Cool. So it's not it's not like you're not like I don't mean to disparage anybody who is like a workout lunatic. But you're not just like working out twice a day, seven days a week or anything. It just it's a reasonable exercise regimen.

Cassandra 58:36
Yeah, like my like I work about five to six days a week at the hospital. My hours can range from eight till 8pm. And so yeah, like I work out three to four days a week, I do it at home, it's my own weights, and it does help that like my partner works out too. So we have we kind of just do that. Like we have that in common. So we kind of do that together. It's like an activity we do together.

Scott Benner 58:56
Nice. Oh, that's really great. And it's really cool. Did your sister do it for you? or was she looking to do it for herself as well? And you guys just did it together? Was she supporting you? We're doing it a little First off,

Cassandra 59:06
I was doing it first on my own and then she kind of just joined in and then it became a thing that we did and then I'm like even when I when I had to move out so I live now on my own with my partner when I had to move out it was so hard for me and her because we were like partner in crime like I we would work out together we would make dinner and then like when I was finished work I call her and be like okay, so are you getting the gym bag ready? She's like, yep, I got it ready. Like I'm ready to go like we were like Bonnie and Clyde me and my sister and then when I had to move out it was like one of the saddest moments like it was even now like I'll cry just talking about me my sister very very close. And so feel free to cry on the

Scott Benner 59:41
people love it when people cry just so you know. So, Mr. Sister a lot Cass Is it like

Cassandra 59:47
I miss I miss her. My sister I would love my sister 24 seven. I love her so

Scott Benner 59:52
much. That's really nice. That's that's for it's actually nice to hear as a parent that that you guys have such a nice relationship as well. Really

Cassandra 1:00:00
Yeah, we're like almost five years apart. So when I tell people that they're like, Oh my god, really you guys are that close like we are inseparable we call each other every single day. If she gets like a little like she's put on a little bit of weight sometimes like she'll put on a little bit of weight sometimes or I'll put on a little bit of weight and then she'll call me crying. I'll call her crying or like, No, it's okay. We can do this thing will like workout together over the phone.

Scott Benner 1:00:21
Oh, that's that's really something I genuinely mean. I think that's, that's stunning. Really nice for you guys. Especially because you didn't. Did she have as many problems with your mom? Or did she not see it? The same because she was younger.

Cassandra 1:00:34
She was a lot younger. So she didn't see it the same way. I think she was more affected by my dad. So like her and my mom have always had a really close relationship. It was never like mine and my mother's. But more like her and my dad's relationship has severely been affected by it.

Scott Benner 1:00:49
Okay. All right. So let's imagine now you said you have an on the pod you were Dexcom are another CGM.

Cassandra 1:00:57
I'm in the process of getting a Dexcom. So like I'm in the process of like, getting all the forms completed going through my insurance and everything, but I'm in the process of it.

Scott Benner 1:01:04
Because you live in Canada, you're only able to get the G five, right? Yes, yeah. Okay. So you're managing differently. Now? Obviously, you're you're exercising, you're eating differently. You're taking care of your insulin. What's your agency right now?

Cassandra 1:01:18
Um, last time I checked was a month ago. 7.2.

Scott Benner 1:01:21
Okay, and what do you think your average blood sugar is? In the course of a day?

Cassandra 1:01:28
Um, I would say probably 6.8.

Scott Benner 1:01:31
Okay, hold on a second. So 7.20? No, don't worry. I'll get it 7.281 7.2 a one c one translates to like 160 or an 8.9. I have it here. So do you have a little too would you consider that you you know what's so interesting. You're going to see, when you get a CGM, you're gonna see fluctuations that you don't know exist in between your testing points. And your a one C is gonna be in the sixes in like, a month.

Cassandra 1:02:04
That's, that's what everyone that's what my doctors even telling me and I'm like, I gotta get up there. I gotta get ready for the babies.

Scott Benner 1:02:10
Well, no, but seriously, like, because what's happening is, is there's obviously blind time in between your tests, that you're going higher than you think you are is my guess. And you'll do a little better job with your boluses and probably get your your Basal like tightened up a little bit. Your a once he's gonna drop like a point in no time. As soon as you can see the information that's gonna be super interesting. I want you to like, send me an email. Let me know about that. Whenever it happens. Yeah,

Cassandra 1:02:35
no, definitely I am. It's funny that you actually mentioned that because like, um, so for me, I know, like my body. Like in stressful situations, my body doesn't handle it. Well, like I break out in hives. I'm like, like, certain like, sometimes I'll like because I'm a woman. Like, sometimes I've missed my period, like months at a time because of the stress. Yeah, so like, I know, like, even like, I'll be at work, especially now with all this pandemic stuff going on. I'll be at work and like, I'll test my blood sugar and it'll be like 12 or 13.1. And I'm like, Okay, well, why is it so high? And right away? I'm like, Okay, I'm really stressed this morning. That's why and then I just got to do a correction. They got no stress definitely affects my blood sugar levels significantly.

Scott Benner 1:03:14
hardens blood sugar's 200. Right now she's all she's doing is she's across the hall from me zooming for school, right? And she gets out of bed, her blood sugar's 95. It's nice and stable. I don't know what happened over the next couple of hours. She hasn't eaten anything. And her blood sugar started creeping up and creeping up and it went quicker than I anticipated. And so we've put like a significant Bolus in to stop it. But imagine in a time where traditionally, and most days, I would see Arden's blood sugar stay very steady around that 95 she might jump to 120. And we'd bring it right back down again. But it would be very much very, like a rolling Hill, you know, not a not a giant spike. But there's no way if she wasn't wearing a CGM, right now would we know that her blood sugar was jumping up, we never would have given her this much insulin and I guarantee your blood sugar would have been 300 because we weren't, we wouldn't have been trying to stop it. And so why do you say it's, it's gonna be really I'm excited for you. It's gonna be great.

Cassandra 1:04:11
I'm so excited. I tried like, I did try a different brand before the leap, the leap Ray or the leap, or I can't remember the name of it correctly. But I didn't actually I actually did not like it. And the reason I did not like it was because of my experience. So when I went to go scan it, I remember it said, like, 6.4 my blood sugar was but then I kid you not. I while it's in 6.4 I grabbed my actual blood tester and checked my blood sugar and it said 4.8 by blood,

Scott Benner 1:04:37
what's your me what meter using?

Unknown Speaker 1:04:41
The Gosh,

Scott Benner 1:04:43
because I want you to have a nice, accurate,

Cassandra 1:04:45
I still use the freestyle Omnipod.

Scott Benner 1:04:48
Okay, so listen. Alright, that might not be that's an older meter, okay. So I'm going to give you a little like workaround. I'm here for you. So a lot of people, and this is not medical advice, which we've made clear at the beginning of the podcast. So your test strips for that on the pod PDM are code 16. Is that right? Yes. And your meters code lit 16?

Unknown Speaker 1:05:19
Yes. Okay.

Scott Benner 1:05:21
I if you try to move the meter code to 17 your blood sugar's may look higher, and you may use a little more insulin and your a one c may come down

Unknown Speaker 1:05:34
right away.

Scott Benner 1:05:36
Because it might be a little more accurate and in the interim, it you might be interesting to ask your doctor to prescribe a better meter for you a more accurate newer meter I Arden uses the Contour Next One to great meter. If your insurance covers they get that one stop using the one on the PDM.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:58
Yeah, the contour Contour. Next One.

Scott Benner 1:06:01
Yep. That's that's the one by the way. Contour. Next One comm forward slash juicebox. But actually, seriously, use that, like if you buy it, and but um, but seriously, like, an accurate meter is the one thing that like, you'll hear people complain, you know, on the pods going to, like the Omni pod dash. And the new dash PDM doesn't have a meter and and people like I love having that meter with me. Except that meters like 10 years old at this point. And there are there are better meters now. So you know, the one reason you don't want a piece of mechanical technology built into a piece of digital technology is because you can't upgrade it. So I actually think it's a good thing that Omnipod took the meter out of the out of the PDM. But yeah, code, we used to use code 18 for code 16 strips. Jenny has said on the podcast before she used to use 18 for 16. I know a lot of people do 17 for 16. But what you end up doing is, is after a while, you'll be able to see like does my average finger stick match my expectations for my a one c? Because I just heard it in your voice. Like I thought you were gonna say that was the meter you're using, because you gave me your blood sugars. And you thought your average was going to be lower than it was. And I was like, that doesn't sound right to me. So I think that's it. I think you just need a little more. A little more accuracy and your blood sugar testing.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:35
Yeah. All right.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:37
Thank you. I appreciate it. Listen,

Scott Benner 1:07:39
you don't have to trust me. I'm not a doctor. This is an advice that would be off label use of the device. And I'm sure on the pod would 100% tell you not to do that. But I know I have done it in the past. And it has worked out really well for my daughter and I know a number of other people who have as well. And you could always just change it back. If you're finding it's not. It's not perfect. All right, cool. All right. Well, have we missed anything? Although I can't imagine there's something we left out but but is there anything that we didn't get to that you want to talk about?

Unknown Speaker 1:08:09
Um,

Cassandra 1:08:11
no, no, everything I'm doing, I just wanted to share like one quick experience that I had. So um, one thing that I happen to me has happened to me twice as being a type one diabetic is I had uncontrollable hives. So when I'm saying high blood sugars, I'm talking in the 20s. And we're talking about you're giving yourself amounts of insulin. So my first pump that I use was the enemas pump and the story and Miss ping and his pain. And so when I was first using that pump, it would didn't have a cord and so when I was using that pump I would have happened once where I got uncontrollable highs they were it was all day from morning tonight. I have my blood sugar's were high 20s they would not go down I was giving myself amounts like serious amounts of insulin. When I told my dietician, I was giving him these amounts of instances like okay, like, that doesn't sound right. You don't even need that much in a day. So something's wrong. So I had to go to the emergency room. When they did my blood work they checked for like your ketones to make sure your nine ketoacidosis everything like that. Everything looked great. They said so um, they looked at my bloodwork, and they're like I actually they they looked at me and they actually told me I don't know what's wrong. I don't know what's causing these high blood sugars. And they told me from a medical standpoint, from the bloodwork that we have, you're perfectly healthy, like your cholesterol, everything's in perfect range. So I wanted to share that story. So just if people ever go through that just know like,

Unknown Speaker 1:09:39
my guy thinking your tubing, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, it

Cassandra 1:09:42
was funny though, because it wasn't my tubing because I was I actually took out my tubing, and I had given myself injections and the injections weren't working. And so my doctor was actually at one point thinking like, Oh my god, like is she just like is this insulin just not mo no longer working for her body? But that wasn't the case. Because by the next day when I woke up in the morning, my blood sugar was back to 8.6.

Scott Benner 1:10:07
Yeah, just back again. Yeah, you have to wonder if you were fighting some sort of an illness or if they check,

Cassandra 1:10:14
they check your white blood cell count all of that, right. And

Scott Benner 1:10:17
stress could have been stress, anxiety. Yeah, like

Cassandra 1:10:20
it was so weird. And, and then like, when you're looking at your blood sugar's and you're seeing them that high, and then you don't know why they're that high that makes you more stressed as a diabetic, right? So it's kind of like, right, it's kind of like a loop factor, like you're just non stop stressed. I'm wondering if that like, that could have definitely been part of the reason. But, you know, just to like, just, it just goes to show you like diabetes is just so unknown. Like, there's just so many things that can happen. And everybody's kind of like, everybody's situation is different, right? But for sure, it's just so interesting.

Scott Benner 1:10:48
It's not uncommon for people to experience stress that drives up their blood sugar. And like you said that once then you look at it and you become in you're just caught in a loop. And then, you know, what do you do? And now you're at the hospital, which is anxiety ridden. And you know, I and then the doctor started saying big things like, I don't know what's wrong, you I wonder if insulin just doesn't work for you anymore? Which, of course, it seems kind of ridiculous. Yeah, like the insulin would magically stop working all of a sudden at 10am. And, you know, so, but then that adds to the anxiety. So, you know, I always think when blood sugar's go up, if you're wearing a pump, and you think it's your pump site, the first easiest thing you can do is just inject some fast acting insulin to see what happens. You know, if it starts to go down, then you maybe can say, well, maybe my pump sights bad. But it you know, listen, sounds like you got overwhelmed by the scenario when you went to the hospital, which in the end is the is the best thing you could have done is if you weren't able to fix it, then, you know, especially when you started giving yourself massive amounts of insulin. That seemed like way too much for you. It probably got scary to

Unknown Speaker 1:11:50
Yeah, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:11:51
I hear you. Wow, that's really cool. You were so nice to come on, and do this. Seriously, you know, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:58
Great talking with you, as well.

Scott Benner 1:12:11
Hey, a huge thanks to Cassandra for coming on the show and sharing her story. Thanks also to touched by type one.org the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor and the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump. Check out touch by type one on Facebook, Instagram or at touched by type one.org. Learn more about the Dexcom G six@dexcom.com. forward slash juice box you can even get started there. And of course, see if you're eligible for that free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash insulin pump tubeless insulin pump on the pod comm forward slash juice box there are links to the sponsors in the podcast player that you're listening to the same podcast player that I'm asking very, very gently if you would please press subscribe in or those links are available at Juicebox Podcast comm you can find the diabetes pro tip episodes right there in your podcast player beginning of Episode 210 or find them at diabetes pro tip.com. Also, you'll find the defining diabetes series in the same place. One last thing, consider supporting the T one D exchange. This will just take you a few minutes. It's completely anonymous 100% HIPAA compliant, and you'll be helping people living with Type One Diabetes, super simple to do. I've done it. All you need to be is a type one from the US or the caregiver of a type one from the US. It's T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. You want to support people with type one, including yourself. And this show T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Taking about five to seven minutes can do it right there on your phone or your laptop. You could probably do it while jogging in place where the standing desk you could definitely do it sitting down. You could do it at a school. You could do it by the pool. You could do it with your fam, even if they were eating. Damn I'm stuck saying ham. And then I just made fun of Cassandra earlier or Cassandra that whole Zeus thing just fell apart on me. Is it Seuss it's not Zeus Zeus Wow. Look at me. potholes everywhere on pronunciations that I brought up and now my brain is making me pay the price. Dr. Seuss, Cassandra, I can do it. Ham. See. I should start leaving secret messages at the ends of the episodes. The password is Genoa salami.


Please support the sponsors

The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!

Donate
Read More

#463 Defining Diabetes: Crush It and Catch It

Scott and Jenny Smith define diabetes terms

In this Defining Diabetes episode, Scott and Jenny explain Crush It and Catch It.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon AlexaGoogle Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT


DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to Episode 463 of the Juicebox Podcast today, Jenny and I are going to define a diabetes term that I made up.

Don't tell the other episodes, but I quite like the defining diabetes series. What was once just in my head and idea of like, oh, I'll tell people the definitions of words so they know the tools they're using and what they're supposed to do. But I've come to see these episodes is more than that as time has passed, I think they're their own special little. I don't know, I just like them. Like a Mini Pro Tip series, defining diabetes. They're just good. And they're helpful. Actually, they're made even better with the presence of Jenny Smith, my friend and certified diabetes educator who helps me on these and the pro tip episodes. Today, Jenny and I are going to define crush it and catch it. There's a little more to it, actually, there's crush it, catch it. And well, you'll find out in a second. But I just like crush it and catch it. The rest of its like implied once you understand you'll see in a second. Please remember while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin. Hey, new listeners. Did you know bold with insulin actually comes from the title of Episode 11. I thought I would tell you that because now that the podcast is seven years old, it's possible you don't even know how this thing got started. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. It's the meter my daughter uses. It is the most accurate meter I've ever held my hand. And it's absolutely lovely. Check it out at Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box. You know what else this show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo hypo pen, Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juice box I have come to I broken down the idea of how do I get a blood sugar back down into three simple words. I crush it, catch it and start over. Okay, so if I see it, if I see a blood sugar that's high, and it's stuck, instead of messing with it, I crush it, catch it and start over. Now sometimes I crush it and it catches itself. And those are days when I'm like oh, I really did it. And then there are some days when I crush it so hard, it needs to be caught with some sort of fast acting glucose. This comes up a lot when I'm talking to people because I just feel like I feel like staring at high blood sugars is a bad idea. Now when I used to say this, people say oh, it's not good to bring your blood sugar down too quickly. And I know it isn't. But is it not? A good idea when your blood sugar is high all the time to bring it down too quickly. But what about a person whose blood sugar is normally like 85 to 105 and it sits there most of the time but then you get this big spike from something you messed up or did wrong or bad pump side or whatever? Is there any value in watching it and bringing it down slowly over four hours versus crush it? Catch it

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:40
there when I'm glad you kind of brought it up because that was like the first thing on my mind to like spit out

Scott Benner 3:46
was I know you would

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:48
it really does depend I mean somebody who's typically sitting in a nice beautiful, you know, glucose range that they're happy with. And now oh, you know, grandma's apple pie came along and I thought I'd only one piece and now I've eaten three and Oh, I didn't Pre-Bolus that I you know all the things that go into a higher blood sugar that happens occasionally. The occasional high blood sugar that you do your little you know, crush it catch it kind of component. Is that detrimental? No, I mean, you're taking care of the high blood sugar, you're bringing it down, you're doing it quickly. I would say that the opposite of that though, you know for a high blood sugar that's that's randomly high. And you're kind of worried about doing that and bringing it down so quickly is there is there trauma, the same way on just leaving it hanging high and come down slower by just taking a small amount and gradually getting it down? I think they're both honestly about the same in terms of any potential like you know, back end, which I don't see there at all, you know problems and you either take care of it on the back end On the front end quick and it comes down. And now you don't have to do it the high blood sugar anymore, or you end up with a high blood sugar for hours watching, it's like slowly come down. And you may not feel great during that lengthy time. But on the same if you crush it early, and it drops really fast, you also might feel the drop. Yeah, too. So you know, in either of those, I don't think that it's necessarily bad. The long term of consistently doing that, like if you are the roller coaster, and you're constantly crushing highs, and on the back end catching them with a load of extra food. They're in something needs some adjustment,

Scott Benner 5:41
right? And so that phrase would not come into my mind. If Arden was constantly high, I would think oh, there's so many other things that I don't understand. I am really talking about specifically, when you just have this, like out of nowhere, like where did this come from? Because I think one of the problems with messing with it for hours is that that runs into another meal. And now you don't have any resolution of the carbs. And this the insulin right? Like there's no, like I found myself years ago always saying to my wife, look, we need to get this down, get it level, get this insulin out of her so we can start over again. Because if not, you have all these other variables going on. You don't know which ones are impacting and then you go into another meal and it takes years to be able to just on the fly, go Okay, there's still some active insulin but the food's gone now. So I'll Bolus this and I'll take away 10 cars because I know there's some insulin left like most people can't do that off the top of their head, right? So I my my theory has always been get it down as fast as you can. Because the insulin you use to get it down is kind of gone after that, like it gets. I don't know if this is a technical term, but it feels like it gets used up dealing with the carbs Does that make sense?

De veau hypo pan has no visible needle, and it's the first pre mixed autoinjector of glucagon for very low blood sugar in adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Not only is chivo hypo pen simple to administer, but it's simple to learn more about. All you have to do is go to G Volk glucagon.com forward slash juicebox g vo shouldn't be used in patients with insulin, Noma or pheochromocytoma. Visit g Vogue glucagon.com slash risk

are you or your child carrying around an old busted up nasty blood glucose meter? Are you not even certain if it's accurate? Does that sound like the situation you find yourself in because if it does, it would be very easy and possibly financially advantageous to check into the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. This is the meter My daughter has been carrying now for a couple of years. It is phenomenally accurate for us. I'm talking about a good old fashioned blood glucose meter that just works. It's got a bright light. So when you're using it at night, you can see what you're doing. The test strips allow for second chance testing, meaning you can hit that blood drop not quite enough and go back in and get more without messing up the accuracy of the test or wasting a strip. And it's possible that you could be eligible for a free meter. And you can just find that out right now. At Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. Alright, so go check out that g vo glucagon, the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. Even there's a link in that show notes there for Jenny. A lot going on there. You can find these links. Like I said in the show notes of the podcast player. We're at Juicebox Podcast comm I don't know if this is a technical term, but it feels like it gets used up dealing with the carbs. Does that make sense?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:12
Yeah, I usually say it gets eaten up faster. It's like there's so much sugar for it there when you've got a high blood sugar that all that insulin gets sort of used up faster. There's it's kind of like the same concept of a Pre-Bolus is you're getting the insulin action going now to hit what's coming and get it used up and on the back end. If you've done it right and you figured it you should have a smooth landing.

Scott Benner 9:40
It's always it always appears in my mind like a fistfight that just goes to the death that just like when it's over, both fighters just drop over backwards and on their way down. They're like well done and then they're they're just gone. they ever get back up again. You know, and, and you're right. That is how I talk about and how I think about Pre-Bolus Singh, which is to put Both people's aggression at the same time make the insulin working while the carbs are working. So that one's not not doing its job without the other one because how you get a higher low blood sugar. But so in a bigger idea. I hear it's exactly right, like so what do you do in that situation? Like, how does Jenny handle a high blood sugar that she gets?

Unknown Speaker 10:22
She doesn't like high blood sugar.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:27
I like your I like well, one, you know, with using the system that I use for managing, I don't typically deal with that unless I have a pump site that's gone bad and hasn't been dealt with obviously. And for some reason, I haven't paid attention to any alerts and alarms that are going off on my CGM. So there are lots of catching points that obviously I haven't I know a lot of people use similarly. But with high blood sugars, I do the crush it catch it kind of thing. More than not,

Unknown Speaker 11:01
I think there's because I don't

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:02
want to sit high. I don't like sit and kind of like you with my day the way that it goes. I don't want to have to wait out a high to eat. As often my meals are with my kids. And I don't. I don't want to sit there while they're like chowing down. I'm like mommy's got to sit here.

Scott Benner 11:26
Kelly's not saying she feels that her kids will feel odd. If she's not eating. She's saying she doesn't want to watch somebody eat and not

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:32
be eating at the same time. Right. That's the enjoyment of a meal together.

Scott Benner 11:36
I think it's a abundantly clear why you and I get along about talking about diabetes. So I was thinking now for the alternate viewpoint. Here comes Jenny with exactly what I just said. Yeah, I just think that I think it leads to so much more success. Because that staring at highs is stress inducing, and like people are like, well, I don't know, I'll make myself low. And I get that, like, if you're hearing this episode, first. Go back and listen to the pro tip series. Don't start with this. This is like ninja level, like I already understand what's going on 1000 times over. And I've got a high blood sugar. You know, if you Oh, sorry, I don't know, I was gonna say if you usually have high blood sugars all the time, your basil is wrong, you don't understand how to Pre-Bolus like, all these other things are first not this. This is not step one.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:28
No, no. And I was also gonna just sort of go back and say, you know, my, my day to day like crush, it is definitely much more the case overnight. I mean, my husband will wake up to an alarm. But he is definitely much more the like, sleep through a train coming through the wall than I am now have being a mom and waking up to everything. So overnight, I can say because I am, I am my own manager. I don't have anybody catching or following or anything for me. So if there was a conservative time that I'm going to do less aggressive correction for a high, it's definitely going to be overnight. And it's usually if I've had a highlight that overnight, it's usually like, the pump site is bad, or it's gotten pulled out and like I've got this dangling pod on my body and I haven't obviously gotten insulin and then it leads to well, how much insulin do I have left? So it's kind of a questionable, and I'm a lot more conservative. Sure, for my own self overnight. Because

Scott Benner 13:33
Yeah, I would think that for an adult, it's different than for a caregiver for certain and, and I don't want to give anybody the impression that I use, you know, 50% more insulin than the situation needs. And then I just give her like a filet mignon dinner at the end, like, although, I could go into how you can get out of a high and go into a meal by correcting the high end Pre-Bolus eating the meal, even sometimes hours ahead of time, and then just introducing the food at the exact right time. Maybe that does fit in here. But we're not talking about that right now. So I don't I mean, I don't want anybody to think that I'm overdoing it over time, I've learned that you know, I can be really aggressive here and maybe I'm gonna mess by eight carbs worth of insulin, right like just a little bit and you can kind of, you know, add a little bit in I there's an episode called Utah Gen, where I talk about how I how I helped the person over the phone. This is probably not something I should have recorded. But how I helped the person over the phone bring like a seven year olds budget or from 400 to 70 and like two hours, and it involved crushing it and then introducing a meal at the right time. And that kid's blood sugar went like 76 I think if I'm remembering it just leveled right out, it was like that was one of my, my most happy moments in my life. Walk around my house with my head. So I was like I did it. And then she ruined it by feeding him but that's not the point. Anyway, it's a great app. But not what I was talking about. Alright, Jenny, I'm gonna stop putting his

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:03
reference to it, though. I mean, in terms of like that introduction of the meal at the right time, I think when you said this is like ninja level? Yeah, I agree. Because over time you have an idea, you have a sense of how much to potentially crush it with. And where, with hindsight, you can tell where you're going to need to add something because it's you're not going to, it's not going to catch it on its own, you're going to have to help with the catch.

Scott Benner 15:30
Yeah. And if somebody is listening to this and thinking, Oh, yeah, I try that all the time. I always mess it up. I really genuinely think go listen to the pro tip episodes, because then you'll get through the little reasons why you mess that up. Because, you know, I could go one of them is that people are constantly chasing blood sugars. They're always like on the wrong timeline. I don't like no one other way to put it other than to say, insulin you use now is for later, but a better way to think of it is that insulin from before is affecting you now. And if you're trying to affect before, now, you're caught in a time travel movie, and you're on the wrong end of it. So anyway, try the pro tip series. Okay, Jenny, thank you very, very much.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:12
Yeah, you're welcome.

Scott Benner 16:19
A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors. Gvoke glucagon. Find out more about Gvoke Hypopen at Gvokeglucagon.com/juic box. you spell that? g v o OKEGL. UC, ag o n.com. forward slash juicebox. Have you been thinking about that Contour Next One blood sugar meter. Have you been thinking about that Contour Next One blood glucose meter since I brought it up earlier, this is your time. Go check it out. ContourNextone.com/juicebox. You can find links in the show notes, too. Hold on a second, I'm gonna run out of music. You can find the links in the show notes to today's sponsors to Jenny Smith. And to all of the sponsors of the Juicebox Podcast. Right there. In your podcast player. There are show notes in your pocket, podcast podcast, there are show notes in your podcast player, you can click on them from there. And you know, the links are there. Or I don't want to get too technical when I say the links are there, or you can find those links at Juicebox podcast.com. Allow me to take this moment to thank you for listening to the Juicebox Podcast for sharing the show with other people. And for making last month march of 2021. The most popular the most downloaded month ever in the history of the podcast. I'm not giving away the numbers. But last month, did by a multiplier better than the first year of the show. Is that not crazy? Anyway, I have you to thank. So thank you. I appreciate it. Again, when you share the show when you subscribe in a podcast player, when you tell somebody about it, when you leave a review, and you're like oh my god, I love this podcast as a review. And then you give like a really thoughtful reason why those reviews are very helpful. Mostly for listening. That's the best thing you can do for the show, listen and tell someone about it. I really appreciate this. I feel like I've gone on too long about this now, but there's no going back. And I don't feel like editing it out. So I'll see you soon with another episode of the Juicebox Podcast. I'm just going to keep talking you can leave if you want to. But some people don't know about the other episodes that I think would be really helpful to them. So I'm going to take a moment. Juicebox Podcast comm is the website for the show. Everything you need is there, there's menus at the top. And you'll be able to find the diabetes pro tip episodes, and the defining diabetes episodes under one link, the link that says diabetes pro tip. If you can't remember that you can just go to diabetes pro tip comm where I've also put those episodes. I know a lot of you find the show. And people tell you Oh, if you listen to this podcast, like your variability will get better and you're able to go down you just have a better idea what you're doing. And everybody's like, Well, how do you do that? I think it's by listening to the show. I think that listening gives you a firm understanding through conversations with many people who are parents of children with Type One Diabetes, or adults who have lived with diabetes for a long time. Just hearing the conversations, hearing ideas come up, things get spoken about. I find very helpful. I find it builds your kind of diabetes knowledge. But if you really just want to dig into management ideas, you are looking for the defining diabetes episodes just like this one and The diabetes pro tip episodes. So again, diabetes pro tip comm they're also right there in your podcast player, the thing you're holding right now with your phone. The Pro Tips begin at Episode 210. They do not run concurrently. So you have to find them. And I think I say I think but I'm looking so it seems disingenuous. I was buying time the defining diabetes episodes begin at Episode 236. There are many of them actually.

Probably number in the dozens. And I don't see any end to them as we define. You know, I don't even see them as like definitions. I started talking about this the beginning like it's not just like Bolus means this. It's Jenny and I, we define it, but then we talk it through. And now you know what that tool is, it would be like, it would be like if you came from another planet, and someone handed you a hammer and a pair of pliers and a screwdriver and told you to go put together a bed. You might not know what the hammer is for. You wouldn't even know what it was called. So if you were helping me and I said Pass me the hammer you wouldn't know. So I like for you to know what a Bolus is what basil is why hydration is important. What's an insulin deficit? His feet on the floor a thing? What is the fat and protein rise a compression low or rage Bolus? Like I want you to? I want you just to instinctively know this is a hammer. I know what a hammer does. And that way when you need the hammer, you won't hesitate. To me that's what the defining diabetes series is about. And then while there is no doubt that I would love for you to listen straight through this podcast, start at first one and listen all the way through. I know not all of you are going to do that. If you did, you would glean everything that is inside of the pro tip episodes. Don't skip the pro tip episodes. Just listen to them straight through Episode 210 diabetes pro tip newly diagnosed are starting over and they go on from there. If you're not an MDI, still listen to the MDI episode. Right if you're on MDI, still listen to the Pre-Bolus episode. If you're on MDI, listen to the insulin pumping episode. If you've never had to CGM in your life still listen to the mastering a CGM episode. Don't miss bumping and nudging the variables exercise like don't just skip one because you think oh, this isn't for me. Those are going to lay down a firm foundation around your diabetes management in my opinion, and they're free so why the hell not right. Okay, thanks so much. Now I'll really see you next time. Bye bye. Hit subscribe.


Please support the sponsors

The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!

Donate
Read More

#462 After Dark: Sexual Assault and PTSD

ADULT TOPIC WARNING. Sexual Assault, PTSD and Type 1 Diabetes

TRIGGER WARNING: This is a frank discussion with a female assault survivor.

Today's guest is a female assault survivor living with type 1 diabetes. This is her story.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Amazon AlexaGoogle Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT


DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello everyone, and welcome to Episode 462 of the Juicebox Podcast.

I'm gonna start this episode a little differently than I do normally. First of all, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. But more importantly, if you feel like you can be adversely triggered by conversations about sexual assault, or you're under 18, you should probably just stop this episode right now. This episode is part of our after dark series after dark began back in 2019. With Episode 274 about drinking. We then went to weed smoking, trauma and addiction, sex from different perspectives depression and self harm, divorce, bipolar disorder, bulimia, heroin addiction, and we even talked to somebody about how to use psychedelic drugs when you have type one. So these episodes are specifically about the stuff that no one talks about, from the perspective of a person living with Type One Diabetes.

Today's episode is about sexual assault, and PTSD. We're going to want to figure out how to say this too. Okay. So the person you're going to hear on the episode today is anonymous. About a month or so ago, I recorded an episode with them that had nothing to do with any of this. And a few weeks later, I received a note that said, I know I just recorded with you. But I'd like to do an after dark episode about PTSD and sexual assault. She said the entire experience related to her diabetes quite a bit. And she wanted to share with all of you. So because we'd already done an episode together, where she was clear about who she was and her name. But that episode had not come out. I just destroyed that episode. So you'll have no way of knowing who this person is. And we sat and recorded this, I do not believe that the recording of this episode was easy for the person you're about to hear. And it was not easy for me. It is however, eye opening and enlightening and useful, very useful information for people to have. Now this is not a graphic retelling of what happened. But it is a step by step conversation. So it can be very stressful at times. We're very careful to not use too many words that you might find distressing. But it is what it is. And there's no getting around that. Now I don't normally do this. But this is an email that I received from the person you're about to hear. This email came after we recorded this show. She said I just want to thank you again for recording with me. I took some time to think about it. And I think our conversation went incredibly well. I was hoping that you could add some links to resources, which I was definitely going to do already. She says she's never used them herself, but there's rain. And in just a moment. I'll give you links to that. She asked me to be sure to put a warning at the beginning which again we were going to do and then she said I really appreciate you recording this with me. I know it was tough. I really appreciate your willingness to have the conversation. I know that it was a lot. Again, I think the conversation went great. I hope you know how powerful the podcast is on so many levels. And thank you for working hard for people with type one diabetes. It really means a lot I just want you to know as you're listening, the person who had this conversation is incredibly comfortable with what they said and what you're about to hear. If you need support you can try rainn.org are a i n n dot o RG is the National Sexual Assault hotline. It's confidential and has 24 seven support they offer online chatting where you can call them at 1-800-656-4673 This is a crisis support service for sexual assault and harassment. They're not going to be any ads in this episode because honestly it just feels weird to me. I do want to thank on the pod Dexcom the Contour Next One blood glucose meter touched by type one and G vo glucagon for their continued support which makes content like this and the rest of the show possible. Okay, here we go. There's a person with me here whose name we're not going to use. And usually somebody This is the point where you hear like, Hi my name is but we're not going to do that and you're going to see why in a moment. But I guess we Start with just some general stuff. So you have type one diabetes, right?

Anonymous Speaker 5:04
Yes. I was diagnosed at seven in 2001.

Scott Benner 5:10
Okay. So long time ago, like 20 years ago. Yeah. puts you in your late 20s. Now,

Unknown Speaker 5:17
the word late is you didn't enjoy. Sorry.

Unknown Speaker 5:20
Oh, painful Not gonna lie. But yes, my late to I'm 27

Scott Benner 5:23
All right, well, why don't we call it your mid 20s? And just thank you so much. Oh, why do that? That seems like the way to go. Yeah, so you're in your mid 20s now. And let's I guess let's just get a little bit out of the way about your your management, stuff like that. So you're using a pump or MDI, or how do you do things?

Anonymous Speaker 5:41
So I use an omni pod? And I am a recent user of the Dexcom. I just started it in October. Okay.

Scott Benner 5:49
Yeah. Prior to that, what were you doing?

Anonymous Speaker 5:52
Just regular checking, blood sugar tracking and Omni pod? I started an omni pod about seven years ago. So I've been on on an omni pod for seven years has been fantastic. That drop my agency quite a bit. And then with the start of the ducks calm, my most recent a one See, I can't even believe it was 5.6.

Unknown Speaker 6:15
Wow, congratulations. Yeah. Thank

Unknown Speaker 6:16
you with the with the help of the podcast, of course. Well,

Scott Benner 6:20
yes, obviously. Now, give you credit. You know, it's weird. I'm, I always tell people about the you know, they always want to, like, people are like, what do you want to talk about? Oh, my God, you know, it's okay. Just come on. And we'll start talking always works really well. And now I know what you and I are going to talk about. And I feel like I'm not good at this. Oh, it's fine. Oh, no, I feel like I'm tripping over my thoughts and everything. Oh, really?

Anonymous Speaker 6:45
I'll just go for it. Just do it.

Scott Benner 6:47
So. But yeah, so you started when you're seven, you pretty much managing on your own? Or? I mean, you how involved were your family? How did that all work?

Anonymous Speaker 6:56
Yeah. So they were involved. Now this was back in the day when you were it was 45 carbs a meal 15 carbs, snacks, you had to eat a very specific times during the day. So it was, you know, drop everything and eat at noon at six o'clock, whatever it was, I don't remember. Um, so in the beginning, my parents helped quite a bit. When I hit I would say around 13. I was doing it primarily on my own. And at that point, I had switched over to lantis, which was a big deal. That was a big deal to switch from, I don't even remember, I think was humulin. And human beings evolve. And you had to mix them in the syringe prior to that, but then Lantus was a big deal, because you can eat whenever you want it. And then I was very hesitant to getting a pump for various reasons. But I didn't get one until college. But yeah, for them to answer your question. Yeah, I was pretty pretty on my own for most of it.

Scott Benner 7:56
Where was your outcomes during those like teen years and, and into college.

Unknown Speaker 8:03
So kind of rough.

Anonymous Speaker 8:05
I was I floated around the eights and nines. You know, and it was, and my parents, the other thought my other thought is my parents also really wanted it to be that way wanted me to be independent, so I could do whatever it was I wanted. So that was their thought process.

Unknown Speaker 8:24
But then,

Anonymous Speaker 8:26
you know, the then the other thing, the other curveball that got thrown out, again, was at around 15, I got diagnosed with graves disease, which caused crazy crazy insulin resistance. That took quite a few years to get regulated once. But once that got regulated, it really sorted out quite a bit. And then after that, I started the Omni pod. So I so I had like a big me in terms of a graph. Like a, like, a nice slope down to where I am now. From the time I was around like 20.

Scott Benner 8:57
I mean, when you said it took years to get regulated, you mean the graves disease? Yes. Okay. And what did that consist of?

Anonymous Speaker 9:05
So they started with, I can't even remember the name of it, but they started with the general medication. What is better beta blocker rings a bell, but don't quote me on that. They started with that. It was taking a really long time, though, to get my thyroid regulated, and so they ended up doing what's called radioactive thyroid ablation. So you go in, you take this big horse pill, and it basically like kills your thyroid completely. So now I take it since then that's helped tremendously but then I they had to regulate it with Synthroid which has been stable, but in the first couple years after taking it, it kind of would like blip and like, you know, I would need a lot of adjustments. So once I got stable that really helped

Scott Benner 9:59
me It took years. Yeah, yeah, definitely. It seems from my googling that beta blockers are used in conjunction with graves disease to help with heart palpitations and muscle tremors that come with graves.

Anonymous Speaker 10:12
Oh, just kidding. Alright, that was a different thing.

Scott Benner 10:14
Oh, yeah, that's

Anonymous Speaker 10:15
what was the name of the, I don't know, whatever. It's like the opposite isn't

Scott Benner 10:19
the opposite, isn't it? I should go out and see what happens.

Unknown Speaker 10:22
See what happens. I'm like, Oh, yes, I

Anonymous Speaker 10:25
was on the beta blocker because my heart rate was like through the roof at that time.

Unknown Speaker 10:30
Okay,

Unknown Speaker 10:30
due to the thyroid, hyper thyroid.

Scott Benner 10:36
livox. I don't know. I yeah, I'm not certain but but I do know like, if she you would sit with graves, you'd swing hyper and then hypo, like, you'd bounce back and forth or no.

Anonymous Speaker 10:47
So it's swung hyper. And then the point was to get it down. But then once they did the radioactive iodine exactly, would go down to hypo,

Scott Benner 10:58
with hyper and now Yes, probably managed with like Synthroid or something like that.

Anonymous Speaker 11:02
Yeah, I'm gonna be on Synthroid forever. Yeah, because of the ablation.

Scott Benner 11:06
Brandon, and that just not so they didn't remove your thyroid. They just kind of kicked it really hard. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Well, it was fun, the removal processes, it looks daunting. But that decision and everything else, so I don't know, like, would you go back and do it again? Or do you think you had no other choice?

Unknown Speaker 11:28
Um,

Anonymous Speaker 11:30
yeah, I think I would do it again, honestly, because I, the symptoms of graves disease were really awful. That was not fun. You know, I was my heart rate, I'd be sitting in class, I was in high school at the time, my heart rate would be like, 125 just sitting down. And I was an athlete. So that was quite a big problem. You know, and, and you're, you're hot. I would like not go out. I would go outside without a jacket in January. You know,

Unknown Speaker 11:57
like, it was? Yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 11:59
it was really not fun. So I think just getting rid of it faster. Which may be I'm just impatient, but getting rid of it faster was I think the right call. Okay.

Scott Benner 12:10
All right. Well, I don't know how to bury the lead anymore. Because I literally feel like I'm keeping a secret. It's making me upset. Which is ridiculous. Because you know, when people listen to a podcast, the title will indicate to them what this is about. So everyone's everyone's just like, Oh, my God, just get to it. And but you sent me a note, and, and you said you wanted to talk about some pretty specific stuff. So why don't you just tell me your story? And we'll pick through it? Sure, I don't.

Anonymous Speaker 12:42
Yeah, okay. All right. Okay, so um, yeah, so I don't even know. I wanted. I don't know, do I like say the topic? First? I'll go because the topics the name of the episode. Yeah, he doesn't know listening are going to be dying right now. Well, we'll do it. Okay. So yeah, so I sent you an email regarding how sexual assaults, and I ended up with PTSD from that. And really just how that pertains to diabetes, because it affected it quite a bit. Um, so I just, I guess I just go through the story, I

Scott Benner 13:21
guess. I mean, I am interested, I am definitely interested in how it impacted, like type one because you you were very specific, like this has an impact on my blood on my diabetes, and I was like, Oh, okay. Well, listen, you don't tell me any more than you're comfortable with. But I guess right around like, what you get to kind of tell me what age it was. And yeah, that kind of stuff.

Anonymous Speaker 13:40
Okay. Sure. So I yeah, I'll go into what we think makes sense. But, um, yeah, so I was a really classic, unfortunately, a case so I was a junior in college. I remember, it was a Sunday night of Labor Day weekend, and my friends wanted to go out. And we went to this 21 and under club, we were not 21 yet. Um, and essentially what happened was, you know, we're dancing on the dance floor and whatever. Someone came up to me, it was someone I knew. friend of a friend, not someone that I knew very personally. But I knew of him so it wasn't like a complete stranger. Right.

Unknown Speaker 14:31
And,

Anonymous Speaker 14:34
you know, so I can tell you the red flags that came up now, not realizing them at the time. And that's actually one of the reasons why I wanted to come on and talk about it because I think it's something that's not spoken about, and I think there's a ton of misconceptions. So with that being said, the first red flag that I noticed there was he somehow like got me away from my friends. You know, the group of you People that I was with.

Unknown Speaker 15:03
And you know what's funny?

Anonymous Speaker 15:06
It's so interesting. I actually feel like as I'm talking about this, I feel the need to justify that.

Unknown Speaker 15:15
Like, this is not

Anonymous Speaker 15:18
how do I explain this? It's like, it's like I feel the need to justify the fact that I'm not a person who does impulsive things, right? Like, I'm a very, like, cautious kind of person, pretty thoughtful like I you know, I don't do things very impulsively. And yet, I ended up kissing this guy on the dance floor. And what had happened was he kept asking me to go home with them. I said, No, I would say God, like four or five times. And that was the second red flag for me. I learned later on, if you're saying no to somebody, and they're not listening to you over and over again, that's, you know, that's an indicator, right? So, you know, to speed up the process here, I ended up going home with this person. And I'm not going to go into crazy detail by any means. But the second I got there, I knew I was not in control of the situation whatsoever. It was very different than anything I've ever experienced. And it was, you know, not great. So

Scott Benner 16:28
let me ask you a couple questions. Yeah. Was he older than you?

Unknown Speaker 16:33
Think the same about the same age? Same

Scott Benner 16:35
age? Yeah. When you said that. You said no, over and over again? What? What what? Give me he didn't drag you out. So what happened that you did it? Was it? Did you start to feel badly? Or did you feel pressured? Or what's that?

Anonymous Speaker 16:50
I think it was a combination of those two things. It's the strangest sensation. I almost felt like I had to say yes. After I said, No, so many times. It was. And that's the thing with this is that it's very subtle. It's very, like hard to describe that I've learned over the years. Yeah, I would say and I actually. And, you know, moving forward from that, like, I like I hold a ton of guilt from that from that, because it was that moment that I agreed, right, like to go with him. But I had to really separate Alright, and I've done this over the years. Just because I agreed to walk out the door with you doesn't mean that that's what I was asking for. Right? Like,

Scott Benner 17:38
two separate things. Does your does your anxiety from that come from the knowledge that you knew he wanted you to go? Like, have sex? Like there was clear, that's what he was trying to get you to do? I guess we're now or was it not? Oh,

Anonymous Speaker 17:58
I don't really know. It was. It was like this guilt that I put on myself that I felt like, I felt like I could have prevented it had had that. And sure, maybe I could have. But just because I think what I had to separate in my head was just because I left a building with you doesn't mean that that's what I was.

Scott Benner 18:18
Yeah, no, obviously. I mean, I think that's, that's obvious to you. And I and I'm assuming everyone listening, what I'm what I'm wondering is, is this? I mean, obviously there's a I don't understand the the depth of the illness that goes with doing this to somebody obviously, but this person's in, you know, intent on this. You would you would think from from the onset, like you said, polio pulled you away from people where you could pressure you privately, where you You said that you were not a person who like did things impulsively? Do you think you look like a target to him?

Unknown Speaker 18:53
Yes. 100%? Definitely.

Scott Benner 18:56
So you you, and not that you want to make sure I say this, right? Like, I don't mean that you are somehow at fault for being a target in his eyes. I'm just saying that he looked at a group of people and thought this looks like a girl. I can pressure. Yes. Okay.

Anonymous Speaker 19:13
Yeah. Yeah. Which, which I struggled with for a long time to write like, I kind of was like, What on earth? Was it about me that was targeted? Because it was very targeted? Right? Like, you know, that whole thing? Yeah, that's, that's something I had to really delve into to?

Scott Benner 19:31
Well, I mean, it should be said that you're a junior in college, he should be able to be the type of person who seems sweet and nice. You know what I mean? Like, you shouldn't have to walk out into the world looking like you're gonna slap anybody who looks at you, you know, and so but he just so that's got nothing to do. It's hard to put into words to somebody but that has nothing to do with you. Like if I was consoling you as a friend. I'd say you didn't do anything wrong. You just that time, nice person and And the bad thing that this person decided to do was probably in his mind easier to do to you than to somebody else. So why take the hard path to this? If this is what he was gonna try? Sure, yeah, that sucks. It's hard. I really feel badly, like listening to it. It's, it feels like I want to tell you, I'm sorry, every five seconds, but I stopped myself from doing that. You're fine. You're fine. And I also, you know, my son's about that age, you know, and, and D think about somebody taking advantage of him and or, or thinking of art and getting older. It's really frightening. So. So once you say you go along willingly. And then at some point, he pushes out to a line you're not okay with? I'm assuming you say no, again? Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 20:50
Yeah. Like, yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 20:52
So are you restrained at that point?

Anonymous Speaker 20:56
I couldn't tell you. I don't remember to be honest with you that I don't. I don't say more or less. Yes. Like, you know, this large man's on top of me. So I would say I would say yes, yeah.

Scott Benner 21:07
Were you impaired at all? Like, Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, sure. Maybe you would have had trouble defending yourself?

Anonymous Speaker 21:13
Oh, for sure. There was no, there was nothing. You know, I tried like hell to get away. There was no way I was going to like, that was not happening. You know, I'm not a very big person either. Like, so there was no, yeah.

Scott Benner 21:26
So then what happens? I mean, as I'm thinking about, like, I can't fathom any of this. So like, when, when the act is over? Does he just let you leave?

Anonymous Speaker 21:40
Yeah, isn't that strange? I thought the same that that's something that really runs through my head, too. I remember. So to to give context, though. I actually completely blacked out during it. I remembered the beginning of it. I remember, totally blacked out during the middle. It took me years to actually remember, like, what actually had happened. And I remember distinctly saying, getting up and saying, this is a terrible idea. That's what I said. And I left. And I actually didn't remember what had already happened. It was like, it was like, someone paused my brain and then turned it back on, like, 20 minutes later, or however long it was, I couldn't tell you. Um, yeah, so that was definitely that. That was weird.

Scott Benner 22:33
Okay, can I ask you with yours to obviously think about this, and probably I'm imagining look into it from a lot of different angles. Is that common?

Anonymous Speaker 22:42
Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. It's, um, I can't think of the word is, like, repressing it right? Yeah, it's Yeah. You just like, and it wasn't. Yeah, cuz I went through, like, those are two different things, like between repressing and denying. I just straight up had no idea it had happened, um, for a while for a long time.

Scott Benner 23:07
So you, did you leave there? Did you physically know that you had, that? There was intercourse? Like, do you know what I mean?

Anonymous Speaker 23:17
No, no, I had no idea. I had no idea. I was really I was in a lot of pain afterwards. And I was like, That's weird. Like, that was my thought. Like, I was like, oh,

Unknown Speaker 23:27
let's train your

Scott Benner 23:27
brain. Just not to think about it. Probably no, right? Yep. I just like, because that mean, the reason I asked is I tried to put myself in your possession as best I can to try to work my way through the questions. And I would imagine that if that was happening to me, I'd think well, when this is over, someone's going to kill me because you wouldn't do this to me, and then let me go tell somebody about it. You know, but I guess that's not

Anonymous Speaker 23:53
I totally know what you mean. And I was so like, it was like an out of body experience. Like I was so like, blacked out is the best word that I have that like, I wouldn't have thought that lat like nothing. There was no logic going on in that moment, because I was just so just like, you know, so dramatize that. Yeah, like you couldn't think that I couldn't think that clear.

Scott Benner 24:16
Not that you don't even think it but like, I'm putting myself in the attackers like it would be it would be like robbing a bank without a mask on and someone seeing you and you'd be like, Well, I have to kill you now. Because you've seen me do this. Like, like, it would just like, if someone was robbing a bank, and I was looking into a face and they were holding a gun. I think this guy's gonna shoot me. Like, like, I mean, it's just, it's like, it's kind of fascinating. It is.

Anonymous Speaker 24:42
Yeah. And it's horrifying. Because like, that's the thing. It's his word against mine, right? Like that's, they're the only two people there. I do think actually, when I walked out I'm pretty sure his roommates heard the whole thing, because they looked to me very horrified as I walked out. So I think they probably heard but I, you know, that's that's the scary thing about this and that's what's so, you know, what makes it so hard to talk about is that like, it's it's literally two people that are there right like it's it's Yeah.

Scott Benner 25:18
What what? What happens in the in the days after was when you see the roommates or do you see any of those people?

Unknown Speaker 25:26
So, like the people involved?

Scott Benner 25:29
I mean yeah, I mean, like my own room Do you see the attacker again?

Unknown Speaker 25:33
Oh my god yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 25:34
he lived in the same building is me. So that was I gotta say I think that was the worst part of all this was that like I oh my god it was horrible like I I was afraid to go. They had like laundry in the basement. I was terrified to go do my laundry.

Unknown Speaker 25:53
Yeah, that was horrible.

Scott Benner 25:54
Terrified, like, but are you still repressing it? Like how long until you realize you were raped?

Anonymous Speaker 26:01
Oh, I'm so Alright, good question. So it was

Unknown Speaker 26:07
I would say a solid.

Anonymous Speaker 26:10
Six months or so before I realized that I was just that was bad, right like that. I was like, okay, something had happened there. It was then I think I think I wrote it all down. But now I don't know what I said. But I think it was like three, four years later before I realized the whole full extent of the of it.

Scott Benner 26:33
Yeah. So you just have this overwhelming feeling of dread being around him or building or those sorts of things?

Anonymous Speaker 26:39
Yeah, I had, like, I had really strange dreams were like about it. And I was like, That's weird. I don't think that happened. And then started remembering it more and more like as time went on. Oh, that's

Scott Benner 26:53
somehow that makes it more horrible. And yeah, right. Yeah. You don't hear some fun. You don't hear a story like that. And then think, Oh, you know, it'll probably get worse in a second. But then there, there it was. It got worse very quickly. Exactly. Wow. I am at the party again, where I feel like I should say, I'm so sorry to hear this. Oh, it's really, it's, I've got the weirdest job is what I'm thinking at the moment. So I'm okay, so all this happens. You have this frame of time afterwards, where you just it everything in the world feels scary and wrong, for no reason. It takes you to you're out of college to figure it out. Once you figure it out. Do you do anything? Like is there something to do?

Anonymous Speaker 27:36
So yeah, so I realized, just so in this time, so that was in like, it was in September. That same year about I don't know that spring, I started dating somebody. And I started as we were like, I don't know, what is a good word for that. Oh, this is after dark. I could just say, right? I gotta say whatever. As we're hooking up, right? I start, like having these weird reactions like really strange. Like, I was like, in tears afterwards. And I'm like, What on earth is this? And so that's when I actually started remembering part of it. So what I did to answer your question, so that was awful. Months later, I was like, Alright, I guess I got to go to therapy, because I was like, I don't know what on earth is going on here. Um, and so that was incredibly helpful and did that over a number of years.

Scott Benner 28:39
So you see, you took care of yourself, you went for therapy, and, and, and so you think that having a real boyfriend and getting into intimate situations is what drew out your memories of it? Yeah, definitely. Okay. Jc go to therapy that makes sense. Do you do anything like about the attacker? Like what is like, what's the feeling there? Like, you must have like a question in your head, like, do I call the cops? Has it been too long? What do I do? What am I interested in that fight? Like?

Anonymous Speaker 29:13
Yeah, um, it didn't even really occur to me until like, months and months later, and nothing. I didn't have any I had nothing to go off of like, what do you what do you say to the cops like, Oh, hey, this happened six months ago. Like, right? He's going to tell you no, I'm going to tell you yes. And so I didn't I never pursued anything with that. You know, and I didn't even remember the whole full extent of it until like I said, years later, so like, at that point, what do you even do? I did the one. It did cross my mind. My fear is that he's out this person is out doing this to other people, right like that. really got me I stuck with me for a really long time. But I really thought about it and I was like, but even if I were to pursue anything like nothing is going to come of it whatsoever. It's years later, and so yeah, no, I never actually pursued anything with that.

Scott Benner 30:19
I don't know that I could. I can't I can't like find fault with any of those thoughts. You don't need me. Yeah. Like, I'm taking your point like, Hey, you did this all this time I go. No, I didn't. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 30:31
okay. Yeah, that's it. Right. Like, there's

Anonymous Speaker 30:33
nothing Meanwhile, and, you know, meanwhile, it's, it's killing me, right. Like, it's awful. But so like, Did I really need to, like recount it to this person? And then have them deny it? Like, no. So

Scott Benner 30:48
that's that wasn't gonna protect anybody. Right? Yeah. And what about the roommates? Did you? Yeah, that's, I mean, I don't even know. Like, it's, it's so it's so disheartening that you could find one person willing to do this. And then when you realize there are more that are willing to stand by like, and not even just check on you, as you're going out the door. You know what I mean? Like is fascinatingly frightening?

Anonymous Speaker 31:13
Yeah, the, um, I don't know, I don't really remember who they were. But I remember like walking out and being like, why did they look so freaked out? And then I walked out the door. And yeah, no, nothing, nothing came of that. My own roommate I actually didn't mention my, my one roommate, who I've been friends with for a very long time. tried to stop the whole thing from happening in the beginning. Ironically, and that was the other actually forgot this. That was the other like, real source of guilt that I had that she tried. Like, she really tried. Like, she was talking to me. And she was like, What are you doing? Like, no, let's not do that. Um, and I don't know, I need to talk to I should have talked to her about it before I came on here. I don't know why. I don't know what set her off that she thought. Like, what made her do that?

Scott Benner 32:05
Yeah. But she saw something was wrong.

Anonymous Speaker 32:08
She saw Yeah, she knew something was wrong. And I persisted. Yeah, I get I'm, I'm a stubborn human being, and especially if I've had a drink, very stubborn openness about myself. And I was like, No, no, don't tell me what to do. Like. I know very nice. Like, don't get me wrong.

Unknown Speaker 32:26
But I can get like that.

Anonymous Speaker 32:27
Um, but yeah, so that was my reaction to it. But they when I got back to my own apartment, they I told them about a little bit. I was like, yeah, I'm like, That really hurt. And they were like, what? And I was like, No, it's fine. And, you know, they kind of dropped it. And what,

Scott Benner 32:49
what really hurt I'm sorry, I lost you. Like, I

Anonymous Speaker 32:51
was just so like, from the whole incident was very, yeah. So I was very sore. And they were like, yeah, and they were they they knew something had happened.

Scott Benner 33:05
But it never really got spoken about.

Anonymous Speaker 33:09
No, I did speak to them about it much later.

Scott Benner 33:13
Yeah. But in that moment, I guess you're really just like a bunch of 20 year olds, right. Like, isn't that Yeah, you know, just a bunch of kids that are like, we're gonna go dancing and drink a little bit, and then a real life situation pops up. And who knows how to handle any of that? You know?

Anonymous Speaker 33:28
No, it's so true. That is so incredibly true. I think, you know, Dave, and I have like, really like, to this day, like, they're, they're great friends of mine. And they are we actually talked about it later on. And they're like, one of them was like, I'm so sorry. Like, we didn't do enough. And I'm like, you're 20 years old? Like,

Unknown Speaker 33:49
what are you gonna do? Right? Like, it's,

Anonymous Speaker 33:51
you know, it's, it's so shocking for a given break. We're talking about it. And it's and it's like, a shocking things to talk about and hard to talk about. And when you're 20. Like, oh, Mike, forget it,

Unknown Speaker 34:03
you don't know what you don't

Scott Benner 34:05
know, I'm thrown by the idea that in this story, there are so many people, even down to you and I talking about it now, who all would have done the right thing in a scenario like that, and one person with bad intentions and that's what wins the day. Like, I know he gets his way for having those bad intentions around. You know, like that. It's just it's, it's um, I can't I can't wrap my head around it like I've tried while you're talking to just put myself in his shoes for a second and be like, Why would you do this? Like because like, Mike, because I come up with all these weird things like you did talk to him. Like, right. And so you must have had some thought that oh, this is a reasonably attractive person. I'll speak to him for a minute and find out what's going on here. Like he could have just put in real effort with you and create a relationship with you but but that's not his intention. Like, it's so it has nothing to do with any of that, quite obviously, I'm probably saying something that's completely obvious, but he really is just intent on on the act of hurting you or somebody else and getting to it very quickly and being done with it.

Anonymous Speaker 35:15
Right. And that's, and it's not like it's not sex. It's not a relationship. It's not any of those things. It's, it's, it's like violin, you know, like, it's like, two completely polarizing things. But yeah, that's, yeah, it's I don't know, I don't know what would wrap your like, you know,

Unknown Speaker 35:35
I'm not gonna get around that.

Scott Benner 35:36
I'm not gonna find it. I just know that. Yeah, there's more context. Like, you know, I've heard people my whole life say, they have sexual assaults, not about sex. And I understand academically exactly what they mean. Like, there's no confusion with me, but hearing your story makes it more real to me that idea. Yeah. And that's just terrible. So, alright, well, let's get out of this part. I seriously before I have a stroke, and, and, and I'm like, sitting here like, my, I don't look like this. Usually, when I do the show, my hands are up. My shoulders are tight, like up against my neck. I feel like I'm, you know, like, I feel like I want to just say to you, hey, this was a bad idea. We shouldn't talk about good, better than I am is the point. I'm gonna need your number for your therapist. By the time we're finished. Oh, well, she's good. Well, so. So then, after stuff like this happens, yeah, the PTSD around being around the building. But then about being around men, I would imagine. What about what about the Did you tell your parents?

Okay, I'm going to use this spot here where the advertisements usually go just to give us all a break for a second. Take a deep breath and go over how you can get help. Again, it's rainn.org are a i n n dot o RG you can contact them right there on that website. Even chat with somebody or call 1-800-656-4673 they say that every 73 seconds an American is sexually assaulted. on the site, you can find out warning signs for child sexual abuse, make a donation to them. And much more. Rain stands for Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. It is the nation's largest anti sexual violence organization rain created and operates the National Sexual Assault hotline in partnership with more than 1000 local sexual assault service providers across the country and operates the D o t safe helpline for the Department of Defense. Rain also carries out programs to prevent sexual violence help survivors and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice rainn.org or a i n n dot o RG, please if you need them reach out. Do you tell your parents? Oh,

Anonymous Speaker 38:44
yeah, that's a whole other can of worms. But um, I did. My parents. I don't think they had the capacity to do much about it. I think my parents are, how do I even explain explain this?

Unknown Speaker 39:04
You know,

Unknown Speaker 39:07
a bit there. That's not their thing.

Unknown Speaker 39:10
And I put it that way. That's not their thing. That's not

Scott Benner 39:12
their thing. Well, let me let me say something because I think you maybe want to say that I'm wrong. I have to say this. I'm not your dad. And this is 20 years from now. And I'm struggling to say the right thing because there's it every step of the you can see why people say the wrong things around this because every step of this there's a part of your brain that wants to go Why didn't you just push him and run away in the bar? Right? Why didn't and I'm imagining that in your parents desperation for this not to be something that actually happened to you. They probably said every wrong thing along the way getting to it.

Anonymous Speaker 39:51
You know, they weren't horrible. It was just the and I yeah, it was just I think I'm So much. It was so much I think there's not much. There's not much to do. Like,

Scott Benner 40:05
what happened? Yeah, yeah. Didn't like, Did your dad ask who the person was?

Anonymous Speaker 40:12
I actually never only talked to my mom about it. I never talked to my dad about it. Um, she? No, I

Unknown Speaker 40:18
don't think she

Anonymous Speaker 40:19
did. I think I recall her asking if I told the police. You know, she, you know, and she tried it a couple times. And you know, then that was kind of it. But I think not being able to wrap her head around that this was like a long term thing to get over. I think is the like, disconnect there.

Scott Benner 40:42
I honestly am a fairly reasonable person. And I'm trying to imagine if I could stop myself from finding that person and killing them. Oh, yeah. Like, I don't know if I could stop myself or not. You know,

Unknown Speaker 40:55
it's funny. People say that a lot.

Unknown Speaker 40:59
It wouldn't even do anything.

Scott Benner 41:01
No, I know, it would be the wrong thing to do. I'm not saying that. I'm trying to decide. I don't even know if it wouldn't hurt you more. I'm just trying to say that I I'm looking for the capacity inside of myself. Not the snap. If he's hoping this

Anonymous Speaker 41:14
Oh, yeah. I can't imagine I can't imagine like my own I know of kids. But one day if I have kids, if my kid told me that like, Oh my god, like Yeah, no, I seriously.

Scott Benner 41:24
Yeah. When my son was eight, a little kid talk to him. And I thought I was gonna kill that kid. You're gonna I gave him like a Death Stare. And I was like, listen to me. And I just said something very quietly under my breath to him. I was like, you're gonna stop that right now my little friend turned into a mafia don, like with like a little kid. I'm assuming this would be worse. And I at this point, now, I'm not lying to you. Now my left arm is stiff. And I'm having I'm having shoulder pain. I think I'm just I am so upset about what happened to you that I'm like, I'm turning myself into a knot. Like, it's, I go through this. Every after dark episode ends with me walking out of this room, like out like fanning my face. And like, spritzing myself with water. It's, it's incredibly valuable to hear these stories. And it's hard to be the person that asked the questions about them. Because it's, I think if you just started talking, and I was listening, I'd say, uh huh, uh huh. Oh, I'm sorry. That's horrible. Like, it would go on like that forever. Right. But because I'm trying to listen along and ask you questions to understand better. I just feel too involved that and all of a sudden, so Well,

Unknown Speaker 42:40
you're, you're doing great. Don't

Unknown Speaker 42:43
get me feel better scenarios. No, I

Anonymous Speaker 42:45
do know, like, legitimately, no. And I really, you know, I appreciate it. Because I think it's, like I keep saying like, it's something that's so unfortunately, so common, and yet it's so not spoken about whatsoever. Actually, when when it happened. I my go to, like coping mechanism is like researching things I like to know. I'm like, Okay, well, what can I learn about this? Right? There's nothing there's like borderline nothing out there. I mean, there's some stuff right. But um, you know, that's one of the reasons why I really wanted to talk about it, because there's not much out there. So, point being, you're doing great.

Scott Benner 43:23
Well, thank you. I just saw I just googled the words rate of sexual when you get to that point. Yeah, it comes up assault, assault on college campuses, assault in prison, something else? How common is sexual assault in college 2019 Associates of America University survey on sexual assault and misconduct polled over 50 150,000 students at 27 universities and data revealed that there's a 13% non consensual sexual conduct.

Anonymous Speaker 43:52
And that's, and that's probably not even collecting the whole thing. Like I never reported this to anybody. Right. Right. Like and I think I would assume most people don't. The vast majority. So yeah, it's, it's, it's really, unfortunately, common.

Unknown Speaker 44:09
It really is. And,

Unknown Speaker 44:10
and,

Anonymous Speaker 44:11
you know, the things that I think what makes it so hard to talk about is the things that you're met with are so horrible, like the things that people say, you know, I had, I even had I didn't mention, I, the first therapist, I went to straight up told me, granted, before I tell you what she told me, I skimmed over a large portion of the story, right. But I lead with that I had been assaulted. And she said,

Unknown Speaker 44:42
Yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 44:43
I don't really think that that was that bad. I'm not even kidding. Right? And how had a very the car conversation was very focused on while you were drinking, right? So you get met with these things. And please don't take that as a like, you know, A negative of therapy therapy's been fantastic that one person sucked. But since then it's been fantastic. But, you know, so you're met with these. That's what you're met with a lot of the time when you do try to talk about it or try to, like, find things about it. You know, it's it's people

Scott Benner 45:17
looking for ways to stop it from happening in their mind. And so they ask you questions that are incredibly insulting and hurtful.

Anonymous Speaker 45:26
Yeah. And it's and it's people. Yeah, it's people coping, they're trying to they're trying to make sure well, if I don't do that, it'll never happen to me, or it'll never happen to my kid or whatever. Right? Um, you know, but that's

Scott Benner 45:37
definitely I don't think it needs to be said that just because your neighbor created doesn't mean you've given up your rights. Like, that's not how the world works. And it just, it seems like, I mean, it's it, that's a pretty heavy prevalence on a college campus. So I'm assuming what you do is you take, you take boys, at this very certain age, when they are just overwhelmed with, you know, hormones and craziness. And this ability to be, you know, to be drinking for the first time or doing drugs for the first time or all this stuff. And then you mix it with the fact that a certain percentage of the population are criminal assholes. And now, like, you know, all the other boys find a way to handle it. You know what I mean? Like, everyone else knows how to hear no, and stop themselves. And this person's not even worried about that. They that that wasn't even their concern. Their concern was, I'm going to do this terrible thing. And, you know, we don't, I don't know the person, you don't know the person, if it was for what the reasons were, but none of the reasons are obviously, okay. But but it's just the point of made me feel like I made I was making the point to somebody This is years ago. Why is it? Why is this happening? This has to anyway, hold on a second? Oh, I have to take this. This is gonna be really weird. Hold on a second. Okay. Hello.

Word, I'm going to say I'm sorry that I don't usually have to stop in the middle like that. But that was, I appreciate that. Okay, so. So I think we've pretty much well established, there are terrible people in the world, and they're really well, and they're really lovely people in the world. And that, for some reason, when terrible things happen, we seem to turn to the lovely people and ask them how they got to that situation.

Unknown Speaker 47:28
So true,

Scott Benner 47:28
really crazy. Like no one goes and finds the bad guy and goes, Hey, how come you're an ass? You know, like, why are you or why you're a terrible criminal. The end and have no like concern for people like what is wrong with you? We just go to you when we go. Should you have been drinking? Really?

Unknown Speaker 47:44
Right. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 47:45
yeah, you know,

Anonymous Speaker 47:46
that's very true. I like that one. I'm gonna use that. Talk to my students.

Scott Benner 47:49
It's really it's ridiculous. And but, but you know why it helps or why that why it happens, excuse me, is because those people are busy hiding somewhere. Right? You're, you're you're the one that's standing up and going, Hey, this is me. Let's talk about what's going on. They're the one who's hiding and pretending that they're that they're not,

Unknown Speaker 48:07
they don't exist.

Scott Benner 48:08
So right, yeah. So they're just trying to pretend they're not doing that. And, and I have to tell you that if I'm sure someone else has tried to absolve you already, but you can't be responsible for someone else's bad behavior. Like, you don't I mean, that's just, I see what you're saying. But I don't even know what you would do. Like, what would you do now? You don't I mean, like, even if you got it into you right now, as an adult, 20 years later, you're saying, what are we six, seven years past that? Seven? Yeah. What are you gonna do?

Anonymous Speaker 48:39
Right, exactly. And, you know, and also thinking of myself as at that age, like, you're 20 years old, you don't know what you're doing.

Unknown Speaker 48:48
Right? Like,

Unknown Speaker 48:48
I don't know, I don't even know I was half a person at that point.

Scott Benner 48:51
Do you ever wonder if you approach that person right now and said to them, You did this to me? Do you ever wonder if they would think that they did?

Anonymous Speaker 49:01
I have wondered that. I can't imagine what the response would be to be perfectly honest. Yeah. I don't know.

Scott Benner 49:07
Like, if you had a truth serum, and they answered, would they just be like, yes, I did that I'm a massive.

Anonymous Speaker 49:12
I wonder. No, I honestly, I think it would just deny till the grave. I really do think that I don't I mean, I don't know. Right. Like I never confronted about it or anything.

Scott Benner 49:23
No, it was he was he altered to I couldn't tell you. I don't know if he didn't know. Yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 49:28
I find personally I men I find hard to tell if they're drunk or not.

Unknown Speaker 49:34
I don't know why I just really do and personally might be because we're sort of asked to begin with it's hard.

Unknown Speaker 49:38
It could be it

Anonymous Speaker 49:42
could be Um, oh, but then I could go into like how this affected diabetes.

Scott Benner 49:48
That's exactly what the rest of this is about. So good. Okay, so we'll

Anonymous Speaker 49:51
get off the horrible horrible train here. Um, it doesn't get much but no kidding.

Scott Benner 49:57
Can you imagine? It was pretty much a downfall after that. Scott,

Unknown Speaker 50:01
life still sucks.

Unknown Speaker 50:03
Um,

Anonymous Speaker 50:04
but yeah, so, so from there. Yeah, I mean, I was, you know, it's funny. It's like, it's like, you know those diabetes burnout. I was just burnt out of life like me like I don't that's not funny but like, but I really was like it was just like, you know, coping with that was just crazy. And then trying to do diabetes, I would just, you know, I didn't have a CGM at that point. So at that point, I'm on Omni pod and you know, regular checking your blood sugar, and I'd be like, Oh, am I okay? take insulin. Oh, okay. Like just this very, very cloudy. Yeah, cloudy, like very district like, like, okay, going through the motions kind of thing. And I made adjustments and everything. But it was just, oh, yeah, diabetes, a thing that happened

Scott Benner 50:55
five times a day. So that PTSD that just hangs over you. 24 seven that

Anonymous Speaker 51:00
oh, my God, it was awful. Yeah, that was, so what happens, I learned later, you're basically in that fight or flight mode all the time. Like, all the time, your, you know, your nervous system is jacked up. And so everything skipped like, like, the door would open I jumped out of my skin, like just it was, you know, just like you're constantly like, need to be running away from something, you know. And so, how that impacted my blood sugar's was crazy, right? Like, you know, you've talked about like adrenaline with with basketball games, it was like constant though, like 24 hours a day. So I do remember, my insulin needs going up quite a bit afterward, like at like, I would say, I don't know, months afterwards. And then when we get me was I started having like, actual panic attacks. Specifically surrounding surrounding sex would have, so that's great. So that was really fun. Like, oh, let's have sex. Oh, just kidding. We're having a panic attack instead, like that was really beautiful. Um, but so that would drive up either if it depended on the day, it would either drive my blood sugar up or crash. And so that was fantastic to work with. But basically, so this went on for a couple of years. And then I finally I don't know, three, four years later, my therapist strongly recommended that I tried eating anxiety medication, which I was like, which I finally agreed to, and best decision I ever made, like Honest to God, it was night and day. I was like, Oh, this is how normal people feel. And my insulin needs went down my I stopped having these like, really funky like, rises in my blood sugar. Yeah, so that really helped tremendously.

Scott Benner 53:10
Can I ask when you're trying to be intimate with another person, then you have a panic attack in that situation? How much of that you how much of the reason why do you tell them?

Unknown Speaker 53:19
I'm so

Anonymous Speaker 53:23
I'm. So the guy I was dating at the time. It was a that that relationship was interesting. So I mean, I was finding this out as I was dating him. So that was just a very strange dynamic. Yeah, I consider eventually tell him about it. But I hadn't remember the whole thing. So I was confused about it. So that was tough. We eventually that that relationship was a dumpster fires

Unknown Speaker 53:56
eventually broke up. This

Scott Benner 53:57
is not the bedrock that a solid relationship. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 54:00
yeah. No,

Unknown Speaker 54:01
the world is

Anonymous Speaker 54:02
happier that we broke up, like the world told me,

Unknown Speaker 54:05
you know, but

Anonymous Speaker 54:08
the guy I'm dating now to answer your question, um, I told him pretty early on. And it went beautifully. Like it is. He's been absolutely fantastic about it. Granted, it only happens like very few and far between nowadays. But yeah, so I so I told him about it. And I said, like, hey, this might happen, FYI. So that was fun starting a relationship where I was like, Oh, so you know, I were an insulin pump. And also, I might panic while we have sex, like it's fine.

Unknown Speaker 54:45
You might peel me off the ceiling at some point.

Unknown Speaker 54:48
Yeah. Like it's a treat to date.

Scott Benner 54:50
Like, it'll be great to treat the date me. If you ever seen a cat trade? This is what I'm gonna look like on the top of the bed. Just so you understand. Right? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 54:58
that's pretty much what it's like not gonna lie. Yeah,

Scott Benner 55:01
I'm just imagining it must be a physical reaction. You must recoil, right?

Anonymous Speaker 55:05
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it, that's how it stopped. Like, with my, my, the guy I'm currently dating, um, it started that way it was, whoop, get out of here, like run out the door, right? And it's slowly became like, easier to just like, not take off and just like kind of get through it and come back. And

Scott Benner 55:29
yeah. Does it help you to talk about this in such a normal way because it occurs to me while we're talking. Like, I like the thing that I thought to make a joke just now. And I stopped myself I was like, I thought to myself, like, you imagine, like, you're just like, hanging out, and then all of a sudden, you're just barasch running out of the room, like, you know, like, on the way here going the other way. And then I'm like, No, that's the wrong thing to say in this situation.

Anonymous Speaker 55:54
It's fine. Now, like, if you said that to me, like

Unknown Speaker 55:57
five years ago.

Anonymous Speaker 56:01
But no, like, I mean, I've, I've, it's so at this point. It's so few and far between, there's like a few things that still get me. And so No, it's fine. I think you'll get through those inappropriate jokes.

Scott Benner 56:16
I just didn't want to, but the end of my thought was, is that at some point, someone needs to treat you like a normal person. Right and not and not tiptoe around you, or you're never going to be able to get past them. Do you think there is getting past the rest of it?

Anonymous Speaker 56:29
Oh, yeah. 100%? Absolutely. Especially being in such like, I'm in such a good. Like, I'm just in a good place right now. My relationships. Great. I feel, you know, 100% supported with it. And so yeah, definitely, I think the last little lingering bit. Yeah, I think it'll, it'll go away at some point.

Scott Benner 56:52
Well, are you still working with a therapist?

Anonymous Speaker 56:54
Yeah, yeah. I tell her that. I mean, I have to see her until either she dies or I die. So hopefully she's in it

Scott Benner 57:02
for the we're not getting out of this. You know, we're going out together. Exactly. No, I think that's obviously a valuable idea. And the guy and I mean, how much of it just being a good guy also helps to although credit to the other one. Somebody had to be first. And at least, at least he wasn't somebody that you like, head over heels loved. But you couldn't get through this part with like, at least it was a disposable relationship to begin with. And you got you don't mean like you got something that you really did, you got to move forward from it. So

Unknown Speaker 57:34
if you're looking for a positive data, you know, this is not how relationships are supposed to go.

Scott Benner 57:40
Yes. But I'm saying at least you That was the kind of guy you got on that one. While you were busy figuring out what happened to you imagine if you would have met this nice guy right now. And not been able to like, stick around to

Unknown Speaker 57:54
see how it went. You know what I mean? So Right, right. No, that's very true.

Scott Benner 57:57
Yeah. So he was valuable in that sense. So you had these incredible, like, spikes of like consistent blood sugar problems, the anxiety, anxiety medication took that away for you, which is amazing. And I think anyone listening who has anxiety should be hearing that and paying attention. Because if you're, you know, like, when in the course of the conversations, the podcast, you talked about things like, you know, adrenaline from sports, or activity or something like that, or have been people have talked about, like, blood sugar spiking or dropping during sex and stuff like that, like times when your body you know, goes into these different modes. But if you're in that mode, 20 473 65 Yeah, like, that's just terrible. You must just physically feel better now to write

Anonymous Speaker 58:43
Oh, my God. Yeah, I feel like I can breathe. Like I just, that's the best way I could describe it. Like, it was just like, the world was just very terrifying to me. Like, everything freaked me out, right. Like, it's, it's just night and day, and I feel like, right, and I feel like myself again, because I wasn't. I mean, I was always an anxious person, but not like that. Like that was a little

Scott Benner 59:03
Yeah, you lost. You lost in real time in your life. Right. So you lost time. Like there's just wasted time in these? Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 59:12
Oh, yeah. 100%

Scott Benner 59:14
Oh, yeah. Well, you're just existing and staying alive. And yeah. Yeah, that sucks. It really does. I mean, I would imagine beyond the emotional stress, there's got to be actual physical tension to

Anonymous Speaker 59:28
Oh, my God. Yeah. My I finally, like, my shoulders are always like, total knots. And in this past year, they finally chilled out.

Unknown Speaker 59:39
It's like, they feel like extra shoulders again.

Scott Benner 59:42
That's, that's nice. I mean, it's nice. Because we, you know, we said at the beginning, you're in your late 20s. But you're not. No, no. You're right there. But yeah, but I mean, trying to highside this. Yeah, you did get through the worst of it. It seems like in relative short order. I mean, it's doesn't feel like short order because it's your life and you lost yours. But when you stand back 75 years old and look at this, you'll think, oh, there were a couple years in my 20s, where this was a real problem, but I got through it, and I just kept moving forward from there. You know, yeah.

Anonymous Speaker 1:00:16
And I, you know, it did some, I mean, I certainly I would rather that not have happened, but, you know, it did. It helped me realize I wanted to become a counselor, first off, just going through therapy, I was like, Oh, this is cool. You know, and, and I think it just gave me such a greater empathy. For other people, like, you know, this, I was 20, right. And this happens to kids. And unfortunately, we don't need to go down that path. But, you know, it happens to like, you know, very traumatic things happen. So lots of people. So I think it just gave me, you know, such greater empathy for other people and, and not to mention, like better understanding of like, when you're going through something very traumatic, like, what it's like to try to come out of it. So, you know, it, it did give me a lot to work with. It gave me a lot of like, clarity on what I wanted to do. So, some good definitely came out of it, for sure. Well,

Scott Benner 1:01:21
I mean, that's nice. I feel weird saying that. anything good?

Anonymous Speaker 1:01:26
No, I know. And that's what I said to do. I was like, I was like, I don't want to say like, yeah, it was fun.

Scott Benner 1:01:30
Yeah, thank God, this happened. I never would have had this perspective. But yeah, I you probably can't just live without the perspective. moving in a bubble, right, gained it slowly over time, the way everyone else gets it, you know? Exactly. But But I mean, what it made me think of when you were just talking is that, you know, everybody my age knows, the kids start coming home from college like you, your, your, your children, your children's friends, they come home, just imagine that every time. You know, you ask 10 girls how school going? It's possible that 13% of them have, like, been through an assault. Yeah, like, That's insane. It's crazy. You know what I mean? More than one in 10 people can say, oh, that something like this has happened to me. And, you know, you're sending your, you know, your daughters are heading off to college. And this just can't be I mean, we could go down the roads, how? And, you know, of course, people should, you know, people need to, like, evaluate their sons better. You don't I mean, like, you all know, your kids like, quirky, like getting weird or like, you know, by himself, like, say something like, send them the therapy before. Something like this happens, you know, like, don't just stick your head in the sand when you notice your kids a malcontent. Like seriously, I mean, I know you're not a parent, you're kind of younger, but everyone knows I'm not saying you know, somebody is going to assault somebody, but you can tell when your kids a little weird, like, do something for them. Don't just let them go out into the world. I'll twist it up like that. Yeah, a mess. Do something because they're gonna go meet somebody else. They're gonna meet somebody's daughter and somebody's son, and you know, and, and have these monstrous ideas in their heads. And you know, Jesus Christ, like, Fuck, do something. Don't just look at him and go, Oh, he just likes knives. Yeah, I don't know what that mean.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:26
He just like,

Scott Benner 1:03:27
figure it out. You know, figure it out. I know, Joe, he doesn't need a 13th tarantula in his in his cage. Like, I don't know what it is like, when you see something? That seems like a little off go. Let me find out here.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:41
What's going on here? Exactly. Oh, that's funny. Yeah. Maybe Maybe it is alter Angeles. Who knows?

Scott Benner 1:03:47
I don't know why. I'm just saying when something seems wrong. They say something you don't I mean, do something. Don't just sit there and hope it gets better. People do that with their health they do with all kinds of things. They're like, Oh, I noticed that six months ago. Why didn't you do anything? I don't mean I don't understand. Like, yeah, yeah.

Anonymous Speaker 1:04:06
And I think, you know, it's just being in debt and, and not a fault counselor. But like, you know, like, being a school, like having a background in school counseling, I think, you know, I think that's the importance of, of counseling, like to begin with personally like, and I mean, I know, I'm super biased in that sense, but, you know, it's so that when you're, you're reaching those kids when they're kids, hopefully, right, like so that you're not becoming this monster, right. I don't know. So Well, I think it goes I think goes both ways, if that makes sense.

Scott Benner 1:04:43
It does. And also there are people who have thought that they haven't acted on yet. I mean, I don't know how difficult this is to say but like, ask for help. Like, tell somebody like I'm having thoughts that I believe are not okay. You know, like, I need to talk to somebody about it. And right, exactly, just because you're not going to win when there's a problem like that inside, you're not going to keep it down forever. And you know, and if you're hearing this now and you're feeling that way, like you could stop yourself before you're hurt somebody, you know, it's a it's a big deal to try to take responsibility even when things feel out of control. It's sometimes it's the first step to finding control.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:24
I don't know absolutely. No, no, you're right. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:05:27
I know. It's Friday. You got me. You got me. I don't know what to do. Now. I just.

Anonymous Speaker 1:05:37
Yeah, true. Okay. Well, I don't know sometimes, like, cut off. Like, I don't know, it's like a different land.

Scott Benner 1:05:46
Do you ever notice rain sometimes can't cross a body of water? Yeah. Right. Ever see that? Like you drive over a bridge. It's raining on one side. And on the other side?

Unknown Speaker 1:05:55
I love him. That happens. Pretty cool.

Scott Benner 1:05:57
Anyway, Alright, so what are we not telling people that we should be telling them at this point, like, so? Obviously, stress and anxiety can come from a lot of different things, but directly from PTSD, it's gonna have a massive impact on your blood sugars. You know, you you endured something terrible, that kind of put you into a fog for a long time. So I'm assuming your blood sugars weren't all that important to you, like you said, you just like give yourself some insulin and move along. Yeah. And that was it. What do you do? Like, what do you see as you're moving forward? What are your short term goals, I guess for yourself

Anonymous Speaker 1:06:39
in terms of diabetes, or just in general, I

Scott Benner 1:06:41
think in terms of like, getting you to a place where you're where this feels like a terrible thing that happened a long time ago in your it doesn't.

Anonymous Speaker 1:06:53
I would say it already does. Honestly. I think like there's that last little residual thing I got going on that I need to, that I would like to continue to work on. But other than that, I think my goal for a while has been and I've been working towards is just like, really being focused on maintaining, you know, like doing things that are stress relieving, because that's what I learned over these years is that over over this whole incident is that stress exacerbates the hell out of PTSD and, and all an anxiety and all these other things. So I just, you know, I just try to be really cognizant of that, and, and really focus on whatever it is like whether that's, like working out works great for me cooking anything like that, that I always try to have, like, keep in mind as a goal. And I think just being what's the word I'm looking forward? I think just being very aware of, of, like, where I'm at. So I don't end up in that, like really foggy space, if that makes sense. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:08:12
seeing the edge of this slippery slope and doing something before you fall too far.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:17
Yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 1:08:18
cuz it was just like, for so long, I was just kind of like, in survival mode and going through the motions. And so I think, like, if I just being really aware of if I start slipping in that direction, like, Whoa, what's going on? You know? Yeah, I think that's how, you know, how I continue to move forward. And I think, you know, I'm glad that I was able to talk about it here, too. I really do like the idea of kind of being more of an advocate in the space. When it's, you know, when it's okay, when it's an okay, space to do it. Like, I don't, I don't need to talk to crazy people on the internet or anything. But you know,

Scott Benner 1:08:57
I'm, I'm really kind of overwhelmed that you think this is a good place to do something like this, but I

Anonymous Speaker 1:09:02
do know, I really, truly do like I, you know, I just think you've created such a such a supportive environment. Like, especially like I'm pretty active in the Facebook group. And I think that it's few and far between that I see anything that's not supportive.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:21
And I don't know, I

Anonymous Speaker 1:09:23
think I think it's just an open minded bunch that you that you created here.

Scott Benner 1:09:27
That's very nice to you. Thank you. I'm very proud of it. So that's excellent. Ah, can I ask you a question? Of course, how do you? What's the best way? What is the way or how do I want to ask my question? I'm assuming that being intimate now for you, you need to be a little in control. Like I'm wondering, I'm wondering about best practices for people who have been through what you're through or even for the guys that are with them. Like, what's that dance like?

Anonymous Speaker 1:09:57
Oh, that's a great question. Um, I'm thinking, yeah, to it. Yes, being in control 100% important. I think it's a combination of like identifying what it is that triggers for you.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:15
Like,

Anonymous Speaker 1:10:17
I'm trying to give an example. I know for me, like, I still, if I have, I'm not a big drinker, but if I do have a drink or two, I have a really hard time having sex. So I know that going into it. So that's something at this point, I'm just avoiding. And I think just really having really open communication with your partner and finding someone who's really willing to work on it with you, because it's, you know, it's a big hurdle. But the person I'm dating right now, I don't I don't feel like in that space, like, I don't feel that way. Because he's so supportive

Scott Benner 1:10:53
it is it not as specific as Hey, I'm gonna put my hand on your leg now. Like, is the whole thing feel like it's like a talking book? Or? Hi, should we move closer to the pillow? Like that?

Unknown Speaker 1:11:09
No, not now.

Anonymous Speaker 1:11:10
I mean, honest to God, though. Like when it first happened, like, someone had their arm around me. And I wanted to just combust. Like, it was awful. Like so. But now No, not at all. But But I mean, if there's something we wanted to do, that was like new, I would need to just kind of wrap my head around at first a little bit.

Scott Benner 1:11:29
We talk about a first it's not something that would happen in the in the moment kind of thing.

Anonymous Speaker 1:11:33
Exactly. And there's, there's certain things like, like, obviously, like, I do not like having my arms pinned down. That's not a thing. That's okay. Because I need to be able to deck him at any point. He knows that that's why, like, in case I need to punch you. He's like, Okay,

Unknown Speaker 1:11:47
what my arms free in case I have to punch you in the face. Yeah. Just in case. By the way, you're gonna punch him don't punch him in the face. There's better places.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:56
Right, I always was gonna go for the face.

Scott Benner 1:11:59
Some people can take a shot to the head. So.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:03
Exactly.

Scott Benner 1:12:03
Okay, so just, you know, a lot of communication. Yeah, like you lead the way. You know, identify things that are bad ideas and just avoid them.

Anonymous Speaker 1:12:14
Pretty much and like, you know, when you I think it's important to work through the things that you're avoiding, but do it Be patient that is my other recommendation is be really, really patient don't I mean, I I'm not patient with myself, I would, I would say, and I would get all bent out of shape. I'm like, Well, why isn't this working? I should be over this right. You know, give it take it takes time. Yeah. But uh, you know, you can get through it.

Scott Benner 1:12:41
I would imagine it takes as much time as it takes. Exactly. Yeah. And that you can't rush your way through it. Okay. All right. Is there anything that we didn't talk about that we should have? I know, you said you wrote some stuff down.

Anonymous Speaker 1:12:52
Oh, my God, I think we hit everything. No. I can't imagine anything else. I'm, I'm looking. I

Scott Benner 1:12:59
feel so accomplish when people say that, by the way, because I have no plan. So I'm just like, wow, that I actually get through the salient details of this.

Anonymous Speaker 1:13:09
Oh, yeah. No, I think I think we hit I'm just looking okay. Yeah, no, I think we had everything I think. I think also, like, I do have have one thing, it's kind of, I think with this salt piece, it's it's also tied. You know, you know how and I've heard people say, on a podcast, when you get diagnosed with diabetes, it's like, everyone kind of treats you like, it's that club. They want don't want to be in there like, Oh, right. And so I think, like, I think with the soul, it's the same kind of thing. But that's why and I started sound like a broken record. I keep bringing this up, but that's why I think it's important to bring up you know, so that it's not that oh, I don't know what to do or say about that. That's ugly. Right. So that it becomes something that's easier to to discuss. Other than that, no, I think we hit everything.

Scott Benner 1:14:05
Okay. I think you need to avoid, you know, it's just gonna sound disjointed, but I think it's like when you meet somebody and you know, somebody, not the first time you meet them, but you know, somebody who has like a serious health condition like like, say, somebody has cancer, like you can't just be around someone who has cancer, and never it comes up because then it just seems completely obvious that you're ignoring it. And that is as uncomfortable as talking about it sometimes. And so, is that what you're saying? Like you can't just like treat you like this never happened if you're a close friend or a confidant or something like that, like it has to be if it's appropriate conversation, that keeping it quiet is just as bad as if it were to come up. Is that the idea?

Anonymous Speaker 1:14:49
Yeah, exactly. And and at the same time, and this is a lot to ask with people right but at the same time, balancing the fact that that one bad thing isn't your full identity. Like, like someone who has cancer, like, that's not everything about them. They're still a person. Right? Like, I think, you know, just having finding that balance. And I think, you know, in my last relationship, when I told him about it, that was very important to me. I was like, I don't want this to be everything you think about me, like, you know? You know, so I, so I think it's, it's just important to have that balance, too.

Scott Benner 1:15:26
I can't, it's no different than you just people struggle with them seeing their children as diabetes sometimes. Exactly. Right. They just look at them. Like how's your blood sugar? Are you okay? Are you dizzy and the you're missing? The person you're seeing that? You don't want? You don't want who you are to be? Not so it should be centerstage who you are. That

Anonymous Speaker 1:15:47
way. There's Yeah, there's so much more to you than then just then diabetes. Yeah, whatever else you got going on? Because most people got other stuff going on,

Scott Benner 1:15:55
too. Right. I got it. I think I understand. Okay. Yeah. Well, you done a really wonderful thing here. And I can't thank you enough. I mean, just that it was your idea. You know, it's funny, somebody to go down a slightly different road. I was explaining something to somebody today. And they said, Where do you get your guests from? And I was like, I don't get my guests. They, they come to me. And, and she's like, what I'm like, well, there's like, every once in a while, like I said, you know, I'm I'm doing an eating series, and I needed somebody who ate ate in a very specific way. And I had to go out in the world and look for them. I was like, but everybody you hear on the podcast, wanted to be on the podcast, like they think they came to me. And, and so like stories like yours, or, you know, you and I were talking about it before it started the girl that came on and talked about opioid addiction. Like you don't know what a big deal that is, because she was the fourth person who approached me about talking about opioid addiction, and the first three for a number of different reasons. Couldn't get to record it. And she did. And, you know, so topics like this are difficult, you know, it's obviously, they're incredibly hard to talk about. They're difficult to listen to sometimes. But they're important. And it takes people who are brave like you to step up and talk about them. And it's just a really big deal to me that you chose to do it with me. I really appreciate it. Oh, well, thank

Anonymous Speaker 1:17:22
you. Yeah, no, and I and I, like I said, I think you've made such a supportive space to even do so I felt comfortable reaching out to, even though I feel like I know you because I listened to you all the time, but just basically talking to a stranger,

Unknown Speaker 1:17:37
about this horrible thing.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:40
But here we are.

Scott Benner 1:17:42
It really does feel like that. It feels like what if I just picked up the phone, dial random numbers, got somebody on the phone and started telling you about like my medical issue, like, Hey,

Unknown Speaker 1:17:52
I'm like, I'm thinking about it. I'm like, Oh, yeah, I'm

Anonymous Speaker 1:17:54
gonna talk to this guy. I feel like I know, because I listened to him. But basically this random guy on zoom,

Scott Benner 1:17:59
literally a random person, and they're going to record it and then let a lot of people listen to it. So right, what a great decision I've made here. But no, it's the knowledge you're going to help somebody. It's funny. When I made the joke about calling somebody with a health problem, I thought to make up a health problem. And then I thought no matter which one I make up people listening are gonna think I really have it. So I just didn't make a joke. I was like, oh, if I joke about that people like, oh, he has that. I was like, Oh, I can't do it. But no, I mean, it's just, it's a weird. I mean, the mediums amazing. Like, like, seriously, think about what you just talked about 15 years ago, you would have had to have been on 60 minutes to tell this story. Yeah, seriously, the world did not work like this before, before you could make a podcast. And and so people didn't hear these things. And they didn't hear them with any frequency. Like I think it's it's, you know, the first time there's an after dark episode, which by the way, I even hate calling them those. I hate calling them after dark, because I don't think that they should be in the dark. I just think that that's how people see them. So

Anonymous Speaker 1:19:04
yeah, I think it's good. Just like you're saying, God forbid a kid is listening to it.

Scott Benner 1:19:10
Yeah, I don't want something wrong. And so I have to kind of brand it so that people understand it. Some people are much easily, much more easily triggered than others. So they should have an opportunity to know what it is they're getting into. Right? Like your episodes not going to have a fun title where they get,

Unknown Speaker 1:19:25
you know, so unfortunate.

Anonymous Speaker 1:19:29
That would be really awful. If they were like, Oh, this is about I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:19:33
Yeah, plants. Yeah. You don't want to like get halfway in and go, Oh, gosh, I didn't. I didn't mean to be here. And I didn't even realize that until someone someone said to me very recently about one of the afterdark that I think is terrific. I think it's one of them without drugs. She's like, Hey, I can't listen to that. Oh, and I was like, Oh, well, I'm glad that it was clearly marked because I didn't reckon I didn't think anybody would because I don't have an issue with it. I just imagine nobody would but but my point is is that story Like this, you know, didn't get told with frequency. And you might not be the last one like someone else, I have to tell you, the first time I interviewed somebody who had bipolar disorder, I thought, well, that'll never happen again. Except I'm editing another show now with a person who has bipolar disorder, because they heard the first person and they were like, hey, my story's a little different. Let me tell you mine. And I was like, That's amazing. So you might not be the last person I talked to about something like this. And I think that's how we, I think that's how we get to the things you talked about, like treat people normally know what to do know what to look for. Because you mean, you You gave a lot of good tips here today about how to how to sniff out a creepy person.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:43
I don't know that.

Scott Benner 1:20:44
You know what, because when you're a decent person, you just think other people are decent.

Anonymous Speaker 1:20:49
I know it's not. Yeah, that's so the truth is,

Scott Benner 1:20:53
I just don't imagine anybody screwing with me. Because I'm not screwing with anybody.

Anonymous Speaker 1:20:59
And that's Yeah. And that's how I am now. Like, I'm just, this person's probably screwing with me. But also like, I'm such a I'm such a sucker for balance, but also balancing that was like, not everyone's out to get you but they might be. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:17
Got it going for it. correction. Did

Scott Benner 1:21:19
this cause any strange correction of like, how you like, did you do do anything oddly differently than June before? Like, is your pace is your purse like full of mace and guns and things like that, like your brass knuckles with you like, or have you not gone that direction?

Unknown Speaker 1:21:38
You know,

Anonymous Speaker 1:21:38
I do I run and I do bring pepper spray with me. That is the only thing I can think of it. Yeah, it I would say yeah, like I do. Like, if I'm getting in an elevator, it's just me and one other person. I'm like, just one other person. Right. Like, it's that kind of stuff. But I wouldn't say it, like completely changed me as a person. But it it did make me a lot more aware.

Scott Benner 1:22:02
If it makes you more aware of your size.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:05
Yes, it did.

Scott Benner 1:22:06
Okay,

Anonymous Speaker 1:22:07
it definitely did. Yeah, I didn't realize how small I was until. And I'm not, you know, I'm sure I'm not like a little skinny toothpick or anything by any means. But I was like, Oh, all right.

Scott Benner 1:22:20
There's just a disparity between generally speaking between men and women's like, strength in size. And, and the way it occurred to me is like Arden's five, seven. She's one of the tallest girls, like, in her high school, as an example. But she, but but you know, like, she'll tell me at home because she's the shortest person in the house. She feels small.

Anonymous Speaker 1:22:43
On the phone, and I actually got Sorry, I was I was at the gym the other day. And I'm like, doing like lifting weights in a mirror. And I'm like, I am so freaking short. like looking at the other people. There's like, there's like, these women are about five, seven. And I'm like, Oh my god, I look like a literal midget in comparison. I had no way like, I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:23:04
I mean, it's just that we joke around like my wife's five, nine. And yeah, she's and she's strong. And she'll like every once in a while. She's like, I could take you and I one time I said to her, I was like, Listen, this is not an adversarial thing. I was like, but speaking seriously, if you and I got into some sort of a death feud. I knock your head off. You know that right? And she was like, No, and I'm like, No, you. It's not the same thing. Like I know, that's weird. Like, I'm not an overpoweringly menacingly, large man. But I could I could easily overpower my wife.

Anonymous Speaker 1:23:36
Oh, yeah, this is the ongoing fight between me and my boyfriend because I keep telling him I could take him but I know for real I get it.

Scott Benner 1:23:43
Yeah, no, it's unfortunate. But but that's the thing that some women have to actually live with, like the knowledge that there are other people in the world that can overpower me if they want to. Yeah, like and you'd have to be a lot bigger than me to overpower me if you were a guy. Like I'm not saying it couldn't happen. But I'd stand a fighting chance, you know what I mean? And, and that's just I was wondering if the if that has become kind of, you know, front and center in your mind now that that this has happened? I just Well,

Unknown Speaker 1:24:12
yeah, definitely more than it ever was for sure.

Scott Benner 1:24:14
Yeah. Cuz you just don't. Like I said before until you there's a point in your life where you don't imagine anything Bad's ever gonna happen to you. I know. It's not fun, you know? And at that moment, you're just like, I'm me and you're just rolling around you know, five 310 pounds like I can I can conquer everybody like meanwhile most people get back and you and knock you over. You just don't you don't think of it that way.

Anonymous Speaker 1:24:37
I'm glad you're envisioning me as 110 pounds. That's

Unknown Speaker 1:24:39
great. Keep keep thinking.

Scott Benner 1:24:45
Now, I was just going for a weight that I felt like I could easily back here and actually what I said,

Anonymous Speaker 1:24:49
Oh, got it. No, we can pretend it's me. That's

Scott Benner 1:24:52
that there's a comedian that has that joke. Like you know, like, you know, I could overpower everyone in my house at the same time. You Like, and no one thinks that way about it. And I just don't. I wonder if men listening can understand because they don't have this feeling. It's kind of why I'm talking about this. Yeah, the women in your life. Some of them more than others are, are painfully aware that in a physical situation, they'd likely be overwhelmed, and how and how frightening that must be to have to live that way. Oh, yeah, my point, you know, and guys, generally speaking, don't have to live that way. Although I know some guys that you know, I mean, honestly, you kick their ass easily. They wouldn't stand any chance. I'm thinking

Unknown Speaker 1:25:38
I should fight them.

Scott Benner 1:25:39
I'm literally thinking of three people right now that I think could be beaten by a small child. So Alright, this has gotten off the rails. And there are going to be some people like you can't joke around with the end of an episode about stuff like this, but I don't know what else to do. I'm trying to get the tension out of my chest.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:54
No, you can you can joke around for

Anonymous Speaker 1:25:57
sure. It's fine. I like sweated out at least 20 pounds right now. During this conversation,

Unknown Speaker 1:26:01
I made sure I made you close your window too. So it's even worse.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:04
Yeah. Oh, yeah, exactly. All

Scott Benner 1:26:06
right. Well, thank you very much. Hold on one second. Okay. Okay.

I'd like to thank the person who this episode very much. And thank all of you for listening to her story. Again, if you need help rainn.org are a i n n dot o RG or 1-800-656-4673. One 800 656 hope you can get help. 24 seven. I learned a lot in this conversation. But the process of this conversation and the one that came prior taught me something very important. The person you just heard who told this incredibly courageous story. I heard I had already recorded it an hour or more with them just four weeks prior. And I would have had no way of knowing that any of this had ever happened to them. That just kind of kept rattling in my head is she and I were talking that I felt like I had a complete conversation with her that she told me about her life, and that this had happened to her and that there was no sign of it in our previous conversation. Well, that was concerning, honestly. So let me go back again for a second and explain that feeling. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center, which is another place you can go for help. And SV RC, it's an sb rc.org has statistics here. This is from a 2010 Summary Report. Nearly one in five women 18.3% of women and one in 71 men 1.4% of men in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives. This includes completed forced penetration, attempted force penetration, or alcohol or drug facilitated completed penetration. More than half of the female victims of rape reported being raped by an intimate partner and 40.8% by an acquaintance for male victims. More than half 53.4% reported being raped by an acquaintance and 15.1% by a stranger. These statistics go on and on. And they just rang over and over again in my heart. As we were talking today, that this person that I spoke to who had this great happy conversation with me about type one diabetes in their life could have gone through this. And most people will never know. And that made me think about the 18.3% of the women I know. And the 1.4% of men. Okay, well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Juicebox Podcast. There'll be more episodes coming this week, a little lighter and less serious. But I again, I really think these conversations are incredibly important and valuable, and I appreciate that you listen and to the person who told me their story today. I am so sorry that I cannot thank you by name, but it means a lot to me that you felt safe doing it here.


Please support the sponsors

The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!

Donate
Read More