PTSD and TBI Treatments
A few years ago US Army veteran Jason McCormick had a life altering conversation with a battle buddy. That battle buddy pointed out to him that his memory issues were likely more than just PTSD, it was likely a TBI. After an assessment by the Marcus Institute for Brain Health at the University of Colorado, Jason had the answers he needed. It was a TBI, and through their amazing programs he has found ways to live a better life, create a better relationship with his loved ones and finish his education to prepare for the next chapter in his life. Tune in to learn more about how this amazing program helped Jason make positive changes in his life!
Battle Buddy Podcast Guest Links:
https://medschool.cuanschutz.edu/mibh
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Transcript from Episode 37 with Jason McCormick:
Keith McKeever 0:04
Buddy with McKeever. Alright. Welcome back to another episode of the battle buddy podcast. I have Jason McCormick with me. And we're going to talk a little bit about PTSD, traumatic brain injuries and some help that he got, and maybe a couple of interesting little tips for, for kind of dealing with triggers as they come up. So, now further ado, Jason, go ahead and tell us a little bit about your military story.
Jason McCormick 0:29
Hey, thanks for having me on. My military stories, similar, probably most of a lot around our age group. You know, I, in 1999, I joined, not sure on what I was going to do. And you know, and so I woke up one day in January of 99. And, and said, Well, you know what, Let's join the service. And two weeks later, I'm in boot camp, beginning of February. And so it starts the life of my journey in the military for 21 years. So I did a lot. I was 19, Delta cap Scout, for 21 years, and I rose to the ranks, pretty good. retired US Army Major. And then, you know, what, really, for me, my first duty song was Germany. And I loved it. And it was the greatest time I've ever had. And so anyways, September 11, happened, which was one of the biggest changing events that changed, you know, astronomically, everybody in the United States. So we, you know, we would throw on Delta, and that's when you really thought and then from that point on, I went to third ID, which was the tip of the spear for the invasion. And I just did every day. But every other year, I was I was deployed for a total of 61 months, and six appointments to to Iraq, and then four to Afghanistan. And so it was, it was a pretty rough time, you know, a lot of times, you know, it's, it was really challenging. And but anyway, so I did 21 years, and then once a second and then finished up Ted mountain, and then retired out of Purdue Army ROTC to then said, Hey, are you my education? So I have a wife and three kids. And my wife's name is Christina. And I have Bryce, Kinsey and Austin, and they're now it's my retired, that's my sole focus is, because I've missed so much. You know, like, I tell people, I've never seen any of my kids graduate or take the first steps. None of them, their students say the first words, or you know, any of that stuff. So it's, for me, you know, I look back on it now, and realize, you know, this is the time that I have to, you know, to be be there for my kids and whatever they need, and try and be the best that I can especially now that I've realized how bad my PTSD and TBI really is.
Keith McKeever 2:49
Absolutely. So we'll back up to a second there. Yes, sir. You're on Purdue ROTC done must have been an interesting experience.
Jason McCormick 2:59
It's always an interesting
Keith McKeever 3:02
world, world changing experience. The intensity of the military to being on a college campus with a bunch of, I guess I'll say wannabes at that point in time in their careers.
Jason McCormick 3:13
You know, I came, it was like a, you know, I had a couple of choices. And I said, Why don't you pick them up? I was in a really when I got that assignment. I was in Afghanistan in 2015 16. And I got that assignment. I was like, man, what am I going? So I told my wife where they're at. And she chose, you know, that was my first, you know, off the line job, you know, for all my other deployments. I was, I was getting after it. And that was my first you know, we call broadening assignment. And it was definitely broadening it definitely opened my eyes and I had, you know, females working indirectly for me. Now, I had females that I was actually teaching to become officers. And it like I for me that that taught me so much that I've missed out my whole career. And so, yeah, it was right. It was definitely an eye opening for a bunch of young cadets. And it took me a while to break my first certain habits. When I got there. I was pretty Yeah, it's pretty knife hand ish. And strong with words. You know, they probably needed that tool, right? Yeah, they do. But try not to do it to the freshmen cuz that scares them away from the program. Okay. Yeah. So for the upper you know, normally our our juniors, they needed some good luck.
Keith McKeever 4:33
Yeah, I want you to better get repaired at some point time, right? That's right. Like if we want a propeller. Yeah, that's a that's a weird experience. Yeah, cuz I went back to school three years ago, I just finished my bachelor's. So the first year and a half was on campus at a junior college and it's just weird, like, I was in my early 30s At that point in time, but just just to be, you know, 1213 1415 years older than all the other Students and you're like, wow, you know, almost got underwear older than you. It's like, they're so immature. I literally saw people like walking into doors because they were looking at their phone, or they walk all over the place. And it's just, even after seven years of being out of the military, like, I, there's just times I would just sit back in a chair people watch that just be like, What is going on with this generation. They're all weird, you know,
Jason McCormick 5:31
like, you're trying to, like with them. But,
Keith McKeever 5:34
you know, it's like, you got to realize, okay, I have a little older, I got more of a grasp on who I am in this world where I fit what direction I'm going, and you got to realize, okay, between 18 to 24, you don't have a freakin clue about what you want to do in this life. You know, there's just all those most college cases seems like, you know, don't really have much direction to change their degree path once or twice, and just kind of fumbled through it. I mean, it wasn't, it was like, 30 By the time I really kind of figured out where I wanted to do in life. And, you know, there's a long ways to go. So I knew I just had it, I was like, it had to be, had to be a crazy experience,
Jason McCormick 6:10
super challenging. I'm not like that, you know, combat challenging in a, you know, in all aspects, regular life. But that was a whole different challenge. I've never, you know, ever experienced my military career. I mean, I'm glad that, you know, I wish I could have a little bit sooner my career, that way I could have been really, you know, developing better as the person as you know, as a whole, you know, and that's all right. So now I'm retired and have a beard and trying to live that, you know, retired guy life. By now, I'm
Keith McKeever 6:42
sure you learned a lot of lessons during that process. But you went to your you're going to school, they're prettier to write for your yes or no. Okay. Yep. That's a must, must be quite experienced there, too. So are you did you start going to school while you were also the instructor there?
Jason McCormick 6:57
No, no, I, so I got out. And when I retired in May of 2020, COVID was, you know, initial stages. COVID was just booming, right? And, like, I thought I had a job lined up that went away. And, and then I was like, What am I going to do with my life, like, I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. And nobody's hiring. And I was like, you know, pretty bad. JR, that month was pretty bad. For me, it put me in a pretty bad, emotional state, you know, like depression. And it took me, you know, went through another organization that called the catalyst. And I went through them trying to, you know, trying to redefine my skills, trying to get that, and that's when that organization really opened me up to getting to realize the skill sets that I have, that we get from the military, and then took me helped me understand why I wanted to get an MBA, so I can really make some changes in some organizations, that preferably, you know, my end state would be, you know, help help out the, the VA, because I think there's a lot of help that can be done there. And I think that we, that experienced veteran, being able to get in there, you know, and have that edge, you know, be able to talk their talk, but be able to still have that grounding, you know, as a, as a soldier or a sailor, airman, you know, whatever, you know, military personnel, because a lot of those people up there, not all of them, you know, they're civilians, and they only deal with veterans, they've never been the veteran. So there's a whole different flavor of, of that. So I think that's, you know, my end state would be to working with the VA to ultimately make some changes, and I think we benefit veterans as a whole and, and maybe, you know, however, I can do it. And that's, that's my end state. So
Keith McKeever 8:43
awesome. I couldn't agree more that, you know, there's, there's a, nobody understands us like us. Yep. You know, I was Air Force your army, but we still understand each other exactly how it's different, just like different cultures and all stuff. But at the end of the day, nobody gets us in the challenges that we have, like us, you know, and some civilian who's just hired for some other corporate job to come in and do something VA is going to quite understand that, unless maybe they, you know, had some military in their family and managed a little bit more, but their hearts in the right place. I'm not trying to say that. I care, but there's a little bit of a disconnect. Yeah. You also mentioned skills at college. And that's, that's something I think a lot of people need to realize is that you get a lot of skills, and one of which is leadership. And I can say from my experience, I know I got a lot of leadership, I saw a lot of good leadership saw a lot of bad leadership, learn from them, you know, leadership courses, those things. But I didn't realize until I got into group projects, yeah, especially my last semester last year, group projects with traditional college students in the 18 to 24 range, and I found myself leaving everything Yeah, I was setting everything up, I was guiding everything. I'm like, Oh, here's our deadline. Here's today. Here's what this is do, here's our checkpoints, we need to reach. You do this. And you do that you do that. And you did everybody fine. Everybody's cool. All right, you know, your, you know, your instructions. Let's go do it. And then I would just get really angry when two of them would just never show up. Yeah. Or they wouldn't participate. But anyway, I got sweet justice on whatever, we made her go last on the group presentation, if she had not seen any of the slides. I had to turn my monitor off in zoom. And it'll laugh. And watching her fumble through it. I was like, it's sweet justice.
Jason McCormick 10:40
Sometimes it's the best way you can learn, you know, and that's, you know, but, you know, I'm doing a produce Executive MBA Program. And, I mean, there's some professionals in there that I've, I've learned more from those because they come from all backgrounds of industry organizations, and throughout the United States. I mean, I had one guy from South America, and I tell you, I've learned a lot about business. That, you know, I thought I knew a little bit like, Yeah, I'm, you know, I got this leadership, well, this is a leadership, different different organizations, and I didn't, you know, it's all about how I conform to that, you know, your leadership style may not change, but you can conform to the leadership style in which an organization has said, to effectively communicate with your subordinates or those below your direct reports. You know, that was another word direct reports. Like, I had no clue what that was, you know, I've never heard that term before. You know, and so, that was one of the things that I had to, you know, small things like that, you know, like, I never thought if they weren't as that the people, the students, and the professors were not as professional as they were, and understanding and, you know, they understood my background, they understand, you know, I could the leadership aspect of what I had, you know, some of the finer tunes of, you know, accounting, whoa, how, just, like, you don't know that in military, right? We don't deal with, you know, accounting, and, you know, a 10k, you know, I tell people all the time, I had no clue at 10k was until halfway through our, we do a two week classroom portion with this MBA, and I had no clue what a 10k was, for a while, until I asked someone you know, and we're halfway through the course, you know, that module. But again, it's your right, you don't see it like these, you know, some people just don't have it, you know, we have it too, with, you know, in the group to a lot of people, you know, they've sat in the back and, you know, got through or never, you know, had utilize those leadership skills, and they don't have, you know, so you are spot on, brother.
Keith McKeever 12:40
Yeah, it makes it it makes it difficult to, you know, if you've got a strong skill that you see, and other peers around you not having it. Just realize that you have those skills, and they don't, and it's okay, they just don't have those those experiences in life. It just don't let it bother you. Because I will tell you, I let it bother me last fall. It bothered me really bad. I was like, I just can't understand why they can't show up. Like, why didn't why are they late? Why don't they show up? Why don't they contribute? You know, it's like, everything was done through Google Drive. It's everybody had access to it, I made sure that everybody was in there at what point in time and it works. I was like, What is the problem? I just don't get it, you know, but, you know, something I was, I was thinking what you're saying is like, different leadership's different things like the knife hand does not work in college, but regular study is not gonna work in a boardroom.
Jason McCormick 13:35
Yeah, that's not gonna work when I'm trying to, you know, talk to a CEO about, you know, their quarterly earnings or something that I understand this young man.
Keith McKeever 13:44
They're just gonna call security on you. Yeah. You're really interesting.
Yeah, yeah. It's it's an experience for all those that, that think about getting out and going to college. Just prepare yourself, it's going to be a different world. And you're just immersing yourself in it. So, back to the topic at hand. All day about experiences and pet peeves I learned in college for three years. Your CBI? Let's let's let's go with that. What? What's the story on that? And when did you when did it click to you that you knew you had a TBI? Was it right after was it take a little while down the road?
Jason McCormick 14:28
Well, you know, so you know those deployments, you know, I've been in six IDs, three, oh, my God, you know, recording my military, you know, and it's just you got to know, you know, and I've been beside you know, dismounted IDs just went off on somebody, you know, on soldiers who've lost their legs. I've been three or four v. Ben's been right there, you know, right next to me. And, you know, I just never thought about TBI. I can still think I can still do stuff. You know. And I, you know, through over the years just kept getting, you know, like steadily worse and but as I I'm still, I'm still you know, up in the upper half of, you know, my peer group being very successful. So that was my challenge anything was just keep moving on. And then when I was at Purdue I, you know, from operational readiness and we slow down a lot, you know, you're not doing going out to the field all the time, right? So when we slow down, I started noticing that I was getting a lot atrophied. My short term memory is bad. I just couldn't I just, I was just not with it. You know, I would find myself. stargazing, you know, and not understanding that I'd have to come back in and get myself you know, back to where it was interesting, they start taking me longer to do task as I, as I went on to that, and I noticed that and not till I got out, you know, I met one of my friend here locally, his name's Dominic. And he was like a brother to me now because we he ended up having a TBI when he got blown up back and I think was 2004 when he was in Iraq. Or maybe later, I can't really remember. But anyways, he got a TBI. And we were talking to breakfast one day, because we started, you know, used to do breakfast once a week, you know, so we check up on each other and stuff like that. And, and they started, I told him about some of my experiences. And he started, he saw a little bit of it. And he recommended me to go, you know, I think he might have TBI, man, you know, and, you know, because, you know, the VA said, I got PTSD pretty bad. I said, Well, I mean, I probably should have it, you know, based on what I've done and been through. And but I never thought of that TBI aspect of it and how that affects you, and how that affects how it only multiplies the PTSD. And so you know, and so he recommend me I call Dan talk to start a conversation with the Marcus Institute for Brain Health. It's out in Colorado, part of Colorado University. So I talked to them and I said, Hey, come out for one week. We'll try to get you out here and do the COVID. We'll see we can do this was October of 20. And so I went out there, I did a week, which was a very fast paced evaluations, from physical therapy to speech therapy, speech pathology, to mental health. What else was there a couple other ones. Art Therapy, which I can go into that right there. That's a whole I'll say that for the end. And we can go over that. And there's
Keith McKeever 17:42
a lot of benefits in that. Yeah. And I,
Jason McCormick 17:45
I can I'll bring a picture over here. I have when we can. And I'll share that with the group and what it did to me and how it changed me. So anyways, and they, you know, they sat me down at the end, they brought my wife in, which was really awesome. And it went over everything they found with us. And they said, Hey, you'd be a good candidate, and extremely good candidate for our organization for us to help you. And they explained to me I had, you know, TBI, traumatic brain injury, and we they want to work with us, working with us, be me, my wife. So and so I was like, Okay, well, some time went by things happened. I normally try to bring back a month or two. So we just stayed the continuation, but I didn't get back into April. Yeah. And so I went back out there and went out for a three week intensive outpatient therapy process with them.
Keith McKeever 18:41
So I really liked the fact that they included your wife and I mean, it makes sense, but I could see where some programs maybe don't do that. So I'm assuming they had her in there for counseling sessions and stuff with you and like all along the whole the whole path
Jason McCormick 18:55
Well, normally they bring the wife out for the last week of the intensive outpatient Okay, cuz the COVID protocol is a really cool and messing everything up. Yes, there was all zoom brought her in for you know, the last day of evaluations what they normally do, because you're so fast paced, it's, it's um, you're really going 100 miles an hour during the evaluation process. And you're and you're emotionally spent, like you are, your mind is bad. I've never felt so drained. Non physically in my life, like I was my head hurt. It's just all the tests they put you through. I mean, it's nothing bad, which just makes you think and evaluate and do different things. You know, they have a little globe that had holes in it, and it would spin in different directions. And you'd have to focus on a certain point and they can tell by the way your body moved and how or less like, you know what's, yeah, wow. Yeah. And they you know, they had another machine that they had me all over the floor where the platform moves, and you have to close your eyes and visualize yourself staying center and your body will move naturally because of that in there. I was pretty bad. And I never thought I thought I just had balance issues, right. Just. I'm old and you know, and he's stretching more do some nowadays. Because the TBI because your body believes your center, and you're not. And so because you just don't know is
Keith McKeever 20:16
kind of nice. Your equilibrium offers a little bit. Okay. Wow. Wow, that's really neat. Yeah. And so that's just amazing. Sounds like sounds like fun. Like, I just kind of want to go do it just to see if I fall over. Like, like, that sounds like really strange and cool. And I can't imagine how that freakin works. But,
Jason McCormick 20:40
you know, that was physical therapy. And that was that was it's not traditional, we think physical therapy is was cognitive physical therapy, you know, and, you know, one of the tests I still remember was a laser super laser on your head, and they put a ball like a bull's eye there and you had to try and keep it in the center. And like, step up and or turn your head or, like, turn your body and try and keep your head and your eyes right and right on that center. Oh, man, I couldn't even do it like it was because my body was just so everywhere.
Keith McKeever 21:08
It sounds like a game that you would get some laser pointer, some duct tape, a drunk bunch of drunk people. And a party.
Jason McCormick 21:15
I like let's do this. You no matter what service we all like to drink. We all like to party. Right? Exactly. Like
Keith McKeever 21:23
our lines. Like I'm trying to imagine it because I haven't seen it. And I'm just like, okay, lasers. Bull. bull's eye. Like, I could just imagine a bunch of drunk drunk troops trying to do that in the dorm now. If you didn't trouble don't not don't drop my name.
Jason McCormick 21:38
Yeah. We don't condone it. But wink.
Keith McKeever 21:41
I'm trying to grow my show. Okay, not yet. Not and I have the military pissed off me.
Jason McCormick 21:47
They probably done it themselves. So yeah,
Keith McKeever 21:49
make sure your marriage like the underage people out there from the old guys, like I'm just gonna save you a lot of headache. Just don't have the underage people there. Sir. Wow, that's that's some crazy. I guess I can see you know why they're doing some of those tests for this. Once again, science strange.
Jason McCormick 22:11
You know, another thing they said that really blew my mind was, do you avoid going to shopping? You know, going shopping with your wife? I'm like, yeah, what man doesn't? They're like, what about grocery shopping? Right? And I'm thinking grocery shopping, when you talk about
Keith McKeever 22:27
the cookie aisle or the chip aisle, like I'll go.
Jason McCormick 22:30
They say that you're there, that it's hard for you to walk in a straight line. And because of all the different visuals and everything else, that your body's your is all messed up, and can't remember the word for it. But anyways, so there's some places other organizations actually have a, an aisle that they have walked down and that watches, you know, like a virtual reality. And they watch your eyes and how you perform, you know? Because before I even get anything out, she's like, you're a guy that goes in, gets what you need gets out, right? You don't like to walk around every aisle and all that. Cheers if you do because your wife wants you to do you feel exhausted and tired or maybe a little angry or upset at the end? And I said,
Keith McKeever 23:12
Yeah, every freakin time.
Jason McCormick 23:16
My wife though, and she said, No, I promise you, it's because you want to avoid the uncomfortableness that you're feeling as you're doing it. And I was like, Wow. Holy goodness. Yeah.
Keith McKeever 23:30
The question of like going in and just grab what you want. It's like that's 99% of guys, right? Like, just I know what I want. Like, I know what I'll say. I'm going for it. You know? I don't need to go up every every single aisle.
Jason McCormick 23:45
Yeah, you're right. Yeah, never, I'll never forget them. They said it took me walking in a straight line takes about 20% of my brain power to walk a straight line. And then they they said, Now when you increase that with other stuff going on around you, it's almost like 30% of your brain power, just to stay focused in to try and walk a straight line. And I noticed a lot, you know, for me is certain floor patterns. Just throw me off. And I can barely, you know, I get really dizzy or I you know,
Keith McKeever 24:19
like some places will have like, a primary color and then they'll have like little patches of like, an accent colors that was like that will throw you off quicker
Jason McCormick 24:28
checkered stuff or, you know, I see that. And we were in a there's couple hotels and my kids play baseball. So when you're traveling in Florida, like that, and it just I never really thought about it until after, you know, so I came back from that and we'd get in there. And I noticed myself trying to you know, be dizzy and I'm like, man, let's have a well, there it is. That's that type of you know, part of that the symptoms of what they told me and
Keith McKeever 24:55
so like the colorful florals and the carpet and hotels like all hotels have, it seems like
Jason McCormick 25:03
Oh, my wife played me nothing, no, I
Keith McKeever 25:05
just love her.
Jason McCormick 25:07
I just learned to, you know, and that's part of the things you do when you go back for, you know, three week intensive outpatient is a teaching focusing, you know, like, we would walk down a long hallway with a stick, right? All right, in fact, here it is, you know, it had a little E on the back of it. And you just hold that out here like this at eye level, and you would walk focusing on it, and then you would, you know, turn your head, and, you know, give me different focal points as we walk, and I'd have to turn and out down then everywhere, and that would keep me You know, I get that first I was really dizzy, I'd almost fall because you're focusing so hard that we have some data, you look somewhere else, you lose it, and you go right towards that. And there's couple times almost fell over in the beginning. But as we did the physical therapy, and we did everything else, we were able to do move everything around. And I could I could walk, you know, clearly, long as I had a focus, and I and I could channel a lot of energy, you know, there at the end, but it was amazing to learn just a simple trick of the popsicle stick and use that, you know, I still do here at home every now and then, is I'll get it out in a walk. And I'll challenge myself, you know, because if I don't, you know, you know, you start to regress, and I don't want to regress, I don't want to keep moving forward.
Keith McKeever 26:28
Absolutely. And I say probably half the battle is just knowing, you know, just being aware of what bothers you, what affects you how these things affect you? Yeah, honestly, you're blowing my mind right now, I never would have thought about four patterns and walking straight, no amount of brain power. Makes sense. I would have never thought about that. I didn't
Jason McCormick 26:48
either, you know, you I'm just I'm just a dumb, you know, dumb girl, you know, I'm a I still like my wife. That's why I don't like going to the grocery store, you know, that here.
Keith McKeever 26:59
Nobody want to go for 30 or for three hours when I can go in for 30 minutes.
Jason McCormick 27:04
Right now. And, you know, I noticed now that you know, I go into the grocery cart, and I normally they don't want me to but you know, for my benefit, you know, so I can you know, keep myself centered on something and I can and I allow myself to relax a little bit more instead of being a little more tight. You know, that's, that's what worked for me. You know, we're all different. So
Keith McKeever 27:24
yeah, well, yes. Was this some neat, neat tips? So is there anything that you tried for treatments before actually going to the Marcus Institute, anything that you found nothing.
Jason McCormick 27:39
I didn't even know. I was like, I was like, I'm perfectly fine. And here to find out. You know, when I went there, and I tried to do some research and understand some stuff before. But again, I swamped with schoolwork. So I was like, alright, housekeeping, you know, tried anything. Yeah. And, but then when I went there, it was it was challenges. I had schoolwork, I still ended up too. But I was able to really put some stuff into practice because I I've been stressed out and, and I'd be you know, just everywhere. You know, like some of them. You know, like we were, you know, like tapping. Like we talked a couple different things, you know, where you, you tap here and then you tap on your forehead and you feel stressed out? And you know, of course the therapist is like, Oh, you do that anywhere. You know, and I'm like, Yeah, I'm probably not going to do that. You know?
Keith McKeever 28:27
I'm not gonna go to Walmart or tap muscle on the forehead. You're nuts.
Jason McCormick 28:31
Yeah. And then I'm actually I'm, I'm planning to some guy in the moment handcuffs, what's going on? You?
Keith McKeever 28:37
Basic COVID you know help you social distance by acting crazy. Yeah, yeah. So you see anybody in Ohio with you just start tapping yourself on the forehead, just make eye contact with them. really freaking map, your G the, probably the aisle, they'll be like, This guy's nuts.
Jason McCormick 28:54
Yeah. And so one of the things they did teach me, you know, we're, we're, I found useful for myself is, is just finding that pressure point on your thumb with your thumb and your index finger there. And I just rub that and you don't want to start feeling stressed out a little trigger at certain points, you know, I can you can do that sitting at a table, you know, nobody's hands are crossed like this. And you're just, you know, your little rub will pinch. And I do that for a couple seconds and it helps ground me you know, and that's one of the best things you know, for me when I'm out and about I'm in a meeting or you know, some little gives me a little agitated or something like that. For me. That's that's me. But it could be somebody else who likes this thing they call cooks hold up where you do something like like this in your hand and rotate it down like this. I'm just not that seems like a little bit of a yoga or yoga to me.
Keith McKeever 29:47
Sounds me like I get all twisted up and get my arms all locked. So
Jason McCormick 29:50
really funny. stuff in pain. That's pretty, you know,
Keith McKeever 29:54
if you're younger and you don't have like joint pain yet or anything like that, like maybe, maybe ask it for those guys. and gals but yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah. Because of those things. Yeah, that's,
Jason McCormick 30:05
but yeah, there's just small things like that, you know, that that, you know, they taught me to work to work on between physical therapy and. And with low the mental health stuff to help you really channel find this trick, they really help me find my triggers. You know, like when I get overwhelmed with so much work, they taught me how to slow down, they, they taught me how to do a planner, and a different type of planner, you know, highly important, not important, you know, and for my task to do lists to help me really channel the important stuff in a day. So that it has to get done stuff that I would like to get done, and stuff that if I can get a chance to when I put it off to tomorrow, which really helped me organize myself, because a lot of people with TBI have problems organizing themselves. And they're very, you know, and that's where, you know, when I did speech pathology, GT Turbo I wrote, you know, how my mind but you guys another thing is, when I was writing stuff out, she'd had me write sentences, my your testimony and way across worlds, the way I crossed words out, if I messed up, how many times I messed up, or wrote stuff backwards, and everything like that she was nice. She analyzed that gave me feedback and said, it's, you know, it's common for the mind to be mixed up like that. And but then we worked on that stuff, the organizational strategies, you know, like, I never had a day planner, or a weekly planner, or anything like that I just had like a calendar or like, put everything on a outlook. And none, there was never any priorities separately, if somebody said, Hey, here's a hot 50 meter target. And did you engage and get it done right now. And get it done, knock it out. You know, once I learned give myself more organized or into a rhythm of algorithm, I was able to really see myself serving a little bit more clarity. I was more relaxed, I wasn't so agitated, which goes back into the PTSD to you knows, some similarities, you know, between PTSD and TBI is the AGID being agitated, you know, for certain things or people. And normally stressors, stressors and triggers. And so it helps you keep yourself for me, kept me more organized and kept me and started making me able to accomplish more, and able to see myself and to know, the triggers if I started adding too much to my plate. You know, and that's one of the things that I noticed is I had, I was only 15 to 20 things, you know, different organization or things that I was involved in, so I had to cut some things back, or find something simpler, that didn't take as much power as say something that I really cared about. So
Keith McKeever 32:39
I can fan, there's a lot to unpack in that one. I've got some similarities to things in my life and tips that I found, as you're saying that because over the last couple years, I've had things in my life, like my homeowners association, I was president for six years. And the last probably two years of it, I was totally done at checkout, did not want to do it, but nobody else would take over. And finally just got to the point I just told him, I will not seek re election I'm done. I'm gonna step down for a year be a board member. And then we'll see. And I realized it was important for me to get rid of that stress. Like first couple years it was no big deal was just me doing my thing. I had great people on the board very well ran board for the most part. Yeah. But it was just too much stress. With all the other things that were more important. It was the easy thing to cut out. I was like, I just I gotta be done. Like, for me personally, for my family, everything's got to be done. And the other thing that that jumped to my mind was my calendar. What's always worked for me is I use Google Calendar. And I've got everything color coordinated. So anything for this podcast or recording a video is yellow, anything if it's a realtor, anything that's showing a house or I want an appointment at somebody's house for work is in bright red. If I time block something for work, just where I'm gonna be at my office or something in our doing this, I put it in blue. And then personal appointments, doctor's appointments, whatever, taking my kids to the bus, that's all green. Yeah, my wife if she has a client in the house, because she has services upstairs as an aesthetician, our stuffs in purple. So that one doesn't really matter in a calendar. It's just, I can look at it and be like, Oh, she's got a couple of clients this day, a couple clients that day, I can look at it and know exactly who's where and when. Yeah, when I got to pick up the kids, whatever, because it's all color coordinated. And it's all blocked in time. And I know that oh, you know what, you know, Monday at 9am. I'm doing this from nine to 10. And from 10 to 12. I'm doing some planning and then I'm working on XYZ in the afternoon. Like that's it. That's That's my day. And I block it. I set it up as I go. But I look every day and I look at the next three days and I'm like, do I need to shift things around? Is this gonna take me longer than I thought or don't have client needs that need to take the place of that and I move it right so it's like a juggling piece but it's it's bright, it's colorful and it's easy to just look at. Right and that's If it's available on my phone, my computer Everywhere I look,
Jason McCormick 35:05
actually, for our kids and everybody put their stuff in, it's called a, like family app or family calendar, I don't know, somebody link or something like that. Yeah, it's a family calendar. And everybody's linked into it. And so I have my own calendar, and thereby, my own calendar links into that one. So it's kind of nice for me, so I go there. But my wife, you know, every Sunday, we sit down and we go over the week. So that way I and I write everything down on my calendar weekly, unless it's something that's repeatable. So I know exactly what's going on we, we talk through stuff saying, Hey, this is where I'm gonna need your help Jason. And I'm like, Well, I got this, or I don't have this. And so it was really awesome to be able to, you know, once we started that, in one meeting helped me me, my wife helped us all that relationship, you know, a little bit more, it opened up more than communication, you know, because at least we talked, it was just short stuff. But we really started talking more, because we like this actually made finding out about myself. And TBI has made us closer than what we've been in the last 10 years as a married couple. So
Keith McKeever 36:13
it's getting down to spending that time together to plan and make sure everybody's on the same page. And that communication. That's yeah, that's huge to do that. Yeah. More people could probably do that. Yeah, I know, I need to do that more like, you know, just be on just be more on the same page with your spouse. Yeah, there's a little bit to the whole, realizing and going through this healing process, where it helps to. I know, I've said I've noticed that, but how did you know? How did you think that affected your wife? Like, how was it more immediate? Or to take a little bit more time? Like, how receptive is she to everything, I guess, she was,
Jason McCormick 36:51
she understood, she knew about the PTSD. And we talked about that. And I found out I had a pretty bad. And we never thought about the TBI until my buddy Dawn brought it up. And what that did was it I talked to her about, she didn't really understand a lot about it. But then when we talked to after the evaluation, they talked to her about the brain power, and all this other stuff, and why she's probably frustrated. And she was like, Oh, my gosh, I'm so frustrated about this, this and you're like, Yeah, it's like, you're reading my mind. And she said, Well, these are very common with people with brain injuries. And so I was like, okay, it started, start looking up a dialog, you know, and we weren't sure how long it was gonna take for this weekend. And they told us, it's gonna take a while, you know, for us to, for me to really get into a groove to get to start, you know, recovering, or dealing with the symptoms or whatnot. And so it actually in then, Moon, she spent that last week, you know, visiting and seeing how I was doing different exercises, or how and why we did them, because they would explain it to my wife, you know, I'd have that last week, I had one or two things every day. And she'd be invited. So she could see my physical therapy, she could be in with my counseling with my counselor there. And then allowed it, she started to understand more, and I think that was for me. I could see like a light bulb going off with both of us, you know, understanding each other. I understood her, she understood me. And it just really helped us out tremendously.
Keith McKeever 38:27
I think, what if she can understand that? Because it can be frustrating, I'm sure to know. Yeah, there's 1000 Be like, why are you doing this? Why are you acting this way? Why this? Why that? Yeah. But if you can understand why a little bit for somebody else's perspective, I think you can just feel like, yeah, it is what it is. I may not fully ever understand. But I understand that something's going on. And that the brain is perceiving things in a different way. Yeah. Because that's what I think. And weird to me is it's just yeah, the brain works in such a weird way. It's crazy, but, you know, it's just how you perceive the world around you and how you react to it. And it's like, most of that stuff is overreaction. Yeah. To stimulus. Yeah. But you have no control over it, or very little control over it. Yeah. You know, but I guess if you can see those triggers you try the trick, right? Yeah.
Jason McCormick 39:25
If it works for you ever work, you know, like, I have a whole pain but 10 pages here on different things to do. I can, you know, someone just like me, I'm just not a not a baby. No. That's just not me.
Keith McKeever 39:37
That part some YouTube videos, have some different tips like that. See if I can find something better on the website under the resource page, because, you know, that's good stuff. No, I never thought about that. There's never even brought that up, you know? So that's some new stuff right there.
Jason McCormick 39:53
Yeah, it's just something. So again,
Keith McKeever 39:58
I start getting hungry. Just try something And it tries to be healthy, you know, not drugs, alcohol and all that stuff, you know, that's probably not the route to go, try the pressure points attack on the forehead. You know, whatever works for you talking to somebody quiet room, go walk around a little bit and do what you got to do. So,
Jason McCormick 40:20
I never thought of this stuff. I mean, that was like that the Market Institute was a godsend for me, like, it really allowed me to want focus on me for three weeks, and to seek the help that I knew that I needed into. It's really, you know, pretty much almost start my relationship over with my wife and kids and realize how important you know, I can say they're important, but important, but I used to categorize, you know, being in the Army, you know, try and do that work life balance, but I just didn't have it. And I was more I was I was, I, you know, to me, I think, you know, I was a bad husband and a father, because I just always wanted to, you know, be successful in the military, my career and expected them to, you know, follow and I never really fully comprehend it, comprehend it, you know, that that work life balance, and until I want to retire, and then going through different courses, like the catalyst, and then doing Marcus and doing talking to other people, you know, preparing myself in the civilian side,
Keith McKeever 41:24
you know, I had a conversation with Sony about a week ago speaking, and it's like work life balance, because it's not, it's not a 5050 balance in life. But I'll try to remember exactly what what he said, is something along the lines of equating time, with, with that quality with your family, you don't have to have a 5050 balance of time. Because even if you spend 50% of your time with your family, you might have to spend it in a quality way. Like, figure out what they want, what's really important to them, and spend that time with them, you could spend three hours a week with one of your kids, if it's doing something they really, really love, and it can be more valuable time. That's kind of the whole dark week with Ebola, you know, on vacation or something like that. So it's not a, it's not gonna 5050. And when we said that, I was like, wow, that's fine, you can work 60 hours a week, yeah, and go work out, do all these other things and volunteer and be gone 8090 hours a week, you could and still have a perfect relationship with your wife, your kids, if you're spending that time wisely, or fully devoting it to them in the quality time that they need
Jason McCormick 42:32
it sometimes we get conformed quality over quantity. And that's a, that's a big thing. You know, we think, Oh, if I spend more time it's gonna be better. Well, maybe it's not because you're distracted by this, or by that. So you know, you're actually then, you know, by allowing yourself to, to be more distracted by by trying to give quantity, you're actually doing more damage and realistically, to your, your kid and your wife, you know, because you said, one, I want to spend as much time with you. But then in return, you're actually doing other stuff and showing your best interest and getting quality. From that time.
Keith McKeever 43:05
I take like little kids, right? I mean, you could spend half a day sitting on a couch, you and one and your kid on the other watching all the Disney movies they want. Right? That may not be really what they want, because you're not really connecting. You're not really you know, may not may not could be what they really want, but may not be Yeah. Or maybe what they really want is just you've to play an hour of Minecraft with them. Yeah, Mother video game, you know, that might be the absolute best thing that they've been looking forward to. Absolutely. You know, because you're not really you might not be present in the first one. You're just there in the room. Not engaging, not connecting?
Jason McCormick 43:41
Yeah, absolutely, brother. Absolutely. You know, that's one of the things, you know, my son plays fortnight my youngest does. And that's one of the thing I go up here, and I'll spend time with them. And I'm like, Hey, I'm gonna be your tactical advisor today. And, and I was, you know, just temple, like a stay in a low ground, bounce from tree to tree, you know, and, of course, I don't understand the whole building stuff and all that. So it's time just to go, you know, bonds I had a run straight out of, and just start shooting them, you know, but, you know, I stuff like that, you know, two or three games for laughing and making fun, you know, that's cool. You know, it'll be exact quality that we're looking for we go, you know, play baseball, or, you know, sometimes we just go for a drive. And I, you know, just allowing the talk and that's sometimes that's painful, pretty good for him, you know, because some kids just don't get you don't, you know, I try and teach him that difference between, you know, had that fall, you know, I said, you need to vent sometimes to you know, that's one of the things that I've, you know, we're growing up, you know, you know, you just shut up and go you know, you can't talk right, and, and I've learned that, you know, I'm trying to make him better than me. You know, I'm trying to go my kids and that's why I tell people when I meet you my goal and we shake hands is to make you better than me because I think that's if we look at it that way as a society. We're going to take so we can change society to better place. And I like to start my kids because, you know, those are my kids. And, you know, like, I'm forcing them all, I'm not forcing them, give them options, three options, trade school, college, or the military. There's your three options in life when you graduate. But anyways, back to the quality time, you know, it's, I noticed that because my oldest boy, he was six months when I when I first deployed to Iraq for the invasion, and I talked to my wife twice, during six months, during that deployment. And he turned one to this verse that says, first words, you know, everything that happens era in during that time, and I through two phone calls, one, one was in man, and one was in July, so and I was coming home. So I was pretty was that, you know, and I realized at that point that I needed to, you know, I see like, five, his birthdays, so I took the ROTC gig, and he was he turned 2015. So only half his birthdays, I was even I was, you know, physically able to be there. Because you're training or deployed. That's when I realized the quality stuff. So we started doing hunting, fishing, just just being together and talking. Was really, you know, you're right. It's not about quantity. And that's why, but I still kept that mindset of work. So I was able to place them first. And then when I retired and through this, you know, this process, you know, of TBI and PTSD, I learned what the most important things are, and that's my priority. Now. You know, I still want to, you know, get that job VA, help take care of veterans and, and make some changes, but my family is gonna, you know, will place their priorities over a lot of stuff, you know, try and try and find that balance, you know, even if it's, you know, the qualities were actually, you know, a boy went trial for a baseball team and for college in Arkansas. So it was a nine hour road trip with us. And it was, it was an exciting, and crazy time, you know, we had a blast, I let him drive. He took us out in 10 bucks to he said, his GPS got us there. We're like driving down a dirt road. And here's my How are we driving on a dirt road, son, there's no dirt roads, unless you're lost.
Keith McKeever 47:16
Pretty good advice for life right there. And I woke up, right, I
Jason McCormick 47:19
sleep I think in that just tired. And I woke up and I were on a dirt road. And I'm like, Son, why are we on a dirt road? There's no dirt roads on anyways, there's a good laughing moment. And we had a great time. And just stuff like that, that you get to, you know, I, you know, I would have been I'll do that three years ago in the military, you know, cuz we've been in training, you know, training or I, you know, we'll be able to get off, you know, because I feel guilty, taking that much time off for to do something like that. And put a strain on my wife and that burden on her, which then strained our relationship. Right. And so, which is kind of cool now that I can actually jump in on all that stuff.
Keith McKeever 48:00
Yes. I mean, you can't do anything about the past. Yep. But you can do something about the future. Right? Absolutely. That's that's something that's that's that's a universal advice for everybody there. What do you what is it? Yeah. Figure out what those needs are of your family members. Yeah. They're all going to be different. Yeah, there's all love languages, people like different things. Just value different things like, or whether it's cuddling on the couch or watching a movie or like said, just quiet Sunday drive. roars for, you know, I don't know, my kids. Like, I got two boys. If I said I was going to the store, they they both want to go. Yeah. I don't know if they want to go because of me. Or if they just want to go get away from their brother. Jay, they want to jump at that opportunity for an environment. And it makes sense. So yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So that's awesome. Jason, I appreciate you coming here and talking about sharing your story and telling us about the Marcus Institute because it's really cool I'm gonna have to do some more research and add them to the mental health page of the of the podcast website. And and so you got some other links so feel free to send whatever you got over because I'm all about just providing what this podcast be just part of the resource hub of what I'm building just to be a place people can find stuff for free. I'll charge nothing for this website. Obviously, you can listen for you can watch free all the resources on my website are free. Nobody pays to advertise on there is strictly for the veteran community has tired of seeing see people struggle know what resources we put on there to better so listeners if you got something to me, send it to me, please because I want to put I want to put good resources, good projects, right. And this is administered through a college you know, there's a lot of money there's a lot of science and research backed up in it. So you know if you've got a problem in that That's a good place to turn to. And I'm sure many, many universities around the country doing things like that. So I must research ahead of me now. Thanks, Jason. see who else is doing something like that? Right? All these resources are because it can be held.
Jason McCormick 50:18
It's good. I'm really, you know, I follow you. I've been following for a while. And I, you know, what you're doing is amazing brother. I mean, I can't even begin to think of how awesome and where you're going from when I thought I remember when we first talked, you're just starting out. And as to where you're at now is just simply amazing. Brother, you're going in the right direction.
Keith McKeever 50:39
You're doing steady growth,
Jason McCormick 50:41
and what and what veterans need. And I think that's, you know, awesome that you're that you're willing to do what you what you're doing with the battle buddy, podcast and webpage. I realized, thank you. Thank you for another veteran.
Keith McKeever 50:55
Well, thanks. It's just, you know, I'm just doing what I can. And I think that's what we all should do. We should all look out for each other and do what you can. Yep. Maybe it's a podcast, maybe it's a vlog, maybe it's just having a little packet of you know, non perishable food and a warm blanket that you can give away to somebody find homeless vet on the street, I don't know, you know, do what you can to make the world better today. And do it again tomorrow. Even the little little options build up, right? So, you know, that's what we all got to enjoy. Just like your plans of working with VA makes some changes, right? You know, it's gonna take a bunch of people to make huge changes, but you don't make any changes unless you know, you plan to see That's right. Well, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Like I said, You ever get any resources send it my way I would love to highlight just things on the website.
Jason McCormick 51:51
Yes, sir. You know, I'll send that that book to you know, once a warrior always in word to you. And that's a great book for you know, people to read and really drills down into it. It helps spells my wife's read it gives that mindset lets you in you know others in in yourself and to where we're at with PTSD and TBI. Especially for the soldier in America.
Keith McKeever 52:13
I like I said, before we hit record, I'm gonna have to go find out on Audible and he's one of those credits I got see if it's on there. Sir. Yeah, you know, what the public school right it's it's easier to read
it Air Force, I still take the easy route out to this point.
Jason McCormick 52:34
Feel free to be super educated if your Air Force.
Keith McKeever 52:37
No, no, no, no, this guy's got a good job. They just gave the guy with the watch. Watch. Watch the plane. Yeah. Brother. That's the weird part. She's the intelligence.
Jason McCormick 52:52
Oh, I knew I chose wrong career, you know, wrong branch when I went to Doha in the invasion, and we went to go eat. And we had went to the Air Force, Air Force ran in and I'd take my tray up. And they're like, No, just leave it there. Somebody will grab it for you. And I was like, stop. And yeah, somebody it was the best food I had, like real glasses. Not plastic ones. I was like, Air Force got going on. What have I been doing?
Keith McKeever 53:23
You know, I realized I made the right choice. My first jealous redeployment training was in Fort Lewis. And we get there and they got these old white world war two barracks with peeling paint and trough urinals open stall showers. And we go get some Chow. And they got this little the chow hall building. It probably should have been condemned, opened up. They walked in and they're just I think everything was half liquid. just flopped on the tray. And I remember just a lot of us was looking each other like what is this?
Jason McCormick 54:00
That's a good meal for us.
Keith McKeever 54:03
We're like, aren't you didn't taste that bad? I will certainly have most of it didn't taste that bad. But we looked at it just like I will say go to an Air Force chow hall and you get eggs. They tend to be real eggs. It come out of a canyon or that egg or anything like that. You know, real eggs hatched from you know, from chicken at one point. So yeah, it was a wild experience. Right on. That's awesome.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
