Things happen in life that we just have to find a way to navigate past.  That sounds easier said than done and the journey can come with some really tough challenges often with other issues to overcome because of that initial situation.  For Air Force Veteran Natalee King the journey through life has taken her through the tragic overdose death of her sister, loss of her husband in the line of duty, substance abuse and the death of her father from ALS.  Natalee discusses parts of her story and what has helped get her through these challenges.  It's clear that a supportive family and the right mindset has been instrumental in her journey! 

Battle Buddy Podcast Guest Links:

https://www.instagram.com/nataleeeking/?hl=en

https://www.tiktok.com/@nataleeeeeking

Transcript from Episode 76 with Natalee King:

Keith McKeever

Welcome back to another episode of the battle buddy podcast, you're gonna want to tune into this one. Before I get started though, I do want to say this, the topics could get pretty heavy in this one. So if you're struggling by any means, member, you can text a call nine ad for the suicide hotline if you're struggling with anything. I've got the phone number at the very end too. But I just wanted to kind of put that out there. The topic is a little heavy today. So without further ado, let's jump right into it. Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever. Natalie King, welcome to the show. having me? Yeah. Well, it's a pleasure to finally have you on here. I don't know how. But it's Tiktok algorithm we were talking about earlier, I stumbled across your videos, and I was immediately sucked in, you know, a mill talk or whatever the right, whatever the acronyms that people use all the time. It's like we all we can't get away from each other. We just all end up kind of, you know, I know struggles. But you're sharing your story. And I think after watching like three or four videos, I was like, wow, I gotta get you on the podcast, because you've gone through some things that are difficult, and they're difficult on their own. But you've been through multiple difficult things. Before we dive right into that. Go ahead and give us a little bit of your background. And you know, why did you join the military? Would you do those kind of things?

Natalee King

Yep. I joined the Air Force. In what year I forget the year but I joined right after high school. I was actually going to go to college after high school. And my sister was killed. Well, she had an overdose. She was an addict. And she was also in the Air Force. I've actually come from my whole family was in there. It was my sister's Air Force. My brother's Coast Guard. My dad was Coast Guard and my mom was Army and then Air National Guard. So I had come from all military family. But I joined after my sister passed away from an overdose. College just didn't seem on my mind, you know? And I knew I could probably succeed and in the military because my whole family did it. And I grew up.

Keith McKeever

I had an example to follow. Right.

Natalee King

Right, right. So I did that. And my first duty station was Japan at Yokota Air Base. And it was a lot of fun. I met my husband there. And yeah, we had great time. We had a great time in Japan.

Keith McKeever

Were you were you in Japan? Because I was at Yokota and

Natalee King

Oh, mine was I think 2011 Okay.

Keith McKeever

All right. Mr. Bae a few years Yeah. is an amazing place that was Did you Did you ever make it down to borrow? Oh, yeah, we

Natalee King

gotta borrow all the time.

Keith McKeever

Did they change the hours after I left, it was still shut down from like, 1am to three or something.

Natalee King

So when I got there, you could go to borrow at any time. And but there was like an accident or something happened with a group of military guys and they ended up putting a curfew on it. But who knows? They might have lifted it again. I know. For a little bit.

Keith McKeever

It was like one o'clock to three. I don't know if it was an accident or I ran into the Yakuza the Japanese mob a few times down there. Yeah, I saw a few times when I was there like black SUVs or, or sedans that were running with a driver sitting there and guards was sitting at the front doors doing like one of these things like don't come in. It was like okay, all right. I kind of know what's going on. My mom did raise a full I'm smart enough. No, I'm not getting plenty of other bars to choose from.

Natalee King

For real. I know. There are and they're all like down and it Oh, yeah.

Keith McKeever

It's so cool. Was the kebab guy still there? I don't know. I mean, I think he had, like Mac kebab or something like that as well. I don't know. There was a weird name. I can't remember what it was. Oh, I don't remember him. So amazing. If you were drunk, you know. And so some or the curry place with curry. Yes. Coco. What's your bond? Yeah, that was my favorite. You know, by the way. If for you and anybody else who ever listened to this you can order packets on Amazon. Oh, yeah. First. First so much right. Maybe maybe a year ago. I found them I was like guileless. Let's see. Right. You know, I don't know if the chicken cutlet or any of that stuff. But right. I can. I can. I can wing it. But the moment I opened it up and smelled it I was like, oh, yeah, this takes back. Yeah, it was good stuff. Anyway, yeah. That's a beautiful love. Yeah,

Natalee King

Japan was great. I love Japan. I got married there at Susa the courthouse at Susa. And we got pregnant, and we wanted to have our baby in the States. So we moved to Maryland at Andrews Air Force Base or Joint Base Andrews. It is now And we started living there and I had my baby, our son, his name's John King. And it was wonderful. Well, at eight months old, my husband was killed in the Air Force. He was killed in an on base accident at Maryland at Andrews. It was devastating. It was the hardest thing I've ever been through in my entire life. You know, just looking at my son was almost unbearable. It was. It was hard. It was really hard. And so we are a Gold Star family. And, you know, we hold that title, close to our hearts. So, you know, we miss them a lot. After my husband was killed, I got into a drug addiction. I actually signed over custody of my son to my parents, because my parents thought I wouldn't make it out of my addiction. They saw what happened with my sister. And I was a lot worse off than my sister was. I was shooting meth, and everything. My sister, she only took her medication orally, she took a lot of it, but it was orally. And here I am, you know, doing IV drugs. And my parents were like, something's gonna happen to you. And I don't want your son in the system. So I ended up signing custody over him. And for about four to five years, I was in a really deep addiction. deep depression. It was It was horrible. I mean, my my husband's death just broke me, really. And I met another guy, about five years after my husband died. His name is Justin. And he was in the army. And he had just gotten out of the army. He did seven years when I met him. And I met him in my diction. Well, the first night we ever hung out together, I got really high, I was passed out. I didn't expect him to stay because I mean, nobody stayed. No, you know, girlfriends didn't stay family didn't stay except my parents. And let alone a guy. So when Justin stayed around, I didn't. I It surprised me. I didn't know the reason why he was there. And I asked him, you know, why did you stay with me when I was in such a bad condition, and so bad into drugs. And he said that he saw potential in me. And he knew that I didn't want to live this way, and that my husband wouldn't want me to live this way. And he helped get me clean off of drugs. It took me about two years to fully stopped taking, like, abusing the drugs. I am on like maintenance medications. I take maintenance meds, you know, antidepressants and mood stabilizers, things like that. But as for the heavy drugs and stuff, I took me two years of stuff. After those two years, I got pregnant again, I had another baby boy. And you know, life was good at the time. I was always really scared that another tragedy would happen. And I would go spiraling back into my old ways. But my dad called me one one day, and he had told me that he was diagnosed with ALS. And he said the lifespan on that is about five years. And that was really heartbreaking. However, at that time, it didn't seem very real, because my dad was there. And he was normal at the time. Well, he slowly started declining. And he moved to Texas to get medical help to see what the VA could do for him there because, like I said, he was in the Coast Guard. He was a rescue swimmer. So pretty. The job is pretty strenuous. You know.

Keith McKeever

Somebody doesn't swim, watch. I mean, exactly. Oh, you gotta be you gotta be somewhat fit to do that job. Yeah,

Natalee King

yes, for sure. And so, you know, my, and then I think three years after my dad told me about his diagnosis, he was in Texas. My brother called me and he said, I need you to sit down. Everything's okay. But dad shot himself in the head, but he's alive. And I was like, Oh my gosh, you know, my gosh, so we flew out to Texas right away to see him and he lost his right eye. I, but it didn't hit any of his brain, none of his brain was hit at all and missed him completely. And he, I moved him into my home. We moved him to Florida, which was a big task because he had to feeding he had a two hooked up to where you can feed him. He had just anything to take care of a person. You had to do it for my father, he wore diapers, he had bed sores, he had to have, you know, showers all that it was a lot of work for Justin and I and my mom.

Keith McKeever

Jobs for at least one. Yeah, it was

Natalee King

and my brother tried to help as much as he could. But you know, he's stationed four hours away, so he can only do so much. So it was really mainly Justin, myself and my mother, taking care of him. That lasted about maybe three months, and he ended up passing away from ALS on hospice. That was last February. And I'm glad to say that I've remained in my recovery, I've remained out of a depression. I don't know if I avoided that, because of the trauma I've been through in the past. And I kind of knew how to work through it already. Or if it has something to do with what I'm doing today, with my life, I can't really decipher the difference.

Keith McKeever

Very well be just a combination of that. And the support structure. Right, Austin, your mom, you know, kids being around like,

Natalee King

exactly, that probably has a lot to do with it. It's it's,

Keith McKeever

I mean, losing somebody is always tough. But that's I mean, yeah, having support around you helps.

Natalee King

That's important. That's probably the most important thing. I mean, look what it did. For me, it got me clean and sober, you know, having the right support system. So

Keith McKeever

I think that's what was lacks for a lot of people. As long as I've been doing this podcast, and reasons I did, I saw stuff on in Facebook groups, mostly where people were screaming for help, in different ways. And what I realized was when people end up homeless, or substance abuse or suicide, it's all because one or more factors has happened. It's it. It's lack of connections to the military community, it's lack of connections to close family and friends. It's legal issues, financial issues, and, and physical and mental health issues. And the more of those somebody has a problem with, the more more likely somebody is to fall into one of those problems.

Natalee King

Exactly. I agree after Big Data. Yes, it is. Really is.

Keith McKeever

But I definitely applaud you for that was because I was wondering, you know what, who that person was now known as Justin, who was who was kind of that, that linchpin to help you get out of there. But was there? Was there anything other than what he said or anything else that you were noticing that made you just sit up one day and say, you know, he's right, I really don't want this for myself.

Natalee King

Well, since my sobriety took about two years, there wasn't a day where I woke up, and I was like, I don't want to live like this. That was, I felt that way, every day. But I didn't, I didn't know how to adjust. I didn't know how, you know, to do it. I didn't know how to do it. I just didn't. And Justin was there to lead me every step of the way. It was a rough two years, but we finally did it. You know,

Keith McKeever

as you say, it's the compound effect of just trying something every day and and having the right mindset, right, get a little closer, every single day,

Natalee King

because that's what I did. I I tapered down on my medication those two years. So although I was still on it, I was tapering. So, you know, that last day, it was just, you know, I found out I was pregnant when I was tapering. And that's when I that's the I guess that's the thing that told me I needed to stop it altogether. Is when I got pregnant,

Keith McKeever

some of the maternal instinct coming in, right? Yeah.

Natalee King

You know, I have a healthy, my first child was real healthy, and I needed I didn't want my second child to, you know, have any problems because of me, you know, so it was really important for me to get off of everything that I was taking.

Keith McKeever

That's understandable. I mean, everybody's goal as a parent is to raise your kids so that one day just leave the house and they're successful. And you try and give them every possible advantage you can in life. throwing anything to hold them back? You know, there's more than enough things in this world that we'll try. You know, you don't want to add to it for sure. Some of the medicine, you know, because there, I think there's a lot of people that deal with substance abuse or maybe issues. What if you had any hurdles with the medicine and tapering down or any advice for people that

Natalee King

Yeah. Yeah. So the medications that I'm on right now that have helped me with my recovery, and helped me with my mental health is I take I take Zoloft, which is an antidepressant. I take Abilify, which is a mood stabiliser, and then I have been taking a medication called Suboxone. And it helps keep you from abusing opiates. It has a ceiling effect, to where if you take more of this medication, you can't get high off of it. So there's no point in taking more, once you when you first start it, you might feel that euphoric feeling a little bit. But that's it, you can't, you can't get any higher than that. And and eventually, that euphoric feeling just goes away, because your body gets used to it within a few days. So that medication I'm taking, and I'm tapering myself off now, off of that, I started at 16 milligrams, and I'm down to one milligram on that today. It's really hard, this is probably the most difficult one medication that I have been tapering off of.

Keith McKeever

So it's just so understandable, pretty difficult. So outside of outside of medicine, is there been any other influences any, any books or any people that you've watched, you know, absolutely ours on YouTube, or anything like that, give a shout out to

Natalee King

I haven't watched any speakers on on YouTube or anything like that. But I have, I've read a lot of widow books. There's a, that helped me through my husband's death, of course, that I read, there's, it's called widow to widow. And that was an amazing book. And then the things I that I do is I meditate, I meditate every night before bed, and I do breathing treatments. And I actually, I guess I could show this, I have this device that I I'm really bad at breathing exercises. And I got this device called a calming go. And it's actually like an it's like an inhaler. But it's an X tailor. And it helps you with your breathing exercises. And this thing, it has been tested for PTSD, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, everything like that. You do it for like three times a day for three minutes. And it helps you with all that stuff. This has been a game changer for me, at least for my breathing exercises that I do.

Keith McKeever

It's interesting. I think everybody should be able to squeeze in about three minutes three times a day. Absolutely.

Natalee King

I know it's not that all you have to do is breathe in and out. And if you follow the device that tells you like, when to stop exhaling and all that stuff. Like it's really cool.

Keith McKeever

Well, everybody should be well qualified to breathe, right. Not breathing, right? I know. I guess not. But actually, I did see that the other day on I think on one of your tic TOCs. I think you had showed that or something like that. But I'll go ahead and throw that across the bottom. So yeah, before I forget, because I've had a tendency to do that. Sometimes that

Natalee King

thing, I swear by it. I swear by that thing. It's even helped my son.

Keith McKeever

That's awesome. So we're gonna watch out here. So your kids in the background?

Natalee King

Yeah, I think my son just got home. Yeah, that's understandable.

Keith McKeever

Yeah, he wouldn't be the first time I had kids pop their heads in, and a dog popped their hand up wants to. I don't really care. It's, like I said earlier, this is just a casual conversation. And that's that's just the way I think it goes best. So

Natalee King

that's Yeah, I agree. So

Keith McKeever

just kind of curious, you know, going back to your husband's death, in support. I mean, Justin later on, obviously, I'm sure you had your family. But what are the kinds of support was there out there? You mentioned gold star. No, I'm actually in Peoria, Illinois, is where we're at where the gold star? Was Foundation was founded. Patti Smith.

Natalee King

Yes. I think there's the Gold Star Foundation, gold star wives of America. Things like that. Now, the support I had, of course, I had my family. I had my husband's family. But as for support, there's not too much out there for Goldstar families who, whose loved one was killed like an on base accident or in a line of duty situations. A lot of these support systems that helped you out. You have to be, you know, KBIA or 22 a day, you know, they have a lot of support for suicide. Veterans are members, military members. But as for like gold star wives who were killed in the line of duty, there's not much out there for us. Unfortunately. I know there's like the taps program and things like that. But there's not much unfortunate.

Keith McKeever

Where would you say if somebody was a nonprofit or inclined to go that route and offer some sort of help to people in a situation, because I don't know what those numbers are looking look like. But when you have as many people in the military as we do deaths in the line of work, I mean, it happens. It happens all the time. Where do you think some of the gaps in that in that coverage are? Where Where can an organization step in and actually help?

Natalee King

Yeah, I don't know if maybe these already these nonprofits that are already up and running. I don't know if they could, like, just add on, you know, line of duty death. Or somebody could open the nonprofit for just the line of duty deaths. There's, there's KBIA nonprofits just for KBIA. There's nonprofit for just suicide victims. You know, there's nonprofit for that, but there's no nonprofit for like, in the line of duty death. And somebody could I mean, I could I don't know, maybe I will.

Keith McKeever

Yeah, we all somebody's got to leave it. I'm just just saying,

Natalee King

hey, no, that's right. I don't know. I mean, you could you could do retreat, we could do. I know that. Gold Star families have a housing program that they get, like soldiers that were killed in action, things like that. You could do anything like that.

Keith McKeever

There's a lot of thing. I mean, you know, somebody's whole world just gets turned upside down with no notice at all. You know, I think I had heard part of your story that you got notified in the middle of the night or something like that, or was it afternoon was,

Natalee King

it was in the early morning, early morning? Yeah, about 730 when the accident happened, and they got to my door about 839 and said he was in an accident. And they told me that he was okay, though, and that he was on his way to the hospital. And that I'd be able to see him once they got more information. Well, by the time that the commander and the chaplain, and everybody came to my house, he was already gone. And they said, Well, now you can go to the hospital and see him. And I was like, Well, why didn't y'all tell me earlier? I've been waiting here for three hours. You know, I would have liked to go see him. But now, you know, they told me he passed. And then they said that? Yeah. Yeah.

Keith McKeever

Sounds like the most military thing ever. Right? Streamline is communicative is military can be. We both know, one hand doesn't always talk to the other.

Natalee King

Exactly. And I was gonna say something else, and I can't remember another thing. They did. Oh, yeah, the investigation report, I couldn't even read about how he was killed, or know how he was killed until six months after his death. Everything that I heard that happened was from people that were there, you know, so different stories. But the official report was six months later. And I mean, I understand they have to do an investigation. But that's, that's hard. That was really hard.

Keith McKeever

Because the spouse, you're not there. So I mean, why what what is the harm in you? Well, I don't know all the facts. But I guess they can give a summarized version of like, here's what we know. And I know, I can sit around waiting six months to know, for sure.

Natalee King

Yeah, I flew to my house and everything. The investigator, he took a plane down to Sarasota and he came to my house and he sat down at my dining table. And he opened up the huge book of the investigation report with pictures and details, everything. I had to read all through that I know. And I had to read all through that he explained it every step of the way, though. So Wow. Yeah, it was insane.

Keith McKeever

Yeah, that I can only imagine reliving that trauma over and over again, like that. So your father and his als diagnosis, I know. Actually, in prepping for this where my kids were like, you know, it was like, what are you gonna talk about? And I said, Well, this is her story. And they're like, what's ALS? And I was like, well, als One thing that I am horrified of, you know, from Steve Gleason and the documentaries about him, you know, the professional football player and the things I've read about it. That's absolutely terrible.

Natalee King

It's an absolutely devastating disease. My dad said it was like, he was in quicksand up to his neck, he could barely move anything, he couldn't move his legs at all. He can move his arms a little bit still. But as far as anything else he couldn't, he couldn't do nothing. He couldn't. Hardly he couldn't even clip his fingernails, you know? I mean, it's terrible. It was hard going, Yes, going from, you know, a helicopter rescue summer and ASP, who went through this training program that has like an 80% failing rate, you know, going from something like that, to not being able to even walk was absolutely devastating for my father. And I do understand why he wanted to end his life. I understand why he did that.

Keith McKeever

I think most of us do. Because I think as veterans we know, like, when you're in service, you rely on your team, and you're only as strong as your weakest link. And to go from being proud and being able to do you know, do your life, right? Do your things in life, to having no control and somebody waiting on you would be like the worst,

Natalee King

the worse. I know it, the worse my dad hated it. He did not like it at all. And I felt sorry for him, I felt so bad for him.

Keith McKeever

So how long did he go from diagnosis to when he passed? About four years? Four years? Yeah, that would be four years along a long path of knowing the inevitable.

Natalee King

And my dad, you know, he, since he was an ASP, he's saved a lot of lives throughout his career. And it's just so sad to see, you know, somebody that risked their life so much for other people that they didn't even know. To pass away in such a way is really hard. It's hard to understand why God would do this. But there's always a reason.

Keith McKeever

That's there is what we're all. I think we're all putting here for a reason, no matter how spiritual you want to get with it. Like we all have a reason. And we all have an ability to impact this world, in more ways than we can ever imagine. And, you know, that's one thing I think you can take away from that is it's not just the people that he would have saved, or did save, you know, when he was in the Coast Guard. It's, what kind of impact did they have on the world to sick this compound? They you know, right, just one of those people that he saved, go on to have a successful life and have a kid who cures cancer, cancer. All right. I know, you're turning around to cures ALS. Yes. I mean, you never know. I know, you know, storylines like that. They shared. Sure do that I should say, not that I watched Lifetime movies, but I have. I understand how those plots go. I grew up with a mother and a sister and I'm married. I've been married for 12 years. So I've seen a few lifetimes, against my will. But I know how those plots go. So it's, you never know exactly what, what kind of that impact is?

Natalee King

I know you don't. And I think about that a lot.

Keith McKeever

Absolutely. I bet you do. Because I know. It's not easy. I lost my father when I was 16. So I know it's, it's through. And well, it's been almost 21 years now. And I'll say this it gets a little easier sometimes. In some ways. It doesn't. You know, it's like every time the year when the anniversary comes up around a birthday or major life events and you realize that person's not here. It's tough. It stings. But also think about those positive things. Like I said, you never know what kind of impact right? Like for me, am Dinah's 16 I might not have joined the Air Force if he was would have still been alive, who knows what impact and that might I wouldn't have met my wife, I wouldn't have my kids. You know, who knows, you know, see, so

Natalee King

I think the same thing all the time. Like if my sister didn't pass away, and I went to college, you know, I think the same thing.

Keith McKeever

I think use a little bit of gratitude. That's what I kind of asked earlier about, you know, the things that you know, books or other things that I'm glad you said meditation because I think meditation, you know, waking up and have some daily gratitude every day for where you're at the fact that you're even waking up is a huge waste today. Yesterday no or going outside and grounding. I always thought that was the weirdest thing in the world. until I tried it and it was actually yeah, it's actually free. Yeah, yeah. Free. Yeah.

Natalee King

Oh mean there's something

Keith McKeever

Yeah, try that this summer. Yeah. Yeah fellow fellow veteran Elaine Boulogne kind of talked about it, I had a little challenge. And I'm like, Alright, I'm in concert and I'm sitting my launch here and I'm gonna take my socks and shoes off and sit in there and eat lunch. And I did every beautiful, like, every beautiful day that I could and I was like, I was like, I can't wait till next summer. To get to live in the Midwest. I got to deal with snow and stuff here coming up soon, but you know, yes. Like it was kind of recharging and freeing and you know it really.

Natalee King

And you'd be surprised like, even just meditating and and telling yourself positive affirmations? You know, while you're just thinking or whatever you're doing. It's so it does so much for you. Just talking positive little bit every day. It it's really, it's a good thing does a lot for you.

Keith McKeever

Absolutely. That it does. So, Natalie, I appreciate you coming on here and sharing a little bit of your story. And like I've said earlier, I got a scrolling across the screen I have in the show notes too, for people who want to watch your list of all your contact information. But if people are on Tik Tok, I know some people are against Tik Tok. I don't know why, because I get sucked sucked in for hours. Love tick tock. But they definitely need to go out there and connect with you and follow your story. And others. There's a lot of great content creators out there.

Natalee King

So there are absolutely.

Keith McKeever

So I appreciate you sharing your story and stopping by.

Natalee King

Thank you so much, Keith. It was a lot of fun. I'm glad that you had me on.

Keith McKeever

No problem. Take it easy.

Natalee King

Thank you so much.

Keith McKeever

All right. There you have it, folks. Remember you go to my website, check out resources. So just recently, we kind of redesigned the website but as you know, as I always say, if there's resources on there, not on there that you think should be reach out, let me know. And like I said earlier, if you're struggling, you call 988. Press one, or you can text 838255 Go get yourself some help because we want you here tomorrow.