Change Your Brain Every Day - How One Mom Survived an Unthinkable Tragedy with Sandra Maddox

Episode Date: March 11, 2019

In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen are joined by Sandra Maddox for a discussion on how to cope with loss and grief. Sandra tells the heart-wrenching story of the night that her life was changed forever, and making the choice to adjust altered her life’s trajectory.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome everyone. So today's a really special day for me. We are here with someone who is so special to me, not only a dear friend, Sandra Maddox,

but she has been my mentor and she might not even know that for a long time. She was my mentor because when I met her, I was stunned by how well she handled something, just the unthinkable. For a mother, any parent actually, she handled the unthinkable in a way that I can't imagine. So she lost her only child in a terrible accident, in an auto accident, I believe it was a drunk driver. And she was young. She was a drunk driver. And she was young. She was a young adult. And that for me, you know, as someone who suffered a lot of childhood trauma, for some reason, that's the one thing. Well, for some reason, I think a lot of parents have this. That's the one thing I could never fathom was the idea of losing a child or seeing my

child suffer in some way like that and then losing them. I just never thought I could survive something like that. And when I met you, to not only see that you had survived, clearly it left a mark, but you thrived and you went on, not just that, but to really help just hundreds of thousands of women or millions, because your story has been told in Chicken Soup for the Soul. You wrote a children's book series, which is beautifully written. It really helped my daughter out. You wrote a children's book series, which is beautifully written. It really helped my daughter. It opened a lot of questions that were interesting questions.

But you've just done this in such an amazing way. And I know you actually question, like a lot of us do through grief, that where is God in all of this? How can he be a loving God and let this happen? Yeah. So welcome, Sandra. You're just so special to me. You've become a dear friend. So welcome to grief week. I know that's sort of odd,

but over this week, we're going to talk about what it is, how it impacts you, some practical things to do about it. And it's something that affects nearly all of us at some point. In different ways. In our lives. Before we get to it, though, I have one of our podcast reviews. Can't get enough from Erica in the United States. Heard you speak at the Nerium Conference, which was so much fun for me. It was 26,000 people at the American Airlines Arena in Dallas. Didn't know my grandmother would pass of dementia. And now my mother was diagnosed two years ago and now lives with me. Your podcast is truly helping us change the legacy of our family. Awesome.

So that's why we do it. It's great. So tell us a little bit about what happened. Sure. So it was January, a cold day in January as I remember it. And I always get up really early in the morning because I like to have that really special time with the Lord. You know, I have this special place I go to. And so it was just routine for me. And I had just taken the dogs out and fed them and was just

sitting there and I got a knock on the door. And actually I didn't get, I got a phone call from an old neighbor of ours. We live next door to her. And the police had apparently gone to her house first because our address was there. And they wanted to know. I hadn't really changed my driver's license at that time yet. So it still had the old address. And we had just moved to our new house. So they came knocking at the door. And she's like, I don't know what they were talking about.

Do you have a daughter or something like that? They didn't say anything to her. but she directed them to our house. So I got a knock on the door and they came to the door and asked if anybody was home. And I said, yes, you know, my husband's at home. Should I get him? And he said, yes, we'd like to talk to him too. So I had to go up and wake up Ron and come down. And the two police officers told me what any mother's nightmare or

father's nightmare would be is that your daughter passed away last night in a car accident. And it had been, she had been out with her friends. She was away at college. She was just shy of her 25th birthday. And she was out with college friends and they were, she knew she couldn't drink and drive. So she gave her keys to a friend, and that friend thought that the other friend could drive her home, and he really couldn't. And he was just a new friend of hers, and he took hold of the keys, and he was recklessly driving.

He was prosecuted years later with vehicular manslaughter and got the whole conviction time period during that time. So it was pretty devastating. And during those few days, the early days were very numbing. I didn't think I, it played in my head exactly what they said over and over. And it didn't feel real. It didn't feel real. It felt like, oh, this is a dream and I'm going to wake up pretty soon. But it really, it wasn't a dream. It was reality. Cause then it was like, you know, the funeral and then it was like all this stuff, but I was pretty, pretty numb and, um, just, you know, a lot of tears, as you can probably imagine. It was, you know, heartbreaking.

She was my only child. And so as the weeks and the days went by, it's just really started to become more and more real. Lack of sleep, you know, hardly slept. But I knew in that moment when I sat, stood over her grave, I just knew it was God. It was like this whole, I knew he was there and I knew that he, he had a plan for her and her days were numbered, as it says in the Bible, that we have, our days are numbered and he knows every, you know, he knows the time for everything. And I stood there and I, it was like a motion picture rolling through my head. My whole entire life started to like flash before me.

And it became like, oh, I know, I see now, God, you gave me the mom that I had. You know, my mom left us when we were young and I was 10 and I sort of became the mom of my family at a very young age. We lived with my dad and I knew that I wanted to do everything I could to be that mom that I didn't get during that time. I wanted to be that mom for my daughter. And he knew that I would do that for those years that I had her, you know, that I would pack her lunch, that I would be there at every dance thing, that I would do all this. So it just all these events that happened in my life, I could see God's hand in

my life and that's what got me through, you know, at first. And did I wrestle with the Lord? Yes, I sat every morning and really would wrestle. And then my husband would come home and he'd say, what did you do today? And I'd say, well, I just wrestled with God today. And he would say, how did that go? Exactly. And he said, I'd say, he did. So it felt like that whole story of Job in the Bible where he goes on to say this and that, and then the Lord just pretty much stops him in his tracks and said, but who created the stars and who created the moon and who, you know, it's kind of like, okay, yeah, I get it. I get it. I get it. You know, so that's

kind of, you know, um, where I was at in those early days. How long did it, how long did it take you to sort of get back on your feet? Months. It was months. I had a dear friend who would come every Tuesday and she would just sit with me. She would just sit with me. She had family, children of her own, and she would just come and sit with me for every Tuesday and gently got me to like, Oh, do you think you might want to cook today? Let's go to the grocery store. Do you want to go for a walk today? And then that was the healing for me. The healing part was like walking on the beach. So friends would offer, you know, do you want to go for a walk today? And so I would go and walk with them on the beach and not say a word. You know, they may not. They didn't.

And it was like months of that. And then just too raw. It was really raw. And it ached. Like my body felt like if somebody touched me that I was just going to fall apart, like it was going to melt my body. And my heart felt like it was going through a meat grinder every day. It just hurt. You know how you have like a broken heart, you know you've ever felt that experience it's a real thing it is

so what happens because i went through a period of grief before i met tana and i it's like crushing chest pain and you know and if you have crushing chest pain during grief, you should go to the doctor because you just met my assistant who lost her fiance and then she had crushing chest pain. And I went, oh, that goes with grief, but you should get it checked. And it turned out she had a 98% blockage in her coronary artery and his death actually saved her life because she had it fixed. So chest pain is normal in grief because your ventricles, so that's the bottom two chambers of the heart, they start beating funny and because

they start beating funny you're not getting enough blood to your heart and it just hurts. As if you're having a heart attack. One of the experiences I had with that. So I went to go see my doctors like the week after just, you know, for checkup and my, it was actually my OBGYN. She said to me, Sandra grief sometimes. Well, I was 45. I was going to turn 46 when Tiff died.

And she said, this may kick you into menopause. And sure, I mean, sure enough, everything just quit in my body. Right, the chronic stress. Yes, right. And it's not the chronic stress, the flood of stress. And that's not. And it doesn't stop. No, and that's not the chronic stress, the flood of stress. And that's not. And it doesn't stop. No, and that's not uncommon.

Yeah. So that was. So you just had a double hit. If it kicks you into menopause, then you can't think. Right. Exactly. And you're sad. Which you're more sad than.

Getting your hormones balanced actually helps you grieve more efficiently. So people think there's goodness and grief and there is, but you'll go through it faster if you begin to take better care of yourself physically. So here we always talk about four big circles that make us who we are there's a biology to us so we're talking about hormones and ventricular arrhythmias there's a psychology so what are you thinking and how does that connect to your childhood well there's a social circle you had a friend coming over yes that's healing and then there's a social circle. You had amazing friends coming over. That's healing. And then

there's the spiritual circle, which is wrestling with meaning and purpose and God. But it's getting all of those circles optimized so you can manage it. So you don't want to kill yourself. And it sounded like you did a pretty good job of that, even though it was hard. Yeah, it was, you know, it was funny because I didn't, I don't know why I went to the doctors. You know, I just felt like I wasn't feeling well. And someone said, oh, maybe they'll give you Ambien because you're not sleeping. Oh my goodness.

And so she, so. Don't take it. Don't take it. And I didn't take it. Trazodone, which is an antidepressant that actually is not very effective, but is a great sleep aid, is my often go-to for grief, is Trazodone. Well, and I told myself, you know, I was like, okay, I'm going to get through this. I'm just, I want to feel everything I need to feel. Everything I need to feel. That's amazing feel. Everything I need to feel.

That's amazing. That's what I told myself. When we come back, I'm going to tell you a story that I probably told before about grief. Someone who didn't do the right things. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.