In this episode, we sit down with Dr. John A. King—founder of Give Them A Voice Foundation—to break the silence around male sexual abuse and sex trafficking. We confront cultural myths, unpack grooming and trauma bonding, and explore how PTSD often shows up in men as anger, shutdown, hyper-independence, or shame. Drawing from insights in Trauma and Recovery and research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ACE Study, this episode challenges listeners to examine minimized trauma, misplaced shame, and survival patterns that may be masking deeper wounds.
Tune in to the PTSD from Male Sexual Abuse & Sex Trafficking Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- Why is male sexual abuse talked about so much less than female sexual abuse?
- How does trauma from sexual abuse affect identity, masculinity, and emotional regulation?
- What does real recovery from sexual abuse and exploitation actually look like?
Links referenced during the show:
https://rumble.com/vk8kju-ptsd-recovery-documentary.html
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/personalstories
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
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Episode #347 Transcription
Chris (00:01) All right, hello again. This is Through a Therapist Eyes. We are still coming at you on February the 21st. We just took a little bit of a break. We just talked a part one that you saw on episode 345. This is episode 347 because you will have heard our month in review last week. So we are continuing a conversation. If you haven't heard this episode part one of 345, then you need go back and listen to it. because Dr. John King is hanging out with us still again. And he very powerfully, very courageously shared a lot of his own deep personal experiences in that previous episode that you need to circle back and catch before we talk about today, the recovery. We're talking about, you know, what do we do? How do we handle this? So this is Male Sexual Abuse and Sex Trafficking, PTSD and Recovery, Part Two. And, you know, we opened up with this starting at age four for you, John, and really up until the age of 40 something, kind of trapped by the perils of this. ⁓ I'll give a little bit more introduction here in a little bit, but ⁓ tell us about the daffodils again, man, because I think that's what started out the recovery thing for you. I think that's ⁓ a powerful way to kind of start what it is that we're talking about today with recovery. Dr John A. King (01:10) Yeah. For growing up as a child, was abused and trafficked, what we call trafficked today. you know, my home life was just not very nice. You know, there was lots of pornography, lots of abuse, lots of things going on, parties and all that sort of stuff. you know, when the days were dark and nights long, I'd walk to school. And there was a lady down the road who had some daffodils growing in a front garden. And I ticked my years off with the spring times. And every time I saw the daffodils come up, I'd think to myself, you you've survived one more year, you're doing good. And in a way, I had recall on the morning I saw daffodils, was spring, the daffodils came up and my mind just vomited all these recollections of things that were done to me, not by me. and everything came flooding back. And so that was the end of, I call my internal marketing department, calls it Johnageddon. And it was literally that split that happens with complex post-traumatic stress. Neurologically, your brain function changes. And I went from being John 1.0, who was very analytical, a very left brain, very goal driven to ⁓ right brain, very creative, very artistic. All I wanted to do was write poetry and smoke cigars. And even my skillset changed. John had the ability to run computer code, run Excel spreadsheets, run gap time tables. John 2.0 literally couldn't do those things anymore. so it was a, it was having to come to understand who this new man, who this man was, what he was capable of, and now even what he liked. And John 2.0 realized that he didn't know what he liked. He only ever knew what he didn't like and what had been, what he'd been made to do. So was having to get to know an entire different person. And it's been a tremendous journey. It's been a long journey. It's been a journey with challenges. But it's a very fulfilling journey because I never liked John 1.0. John 1.0 didn't like himself. John 2.0 ⁓ is really quite comfortable with himself. Chris (03:42) And John 3.0? Dr John A. King (03:44) John 3.0 was, ⁓ think probably two years ago I'd say, I finally felt I had my feet under me after 14 years, I'd say, of this recovery process. And, and. and it was just, it was time for something different and that's part of the phase we're in the last 12 months is taking, and I mentioned in our first series, I took 15 years and about $300,000 and put myself through my own recovery process. And we started something called the Phoenix Collective just last year and I've taken all that teaching and condensed it down into probably an 18 month or two year self-paced teaching course. And the idea is, I thought, No one should have to go through what I went through in terms of trying to learn this stuff. And there really isn't any many resources for men. And there's not a lot of resources in some way for women, the way that we've done it. And every day is small video and an exercise, and then a week to reflect. And it's a self-based taught, because if you're like me, you'll consume that knowledge in three months. You'll just consume everything. But then you'll need to come back to it, and then to come back to it, and then to come back to it. Information revelation, application transformation. And when only you gather, I gathered these 200 books, but three years in, I realized that I hadn't changed the way I would thought. I thought I would or I should. And that was because I gathered information, but I hadn't made it mine and I hadn't applied it. And I hadn't seen the transformation. So for the next 10 years or 11 years, I started to apply the truths that were mine. And I started to see this incremental change, which is something I'd love us to unpack about how we. overestimate what we can do in 12 months and underestimate what God can do in 10 years. And I think that's a major problem with recovery is we're so sick and tired of being us, we just want to stop being us, but it takes a long time. Chris (05:47) Incremental change. Yes, I want to say, you know what? ⁓ You're hearing Dr. John King talking a courageous way about what his experiences are, but off the get-go front end here on this particular episode, part two, I want you to understand, you too can be courageous, but that does, like, what that looks like is different. It's not coming on an international podcast to talk about your story, guys. It is not that. It is simply taking the courageous first step back to kind of share with somebody something little, itty bitty piece of what your story is. just to take the step out of the darkness into a light with someone that you can trust. And there are people that you can trust in your circle. Dr John A. King (06:24) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, very good, Chris. Very good. Chris (06:28) So this is Through a Therapist's Eyes, where you get insights and information from a panel of therapists usually. We have none other than Mr. John King and myself, and he'll come out of the curtains a little bit today. ⁓ But this is not to deliver your therapy services in any way. We ask you to click, subscribe, do all those kind of fun things, man. ⁓ We disseminate information and blow up stereotypes and myths about mental health and substance abuse. That's our job. Your part is to click, really. Tell a friend, subscribe to YouTube. We need, we need your help to kind of help other people. ⁓ So Apple podcasts, Spotify, all the different places that you get your podcasts, give us the five stars, all that kind of stuff. We're contact at through a therapist eyes.com. Listen, when we're the panel, Victoria, John, Casey, and I, we're licensed clinical therapists doing real clinical work every day. And this is where we talk honestly and openly about what actually helps. because we see this happening in our offices, right? ⁓ So John, I invite you, I appreciate you being here, man. This is the human emotional experience which we do endeavor to figure out together. Dr John A. King (07:36) Yeah, it's good, brother. Chris (07:38) Alright, so real quick we covered this in part one, but I want to kind of give it justice with what this guy has done, man. He has done so much. He's got a documentary, A Light in the Darkness. He's got a documentary, Stopping Traffic. He's an Australian-born, indigenous, Wurrumungu, author, speaker, and survivor advocate based in Texas. I said Wurrumungu correctly this time, I think, did I, sir? Yeah. ⁓ Dr John A. King (08:01) It's all good, mate. You don't... It's a kinetic language. You can just butcher it all you want. No black fella's gonna worry too much about it, Chris (08:10) Fair enough and I love your accent, man. I gotta say, I could just listen to you talk all day. He founded Give Them a Voice Foundation to champion male survivors of childhood sexual abuse and combat human trafficking. Give Them a Voice Foundation. He translates hard-won recovery that he is sharing today into practical brotherhood-driven frameworks that help men, men especially, rebuild discipline, purpose, and relationship. He's been featured in Stopping Traffic, Light in the Darkness. Please find those on Amazon Prime. ⁓ and across podcast stages. He's helping law enforcement veterans and community leaders. And we're to start out with that a little bit more today. He's doing some memoir work. He's writing some fictional books that is based on his real life. This is somebody, dude, this is a dude you want to look up. This is a dude you want to listen to. I can tell you that for sure. And then lastly, he's building currently the Phoenix ⁓ Collective. John, you know, in, in, in part one, before we turn the mics on, You're really laying some knowledge down and I'm going to take that for the rest of my career, Honestly, because what you were talking about was surprising to me. I had not heard this. You know, I feel a certain privilege, a certain honor. It's just so humbling to work with our men and women in the military, especially in being a Navy dad. My son's serving us in Yokosuka, Japan on on base there as a religious program specialist. Proud of you, shout out, Adam. But our first responders, the guys that drive the ambulance trucks, don't get thought of a lot. But the men and women that serve us in policing, especially firefighters, all of that. Man, you were talking some crazy knowledge about these folks. And I'm gonna be aware of that now. I'm gonna move forward kind of with a new level of awareness about what kind of childhoods they may have had. Share that what we was talking about. Dr John A. King (10:06) It started with I developed some relationships with guys when we're involved in some anti-trafficking work and You know some of the hardest men are the nicest men in big goofy guys and And they've done a lot of you know a lot of wet work the guy that really brought it home with for me was a Black ops guy NSA CIA Chris (10:20) Sure. Dr John A. King (10:33) did a lot of stuff overseas, a lot of very dark stuff, very important stuff for our nation. And he read some of my poetry early on and he... He locked himself in his attic, reading his book, sobbing for three days. His wife rang me out of the blue, saying, what the hell have you done to my husband? Who the hell are you? And I was like, I'm just a guy, man. Like, I live about an hour and half away from him. So he ended up coming up and we hung out and out and he said, look, what I did overseas never worried me. He said, what worried me is what happened to me as a kid. And the fact that my basketball coach was also the mayor of a small town in Texas. every Saturday would sexually abuse me. And because he was the mayor and the police chief at the time, they were running this little pedophile, what we would call a pedophile ring now, and drove the family out of town because the dad confronted these guys and they called him a liar, ruined his ability to do business and everything else. And he went into the military because you'd never mess with me and mine again. You'd mess with me as a child and I didn't protect myself. I was too weak of a man as a child. because I should have been able to protect myself as an 11 year old boy. He's taken his 50 year old perspective and looking back and said, I should have been tougher. And he could never reconcile that. And the challenge he was facing is in the VA. He couldn't talk. He had PTSD, but nothing that happened to him overseas resulted in PTSD. Everything that resulted in it was based on childhood. So here he is trying to get help. couldn't talk about it because it was a pre-existing condition and he would have lost his benefits, his insurances and everything else because he had PTSD. So he was unable to get help because there was no one that he could talk to about it. So it started a journey for the last, ⁓ I know man. And it started a journey for me about 10 years and particularly the tip of the spear guys, our forefront, Chris (12:27) That is so wrong. Getting angry, man. Dr John A. King (12:43) Conversationally, I'd say probably 60%, 70 % of those have had very adverse childhood experiences. The stats run that somewhere between 20 to 85 % of veterans report childhood trauma extreme. And if you look at police officers, 13.7 % of those score, and there's a scale, if people don't know, the adverse childhood experience scale. The average person, or the average percentage, is 1.6 people. Amongst police officers, It's four plus. Instead of a 1.6 score, it's a four plus score on that scale. And the childhood trauma actually drives their PTSD. And what we don't think we realize with our police officers is our veterans go on deployment and then they come back. Whereas a police officer gets out of bed, puts his boots on and goes out every single day. And there is no pause. There is no slot for it. And for... Chris (13:36) Never stop. Never stop. Dr John A. King (13:42) Firefighters, it's somewhere between 28 and 38 percent have had the problem. EMTs, it's about the same thing, about 38, 39 percent. They've got adverse childhood experience. Chris (13:54) I mean, I just wanna pause, like, numbers are crazy! I did not know that. Dr John A. King (14:01) Paramedic training, kids being trained as paramedics, 16 % of them exhibit ⁓ PTSD within the first three to five months of training based upon pre-existing abuse situations. So if we, no go on. Chris (14:16) And we were, ahead. Well, and we were talking, I'm curious if you've kind of dove in. mean, my clinical brain just kind of runs down a rabbit hole with that as far as what's happening there and kind of what's happening ⁓ for those men and women as well. Women in first response. Actually, that's a question. How does that relate to women in first response? Is that you're focused on men there or no? Dr John A. King (14:40) It's this those stats are gender free and I like to deal with gender free stats like I like to do I like to deal with this as a human issue not a gender issue because if you look at it statistically there's more male cops and there are female cops military they'll talk about very high percentage wise of women but because there's less women therefore the percentages are higher but the may have the sheer numbers there's about there's there's Chris (14:43) Okay. Got you. Dr John A. King (15:09) about a 10 % difference between men and women, just in sheer numbers, in veterans that have experienced military sexual trauma. In fact, in the VA, 40 % of everyone who responds and reports are male. And there's a massive percentage on top of that of undisclosed reporting. So we've got some major issues ⁓ across both of those, trauma that's happening within our military and behavior that's happening within our law enforcement as a result of some of these things. Chris (15:39) Yeah, and that's what I started to go into. mean, you said that I was a small boy and I couldn't protect myself at that time. And by golly, you're not gonna hurt me anymore. And so, you we get into the military or policing or things like that. And I'm also wondering about just the ⁓ sort of the allure. I'll point out, by the way, our boys got the cigar on the YouTube live. You need to check us out on the video. And I would join you brother if I wasn't in my living room, man. I've been, my taste buds have been dripping there watching you. But there's a draw, right? There's an excitement, a dopamine release. There's a powerful experience that people have where you're kind of drawn to chaos or you're at home in the chaos. There's a certain familiarity, a calm under pressure. All of those things that we've talked about in First Responding, but I never really linked that as much as you're linking it to specifically abusive situations in their childhood. Dr John A. King (16:40) You know, the ability to be calm ⁓ often comes because you've experienced extreme trauma. And here you are in a situation where everyone else is falling apart and you're going, I don't know what the big deal is, man, it's just a fire. And it kicks in all that fight and flight, but it kicks in all that risky behavior. So if you think of the fact that because of childhood adversity, you already got elements of PTSD and you love risky behavior. So therefore being able to run into a situation, a live fire or a fire situation or a riot situation, you've got, you're already on your front foot. You live your life in red going to black and you're just on, you know, and you're engaged. And a lot of the guys, I think they harden up because they become hard men because they believe they were soft children. Instead of giving themselves the grace to understand they were just children and someone did something to them like they did. Chris (17:21) Yeah, engaged. Well, there's another thing too, though. I want to jump on that because there's also like the natural psychological system, John, that kicks in hard because you're surviving and your human psychology did exactly what it needed to do to get through and thrive. It's amazing, right? Even to the point of repression where it didn't even happen. You don't even recall it. And I know you had those experiences where later on with the daffodils it flooded back, but This is survival, man. People will survive when they need to and whatever their psychology needs to do to push them into survival and management. Dr John A. King (18:10) Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Chris (18:13) Right? So there's some things on the front end in talking about recovery. want to hit like, you know, there's, there's a lot of myths and I think this is true around the world. I'm more familiar obviously with, you know, Western culture in America here. But men can't be victims. Boys are supposed to be tough. The experiences that I had created arousal. Therefore it didn't abuse the shame, the identity confusion. Dr John A. King (18:34) Yeah, all of that. Chris (18:43) The fear of not being believed, suppression of all of the symptoms. People do not report that this happened to them. I can't tell you how many times, John, I've had people in therapy as we've come across these types of issues are actually wondering if they're gay or not. Their identity, they're raped, really. Male sexual abuse is deeply under acknowledged and under treated. Fair? Dr John A. King (18:45) Yeah. Absolutely fair. I think most people admit or realize that that could very well be a strong possibility. Statistically, it's just a fact. You talk to any law enforcement on the ground, and they'll tell you that the likelihood, and even when it gets into spousal abuse and domestic violence, like England, last year or the year before, their domestic violence reporting stated that 45 % of women were... perpetrators, initial perpetrators of domestic violence. And that leaves a large percentage ⁓ of those things. Within lesbian relationships, I think the rate of domestic violence in those is like 85%. So we've got a range of things that we're not addressing or understanding. We want to put them in these little political pockets instead of, again, okay, let's just have a conversation about the state of humanity and what do we need to do to improve where we live and why we live and how we live. Chris (20:12) Well, there's just a lot there. I'm just going to say that's about five more shows, you know, to say the least, because you're right, man. It's just first. I think the thing that I hear loudest there is, know, let's let's let's get the real dialogue going. Dr John A. King (20:30) Yeah, and let's not, don't interpret anything I've said. Everything I've said is judgment free. Like I don't care who you love, and I don't care how you love. I just want to see human beings get whole. And it's not a gender thing, it's not a lifestyle choice. like, just, it's just get whole. Get whole so violence isn't a part of your life, so that fear isn't a part of your life. So judgment and lack of grace towards yourself isn't part of your life. And... They're the sorts of things, yeah, like you, mate, like as a therapist, that's what you wanna do. You wanna see the quality of the human being's life improve on an ongoing basis. Chris (20:59) Shame, guilt. Absolutely. You know, what do you do when this stuff is popping? What do you do when you begin to realize what I've experienced was wrong? What do you do when maybe an uncomfortable truth tickles into your brain? Or what do you do when you begin to get a little confused that like, as you said in part one, I can't stand the thought of my beautiful baby child being naked. doesn't make sense to you, you're confused, you're in a shameful spot, you feel alone. What do you do to enter into recovery? Dr John A. King (21:54) Okay, great question. Because there is no short answer because recovery is messy. Recovery is one thing recovery is not is linear. It's just not a linear process. It's just one thing I came to understand. I was getting my private pilot's license and I set off with my instructor and we're supposed to due west at 90. And he said, I want you to dial it in at 88. And we took off. And when we got to where we were supposed to be, we were hundreds of miles off. And he said, one or two degrees off, and in my own life, what I looked at, and I mentioned this last time, is we overestimate what we can do in 12 months and underestimate what I believe the Creator can do in our lives in 10 years. Chris (22:33) Yeah, I'll hear. Dr John A. King (22:45) And in America, we've got a habit of popcorn 30 seconds. You know, that's all the way we cook microwave thing. We want this thing now. And what I was looking at and why I felt such a failure three or four years into this is I still didn't like myself and I still hadn't recovered. I still couldn't live with myself. I was having a challenge every day. Everything. It was very, very difficult. And so I thought to myself, okay, I've got to sell for self reasonable goals. I started to break it down and I thought, okay, I will try. I realized I was trying to change one, oh just 1%, 1 % a day, I can do that. Well you can't, that's 365 % change or 360 whatever it is percent change. Well that's not realistic. Okay, okay well what if I change 1 % a week then in two years I'll be totally recovered? Nah, it's not gonna work. So what I did was literally, know, disappointment comes from unmet expectations. I lowered my expectations and I set myself a goal of 1 % a month. and I realized that in about eight years I would be changed. could believe that. And so I would just take on one thing, and for you people out there, mate, that are listening, Pick one thing this month and for the next 30 days if it's going to the gym, if it's drinking water, if it's spending five minutes outside in the sun every day, if it's going to bed at the same time getting up at the same time, just pick one thing, do it and have a win. Have a win in your recovery because you don't like yourself, you don't like how you behave and you're beating yourself up every day because you're not able to manage this. and you feel stuck. You can do 1%. And just understand, you've got to stay around for the next 10 years, and the life you'll get is phenomenal, but it's just going to take 1 % a month, and you'll get there. Chris (24:39) I love that, you know, because, you know, alcoholics anonymous talk about the kiss method, keep it simple. ⁓ the, the second S is stupid, keep it simple, stupid. You know, the one step at a time kind of mantra that we, talk about baby steps. I had drives me nuts as a therapist, John, when people say, ⁓ just trying to take baby steps. But that's totally what people can identify with. And those are, those are powerful realities that you just said, just choose one thing. that you can take the next best step for your life. And that's literally what starts this beautiful recovery process, literally that very first thing. Some of the things, yeah, go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say some of the things that healing includes is naming what happened accurately to yourself, reducing shame, doing a therapy or reaching out to someone that's trusted. Maybe it's a priest. Dr John A. King (25:18) Yeah. Anderson. No, go. Chris (25:37) Maybe it's just your next door neighbor. I don't care who it is. We started to show off with that, you know, reaching out, but rebuilding safety beliefs, safety statements, learning some tools of emotional language and, you know, dealing with the relational intricacies with your family who, you know, may not know this even happened. You know, one of the things as a young clinician I remember that really made a big impression on me, ⁓ John, was a ⁓ An Oprah Winfrey show. Now I like sports, right? ⁓ I mean, I love football and different sports. And I forget the player that was there, but it was a New York Jets receiver. And Oprah was interviewing him and you know, they're doing what we've done today. You know, I mean, they were doing the courageous thing of naming this and talking about this. I mean, it's a national show, right? They're like on national TV, NBC, right? And she's talking to him and you know how Oprah man, she just asked these probing questions and gets at the stuff. And she's like, well, I'm curious, know, like when you began to talk about this, know, like ⁓ how did your family respond to this? How did your mom, you know, take this? And he looked at her, he was like, well, ⁓ yeah, I've never talked to her about this. And Oprah's like, you're taking back, like, wait, what? mean like your mom who's in the audience right over there, know, row three, wave four is there. Y'all have never even talked about this before. And he's like, yeah, no, never have. That's the power of the gripping reality, particularly when you got some skin in the game, you know, your wife or your family, your mom, your brother. you know, your friends, lot of times these are things that they have no idea happen. Dr John A. King (27:36) Yeah, exactly. And I think that's a starting point. I think trying to define a starting point for therapy is very difficult. I think people come to therapists at some point in a recovery process, but very rarely at the front end. It's some point of crisis. I remember when I went to see my therapist. I had a church at the time. Chris (27:55) yeah. Agreed. Dr John A. King (28:04) life had totally imploded when I was doing a bodybuilding competition up in South Dakota. And I decided I had come as far as I'd come with the knowledge I had and I needed to get to the next step. So, you know, there's six or seven years here of me going after it and I realized I'd learned as much as I could. I couldn't do it by myself anymore. And I think for all of us that comes that stage, we've got to be willing to admit that. And I went to see it, she was a... Wonderful lady. She was a friend. She was a mother-in-law of a friend similar background South Dakota I was pretty sure she was Satan incarnate and she's like she looked like everybody's typical grandmother. yeah, she was she was a therapist mate She was a therapist. She had to be Satan incarnate. I was gonna tell her all my life. Yeah, screw you love, know, and I Remember getting my pulling into a car park and getting my car stuck in the snow drift trying to escape Chris (28:43) Satan incarnate up there in the cold, brother? It's cold up there in Dakota! ⁓ Dr John A. King (29:01) And she came out and knocked on my window and said, hi, are you John? said, Satan, Satan. Yes, I'm John. So I went in there and I remember sitting down there with her. And I remember the moment I made the decision I was going to be honest because I'd never shared my story. And I'm very good at being manipulative and a liar. Authenticity was very difficult for me. Now it's a cornerstone of my life. because I grew up lying to save myself. So I can put on whatever front I need and appease whoever I need. It's survival skills. It's survival level, you know, And I remember making a decision, okay, I will tell one person once and it's gonna be this therapist. So let's go. And you know, we're 45 minutes in, you know, 30 minutes in and she cancels the next appointment. We're another 45 minutes, an hour in and she cancels the next appointment. We're another hour in and she cancels the entire day. And so she had a big jar of yellow &Ms with peanuts in it. And I ate the whole thing. I'm sitting there just popping these things, this story. My hand is stuck down in there as I come to my last thing and I'm done, you know. And she looked at me, I'm sure you've never done this. She looked at me and said, this is the worst story I've ever heard. ⁓ I can't possibly help you. ⁓ Chris (30:12) Goodness. Dr John A. King (30:31) I'm sorry. And she's sobbing at this point. She's sobbing, crying, I can't help you. ⁓ And I remember looking at her going, okay, all right, but I'm just gonna tell you this. I chose you and I'm trusting you and I will never speak to another human being about this stuff again. I'm not manipulating you, I'm just gonna tell you this fact. As a man, I've done the most vulnerable thing I could ever possibly do is trust you with my history, my past, secrets. Chris (30:37) boy. Dr John A. King (31:00) And she said, okay, so therapists have therapists. You know, you all do and which is phenomenal. And so she rang her therapist and said, look, I've got this guy. He's in town for six weeks and he wants to see me. What do you think I should do? And so I went in, her the next day. She said, I'm going to do this. And what we'll do is we'll meet once every two weeks for six months. I said, no, I know. said, no. What we'll do is we'll meet twice a day. ⁓ for five days a week and I'll get this done. I was on man. She said, that's impossible. You'll never process. ⁓ And I said, you do not know what I'm capable of. So don't tell me I can't do this. So we negotiated out for two days, three times a week for six week period. Brother, I would get up, it was freezing cold in South Dakota. I would get up and stand on the cardio machine and the glass window, the entire ⁓ like. Chris (31:32) Man, you were ready to go. Wow. Dr John A. King (31:57) Main street went down here. I am sobbing and bawling. My beard was full of frozen snot and tears. The guy who ran the gym, he asked me to no longer use the cardio machine upstairs in the public, but I could go down in the basement and have a cry. And I'd go from there, I'd go up and see my therapist, go and work out again, and I'd do this three times a week for six weeks. And what convinced her to take me on was I said, Chris (32:04) You're a- Dr John A. King (32:25) I need you to fill my toolbox. And people who they need to go back and listen to the previous one said, I don't need you to heal me. I need you to fill my toolbox. So at some time in the future, I've got these tools that I can pull out and use. said, I don't need you to save me. I need you to equip me because this is my responsibility. Chris (32:44) I gotta jump in a little bit and say to you who's listening, okay, your recovery process doesn't quite have to go like that. That's intense, Dr John A. King (32:53) Don't do that. Don't do that. That's crazy man talk. That is not how you do this thing, man. I'm telling you, I got issues. Chris (33:03) What's funny is a lot of times to give you a contrast here John, what I will experience with people in my office is a relationship that I've already had built in. We got trust, we got rapport, and they make that same decision, right? But it looks very different for them. What they'll do is they're literally like done with the hour session. I don't know, whatever. We're talking about depression or whatever. There was any problem that came in for maybe marital. Challenger, whatever, whatever, and whatever. But they're literally standing up. We're doing our goodbye greeting. You know, they're walking towards the door. You know where I'm going, right? And they dropped the bomb. They're like, also, when I was five, my cousin did some things to me sexually. Boom, and they walk out the door and that's it. Dr John A. King (33:38) Yep, yep. And by the way... Yeah, okay. Okay. All right. Let's get that on the schedule again for next week, shall we? We'll start there. Chris (33:55) Right. Exactly. What a contrast. So we want to get back and revisit because, all right, so you had an intense thing and sometimes you do that with programs. You might be in a hospital setting or you get some intensity on the front end and whatever. But we wanted to circle back around to incremental change. OK. And you're really on point to point out people feel like I've done a one and done or do it. Go see this therapist once or go to a confessional booth with your pastor or your priest or whatever. And that's fine. Okay, listen, that's rape. And you can never talk about it again. You know, okay. But you might try again, a second revelation and then a third. And so when you get going on your own time, on your own pace, part one, I talked about travel rules and therapy that I used. So, you know, and you... you do need to realize that you will retouch these things. So you recover, you heal, you move forward, maybe a year later you retouch, you re-engage and then you stop and you take a break. And I think our life is kind of like that, right? So let's talk a little bit about what did you mean by incremental change? Dr John A. King (35:13) ⁓ food colouring. I had an incident, was speaking in a church, had a beautiful day, wonderful day, flew in. Room service was shut down and I saw I picked up a snicker bars Some Cheetos and a diet coke, know, whatever went to my room and I went from being very happy in 20 minutes to being suicidal looking over a balcony and I had this epiphany. It's like what happened what happened in 20 minutes and This is way back before whatever and I broke it down to sugar red food coloring and orange food coloring and when I did the research on Chris (35:31) You Dr John A. King (35:53) the ties between anxiety and depression and and between in particularly a red food coloring number five and it's inducement of insecurity and fear it's a thing and so for me the first one set once degree was the elimination of sugar and then that led to another more research another six to twelve months of research on diet which brought me into a high protein high fat low carb high triad that I've pretty been on you know it's a bodybuilding diet Chris (36:04) Wow. Dr John A. King (36:22) And I realized that when I was bodybuilding, I felt mentally 30 to 40 % better than when I wasn't training for a competition. So I was like, okay, I've got to make, there was another 1 % change. Then I started to do research on the ties in between sleep and cognitive recovery. There's another. In the midst of this, I tried CBD and weed. Didn't work for me because THC made me incredibly paranoid. I couldn't get on pharmaceuticals because anything with an opioid base would make me. bring up nightmares and daymares, I'm constantly in this cycle. So I took all those out and I went for anti-inflammatories, natural like curcumin, turmeric. In the last couple of years, red light therapy, spending time in the sun, touching a tree, I'm a 240 pound, 62 year old tree hugger, touching the tree because the natural frequencies put my circadian ribbon, reset it for me, which helps me have sleep. You know, I'd like to say cold plunge, but I don't like being cold. Wim Hof is like... Screw that guy. I ain't doing that stuff. Nah, forget it. I can't even do a tempered shower. I'm a pussy. So these things became this program which biohacking trauma is like these collection of these 1 % changes that had the most profound impact on my life. Understanding for you folks, this is a 13 to 15 year process of collecting these little tools and... Chris (37:22) I never do a cold plunge. I'm living man. That's scary. Dr John A. King (37:49) They've just got to be committed to giving themselves grace to do a journey. And they'll get there. Especially they'll get a head start with someone like yourself or the programs we run because we've already walked these miles with people before and they will have a chance to stand on the shoulders of someone else and get better quicker because that's what guys like you are in the business for. Chris (38:15) Yeah, you know, and I wanna highlight the fact that this incremental reality that you just so powerfully went through, it's possible. Like, it's such an overwhelming task, it feels like in the beginning of it. earlier, I think maybe it was this one or maybe it was part one we were talking about, like, this is just. just one little thing that we want to do. We just want to take a step. We don't have to build Rome in a day. know, and I think honestly, that's just journey of life. know, take, take, take trauma and all this heavier stuff out of the mix. And, and we just, we just want to get at with like, you want to improve your life. Okay. It's just one thing at a time, one day at a time, one conversation at a time. You know, that's real manageable. And a little bit ago, you were talking about every different time you do that, you have like a success in it it, and it really can build. just one to the next to the next and then incrementally, now you might pick up some speed. Now you start clipping. Right? Dr John A. King (39:17) Yeah, yeah, and you do, your one percent's actually, they don't go from months to maybe every two weeks to maybe weekly, maybe daily you get, you know, I had a couple of things happen just in the last ⁓ month or so with another diagnosis and all of a sudden, it was the missing pieces to the puzzle on understanding why I behave the way I do and why some things are difficult. And we touched on this in the first session, know, diagnosis is a tool. It's reasons not excuses. I behave this way not because I'm a victim and I can't help it. I behave this way and now I understand it so I can get some tools and make some changes in my life to be able to manage those things better. Chris (40:02) Absolutely. What do we do about it? Dr John A. King (40:04) Yeah, and how do we do it? How do we walk this thing out? know, it's, I'm a big person, I'm big on taking personal responsibility because it is your life and your recovery and you are responsible for it. Your therapist isn't and they honestly can't do it for you. If you won't put in the work, you will never get well. They can give you all the tools you want, all the advice, all the ideas. information revelation application transformation but if you don't go home and see that advice your therapist is giving you as yours not just information your revelation and you don't spend your time applying it you will not transform Chris (40:45) And again, it's possible, you know, I mean, you know, I just, think people get so overwhelmed in their own psyche and mind. And, and, and the thing that makes me so kind of angry is, the blindness, the scales on people's eyes, if you will, not, not knowing. mean, you know, the story that you're describing is powerful, John, because I mean, you didn't really even start this recovery journey until you're, what'd you say? 45 years old, you know? So I don't care if your sexual abuse occurred when you were seven and you're 22 now and you're hearing the show or it occurred to you when you were 14 and you're 72 years old today. That's okay because wherever you're at, like in your journey, wherever you're at in your process, your psychology system has probably already helped you. Dr John A. King (41:14) Yeah. ⁓ Yes. Chris (41:42) And now you're going to jump in and join with that psychology system that's naturally and innately a part of you. Join in that and take different action steps at wherever you're at starting today. Dr John A. King (41:48) Yeah. Tony, today, one of the highlights of stuff we do, like you, mate, it's you don't accumulate awards, you accumulate these mental trophies and pictures of people you helped. And for me, it was a 72-year-old man who came on one of our online things that we do. And for the first time in his life ever, he was able to talk about what happened to him as a kid. And so that man at 72 started a journey towards a quality of life and a latter part of his years, that will far surpass anything that he's had before. Chris (42:30) think that's one of the most humbling things that I do in my, ⁓ really my life, not my career, is when I will ask somebody at some point, you know, when we're dealing with this issue. So who else in the world, right, besides you and that person and now me, like, who knows of this? And you know what they're telling me. When they respond, like, yeah, just, you know, no one. It's like... Dr John A. King (42:33) no. Yeah. Chris (42:59) know, wow, what a humbling reality this is. Such an honor. Dr John A. King (43:00) privilege man. Yeah, it's humbling, very humbling work. Chris (43:06) to walk with people. Yeah. So I'm aware of time. I don't want to overshoot us. know, what, how can people find you, John? What are you doing with the Phoenix, what did I call it? The Phoenix group or the, yeah, the Phoenix collective and how do people find you? What are you doing in recovery work? Where do they actually take some steps? Dr John A. King (43:07) Yeah. Finnish collective, Finnish collective, yeah. I'm probably my website's a great place, drjohnaking.com and I'll send you some links, I'll make sure you got them. And we're a series of, great, we're running a series of online courses for free for people. And ⁓ we took this 15 years, 300 grand worth, and we put it down in this two year program. And if they've heard your podcast and they come and they get one of our free events. Chris (43:35) We got him. Dr John A. King (43:55) It's $27 for life. It's ridiculously cheap. I hate subscriptions. Like everything's a bloody subscription now, and I hate that stuff. I want people to get this stuff and have it with them on their phone or on the website. They can watch five minute video, go through a 10 minute exercise, and they're designed to be incremental. Like you can watch the whole thing if you want, but you're only gonna cycle back through it. Every day, just do one thing, just one thing. Love yourself enough for 15 minutes. Just... Chris (44:01) Yeah. Dr John A. King (44:22) Value your own recovery enough to watch myself and my wife talk about this stuff and give you some thoughts and some homework Just do that for you and it's a supplement. It's a compliment It's not a replacement too There is nothing that beats sitting down face to face with a therapist or in a support group or with a mate But what it will do is start to give you some language for your recovery and some tools for your recovery and Once you start to accumulate those over the time from your therapist your support group your priest your pastor then all of a sudden you've got these things that are available for you to use. And except the fact that recovery you don't ever, you don't ever get healed from this, what you do is learn to manage it very, very well. And life becomes exceptionally pleasant. Chris (45:10) So we have a ⁓ segment that we do normally on our show. It's called Practical Questions, where the panel kind of takes a turn to kind of speak directly to you, the listener. And I'm going to take a moment and do that with a question as though I'm your therapist talking to you. And I'm going to ask you, do you carry shame? And understanding, shame is a feeling that You know, there's something wrong with me. There's something wrong that I've done. There's something inherently bad. The shame feeling is something that's insidious that comes at you. So I'm asking you, like, do you carry that? I carry, mean, are you living in a space where something just doesn't feel right about something that ultimately was never your fault? Right. So are you carrying this shame feeling? that something happened to you or you might not even remember it, but you got a sense of it and understanding that it wasn't even your fault, but that that feeling is something that you want to listen to. So do you carry shame and and do you realize it wasn't your fault? And and can you listen to that feeling to trigger what John has talked about in in his recovery? That's a that's a practical question I offer to you, the listener today. ⁓ So we need to we need to wrap it up. ⁓ John, I listen, I, I want to stay in touch with you and, and, and work with you and track with you. I appreciate your courage, brother. I love your accent. ⁓ maybe I need to come to Dallas or wherever you're at in Texas and have it with you. Dr John A. King (46:46) Yeah you do mate, God's country. Get down here, we'll have an argument about that. We'll go shoot some guns and smoke some cigars mate, it'll be good. Chris (46:53) I'll bring my nine and I'll bring my little patron. That's my brand. ⁓ How would you summarize this up, man? What do you want to kind of say in summary here? Dr John A. King (46:56) I'm on now. There's hope. There's hope. If I can recover, you can recover. You can do this. It's okay. It'll take some time, but you got this. You got this. Chris (47:20) Neil, I'm not even gonna try to compete this week. John, we do a shrink wrap-up. I'm gonna put him down as the victor. We just have fun. The panel of therapists, ⁓ we kind of review the show. It's been an awesome journey ⁓ episode. Dr John A. King (47:36) Thank you. Thank you, fellas. Really appreciate the time and allowing me to hopefully bring some hope and light to you folks. Really appreciate it. Chris (47:43) Absolutely. Well, you are a hope and you are a light. I respect and admire the courage that you show. I'm getting to know you and I can tell you're a pretty cool dude. ⁓ Neil, any takeouts? What are we doing here? We've got some links and stuff that we'll have out. Dr John A. King (47:54) Cheers, brother. Thank you. Neil (48:00) Got plenty of links, they're on the YouTube video right now. You'll have them for your show notes when you post it. Yeah, just get you out there, John. We want people to hear this. This is an amazing story. ⁓ Dr John A. King (48:10) Well thanks fellas and please collaborate with me on Instagram or the other platforms and I'll share it or send me the footage and I'll break it into clips or if you've got clips I'll put it. I've about a quarter of a million people on social platforms and I'd love to highlight what you guys do and what your show do. It's very, I do a lot of these, I do two of these a week and this is one of my highlights. This has been exceptional. Chris (48:31) Wow, I appreciate the kind words there, brother. Absolutely. Dr John A. King (48:34) You guys are good at what you do. And your content's good, your format's good. It's been a privilege. Thank you very much. Chris (48:41) Really appreciate that. Listen, take care guys. We will see you next week. Stay well.