Forty Seizures in Six Weeks: Learning to Stop Hiding

Matt Gilhooly (00:00)
Travis woke up surrounded by paramedics, and the first thing they asked him was what drugs he had taken. He was twenty-three, newly engaged, and he remembered none of it. What he had was a seizure, and over the next month and a half, somewhere around forty or fifty more.

Then came the part that nobody warned him about. Medication that made him see things that weren't there, neurologists who ran out of answers, an hour and a half drive back to his hometown that he made without knowing it, jobs he walked out of and never returned to because he was too embarrassed to explain. Years later it all came roaring back, and this time it was his kids who gave him a reason to keep going.

Matt Gilhooly (01:32)
Hello everyone, welcome to the Life Shift Podcast. I am here with Travis. Hello, Travis.

Travis White (01:37)
Hi, Matt. Thanks for having me on.

Matt Gilhooly (01:38)
Well, thanks for wanting to be a part of this and we'll have the soundtrack of your children in the background, which I think is a nice sign of a of a life well lived.

Travis White (01:48)
Makes it real, right?

Matt Gilhooly (01:49)
Exactly.

Yeah, no, thank you for wanting to be a part of this because I I I say this every time, and here we are at almost 300 episodes, but there is so much power in story, which sounds so trite on the surface. But now that I get to witness people sharing their story or even during the moment uncovering parts of their story, I can see the power of it. And then we hear from listeners and

We feel that power of how that resonated with someone else and maybe made them feel validated or less alone. So this has been such a beautiful journey for me and such a learning experience for me just about myself through other people's stories. So I appreciate you wanting to tell your story on the show.

Travis White (02:33)
Yeah, not a problem. I'm happy to be here and happy to tell it.

Matt Gilhooly (02:37)
All right. Well, before we tell it, maybe you can tell us who Travis is in twenty twenty six. Like how do you show up in the world? How do you identify these days?

Travis White (02:44)
So these days, so I want to start off by saying 2026 has been a big focus on myself. I've been trying to kind of re examine who I am and who I want to be, who I want to become, and just basically out there trying to help people the ways that I know how. And I'm also a father of four and a husband. That's

Matt Gilhooly (03:06)
Four.

Travis White (03:06)
N yeah, that's really who I am.

Matt Gilhooly (03:08)
Yeah. How what

how young are these these children of yours?

Travis White (03:12)
So

I have six year old girl and then three boys ages four, two and four months. no, not at all. I don't think there's any calmness right now. it's it's a lot of fun.

Matt Gilhooly (03:19)
yeah. So your hands aren't full and calm at the house. Yeah, that must be that must be beautiful though. yeah, and

also probably helps you learn more about yourself too in this year of kind of focusing

on yourself.

Travis White (03:37)
yes, yes. There's there's things that come up that I was I always think, well, I didn't see myself that way, but I do now, so I need to kind of think figure out how to shift this thought or get around this hurdle so I could be

Matt Gilhooly (03:51)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (03:52)
a better father.

Matt Gilhooly (03:53)
Yeah. I hear that a lot of how parenthood kind of brings out a different feeling in a lot of people, or maybe they were on one path and it's not that they're on a different path now, but they're on like a parallel path that goes a slightly different direction because now they also have these little ones that they want, you know, to take care of and make sure that their lives are beautiful in whatever way we can make them as as adults. So

Kudos to you for keeping it all, you know, you're not falling asleep yet. So I think that's that's a good thing.

Travis White (04:24)
No. No,

that is that is a good thing. My for some reason it's the hour of tiredness is always two to three PM. So you hit me at a time where I feel rejuvenated and fresh.

Matt Gilhooly (04:36)
Perfect.

Awesome. Well, I appreciate that. So to get into your life shift story, fully understanding that you probably have many life shift moments in your life, but the one that we're going to center today's conversation around, I think it would be helpful for you to kind of paint the picture of the before version of Travis. And if it means going back to your childhood, please do that to just give us some a frame of reference of who Travis was and what you were in the world leading up to this life shift moment.

Travis White (05:05)
Of

course, I don't have to go too far back before it because I can explain who I was and you know, it doesn't take much to say because I was very spontaneous. I I loved life. I by this time I was recently engaged. I was living with a group of guys that was that were super cool. I loved my roommates, we had a lot of fun together. I was going to college, I was in Orem going to Utah Valley University.

and

getting working on a

Matt Gilhooly (05:34)
How old?

Travis White (05:35)
d

I was twenty-three at this time. Yeah, twenty-three.

Matt Gilhooly (05:37)
Okay. Okay.

Travis White (05:39)
And was loving life. it was taking me some time to figure out what I I'd switched degrees a couple times. I went from like business to psychology and settled in digital media. And it's yeah. yeah. I

Matt Gilhooly (05:51)
Totally different than the first two.

Travis White (05:53)
I figured out one of those two had so much schooling that I was like, I don't want that.

I I'm fine

Matt Gilhooly (05:58)
Yeah.

Travis White (05:59)
with just a bachelor's degree and that's it. But this yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (06:01)
Yeah. Well, you're not unlike most college students

who choose a major and then change it sixty eight times before they decide what they want to do. And then they still don't know.

Travis White (06:12)
Yeah, but the me before I was fairly laid back. you know, my mental health was really great. I had a great relationship, you know, a good group of friends. I was very social and outgoing. Great upbringing. I grew up

Matt Gilhooly (06:25)
Good upbringing. Okay.

Travis White (06:28)
in a small town in central Utah and it was, you know, small enough to where I can name every person in my graduating class and probably who they were.

Matt Gilhooly (06:39)
Wow. Yeah, not me. Six hundred and forty in my graduating class.

Travis White (06:42)
Yeah, I had

about a hundred and thirty five. So is it

Matt Gilhooly (06:45)
Okay.

Travis White (06:46)
yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (06:47)
That's that's small but not as small as I was picturing. I was picturing, you know, k this one schoolroom with thirty people in it.

Travis White (06:51)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

yeah yeah, that yeah, that's just think small 'cause like everybody else I talk to like, my high school is huge. I was like, well we maybe have six hundred students in there.

Matt Gilhooly (07:03)
Yeah. Yeah. We had thirty five hundred, I think. Something like that.

Travis White (07:05)
And see that's

crazy to me. Crazy.

Matt Gilhooly (07:08)
So w was college big for you? Was that a small college or a bigger

Travis White (07:11)
I went to so s I started off by going to Snow College and that was a smaller one. And actually ended up meeting my wife there. And

Matt Gilhooly (07:20)
Good choice.

Travis White (07:21)
she ended up leaving early because she didn't like the small town. So we just became really good friends. And I actually moved up to Orem because she lived that was the closest school to where she was.

Matt Gilhooly (07:32)
Okay.

Travis White (07:33)
And so I think it was about probably a little bit

A year after we I we I got up here, pretty close to that, that we got engaged.

Matt Gilhooly (07:40)
Yeah. Was you you mentioned that you were spontaneous. were any of those spontaneous moves or like what what would you have done growing up that was pretty spontaneous? Just to give me an idea.

Travis White (07:51)
So at college it was, you know, we'd think of something in the spur of the moment with my roommates and we would just go do there'd be no planning behind it.

Matt Gilhooly (07:59)
Nice.

Travis White (07:59)
for instance, I'm trying to think of something that, you know, we would do weird things that eighteen year olds do. We we went

Matt Gilhooly (08:06)
Okay. Risky?

Travis White (08:08)
for an example, we went bought teenage mutant ninja turtle costumes and went around town dressed up as teenage mutant ninja

Matt Gilhooly (08:13)
Okay.

Travis White (08:14)
turtles.

It's just we we always had something fun to do and we always

Matt Gilhooly (08:18)
Okay.

Travis White (08:18)
there was never any boredom.

Matt Gilhooly (08:21)
Okay. I was thinking when you said spontaneous, I was thinking risky things. Were you doing anything that was

Travis White (08:25)
No, I'm I'm sure

I'm sure some of it was

Matt Gilhooly (08:29)
Okay.

Travis White (08:29)
like it was never like to the point where would necessarily like go to jail or whatever, but

Matt Gilhooly (08:34)
Okay.

Travis White (08:34)
there were some things that we did that I would be like, that's that's probably vandalism but

Matt Gilhooly (08:40)
Mm.

Travis White (08:41)
I'm eighteen year old eighteen years old and I'm not thinking that way.

Matt Gilhooly (08:44)
Right. Yeah. And not like a on a this is life endangerment or anything like that. Okay. So more fun. You're looking for fun things to do.

Travis White (08:50)
no. It was it was more fun

and I'm I'm not saying they're worth those moments because I hung out with a group of kids in high school that would do some crazy things. I was like, no, I I don't wanna be part of that right now.

Matt Gilhooly (09:01)
That's

good. Okay. So you were kinda I mean, dare I say, living a fairly normal college experience?

Travis White (09:09)
I yeah, for sure. I honestly would put it as if you're a college student right now, honestly I'd say living the dream, like as far

Matt Gilhooly (09:17)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (09:18)
as you know what the dream is at that point.

Matt Gilhooly (09:20)
Yeah. Yeah. For a twenty-three year old. What do we know at twenty-three? Not too much.

Travis White (09:22)
Mm-hmm. No, nothing. Not too much. You think you know it all?

Matt Gilhooly (09:27)
Yeah. Well, and that's good. I mean, I think there are are on the other side, there's a lot of like for myself, like I was I was just going to college because I that was the next thing I had to do. And I was choosing the easiest thing because I was still in my grief mindset of losing my mom and then assuming perfectionism because I thought

If I wasn't perfect, my dad would leave. And so when I was in college, it was all about I had to work a 40 hour a week job. I had to take the classes that I knew I could do well in, not necessarily the ones that

I wanted to or the ones I wanted to learn from. So my college experience was very much a check the box kind of life. I I had fun, I'm sure, you know, just as a normal human, but to live this idyllic college experience as you're describing here feels

I'm a little jealous, you know, but you know, our our own traumas lead us to where we are.

Travis White (10:17)
Yeah.

yeah, and I I definitely have some fun stories that I like to reminisce with like old roommates and stuff and old friends

Matt Gilhooly (10:25)
Yeah.

Travis White (10:26)
every once in a while.

Matt Gilhooly (10:27)
Yeah. So life is pretty normal. C

take us

Travis White (10:30)
Mm hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (10:30)
on. What was happening?

Travis White (10:32)
Yeah, it was it was pretty normal up to that that live shift point.

Matt Gilhooly (10:35)
Yeah, tell

us about that life shift. What happened?

Travis White (10:38)
So it was April of 2009. I had got engaged in March and I was enrolled in a web development class. And at this time I was actually the first time ever that I roomed. No, I guess I should say the first time ever. It was I had a room roommate, which I normally have my own room. So my fiance was sitting on my bed and my roommate was on his bed. They were

watching a movie while I was working on my web development homework. And I remember feeling just off. I was my perception was off. I had a weird stomach ache. My chest was just beating weird. And I kept zoning out. You know the time I I didn't know I was zoning out, but they kept saying, Travis, are you okay? Is everything okay? And I s said, Yeah, I I'm fine. Just maybe

A sickness is coming on. Like to me, I was thinking, well, maybe I'm starting to get a little flu or a bug or something. But this kept happening. And I was literally would be typing and forget what I was typing and just look straight off to the side. So but I'm stubborn and I always have been. So I just kept going and then it started feeling worse. And they kept saying stuff. So I remember getting up, finally caving in and getting up and

going into the bathroom just to get ready for bed. I came back out and my perception was so off I couldn't even turn off the lights which it took me like probably five tries. And I don't know why, but I really remember just my hand like going all over like why can I not touch this thing? I then laid down and fell asleep. The next thing I remember was I was surrounded by EMTs, paramedics,

security from that department complex police officers and I was I woke up and I was super confused. My body was completely it's almost like a tingling numbness. I was not aware of what was going on. I remember looking at somebody was like, but I I couldn't really talk because I was just I felt sore and achy. And

The first thing they asked me was, What have you taken tonight? I was like, What do you mean? Well, what drugs have you taken? I said, I don't take drugs. Because I had all these like blood capular what are they called? Blood vessels, blood vessels

Matt Gilhooly (12:57)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (12:58)
pop underneath my eyes, down my chest, down my back. And I guess that was a big sign of overdosing on cocaine.

Matt Gilhooly (13:07)
Ahoa.

Travis White (13:08)
And

I was totally unaware of that. So they asked me like four or five times. And I remember for some reason I got really mad. I said, I told you I don't do drugs. So they took me to ER by ambulance. And that was the first time when I I knew that my blood vessels had actually popped because I had a a roommate that my roommate followed us and he's like, You look like crap, dude. I was like, Well, thank you for that. Thanks for telling me.

Matt Gilhooly (13:32)
Yeah.

Travis White (13:33)
He's like,

no, you really look like crap. And I turned my

Matt Gilhooly (13:35)
Yeah, thanks. It's helpful.

Travis White (13:37)
to my fiance and said, what does he mean? He said, She's like, he's right, you look like crap. So she took out one of her makeup mirrors and I looked at and I just saw all the rest. my gosh, like this makes no sense.

Matt Gilhooly (13:49)
'Cause the last thing you remember was going to sleep.

Travis White (13:51)
Yeah, yeah, going to sleep. I I vaguely remember the the drive to the hospital.

Matt Gilhooly (13:57)
Mm.

Travis White (13:58)
I was coming to that point, so I I kinda remember talking to the EMT that was driving with me and helping me out. But so they they did all the normal scans that you do in a situation like that. They did a CT scan, they started setting me up for a neurology appointment, they did some blood work.

I had somebody come in and say, Well, we think you had a seizure. I was and my thought was, you think you're a medical ER doctor and you think that I had a seizure? And so and that was the that main turning point. And after that, like they I got told that one out of I think it was every 50 people have at least one seizure in their life and never have

another one.

And

you can't really relate it to anything. It's just a random weird thing.

Matt Gilhooly (14:45)
Yeah. 'Cause you don't remember

any of it. Any of do you know how long it was happening or

Travis White (14:50)
I

think it was at least five to ten minutes. It was it was a pretty big one. I mean

Matt Gilhooly (14:52)
Well. Yeah.

Travis White (14:55)
I was on the bed and I was shaking and pulsing and throwing my hands all over. No. No nothing like

Matt Gilhooly (15:00)
And never had any kind of medical issues like that in the past.

Travis White (15:04)
that. The only during this time the only thing that I had problem was with heartburn and I was taking some new heartburn medication.

Matt Gilhooly (15:12)
Yeah. And so so you go to the the doctors, did they confirm can they confirm that you had a seizure, or do they just make assumptions based on story?

Travis White (15:20)
They kind of make

a assumptions. So after that point they they try to get you in for what's called EG. So that's I can't remember the technical term for it because it's really long. But they hook up all these probes, things to your head to kind of check for your brain activity and the different like electricity that's gone through your brain. And that's what tells them that you're having a seizure. But oftentimes they're very

hard to catch one. You almost have to catch a seizure while it's going on in order for them to diagnose you with epilepsy or anything of that sort.

Matt Gilhooly (15:56)
Interesting.

So you had this seizure, which I

can well, you don't remember the seizure, but you remember waking up and all the after effects

Travis White (16:03)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (16:03)
from it. And then they tell you, well, it was likely a seizure, or it was possibly, whatever the words that they use. Do you leave the hospital thinking this is my life now? Or were you more glass half full kind of vibe where you're like, Well, you might only have one in your life.

Travis White (16:22)
Yeah, at this point it was more glass half full.

Matt Gilhooly (16:25)
Okay.

Travis White (16:26)
Just because I feel like before this, like my life before I was always a really happy person and I somewhat optimistic, but I mean it's like a it makes because I've always been a little bit pessimistic by trait, but back then it was I was like, no, this thing happened, I can get over it. So I I left thinking that

You know, that was it. I was I maybe I was done and had to miss a couple of days of work and some schooling and that was it.

Matt Gilhooly (16:52)
Okay, so that was the the the real feeling, because part of my

Travis White (16:56)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (16:56)
this my cynical mind, here we go, is sometimes people, including myself, will have a situation like this, but we tell ourselves the story that, don't worry, it's fine, or whatever it is, and then it's not really a glass half full, but rather I'm gonna tell myself the story that it is and push that away.

push those fears away. So it was not that though for you.

Travis White (17:22)
No it was to to a point, but it was I I was trying to push those fears away because I I it's like I didn't at that point I didn't know what the future entailed. So I was

Matt Gilhooly (17:31)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (17:32)
like, Well and I remember talking like, well, this could go either way. I could go home and lay on the couch and be completely fine.

Matt Gilhooly (17:39)
Yeah. Did you have

any lasting effects from that seizure? Like day after, two days after, or week after?

Travis White (17:47)
I was just really tired and

Matt Gilhooly (17:49)
Okay.

Travis White (17:50)
a little bit confused for about a day. Okay. Yeah,

Matt Gilhooly (17:52)
Okay. But then life goes back to normal?

Travis White (17:55)
life goes back to normal for the most part, except for two days later I had another one. It was a little bit shorter, like it wasn't

Matt Gilhooly (18:00)
Mm. And how was that similar or different or what was that? Okay.

Travis White (18:05)
it didn't last as long.

Matt Gilhooly (18:07)
Were you aware of it and anything or

Travis White (18:10)
I after the seizure I was aware that I had one, but other than that it was but not going in. You

Matt Gilhooly (18:13)
But not going in. Was it during sleeping or was it

Travis White (18:17)
know a lot most of my first ones were when I was asleep. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (18:21)
Interesting. So you just don't even feel it coming on. The first one you thought you were getting sick, but went

to sleep anyway. But this one normal day going to bed and then wake up, something happened.

Travis White (18:30)
And

later on with the first one I learned that all those symptoms that I had were actually auras of having a seizure. But I didn't know that before. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (18:39)
Right. We don't know to pay attention to those. We just think, I'm getting sick again.

Travis White (18:44)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (18:45)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's hindsight is really 2020, because you look back and you're like, well, I should have thought about something when I couldn't

Travis White (18:52)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (18:52)
do anything with the light switch or whatever, but we don't know until we know.

Travis White (18:57)
Exactly.

Matt Gilhooly (18:58)
So you go in two days later or two days later you have another seizure, which does that does that start to stress you out?

Travis White (19:05)
That's when I was like, Okay, something is definitely going on here.

Matt Gilhooly (19:10)
So what

what do you do? How do you how do you move with that? Do you think, God, I'm gonna have them every day?

Travis White (19:16)
at that point I was like okay well that that's weird I'm having another one so I start thinking like trying to pinpoint what it could be but I have no idea and at this point I I can't remember how quick I saw the neurologist. I think it was about a day later, so I don't know if I had that.

I can't remember if I had that second seizure or not, but I did see the neurologist very quickly, which it usually takes months and months to get into one.

Matt Gilhooly (19:40)
Hmm. Okay.

So you see the neurologist. Like when does life change for you? Like I know this life shift kind of like startles you, but did it was it really a a turn for you? Like how does life start to be different because of this first or second seizure, or was it later down the line?

Travis White (19:59)
I had this I had to at this point I you know, I started taking off work and I had to miss some class and but each day I started having more seizures.

Matt Gilhooly (20:09)
Mm. And you can't drive when you're when you have a seizure, right?

Travis White (20:11)
And I no I can't the by

law here in Utah it's I think it's pretty close to the same everywhere else, it's at least ninety days after. So

Matt Gilhooly (20:19)
Yeah, to be fully clear.

Travis White (20:21)
that's it's my independence was slowly going away.

Matt Gilhooly (20:25)
Mm. Does that with your independence going away, does that I would imagine this is such a rhetorical question, but does your mood, your your happy, spontaneous life

start to erode?

Travis White (20:36)
yeah. Y yeah,

it's just it starts to crumble. Like I I I it may may have taken me a little bit longer to be like become really moody and irrational. But I

Matt Gilhooly (20:45)
Yeah. Yeah.

Travis White (20:47)
I I can remember that my mood was like I was not always a pleasant person to be around when these the second one and the third one and then like kept coming on. Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (20:58)
So this is two thousand nine still? Okay.

And z things get worse or they just get more consistent?

Travis White (21:05)
no they they get worse. For the next month and a half I have probably forty to fifty seizures. I spent a week up at the U for hooked up with twenty four hour monitoring. And by that time the weirdest thing they stopped.

Matt Gilhooly (21:22)
It's like when you bring your car in. Yeah, there is no noise. Your car is working perfect. So your body was like, nah, I'm not gonna show off today.

Travis White (21:23)
Yeah, he exactly. He was like, wait, what's that noise? Yeah. Yeah, I'm done.

Nope. Nope. And I stayed there a week and they just settled down. They said, Well, we can, you know, give you a few more days. I said, No, I'm done. Like, I'm hooked up. I can't even shower because of the stuff that I'm hooked up to. Like, just let me go home.

Matt Gilhooly (21:49)
And you get home.

Travis White (21:50)
And I get home, and by this time the seizures have kind of died down. I'm still having them, but not as often. still but this is when other things start becoming weird. Like I'm seeing a neurologist, he gives me an MRI, and you know, most neurologists think, well, maybe there's a brain tumor or there's something that I can operate on. But I was also

on

a ton of medication for since I was having so many at a time. They just gave me prescription, put it almost the highest they could, and it messed with me pretty bad. I I was hallucinating. it was I remember the time I was working for a retailer, JC Penny. And I remember sitting, I work in the suit department, so I was kind of secluded from everyone else. And this is probably

a month or two after my first seizure, maybe a little bit longer. Some t some of my timelines get a little bit off, but I remember seeing a little girl back in the corner. And I was I knew at this point that it wasn't real. That she wasn't real. And I went sat down, you know, just put my head down a little bit. Thought, okay, well, this is this is just the medication. This is a medication. But it got so bad that I went back to the neurologist said,

I'm hallucinating because of this. Is there anything else you can give me? He said, Well, if you're hallucinating, you need to go to a psychiatrist. So I went to the side. I was like, Well, I didn't hallucinate until you put me on this medication. So I did what he asked, went to psychiatrist and she said, Well, you might have a little bit of anxiety from this, but no, it's you're not hallucinating. Like in your past, I can clearly tell you're not hallucinating because of

like some kind of mental illness you're hallucinating because of the medication you're on.

Matt Gilhooly (23:35)
Okay.

Travis White (23:36)
And so I eventually tapered myself off.

Matt Gilhooly (23:39)
Mm, that's not the best choice.

Travis White (23:41)
Yeah, and I was I was to the point where I was like, I'd rather have the seizures right now than see things.

Matt Gilhooly (23:46)
Hm. Yeah.

Travis White (23:48)
And I and it was like tons of weight gain 'cause they they re I retained water really bad when I was put on these.

Matt Gilhooly (23:55)
Okay.

Travis White (23:56)
and the neurologist at this point kind of just threw me under the rug, didn't want to deal with my stuff anymore. So I was like, Well take the medication, come see us in like six months.

Matt Gilhooly (24:06)
Mm.

Travis White (24:07)
And to me that wasn't a good enough answer. So I yeah, we're

Matt Gilhooly (24:09)
Yeah, no. 'Cause 'cause we're looking for solutions and

Travis White (24:13)
looking for solutions. And it's like, you know, I become my own Google doctor and

I'm thinking, Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (24:17)
Mm. Yeah, you tapered yourself off of medications. Not you

know, not recommended, but you did it because they weren't helping.

Travis White (24:25)
And so I you know, throughout the time I see probably four or five different neurologists and it's kind of the same thing. So at some point I just started giving up and said, You know what, I don't even care to see a neurologist anymore. I have no care of the world.

Matt Gilhooly (24:40)
Does that make you lean into just seizures?

Travis White (24:43)
no, 'cause they they it was weird 'cause it was that big cluster of seizures and then they stopped and I started getting really bad migraines. And then I get a seizure maybe two or three times a year, and it got to the point where I had them maybe once a year and I could always figure out I figured out kind of a pattern. It was always when the seasons went from like really hot to cold or vice versa.

Or when I didn't get enough sleep. It's s so but

Matt Gilhooly (25:09)
Okay. So you're living a life at that

point kind of managing on your own.

Travis White (25:15)
Yeah,

I I'm managing, but my my mental health is spir spiraling. Like I I started having really, really bad anxiety, severe depression, and I was dissociating.

Matt Gilhooly (25:28)
Mm. What did that look

like for you? Like in your life?

Travis White (25:32)
it's I stopped going to school. I I remember around the time that my seizures were really bad. I was living with my parents for a a little bit. I had to stop working, you'd reapply for the job like later on. but it was my dissociation, I would I'd wander off and it's and for those that don't know what dissociation is, I'll explain it in just a simple term. It's

Almost like to me I describe it as almost an out of body experience. Like you're

Matt Gilhooly (25:59)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (26:00)
you're there physically, but mentally you're pretty much gone. And

Matt Gilhooly (26:03)
Yeah, checked out.

Travis White (26:04)
yeah, and I these these kind of episodes that I was having, I had no idea what I was doing. I was just told that this is what happened for another thing was I I was living an hour and a half away from where I grew up.

And I drove that hour and a half in one of those episodes not knowing that it I was supposed to be working. for some reason my mind always resorted back to my childhood. There's times where well

Matt Gilhooly (26:28)
'Cause it was safe.

Travis White (26:30)
yeah, exactly. It was a a safe place for me.

Matt Gilhooly (26:33)
Mm. Yeah. Too much trauma happening and too much out of your control, maybe?

Travis White (26:36)
Yep. Yep.

Yep. That's exactly how I feel now is but it it's crazy 'cause it took me almost fifteen years to realize this.

Matt Gilhooly (26:46)
Not crazy. I think that we all don't realize it until we realize it, until we're ready to

Travis White (26:51)
well yeah, and it's like until we for me it was like when I it finally admitted that you know, I had mental health issues and

Matt Gilhooly (26:59)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (27:00)
because I remember reading through the notes that I had dissociative disorder, but when I was reading through those notes it almost offended me because I was like, No, I don't have that. No, that's not me. It was of medication. maybe some of it was the medication, I don't I can't really tell you.

But maybe some of it was it. So like I just face it and what this is this is what happened.

Matt Gilhooly (27:21)
Yeah. I mean, there's a stigma. There was a stigma for

any kind of mental health issue that we may face. And like for me, I couldn't tell people that I was depressed. And I was pretending I wasn't and, you know, everything was fine until I wasn't,

until I really wasn't. And then I had to reach out for help. But a lot of that, and I don't know if this is true for you, a lot of that was just my upbringing, is that like people around me didn't really talk about it either.

It was kind of a shameful thing. We don't tell anyone about that, or you're just sad, you know, or you just need to get it together. Did did you have a similar thing where they didn't mean there was no malintent there? It was just how they were taught to do it. You know, like our parents were taught by our grandparents and nobody was really talking about it.

Did you have a similar upbringing in which

you didn't talk about those things?

Travis White (28:08)
yeah. I I never really understood the word depression until I started to go through it.

Matt Gilhooly (28:14)
Yeah. Did you start to recognize that other people in your life maybe were facing it?

Travis White (28:20)
Yeah, to to a point and now it's like and the there's some of those people are ones that, you know, didn't talk about it. just because I see the signs a little bit more now and I I can tell that there's times where people hide stuff because I was doing it for mean years later after that first seizure I was you know I've been in tech roles as like

a project manager and web developer for years and I was hiding all this stuff that was going on in my in my life. And like like everything was okay.

Matt Gilhooly (28:52)
And the sad thing is as you say that, I think that might be the majority of people

Travis White (28:56)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (28:57)
because there's fear of vulnerability, I think, which to me is silly at this age, mainly because I just try to remind myself like we're all human. Like we there's none of us are perfect. None of us have a perfect life. None of us, you know, have have

things that we sh you know, like that we shouldn't share with other people. We should just be open and be like, Look, this is my life. And, you know, some parts are hard. And then other people go, Yeah, me too. Yeah, me too. And then we'd get all that shame away, you know?

Travis White (29:30)
yeah, for sure. And it's it's like the more I I feel like the more I share my story, the more I realize that everybody else has a story.

Matt Gilhooly (29:37)
Yeah. Was there a was there a moment in your mental health decline where you like did something happen that made you think, okay, enough is enough. I need say this out loud and need to maybe take different steps.

Travis White (29:55)
Yes.

So I'm gonna fast forward to two

Matt Gilhooly (29:58)
Go for it.

Travis White (29:58)
thousand two thousand twenty-four. okay, I'm gonna I don't want to fast forward yet. Let me step back and get too ahead of myself and just I'll kind of set up this scene a little bit. So there was a time with all my mental health problems that I couldn't work, I couldn't hold down a job. I was so embarrassed by what I was going through.

I was embarrassed of the seizures. I remember going into a job once using the bathroom and I had some sort of seizure and I peed all over myself. So I left the building and never showed up again because I was embarrassed. And that happened multiple times. And I looked back and realized that I left because like I was ashamed. But I didn't see it then.

But I was y usually only having one or two seizures per year. Finally got to the point where I could work. but for a while I lived with my future mother in law and my fiance because I I couldn't afford to pay rent anywhere. took me seven years to get my bachelor's degree because I had to keep putting school off. But so about let's see, I can't remember the exact year, but I started working a retail job and got control of my life.

a little bit and things were going good. Like I for retail I worked my way up to the tech field and started in a development career and realized like you know what I'm not good at web development. I need to do something else. They I got into project management, which is what I do now. I bought a house in 2017, everything was good, still some little dissociation things, migraines, the

Mental health issues were still there. So now let's fast forward to 2024. It's I think September, October-ish. For some reason this year, that year, I start having another cluster of seizures. And that pretty much destroyed me because by at this time I had just had my third kid. And was once again I was having five or six big seizures at a time. And they

kept coming and coming because so I ended up having to take medical leave from work. I spent three or four days in the hospital and they hooked me up to the EEG machine again. And they after my hospital stay, I remember two a couple doctors coming in and talking to me. One of them was the ER doctor and saying he said, well these aren't real seizures. And

Then the other one was the actual neurologist, and she said, No, they're real seizures, they just call it P N E S, which is psychogenic non-epileptic seizures. So

Matt Gilhooly (32:22)
Interesting.

Travis White (32:23)
my seizures that I was having were not firing from the brain. Like they fire a different way. And they're they said that they're brought on more by stress.

Matt Gilhooly (32:31)
Mm.

Travis White (32:31)
but that there's little to nothing known about them. So they said, well.

you just need to go to therapy and get out whatever it is. I would say that was the turning point that

Matt Gilhooly (32:40)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (32:42)
really hit me and said, you you need to do something because I also became suicidal.

Matt Gilhooly (32:47)
Hm. Because you couldn't get rid of it.

Travis White (32:49)
well, I couldn't get rid of it and my my anxiety and everything just flared up. And my depression I just got in a sprut and I couldn't get out of and I was in bed for

Probably at least three or four weeks. Just not wanting to help

Matt Gilhooly (33:02)
Wow.

Travis White (33:04)
with the kids because I couldn't and I ended up

Matt Gilhooly (33:07)
And it could be dangerous, right?

Travis White (33:08)
yeah, it was it was bad. But that was that point

Matt Gilhooly (33:10)
Yeah. But I could I could also imagine I was thinking,

you know, you had your life together, you had it taped

Travis White (33:17)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (33:18)
together and things were functioning, right? You you were feeling better than before, although still facing a lot of the things. But

I could imagine when the cluster comes again, it's like I I can't I don't want to go back to that.

Travis White (33:31)
Yeah.

Well what was weird, it was so out of left field I couldn't think of anything that I was doing to actually do that. Like I yeah, it was it was just weird. Like I I there was nothing that s parenthood, yeah, there's yeah, there's stress

Matt Gilhooly (33:43)
I'm sure parenthood, I mean, I'm sure there's a little bit of stress and lack of sleep.

Travis White (33:48)
'cause it's like I I got married in two thousand nineteen. We started having kids right away.

Because for where I live we actually got married older, so we started having kids a little bit older. it's probably just the stress between work, kids, and everything else I had going on. But that was I think the moment there I was like, Okay, well, I need to be there for my kids.

After, you know, calling the nine eight eight hotline and having some in laws help me out, like watch over me and having all these people like

show that they care about me. I was like, okay, well I need to be there for my kids.

Matt Gilhooly (34:21)
So you got

c you got close enough that you had to call the hotline, which is so important that it's there and a resource.

Travis White (34:24)
Yeah. Yeah, it was yeah.

it was more of the thought than anything. Like I was like

Matt Gilhooly (34:30)
Okay.

Travis White (34:31)
and my brother in law called me, I remember him calling me and saying like like what can we do to help you? Like you are an important piece of our life. at that time I don't think people understand how important that conversation is.

Like, you know, whether he did it himself or somebody asked him to call me, it's still important because I needed to hear it then that somebody cared enough about me to actually help me push through this rut.

Matt Gilhooly (34:56)
Yeah.

Yeah. And and people are so we're not taught how to do that for others.

And it's so scary to people. But I think what's important about what you just said is like we should do it anyway. We should reach

out to people. Just say that we're here, you know, and if you need anything or what can we do to help you and you might not have those answers, you know, you might just need someone to talk to, or you might just need someone to be there.

But think we on the other side with when we see people in our lives who have expressed interest in in what you were talking about or feel really off from where they were before, we just reach out, let know we care. goes a yeah, to your point, it goes a lot farther than it may seem on paper.

Travis White (35:44)
Yeah, well it sure it sure does. And I've I've been trying to be that person for some people that I in all my life that are struggling. But yeah, that was that was my turning point. From

Matt Gilhooly (35:52)
Yeah.

Travis White (35:53)
then I was like I I need to find figure this out. I need to go to therapy, you know, I need to see a doctor because I don't want I don't care what type of seizure it is, I just want the help. And so I actually went a different route. I

Went to my neurologist, he's like, Well, you need to go to therapy. So I went to therapy, but I also went to a functional medicine doctor.

And they did all these blood tests and I started taking supplements. Like found out I was like pre-diabetic. I found out like I all the types of things I was like vitamins and stuff that my body was low in. And

At that point I s I stopped eating as much sugar, so now I use a sugar substitute. And I wanna say like obviously like I I don't want to make a statement like, this is what everybody should do. Like this is this is what I did and it helped me out.

Matt Gilhooly (36:36)
Yeah, no. Yeah, we find our path, right?

Travis White (36:40)
And so I stopped eating as much gluten, stopped drinking soda, I kind of do the eighty twenty rule where I am eighty percent healthy and twenty percent, you know, just whatever I want.

did some intense therapy for a few months where I was going at least twice a week just started figuring stuff out, figuring out how to be there for myself. And this yeah, that was that was the end of

Matt Gilhooly (36:59)
Mm-hmm. And this is all fairly recent, right? Twenty twenty five.

Travis White (37:04)
yeah, that was the very beginning of twenty twenty five.

Matt Gilhooly (37:06)
Yeah. Did you were you

starting to see progression? 'Cause sometimes that's what we need to keep going.

Travis White (37:13)
yeah, I was so I did try therapy back in two thousand seventeen, but it w I wasn't like as into it. I was like, well maybe I want to do this, maybe I don't, then I lost my job, so I was like, I didn't go back. Funny thing is, I ended up going back to the same therapist that I did before because he I did fit like with his style.

But he I remember him saying, Yeah, I kinda remember you from my notes. But he started making me realize things that I didn't think about before.

And how stuck in my own mind I was,

Matt Gilhooly (37:41)
Yeah.

Travis White (37:42)
and I just didn't realize it.

Matt Gilhooly (37:43)
Yeah. Well, and it's those situations in which you have to be ready for that feedback and you have to be

willing to listen to it and see and process it in whatever way makes the most sense. It's not like you have to take everything that they say, but also you have to be willing to experience it to be able to

see if it even helps.

Travis White (38:04)
yes, for sure. And I feel that if I wasn't in that mindset where I had admitted that I had a problem, that I would have just said, Yeah, this this isn't gonna happen, this isn't gonna work out for me. Because I feel like the people that, you know, can't see that they have a problem or the ones that are not willing to go through the uncomfortable steps to you know, find that new path or create

A new life for themselves because you don't get your old life back.

Matt Gilhooly (38:31)
Right. Yeah. And especially with a medical issue on top of your mental health medical issue issues. it it makes it really complicated because even if you s help solve one of them, you still got the other one that you also have to contend

with. And does fixing one help the other? Maybe, maybe not, not in every situation. But to your point of like you have to be like

admit that you have a problem. I think for me, I found when I was in my most depressed eras of my life, it's, you know, comes and goes. But in those times, it's so much easier to stay that way than it is to work your way out of it. It's like so much more comfortable to just stay

in that terrible space, which kind of sounds dumb saying it out loud, but it's very true for me.

Travis White (39:23)
it's to me it doesn't sound dumb at all because I remember I I hide with the lights all all the time and my wife's like no you need to you need the sunlight. You you need it because it's good for your health and all this stuff. But when I get stuck in when I get in those ruts of darkness, it's sometimes a comfortable spot and

Matt Gilhooly (39:43)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (39:44)
it's easier than taking

The small step to even get out of bed. So I'd rather stay in bed all day. So I I'm right there with you. I totally agree.

Matt Gilhooly (39:51)
Yeah.

So here you are almost two years into this journey of, you know, reconnecting with yourself and kind of helping yourself through these mental health struggles. Like, how do you see yourself now compared to late twenty twenty four? Like is there is there a major difference in you or are you still somewhere on the path?

Travis White (40:13)
I

think I'm still on the path. I I think it's it's something that I'll always be working on. But it was mostly developing new habits. in some of those not even necessarily habits, just techniques so I can cope. you know, breathing exercises. one that I really love is called the five four three two one method.

Sometimes it's just taking thirty seconds to reset. Like if I 'cause oftentimes when I get depressed or anxious, I can get a little bit angry too. It's like builds up inside I'm starting to recognize these patterns more. So I'll tell my wife, you know, I I need a moment, like give me thirty seconds. And I can go back into the room with the kids that, you know, was

totally setting me off before, be like, okay, I'm I'm calm now, I can do this. But I think a lot of it is just recognizing your strengths and realizing that you there are so many different tools out there that can push you through this.

Matt Gilhooly (41:09)
Yeah. Yeah. For

me, the big breakthrough was like reminding myself that all of my emotions were okay and I didn't have to apologize or push any of them away. For so long it was like, you know, I'm in a bad mood and blah blah blah you know, like it's gonna ruin my week, blah, you know, you stay there. But now sometimes I'll wake up in a bad mood and I'll just be like, today's not so great, but

I know I've been through this before and I'm gonna you know, and

Travis White (41:35)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (41:36)
it doesn't keep me in that space. I just recognize that something's off and I acknowledge it and just be it is what it is, you know, like we're just trying. We're just trying.

Travis White (41:46)
it also something important for me was learning how to push the negative thoughts away. Because with my anxiety, like it's you know, it's you're a piece of crap, you're garbage, you're not good enough. So it's been really learning how to control those thoughts. And

I remember my therapist said a good way to do it, this works really well for me, is you know, pretend like there's a flowing river that's just going right by you.

And every time one of those thoughts come into your head, crumble it up like a piece of paper and throw it in that river and watch it float on down. So I've learned how to internally do that. At first you'd see me like really act like I'm grabbing a piece of paper and throwing

Matt Gilhooly (42:23)
Yeah.

Travis White (42:24)
it. And I remember my wife would look at me like, What you doing? But but now I can just visualize it. But

Matt Gilhooly (42:27)
Now you can just visualize it. Yeah.

Travis White (42:30)
that that type of stuff, just learning how to do something like that was like

Wow, it's so simple, but it's also mind blowing at the same time because you

Matt Gilhooly (42:37)
Yeah. Right.

Travis White (42:39)
don't know, realize what you're capable of. But I also want to say that I'm a more compassionate person. because of what I went through.

Matt Gilhooly (42:44)
Hm. Because of what you went through yourself.

Travis White (42:47)
Like I realize that people have stories and struggles. I try not to be I don't want to say I've ever been a world judgmental person, but now I try really hard, like, okay, well, maybe they're going through something that I don't know.

Matt Gilhooly (43:00)
And most of the time they probably are.

Travis White (43:01)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (43:03)
Whether they're gonna tell you or not is a different story. Yeah. How

Travis White (43:04)
No or not, there's a different story. Yep. Exactly.

Matt Gilhooly (43:07)
how is the how are the seizures? Are those still are you still managing those or what does that look like?

Travis White (43:13)
so with therapy and my diet change, they

Matt Gilhooly (43:17)
We should knock on some wood.

Travis White (43:19)
yes, I'm knocking on it right now. I have had signs of one like it's probably about a month ago, but I was super

Matt Gilhooly (43:26)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (43:27)
tired. But other than that, like I'll have it's almost more of a fear of them than anything. But I haven't had

Matt Gilhooly (43:33)
Makes sense.

Travis White (43:33)
really anything for

Since let's see, it had to've been November, December of twenty twenty four. And I

Matt Gilhooly (43:41)
Okay.

Travis White (43:41)
I I relate it back to my diet change and my therapy sessions.

Matt Gilhooly (43:44)
Yeah.

Good. Well, it gives you another signal to keep going with what you're doing and diving into who you are. Knowing what you know now. I

know you say you're still on the path, which I think we all should be all the time. What would you say to like the Travis that had to go to the hospital was walking out of the hospital after that first seizure? What is there anything you would want to tell him about this journey?

Travis White (44:05)
And you know, probably tell him there's light at the end the top light at the end of the tunnel. Stick your head up. You are good enough and you'll get through this.

Matt Gilhooly (44:15)
Yeah. And he'd be like, What are you talking about?

Travis White (44:17)
Yeah, he he would he honestly that point he'd probably be like, Yeah, I d I don't even know. Like it's he it it would be a big possibility for him to say, What are you talking about? I don't even know.

Matt Gilhooly (44:27)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and sometimes we just need that reminder like we're gonna be okay. And somehow,

Travis White (44:32)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (44:33)
if we're lucky enough with hard work or with whatever things we do, we find this space that you and I have found about our experiences and are able to look back on them and reflect on them and and not have shame about them and and just it it was what it was and we we move through the world

Because of what it was and what we've done since. So I think there's

some kind of luck to that, because not everyone is that lucky, you know. Had you not felt brave enough to call the hotline, you know, had your brother in law not reached out, maybe you wouldn't have been as lucky as as you were

Travis White (45:10)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (45:11)
able to take these steps. Not to say it's luck, but you know what I'm saying.

Travis White (45:14)
Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. It's and sometimes you have to do the uncomfortable things, you have to build habits, you have to push through those hard moments.

Matt Gilhooly (45:22)
Yeah.

And it's not gonna the hard part is always like you change all these habits and you're like, Well, it didn't happen overnight. You're like, I'm

Travis White (45:29)
Mm-hmm. And

Matt Gilhooly (45:31)
not better yet.

Travis White (45:32)
and see, the I had such a misconception when it came to anxiety and depression. So I thought I was going to the therapist first to cure it, to over you know, put it behind

Matt Gilhooly (45:41)
Mm. Right.

Travis White (45:43)
me. And he looked at me and kind of smiled. He's like, Travis.

No, you

Matt Gilhooly (45:46)
Yeah.

Travis White (45:47)
you'll never get rid of that. Like you've here we teach you the techniques to deal with it.

Matt Gilhooly (45:52)
Yeah, it's kinda like medicine.

Travis White (45:53)
Yeah, exactly.

Matt Gilhooly (45:55)
You know, you're kind of helping with the symptoms, right? And you kind of

Travis White (45:58)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (45:59)
I'd never thought of that was interesting. The way you said that made me think of like therapy and the tools and modalities and all those things are basically like medicine. They're not gonna cure us, but they are gonna help us manage what we have going on inside. Interesting. Thank you for that.

Travis White (46:15)
Yeah. But now

but now I think of like recent, you know, moments where I've felt anxious or depressed. I can get out of those routes so much easier because

Matt Gilhooly (46:25)
Yeah.

Travis White (46:25)
of the tools I have available to me.

Matt Gilhooly (46:27)
Right. So acknowledging that it's still there,

Travis White (46:30)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Gilhooly (46:31)
but you know how to put it to rest for a little bit until it comes

Travis White (46:35)
Yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (46:35)
back again. You know, I think that's so important. I I love that you're on this journey for yourself. I'm sorry that it took its its journey to get there for you to be able to be on this journey, but I'm sure you're finding this rediscovery of self and how you can live

in the world differently, probably a beautiful thing for you.

Travis White (46:53)
it's it's yeah, it's I'm actually feel like I'm finding purpose now.

Matt Gilhooly (46:58)
Mm.

Travis White (46:58)
And like I mentioned at the first, I've kind of been reinventing myself. I've gotten back into you know old hobbies. Okay, and to help me just to help me vent.

Matt Gilhooly (47:09)
Yeah.

Travis White (47:09)
I it's it's feel like I'm becoming this new person.

Matt Gilhooly (47:13)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (47:14)
to a point like I I started a podcast. I have yeah, it's it's

Matt Gilhooly (47:18)
Welcome to the world of podcasting.

Travis White (47:21)
I I I absolutely love it. I always say that it's a free therap therapy session for me.

Matt Gilhooly (47:25)
Yeah, it can be. It can be a nightmare too, if you make it. No, but I I mean I think all the things you're

Travis White (47:27)
Yeah. Yep. Yep, that's true too.

Matt Gilhooly (47:33)
doing too are is this also this legacy for your kids to see you really take care of yourself and then they can see and model kind of what you're doing, which is is really something a lot of young kids can use because you never know when it's gonna come up for them.

Travis White (47:51)
No, ex exactly. It's lot of it is just, you know, your journey and figuring out what works best for you. But I just wanna be there to help people.

Matt Gilhooly (48:00)
Yeah, well, you're doing it and I thank you for sharing your story in this way. I think more people wanna hear from you. So, like, what's the best way to find you, your podcast, connect with you on socials, tell you their story? Like, how do people get in Travis's orbit?

Travis White (48:14)
you can look me up overcome pod dot com. And I'm on Instagram and YouTube. The handle's just at overcome pod. And I also am on LinkedIn. That's it's I have an overcome s page, but I usually use my own

Matt Gilhooly (48:32)
Same.

Travis White (48:33)
for it's Travis White. I can't remember the handle but you could yeah.

Matt Gilhooly (48:36)
Fine. Yeah, we'll put some links in the show

notes so people can find it. I always just I think of the listener, and I think of the listener who hears something in your story, something resonates with them. Maybe they feel validated or less alone in whatever they're feeling. And then they find you and they reach out and they say, Hey, Travis, when you said this, it really connected to when I experienced this. And then we really see the true power of story. So.

Travis White (49:03)
Yeah. Yeah. And

it's then that's the best thing. And I always say like if even if it's just that one person, mean if I hear from that one person per episode, even if they don't say anything, like I like to think that there's just one person per episode that I am on or put out or whatever, that it it it does something for them.

Matt Gilhooly (49:22)
I agree with that. Because if it does something for someone, what does the ripple effect look like? You know, so

Travis White (49:27)
Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Matt Gilhooly (49:29)
thank you for what you do, for the mental health space and and the conversations that you're having. And thank you for being a part of this. It was a pleasure to talk to you, Travis.

Travis White (49:39)
So do you thank you for having me on, Matt.

Matt Gilhooly (49:41)
For sure. And thank you all for listening. I will be back probably in a couple of days with a brand new episode. Thanks again, Travis.