D Paul Fleming | Healing Childhood Trauma Through Storytelling & Becoming a Veteran Advocate Artwork

Grieving Voices

Grieving Voices is a podcast started by a lifelong griever for grievers. The mission of Grieving Voices is to change the conversation around grief, and how we address our own and that of others and give grievers a platform for sharing what grief has taught them. Through education and personal story, listeners will learn more effective ways to help themselves and others. The Grieving Voices podcast is part of The Unleashed Heart, LLC. Grief resources and additional support are available at www.theunleashedheart.com

All Episodes

Grieving Voices

D Paul Fleming | Healing Childhood Trauma Through Storytelling & Becoming a Veteran Advocate

October 29, 2024 • Victoria V | D Paul Fleming • Season 5 • Episode 217

Send Victoria a text message!

D Paul Fleming, a retired Navy veteran and spiritual healer, shares his lifelong journey from trauma to healing. His story is a testament to resilience, as he recounts overcoming severe childhood abuse detailed in his book "2,442 Steps To Crazy."

Through writing and sharing his experiences, Fleming found therapeutic relief while inspiring fellow veterans facing similar challenges. D Paul and I discuss the systemic issues within the Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system. Despite its flaws—such as inconsistent care and bureaucratic hurdles—our conversation highlights the need for holistic support addressing physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual pain.

Fleming’s narrative underscores the power of storytelling in healing processes and advocates for creating safe spaces where veterans can freely express their vulnerabilities without judgment. He emphasizes unity among veterans regardless of their roles or experiences during service. Reflecting on personal anecdotes about confronting suicide temptations due to VA shortcomings further illustrates these struggles’ complexity.

Ultimately, Fleming inspires hope by urging others to share and listen deeply—a call to action reminding us that through collective understanding comes strength and healing beyond individual battles faced alone.

RESOURCES:

CONNECT:

_______

NEED HELP?

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor

If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.

CONNECT WITH VICTORIA:

Support the show

This episode is sponsored by Do Grief Differently™️, my twelve-week, one-on-one, in-person/online program for grievers who have suffered any type of loss to feel better. Click here to learn new tools, grief education, and the only evidence-based method for moving beyond the pain of grief.

Would you like to join the mission of Grieving Voices in normalizing grief and supporting hurting hearts everywhere? Become a supporter of the show HERE.

Victoria Volk: Oh, friends. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Greeting Voices. If this is your first time listening, thank you for being here. And if you are returning, thank you for coming back. Today, my guest is D Paul Fleming, he is a retired and disabled US Navy veteran, life coach, business consultant, public speaker, and published author. In alignment with his native American heritage and spiritual gifts, he is also a seasoned holy man. Spiritual adviser and healer. And today, we are going to be talking about your work and what you're doing for veteran suicide. And so I'm very honored to have you as a guest.
I am also a veteran. My husband is a veteran. I come from a long line of veterans. And so thank you for sharing your story today and for bringing this awareness to my podcast.

D Paul Fleming: Well, I'm grateful to be on your show. Thank you so much for having me.

Victoria Volk: Often people do the work that they're doing because they often have a personal story and there's something that led them to take that path of being a healer, being a spiritual adviser, in your work, doing the work that you're doing with veterans and suicide. But I wanna start back in your early life and what were the messages and lessons that you've experienced in grief and trauma or anything in childhood. Because what I have found is that especially people who have had a lot of grief or trauma in their childhood and they go into the military, it can be compounded. And I really firmly believe that there's a larger conversation there as in terms of when it comes to aces, like adverse childhood experiences and with veterans. So I'd wanna dig deeper into that later in the conversation, so we'll put a pin in that. But let's start first with your origin story, if you don't mind.

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. That's a that's a big topic to cover. I actually put it out in the very first book that I ever wrote, two thousand four hundred and forty two steps to crazy. And it kinda takes you from my first memory, which is being tossed through the air and in the corner of a couch and breaking a couple of bones through the my last day with the stepfather, which I call crazy for for good reason. The part that kind of dovetails into a veteran's life is everything I wrote in that book I never talked about. I've been married for, as I like to say, fifty years Right? And never said anything to my wife and certainly never said anything to my kids. So when I wrote the first book of my childhood and handed it to my wife and published form, was the first time she knew anything about it. It took her a few days to kinda come around to to talk to me. And, you know, when she did, you know, the first things out of her mouth was you weren't abused. You were tortured. You know, you kind of kind of made me draw back and say, you know, I never really looked at it that way, you know. From my experience, abused children kind of blamed themselves for everything. Right? So whether you whether you really believe it's your fault or not, that's kind of the overall feeling that you're left with that that life of, you know, being told from first memories to you know, when you finally get out of those situations that you're you're nothing. You're never gonna amount anything. You're terrible. You're you're relying on this and that and and so on. You know, the verbal abuse is probably the most destructive, you know, the physical abuse, the broken bones, the, you know, the concussions, the, you know, all the things that I had to survive through, you know, are are not as memorable as the as the verbal abuse. That that sticks with me to this day. And it's very very difficult to to overcome. Very difficult.

Victoria Volk: What does that look like for you?

D Paul Fleming: You

Victoria Volk: know overcoming it? I mean, I imagine that it was very therapeutic to write the book, but what how did you get to that point where you were even able to put it into words on paper?

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. I I do my best to try and keep these answers not long winded, but the but to really answer that is a very, very long conversation. So let me see if I can kinda cliff note it. As far back as I can remember, I've had a deep, deep faith. And it, you know, a couple of points in my life I got pretty pissed off and started blaming God and so on as many of us do that live through top stuff. Right? But my faith is what kinda kept me upright. And in the end, it was my faith that kind of time. My faith is is kind of my cornerstone. And even in the darkest times when I was, you know, terrified and terrorized and brutalized, I always had in the back of my head somewhere that feeling, that sense, that something was there watching over me and kinda fast forward through life, if you will. It started coming to me that I need to I need to write this book, I need to start telling these stories. And I had an argument with myself, the baby Jesus, God, every spirit known to man forever. I'm not writing a book, I'm not telling a story. Who the hell wants to hear my crap? Right? I nobody's gonna read this. Nobody. Well, I finally had to give up and and say, alright. Fine. If if the baby Jesus is gonna leave me alone, I better write this book. So I sat down and wrote the book, and that was brutal. It was absolutely brutal. It took me, you know, year and a half to to write it. But I wrote it four or five times, threw it out, started over. It was it was difficult. But once I got through remembering and then my wife reading the book, the relief that started coming along. And again, it didn't all happen at once. It kinda happened as I was writing it. But the relief that came along was transforming. I mean, it really was. It was it was, like, spring cleaning or or emptying your closet, you know, getting all the crap out of there and, you know, turning a light on. You know, I could see what was what had happened to me. You know? And I still blame myself, of course. Right? You know, I can't undo that piece, but I don't feel the burden of self blame. You know? And then, of course, when I start talking to other people who start telling their stories, you know, I'm like, jeez. You know, I'm I'm dumbfounded at how many people had, you know, abusive childhoods or relationships and how many people have come to me and said that this book has helped them. And between this and some of my other stuff that I've written, I've had people, especially veterans, come to me and say, quote, your book saved my life, unquote. So that's kinda where, you know, that's kind of the cliff notes that that got me to write the books and tell the story. And then after you do a couple hundred podcasts, you kinda start getting I don't wanna say numb to it, but, you know, it's it's a lot easier to talk about it.

Victoria Volk: May I ask what happened? Where was your father, your biological father, and your mother Oh,

D Paul Fleming: you're not my father?

Victoria Volk: Yep. Your biological

D Paul Fleming: father. And Yeah. I I didn't know. I don't know. I have no idea.
My my mother had first my myself and my brother, you know, out of wedlock and never met him. My brother's never met his father. And then my mother hooked up with crazy and had a couple kids but I I I don't know. My my lineage goes through my mother, to my grandfather, it was a full blooded native American junked reservation and the Carlisle schools, if you will. Joined the navy, claimed he was white, and rose to the ranks of being an enlisted man riding submarines in world war two to retiring in nineteen sixty five as a lieutenant. I'm still disowning his Native American heritage because, again, back then, you, you know, you're a a cook or a, you know, a Boson's bank. Right? If you're a black Native American, you know, so That's kind of the extent of my lineage. You know, I know that I I know from my mother, I know pieces of who the guy was, but, you know, never met him.

Victoria Volk: And as far as the relationship with your mother, because I imagine she's, you know, brought this gentleman into your home and was there it was I imagine it was just a home of chaos, but what did you Were you able to have a relationship with her?

D Paul Fleming: No.

Victoria Volk: Okay.

D Paul Fleming: No. No. I I to this day, I still can't understand how a mother can, you know, let somebody abuse her child. You know? I mean, I just don't I don't understand how people can hit women. I just don't. It's it's something I've I've screamed about my whole life. You just don't hit women. Period. Period. You just don't do it. And you don't hit kids. You know what I mean? I I got six kids, but I gotta tell you, I'd love to smack a few of them around. Right? Not some Jesus. Right? But it's just not it's not what you do. Again, I'm not telling people you can't smack your kid on the ass and, you know, crack them in a mouth for custiny or something. I'm not I'm not telling you how to raise your kid. What I'm telling you is, you know, there's a there's a pretty significant difference between smacking a kid on the button and, you know, breaking his arm. Or the scar on my nose is from waking up with a a waking up on, you know, I had something thrown at me in the middle of the night from crazy and, you know, I'm clustered and blood and, you know, no idea what the hell is going on. That's abuse. I mean, that's just brutal brutal abuse. Right? So no. There was there was never a relationship. You know, I don't really talk to my mother much. She's in her eighties now. I've seen her once in the last I don't know a year, but I probably only seen her two or three times in the last five or ten years, you know.
So

Victoria Volk: Sometimes in cases of abuse, there's one child that kind of gets the brunt of everything, but sometimes

D Paul Fleming: winter baby. Winter, I was the one.

Victoria Volk: So you were the were you the only one that then were all was all were all the children have used to some degree? Or was it were was it pretty much just you? Like Yeah.

D Paul Fleming: I might my brother would get smacked around and I had two younger sisters, they never got touched, you know. But I was, you know, like the like the dog in the pound. Right? I'd step in between them. Mhmm. K? And I would defend my mother. I'd defend my my siblings. I would even instigate to get his attention on me so that he wouldn't, you know, start beating on the other ones. You know? But my brother has a completely different outlook on all of it. You know? You know, we we don't talk about it. When I told him I was writing this book, he he he got pretty upset. You know? I mean, bent out of shape, you know. But he doesn't judge me. I don't judge him. You know? So kind of we're we're still good friends. Right? You know, but just some subject to don't talk about. He sees he sees our mother, you know, I I wanna say every day, but, you know, he's constantly constantly whether or around her. No.

Victoria Volk: And there's grief in that. Right? Like, the the loss of hope streams and expectations of what a family unit could have been and what what could have been, I imagine that Maybe you maybe Yeah. I'm through at some point.

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. I I was never able to identify fairly what I wanted for a family. And when I when I hooked up with my wife, she had two kids, and we had four together. You know? So from day one, I felt lost. You know, I didn't I didn't know how to be a father. Right? So I would do as much digging as I could to find out the how to do things. And I, you know, couldn't tell you if I was a good father or bad father. You know, I just know that I did everything I could to the best of my ability. You know, they never went hungry. They never went without paid for their colleges, you know, paid for cars, did it all, you know. But, you know, I'm I'm not a classic father of the sense who I never missed any of the kids sporting events from you know, for decades. Right? You know, I was always there. But, again, I'm kind of a, you know I mean, a veteran by itself is a is an outcast to a degree. Right? You know, we don't really fit in tomorrow. And I and I kind of preach the veterans. Stop. Stop trying to fit in as a civilian. We're not civilians. Let's accept who we are. Right? And be us. Right? We don't have to fit in anywhere. So and I'm very good at not fitting in. Right? You know?

Victoria Volk: You know, one of the things that came up for me as I was listening to you is sometimes what happens is too, like, children will I mean, they run away a lot. In the case of abuse, they'll just they'll run away. Is that, like, did you run away? And

D Paul Fleming: So how funny is that? Along the lines of running away. I In book two of David's, I don't know, two thousand four hundred and forty two steps to crazy. That's that's about my personal life. Right? In book two, I start talking about this family, Frankie Pilaries, old Italian family. Right? And I mean, old Italian parents didn't speak English. Right? Wine in the in the shed scrapes all of it. Okay? Well, it was a number of months ago. I I haven't seen Franki Polari in fifty years. Right? Okay. But he used to have he used to have two or three of the most beautiful sisters on the planet. Again, when you're ten years old, right? You know, any woman that puts her hand on your shoulder, like, oh my god. Right? I'm in love. Okay. Well, my wife and I are at this farm shop, not not far from our house. I haven't been there in forever. And this girl's looking at me and she's looking at me and finally says, are you dog fleming? And I'm like, yeah. Why? She goes, I'm Frank Pulary's sister. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. Right? Why why am I saying that? Well, I think I ran away to Frank Pulary's shed three or four times. I don't remember, but she bought the book and she was she was unbelievably shocked at the level of abuse. Because they they had seen it. You know, I I used to run there and run away there and eat and hide until they kinda turn me back over, like like the Gestapo. Right? But, yeah, I'd I'd ran away I I don't know how many times. I mean, I'd ran away so many times. I've never really counted them, you know, And then the final time, the ending of the book, you know, why do you read that? I mean, that was the the ending of steps to crazy. Okay? You wanna talk about something that's gonna make you think about anything and everything that's happened in your life? Because I sat there on the razor's edge. K? Was I going to be murdered or was I going to commit murder? Right? Which was it? Was it self defense? Okay? Because it was one hell of a brawl the last time I was under crazies roof. Right? And all the Right. Last time the cops broke fourteen. Thirteen or fourteen? And that was it. I I I was on I've been on my own ever since. So I left Where

Victoria Volk: did you go?

D Paul Fleming: So I I lived on the street for a while. My my first hiding place with a cemetery, but that didn't work out real well because turns out more homeless people hang out in the cemeteries and you can shake a stick at and, again, this is back fifty years ago. Right? So now I I lived in a cemetery, but I had had strategically placed in different chunks of woods, you know, survival gear. Because I when I couldn't take it anymore, I would I would leave and, you know, hide in the woods for a few days and, you know, finally it gets so cold, so tired. So I saw much you could do. You know? But yeah. So he used to live in the woods, and then in and out of state, shit for a while, and that that was horrible. That was horrific.
And I mean, horrific. So I was determined never to go back to the state care. And then again, if you kind of if you have faith folks that have a belief in, you know, the supernatural god and so on. You know, you you kinda know that you go through things. And then right when you think it's all over, right, something walks in and kinda helps you out. Well, for me, there was two people two families that kinda took me in. And as I as I like to say, I would be their debtor and present if it wasn't for them. So if you're thinking about being a foster parent or helping out, you know, some young bunk on the street, and I'm here to tell you, you can you can you can change lives. You can change history.

Victoria Volk: My husband and I have talked about it actually.

D Paul Fleming: Now, even even temporary. Now, even even temporary. Right? You know, holidays are just even to this day, holidays to me or a nightmare. Now, I can't stand absolutely can't stand. Hate Christmas. Hate my birthday. Right? I don't want anything to do with it. Right? You know, but but why? Because my memories of those events are horrific. Right? I don't mean horrific as in, you know, you didn't get presents right there. I mean, you know, holidays are stressful enough when you're young raising kids. Right? Now, stressful paying bills. Right? Now, mix crazy into that mess. Into that mess. Okay? And I do mean crazy. Right? No.

Victoria Volk: What happened to him? Was he ever arrested? Was he ever I mean, was your mom married him long after you were he left? And

D Paul Fleming: Yep. You're you're ready you're ready to throw up? He died at the age of seventy three, and my family asked me to to read his ulogy. And to God, I did.

Victoria Volk: You did?

D Paul Fleming: Oh, I I did. Okay? Again, I when I say I I would do anything for my family, I have. Okay? Some of the hardest things I've ever done in my life have been done because, you know, my family has asked me to do something. Right? Again, my wife said to me, if you don't read it, nobody's gonna read it. You know? So say, what do you think? She goes, I think you should read it or she didn't know anything about it. Right? Because the book only came out.

Victoria Volk: Read your story at the time?

D Paul Fleming: No. No. Nobody did. Oh, we did. So we were supposed to be down in Florida at a wrestling event for three of my kids who were in high school. But, you know, we had to put that off to the side and that left me with, you know, the two oldest and and my youngest who was probably, I don't know, seven or eight. So I'm up there in Saint Joseph's Church. I've got some great stories about Saint Joseph, by the way. It's pretty cool place. Anyway, and I mean, I'm struggling. I'm struggling internally. I'm having a a a fist fight of how in god's name can I be standing here doing this? Right? The other side of my brain is saying, you know, listen, just suck it up, get it done. Right? You know what? A veteran military approach. Right? Just get just get it over. Just get it done. Get it done. Get it done. Get it done. And then I got stock. Okay. And I mean stock. All of a sudden, I see my youngest kid hop out of the pew and comes bounding down the aisle, up onto the center stage of the church and grabs my hand and looks at me and goes, you got it. I was like, okay. Alright. So I I then understood the importance of doing things, especially things you don't, you really don't wanna do. I wasn't there for him, and I certainly wasn't there for me. I was there for what funerals are meant to be, for those who are living. Right? So, of course, I didn't say any of the bad stuff. I just kinda, you know, fluttered in a few things that, you know, certain people would pick up on. Right? But others wouldn't No. Let me dovetail that into another short quick story. Anybody that believes in the afterlife and paranormal, okay, if you've gone through any form of trauma, abuse or even a life and death situation. Okay? I always say you get a peek behind the veil. Okay? You get so close to Jesus when you're in those moments that you can actually see on the other side of the veil. Okay? One of the things that used to drive crazy crazy was that I could see things that nobody else could. So I could see what was around him and the amount of darkness in our evil that was around him is staggering. Okay? So I would point things out as a as a gift. And it would make him go crazy. Okay? Or crazier. Right? So here I am sitting in this church knowing these things and knowing how evil he was. And it kinda hit me as my youngest son, Dakota, is holding my finger. Right? Just hold on. It was kinda got his head up against my thigh. And I'm saying, alright. So that's the life he led Now I understand why he was so terrified to die because now judgment's coming into play. Okay? And I survived all of that, and I spent my life helping people. Even even back as a kid, I'd I'd help people. Right? And it kinda dawned on me. It's like, I just keep keep living as clean of life as you can. And again, I'm not a I'm no angel. Trust me on that. Right? But he was so terrified of dying that he did everything he could right to his last breath. And I'm sitting there saying, listen, man, but he's a good day to die. Right? I've got no regrets. Right? I've done the best that I can. I'm happy to go see the baby Jesus. I'm sure I've got some things to answer for, I will, but nothing like he has to. Right? How's that, grabbed you?

Victoria Volk: It's a perspective, I think, that people don't think about in peep you know, as far as, like, people in our lives, who maybe didn't live the most loving of a life, who might be holding on and afraid like you said, it's a different perspective. So thank you for sharing that.

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. So all all our fellow vets out there, you know. Remember, I'm not advocating, you know, that today is a good day to die. What I am telling you is that if you've lived your life every day to the best of your ability, then and and don't be afraid to die. Okay?
There's good stuff on the other side. Okay? But that doesn't give you permission or or my consent to commit suicide. It's not happening. Okay? You do that and you you know, I don't wanna I don't wanna say it. I'm gonna say it this way, but it's not really how I mean it. Okay? If you commit suicide, you give up all that good stuff that you did. Right? Suck it up, let's keep moving forward. Okay? And, you know, when you whenever you do get into the the part about talking about suicide, listen, I I lived it. All the anxiety, all the pain. I I get it.
Okay? But you you you gotta you gotta look at everything you suffered through, everything you're dealing with, and say, you can you can keep dealing with it one more day. And tomorrow is gonna be another day and it will get better. I guarantee it. It's gotta get better. It's gotta

Victoria Volk: You have to have hope.

D Paul Fleming: Faith. Right?

Victoria Volk: Faith. Yeah.

D Paul Fleming: Right? You gotta have faith. You gotta have faith in something. Okay? And What

Victoria Volk: what do you think kept you? Because you're sitting here. Right? And you're talking about suicide. I imagine you came close.

D Paul Fleming: Yes.

Victoria Volk: He attempted.

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. As I write in my in my book, a David suicide, the first two paragraphs call it out. You know, I sat there with the opportunity and the means. Okay? Not just once.
Right? But why why didn't I finish what I started?

Victoria Volk: Aldria.

D Paul Fleming: The first time? Mhmm. You know, I sat there? I would I would mid twenties. Mid twenties. But as I said, I was I was a keynote speaker in North Carolina American Legion Galla for suicide awareness. And Laurie Mhmm. Writes the who has the Christmas trees with suicide veterans photos on them coming in from all over the country. It's a great she's doing a great thing for all veterans. Anyway, I point out that everything I went through including the military. I never thought a suicide until I left the VA for the first time in my life. And when I walked out of the VA and that's in one of these chapters in here. Okay? I remember saying, I'll kill myself before I get caught in that nightmare in this mess. Okay? And it didn't really dawn on me until I sat down and wrote the book a date with suicide, and I had I had the answer to my own question. When did I first when did I first say it? When did I first think about killing myself? And then I think about all the shit I did, you know, up until I was fourteen and how I survived all that? And then the military, right? I I never I never thought of killing myself until I got in the quagmire of the VA. So when I say the VA is PTSD, the VA is suicide, listen, I'm living proof. And I I can't tell you how many veterans I talked to. Let's say the exact same thing. Okay? The the backstop, the net, if you will, that's supposed to be there for us. Just just simply isn't. It just simply isn't. So expectations of the VA are like therest of expectations in our lives. Right? Expectations, the mother of all let down. Right? So if you don't have hope and purpose, if you don't have faith, you what what what is your net? What's the net that's carrying it?

Victoria Volk: Can you share a little bit more about that just because I'm personally curious because on the flip side of that coin, I've had a really wonderful experience with the VA, so it was my husband. So it could be your location to be fair. And so what was it that there were just weren't the services there? Or there was a delay? Or there wasn't enough help?

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. So I'm gonna spin that around on you. The reality is there's a handful of VAs that are doing well, and I mean a small handful. There's a facility done in Fort Myers Florida that I've heard great things about, but it's a small place. Okay? And for the most part, the VA system, if you can find a a a functioning group, inside that VA. So let's just say you're, you know, you're having, you know, you just need check up. You just need basic healthcare. And you get into a VA that has a good doctor in there. Right? Most people have great experience from them. I've seen one or two vets that have said to me, you know, they treat me like a king in here. It's great. And I hear him saying this as we're walking out or others are walking out ready to kill themselves. Right? So I think it has a lot to do with, yeah, location. Okay? But what are the limits of the issues of the veterans who say, you know, they've they've had a good experience with VA? When I listened to the director of the American Legion say that he's talking with veterans all over the country and he's and he says, and he brags about this. The one thing I haven't heard is anybody complain about the healthcare they get at the VA.
Okay? I mean, that draws me so far back that I I've I've I've I've stopped getting my bet on my Legion magazine because that is so misleading it's sick. Right? When you sit here and you when you watch the hearing last week where the VA was called before Congress, then a Navy Seal congressman looks at these arrogant bastards and the VA rep says, well, in the last two years, statistically, veterans who call the nine eight eight number are ten times more likely to commit suicide within the next twelve months. Again, don't believe me, just Google it. Okay? It's an open hearing in Congress. Right? Then he has your audacity to say, but our numbers are thirty percent down on suicide. Again, that's just a bold faced lie.
That's just an absolute abstract lie. Okay? So folks that have a good experience in the VA, tend to have a primary doctor somewhere in there. That's kind of overseeing what's going on. Okay? But I guarantee you, you pull that doctor out, the whole thing collapses. It's everyone I've talked to can relate to one person or one department, so to speak. Right? I personally have been in the system for about forty years. Right? Plus or minus? I have had somewhere north of thirty different primary doctors. Wow. Okay. Well, let me correct that.
Half of them are doctors. Right? They had one doctor who was his license was taken away. Okay? The best doctor that I had, flat out said to me, She says, I can't take this anymore.
I'm leaving. The best mental health therapist that I had left. Right? So the inconsistency, the inability to have trust and confidence in the VA is a key factor. Now when you take someone like me, I'm already walking into a fight. Right? That's just the way it's been for me for over forty years. When you see somebody new coming off the street and they go to the VA, and they have an initial great experience. Okay? Well, what are the issues? What are you going to the VA for? Are you going to solve physical pain, mental pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain? What are you going to solve? The VA does some things very well, like, limbs. Right?
But what do they do for spinal cord injuries? They're horrible unless you get into a couple of the niche places that have high end doctors that are affiliated with universities. In Connecticut, Yale University is affiliated with the VA. But if you read the history of the VA in Yale New Haven, in nineteen eighty six, they got caught by the OIG for injecting patients with experimental crap that was killing dozens and dozens of veterans. That's widespread throughout the VA. Again, I'm gonna step down off my VA bashing box, if you will. And tell you when I first went to the VA was in Boston. Now I've been in VA's up and down the East Coast. Right? I had to go to the seventh floor and the short version is when I got off the elevator and I write about extensively in the book, When I got off the elevator, the hallways were lined with veterans. There was feces and urine everywhere. It's stumped to high hell. There were veterans of their arms out begging to help. Please help me. Help me.
Help me. Okay? I'm in my early twenties going, what the fuck did I just walk into? Right? I was discharged from Navy at the end of my four year active hitch to VA because I got hurt, physically got hurt. Okay. A couple of times. So I'm there for I don't know why. My assumption was that to solve the problem of why am I in so much pain? What happened? Okay? Right. Next thing I know I'm in a closet with a mop and a bucket, and a guy in a white jacket who says he's a doctor. Spend five minutes with him and he says, we'll have a decision to you soon. That was it. That was my experience with the VA. It took all day I got there at seven o'clock in the morning and at three thirty in the afternoon. That's when I saw the doctor. Okay? And I write about it extensively in the book. For the next ten years, that's how the system operated. Okay? Until I got up until they finally medically retired me. Now, fast forward to twenty eighteen when they signed the Choice Act. Okay? And I went to private care after thirty years, forty years, I finally got answers by going to the Yukon Health getting into Yukon Health. Right? Not only did I get answers, they solved problems. They solved problems, the VA couldn't even imagine. Okay? My shoulder, the last time I was at the VA was roughly two thousand ten for any form of treatment physical treatment. I was going in for a steroid injection. Right? Or I'm saying steroid. Right? I think it's not steroid, but injection. Porges. Porges. Okay. So the lady pulls my shirt up. It's a doctor. He pulls my shirt up, drabs the needle and squeezes. Okay? I start screaming. Again, I never go to VA without somebody, normally my wife. Okay? This thing hurt for weeks on end. Right? Now fast forward eight, nine years. When I went to private care, they say, yeah, you yeah. Cortisol injection would help. They pull out this paranoid. Right? They pull out all this hardware and they're scoping it and everything else and they direct this needle into this spot and the pain of of the needle hurt. But once they took that out, the relief that I got in my shoulder was night and day. Right? So when you wanna talk about veterans who commit suicide or on that path, mental pain is one of the was one of the forefront reasons for suicide. Just can't take it anymore. Physical pain we can deal with. But when you start adding or decreasing physical pain, it affects you mentally. Affect you emotionally, affect you spiritually. Right? So all of a sudden, I'm in private care and I'm starting to get answers. They solved the problem of my lower spine where the VA for, you know, the twenty, thirty years said there's nothing wrong with you. Okay? Well, it turns out there's a little bone chip in there that there was something wrong with me and it's gotten my fecal sac. Okay? Now next thirty years in the VA, two appointments at private care and we solved the problem. Okay? And I can run down the list of things that private care took of took care of that VA said, either I was crazy, it doesn't exist, or they had no logic for it. And I've got all of my every record ever. I've got my MRIs. I've got my x rays. All my medical record. Okay? Anyway, when you look at the VA and people like me who are struggling to figure out what's wrong with me and the VA doesn't give you answers. Okay? What's left? So aside?

Victoria Volk: Yeah, I can totally understand that. Totally see that. And the Choice Act was probably the best thing they've ever done just to handle the influx of the veterans that are needing care that aren't getting it. And so even for my husband and I, like that was a huge positive for us as well, I can say from my standpoint of I facilitate a program called the grief recovery method, And I tried for the first two years when I got certified in early twenty nineteen and I attended a mental health summit for veterans that was put on by the VA. And topic of suicide. And never once was the I mean, they had social it was a roomful of social workers, psychologists, therapists, whatever. Not once did they use the word grief, not at once. They didn't even mention trauma, not once. So afterwards, I go up to this psychologist and I talk to her a little bit and I share with her what I've been trying to do because I had meetings with local VA, I had meetings with our seabock, yeah, the seabock, the local VA, and then also the veterans, which is it called, I can't like, it escapes my brain right now, but they facilitate services for in the community. It's outside of the VA, but it's affiliated with the VA, of course. Of course, ran by social workers and things. Talk to them about the program because the grief recovery institute has been trying to get this program onto military one source for years. It changes lives. So that hasn't been happening. So what they've been doing is the institute has been training chaplains and social workers within the system and anybody who's willing to get certified with who are already in the system. But it's like for the military to say that this is an approved service has been so much bureaucratic red tape I gave up after two years. I was just like, I wasn't getting anywhere. Doors slammed on my face, but we already have our thing. We already do a certain thing. They didn't wanna hear it. And it's like, I'm telling you, as a veteran myself, this changed my life. It's changing people's lives. They didn't wanna hear it.

D Paul Fleming: So in that group of college boys, as I as I love to call them, how many of them talked about the with with the topic of suicide, how many talk to about mental pain?

Victoria Volk: All of them. I mean, there were people that share there were soldiers that shared their stories.

D Paul Fleming: Okay. How many talk about emotional pain?

Victoria Volk: All of them.

D Paul Fleming: How many talk about spiritual pain?

Victoria Volk: I think one guy even, to your point, like, he was home ended up homeless for a time. And, of course, that would he didn't say the word spiritual, that his spirituality suffered, but that's what happens. That even happens just with anybody in grief often. You know, we we struggle with, like, answering those questions, like, why me? And God did this to me? And of course, that's gonna translate into having someone to blame. Right? And so who do you blame? You blame God? I did. I had my own traumas and stuff in childhood. I mean, that's what happens. So yeah,

D Paul Fleming: I So how many of the VA employees? K? Talk about the four corners of what leads to suicide. Physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional pain or trauma.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. That's what I'm saying. That's like they didn't they didn't I mean, granted this was maybe they do now, but at their summits or whatever, but this was six years ago, five years ago?

D Paul Fleming: Nope. When this when I when this came out, I I was shocked at the number of professionals that responded and posted reviews. One lady said she was a VA trauma nurse for thirty years, going in the mental health industry. I think she was in Coatesville. Right? Pennsylvania. She said she wrote a review saying after thirty years of dealing with this, you're the first veteran who actually told the story. She's been trying to get veterans to tell their story what happened to them for thirty years, and nobody would. Right? Now, I know the reason why. Reason is nobody trusts the VA, so you're not gonna tell them stuff. When you wanna talk about suicide and the VA solving the problem, listen, oil and water. It's not happening. Okay? First and foremost, because what they do is, like you said, they surround themselves with social workers and how many of those people are veterans?

Victoria Volk: Yep. And they're misinformed about grief, which is why I started this podcast.

D Paul Fleming: Okay. How many how many of those people had that and that seminars that with the college degrees and the social working experiences? How many of them are veterans?

Victoria Volk: I don't I couldn't tell you, but I'm pretty sure probably very few.

D Paul Fleming: I agree. Coming out of world war two, what did they say at the VA? World war two veterans forced the VA employees to be world war two veterans. Period. Period.
So you had world war two veterans dealing with and relating to one or two veterans. Right? The shift came when the when the VA started unionizing, okay, and putting all these requirements out of what you have to be to work at the VA. Okay? That happened in what?
Fifties and sixties. Right? And then Vietnam. So you go to Vietnam and you watch the number of veterans drop from work at VA to this day. You'll have people that say, I'm a veteran and you ask them, well, what did you do? Unfortunately, far too many of them are already in the VA type system somewhere in the military. Okay? Very few of them are SandBox vets. Right? Very few of them are submarine vets. Very few of them are aircraft carrier vets. So how is a veteran who's dealing with physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional pain supposed to be able to communicate, trust, and relate to somebody who's never been there? This is why the veteran community, things like you're doing, are so highly successful because people like me are willing to open up with people like you. I've talked to my wife for fifty years about my childhood.

Victoria Volk: Yeah. The the grief recovery method was actually founded by Vietnam veteran. It's near and dear to my heart, but Did

D Paul Fleming: you get all your answers from my childhood? Did you wanna kinda go back there? I'm happy I'm happy to talk about it.

Victoria Volk: No. I think it shapes who you become. It shapes who you are, of course. And I guess well, let's go from you deciding and choosing the military and particularly the navy.

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. I as long as I can remember, I knew I was going in the military. Right?

Victoria Volk: As an escape? Because many people choose it as an escape.

D Paul Fleming: No. No. No. I you know how you just know certain things? K?
I I just knew, but I knew it. I knew it from a very young age. And then, of course, you know, between fourteen and seventeen, you know, I'm working full time. I'm trying to get through high school. So on and so on. And I wasn't always a I wasn't always a good kid. Right? So the the final straw was was in front of a gentleman who had a very, you know, well done tie and black robe and he sat up on a bench elevated above the rest of us, you know. Until till the to my left was a a really pissed off guy in another suit and was telling a judge what he thought. Right? So the judge wanted to see my enlistment papers, you know, I wanted to go into marines I was seventeen, so I needed a parent to sign for me. So I had to go see my mother. Right? So she wouldn't sign for the Marines, but she agreed to sign for the Navy because her father was in the Navy. So that's kinda that's kinda how I ended up in the military, but it goes back to the fact that I I always knew. I knew I knew my path from as far back as I can remember was was was gonna be going through the military.

Victoria Volk: What did you do after I mean, so while you were in service and training and things like that, did it bring up anything from your past?

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. So you never you never you never you never far from it. Yeah. Right? I mean, it's always right next to you, right behind you. You know, it's a wet blanket that'll snuggle up to you for far too many times and you can't remember. Right? You just you you can't shake it. You can you can get past things. You can you can accept things and you can they can stop bothering you for the most part. But they're they're always right there. But one of the things that it did for me was it taught me that you you you have to kill me to beat me because I won't quit. I just won't quit. Right? You know, when that, you know, all growing up in a nasty, abusive childhood, you know, you either quit or take the beatings or you never quit and take the beatings. Right? I I never quit. I never backed down. I never bent the knee. Every time you knock me down, I stood back up. Well, not every time it was times they took me out in ambulance. But, you know, so my focus in the military was Listen, you I don't care how bad you this is gonna get. I ain't quitting. And then, ironically, when I went to boot camp, I was bored. It was the worst thing that happened was you gotta yell at? You know? I mean, like, I was like, jeez. This is it. This is boot camp.

Victoria Volk: You became

D Paul Fleming: you know, you didn't cuss that. Oh my god. Perming. But when I wrote the book, a date with suicide, and I draw on my transition, like you said, from seventeen to like, going to boot camp, if you will. Well, halfway through boot camp, it it had pointed me massive arms. I wasn't charged everybody inside the barracks. So remember, you're getting no sleep. Right? Boom camp is boom camp. K? So you have cherish your four hours of sleep. Anyway, two o'clock in the morning, I get shaken out of my rack, my roving watch. He goes guys killing himself. Jesus. So I go see this kid, tough kid from the Bronx. Right? Sitting there, blood everywhere. You had busted open his back, taken the razor and slashing his wrists and everything else. That was blood everywhere. And I remember saying, you have to be effing kidding me. I'm gonna lose sleep because you wanna kill yourself to get out of boot camp Okay? No empathy. No sympathy. I was pissed. And I it didn't dawn on me until I sat down and wrote the book a date with suicide. That even though the trauma of being yelled at him, bootcamp meant nothing to me. You know, it was it was a joke. It was so so so traumatic for this kid that he had to go the path of getting out of the military by attempted suicide. Right. Did you

Victoria Volk: know his story though, his background and his childhood?

D Paul Fleming: You know, again, you know, seventeen, eight year old kids, eighty of them in a barracks. Right? You tend to get to know each other, but Right? How how well do you get to know him? So no. I mean, he was a a kid from the Bronx. K? Yeah. He wasn't he wasn't a squid is a a skittish kid. He was a tough kid. He was a tough kid. Right? But when I when I wrote it in the story, it made me lean back and realize, and it kind of solidified this statement for me. You can never judge somebody else's trauma because what doesn't seem traumatic So you or me could be devastating to somebody else. So you you can't judge their trauma. Only the person dealing with trauma can judge their trauma. I don't care if you're I don't care if you have ten college degrees. You can't judge somebody else's trauma. That trauma is so connected to the four corners of our existence, our physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional bodies. That when a trauma happens and we think it's physical. Right? You get shot. You get you you fall out of a helicopter. You get run over by a submarine. Right?
Whatever it is. That's physical. But so few of us realize how spiritual, emotional, and mental physical trauma really is. Now take any one of those four parts and just keep mixing them. Think about it. When when you're in your when you're young in the love, right, a puppy love, your first love ever. And then she breaks up with you and your heart breaks. Which is it? Is it physical pain or is it emotional pain? Well, it's kind of both, isn't it? Because it does physically hurt. So just a girlfriend breaking up with you can send you into a traumatic fit that stays with you the rest of your life because every one of us can think back and say, I remember my first love. Right? But over time, the pain of that breakup kind of fades. You don't remember why? Okay. So the physical part kind of takes care of itself all by itself, but the emotional part stays there and you never heal it. So one thing the VA one thing the VA or the military never introduced, keeling. Right? Until I sat down and started writing these books and and got very deep deep into my own personal on voyage on faith. Right? I didn't think about healing because I thought it was poo poo. Right? What is this healing crap? Is this? Wait. Where are you supposed to heal from? How does this work? And then the more I studied, the more I dug in the years and years of research and practice. And I realized how critical healing is. But again, you know, you take the psychologists. They wanna focus on what? Why we've gotta deal with the mental? What about the physical or the spiritual? So if you're not dealing with all four, you're not solving the problem of what? Grief. Because grief encapsulates the four elements of who we are, period, full stop. In order to solve Grief, you have to address the four corners of your existence.

Victoria Volk: And you have to look at the past and address

D Paul Fleming: the

Victoria Volk: past as people will say, I don't have to look at the past. The past is in the past. It's under the rug. I don't wanna look at it. I don't need to look at it. I can't change it. It is what it is. That's what a lot of

D Paul Fleming: people. Tell me why.

Victoria Volk: Why did they do that?

D Paul Fleming: Why do we need to look at the past?

Victoria Volk: Our past is what informs every decision and where we are in the present. And it will influence our future unless we bring it to our awareness and look at it.

D Paul Fleming: That's probably the best answer I've ever heard.

Victoria Volk: Good.

D Paul Fleming: I really hope you cut that clip out of this of this video and you replay that on in on whatever meetings you've got. Nonstop. That is the best description I've ever heard. Okay? Only follow-up with it.

Victoria Volk: I also can I just add to that know we've talked a lot about physical abuse and and a lot about physical abuse because that's your story? But I just want listeners to be also consider and veterans listening to this also consider that neglect in a home, this indifference of you existing, a veteran that doesn't even feel like they exist, that don't feel love or experience love, know what love is. Right? And that's true for maybe a child too that is being physically abused, but neglect is also trauma. So I just want to clarify that too. Howard Bauchner:

D Paul Fleming: I absolutely agree with you. The the the two keys to neglect abandonment. Mhmm. When you're neglected, you are left feeling abandoned. K? And anybody that's dealing with childhoods like mine or older in life and you're in an abusive relationship. You feel abandoned. So when you go looking for help, right, the cops maybe, and they don't do anything, you're not only neglected. You're abandoned. And then you go to the VA who you have a contract with that swears on the Bible that they're going to take care of you, And then they do the same things that you do that did they did to you when you were a child. Mhmm. Right? K? You're you're not only neglected, but you're abandoned. And once that car is its path deep enough into your spiritual emotional and yes physical bodies. It is next to impossible to get it back out. So I agree with you. You have to go into your past. And tell your story. Okay? It is next to impossible to kill yourself while you're telling your story to a veteran who needs to hear your story.

Victoria Volk: Several years ago, there was this art exhibit that was kind of being trans like shared amongst seabox around the country. It was like a traveling museum of sorts or exhibit, art exhibit. And what it was, was veterans who the project was to paint a mask. They take the make a plaster of their face, and they paint the mask that they've been wearing. It's like take what you feel in this mask that you wear and paint it onto this canvas, this plaster of your face. And little snippets of their story were included with those masks and I was standing there reading it and just like sobbing. There were so many masks and so many stories. And it's just a just a it's just a little small handful but it was a way for them to share their story. And so I just want listeners to know, veterans listening that it doesn't have to be a written story. It could be some sort of art project or you talk about your native American heritage. I imagine that there are so many different outlets of creativity that you could probably create a group of veterans that you know to come in and and share their story in that sort of fashion and a creative and arts sort of fashion. Just ideas that are just flowing through me, I just wanted to share. But it doesn't have to be a written story is kind of why I'm sharing that.

D Paul Fleming: Telling your story is the key behind it. The mask is the same thing. You're telling your story by taking that mask and putting it down and saying that's my story. For me, it's helped in a in a in one way I do something similar is, look, we have a fire. Okay?
We take all of that crap or just one piece of it. Write it on a chunk of cedar. Write it on a piece of paper and burn it. Okay? Now it's two parts that some people look at that and go, well, you're just kinda burning the piece of paper. My belief is that you're burning that piece which used to reside in you and and control you. And you've taken that piece out and you sent it and you've purified it. So it is it is no longer.

Victoria Volk: Words of energy?

D Paul Fleming: Right.

Victoria Volk: Words are energy, and so I'm glad we're getting into this healing piece because I would love to hear more about that. As far as what your healing did look like. And one of the things too is I've had people on this podcast before talking about their suicide attempts and experience with suicide. And one of the things that I've learned is that connection is the antidote to suicide. And so what in what ways did you find connection healing for you? And what did your healing look like?

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. So my healing is a, you know, ten, twenty year process right now. K. But my focus is on my time with my wife. And spirit. Those are the two things that I love being around. My wife's my best friend, absolutely adore. In every chance I get, I tell the world she's an absolute saint. Okay? Not because she's walking around with, you know, a couple of wings on her back. But to me, she is the same. The caretakers that provide for people like me are not just the salt of the earth, but god coded those folks with a piece of his own soul because that's what it takes to deal with folks like me. And there's far too many of us out there. Okay? The greatest people out there are the caretakers that take care of veterans.
The wives, the spouses. K? The siblings. That said, my path had to come back to finding I I live in two worlds. I live in my Native American world. My wife's Irish, Catholic, and I have a deep faith in the baby Jesus. Okay? So I I kinda step in I play in both of those worlds. Reconnecting with both pieces of that have brought my soul back to life. Learning how to clear, learning how to get rid of the dark energy that's in me, around me, near me, trying to creep up on me. Right? And facing things that some people will look at and go, man, that's witchcraft and crazy. Like, well, we'll see. So once I learned and accepted things like meditation, because I swore from here to hell, there's no way I'm gonna meditate. Okay?
Listen, I meditate almost every single day. In one form or another, whether it's a five minute break or whether it's an hour long, kumbaya leave me the hell alone moment. But the the journey of picking up those pieces that fit me, not everybody else. That fit me. I don't tell people to meditate. I encourage them to take a look at quieting your mind. Because once you can quiet your mind, the physical, the spiritual, and the emotional bodies follow. But your mind, like a computer, needs to reboot. And the only way to do that when you're dealing with anxiety, when you're dealing with racing thoughts when you can't get a grip on yourselves and you can't slow down, you have to figure out a way to turn your brain off. For me, the first time I said, I gotta I gotta do something in that voice. Said, fine. I put my head back in my chair, turned on some native American drumming, and I said, alright. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth and concentrate on my breathing. That's it. Just concentrate on my this is stupid. Right? So after the mental argument for a couple of minutes and then all of a sudden, I've realized I'm someplace else. And then as I started thinking again, I said, oh my god. It's quiet in here.
And then boom. Right back into my world. But for that briefest moment, I was at peace. And I said, whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Wait a minute. That Bob wired barley nastiness that was flown around in my gut that college boys call anxiety, the one that runs up to your throat and down to your bowels, it just rips you to shreds. It was gone. Gone. I was only gone for five or ten seconds, but it was enough to make a believer out of me. So when did I start healing? Listen, I think all of these pieces are healing. Right? For me, I was waiting for this. Let's pour the gravy on this and that's healing. The gravy's a healing. Right? Do some work, gravy it up. We're good to go. No. It's little pieces of all of it. That that first time that five minute. Because the next time I did it nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I couldn't quiet my mind and say my life. But then the next time after that. Okay? And then I was hooked. Because when you live with anxiety and I mean brutal anxiety, and for the darkness moment it's gone. It's a whole another world. Then it dawned on me. Wait a minute. That's what it feels like when I have my second beer. That's why I sucked down two beers as fast as I can for however many decades I drank. I I quit drinking already. And I mean, I got them quite. I just said enough for the drinking and stop drinking. Right? But, right, you know, beforehand, and it but then it clicked on me that, why did I drink? I drank to get rid of the anxiety, self medicating. Right? But it was those aha moments of doing one, of telling my story. Now again, this is one version of tell your story. The other version of me telling my story is me having that conversation with myself. What happened? And then before I released this book or before I wrote the the first book, I went and saw my sister. And I said, listen, tell me if I'm crazy. Did I really get beaten like this? And man, her tears just started flowing? Okay? She's like, I don't know how many times you he was gonna kill you. I swore you were dead four, five times. Okay? We couldn't wake you up. We couldn't get you back. Okay? So she gave me confirmation. That I wasn't crazy in imagining these things. And I fear that that's what far too many of us veterans do. You know, we go through boot camp, we go through the military world and what warriors? What warriors? Right? Well, one percent we've been taught trained and rough backed through. Suck it up. Get that thought out of your mind. Right? Don't be a coward. Right? So I'm thinking how much of this crap am I making up and how much of it's real. And then I can't talk about But getting confirmation from my sister was another piece of healing because when she said it to this day, I can feel the whole shift inside of me drop down one notch. It was like, see, it did happen. You did survive that.
You are a good person. It's like, well, how did that would come from? All of a sudden, good comments start filtering in once you start healing. So for me, when people ask me about how's the healing? You know, many of us look at things linear. Right? Listen, it's pop marked with little pieces everywhere that say, this was a good piece to add to that healing process. Okay? Mine's ongoing. I've got a ton of healing to do. I I work on it. You know, I I love I love to say daily daily, but, you know, I I would I would say I I don't. Right? I definitely work on it. Not too many days ago, I'm not aggressively working on my path forward.

Victoria Volk: And that's what it takes. It's and it's being open to receiving these intuitive messages like editing, you know, and following those bread crumbs and having the courage to follow that wherever it takes you. What are some other practices that you have incorporated other than meditation that have served you well?

D Paul Fleming: Well, one of the biggest things that know, I'm trying to promote especially to my fellow veterans and their, you know, their family, spouse isn't solid. You gotta learn to clear yourself. Right? What does that mean? Do what what does it mean to you to when I say clear yourself?

Victoria Volk: You know, I've had I've been having this conversation lately with people that because, of course, when you're in relationship with people, there's conflict bound to be conflict at some point. Right? And what I have noticed in how I know that I am have done a lot of work on myself is when someone can say something and I feel something I feel certain way about it. I feel activated by it. I won't say triggered because that's I mean, you can be activated or triggered, but when I'm feeling activated by something, I can step back and be like, okay, why is this why is the why is why am I feeling this way about this? And, you know, and I can also hear things and it go in one year and out the other and not stick to me because I have done my I've swept my own doorstep. That's how I know that I've come a long way because I used to take things so personally. I used to think there was something wrong with me and, you know, it's been a really long journey. It's been a ten year journey for me in my healing. And so I wanna hear what you were going to say. So

D Paul Fleming: earlier you had mentioned energy. Right? Mhmm. Energy is everywhere.

Victoria Volk: Mhmm.

D Paul Fleming: And as scientists have proven, right, the good side of college boys, I imagine. Right? Energy never never disappears. It just changes its form. Mhmm. Okay? So where does all that anger go? That we veterans have, goes out into the universe, or does it stick to us, or does it do both? So I'm sitting there watching my wife going up and down the aisle every Sunday to get the communion. Right? I'm like, you know, why did they do this? Why? The body of Christ? The blood of Christ. What are they doing? Again, I'm kinda condensing a lot until a very short and I'm looking at my Native American is not on. And I'm starting as never before. And when warriors would come back from a battle, shaman, the medicine man, the holy man, would hold him outside the village, and he would sage him, sweet grass, cedar, tobacco, he would clear them. Why? Because he wanted to get all the dark energy off and out of them so they didn't infect the village. I'll infect the village by a little strong word. Right? Okay? So I'm I'm studying this and I'm saying, okay. So for me, I started saying, where's all this dark energy going? Where's all this darkness? Right? Every time we get mad, you can feel it, and it takes so much work to release it. To clear yourself. So I found myself after walking this path doing exactly what you did, where I used to get mad when somebody would say something, it's starting to go out one. Okay? And it doesn't register. Unless I'm starting to get backed up. I'm starting to get blocked. I'm starting to have too much of other people's energy around me. Okay? So again, I had to learn What is it to clear? What what am I doing? We need to get the darkness out of us. Okay? Again, physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional. If we're physically in pain, is it radiating energy? Of course it is. So is our spirit? So is all the energy around us? And when somebody comes at you with eight or you for me walking into the VA, that place is just vile. You're picking up and absorbing all of that energy. So what I did was I I focused heavily on the Catholic. I focused heavily on my Native American and I watched. And I studied what the community is. Well, the greatest way to to to draw that piece together is with father Amos. He died a little while ago. He was the he was the Vatican's chief exercise. Okay? And he wrote, I've read almost every one of his books. Great, phenomenal guy. He wrote that I do hundreds of exercises every single day. And I'm like, what the fuck is this? I'm thinking peace soup and all that. Right? He goes, no. These people come and they line up at my door so they can get the body of Christ so that they can get the blood of Christ. So that he can put their hand on him and invoke God's will and light to come through them and to clear all that doesn't belong inside of you, to clear the darkness. And people wind up every day to go do this. They go every Sunday and what are they doing? They're renewing their connection to what they believe in in the Catholics, the baby Jesus, the light of Christ, and so on. Native Americans. Same thing, different approach. You watch the Catholics use a wafer or a jug of oil or a jug of wine. Right?
Oil. Right? For baptism. Right? Merriages. Right? And this smoke for burials. Right? What do Native Americans do? Sage, cedar, sweet grass, and tobacco. Now listen, if you mix all four, you're neutralizing all the darkness around you and all the darkness in you by doing the same things the Catholics do. Getting exercised or cleared.

Victoria Volk: Mhmm.

D Paul Fleming: Once I started going down his path, I could start feeling the darkness other people's anger coming at me. Okay? So I said, how do I how do I protect against this? So I learned how to protect against this. And then I went from being, you know, on the wrong side of things to being on the positive side of things. Right? Now I'm doing it daily daily. Okay? Claireing people, Claireing houses, getting rid of darkness. I'm doing this often.
Okay? So when I say when you asked what, you know, kind of, what do I do? So that's why I I love being around my wife and I love doing spiritual work. Okay. To me, this this is all part of his spirit to work. How how do you like that one for an answer?

Victoria Volk: No. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much. I actually am Catholic and to hear you share your perspective of that, and I wasn't always. I'm a convert. So to hear your perspective. And and to be fair, I mean, that was a huge part of my healing as well was finding something I believed in again to find my faith, which, you know, thanks to my husband at the time. But It wasn't pressured on me. It wasn't forced on me. I had to come to that myself. And I think we naturally do when we start to open ourselves up to more, that more is possible. And I think when we're talking about suicide, I mean, I'm I'm imagine you would agree is that you don't feel like that more is possible, like more goodness. Like goodness is possible.

D Paul Fleming: Yeah. You've you've given up on all of it. You've absolutely given up. There is no more. Okay? The reason I wrote the reason the title is a date with suicide is what I've what I learned from talking to many veterans was that, you know, we're so anal that we'd line everything else up. K? And then the last thing we do is set a date. Now, veterans that have attempted suicide almost to a man or a woman tell me the same thing. Okay? Few with few exceptions. Someone will say, well, I thought of a date, but I need to put everything in line before I set the date. So we've got to get the veterans before they set that date. Because once they set that date, the the the week after my last book came out of date with suicide, a guy who served with forty years ago committed suicide. For me. K? I couldn't believe it. Guys, served with a reaches out and says, I'm reading your book and I'm playing back, you know. Just buried blah blah, who committed suicide. I'm like, okay. Statistically, if you look at what the VA says, whether it's seventeen or twenty two, it's a it is a miscarriage of fact to be to be a nice k? The VA take is aware of about twenty percent of the veterans, but they'll claim they claim they're engaged with thirty five percent of veterans. So let's use their number thirty five percent. In two thousand fourteen through two thousand eighteen, the VA redid a study and came back in eighteen and said we've decreased the number to seventeen veterans suicide a day, and they were all proud of themselves. Right? Okay. Operation deep dive picked up from there. And for the last seven or eight years through a couple of different universities, including Duke University now. They they focused on eight states and it's now going national. It's called Operation DeepDive. If you if you guys are all familiar with Navy Carmen, Christine Walker, she's the chief editor of Eddie's Magazine, Jones it. She puts an article for Operation DeepDive in her magazine every time every quarter comes out. Okay? Operation DeepDive is a great piece of literature to read and and look at the research. And it's two page conclusion, it says that the VA used bogus numbers to come up with their seventeen per day. But even based on their seventeen per day, the reality is it's two point four times higher than the suicide rate, which puts it in the forties. So their position is it's in the forties. My position is if it's seventeen a day and you're only seeing a third of the veterans, why can't we just do the math and say, well, that's fifty plus. So that's kind of the conclusion of where I come from fifty veterans a day or committing suicide. I believe the reality is so much more than that. Okay? Because so many of our veterans, especially our young veterans, I've and I've handheld quite a few of them to try to get them into the system and it's a it's a nightmare. How many or more are we losing when they bang on the front door or the VA? They need mental help. Right? And they get turned away. Alvea will say they don't turn you away. That's bullshit. Okay? If you don't have a rating, the only thing you can do is walk into the day clinic and sit there for as long as it takes in that spot until somebody can see you, if they can see you. In the last in the hearing last week, I watched this guy say that, well, we're only having two veterans commit suicide on our property. And the congressman retired Navy Seal, lost it. And he says, that's bullshit. There's twenty different facilities that have reported at least two, so that's forty. And his response was while most of those are off VA grounds. Okay? Well, why? Because a lot of VAs have certain places, and then the parking lots are on private land or state owned land. Okay? Gotta won't jump back on that soapbox. Okay. But, anyway, I kinda lost where we were going with this, so they kinda widened that topic up. Sorry.

Victoria Volk: No. I'm glad we brought it back to the suicide topic. And thank you for mentioning Operation Deep Dive. I I I wasn't in my awareness. Before Yeah.

D Paul Fleming: Do you wanna give a read to that?

Victoria Volk: In your life experience, the grief trauma, what what has grief taught you? And what is the message that you would like to share with veterans listening to this, who may be struggling today?

D Paul Fleming: The second part is easy. The first part is difficult to answer. It's not difficult to answer because I'm reluctant. It's difficult to answer because I'm a I'm a very odd duck. Alright? I have a I have a deep faith in the baby jeans, and I have a deep faith in my native americanism, but I also believe in reincarnation. I believe in we're here for a reason. Okay. My first suicide was Randy Smith. Can a guy I served with? That's starting right in the book. Right? That's why I kinda coined the phrase, who's your Randy? Meaning, who's your first suicide? So for me, I look back at this now that I've, you know, kind of spent over a decade digging into and learning about my spiritual faith, I see all of this happening so that I can write the book. I see everything that I went through so that I would I would grow my soul and be able to relate to people more have empathy for, to learn something that I never thought I would even have the conversation with, like, you can never judge somebody else's trauma. I never would have drawn that conclusion and I not gone through boot camp, dealt with what I dealt with, and then sat down and wrote wrote the book. Right? So I have a I view this from a a very limited way where most people don't. K? For my fellow veterans. Listen, there's so much more that we're supposed to do. So I'm gonna guelter here a little bit and tell you that the civilian suicide rate is exploding. And I'm gonna tell you that we all know that what we do as veterans, civilians follow. So a little bit of a guilt trip here, we've got to stop killing ourselves to save civilians lives. Because they're looking at us saying, well, if they can't deal with it, then it's then it's easy for them to say, I can kill myself. Right? I personally think the civilian suicide rate is north of a couple hundred a day, and I think it's exploding. Anyway, tell your story. If you're not familiar with Don are you familiar with Donald Dunn out of Missouri? Mhmm. He wrote a book that is this thick. Okay? I mean, it's it's literally that thick. Okay? Donald Dunn. Phenomenal book. Right? I usually have it with me to show on these podcast. Alright? He tells it I I swear if it I think he wrote this with a crayon, and then somebody typed it Okay? It is that down home. It is straight to the point and it tells all the same stories I tell except I spent forever writing it in long form long form. Okay But he really comes out and lays it out of how close he came to suicide.
And to a man when people have come to me and said, okay, your book stopped me from committing suicide. My next question is, why? And they said, I read in there things that I didn't know I didn't have. One, a purpose. Two, I didn't know other veterans were dealing with transitioning out of the military like I was. Okay? I was shocked that people are shocked that veterans saying, how many of us realize that we were abandoned when we'd left the military again. It it the system is what it is, but that feeling of abandonment jumps right back at us when the gate hits us in the backside, especially if you've gone through childhood trauma. If not, then it's your first real feeling of abandonment, and it's hard to refine yourself. So you've gotta find yourself and find a purpose. Well, what is your purpose right now? Well, I'm giving you one. Tell your story. So if you don't think you have a purpose, reach out to me. And I'm gonna help you understand that you have a purpose. If you tell your story one time, you have no idea the pebble and the pond effect that can have in helping others. But to bring it back to Don Don's book, he didn't tell his wife anything about what was going on. Wait a minute. Didn't I already say this? No. That was me. I said I didn't tell my wife for fifty years. Until I handed to the book. Well, Don Don didn't tell his family anything until they read the book. Are we seeing a trend line here? K. So we're keeping all of this inside of us. Because we think we're helping our friends, our family, our loved ones by not burning burning them with our story. Well, listen, I'm telling you. Your loved ones need to hear your story. We all need to hear your story. The more of us that come forward and tell the story, the easier it's gonna be for the rest of us to keep telling our story and to help others take a step up and tell their story. You gotta tell your story. Read other people's story and just sit down and write it. You don't have to print it. You don't have to you just just write it right up on all the longest email to yourself you've ever done. And then burn it. Tell your story.

Victoria Volk: It's good advice. Thank you for sharing all of that. There's one thing I wanna say and it's about the word committed you know, when we say this person committed suicide. The Great Recovery Institute helped me reframe that and shared a different perspective of that word because when we say committed, you know, when it's like someone committing murder, that's a crime. So when we say committed, it's like they're committing a crime. So the grief recovery institute actually has helped me realize the importance of words. And so instead, I say completed suicide or died by suicide because it takes off that it feeling like a crime. Because there's a lot of shame in that that families feel, the people that are left behind. Right? You know?

D Paul Fleming: Yes. I do. I do. I'm in a fist fight, if you will, over getting people to stop hiding suicide. Mhmm. K? It's like, listen. K? Get them. It's gonna take me a while to not say committed, but okay. Your loved one killed himself. K? If you think that reflects on you, then you're not helping the rest of us.

Victoria Volk: Mhmm.

D Paul Fleming: Because the it seems to me like the last taboo subject in this world is suicide. Everything else we can talk about. Right? Well well, why? Why?
Why is it? Why is it so taboo? Well, the Bible frowns on suicide. Right? Says you commit suicide, you're it's a mortal sin. You're going to hell forever. Do I buy that? Nope. Not at all. K?
Do I tell people that they should buy it? Listen. You gotta figure out your own path. K? It's not my place to tell you what to think or to believe. You figure that out. Right? To me, it isn't. I've had to forgive everyone that I know that's committed suicide because it's not mine to keep. It's not mine to take. And more importantly, I survived the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional pain that brought me to that point. The pain is so overwhelming. How can anybody that loves a person want them to continue to live with that kind of pain? A razor blade tumbling constantly in your gut, your mind refusing to shut off, your body and so much physical pain, you can't take it. There's no end. And you've lost your faith so your entire existence getting absorbed by darkness, evil thoughts. How can you hold it against somebody? I just can't take it anymore. I can't. I'm not advocating for suicide.
I'm advocating for those of us who have survived. And those of us who have to live, you know, with the memory of those who killed themselves. Right? You gotta think along these lines. When the pain got so severe, it took its toll. Okay? Few people talk about what it took to get to that point of suicide. And I'm here to say, telling you, look at it. And and again, like the mental health professionals that are reading my book are saying, They've never I've never heard any of them approach it from the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual standpoint of you have to attack all four. At the same time, pick one and get moving and the rest will follow. Then you need to learn to keep the faith and keep moving forward. So at the end, a veteran is still a veteran. Suck it up, find a path forward. We can do this. Reach out.
We're all here. We're all suffering the same crap. Different levels You're no different than us. You're not alone. We get it. Your stories are no worse than everybody else's. It's no better than everybody else's. We're all the same. We're one percent. We're veterans. We got issues. We got stories. And we need to be telling them to ourselves. And the last thing I was saying, any veteran out there that maligns another veteran? You know, like saying something like, well, what makes you think you're a veteran? You weren't in combat? Right? Like, why would you say that? Or well, I did all these things and you didn't. You know, why would you say that? Why would you say that? I went to boot camp with a kid who tried to kill himself because he couldn't take the yelling. When I was in a school, I watched the e two shaking like a leaf because he had two captains and an admiral around him. Kid couldn't function. And that's when I swore I don't ever be in one of these scenarios. I wonder what happened to that kid. All I know is he was so terrified around two captains at an admiral, he couldn't function. Another kid would chain smoke outside like there was no tomorrow. Why? And he was never in combat, but something happened to him because he signed the line join the military, successfully move through boot camps, successfully move through the next things, and something snapped. Something happened. Combination of life, girlfriend leaving them, wife, kids, what? Don't know. It's not our story to tell. But don't judge somebody else's trauma and don't harm another veteran by, you know, downplaying what they did.
I'll close that little soapbox with this. One guy I talked to, never left the United States. In fact, went to Maryland, spent eight years there. At the eight year point, the end of his enlistment, he was doing one of two things. He was getting out and or killing himself.
I couldn't decide which one was gonna be first. He didn't kill himself, but it was close. When I asked him, what what what's your story? What because I couldn't take it anymore. What?
His job was to be in perfect uniform and carry fellow dead soldiers off of the planes flying into Maryland or Delaware. Right? Andrews, were they were they flying in? That was his job. Oh, he did. For eight years, boot camp school got picked up for this thing and stayed there. The stress and trauma of carrying dead servicemen took its toll on him to the point of becoming like the rest of us who are, you know, chasing a date with suicide. Right? Doesn't matter what we did in the service. It doesn't matter either line cook or front line infantry.
Doesn't matter whether you were a navy seal because they are killing themselves too. Or if you were just a Boson's meat painting the battleships. Right? Battleships. You don't have any of those doing? Aircraft carriers. K? Everyone's just as important and we have to suck it up and stick together. Can't be maligning. We can't be maligning each other.
Howard Bauchner:

Victoria Volk: It's a great way to end, but I wanna ask, is there anything else that you think of that you didn't get to share that you want to?

D Paul Fleming: Oh, no. I think you got a great format. I think you do a great job of of getting the message out to veterans. They're easy to talk with, so I encourage all of that to reach out and get on your show or listen to your show. And, you know, thank you for all the things that you're doing. You know, it's it's very helpful. To have the wide breadth of conversation that we're having. Howard Bauchner:

Victoria Volk: And thank you for sharing that. I appreciate you and your time today and the work that you are doing, because it does, like you said, it takes all of us. Yeah. Just so much gratitude for you. So thank you so much. Where can people reach you or find you? Where are you on socials? If they wanna reach out to you and connect?

D Paul Fleming: Or you can you can find me on Facebook at D-Paul-Fleming. If you wanna find me on Twitter, same thing, DPaulFleming, but I also have a a big account that's that wellness. Okay? If you don't wanna get engaged in the politics, don't reach out to me on that one. Right? But if you wanna just do vet stuff, DPaulFleming, you can email me or, you know, my my contact information out there. Yeah. dpaulfleming.com. Okay.

Victoria Volk: You know You

D Paul Fleming: know, go ahead. Buy a book and pass it on to a to a veteran. Alright? And tell you a story.

Victoria Volk: And I will put the links to those where people can find you in the show notes. And Thank you again for everything. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.

People on this episode

Victoria Volk

Host