Facing Trauma with Jason Kander

Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast

MS NOW, Chris Hayes

News, Versant Media, Versant, Ms Now, Nbcnews, Why Is This Happening?, The Chris Hayes Podcast, Chris Hayes, Politics, Government, Society & Culture, Msnbc, Withpod

4.6 • 8.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2019

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How do you know when it’s time to ask for help? For former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, the moment came just as his political star was rising. October of 2018, in the final stages of what looked like a successful mayoral bid, and while part of conversations about potential 2020 contenders, Kander stepped back. “After 11 years of trying to outrun depression and PTSD symptoms, I have finally concluded that it’s faster than me,” he wrote. “That I have to stop running, turn around, and confront it.” Now, nearly a year later, he joins to talk about what brought him to that point. He walks through his deployment and the lasting impact of living in mortal danger, how he used running for office as a coping mechanism, and the life changing power of therapy. WARNING: This episode discusses suicidal ideation. National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255 RELATED: Veterans Community Project VA Mental Health Resources Outside the Wire by Jason Kander Let America Vote Jason Kander’s Campaign Ad for Background Checks

Transcript

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0:00.0	I would have nightmares pretty much every night.
0:02.1	I went about 12 years without a good night's sleep.
0:05.7	I was coping with it by not dealing with it,
0:08.4	but then my unconscious mind was like,
0:10.2	we're gonna deal with this.
0:11.7	So when I went to sleep, my guard was down,
0:14.0	and it would just flood in and my, you know,
0:16.4	I dreaded sleep.
0:17.8	["Sleeping in the Rain"]
0:21.2	Hello and welcome to Wise is Happening with me, your host, Chris Hayes.
0:25.2	Back in 2016, which was, you might remember
0:28.1	there was election year in 2016, and you may also
0:31.6	may not remember how that ended up,
0:33.4	but it was not a great year for Democrats
0:35.4	that that election year.
0:37.3	And not just because of what happened in the presidential
0:39.6	ticket, which was the Donald Trump got elected president.
0:44.0	It's still wild to say that sentence, isn't it?
0:46.6	But also really bad downstream.
0:49.5	There was a lot of hope for a bunch of Senate wins
0:51.7	that did not work out.
0:53.4	And in some ways, it's a lesson about the fact
	...

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