The Unseen Battles of Darci Escandon: A Daughter of Service Finds Her Voice -31

NOTE:

We feel it is important to make our podcast transcripts available for accessibility. We use quality artificial intelligence tools to make it possible for us to provide this resource to our audience. We do have human eyes reviewing this, but they will rarely be 100% accurate. We appreciate your patience with the occasional errors you will find in our transcriptions. If you find an error in our transcription, or if you would like to use a quote, or verify what was said, please feel free to reach out to us at connect@37by27.com.

Kim [: 00:00:03

Dacri's journey is one of incredible resilience and transformation. Shaped by a rocky childhood, life as a military daughter, and battles with trauma that left deep scars but also fueled her purpose. From surviving abuse, bullying, and homelessness to training service dogs for veterans and passionately advocating for mental health and PTSD awareness. Dacri's story is raw, real, and inspiring. In this episode, she opens up about the challenges of growing up in a military family, the impact of trauma on self worth and relationships, and her ongoing journey to create a life of meaning. If you've ever felt stuck, silenced, or overlooked, Darci's courage and determination to find her voice will leave you inspired to face your own battles and rise above. Welcome to Dog Tag Diaries, where military women share true stories. We are your hosts, Captain Kim.

Dakota [: 00:01:09

And Captain Dakota. The stories you are about to hear are powerful. We appreciate that you have joined us and are eager to learn more about these experiences and connect with the military women who are willing to share their stories in order to foster community and understanding.

Kim [: 00:01:26

Military women are providing valuable insight into their experiences, struggles, and triumphs. By speaking their truth, they contribute to a deeper understanding of the challenges they face and the resilience they demonstrate.

Dakota [: 00:01:40

We appreciate your decision to join us today to gain insights and knowledge from the experiences of these courageous military women. Thank you for being here.

Kim [: 00:01:57

Darci Escandon is a passionate advocate for veterans and service animals. Drawing from her own challenging experiences growing up in a military household, Despite the hardships she has faced, Darci has dedicated her life to supporting others from training her and her husband's service dogs to helping veterans access emotional service animals and service dog programs. Her knowledge of ESA and her knack for solving problems with compassion and creativity make her a force for good in her community. Welcome, Darci.

Darci Escandon [: 00:02:32

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Kim [: 00:02:35

Yeah. Thank you for being on Dog Tag Diaries, and I I wanna let everyone know that this is your first time telling your story.

Darci Escandon [: 00:02:44

It is. It is. So if I go off track

Kim [: 00:02:49

But how brave of you to come on and do that? What sparked you to now be, like, after how many years? How many years?

Darci Escandon [: 00:03:00

Oh, let's see. I am 54 now. So, what, 40 years?

Kim [: 00:03:06

Yeah. What sparked after 40 years to be like, you know what? It's time.

Darci Escandon [: 00:03:10

It's supposed to be cathartic. My counselor said, you know what? You really need to let this off your chest. So, yeah, we'll see how it goes.

Kim [: 00:03:21

Okay. Okay. Yeah. So let's start. Let's start with your childhood and early influences. Let's hear about Darci as a little girl.

Darci Escandon [: 00:03:31

My mom called me a Jabberwocky because I was always talking to people. I had no fear. I remember once her asking a psychologist, how do you discipline a child that has no fear? So I was always very active climbing on top of things. When dad was stationed in Italy, my mom was having tea with some of the women in the area. And one of the woman women got really excited and was pointing pointing outside the window, and I had managed to climb up our twin set, and it was halfway through trying to get to the tree on the other end. So, yeah, my mom always said she had to look up for me.

Kim [: 00:04:16

Oh, and that's what they were looking at outside the window. You as a little girl

Darci Escandon [: 00:04:21

Yep. And that hasn't changed much since since then, but the first two years were really, really good from what I understand. And then once dad got stationed in Vegas, that's when I started to become a little rebellious.

Kim [: 00:04:41

And your dad was in what? In the army?

Darci Escandon [: 00:04:43

Air Force.

Kim [: 00:04:44

In the Air Force. Okay.

Darci Escandon [: 00:04:46

Yeah. He was stationed at Nellis. And, yeah, I remember my mom likes to tell the story is that I used to play, you know, in the neighborhood, the kids and, you know, when I were just playing. And somehow, this boy bit my sister, and I stepped in and punched him right in the nose and gave him a bloody nose. And gosh, I must have been 5, 6.

Kim [: 00:05:12

Yeah. You had good instinct to sick up for your family.

Darci Escandon [: 00:05:16

Yeah. Bullies. I I don't handle bullies very well. I tend to I don't wanna say punch them in the nose all the time. Maybe it's more, like, with my words, not with my fist. But, yeah, I've always stood up to bullies. I don't handle bullies well, like I said.

Kim [: 00:05:34

Yeah. And let's talk about that because you said your dad made his being in the air force, his his career. Correct?

Darci Escandon [: 00:05:42

Yeah. He was a career officer.

Kim [: 00:05:44

Yeah. So what was that like growing up in a household with a military dad?

Darci Escandon [: 00:05:52

That was really rough. We have to remember, I was born in the, you know, 71. And so by the time we got into the eighties, you know, I was, like, pre-teen, and my dad had always expected his family to be represented in a certain way, you know, as an officer's family would be,

Kim [: 00:06:13

of course.

Darci Escandon [: 00:06:13

And all of us girls had to play a part, I guess you could say. Because how we were reflected towards the general public reflected on him as an officer. So, you know, he would do literally white glove treatments where he would go through our rooms and put the white gloves on and bounce the quarter off the beds. And he treated us like he would one of his cadets because he did go off, and part of this TBY was doing, like, a drill instructor. And then, also, you know, when he would go TBY, we never knew really where he went, and we never knew how long he would be gone. Just that, you know, okay. Dad's going out of town again.

Kim [: 00:07:02

That uncertainty as a child because, yes, we understand it now because we've experienced it and we're educated and we know what happens in the military. But back then, when somebody gets orders to go somewhere as a child, did you have any issues with that?

Darci Escandon [: 00:07:20

There is no stability. And when it was just my mom, she would get us, as for girls, to a certain point where everything ran smoothly. There was no anger, so to speak. There was no acting out. You know, it was a very well run machine. And then when dad would get home, it's like everything went into chaos again. And I only found out later that my dad, when he was in Vietnam, was it was psychological warfare. Yeah.

Darci Escandon [: 00:07:52

Is what he was involved in. So he knew he knew how to get people to do what he wanted to do, except for me. You know, he always said, stand up for yourself. Don't take crap from anybody. He just neglected to say that he wasn't involved in that. You know? Do it with everybody else but me.

Kim [: 00:08:12

Yeah. So how did he get you to learn, as you said, your role? What was your role?

Darci Escandon [: 00:08:19

I was the oldest, and he had wanted a son, and then surprise, surprise. And so I was the one that he taught how to mow the lawn and do all the boy stuff while my sisters were inside doing all the girl stuff. And from a little kid, it was almost like a brainwashing. I don't know how else to put it. And then one day, it's almost like I woke up and said, this isn't right. This isn't healthy for me. And that's when the fighting started. It probably let's see.

Darci Escandon [: 00:08:52

I wanna say when he was stationed in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on the outside, everybody else, he was a ROTC guy.

Kim [: 00:09:04

Explain that just for the listeners because some of our listeners aren't military, so they might not know the acronyms that all the acronyms of the military.

Darci Escandon [: 00:09:11

Oh my gosh. Let's see. So, basically, it's like, in this case, college kids who pre military, and they would do basically everything you would in the military, but they were still college kids, and it prepared them to go into the military. And it's almost like basic training, but for civilians. And he was the instructor, and, you know, the cadets always had to fall in line and pay attention and all this other stuff. I wanna say that was what the outside was, but I remember my mom taking us to go have lunch with my dad, and we had to go underneath the building. There was security. Every time we went in, she had to show her ID and the whole 9 yard.

Darci Escandon [: 00:10:04

Even though they know knew who we were, again, this was in the early eighties, so things are a little different than they are now. But I always remember we would be in this room, like, a cafeteria style room, but it was just for individuals. And dad would come out, and we would have lunch or dinner, and then he would go back to work. So it's almost like this facade of, okay, I am a ROTC instructor, but that's not really what he did.

Kim [: 00:10:38

Oh, okay. Gosh. There's a lot of instability and uncertainty. And as a child

Darci Escandon [: 00:10:45

Yes.

Kim [: 00:10:46

That had to be so confusing for you. And you took on the male role, so you had that masculine energy running through you.

Darci Escandon [: 00:10:53

Yep. I was always a tomboy. And because we moved all the time, you know, I was always the new kid. You know, kids were bullies back then. There were the way that kids were handled back then versus the way that they're handled now is like night and day. So, you know, I was bullied a lot. I put up walls very early, very, very early because, you know, I never knew when we would move again. I never knew, you know, is dad gonna come home and say, oh, he's got orders.

Darci Escandon [: 00:11:23

Let's go.

Kim [: 00:11:24

Yeah. And you had to protect yourself. You had that survival. You were in survival mode.

Darci Escandon [: 00:11:29

All the time. I mean, I lived in survival mode all the time Yeah. From a really early age.

Kim [: 00:11:37

Okay. So what made you go into the army?

Darci Escandon [: 00:11:43

So I didn't quite sign on the dotted line. My husband was in the army. Again, all my aunts and uncles were in the military. And at that time, when I was speaking to a recruiter, I was homeless at that time. I wanted to go in because it was a way off of the streets. It was a way out. That was the wrong reason because I had, you know, high respects for people that were in the military. Like I said, it was just it was a way of life, but on the family end.

Darci Escandon [: 00:12:17

And I realized that, okay. No. Number 1, I had the problem with authority. I really felt like I would be surrounded with people like my dad, and so I didn't commit to it like I really wish I should have.

Kim [: 00:12:31

How long were you in for?

Darci Escandon [: 00:12:34

I didn't really serve again. I didn't finally sign on the dotted line because of I think, ultimately, it was my fear of being surrounded by my dad, people like my dad. Yeah. So I let my fear get in in the way of that. But my dad was in for over 20 years, and then my husband did his time as an MP, got out, and became a department of the army civilian police officer on Fort Bliss. And then they moved him into a section, so he became a detective. And then from there, he went into 911 operator and dispatcher. So he was on both sides of the radio.

Darci Escandon [: 00:13:19

But growing up, my dad being in, then marrying marrying a veteran, and then, you know, law enforcement. But everything had to do with the military somehow.

Kim [: 00:13:32

Yeah. I was gonna say, let's talk about your life as a spouse then. So you are you are a child of a military person, which caused a lot of instability. You said a lot of uncertainty. And then because generational trauma, we kind of step into that Yeah.

Darci Escandon [: 00:13:51

That cycle.

Kim [: 00:13:52

That same realm. Yes. Yeah. And you married someone who was in the military. Did you move a lot? What was your life like as a spouse?

Darci Escandon [: 00:14:02

No. He was pretty set. He was born and raised where we're at, and he didn't like the nomadic lifestyle. And it was very hard for me to be in one place for that long. I mean, he said I had ants in my pants because I always wanted to move even if it was just from an apartment to an apartment.

Kim [: 00:14:23

Yeah. But that's what your life was like as a child.

Darci Escandon [: 00:14:26

Mhmm. Exactly. Exactly. So I experienced instability, and then I'm with somebody that was focused on stability.

Kim [: 00:14:35

Wow.

Darci Escandon [: 00:14:36

Yeah. That caused some trauma as well because I didn't know how to cope. I didn't know how to go from the life that I had as a daughter to being home because I left home when I was about 16. So going through that and then, you know, marrying somebody that, I guess, you could say I married into the family, so I never escaped it. I never escaped being on that side of the military, whether it's a daughter, whether it's a spouse, best friend, niece, all of those. I never left that

Kim [: 00:15:15

world. Yeah. And how did you start learning that you had post traumatic stress?

Darci Escandon [: 00:15:22

Well, I've always had nightmares. You know, I'd always wake up with the sweats and shaking and that type of thing, and I just thought that was normal. I was very angry, and so I would fly off the handle. I didn't like being around people. It was hard for me to hold jobs, and I just thought that was normal.

Kim [: 00:15:43

Yeah. Because that's how you grow up. You don't know what you don't know.

Darci Escandon [: 00:15:46

Yeah. Your body reacts to trauma differently than somebody who, let's just say, was in a car accident. Now I'm not taking that away from that person because everybody experiences trauma differently and, you know, the things that affect their trauma. But all I knew was that I was always alone. I was always a square peg in the round hole. And, again, it wasn't until I had my first anxiety attack that I was forced to actually, it was after the second one that I was forced to go see a psychologist because the first time, I just felt like I was gonna pass out. It was really strange. And I went to an urgent care, and my heart rate was, like, 173, 180, just laying down.

Darci Escandon [: 00:16:36

And I just remember I was gonna pass out, and they sent me to the ER. And I spent 8 hours in the ER, and they kept wanting to know what drugs are you taking. I'm like, I just had a cup of coffee, But it took me about 8 hours to get my heart rate down to where they felt comfortable releasing me. And that happened again about 6, 7 months later, and that's when they said, okay. Go to the cardiologist who belittled me and said I was too young to be in there, and I was wasting his time, and it was all in my head. So I finally went to talk to the psychologist. I'll I'll never remember. He asked me, you know, have you experienced any sort of trauma? And I asked him, well, what is your definition of trauma? Because I didn't know how to talk about it because to me, it was just a regular way of life.

Darci Escandon [: 00:17:30

And that's when, probably after a couple of sessions, he told me I had complex PTSD. And so that just be kind of came became something in the back of my head that I had to learn. It's almost like it's a part of you. Like, it's a living, breathing part of you that that won't look it's like something that was born on your shoulder that you can't take off.

Kim [: 00:17:56

Well, it kinda is because you're born into a situation. You become a product of that environment.

Darci Escandon [: 00:18:02

Right.

Kim [: 00:18:03

Your body keeps the score, that book. I don't know if you ever read it. And as an ER nurse, which I have been for 20 plus years, people come in all the time with conditions. And we do all the blood work, all the testing, and it comes back negative. It's the body key it's at emotional trauma that's coming out, whether it's in a heart panic attacks, whatever it may be. But your body does keep score. And when you're little, you're able to deal with it. But like anything, as it piles up and piles up, and, like, you were diagnosed with complex PTS.

Kim [: 00:18:39

In fact, talk about that a little bit, what complex PTS is.

Darci Escandon [: 00:18:45

It's my understanding that just regular, quote, unquote, PTSD comes from one specific experience. So it could be, like I said, from a car accident. It could be from I hate to say this, but, like, from being raped. It's one specific instance. Whereas for me, it was constant trauma after trauma after trauma being, you know, abused by my dad. We would get into physical fights once I learned how to fight back to, again, the homelessness to, you know, all of that. It was different things that just compounded. My nervous system finally said, you know, that's enough.

Darci Escandon [: 00:19:29

And, you know, my mom was in our end, except for when we were in Italy and in Canada because her license wasn't cut. But growing up, mom always worked the graveyard shift or, like, the, like, mids just so somebody was always home with the girls. And depending on where we live, what she did as an RN would be different. So she would be trauma in one place. She would be geriatric in another. She would be, you know, a surgeon's assistant. It was always different even for her holding a job, and all of that, again, affected us. It's almost like an onion.

Darci Escandon [: 00:20:10

You peel it back piece by piece, and you never really get to the center, So there really isn't any cure. It's just you have to learn to deal with, okay, this is a part of me, and this is what I have to work with, and this is what I have to work through. And, again, it gave me anger issues. I had really, really bad anger issues. With my daughter, I was never physically I never abused her physically, but she gets I mean, kids know. Kids absolutely know what's going on. You know, you can't hide it from them.

Kim [: 00:20:48

Yeah. You bring that generational trauma unknowingly. Like, I'm so proud of you for going to a psychologist because, really, I think everyone should have one because we're so used to who we are, and we live with ourselves 247, and we can validate anything, justify anything in our brains. And sometimes, because of our past and experiences, we don't really know. So it's I'm super proud of you for going and breaking that generational trauma.

Darci Escandon [: 00:21:19

Right. And it was really difficult for me to come to terms with that because, I mean, I didn't know it was called PTSD, but I knew that there was something I don't say wrong because that's the wrong word. But, like, you know, my dad had it. My aunts and uncles had it. You know, my mom had it from between her jobs as a nurse and then having to be a officer spouse. PTSD became like a blanket word to us, and, you know, we didn't know that that was something that was not healthy until later on. And psychologists, again, back in the eighties when we started to see because I was rebellious and, you know, my dad and I would get into a fight, and I would run out of the house and try to find a safe spot. So sometimes it was hiding in the bushes.

Darci Escandon [: 00:22:10

And I remember just holding my breath because I didn't want him to hear me breathe to find out where I was. The first time I tried to run away, we were stationed in Nellis, and I think, again, I was about 6 years old. I don't know what sparked it, but I remember getting a suitcase and putting my stuffed animals in there, trying to put my tricycle because that, you know, it didn't fit. And my parents just let me. I I guess they thought, well, she's not gonna do this. And it wasn't till I went out the door, got to the front gate that they realized, oh, she really is going somewhere. But, yeah, I mean, that became the norm, running away, hiding, trying to find a safe space. You know, there was no such thing as a safe space for me.

Darci Escandon [: 00:22:55

And my whole life, I dealt with, you know, you're never safe.

Kim [: 00:22:59

Well, it sounds like that. It sounds like your environment wasn't safe, and you have a strong intuition. And even though you can't put words to it at 6 years old, you knew you were like, I'm gonna take what meant something to you, what was valuable to you. Your stuffed animals, your red tricycle, you're like and yourself. And you're like, I have to find somewhere.

Darci Escandon [: 00:23:20

Yeah. And that's part of the trauma that is just it's like if you grow a mole on your your neck that you can never have removed. Then I also had to deal with, okay, this is part of my life. Like I said, I asked the psychologist, what's your definition of trauma? Because my parents, again, would go through counselor to counselor because once the counselors, you know, told my dad his role and what he did, how he played into it, boom, we'd see another counselor.

Kim [: 00:23:52

Yeah. It's a hard pill to swallow.

Darci Escandon [: 00:23:54

Yeah. Well and he didn't wanna admit it. I mean, he was this perfect man that the problem was never his problem. It was because I was rebellious. It's because I was angry. All these titles that they put on you that, you know, this is who you are and what you are. And I always rebelled against that because I think somewhere inside, I knew that something better had to be out there. And that's the only thing that I think you know, my sister attempted suicide, and I remember calling home to check-in with my mom when I was on the the streets.

Darci Escandon [: 00:24:29

And one of my sisters told me, Darci, your sister I won't say her name for privacy reasons, but she's in the hospital because she tried to kill herself. And my dad immediately chimed in saying, you know what? It's none of my business. Don't tell her anything because it's none of her business. Because at that point, I wasn't part of the family. And, you know, backtracking when we were back in Colorado, again, there was this cycle of running away. Then I would get to an argument, we'd get into a fight, and I'd run away. And there was a cycle to this, so I knew. So one time, I went straight down to the sheriff's office, and I just sat there because they asked me, you know, what's wrong? And I told them my dad's gonna report me as a runaway.

Darci Escandon [: 00:25:15

I just want you to know where I'm at. Got into another fight. And we lived in a small town in Colorado, so everybody knew everything. I remember maybe oh, I don't know how much time passed because that's the thing. With the dissociative amnesia, I can remember events. Sometimes, you know, in our converse conversation, my brain will allow me to remember events, but maybe in another one, it won't. It's because of having a safe space to talk about it. Anyway, so I'm sitting there.

Darci Escandon [: 00:25:45

My dad comes in. He goes straight to the the officer that's on the desk and says he wants to report his daughter as a runaway. Everybody knew him. Everybody knew me. And he pointed to me the sheriff pointed to me and said, sir, is this your daughter? And he looked over and he said, well, yes. And he said, you know, well, you know where she's at. You can't report her as a runaway. And then my dad looked at him like, how dare you tell me I can't do anything? And said, well, I'm taking my my family down to the valley because we lived up in the mountains, and she's not going with me, basically.

Darci Escandon [: 00:26:24

I'm taking my family to the valley. I'm not part of the family. And the sheriff said, you know, we're not babysitters. We can't keep track of her. If you're deciding to go somewhere and leave her here, then that's on you. My dad just stormed out, and he looked at me. He goes, well, I guess you're, you know, free to go. Just don't cause any trouble.

Kim [: 00:26:45

Oh my gosh. That had to cause some sense of abandonment.

Darci Escandon [: 00:26:48

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I always felt like I didn't measure up. I felt like things just got to the point where I wasn't I was kind of an outsider. I remember once I had a crush on this boy. This is the only time that ever happened to me. And I remember telling my parents, he invited me to a U2 concert, and U2 was my favorite band back then. And I don't remember what my parents said, but it's something along the lines of you can't go and you're grounded for life or whatever.

Darci Escandon [: 00:27:21

And we were leaving the counselor's office, and I just remember this is it. And I remember opening the door and rolling out the door because the car was moving. It wasn't going very fast, I don't think. But running back to this counselor and saying, you know what? Put me in because he had started a new inpatient program for troubled kids.

Kim [: 00:27:46

Yeah.

Darci Escandon [: 00:27:46

And, you know, I realized that that was another theme is I'd rather be as an inpatient or I'd rather be put in juvy. I'd rather do anything but stay with my parents.

Kim [: 00:28:00

Yeah. You're looking for a sense of community, a sense of acceptance, a place for acceptance and love?

Darci Escandon [: 00:28:08

Yes. Just something that, you know, would tell me that you're okay, that you are worth something, that you're not what whatever the stigma that they put on me.

Kim [: 00:28:20

Yeah. Because like you said, deep down, you knew you were you were more than what was being thrown at you.

Darci Escandon [: 00:28:27

Yeah.

Kim [: 00:28:28

And let's talk about this. So I'm so proud of you for going in, staying true to who you are. Mhmm. Enough to know that, okay, just something doesn't feel right. I I need to find something. You went and your treatment to yourself was going towards service animals, emotional support animals. So do you you have this gift of empowering veterans and promoting mental health by connecting them with life changing service dogs and service dog treatments. Like, let's talk about that.

Darci Escandon [: 00:28:59

Obviously, I kinda felt like I had what they call now imposter syndrome because I knew I could see with my aunts and uncles. I could even tell with my dad and other friends, really good friends. You know? I didn't know how to make friends with people that weren't in the military. I just I couldn't. And I'd see what they were going to. You know? They would deploy. They would go wherever they were going to come back. Something was different.

Darci Escandon [: 00:29:26

Although I felt it on the the daughter, the spouse, that type of thing, I would always compare myself to what they went through, not knowing that trauma across the board is something that so many people have to deal with. But I remember being out with Finn, my service dog, and a lady came up and said, thank you for your service. And I was like, It took me a while to register what she had said. And, you know, I realized that's also the stigma is that when you have a psych service dog like Finn, I mean, it says PTSD on his his cape, people automatically assume that it's from military service. And I guess you could say mine was on the other side of the coin, and I knew how dogs and animals help you. You know, I had a horse when I was growing up, and we always had animals. And animals were always a safe space. They didn't judge.

Darci Escandon [: 00:30:26

And then when my therapist suggested that I do get a service dog, it changed everything. And then, you know, I could see with my husband, you know, hey. You need something. You know, he always had a passion for dogs, and it just kinda developed from there. And I saw Fort Bliss is where we live, the city. Fort Bliss is in the city. And so there's a lot of veterans. And I see, especially with their transitioning, trying to go from the military world to the civilian world, again, they're like the round peg in a straight hole or what have you.

Darci Escandon [: 00:31:03

And there's still such a big stigma on mental health. And my husband and all his friends, everybody that I knew had some sort of trauma, but I can take it. I can handle it. Heaven forbid, you know, I go to counseling because then that makes me weak. And with the dogs, it was completely different. The dogs, again, don't judge, and the dogs know. You know? They know how to handle your nervous system. They make it okay to talk about what's going on.

Darci Escandon [: 00:31:34

And so I thought, you know, something needs to be done. I almost got a divorce because I insisted on getting a second service dog because Finn, you know, had a £100. That deep pressure therapy is a little too deep. And so I ended up going to our local animal shelter because that's another thing is that I found that when you give a dog a second chance, it's almost like you're giving yourself a second chance.

Kim [: 00:32:01

Oh, that was powerful. That's powerful.

Darci Escandon [: 00:32:05

Yeah. Because you have to. I mean, my thing is who rescued who? Because I thought I was rescuing Finn when I adopted him. And I realized that as time went on, he actually rescued me. The things that he alerted to, the things that he tasked to were things that I didn't think that, you know, I needed help with, like the PTSD. I didn't know I was getting triggered. I didn't know that, okay, you need to get to some place safe because it was just a part of me, but the dog knew. And so I wanted to take that and just help people like my husband, people like our friends, people like my family.

Darci Escandon [: 00:32:46

Because going through the trauma myself and seeing how the dog helped. So going back to getting rein, I needed a dog that was, you know, definitely under a £100 that that because deep pressure therapy is huge. I need that. I need my nervous system to calm down. And then, also, you know, I was really wobbly. And that's another thing is the physical the way your body physically reacts to the trauma. You know, there's a link. I really believe that there's a link because your brain can only process so much.

Darci Escandon [: 00:33:20

Your nervous system can only handle so much. And so I would kinda pass out a lot. And so she would be, like, something to help me to be stable if we're walking around somewhere on the occasions I did leave the house. Because that's another thing. I never wanted to leave the house. I would go to work when I could hold a job, but I even did school online because I dropped out of school and then decided, you know what? I need my degree to get a promotion.

Kim [: 00:33:48

Well, it was a scary world for you out there.

Darci Escandon [: 00:33:50

Well, it was my normal. Yeah. If I talked about it, then I could see, oh, that was scary. But, anyway, we got rain, and she started alerting to him right away. And it took him a year, and now he finally takes her to work with him. Everybody says that the office environment is different because he's no longer angry because she calms him. So, yeah, physically, she reacts to his blood sugar, but, emotionally, it's changed his demeanor from night and day. So I want that for other people.

Darci Escandon [: 00:34:22

I want that for veterans because the mental health still isn't there. The support still isn't there. People, oh, there's wounded warriors. There's the VA. There's all these things. The VA is clueless. They really are. I mean, let's just say say it for what it is.

Darci Escandon [: 00:34:39

They're clueless. They do have all these military programs for veterans, but it can take years to get a dog. It takes 2 years to fully train a dog. So the waiting lists are really, really high, but people don't know you can own or train a dog. You can get a rescue dog It doesn't have to take years, and it doesn't have to take lots of money. So that's what I'm passionate about doing now because it helps me as well.

Kim [: 00:35:06

I love that you took your trauma because a lot of people will play victim. And, again, sometimes, it's just a natural form to go into victimhood when you don't know what you don't know. But once you start learning about everything like you did and then you started you're very intuitive. I could tell just by talking to you. Watching because now you've become hypervigilant, and you're watching everything. And you take that, and you were like, oh my gosh. I see other people suffering like me. I don't want anyone to feel like that.

Kim [: 00:35:40

And getting into the service dog industry and helping train and even with your husband like, Darci, you are an incredible woman, and I just want you you're welcome. I love that you said thank you. Yes. You're accepting it now.

Darci Escandon [: 00:35:57

I'm trying to. Yeah.

Kim [: 00:35:58

Well, you just said thank you. So that is a beautiful, beautiful comment to make to yourself. Yeah. And I wanna thank you for being on dog tag diaries. I wanna thank you for being so brave for telling your story the first time. And now, you're gonna be able to just draw on this experience and continue doing it, which in turn is gonna help other women. So, I appreciate you being on here, and thank you. Thank you for tuning in to Dog Tag Diaries.

Kim [: 00:36:31

We appreciate your willingness to listen and engage with these stories as we understand the challenge that comes with sharing and hearing them. Your support in witnessing the experience of our military women is invaluable. These stories are meant to inspire and provide meaning, and we hope they can help you find your own voice as well.

Dakota [: 00:36:52

If you or anyone you know are in need of immediate help, call the crisis line by dialing 988, then press 1. There are resources available to help and provide guidance during difficult times. Please visit our website www.reveilleandretreatproject.org to learn more about the Reveille and Retreat Project, including upcoming retreats for military women and resources. The link is in the show notes. We'll be here again next Wednesday. Keep finding the hope, the healing, and the power in community.