Empathy in Practice: How Personal Struggles Shape Therapy with Alexis Skopos

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (00:00)
Welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now, the podcast where we dive deep into the moments of transformation, the times when not yet shifts into right now and everything changes. I'm your host Jen Ginty, and this podcast is all about those pivotal moments in our life journeys. You know the ones when the hesitation fades, when we take that first step, even if it feels like a leap. It's in these moments that growth and healing begins.

Each episode will explore stories of resilience, moments of clarity, and the sparks that ignite real change, from personal experiences to expert insights. We'll uncover how people navigate the complex journey we call life and come out stronger on the other side. Whether you're searching for that spark in your own life or just curious about how change unfolds for others, you're in the right place. We'll discuss the ups and downs, the breakthroughs and setbacks, and how to embrace the right now, even when it feels out of reach.

because sometimes the hardest part of the journey is realizing that the moment you've been waiting for has already arrived. So take a deep breath, settle in, and let's get started.

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (01:08)
Hello and welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now. I have a wonderful guest today. Her name is Alexis. And let me introduce her.

Alexis Scopos graduated from Stetson University with a bachelor's in psychology and a master's in clinical mental health counseling. She has experience working in residential units, crisis units, high schools, child welfare, and methadone clinics. Alexis is incredibly passionate about working with the LGBTQIA community, sex positive community, body acceptance community, and domestic violence survivors. She's trained in a variety of trauma-informed modalities.

Welcome, Alexis. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here. Yes, yes. So let's jump into it. Tell me a little about your origin story. Absolutely. So I always joke mental health careers found me. Well, I grew up in Ohio. I had the typical American dream family until when I was about seven, my mom got sick.

she had something that was called scleroderma, but at the time it was definitely not a well-researched, well-known disease. Essentially though, she got very sick and she passed away when I was nine.

What I always say though there too is like my dad kind of also died that day. That was the love of his life. They were together since like the start of high school. So it was a really significant loss and it kind of led a chain of other events. You know, my life kind of went from this picture perfect family to a family with turmoil, a lot of anger and sadness, not knowing where to place, a lot of self-destruction.

We moved to Florida though when I was 12. And again, just not being a little person, not knowing how to navigate the world. I definitely put myself in situations that were harmful and self-sabotaging. And all through my teens. I mean, again, I really didn't learn how to regulate things in a healthy way until I got my master's program.

So that's really the quicker version of everything, but there's been a lot of events in between that, again, were very damaging to myself that kind of led me to where I am today and really driving my decisions today to make sure I'm the best I can

So what made you go into like psychology for college? So I was always interested in the human brain. I really wanted to be a neurologist to be honest, but that's a little too much school. growing up, I had OK counselors, therapists, but I just didn't feel the safety that I felt like I needed. There was just.

so much chaos from the time I was nine on that safety kind of felt like an illusion. And I know I never wanted anybody ever to feel the way I did. And I mean, that kind of sounds like the cliche therapist response, but it's definitely true. mean, that's why I do this every day. So nobody feels as suicidal or just alone like I did. Yeah, I understand that completely. This is why I do this podcast.

is to help others to not feel so alone. And I understand that wanting to go into psychology, my brother actually did that as well. And we were abused as children and he has OCD and he became a psychologist and he works with veterans. That's amazing. Wow. So I understand that connection. Like I don't want others to feel this way.

Again, yeah, that's why I do this. That's why I created my monster doll. You know, it was for that intention of helping others through it. I think we are just, when you find a way you want it to give others hope, and that's really hard when you know how that feels to be so hopeless.

Absolutely. And why did you choose these particular communities to work with? So as far as the LGBTQIA community, so after my mom passed, my dad was always bisexual. And since my mom, I mean, again, she was the love of his life. He only has really done with men. And growing up in rural Ohio, that in the early 2000s was...

incredibly taboo. mean, if you drove 45 minutes to the left, you were in like Amish town. So it was definitely not something that was accepted. But the part that always got me was how can you hate people for loving somebody? And that just really stuck. And then I moved to Florida and everybody is a lot more open minded. But it just made me so sad because I know I had friends up in Ohio that were masking because it wasn't safe.

So that's really why I'm into that community. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I try so much to be an ally. When I was growing up, this was like late 80s, early 90s. You did not talk about that. And my two best friends were both gay. And they went to an all-boys school. And the fear of their classmates finding out about their sexuality and hiding it, keeping it hidden all along, and I could see the pain.

in that and I didn't want that to happen to any of my friends. so I've always been very open and want to give allyship where I can. So it's yeah, the community is very beautiful. It is. It is. I and it I guess it stinks on one end that we have to advocate as much as we do, obviously, but also the other side of it where people can really come together and

give each other that comfort, especially in recent times. It is just beautiful. So tell me, would you like to talk about any of the other communities that you work with? Yeah. So also an advocate and ally for the, the sex community, just because

You know, it's important for people to be themselves as long as you're not hurting anybody else and everything is consensual. It's important to, again, kind of living back to your authentic self. And also having a safe place to talk about those things. Like, I work a lot with shame and it is so, so rooted in, of course, all of these core messages, but it is just vitally important that people can process the things to be better in a safe place. But

so that's really big reason for that one. And then the body positive one, especially I, have always dealt with my own self-esteem issues. So that really became a passion as, know, growing up in the early 2000s, if you weren't Cindy Crawford, woof. it was rough times. yeah. You're, you're talking to an eighties girl here. Yeah. You know, it was heroin chic is what they called it. Yes. Twiggy. my gosh. You know, it was, it was a lot.

like said Cindy Crawford, all of the, they became supermodels and they were all just thin rails that nobody could really get to. And I had a lot of teasing back when I was in school for my weight. And the shame that comes with that, not only the shame of your body not looking the way others wanted to, but also if, like I was being abused as well. So that brought on a level of shame in its

sense. And when that shame becomes toxic, it's it's it you start to believe that you're a bad person because of the things that you really can't change about yourself. 100%. And I mean, a lot of folks, they don't really know the difference between guilt and shame. You guilt is more where you've actually done something and there's those feelings of feeling bad about it. But shame is

You didn't do anything wrong, but for whatever reason, your core beliefs are telling you, you are bad. But there's real, no, I guess, evidence for that either. And that's where shame gets so tricky because logically we can say something, but connecting it to heart, woo, different story. yeah. I work with DBT and yeah, yeah, yeah, for my, my PTSD. And it's just been so amazing. and I, I do my own.

YouTube channel with, I call them Moody Talks, where I pick an emotion every month. And I talk about the ways that you feel about it, the descriptive words you use, the way your body feels. And then I talk about coping skills. And with shame, how I understood it, and it made sense to me from DBT standpoint, is that shame is a viable and appropriate emotion, because they all are. It's when you you

believe you're a bad person rather than what society, the social setting you're in has told you is incorrect or not appropriate. like a child taking another child's toy and a teacher saying, we don't take toys from others like that. You need to give that back. There's that twinge of shame. And that's OK, because they learned a lesson for their society that they're in. The problem with it when it gets toxic is,

You are, you believe you're a bad, bad person. Yeah. It comes out of that window of tolerance. You know, of course there is a healthy ish level of it, but you're absolutely right. Like when you, a child for a learning purpose, as long again, as it is reigned into that window of tolerance, of course, but if you can't gauge other people's window of tolerance usually, and that's the tricky part.

Well, and society doesn't give us any slack, any slack at all. Done it all. You either do exactly what society wants you to do, or you're a misfit. You're an outcast, right? Yeah, and it's so interesting to me because being on the other side where I talk to all these amazing people, everybody's so weird, but everybody's afraid to show other people that they're weird. And it just cracks me up because

I've worked with people who are more on the famous spectrum. I've worked with people who are in charge of these big companies who have this persona. know, then they get in the therapy room and they're just like, I don't want people to see me as weird. And I'm like, but we're all weird. Right? We're all unique. Does that make us weird? Is that what it is? Uniqueness is weirdness. Then okay, I'm fine with being a weirdo. Absolutely. I mean,

But also, yeah, what the heck is the norm? That doesn't even make sense. You're right. You're right, you know, and you also said that you work with domestic violence survivors. Yes. I have get into that. So that became more of a passion of mine in my graduate program. So I was one of those women. It will never happen to me. It said it over and over again, and then it did. I was 23.

And I had a kind of a unique situation. Before I knew what was going on, he was moving in. It was supposed to be for two weeks, it ended up like, couldn't get him out. And there was no love there, just fear. But fear is one of the most powerful emotions to come. So it really changed my perspective on absolutely everything. Because I think once...

you're really like seeing signs, you kind of gaslight yourself like, this doesn't happen all the time. This is a one off, but then it's not. And then the fear just grows and grows and grows. So I, I really like to work with domestic violence survivors, just also normalized because there's a lot of emotional and mental abuse, but, that was most of what I went through and it's hard because, okay, I don't have a bruise. So how can I really validate this?

that you know, then you start questioning yourself and then do you trust yourself now if you know, you pick this person so how can you trust yourself and it just becomes a ball of yarn that you can't untangle.

Then again, there's also that shame.

as well. Why didn't I get out of there in enough time? Why did I let him treat me like this? Why did I lie to everyone? That kind of thing. That shame just comes right back into it and snaps you right up, right? yeah, especially, you know, being in the field and going through my master's program and being in that situation. So much shame. I mean, I have all the tools. I know the red flags and yet I'm still in this position.

So that was an incredibly shameful thing that, you know, I'm still working through even. You know, it's, he's actually in jail right now for a felony, domestic violence. And that also opens wounds because, you know, if maybe I've gone forward, this wouldn't happen to somebody else. But also if I went forward, I didn't, at the time I didn't know what the hell to do.

It's very bittersweet thing. how you? You know, we blame ourselves for these things when it really wasn't our fault at all to begin with. And I understand that fear that you're talking about, you know, the fear that just seeps in and like sits in your soul and your body and your mind is that's, you know, I live a complex PTSD. And so, you know, I, I'm hyper everything, hyper vigilant, hyper folk.

Hyper, so hyper, hyper, hyper all the time. Stress levels higher than the quote average person. So fear really can drive an entire lifetime if you don't get the help you need for it. Million percent. And I see it often. And the good and crappy thing I learned about fear is the only way to get through it is through experience.

So it's taking itty bitty risks that end up adding up, but to make that first step, that requires some form of hope. especially in domestic violence survivors, that's really hard to have because you have to start from the bottom up.

And I don't know if this is the same with domestic violence survivors as it is for child abuse. But I had to really hide my emotions. I couldn't show fear. That was the number one thing I couldn't show because my abuser lived for it. So I would jump from that fear emotion in any situation and jump into like anger or something that I felt I could control better than the fear.

Do you see that a lot with domestic violence? Absolutely. mean, you go into survival, you know, and fear is such a safe emotion for people in comparison to sadness, vulnerability, et cetera. You know, anger, especially as a kid when we can't express anything else, everything starts to just go through that funnel and it gets so muddy. absolutely.

answer that. So do you work with survivors on one-on-one? Do you work with them in groups? So I have worked in groups, but I prefer one-on-ones, but my partner, loves to work with groups. So we try to offer different things because groups are important. You need to know others have experienced it, but also sometimes you need that 100 % attunement. Yeah.

I used both. I built the team when my brain said you got to start doing this and you got to start coping. So I actually hated group therapy when I was a kid. It was like, why am I here? What am I doing? people don't want to hear my shit. But then when I became an adult, years and years years later, was just like, these people are my people. They get

They understand it and I can actually say more to them than my loved ones. The same with individual therapists. I always tell people an individual therapist is third party. They're not a part of your life. You can tell them anything. Things that you would never tell your family or your friends. And that becomes a you know, a great way to lift the burden off your back. 100%. I mean,

shame definitely lessens when it's talked about in a really safe place. And I mean, most of a therapeutic alliance is based off of your relationship versus actual interventions, because the human connection is just absolutely incredible. Not even human. mean, any form of connection. There was a study done in the 1900s that, you know, they put one monkey on an island and they put like 30 on another island and the one

died way, way, way sooner than the community. And it just kind of goes to show we as humans are very similar. What kind of modalities do you use? Yeah, so I use, you know, the kind of usual with CBT, but I am trained specifically in motivational interviewing, brain spotting, ACT.

And I have some history with like marriage counseling with Gottman level one and prepare and rich. But that's more of my focus trainings, mostly on brain spawning. Yeah, what's brain spawning? It's so cool. So it's a similar idea of EMDR if you're familiar. And if you're not, no, no, use EMDR actually. Awesome. incredibly similar idea. It's just a lot less structured and instead of a moving point, it's a fixed point. But

The idea is a brain spot is where you hold information. So you might be looking at somebody when they talk and their eyes go in different directions. That's because they're pulling off that little film. So with brain spotting, we get somebody activated around an issue. So we'll maybe talk a little bit about maybe your domestic violence situation. Opening up that brain spot so we can get in there to pull out the information. And it basically kind of soften the emotional blow.

and also improve functioning. But what I do is I go across your screen with a pointer, go incredibly slow. Once we hit a spot, generally people feel it. Sometimes they don't, but in the event that they're not that connected with their body, the clinician is looking for reflexes. But usually people feel it. And it's what we call a bottom-up approach. It is the idea of moving trauma out of our bodies.

So it's a very, very, very somatic experience. I've had somebody throw up once because it was their stuff coming out and she was like, I feel amazing now. And I'm like, okay, girl. But it's just, it's really neat. And for some people, they only need one session for others. They might need more, but it's kind of more on the newer field of trauma therapy. Yeah. And do you have any?

modalities that you use really often.

I'm a pretty existential person. So I would say I definitely tie in that often. Definitely, actually strength based as well. I use that really often in hindsight. but I do a lot of challenging, which can be from different modalities, but I guess I would say the biggest one is CBT. But I absolutely love to challenge and just get people thinking.

What would you say to a domestic violence, someone who's in domestic violence, what would you say would be the best steps for them? I think the best steps definitely depends on what sort of resources you have around. For some people, they're lucky. They get to stay in contact with their family. And for others, they don't. So if there is a safe person by chance, I would talk to them about having a go bag, which

what that it can look like is packing essentials, digging a hole somewhere, throwing it in there. And whenever you have the opportunity, getting the hell out. I know there are shelters and that could definitely be a stepping stone. I also encourage people to reach out to your local mental health kind of, if you don't have the money, community mental health center, because when you're coming out of those or you're in it, you feel so

broken, there's no hope that your self-esteem is shot. And that makes it 100 times harder to leave because you have been gaslit into believing you deserve this. for a lot of people, that's enough to stay.

What would you say in terms of, the LGBTQIA community as well? Is there anything that you would like to say, how you work with them and, you know, what can a person who's coming out do when they don't feel like anybody around them is going to?

I especially for that community, we actually have a group for it because I think groups are super important. You need to know that you're not alone and it can be such a strong, amazing community if you really engage in it. I know in Orlando, they have the zebra coalition that is basically a shelter for people who are under 18 who get kicked out of their home for being a part of the community. But I really, really think groups are

Phenomenal. And also doing a lot of shame work. I have a lot of clients actually right now where they're part of the community but they have this internalized core belief around homophobia and they're at war with themselves. And I mean, obviously like socially speaking, I can see where that comes from. But again, it strips your authentic self. So I really encourage shame work in groups. No, you're not the only one.

So tell us where we can find you. Yeah. So if you Google be kind of mine, we should pop up. are based out of Daytona. We have another physical office in Delam, but we do virtual all across the state of Florida and also Vermont now.

I know it's so it's really random, but it's kind of cool. and also we're on all of the platforms, be kind of my counseling. You'll see my headshot, which is kind of my catfish photo. So you can definitely find us there. We also have a great blog on a bunch of different things. So if you just want to read some of that, check us out on our webpage. Yeah, I would really like that. I'll link to that for the show notes. I got you. Great.

Well, thank you so much, Alexis. This was such a great conversation. You have so much knowledge to give to people. I appreciate you having me on here and giving me the opportunity. Thanks so much.

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (25:21)
I'm so glad that we have therapists and people like Alexis out there in our world, especially in our current situation in the country, that there are people that women, LGBTQIA community and other communities can reach out to Alexis and work with her or her partner on some of these really difficult emotions and

the way that we feel about ourselves. I hope that you got some great information out of this episode.