Anchor Moments

Krista Patrick
  • 5.0 (13)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

Every person you pass has a story you don't know. The cashier who barely makes eye contact. The man on the corner you walk around. The refugee who lives down the street. The soccer mom who seems to have it all together. The advocate who won't stop fighting. Anchor Moments is a podcast about the experiences that made us who we are - the moments we can't stop being shaped by, whether we want to be or not. Each episode, one person shares their story. Not a celebrity. Not a politician. An everyday person, whose life you might have walked right past without knowing - and whose story, once you hear it, changes how you see them forever. Because I've come to believe one thing: it's impossible not to love someone once you know their story. Anchor Moments is trauma-informed, mental-health-aware, and built for the people who feel unseen, and for the people who want to see them.

  1. 4d ago

    Ep 29: You Made a Choice, You Can't Sit With Us - Sabrina Fletcher on TFMR

    Everything went fine. It's what a doctor says when the procedure worked - no complications, nothing they didn't expect. It's meant kindly, and almost every time it's said in a hospital it's the best news in the building. For some people there's a second half. Sabrina Fletcher was almost thirteen weeks pregnant with a baby she and her husband had lit a candle for the night she was conceived. A scan found something the doctor spent an hour explaining, turning the screen around so she could see it herself. She had seven days to decide, in a state that wouldn't let her. She's a TFMR doula now - termination for medical reasons. If you've never heard the term, that's most of the problem, and we get into it. I tell you about my first loss in this one, and near the end, about my sixth pregnancy. That story in full is the solo episode later this month. A heads up: this episode is about losing a baby, and about ending a pregnancy that was wanted, after a diagnosis. There's a lot of medical trauma in it, including how she was treated during and after the procedure. There's postpartum with no baby. There's a death in the family. And near the end I talk about nearly dying in my sixth pregnancy. Take what you need, including skipping this one. Find Sabrina: she's on Instagram at @thetfmrdoula. Her podcast is Our TFMR Stories. Her grief circle, her decision-support calls and her membership are on her site at thetfmrdoula.com. Also mentioned: ARC - Antenatal Results and Choices (arc-uk.org), the UK organization Sabrina points people to. And Megan Devine's book, It's OK That You're Not OK. If you're struggling, you're not alone: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988). Postpartum Support International, 1-800-944-4773. If you're struggling, you're not alone: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988). Postpartum Support International, 1-800-944-4773. This week's question: When have you known something before you could explain it -and did you listen? Come tell me on Instagram @AnchorMomentsPod. Listen: pod.link/1884460039

  2. Sep 30

    Ep 28: Someone Snored At Me and I Stopped Talking-My Story

    Yes, I have a favorite type of road. Doesn't everyone? A few years ago I was at a dinner with my closest friends, talking about something I genuinely love, and one of my best friends threw her head back and made a snoring noise at me. Everybody laughed. I laughed too. And then I stopped talking about anything that mattered to me, for years. This episode is my life in this body - what it actually costs to live in one that doesn't cooperate, and what it costs more than that to live with everybody's reactions to it. In this one: - Chronic Illness; AuDHD, Tourette's, OCD, dysautonomia, MDD, chronic fatigue, Ehlers-Danlos, GAD, visual processing disorder, body dysmorphia, moral scrupulosity, sensory processing... If you have ever been called lazy by somebody who could not see what you were carrying, this one is for you. And if you have ever been the one doing the assuming, that's alright - I'd just like you to hold the conclusion a little longer next time. The stories and views shared on Anchor Moments belong to the people telling them. They aren't always mine, and that's the point. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. Take what helps, and leave the rest. Anchor Moments is a show about the moments that split a life into a before and an after, and who we became on the other side. New episodes every Wednesday. Got a story? anchormomentspod.com Instagram + TikTok: @anchormomentspod Take what helps, and leave the rest.

  3. Sep 23

    Ep 27: I Thought That Was My Personality. It Was a Food Allergy. - Mik's Story

    Mik was seventeen when a doctor finally explained why he could never keep up. A congenital heart defect. He was fit, he was trying, and he got tired faster than everyone around him, and now there was a reason. What he did with that reason is the story. He started asking what health actually is, and then followed the question for twenty years - out of New York City, onto a farm, into the soil, and eventually into the work he does now, where he argues that metabolic health and mental health are not two subjects. Somewhere in the middle of that, in his early twenties, he cut out gluten and then dairy and met a person he had never met before. Calmer. Easier to be around. The moody, cranky, hard-to-like kid he had always assumed he simply was turned out to be, in large part, a food allergy. And then, right after a burnout he did not see coming, he found out he needed open heart surgery. It was supposed to be open and shut. It was not. In this one: - The line that started this whole episode for me: "I wonder how many years I lost" - Why his cardiologist told a scared seventeen-year-old he was completely fine - and the very deliberate reason he said it that way - What magnesium has to do with fungus, rocks, and the way we farm - The 3am wake-up he tried to fix with chamomile, lavender, tart cherry, hot showers, cold showers, more exercise, less exercise - and what actually turned out to be causing it - The moment control stopped being available to him, and what he found underneath it A heads up: open heart surgery and a recovery that went badly wrong, burnout, my own mental health crisis and hospitalization, and chronic illness on both sides of the mic. There is also a brief mention of recreational drug use. Take what you need, including skipping this one. Not medical advice. Mik is not a clinician and neither am I, and this conversation gets specific about food, supplements and diets. Nothing here is a recommendation for your body. Talk to your own person before you change anything. FIND MIK - feelsila.com - the company he is building, for people navigating burnout or going on mental health leave. Currently early access, so there may be a wait list. - LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mpozin - where he writes about metabolic psychiatry and burnout IF YOU NEED SUPPORT - 988 - Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call or text, US, 24/7 - findahelpline.com - free, confidential support in over 100 countries - Job Accommodation Network - askjan.org - free, confidential guidance on workplace accommodations and medical leave in the US - US Department of Labor - FMLA - dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla - what job-protected medical leave actually covers - NAMI HelpLine - 1-800-950-6264 - free peer support and navigation for mental health The stories and views shared on Anchor Moments belong to the people telling them. They aren't always mine, and that's the point. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. Take what helps, and leave the rest. Anchor Moments is a show about the moments that split a life into a before and an after, and who we became on the other side. New episodes every Wednesday. Got a story? anchormomentspod.com Instagram + TikTok: @anchormomentspod

  4. Sep 16

    Ep 26: Performing Normal: The Therapist Who Quit Being Good - Amy Watkins' Story

    Amy grew up in a house that ran on fear. Hellfire, rapture-any-minute, and a God who was mostly a punishment schedule. Being good meant being invisible. Wanting things was a sin - she circled the Sears catalog in her head, because circling with a pen got you in trouble. So she got good. Good at reading every room, good at being whoever the person in front of her needed her to be. Good enough to build a whole adult life on it: a marriage, a career as a therapist, a flawless performance of a woman who was fine. Then it came apart - the marriage, the family, and finally the performance itself. What's left is who you'll meet here: a trauma therapist who calls herself God's favorite problem, and the author of a book that leaves nothing out. In this one: Why a little girl crawled down the hallway at night to check that her parents were still in their bedsThe difference between estrangement and parental alienation - and why Amy is careful about which word she usesWhat setting a boundary feels like in your body when you've never set one (she has a very specific answer)Longing versus love, and how she finally learned to tell them apartWhy she says she even healed as a good girlThe sunset skydive, and what jumping out of a plane had to do with posting her first videoAmy is a licensed professional counselor and trauma therapist in Philadelphia. A hundred thousand people follow her at gods.favorite.problem. Her book, Performing Normal, is out now - and she didn't leave anything out. Warning - it's a heavy one: childhood sexual abuse (talked about honestly, not graphically), high-control religion, an affair, and estrangement and parental alienation - on both sides of the mic. Take what you need, including skipping this one. It'll be here when you're ready. FIND AMY Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gods.favorite.problem/Performing Normal, her book - out now: https://www.amywatkinsstudio.com/bookEverything else: https://linktr.ee/gods.favorite.problemIF YOU NEED SUPPORT RAINN - National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673, or chat at online.rainn.org. Free, confidential, 24/7Recovering from Religion - recoveringfromreligion.org - free peer support for people questioning or leaving high-control religionNational Domestic Violence Hotline - thehotline.org, 1-800-799-7233 - includes coercive control, not just physical abuse988 - Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call or text, US, 24/7findahelpline.com - free, confidential support in over 100 countriesThe stories and views shared on Anchor Moments belong to the people telling them. They aren't always mine, and that's the point. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. Take what helps, and leave the rest. Got a story? anchormomentspod.com Instagram + TikTok: @anchormomentspod

  5. Sep 9

    Ep 25: 27 Years of "It's All in Your Head" - A Therapist on His Own Medical Journey

    Austin Bridges treats anxiety, OCD, and trauma for a living. He spent the first twenty-seven years of his own life being told by doctors that he had it backwards - that he wasn't sick and anxious, he was anxious and therefore sick. Reacting to formula at three months old. Celiac at twenty-seven. Four more years for the nausea, and then a two-hour appointment with a doctor his mother found, who listened to all of it and said he knew what it was and could fix it. Austin cried. Not because he was finally being helped - because for once, he wasn't interesting. In this episode: - The two diagnoses he calls the turning points of his life, and the twenty-seven years in between - The gastroenterologist who answered him with "which one of us went to medical school," and the practice that wouldn't let him switch - The one thing every doctor who actually helped him had in common, and it isn't credentials - The man in the yellow hat, and why getting used to the hat never works - What anxiety is actually made of - he says it's only ever two things - The pill in his hand, and the sentence his OCD used to keep him from swallowing it - Why he thinks people with OCD are the most courageous clients he works with - The rug in my therapist's office, and what he told me to do about it A heads up: chronic illness, medical dismissal, panic attacks, compulsions described in detail, a significant weight change on a medication, and one brief mention from me of a time I was suicidal. Austin also names several clinical OCD subtypes in passing. Nothing here is medical advice. This week's question: what's your version of the rug? The small thing you can't leave alone that you already know isn't about the thing. Come tell me on Instagram. FIND AUSTIN AustinBridgesTherapy.com - info@austinbridgestherapy.com - Instagram @austinbridgestherapy MENTIONED IOCDF - iocdf.org - directory of OCD therapists EMDRIA - emdria.org - directory of EMDR therapists Stopping the Noise in Your Head by Reid Wilson Gut Feelings by Douglas Drossman, MD - the doctor who diagnosed him Celiac Disease Foundation - celiac.org IF YOU NEED SUPPORT 988 - Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call or text, US, 24/7 findahelpline.com - free, confidential support in over 100 countries The stories and views shared on Anchor Moments belong to the people telling them. They aren't always mine, and that's the point. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. Take what helps, and leave the rest. This show is not medical advice. Anchor Moments is a show about the moments that split a life into a before and an after, and who we became on the other side. New episodes every Wednesday. If this one moved something in you, send it to the person you thought about while listening. And follow so the next one finds you. Got a story? anchormomentspod.com Instagram + TikTok: @anchormomentspod

  6. Sep 2

    Ep 24: "I'm Over the Justification of Behavior" - Mike's Story

    Mike Dyson will tell you the year that changed his life was 1993, and that everything before it was him trying to get through on his own. He was bullied for years as a kid, some of it for being adopted, and learned early to smile while holding fear underneath. In the Marine Corps, an officer humiliated him on the parade deck when he was twenty-two. His answer wasn't to fight back - it was to become the best in every room, every time, so no one could touch him again. It worked, on the outside. Marine of the Year finalist. A business owner. An HOA president. None of it healed what was underneath. In 1993, at the end of himself, he asked God to take his life and do whatever needed doing with the mess of it. The first thing he says he heard back: stop blaming. In 2023, doctors found significant coronary artery disease, and he had a double bypass. Three decades after the night that changed the direction of everything, another valley he never would have picked. In this episode: The night in 1993 that started everything, and the four words that began itThe pastor who didn't know what to do with him, and the thirteen years it costWhat the 2023 diagnosis asked of a man who thought he'd already done the hard partThe dashboard-light reframe that changed how he holds his own angerWhy he calls "everything happens for a reason" bad theologyWhat his book, The Shadow, is actually about, and who he wrote it forWhat "God meets us in weakness, not just strength" means to him on an ordinary TuesdayA heads up: bullying, his mother's difficult decision the week she found out she was pregnant with him in 1960, heart surgery described in detail, and a season of past domestic abuse mentioned briefly. Nothing here is medical advice. This week's question: the first thing he says God told him was stop blaming. Who would you have to stop blaming? Come tell me on Instagram. FIND MIKE mikedysonauthor.com - The Shadow, available on Amazon Facebook: Mike Dyson IF YOU NEED SUPPORT 988 - Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call or text, US, 24/7 findahelpline.com - free, confidential support in over 100 countries thehotline.org - National Domestic Violence Hotline The stories and views shared on Anchor Moments belong to the people telling them. They aren't always mine, and that's the point. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. Take what helps, and leave the rest. This show is not medical advice. Anchor Moments is a show about the moments that split a life into a before and an after, and who we're still becoming because of them. New episodes every Wednesday. If this one moved something in you, send it to the person you thought about while listening. And follow so the next one finds you. Got a story? anchormomentspod.com Instagram + TikTok: @anchormomentspod

  7. Aug 26

    Ep 23: "It Doesn't Work That Way" - The Thing I've Never Said Out Loud

    My dad drove my car out to Utah, dropped me off at college, and was dead by September. I was barely eighteen. This is what happened after, and what a man in authority said to me when I finally worked up the nerve to tell him about it. I have never said all of this out loud. I was raised that these experiences are sacred, which is a word that does a lot of work when what it's actually doing is keeping you quiet. In this episode: What I was taught to believe about experiences like this, and why "sacred, not secret" landed differently on a kid who needed to get everything exactly rightThe fork I was standing at in that dorm room, and the two-hour prayer where I asked for nothingThe phone ringing in a room that didn't have a phoneThe woman on the window bench who sang me a song in a language she didn't understand, and what the temple told me years later when I went back to find herThe seven words from my church leader that sent me into a faith transition I'm still in, and why I now think I needed themHeavy or light - the one question I taught my kids to use when nobody can tell them what's trueWhere I've actually landed, which is not where you'd expect and is not tidy A heads up: this one is about the death of a parent and there is a lot of grief in it. It also covers being disbelieved by a religious authority, a past struggle with alcohol, and mental health. I name my religion in this episode. I'm not making a case for or against it, and this isn't the episode where I tell that whole story. This week's question, and I mean it: has something happened to you that you couldn't explain, and you either never told anyone, or you did and they gave you their version of "that's not how it works"? And what's the thing you've never said out loud because of how you were raised? Come tell me on Instagram. MENTIONED "Say It Anyway" by Rosi Golan, Mosiah 2:17-19 IF YOU NEED SUPPORT 988 - Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call or text, US, 24/7 findahelpline.com - free, confidential support in over 100 countries dougy.org - The Dougy Center. Free peer grief support, and a worldwide directory of grief programs you can search by where you live reclamationcollective.com - religious-trauma-informed therapist directory and peer support groups, for people leaving a faith and for people staying in one The stories and views shared on Anchor Moments belong to the people telling them. This week they're mine. I'm not asking anybody to take them on. Take what helps, and leave the rest. Anchor Moments is a show about the moments that split a life into a before and an after, and who we became on the other side. New episodes every Wednesday. If this one moved something in you, send it to the person you thought about while you were listening. And follow so the next one finds you. Got a story? anchormomentspod.com Instagram + TikTok: @anchormomentspod

  8. Aug 19

    Ep 22: She Took Three Pills for a UTI. Five Months Later She Was in Hospice - Talia's Story

    Talia Smith was raised by her grandmother, called her every day on the drive home from work, and was holding her hand when she died. She spent ten years as her husband's full-time caregiver after he broke his neck. In April 2021 she got a urinary tract infection, asked good questions, took the antibiotic exactly as prescribed, and the next morning she put her foot on the floor and fell. Five months later she was admitted to hospice. This is the story of what it costs to be the person who did everything right. In this episode: The grandmother she was glued to from birth, and the grief she says she has never recovered fromThe regret question she asked her grandmother, and then years later asked her grandfather, and the identical answer they both gaveThe voicemail meant to reassure her about her husband, and what she heard underneath itTen years of caregiving, and the closeness she says she'd never had in any other relationshipThe UTI her doctor said she would never normally have treated, and the prescription she got anywayThe question she asked before she swallowed the first pill, and the answer she was givenThe ER doctor who named the drug before she could finish her sentence, told her he sees it often, and sent her home with ibuprofenThe word a doctor finally handed her, and the single story she found when she searched itThe friend who turned out to live 45 minutes down the roadA heads up on this one: medical trauma, medical dismissal, disability, hospice, and the death of a grandparent. Talia describes a rapid physical decline in real detail. Take care of yourself while you listen. One more thing. Talia's microphone stopped recording partway through and neither of us knew. There is no backup. What you'll hear is the first part of a much longer conversation, and the part that's missing is the part she came to give. I explain it properly at the end, and I'd rather tell you than have you think she trailed off. This week's question: Has there been a time you knew something about your own body, and you were told you were wrong? What did that cost you, and what would you do differently now? Come tell me on Instagram at Anchor Moments Pod. FIND TALIA All her links: https://linktr.ee/finding.vulnerariesHer site, This Is Floxed, and the support group she runs - both are on the linktree aboveIF YOU NEED SUPPORT FDA MedWatch - report a reaction to a medication yourself: fda.gov/medwatch or 1-800-FDA-1088. You don't need anyone's permission.988 - Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, call or text, US, 24/7findahelpline.com - free, confidential support in over 100 countriesCaregiver Action Network - caregiveraction.org - support for family caregiversThe stories and views shared on Anchor Moments belong to the people telling them. They aren't always mine, and that's the point. I'm not here to agree, correct, diagnose, or decide who's right. Take what helps, and leave the rest. This show is not medical advice. Anchor Moments is a show about the moments that split a life into a before and an after, and who we became on the other side. New episodes every Wednesday. If this one moved something in you, send it to the person you thought about while you were listening. And if you're not following yet, follow so the next one finds you. Got a story? anchormomentspod.com Instagram + TikTok: @anchormomentspod

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About

Every person you pass has a story you don't know. The cashier who barely makes eye contact. The man on the corner you walk around. The refugee who lives down the street. The soccer mom who seems to have it all together. The advocate who won't stop fighting. Anchor Moments is a podcast about the experiences that made us who we are - the moments we can't stop being shaped by, whether we want to be or not. Each episode, one person shares their story. Not a celebrity. Not a politician. An everyday person, whose life you might have walked right past without knowing - and whose story, once you hear it, changes how you see them forever. Because I've come to believe one thing: it's impossible not to love someone once you know their story. Anchor Moments is trauma-informed, mental-health-aware, and built for the people who feel unseen, and for the people who want to see them.

Information

  • Creator
    Krista Patrick
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    30
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Krista Patrick

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