My Story
Hello and welcome to my blog!
I’m really excited to be getting started with my content creation for Beeable Coaching. This blog is meant to help you find valuable information, skills, perspectives, and stories that will motivate and inspire you to make changes you want to make in your own life! Here I’ll be covering topics around behavior change, goal setting, neuroscience, biopsychology, life hacks and lifestyle medicine. These are topics I find particularly interesting and 100% relevant to creating behavior and lifestyle modification that is long lasting. I’d like to share a brief version of my story with you to give you a better idea of who I am and why I do what I do.
My name is Britiany Troup, I’m the owner of Beeable Coaching LLC and a nationally certified health and wellness coach. I specialize in Lifestyle Medicine which uses lifestyle as the main modality to treat, reverse, and prevent chronic disease.
I grew up in rural east Texas in a little town called Lufkin. My parents raised my brother and I and we watched my dad work and support us while my mom went to school for nursing. Although I didn’t particularly like doing school work, I did enjoy seeing my friends and working on the yearbook although highschool. I knew I was expected to go to college, but I just wasn’t ready to commit to one degree, one career, or one path for my life. I liked too many different things to narrow it down, and what if I chose the wrong thing and ended up unhappy? So, instead of making a decision, I went to college and changed my major 5 times and attended 3 colleges in 6 years.
My mom and dad had graciously agreed to pay for my first 4 years of college and now those years had come and passed with no sign of me finishing a degree. It was my turn to foot the bill and let’s just say I did NOT have my shit together. My grades were pretty bad, my major was Nutrition and dietetics, and I couldn’t even hold a job while doing full time school. I was developing depression, I was having problems in all my close relationships, and during this time I was sexually assaulted. I felt stupid, weak, unlovable, and I honestly hoped I had a brain tumor or something that could explain why I was failing at what most other people seemed to be succeeding at. It was time for me to make a serious decision and change in my life so I joined an ROTC program, earned a contract and a scholarship. I worked hard for my contract and scholarship but I was still stuck with my feelings of worthlessness. I decided I needed to transfer schools again and this time it really messed things up for me.
After transferring to a new school with the plan to stay in ROTC just in their school I found that things were more complicated than I thought. Before long I received a letter stating I had been marked AWOL and in order to appeal I would have needed to leave my part time schooling during midterms and my 2 full time jobs for a week, drive 6 hours back to my hometown and try to appeal. The woman I spoke to assured me I would be wasting my time and I would likely lose the appeal so I chose to drop my contract, and apply to serve the 2 years I owed at a deferred time. Unfortunately for me, I trusted the system and the week before Christmas I received another letter in the mail that said I would be charged with desertion if I did not report to a recruiting station within 5 days. I remember being at my job in Corpus Christi when I read the letter. My heart sank into my stomach and I walked to my supervisor's office with tears in my eyes. I quit my job that day, packed my things, and moved home within 2 more days. I remember walking into the recruiters office and handing him the paperwork and all the recruiters in the office being bewildered by what they were reading.
I did all the required in-processing and I scored high enough to select almost any job I wanted but that was not how this worked because of my ROTC contract. It turned out that although I only used 1 semester of scholarship money I was required to serve 2 years active duty to pay it off, BUT that’s not all, there was “fine print” that stated I would have to take whatever I was given and in this case I had been assigned to a 3 year contract doing field artillery, or so I was told. By this point I’m begging to do something more closely aligned with a degree in biology, I was given the option to take an additional year, so 4 years, in order to “look at a list of medical jobs” So I agreed, I signed, and the recruiter printed out my reservation as a 68W, Healthcare specialist AKA Combat Medic. I had trusted a system that again took advantage of that trust and now I was on orders to become a combat medic. With tears in my eyes I told the recruiter I passed out at the sight of my own blood. His response, I’ll never forget, He said to me that all combat arms jobs had just opened to women and those jobs needed to be filled so if I couldn’t make it through medic school, I would be reclassed (given a new job) based on what the Army needs….women in combat arms…
So there it was… I was going to have to be a medic and overcome my fear of blood and needles or I might end up as one of the first women in infantry and combat arms. (If only I knew then what I know now.) This was a critical point for me in my life because it was a character defining moment for me. I may not have believed I was smart at the time but I wasn’t stupid enough to see a way out of this obligation. I still had to pass my physical and the drug test, I knew I could have found someone to smoke pot with or I could have said I wanted to die or 100 other things to get out of my obligation but when it really came down to it I knew I had to face that decision and it would define my character moving forward. I thought about who I was, what I was doing with my life, and what direction I was going but there were no answers, the truth was I was lost. I had no direction, no motivation, and nothing really going for me, but I did sign a contract, I did agree to go even if I didn’t understand what that fully meant, and I had the capability to serve so I did.
After my basic training was over in Missouri I was sent to San Antonio to learn to be an EMT and medic. Basic Training covered a lot of things I already knew from being in ROTC and I was actually much better versed than others in certain areas of soldiering. Medic school was different though, I remember going into the school house and along the walls were posters with graphic photos of amputated legs and gunshot wounds, it made me queasy at first but I slowly desensitized as we watched horrific videos of people being electrocuted to death and other stuff you might find on 4chan or some gore website. I studied hard and I took everything so seriously because I was so afraid to be in a position where someone's life depended on me and I couldn’t perform or fail and a life was lost because of me. Right around graduation we all started to receive our orders and I had been put on orders to Fort Carson, Colorado. I was excited because I had gotten my first choice of duty station and I had never been to Colorado before. As I looked more into Fort Carson and what kinds of units were there a sinking feeling started to come over me again as I realized that the 4th Infantry division was headquartered on Fort Carson. I had hoped to go to a hospital or a clinic, after all, our instructors spent a lot of time telling us we would all end up as clinic medics since we weren’t that great anyway. My orders were for, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, a part of the 4 infantry division and a unit that historically had deployed every other year since 2010.
From that moment I realized that I needed to start expecting the worst case scenario and actively accept the fact that I was a Bonafede combat medic in a Bonafede infantry unit and there was nothing I could do about except take every opportunity I was given to be the best damned medic I could just in case. I was really lucky to have had a few really great leaders in the beginning who set me up for success. I remember telling my 1st SGT my story and his sympathy towards me. He encouraged me to make the most of it and put me in the clinic for my first 6 months with the deal that after my 6 months was up I would operate in a line unit for another 6 months so I would be well rounded and so I did. I spent my summer leave doing additional medic training and I took any classes I could to learn more and advanced practices. I completed most of the training cycle leading up to our imminent deployment with Arrowhead company. I was one of two females out of around 170-180 soldiers most of which had never worked with a female directly in their company before. There were a lot of challenges but I never stopped learning to be a better medic in anticipation of deploying with the men I’d been training with. Before the deployment I was replaced on the line with a much larger dude which was a relief for me who weighed 110lb soaking wet at the time.
In 2018 my husband and I got married 2 weeks before I deployed to Kandahar Afghanistan.
During my deployment, I paid off $28,000 worth of debt I had. I took Anatomy and Physiology, I applied for PA school, I ran the walking blood bank, I wrote a proposal that changed policy for all of southern Afghanistan operations. I assisted the brigade surgeon with acute care of afghan national army higher ups, I assisted in the trauma bay, I ran flu vaccine and anthrax vaccine rodeos, I traveled to Bagram and took a basic leaders course, I was promoted to e5 Sergeant in just 3 years. I qualified as an expert marksman, I ate a cold Mcdonalds cheeseburger that was flown from Dubai, I taught the contractors CPR and combat lifesaver classes, I taught and counseled soldiers, I deadlifted 205 lbs. I saw my first amputated leg, We saw a man shot in the chest 5 times. I saw a small girl recover after a bus accident that killed her mother and uncle. We cared for a man who hours early that day had injured two American Soldiers and killed another. We cared for a man who spoke his last words to me before being sedated, taken to surgery, and ultimately dying after his transport to Germany. We tried to care for each other and our families back home who just couldn’t imagine what it was like but it was exhausting.
I had worked hard and I was given an opportunity to travel back to the states early with a few other medics in order to compete for the highly coveted Expert Field Medical Badge in San Antonio. We started training in Afghanistan by studying and running skills classes for the medics selected. We spend our free time in the evenings practicing our time rucked marches with the culminating event being a 12 mile ruck for time that had to be completed in under 3 hours. It was the final test before we were able to go home. I started mine at about 4am so that it was still cool outside (and by cool I mean it was 85 degrees) It was a rough day, I started my menstrual cycle which may be TMI but dude, it really affected me. I was in so much pain from the beginning and I needed to get this march over with so I chose to run/jog the first 6 miles. I have a short stride and I’ve never been really good with ruck marching but I completed my 12 mile march in 2 hours and 45 mins. By mid-September I was on my way back to America.
After coming back to the States we took a week off to readjust and got right back into training for EFMB. It was kind of a bummer to be back in Colorado and being snowed on during land navigation training when I really just wanted to be home and comfortable in my bed but it was what we came home to do early so we did it. One morning I remember being at breakfast with our group of EFMB candidates and receiving news that Arrowhead company had been ambushed in Kandahar city while escorting a sort of meeting of the minds and that there had been casualties. We were all shaken to our core as every single one of the 5 candidates had worked closely with Arrowhead company and its men for several years by this point. We were lucky to have not been there, but we also felt a sense of guilt for not being there. Luckily, our soldiers were safe and there were no deaths of Americans. Some of the Afghan higher ups did lose their lives and some American higher ups were injured in the process as well. We left and competed at EFMB, where we were all eliminated pretty early in the competition and I believe only 5 candidates out of around 200 received their EFMB during that competition.
After we returned to Colorado from our competition Donovan and I took a month off for leave and visited my family in Texas and his in Arkansas. Everyone had come home by this point and we were all readjusting to normal life and getting ready for the next training cycle to start. During this time I had heard from other medics that there were mental health concerns throughout the unit with specific soldiers who had been involved with the ambush, and those in Brave company who had been stationed at a remote post near Kandahar Airfield. Our command team had been changed over by this point and we found out we were no longer going to be a traditional light infantry unit but we were transitioning to a Stryker unit meaning we were getting a bunch of new vehicles and had to learn how to drive and maintain them. The new command team had not deployed with us and the new command team did not seem to have a very good “pulse” on the unit. By Memorial day weekend a medic in another unit who I had worked with for a long time in the clinic had taken his own life. That medic was one of the happiest go-lucky guys I ever knew and I did not expect that from him. During the months leading up to this I had been dealing with some readjustment issues like hypervigilance and just generally being easily startled and on high alert. I didn’t think I had PTSD because I wasn’t in combat, and I was relatively safe but my fight or flight response was always turned on and I began to have nightmares and insomnia. The day we found out this medic had taken his own life I went to our behavioral health clinic and began receiving treatment and a proper diagnosis for my symptoms.
Shortly after this the command team decided to go ahead with a normal training cycle which kept two of my bridesmaids from attending my wedding in June of 2019. Donovan and I had our wedding ceremony and reception in Texas and enjoyed our time together. I did part of the training cycle over the summer and into the fall and by labor day weekend we had lost another medic to suicide. This time, from within our own ranks, we were all told one morning during PT in a formation and immediately after hearing this information it was made very clear to the unit that the training cycle would continue as usual and all of us would be expected to go into a week long field event that day as planned regardless of what had happened. The entire medical platoon was devastated. We felt we had let one of our own down and we feared that more soldiers were hurting than were letting on. We went to the field and tried to train while we grieved and consoled each other. It was a difficult time for everyone and we had a group of brand new medics who needed to be trained and were not getting the best from us. After we came back from the field I found out my grandmother had been diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer and was beginning treatment. The next week we had a memorial for our fallen medic and after the service was completed I will never forget the entire medical platoon being pulled into a backroom of the church by our leadership and told in the most unsympathetic way that we needed to get used to death and that their would be more coming when we eventually went to war with Russia. It was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever witnessed and I felt hatred in my heart that day for the first time ever.
Within the next month I tried to escape the unit as often as I could. I signed up for a pilot program to do rounds in the hospital to further my learning, keep me from the unit, and to prepare to clear out of the Army and go on terminal leave. I still had soldiers I checked on and took care of, I did everything I could to shield them and myself from the toxic environment. I escorted soldier to behavioral health services and even had to take on to be hospitalized due to his own suicidal Ideations. I began drinking quite heavily, usually a bottle of wine a night. Problems began to occur in my marriage and all other personal relationships. I took my terminal leave in December and again traveled to Texas to visit with my family since my grandmother was sick. She ended up passing away in early February of 2020 right as my active contract with the Army officially ended. I was also formally diagnosed at 28 years old with inattentive type ADHD which helped me alot to understand why my life had gone as it had up to this point. Maybe I wasn’t lazy, or stupid, maybe I just had a learning disability that was never addressed. Now I was on what they call IRR or the individual ready reserve which meant I kept a uniform and if something crazy happened they could call me up. That's when the pandemic happened and they began calling for volunteers to return to service who were medically trained.
By this time I was enrolled in school and hoping to become a nurse because I had loved my job as a medic so much and I wanted to be able to work in the same capacity legally and that required more civilian education. By March everything closed and I was now faced with working through my new diagnosis on my own, with no structure, and no human interaction. Before too long I realized that I would not be accepted into the traditional nursing program because of the previous damage I had done to my GPA. I was becoming very disheartened and stir crazy. My husband and I were bickering a lot more since we were ALWAYS together and NEVER with anyone else. My suicidal Ideations began to creep back in and I was scared of myself, I didn’t have the same kind of access to care I had previously had and I felt very much alone.
I finished the semester with a C in Pathophysiology. It was one of those classes where you take a test every week and the professor tells you that most won’t make higher than a B. I met with an advisor online and changed my major one last time to Lifestyle Medicine. AS I began taking courses I found that I really enjoyed my coaching classes and found the skills I was learning valuable as I worked as a CNA part time. I had conversations that were much longer and in depth than the provider had time and I found that the conversations I was having made patients feel more secure, trusting, and ultimately became more compliant with trying to modify their lifestyle in positive ways. As I navigated through school I took a lot more courses that taught me skills for coaching and skills for myself to use in self-care, self-discover, and self-awareness. I was getting better by coaching myself and working with other student coaches.
Eventually my medication and care were well regulated and my suicidal Ideations were gone. I felt happier more often and I even became confident enough in who I was and what I wanted in life to start my own coaching practice. It was December of 2021 when I heard yet another soldier from my unit had taken his own life. It was another soldier I never would have expected to do such a thing, it reopened old wounds and lit a fire in me to want to address this issue. I began to shape my coaching practice in a way that allowed me to bridge the gap between physical and mental health with respect to the medical professionals in those fields.
So now, it’s November of 2022, I graduated with my very first degree in May, I opened up my business and now I’m helping people who want to improve their lives by experiencing more joy and connecting to their reasons that make life worth living. That is a condensed version of my story and how I got to where I am now. Of course, if you have questions or are curious about more details I’m happy to share more with you. If you have read this far, Thank you, I truly appreciate you taking the time to get to know me and read about my experience. I hope this story inspires or helps you know that you are not alone in this world.
