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welcome to the true hopecast podcast where we take a deep dive into mental Health's many physiological and

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psychological aspects this is the show for you if you're looking for motivation inspiration knowledge and Solutions in

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this beautiful but Wild World true hope Canada is a mind and body-based supplement company that is dedicated

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first and foremost to promoting brain and body Health through non-invasive nutritional means for more information

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about us you can visit truehopecanada.com today on the podcast I welcome Michelle ritiger now Michelle

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was diagnosed with bipolar in 1998 she spent the next 12 years on a roller

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coaster of manic and depressive episodes with therapists doctors psychotropic medications hospitalizations and suicide

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attempts finally she and her therapist found a true hope solution that became the

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turning point in her story now Michelle helps mothers with bipolar disorder learn to live healthy balanced

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productive lives today we're going to be discussing her bipolar recovery with true hope enjoy the show

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okay Michelle welcome to True Hope cast thank you so much for being with me for

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being with us today how are you what is going well I'm great I I it's funny it's

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the most excited I've ever been for a new year I'm I'm really optimistic and hopeful

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and and really excited for the future so I'm doing great well I agree with you optimism we've had a wild couple of

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years and I think that 2023 is hopefully going to be um a lot brighter for many different

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reasons so I'm glad that we share that energetic sentiment that's great

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um why don't you it's just an intro please just let us know who you are and what it is that you do

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awesome so my name is Michelle reitinger and I have a Blog called my upside of

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down and I help teach moms with bipolar disorder how to live healthy balance productive lives

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wow that's very specific very unique I love that can you tell us like how how you got into that I'm sure you didn't go

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to your um guidance counselor in high school and asked about that no and it's

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funny I don't think even even a few years ago before I started my blog I don't think that it would have

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been something I would have even thought I'd be doing but I I was diagnosed with bipolar bipolar disorder back in 1998

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and really suffered for a really long time and in 2002 was when I got married and I about a year later we had our

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first baby and I was really struggling with my bipolar disorder and I felt very

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alone I felt like I was I'm gonna ruin my children's lives like I just had a lot of hopelessness I felt

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really isolated I felt really lonely and I didn't know what I I didn't know what to do you know I I was depending on the

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doctors to help me and it just felt like everything just kept getting worse and nothing was improving I got to a point where I was having a

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hard time trusting my doctors even you know because I just felt like nothing was changing nothing was improving

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and um in sorry I had to think about this for 2010

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was when I first found the true hope supplements and um and that was a turning point for me that was the

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beginning of finding an integrated approach to Living Well with My disorder and a few years ago was when I first had

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the idea to share what I learned because I I started thinking like none of the things that I've learned are unique or

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special necessarily my I actually was a little frustrated at the time where I thought why didn't somebody give me a treatment plan at the

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beginning and say these are the things that you need to do and this is the order you do them in but and I was left to figure it out for

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myself and I was very frustrated about that and so back in December of 2020 was when I

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decided to go ahead and start my blog and at the time I thought I don't know if anybody's ever going to care about what I have to say but it was a very I

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approached it as kind of a therapeutic experience for myself and I wrote my blog post as if I was writing to my

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younger self because like I said having bipolar disorder as a mom and the reason why I the things that I share aren't

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necessarily specific to mothers but I feel like I understand some of the unique challenges that

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mothers with bipolar disorder face because it's not just you who's being impacted by it's your children and and

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you you don't have it's not like a relationship that you can get out of those children are yours and and so I I that's why I focus

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specifically on mothers with bipolar disorder because I know what it feels like I know how isolating it feels I

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know how hopeless it can feel um and so so that's how I started my blog and and

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as it's grown and as I've started having experiences helping others with bipolar

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disorder learn I realize how important it is you know how important it is to help people see a path forward and

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recognize I for years I thought the best I could hope for was just learning how to Suffer Well with bipolar and now I

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know that that's a lie now I know that you can Thrive with it I I live a healthy balanced productive life like I

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don't I don't really cycle anymore and it's funny because I for a long time I hesitated to say that because I thought

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well I don't know if that's totally true I don't I don't get manic anymore the

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only thing that has ever caused hypomania triggered hypomania is moving you know for me I shouldn't say ever but

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um since the last time that I had a true manic episode that the things that have triggered hypomania and me has been

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moving and so I haven't really figured out how to how to manage that trigger

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but I don't I don't really experience anything that is like a chemical imbalance anymore like I live well with

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it that's amazing uh so in 1998 you were diagnosed with with bipolar and so you

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were you were experiencing obviously um symptoms before that oh yeah I

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I in college was when I was diagnosed I for we can go back and

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back I was experiencing pretty severe mood Cycles you know I and I call mood Cycles I I didn't realize that that

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wasn't a normal term I think people call it mood swings mood Cycles was what might what made sense to my brain

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because it's a cycle you know I would get Manic and then I would get depressed and it was a cycle that my brain went through

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um but I I after I was diagnosed and started understanding it better I actually recognized that I was

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experiencing more mild mood Cycles all the way back in high school like I could see I can track them I could see and

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when I started exercising consistently as a competitive athlete during those times I would kind of maintain this

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hypomanic state for a while and then after the season would end I'd get depressed and so I could see that that was

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actually present before but nobody talked about mental health really and so

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it was something where I was just kind of you know I'm a female and so I think it was easy to just dismiss what I was

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experiencing as as feminine you know like are you having your period kind of thing

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you know just kind of dismissing it as me being a super emotional kid yeah but once I was diagnosed I was able to look

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back and think oh there's actually something going on that was beyond my control you know so

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you get the diagnosis in 1998 and then you know after you retrospectively look

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back you probably had symptoms symptomology for a few years before that and then you obviously get this

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diagnosis and you go through I suppose specific treatment for about 12 years like what was that treatment plan like

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what did that what what did you work with what did the doctors try what didn't they try like what was that like

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yeah it was pretty rough um I remember it took about a year for me to actually

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go in and get diagnosed I knew I used to think that I that these were moral feelings on my part and I would buy

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self-help books all the time to try and fix myself and my parents and my aunt and uncle

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recognized I had an uncle aunt uncle that I lived near my parents were in another state and they were the ones who

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finally called my parents and said there's something wrong and when I finally went in to get diagnosed I was

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actually severely depressed when I went women for my diagnosis and my aunt came with me so she did a lot of the talking

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because I was having a hard time even thinking clearly and so she was giving

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her perspective of it and so I was actually initially misdiagnosed with depression and anxiety disorders and

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they put me in an antidepressant and it made me manic and that was when they realized nope there's she's bipolar and

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um and I was told by the doctor I remember very clearly him reassuring me all we need to do is find the right

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medications and you'll be fine and my brain latched onto that and I thought okay I just have to go to the doctor and take

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the medicine and and in my mind it was it was kind of like a diabetic you know and I I still

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like that analogy just because it's been helpful for me to recognize you know diabetes you have to test your blood

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sugar um and for me I recognized I have to test my symptoms you know I have to

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monitor my symptoms and that to identify if things are out of balance but but it's not the same thing you know it's

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not like you can measure blood sugar and or your or your blood and and say you're

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missing these things here's what you need we're going to give you this medicine and you'll be fine and so I

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actively took medication everything that was prescribed to me I at one point I was on seven different medications and

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I've discovered you know that's kind of the modus apparenti of the of this pharmaceutical seven approach yeah

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medications meditation medications well because what they'll do is they'll give you I it started with

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um two different antidepressants I had a really hard time tolerating medication and so they couldn't I couldn't tolerate

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therapeutic dosages of medications because most of the time it would make me it would either make me really tired or

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like I couldn't tolerate any anti-anxiety medications at all I every time I would take it it was like a sleeping pill it would knock me out and

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so I thought I can either be anxious or I can be asleep those are my options and um and so that one point they had me

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on two different antidepressants and a mood stabilizer and then there were there were side effects that they were

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trying to manage rather than taking me off those medications and trying something else because we're having such a hard time finding anything that they

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were giving me additional medications um at that time when I was taking the seven different medications I had had

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electric convulsive therapy during a hospital stay and I had massive migraines as a result and so they kept

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trying these different medications to try and find something to manage the migraines and we never did find anything it wasn't until I got on the true hope

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supplement so my brain actually started to heal that the migraines went away but but it was

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um I started getting I started getting more and more frustrated and I moved several times during that time so I was

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switching doctors and the diagnosis was reaffirmed each time um I had one doctor when I was in

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Chicago I was living in Chicago and my mom all of a sudden once they recognized

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that there was something wrong with me they started identifying issues with my younger siblings on the list of 10 and they started recognizing that there were

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things going on with them as well so they started taking them in for diagnosis and I had four siblings that were diagnosed with ADHD and my mom was

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reading through the symptoms and she said oh I think you have ADHD and so and bipolar and ADHD have a lot

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of similar symptoms and so I thought well maybe that's why the medication isn't working and so I went to my doctor and tried and convinced her to let me

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try medication for ADHD and that was a horrible experience like it was all bad but this was like way bad I felt like I

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was on drugs it was not the right medication and so um and and it was 2008 10 years after

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diagnosis was when because I just got kept getting progressively worse you know I I went through two pregnancies

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um and the two pregnancies were really challenging because I had to go off of everything except for one of the antidepressants

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and and so you know one of the pregnancies I just both of them I was super sick at

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the beginning just physically sick and then I would I just experienced a

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lot of kind of weird mood Cycles during the pregnancies and both of them I got severely depressed at

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the beginning and I found out I was pregnant because I was going to go back on my medications and and then after my

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after I gave birth with both times I ended up with a postpartum hyperthyroid condition where I lost excessive amount

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of weight like I I'm six one and I got down to a hundred and I think I was down

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to 140 pounds and like I looked anorexic my mom thought that I was you know I had

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developed an eating disorder and I said no I'm you know I'm eating all the time and that's when we discovered the second the first pregnancy was pretty bad and

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self-corrected but the the second pregnancy it was really bad and I finally was able to get a doctor to help

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me find out that I had hyperthyroidism and I was told not to have another baby they said if you have another baby it'll

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destroy your thyroid and the thing that was odd to me is that the the onset of that was correlated

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with the re starting to take the medications again and so I I started becoming suspicious

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that it was caused by the hormone changes combined with medications that that was what was causing the

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hyperthyroidism and that seemed to Bear out because when I had my third baby I was on the true

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hope supplements and I had no problem like none in fact I had to work really hard to lose my weight and everything

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was I was super healthy I was able to breastfeed for over a year so something about that those

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medications in my system cause the hyperthyroidism at the end of the pregnancy but

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I just I just kept getting worse and in 2008 I had a massive breakdown

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and I was hospitalized three times in three different hospitals in two different states

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um my first hospitalization was I was in the hospital for five weeks but it was over I think a six week period and they

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did a full 12th course or 12 treatment course of electric compulsive therapy so

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I lost a lot of my memory from that time it was it was very traumatic and the

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doctor in the first hospitalization I wanted to go home like I I was just so

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traumatized by the whole experience I wanted to go home and she insisted on putting me on lithium and I'd had a bad bad reaction to

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lithium the first time I took it years before and so I kept trying to tell her I don't want to take lithium I had a

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really bad reaction to it and she asked me to describe the reaction and she insisted that what I had had was a

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psychotic episode but I had no history of psychosis but while I was in that hospital when

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they took me off of all the medications and they were doing electric invulsive therapy it caused psychosis in me and so

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she didn't believe me she thought well we've seen you psychotic and so I think that was a psychotic episode and she

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insisted on putting me on lithium and I took it because I wanted to go home she wouldn't send me home if I

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wouldn't take it and so I took it and a few days later I attempted suicide for the first time

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so it was just I and then I would you know my husband had to put me back in the hospital um and they released me a week later no

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better off they tried an outpatient program with me and I I was more depressed by the end of the day than I

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was at the beginning of the day so I refused to go back and and then I ended up at the hospital

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a third time and that whole year was so traumatic for our family I had my my

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stepson was um let's see he would have been 12 my my two children that I gave birth to were

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four and two and I was having massive mood swings like I

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I would have you know I don't know why what it is about Mania that I I've seen a lot of other

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people with the same symptom I wanted to get a tattoo like I was constantly trying to get find a way to get a tattoo

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and I kept having people prevent me because I told you know I didn't really want a tattoo but when my manic mind wanted one you know and and every other

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day I was going to leave my husband and then I would love my husband and you know I was just it was horrible it was a

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horrible horrible year if my husband had left me I would have blamed him like it's going back and looking at the trauma of that year it's it's a miracle

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that our marriage survived you know so yeah well that's I mean it's an amazing story thank you so much for

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sharing and it's kind of like the pre pre-true hype stuff and um it just sounds to me one of the

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biggest things you said there which which really kind of blew my my mind so you know you've gone through like 12

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years of let's say conventional therapy where the doctor initially after the first diagnosis

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um said that once we find those so you have bipolar and once we find the right

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cocktail of medicines or the right medicine for you then you're gonna be

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fine and I just wonder what he thinks or what other doctors who's probably say that every day what they think fine is

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and what you heard was probably like oh my gosh like this is a miracle this is going to cure me this is going to treat

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me and how different your definition of fine was in that moment and what his was

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well and and that's why I say like I I believed I got to the point where I believe that the best thing that I was

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going to be able to hope for was learning how to Suffer Well with bipolar and that's I think the prevalent the

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predominant sentiment that I see online you know I I got kicked out of two Facebook groups

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actually that you know for the bipolar you know people with bipolar because people were asking me you know if if

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it's possible to treat bipolar without medication and I was sharing my experience and I got kicked out of the groups and so the other two I you know the

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other two that I'm in I I don't talk about it you know because I thought well I I they're just gonna kick me out

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anyway so I might as well just keep my mouth shut but I see over half of the of

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the posts in there are people suffering with serious side effects still experiencing massive mood cycles and and

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there's just this normalization of the symptoms of the disorder and that's

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really troubling to me because the symptoms are indicating that there's something wrong you know a symptom like

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if you look at a diabetic a symptom of diabetes you know you could pass out from you know your blood sugar being

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really off and that's indication that there is something wrong and it needs to be addressed with bipolar disorder it

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feels like we we kind of try to normalize the symptoms because people don't know what else to do they think well this is just who I am and I hear

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people say I am bipolar all the time and I thought that's your brain is there's something wrong and and your brain is trying to tell you

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and don't normalize those symptoms use those as an identity you know to help you identify that there's something

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wrong and so I think that's when I went through a period where I was quite angry actually about

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the psychiatric you know the whole industry because I felt like

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I don't know I I probably should I feel like there's a financial incentive to keep us sick honestly and I and I'm not

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not a conspiracy theorist but I haven't I haven't been back to a psychiatrist since 2011. I haven't seen one I don't

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need to anymore I have not been hospitalized since 2008. like I don't need those types of treatment and so I

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haven't my first 12 years of my treatment I spent a ton of money we gotten a lot of debt because psychiatric

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medications are very expensive um psycho you know they have to go to the psychiatrist all the time I couldn't

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hold a job down um my you know if hospitalizations are very expensive and so

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there was a lot of money spent on my treatment for the first 12 years and since then since I got off of the

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medication and since my brain started to heal the only the only thing that I need are my my supplements and my I do go to a

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therapist and because I believe that people with bipolar disorder you end up with unhealthy thought patterns on

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healthy behaviors unhealthy coping mechanisms you know inhale trauma those kinds of things that need to be

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dealt with you need to you know treat those so that you don't continue to trigger mood Cycles but that's it you

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know and so so I feel like I feel like in some ways we're being lied to and I don't necessarily blame the psychiatrist

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when my doctor I I'm the one I brought the true hope supplements to my doctor because I was

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desperate but I was also afraid I tried natural things before and they didn't work

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so a friend of mine had told me about these who also has bipolar disorder and I

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I wasn't really hopeful about it but I was desperate and so I brought them to my doctor and he'd been treating me for

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eight years at that point and seeing how hard I was trying and seeing how he saw how sick I was and he admitted to me that if I had

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brought them to him even a couple years before he would never have even looked at the studies because he said all of

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the education that they receive is is done you know based on Pharmaceuticals and all the continuing education is

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funded by pharmaceutical companies and so you said doctors aren't taught any other option they're not taught any

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other treatment option and so but because he'd seen how desperate I was and how hard I was trying he wanted to

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help me as much as I wanted to help myself and so he looked at the studies that were done on true hope and decided that

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it was a viable treatment option and that we would try it and it changed my life about three months after I started

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on the the supplements I woke up one day and it was I felt like it was the first time I'd been awaken over a decade like

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it was it was a weird experience because my brain it was the first time I felt like I could think clearly it was the

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first time I felt like I was fully awake and it was just the beginning like it's funny I look back on that and I I was

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still had a very unhealthy brain at that time and it's gotten so much better in the decades since but

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but it was a night and day difference yeah that's it's just remarkable yeah I I also share share your thoughts in

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regards to doctors and therapists are doing their very very best but they're obviously all they can do is is um is

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help you with with what they've been taught what they've been educated with right and yeah that that educational

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process is very much dictated by pharmaceutical companies literally being paid for in in universities so it just

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you know makes a lot of sense and it's just um unfortunate that that root cause of disease

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um even in end let's just say any conventional disease like there's no it's bound to have a pharmaceutical or a

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drug attached to it and it just goes to show how wildly missed

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just just the fact that once we find the right combination of drugs

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for you you'll be fine like just that's just so it's such an unscientific statement and it's just like you know

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mix and match what we can find what might work it just goes to show that there's such a massive misunderstanding

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of not just bipolar disorder but so many other psychological disorders as well and how many how many people for how

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many decades of their lives are um full of pain full of suffering full of

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Suicide full of hospitalizations um full of families being broken up all

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because at the root cause of when somebody does go in for help going into a doctor's office asking for help with

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something that it's just their symptoms are just completely misunderstood and the the disease itself is misunderstood

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what the brain needs is completely misunderstood and so many people unfortunately have to go through Decades

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of suffering before they are at a point that you were at where you're just willing to try anything because 12 years

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of of conventional medical helpers not helped you whatsoever and you know

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you've gone on a bunch of different drugs and you've gone on more drugs to deal with the side effects of those drugs and it's just I mean if when you

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look back at it it obviously makes absolutely no sense that that would be any kind of a treatment plan

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um but then you yeah you stumbled across a friend of yours who had bipolar disorder as well and used and power plus

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and used true hope products what was the conversation like between you two obviously you're in a desperate situation but like what was your

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friend's experience and story with her disease and then coming on to you know

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using a natural micronutrient formula which is just food in you know very

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bioavailable form yeah the irony is is that she actually did end up staying on the treatment and

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I've learned since that the first I think about the first year can be really rough for people because she was on even

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more medications than I was you know she had been treated for a lot longer than I was she was older I think by about 10 or

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15 years and she had been diagnosed earlier than me so you know she was

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suffering really desperately and she it was the same kind of situation where she needed help but because of the side

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effects what or the withdrawal symptoms one of the things that's been really fascinating to learn more about it fascinating is maybe not a good word

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because it's a little bit disturbing actually is is that this the withdrawal

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symptoms are often attributed to the disorder rather than the actual drug that they're they're being caused by and

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and so a lot of times you know that when you are going with through withdrawals from my personal experience when I went

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through um it was Zoloft I was on Zoloft for like three years and I felt like I was asleep the whole time it was a horrible

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experience with that that was the first time I depressive I was put on and I didn't at the time I didn't know to say

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anything to the doctor about it I just thought well this is my life now you know and and I could sleep anywhere it didn't matter how much sleep I got at

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night I could pass out anymore because I was so tired all the time and when I find when I moved

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uh I mentioned it to the doctor just how tired I was and she said oh well let's just switch the medication and it was

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the first time that had occurred to me and when I went off of that thing that the The Zoloft because I had been on it

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for so long I had horrible withdrawal symptoms I passed out in the street in Chicago one day like I was terrified of

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walking anywhere I was afraid to be alone because I would pass out randomly um it just I think it must have affected

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my blood pressure and uh and so it was really super dangerous and the same

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thing was true like it's funny because they don't they don't call it withdrawals but that's what it is you're

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going through physical withdrawals from a drug and she was going through she had been

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on 13 different medications and she was going through terrible terrible withdrawals and her doctor kept

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insisting that it wasn't withdrawals that it was her disorder and that this you know this wasn't safe she shouldn't be going off her medications

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so she backed off on trying the true hope but I will forever be grateful that she told me about it because it changed

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my life and and so that's one of the challenges that I think um exists is

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I was really blessed I actually tried calling my doctor to tell him thank you a few years ago and discovered that he

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was no longer practicing and they thought that he had passed away and I was heartbroken because I didn't realize how rare what I had

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experienced was how rare it was to have a physician because I wouldn't have tried it on my own I was so

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I was so kind of um I don't know convinced that that you know pharmaceutical treatment was the

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only option and and I was afraid I was afraid to to go off because I had been

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terrified I had been traumatized by that hospitalization and I was afraid of another hospitalization and so if it hadn't been for my doctor

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being willing to look at it and then support me in my transition I don't think I would have gone through it

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um but that's one of the hard things is you know now when people come to me I always ask first are you already on medication and if they're not I always I

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almost insist on them trying this supplement first because I said there's no side effect and

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there's no downside to it I said try this see if it's going to help you and then if it you know if you feel like

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maybe you need to go on medication then explore that but try this first yeah so many people

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um maybe aren't aware of how powerful like Pharmaceuticals are in general right and

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the the large amount of biological change that happens that you're down at a cellular level especially if you're

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using something for years and decades the dependency what changes within the

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body you know within within cells it can take a long it can take a while for the body to either recalibrate and get back

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to let's say a normal state of function and yeah it can take a long time and I

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don't know what the um I don't know if there is because you know these like cycle psychotropic medications are

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designed to basically be on be on forever because they're not going to cure or or heal anything so like you

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know if you get prescribed on one of those I did you know it's kind of designed for people to have to rely on

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it forever and I don't know if there's a lot of Education to to some medical

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professionals about like coming off those medications and what that's going to happen what's that what's that going

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to look like the symptomology of coming off certain medications let alone seven plus medications like there's no there's

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no research done on the um you know coming off and the withdrawal effects of

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coming off like seven medication that doesn't exist you know um so yeah it's it's it's fascinating

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that that was that was her journey and yeah what a miracle that you actually had that doctor because another doctor

28:45

would have just said no this stuff is quackery this stuff is nonsense Nutri and vitamins have got absolutely nothing

28:51

to do with brain health um you have you have a disease and this is the treatment full stop yeah

29:04

Julia Rutledge yeah um and I I've had to read it in chunks because I get so angry

29:12

like as I read it I start to get really angry and frustrated and so I'll have to stop for a little bit and kind of get

29:18

you know resettle myself and then I go back to it because I I want to read it I want to understand better the research

29:24

that's actually been done but at one point in the book um these doctors were talking about how they'd done some small

29:29

studies and they were ready to do larger studies and up in Canada where they were

29:34

they had doctors not only were the doctors not giving them you know referrals to help them but they had people actually actively working against

29:41

them to prevent them from finding people to help them and it's just mind-boggling to me I I don't I cannot understand it I

29:48

don't understand well one of the things that I've noticed is that

29:54

people become very attached to their concept of what bipolar disorder is and

29:59

what it looks like and how you know how that works and for Mike's and from my experience I've had some really

30:05

excellent doctors that I felt like were really honestly doing the best that they could they really wanted me to be

30:10

healthy but they don't really understand what it feels like and it's a very clinical approach to it you know it's a

30:15

very detached clinical approach to treating somebody and the problem that that creates is that it puts you in a

30:22

position of you being the patient that is that you are having to listen to the expert the expert is telling you what to

30:28

do and you have to listen to them because you don't feel like you can trust your own mind but but they don't know what you're

30:34

feeling they don't know what it feels like they don't know what your mind is doing they don't know what the experience is and so it's really hard to

30:41

have you know doctors that are dismissive about like side effects I had times when I had side effects where I

30:46

couldn't feel anything and and the the way that that ex the experience is if you've never gone through that before it

30:53

feels hard to want to live when you're like that because you're like what's the point of living if I cannot feel anything the absence of feeling a lot of

31:00

depression is not Sadness the app a lot of depression is the absence of any kind of emotional feeling at all and that's a

31:08

horrible that's why a lot of people start to feel like suicide is the only option because you feel like if this is my life I don't want to do it anymore

31:14

like I don't I don't want to keep living this way so yeah that's such a key part of human

31:20

existence is being able to feel being able to connect with other people with your environment with nature and all of

31:26

these things and once that has been taken away from a lot of people yeah it's like you know if I'm not connected

31:32

to anything then what's the point you know that's that's I never never thought about like that before I've never had those experiences so that's very it's

31:38

very very fascinating Insight thank you for sharing that and people sorry one other thing I was kind of

31:44

um I realized I forgot to say is that I've I've noticed that there is a lot of emotional attachment to the idea

31:51

that that like bipolar becomes an identity and

31:57

and the idea of not having that identity anymore makes people feel insecure

32:02

and so in the in the problem that creates is that that it prevents it creates a barrier to doing the work to

32:09

learn how to live well to learn how to heal and learn how to live balanced and stay in maintenance mode and so that's

32:16

also been a challenge you know and I think the doctors and a lot of the therapists the experiences that I had

32:22

tended to create this kind of almost self-centered approach to treatment that kind of dismissed the way that it

32:28

affected everybody else you know they're kind of saying well everybody else needs to support you and and they need to

32:33

understand you and that and I part of me was rejecting that when it was happening because I thought well

32:39

yes it's not my fault that I'm going through this but it's not my husband's fault either and it's definitely not my children's fault and they don't deserve

32:45

to suffer and I kept being really troubled by the way that they approached to treatment was requiring everybody

32:53

around me to just suffer and that was that was one of the things

32:58

that towards the end got me to a point where I just thought there's got to be a different way this can't be banned this

33:03

cannot be the only the only answer because my marriage would not have survived and I don't know what my kids

33:09

lives would have been like yeah I mean just just going back to when you were talking about Julia Rutledge

33:16

and and Dr Bonnie Kaplan the both incredible researchers and scientists that you have that have that book out

33:21

that's quite recently out and um it's an incredible read and we had Dr Bonnie captain on the show last year and

33:28

she was telling us about her and when she was beginning this type of research

33:33

or looking in my looking at micronutrients as a treatment for psychological disorders and you know

33:39

this is back in the 60s and 70s where you know she was probably being laughed out of universities for such a

33:45

Preposterous notion right when you know she was obviously right all along um you know that's a very interesting

33:52

episode which I can link into this one and then there's another episode because you were talking about

33:57

um no at people actively attempting to quash the research even quash the questioning

34:04

you know we can actually look at what our government Health authorities are

34:09

you know what's their primary role got two amazing episodes with lawyer Sean Buckley where he really does go into in

34:15

depth into Health Canada and what their actual role is you would assume that Health Canada is designed to take care

34:21

of the health of Canadians and that you would think that the you know the NIH and the CDC and all these authorities in

34:27

the States they're designed to try and keep people healthy but you know you can just look at the state of of individuals

34:33

on like an average that you know we're the sickest we've ever been and it's quite uh it's quite interesting that

34:39

they're quite wild links to pharmaceutical companies and how it's

34:45

more about policing and making sure that um these International patent laws on

34:51

Pharmaceuticals are being protected more than the health of health of Nations so yeah it's certainly there's certainly

34:57

some sketchy things going on with and I think if you couple that with the

35:03

I think ignorance of medicine where we believe we understand so much of the

35:08

human body especially the brain let's say we learn we know about point one percent of what the brain actually is

35:13

what it does the capabilities and all of those things and just to think that we can um you know look at we can look and hear

35:20

and listen to an individual tick boxes and that's you know you tick the boxes of bipolar that's what you have that's

35:26

what you are and then you just fill that with treatment it just goes to I mean that's a completely in my opinion the

35:32

completely unscientific process of trying to help heal somebody and if you're not looking at the root cause of that type of disease State or the

35:39

disease state of an individual you know so many people go misdiagnosed or undiagnosed for years then you know ends

35:46

up being just a really lazy unscientific process that just really pushes people into

35:52

being consumers of pharmaceuticals for their whole lives rather than stepping

35:57

out into a world of of joy and happiness being pain-free having more energy than you know what to do with and it's only

36:04

unfortunately a handful of people that um come by a chance conversation with a

36:10

friend who has tried something different and you're in such a desperate situation that you try and do that though those

36:16

are circumstances um that are very very rare that people ever get to to partake in and I'm so

36:24

blessed Michelle that you're able to the circumstances LED you in that direction and now that you're you know you're 12

36:30

years you've been using the true hope supplements and maybe you can tell us a little bit about like the past 12 years

36:36

when you know you said that even quite shortly after beginning them um so when you started taking them were

36:42

you or were you on the seven medications what was the experience of coming off those so I'm I

36:51

oh so there was there was one other supplement that I had tried um and it when I started taking I'm

36:59

super super sensitive to medication and so when I started taking this other supplement I started feeling over medicated

37:05

and I was telling my doctor about it and he asked me about the you know what the symptoms were of the over medication and

37:12

helped me titrate start titrating down off of some of the medications because I just didn't feel good

37:17

um and and then I when I found the true hope supplements I was on four medications at that time and and so we went through the process

37:25

and I it's been a long time but I think that I think I was taking Amino I want to say is it is there like Amino

37:31

boost or something like that there's an amino acid um yeah Freemasons yeah so I was I that

37:37

was true Hope was walking me through that process because my doctor didn't know the protocol for you know for this so he

37:43

was helping me on the medication side as far as titration down on the medications went and then true Hope was helping me

37:49

on the other side of it on what meant what supplements to take and and um and so it just was a gradual process

37:56

and I and most of the time it was led by me because I could feel the over medication like I could start to feel

38:02

when when I had too much medication in my system and so I was it was I was saying okay I think I've got too much

38:08

medication and then I would titrate back down um and and it was about three months in

38:13

was when I started to feel a difference and at the time it was like

38:18

I at the time I felt like I was cured like I mean oh my gosh I'm all better you know because it was such a dramatic

38:23

change from what I and I remember the first the first uh time that I had an anxiety

38:29

attack after I got into these and got to this point and I was consciously aware of what was happening I would all the

38:35

tools that I learned in therapy I could never actually apply because there was so much going on with

38:41

my the medication in my my brain chemistry and that that I would try to

38:46

apply them that I didn't feel like I had any control like I would have anxiety attacks that would just get out of control I would feel I would be like dry

38:53

heaving and you know I couldn't breathe and it felt like a heart attack you know and this this time that I had it happen

39:00

I was consciously aware of what had triggered it and it was an irrational response and I was able to do some

39:06

breathing exercises and get myself back to a normal space and I called my husband like freaking out I'm like is

39:12

this what normal people do you know I was like wow you know I can actually use the tools that I learned and

39:18

and then but one of the things I I always caution people um with the true hope supplements is

39:23

that psychotropic medications can stain your soft tissues for up to 10 years and so when you go through really stressful

39:29

experiences or those kinds of things it can cause those medications to release back into your system and if you don't

39:34

need them anymore it can actually cause the symptoms that was meant to prevent and that what that looks like is I'm

39:40

getting sick again and so the the times that this happened the two two things that would trigger this in me over the

39:46

following decade were moves when I would move and I'd get under a lot of stress because of the move that would trigger

39:52

that that kind of reaction in me and I would call true hope think you know kind of freaking out and thinking you know oh

39:58

my gosh it's not working anymore what's happening and which is a normal thing for somebody who's been treated for bipolar for a long time medications will

40:05

stop working and so I that's what I thought was happening and that was when they told me you know know what you're

40:11

experiencing is a your medication their psychotropic meds are releasing back into your system we just need to get

40:16

them out and so I would work with them and they would you know it was um whey protein isolate was what they would have

40:22

me drink a lot of that and that helped to flush that medication out of my system

40:28

um and then the other thing is is that it sometimes it takes a little bit of time to find the right combination of of

40:35

micronutrients for your body so I I started on the true hope supplements and then over time we started to recognize

40:41

that I needed um to make sure I was taking a probiotic because I kept having candida issues and

40:47

so taking a probiotic consistently was helping my gut to stay healthy so my body could absorb the nutrients and then

40:53

um we also discovered that I need extra vitamin D you know I would I would kind of have like this mild depression if I

40:59

wasn't outside all the time and it was just a vitamin D deficiency and so they added that in and then one other symptom

41:05

that I kept experiencing was kind of agitation like I would get angry really easily and that's when I and I finally

41:12

it's funny because it took a long time for me to recognize like when you when you experience the symptom call true hope right away they will help you

41:18

and so I would I finally called them and said I have this problem all the time and I don't know what to do about it and they said oh you need salmon oil so I

41:25

take like a massive dose of salmon oil every day but now I'm like on I feel fine like I feel super healthy

41:33

and I'm even more excited because I've been taking True hope since 2000

41:38

10 was when I started and they've improved the formula twice since then and each time like I can feel a

41:45

difference in my brain and this most recent one I was so excited because when I first started I think I was on

41:51

between 12 and 16 pills a day which I was taking lots of medication before so

41:56

it didn't seem like a big deal but then I was super excited when they improved it and I was only down to between six and eight pills a day and then this last

42:03

September they changed it and now I'm only on two today which is just like miraculous and I feel better like my

42:10

brain feels healthier than it's ever felt and I feel normal I feel like this is what healthy feels like this is what

42:16

it's supposed to feel like so so since you've been taking True hope products for the last 12 years can you

42:22

remember the last time you felt so good I mean like I feel now or yeah like I

42:30

mean you you obviously you your journey through bipolar started when you were quite young you know yeah I don't think

42:36

I've ever felt this way and and part of it is um I mean

42:44

it's hard to my mom would I was talking to my mom a few years ago and she said that she noticed some mood issues when I

42:50

was little like when I was about five she remembered think you know being worried about how I would get really sad

42:56

about things you know seemingly unusually sad about things so I don't know that I've ever been

43:02

totally healthy I don't know that my brain has ever been totally healthy I went through periods when I was you know a competitive athlete and I think I

43:08

mentioned before that I would get kind of hypomanic and that's what I thought a healthy brain felt like and it took and it actually took a long

43:15

time for me to figure out how to stop triggering hypomania in myself not because my brain was unhealthy but

43:20

because my brain had kind of learned that way of existing and um and so learning how to how to

43:26

keep things in balance and keep things healthy but the problem is is if your brain is not healthy all the self-help

43:34

tools in the world are not going to help you and so that was the that was the most important thing for me was getting

43:40

my brain healthy and then then I was able to work with a therapist to unlearn all of the unhealthy coping mechanisms I

43:46

developed the unhealthy thought Behavior patterns going back and healing and healed trauma and so getting myself

43:52

emotionally healthy with the help of a therapist and so now I'm at a point where you know I I

43:59

I don't really have triggers anymore you know every once in a while I'll have like I I

44:05

about a month ago yeah about a month ago um I had somebody challenge me online

44:11

you know saying that they were the expert on treating bipolar disorder and and that it wasn't possible to treat

44:16

bipolar disorder without medication and that the true hope supplements are not for people with bipolar disorder and

44:22

that they cause Mania and I was like what are you talking about and I and I had like an overreaction to it I had a

44:28

trauma response to it and I thought I don't I don't know why I'm having such a bad reaction to this like logically I

44:33

know this is not I don't I don't care what she says like I know that's not true that I realized

44:38

it was unhealed trauma from the hospitalizations and so the only time that I have those things happen now is just I know that it's emotional baggage

44:46

from prior experiences and not anything to do with my brain chemistry so I just

44:51

work with a therapist process it heal it and then I move on with my life yeah I mean it makes sense to me that somebody

44:57

who was going through manic episodes or going through like symptoms significant symptoms in kind of like a moment it'd

45:04

be very difficult to access parts of your brain your rationale and the skills you learn in therapy you wouldn't

45:10

literally wouldn't be able to access them to have the thoughts to put them into action but when you're you know

45:16

taking a a micronutrient formula that works you are able to like take a breath

45:23

and take the step and access those tools and be able to think oh okay this is I'm how I'm feeling like this because this

45:29

has just happened and you're actually going through a completely different um brain pathway rather than being

45:36

completely overwhelmed by the symptoms and you're actually able to control them that's that's amazing and that's awesome

45:42

and you know I I noticed that I mean I don't have a diagnosis or anything but you know I take I take Empower plus and

45:49

it also Time free aminos to optimize my health to feel even better than I can be and when I miss a day or a couple of

45:56

days I noticed I noticed that my um my patience towards especially my two young

46:02

kids is is just not there and I just like oh okay I'm I'm feeling like this

46:08

and thinking like this because I'm not taking my own power plus and then I'll take it but I'm having that rationale rather than just like being impatient

46:15

and getting angry and being rageful you know rather than just like being completely overflowed with my emotions I'm able to like understand it better

46:23

which is just just awesome um before we finish up can you if can

46:28

you give him like what would you say to people who um who are in similar situations to you

46:34

let me put so like somebody who's been diagnosed with a you know psychological

46:39

condition such as bipolar and they've been on medication for quite some time and

46:45

they they're not they're not thriving they're not you know then I don't think anyone really thrives around when

46:51

they're on a bunch of medications you know they end up you know like living with the suffering and that ends up

46:57

being their personality and that's could like just ends up being the complete being which is super super sad and

47:02

unfortunate so what would you say to those individuals

47:07

first of all you learn how to live well with bipolar disorder it's it is not necessary to

47:14

spend your life suffering that's not necessary but you have to be willing to do the

47:19

work and some of the work is uh you know transitioning off of medications onto

47:25

onto treatment and going through the process of healing from that that wasn't an easy thing to do but we already knew

47:31

hard my cous my you know my husband and I already knew what hard was we already had we're living a hard life living with

47:36

bipolar disorder already is hard your life is just hard as it is so we

47:42

recognize that that pursuing the path to Wellness was going to be hard but it was eventually going to become easier and so

47:49

I think that that's the first thing that I would say is that do be willing to do the work to get healthy be willing to

47:56

stick with it and make sure that you develop a support system that's one of the other things that I think is is a

48:02

lot of times challenging because with bipolar disorder a lot of times you burn Bridges with people and and you may not

48:08

have you know feel like you feel isolated in that but you can develop you know I have like I developed I started a

48:14

online a Facebook group for moms with bipolar disorder that want to learn how to live well with it you know to create a

48:19

community of support so look for support from like-minded people look for support from people that are are trying to live

48:26

well that aren't aren't satisfied with just suffering for the rest of their lives and then you know pursue the path to

48:33

Wellness you have to it's it's a path and there's pieces to it you know for me it was getting on the supplement and

48:40

letting my brain heal and I I had tried all the other self-help tools before

48:45

but it what they didn't work until I was giving my brain what it needed to be healthy and then I was able to start

48:51

healing with therapy and start using mindfulness meditation effectively and

48:56

exercising you know doing all the different things and so it's taken time you know the past 12 years have been

49:03

have been a journey it's been a process but but keep being willing to work at it

49:08

you know don't don't feel like it's it has to be that's I think one of the reasons why so many people keep taking

49:14

taking medication is they're just hopeful that the next medication is going to be the one the next medication will be the one and and you just kind of

49:21

get stuck in this downward spiral of you know of the medication path that that really doesn't

49:28

lead to any anywhere but some more suffering yeah and that just goes to show that everyone wants to get better

49:33

everyone wants to be hopeful everyone wants to you know not not feel suffering

49:39

and pain and all of these things like you know people have always hopeful for that next thing that might help them and

49:45

what you just said there about all the other factors that go into mental health and healing so important because you

49:51

know you can take all the you can take the best supplements on the planet um but if you're not doing the rest of

49:56

the other things that encapsulate mental health and well-being then you're not going to get where you want to go I

50:02

think that Empower plus is an incredible way to support your brain to be able to

50:08

even think about exercising eating better uh thinking

50:13

clearer having clearer rationale you know like all these other things that are so vital for brain health it's not

50:19

you know we have this culture that wants like one pill for every ill and we just want to take one thing that's going to take care of everything unfortunately it

50:26

doesn't exist but we do have a product here that is at absolutely proven 35

50:32

Medical Publications to its name from you know a dozen universities around the world um you know it's one of the most studied

50:38

micronutrient formulas on the planet and for good reason because it gives people hope and it's a true hope that allows

50:45

people to step into um the light step into a pathway unlift the veil of Darkness that they've been

50:51

living in for so long and give people an option to start feeling awesome like they want to and like they deserve right

50:59

absolutely well on that beautiful note Michelle thank you so much for coming on

51:04

the show this was amazing I when I do when I do these amazing podcasts I always write like little time stamps for

51:10

like you know a good hook I've written nine time stamps for this that's like seven more than usual so this is an

51:17

amazing episode I'm so glad that we did this I'm so glad to get this out and it's going to help us so many people can

51:24

you let us know where people can connect with you and um your Facebook group

51:30

my uh

51:38

at my upside of down and then my my mom's group on Facebook is bipolar moms

51:45

learning to live well and that's linked in my on my website so it's really easy to find beautiful well I'll make sure that all

51:52

of that information is in the show notes so people can connect with you and join those groups I think it's super valuable that

51:58

um we actually have these support mechanisms it's actually a really positive thing about social media is that you can connect from all over the

52:04

world and and connect with people that are looking for support advice education tips Etc so thank you so much again for

52:12

being you for being awesome Michelle I really appreciate it awesome thank you so much

52:17

of course well that is it for this very very special awesome episode of True hope class the official podcast of true

52:24

hope Canada don't forget to subscribe if you haven't yet you can also leave us a review review on iTunes if you want to

52:30

but that is it we'll see you next week foreign

52:35

[Music] foreign