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hello everybody and welcome to the true Hope cast podcast where we take a deep dive into mental Health's many physiological and psychological aspects

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this is the show for you if you're looking for motivation inspiration knowledge and solutions and that's what we are all about here at true hope

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Canada and true hope Canada is a mind and body based supplement company dedicated first and foremost to

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promoting brain and body Health through non-invasive nutritional means for more information about us you can visit Tru hopec canada.com today I welcome

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Michelle retinger to the podcast now Michelle has been on the podcast before but she was diagnosed with by bipolar in

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1998 she spent the next 12 years on a roller coaster of manic and depressive episodes with therapists doctors

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psychotropic medications hospitalizations and suicide attempts finally she found a therapist that would

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try an unconventional approach and through Empower plus and true hope she was able to completely turn her life

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around now Michelle helps support people with bipolar disorder to learn to live a

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healthy balanced and productive life today on this podcast we're going to be talking about her brain brand new

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amazing book The Upside of bipolar seven steps to heal your disorder enjoy the

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show okay Michelle hi welcome back to True Hope cast how are you what is going well I'm doing fantastic I'm so excited

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to have this conversation today it's I've really like been looking forward to it yeah me too it's uh it's it's going

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to be we're just talking off there about how this is going to be such a informative inspirational conversation

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around your work around Empower plus and around bipolar Disorder so you've been

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on the show before back on episode 116 I'm pretty sure we were talking about your recovery with true hope with with

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um with your disorder of bipolar so I'm going to leave a link in the description for anyone who wants to jump into that

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to get a little bit more in depth but we're going to be talking more specifically today about your brand new

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book that's available the upside of bipolar seven steps to heal your disorder we're actually going to be

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doing a very special giveaway for that book for a botle of Power Plus and a bottle of free Minos we can you'll get

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more details about that at the end of the show um but for those individuals that didn't watch that first episode or

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don't know who you are would you mind just giving a little bit of an introduction about who you are and what it is that you do

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certainly uh I was diagnosed with bipolar back in 1998 one month before

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graduating from college and when I was diagnosed initially I was told that

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bipolar was a chemical imbalance that I would have it for the rest of my life but if I would work with the doctors

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they'd help me find the right medications to help manage my disorder and I took my doctors at their word I

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had no reason to disbelieve what they were telling me and for the next decade I actively went to every psychiatric

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appointment I was you know I had I I took every medication I was given at one point I was on seven different

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medications and I just kept getting worse you know I some medications gave

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me a little bit of relief but the symptoms were never gone um and my life was deteriorating really rapidly and I

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had a massive breakdown in 1998 or 2008 uh 10 years after my initial diagnosis

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where I was hospitalized in three different hospitals and across two states they did electri compulsive

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therapy on me I had my first full psychotic episode which changed my diagnosis from bipolar 2 to bipolar 1 um

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and I made multiple attempts on my life and I I genuinely believed at that point that everybody would be better off if I

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were gone you know I had three children um young children and I believed that

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they'd be better off if they had a different Mom I thought my husband deserved a better wife you know I just I

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just felt hopeless I didn't feel like there was any hope for ever having any kind of quality of life anymore at that

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point and I had an experience one day that I outlined in the book um that

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changed things for me I was watching my children play and I had this really clear realization that if I ever

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successfully ended my life that it would ruin my little girl's life particularly was for and she would believe it was her

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fault and from that point on I fully committed myself to surviving um I I

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knew even though I didn't believe my life had value I knew hers did and I wanted to live for her and even if all I

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could do was suffer through my life I would do it so that she would have a chance at life and about a year after

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that um was when I first discovered true hope and I the first year after that commitment that I made I was hanging on

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by my my fingernails I ended up hospitalized one more time you know it was just like trying to survive every day it was exhausting and then a friend

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of mine told me about true hope and my doctor at that point had been treating

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me for over eight years and he was as desperate to find something to help me as I was and so when I brought this

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information to him he he considered it he looked at it and told me that we had

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nothing to lose nothing else was working and so he was willing to to give me the go-ahead to try it and

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when I first started you know transitioning from medication to micronutrients I didn't understand

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really what I was doing I thought I was trading two things that were the same um

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because I I still believed what I'd been told about like micro you know uh bipolar being incurable bipolar being

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you know uh like diabetes and medication like insulin and so I I kind of thought that

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I you know the medication wasn't working so let's the M micronutrients as what I was what I was thinking um but over the

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following six months or so as my brain began to heal and as I finally came out

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of the fog of the medication I remember one day waking up feeling like it was the first time I was fully awake in over

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a decade and from that point on I gradually over the next decade found

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additional tools and resources that helped me to under uncover you know the things that were actually driving the

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symptoms and I eventually got to the a point of full healing like I completely recovered from all the bipolar symptoms

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and I I wanted to share what I had learned with other people and so I started my blog you know I started a

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podcast um but as I was doing those things I started doing more and more research and

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realized that it was actually possible to heal like I I I thought maybe mine was a fluke I thought maybe I had you

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know a lot of people will say You must have been misdiagnosed and I I I thought maybe I was maybe I was

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misdiagnosed but as I did more research and started uncovering all of the research underpinning each of the tools

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and resources I had used to recover I realized that it's not a fluke I what I

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experienced was not a fluke it wasn't you know a misdiagnosis this was scientifically based it was an

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integrated method for healing and the first step of it was getting the medication out of my system getting it

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out of my mind so that my brain had a chance to heal and true Hope was the

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pivot point for me on that wow well it's quite the story and I've

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heard it before and it's still just like quite remarkable um I there's a bunch of

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places I want to go but I just want to start in regards to that that mentality switch that you had that commitment that

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you had when you were with with your kids and you were thinking about what it would be like for them to

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not have their mother around and that was ended up being your motivation can you just tell us a little bit more about that um yeah that as a mentality change

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because I mean this is a very let's say extreme example of

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needing a motivator to get you through something significant yeah and I feel

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like that helps a lot of people finding that helps a lot of people if they wanted to make a change whether they

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wanted to like lose weight or exercise more or eat better food like they have to find something outside of them that's

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going to get them through those moments where they absolutely want to you know take it take a dip in their program so

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can you tell us a little bit more about that like that that kind of that that that moment and that mentality change and like what that got you through to

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that through that next year that actually found you in in that position to you know learn about true hope and

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and and take that path yeah absolutely I think you have to start with the despair

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that led to the belief that it would be better off if I was gone you know one of the challenges that we have with these

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diagnoses I I don't really like the diagnosis of bipolar anymore I think that we're doing people a huge service

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by giving them a diagnosis of bipolar disorder ADHD major depressive disorder

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because all we're doing is identifying a cluster of symptoms and and by telling

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them you have a disorder quote unquote disorder you believe you've been given an explanation you believe that an

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explanation an underlying issue has been identified and if you are told that

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you're going to have this for the rest of your life if you believe that this is the way your life is it is a very

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despairing way to exist yeah and there's no hope in it you know it's it is I if

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as I got worse and worse and worse after each of my children were born I I deteriorated more rapidly each time and

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so after my youngest well my youngest at the time I had another child afterwards but my my boy at the time was two years

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old and after he was born I could not recover I was so severely depressed I couldn't function and my my the SU ital

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thoughts started with nightmares I would have dreams about dying every single night they were very Vivid very

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realistic dreams and I would wake up feeling the anxiety of of that dream but

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over time I started finding relief in the idea you know it started to feel like a relief to think I don't have to do this anymore because every day waking

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up not knowing what kind of day you're going to have not knowing am I going to be that fun mom today or am I going to be the depressed mom I might going to be

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the mom that loses control with her children um and feeling exhausted every day by the idea of just continuing to

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try every day um I started finding relief in the idea of of not being here

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anymore not having to do it anymore and the same thing with my kids like I was seeing the damage that I was doing to my

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children I was seeing the damage I was doing to my marriage and I kept I it was so easy for my mind to convince me that

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everybody would be better off if I was gone and so it's very difficult for people to want to keep trying when they

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don't believe there's any hope for it changing and when when I was watching my kids play I actually tell this story in

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detail in my book because it was such a pivotal experience for me and I remember it very

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clearly watching my kids playing and realizing I would ruin my daughter's life if I did that they mattered more to

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me than my own life did that's why it was easy for my brain to convince me that they'd be better off because I

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wanted to do what was best for them and having something to keep trying for was

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what kept me going and it's interesting I coach people through the healing process on a regular basis and that's

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the very first thing that I talk to them about is what is the reason that you're doing this why why do you want to get

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better and it's important to clear get that clear in your mind so that you have a reason to keep trying because healing

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is not an easy Journey it is so worth it I I'm grateful every day to be alive I'm

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grateful that I wasn't successful in those attempts and I'm thankful that I didn't give up but at that time it was

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really hard to keep moving forward and so having a reason to try having a reason to keep moving forward was

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critical to the success of you know to continue motivating me to move forward on that healing

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Journey amazing wonderful thanks for sharing that yeah it's it's interesting that we've kind of

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been programmed and designed within medicine that you know you get this diagnosis and and that's it like it's

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very different so for example I break my leg and there's an x-ray I can see my leg is broken that's the diagnosis and

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there's a treatment plan but when it comes to a cluster of symptoms Che

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checking boxes that then fulfills a diagnostic criteria there's a whole fascinating history in regards to the uh

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and you actually talk about it in your book as well in regards to um the mass increase in psychiatric diagnosis with

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medicines and and it's very very um contentious and I'm highly skeptical of

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it for sure myself personally but as you say like if you do give somebody that let's call it a sentence and the only

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thing you can do is manage it with medications I know a few people with bipolar disorder and they all started on

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one medication and it ends up being seven or even more because you're obviously dealing with side effects of

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medications and there's another drug for this and that and there's absolutely no science or research that shows like two

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or more of these drugs together what that does to the human body so it really is this kind of guessing game when it

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comes to um that that patient doctor practice and I want to ask you about

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your doctor because um what did you actually give him that encouraged him to

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consider an alternative to Pharmaceuticals because you said that you you'd already been working with him

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for eight years yeah and I'm sure for him as a doctor like somebody who got into the profession to heal people to

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get people out of their door rather than consistently coming in and he was not seeing obviously any Improvement and as

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a I think just as a good human being that would be quite demoralizing so what did you actually give him to look down

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this alternative route I I gave him all of the I went into the true hope website

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and printed off all the physician information that I could find you know the studies and everything because I I

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would not have I'm very grateful that he that he looked at it and that he agreed that it was an option a viable option

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for me to try because I don't think I would tried it otherwise I was so scared at that point of of my symptoms I was

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scared of the suffering you know I was scared of what was happening and that's one of the things that I think prevents

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people from seeking healing is the fear these symptoms are so damaging they're

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damaging to us emotionally they're damaging to other people you know I I used to describe it to somebody you know

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saying each time I started experiencing what I call mood Cycles I it felt like holding on for de life on a horrible

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roller coaster and then surveying the damage afterwards you know it was just I didn't feel like I had any control and

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so when people are experiencing these irrational states of mind the um the you

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know compulsive behaviors that that come along with it there's fear associated with what if I'm wrong you know what if

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this doesn't work but I had gotten to a point and I think that this was where my doctor was too where nothing else was

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working like we had tried everything we'd exhausted all the medications at that point I had a huge box of sample

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medications at one point because my doctor just started throwing everything at me and I would he would give me a

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sample and I'd try it for a couple months and it wouldn't work and you know and it go in the box and then I try another one and it wouldn't work and I

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go in the box and I didn't even understand at the time that a lot of the increase in the symptoms I was

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experiencing were like withdrawal symptoms from all these meds that I was going because they don't titrate you off

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the meds they say cut it in half for a few days and then stop taking it you know and and then you throw something

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else in there and my brain was just fried by the time was at the point in you know 2009 and 2010 when I finally

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found true hope but um and my doctor even admitted to me he was tremendously

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compassionate he was a very compassionate doctor I'd had a number of different psychiatrists um one of them I

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describe in the book was a German psychiatrist she was my psychiatrist in in uh in Chicago who she she was like

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the quintessential psychiatrist like she reminded me very much of Freud I walked in her office and she had one of those

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kind of kind of couches that I thought she was going to have me lay down on like and she was she had zero bed sign

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Banner she was very blunt you know very kind of crisp and she had this really thick German accent um and I I you know

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I I trusted her because she seemed knowledgeable but this doctor

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um he he just was very compassionate you know he was the during my

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hospitalizations the first two hospitalizations were at other other hospitals with other doctors and he was so infuriated when he found out what had

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been done to me when I was in those other hospitals that he put like he he put in my in my not you know notes in my

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file to prevent you know doctors from prescribing certain medications in the future you know he was just he really

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cared about me and I I feel sad for people whose doctors are not open to

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exploring options that might be more beneficial to their patients because of the dogma of Psychiatry that believes

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that you know the only option is psych psychotropic drugs um and my doctor even admitted to

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me you know a little while after I started TI training off the medications that if I had brought that information

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to him a year ago he may not have year previous he may not have agreed you know he may not have even looked at it

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because his all of his training um in his you know in his

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medical training had convinced him that the only the only valid option was

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psychotropic drugs and then all of the continuing education was fun by pharmaceutical companies and so there

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just wasn't any room to consider anything else yeah and we've I mean

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we've spoken about this so many times on the podcast in regards to the ability to patent a medication

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that's that's novel and make money off that and that's what goes through these research processes this is what gets the

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money this is what big farmer throws at um research so they're able to you know

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make money but when it comes to vitam vins minerals antioxidants these things that are found in the natural world

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these things aren't profitable so that's a whole whole other topic whole other whole other podcast but um yeah

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fascinating the fact that you know at the end of the day like that you were just trying kind of anything and trying these samples and ironically like that

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sounds like an incredibly unscientific way of going about anything but I know

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you're in a desperate situation at the end of the day I've got a lot of compassion for your doctor because yeah he went to medical school the only thing

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you can treat bipol of disorder with and a lot of these other very serious psychological conditions is

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Pharmaceuticals where else would he possibly look you know like they don't they're not taught obviously about vitamins and minerals and the the

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nutritional deficiency component when it comes to a lot of psychological disorders if you're not taught that by

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you know your by these like by these professors you go to these schools you go to these very wellestablished

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institutions it wouldn't even be a it wouldn't even be a thought so unless something comes across your desk or you

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have an experience with a patient where you just like you were just willing to try anything it's a shame that we don't

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have minerals and vitamins as a first line because they're so unbelievably

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safe and then trying something you know Pharmaceuticals should be like Last

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Resort considering the side effects that that people experience and the big phological changes that can happen

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within individual but again that's another podcast topic but um I wonder

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about the this do to now like do do you still are you still in touch with him has um his practice changed from The

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Experience he had with you no I actually tried to track him down a number of years ago um just to say thank you to

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him you know I was so grateful I I we moved from the area um

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about seven months after I started on the micronutrients and I hadn't I only

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saw him twice after he gave me the green light because he I went to him the first

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time for a check in and he just kind of you know asked how things are going the second time I went to him I was I was

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struggling with some withdrawal symptoms and he didn't know what to tell me and he to you know he said I think you need

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to talk to True hope you know so at that point I transitioned to True hope really

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and then we moved and I I didn't really think about him for a number of years but I it wasn't until I got to the point

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where I realized like this is healing like this is this is changing my life and I tried to contact him and was told

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by the reception at the clinic that he had retired and she believed he' passed away and I spent a bunch of money um

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trying to track him down just to make you because I really wanted to tell him how grateful I was to him especially

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once I started you know talking to other people whose doctors weren't willing to you know consider it weren't willing to

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give them the green light I I didn't understand what a blessing it was to have him as my doctor and I was

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heartbroken that that he passed away before I had a chance to say thank you to him because he really saved my life

20:59

yeah remarkable remarkable and I just wonder like before you found empow plus and micronutrients how much of your life

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was doctor's appointments um and medications everything revolved around

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it I I you know it was when you get to this point it's kind

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it is it does kind of become like diabetes where you know you know a diabetic has constantly checking their

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blood sugar and you know your your day is kind of all taken up with

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um with the with the illness right and so um it was everpresent it was like the

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thing that kind of ran the life my life um medications everything was around the

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medication you know how I reacted to medications if I was fatigued you know I couldn't I had to plan my life around

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you know when I could when I was awake of you know for things if that makes sense um you know psychiatric

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appointments were you know I you didn't the interesting thing about it is you

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don't see the psychiatrist very often you know when you first are you know the first intake is the most you'll ever see

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your psychiatrist unless you're hospitalized and you know you have like a 45 minute to an hour intake session

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and you're supposed to tell them everything about your life in in that time and then they you know confirm the

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diagnosis or you know I I I never had anybody question the diagnosis I would go from I had a bunch of different

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psychiatrists because I moved several times over the that year those years everybody confirmed the diagnosis I just

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went in and told them my history and they would say oh yeah you got bipolar you know it was bipolar too initially um

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and then and then you go in for Med checks and the med checks are you know 15 maybe 30 minutes but it's you're not

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going into do anything other than check how the medication is working and I remember

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at one point I I would go to um therapy appointments I hated therapy for the

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first like 10 years I I tried to go to therapy but what I was being told therapy was for was learning how to cope

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learning coping mechanisms for the symptoms and and I didn't never help me you know nothing nothing I did ever

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impacted my ability to cope with what I was suffering with and I didn't know until years later it was because my

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brain wasn't functioning in a healthy way the medications had caused a chemical imbalance in my brain and I

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that's another thing that I'll I'll just mention here I hate when doctors will say somebody's not Med

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compliant it doesn't our brains don't feel write on the medications they don't they never do it doesn't matter you know

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even people that say they get relief from the medications know that their brains aren't working normally you know

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yeah and so there's a reason that a lot of people go off the medications because it doesn't your brain doesn't feel right

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yeah I can imagine that once you've once you've been inside your own brain with

23:49

these this type of a disorder and experiencing those types of symptoms and then you go on a medication I feel like

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any change is some sort of relief but at some level um I no well and one of the

24:03

things that's funny is uh interesting I should say maybe is better word for it is um I I interviewed Professor Joanna

24:10

morane um who is a professor over a psychiatrist over in the UK who her

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entire career is focused on studying drug action she's she's written books about what these drugs actually do

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because she's really appalled by the fact that people are prescribing these medications without any kind of form

24:28

consent people don't actually understand what these medications are doing in their brains and and so she and she said

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what she doesn't like when they call it side effects because she said they're not a side effect it's a side effect is

24:41

the idea that it's it is doing this thing and it actually and it happens to be doing this thing too she said it's

24:46

not a side effect that is what the drug is doing and so she said the idea of a side effect is gives

24:53

undue credit to what the drug is is supposedly doing she doesn't like them

24:58

anti-depressants she doesn't call like calling them antis psychotics because it lends credibility to the medication that

25:04

it doesn't deserve interesting yeah because it's those those side effects are just other known mechanisms of this

25:11

drug yeah it's what the brain it's what the drug is doing to you so when somebody when somebody um has sexual

25:17

dysfunction or when they're gaining a lot of weight or you know they're saying it's a side effect that is not a side effect that's what the drug is doing to

25:23

your body yeah yeah yeah it's wild it's um yeah I mean the whole this whole like

25:29

chemical imbalance Theory and then you're just going into your psychiatrist for these medication kind of

25:37

checkups yeah if you're not having the conversations that are a little bit deeper and certainly a lot more

25:42

meaningful than a 10 15 minute conversation how are you ever really going to kind of get to the bottom about

25:47

the experience that somebody may or may not be having on these meds off these meds it's yeah it sounds so complex and

25:54

complicated and I think that um yeah there's disservice all over the

26:00

place and yeah I'd love to be able to reference that that that doctor from the UK so I'll make sure I get that and put that into the show notes for other

26:06

people because I think a lot of people are very passionate about this topic and just the idea that um that we're calling

26:14

these calling the these side effects it's a very interesting different way of

26:20

thinking about thinking about these things and yeah like I I guess a lot of patients are not being told exactly how

26:27

this product is going to affect them yeah she's she's written some really great books this one that I've got right here is called a straight talking

26:33

introduction to psychiatric drugs the truth about how they work and how to come off them and that was a really

26:40

eye-opening book for me because it was the first time that I'd read something that actually told me what the drugs

26:46

were doing it was so informative I wish that I'd had it before I took psych meds because then I would have understood

26:51

better what was actually happening in my brain we are convinced that these

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medications are are normalizing our brain they're not they're not normalizing our brain um and the whole

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Paradigm of this diagnosis you know the idea that bipolar disorder is a chemical imbalance um it effectively ends the

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Curiosity about what the underlying source of the symptoms actually is and that's the that's the problem itself

27:19

that is the issue because these symptoms are serious and they're a serious

27:24

indication of distress there's something going on it's like having a fever the the way that we treat psychiat

27:30

psychiatric diagnosis would be similar to somebody who's running a fever over and over again and the fever is getting

27:35

worse and worse and so they finally you finally go to the doctor and say I don't know why I keep running these fevers and you're running a really high fever and

27:41

they're like oh well you've got fever disorder we're going to put you on anti-inflammatories for the rest of your life and that'll manage the fevers you

27:48

know that sounds ridiculous but that's what we're doing with psychiatric diagnosis we're not having any curiosity

27:54

about what is actually causing the brain to to act this way you know and we call it a

28:00

disorder so we think that there's something wrong meaning the brain is malfunctioning in some way when in fact

28:07

often that is the brain's doing its job and we're not listening to it beautifully said yeah I don't think

28:12

anyone would be able to convince me that bipolar disorder or schizophrenia are

28:18

pharmaceutical deficiency disorders and you just need drugs to be able to fix that like it's not it doesn't that

28:23

doesn't make any sense to to to me but for a lot of people it it does because you know people have

28:30

things wrong with them and they go to the doctor and they get a pill like that's the process that's what we've

28:35

literally been programmed to to believe and unless you go through something like you've gone through and you are then

28:41

transformed you're remotiv and you're you know if you're angry and you're inspired to learn more and read

28:47

alternative perspectives and there are phenomenal scientists and researchers out there that have that have done the

28:53

work have done the homework or asking the questions but you know it's so unbelievably possible to kind of break

28:59

through that pharmacological um model that's so influential within every

29:05

medical EST establishment across the planet it's a very very big uh very big thing but that's why we have these

29:10

conversations and that's why you write amazing books and you have this blog and you have this because we have to we have to spread the word and and it's it's a

29:17

it's a it's a uh it's a calling and it's a gift to be able to do so but I'd like

29:22

to just switch up a second because as I was reading through um your book and the chapter you talk about true hope and

29:29

your experience there I wondered what your your partner's experience was during your struggles and during your

29:36

Awakening um I wonder if you wouldn't mind touching on that a little bit because you don't really hear about

29:41

caregivers too much and I think it's a very important place to um to uh avert

29:47

some attention yeah it's interesting uh I learned a lot looking back you know

29:55

while I was going through when you're in crisis you don't really think think about anything in fact our system is set

30:00

up to kind of foster self-centeredness and people who are struggling with mental health challenges and I'm not saying that to be mean it's just the

30:06

reality yeah um I my soul often rejected what I was being told you know they

30:11

would say no they just need to understand it's not your fault and I think well it maybe it's not my fault but it's not my husband's fault and it's

30:17

definitely not my children's fault um you know and and my husband during the

30:23

time that I was the most sick during our marriage he was working a lot of hours he was working like 13 14 hours 7 days a

30:30

week he was in manufacturing and so he was gone a lot and he couldn't

30:36

see how bad things had gotten while you know while he was doing that he was he was going to school often

30:43

of and on during that first seven years of our marriage as well and so um he didn't I feel so sad for him looking

30:50

back because he couldn't see how bad things were until I was in the hospital um you

30:56

I don't know if that makes sense yeah it does but he just was you know he was trying so hard to keep you know to keep

31:03

food on the table make sure that the family had what they needed trying to improve his his ability to provide and

31:10

um and I he he talks about when um when I was

31:16

hospitalized the year that I had my breakdown he was the one who prevented

31:21

me the three times that I made attempts on my life and something broke inside him at that point like he he didn't know

31:28

what to do anymore he he he saw somebody that he loved with all his heart

31:34

suffering in a way that he didn't know how to help and and something broke and we had like a wall between us

31:40

emotionally for years after that and he could feel it I could feel it and he didn't know what to do about it you know

31:45

he didn't know how how to address it he didn't know how to fix it um because it wasn't something he consciously did it

31:51

was just a survival mechanism within himself um and it took a lot of years

31:58

and I for me what I would tell people that are you know there's two sides to this one is I realized that I had to

32:05

just focus on healing I needed to do everything that I could to take responsibility for myself I you know

32:11

developed something called a mood cycle survival guy which is the first for me it's the first step in healing that's

32:16

what I teach everybody learn how to take responsibility for your for your symptoms learn how to be self-aware

32:21

learn how to stand up for yourself learn how to how to ask for help and who to ask you know for help from um and it's

32:29

about taking personal responsibility and learning how to how to manage your your symptoms learn how to take care of

32:36

yourself um learn how to ask for help in a way that doesn't burn Bridges you know I think that that's one of the things

32:42

that can be really challenging and part of the problem with with all of it is when we're told that we don't have any

32:48

control over this when we're told that this is an illness that we have it's a disorder that we have a lot of times

32:54

people kind of don't understand that they can have any ability to control control it and it also causes really un

33:01

can often lead to really unhealthy boundaries and relationships um you know my

33:06

husband it took a long time for us to kind of unwind the codependency in our marriage you know because it our our

33:14

early marriage was was uh impacted severely by my mental health challenges

33:20

and we developed some really unhealthy Dynamics on our relationship that had to be kind of worked through with a

33:25

marriage therapist and um when I have work with people in my program I often

33:31

invite them to have their you know somebody whoever their primary caregiver or partner or whoever it is um

33:38

participate because they need to know how to set healthy boundaries they need to know how to what they can do to

33:44

support and what's not their responsibility you know I don't know if that makes sense but does yeah yeah it's

33:51

it's really hard because um like I said the whole Paradigm of treatment Fosters self-centeredness in us and That's not

33:58

healthy it's not healthy for us it makes us feel like we don't have any ability to take care of ourselves you know we we

34:05

can see the damage we're doing to other people and and it makes us feel terrible yeah um and then it's really hard on

34:12

relationships we burn Bridges all the time in these situations because you don't know how to ask for help until

34:18

you're in crisis and when you're always in crisis when you go to people they get worn out you know yeah I don't know if

34:24

that makes sense but it does and it's an interesting persp perspective that's kind of why I asked the question because

34:29

I think that for a lot of people who may be listening they're going to have people in their lives who are you know

34:35

suffering from something and it's over the over time it's without question going to change the Dynamics it's going

34:41

to change how people communicate with each other and yeah I think that we have

34:46

a massive lack of in schools of teaching kids how to communicate with each other to you know be able to do it better when

34:51

they're adults but if you throw in like a bombshell of you know like a bipolar disorder into one of those individuals

34:57

it makes even more complex it makes it more even more complicated and it requires a very significant skill set to

35:03

be able to do that and I I I'm aware of a lot of people like yourself who have

35:10

gone through something and they have these amazing Outlets like podcasts to be able to talk about it but there's not

35:15

enough in my opinion of people talking about the caregivers and what they've

35:20

gone through and the challenges that they've been through and how they're able because they obviously have their own mental health they've got their own

35:26

things going on and it's really really really challenging like I I find it really challenging when my wife's sick

35:31

and I've got to take I've got to take more of her like parental responsibility like that's difficult it's part of my

35:37

role but sometimes that's very it's it's a challenge um so yeah it's it's

35:43

interesting and I'd you know be able it'd be great if we could hear more from individuals like like your partner to be

35:48

able to support other partners going through that with with other people because I think in your situation um

35:57

maybe five times out of 10 Partners would just leave somebody else I've had people on the podcast before where their

36:02

Partners have just like left the door because it's too much for them well and I told my husband I I asked him for

36:07

years like why didn't you just leave me 2008 that that year was awful awful

36:13

awful awful because not only were there the hospitalizations three hospitalizations

36:19

multiple suicide attempts but I was also like up and down all over the place you

36:25

know one day I'm in love with my husband and he's the best person the next day I'm sure I have to leave him you know I'm I he he said that my personality

36:32

completely changed the way that I was behaving completely changed and when I would ask him year you know in the years

36:38

after that like why didn't why didn't you just leave like I would not have blamed you if you left I don't know if I could have handled it you know had the

36:44

roles been reversed and and he couldn't give me an answer and it wasn't until like a year and a half ago when he

36:50

finally agreed to be on my podcast that he was finally able to articulate like I didn't leave because I'd made a

36:56

commitment and I I wanted to keep my commitment you know like but and I I'm

37:02

sad when they're when Partners actually do leave you know it's it's sad for both sides of it you know it's sad for both

37:08

parties but I want to say I am a huge advocate for healthy boundaries in these

37:13

relationships you know I one thing that I've seen I have seen some people who advocate for the caregivers who you know

37:21

talk about taking on responsibility for their partner because they don't have any control and and that and I think no

37:27

you know like you you have to have healthy boundaries or else you end up with two partners that are sick then

37:33

both people's mental health is suffering and that's not good for anybody yeah well so he was on your

37:40

podcast and you you kind of spoke all about it yeah yeah it was it was very hard to get him to do it because he's a

37:46

very very private person and he kept saying you I kept asking him like would you would you be willing to come on you

37:52

know I'll I'll prep you beforehand and he kept saying no no you know he's like I'm really private I don't want this

37:57

stuff and I'm like I'm sorry to break it to you but it's all out there already like I've shared everything with the

38:02

world there are no more secrets you know and so but he was very gracious in in being willing to come on and he's so

38:08

supportive and I'm just really grateful that he chose to stay I'm I'm I'll be forever grateful for that me too me too

38:14

well I'm going to check out that episode for sure and I'll get that into the the description um I'm just I just dropped

38:20

my notes here I'm just going to grab him so give me a second I've also just did a leg day yesterday some my legs l take me

38:27

a

38:33

while all right I'm back everyone right hi yeah um yeah that's wonderful thanks

38:39

sharing so much about your your partner there it's such an interesting journey and yeah you I'm just yeah I'm just so

38:46

grateful that you had you had Peggy you had your best friend who like put you on to stre you had a very understanding

38:53

wonderful psychiatrist who wherever he is whatever whatever's going on i Phil knows that that was the right decision

39:00

and that you're doing great and also your partner as well like it's it's you've got these phenomenal people in your life and you know what what

39:07

inspiration and motivation you've got now going forward to continue your work it's just absolutely amazing um in the

39:15

chapter in your book chapter chapter six you're talking about true hope you you were talking about um experiencing

39:22

longer periods of emotional stability day after day month after month year after after year after beginning taking

39:30

Empower plus these micronutrient formulas and I just wanted to get an idea um of more in the beginning stages

39:37

like what does a day look like with just small periods of emotional stability

39:43

against having those longer periods well the thing that was interesting at first was that I when you

39:51

are so used like your our brains develop patterns they develop kind of Pathways

39:56

and my brain was so used to the instability that I had the

40:03

stability initially caused some anxiety for me because I didn't trust it like there was this like waiting for the

40:08

other shoe to drop kind of thing and um and so the stability was like I was

40:15

really grateful for it but anytime I would start to feel happy or feel good I was like oh my gosh am I getting manic

40:20

you know so there was it took a while for me to be comfortable

40:27

with the stability and you know I had this sense that

40:32

sometimes maybe I was creating emotional imbalances in myself by anticipating something you know was about to happen

40:39

um I had a really hard trusting myself hard time trusting myself in fact uh one of the experiences I share in the book

40:46

is I had since I was very young I wanted to homeschool my children since before I even had kids I'd always wanted to

40:52

homeschool but once I started having children I'm like there's no way I could do that you know like I was so sick with

40:57

the bipolar symptoms once I got off the medication I started thinking oh maybe I could like I

41:04

would really like to I'd like I'd love to teach my kids at home I you know there was I had done a lot of work when I was younger in college like preparing

41:11

myself because I thought I was going to do that and a a sister of mine found out

41:18

that I was you know she was one that was there for there when I had my psychotic episode she'd seen me in the hospitalization so she caught wind that

41:25

I was planning on homeschooling my kids and called and told me that she thought I was manic you know and I started thinking oh my gosh am I manic you know

41:32

like it was I didn't trust my brain I had a really hard time trusting my brain

41:37

and I but one of the keys to this was asking my husband for feedback yeah so

41:43

we developed a a a pattern in our relationship where I would I would ask him you know do you think I'm manic can

41:49

you tell me if you think if you see warning signs that maybe I'm becoming symptomatic in any way and at first he

41:55

was afraid to do it because anytime he would talk you know say something to me I'd like bite his head off and he's like

42:01

not doing that again that's a trap but but um we had to come up with a way for him to approach me you know we he would

42:08

say we we decided that what he would do is say I'm I'm seeing something are you open to to you know some feedback and

42:16

that was the magic you know thing that I would you know yes I'm you know I'm going to calm myself down and I'm going

42:23

to listen because I know you love me or know I'm too worked up right now know talk to me another time about it and um

42:30

that was really helpful to me to have him because he told me I called him that day crying because I was like oh my gosh

42:36

am I getting Manic and I don't realize it and and he said nope she hasn't seen you he said this is the longest I've

42:41

ever seen you stable you know it was and so that was really helpful to me to have an outside perspective to reassure me

42:49

because it's all inside our heads like all of these symptoms are in our head when the people you know make the kind

42:55

of snide comment you know it's all in your head it really is it's all in our head and so learning how to trust our

43:00

brains is really challenging sometimes when especially with as long as I was struggling um learning how to trust it

43:07

and be confident in it but over time I started recognizing the difference um

43:13

and it was really helpful because the chemical version of my brain

43:21

felt very different from even from when I had symptoms when I was off the

43:26

medications it felt very different so I started noticing the difference between

43:31

hypomanic symptoms when I was medicated and hypomanic symptoms when I was notm

43:36

medicated and the reason why I even had them was because there was an underlying distress there in the first place right

43:42

and there was you know I had a history I had severe abuse from my first marriage that hadn't been dealt with I had

43:49

childhood bullying you know I had I had a lot of things that had caused emotional disregulation over the years that that needed to be addressed

43:57

um and so once we got the medication out of the way like true hope really was the

44:02

first the first step on that path it was the first step towards healing because it got the medication out of the way so

44:09

that I could actually start to address the issues that had caused this emotional disregulation in my

44:16

brain yeah I want to ask you so when you began taking M Power Plus when the your

44:23

psychiatrist gave you the green light to to try this how many how many pharmaceutical medications were

44:30

you on um when you started to take EMP Power Plus and what was that journey to being just on M Power

44:37

Plus well okay so there's something that I don't talk about I'm going to talk about it a

44:43

little bit briefly here um I had started tie trading off of meds prior to finding

44:49

true hope because I'd found one other product and I don't share that with people because I learned later that it

44:55

was actually had ingredients that interfere with the absorption of Empower and I discontinued that product okay so

45:01

I had started the cross titration process um the initial uh expl sorry can you explain

45:09

what cross titration cross titration is and then maybe say it because I can't say it yeah so cross titration the

45:14

reason I use that language instead of cross tapering which is what I think that true hopes customer support uses is

45:20

I've just read it more I've read it in other Publications and that and so it seemed to be more commonly used and so

45:26

that's why I use that language but cross titration or cross tapering is when you

45:32

are you are starting to take the true hope products and then as your brain

45:38

starts to heal you slowly very slowly taper off of the

45:43

medications and I always caution people whenever I'm talking to them about the

45:48

dangers of psychotropic drugs and and that do not go off of your medications on your own don't ever do it because

45:55

there it can be life-threatening like the withdrawal symptoms are so severe often for people that it can actually be

46:01

life-threatening and so I I always tell people you need to work with an expert you need to work with somebody who

46:07

understands what this drug has done done to your brain and how to safely withdraw from it so that you can get your brain

46:13

the support it needs in the process of of going through withdrawal and people that go through my program I always

46:18

encourage them you know not encourage them I I'd instruct them as how how to utilize true hopes customer support in

46:24

the most effective way um and how to understand what's happening in their brain when they get overmedicated or you

46:31

know or go through withdrawal and that that but um when I first was going through that process I didn't I had

46:38

nobody to help me other than true hope and and even my doctor didn't know what to tell me you know I uh one of the

46:43

withdrawal symptoms that I had or the overmedication symptoms that I had that was so weird was I could taste the medication in my mouth um and it I had

46:52

that was that my last appointment with my doctor I call you know I called them and I'm like I I need to see the doctor

46:57

and he had me in and I said I can taste the medication in my mouth and he's like I don't know what to tell you like he

47:04

he'd never heard of that before and I told him it I said it's so potent in my mouth that it feels like I've sucked on

47:10

the pill and so um that was something I was really grateful for it because it

47:16

was it was not comfortable but it wasn't a severe symptom you know it was just

47:22

something that was like I I started to be very aware when I was getting overmedicated cuz I started to be able to taste the medications of my mouth

47:28

uhuh and so the withdrawal process for me um my husband and I tried to go back

47:33

through my my journals and see if we can kind of piece together the timeline but we between the two of us we think it was

47:39

about a six-month period total from the beginning to the end of the process and the end of the process for me was really

47:46

pronounced because I woke up one day and it felt like I was fully awake for the first time in a decade

47:52

and I I called my husband at work I was so excited and he thought thought I was manic like he was like oh call your doc

48:00

you know maybe you need to call the doctor or something and I'm like no no I I don't know how to describe to you what I'm feeling like this isn't I I'm not

48:08

manic I just feel awake and it's so hard for somebody who hasn't experienced what

48:14

it feels like because most of these drugs have a sedative effect on our brains like I I I felt tired for over a

48:20

decade I always felt tired I never felt fully awake so was it over 10 years that You' last experienced

48:27

that yeah yeah I when I my very first uh medication that they put me on was um

48:35

zolof and I was on it for three like a little bit over three and a half years

48:41

and I was so tired all the time that I could sleep no matter how much sleep I

48:46

got I could sleep anywhere I would fall asleep all over the place I I was on the bus one time when I lived in Seattle and

48:52

I slept through my bus stop all the way to the bus station like I I woke up in the bus station when the bu drivers you

48:57

know like you have to get off now and I'm like where am I and but I was so tired all the time and um every

49:04

medication had that kind of sedative effect for me you know it was just varying degrees of sedation is what it

49:10

felt like all the time and so that feeling of awake was such a relief you

49:16

know I it just being tired was normal at that point and so this relief of like oh

49:22

my gosh my brain's awake is it was just I was so happy I love it I love it so

49:28

much and yeah you were talking about how um your doctor wasn't aware of like what

49:33

the the route to coming off medications is because very very clearly they're

49:39

taught how to get people on medications not to get them off them right so I feel like and please let me know your

49:45

experience because you've worked with a lot of people who have you know come off medications to to switch through

49:52

micronutrients to elive Serious disorders but I think if you were to go

49:57

to your doctor saying you wanted to get off these types of medications it's going to re be received as insult

50:02

perhaps so what's your experience with that yeah it's really interesting I have to I have a fine line that I have to

50:08

walk because I I can't tell people you need to come off your medications because it's not you know I I I would be

50:15

liable at that point but when somebody comes to me and they want to come off their medications uh I have not yet had

50:23

anybody come to me where their doctors were on board not one person and and it makes them scared because

50:29

they're afraid of like what if the doctor's right but most times by the time they come to me they're like fed up

50:35

and they're ready for something different like it can't get any worse than what it is is where where they are right and they're hoping that maybe it

50:42

could be better and it's the thing that is I tell people that has it is critical

50:49

is that you cannot use your own judgment in this process you cannot when somebody

50:55

decides they want to go through cross titration and they want to come off these medications they have to listen to

51:01

the expert that is helping them um I I encourage people to utilize the true hope customer support because they're so

51:07

knowledgeable they've got you know you guys have over two decades of experience with working with people on these

51:12

medications you understand the drug action you understand how they interact with things um and I've I've watched

51:19

people go successfully through this process and the ones who who don't get through it successfully and the ones who

51:25

don't get through it successfully are the ones who just choose to do something different yeah um and it's sometimes you

51:31

know part of the challenge is being patient with the process because we are so anxious to get off of these

51:36

medications that sometimes they're like they just think well I don't think I need to be on it anymore I think I can

51:41

just come off and I tell them like please don't do that you need to go slowly you have to be patient and it's

51:48

it's not a comfortable experience you know um one of the things that we do in the program is is

51:55

people uh will they have to learn what overmedication feels like for them it's different for

52:01

everybody everybody has a different experience their body chemistry is different the medications they're on vary from person to person um but they

52:07

have to learn what over medication feels like they have to learn how long that

52:13

that they're going to experience that overmedicated feeling and then they have to learn what how long withdrawal lasts

52:18

for them and so you know the I see an average I will say I I see an average of

52:24

like 48 to 72 hours on each of of these and and what I have people do is learn

52:31

what it looks like and then how can you manage it if you know I'm going to experience this for the next 72 hours it

52:37

doesn't feel comfortable but I'm after 72 hours I'll start to feel relief then

52:42

you can put some kind of boundaries in place you know some some things in place that are going to help you kind of

52:47

manage that over over the next 72 hours you know and so and once you get into

52:53

that pattern then you you know okay next time I'm gonna I'll get you know maybe three weeks I don't know I it's

52:58

different for everybody but maybe you'll get three or four weeks of relief and you're feeling okay and then you'll start to feel overmedicated again yeah

53:04

and and it's just a pattern that you go through and you get better at it you get better at managing it you understand

53:09

what's happening um and then you know there's the other thing that people have

53:15

to learn is when to call true hope you know a lot of times that because we're so used to these symptoms withdrawal

53:23

symptoms often look a lot like the symptoms of the quote quot disorder and

53:28

and we have these coping mechanisms that our brains automatically go to and we don't recognize like I don't need to

53:34

suffer like this this is over medication or I don't need to suffer like this this is you know this is just withdrawal I'll

53:39

be okay in a little bit um and I always tell people as soon as you feel any symptoms at all call true hope yeah call

53:46

them and ask them tell them what's going on they may say this is normal you're gonna you know it'll be uncomfortable for a couple days or they may say we

53:53

need to make a change but don't wait always call them as soon as you start feeling it call them right away that's

53:59

what they're there for that's you know they're the experts and then listen to them and do what they tell you to

54:05

do love it well said um can you maybe explain a little bit to people about um

54:12

how s some medications well actually all medications especially taken over a long

54:17

period of Time how they can be stored in the body oh yeah how when you do come

54:24

off medications and you you you stop them there is this you know a body does

54:29

this amazing I'll let you I'll let you explain it you know what I'm talking about go for it yeah yeah yeah so Med release was something that I didn't

54:36

understand I didn't know anything about this initially there's so there was so much new information that it was hard to

54:44

understand exactly what they were talking about and I'm I'm sure true hope at some point warned me about Med releases but I didn't I didn't retain

54:50

that and the first time I experienced it I didn't know what was happening so was

54:56

it was when we went through a move um we I I moved right after right during the

55:02

cross titration process I actually moved and then about a year a little over a year later we moved again and

55:09

I became hypomanic during the move and then crashed afterwards and and it was a

55:15

pretty you know I had about a week of pretty bad depression and I my coping

55:20

mechanism is binge watching and so I was like I spent a week in front of the television like all day along every day

55:27

for a week what'd you watch um the first move was uh let's see this the first

55:34

move was Law and Order SVU like 20 seasons of it and and when I say binge

55:39

watching I'm not talking about Netflix binge watching over the weekend I'm talking about like seven eight nine days

55:44

straight of all day long late into the night forgetting to eat you know like I obsessively watching that was it was

55:51

really unhealthy um and I didn't I didn't understand looking back I understand what what was happening the

55:58

second move the next move after that was only like nine months later we had a really kind of sudden job situation that

56:04

required a move and so we found out from the day we found out to the day we were moving was two weeks later yeah and and

56:10

I crashed really hard that time it was like a two week depression and I I

56:16

finally after about a week and a half I started worrying that the micronutrients weren't working like I I was like something's wrong I don't know what's

56:22

going on cuz I was at a point where I thought maybe I need to go to the hospital but I didn't want to go get medicated or medicated but I didn't know

56:28

what was going on and so I called true hope and they explained about Med releases they said that your body these

56:35

psychotropic medications can get stored in your soft tissues for up to like 10 years and they have no way of knowing

56:42

how much is in in your body still and anytime you go through like int super

56:47

intense exercise and I I found this out the hard way when I started training for triathlons or you know really intense

56:54

stressors in your life um like a move it can cause this this medication I think

57:00

they call it Med Pockets but they get released into your body and when your body doesn't need it anymore it causes

57:05

the symptoms that it was designed to prevent in the first place and so my my reaction to these Med releases was

57:12

always really bad depression fatigue and depression were the the two symptoms that I would experience and one thing that I warn

57:20

people about actually in the book is I I was so frustrated because once I once I they told me about this I'm like oh

57:26

that's what happened last time I don't want to have this happen again I just want to get it out of my system and I

57:31

happened to mention to the lady that I was speaking to in customer support that I can I just do a cleanse and get it out

57:37

of my system she like absolutely not do not do that we don't know how much medication is in your system and we

57:42

don't want to push it all into your system at once it could be really dangerous yeah I didn't listen to her I

57:49

went to the health food store I thought I knew better and I went to the health food store and got a liver cleanse stuff

57:54

and started started it and days into it I had the most severe depression that I'd had since my

58:00

hospitalization realized my mistake called true hope crying and they said we

58:05

are so sorry that that's that's happening to you and they walked me through what to do and it took a few

58:10

more days to correct the mistake that I'd made and get that stuff out of my system and then I was okay and I never

58:17

went against true H Hope's advice again ever yeah it's um I find it fascinating

58:24

that the body um can see these dangerous foreign entities of drugs coming in and

58:31

wrapping it up in fat and storing it away to keep you protected um and then

58:36

once you were to you know exercise or you know train for a triathlon your body's obviously needs those fats for

58:43

energy energy release and those chemicals get released back out and then you feel that massive phological change

58:51

because these are very very potent very very strong medications and

58:57

but it's also amazing the body can recover from something like that but it's so obviously important to be aware

59:02

and I I recall reading your book that you've got a couple of disclaimers in there and one of them is around those detoxes that people can be so um you

59:10

know they're just they're super motivated inspired to make these changes they want it to happen right away and

59:16

yeah you could go to a health food store and pick up numerous amounts of detoxes because you just you're so desperate to get that out of you because you want to

59:22

become somebody new but there is a process because these things are powerful

59:28

yeah yeah well said well said but I want to talk about what is a mood cycle

59:33

survival guide you mentioned that um you mentioned that in the show already you mentioned it in the book a bunch and you

59:39

also said earlier today that it's one of like the primary foundational things that people need to do yeah it's my

59:46

first step I it was the first thing that I started doing that actually was me taking responsibility for myself this

59:52

was before I found true hope and it actually ended up I looked looking back recognized how beneficial it was for me

59:59

in the cross titration process and you know in that whole thing because I had started to become much more self-aware so the mood cycle Survival

1:00:06

Guide was something that I started developing for myself when I recognized nobody was coming to help me I had to

1:00:12

figure out how to help myself yes was after um after I had made that commitment that I was never going to

1:00:19

allow myself to to be in danger of of suicidal action um and

1:00:27

it was towards the end of that first year when I ended up hospitalized again and I was like so I was so frustrated

1:00:32

that I ended up in the hospital and I was at home watching my kids play and I had this thought nobody's coming to save me there's got to be a way to do this

1:00:39

better you know there has to be a way to manage this better if I know that I'm going to experience these symptoms how

1:00:45

can I be more proactive about taking care of it you know and so I developed this plan and it developed over time um

1:00:51

the first step in the plan is who is your team who is your response team you know when we're struggling with these

1:00:58

kinds of things you need help um but it's really important to identify who can help you what their role is and set

1:01:04

healthy boundaries around that so that you don't burn all those bridges you don't want to destroy relationships

1:01:09

because you don't know how to ask for help until you're in crisis and so by identifying who your team is who are the

1:01:15

people who you can ask for help and my number one on that team is actually true hope customer support on my my mood

1:01:22

cycle Survival Guide is true hope customer support because they're always the first call whenever I'm struggling

1:01:27

if I ever if I ever had symptoms um I would call true hope first because usually there's something that needs to

1:01:33

be adjusted um but then you know I we I we got clear boundaries in my marriage

1:01:38

what things could my husband help me with and what things weren't his responsibility and so the that's the

1:01:44

first step in this process is who is your who's your team who can you ask for help and what are the boundaries around that assistance and then the step second

1:01:51

step in this guide is identifying what I call your early warning system system and this is where you start to become

1:01:59

much more self-aware about what your symptoms are what are your symptoms what do they look like and what are the

1:02:05

triggers for symptoms because when we start making those correlations we can start to they're Clues as to what's

1:02:11

actually happening what's going on with you um and as PE I I used in that part

1:02:17

of the guide I encourage people to use a tracking a mood tracking up um because

1:02:22

often times we just feel like victims to those these things you know especially things like anxiety if you have an

1:02:27

anxiety attack or something like that it it feels like you're having it you know out of the blue and often times there

1:02:34

are kind of precursors if you start to pay attention you start to recognize there are things that are happening

1:02:39

before that that let you know that kind of storm is coming yeah that so you can kind of prepare yourself and then the

1:02:45

third step in that guide is your what I call the power priorities and this came

1:02:51

actually out of an experience that we had with a storm an ice storm that came through when we lived in in Ohio where

1:02:57

the power was knocked out for 5 days we had no power at all it was like horrible suffering we were so cold no you know no

1:03:03

hot food no hot showers no heat in our home and some friends of ours invited us over to have something to eat at their

1:03:09

house and they had a generator and we were in the heat we you know we got to have a warm shower and a warm meal and

1:03:15

we were asking them questions about their generator because we're thinking we need to get a generator and it was the first time that I understood when

1:03:21

you have a power generator it does not power your whole house you have to identify the power PR ities within your

1:03:26

home what are the things that you really need and then the rest of the power Just Waits until the power comes back on and

1:03:33

that was for me a kind of a clue for how do I manage my emotional resources when

1:03:39

I don't have as much to give um you know what a lot of times when people are struggling with depressive episodes for

1:03:46

example I I used to try to keep doing everything and it felt like climbing a hill in a Mudslide the harder I tried to

1:03:52

do everything the worse it got the further down I got um the same thing was kind of true on the other end with when

1:03:58

I would get hypomanic I I would start huge projects and and get going on big things and the things that mattered most

1:04:04

would get neglected and so this power priorities was me identifying what are the things that matter most that need to

1:04:11

be done no matter what and then when the emotional resources are offline those are the things to get the attention and

1:04:17

the rest of it has to wait until until everything's back online and then the fourth piece of that of that uh guide is

1:04:26

how do you get things back online how do you reboot your system and get yourself back to a healthy balanced mental state

1:04:32

and I always have people start with this make sure that they've got this in place even before they go through cross

1:04:37

titration because that is going to help them be more effective in Cross titration it helps them become much more

1:04:44

self-aware um a lot of times when we're going through you know the experience of cross titration when you experience um

1:04:51

the symptoms of like uh overmedication or withdrawal or

1:04:56

whatever we're not very we're we're not being self-aware as far as what we're

1:05:01

actually experiencing it can feel overwhelming we can feel scared but when you start to be more clinical in your

1:05:06

approach to it when you start tracking the symptoms um you start to see patterns it's easier to see okay so this

1:05:13

is what I feel when I start to feel overmedicated you know maybe I'm starting to get really headache you know bad headaches or I start to get nauseous

1:05:19

or or I get agitated really easily and when you start identifying those as

1:05:24

symptoms instead of moral failing in some way then you don't feel guilty about it you don't feel bad about

1:05:29

yourself you you start recognizing them for what they are and then you can also see how long they're lasting you know so

1:05:35

it gives the more information you have and the more self-aware you have you are the more empowered you feel to be able

1:05:41

to keep moving forward on this healing path yeah it makes unbelievable amount

1:05:46

of sense in regards to being able to prepare yourself properly and look back at those patterns and being a little bit

1:05:51

more aware like and you'd have to have these things tracked act and then app so you can actually see that data like it

1:05:58

makes so much sense and we're lucky and blessed we've actually got these things and You' you've gone through this you've

1:06:04

gone through this journey and and created this and I'm sure you outline that significantly in the book right yep

1:06:10

yeah amazing um I want to talk about um your third pregnancy so in May 20 May

1:06:20

May 2013 you found out you were having your third baby and your endocrine

1:06:25

ologist warned you that another pregnancy was going to basically kill your thyroid gland yeah but you didn't

1:06:32

believe that would happen and I want to know why you believed that yeah so my

1:06:38

first two pregnancies I had a really severe postpartum hyperthyroid condition

1:06:44

and most people are are aware of Hy hypothyroidism which is when your thyroid isn't functioning at the level

1:06:49

it needs to like it's low functioning and often times when people have hypothyroidism like they'll gain lot of

1:06:55

weight they have low energy I was on the other side of that I was my metabolism was an overdrive and I'd never had a

1:07:03

baby before so my first time having this I didn't know that it was wrong that there was anything wrong until I had

1:07:09

lost significant amount of weight and that you know I'd lost a ton of weight I

1:07:15

was losing a ton of hair like when I rubbed my head it felt like I'd shaved my head because so much hair had fallen out and was regrowing and I was having

1:07:22

really bad dizzy spells anytime I would stand up I would black out out you know it was just it was dangerous like I was

1:07:28

afraid to drive it was really bad my mom thought I was anorexic because I had lost so much weight weight you could see

1:07:33

my ribs and I was eating all the time so she was worried that I was developing an eating disorder and I couldn't get

1:07:39

enough food in my body and the second time it happened it was even worse and

1:07:44

that was when they finally sent me to an endocrinologist and they said you have what's called postpartum

1:07:49

hyperthyroidism and I was told that if I had another baby I would destroy my thyroid because it was getting

1:07:55

progressively worse yeah but I was convinced that it actually had something to do with the medication I was taking

1:08:00

because the onset of the symptoms correlated with when I started back onto the psychotropic drugs after my

1:08:07

pregnancies so both of my first two pregnancies I was off medications except

1:08:13

with with one exception I had one anti-depressant that I took all the way through but there was most of my

1:08:18

medications could were not safe for pregnancy and so about three months after both of my children were born I

1:08:25

had the onset of pretty severe symptoms and so they had me stop nursing and go back on the

1:08:30

medications and the onset of the symptoms correlated with the the drug building up in my system yeah and when I

1:08:37

asked the doctor this endocrinologist about it he's like oh absolutely not those are not even related and I kept

1:08:43

thinking in my head they seem related like it they seem correlated with each

1:08:48

other so when I had that third baby I was very nervous because I thought what if the doctor was right what if I

1:08:55

destroy my thyroid but something inside me told me no like you're going to be

1:09:00

okay and not only did it not did I not have a recurrence of the symptoms I actually had to work really hard to lose

1:09:06

the baby weight I gained a lot of weight during that pregnancy I gained about 70 pounds during that pregnancy and I had

1:09:11

to work really hard to lose the weight afterwards and it was the first time that I'd had to work to lose weight because it just fell off literally

1:09:18

before and this was the first time that I had a healthy pregnancy experience and postpartum experience and I didn't have

1:09:24

those that that those severe onset of symptoms after my third pregnancy either I didn't have like the depression I

1:09:31

didn't have the mood you know the mood swings I didn't have any of that it was I was able to nurse my baby all the way

1:09:36

through the her first year it was amazing and just to be clear that third amazing pregnancy you were on Empower

1:09:43

plus yeah yeah I in fact I had been so I started on Empower Plus in

1:09:48

2010 and she was I got pregnant with her in 2013 so I'd been off medications for

1:09:53

about three years at that point well what a testament to uh mothers to

1:09:59

be out there in regards to micronutrients and the fact that Pharmaceuticals during

1:10:06

those times are significantly dangerous not just um during pregnancy but afterwards as well and the the the

1:10:14

buildup and the storage that we we spoke about before as well and I just want to mention in regards to like the thyroid

1:10:19

issue like Empire Plus on its own is really amazing for like lowgrade thyroid issues because of its combinations of

1:10:26

magnesium selenium enoro iodine vitamin C B2 B3 um but for anything a little bit

1:10:34

more serious than that we we have we have an i amazing an asent iodine product that you can that you can take

1:10:39

as well as an oror one as well so yeah thyroid health is is is a big problem in

1:10:46

regards to a lot of people suffering especially women there hormonal imbalances so yeah not only does EMP

1:10:51

Power Plus significantly powerful for your brain but so like we have combinations of products that work

1:10:57

Wonderful for thyroid Health as well and we're just dealing with with root cause issues and majority of them being

1:11:04

significant chronic nutrient deficiencies especially in the brain and um yeah it's uh it's such a simple

1:11:12

solution but again we've been programmed to think that drugs are the best and we should just all be taking wonderful

1:11:17

drugs well and the other thing that it that it caused me to start thinking about was the the occurrence of what we

1:11:24

call postart um depression the pp PPD MH

1:11:31

um we give we give these poor mothers whose brains just need more a little more support you know medications and we

1:11:38

further disregulated their brains and it just breaks my heart for them because you know it's the most logical thing in

1:11:44

the world to recognize you're going through significant hormone change your body has just gone through significant

1:11:50

stress and you're going through sleeplessness you're going like there's all of these stressors yeah that that

1:11:56

require more help like your brain needs more help and most women who are going through that are not getting the nutrition that they need right so we

1:12:04

already have a hard a hard time getting the nutrition our bodies need and then during that any anyone who's gone

1:12:09

through that you know understands we're sleep deprived we're not eating healthy you know there's all kinds of things

1:12:15

going on and our brains just aren't getting the support they need and then we get depressed and then they give us

1:12:20

drugs yeah um I'm no way um comparing this example to pregnancy but when I

1:12:27

know I've got like a a stressful week or if I'm traveling or something something

1:12:32

is going to happen in the future that I know my body is going to need to Galvanize its resources I increase my

1:12:38

dosage of Empire Plus in regards to give make sure my body has got enough vitamins it's got enough minerals it's

1:12:43

got the right antioxidants in the right combinations to be able to deal with that extra stress and I couldn't think

1:12:49

of anything more incredible and stressful than trying to grow another

1:12:55

human being inside of another human being and then having to get that human being out of that human being and then

1:13:03

recover like without question the most key time to be able to

1:13:08

be um storing your body and getting your body used to that influx of good quality

1:13:14

proper nutrition not just within the body but in the brain as well and most

1:13:20

products almost all of them apart from ours really in regards to minerals being

1:13:25

being able to be absorbed through the bloodb brain barrier and get into the brain most products go through a 4our

1:13:31

cation process meaning the minerals getting broken down to be absorbed Oz goes through a 4-day process and that's

1:13:38

why we see the significant impacts on the brain in a very positive way and that's why we've had 25 years of

1:13:46

remarkable research and remarkable results and we didn't really touch on it at the beginning when we were talking

1:13:52

about um how you were able to share all those research papers with your doctor yeah if

1:13:58

somebody's listening to this in Canada and goes to True hope Canada to do exactly the same thing there you did to print them off and send them to your

1:14:04

doctor you're going to find all of those papers on our website censored because Health Canada deems it illegal for us to

1:14:10

share truthful health information government funded research it's absolutely mind-blowing but if you

1:14:17

really did want to find those research papers you could definitely find them somewhere um so don't let that stop you

1:14:23

but um can yeah Simon can I mention one other thing please one of the things that a lot of I I think might be a

1:14:30

question mark in people's minds is um most women's doctors will PR prescribe prenatal vitamins for women and they

1:14:37

think well if vitamins were really you know what the problem was then then wouldn't that mitigate it but the

1:14:42

problem is is I during after 2010 there were two times when I when I tried

1:14:49

addition alternative products so I there were twice when I had companies that

1:14:55

people told me all these are the best you know vitamins on the market they're so you know they're so much more absorbable and I believed them and I you

1:15:03

know at one point I even compared the backs of the containers you know true hopes you know to this other product and

1:15:10

they looked very similar and so I both times I tried these other products and I

1:15:15

within a very short period of time started to feel symptoms coming back

1:15:20

and when I talked to I actually had Dr Bonnie Kaplan On my on my um podcast and

1:15:27

I've I've spoken with her I've read her book her book is fantastic if anybody had you know if anybody's out there that

1:15:33

wants to learn more about this read the better brain it was that was a life-changing book for me um but

1:15:40

vitamins and minerals our bodies have a really hard time absorbing them in pill form because that's not the natural

1:15:47

source for us right and true Hope Has Done such a phenomenal job of figuring out how to make sure that the body can

1:15:53

actually absorb the vitamins and mineral and get them into the system so that you're not just flushing it through your system most of the of the vitamins that

1:16:00

we being you know as women are being prescribed by our doctors aren't effective they don't they just go right

1:16:06

through our bodies Y and so that's why there are so many women suffering from these postpartum that are taking these

1:16:11

vitamins because they're not actually absorbable our brains aren't getting the nutrients into them and you mentioned it

1:16:17

in your book and it's something I say all of the time to people when they ask me about like why is why why EMP Power

1:16:23

Plus why this product and not the thousands of other micronutrient formers that are on the Shelf

1:16:28

but most other natural natur almost all other Natural Health Products especially

1:16:33

here in Canada don't have 35 peer-reviewed research papers proving

1:16:39

that they that they work um there's obviously research that vitamin

1:16:44

C is is beneficial there's there's um lots of research in regards to other minerals and other vitamins as well like

1:16:50

individually but as an actual product the research is there that's the

1:16:56

proof and I'm like why would you choose anything else like I don't I don't really understand that but I guess some

1:17:01

people have to just like dive a little bit more in deep and I know way too many people that buy their supplements from

1:17:07

Costco and throwing their money down down the down the toilet yeah literally

1:17:12

down the toilet so yeah it's it's interesting that um that experience and yeah we have this unbelievable

1:17:20

um cation technology that is like second to none and what we're talking about is

1:17:26

all about all based down to all based down to the product the ingredients and what goes in here and how they're

1:17:32

prepared and how they're stored and yeah you could look at this label and you could see oh like you know this is very similar to this product and this product

1:17:38

but it's so much deeper in that like I wish we could actually have like a maybe we need to get a QR code on there to

1:17:45

explain the technology in regards to why why it's different but it certainly is

1:17:50

and yeah the science is there that absolutely proves it and you know you've written a book about the produ product not exclusively about the product but

1:17:56

you have chapters in your book about it um we've got this book here the better brain by Dr Bonnie Kaplan Judy rage

1:18:02

phenomenal book and these two phenomenal researchers they've been on our podcast before and they've been on yours and

1:18:10

they are literally doing especially Julia ruckl right now that she's doing continued research on these products for

1:18:17

PTSD depression anxiety all these things across the spectrum of of um mental

1:18:22

health disorders and the re is coming out more and more all the time so it's

1:18:28

it's clear-cut these products are incredibly effective and I was going to ask you like what would you recommend these products for somebody who doesn't

1:18:34

have like necessarily bi bipolar disorder which is like on this far end of the spectrum of significant

1:18:40

psychological disorders would you recommend it for somebody who's like just dealing with mild stress or even

1:18:46

anxiety or depression absolutely yeah I my kids I'll take it my husband my

1:18:51

husband takes a small dose of it he's unfortunately on a medication right now that he can't take a a full dose but you

1:18:59

know he he believed in it once he saw the effect that it had on me and my kids

1:19:04

so my son was diagnosed with ADHD and I did not want to medicate him and I found out that this worked for you know

1:19:10

helping with ADHD and it's really fascinating because he's a senior in high school now and I've had a number of

1:19:18

parents come to me when they found out that he he wasn't medicated you know he's on he has ADHD but he's totally fun

1:19:25

you know high functioning he has no issues in school and um I have a daughter who my two daughters both take

1:19:32

it um they've never been diagnosed with anything but I started them on it pretty early because I thought this is It's

1:19:38

vitamins it's it's like eating this isn't a medication I think that's one of the things that I kind of started to

1:19:43

talk about earlier I I believed when I first was taking these that this was replacing my medication you know that

1:19:51

medication didn't work for me so I'm going to try micronutrients yeah it's the same thing micronutrients are

1:19:57

something your body is designed needs it you know it's in our food we the problem is is that number one most of us are not

1:20:04

getting adequate nutrition in the first place our food supply is severely depleted in in micronutrients you know

1:20:09

the soil's depleted most of our food is coming from long ways you know long ways away and so the travel time in that

1:20:16

depletes the nutrition in the in the food um in addition to that if you read

1:20:21

Dr reage and and kaplan's book they talk about how there are they're

1:20:27

starting to recognize that there are genetic predispositions to requiring higher levels of micronutrient support

1:20:34

and so our bodies just aren't getting adequate nutrition our brains are not getting adequate nutrition and I think that's one of the main reasons why we're

1:20:41

seeing this dramatic increase in the number of people who are being diagnosed with anxiety and depression and you know

1:20:47

all of these disorders are are often times the one of the root sources of

1:20:52

these symptoms are a micronutrient in efficiency we need more support for our brains they're just not getting what

1:20:58

they need to function in a healthy way yeah and if you were to look at the amount of drugs that come out on the

1:21:04

market for ADHD for depression for anxiety for bipolar schizophrenia and you see the rates of the disorders going

1:21:11

up like they're clearly not helping and if you can just take a step back and

1:21:16

have a look at like what the drug model especially here in Canada is all about and what health Canada is kind of all

1:21:22

about they these drugs put on the market to make money they they're they're produced by pharmaceutical companies

1:21:29

that have a um judic Judiciary responsibility towards their shareholders to make money and health

1:21:38

Canada for example they consider these pharmaceutical companies to be their

1:21:43

clients to be their Customer because two-thirds of their income comes from pharmaceutical companies and they don't

1:21:50

have on any of their agendas the health of Canadians is like their number one

1:21:55

priority because if they would the research would tell them they should be on myit formulas way before they would

1:22:00

be trying something so harsh and severe and in some cases poorly tested drugs

1:22:07

yeah yeah well and it's again are these chemicals are not are are foreign to our

1:22:14

body these medications are not natural to our bodies they're not natural to the brain they are not normalizing brain

1:22:21

function they are abnormal it you know and so it it's so critical to understand

1:22:26

what's actually happening in your brain when you experience these symptoms and when we put when we add the

1:22:33

micronutrients back in when you give your brain what it actually needs it levels everything back out it it makes

1:22:39

it so that it is possible for your brain to function in a healthy way and that was critical on my healing Journey you

1:22:46

know I once I got the medication out of the way and I gave my brain the support it needed to function in a healthy way

1:22:52

then I could work on the other things that that I was struggling with the other emotional issues and Trauma and

1:22:58

that but it wasn't possible until I got the medication out of my out of my

1:23:03

system and the micronutrients into my brain yeah your body your biology is phenomenal it knows what it needs and

1:23:11

when you couple that with just looking at the world through a just through nature and what your body what we've

1:23:18

been given in regards to food and plants Etc like it's very very basic and very

1:23:24

simple once you can get to know it but yeah we're living in a uh we're living in a

1:23:29

confusing World um do you would you mind recommending a few maybe like key books

1:23:35

podcasts or resources that you may recommend for for people who are looking to you know learn to manage their

1:23:41

bipolar disorder in let's say an unconventional but more empowering way yeah I obviously I'm going to tell you

1:23:48

to read my book first because uh and the way that I designed my book is is as a self-help book the first four chapters

1:23:54

tell my story I think you need to know where I'm coming from need to understand where I came from so that you know why I

1:24:00

have you know why I wrote this book in the first place yeah um but then the next seven chapters are steps they they

1:24:07

I teach you the tools that I utilize to to go through the healing process and and in a way that and makes it

1:24:14

accessible for other people helps you to see how those tools might be able to be helpful to you and then I would highly

1:24:20

recommend uh the anatomy of an epidemic by Robert Whitaker that was my red pill

1:24:27

moment you know as I gradually went through the healing process I didn't know I was healing when I was healing I

1:24:32

I thought I was learning how to manage my disorder better because I still believed you know all the way up until

1:24:38

probably about 2020 that I had bipolar and I would have it for the rest of my life but I had just learned how to

1:24:43

manage it better um and when I read his book I was when I realized I'd been lied

1:24:49

to you know it was when I started to understand the entire Paradigm of the system was flawed

1:24:55

and I think that's one of the biggest problems we have in in this system is that everything is is based on this idea

1:25:02

that these are medical conditions that are being diagnosed and so the entire Paradigm is based on that idea that

1:25:08

they're medical conditions that require medication and so all the studies that back up everything are being done based

1:25:15

on that belief and once you pull back the curtain and understand the flaw the

1:25:22

system itself is flawed then you you can start to to take more responsibility for

1:25:27

yourself you can start to have more you know courage to to make the choices that are going to help you find healing for

1:25:33

yourself rather than continuing to suffer under this delusion of of the disease mindset model um I highly

1:25:42

recommend uh Dr moncrief's um book a straight talking introduction to psychiatric drugs the truth about how

1:25:48

they work and how to come off them that was really informative it helps you understand how the drugs work in your

1:25:54

system it helps you understand withdrawal better because you understand what the changes have been made you know

1:26:00

what changes are made by these drugs and what's going to happen when you come off of them um you know and then I each of

1:26:06

the chapters in my book is there are books that I've read that that bear out

1:26:12

the research for each of the tools and so each of the chapters in my book has there's resources at the back of the

1:26:18

book that you can go to that tell you each of the chapters what books I utilized in my own research

1:26:24

um and so I you know if somebody wants to do deep dive there you know they can go in and read each of those books themselves and and learn for themselves

1:26:31

about the efficacy of each of the tools amazing it sounds like the perfect guide for for somebody who really wanted to

1:26:39

make that shift and the um the more we can get that out to people I think it's

1:26:45

just incredibly inspiring so thank you so much for sharing that that's great some really great tools yeah I'll make

1:26:50

sure they're Linked In so people can very easily navigate towards um those books and those

1:26:56

resources um but that's kind of it that was amazing an hour and a half and that's just gone by so fast and I missed

1:27:03

out a bunch of questions I wanted to ask you so maybe we'll have a little part two to this but um we mentioned at the

1:27:09

top of the show we're going to be doing a giveaway for your book as well as a bottle of empow plus and a bottle of Freeman those all packed together um so

1:27:16

you can head over to our Instagram page which is true hope um Canada and I'll

1:27:22

put a link in the description for that as well and there'll be very simple easy giveaway instructions there to connect

1:27:28

with myself at true hope and connect with Michelle as well um so head over to that for that but other than that

1:27:35

Michelle do you want to just let people know like where they can connect with you as the best place for them to learn more yeah absolutely my website and all

1:27:43

of my social media handles are the upside of bipolar so my website is the upsite of

1:27:49

bipolar. and on social media you can find me at the upsite of bipolar and I

1:27:54

love to hear from people I love to interact with people so I'd love for people to reach out to me perfect well

1:28:00

I'm sure they're going to do that and again I'm going to make sure all those links are easily um available in the in

1:28:05

the show notes for people to do that but Michelle I've been so pumped about this all week to be able to do the show with

1:28:10

you we're going to get this out real soon uh thank you so much again for coming on the show and sharing about your your history your story and it's

1:28:18

super interesting because it resonates so much with the birth of true hope you know it born out of absolute tragedy and

1:28:24

now it's this incredible Triumph that is you know bringing a lot of a lot of Joy

1:28:29

to the World and my gosh do we need that yeah thank you so much for having me it's been it's been a pleasure to speak

1:28:35

with you awesome Michelle well thank you so much again well that's it everybody thank you so much for watching for

1:28:41

listening you can leave us a little review on iTunes and a star review on Spotify if you feel like doing that um

1:28:47

again everything you might need in regards to reference of things we've been talking about I'll leaving the show notes for you don't forget to check out

1:28:53

that giveaway it's going to be Dynamite um other than that we'll see you next week everyone thank you

1:29:01

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