Mellissa Tovar was born and raised in a small northeastern Wisconsin town, where her family owned a small dairy farm. Although she had many fond memories of her home and family she also had much pain and hurt held inside. Growing up with people that weren’t able or willing to understand that she was always in physical pain made her feel that she was a burden-low self- esteem and depression became a part of her life at a very young age. She wrote her first “good bye” letter around the age of 10. At the age of 16 she was in a car accident that caused severe whiplash and whiplash associated disorders-which she is still dealing with 30 years later. After graduating high school, Mellissa went on to college and received associate degrees in accounting, business mid-management, and computerized accounting. She was a nanny, business owner, an abider for hospice, and a restitution coordinator for the WI Department of Corrections. . In 2011 Mellissa moved back to the country to heal both mentally and physically. Unfortunately it took another six years before Mellissa was able to truly start to heal her body, mind, and spirit.

After many decades of health issues, Mellissa found that she couldn’t function anymore. It was at that point that she was led to Dr. Meyer. With his help and guidance Mellissa has overcome many physical and emotional traumas. She claims that it was after their first meeting that she felt that her true health journey began. This journey has encountered many twists and turns but she has learned so much. This journey started by learning what real health was and how she had the power to help make her life better through simple actions. She believes that learning and implementing NET, brain plasticity exercises, better nutrition, and vagus nerve therapy helped her to achieve weight loss, ease her depression, heal from traumas, and learn how to love and accept herself. “Caring for others has always been in my nature, but caring and loving myself has not always been so easy. There are many days that are still challenging and I may take three steps forward and two back, but at least I am still one step further along than yesterday. One of the most important things that Dr. Meyer gave me was hope and that is what I wish I could bring to others.”

Head over to https://rebelhealthtribe.com/kit to get a free download of our loaded quick start guide to help you along your healing journey.  If you like us, subscribe, review, and share us with your friends, and come join our Rebel Health Tribe group on Facebook.

A Podcast Launch Bestie production

We're live here And it is another one of our rebel health

tribe, community episodes, which actually have been the most fun ones to record.

And I am here with Melissa, Melissa Tovar.

Thank you so much for coming on and doing this.

Thanks for having me.

I can tell that it's going to be really

impactful and helpful for people.

And I just appreciate you openly sharing your story with us when we

asked for submissions and honor all the work that you've done, cause it's

been no short journey for you and, uh, we, we can get right into it.

So I think starting would be, um, You grew up on a dairy farm,

which, uh, Melissa's in Wisconsin.

And we spent some time chatting before we came on.

I'm from Illinois.

So I was kind of reminiscing about my trips up to Wisconsin, to the

forests and the lakes and coming home with bags of cheese and sausages.

But, uh, you'd grew up on a dairy farm

Yes, little family farm.

Okay.

Sometimes some of the episodes people have like, you know, they're 22 years old and

then all of a sudden their energy jobs and they feel like, how your stuff, everything

that you've been dealing with pretty much as early as you can remember, right?

I have like a pain disorder and nobody exactly

can tell me exactly what it is.

But my mom said that before I was at the age of three, she would

tried to hug me and I would hurt.

I would pull away.

And I remember just always hurting.

And eventually when I was like, oh 16, they said, oh, you just have fibromyalgia.

Don't worry.

You know, that's just the way it is.

it affected everything, affected family affected school.

It affected everything,

And this was just generalized pain,

just generalized pain.

Just to have somebody touch me.

When I was in first grade, I actually told my mom that I wished I had cancer.

And she looked at me and she's like, why would you say that?

And I said, because either that.

They'll fix me or I'll die because I was so tired of hurting, not being

able to do the stuff that other kids did and just the drama within

the family that it was causing.

It was just too much for a kid.

Yeah.

And, and it probably felt like, you know, a hassle or a burden on

everybody else and they had to deal with you and handle your issues.

Right?

Like that was kind of how you, I'm the

youngest seven.

And then my oldest sister and I are 21 years apart.

So she had kids before I was even born.

So I was an aunt for a year before I was born and her second daughter

and I are like three months apart.

So they were always around.

And so there was always a lot of people and it was like,

nice.

That was your own age that you kind of grew up.

Yep.

One is older and one is the same age.

Okay.

And, and this was constant all the time or did it come in flares or was it,

there were the days where it would hurt just to move.

And then there was the times that anybody would touch me.

It just hurt too much, but so anytime anybody touched me at her too much.

And the doctors had nothing for that?

No, I was told everything from she's faking it.

She just wants attention to arthritis.

I did have one doctor that tried real hard when I was growing up.

Of course he's passed away now, but you know, he, he always felt that I had

lupus, but the tests always came out negative, but he, he was always very

caring and considerate about things.

So.

That's something that I think it's overlooked often.

I know a lot of really good practitioners who are excellent with

lab tests and with diagnosis and with treatment plans and things.

And then when they interact with their patients, it's very clinical.

It's very, um, mechanical.

And I think that, like, even though it sounds like that doctor wasn't

really able to figure out exactly what was going on or get you out of

pain or anything, that there was a benefit there just from him caring,

and like seeing you and acknowledging, you know, what was going on.

I think a lot of people out there listening who have had pain

conditions, I'm sure every single one of them at some point has been

told that it's just in their head.

Like when the doctors can't figure it out, that's what it goes to it.

So it's just in your head or it's psychosomatic and.

And there is truth to things being psychosomatic, but the way that it's

presented to them puts it on them.

Like you're creating this and, um, to have a doctor see you and understand,

and really be caring and try to do what they can do is worth its weight

in gold from my experiences, obviously you want the results to be there too.

And I think just being seen like that, so that was, I mean, you're

pretty much your whole childhood was in this pain condition, like that

went through high school that went?

Until now, even now I still have pain problems.

Okay.

We'll, we'll get more to that in a little bit about now and like what

you've done and where it's at now, but, you went to college in Milwaukee.

Yep.

Let's going to college there after I went to Marinette for a little

bit to move to the big city because our town is like 350 people.

So I wanted to try and I had complete culture shock when I went

down there, um, ended up, you know, meeting lots of different people.

It was, it was an experience.

Um, fortunately I was a little naive and, um, I ended up being raped at one point.

Um, thought I did pretty good with that.

And then over the years, um, had, you know, car accidents.

When I was 16, actually I had one of the worst car accidents

I had and that affected things.

I'm still having issues with that.

I was 16, that he had that car accident and I had severe whiplash and concussion

and like two and a half days afterwards, I started having tremors and shaking.

And to this day like if I go to the chiropractor and get

my neck or spine adjusted, it will cause me to start shaking.

Nobody can tell me why and the electrical feeling in the spine and things like that.

That's just been there since that car accident.

So we're still trying to search.

Dr.

Meyer helped me some they found if they give my neck traction It makes it better.

They can pull me out of certain things.

we don't know what it is.

I mean, I just had some sitting MRIs done and they found that I've got

like eight bulging and ruptured discs throughout my spine, but that doesn't

exactly help with the, the shaky.

Dr.

Meyer phoned me a quantitative EEG because, you know, everybody's

telling me it's in my head.

So I thought, well, this should show up different colors.

It should, you know, give me some direction.

And so when I talked to the gentleman in, in walk a Shaw, he

said, well, no, we can try it.

I actually brought an electric toothbrush because that will cause

me to start having them vibrations.

Um, so we are putting in

your mouth, on my gum, in my mouth and my gum.

So whether that's the trigeminal nerve, we don't know.

But, um, so he kept it running and he said at first it was normal.

And then he said, he's never seen anything like it.

So he sent it out to, um, Nevada and it came back.

And that gentleman said that is not pseudo seizures.

He says, there is something definitely different going on.

But so far the doctors around here they're doing the, oh, it's it's psychosomatic.

You're causing it even though the psych world says, no, there's something wrong.

So, because they can't figure it out.

Okay.

So there's the accident.

And then obviously, I've seen what pain conditions can do to a person in

a short amount of time from a mental standpoint and emotional standpoint.

And like, I can only imagine what it's like to go through it for a decade

as a kid and you know, your whole childhood and then the car accident.

And then the experience at college.

And there's a lot there.

Like that's a lot for a young person to carry and to, to have.

And did you stay at college?

Did you leave Milwaukee?

I was going to UWM and then I transferred out to the tech school.

I got my associates in accounting and then associate and businessmen management.

And then I ended up actually working for the state of Wisconsin

in the department of corrections.

So that was interesting, you know, that was, you never know what you're going

to find, you know, happen that day.

But eventually I got married week after got married, that turn to

complete hell in a hand basket.

Got divorced about two years later.

Because of the abuse that was in that situation I ended up in the

hospital, um, tried to commit suicide.

Almost succeeded.

They said that, uh, another minute or two, if my mom went to

phone me, it would've been done.

Um,

yep.

Yep.

Married in 2006 and then 2007 in December when I attempted.

And, um, so that was a road that was going in and out of the hospital.

So I also had started to cut at that point because I felt

nothing never felt when I cut.

It was like the only way I knew I was alive was by watching.

The blood come out, um, nine oh, some people don't understand that.

I didn't understand that.

And then I started studying a lot of things around mental health and

emotional health and trauma and self abusive behaviors and self harm.

And that's pretty much uniform what everyone says about it is that it's

the only way they would feel life.

And it's the only way they could tell they were alive.

It's the only way they could feel anything.

It's the only connection to being alive.

Right.

Um, I went to work every day and nobody knew, but I mean, I, there

was days I would go into the bathroom and I would open up my wound until I would

start to feel dizzy from the blood loss.

And it was like, okay, I'm alive.

I'm okay.

And I'd go back out there and do my job.

And, um, At one point I've lost over half of my blood supply.

Um, but I haven't, since 2010, I haven't cut except once I had one screw up.

Um, but so I had like six stitches, but otherwise I've been doing pretty well on

that and that I, you know, that that's something that comes and goes, it's not,

have you been working with somebody like mental health professionals,

therapists, counselors, like, has that been involved in your journey at all?

I was

involved with that a lot after the suicide attempt.

And even when I was younger, um, after the car accident, because I had become

really depressed and just not myself.

Um, I had started to see somebody then, um, but in 2007, after that incident was

in and out of the hospital a few times, and eventually the psychiatrist told me,

he says, Melissa, you need to go home.

He says, you've got the tools.

He says, you're not meant for the city.

He says, you need to go home to the country.

And he says, I think you'll heal fine.

And you'll be fine.

So I'm now off of all my psych medications, I'm actually,

since working with Dr.

Meyer, I've actually been off of most of my medications.

So, um, it's been a journey, but it's, it's still going,

but it's, it's been better.

Okay.

We'll talk about Dr.

Meyer and your approach there, uh, in a minute.

And that's your local doctor that you've found?

That's been a huge help.

What local ish?

Uh, green bay.

How far is green bay from, you know, 45 minutes.

Okay.

Um, in your, your story that you shared with us, it was

when your great niece was born.

That.

Helped kind of turn the lights on for you a little bit, that kind of helped

flip a switch and you, that provided you with some hope and some, you

know, I held her, I was there and I got Cedar be

born and, um, got to hold her.

And they had made me her guardian in hopes that I would, that it

would help give me a reason.

Um, but holding her and seeing the wonder and just the whole birth process.

And just at that point, I decided, okay, I'm going to do my darndest

and I'm not going to cut anymore.

Um, and she, that gave me the incentive, I guess you could say, cause I want it

to be around with grow, see her grow up.

And that was around the time he moved back

from the city to the country.

And that was 2010.

So the great niece was first.

Then you moved back to found this, this source of inspiration, like really just,

you know, kind of shifted your perspective on life in general and what's important.

And it sounds like it's kind of the first time that some like hope and

optimism kind of snuck in to the mix.

And was there an immediate impact after that experience with your

great niece to where some of the depression or the cutting or any of

those things shifted or impression got,

oh, got better.

Um, the cutting some days, it was really hard not to, but, um, it felt like

since I would think about her and look at her pictures and whatever, it helped

me, it helped me push that feeling aside a little bit into regroup, you

know, and this is why I'm doing this.

This is, this is what's out there.

So it just gave me some hope.

I just want to honor, like how hard all of that

is and what you've been through.

And I can't imagine some of those things, like, I'm not going to pretend

like, oh, I can relate to your story.

Everybody has their own stories.

Everybody has their own journeys.

Uh, this is an exceptionally challenging one.

And I just want to recognize that that you've been through

a really hard ringer and.

I don't have anything else to say.

Other than that, it's really hard.

Like what you went through is really hard and, um, I'm glad that she

was born when she was, and that you made the decision to go home.

Cause it sounds like leaving the city was a really good call for you.

It's not where you belong.

And I've been places where I don't belong and I've immediately been, you know,

I know what it's like to be in a place for you feel like you don't belong.

And like that just adds another layer of, you know, stress and

anxiety and everything else.

And so it sounds like she was born at the right time.

You went home at the right time.

And this is when, when you found Dr.

Meyer and how did that happen?

I was in one of our local hospitals with my Walker.

Really bad that day.

And I walked into an elevator and there was a lady standing in there and

she said, you acquirable my thought.

She thinks.

And she says, you need to see my chiropractor.

And I thought, okay, I need somebody anyway.

So she told me his name, Dr.

Christopher Meyer.

She told me three times.

I said, okay, I've got it.

And I turned, pushed the button and I got to the floor and I moved for her to walk

out and I looked back and there was nobody So I thought, okay, I'm hallucinating.

Too much medication.

And so I left and his name stuck with me and I thought, I I'm sure

it was just my brain screwing up.

Kept, kept his brain.

His name was still there.

I finally looked it up and he was real.

So I walked in marijuana, I made an appointment and, um, at one point

he did ask me how I found him and I told him, and he started smiling

and he says, you know, you're not the first one to tell me that story.

So I thought, well, that's all right.

Let's get

to work.

That's amazing.

Um, yeah.

So th that's that's incredible.

And that was 2016.

So only five years ago.

And you were using a Walker.

Was that from the pain?

Was it from,

that was from the pain and I had, I've had one spine surgery.

Um, I've got a lot of degenerative discs and things like that going on.

So it was just basically helping with

supporting you while you're work.

And, um, okay.

And that probably wasn't easy to walk in there either.

Like you've probably seen a lot of doctors, a lot of people,

a lot of medical people and oh

yeah, it was, I was, you know, um, I just kept thinking

maybe, maybe this one's going to help.

And that was the best decision I ever made was to walk into his office.

So he he's a chiropractor and it looks like

he's into some interesting stuff.

Um, I've asked before we even went on air, I've already asked her an introduction.

So maybe we will be able to.

To talk to Dr.

Meyer too.

I think that would be fun.

Maybe we'll have him on a podcast.

Um, and, and it says in here that he introduced you to us.

So I think that would be fun to what we're doing here.

But you mentioned, uh, any T HRV brain plasticity, meditation, or

mindfulness, I guess, and breathing like just there's a book out right now.

I'm just going to throw in a plug called I think it's called breath, uh,

by James Nestar, he's a journalist and it shifted the way I view breathing in

breath, like entirely and how powerful that is to modulate the nervous system.

And, you know, oxygen is important and often, and we're breathing shallow and

it's only going in a little bit, so I'm sure that he was working with you on

like breath, mechanics and kind of using the breath to regulate your system.

We started with the net right away, the neuro emotional technique,

share a little bit about what that's like as a,

as a patient or going through it.

What he explained it to me, he says that every cell

has a memory and that technique helps clear those memories.

And, through that he used muscle testing.

He's got certain, meridians and different things that he uses that he's been taught.

And he would ask certain questions and then my body, you know, I would respond,

um, and we just kept going from there.

So there was no pain.

There was no anything.

If we would CA he would ask me a question, you know, what you want to work on today.

And then some days I would start crying but every time I would leave

his office, I've always felt like there was a weight lifted off my shoulders

and like, like things were clearer.

So with his help, I lost 150 pounds because he's also a nutritionist.

I'm sure that helps with the walking.

Yeah.

I moved on to a cane and then I try not to use the cane all the

time, but I'm still not good on no bumpy, groans and whatever, but,

um, 150 pounds is a lot of weight, you made dietary

changes with him and lifestyle stuff.

He introduced

me to, Dr.

Siemen's book, the D flame diet.

And so I went all I could on that, started on the right supplements, like he gave

me and I just felt better, but I know that the net was a huge component to it.

Yeah.

There's a lot of similar, practices and modalities to Nat.

And a lot of times it's very subtle when you're doing it.

It's like, I'm not sure if anything's happening right now.

And then you kind of just notice over time.

Like I'm not as reactive.

I'm not as depressed.

I'm not as anxious things.

Don't trigger me as much.

Like my body feels different.

My internal experience of life shifts or is different.

And, um, those things can be super profound for people, especially

chronic illness, chronic disease.

Cause it, it turns off the heightened nervous system a little bit.

I always thought that the vagus nerve mine wasn't working.

Right.

And so he, uh, introduced me to Dr.

Porches.

I think it's how you pronounce it.

Poly Vago.

And I've been working with that.

And then he, instructed me to read the doctor.

Doidge the brain that can change itself.

I'm bookmarking.

Some of these as you're going, I'm pretty familiar with polyvagal and portraits.

That book is impossible to read by the way.

Um, his poor just book, probably Vagos written for like neuroscientists.

I started to read it and I was like, uh, and then I found the work of

a therapist named Deb, Dana, who writes approachable polyvagal stuff.

So if anybody out there is listening, there's a book called I think it's

polyvagal theory for therapy or something.

And it's written for therapists, but there's a ton of exercises and things

in it that it's approachable for the lay person where Stephen Porges his book.

Um, if anybody hears probably vaguely and goes and Googles,

Stephen Porges, he's a genius.

They figured out something awesome.

And he's a researcher he's.

A journalist or a writer and his book is written by a neuroscientist.

That's just how I'll put it.

I got like 30 pages in and I was like, man, if my brain is melting,

like this, trying to read this stuff, like this is not approachable.

So don't, don't jump right into Stephen Porges, his book.

I'm just throwing out a disclaimer.

But, uh, that stuff's really important to understand because then

you start to understand like the body responses that you're having.

Okay.

And why, or how, or some of the physiology behind it.

And then more importantly, small little adjustments or changes you

can make or actions you can take or exercises you can do or ways you

can breathe that can shift that.

Right.

So,

um, after the brain that changed itself book, then

that brought me into the brain HQ or, uh, the games and things.

So I started doing that and I started realizing, oh, my my attention is better.

I'm starting to, you know, my brain started to work better.

Um, and then with Dr.

Meier, teaching me how to breathe correctly, to get my, my breaths better.

Um, so like you said, it's, it's not so shallow.

Um, but you know, we actually, he's a chiropractor.

We didn't actually do an actual adjustment.

Until like 2018.

Wow.

I think a lot of chiropractors like chiropractic was their gateway to

working with healing in general.

So that's probably what he learned.

First, as you go to chiropractic school, you learn the adjustments

you learn chiropractic.

And then so many of them get into so many different modalities and ways of

healing that half the chiropractors, I know don't even do adjustments anymore.

Like it's not that they don't think they're valuable.

It's just that they focus their attention more on other things.

And that the chiropractic was like their gateway to two healing practices.

But it sounds like he's one that never stops learning.

If I, if I could have 10% of his brain power, the amazing,

but, um, he was with me through the, through the Lyme's disease, through

the mold toxicity, through, you know, he helped me through allergies.

He's I mean, the techniques and things that he's shown me has just helped so much

and we'll put a link to his site too.

Is that GB chiropractor.com?

Yep.

Okay, cool.

That's all right, guy then.

Um, yeah.

And you, you mentioned heart rate variability.

Did you start tracking that or what was the, if I started

using the polar device, he would, he started doing that in the

office with me, and then I'm kind of

teaching you how to the

breathing and seeing how it would change and stuff like that.

And, he got me with a polar device, and now I also got the.

The oral ring, I guess it's called the sleep monitoring and

yeah, those are interesting.

Cause you'll notice, uh, your sleep quality goes down.

If there was like a high stress incident or something, and it's not

something you would usually notice.

And for some people getting that feedback of data that gives you like a

physical thing, you can see that says like, Hey, you did too much yesterday

and your sleep suffered because of it.

Or you stayed up late last night and look how it did to years.

Like for a lot of people that can be like a very valuable kind of

like nudge or, um, feedback too.

It's real-time feedback.

Like what you're doing, is it working or not?

Um, cause heart rate variability is like a.

The more they learn about it.

It's, it's one of the more important markers to, to measure.

Someone's like overall state of wellbeing.

Like for athletes, they use it where if the heart rate variability drops, it

shows they're probably over-training and they're not taking enough rest or they're

training too hard or whatever it is.

And for people with chronic health issues, it's like the higher,

the heart rate variability goes the better the state of wellness.

The person is in the things that they're trying are working like

are their, body's responding to.

But the one thing that I've also found is that I can

use it for after I eat something, if my, how my body changes and reacts to

it, my heart rate variability will go

down.

If it's something that your body doesn't like, that's interesting.

Um, cool.

There's yeah, the there's the aura rings one way to do it.

Uh, I use a heart math device.

Heart math is a really interesting organization.

That's been studying heart rate variability and heart-mind coherence

for 35 years and their head of research.

Dr.

Ron McCrady did a presentation for our brain and neuro master class last year.

And it totally blew my mind.

Like there's way more to it than just heart rate, like

heart rate variability is cool.

And the states that you get brought into that are optimizing that.

Uh, they've even proven in research studies that if you learn these

practices of what they call coherence, which is probably what he was teaching

you with breathing and stuff, to like bring your heart rate variability

to a higher level, um, it can influence the heart rate variability

or coherence of those around you.

And so they did a study where they had, I think it was, I might

butcher this a little bit, but they had six people at a table.

Three of them, heart math had trained as far as how to do these practices.

Three of them had no idea why they were there.

They measured the heart rate variability on all six people.

And at one point they gave an, a silent signal that the three people

who didn't know what was going on, couldn't see it or hear it, or have

any idea that anything happened.

They gave a silent signal to the other three people to put themselves

into a state of coherence, through the practices that they were taught

and the heart rate variability of the three oblivious people went up.

Well with there's like at the same time, because it's a proximity thing

and that our hearts are electromagnetic, um, radiators essentially, like they

radiate electromagnetic energy and that those fields interact with each other.

And that, that's why when somebody comes in a room and it's a certain

type of person, you either feel this like incredible, weird energy or

you're like, I gotta get out of here.

This is bad.

And the same thing goes for rooms of people or places or cities or whatever.

And they're starting to show that in the lab and being able to demonstrate it and

show it like unequivocally, no argument.

Like this is what happens.

And when he was showing me that, I just couldn't believe

like that's, it's so cool.

It's like, it backs up with science.

What certain traditions have been talking about for

there's so much that they don't know yet.

Yeah, it's amazing what they're finding out

and we don't need to know why something works either for it to work.

That's what I think we get stuck on that a lot, this culture, this society like

the, it doesn't, it's not official until like the scientists can explain to you

the mechanism by where like acupuncture, for example, helps tons of people

with pain conditions and other things.

We're still only beginning to even barely be able to explain

or understand how it works.

And so there's a part of society that won't accept it yet.

My father-in-law had a debilitating shoulder injury recently where he

wasn't able to use his shoulder.

Now he's been seeing an acupuncturist two times a week for a month.

His shoulder doesn't hurt anymore.

Does he know how it works?

No.

Does it matter?

So it's cool.

And a lot of these things that he had you going through are kind of on that line

of like, we understand these things work.

We're not really sure what.

Let's try this.

And it says that by going through this and learning about these things, and

this is what I found most inspiring of what you wrote to us is that he helped

me find the courage within myself to be my own advocate because of him.

I found my voice in contacted researchers in Germany, doctors

in England, physical therapists in California, uh, EEG specialists.

And, um, you've really become your own advocate and, and doing your own

outreach, learning your own things, reaching out to specialists and

people that are doing things that you think could be helpful for you.

Right?

Right.

Now the whiplash is so.

It feels as though doctors write it off, that you should have it for a little

bit and then you're better move on.

And there's so much more to it than that.

And so that's when I contact the specialist in Germany and he sent me

some stuff and he's like, you know, we do things so different than you guys do.

He says, if you were here, we would have you do all these different

tests, but we know that in the United

States, they won't do it different.

And, uh, you know, so I, and through him, you know,

learned more things, read more things, um, learned about PRRT.

I didn't know anything about that.

Um, Primal reflex release therapy, the type of a physical therapy.

Um, that's the, I've contacted to the gentlemen in California to find out if

there's anybody closer and now I'm going, I traveled on in Milwaukee twice a week.

Well, I go down once in the stay overnight and see him twice a week for that.

And that's helped my muscles.

Now, I wouldn't have known anything about that stuff.

If you have the confidence and capacity to do this

kind of research, to do this outreach, to talk to these people where I'm

guessing there was a point in your life where like you would have never

made that email or that phone call or,

oh no, I, I, I was, so I want to say docile

and, and just do what they say.

And, you know, there was, there was a point where I, I actually went to the.

The, uh, psychiatrist.

And I said, I need you to test me.

Am I, you know, do I have schizophrenia?

Do I have, you know, personality disorders?

What is going on with me?

And they're like, you really want to be tested.

I'm like, yes, test me, tell me.

And so they did.

And they're like, no, you're you're okay.

And I'm like, are you positive?

Yeah.

You you've got some health issues that, that you just need to keep searching.

And, um, so all these years later I'm finally doing it.

Some of my family thinks I'm a little little off my rocker by,

you know, all the things that I've been watching and reading.

They don't quite understand it, but a lot of them also don't understand

everything I've been through

and they can't, and that's okay.

Like, you know, you're on your own journey.

And, um, we welcome everybody.

Who's off their rocker around here.

That's really what we've tried to create as a community of people who

are all off their rocker, trying to figure out the stuff that can help them.

And I've bookmarked a whole bunch of things here that

like I didn't even know about.

And there's so much out there.

And I feel actually like, I'm supposed to tell you about something

because I think for your pain conditions or your, your body, it's

similar to what you just linked.

Um, the PRRT is something called counterstrain is a, it involves fascia.

It works with the fascia and it's like trigger points and.

I don't really know how to explain it, but I feel like it might be

something for you to explore.

I did a quick, I typed in trying to see if there was somebody there's somebody in

Gunderson, Wisconsin, and, um, there are people in Milwaukee, but, um, It's not

something you have to do all the time.

And I've had a shoulder injury recently that I was worried I was going to

have to have surgery on, um, the type of exercise I like to do as boxing.

And I couldn't raise my arm to here.

Like it, my shoulder hurts so bad and somebody said, you got to try

counterstrain there's somebody in your town and you should go see them.

And I'm like, if it's a torn ligament or something, nothing's going to

like, nobody's going to poke around on it and make it feel better.

I, I know this, I have a master's degree in exercise physiology.

I used to work in rehab.

Mike don't tell me about some thing.

Cause they were like, I don't know how it works.

It's like they poke on you and they touch things and then something doesn't hurt.

I'm like that doesn't exist.

No.

I searched and there's a guy like literally two blocks away from my

house and I'm like, okay, I have to go.

Like there, there has to, I, I have no excuse.

It's literally I can walk there.

And so I went, I've seen him three times over the last six weeks and my shoulder

pain is about 80, 80 to 90% gone.

And it's low impact.

It's not like doing physical therapy things.

It's literally just kind of like trigger point mixed with what, and it works

on the fascia and nerves and things.

So just putting it on your radar and I'm giving a shout out to the counterstrain

practitioners out there because I was super skeptical and, um, I haven't,

I was going to go get an MRI and go that whole route and whatever, and I'm

just, I don't have to do that anymore.

And I can do anything.

Like I'm not limited.

So putting it on your radar, uh, you want to do some exploration.

I think, um, it's something that seems to be pretty effective in a

minimal amount of treatments too.

So it's not another thing to add that you would have to find your way to get

to twice a week or anything like that.

So just putting it on your radar, their website for counter strain does

start practitioner really act like up-to-date effective practitioner

listings to cause somebody, oh,

I'll have to see my physical therapist.

He does so many different things about it.

Cause he may, he does fascia work and he's one of those physical therapists that you

go there for your knee and your entire

body.

I've, I've run into that with this guy too.

Yesterday, half of it was on my ribs and I'm like, why are you on my ribs?

Yeah.

Did you have some sort of gastrointestinal issue since I last saw you and I had food

poisoning two and a half weeks ago for the first time, it was the first time I

was like that kind of sick for 10 years.

And I hadn't told him that.

And he was all poking around in my ribs and checking out my

diaphragm and all these things.

And he said, have you been sick?

I'm like, dude, come on.

Yes,

I have mark does.

He's like, what did you do here?

You know what happened?

And you probably didn't even remember, then you're

like, oh yeah, I bang myself on this.

Yeah.

It's magic.

There's body workers and manual therapists that are magic.

So, you now lost tons of weight.

You're off the Walker.

You got the cane, you've done all this reprogramming work with Nat and

you've done the heart rate variability and the, and the mindfulness, which

mindfulness can be hugely beneficial for people struggling with any sort.

Conditions.

It just changes the way you experience what's going on.

Really.

It says how I explain it to people and you're in more control over your reactions

and your, how you see things and, um, your pain, you said there's still some

of the residual from the whiplash there.

You still have a little bit of the pain, um, to me and I, you know, I'm

not a psychologist or psychiatrist, but you seem to be in a pretty, I didn't

know you, then I've never talked to you then, but it seems that on a mental

side of things and emotional and like your just overall outlook is drastically

different than it was five years ago.

Oh, definitely.

Definitely.

The brain fog is better.

Before you would wake up in the morning and it would be like, oh, I

woke up in the morning, you know, and now it's like, Hey, I woke up today.

We're gonna do this.

And that, you know, it's.

The outlook is definitely better.

Not saying that there's not bad days, but, um, I think overall it's

just a more positive outlook that there's, there is help out there.

You just gotta keep searching for it.

And is there, was there a moment, like, was it that first

session, like the first time you saw Dr.

Meyer or like maybe the first time, like you noticed a symptom being

better, or the first time you noticed, you know, the scale moving you got

a little glimmer of hope when your, when your great niece was born and you

moved back to away from the city, but it sounds like things really turned a

corner when you started seeing this Dr.

Meyer.

And do you remember like a moment or something where you were like, oh my

God, this might actually like, something is helping me, like I feel better or

there's hope or there's like the direction has changed or anything like that.

Do you remember kind of having an experience like that?

After my

first visit with him and we went through everything and like

I told him, ask me whatever you want.

I'll tell you anything.

Cause I want to, I want to fix this.

And, um, so we spent probably almost two hours, I think that day.

And, um, when I left, there was the first time that I actually felt like

I have a tool now that is going to get me to the, where I want to go.

And the, any tea after Hey, I'm asking certain things to my system and the

way my system would respond, I would be like, that's not, that's not possible.

You know, that's not right.

But it always came back that whatever he was asking, I don't know if that's going

to make any sense to your viewers, but.

It's the feeling of the weight being lifted off the shoulders.

Somebody in your corner,

right.

Somebody that was willing to take the time and walk with me through everything.

And I didn't really have that before everybody wanted to

shove me off to somebody else.

The fact that he's opened my eyes to so many other possibilities.

That's also a big thing because when you're down and you're

depressed like that, you don't see the other possibilities.

There really isn't any

it really, um, for anybody who's not dealt with depression

and, and I've talked more openly about mine on, on other episodes.

I don't want to like hijacking conversation here.

Um, It is like wearing blinders, like, and it's, it's foggy blinders.

It's like, you don't see everything that's outside of this.

And then what's in here is clouded as well.

And it's, if you've never experienced like severe depression,

uh, amazing, great, awesome.

Good for you.

That's fantastic.

And if you have, I'm sure you can relate to that description because it, and I can

relate to the, oh, I woke up today to, um, like kind of being disappointed and then

having to deal with whatever that day was going to be just really looking forward

to when I got to go to bed again But

then I, you know, like going to bed, but then you

don't sleep good anyway, so yeah,

cause my severe depression was coupled with like

pretty vicious anxiety and panic and that would come on at night.

And so I would be exhausted all day because depression is exhausting.

Like it's physically exhausting to your body and your brain

and energy and everything.

And at night is when my anxiety and like panic would kick in really hard.

So then I would have trouble falling asleep.

So I would like take a bunch of stuff to try to fall asleep or whatever.

And then I would wake up at like two in the morning.

And then there'd be like the thought or the thing or the thing that

triggers the panic or the anxiety or whatever I was stressed about.

And then two in the morning becomes three in the morning, becomes four in

the morning, becomes stressed out that I'm awake and I'm going to be tired.

Again, comes five in the morning and then I would fall asleep.

But then I had to wake up to do the things.

And then I'm like, and it was, it is it's nasty.

And it's like debilitating.

And I was trying to work during that and take care of my wife who was sick.

And like, it just it's every single thing you do is hard.

Like, no matter how easy it is, I'm listening to a book right now.

Actually.

That's pretty cool.

It's called laziness does not exist.

And she's a PhD that studies like psychological things and says that like,

then there's a part in the chapter I'm listening to right now that talks about

depression and that when somebody is depressed, she went through the physiology

of like what takes place in their body.

Like the body produces less energy.

The body goes into less deep states of sleep.

The body of the brain can't focus, its attention very well.

And like it just named off all these things.

And it's like, so the next time you think that somebody in your life that you know

is suffering from depression is lazy and you want to use the word lazy, understand

that their brain isn't working, that their body isn't working, that they're

not getting sleep that literally getting out of bed to take a shower for them is.

Exhausting and overwhelming and everything.

And please reconsider your use of the word when you're looking

at people with depression.

So I just want anybody out there with depression to hear that.

So that was the one thing that when I was in the hospital, after

the suicide attempt, I went to numerous times just because you know, the doc got

to know me a little bit, that was there.

And at one point they're like his, like his words to me were Melissa.

We've never had anybody quite like you come through here before.

And I thought, okay, is that good?

Or is that bad?

And he says, well, you've never stopped working unless you're here.

He says that's.

Kind of amazing.

He says, and then at one point I had started a business during all of this

and he's like, do you have a website?

And I'm like, yeah, because he didn't believe me.

So I showed him the website and he's like, okay.

And, and it was just, everybody does things a little differently.

I guess they all react differently.

You know?

Now if I, to be honest, if I hadn't been cutting during that time, I

don't know where I would've been.

And I noticed some people that's going to sound really strange.

But you know, when somebody asks me about the cutting, I told him the

cutting is what actually kept me alive.

And, you know, and I went in for stitches the one time.

And the lady's like, oh, you tried to kill yourself.

And I said, no, this is just a cutting incident.

And, um, they actually called the police on me that.

And I'm like, I'm not suicidal.

This is how I stay alive.

And the police officer talk to another police officer right outside my

room and they were making fun of me.

Um, he was telling the other guy about it and he's like, well, she should just

go home and drink know, that's what I

I'm like.

Okay.

That's no alcohol.

And at that point in my life, I was not able to

say something to them about it.

Now I would be able to say something to them, but, um, you know, it's just, when

I heard that and heard them laughing, it was just kinda like another, another kid,

you know, they, they don't understand.

And so many doctors and medicals, they just, they don't get it.

And instead of asking questions to learn more about it, they

just want to get under the rug.

Yeah.

And I'm sorry that that happened too.

It doesn't surprise me.

I wish it did, but it doesn't with the cops.

And, and um, I think a lot of it has to do with that.

Our medical system operates in silos.

Like doctors, aren't trained in mental health.

They're not trained in psychology.

They're not trained in anything that has anything to do with that.

And then vice versa.

The people on that side don't know anything about like nutrition

or health or anything else.

And, um, in the work I've been doing the last few years, there's one form of

therapy that was really helpful for me.

That's called internal family systems or ifs.

And it's based primarily around working with parts that like when somebody

does something like cutting or.

Drinking or whatever behavior pattern.

That's really a part of them that learned to do this thing in a way

that was protective or supportive or like numbing or whatever it

is, whatever the behavior is.

Or the pattern is he, the founder has even worked with like serial killers

and serial rapists and series, like the worst criminals in the world who

do the worst patterns of behavior.

And he's been able to work with them to find the parts that drive these behaviors.

And he said, I've literally never found a part that wasn't acting out

of love for the individual, that it was always an adaptation for

people who do like violent crimes.

Usually they were really abused as kids and they have no control.

They have no power, they have no power to control their environment.

And so they become hyper.

Power like it's to it's to make safe, like for a part of them, they

believe that by doing these things, they're controlling their world, their

environment, like it's the only way.

And not, I'm not defending serial killers by any stretch.

He found that these parts were always acting out of self preservation out of

protection, out of keeping them alive and that it was actually a client of his.

That he was working with.

He'll tell the origin story of really developing this form of therapy,

where he realized there are these like sub personalities that exist

within us, that, that do these things.

And because it often feels like I didn't even do that.

Like, you'll do something and then you're like resentful that you did it.

And it doesn't even feel like you that did it.

And there's often an inner conflict and he's like, I was

running into this a lot and.

It was a client of his who heard challenge was cutting.

And he discovered this whole thing when the part that was doing the

cutting, like spoke up in the session separately from the girl.

And it was like a shift in the voice.

It was a shift in tone and he noticed it.

And then he started working directly with this part to understand like what it was

and what it wanted and why it was doing what it was doing and what, what they.

The part and the girl, the team was getting out of this behavior

and he discovered that it was a self-preservation thing.

Like it was that part was trying to protect her.

And he was able to work with this part to help it realize that like, there

are other ways to accomplish and that this behavior is kind of outdated.

Like it's not necessary anymore.

And, and he was able to help her like resolve the situation,

but it wasn't through shame.

It wasn't through guilt.

It wasn't through making it wrong or bad.

It was through like, meeting it with understanding like compassion.

Like, I understand why you're doing this because you care about her

and you want her to stay alive.

And that has shifted.

Just that story that I've heard from him has as someone who doesn't have

any experience with cutting, that shifted my whole perspective on it.

Behavior.

And then also the self-destructive behaviors that I have

engaged in, in my life.

Like it's helped me meet them from a less cause shame and self judgment.

And self-loathing is like, that's what leads people to suicide?

Like that's those are, to me, those are the most powerful, like, hard

emotions that there are, is like shame.

Well,

like with my shakes that I have, I know that there's two different

types, you know, there's one that looks like a seizure and according to the QEG,

that may actually be a seizure, but yet the doctors here, you know, they're, they,

they don't understand like, okay, well

that's right.

Like the, is that quantitative EEG.

Yeah.

And, um, but you know, the fact that, the symptoms that I

have where I'll actually look like I'm having a stroke, I lose my facial droop.

My arm will go.

And it's all with the pain in the head.

You know, if I have pain in one way, in one spot in my head, my tongue will

flip the opposite direction, you know?

And it's all classic stroke signs.

And once all the pain goes through the head, then I'm fine.

Again, my physical therapist, mark, Dr.

Meyer, you know, Dr.

Lyons, I'm working with, you know, they've all been trying to figure out

what exactly is happening, and I did get one MRI where they show that the

profusion in the white matter was off.

But they waited long enough to read, to do the MRI that I had

started to get my speech back.

And then they're like, oh, it's okay.

And I'm like, well, what happened over there though that the profusion was

off and I lost my speech for eight hours now, what, what happened there?

You know?

And it's like, I I'm, I'm still trying to find somebody who's

willing to really take a look and figure out I know that the whiplash

obviously played a big part of that.

Um, but you know, what, what happened?

You know, like, like the physical therapist, he can move, just move

my head in a certain direction and I'll start having loss of speech,

you know, and then he'll put me back and do traction and it's I'm okay.

You know, what, what makes the traction help so much?

And, you know, they don't know, but because they don't know

it's oh, it's all in your head.

And um, so I'm hoping someday somebody is going to be, cause I

cannot possibly be the only one.

In fact, I know I'm not because the one neurologist I went to see, she

says, oh, I've seen lots of people with this after car accidents.

And she doesn't, it's all psychosomatic.

I'm like, how can that many people.

Have the same issues and the same.

And it's just, cause they don't know how to fix it.

They'll say anytime I see a doctor resort to that, they could

substitute that with I'm sorry.

I don't know how to solve this problem.

And we don't understand why it's happening.

And they could just say that.

Well, she went a step further though.

Cause she stopped herself and she says, well, it couldn't be.

And then she says, well, I've never seen it.

So it can't be possible.

And I'm like really

nobody's ever seen anything it's possible.

Like that's just a general law of how it possible means.

So, um, like everything was impossible until the first time somebody saw it.

Right.

So man that's.

Yeah, but you're, I mean, I can just tell your energy is not what you've described.

It was before.

Like you seem like you're, you're enjoying the journey a little bit now and kind of.

It seems like you, you mentioned at the end of what you shared with us,

that you hope to help other people at some point to go through some

of these things that you're, you potentially have the ambition of.

I don't know what that meant, but that's what it said in there.

Like if you're interested in like working as a coach in some capacity, or like just

being someone who shares information, but I've seen that so much in this world

of health and healing and wellness is most of the people out there doing the

work it's because they went through something that forced them to do it,

and then they learn all these things.

And then it's like, well, everybody needs to know this.

And you want to find the other people that are the people that your neurologist

said that, you know, and, and get them together in a group and share, you

know, what's going on because I mean, Why not, well, how keep it to yourself?

Like why, you know what I mean?

Like, so do you have some ambition to do stuff like that?

I would

love to be able to work with, with people in I guess just sharing

what I know and what I've learned until just, you know, being there for people,

because so many of us don't feel like there's anybody there, you know, they

don't want to be told again that it's just in their head when they know it's not.

And, um, so yeah, I would, I would love to be a culture.

I love writing.

My mom told me once she says, when you were born, you were born on TV.

She says, so you've got something something's

TV.

Yeah.

My, the doctor was being followed around that day.

Cause it was an anniversary or something.

And I happened to be born, actually videoed it.

And it was played on one of the local channels up here.

So it was, she says, she says it was just, people didn't realize she was pregnant.

And then they're like, you were on TV and she's like, you have a daughter.

But yeah, that was a surprise that they didn't realize it was going to happen.

But so she says, I was meant for something good was supposed to come out of.

It

sounds like a book to me like, being seen or being understood or

having somebody there with you, it can be like physically another person in the

room, or it can be listening to someone's story like this, or reading a book.

Like I know when I've read books or listen to interviews or anything.

And I come across somebody that I can like really relate to their story.

It has that effect, even though I haven't met them, I haven't talked to them.

They don't know I exist.

I just read their book or whatever it there's, it chips away at

that feeling of being alone.

And I think that when science finally catches up with reality a little

bit, they're going to realize how catastrophic, that feeling of being

alone is to our physiology like that isolation and that aloneness and how

powerful it is when we chip away at it.

Like how you felt when you left.

The doctor's office the first time.

And we're like, I have somebody that's in my corner.

I have an advocate.

I have somebody who just sat there and listened to me for two hours.

Like, I remember my first experience with a practitioner that like spent

90 minutes with us when my wife was sick or two hours or something.

And it's like, oh wow.

Like this person really cares if I get better, like, they're

gonna go to bat for me.

Like they're in my corner.

And that is just huge.

Like that happens like there were changes to your physiology

then, and you hadn't even started doing the things yet like that.

And that's, that's the one thing with Dr.

Meyer, even now after all these years, you know, he, if he finds something that

he thinks is, would be interesting for me, he sends it to me, you know, just

like finding you guys now, he thought the auto-immune would be good for me

to learn about since I do have, you know, the hypothyroid and everything.

And so he sent it to me and you know, when I go there, I was there

a couple of weeks ago and now he's like, oh, you gotta look at this.

Now I read this today, you know, or I read this and knowing that he

believes in me, I guess you could say that he knows that I can handle this.

I can get better.

I can learn how to handle things.

It makes me feel like.

Yeah, I can do this.

No, he gives that little positive push and I don't think he even realized he does

that's.

Yeah.

You doing the things is half the thing and him being there in that

way is half the thing as well.

Like it's just so powerful and, um, hopefully hearing your story

is going to be that thing for some people that they hear today.

And so, um, just knowing that if you find you're finding yourself in this,

this hopeless situation, like there's ways through it and there's ways out of

it and things can shift and things can change, like, um, I'm sure you now would

have some words for you six years ago.

That would be, and I know personally that me in my worst times, uh, would probably

not listen to now me anyway, but, Just meeting that part of us and that, that

period of our life with like compassion and being like, man, that was really hard.

And, and here we are.

And so I'm glad that you found your way and I'm happy that

you're part of our community.

And I'm grateful that you decided to share your story.

I know that I spent a lot of time on webinars and podcasts and

interviews and videos and things.

So I forget that this is a big deal.

Like you know, I've never done this before.

Neither have a whole lot of people and it's powerful to do it.

It's powerful to share.

It's powerful to be heard and be seen.

And I think you did a great job and, um, this is exactly what people need to hear.

So,

yeah.

Thank you.

And thank you for everything you do, because I, I did read your,

your bio that you had written a while back and everything.

So.

I knew you would kind of understand different things, different aspects,

cause you've been there, you're the rebel health tribe and everything

that you guys do gives people a lot of hope and not a knowledge.

So thank you for all

of that.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Stick around be, be part of our community and don't be a stranger

and everybody out there just keep moving, keep going, keep looking.

There's there's answers out there and we'll do what we

can to help you find them.

So thank you so much, Melissa.

It's been great to chat with you and I appreciate it.

And I'm really grateful and best wishes.

And please send me your doctor's information.

I'd love to chat with him, get him on a masterclass.