Bipolar Disorder: Shattering Myths with Michelle Reittinger

"Does that mean I'm broken?" This question haunted Michelle Reittinger after her bipolar disorder diagnosis in 1998. Like countless others, she believed the psychiatric narrative that her condition was incurable, neurodegenerative, and would require lifelong medication management. What followed was a harrowing decade-plus journey through the mental health system that nearly cost her everything.

Michelle's raw, unflinching account takes us through the escalating cycles of medication failures, four psychiatric hospitalizations, 12 rounds of electroconvulsive therapy, and multiple suicide attempts. The poignant moment that finally anchored her to life came while watching her four-year-old daughter play. "If you ever succeed in ending your life, you will ruin her life," Michelle realized. "She will think it was her fault." This clarity became her tether to existence when nothing else could.

What makes this conversation truly extraordinary is how it challenges the fundamental assumptions about bipolar disorder. Michelle walks us through her gradual, carefully-managed journey off seven psychiatric medications and into complete

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💊 Ready to Deprescribe Your Psych Meds?

Psych meds have harmed us—and we’re not just survivors, we’re deeply educated in psychopharmacology, psychology, and nutrition. As hosts of The Gaslit Truth Podcast, we guide people safely off psychiatric medications with strategies grounded in science and brain health

🔥 You’ve been harmed. You’ve been dismissed. It’s time to take your brain back—with guidance from people who’ve been there and know their stuff.

Chapters

• 0:00 Challenging Bipolar Recovery Myths
• 8:20 Michelle's Diagnosis and Medication Journey
• 17:05 The Darkest Days: Hospitalizations and ECT
• 29:00 Turning Point: Living for Family
• 37:27 Taking Responsibility for Recovery
• 46:52 Breaking Free From Medication
• 54:35 Personal Accountability in Healing
• 1:00:15 Repairing Family Relationships

Transcript

Jennifer Schmitz: 0:01

Well, hey everyone, have you been gaslit into believing you can't heal from bipolar disorder? It's time to set the record straight. In this episode, we're challenging the myth that recovery isn't possible, because it absolutely is. We are your whistleblowing shrinks, dr Teralyn Sell and therapist Jen Schmitz, and this is the Gaslit Truth Podcast. And today we have a special guest, michelle Reitinger.

Michelle Reittinger: 0:27

I'm going to be sexy, michelle Reitinger.

Jennifer Schmitz: 0:31

In 1998, michelle Reitinger was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but over a decade of traditional psychiatric treatments only worsened her condition. Her turning point came when she discovered an integrated, research-based treatment model that led to her complete recovery. Now a number one international best-selling author, passionate public speaker and bipolar recovery coach, michelle is on a mission to transform how bipolar disorder is treated, advocating for recovery and thriving, not just survival. She lives in Utah with her husband, her children and their beloved pup. Welcome to the show, michelle.

Michelle Reittinger: 1:07

Thank you, I'm so happy to be here.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 1:10

Good, we're really happy to have you here. As I was saying before she hopped on the show, this is the first time we've really touched on bipolar disorder and also, I know, right and challenging the idea that you don't have to be stuck here, which is basic mental health stuff to us, but to everyone else they kind of like being stuck here. So where we're going to start is just from the beginning. Where did your story begin, michelle?

Michelle Reittinger: 1:41

Well, I was diagnosed with bipolar in 1998, one month before I graduated from college. And leading up to that diagnosis, I had been experiencing increasingly erratic mood swings. I was in college and I was going through periods of time where I would have like a really elevated mood. My mind would race, I would have big ideas. Every time this would happen, I would change my major. I had changed my major one time, six times in a semester, and each time I was like sure that this was the inspiration I needed, that this was what I was supposed to do, and it would last for a little while and I would talk animatedly to anybody that would listen to me about what I was going to do with my life and how this was my mission. And then I would start to slide into like a really depressed period, and I I wasn't calling it depressed at the time, I didn't even know what was going on. But I would, I would like introvert, I would binge, watch shows, I would miss classes, you know, and then and then it would ramp back up and I would get and my parents were living in a different state from me and so they were, you know, back in 1990, there's no social media there's. You know it was just phone calls. And so during the ramped up periods they would get calls from me regularly and you know me talking really excited and animated and then all of a sudden it would go totally silent and they wouldn't hear from me for a few weeks and then the next time they heard from me I had a completely different plan and it was. It was getting worse and worse and worse and they finally talked to me.

Michelle Reittinger: 3:09

I had an aunt and uncle who lived locally, who were seeing like evidence that was concerning to them, and they were talking with my parents and so I had there was a bit of an intervention saying we think there's something wrong with you, you know in nicer words, but we're concerned and we want to see if you'd be willing to go to a psychiatrist. And I was starting to worry at the time. I remember, you know, starting to cry and thinking I know, I know there's something wrong with me. And so my aunt actually took me to the psychiatric appointment and I was so severely depressed when I went to the doctor or to the psychiatrist that I couldn't articulate much. My aunt actually supplied a lot of the information, of outside observations to the psychiatrist and I was initially diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorders and they put me on an antidepressant and sent me on my way and I graduated a month later and I it's interesting I had been hoping that I would get one of my up periods.

Michelle Reittinger: 4:06

You know, I had kind of started to psychologically be aware of what was going on, but not on any kind of like real understanding level. And I had been hoping because I was like right before I graduated I was like hadn't been going to class, I was really depressed and I ramped up and got all of my stuff done in like three days, like wrote my papers, did my tests, everything and graduated and on paper everything. Like if you didn't know me and you weren't looking at me, you would have thought I was doing fantastic because I was on the Dean's list, because all of my classes my senior year were like things that depended on like one paper or one test. You know it was, and so I could miss weeks of class and then do all of this stuff and get great grades. And so I was on the Dean's list but I was in crisis and I took the antidepressants and about I can't. I went back and tried to identify like exactly how long it took.

Michelle Reittinger: 4:59

But I moved home after graduation and a couple months after moving home, like I was starting to get manic and my parents like had a front row seat this time they could see what was going on. My dad was so concerned because I was talking about, like you know, I need to move to Washington DC and I got to go. You know, I was a political science major, so all of a sudden my mind like became zeroed in on politics and I was sure I needed to go get a. You know, I was going to be a press secretary and I was, and my dad was really worried. He said it's like watching a runaway train. He would didn't know what to do.

Michelle Reittinger: 5:28

So my mom actually went to a psychiatric visit. Well, she took me. She didn't go in with me, but she took me and I was told I'd been misdiagnosed. They said, oh, we missed this. She said. They said this often happens People will be misdiagnosed with depression and then they give them an antidepressant and actually reveals that they have bipolar disorder.

Michelle Reittinger: 5:51

And I remember when they told me that I had this like mixed, these mixed feelings about it, because I thought, like does that mean I'm broken. I remember thinking like what is bipolar disorder? And the only references that I had were like in media, where that's like a crazy person and I'm like, am I a crazy person, you know? And. But at the same time there was like a feeling of relief because they were like, oh, don't worry, we're just going to get you on the right meds and you're going to be fine. And so there was like a hope and a relief in that. There was a relief in the diagnosis and a hope that maybe things could get better. And so I was like the ideal patient.

Michelle Reittinger: 6:22

I would go to every psychiatric appointment I took, every drug I was given and nothing got better. Things just kept getting worse and all the different side effects that the drugs were causing. Like they put me on lithium right away and I had a psychotic episode on the lithium and it was a very scary experience and thankfully I didn't. We didn't call the doctor. My mom called a friend of hers who had bipolar and was like we don't know what to do, what's going on, and she said she's having a reaction to the medication. Take her off the medication. And my parents just kept me home and, you know, kind of watched over me while my body kind of resolved the issues, and but I didn't know that you could ask for help when you had these kinds of issues.

Michelle Reittinger: 7:04

You know, I remember I was on Zoloft for like three years and I could sleep anywhere. It was like taking a sleep like a sedative. I would fall asleep on buses and miss my you know, miss my stop I, you know, I was just tired for three years and when I moved, I moved to another state and reestablished with a new psychiatrist and I. I happened to another state and reestablished with a new psychiatrist and I I happened to mention it to her. She's like, oh, we can, you know, we can change her medication. But it just kept like layering on top of each other.

Michelle Reittinger: 7:32

Um, I, I had my first major anxiety attack that I thought was a heart attack. I spent a whole day in a, in a um in the emergency room. They did all the tests on me and and I was. It was so embarrassing. At the end of the day, after eight hours in the emergency room, the doctor came and he was like it looks like you have bipolar disorder. I'm like, yeah, what does that have to do with anything? And he said I think he had an anxiety attack and I'm like what? And so then they sent me to my psychiatrist and gave me more medication, you know, and and it just kept getting worse.

Michelle Reittinger: 8:02

And the worst, the worst part, was when I got married and started having children. I had waited my entire life to be a mom. I wanted to be a mother so bad I couldn't wait to be a mom, and that was part of the reason why I was trying so hard to get better was because I thought I got to be stable to be a good mom. You know, I wanted to be a stable mother and but when I had my, my first, two children, both times I had the most severe postpartum depression. My pregnancies they kept me. I try not to watch the news about antidepressants during pregnancy now because I was still on antidepressants for both of my pregnancies and I feel a tremendous amount of guilt now because we were too.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 8:41

I was like my poor kids.

Michelle Reittinger: 8:43

My third one didn't have it because I was off meds by then. But my first two, I was on antidepressants through the whole pregnancy and my pregnancies were a bit of a roller coaster. So after two, my husband's like we're done, that's not going to happen again. And but my postpartum, at three months with both babies, I got so severely depressed that they had to. I had to stop breastfeedingfeeding and I had to go right back on on the medications. I couldn't feel anything towards my children. I remember looking at them, thinking like I'm supposed to feel something right now, and I couldn't feel anything. And then I also had postpartum hyperthyroidism with both of my children, with both of those first two babies. And it was interesting because there's part of my brain that was convinced that it had to do with the medication, because I would go back on my medications and then I the symptoms would start.

Michelle Reittinger: 9:30

Within like a month or two of starting those drugs I would start having the symptoms that I didn't know at the time were hyperthyroidism, but my hair was falling out. Like I, if you, I was trying to grow my hair out in both pregnancies and if you would rub my head, it was so. There was so much regrowth that it felt like I'd shaved my head and I would pass out. I couldn't drive for a while because I was get I would have these blackouts. I lost excess, an excessive amount of weight. That was the thing that, like my mom saw me, she thought I was anorexic. She thought I was developing an eating disorder. I had lost my. I'd lost about 25 pounds below what my weight was before, like it was, and I was eating like crazy. I told my husband one time I'm like I feel like I'm in high school again, like I feel like my metabolism is just running crazy. And yeah, you did have a furnace that was burning.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 10:20

And.

Michelle Reittinger: 10:20

I was told don't have another baby, because they were I. The doctor, the endocrinologist I went to the second time, told me that if I, you know that that was just the way my body reacted to pregnancy and postpartum. You know hormones, and I asked him if it could potentially be the medication I was on. He was like, oh no, there's no relation. And he said don't have any more babies or you'll destroy your thyroid the next time. And um, which didn't end up being true. But I, but I was like sure that all of you know there were so many times when my brain would tell me things that it kind of knew intuitively about, like the medications I was taking, and I would ask the experts and they would. They would, oh no, absolutely not, like that has nothing to do with it.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 11:04

Well, it can't, because medications are only treatment, right, they're not drugs.

Michelle Reittinger: 11:09

Well, and nobody's interested in doing any like real, like real, serious testing on any of this stuff to find out if it is potentially causing these problems, because that would be against their financial interest. But the worst part came when I, after my second son, after my second child was born my son the depression never went away and it started getting worse. And during that time was when I started having the beginnings of suicidal ideation and it started for me with with nightmares. I would have the most vivid nightmares about dying and I would wake up feeling terrible inside and I didn't want anybody to know cause I'm like that. Like that, that's not normal, nobody needs to know that that's happening. But then it kind of progressed into daydreams where I would be driving down the road with my children in the car and have fantasies about like driving off into the Mississippi River or and, but I was, but I was trying to figure out, hold on, hold on on Jen's having a visceral reaction over there.

Michelle Reittinger: 12:06

I'm so sorry.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 12:07

No no, because this is just recent for her.

Jennifer Schmitz: 12:10

It's real shit girl. Yes, I'm in it.

Michelle Reittinger: 12:14

So, yep, my brain would go through the process of trying to figure out how I could keep my children safe and my life without people knowing that I had done that, like I didn't want them to know that I had done it on purpose.

Michelle Reittinger: 12:26

But my brain was like constantly trying to find solutions, and what I understand now, looking back, is that it was trying to solve the problem. I was told bipolar was incurable, I would have it the rest of my life. It was neurodegenerative, like all of these things, and I was starting to get desperate. Because I felt like I was starting to get desperate, because I felt like I was ruining my husband and my children's lives, and so I didn't know what else to do other than just to remove myself from the equation because I wasn't going to get any better, according to the doctors, and nothing was working. At one point I was on seven different medications because they had. I was on two antidepressants. I was on two mood stabilizers because I couldn't tolerate anything in a therapeutic dosage I had. This was after my hospitalization because they'd done electric convulsive therapy that caused severe migraines. So I had migraine medication. I had an anti-anxiety medication. Like they just kept layering medications on top of each other.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 13:20

And I couldn't feel anything. I think you had said that you had 15 ECTs. Is that right? 15? 12. So it was, it was it was four, yeah.

Michelle Reittinger: 13:28

So, and that was that whole time period was so traumatic for our family. It was such a traumatic thing. So my husband was at the end of a two-year master's program and he was leaving the country, for they had a trip that they had to go on to another country for this business project. And I was getting to the point was I was afraid I was going to act on the thoughts, like I was having almost overwhelming compulsion to do the things that my brain was telling me to do and I was afraid of my children dying. I didn't care about myself, I wanted to die, but I didn't want my kids to die and I called my sister one day. I had had this experience on the Mississippi, we lived on Mississippi and that was kind of obsessive for me and I pulled over and called my sister, crying and I'm like I don't know what to do. My kids were in the back watching a movie and I I was calling my sister. I'm like, I'm so scared I think I'm going to hurt my kids. And she was like ran, you know, got into action right away Cause my husband, she knew my husband was leaving. She's like she can't stay there alone. So they flew me to another state with my kids. Nobody had seen me for a long time Cause I lived so far away from my family and my mom flew into from another state to help and she picked me up from the airport and they put. They saw me. She said when she saw me she was so disturbed by cause I was kept muttering I just want to be a good mom. I just want to be a good mom, like over and over and over again. And they my mom described to me at the airport, opening the suitcase, taking everything of my kids out and then driving me straight to the hospital because they thought she needs to go, she needs help.

Michelle Reittinger: 14:58

And I was in a locked ward for a week there and then the doctor there told me that they needed to do electroconvulsive therapy on me because my brain was like a computer that had been frozen and it needed to be rebooted. And my husband was not in the country. He didn't have any idea any of this was going on. He didn't know I was in the hospital. He didn't know about the treatments or anything, and they released me from the hospital for the treatments. I was sent to live. I was staying with my grandmother at the time. So she was taking me in and it was Monday, wednesday, friday. They would take me in first thing in the morning to do the treatments.

Michelle Reittinger: 15:32

And after the Friday treatment I got, I went psychotic and my sister, my brother-in-law, had to physically restrain me. My, my sister said she was watching me. I interviewed everybody and you know, when I was writing my, my book, because a lot of this, there were a lot of holes in my memory from that time. So I was going through journals, interviewing family members to make sure I could piece together everything, so I was relating it accurately, and my sister said it was the most disturbing experience of her entire life. She said she was looking at me and there was nothing there. She said her sister was not there. All she could see was a body but there was nothing behind my eyes and it was the most disturbing experience.

Michelle Reittinger: 16:07

And so then they put me back in the hospital and continued the treatments. So I was in the hospital for three more weeks getting the electric convulsive therapy every morning, even though you had like a psychotic. So the doctor, the doctor, they changed my diagnosis from bipolar two to bipolar one in that experience. And they did not. They were convinced because when they were releasing me, I was told that I needed to take lithium. And I was terrified of lithium because of the experience I had the first time. And I told them like I was.

Michelle Reittinger: 16:35

I remember this is one thing I do remember. I remember sitting in her office talking to her and she's telling me you know, this is what we need to do in order to be able to release you. We need to put you on lithium and stuff. And I was sobbing, asking her please don't put me on lithium. I said I had a bad reaction to it and I was trying to describe it. She's like oh, that was not related to the lithium, that was psychosis and and I was. When she was telling me that I was, I was terrified, but she was insisting I'm not going to release you until you agree to be med compliant was what she was telling me.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 17:04

I needed to be med compliant.

Michelle Reittinger: 17:06

And and I was so my husband had, at that point, had gone home with my children. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to be with my family, I didn't want to be in the hospital anymore, and so I agreed to do it. And three days later I made an attempt with my. That was my first attempt. It I I had a psychotic episode again on it. I had a psychotic episode again on it, and when I told her that it caused psychosis, she was saying no, it was not related to the medication. I said I haven't ever had any other episodes of psychosis. And she looked at me. I remember her taking her glasses down and looking and she's like well, that's not true. Now is it Referring to the episode that I had had that put me back in the hospital? And at that point I was just like I don't know what else to do. I just want to go home.

Michelle Reittinger: 17:48

And so they put me on the medication, sent me home and I made a attempt on my life. My husband was the one who had to stop me, and then he was driving me to another hospital. Psychiatric hospital is an hour away and I tried to jump out of the car on the way to the hospital, Like I just was like absolutely determined to end things and I was having like the worst reaction to this medication. I have a general entry from my when I was in the hospital describing like this intense. I felt like I needed to rip my skin off and I wanted to jump out the window.

Michelle Reittinger: 18:18

Like I just was like having these crazy thoughts and feelings and I just felt like I just can't do this anymore. Crazy thoughts and feelings and I just felt like I just can't do this anymore. And the interesting thing is I wanted to leave because I had checked myself in and I was telling the doctor like I want to go home. I, you know I can check myself out and they wouldn't let me. This was like a week, you know, three or four days into the hospitalization and then, like three days later, they, they, they sent me home because the insurance wouldn't pay anymore. You were not the first one to say this we're going to keep you here.

Michelle Reittinger: 18:50

It's a voluntary commitment and then the insurance doesn't want to pay anymore.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 18:53

Oh, but you're going to pay. You must be better Time to go home.

Michelle Reittinger: 18:56

And another few days after that I was back in the hospital in a different hospital. It was just the craziest, it was so awful, it was just the craziest, it was so awful. And but after my third hospitalization, I was watching my children play and I was having like some terrible. It was like the first. It was a weird experience, cause I had a really lucid thought, which was not I was not having at that time, but I had this really super lucid thought that and it was almost like I don't want to say a voice because it makes me sound crazy, but but it was like a voice coming like a voice.

Michelle Reittinger: 19:41

That was like if you ever succeed in ending your life, you will ruin her life, my little four-year-old daughter. She will think it was her fault and you will ruin her life. And in that moment I thought, oh my gosh, that's true, cause she was always trying to help it, she wanted everybody to feel better, she was always a, she was a caretaker at heart. And when I realized that, I knew in that moment I could never do that to my daughter and it was a turning point for me because from that point forward I was determined to survive for her and I thought I may, not, I may have a horrible life, but I she has value and I will do it for her.

Michelle Reittinger: 20:14

And from that point forward, that kind of changed the way that I have viewed everything. Up to that point I felt very much like a victim and this turned me into into like I was determined to live for my daughter and she became my, my tether to life, like she became the reason why I, why I did everything from that point forward in the future, was for her and for my, the rest of my family. But she was like the touch point for me and um and I and I for the first like so this was in 2008,. For about two years it was just like white knuckling it, like just holding on for dear life and and I we're still medicated at this time.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 20:56

We're still medicated.

Michelle Reittinger: 20:57

Oh yeah, yes, Like to the hilt. And I I ended up back in the hospital about a year and a half later because the thoughts came back and I had made a commitment like I will not ever let myself sit in this long enough for something to happen. So I went back into the hospital and when I got out of the hospital I had this thought one day again, watching my kids play, like nobody's coming to save me, I have to save myself. And that was when I started like the thought came to me like OK, I know these, these symptoms are coming. What do I do about it? You know how can I help myself?

Michelle Reittinger: 21:30

And that was the beginning of what developed into my mood cycle survival guide that I use with people that I coach to help them at the very beginning of their healing process, start taking responsibility for their symptoms, their symptoms, and that point forward like little by little. I just found, you know, one resource and then the next resource and and I didn't know I was healing when I it was interesting, it was all the way up until, like I was I went back and found tick tocks that I'd done like in 2000 or 2022, where I was continuing to say like bipolar is incurable but you can learn to live better with it, that kind of stuff. Cause I was so brainwashed by, you know, even though I was healing, I didn't understand that it was possible to heal Right. And it wasn't until I started doing like. I started looking for more stuff because I'm like something's not right here, like I'm doing better. Why? Why do I still believe this? And that was when I read like anatomy of an epidemic and I started reading.

Jennifer Schmitz: 22:23

Okay, michelle, as you're sitting here talking and I'm like, okay, I have to. We got to talk about her book Cause it's so important. But like I'm sitting here and I pull out this book because, you see, look at us, Robert, I keep going back and rereading it.

Jennifer Schmitz: 22:43

It's so full of information and something that you said that Robert Whitaker talks about is there was no pharmaceutical company that would actually patent lithium, and the APA actually took the lead in getting the FDA to approve lithium. And, for those of you listening, if you weren't aware of this, there was only less than a handful of placebo-controlled trials that were done of lithium before it was prescribed to people. And something that is really, really interesting about lithium and you fall under these categories is, prior to lithium, guys coming onto the scene, about 1 in 5,000 to 20,000, that's a range, right? People had bipolar disorder and they were labeled that and that looks very, very, very different. So one in 20,000, if you're looking at that range Now, after lithium was introduced, one in 20 to 50. Now have it? Ooh crazy, what? Okay, that's your range guys.

Jennifer Schmitz: 24:07

Functional long-term outcome prior to lithium 75 to 90% Medicated. Following lithium 33%. Oh, okay. So I'm reading stuff from Anatomy of an Epidemic and of course, robert references everything. But as you're talking these things that were said to you as a patient specifically about, like, well, the psychotic episode that you have is coming from, actually, we gave you an antidepressant. This is right in this book. I was trying to find the page I like I got to find the quote the antidepressant that we gave you. That's a beautiful thing, because it brought your true colors out, because you're actually bipolar.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 24:50

If I hear that one more time it's perpetuated on TikTok.

Michelle Reittinger: 24:55

I'm going to find it.

Jennifer Schmitz: 24:56

So your story crazy so your story right is oh gosh. This is so very important, so I don't want to derail so much there, but I'm sitting here like I've never met somebody who could say this and I go oh my gosh, those were the exact. This is the exact verbiage written in a book of what providers were to say to people and taught to say to people. And taught to say to people yeah, like the antidepressant, this isn't bad. It brought out your true disorder.

Michelle Reittinger: 25:23

Well, and the thing that's interesting is that we are so trained to believe the symptoms are the illness that when we go through withdrawal symptoms and it gets blamed on the illness, nobody blats an eye, nobody thinks a thing about it.

Michelle Reittinger: 25:38

You know, I I've had people, people come after me big time you know every single every single post there's at least, you know, two or three people that are like take your meds people, you know this lady's crazy, she's dangerous and stuff, and I'm and, and they're they're evidence for this is I. You know, I take this medication and anytime I come off of it I go nuts and I'm like, of course you do, you're going through withdrawal, you have dysregulated your brain and now your brain is, you know, I one of the best descriptions of it was um professor Joanna Moncrief was on my podcast and she described lithium as pushing a balloon underwater and she said when you let go of it, if you let go of it quickly, she said, if you release it slowly, then you're fine. It'll just, you know, go back to where it belongs. If you let go of it, it'll rock it out of the water. And that's what happens with these medications is that they they suppress the emotional response in you and then your brain becomes used to that.

Michelle Reittinger: 26:33

And if you just take it away that's how all of these drug trials that prove the efficacy of these drugs they put people on the drug and then rapidly withdraw it and then the symptoms come back. Oh yeah, see how effective this is. The symptoms came right back. No, the people were going through withdrawal. They are the most unscientific, yeah.

Jennifer Schmitz: 26:55

Or that becomes your control group, and so when we remedicate them, they do fantastic.

Michelle Reittinger: 26:59

Right Like they become zombies again.

Jennifer Schmitz: 27:03

Yeah, it's so, it's, it's, it's so. This whole thing is just so incredibly fascinating and I think it's really important to have a voice in this space which, michelle, I know that you do when it comes to educating people on, like, the etiology of bipolar disorder, you know, and it's not very okay to be, to make a blanket statement Okay, it's not that far of a cry off from like the etiology of just depression or the etiology of anxiety. Right, like we know that there are um, like pharma has got their hands so much so in this, in the marketing tactics behind this are just so incredible. But what's fascinating is when you start to lay out the research for people and show them what numbers looked like once drugs like this came on the scene, when we actually all bipolar one and then bipolar two came into play. What happens when we take criteria and we make it so broad that it can umbrella so many people? You're going to fall under that. And yet it's not based and rooted in anything scientific is.

Michelle Reittinger: 28:13

Every time I talk about how I heal, people are like oh, you must have been misdiagnosed. Every time somebody will say that I'll say, okay, then you tell me what an accurate diagnosis? What constitutes an accurate diagnosis? I want to know how you identify if somebody has real bipolar disorder. What is real bipolar disorder? And I have never, ever even psychiatrists, even psychiatrists that go after me on X, cannot, will not, answer the question. I have not one time had anybody give me an answer to that question. They just shut down and go on to something else or stop talking to me. And this idea even even I had one, one psychiatrist that was, you know, arguing with me on X. Uh, last week, and he was talking about he went into the history, you know, like even in the history, you know, people would not recover. And I said, I asked him, you know, I said history is not your friend, my buddy.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 29:09

I said, let's talk about outcomes?

Michelle Reittinger: 29:12

I said I went, I was like Robert Whitaker pulled open the book and I was like looking for all the statistics and I said and actually he's so right.

Jennifer Schmitz: 29:20

That's such a naive statement to make because in history there was so much more recovery within this. Yes, I don't think psychiatrists know that.

Michelle Reittinger: 29:29

I would like it would be really interesting to actually see what they're being told, because they are so convinced of this medical approach, you know, and this, and so I. I don't think they're getting the real history when they're being taught in their hazing through.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 29:44

No, they're not. No, they're not, just like therapists aren't getting history either. Yeah.

Michelle Reittinger: 29:48

Yeah, but it's um, it's interesting. I was listening to, I I'm I'm reading Madden America now.

Jennifer Schmitz: 29:56

Oh yeah, I read the Robert rabbit hole.

Michelle Reittinger: 29:59

I know. Well, it's interesting because they taught he talks at the very beginning of Madden America about, you know, the madness of King George that you know a lot oftentimes referred to. But they actually think that he might have had like a physical health condition that led to some him having delusions, like some kind of delusions I can't remember exactly the language he used, but you know what's. What is it when somebody is like feverish and they're I don't know why, that brain, that word's going out of my brain, but you're, you're kind of becoming, you know, like if you get a really bad fever and you start kind of oh yeah, I know you're going back, you're going back in the day I can't think of the word anyway, but but but that that led then to them thinking he was mad. And then he had this horrific experience with this crazy like psychiatrist I don't know what they called him back then. He was like physically torturing this man, you know, which prolonged his suffering, and he made a miraculous recovery because his physical health condition resolved Right.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 31:00

You know what I mean, which reminds me of you going through ECT, by the way.

Jennifer Schmitz: 31:03

Yes, it does, that's what I think of ECT, as when we were talking about some of these horrific things like beating people and soaking them underwater, bloodletting, injecting semen of animals into people yeah, it's ECT.

Michelle Reittinger: 31:58

Absolutely, and ECT was. That was such a traumatic experience like serious trauma I had to do, I had to do EMDR to resolve the trauma from that.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 32:08

It was, it was so Never thought of that actually as a utility of EMDR. But here we are. Well it was.

Michelle Reittinger: 32:13

It was interesting because it was. I didn't understand how to use therapy effectively. I hated therapy. For most of the time that I was going through the healing process I would not do therapy because it was such a I hated it and because and I think it's because, no offense, but a lot of therapists are totally useless Like I go in and I talk about it and I'm staying in the like. Now that I understand, like the upper and lower parts of the brain and stuff like talk therapy stays in the upper part of the brain and all you do is just talk about the problems over and over again and over again and it doesn't resolve anything. It doesn't get to the root of it. It doesn't resolve any of the issues.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 32:48

And, but when I, but, but therapists also subscribe to the chemical imbalance medication, medication, all of that. So you're still being gaslit, and by therapists probably, right, Well, and it was.

Michelle Reittinger: 33:00

I I kind of like figured out. I actually have written posts about this and I wrote about it in my book like the tips for actually, you know, seeking therapy to, you know, proactively, to heal. But I, as I was finally starting to understand how to use therapy and how to find the right kind of therapist and to heal, I started like identifying triggers and then taking it to my therapist and saying, okay, something's underneath this and let's work on this one. And I had a an experience on social media. This was when I was very first doing this, back in like 2021, or 22. I can't remember.

Michelle Reittinger: 33:32

And and I it triggered a trauma response in me and at that point I could identify trauma responses and I'm like, why is I don't care about this woman, why is that triggering a trauma response in me? And I went to my therapist and we realized what was underneath. It was this the trauma from my hospitalizations, when the doctors were not listening to me, when they were insisting that my, the feelings that I was having, the thoughts that I was having were not, you know, I was sick and they knew best and I had to listen to them and I had to do what they told me to do and and so I did EMDR to resolve that and I. It was such a relief because now when people come after me, I feel sad for them, I feel compassion for them. It doesn't trigger any kind of trauma response in me anymore, you know.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 34:12

Yeah, I always say the people that come after you, that's more about what they're going through in these moments and they're very unhealed people, very well.

Michelle Reittinger: 34:21

And I one of the things that's interesting. So I I feel kind of blessed because there were parts of my soul that, like, were rejecting some of the stuff I was being told earlier on. So one of them was I felt like I was being so my children literally saved my life, like in all of this, and I remember going to psychiatric appointments and therapy appointments and that and being kind of told like you know, we'll help your family understand this isn't your fault, kind of thing, you know, and being kind of propped up and coddled in in this. My illness, like you know, it wasn't my fault and everybody just needed to understand. And my soul was rejecting that because I could see the damage I was doing to my husband and my children and I thought maybe it's not my fault, but it's definitely not their fault and they don't deserve this, you know. And so I. So part of me was just I didn't like the way that I was being told to think about what I was experiencing and what I was doing.

Michelle Reittinger: 35:21

And I think that we, the way that we have framed these symptoms and these illnesses, removes any kind of personal accountability or responsibility from people. You know, it's all. It's all about bringing awareness to it and and you know, we want to bring awareness and we want to help people understand so that they can just have compassion and stuff, and meanwhile we're burning down the world around us, right and it and there's no accountability, which damages our feelings of value and self worth. Our feelings of value and self worth come from personal accountability, and so we start to lose our our feelings of value and our buildings of self worth, and so everything becomes wrapped up in this diagnosis, because that identity is the only thing that we have left is the identity of this illness, and it creates victims out of people.

Jennifer Schmitz: 36:03

You know, we okay, we had a uh, we had very early on in this show we had Dr Kendra Campbell on and she said something that was super fucking triggering to me and I had to sit in this. I should really like message her and tell her this. And you just said this about accountability and she made a comment because I kept saying I was talking a lot about informed consent, informed consent, informed consent right and how being medicated at the age of 16 or something, what, 17, whatever I was. And then all the way through now, and I'm like nobody ever sat down and told me all these things, right, these truths, and she said but there comes a point where you have to take personal responsibility for your own care, and that pissed me off and I didn't say it in the show and I just sit with that shit love of you've got to take responsibility for an accountability for your symptoms. Yes, we can acknowledge them and validate them and create safe space for them, but at what point then, is there action with that, do you?

Jennifer Schmitz: 37:14

know, what I mean. That's, I think, kind of what she was saying too right, like, yeah, you can go back to every appointment every year and hear the same shit, like, but at one point, what point, do you take any accountability and go? Where is this coming from?

Michelle Reittinger: 37:28

No, like well, you know, and the the the compassion can come in Like I'm so sorry that you're suffering, or or I'm, you know it's, it sucks that I'm suffering this way. What am I going to do about it, though? Because in my coaching group, I have people that I coach through the healing process. I don't, I don't do therapy, I don't. I coach them on how to find a good therapist, on how to you know how to find the right resources for giving off your meds, that kind of thing. I don't coach them through that process, but one of the things that we've done in the group is we actually have worked diligently to change the language we use regarding this what we're experiencing. We do not call it bipolar disorder anymore. I actually hate that term, because it it creates this idea that you have been given an answer. So you know for the first while that I was coaching people, we would still use I would still use that language, because you know it's the common language everybody uses, but I realized we're reinforcing this victim mentality without realizing it, because disorder gives us the idea that it's it's a medical condition that we don't have any control over. Right, we talk about bipolar symptoms. So when we talk about and I say get curious about your symptoms. And I want you to think about, like, let's figure out what's causing the symptoms and then we can treat it. You know, so it's there's a lot of accountability talking about. You know, we track moods, we track symptoms, we track. You know all of these things and we start to make connections. You know that was one of the things that I learned was I was having a, when I had that triggered trauma response, like I was, like my whole chest got tight. I was, and it makes you feel scared and like you got to run away or fight. You know that fight or flight response and that takes you into the lower part of your brain where you don't, you don't have any control anymore, right, but this is like pulling yourself back up into the upper part of your brain and saying, okay, this is scary, and I acknowledge that it's scary, but something's going on that I need to address. I need to figure out what's going on. So that experience at that point I had learned, write it all down, take it to the therapist and say, ok, I had this response. This was the situation. We got to figure out why that situation triggered this kind of response so I can resolve it. So it was that moment, the first moment that I started taking responsibility for myself, was that day after the fourth hospitalization, when I was watching my kids playing and I realized, like nobody's coming to save me, like I've got to do something about this. I don't want to keep hurting my children, I don't want to keep hurting my husband. I have got to do something for myself. And and it was just this like okay, so I know these symptoms are coming. What am I going to do about it? How am I going to?

Michelle Reittinger: 40:32

You know, the mood cycle survival guide has four parts. The first part is who's your team? You and what are the boundaries around the help that they can give. And that's so critical. Like I know, people sometimes get tired of hearing about boundaries, but you got to have healthy boundaries if you don't want to burn all the bridges around you. Right, and and you can you have to learn how to ask for help before you're in crisis, because if the only time you're reaching out to people is when you're crisis, you will burn out those resources. They'd be gone. Yeah yeah, people are guys. I don't. I love you, but I can't be. I can't do this anymore. You're ruining my life.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 41:05

You're too much. You're too much, yes.

Michelle Reittinger: 41:07

And so so I like I was really blessed during that time to have a couple of people in my life who loved me and who were trying to help. And I was a swim coach and I was having a really hard time coaching, but my assistant coach had one of her daughters swimming for me and she really wanted me to keep coaching, and so she actually was one of the people that helped me start recognizing, like, how to help set boundaries around this kind of help, because she would say I can help you on the days that you can't show up, you know, because I would have like anxiety attacks and I couldn't show up for practice, but I need you to provide workouts for me, and so when I was doing well, I would like create workouts and then I would be able to. You know, we talked about, like, how do, how do I inform you? So that was the. It was really interesting that that actually helped me start to take responsibility for myself, you know, and in a way that was really proactive.

Michelle Reittinger: 41:54

And and then the second piece is what is your? You know we call it the early warning system identifying, like learning how to identify triggers and red flags. You know the things that trigger, you know kind of emotional responses in us and red flags are like you're starting to experience symptoms, and so the earlier you can start to identify this stuff, the sooner you can start taking responsibility and doing something about it and wait, instead of waiting until you're in crisis, you know, because usually there's stuff that happens that leads up way before you know and so the earlier you can catch it.

Michelle Reittinger: 42:25

So that's one of the things we talk about is, you know, developing your early warning system and starting to learn how to identify those things. And then the third piece is power priorities. I, when I, whenever I was really struggling, when I was either manic, so mania, was like doing big projects. You know, my, my youngest or my oldest daughter would have had really elaborate princess dresses. I love to sew and I would stay up all night making these super elaborate princess dresses for her and get like I was like do it when I was manic and then or hypomanic, and then I would crash for like two weeks afterwards, you know, and be totally dysfunctional and you know, and during those manic periods my kids wouldn't eat because I would forget to feed them. I wouldn't eat myself, I'd forget to feed them. You know, when I was depressed it was like everything. It took every ounce of energy that I had just to get myself out of bed in the morning and so. But during those times, a lot of the stuff that I would focus on were things that were publicly visible. Visible because I was worried about other people seeing me and so that my family wouldn't get neglected. And so one of the things that I had to learn how to do is identify what are the power priorities, what are the things that matter most, that need to be taken care of during those periods where I'm not doing well? And I got to learn how to let go of the rest of it, and that changed things for me and I still. It's interesting, all of this stuff has kind of become intuitive for me and I don't actually have a physical mood cycle survival guide anymore for myself, but I still use those things.

Michelle Reittinger: 43:52

You know, when my at the beginning of the year, um, we were in like we had so much stuff happening. My husband had to move to another city, to, you know, for a job, and I was left behind because my daughter was getting married and my son was graduating from high school, and like we had all this stuff happening and I was starting to get stressed and getting cranky with people and you know, and I thought I don't want this to be the experience I have with my daughter getting married. And so my brain went to, okay, power priorities, what are the power priorities? And so I just identified what are the things that matter most right now and what can I let go of, and it made it a beautiful experience. I had the most incredible experience with my daughter and it was actually very healing for our relationship.

Michelle Reittinger: 44:32

Going through this process, you know, process of her, you know preparing for her wedding and her marriage, and you know, and then the last piece of the of the guide is getting your, rebooting your system, getting yourself back into a healthy mental space, having a plan to get yourself there and and it's again very intuitive for me now. So once we got through all the craziness and our family finally moved and we got settled and I got everything unpacked, then I just kind of went through the reboot system, you know, and got back into and so this is it's interesting. I realized like this guide wasn't just for when I was struggling with bipolar symptoms. This is just a great way to live your life, you know, like having a plan, who are your people that can help, who are, you know, making sure you're paying attention, like if you're starting to have bad, you know, get cranky with people or getting anxious or you know any of those things like pay attention to that, what's going on, and so Can you touch on a little bit?

Dr Teralyn Sell: 45:22

uh, cause you were on seven different medications. Um, you don't have to answer this, but I'm going to guess you're not anymore.

Michelle Reittinger: 45:29

No, I've been on meds since 2010.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 45:36

All meds. So can you tell us the process of getting off of those?

Michelle Reittinger: 45:38

meds and what that was like for you. Yeah yeah. So, um, the the, the way that this actually came about was I cause at that time I was, I had a really, really, really great doctor. My last psychiatrist was a really good man and I he had he was my psychiatrist through the hospitalizations, everything. He was so mad when he found out about the doctor insisting on me being on lithium that he put in my file as allergic, so nobody would ever give it to me again.

Michelle Reittinger: 46:01

He was a really good guy, um, but he, a friend of mine, told me about a supplement called true hope. You know the from true hope called empower plus and it was specifically designed for people with bipolar disorder. And I went and like researched all the information but I was so terrified of doing anything that was going to make me unstable that I took it to my doctor and said is this, would it be okay if I tried this? And he went through all of their research and and said, well, it looks well researched, like I guess we could try it. And and at that point he was like willing to try anything because he could see how hard I was trying and how much I was suffering and he wanted to help me.

Michelle Reittinger: 46:39

And but the interesting thing was that he couldn't help me through the titration process, like he didn't know how to do it and so he deferred to them. Yeah, he deferred to them. So True Hope True Hope was has a really amazing customer support system, because most doctors don't know how to help people through this process and I know that a lot of people will go through like a really protracted process when they're coming off of medications. But this thankfully, because of the way that cross titration works with the true hope supplements. You're giving your brain something to help it heal while you're going through through withdrawal. And it's it's. It only took about six months for me to get off of all of my medications, wow.

Michelle Reittinger: 47:22

And, and it's, it is a very and it's not I, I was a little bit unusual it's. It can take six months to a year. So some people who are on more, like some people in my program that are working with true hope to get off of their medications Um, it can take like it depends on the medications that they're on. Some medications have to be reduced extremely slowly, very, very slowly, but, and so some of them take, you know, take a little bit longer. I've got one person who is three months from finishing and she started at the beginning of the year, so by the time she gets done it will have been a year that it took her to get through the withdrawal.

Michelle Reittinger: 47:59

It was really interesting because I had to learn how to see symptoms as symptoms. You know it was I went, you know, and I talk about this in my book. Actually, I wrote a chapter on it and True Hope has used, you know, like, started giving it to people, because the way I describe like the tools and the things you need to do to be successful in this, in going through cross titration, was they said that it was a really beneficial. It was really beneficial tool for other people. So one of the things that I make sure I tell people is don't do this on your own, don't ever try to go off of meds on your own ever, because we don't really understand how these drugs work in our brains and we need somebody who really understands what's happening to our brain and how to safely come off of them. And so whenever I talk to people about coming off of meds, I tell them you need to work with an expert. You need to work with somebody who understands this drug action and how it's affecting your brain and how to safely titrate off. The second thing is is that that has to be the most important thing that you're doing during that time. Like you cannot miss doses of medications, you cannot miss doses of micronutrients. You know I have people create time charts for themselves and set alarms for themselves and use pill you know pill dispenser trays and stuff so that they can see if they've taken things, that they can make sure that they're, you know, following through on taking it. And then we also work through starting to learn to see what your rhythm looks like. So when somebody is going through withdrawal, they will have there will be a period where they're kind of stable and then there will be a period where they start to get overmedicated and they have to start identifying.

Michelle Reittinger: 49:36

These are the symptoms that look like overmedication for me. So for me I would get really tired, I would start to feel depressed and I could taste the medication in my mouth. It was a weirdest thing, um, and I didn't. I remember the first time it happened. I called my doctor and he's like I don't know what to tell you. You need to call true hope, you know. And so I called them.

Michelle Reittinger: 49:54

I'm like I don't know why I'm tasting the medication and it feels like I sucked on the pillow and they're like, oh, you're over medicated, and so they did a reduction with me and then, after you do a reduction, you go through a period of withdrawal and it's usually what I've seen generally is about 48 to 72 hours of withdrawal and then they'll go through like three or four weeks of stability again and then they'll start to get overmedicated and then they go through a reduction and then they go through withdrawal and I'll have people chart what that looks like for themselves. You know, I'm not. I'm not giving any advice about any of this stuff. I always tell them. I tell them how to talk to true hope and how to use that resource, but I also.

Michelle Reittinger: 50:32

It's really helpful to have that visual because we are so trained to see these symptoms as part of our illness that we don't, we don't, understand the information it's providing. And so we start looking at the symptoms as information and getting curious about what that means, you know. And so then we're. That's why I like people writing it out, so they can see it in front of them and understand what they're looking at. And so then, after you know a few cycles of this, they can start seeing oh, I'm starting to get over medicated. And then we also talk about, like, what tools are going to use during that time, so that you you know, I had one person that would get really agitated and cranky with his family when he was going through this, and so I said Okay, so you know that that's going to last for 72 hours.

Michelle Reittinger: 51:14

So what are you going to do during that time so that you don't do damage to your relationships? You know that it's a symptom of withdrawal. And so he came up with a plan for himself that was going you know, this is the proactive like I'm going to be responsible for myself. So they he with his wife came up with a plan so that when he was going through withdrawal that he didn't hurt his wife's feelings or hurt his daughter's feelings? You know, because he was saying mean things to them, because he was feeling so agitated. You know, right, yeah.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 51:40

Yeah, well, I I just have to say no-transcript. But we don't do that in the mental health space. It's well I'm depressed, or well, I have bipolar, and people don't like the message of personal responsibility. They don't like it.

Michelle Reittinger: 52:20

They get so angry and I get so mad.

Michelle Reittinger: 52:22

There's a there's a clip that goes around pretty regularly on on social media with Anne Hathaway that she's playing a person with bipolar on some show and and it's a clip of her sitting at a having lunch with somebody that she's describing what bipolar is. You know, this woman wants to be her friend and so she's describing it. And so many people post this, say I feel seen. I feel seen and I thought this is terrible, like we don't want to reinforce this idea that it's okay to behave this way and expect people to want to be your friend and stick with you. That is not. You are not being responsible for yourself and you're inflicting all of this bad behavior on other people and expecting them to just suck it up.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 53:04

It is so abusive Because you have a disorder like having a physical illness.

Jennifer Schmitz: 53:08

Yeah, You've just offered yourself over to a label and that's it. That's all there is to it, right?

Dr Teralyn Sell: 53:12

Everybody needs to accept you for that, yeah, personal responsibility goes out.

Michelle Reittinger: 53:15

The door when you've got that. I think one of the things that was most profound for me was. So one of the symptoms that a lot of people talk about is bipolar rage. Right and and it was. It was a really hard symptom for me to deal with when I was, because I it came on. I started experiencing it really intensely when my children were little and I would have these dissociative experiences where something would trigger me and I would like scream Like I remember. I have one really terrible memory. Thankfully, I've done a lot of therapy to resolve this, but I was like I had my little boy when he was probably like 18 months old and I was like like screaming in his face.

Michelle Reittinger: 53:55

I was so out of control and those those experiences felt like out of body experiences. I felt like I was watching myself do these things. I didn't. I was totally dissociated from myself and I I went desperately to a therapist that I was seeing at the time like pleading for help and she told me I never went back to her after this, but she was like some women just aren't cut out to be moms. You need to put your kids in daycare and go, you know, go back to work. And I. I was like every part of my soul rejected that. I was like absolutely not, that is not the answer. God did not set me up to fail, like there is a way for me to do this, and but I felt really helpless in those experiences and I knew that I was being abusive to my children. At the same time, like I could not. I could not excuse what I was doing. There was nothing, and that was.

Michelle Reittinger: 54:44

Those kinds of experiences were the things that started, like moving me towards personal responsibility, because I thought I have got to find a way to stop doing that to my kids. This is abusive. I don't care if, if they tell me that I'm not responsible for it. I am abusing my children and that is not okay. So I've got to find a way to do something about this. Like this is not okay with me, yeah, and so I think that that's one of the things that is really detrimental to, because there's part of us that knows we're hurting other people, whether or not we consciously think it, whether or not we accept it. There is part of us that knows we're hurting other people, yeah, and it hurts us, like it. It damages our feelings of value. It makes us feel like terrible people, and I think that's where a lot of this anger and like defensiveness comes from, because they have to cling to this idea that they're not responsible because otherwise, like you, have to be responsible for all of it.

Michelle Reittinger: 55:34

You have accountability for everything and that that the weight of that experience going through the healing process with my kids, like I finally got to a point where I'm like I want to help you guys heal. You know, I got them set up with therapists and I went into some really uncomfortable therapy sessions where my kids were very honest about their feelings about things. It was not an easy thing to do. It was really painful because I didn't. I had to make sure that I sat there and listened and did not give any excuses, not offer any excuse for what I'd done and just say sorry, I am so sorry and I will wait for you to heal. Like I'm not going to try and force you to heal or forgive me or anything. I will prove to you that I can be stable and that I can be a good mom. You know a healthy mom I don't like the word good, but you know a healthy mother and be there for you in the way that you need me, that kind of thing.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 56:20

I want to point out can I just point this out real quick that not every person is willing to do what you did in a therapy session with your children. So if you're listening here and you're hoping that your mom or care provider will do that and they won't, that still doesn't eliminate your personal responsibility to heal on your own.

Dr Teralyn Sell: 56:45

Okay. So even if people still don't show up to you the way you want them showing up for you to help you with your childhood wounds because of their behavior or their mental health disorder and they don't that doesn't eliminate the idea that you still need to heal and find a path for your own healing and recovery. The responsibility there. So I just wanted to point that out because I know inevitably people will be like well, my mom will never come, so I'll never heal, and it's like but that's still let that personal responsibility is rolls downhill, doesn't it Like well, I had responsibility.

Michelle Reittinger: 57:16

It was interesting, cause when I, when you're going through the healing process, especially so the the, the way that you end up with diagnosis like bipolar disorder even schizophrenia is very frequently there's serious trauma in your past. Oh yeah, not always so I it's. That's the. That's the misunderstanding about bipolar. This disorder diagnosis lumps us all into the same category and makes everybody think they're suffering from the same thing, and that does terrible disservice to people in recovery because they think, well, you know, people will listen to my story and they're like, well, that's not my story. And I'm like, ok, yeah, but what is your story Like? If you figure out your story, let's figure out the sources of your symptoms. But as I was going through the healing process, the more it takes time to become personally accountable personally accountable, like it's. It is a process, because there are parts of us that we want to hold on to, like wounds that we want to kind of protect and hold on to and feel justified and just holding onto that there, right, um. But the thing that was interesting is, the more I would heal certain things, the more apparent the other wounds became, like those started to rise to the surface because everything else was resolved, and so then there's still these issues occurring and, um, and one of the one of the the wounding from childhood that became very obvious at one point was from a family member who had passed away. And there is, you know, not that you always can have resolution with people, cause there are people who will hurt you and don't care and they're never going to say, never going to say sorry. But I once I heard a person say one time that that trauma is a story and healing is a choice, and it was such a profound statement that I like wrote it down and put it up on my wall because I thought I don't want to live in the story anymore. I want to heal, I want to be healthy, I want to live a productive life, I want to be, you know, have healthy relationships with my husband and my children. So I am going to make the choice to heal, I am going to do whatever I have to do in order to heal, because I want to be a whole person, I want to be a healthy person and and I had some really interesting like I, when I went through the healing process with this person um, I had the thought one day, you know that I, I don't need. I don't need anything from them. I don't need them to talk to me about this, because the healing process actually really has nothing to do with them.

Michelle Reittinger: 59:35

You know, if you go, if you break a bone and you go to the hospital, the doctor might ask you what happened in order to assess the injury in the first place. But then you're not going to keep going over the accident. After that, you're going to focus on the injury. You're going to focus on moving forward, like, what do we need to do? We're going to have to, like, reset the bone and we're going to need to do this, and then we're going to do physical therapy later. But the focus is on the injury itself, not on the person or situation that caused the injury. And I'm not saying that you don't talk about those things as you're going through therapy, but it, if we become obsessive, focusing on the other person, we give them our power and we don't. It prevents healing. It can prevent us from moving forward and healing because we become so focused on something that we have no control over. Right?

Dr Teralyn Sell: 1:00:18

Yeah Well, I also want to point out that, in mental health world at least, if you break your arm, you can go get an x-ray to see where and why it's broken.

Michelle Reittinger: 1:00:27

That's true, yeah, very true. Yes, it's very hard to identify sources sometimes.

Jennifer Schmitz: 1:00:35

Well, I think we're probably at a good space here for wrapping up. We do have, before we do that, we've got a little disclaimer to read. I think we still are on the clock for this one, right, terry, that we can still report If you've been harmed by SSRIs or SNRI withdrawal. Your story matters. We're calling on you to submit experience to the FDA's MedWatch system and make it impossible for them to ignore us, right? So join us in submitting that story. You can go to antidepressantinfoorg backslash FDA. It will get you to the FDA reporting space on their website. So we're getting closer for that window. So get on there, guys, and please report. And Michelle, thank you for being on this show. It was so good to have you.

Michelle Reittinger: 1:01:23

Thank you so much for having me. This has been an awesome discussion, thank you.