When Trauma Looks Like Mental Illness with Michelle Reittinger

What if the mental health diagnosis you've been carrying isn't actually the answer you thought it was? What if the symptoms you've been told to manage for life could actually be healed at the root?

In this powerful conversation, I sit down with Michelle Rittenburg, number one bestselling author of The Upside of Bipolar and founder of Upsiders Tribe, to explore the complex intersection of trauma and mental health symptoms.

Michelle shares her raw journey from a narcissistic abusive first marriage that left her with unprocessed trauma she carried for 30 years. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 24 and told she had a permanent chemical imbalance requiring lifelong medication, Michelle spent over a decade on seven different psychiatric drugs, experienced multiple hospitalizations, and survived suicide attempts. She was told recovery wasn't possible.

But Michelle refused to accept that narrative.

In this episode, we dive deep into uncomfortable territory:

The moment Michelle realized traditional treatment wasn't working and why the "chemical imbalance" theory she'd built her life around wasn't supported by science

How unprocessed trauma from narcissistic abuse manifested as severe mood swings, depression, and what looked like mental illness

Why psychiatric diagnoses describe symptoms but don't identify underlying causes, and how this keeps people trapped in victimhood

Michelle's intense six-week EMDR therapy experience processing 30 years of repressed trauma, including her "day of rage" that signaled breakthrough

The difference between managing symptoms and actually healing at the root

Why we must learn to sit with uncomfortable emotions instead of pathologizing or avoiding them

How choosing your hard, doing the work, and looking at symptoms with curiosity instead of judgment creates true freedom

The critical role of community and tribe in the healing journey

This conversation will challenge everything you've been told about mental health, permanent diagnoses, and what's actually possible when you're willing to do the uncomfortable work of healing.

If you've been labeled, diagnosed, or told you're broken beyond repair, this episode is for you. Whether you're dealing with the aftermath of narcissistic abuse, struggling with mental health symptoms, or both, Michelle's message is clear: healing is possible, and you don't have to be a victim to your symptoms for the rest of your life.

Ready to do your own recovery work? Visit ThePassageToPeace.com to explore my coaching programs, P.E.A.C.E. Pockets Survival Sessions, and one-on-one coaching.

LINKS To Find Michelle:

Website: www.theupsideofbipolar.com 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theupsideofbipolar 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theupsideofbipolar 

Podcast: The Upside of Bipolar: Conversations on the Road to Wellness 

Book: The Upside of Bipolar: Seven Steps

Transcript

Marcia Williams: Today I'm talking with Michelle Rittenburg, number one bestselling author of The Upside of Bipolar, host of The Upside of Bipolar podcast, and founder of Upsiders Tribe. After her 1998 bipolar diagnosis and years of ineffective traditional treatments, Michelle discovered a research-based integrated path to full recovery. Now a dedicated coach and speaker, she helps others heal symptoms at the root and thrive, not just survive with bipolar.

What makes this conversation particularly powerful for those of you who are in the stages of healing from a narcissistic abusive relationship is that Michelle also healed from abuse in her first marriage. She understands the intersection of trauma and mental health symptoms, and her message about personal responsibility and actual healing parallels the work we do here. Michelle, welcome. I am so excited to speak with you today. How are you?

Michelle Rittenburg: I'm wonderful and I'm really thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation.

Marcia Williams: Absolutely. I truly am thankful for you returning the favor, so to speak, because you interviewed me on your podcast, The Upside of Bipolar, which was truly an incredible experience for me. So I feel honored to have you here on The Healing Lounge.

Michelle Rittenburg: I'm so happy to be here. And you were a fantastic guest. It was a wonderful episode. So thank you so much for that contribution.

Marcia Williams: Absolutely. You made it easy because you're so easy to talk to. And that's why I'm so excited that my viewers get a chance to hear from you from the perspective of narcissistic relationships and healing, going from surviving to thriving.

Michelle Rittenburg: Thank you so much for having me.

Marcia Williams: So Michelle, can you share with us, take us back to your marriage. When did you realize that you were in a narcissistic, abusive relationship?

Michelle Rittenburg: I don't think I actually realized that for years. I just realized that I couldn't handle it anymore. So I was married quite young, but that didn't seem unusual for anybody in my family because my mom got engaged at 18, married when she was 19, had me when she was 20. And so when I met my ex-husband, I was 19 years old and we had a very short courtship, which was not unusual in my religious culture. And he swept me off my feet. He was so handsome. I don't know if anybody remembers Rocky IV from back in the nineties, but he looked like Dolph Lundgren. And in fact, people commented on him all the time. He was six foot four, blonde hair, blue-eyed Adonis, just really handsome man. And he was very charismatic.

I remember when we had a family reunion when I was dating him and one of my cousins who was close to my age met him. He said, "How'd you get him?" And I'm like, wait a minute, I'm your cousin. You're supposed to think I'm great. But it was true. Everybody was just so in awe of him. He was handsome. He was smart. He was athletic. He kind of had the whole package. And growing up, I had like a checklist of these are the qualities that I'm looking for in a husband. And he checked all the boxes.

And so we got married and about two weeks after we got married was the first time the abuse began. It started with him just casually making comments. The first thing he said to me was, I was doing the dishes in the kitchen and he walked in and he said, "Have you ever thought about divorce?" And it felt like a smack. I was so shocked by the comment. It was so out of the blue and so unexpected and painful for me because I thought, why is he thinking about divorce? What am I doing wrong? I immediately went to what did I do wrong. And he just kind of brushed it off. I started to cry and he's like, stop crying, it's okay. I was just thinking out loud. But then he started making comments like that. And so it all started with just kind of off-handed comments that felt like getting hit. And I'm not saying that to diminish what somebody experiences when they're hit physically, but it's the same kind of effect on us emotionally when somebody says these things, because it rips the rug out from under your feet, makes you feel unstable and it makes you feel insecure.

And I had had pretty severe bullying from fourth grade all the way through eighth grade. And so I was kind of primed to believe there was something wrong with me. And I've heard people say that narcissists are able to kind of hone in on that kind of person. I don't know if that's true or not in this situation. I was fairly confident at the time that he met me. I was a competitive swimmer. I was in really good shape. I was happy in my life. But I was very rapidly becoming very insecure in my marriage.

And he made a comment to me one time pretty early in our relationship that I wasn't his type. And he went on to describe his type. And it was completely the opposite of me. I'm tall, thin, athletic, short blonde hair. And he was describing this voluptuous, large breasted, long, dark hair, everything that I wasn't. And I couldn't change those things about myself. There wasn't any way for me to change how I looked to be his type.

And then he got into pornography and that's when sexual abuse started in our relationship. And I didn't understand what was happening to me. I kept looking to myself thinking there was something wrong with me. And if I could just be different, that he would love me. And so I kept trying to change myself to please him.

And about 10 months into our relationship, he decided one day he didn't want to be married to me anymore. And I talk about this in my book because my diagnosis later on actually is rooted in this trauma that was unprocessed. And so we were separated for like a couple of weeks. And then he apologized and we got back together. We were only together probably six more months after that. And I got to a point where I didn't want to dress in front of him. I didn't feel safe with him anymore. I didn't want to get changed in front of him.

And I became afraid of having children with him because I thought if he treats me this way, what's he going to do to my children? And I had an experience when I was young that made me feel connected to my future children. And so I had this emotional connection to these children and I was afraid for them. And that was what actually gave me the strength to leave because I thought I can't have kids with him because I will be responsible for what he does to them. I wasn't calling it abuse. I didn't have any language for it at the time, but I didn't want my children to be treated the way I was being treated. And that's what gave me the strength to leave.

But I did not want to ever talk to anybody. I carried tremendous shame and tremendous guilt from the things that had happened to me in my marriage. And I didn't want to talk to anybody about it. So I did not seek counseling. My parents had encouraged me to go to like a support group. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't want that to be who I was. I didn't want to be the divorce person. So I just buried it. And I just tried to go on about my life, but you cannot escape that kind of wounding.

And so it started manifesting in mental health symptoms for me. I started going through periods of pretty severe depression. I have a really clear memory of, I moved to a different state and went to a university in another state. And I had one night when I was trying to study for a test and I couldn't focus and I just picked up my book bag and I was walking on campus in the dark and I just started to sob like heart wrench, the heaving kind of sobs. And I was walking across campus in the dark bawling and I felt so alone and so empty and worthless.

And I didn't know who to talk to about it because I didn't truly understand what was wrong with me. I didn't understand that this was all rooted in that unprocessed trauma. I just was so depressed and so unhappy in my life. And then I would go through periods where I would be like elevated and animated and my brain would be on fire with what I was going to do to change my life, to make my life worthwhile. And I would go through these periods where I was talking a mile a minute and I would tell everybody my new plans and I would have this, I was going to work in the foreign service and live in Russia and speak Russian. Then the next time I was going to be a math teacher and I was going to teach at a university. And then the next time I was going to go to China and work in the foreign service in China. And then I would crash and get depressed and not go to class and kind of hide from the world. And then I would get animated again and I'd have a whole new life plan.

And so looking back now I can understand, I have so much compassion for my younger self. I was trying so hard to just be normal. I was trying so hard just to have a normal life. But it's like somebody that was trying to run a marathon with a broken leg. I was so deeply wounded and I didn't actually even process that trauma for like 30 years. I kept developing all of these coping mechanisms.

And I kept going to therapy to deal with the coping mechanisms. And I blamed myself for the coping mechanisms. I'm like, I just don't have any self-discipline. I just need to work harder. I developed, and this might sound like a really weak sauce kind of thing, thankfully I didn't ever get into drugs or alcohol because I'm confident I would become an alcoholic or an addict. But my escape was television and I would binge watch. I'm not talking about like this weekend we're going to binge watch eight episodes. I'm talking about binge watching 18 seasons, 22 episodes every season, of Law and Order SVU nonstop.

Marcia Williams: Wait, I thought you said 18 episodes. You said 18 seasons.

Michelle Rittenburg: No, 18 seasons. This is dysfunctional in my life. I would go through these periods of depression and my escape was binge watching. And so it was from the time I got up in the morning, I would stay up late into the nights. My life was not functioning when I was going through these periods of coping. And then I would get through it. And then I would get back into my life. And then I would do it again.

And so I went to addiction recovery programs. I was trying to figure out, because I thought I have an addiction to television. That's the way my brain saw it. And it wasn't until, I don't know, probably like four years ago I think was when I had this experience. I was kind of succumbing to this struggle and went to my therapist and I was so frustrated because it had been a long time since I had binge watched.

And I went to my therapist and I'm like, I don't know what's the matter with me. And I'm doing this again. I haven't done it for a few years. And she asked me the question, "What need are you trying to fill? What need are you trying to meet?" And at first when she said that, I was like, what are you talking about? I have an addiction. And she's like, "What need are you trying to meet with this television?"

And that session was like a huge breakthrough for me because it was the first time that I started understanding what this was. It was a coping mechanism that I was using to try and numb the pain that had not been processed. And when I finally started understanding this, I had an experience in a marriage counseling session, like probably a year later, when it became really clear that my unprocessed trauma from my first marriage was still impacting my life. And that's when I got the courage to go in and actually process the trauma. And it was a very painful experience because I did it through EMDR. I had used EMDR for, I would call them small T traumas. So I had done EMDR where it was like one session.

Marcia Williams: Why do you say painful?

Michelle Rittenburg: For example, my therapist used EMDR to help me process some trauma from an auto accident. I was in the driver's seat with two of my nephews and my little girl in the car and saw a car approaching us. We were stopped waiting to turn and I could see the car was not slowing down. So I watched the car hit us and I felt, I remember all these feelings of feeling scared and vulnerable and my inability to protect my children, the children in my car, all of these things.

So I used EMDR to process the trauma from that accident. So that was a one session EMDR thing and it resolved the experience. Which is why I'm saying like small T trauma, this was a small T type trauma that was able to be resolved in one session. So when I went into my therapist, I'm like, all right, we got to get to work. I got to process this trauma from my first marriage. She's recommending we use EMDR, I'm like, absolutely, let's do it. And I'm thinking one, maybe two sessions is what my brain is thinking because that's what my experience was in the past.

I was not prepared at all for what I was about to unleash in myself because I had 30 years of repressed memory and experience and all of this coping and everything that had compounded the trauma that I was about to open up again. It was like a Pandora's box for me. And so when I went in for my first session with her, I'd been seeing her, I had an established relationship with a therapist, a really trusting relationship. I'd been seeing her for a couple of years at this point. And so that first session, we started processing the trauma. And when it was over, I felt like I have never felt that exhausted ever after a therapy session. I felt like I'd run a marathon during the session. I was so physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted. And I almost couldn't articulate what I was feeling.

And she asked me, "How are you doing?" And I'm like, I am so tired right now. And she said, "Well, what are you going to do right now?" She's trying to prompt me to like, okay, we just opened up a bunch of trauma. What are we going to do with this? And I said, I just want to go home and watch TV. I want to go watch a movie, which is my coping mechanism, my go-to. And she said, actually, I think that's a good idea.

So I drove home, but by the time I got home, I was so tired. I didn't even want to, that idea of doing that was not appealing anymore. And that evening, all of this stuff started coming up and I felt like it was the most dissociating experience I've ever had. I felt like I was that 19 year old girl in that abusive relationship. I could see logically, the upper part of my brain could see that I was safe, that I was not in that situation anymore, but I felt all of the feelings that I experienced back then. And I kept going to my husband crying and he didn't know what to do to help me. And I didn't know what to do to ask because I didn't even understand what was happening to me. And I ended up spending the night on the floor in the fetal position in a spare room in our house, sobbing the whole night.

And I sent a message to my therapist the next day. I'm like, I don't know what's happening to me. I don't understand what's going on. I need help. And she got me in on that next Monday. This was a Friday. So Monday. That weekend was rough. And we ended up doing two sessions a week for six weeks to get through this.

So one of the things that was positive though about this experience was even though it was extremely painful because I had to kind of relive what I went through, I had done enough therapy up to that point that I knew how to give myself space when I was trying to process things. And so my husband, when I had gone to him that first night, he kept trying to say, "You're safe, you're okay." He was trying to comfort me, but that wasn't helping me. And so what I told him, because I thought he wants to help, tell him what to do. And I thought, okay, what could he do?

And I said, when that's happening to me, I didn't know how long it was going to take, but I said, if that happens again, I just need you to hold me. Please do not say anything. Don't try to fix it. I just need to be held so that I feel the safety of you holding me while I cry. I have to experience these emotions. And so I just need to feel safe. So if you can just hold me when that happens. And thankfully he was willing to do that for me.

But I also had times when I started recognizing, I've got to talk about this, but I didn't want to talk about it to my husband. I didn't really like talking about it at all. But that's one of the reasons why I didn't go to therapy in the first place. It was so humiliating to me, but I had somebody that I knew that was close to me who had been through abuse before. And she was willing to let me just talk. And I just talked, I just told her all the things that my brain was thinking and all of the anger that I felt and all of the hurt.

And I thought, okay, sometimes I don't want to do that. So I kept looking for, okay, what else can I do? Because I need to help my brain process this. And so I also did a lot of journaling and I even did some voice recording, just talking to myself. So I would go on a drive and I would just park somewhere and turn on the voice memo. And the reason I did the voice memo is it felt a little bit weird to just be talking to the ether. So talking into a recording felt like I was talking to somebody, but I could delete the recordings. Nobody ever had to hear it. So I could talk about the things that I didn't even want to share with this friend. There were things that I didn't want to talk to anybody about, but I needed to talk about it.

And it all culminated after six weeks. I had this, I call it the day of rage. I had this day where I was so filled with rage that I felt like it was coming out of my fingertips. I don't even know how to describe the experience that I had, but I didn't want to be around anybody during that because I thought I am going to be so mean today if I say anything. And I didn't trust myself not to react to people or not to say anything. And so I just avoided everybody that day. And I ironically had a marriage counseling session that day. And I think I said like six words. I was like, I don't want to talk, your turn. And that's all I said. I just kept my mouth shut and let him talk that whole session. I didn't want to talk at all because I was again, I'm going to say mean things that I don't mean today because I am so angry. I don't even know what's the matter with me.

But the next morning I woke up and I was so filled with peace. And I thought, what is wrong with me today? And I didn't really even trust it because I had kind of gone through this roller coaster of emotions over the previous six weeks where some days I was like, okay, a little bit. But I was never totally okay, but I had days when I was kind of okay, and then days when I was like a mess. And so I thought, okay, maybe this is just a little calm in the storm. And I felt so light and relief that I wanted to be around somebody, which is totally the opposite of the day before.

So I called my sister-in-law and asked if my nephew was home and could we go to the park? I just went to the park with them and I just needed to be outside. I wanted to be in the sunshine. I wanted to feel the sun on my face because I was thinking this is a short reprieve and I want to take advantage of it. And I had a therapy session that day and I was on my way to the therapy session. I was nervous because I'm like, I was trying to think about the things we had been working on. There were specific experiences in the marriage that we had been processing. And I was trying to prepare myself because I was thinking, I'm going back into the darkness. But every time I would gently approach the thoughts of these experiences, there was no emotion there. I felt really detached from them. I'm like, that's interesting.

So I walked into my therapist and the very first thing I said was, I had the worst day yesterday. It was like a day of rage. And she was like, I am so happy. And I'm like, what? What are you talking about? You're happy. I'm like, it was awful. And she said, "Usually that's what happens right before you're done." And we did EMDR that day and there was just nothing. In fact, we went, there was one specific experience that was so filled with shame and pain and hurt. And when she had me approach that experience, I was like, I would never let him do that to me. I would say, no, you don't do that to me. And I would walk out. I was full of indignation. You don't do that to me. I don't deserve that. How could you treat somebody like that? And that's how all of it was. I had compassion for myself in that younger space and no emotional attachment to those things anymore. And I got to this point where I would never let anybody do those things to me again.

And you want to know something interesting. I spent years in therapy trying to overcome this television addiction and it has never been a problem for me since. Once we resolved the underlying issue, the coping mechanism was no longer needed and I never did it again.

Marcia Williams: That is amazing. And I have to for our viewers, in case someone is hearing the acronym EMDR for the first time, because you are tying it to what helped you along your journey and led you to releasing the pain that your younger self experienced and being able to reach back and have compassion for her. So EMDR, eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. And I have many clients who have experienced that. But the way you described it, it seems like it had quite the immediate impact or result for you. Whereas I've also had clients who've had five and six sessions and not really feeling much different. So I know it depends on the clinician who is administering it, and it also depends on your readiness.

Michelle Rittenburg: Absolutely. Well, and I will say this. I had tried therapy lots of times over the years and I'm not a fan of talk therapy and this is not a bag on talk therapists, but if you have serious unhealed trauma in your past, talk therapy is never going to get you there. You can talk and talk and talk logically, but you're staying in the upper part of your brain where your logic resides. You are not getting down into the lower part of your brain where the trauma is existing. And I felt worse after sessions when I was going to talk therapists because I just kept talking about it and I was getting to a point like, I don't want to talk about this anymore. I don't want this to obsess my mind.

So I started learning because I kept going back to therapy because I'm like, I think there's some value here somewhere, but I don't know how to find it. And it took some time for me to figure out how do I approach therapy in a proactive way? How do I approach it in a way where I am taking responsibility for myself? Because we have a tendency to look at therapists as the expert. We live in a society where it's always trust the expert. And so we look at therapists as the expert. And if it doesn't work, we think there's something wrong with us. Because they're an expert and they must know what they're doing and I'm not doing this right. Or I'm just not a good candidate for therapy or whatever.

So if somebody has gone to therapy and if you've tried EMDR and it didn't work for you, don't give up because that just means that's not the right modality for you. There's a lot of different trauma informed modalities that help you approach trauma in different ways, but they help you get into the lower part of your brain where that trauma is living and address it, process it. One that I know has done actually, they call it IFS. So internal family systems informed EMDR, where they combine two modalities. And it has been really phenomenal because this person has trauma in their childhood that they don't recall. They know that the trauma is there, but they have huge swaths of their childhood that they don't recall. They don't remember because, which is what trauma does. When you have serious trauma in your childhood, you often don't remember it. Your brain protects you by not letting you remember it, but you're dealing with all the effects of the trauma. You just don't remember the trauma.

And so I think that it's really important to remember a therapist is a facilitator and you need to find a competent facilitator. And you need to feel connected and safe with them, number one, that is essential. And you need to find somebody that is competent in the modality that you need. And so I encourage people to learn about different trauma informed modalities. IFS and ACT, EMDR obviously, rapid resolution therapy is another one, but there are trauma informed therapies that can help you get down into that lower part of your brain and actually access the trauma and process it so that you resolve the trauma instead of just talking about it over and over again.

Marcia Williams: And you're emphasizing the work of therapy and it's not just about talking about it once a week or twice a week. It's more so about what you're doing in between those therapy sessions. Do your homework. And whether you do the homework or not, I always say is an indication of your readiness. And if you're avoiding it and you'd rather binge Netflix, then there's a reason for that. And so there's always a reason for why we do or don't do something that we know may potentially help us. And we have to be aware of what's going on with us, which you've been talking about as well. And you specifically said you have to relive what you went through.

Michelle Rittenburg: I did. That's what EMDR does. I have heard, I interviewed, I think it's Dr. John Connolly, he's the founder of rapid resolution therapy. And he says that you don't always have to relive the trauma. I am not an expert on all therapy modalities and how you experience and heal trauma. I do know that I am a big fan of somatic therapies, so like yoga. Yoga can be a very powerful therapy modality to help heal and release unhealed trauma. But I think the most important thing is, I heard this one time, I wish that I could remember who said it because I would like to give them credit. It was a woman. But she said that trauma is a story and healing is a choice. And that was one of the most powerful statements for me because I realized we can keep telling ourselves the story over and over again, but that doesn't help us heal and we have to choose to heal. It's a choice to heal. It's a choice to release the pain and release the trauma and be willing to walk through.

And I always tell people, choose your hard. Living with unhealed trauma is very hard. Your life is already really hard. And so do you want to stay in the hard that's going to keep you stuck or are you willing to do the hard that's going to lead to healing? And I am here to tell you, the day that I drove home from that last session with my therapist after I was done with that trauma processing, I was mad at myself for taking so long to do it. It was painful and it was difficult. But when it was over, it was so worth it. And I'm like, why did I wait so long to do this? Why was I so afraid of this? Because I had lived with the aftermath, and I had lived with the coping mechanisms and all of the difficulty that I had developed to try and cope with that unprocessed trauma for like 30 years. I'm not a fan of looking backwards, but I am saying, learn from somebody else. Just get brave and do it because your life can be so much better if you're willing to just go forward with trust and faith that there's something better for me ahead if I'm willing to walk through this challenging healing process.

Marcia Williams: And I want to make sure everyone heard you clearly because it was profound what you said. Choose your hard. Which is similar to what I say and what many people say. Do the hard things. And the way you described it, what you're going through now is hard, what you've been through was hard. Choose your hard. I love that. Now let's talk about where your passion for healing and helping others heal from bipolar came from. Back in college, you were talking about the depression to the mania.

Michelle Rittenburg: Well, and so I want to preface this by making sure people understand. When I say that I'm not a fan of the diagnosis bipolar disorder, I am not a fan of that diagnosis anymore. I use that language because it's common language and people understand what I'm talking about. So I will continue to use that language, but in my coaching program, for example, we don't talk about bipolar disorder. We talk about bipolar symptoms. I am not saying that the symptoms aren't real. I know firsthand that they're very real. The symptoms are very real. They're very distressing, but the diagnosis itself creates a problem for us because it ends curiosity into the source of the symptoms. We believe that we have been given an answer as to why we are experiencing those symptoms. And that's what happened to me.

So when I was in college, the experience that I related of walking on campus and sobbing, that was about two and a half years before I graduated. I took five years to get through college because of the disruption in my life. But I was in that third year and the following two years, my mood swings became more and more erratic and my parents were in a different state and they would hear from me every day for a couple of weeks with all my big ideas. And then all of a sudden I would just drop off the face of the map. They wouldn't hear from me for a few weeks. And then the next time they heard from me, I had a completely different life plan.

I had one semester where I changed my major six times in one semester. I was just becoming more and more and more emotionally erratic. And they were really worried. And I had an aunt and uncle who lived locally, and I worked for my uncle, and he was watching firsthand what I was going through. And I was encouraged to go to a psychiatrist to look for some help.

And when I went to the psychiatrist, I was initially diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorders and put on an antidepressant. And then I ramped up into mania and they said, oops, we've misdiagnosed you. And then they changed my diagnosis to bipolar II and put me on mood stabilizers. And I thought I was being given an answer as to why I was experiencing these symptoms. So I stopped looking for the answer.

I stopped being curious about why I was experiencing symptoms because I was told bipolar was a chemical imbalance. That it was like having diabetes and the medication was like insulin. And so I believed that that diagnosis itself was an answer. I now understand that the diagnosis is not identifying an etiology. It does not identify an underlying condition or disease. It is only identifying a cluster of symptoms. All it does, it is not an answer, it is a description. It is describing what you're going through. So it would be like somebody who was running persistent fevers, going to the doctor and being diagnosed with fever disorder. That's as much of an answer as you're getting. All they're doing is saying, we observed these symptoms, so we're going to label you with these symptoms.

Marcia Williams: Can you correlate this to your marriage or relationship?

Michelle Rittenburg: Absolutely. Because now I know. So the reason I'm saying it ends curiosity is what should have happened in that initial intake. So when you go in for an intake with a psychiatrist, nobody asked me about my history of trauma. Nobody asked me about my marriage. Nobody asked me about any of those things. None of that was in question or asked. That kind of history wasn't given. The only information I was providing were symptoms. That's it. Pages and pages and pages of them. I had pages of symptoms. I was asked, do you experience this and how many times a week do you experience this?

But now that I understand what to look for, now that I know how to look at symptoms with curiosity, I can look back very clearly and see the sources of my symptoms. And I had serious unhealed trauma that had been suppressed and was manifesting in emotional instability. I was going through deep grief and mourning and shame and humiliation and everything that was being suppressed that was manifesting in depression. And then this striving that was manifesting in hypomania symptoms, striving to make something of myself, striving to feel worthy, striving to look worthy to the world. So I was going through these emotionally erratic swings that were the result of, well, a couple of things, but one of the main sources was this unhealed trauma.

And I was a college student who was living on potatoes and peanut butter sandwiches. And so I was getting almost no nutrition and my brain was not getting what it needed to function in a healthy way. So I can look at it very clearly and see, well, of course I had these symptoms. Of course I had them because I had serious trauma that hadn't been processed or dealt with. And I had micronutrient insufficiency, my brain wasn't functioning in a healthy way, could not handle the stress I was under. And so I ended up with serious emotional dysregulation.

And it got compounded when I was diagnosed because I stopped looking for answers and believed that I was broken. And that made things worse. And it took years to undo all of that. It took so many years to kind of undo all the layers because on top of that, I started developing unhealthy coping mechanisms. TV was just one of them. So you develop coping mechanisms because your brain is designed to protect you and it doesn't always do its job in a healthy way, but it's trying to, it's trying to keep you safe. And so it's looking for ways to help you. And so it just layered all of these issues on top of each other.

And it took a long time. It took me about 15 years to go through the healing process, not because it had to take that long, but because I didn't really understand what I was doing. I was just looking for stuff on my own. If I had somebody to guide me through the process, it would never have taken me that long. But I was just desperately trying to find a way to manage this on my own.

Marcia Williams: And earlier when you were talking about your marriage and you said you didn't have the language. So, and on top of not having the language, you do have the shame, the embarrassment, the guilt, the self doubt and all of these things. And you walk into the doctor's office, give them a list of symptoms and they say, you have this. But because you don't have the language in the first place and they don't even ask you about any surrounding environmental, relational issues that naturally would impact your symptoms, naturally you get misdiagnosed.

Michelle Rittenburg: Well, and I'm going to push back a little bit on the idea of misdiagnosis because that infers that there is an accurate diagnosis. And the problem that I have with that is that, I don't think that there is an exception to this, almost without exception, there are no DSM diagnoses that have identified underlying etiologies. We have not identified underlying diseases. They are only based on clusters of symptoms. And the problem with that is that you could have five people all diagnosed with major depressive disorder. And because they all have that diagnosis, they all think they have the same thing. And the problem is that one person might be depressed because they're micronutrient insufficient. And another person might be depressed because they've got serious trauma that's been unprocessed. Another person might be depressed because they're unfulfilled in their life. There are all these other things that are going on and we stopped looking for the answers because we think we've been given an answer by this diagnosis.

And so what I would actually say is what should have happened when I went into the psychiatrist is they should have asked me, tell me about your life. Tell me about your history because truly what was happening to me was a normal emotional reaction to a very serious situation. We have pathologized depression and pathologized anxiety instead of recognizing that they're doing their job.

Anxiety is a fight or flight response. And sometimes it misbehaves. You can end up with anxiety because your brain isn't getting what it needs to function in a healthy way. But most of the time, especially if somebody has unhealed trauma, that anxiety is your brain trying to protect you. It has experienced serious trauma and it is looking for danger. Now it is on high alert looking for danger. Your cortisol levels can be off, out of balance for years at a time. And so there's all these different biological things that can be happening. And instead of shutting off the fire alarm, we need to look for the answer. Where's the fire? What is the fire that's causing these symptoms to occur? Why is there smoke? Instead of labeling you with smoke disorder. Smoke comes from a fire. Where is the source?

And so if you have experienced abuse, it is very easy for us to believe we're broken. It's so easy for us to believe we're broken. So we go to the psychiatrist and they're like, you've got a chemical imbalance and it's called bipolar disorder. And you're like, okay. I believed him and I thought that explains why I have all of these things. Instead, which is why it took, I think that's part of the reason why it took 30 years for me to go process the trauma, because I did not know that all of these things that I was struggling with were not some kind of disorder. They were my brain and my body's way of reacting to trauma.

Marcia Williams: And which is so important what you're sharing because the more we understand about how our brain functions, for example, what you shared about anxiety, anxiety is not a bad thing. It's not something that should be snuffed out or numbed or dulled. Now it may need to be managed, but we first have to understand why are we dysregulated? What's causing dysregulation from our environment? But then we are so good at surviving off of cortisol for years at a time, like you said, which is not what cortisol is meant to do. So there you have dysregulation in and of itself that it becomes normal. This way of functioning becomes normal. And so our nervous system adapts in an unhealthy way, but to us it's survival and it's what we need. And then when we try to transition through the healing journey. Let's say we leave the narcissistic or abusive relationship. When we leave that toxic environment, we're oftentimes not taking into account that our brain, our nervous system has learned how to function in that environment. It doesn't just say, different environment, we don't have to do all this anymore. No, it sticks right with us, which is why we end up in another dysfunctional relationship because that's what our nervous system is used to and comfortable with.

Michelle Rittenburg: Well, and the other thing that is interesting, we actually just in my coaching program had this conversation the other night in our weekly coaching session, because we call these symptoms disorder, everything gets lumped into that bucket and we don't recognize the individual issues. We don't recognize what each of the things is saying to us.

And one of the things I do in my coaching program is I teach what we call them habits for healing because your brain has very well worn ruts that it lives in. And especially when you have well worn ruts, like on a dirt road where you've had a car driving down and down and you've got these well worn ruts and it's hard to get out of them. Because your brain's like, this is where we're supposed to go. And so your brain developed habits. It thinks it sees this is the stimulus. This is how I respond to it.

Marcia Williams: I also call that, what you're saying is the same thing, but our brain is wired.

Michelle Rittenburg: And so we have to retrain our brain. We have to do it through habits. We have to introduce new habits and we work on one habit at a time. And you just have to keep working on it until you're able to shift the wheels out of those ruts and help your brain come up with a new way of responding to things. And part of that is self-awareness, becoming aware.

One of the things I do at the very beginning, the very first module in my program is called the mood cycle survival guide. It's something I developed for myself when I had this realization one day, nobody's coming to save you. You've got to find a way to save yourself. And I started developing this plan for how to be more proactive about being aware of, and then managing the symptoms I was struggling with.

And we in our program also talk about looking at symptoms with curiosity over judgment. Because when we're constantly judging these symptoms that we're struggling with, judging ourselves, judging the symptoms, judging the behaviors, it prevents us from looking for the source. It prevents us from looking with curiosity and thinking, hmm, that's interesting. For example, with my therapist, when she said, "What need are you trying to meet?" That was the very first time that I looked with any kind of curiosity at that symptom. Why am I doing that? What's driving me to that? What's the source? What's going on that this has developed, my brain has decided this is how I cope with something. What is it that I'm trying to cope with?

And then the more self-awareness you have about the individual symptoms and looking for the source of them, then you can start treating the source. Then you can start getting down to the root of the problem and addressing the root in a way that actually leads to healing. It is so powerful when in my group, when people shift their thinking from disorder to symptoms, and then looking at the symptoms with curiosity instead of judgment, how that empowers them. They start feeling like, maybe I can do something about it. Maybe I'm not a victim to this. Maybe I don't have to live like this for the rest of my life.

Marcia Williams: That is extremely empowering. And I'm so glad that we're emphasizing that you do have to get to the source. And naturally, so many of my clients say, how do you make this stop? How do you make this feeling go away? I just want to feel better. I just want to be able to move on. So then we talk about the trauma bond, but even the trauma bond is not focused on your current situation or recent relationship with the narcissist. You have to go back. And in my five stages of healing that I created based on my experience, stage three is alchemy of wounds. You literally have to get to the root. You have to, or else we will always be trying to fill the void externally. We end up assigning someone outside of ourselves to make us feel better, to fill the void. And that's where we either become or we continue the victimization cycle or the victimhood mentality because we're not getting to the source. We're just carrying it with us from relationship to relationship.

Michelle Rittenburg: And one of the other things is we have, because we've pathologized these emotions and these emotional responses, we don't want to feel them. We want to avoid them. Feelings and emotions are information. It's your brain just trying to give you information. And I always talk about it like a toddler. If a toddler comes to you and they're trying to talk to you and you're trying to shush them, they're not going to be quiet. They're just going to get louder and they'll keep getting louder because they're trying to get your attention.

It's the same thing for emotions. You can try to avoid them or you can try to change them, but they're just trying to deliver information. And if we don't allow it to deliver the information, they will get more intense. And that's why it's so important to stop. It's really hard for us in our society. There's a lot of, and I don't like to call it toxic positivity. I think that there's a reason why we're drawn to the sunshine. We're not necessarily drawn to cloudy days. We love when the sun comes out, it feels good to us. We like feeling happy, we like feeling joyful, we like feeling relaxed. We like those feelings. But we don't know how to stay present with discomforting, uncomfortable feelings and uncomfortable emotions.

And the problem that presents is especially when you are deciding to get the courage up to go through the healing process. You have to learn how to stay present with the uncomfortable emotions. The experience that I had when I went through the trauma processing from my first marriage, the first night it was so disorienting. I couldn't, I just was trying to survive the night. But after that, I was like, okay, I know I have to experience these. And the reason why I was ready, I had done enough therapy in the past to see the value in processing trauma.

We end up with layers and layers and layers of issues. And sometimes it takes time to kind of peel back the layers so that you can get down to the big problems below. But there is tremendous value in that process of digging down, because if you can learn how to stay present with uncomfortable emotions, that's one of the reasons why mindfulness meditation is such a powerful tool. That's one of the steps in my program.

Learning how to stay present with uncomfortable emotions is so empowering. And when we learn to stop judging those uncomfortable emotions as bad, anger is not bad. Anger is just an emotion. What we choose to do with the anger can be bad. We can choose to act in ways that are bad because we feel angry. But the emotion itself is not bad and learning how to stay present with anger, learning how to stay present with sadness, learning how to stay present with grief. A lot of times it will just deliver the information. Once we learn how to do that, it will deliver its information and then it will go because it's done. It's done its job. You give the toddler what it needs. It needs a little bit of attention and they get quiet and then they go off and play in the corner by themselves. They're all done.

Marcia Williams: And this is hugely important because I always talk about how anger can be your motivator. It can motivate you. I also always talk about how we usually need a rock bottom moment or experience in order to move forward. Because otherwise we're back to our nervous system and our brain functioning in the chaos and the dysfunction, helping us get up every day and do what we need to do. So I'm so glad that you emphasize that all feelings are necessary to sit in, to sit with, to listen to, to learn from, and anger, anxiety, frustration, fear, they're all valid and like you said, it's what we do with it.

And I can tell you I did both. I did the good and the bad with my anger because you talked about this in your therapy session that you could feel the anger in your fingertips and you were so angry that you only said six words. Well, I was the opposite. I was so angry, I yelled at the top of my lungs for the whole 60 minutes of the couples counseling session that we were in. I was finally, my anger was freeing me. It was literally freeing me and I had stuffed it and suppressed it and tried to ignore it for so long that when it saw the opening of the light of day, it was like whoosh and it revealed itself in a way that it was going to be the only way I was going to allow it to.

But even though it was in couples therapy with a therapist who immediately said, "Mrs. Williams, I think you might need to take some of these issues to an individual therapist so you can do some deep diving." He was like, whoa, lady. And he was right. But because it was couples therapy, I just opened myself up to the narcissist to say, you see what I'm dealing with doc? Do you see this craziness? I don't even know what she's talking about. So I just exposed myself or gave the narcissist, my ex something to again, make me the problem.

So the journaling you also talked about, the voice recording, I love that you shared that too, because not everybody is a writer. Not everybody is going to look for the time to sit down. They may not have it with the children, with the job and this and that, but in the car, how many of us are commuting? In the car with that voice recorder, I love that you shared that. I have a lot of clients that do that and I encourage that so much.

I am also really thankful that you brought up mental illness, brought up your bipolar symptoms. Thank you so much for that clarification. Because I love it. It is freeing to not feel like you are diagnosed with something that, and it doesn't mean you don't have bipolar disorder. Is that safe to say? I know you don't like that word.

Michelle Rittenburg: So here's the challenge. Bipolar disorder diagnosis does not identify an underlying etiology. There has never been an underlying disease identified as bipolar disorder. That's why when we go in for a diagnosis, they don't do brain scans and they don't do blood work. They are taking a list of symptoms, looking at the list of symptoms and deciding which category you fit into. And that's why the same person could go to five different psychiatrists and end up with five different diagnoses because there's not an underlying disease called bipolar disorder.

So I feel like the reason why I make this distinction is that the symptoms are very real. The symptoms people experience, and you can have people that have these symptoms that don't have trauma. That doesn't mean that they really have bipolar disorder. It just means they have different sources of their symptoms. The value in understanding that is that you don't have to be a victim to those symptoms for the rest of your life. Understanding that these symptoms, they're very real, but they actually have sources that can be identified and treated means that there's hope for recovery, means that there's hope for healing.

I have completely recovered. For 12 years, I was in psychiatric treatment. And it started about three years after my divorce and the symptoms and the diagnosis and everything. I just kept getting worse because I ended up with iatrogenic harm on top of everything. And I ended up hospitalized four different times. I made attempts on my life. They did electric convulsive therapy on me, which some people call it shock treatment. I felt very hopeless. And because I believed I had been given an answer and that this was an incurable condition, I didn't feel like there was hope for my life because nothing was getting better. It was just getting worse.

But the incredible truth and hope is that you can identify the underlying sources of those symptoms. And there are research-based treatments that can help you treat the underlying sources so that you can resolve them and heal. And I have completely recovered. I don't experience these symptoms anymore.

Marcia Williams: That is hugely inspiring. And I'm so glad that you are shedding light and helping people to look at their symptoms differently, not as a life sentence, but more so as a starting point on a roadmap to being healed for those symptoms to no longer be present. It is possible. And that is the healing journey, in essence, whether it's narcissistic abuse or bipolar symptoms or anxiety and all of these things, as long as we are willing to do the work, willing to do the hard thing, which is to face those unresolved issues that we've spent years avoiding. There is hope for freedom, peace, releasing and moving forward in a healthy way.

So I really appreciate you coming here. And this is for everyone who feels or fears there's something wrong with them. So whether it's you believe that it's bipolar symptoms or depressive symptoms or anxiety or OCD, whatever it is, it's not about the diagnosis. It's about the experiences that gave your brain and nervous system a signal that said, hey, we got to do something about this. And they go into overdrive and we may no longer need those survival coping skills, but we realized that our brain didn't get the memo.

So thank you so, so much. You've mentioned your coaching group and I am positive after people hear how inspiring you are and how much knowledge you have to share and how many people you're helping, tell us about your coaching group.

Michelle Rittenburg: It's called the Upsiders Tribe. And the tribe program is based on my book. I have a book called The Upside of Bipolar: Seven Steps to Heal Your Disorder, which is designed kind of like a self-help book. And it walks people through the tools and the research that led to my healing and recovery, and is also leading to other people's healing and recovery.

And in the group, we work on modules. It's set up with self-paced modules that people work through that help them to develop these habits for healing that I talked about that are outlined in my book. And they get individual coaching once a month from me. And then every week we have a group coaching session called the tribe zoom and everybody gets on and they talk about how they're doing. And it's truly powerful because we've got all these people who are going through similar things who understand each other, can talk openly about these things with no shame and get tremendous encouragement. It's a place to be accountable, to get guidance and direction in how to apply these tools in a way that are going to actually lead to healing and recovery.

So I feel very honored to be able to work with people through this process. I am providing what I wish somebody had given me. It took me 15 years to go through recovery and I'm trying to shorten the learning curve for everybody else.

Marcia Williams: That is our mission that you and I share. Now, just for clarification, is your coaching program and services directly related to people who believe they are experiencing bipolar symptoms?

Michelle Rittenburg: No, in fact, it's interesting. Most recently I've had people join, one person had an appointment to go get diagnosed with bipolar. And when I talked to her, I said, okay, so why are you wanting to get diagnosed? And she said, well, I just want an answer. And I said, well, that's not going to answer your question. It's not going to tell you why you're having the symptom. It's just going to basically say you have these symptoms. And so she ended up joining the program and we're working together to help her resolve the underlying sources of the symptoms that are causing disruption in her life.

Truly what it is, anybody who's struggling with depression or anxiety, those kinds of things, these tools will help them to resolve the sources of those symptoms. We just look with curiosity at the symptoms and look for the sources and then treat the sources using research-based tools.

Marcia Williams: So needed. And thank you for clarifying, because I don't want people to walk away from this podcast episode thinking that, well, since I don't think I'm bipolar, that's not for me. Because that's absolutely far from the truth. It sounds all inclusive. Because it's about the symptoms.

Michelle Rittenburg: And I would encourage somebody if they're not sure if it would be something that would be helpful, start with my book, because like I said, the book is designed as a self-help book. Somebody could potentially use the book to apply the tools for themselves. But those who are really struggling find tremendous value in the group because it is hard sometimes to do these things on your own. And so having guidance and support and encouragement through the process is really empowering and helps people get through all of the things that are hard, the days where you just feel like giving up. You've got the tribe saying, come on, let's do it again. Stand up, dust yourself off, let's move forward.

Marcia Williams: And speaking of the tribe, that is equivalent to community. And that is something about this healing journey that I feel strongly and my clients who have participated in my coaching programs firmly believe that you cannot or should not do this alone. That's obviously the mentality that you have as well by having a tribe. There's strength in numbers, but also just being around people who get it, who understand, who aren't going to challenge you and say, well, that's dumb. No, they're going to say, me too. And then not only that, but you're going to see someone who is using particular coping techniques, grounding techniques, mindfulness that you're like, that's working for them. Let me give that a try. There is so much healing in the tribe. I love that. So your book can be found on Amazon.

Michelle Rittenburg: On Amazon. The place to go is my website. If you go to www.theupsideofbipolar.com, you can find the link for my book. You can find the link to my podcast, the link to join the Upsiders Tribe. That mood cycle survival guide that I mentioned at the beginning is a free resource I offer to anybody and that's found on my website. So that's the best place to go. You can even find my links to my socials there.

Marcia Williams: Beautiful. Well, they don't have to go anywhere. They're going to find the links to everything right here in the description of this podcast. So I'm encouraging everybody to click on it. And Michelle's podcast, I want to remind everybody, which there will also be a link to, is called The Upside of Bipolar: Conversations on the Road to Wellness.

So Michelle, you're doing amazing work. The world needs you. And I thank you. I've learned a lot from you and I just love talking to you. And I hope we do it again. We might need to make this a yearly thing because there's never enough time to talk to you. You're amazing.

Michelle Rittenburg: Thank you so much. It's been a true pleasure to speak with you. And thank you for the work you're doing. You're doing really important work helping people through this process of recovering from narcissism. So thank you.

Marcia Williams: Thank you so much.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Michelle Rittenburg Website: www.theupsideofbipolar.com Book: The Upside of Bipolar: Seven Steps to Heal Your Disorder Podcast: The Upside of Bipolar: Conversations on the Road to Wellness TikTok: @theupsideofbipolar Instagram: @theupsideofbipolar Free Resource: Mood Cycle Survival Guide (available on website)

Marcia Williams Website: www.ThePassageToPeace.com Podcast: The Healing Lounge Monday Night Live in The Healing Room: Every Monday at 7 PM EST on TikTok and Instagram