Bridging the gap between mothers receiving the mental health care they deserve. Brooke Anderson shares her story about surviving Postpartum psychosis, complete muscular paralysis and degenerative genetic disorders.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Not Alone with Melissa Methfin, a safe haven where we embrace our truth and break the silence surrounding our struggles. Here, we believe in the power of sharing our stories, fostering a loving community filled with hope, tools, and resources for healing. Together, we'll explore the journeys of those who have faced adversity, offering insights and support to ensure no one suffers alone. Join us as we shine a light on the path to healing. One authentic conversation at a time. So, welcome. Today I have a very special guest and fellow author, Brooke Anderson, and she wrote the book Through Fire and Grace. Now, this is a powerful book, and I feel honored to be alongside to see your growth and your journey as a fellow author. It is incredibly inspiring. And I know you've had many challenges over the years. You have four children and an amazing husband. So I'm I'd love to just dive right in. Brooke, for your book, Through Fire and Grace delves deep into your personal journey. Can you share what inspired you to write this story and what it means to you?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Yeah. So first I don't know. I grew up just I actually wrote a lot of poetry and I felt like there was safety in poetry because I could write about really raw emotions, and not everyone could understand what I was saying. You know, like it really protected me from like allowing my parents or family to see what I was really struggling with, but I could still release the emotion that I was fighting. I then with my faith transition, I just felt really called to blog about it. Like blogging was kind of like already super popular, maybe kind of already was like not as popular. And I just felt very called to blog about the faith transition, and God just said, these this blog is your training ground. And I just thought that was so fascinating because I really had no idea yet a book was to come. And people would give me feedback about my blog, and they are just like, You're such a great writer, don't ever stop, just keep sharing your story. This is such a needed perspective. And it was around that time people started saying, You should write a book about your faith transition. There's not a lot out there from leaving your religion, you have a very unique story, you should write a book. And so initially, I just really thought my book that I was gonna write was going to be all about our faith transition, and then I had a fourth surprise miracle child, and we were done, we were so done. We had had three boys in three in under three years, and our family didn't feel complete yet, so we just thought we're supposed to adopt. And we were actually getting really close to starting the adoption process when I found out I was pregnant with our fourth, and I did not take it so gracefully. And I just really love I just really love sharing about the raw part of motherhood because it's not all sunshine and roses, and I just felt so lied to growing up. So excuse me, but I am very blunt about my experience of motherhood.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

When did you start blogging? Like, what how many years before, now that you have your book, did you start blogging?

SPEAKER_00 4:10

It was nine years, eight and a half years, and eight to nine years before my book that I started blogging. And I I just really enjoyed it. It was like very therapeutic to me. It allowed me to think through like my faith process and how to dissect God out of religion. And it really I was former Mormon. I was raised LDS, and my husband and I never really questioned the church. We would have questions, but a lot of the time you hear Mormons say, like, this was the straw that broke the shelf, or this broke my shelf, or this broke my shelf. And and people were referring to all the questions they had about the religion, and our teachers would say, Well, put it on the shelf and God will answer it in heaven. And so the shelf became something that you hear a lot when people leave the religion about like this is the final straw that broke my shelf that held all my questions. But my husband and I didn't have that. We were very active LDS members until the moment we weren't, and it was literally God just opened our eyes and took the rose bud, rose-colored glasses off our eyes and was like, here is the truth. And my husband was saved in six hours, six hour conversation, and he was saved. And I took a really slow, long 10 days. And I like it felt so slow and long compared to his trip, his journey of finding faith. But compared to the average person, I mean, theirs is years long. They'll like maybe go inactive first, and then they'll really start questioning it, and then they'll go like agnostic or atheist, and then they come their way back around and find Jesus and God again. And so for our journey to really happen in six hours and ten days is so short, especially when we weren't questioning. Yeah, I agree. Yes. And so I I just always thought that was what made our story so powerful, honestly, was we really shocked people around us because we were just I was just really Molly Mormon. And what that means is I just really followed the rules to a T. Okay. I was just really earning my way to heaven, top-notch gold star person, and it was like visiting teaching, I'm gonna do it, even if it's gonna kill me. I'm gonna read the Book of Mormon every single year, and like just growing up, I was just such a I loved the checklists that the religion gave me. And I couldn't see how God fit outside of religion at first, because that's all I knew. And so the blog just really allowed me to dissect, like, okay, so if we put families on this pedestal that families are forever, and that's not actually what God is teaching in the Bible. Like, what is the family actually supposed to represent? And these are the things I would dissect on the blog. And I would come to the conclusion that actually I had made my family an idol before God, and I was worshiping my family over knowing Jesus. And it really came down to like I wanted there to be no doubt that if I walked in a room and Jesus was there, I would know him. I would know by his energy in the room, uh I would know that he's in the room, and I would know to search for him, and I would know who he is upon looking at him because of the relationship we have. And so that really became my my plea, my search as I was dissecting my religion and upbringing on this blog. And then I found out I was pregnant about 18 months after our faith transition, and that just really rocked my world. I was not anticipating it. Just it was just really hard. I was in denial, so much denial that I was pregnant, and I couldn't see how I was gonna survive this pregnancy because my pregnancies just made me so sick. I mean, I was like home nurses, pick lines, losing 50 pounds, just barfing from conception through labor. I mean, just bed rest, pelvic rest, preterm labor. And at 17 weeks pregnant with this fourth child, I had an appendicitis and had surgery.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

And then I had surgery recovery and slow healing, and I was just really questioning why, you know? Yes. Um, God, why? I don't get it. Um and then I had the most miraculous birth with him, just so beautiful, and I had strong I had really struggled to bond with him during the pregnancy as I was in such denial. And then he was born, and I crowned and gave birth to him so fast, like the midwife was still running into the room, and I caught him and I brought him out of the water and put him on my chest, and it was just so magical. And I felt so empowered, and I held this just precious soul, and I was just like, You're such a miracle, you're such a blessing. And that's beautiful. It was just so beautiful. I was on such I mean, anyone who's like given birth naturally understands the birth high. I have only had natural birth, so I don't know if it's quite the same with Medicaid, but I still know there's a birth high, right? Like you just feel like you can conquer the world because you just push this baby out, or you had a C-section, and it's just as difficult and such as heart, just as difficult of a journey on the body to birth this baby. And and I think it has to be to bring a soul to this earth. And it's just like the most spiritual experience you can have is giving birth.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah, I agree. I remember just them putting the you know, Sophia on my chest and really connecting, and I was on that high for a really long time, so I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

He was a week old and I was still riding this high, and I just kept saying, I even remember at my week checkup with my midwife, I said, I just feel like the like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, like it cannot be this perfect. Like transitioning to four kids cannot be this easy. And she was just like, Don't worry about it, like you're doing great, you're natural with babies, you know what you're doing, like just don't even worry about it. And he was 10 days old when I had my first postpartum psychosis episode.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

And I was just like, that's the other shoe. I could feel it coming.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Do you feel like you were because you're like, it was so good and you couldn't believe it. So you kind of like, well, almost you're you're almost self-sabotaging because it felt so good.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

I know like I really thought for sure that like just like the postpartum depression would hit hard, or like the baby blues would be difficult, or like I don't know. Like I expected just like I don't know, one of my older kids to have like this life issue happen. I don't know, maybe get their first broken arm or something. But I have four boys. I was just like expecting something like that. Um it was just like the first time I felt like I was being hunted.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

So what were yeah, what were the symptoms? Like if you explain to anyone what that feels like or what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah. So a lot of people ask me later, like, what is postpartum psychosis? And I was like, postpartum psychosis is the most severe mental illness disorder you can get after um having a baby. Typically, to get to postpartum psychosis, you go through the other stages. Typically, you go through anxiety and depression, OCD tendencies or thought patterns. I think like for me, they kind of just like all hit the same day because I had had a really rough day that day. But I had also had postpartum depression with my first and postpartum anxiety with my second, and I had totally been stuck in like a mania with my third that I couldn't see at the time. And so it was like gradually I had built up to my fourth baby, this psychotic. And so my symptoms for me, like the postpartum OCD manifested in my thought patterns, not in mannerisms. It wasn't like I had to wash my hands so many times or sanitize things so many times, or the house had to be a certain way, but it was OCD thought patterns, repetitive thoughts. I was very anxious. I was terrified that like if for sure, if I left the house today, like we were gonna get in a car accident and my kid was gonna die, or like we're gonna at the time I lived in central Utah, and a huge fear of mine was that I'd be this sounds so ridiculous, but guys, like this is how it is when you're in it, okay? So, moms, it's fine. I was terrified we're gonna like somehow crash and roll in a large body of water, and I alone, being the only parent there with four kids under five, would have to get four kids out of car seats from the back of a car and all the way out the front window I smashed and get us out of the car. Like, and I'd literally run through this scenario in my head over and over and over how I would save all of us if we crashed in a body of water.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Wow. So very detailed and that you would be very detailed, excessively. Would that be all throughout the day or mostly at night, or just anytime I had to leave the house?

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Okay, and I would sit in the car in the garage, I'd have them all buckled, and I'd literally like time myself how fast could I climb over this seat to get to the back seat and cut this car seat and then cut this car seat and grab the infant last because my I would need to hold him, and if I was holding him, it would slow me down. I was getting the five-year-old and the four-year-old and the two-year-old unbuckled. Like it just obsessively, and I mean, safety was obsessive. The way I went grocery shopping, the way I loaded him in the car after shopping, like I was just all of it very obsessive, and it was exhausting. I can imagine.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

I can imagine, and then so after that, once you have you're kind of going through how long did that last for you? The psychosis? Until did you seek any help? Like what do you when did you realize that maybe you need some help or did your acting on the other hand? I first realized it.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

I think I first realized when he was like four or five weeks old that this wasn't just like normal depression or anxiety, and it was weird. And I started Googling symptoms, and postpartum psychosis came up on a Google search, and I was like, Well, that sounds way too scary. I could not have that. Like, I would know if I had that, and I like closed the laptop and didn't even look at it. And a couple weeks go by, and I was like, maybe I should look at what postpartum psychosis is, and I went and searched it again and read about it, and I was like, oh my gosh, I think I have this. But what's gonna happen if I tell someone I have this? Like, they're not gonna believe me, who is sane enough to be like, realize I have this, and then go seek help. Like, and so instead I stayed quiet. My husband knew like I was struggling because I had a history of depression and anxiety, and so that's really what he thought I was going through. And I would just cry every morning when he went to work, and I would hug him and hold on to him and cling to him, and he just like dreaded this morning routine where my wife was gonna come cling to me and cry, and I don't know how to help her because I can't stay home from work, I have to provide, and it's just like this vicious cycle, and I was sitting there and just saying goodbye in my heart to him because I didn't know how I was getting through the day again, and I did this for a really, really long time. And then when our son was six months old, after I had already uh done quite a few near suicide attempts, I gotten very close and always got intervened every time.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

I didn't got intervened was how to do what what intervened.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

I would set my children up like 15 minutes before dad would get home, or 20 minutes before dad was supposed to be home. I would be tracking his phone so I knew where he was. I'd set them in the basement with their favorite snacks, a sippy cup, a TV show, I'd p s nurse the baby, change him, strap him in his swing, like rock him to sleep, strap him in the swing. I'd go to the closet, and I'd be just staring at the gun. And every time something would stop me, I would have like the doors locked and everything, right? Because I didn't want my children to be the one to find me. So, so close one day, and I heard my baby start screaming from the family room like bloody murder from his sleep. And I was like, God, no, he's fine, like he cannot nothing can be wrong. Like it literally sounded like he must have like gone flying out of the swing and whacked his head against the metal or something. It was so aggressive, and the mother in me could not leave my son screaming.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

So divine intervention, you're like, you know that's got every time.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Every time. Like either I would like literally hear the voice of God stop me, and just say, Hold on. I've got you. I'm faithful. I am faithful, I've got you. Or my son would scream bloody murder when there's like absolutely nothing wrong with him. Or my children would come and start banging on the door, being like, I ate all my snacks so fast, mom. And I just couldn't let them hear what I was going to do. They're so young. And I would come out just sobbing, mess, and they'd be like, Mama, are you okay? And they gave me hugs, and they're like, Can you get me a snack, Mama? I said, Okay, I'll get you a snack. And I did this forever. And my son, once he turned six months old, I just went to my husband and I just said, I'm really struggling. And we talked about like what would be the best thing to do to help you right now. And my children all had like underdeveloped GI systems at birth, and it made it so they were very restrictive. They reacted to lots of food. So I was always on a very restricted diet, nursing them. And so he suggested that I quit nursing, and we find a formula that he could tolerate, and that let's see if stopping nursing would help the hormones and could help like the depression and stuff. And nursing was an interesting thing, it was a double-edged sword because it was one of the reasons I was still alive, because I was like, Well, if I die, no one else can keep him alive. Right. But also was like draining the life out of me. So when he was six months old, I weaned him, and it honestly went like as smooth as forced weaning could go for a child, which was so helpful. He took a bottle from me great, he took a binky from me great from then on, and I was just like, it gave me like just this centimeter of hope. Like, maybe if I hold out long enough, this will get better if I'm not nursing him and I don't have those hormones. And then we decided that my husband would come home full-time, take real estate full-time. He'd just been doing it part-time at that point and had a day job. So we sold our house to lower our monthly payments, moved, and so then I was like, Well, I'm just gonna like throw myself into moving, you know, like sun up to sundown. I'm gonna be busy, busy, busy, busy. Won't have time to think. And so I did that, and we moved into a house, and then during this move, the baby turned seven months old, and then it was a new build, so that spring we're gonna have to put in a yard, and I was like, I volunteer. I stuck the baby in the pack and play outside, let the older boys move the rocks and play in the dirt, and just be all boy, and you just we put in our own yard, and I was just like fully oh, just my husband called me a workhorse. He's like, You are just a freaking workhorse right now, and I was literally fighting for my life.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yeah, did you ever Tell him that you had suicidal attempts? Did you at that point? Not at this point, not yet.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

No. So after we finished the yard that summer, our son turned one in July, and in August, I was just like, this is not getting better. It's getting worse again. Like it became like it was it became like manageable over the summer. I was so busy, it was like I was too exhausted to think, or but I was still struggling, right? But it was like maybe he's one now. So maybe if I can just like hold out, it will stop on its own. And come August, it was just like not. And so my husband, knowing I was still struggling, let me buy a pig. For any husbands out there. Real good suggestion. He's a good husband. I know. I really wanted a pig. And so we had got chicks that spring. So we put the pig with the chickens, and I had this little farmstead, and I like loved it. Okay. And she was so good for me. I would just go sit out there with her twice a day when I was feeding her. And she was so good for my son, too. My uh five-year-old, well, he was six then. He would just take a walkie-talkie and he'd go sit out in the pen with her for like 30, 40 minutes, and he'd walkie-talkie us the whole time. I really didn't let me know when he wanted to come back out. At this time, he was school age, right? And God had just told me, clear as day, you need homeschool. He was just giving me no opportunity. And so I was homeschooling a six-year-old and a five-year-old. I had a one-year-old and a three-year-old, and just staying so busy. But then September came and I was just like, gonna crack. And I wrote sometime in the fall, I don't know exactly what month it was, either end of September or in October, I wrote my husband a letter because I couldn't tell him to his face what was happening. And we were putting kids to bed one night, and I sent him a text while he was in the opposite room as me. We had two rooms, two kids in each room. We were talking them in. He's in this room, and I text him from across the hall, we need to talk tonight. And he was like, Okay. You've never said that before. Um we get in our bedroom, and he's like, Okay, so you want to talk? And I just open my bedside drawer and I pull out this two-page folded letter and I throw it at him, and I just start sobbing. And he reads the letter. He's not even like all the way through it, and this is where I like tell him, like, I think I have postform psychosis. I've nearly attempted, like, I've gone to attempt suicide so many times. I have been struggling with this, this, and this. I am officially crazy. I am scared of myself, like, and he just started crying and he said, It's gonna be okay. Wow, we're gonna get you help.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Wow. And that gave me full shivers to hear that because you must have been fearful what he might be and leave you, or who knows, right? Like a lot of thoughts like went through.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

I mean, I was so scared to open up. Like, what's he gonna think about me? Is he gonna think like I'm completely psycho? Like, is he gonna want to take the kids away from me? Is he going to stand by me? Like, and he just was a rock. Wow. Just a rock through it all. And he was just like, it's gonna be okay. I will do whatever I have to do to get you help. Wow, that's beautiful. And he did.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

But he you couldn't help you until you fully showed your truth. Because a lot of people, I know for my husband, he never, never shold, you know, told me the death of reading your book, Melissa, was just it just was so like touching and so hard because I just I was texting my husband at that part of your book and I said, This should have been your story.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Like you literally wouldn't have had a clue that I was suicidal until the day you got home and found me.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yeah, yeah. That's how it was for us.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

And so the kids wouldn't be alone, and like all these things. And I was just like, I thank God every day that I kept fighting, that he kept intervening. Like, this should have been your story. And it was really surviving postpartum psychosis that made me be like, I have to write a book. So we fought to get help, and it was really like that's a whole story in itself. But I was eventually hospitalized at 18 months postpartum. Super insane amount of time to fight psychosis, like unheard of.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

What kind of treatments do they do when you were hospitalized?

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Well, this is why I'm gonna go change the world and change how we do maternal mental health. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Yes, you will. I can't wait. I'll be right there sharing what you're doing. So many people need to know your story and what you're about to do. The same thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Because they just weren't prepared for a mom dealing with maternal mental illness. Because I mean, I had depression growing up. I had anxiety growing up, but it and it was so different when I had postparum depression with my first. It was so different than postpartum anxiety. I became like so angry, and I did not even know for two more children that anger is like the main symptom of postpartum anxiety. That's not how I experienced anxiety growing up. So when I got super angry after my second son, I was like, what's wrong with me? Who's this new version of myself? Like, I was so hard on myself. So I was finally hospitalized. My doctor, it took a long time because my doctor, I was uninsured, and my doctor was calling hospitals to try and find me a bed, and a lot of people just were like, nope, she's uninsured.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

And I just really like, hell hello, I'm in Utah. I'm a mother, and you're saying this mother's life is worth less than the drug addict you're detoxing next door because she's uninsured. And I say it that way because pretty much everyone I was hospitalized with was detoxing drugs and not in there for suicide.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

In the hospital I was there at, it was COED and we had like group therapies, and we had all these things, and most people I think there was three of us in there for suicide attempts.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Was any uh thing at the hospital? Full level. Was anyone ever talking about faith there at the hospital, or was it mostly no?

SPEAKER_00 29:18

No. So they didn't talk about faith. They talked about well, most of it. Most of what they talked about was porn addiction, drug addiction, and how to cope with addiction and healing relationships or apologizing to people that you've harmed while you were in addictions. It really wasn't beneficial to me. And yeah, I was like being and I was being triggered by things said in these addiction chats. I did not do EMDR for my sexual abuse growing up until after I was hospitalized. And so I was in there with men and female detoxing from drugs, but I was like, how am I supposed to trust the the drug key across the hall from me? Yeah. Well, I have to sleep with my door open. Wow. And you think I'm paranoid. Like, so I was hospitalized for five days, and really it's terribly sad because by day two, I was just like, oh, I see. I have to play the game to get out of here to actually get the specific help I need with my therapist.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Okay, then I'll do that. So they got me medicated, which was definitely needed because there was a six-week week wait for a psychiatrist, and I needed medication. The medication I had been put on was part of the reason I spiraled so I was put in a medication by my family doctor in December, and it poorly interacted with the postpartum psychosis, and it made me spiral very quickly.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Do you mind sharing what that was? I know that's a yeah, I know that gets tricky.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Um, I can't remember the name of it. I would have to like go look at my chart, but it was an antidepressant versus a mood stabilizer or something. And the antidepressants tend to interact poorly with like a bipolar or psychosis diagnosis. And so it made me more suicidal.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Okay, that this is why I needed to address that because I truly honestly believe that Scott, who was on a this antidepressant, really caused him to have more suicidal thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

And it made me more determined than ever.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Yeah, yeah. So I and my book I I have had to really word it carefully. Word it carefully because you know it's big pharma. But at the same time, ever since I moved to Arizona, I've had three people tell me that they've been on this medication and how they had to tell their doctor to get off of it because it made them more suicidal, but it's an antidepressant.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Yeah. So it's an antidepressant, and I honestly brook opinion after all the training and personal experience I'm at now. I don't think medication is always a bad thing, but I think it's safer to try a mood stabilizer route versus an antidepressant as far as how it responds chemically with the brain. I think if you go the mood stabilizer route, you don't have the because I don't hear people going more suicidal with it. You know, like pretty much anybody who's suicidal goes on an antidepressant seems to go more suicidal.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah, that's what I've been told, but so many people have shared that with me.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

And so, like, if you're going to do something for depression, it is better to go with a bipolar depression medication, which typically is actually a mood stabilizer. They call it an antidepressant, but it's actually a mood stabilizer. It's supposed to take off the super high highs and the super low lows and throw you kind of more in this middle ground. So that's Brooks two cents after her experience. So I was put on an antipsychotic in the hospital because I once read my hospital notes. Really bad idea. Um I can imagine. And they had they really pegged me wrong in there. They had really pegged me wrong, and they weren't treating me. Like, yes, there is paranoia in psychosis, but they they were really missing the mark on where I needed help and support. And so basically just getting on medication was all the the only way they could serve me. And I had an appointment set up for a psychiatrist for about four weeks after I got released. And I had appointments set up with a therapist already before I was hospitalized, and so those were like the two requirements to be released from the hospital. And so once I was willing to shower with men in the hallway, while I shower with my bedroom door open and the bathroom door open and only the curtain closed, you know, like like I don't know why that classifies as being paranoid. Okay, I just wanted a little privacy for three and a half minutes. And I'm like, hey, I have babies, I can shower fast. Give me three minutes. Right. And I mean, I get it's like a safety thing, but people weren't in there for mental health, and that was the part that was hardest for me. Put me a room and put me in therapies that are geared to mental health, please. And so I went to therapy afterwards, and I spent nine months in therapy.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

And what kind of therapy did you do? Like I you mentioned EMDR. Oh man, man, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

We did like everything CBD, DBT, EMDR, just life coaching skills. We went to EMDR because we'd gone through the whole program of CBD and DBT. And I wasn't getting better. And I was doing all the homework. My therapist is like, I wish all my patients were like you. You never miss your medication. You do all your homework, you show up every week and do the work. And I was like, and why am I not getting better? I think part of it was like, you know, medication takes time to adjust, and we were adjusting it really slowly to be careful. So I was going to the psychiatrist like every six weeks and adjusting my medication, coming off the antipsychosis medication and going on to an anxiety medication, a mood stabilizer, and a bipolar medication. Like I was really loaded. But this is my favorite part of the story. But through all that, it was like even though I was showing up like once to twice a week, there was even one point I went to therapy once a week with Trevor, and then once on my own for a whole month because I just was struggling and I wasn't getting better, and I was stuck in the cycle, and Trevor couldn't handle to hear another word about it. Bless his soul. But he still showed up to therapy at least once a week with me all year, and it really protected our marriage. It taught us skills to have deep, hard conversations. It taught like him listening to the way I spoke and heard how I described what I was experiencing gave him a better understanding of where I was coming from. And then he had opportunity to work through things, and it just really protected our marriage for what was to come.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

Yeah. And you probably worked through like so you're you mentioned abuse. How old were you when you were abused?

SPEAKER_00 37:04

The abuse mostly happened when I was 14 to 15. Um your husband was there when you worked through that as well? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Yep. So I worked through the abuse with this therapist, and then I went and did EMDR, and I worked through abuse there. I worked through the trauma of being hospitalized for the psychosis. I worked, I was, I was in severe PTSD attack when I went to EMDR. And none of the other therapies were helping. And so my therapist was like, it's time to do EMDR. And she was not certified in it at the time. She since then did get certified because it was the thing that cracked the code for me. And we like my husband and I are both firm believers in EMDR, and we really preach it to anyone willing to try it.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

I love that. Actually, my next podcast is with my girlfriend who's an EMDR counselor in Vancouver, British Columbia. I don't know if you had the chance to meet her, but Kara. Yeah, she so that's my next one because I know it's helped so many.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

So many. And it let me like really sit with the traumas of everything. And so it was after I did do EMDR that this miraculous event came to pass. It was right before my son's second birthday. It was in July. And at this point, you know, I was hospitalized in the January, and I'd been going to therapy once or twice a week, taking my medications, seeing the psychiatrist, and just felt like I didn't want to die, but I just like didn't want to live either. And there was just this cloud over me, just the weight. And one night we've already tucked the kids in bed and we're in bed, and I just start crying. And my husband's like, oh boy, what's going on now? And I was just like, it's gone. As fast as it came, as fast as that psychosis hit me, it is gone now, and it's gone for good. I know it is.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

And we went in then and was able to celebrate our son's second birthday just like two weeks later. And it was so precious because it just felt like a victory. Like I was still alive.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

And he had both his parents, and he was just a healthy boy. Like, what more could you ask for? And then in the August, we had our eighth wedding anniversary, and we went away for the weekend, and we just really celebrated. Like, sir celebrated surviving, celebrated just the shift. Um, he'd been kind of like a caretaker mode for so long, still, even though he wasn't really my caretaker at that point, but he still was so aware of my emotional needs and not living me too long with the kids or having making sure like someone was in if he was gonna be gone all day, type thing, um, to help break up my day and help with the kids. I was really building up my stanoma to what I could handle. We went on this trip weekend away to Park City, went biking on the hills and coffee shops and hours of uninterrupted conversation and daydreaming again, and it was so amazing. And God had told me to like put my kids in school that year, which felt really scary, and I didn't want to. I fought him really hard, but then I did, and so we were like, you know, we only have the youngest two at home, and he's gonna be in preschool, and then Grayson's too, and he's just so fun. Like, what what dreams do you have? What do you want to do with our future? Like, it was just a really great weekend. I'm so so grateful we had that weekend for the storm to come.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

So important to take those pauses, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:09

Yeah. And in September, just five weeks like after this weekend away, this is the fall of 2019. Over a week, I went from like being normal, healthy-ish, you know, mostly healthy person, uh, like running long distance still, like exercising, being in the garden, being on the playground with the kids. I just started getting a lot of headaches after our anniversary. And then come September, they had really turned into like a permanent migraine. And so it was really strange, and we were a little concerned that I had a migraine all the time, but we had kind of been like texting the doctor about it and talking about getting an MRI, but I wasn't like super paranoid, you know, and maybe I should have been. So it was just I went the weekend before I was running, even with migraine, because I loved it, and it was my sanity, and then the following weekend I'm in complete paralysis. I can't feel my body, I can't feel my legs, my arms. I can't think from how bad the pain is. I think I'm sensitive to light, to sound, to touch. And it got to the point where I just lost complete ability to move my body at all. I what like not even I can't feel my body, but now I can't move my body. Wow. My speech is slow and robotic and it's choppy. It's not and sometimes I open my mouth to speak and I can't speak. And the only thing I can consistently do is blink. Wow, that's so scary. Everything else, I've lost control over my body. We're sitting in the hospital, and I'm just like, how can this be my next chapter? How can this be? After being in the hospital for a day and running some tests, the neurologist comes back in and he goes, I got your chart from January. I see you're hospitalized for postpartum. I'm confident this is postpartum depression coming back, and we would like to hospalize you again. No. No, thank you. We're like, uh actually, no. No, no. We uh asked to sign an AMA against medical advice. My husband was a former fireman and EMT, and so when he asked for to sign an AMA, the doctor had us discharged so fast. Wow. We drove home. He placed me on the he drove up on the grass, picked me up out of the truck, set me down. He's like, I'm gonna go park the truck, don't move. And at this moment, I had a little bit of movement in my arms. Like I couldn't feel my arms at all, but I had some movement in my arms. It would come and go depending on like how long I had been laying down or sitting up or if my neck was supported or not, which was what made it very tricky to figure out what was going on. And so I decided if this was gonna be my life, I didn't just survive postparm psychosis for nothing. So I started to scooch my butt up the stairs. And my husband comes back from parking the truck, and he's like, of course you're at the front door. Because I told you to sit there. So of course you're at the front door. Why would I expect anything else? And it was just like this is what's next. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

You were ready to fight this one too. Because you you knew you could f you got through the you know the psychosis and you're like, okay, God, I can I've got this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

I knew that the psychosis, like, nothing could be harder than the psychosis. And if I survived psychosis, I can survive anything.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

Wow, so you can survive being completely paralyzed, is what you thought.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

Yeah. Wow. I didn't know how long it would be for, or if it was permanent, it doesn't matter. If I survive psychosis, I could survive anything. And to this day, I still think psychosis was harder than my chronic illness journey. And my chronic earnest journey went on for five years straight. I mean, the long story short was I had to self-abdicate and I learned the skills how to do that through surviving psychosis, through taking therapy. I learned how to stand up for myself.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

For uh the treatments along the way. That I needed.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

That you needed. So I went home from the hospital and I put all my symptoms together, and I was like, my sister just had chiari malformation surgery. I think that's playing a factor. She was told about Ellers Downless syndrome to make sure you don't have it before you have your chiri decompression. And I fit all those symptoms. I'm gonna throw that in there. Um, my migraines, my sensitive skin, my neck injury. I had a neck injury as a teenager, and I've had a lot of problems with my neck, so neck problems, and I was putting in all these symptoms, and I actually got very close to figuring out exactly what it was that night when the doctor had said it's just depression. And so I overnighted myself a hard neck brace after watching some YouTube doctors. They're real doctors. I just watched their YouTube channel and uh that made it sound like they weren't real doctors. Some YouTube doctors. So I watched some of their I watched some people who had been experiencing similar symptoms as me, and I found like through the grape, like through digging who they were seeing, and I looked up these specialists and I found out what they specialized in, and I was like, it totally fits what I'm struggling with. Um so I overnight myself a hard neck brace and it came the next day and I got it on. And once I had been in that for, I mean, even just 30 minutes, I started to feel like this calmness of the atomic bomb going off in my brain. I was still like really in pain, but it took it from like a 14 to a 12, and I became more consistently able to speak again. I was still very slow and robotic, but every time I opened my mouth, I could talk.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

Is it because do you feel it's because it got you in that proper alignment for either breathing or just getting that oxygen level?

SPEAKER_00 48:12

So what we came to find out after ordering images, so I like texted my family doctor, and I was like, I need this image and this image and this image, and none of them were in Utah. I need to go to Vegas and Colorado, and so he would order anything I asked. And after we got those images back, and I watched a lot of YouTube videos about how doctors measure. I watched so much YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

Oh, trust me, that's how I did a lot of PT when I was living in Wasilla, Alaska. There wasn't a lot of resources up there either.

SPEAKER_00 48:50

Yeah. And so I watched YouTube about how they like how these doctors measure these scans, and I downloaded the program on my computer, uploaded my scans, and I started like measuring my scans. Granted, like I wasn't like perfect, but I actually got fairly close once I got them to a specialist. My my personal measurements weren't that far off. And I realized that what had happened was my skull was so unstable. So if you look like your skull, if this is my neck and this is my skull, this is how it should be, right? Like your neck just is at the base of your skull and it's connected with all the tissues and the ligaments and the muscles. But my skull had collapsed on my neck. Oh wow, and my brain was sliding down the spinal cord.

SPEAKER_02 49:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

And then my vertebrae and my neck, if you're supposed to have some elevation between them, right? We have discs between our vertebrae, and the vertebrae being in the right position, they're only supposed to move so much, just supposed to have so much movement, and that keeps all the communication in place from our brain stem to our body. My neck had collapsed like this.

SPEAKER_02 50:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

And not only had it collapsed on itself, when I moved my head and body, it was actually like sliding completely like off each other and grinding. And so I had completely pinched off all communication from my brain to my body. So after I got in the hard neck brace, I was able to learn to walk with forearm crutches, but I never regained filling in my body until I was able to get surgery. And so I had like no filling my body. Once I cut my hand with scissors, and I didn't know until I saw the blood running down my arm. After that, I was banned from using scissors or knives or anything in the kitchen. Uh, once I scalded my mouth on my hot coffee, and after that, I had to wait so long before I could drink my coffee. Once we discovered that, like my husband always tested the bathwater and made sure I didn't turn the bathwater past a certain point because I couldn't gauge temperature at all inside or outside of my body. And so I went through all this trouble of getting all these scans. And then there was only at the time, there's a few more now, but at the time there were only five surgeons in the world that could perform this surgery needed with my other conditions. So I did turn out to have Ellers Downlow syndrome or EDS, and it did turn out to have a mass cell activation syndrome, which is an overactive histamine in your body. And I did turn out to have other autoimmune disorders, and they all complicate your surgery and your healing. And so there were only five surgeons that worked with patients with EDS and instability. And the two doctors in the States declined my case.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 51:59

One of them has a like a no-comment why I'm declining your case, and the other one was like, Well, you don't your insurance doesn't cover my out of network. So again, my life was coming down to the insurance card I held or didn't hold. And it really infuriated me.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

Because it had only been a year since it had happened with me being hospitalized. So then the next best option was to go to Barcelona in Spain. And so at Thanksgiving in 2019, I submitted all my paperwork and imaging to him. And it is like no small feat to apply to any of these doctors. It is like a part-time job for a whole week. The questionnaires are so intense, and they ask you about your mental health too, because so many people are suicidal at this point. In January, just past the new year, I got an email back from him, from the doctor in Barcelona, saying that I did meet the criteria to have an online appointment with him if I sowed shoes. This is his primary diagnosis for me that I had atloaxial instability, cervical instability, chiarian malformation. We did go on to do more blood work and stuff to confirm I had the mass activation syndrome and the EDS. We did genetic testing for that. And I went ahead and did an appointment with him in January of 2020. And it was the first time I ever felt seen by a doctor. I got on a Zoom with him really but early in the morning. It was like scheduled originally for like 3 a.m. And then it got postponed an hour because he had something happen with one of his patients in the hospital. So then it was like at 4 a.m. And I like asked him all these questions and like so many things, you know, like if a fusion fails and you have to do another one, would you go through the front versus the back? Why? Like, and asked him how he handled situations that came up. He looked at me and he was just like, You're so textbook, brooke. You're so textbook for this condition, it angers me that you're missed. That your case is missed because it's so textbook. Um it just was such a relief to have a doctor look at me and be like, your complex ass is textbook. Everything wrong with you. Textbook.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

Yeah, but you have to do a lot of digging to find him. So much so much work. Yeah. Self-head advocating for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

And so, I mean, the long story short is to pay for the surgery, we had to sell our house. And we had to pay for the surgery up front before traveling there. And then the next shoe dropped. You know, we're moving out of our house the weekend. Utah shuts down for two weeks for COVID-19.

unknown 55:10

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

And I was like looking at my husband, not speaking, and he's like looking at me, and he's like, We're supposed to fly to Barcelona in ten days. I was like, oh no. Shh. Maybe if we don't say anything out loud, like nothing will go wrong. If only. So I mean, I get to like five days, I think, before I'm supposed to fly to Barcelona, and I get a phone call from them. We always talked over email because of the time difference, and they're calling me. I was like, this is not good. They called me and they said, I'm so sorry. The hospital's been shut down. And I like it's just like, yeah, of course it is. I literally have been counting down the days, like, this is my lifeline. I was like, how long is it close for? They're like, we don't know. We're just really praying that all the patients that are supposed to be seeing make it still. You know? We hope that we're st we're stopping putting people on the schedule. We're not adding people on the schedule until we know when the hospital's open and we can get all the patients that we're supposed to be having surgery in hopefully this fall. And we just don't know. And like the weirdest thing was I just wasn't even sad. I think at that point I just didn't have any energy to be sad, but also I just like looked at God. I was like, faithful, God, you're faithful. You got me through psychosis, you're not gonna fail me now. I didn't survive 18 months of psychosis to die now. I know that. So we'll just do what we gotta do. And I was supposed to have surgery, was the day I had my near-death experience that I write about in my book.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

I don't know if you're that far in the book yet.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

I'm not spoiler alert. You're not, I'm not, but I I can't wait. I can't wait. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

So spoiler alert. And the book is the first time I actually share about my near-death experience, and so that was kind of hard to write about. But near-death experience the day I was supposed to have surgery. And I mean, I don't know why it happened that day, or if I still would have had it had I had surgery that day, or I don't know. I just think it's really interesting that happened the day I was supposed to have surgery.

unknown 57:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:51

But I mean, spoiler alert, I'm here. You are alive and well. And again, at this point, I had actually started writing my book a couple weeks before this. And I mean, I scrapped that whole version of the book, obviously, and I wrote the book in Five Days on an Adventure with Kira, and it turned out fantastic. But the first version of that book I had started writing right before my surgery was canceled. And really what I want to share about that experience, and the rest of it you can read about in the book was that when I came back to my body, I thought I chose to live when I was hospitalized. I chose to be hospitalized. I mean, my doctor did threaten to like pick me up at my house and take me to the hospital if I didn't want to willingly go, but I also like packed my own bag and willingly went to the hospital too, right? So I thought I had chosen to live when I was hospitalized, but the fact of the matter actually was I didn't choose to live until I chose to come back to that body that was broken. That body that was in so much pain, living in a neck brace for nine month month, nine months at that point, walking with crutches, living in sunglasses and hats, barely functioning. Not I mean, barely being a mother. All I was honestly was a warm body, something to cuddle, to kiss the boo-boos, to lay outside on the grass so they could play, lay on the couch, lay on the floor. I was really like useless for what mothers typically do. I couldn't lift anything more than a pound with my hand.

SPEAKER_02 59:32

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 59:33

And I couldn't even pour syrup on their pancakes anymore.

SPEAKER_02 59:36

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

And I chose to come back to that body, not knowing when it would be fixed or if it would be fixed, and to live life with it.

SPEAKER_01 59:51

And what made you choose that? Is there something that you saw that came about with your near-death experiences that you're like, no, I'm coming back. I'm not finished here. Was that your children, your husband, or was it just a clear message that you received?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:08

I was met with an angel in heaven, and they just said, uh, you were supposed to die. I was like, well, obviously I was, because I'm here. Okay, God, don't make no mistakes. And I was like, but I'm also like a little livid that I just survived all that just to die right now. And they're like, your work's not done. I can't make you go back to your body. You have a choice.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:32

I've heard that with near death experiences. Yeah. I've got into reading a lot of those books.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:38

He just said, I really hope you choose to go back to your body and finish this life because your purpose isn't over yet. You have a lot that you can still do. And I was just like, negotiator 101. All right. I will try one time. I will try to breathe one time, but if I don't breathe, the very first attempt, I'm not going back. But the truth of it was like my boys were still so young, and my husband, he was in the room, and I so desperately just wanted to tell him thank you one more time. Yeah, he's been such a rock of support.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:19

I'm like, I can't, yeah, he's God sent you him for a purpose. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:25

Yes. And I did try to breathe, and it was like breathing in through a straw, and it was like and it made me thirsty for air, which I wasn't feeling when I was dying. I was very aware I was dying. And I go about that. I explained that in the book. And it was after that I came back to my body that it really, as I pondered the experience, just lit me on fire to live life differently. And this is where my Instagram handle comes from to live even with. Because I made a really conscious choice to come back and live in that body, even with the neck brace, even with the crutches, even with the pain, and to show my kids that you can have joy and purpose and passion no matter your life circumstances. Like I was in so much pain, in constant migraine, and I wanted them to see that you could still choose happiness. You know, teaching them. Really? Like, I just thought that was my life's work. I was gonna come back, I was gonna show my boys that you could conquer anything and do it genuinely happy and filled with joy. And then it was not long after that I got a call from Barcelona again, and they're like, We didn't like that email about your near-death experience. The hospital just got opened up. And if you can book a flight here, we're gonna have surgery in two weeks. Like and so I had surgery in June of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, when everyone else was shut down. I went to a country that I did not speak the language, when they were not expecting tourists, where I did not feel good, and I was there for six weeks, two weeks before surgery and four weeks after. And then I mean, like, healing is another thing all in itself. Healing did not go smoothly. I was a roller coaster, my head started fusing at an angle, and I was like put back in my neck brace because of that, and then I was like come taken out of my neck brace, and then I started getting like having incontinence symptoms again. Some of the pleasurable experiences I experienced before my fusion and migraines and really brain fog and joint pain, like all these crazy symptoms coming back, and so they put me back in my neck brace again to see if it was tethered cord related or subaxial instability related, which we knew I had. And once I was put back in that neck brace that time, I wasn't like fully out of the neck brace at this point ever. I still wore it at least like half the day, or every time I was in the car, or you know, but I was put back in it full day for five days, and after being in it for five days full time, I couldn't get back out of it because the collapse of my neck coming out of it would just spike so many symptoms and so much pain that I couldn't get out of bed. And so then I was back into wearing my neck brace full time, except for sleeping. And it was around this time that they were just like, I'm so sorry, I think you might need another surgery. And this surgeon is not like a surgeon happy surgeon, not like you typically see in America, okay? This is like the most humble man ever. And he's just like, he never tells you you have to have surgery. He's just like, my medical profession, I think, you know, you might need a longer fusion, and we might need to release the tethered cord. And I was just like, that's not landing right in my body this time. So it's a no. He's like, okay, what's next? And I just heard God say to look into Lyme's disease. I was like, that is like a really bizarre gone. And so I decide to look into Lyme's disease, and I read a book that was fairly new at the time. It's called Chronic. It was written by uh what's infectious disease doctor. There we go. And I'm two chapters into this book, and I am like, I think I just solved like my life problem. And I go to my family doctor again, and I was like, hey doc, I got Lyme's disease, and I want you to check. That I do. And he's like, This is crazy. There's no way you have Lyme's disease, Brooke. You like never leave Utah. And I was like, I know. Check. So he checks it and then he calls me back in and he goes, Okay, I'm gonna let you down easy. This is a false positive. I was like, No, it's a positive. No, it's a false positive. It's just you know, there's inflammation in your body, and that is what's triggering it. I was like, that is like the biggest load of crap. As you know, I just beat to my own drum. I just come to tell you that I'm gonna go to Mexico and I'm gonna go see a doctor in Mexico, and I'm gonna treat this Lyme's disease naturally. And he was like, okay, I know better than argue with you. So then I go to Mexico, to Tijuana, and it was the second doctor that I'd ever met that I didn't have to describe or teach like any of my medical diagnoses to. He knew about my genetic disorders, the MCAS, the fusion, like he knew about all of these disorders. And I was like, what? And sure enough, they do finger prick there and they blacklight my finger my blood. And sure enough, you can see all the eggs inside my cells from Lyme's disease. And it was really nasty. I mean, a fascinating in a nasty way.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:23

And I just started like this process of like I think actually like the most beneficial thing about going to Tijuana and meeting these doctors where they believe in just like crazy miraculous healing. Because they see it. They see it, they see it every day. And they really made me believe in myself again. And they really made me believe in our body's ability to heal.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:53

So he was teaching you to use to trust yourself, like changing your thought patterns.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:00

Yeah, and if he knows it or not, that is exactly what he did. I would go to him and I said, I'm on like seven medications right now, and I don't want to be. Like, this one is to wake me up in the morning and to calm down my anxiety, and the this one is for the mood, and this one's for depression, and this one puts me to sleep because I have PTSD around sleeping now, and I had nightmares that like that were so bad they had to put me on medication. And I was like, I don't want to live a life like this. Tell me there's hope. And he's like, Oh, there's hope. It might take four years because you're really messed up, but there's hope. He's like, There's no reason why your brain can't heal itself given time, given rest, given support. Your brain will heal itself. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to learn to sleep on your own again. There's no reason why you can't be off these medications. And to have someone with a medical degree say that to me made me feel like I'm not crazy for believing or wanting to believe that I can heal and that I should be able to heal. And all they do is really support your body naturally with what it's needing, with homeopathics and stem cells, and IVs, and ozone therapy, and saunas and massages, and colon cleanses, and they do all these modalities of detoxing, is really all they do there.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:38

And then they send the homeopathic, like decluttering your body, like starting with the gut and everything else.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:44

Yep. Yeah, they're like once you get these things out of the way, your body can function how it's supposed to, but right now it's overloaded and it needs support to get the stuff out of the way. Your body knows how to heal. We just need to help get the stuff out of the way. And I was declared Limes Free two years after working with them instead of four.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:11

And I was off all my medication but one in two years. Wow. And who do you can you share his who he is? Or yeah, so I go to Bioadvanced Medical in Tijuana. In Tijuana, okay. And there's about five different doctors that work there. They're all super amazing, they've all been trained pretty much the same. They all have the same degrees, go to the same schools, and they have made the senior doctor there has made this protocol from his experiences. And then he taught his sons, and some of the doctors, like one of the doctors is his son, who's now grown, and one of them is like his son's friend from childhood that joined the business, and then some other really just great doctors that are just natural healers. Yeah, they're trained in homeopathics, they're trained in whole health. You they have a nutritionist as part of your healing. I love nutritionists.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:01

I'm such an advocate for that for myself, you know, seeing an atropath of the city.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:05

And they have dentists there that are getting heavy metal out of the teeth safely and effectively. And so they have like a dentist and eye doctor, they have a lab, and they're checking your blood every time, and they're so and they have a cafe of organic foods, and they support local family and farmers. And it's just beautiful. And every time you go, you meet new people with new healing stories and miracles, and it's why I just firmly believe that healing is our birthright, and when we can get out of our own way, we can have complete healing. I am now been completely brace-free for eight months straight. And I have been Limes free for almost a year. And I have been like so many of my symptoms are in like what I call remission. Like my genetic disorder, like my symptomatic, my symptoms of having this genetic disorder, I call it in remission because they don't affect my day-to-day life anymore. My health no matter no longer controls my day. Needing to plan breaks or rests, or I can't do that because of my body. Like those things don't control my day anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:30

And what are the practices that you're doing on a daily basis to make sure you keep those chronic illnesses at bay?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:37

Yes. There's a few things I do. I until very recently, I was still seeing my same physical therapist. I moved four hours away. So I don't I used to go physical therapy regularly. I mean, for a long time. Physical therapy supported me through my darkest days. I went before my surgery, I went three times a week. After my surgery, I went twice a week for years and years. Last year, a year ago, my time hop on Facebook was I'm trying to spread my physical therapy to once a week. I can't believe how far I've come in a year. Because by the fall, I was going once a month. And now I go like every like six weeks. And but day to day, there are things I do to support my body. I have an acupuncture mat I lay on. I have a red light therapy mat I lay on. I have I sleep grounded, and I use grounding throughout the day or earthing, as some people refer to. So when you say grounding, people think like when you got grounded as a kid, right? But the earth, I say, like I made such progress in my healing when I started to sleep grounded, and my pain and inflammation drastically went down. I also drink a specific gut health drink that is feeding the microbiome, and I've completely healed my leaky gut. I am very I'm not perfect, but you know, I just try to stick to like the whole foods at dinner when we're having dinner as a family, like just simple foods. I am no chef by any means. So food was meant to keep us alive, and if you want it to taste good, ask my husband to cook.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:24

I love you.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:26

So funny. I like that. So um just very conscious, like the sun is so healing. So I'm very much about making sure I'm getting sunlight in the morning or evening, being grounded, using the acupuncture mat to use or the red light therapy, walking every day. I really try to walk every day. I found walking to be very healing and also very powerful for emotional healing. They've actually seen that walking can be very similar on the brain as EMDR because of the cross motion. Okay, and I use that time to really work on mindset so much. I listen to podcasts or books where I just process really heavy emotion while I'm walking because it's doing the same thing as you're walking. The cross motion can have a desensitizing emotional response to your brain.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:28

Do you still write? Do you still blog? Yeah, I mean, I know you're on social media and whatnot, so it writing is still a big part of your healing process.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:36

Writing is still a huge part, and I still journal a lot. I have like journals and journals of my psychosis and the periods, and I've journaled since I was a kid. So I still journal a lot, I still pray a lot, I still have meditation I do nearly daily. I just have found that doing things in small bursts throughout the day versus doing like, oh, I'm going to physical therapy and I'm spending an hour doing healing modality. If you break it up to you're doing 15 minutes here, 10 minutes there, 10 minutes there throughout your day, that is where I've had the best success.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:13

Okay. So it's not so seeming, okay, I have to take a whole hour so you can break it up throughout the day to keep you aligned.

unknown 1:16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:23

Yeah. Oh wow. I just uh I love your honesty and your story. I know we'll touch so many that are probably especially with, you know, when you're living with chronic pain and you have family to take care of, it's really discouraging. I saw my husband deal with his chronic pain, and he was just like, you know, it's changes your whole aspect on life and not being able to play with your kids, and you want to be bedridden, you know, they are bedridden and they can't, it's hard to enjoy life. And I love that you never gave up hope, but I do see in so many people sharing the story that their faith, their faith is kind of what kept them going. You know, God kept on keeping you there and alive, and I'm so glad that you chose to live because I know I know what's coming ahead for you. It's it's it's gonna be huge, you know. You're gonna be teaching others that they can heal themselves and to be their own advocate as well for their health. I am a firm believer in that through throughout my journey, and I and as far as your kids, you know what they've been so resilient in seeing you process, you're showing them how strong you are. And have you seen that for your kids as far as like any healing modalities that's helped them, like as far as like meditations or prayer, like or just like you said, walking or grounding, have anything aligned for them as well and your kids?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:45

I found that my kids being four boys, they aren't so uh they aren't gravitating towards like meditation so much, or but I can get them to be like I've seen how much they have gravitoid towards grounding and even red light, and then it's interesting. I do have a drum and a bull, and I have one son who like really hates the drum, and then I have one son who really loves the drum. But I'll say most of the kids like love the acupuncture mat.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:22

Okay. I've never you know, I've never heard about an acupuncture mat. I'm gonna have to we can put it even in the show notes, everything you're talking about, and your book link and and your social media, and actually, if you could just mention your social media link and if you have a website or how we can get your book here. Fire and grace, and I love it. I love the cover, it is beautiful, and everybody should read this because if you're feeling high, you know, life is hard, or you're struggling with suicide ideation or chronic pain or you know, chronic illness, this this will get you through. Um, if if Brooke is here with us now to live to say it, you know, so can you, and you'll provide that hope. I know it. And yeah, so just mention where where we can find you. And what's your next step, your next vision? You know, what are you gonna give out there to the world, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:18

Yeah, right now I am working on filming a healing course. It's really for those who are to the point where they felt jaded with the Western medicine, I think, and are realizing that there's more to healing than just bandages. And so the course is to really take you step by step at the things that were most impactful. Like, I'm not covering everything properly, but there's like the things that were most impactful for my healing, the things that moved the needle the biggest for me, a couple ways that they can be adapted per person, and to know like what I say is not the only way to do it. Healing is so adaptable, and so take what I teach and make it yours, make it feel personable, comfortable, what is aligns with you because you are your only source to healing. I just it really hit me recently that there's like no knight in shining armor that's gonna come save us. Like it really took me wanting to find healing for myself and not for anyone else for it to work. So I am filming and releasing a healing course geared specifically to chronic pain and chronic illness conditions, and then mental health. I am speaking to because they overlap so much. People with chronic pain and chronic illness often are suicidal. So I am speaking to parts of that and things that were most helpful for me to stop spirals to get out of certain mindsets and things like that. But it is mostly geared to chronic illness. And then I am about to release my first retreat that is going to be really epic, not gonna lie, because I have it all planned out now, and it's really gonna be good. It was about to do that, about to go film Legacy Makers with you in Florida. Yes, I know that's coming up a couple weeks. That is coming up, that's gonna be so awesome, and so I am just I'm just about to really leave, like start the mark on the world, you know, of what to come, and I'm just listening for what God is asking me to do. But one of my big pictures, my five-year goal is to have a maternal mental health center built in Utah. Oh, wow. Uh geared to healing the whole family.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:01

Oh, I got full body shivers. Yes, that's happening. I could see it.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:06

Yeah, and so I'm gonna have a wing separate for children, intensive outpatient therapies, a hospital for people that need to be inpatient, have evening things to support the spouses or the husbands, men group, a support group, family therapies, marriage therapy, a place where like if mom is hospitalized and you need a daycare childcare for your kids, like we have a safe wing, ideally. Like, there's so many medication options for moms to still breastfeed now that if we can support a breastfeeding relationship still, I want to because so many moms are forced to quit breastfeeding with being hospitalized, and it's part of the trauma, it's part of the cold turkey. So do whatever we can to support the family unit through it because so many families are destroyed through mental illness and through chronic illness, and I think us standing the test of that and still being a strong family unit, it's not unique. It doesn't need to be a unique story, it needs to be the common story, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:16

Oh wow, Brooke, this is so needed, and uh yeah, you will save families and especially just being the spouse too. Sometimes you just don't know, you don't have the resources, you need the help or how to better help them, and having that community, and you know, because if they probably have to continue working, and who's gonna take care of the kids and having that community and for you for them not to have that experience you did at the hospital as well. It's it's um yeah, I I just love what's ahead for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:47

Yeah, so that's my big dream that we are working towards. But you can find me um the easiest on Instagram at live underscore even with, and I can send all this to you with you as well. And then my website is through fireandgrace.com and it links to the Amazon storefront to get my book, and then my Instagram links to a lot of the resources that I do use for healing modality as well, and the website will link to my retreat when I release that and to the healing course as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:23

Oh, I love that. Are you planning to do it in Utah? Or do you have a location in mind? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:29

Yes, I do have a location in southern Utah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:32

Okay, well, when you come out and it's all ready, I will be so happy to share it because I know there's gonna be a lot of listeners and a lot of people that this will be, you know, calling for them and and healing. So I'm very honored to have you on my podcast today. And somebody out there, there's gonna be many that are not gonna feel alone anymore in their battle. And that's my prayer.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:55

I mean, yeah, I didn't survive this just to survive, is what I've always said. I survive statistically, just a very crazy amount of things you should not survive. And so my goal is just to spread hope in the darkness and not and more than hope, but give them tangible things to actually change their life with.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:17

Yeah, yeah, and you will, and you will. I had a question too. I forgot to ask, did they ever do any of the brain scans? I'm only asking because I just did that with Mateus the last time I was. I saw you do that with your son. Yeah, and a lot we got into the conversation of uh proper oxygen levels depending on how you're you know, and for in dentistry too, is the way your jaw is aligned, your mandible, and it's uh in the alignment. So I'm curious if you ever came about that conversation when you were getting treated or testings. Did they ever mention that?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:49

I we never did brain scans for that with the mental health aspect. I did do brain scans after the mental health aspect for the instability. Like my doctor in Barcelona actually had me do scans that I'd never done in the States before, like EMVs and stuff, and they were checking oxygen levels and blood flow to the brain. And what they actually found out, my left jugular was actually almost completely collapsed and blocked off. So you could watch the scan, and my right jugular was pumping, and for every like two to three pumps of blood flow to the right side of my brain, my left side got one. Interesting. And they really don't, I was so oxygen deprived for so long, they really don't know how to have brain injury brain injury. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:39

I ventation's been coming up a lot, and for me, like I we've been in airway obstruction for a long time at our dental office, and I experienced that with my son, and that's why he was experiencing like anger, but ultimately wasn't that, it was the way his breathing taking in the correct um breath works. So we gave him some appliance. So I was so curious. Like, for you, there had to be some kind of lack, not the proper oxygen levels, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:06

So there's two things that I think really factored into my postpartum psychosis. One was Lyme's disease. Lyme's disease, they actually tracked back to me contracting it at age 12 because that was the first time I was misdiagnosed with a mental illness. And Lyme's disease often attacks your brain first. Wow. And so often the first misdiagnosis for Lyme's disease is bipolar. Oh, really? Yes. Okay, well, this people in here. I'm like, wow, that's interesting. Most people most teenagers with a rapid onset of mood disorder change, if you actually test them for infectious disease, it will test positive. And if you treat the disease versus give them antidepressants, they will get better.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:53

Wow.

unknown 1:27:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:55

I know this is good. It's really crazy. This is all in the book Chronic. So it was. Really just fascinating to me. And so then I went to my doctor in Mexico for the first time, and we like I gave them this huge health history from like really young, like five years old up. You spend hours with them the first day, and they can pinpoint based on when your health switched to when you probably got infected. And they said for you, it was probably age 12 when they thought you got West Nile virus but didn't confirm it with testing, you actually got Lyme's disease.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:30

Wow. And my body couldn't fight it off because of my genetic disorder and other stuff. It was already overloaded. And so then it became chronic Lyme disease. It's just so so many things. So one, I like I think the post another thing is Lyme's disease can give you symptoms of psychosis. And so I think they think my psych postpartum psychosis was dominantly Lyme's disease driven, like it because the birth and stuff can like reactivate certain parts of Lyme's disease that maybe like weren't as active because Lyme's disease can kind of like go through like these remission cycles, even though it's in your body. And so but the other thing is my instability was getting worse and worse after that pregnancy. So I was becoming more unstable in my neck and becoming more collapsed. And I had started passing out a lot after his first birthday and being very dizzy. And so I think part of my psychosis episode is my brain was following out falling out of my skull. There is that pressure on the wrong parts of your brain, Lyme's disease, and then my instability and not getting proper blood flow and oxygen to the brain.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:58

To the brain, yeah. Wow. And how do you feel that how do you think that came about as far as the instability and all that? Was that like a previous you had mentioned like an accident of some sort? Or what do you or do you like what what do you think was the root cause of that?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:16

So there's couple things that cause the root cause of the instability. One was my genetic disorder, Ellers Stanlow syndrome. It's a connective tissue disorder. So it's faulty collagen within the body. So my ligaments are supposed to hold my body together, but my ligaments stretch out and then they don't come back like a normal body. So, like you can go stretch your leg and it feels real good. And then when you take your leg out of the stretch, your ligaments come back like a rubber band should. Mine did not. So I would stretch and my ligaments would stretch out and feel real good, and then it would just stay there. And so my muscles became what held my body together. And then I had a head injury right here. You can kind of see my scar. Um, it's a little hard through video chat, but I have a scar right here. Also, I have makeup on, so it also makes it a little bit harder. But you can see it when I stretch it out, you can kind of see the scar tissue. Um I had a head injury at age six sledding, and I think that was the initial start of my skull instability because it was real bad head injury. I had a severe concussion.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:34

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:35

It left me colorblind from the impact. Really?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:38

Wow. Okay, so yeah, that is a big correlation. I was just talking at the Eamon's doctor's clinic and the scans, and they said concussions. Actually, that was one question of Mateus. They asked a lot if he had any head trauma when he was little, like falling off the bed when he was a baby or things like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:55

So I've actually had multiple concussions in my life. But that was the first that I know of. I mean, I don't know that my mom ever like I was the fourth of five children, so there's like a great chance I rolled off the bed or the couch at some point. Really good chance, you know? But that was the first major, and it was so big, like it left me colorblind.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:17

And then as a teenager, I did equestrian vaulting, and I had a neck injury. I was basing a flyer, and our horse equipment, it's called a sur single, it wasn't on tight enough. We didn't tighten it after warm-ups, after the horse was done. Like, because when you put it on the horse, they usually puff out their stomach, and then you warm the horse up, and then they stop puffing out their stomach, and you tighten it, and then you start vaulting. And we'd forgotten the second tight to tighten after warm-up, and we were doing triples on the horse, and I was bassing a flyer, and this my foot was in the surf single loop. I was attached to the horse, and the surf single started sliding, and I start going off the horse. The flyer can jump because I'm just holding her, but I'm attached to the horse. Oh wow, and so my CT junction took impact. And what they saw in my imaging in Barcelona is my T1 vertebrae is actually a 45-degree angle into my body. Oh wow, and it was from that injury. Wow, broke. And so I have so I have two injuries, a genetic disorder, and then Lyme's disease attacks ligaments the same way my genetic disorder does. It's causes and it also attacks, like it attacks every organ, but it does the same thing to ligaments, and it causes them to be just really faulty. And so basically, my muscles were holding my head and neck and upper body together, and just being in my mid-20s, having four pregnancies, the strain of that, my muscles just gave out.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:07

Wow. I see. Oh my goodness, Brooke, that's uh yeah, incredible what you've kind of endured and and be able to see clearly now, but also see that there's still hope, and you be able to walk and enjoy life and and see you with your kids now. I mean, that's uh that brings so much joy. And yeah, you you do have a lot of work ahead of you, but uh I have no doubt that God will you know give you the strength and the courage to keep going. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:39

Yeah. I mean, I pray. Yeah, I pray he does. Because it it just needs it needs to be done, you know. Yeah, and it will. There's so many people hurting in this area of mental illness and physical illness. I mean, that's like three-fourths of the world's problems.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:59

Yes, yeah, yeah. But we've got you've got us. You've got this, and we had a whole support team in there. We're there for you to, you know, support you along the way for your for your dreams. This was a true honor, and I can't wait to share this with the world. And uh yeah, we'll we'll touch base again. This is probably not gonna be the last time I have you on here.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:23

Yeah, probably not. No, it'd be so fun to collaborate in the future when we have stuff when we have businesses up and going and we know what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:36

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got real clarity. I know, I know. It's starting to be a little bit more every day, you know, as I keep praying, meditating, but yeah, we'll get there. Let's get there. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Not Alone with Melissa Methpin. Your time and attention mean the world to me. Remember, you are never alone in your journey. There is a community filled with support and love, ready to embrace you. I see you and you matter. Until next time, may you find peace and strength in the connections we share. Take care and be kind to yourself.