Our Dead Dads
009 - From Trauma to Triumph with Functional Health Coach Melissa Armstrong
Imagine growing up with an abusive, schizophrenic father and then surviving a school shooting where you knew the shooter. On this week's episode of "Our Dead Dads," we feature an incredible interview with Melissa Armstrong, a nurse turned trauma-informed functional health coach, who bravely shares her life story. From witnessing her brother's tragic death to navigating a career in nursing amidst personal turmoil, Melissa opens up about the profound layers of grief and trauma she has endured over the past 20 years.
Melissa's journey through therapy and holistic healing is nothing short of inspiring. Dealing with severe anxiety and panic attacks, Melissa discovered meditation and other holistic practices that gave her control over her mental health. Her transition to functional health coaching allowed her to help other women heal from similar experiences. Through candid discussions about her family dynamics, Melissa provides insight into how unresolved past traumas continuously affect relationships, and emphasizes the importance of supportive networks and self-care.
As we wrap up, Melissa's story takes a hopeful turn, focusing on forgiveness and personal growth. She shares her future plans to expand her practice and reach more people through books and speaking engagements. We conclude with some lighter moments, including a fun rapid-fire round that reveals hidden aspects of Melissa’s personality. Tune in for a deeply moving and ultimately uplifting conversation about resilience, healing, and the power of human connection.
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Imagine growing up with an abusive, schizophrenic father and then surviving a school shooting where you knew the shooter. On this week's episode of "Our Dead Dads," we feature an incredible interview with Melissa Armstrong, a nurse turned trauma-informed functional health coach, who bravely shares her life story. From witnessing her brother's tragic death to navigating a career in nursing amidst personal turmoil, Melissa opens up about the profound layers of grief and trauma she has endured over the past 20 years.
Melissa's journey through therapy and holistic healing is nothing short of inspiring. Dealing with severe anxiety and panic attacks, Melissa discovered meditation and other holistic practices that gave her control over her mental health. Her transition to functional health coaching allowed her to help other women heal from similar experiences. Through candid discussions about her family dynamics, Melissa provides insight into how unresolved past traumas continuously affect relationships, and emphasizes the importance of supportive networks and self-care.
As we wrap up, Melissa's story takes a hopeful turn, focusing on forgiveness and personal growth. She shares her future plans to expand her practice and reach more people through books and speaking engagements. We conclude with some lighter moments, including a fun rapid-fire round that reveals hidden aspects of Melissa’s personality. Tune in for a deeply moving and ultimately uplifting conversation about resilience, healing, and the power of human connection.
GIVE THE SHOW A 5-STAR RATING ON APPLE PODCASTS!
FOLLOW US ON APPLE OR YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST PLATFORM!
BOOKMARK OUR WEBSITE: www.ourdeaddads.com
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ourdeaddadspod/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ourdeaddadspod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ourdeaddadspod
Twitter / X: https://x.com/ourdeaddadspod
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmmv6sdmMIys3GDBjiui3kw
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ourdeaddadspod/
Welcome to Our Dead Dads, the podcast where we normalize talking about grief, trauma, loss and moving forward. I'm your host. My name is Nick Gaylord. Thank you so much for joining and I hope you enjoyed last week's episode with Colleen Coleman. I also want to apologize for how I sounded last week. I was a bit under the weather and didn't realize just how bad I sounded when I recorded the intro, but thank you to everyone for all the texts that asked if I was either. I also want to apologize for how I sounded last week. I was a bit under the weather and didn't realize just how bad I sounded when I recorded the intro, and thank you to everyone who reached out to check on me, asking if I was sick or if I had somebody else reading the intro. No, I did not have anybody else reading. Yes, I had a bit of a throat. I'm definitely feeling better and it's time to get back to talking about grief and loss.
Speaker 1:This week is episode number nine, and I have one hell of an interview for you today, probably one of the darkest ones I've done yet. Today's guest is Melissa Armstrong, who is a nurse turned trauma-informed functional health coach. Melissa joins me to tell her story about growing up with a father who was an abusive, schizophrenic drug addict. She was at school during a school shooting in San Diego in 2001 and knew the shooter well, and in a separate tragedy, one that had nothing to do with the school shooting, she saw her brother die right in front of her. How does one recover from all of that, you might ask? Well, she has spent the last 20 years of her life pursuing intense healing, and she's here to talk about all of it, to share what her many levels of grief were like and how she turned it all around. The story is intense, like many of the others featured on the show, and Melissa also shows that, while it takes time, grief can be overcome and there are better things waiting on the other side of it.
Speaker 1:Before we get started, I would like to thank everyone listening for your feedback and for engaging with the show. Please follow the show's social media pages on Facebook, instagram and TikTok and, if you haven't already, please get on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Follow the show and, very important, please give us a five-star rating and leave a short review of the show. Tell us what you like, tell us what you're looking forward to and tell us how the show has helped you or someone you know. We can't say thank you enough to everyone who has already left us a rating and a review, and if you haven't yet, please do it today. It takes less than a minute and it really does make a huge difference to help us continue to gain awareness and exposure in the podcast community.
Speaker 1:As you know, my goal is to normalize talking about grief, loss and trauma, which are topics that are not easy for most of us to talk about, but they're also topics that everybody should be discussing more Not only discussing them, but not feeling like they're taboo topics. Time may not heal all wounds, but keeping everything bottled up inside doesn't heal any of them. Together, we're building a community for others to have a safe space to talk about their stories and their feelings, and for anyone who may not yet be ready to talk, just to listen to others and know that no one is alone in this path. That's why I say we're a community and I'm so happy to have you here. If you have a story of grief and loss to share and might want to be considered as a future guest on Our Dead Dads, go to OurDeadDadscom. Go to the Contact Us link and select Be a Guest. Fill out the form, send it in and you just might be able to tell your story and carry on this mission of helping ourselves and so many others. Please enjoy this episode and stick around for the end when I'll tell you about next week's episode.
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Speaker 2:What do you say? Shall, we get into this, let's do it.
Speaker 1:First of all, thank you so much for agreeing to do this, for wanting to come on and tell your story. I'm honored to have you here. I'm thrilled that we've gotten to have some early conversation leading up to this. You've got one hell of a story to tell. I'm going to turn it over to you to let you get started and I will jump in as appropriate.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool. So my childhood was pretty chaotic and abusive. My parents were both addicts. My dad was very mentally unstable, diagnosed like multiple mental health diagnoses, diagnosed like multiple mental health diagnoses and on top of that using crystal meth and heroin, kind of off and on as a young adult and into his adult life and then as a parent.
Speaker 2:So we, my early childhood, was just kind of riddled with all of the things that you associate with addiction, like low income, moving from house to house, a lot of people in and out of the house, the drug dealers were there and gone and my parents would fight a lot. My dad was very physically abusive toward my mom and my older brother who had a different dad. It was very tumultuous when they divorced. When I was about six he left and I really never saw him but once every couple of years and probably you know I could probably count on one hand how many times I saw him until he finally passed away and then from there, you know, that kind of set me up to have a lot of trauma responses and very like high anxiety and battled with depression very early on in my life. And then when I was a young like preteen, I was sexually molested by a grand, the grandfather of one of my good friends, which going through puberty and my body was changing and I had already had daddy issues. And then this happened to you know, somebody I trusted really took advantage of me and that was very traumatic and really grappling at that time, like you know, with why and like just wanting somebody to just genuinely love me.
Speaker 2:And then when I was 15, there was a shoot, a school shooting at my high school. That I think was kind of a really pivotal time for me because I was 15. So I was very young and had all of this kind of like baggage and trauma from all of that that I had already been through. And then that happened and I had a close relationship with the school shooter. So I really blamed myself. At the time in my immature 15 year old brain I thought I should have known. I didn't know he didn't tell me, but I thought I should have known. I didn't know he didn't tell me, but I thought I should have known. And so I really blamed myself for all of the you know trauma that signs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I really at that time really started struggling with like panic and, as a result, started having a lot of insomnia and then just kind of spiraled downward, had, you know, was in and out of like psychiatric facilities on 5150 holds because I was threatening to hurt myself and I was just really really, really unwell. And then when I was 18, I kind of I I pushed myself kind of through that. I, my mom got me into counseling and that helped, I think, minimally. I was chronically medicated, you know, various different antipsychotics, antidepressants, anti anxieties, insomnia, sleeping medications, various things like that.
Speaker 2:And then, when I was 18, my brother, who was five years older than me, was killed in front of me, and my life basically imploded.
Speaker 1:What happened to your brother?
Speaker 2:He was riding a four-wheeler, a quad. I grew up in Southern California and San Diego, and we were very close to the desert, and so he had just come from the desert, and so the quad had paddle tires on it for sand. And he had just come from the desert and he was just kind of trying to show off in front of me and instead of putting it in my mom's garage, like he had come to do, he decided to take off down the asphalt street behind my mom's condo complex and the bike flipped, and he wasn't wearing a helmet, and so he had a subdural hematoma.
Speaker 2:I was right there when it happened, I knew something it was. It was interesting Cause I started chasing after him before he flipped. I just knew something was wrong and I don't know how I knew or why I knew, but I just started chasing after him. So I was. It was like a I don't know what day of the week it was, but it was in the middle of the week and it was like 3 PM 4 PM, so there was like people walking their dogs and checking the mail and kids riding their bikes and stuff. We lived in a car. My mom lived in a condo complex, so there's a lot of people around, but I was the first one to get to him.
Speaker 2:And he was. I didn't know it at the time because I was 18. I know now that he was having a seizure because he had hit his head and I screamed for help. People called 911. The ambulance was there super quick. They ended up landing a helicopter right there and took him to or maybe not right there, I think they actually landed it close to the. There was a little regional airport mile down the road, so I think that's where they. They put him in the ambulance, took him by life flight and he was brain dead. So he died as a result of that accident and my life really imploded at that time.
Speaker 2:It was a lot of post-traumatic stress depression. I felt very suicidal. I was really unwell mentally, had panic, I couldn't sleep. I would be up for days at a time like not able to close my eyes, cause if I closed my eyes I would have flashbacks and it was just better for me to just stay awake. I started self-medicating with drugs and alcohol and yeah, it was really bad. And then I simultaneously was like gosh, I really want to help people. Like I feel like maybe this is why this happened. I want to pursue nursing.
Speaker 2:So I went into like declared I was already in college. So I declared my major as nursing and started on that path, doing all my undergrad, and really started focusing on that, simultaneously dealing with, like, my own mental health, which manifested into a lot of physical stuff, because I wasn't dealing with that trauma, I was just holding onto it. So I started developing like a lot of physical symptoms I get rashes all over my body and digestive issues, headaches. I wasn't sleeping, I was not eating. Well, I was gaining weight, I was. My skin was horrible, it was just kind of everything. But yeah, that's kind of the gist, that's, that's the beginning of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's unpack this a little bit. So two parents who are drug addicts not the best childhood at all. You said you were abused. Was it physical, mental, emotional at all? You said you were abused. Was it physical?
Speaker 2:mental, emotional, all of the above. Yeah, my dad was really physically abusive to my mom and my brother and, as a result, my brother was very physically abusive to me and then my mom was very verbally abusive to me. There wasn't any sexual abuse or anything from inside, inside my immediate family.
Speaker 1:That was came from outside of the family, but yeah, so your brother became abusive toward you now when he died. So you said you were 18. So he was what about 23? How had your relationship with him developed or changed, um, between when you guys were kids and when he's taking his aggression out on you to right before he died? Were you able to talk about that? Were you able to move past it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's part of why his death was so hard for me, because we weren't. I was very angry with him when he died because of everything that he had done to me as a kid and and when. When I say like he was abusive, he was an older brother and he would like pick on me. He would pin me down and wrestle with me when I didn't want to and like it's not, like he was like punching me in the face or like you know, like he wasn't. He was like mild to moderately, like abusive, and like it was way rough with me for sure, cause he needed to get that aggression out, cause what's the? The thing that they always say like shit rolls downhill, like that's kind of unfortunately true you got caught in its path.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then I was really awful to my youngest sister my younger sisters as a result, you know. But and then he got into a lot of trouble when he was a teenager, like a young teen, he started really like acting out, started using drugs, ditching school, ended up getting kicked out of school, started having sex and then wound up impregnating a couple different girls, like back to back to back. So when he died, when he was 23, he had three children with three underage girls, and one of them happened to be a very good friend of mine, One of them happened to be somebody who I really disliked. So there was a lot of tension and drama and court and this. And I was in high school with those girls when I was 16, they were 16 and he impregnated them. So when he died, we I was very, very angry with him.
Speaker 1:So you guys weren't on good terms.
Speaker 2:Most sound like. For the most part, it doesn't sound like you were ever't on good terms. Most days not.
Speaker 1:It doesn't sound like. For the most part, it doesn't sound like you were ever really on good terms with him, and I can completely understand what sounds like a pretty tormenting older brother. I mean, look, I'm the oldest of seven. We grew up on professional wrestling. My dad watched it forever. My brother and I got into it as kids. My younger siblings after that, we all got into it. My youngest sister, she, got the brunt of it being the youngest one with four older brothers and she saw us beat the shit out of each other and at some point she wanted to get involved in it too, and it was never in an aggressive way. She just she wanted to be part of the fun and it definitely toughened her up a lot Having us smack her around a little bit and at the same time we were so protective of her and it. It doesn't sound. That doesn't sound like this.
Speaker 2:Well, it kind of was in a way like he was very protective of me and my other sisters and there were periods of time where we got along better than others. I think there were. I can think back and remember some really kind of like heart to heart conversations that him and I had had and like he had apologized for some of what had happened.
Speaker 2:But I was still so angry with him and I think that was more about me Like in in that time, when he was 23, he was really, really making a lot of, like positive changes. He finally had a job, he was seeing his kids regularly, he's paying child support, he was really trying to get his life together. He had a stable relationship, like he was definitely a different person than he was, than he was when we were like when I was 10, when he was 15, but I was still very immature and still very hurt and very angry really angry at him.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about that. You're 18. Your dad is really not in the picture. Your brother is now gone. You're dealing with a lifetime, at the ripe old age of 18, of abuse and trauma, and it sucks that we all carry some form of trauma into adulthood. But you carried quite a bit. How did you finally begin to process any of it, whether it was your brother, your dad? You had a lot on your plate. Yeah, what were your next steps to begin to get past this, to deal with this?
Speaker 2:So I was in and out of therapy my whole life. I still see a therapist I think everyone should and healing is a lifelong journey. So like I've made a ton of progress, but like I'm not you know, like I never claimed to be perfect or think that like I've reached a point. I don't think that that happens. I don't think you reach a point where you're like ah, I've arrived. But so when I was in my early twenties, when I was just coming into, like finishing nursing school and starting my job as a nurse you know as a I started my nursing career in a level one trauma facility, in the pediatric ICU. So it was just kind of trauma on top of trauma. Thought that that's really like what I wanted to do. Pretty quickly realized that it was really like not an emotionally the area that I should probably be in, but in my early nursing career you probably know from your experience with your mom and like just it's pretty common knowledge but nurses, when you start nursing, like you have to do night shift, like that's what you have to do. You work seven P to seven a and as a new grad, we like flipped back and forth between nights and days. So we would do eight weeks nights, eight weeks days, eight weeks nights, eight weeks days, and it was awful. I could. I really couldn't function on night shift. I was, so I wasn't able to sleep during the day, and then I was so nauseated all the time from being up like during the night that I would try to like flip my schedule back on my days off. But that was totally disruptive to my circadian rhythm and to like my health in general. It was so bad for my health I would say that it really like my mental health really peaked when I was probably about 22, 23. And that's when I was like the panic was.
Speaker 2:I was about 23. Cause that's when I, I think, got my license, my nursing license 23 or 24, maybe even I wasn't sleeping and the panic as a result like just exponentially increased. I was not able to eat. I was so unwell that I would just like cry, like in the middle of. Like I would just be shopping and I would just like start crying and have panic attack in the grocery store for no reason. Like or like at Costco, if somebody slammed the door I would hit the ground and like start crying and I was just there, was like multiple, multiple things that kept happening and I was just there was like multiple, multiple things that kept happening and I was just really really unwell and at that point the counseling that I was receiving wasn't really helping me move along in any way.
Speaker 2:And that's when my boyfriend now husband suggested to me that I try meditation. He said have you ever tried like you need something to calm yourself down, like you're so wound up all the time? And I had never, nobody had ever reflected that to me so I didn't even realize that and I don't know he might've said things like that to me before we had our. We met when I was 16. So we he watched me go through all of that. He knew my brother, he watched me go through all of that. He knew my brother. He knew you know he was there when he died and all of that. So he not there like he he was he was around he was around yeah, he was.
Speaker 2:But he suggested to me like why don't you try like I don't know meditation or something like to try to calm yourself down? And I was like, okay, I mean, I guess I should try that, because I've never tried that and maybe that will help. So I started meditating and I didn't immediately notice a change, but after not too long I realized that I could actually get myself calm and feel like a sense of peace, and I had never felt that in my whole entire life. All of a sudden, I was like fascinated by like, oh my gosh, how does this work? Why does this? Why do I, can I suddenly feel calm?
Speaker 2:And then, because I was meditating every day, when I would start to feel really anxious, like if I was shopping or at the Costco, you know, if somebody would shut a car door or something I could use those breathing techniques that I was using while I was meditating and like almost instantly calm myself down in a situation that was very stressful to me. And so I started consuming a ton of information about meditation and the nervous system and neuroplasticity and breath work and all, and started learning as much as I can, and I realized there's this whole other world to like healing. That sometimes people will call it like it's like woo or it's like not accepted. You know it not means yeah, and mainstream healthcare doesn't accept that as like a modality. But it helped me and then it kind of grew from there.
Speaker 1:What has it grown into now?
Speaker 2:You know, I was kind of walking that path, learning about that, simultaneously learning in my own nursing career and I was working in really like traditional medicine.
Speaker 2:I worked in ICU for many years and then I worked in various other inpatient settings at various different hospital networks and then eventually in like an ambulatory, like clinic setting, various different types of clinic settings and kind of all the while I was realizing more and more like gosh, like this whole system is broken and it doesn't really, in my opinion, we weren't serving the patients by like teaching people actual true health the patients.
Speaker 2:By like teaching people actual true health, I felt like we're just like putting we're putting band-aids on problems. Every problem was met with a pill or a procedure as the solution and I just felt like this can't be what I'm meant to do and I felt like there was something more. So about seven years ago, I started learning more about functional medicine, which is like a root cause approach to medicine and like holistic healing and other modalities like meditation and sound healing and energy work and all of this kind of stuff. And then about the beginning of 2023 is when I opened my own private practice doing functional health coaching with women to help women overcome their own personal and intergenerational trauma that has manifested into physical symptoms, so they can heal their whole mind, body and spirit.
Speaker 1:Very nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What is the name of your practice?
Speaker 2:Holistic Health by Melissa.
Speaker 1:If anybody who's listening wanted to reach out, do you have any objections?
Speaker 2:No, I'd be happy to chat. The best way to get ahold of me is through my website, wwwholistichealthbymelissacom, where you can find me on all social media platforms at Holistic Health by Melissa.
Speaker 1:That's amazing and hopefully somebody's going to hear this and want to have a conversation with you. This is part of having these conversations is the healing process and the moving forward process, and you have been through so much and you've figured out a way that works for you. As you said, it doesn't have to work for everybody, but nothing works for everybody. It doesn't matter whether it's modern medicine or it's meditation or yoga or long walks on the beach, whatever it is. There's no solution that works for everybody. And you've found something that works for you and now you've taken your medical background, your background as a nurse, and you've started this incredible practice to be a life coach and to help other people, and I mean that's incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm pretty proud of it.
Speaker 1:What kind of relationship do you have with your mom now? Because you said your mom is still alive, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, my dad passed away from all the drugs and everything in 2015. And I did not have a relationship excuse me, I did not have a relationship with him when he passed away. And then my mom and my relationship has been very difficult at times and we are finally, just in the last like six months or so, finally really healing our relationship, and a lot of that came. You know, like my mom had to do her own healing and in my healing journey, something that I realized is that not only did my parents have my parents abused me and I was traumatized, but they were also abused as kids. Both of them and both sides of my family have trauma from parent. You know, like each person has experienced some level of trauma, going back at least five generations.
Speaker 2:My grandmother was abusive to my mother, Her my great grandmother was abusive to my grandmother, Like so it's just really really traumatic and my mom had not healed herself. So that's why our relationship was really difficult and she has done an incredible amount of work and really tried hard to understand what happened to her and her path and heal herself so that we can meet on some common ground and right now we have a relationship. It's pretty distant, we're not like super close, but we text and talk on the phone here and there and it's really quite nice actually.
Speaker 1:At least there's that. Yeah, the fact that you've been able to get at least past enough of what happened to want to rebuild that relationship with your mom that right there is pretty amazing, because that doesn't always happen. You would have been well within your rights to walk away from your mom and just completely cut her out of your life. Was there ever a point where you thought about doing that?
Speaker 2:Me and my mom didn't speak for years. We were both kind of on our own path and I it was very toxic to me to be in relationship with her when she was not willing to see her own damage and trying to work toward healing herself. And I think not that I'm like the reason why. You know, like I'm not claiming to be that, but I think that was a big part in her realizing, like me cutting her off and her being cut off from her grandkids was like a big eye opening, like maybe I do need to look inside. And I will say too that it's very complicated and I can understand. There's always been some empathy like from me to her. I've always kind of understood that she did the best she could even though, like she was too. She was really like really verbally abusive to us when we were kids me in particular. My sisters, fortunately for them, didn't get that because she had me.
Speaker 1:Right, you were the, you were the punching bag.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my brother was really like gone, like as a teenager and you know so, like I took the brunt of it. But I also understand that, as a mom now myself, and knowing so much about trauma and how it stays in the body and how it can affect your responses and all of that, Like I always, I kind of always knew that she, she did the best she could. She just didn't know any better and I I empathize with that and I have love for for her in spite of that.
Speaker 1:You don't hate her.
Speaker 2:I don't hate her.
Speaker 1:Do you hate your dad?
Speaker 2:Ooh, that's a tricky question. I don't think that I hate him, but I also have not forgiven him. To be totally honest.
Speaker 1:I know that you said you rarely saw him as you were growing up before he died. Did you ever get to have any of those in an honest moment conversations with him?
Speaker 2:No, no, he was still using.
Speaker 2:The last time that I really like had any significant interaction with him was a few years before he died Like gosh 10 years maybe I guess meant more than a few where it was right after my brother had died and he, he was a very selfish.
Speaker 2:You know, he was an addict, he was mentally unwell, he was diagnosed schizophrenic and like using right, so he was just really like crazy. And when my brother died he just said some really nasty things about my brother and about me and like my sadness over it and like really made it about him. And then he made up this whole like thing where he said he was like dying and he was in the hospital and I ended up calling the hospital and talking to the nurse and the nurse basically told me like she's, like I can totally not tell you this, this is completely illegal and I can lose my job, but he is definitely not dying, like we could only hope. And I basically called him out on that and that was kind of the last time that we spoke. But it was never like he could never see his own. He was a narcissist, he was a schizophrenic, he was like he just could never see his own. He was a narcissist. He was a schizophrenic. He was like he just could never see his own errors.
Speaker 1:To quote the Breakfast Club, it sounds like your dad and my dad should have gotten together and gone bowling.
Speaker 2:Maybe they did. My dad grew up in New York.
Speaker 1:Maybe they did. My dad actually did enjoy bowling for a while. My dad was also a narcissist. He never took accountability for pretty much anything that went wrong in his life. He was married and divorced five times. He had a lot of physical problems. Some were related to a car accident that happened early in life when he was 17. He was in a car that got T-boned, went through the windshield. The car rolled over, crushed his pelvis and his hip. He spent a year in the hospital after that, physically recovering and he was largely good for a long time. His doctors told him then you're going to pay for this one day. Hopefully there's better technology and he could have solved a lot of the physical problems in his life.
Speaker 1:He just really chose not to. He just chose to be a victim of everything. He didn't care that he was gaining weight and he was just being less and less physical. After his final divorce he actually he used to work as an x-ray technician, and then many reasons, he didn't do that anymore and he ended up becoming a bus driver, which he did for about 15 years, but similar to being a truck driver. Physical activity was next to nothing and in the first two years or so he gained probably about 100 pounds and this was already in his mid-50s, I want to say early 50s, mid-50s. So he never took care of himself Again. After all the divorces he blamed everybody, always blamed his ex-wives, blamed his kids, didn't matter, it was just not his fault. He was very full of himself and it's unfortunate that somebody chooses to live that way. And he was also very stubborn when it came to his physical health, no matter what the right decision was. Even when he knew what the decision was, he wouldn't take it. He had 100 reasons to nope. I'm just going to do it my way.
Speaker 1:It sucks when the kids are put in situations like that, and my dad was never an addict. My dad was never physically abusive. He was very verbally abusive. When I was growing up again, probably his own ridiculous reasons. But I can't imagine I know what it was like growing up in well. I didn't grow up with him. My parents were divorced when I was two. But I can't imagine I know what it was like growing up in well. I didn't grow up with him. My parents were divorced when I was two. But growing up, seeing him act the way he did towards others, towards women, towards his other kids. I never understood it. I still don't. It's the way he was and it's certainly not a justification and it doesn't help us at all as the children, the children, yeah, let me ask you this when your dad died, how did you find out he died?
Speaker 2:That's a funny question. The state of I grew up in California and he had apparently moved to Arizona and he was not married. So the state of Arizona called me and told me that I, that he died and that I was responsible for his afterlife, like they had cremated him. So they, they, they basically told me that I was. I was his next of kin because I was his oldest child and they found me at the time I was married. So somehow they found, you know, my maiden name was the same as his maiden name, so my married name is obviously Armstrong. So, yeah, they found me somehow and they tried to tell me that I was responsible for his cremation and stuff.
Speaker 1:So this he was in Arizona, Were you in Colorado at the time.
Speaker 2:No, I was still in California.
Speaker 1:Okay, they had already cremated him. What did you do? You had to go and pick up his remains.
Speaker 2:No, I was like yeah, and I told them like you guys are crazy yeah. I was like no, I'm not paying you anything. They tried to sell them and they also mailed me something to my house and said it was like $5,000 bill or something for all of the. And I was like, yeah, you're crazy. My dad never paid child support, he hasn't given me anything. And she's like well, we're going to have to take you to court. And I was like great, see you in court.
Speaker 1:See you in court.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and nothing ever came of it Of course not.
Speaker 1:They're just going to try to do whatever they can to threaten somebody, to scare them into trying to get money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like you guys are crazy. Like my dad, never. There's no chance that I could. Like there's not a judge in this world that would tell me that I'm responsible for that. Like I haven't had a relationship with my dad in 10 years, Like, and he never contributed to my life at all and I have evidence of all of this. Like, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:You have two younger sisters, correct? Did either of them maintain a relationship with him before he died?
Speaker 2:No, okay, my youngest, my next youngest sister is 11 months younger than me and she has down syndrome, so she's pretty severely developmentally delayed. And then my next youngest sister is 13 months younger than her, developmentally delayed. And then my next youngest sister is 13 months younger than her and she did not have a relationship with him.
Speaker 1:You've said that you have not forgiven him. Do you think you ever could get to a point where you could?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually am actively working on that Is that part of your therapy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I want to forgive him, because I know forgiveness is not about him, it's about me. And like, holding onto that unforgiveness is only hurting me, Like he's dead, it doesn't matter to him. And I will say too, like the, the empathy that I have for my mom, I have that for my dad too. I know that. I know he went through some awful, awful things. His dad was very it was actually, I think, his stepdad, because his he had a younger brother who ended up committing suicide. And it was his younger brother's dad who like sexually abused my dad a lot for for like a decade when he was a young kid. So like I know that he's been through.
Speaker 2:And then his mom was like a narcissist and just like awful and very verbally abusive to him too. So like he had a terrible, terrible, terrible childhood also. So I have a lot of empathy for him also. So I have a lot of empathy for him about that. But it's hard. I can almost separate it. I like can compartmentalize, like having empathy for him versus, and like also feeling sorry or feeling sad for myself, having him for little Melissa, having him as a dad. The two are just, they exist together.
Speaker 1:They absolutely can exist together. There's no reason that they have to be separated. I'm just mind blown about the entire thing. Here we have two people that probably never should have been together in the first place, much less having kids, and yet your brother, you, your sisters, are completely innocent bystanders of the tornado of a life that they're living. Yeah, and yet you've been able to overcome it. Sure seems like it wasn't easy.
Speaker 2:No, it definitely wasn't easy and, like I said a moment ago, it's definitely it's a lifelong process. You know, I don't think that there's ever a time where it's easier to talk about it. It's actually really therapeutic for me to talk about it and kind of dissect what happened and how I, how I did overcome it. I can tell you that the biggest I think I've all. I always knew that when I was little and I would watch my dad hit my mom, I knew that I would not live like that and I always, even though I felt this like sense of like uncertainty and lack of safety, I always also felt some level of protection and I honestly think that that was God. I think that's been very healing for me, just really realizing that this was all part of my journey to get where I am right now and it was all divine intervention. I think God has a path for each of us and this was my path.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great message If someone were listening who has been through what you've been through anywhere close to it or, far worse, on any level, and has not been able to level and has not been able to begin to unpack their trauma and their grief. If they're living with this and they just haven't figured out what the first step is, much less the 10th or 20th step, what would you suggest?
Speaker 2:Find somebody that you trust and who's been through it before, who can help you through it. The process is long. It can be done. It took me 20 years to get to where I am right now. So I'm on chapter 20. So if you're starting and you're on chapter one, I think find somebody who's done it before so they can help you. That's why I do what I do is because the process doesn't have to take 20 years. You can get through it much faster and healing is possible. That's always my go-to and, like what I land on is no matter what any doctor has told you, no matter what any therapist has told you, like this, it doesn't have to be like this. Healing is possible. I don't care what the diagnosis is, I don't care what they've said, I don't care the trauma you've been through. It doesn't, none of it matters. Healing is possible, I promise.
Speaker 1:And even though you say that it took you 20 years to get to this point and you wish that it had not taken so long, at least you're at this point. You're so much better off now than you were 20 years ago. And even if it takes that long, everything has a process. Everything is going to work out one way or another, and it will take some amount of time. It might take a week, it might take a month, it might take a year, it might take 20 years, but what you've also been doing constantly is picking yourself up every day and moving forward, and I'm sure that some of those days could not have been easy.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, definitely not. I mean, it's a lot easier now, you know, because this is just like I've done so much healing that it's I'm truly like the happiest I've ever been. I'm the healthiest I've ever been, I have a beautiful family, a beautiful marriage, beautiful career. Like I'm, I feel like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. So it's like exciting to wake up every day now, you know. But yeah, definitely there's days. There have been days not too long ago you know where where it was really really hard.
Speaker 1:When you have a hard day now, what do you do?
Speaker 2:My go-to is meditation, always so like and and self-care. That's something that I think, especially as moms. There's this like societal kind of like ingrained narrative that like we have to take care of everybody else before we take care of ourselves. And I believe the opposite. I believe that you have to take care of yourself first before you take care of everybody else. And like I mean I have two young kids. My kids are three and eight right now. I have two boys.
Speaker 2:So like, obviously, if my three-year-old needs a snack, I'm not like hold on honey, like I have to take care of myself first. Like, no, I get him a snack, but you know what I mean. Like within reason, you know, like I, the first thing I do every single morning when I wake up is I meditate, because that helps me with my nervous system regulation, it helps me feel calm, it helps me start the day with a clear mind, a clear head, an open heart. And my husband knows that in the mornings, like almost every single morning, my husband gets up with the kids, he feeds them breakfast, he makes their lunches for school, and I do, I meditate, I do my workout and and then I take over from for the kids and he goes to work and then I've got it for the rest of the night and usually like put them to bed and everything. So that's, that's my go-to self-care.
Speaker 1:Nice, you said that you've known your husband since you were 16. So that was before your brother died, before your dad died. Yeah, how has the trauma of what you experienced, even since you were 16, affected your relationship with your husband?
Speaker 2:Well, my husband has this really incredible ability to just be very clear headed and matter of fact about things. He has been able all the while to to like lovingly call me out on my bullshit, so like if he sees things come out, he's like that's your trauma. Like I'm like, oh, you know, that stung a little bit, but he is really like he's always just been devoted to me. I I've always, I've often thought about the fact that like my life would be so different had I met somebody different when I was 16, because, truth be told, I would have married or fell in love with anybody who loved me. I really think that like I was so traumatized and so hurt and there's just this wounded little child that I You're desperate for the affection.
Speaker 2:I wanted somebody to love me and if it would have been a man very similar to my dad, my life would be very, very different right now, and I think again that that was God's intervention. I think I was supposed to meet my husband and he treats me like I'm a queen and but he's also very like you know he's. He's not. He doesn't let me like run the show and like dictate. You know like he's a strong, good man and he is a great dad and calls me out on my bullshit when I need to be called out.
Speaker 1:We all need somebody to call us out on our bullshit. When you first met him, how long was it after that, before you started dating?
Speaker 2:Pretty immediately.
Speaker 1:Oh, so even when you were 16, before everything happened with your brother, you guys were already dating, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, and I basically like moved into his apartment like pretty immediately, because my mom, just I graduated high school when I was 16 and my mom was like bye.
Speaker 1:Wow. So you really did. You needed to get out of there and it was, as you said, very fortunate for you that he wasn't a different type of guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you think you'll ever tell your kids about what you went through?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely will. I think it's important for them to know when the time is right. I don't know that I'll tell them all of the nitty gritty details. I don't think that that's really necessary, but yeah, I definitely think that they should know, and they're growing up so different than how I, of course yeah.
Speaker 1:It's such a different time than when you were eight years old. Society is different, technology is different, everything in life is different. Fortunately, your kids have two parents who nothing but love them, want the best for them and are never going to find themselves in the situation that you found yourself in.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You went from one end of the spectrum to the other. How proud are you of yourself that you've overcome this, that you've built the life that you have and now have built this life with your husband.
Speaker 2:Super proud. I couldn't have done it without my husband and the people that love me, and God first and foremost, but I am so proud of myself.
Speaker 1:And I think you absolutely should be. There are so many ways that it was easier to fall into the same pitfalls that your parents found themselves in. You could have very easily met any other guy who could have dragged you down to those depths as well. Yet whatever the reason, whatever the universe had in store for you, you didn't.
Speaker 2:Right, it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1:You've made a hell of a life for yourself and I'm thrilled to see that there are people who can overcome, and I've known people who could not, who did not, who ended up going down a very bad road. They came from abuse. They ended up in abusive situations. It doesn't have to be this way for any of us. We've all been through trauma. We've all been through different levels of shit in our lives. As I said before, I think we all bring trauma into adulthood. I don't think it's necessarily fair to compare one person's trauma to anyone else's.
Speaker 1:The situation that you were in, that was, you know, unfortunately, you know your young legacy. The situation that I was in was mine. This needs to be about overcoming. This needs to be about helping each other. You said it yourself you had a lot of help along the way.
Speaker 1:I think that a lot of people, a lot more people, don't know where to get that help from, and this is a big part of why I'm doing this, because I know what I went through with my dad after he died. I had a few months where I was largely fine, and then I had the anger as well. It wasn't about missing him and being sad that he was gone. I was angry that he mistreated everybody in his life the way that he did and that he never took care of himself, and I ended up starting to see a therapist and she got me to the point where I was eventually able to forgive him for being that person. I was able to let go of the anger because, as you said earlier, it wasn't serving any good purpose. I was getting angry at pretty much everybody for no good reason at all.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'm glad that I was able to get past that, and what I really want out of this is to have anyone who is listening realize that we have all been through it. Your situation is, unfortunately, a perfect story. You had a truly traumatic childhood and you've overcome. You had good people along the way, have helped you through it, and now look what you're doing. You're a life coach. You are literally, you're helping. I mean, aside from being a nurse, which in and of itself is incredible, you've started this entirely new journey where you're just helping people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's important too when I talk about for for your listeners to understand that trauma. There's differences between like there are we categorize trauma into like big T traumas and little T trauma. So like you don't have to have been present at a school shooting and had your brother die in front of you to qualify that as trauma, or to have been affected by the things that have you've experienced, and it doesn't make your story any less important or any less significant to yourself. So there's just I think that's an important distinction for people to understand that whatever you've been through is valid and can still affect you, even if it's not something huge, horrific, on that big scale horrific on that big scale?
Speaker 1:How often do you talk to people, either in your line of work or before you were doing this, that have been through other trauma and maybe felt like my situation wasn't bad enough it wasn't as bad as yours or it wasn't as bad as this person and I shouldn't be feeling what I'm feeling all the time that's like that's a pretty classic response.
Speaker 2:People are like, well, there's people out there that have had it so much worse than me and it's like, well, maybe so, but that doesn't mean that your story is not valid, it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that, like, it's still affected you. And there's things like you know, even just a divorce between your parents is very traumatic for kids, or moving, a lot Like if you're, if your parents didn't divorce and your dad was in the military and you moved around, like that's traumatic. Being fired from a job, being broken up with when you're 14, 15, 16, like those are, those are all traumas and piled on top of each other is like where you get the problems, and that's when your body can't.
Speaker 2:you know necessarily sustain if you're not dealing with those emotions.
Speaker 1:At that point it's a bucket of gasoline with somebody standing over it with a lit match waiting to drop it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so true.
Speaker 1:How has it felt to help people through their trauma?
Speaker 2:It's the most fulfilling work that I've ever done and, like I said before, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be at this time in my life, like this is the season I'm supposed to be in Everything that happened. Like you know, we've talked a couple of times and you've said to me before I'm so sorry for everything you've gone through and I'm like I'm really not. I can genuinely say I'm not sorry for those things. And it's not that I wish that I could go relive them or that I'm not like sad for little Melissa and like give her love and all of that, but like I'm not sorry because I know that everything that I've been through has been part of the journey that has led me to right here, right now, and this is I've never felt more aligned with my life's purpose and my calling, and like I think I am on this earth to do this work.
Speaker 1:It's all been part of your growth. It's all been part of your grieving, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I didn't know that back then, but now I do. How could you have known that? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, take 20 years ago, melissa, and looking forward to everything that you were going to do. You never could have known 20 years ago that this is where you would be now. Yeah, we don't know where we're going to be tomorrow, or six months from now, or in a year from now. The one thing that you never stopped doing was moving forward, because you knew that you were meant for greater things.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I would love if we lived in a world where everybody who has been through trauma could understand and could see for themselves that they were meant for greater things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be great.
Speaker 1:Well, hopefully, a little bit through this podcast and a lot through the work of Holistic Health by Melissa, we will be able to continue to help people.
Speaker 2:That's my goal.
Speaker 1:How long do you think you're going to do this? Do you think you're going to do this forever? Is this your absolute mission, or are you even thinking of more things that you might be able to venture into?
Speaker 2:I know big things are coming. I see a book in my future. I see speaking gigs in my future. I want to extend my reach, for sure.
Speaker 1:Well then, hopefully we will see you on. Maybe Oprah will come back and she'll do a special on you. There's going to be some way that Melissa Armstrong is going to be out there and in front of everybody and you're going to have more business than you know what to do with and people are going to be banging your door down. By that point they'll be calling your publicist, or your 20 publicists, because you'll be that famous.
Speaker 2:This is incredible, from your lips to God's ears.
Speaker 1:Right. We can only hope that it's going to be that successful. I'm so happy that you wanted to come on and you wanted to tell your story. You said that this was therapeutic for you and I hope that it was right and I hope that it was and I hope that it continues to be and I hope that it's also therapeutic for others, because this is exactly the kind of story that, while I hate that these stories have happened, this is the kind of story that I'm hoping to get out there and to let other people hear and understand and realize that they truly are not alone in the world. They're not alone in their grief and their trauma and their anger, in whatever emotion that they have. They're not wrong and they're not alone and there is always someone who is willing to listen, whether it's a complete stranger, whether it's a spouse, a friend, a sibling, you or me. If you want someone to speak with you should absolutely reach out to Melissa.
Speaker 1:And would you like to give your contact information one more time.
Speaker 2:Sure, If you can find me on my website, is the best way wwwholisticbymelissacom. Or you can find me on any social media platform. I'm mostly on Instagram and Facebook at Holistic Health by Melissa.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you so much for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:And the one last thing that we're going to do, as we do with every episode, is we're going to close out with some fun. I always do a round of rapid fire questions for all of my guests, and these questions generally have absolutely nothing to do with anything that we've spoken about. If they do, it's completely coincidence. I have a list of questions that I just randomize and then go down the list, and again, it's meant to just be some fun, to kind of to relax a little bit from all the horrible shit that we've already talked about and just to get to know a little bit more about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been looking forward to this.
Speaker 1:Let's get started then. What is your hidden talent?
Speaker 2:Ooh, my hidden talent. I really like to cook and bake. Okay, it's not so hidden though, because my family really knows I cook for them all the time, but my hidden talent gosh. I'm pretty much an open book. I don't think I have much hidden.
Speaker 1:Okay. What secret about the universe would you most want to learn?
Speaker 2:I would just love to I know I will eventually but just meet God, meet my creator.
Speaker 1:I had a feeling that's what you were going to say. That's a good answer. What is your middle name?
Speaker 2:April.
Speaker 1:Have you ever planned a prank months in advance?
Speaker 2:Yes, last year. We didn't do anything this year. But last year my then seven-year-old and I tried to prank my husband. We tried to make him believe that the TV in our living room was broken.
Speaker 1:Oh, did you get the picture of the broken screen up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he didn't fall for it. Part of it was my seven-year-old was like, pointing at it and just you know he's like dad. Look, it's broken.
Speaker 1:I'm not so sure, probably a little too tech savvy. He's probably seen the YouTube videos where other people try to do that to their family members.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, well, some pranks work out and some don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, name a food that starts with the letter Q.
Speaker 1:Queso what is the place that you most want to travel, that you have never been?
Speaker 2:Ooh, I would say Tahiti or Bora Bora. We wanted to go there for our honeymoon either one of those locations and it was just too costly, so we went to Hawaii instead and it was great. But yeah, for sure, tahiti or Bora Bora. I want an overwater bungalow with the plexiglass floor.
Speaker 1:Yep With the plexiglass floor. No doubt what was your very first job.
Speaker 2:I worked at Pinnacle Peak Steakhouse in the town that I grew up in. I was a hostess. Nice Doesn't exist anymore. They tore it down. But it's better. We're all better for it. It was not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good food, no, so it's a really good thing that it's gone. Yeah, what do you dislike the most about Zoom meetings?
Speaker 2:I really just dislike the actual, like physical energy that you can exchange. I feel like it's harder to exchange energy on Zoom and I love I'm a hugger, so like I like to, I like physical touch. I wish I could give you a hug after we're done with this, but I wish the same I'm absolutely could give you a hug after we're done with this, but I wish the same.
Speaker 1:I'm absolutely a hugger. My wife knows that I'm just, and I've been told that I give some of the best hugs of anybody.
Speaker 2:So we'll have to go to Tahiti eventually. Maybe we can do a double date and then the four of us are going to meet in Tahiti one day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love that. What is? Your favorite carb Bread, rice, pasta or potatoes, pasta Okay, sour Patch Kids or Swedish Fish.
Speaker 2:Sour Patch Kids Duh.
Speaker 1:Duh, which celebrity annoys you the most?
Speaker 2:Annoys me. Gosh, that's a hard one. I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about who annoys me. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Okay, then let's flip it around. Do you have a favorite celebrity?
Speaker 2:My favorite celebrity, my favorite male celebrity is Liam Neeson. He's like my favorite actor of all time. And then female would be Julia Roberts, because she's just gorgeous and perfect and amazing. Great answers Do you have?
Speaker 1:a guilty pleasure? Great answers. Do you have a guilty pleasure?
Speaker 2:Coffee. I guess I could drink a lot of coffee. I really have to limit myself because I could drink a lot of it. I just love the taste and the smell and holding a warm cup of coffee.
Speaker 1:We're going to go down a coffee wormhole for a minute. How do you take your coffee Black? Okay, my wife takes it black. I don't drink coffee. I love the smell of coffee, but I hate the taste of it. I don't understand. I've recently gotten, last couple of years, to the point where I will actually enjoy eating coffee ice cream, but I just don't want to drink coffee. How much coffee do you drink on an average day?
Speaker 2:I only allow myself to have two cups, but I would drink it all day.
Speaker 1:Like you would walk around with an IV of coffee if you could.
Speaker 2:I mean an IV would defeat the purpose, but I would definitely walk around with a warm cup of coffee all day, Nice.
Speaker 1:What size bed do you prefer?
Speaker 2:California King. I'm six feet tall, my husband's six two, so we have a California King.
Speaker 1:Makes sense. I think I know the answer to this question Do you believe in love at first sight?
Speaker 2:I do. The first time I met my husband, I told my friend that I was with, that I was going to marry him, wow 16, you do yeah.
Speaker 1:How long did it take before you two got married?
Speaker 2:Another question yeah, we got married when I was. We had been together for just over 10 years when we got married. I wanted to finish nursing school and he really encouraged me to finish nursing school first before we got married.
Speaker 1:Nice. Would you rather climb a mountain or jump from a plane?
Speaker 2:Climb a mountain.
Speaker 1:You're from California, do you like Disneyland?
Speaker 2:Ooh, that's a complicated question. Uh-oh. I like the idea of Disneyland. Some of the political pieces of it I don't necessarily agree with.
Speaker 1:Polka dots or stripes.
Speaker 2:Polka dots.
Speaker 1:Do you speak more than one language?
Speaker 2:I speak poquito, espanol.
Speaker 1:Enough to get you by at a resort. Possibly, yeah, possibly. Would your 12-year-old self think that you were cool? Yeah, what do you think they would admire the most?
Speaker 2:My tenacity and just kindness to all people, despite my past.
Speaker 1:What is your favorite body part?
Speaker 2:My hair. Probably. I have some really killer hair because I haven't done much to it. Yeah, I've never dyed it. I don't really do much with it. It's just very healthy and full.
Speaker 1:What is your go-to pastime?
Speaker 2:I love reading. If I had the time to just like sit in front of my fireplace with a good book and a warm cup of coffee every single day, I would. There are days that I do that.
Speaker 1:The four of us ever end up in Tahiti together. You and my wife are going to be sitting on your lounge chairs with your Kindles. If you were given an all expenses paid trip to Cleveland, would you take it?
Speaker 2:Sure, of course, I love to see new places. I've never been to Cleveland.
Speaker 1:Have you ever won a contest?
Speaker 2:Yes, I I've actually won several contests before, like radio contests, and I won a contest when I was in junior high for poetry thing. So I'm actually I have a, I'm a published poet.
Speaker 1:Very nice when if anybody wanted to look up your poetry, is there a book or is it just Google your name online? You know?
Speaker 2:I don't. I it's in a book and I have the book and I can't even recall the name of it. I don't know if it's available online. You could look, you could find it.
Speaker 1:I will have to. I was also on.
Speaker 2:Larry King live. After the shooting happened.
Speaker 1:The school shooting Okay.
Speaker 2:My maiden name is Gern G-E-R-N, so you can try to find it online. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Is your poetry published under your maiden name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Cause I was in junior high so it would be under my maiden name. It was called that certain person. It was all about love.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to look this up after the interview and I'm going to see if I can find it.
Speaker 2:I'll send you if I can't. If you can't find it, I'll send you a. I can send you the book.
Speaker 1:Okay, awesome, that's great. Thank you. How do you usually answer the telephone?
Speaker 2:Hello, nothing crazy.
Speaker 1:Just hello, yeah or hey. I usually I mean now with cell phones.
Speaker 2:You know, it's not like we don't have a landline. You know who's calling, I know who's calling. So, like you know, if it's my husband, I usually say hey, babe. Or if it's like my friend, I'm like hey. You know, probably hey. I say hey more than hello.
Speaker 1:You have that excited reaction and then your husband's going to be like why don't you ever answer the phone like that when I call, Because you live here. I see you all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and because we talk on the phone like 42 times a day.
Speaker 1:Speaking of how many times you do something. How often do you floss?
Speaker 2:Ooh, not enough. I really need to be better at that.
Speaker 1:I think that's the most popular answer for that question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not enough. Do you have?
Speaker 1:any pets.
Speaker 2:No, my kids are. Well, we have fish. Does that count?
Speaker 1:I think fish count we have two fish. Things that you're responsible for.
Speaker 2:I have two kids. No, my kids really want a dog, but they're both very allergic.
Speaker 1:What about cat?
Speaker 2:I'm very allergic to cats and I don't really love cats. I'm a dog person.
Speaker 1:Are there any hypoallergenic dogs?
Speaker 2:The allergist says that that doesn't matter, because the dander, it's the dander on their skin that you're actually allergic to, not their fur, gotcha.
Speaker 1:So you guys are probably out of luck for a little while. Yeah, can you freestyle rap? No, do you rather have invisibility or super strength as a superpower?
Speaker 2:Invisibility.
Speaker 1:Name three of the seven dwarves happy grumpy.
Speaker 2:And oh my gosh, I can't remember a third one happy grumpy.
Speaker 1:I can't remember first one that comes to mind is bashful bashful hello did you ever believe in santa claus?
Speaker 2:yes, do you still.
Speaker 1:Santa claus is magical. I believe in Santa.
Speaker 2:Claus, yes, do you still? Santa Claus is magical. I believe in the spirit of Christmas.
Speaker 1:There you go. Dark chocolate or milk chocolate Dark. What is your favorite day of the week?
Speaker 2:Sunday.
Speaker 1:Do you snore?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Do you prefer summer or winter?
Speaker 2:Summer a thousand percent.
Speaker 1:Name a four letter word that starts with the letter B.
Speaker 2:Bake.
Speaker 1:What is your go-to karaoke song?
Speaker 2:I don't do karaoke, I don't sing.
Speaker 1:Ever done karaoke? Not once.
Speaker 2:I have done karaoke before Something Shania Twain. I used to do a lot of Shania Twain karaoke when I was younger.
Speaker 1:Okay, what is your favorite store to shop at?
Speaker 2:Costco. Costco is incredible. I love all their stuff.
Speaker 1:I think we will end on this question what is your most strongly held belief?
Speaker 2:There is a verse in the Bible that says Romans 8, 28,. It says God works all things for our good. That is my most strongly held belief.
Speaker 1:I love it, Melissa. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:This has been wonderful. I've had a great time hearing your story. As horrible as it was, you've come out on the right end of it. I love that you're helping people. I love that you're just looking to continue to improve yourself and others, and I'm going to be looking forward to the book tour when it happens, even though you haven't written the book yet, but you've put it out there so you don't want to disappoint your fans. Now you've got another one with me and I know that you're going to have a lot more after this show, and I'm sure that we will continue to stay in touch after this show and I'm excited to see what's next. I'm honored to have you. I want to see nothing, but the best things continue to happen for you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It was so great to be here and chat with you.
Speaker 1:No matter what you've been through, it's not too late to turn things around, whether to help yourself, to help others, to just face head-on everything that life has unfortunately thrown your way. Melissa's story is a real representation of that and I hope you benefited from hearing her tell her story. I'm also including Melissa's social media links in the description of this episode in case you'd like to follow her, reach out to her or even work with her. If you enjoyed that episode, then please get onto Apple Podcasts. Give us five stars, leave a short message and tell me what you liked. Tell me what you thought of Melissa's story and how anything she discussed may have resonated with you and your story. Tell your friends, tell everyone you know about this podcast, because together we're changing lives and I want everyone along for the ride.
Speaker 1:If you have a story of grief and loss to share and you might want to be considered as a future guest on Our Dead Dads, go to OurDeadDadscom, go to the contact us link and then select be a guest, fill out the form, send it in and you just might be able to tell your story and carry on this mission of helping ourselves and so many others.
Speaker 1:Remember, there are no rules to navigating grief, and there's no timeline for doing it either. Everyone needs to go at their own pace, but the most important part is taking the first step. Whether you're wanting to contribute your own story or you just want to listen to others tell their stories, know that no one is alone in grief or should ever feel like they don't have someone who will talk or listen to them. Here you always have all of those. Thank you for listening, and join me again next week when I talk to Laura Sina. Laura will talk about losing her dad when she was only 11, how it changed the dynamic of her entire family and how she got through her grief. This is Our Dead Dads where we are changing the world one damaged soul at a time. See you next time.