How
the journey began
Melissa provides compassionate non-medical support to individuals severely harmed by psychiatric drugs and their family members. In her work, she combines the insight gained from her personal experience with current research on patient prescription drug harm. Her coaching message is one of hope.
Before becoming a coach, Melissa enjoyed a career in nonprofit psychiatric and developmental disability crisis management, liaising with doctors, clients, and families.
Taking an antidepressant as prescribed and receiving negligent tapering advice from her doctor changed the trajectory of Melissa's life. Like many medically harmed patients, Melissa's doctor did not give her informed consent about the dangers of psychiatric drugs; otherwise, she would never have taken them. As a consequence, she suffered severe debilitating adverse drug effects for years.
Melissa's doctor initially put her on an antidepressant because she had feelings about losing her job. The antidepressant made her gain weight, experience sexual dysfunction, and develop a drinking problem -- all side effects. Melissa then developed akathisia, a persistent and uncontrollable life-threatening movement disorder.
She had no idea what was happening to her, and she was in excruciating pain, so she turned to the medical system for answers. She was misdiagnosed with a severe mental illness because doctors did not recognize the drug effects, and they put her in a psych ward and prescribed more drugs -- antidepressants, antipsychotics, and benzodiazepines -- which she had paradoxical reactions to.
Her condition worsened as she developed dystonic full-body involuntary muscle movements in addition to akathisia and many other symptoms such as ear ringing and burning skin. When the psych ward doctors tried putting her on more than the eight drugs she had already tried, she realized the drugs were the problem, not her. So she left the hospital unmedicated with a will to heal.
After months of debilitating suffering, Melissa finally found a physician who accurately diagnosed her and acknowledged prescription drug harm. She slowly started to heal over time, but the healing was not linear. While recovering, she got pregnant after having less than a five percent chance of conceiving naturally. She developed HELLP (Hemolysis, Elevated Liver enzymes and Low Platelets) syndrome, a life-threatening pregnancy complication, and had an emergency C-section at 34 weeks. Miraculously, Melissa gave birth to a healthy baby despite HELLP, akathisia, dystonic movements, and other severe symptoms.
Melissa is a true survivor of the medical system. She shares her experiences to help others and advocates for deprescribing methods that mitigate patient harm on her YouTube channel and as a guest for interviews with subject matter experts.
Melissa lives in Canada but sees clients virtually worldwide for coaching and support.
She has her bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.
