Emma Textra
Appearances
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Taking them once a week or twice a week is not going to do it. You've got to really put them somewhere that you're not going to forget them. So both this Empower Plus that he takes, it's a multivitamin, and his probiotics are absolutely number one. And then other things. He takes some Zeolite, a spray that helps with detox heavy metals.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
So a lot of these kids can't detox very well, just living life. It's in the air that we breathe sometimes. And so just getting him back on that routine, and he's been very open to it now because he really recognizes it. And then he also recognizes he has to get to the gym every day.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
And even when he doesn't feel like it, even when he says, oh, I've got too much homework to do, you take that 30 minutes and get yourself to the gym. Those heavy weights will calm your brain and help you focus better. And I think he's just more open to it now, now that he's past that rebellious stage, I'm going to do the opposite to what mom says. He's now, I think I'm more now a coach.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
He sees me as a coach and a help than a hindrance.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
I ended up leaving my corporate job last year because with COVID and everything that went down with COVID, it really showed me that conventional medicine is just going in the wrong direction. And people don't realize I'm part of a very large church. And there's so many kids in this church and adults with autism that their parents don't even realize
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
how critical food and lifestyle can be to their overall health. And I said, I've got to speak out. I've got to write a book. It's not a silver bullet and everybody is different. So you've got to really understand all the background. And I think through all the educating of my son and friends and everything that's gone down the last few years, I wanted to write this book.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Ultimately, yes, I wanted to help parents of kids who are having these struggles because my heart is with kids, especially boys. I was a Boy Scout leader. My youngest son is an Eagle Scout. So I was working a lot with teenage boys. I just have a heart for them.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Sometimes their parents just focus on the behaviors, training the behaviors, maybe punishing them or encouraging them, and don't realize that the health of the whole body is going to impact those behaviors and mental health. So I took the time out. I wrote the book. It has nine chapters. It was meant to have 10 with a whole chapter on kids, but the book got too big.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
So in this first book, I cover all the foundations. The first half explains toxins and what they're doing to our bodies and nutrition, how we need nutrition in our bodies. The second half I call implications. And I go through different types of health issues. I have a whole chapter on mental health and how the brain is connected to the rest of the body.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
If you've got mental health issues, there's probably a physiological root cause. And I lay out what some of those could be. Even a head injury, falling off your bike. You could have a concussion at age three and never have known it. And then I also cover infectious disease. I really go back to the background. I cover a little bit of the childhood vaccine schedule and the problems with that.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
and pension plans and healthcare plans as well. And I ended up focusing on healthcare plans. But 15 years ago, my son was diagnosed with Asperger's and ADHD and everything changed from that moment. But I'm still in the corporate world. I do corporate consulting, but it really changed really my focus.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
But in the context of overall bacteria and microbes, we need our microbiomes that help our brains function. Our microbiome and the bacteria in our guts are creating neurotransmitters. So if you kill off the bacteria in your gut through too many antibiotics or other toxins, you are going to affect your brain health. So chapter on infectious disease, chapter on chronic disease.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
So things like autoimmune conditions, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, mental health, and then aging. It got so big. I was like, okay, but I want to cover about kids. So I'm actually writing a second book, a follow-up book that is all about the kids. So back to fertility problems, because so many people nowadays have fertility problems. So zero to 18.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
And then I cover a lot of the health implications for kids. I call it how to raise a healthy human to thrive in a toxic world. So that's what I'm working on now.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
It's called How to Be a Healthy Human, What Your Doctor Doesn't Know About Health and Longevity.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Absolutely. And I lay out a whole chapter on the conventional medical industry, a little bit of the history. A hundred years ago, nobody trusted doctors. When doctors disagreed, there were lots of different kinds of doctors, naturopaths and integrated doctors and the homeopaths. A lot of them had the same education, learning about the body and how it works.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
But what happened with the American Medical Association, where they came from, explained how we got to where we are today. I call it the rise of the drug makers, pharmaceuticals. A lot of that came out of byproducts of the oil industry. Yes, there are some phenomenal drugs that have been created, like human insulin. It saves lives, undoubtedly.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
And EPO, so if you've got anemia, to enable the blood to create red blood cells. So there are certain life-saving pharmaceutical products. But for every one life-saving product, there are hundreds that probably do more harm than good. They might address a particular symptom. So if it's focused in our ADHD kids, give them an amphetamine to help them focus.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
But then you've got to understand the downsides. The advertising of the medical industry will tell you all of the things this is going to attack them. But people don't realize that our bodies are one holistic symptom and it's all working together. And if you address just one symptom, you're going to end up unbalancing the body somewhere else.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
If you block a process or block an enzyme, you're going to create ill health somewhere else and there'll be a side effect. The pharmaceutical industry will say, oh, don't worry, we've got another pill for you to address that side effect. And it's not getting anybody any healthier. So what I'm trying to educate people on is to look for the root cause and especially a mental health.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
So the whole chapter on mental health, there is a root cause. It's not just that they were born this way or it's just the way it is. And we've got to just train them on different behavior. And I appreciate those therapies that will help kids operate better in the world. But there are a root cause. And don't just focus on the behavioral or emotional symptoms. Focus on whole body health.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
My focus is now more on healthcare and mental health as well, but the overarching healthcare system in this country.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
When you focus on the whole body health, especially the gut health, and are they sleeping well? Are they eating nutritional food? It's going to just automatically improve the brain health. Now, somebody who's autistic, had an autistic diagnosis, isn't necessarily going to become completely neurotypical. That's their personality.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
My son now, I don't know that he'd even get a diagnosis if he was looked at today. He's a quirky introvert at this point. He's honest about it when he goes for jobs. It's not on his resume. But I would hope... that when he's going for jobs and he gets to know people, he can explain that he operates a little bit differently and don't be offended.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
He's very blunt, extremely truthful, and can be a little offensive sometimes. Because people get to know you, I think it's good to talk that way. My book has lots of ideas to try. It explains how things work. It explains the different root causes. On mental health, I have at least 10 different modalities you can try that are natural approaches to mental health issues.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
some of them from nutrition, from the microbiome, to things like neurofeedback, which is phenomenal, EMDR. There's lots of non-pharmaceutical options that you have for mental health issues.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Thank you so much for having me.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
So he was my first child. I didn't know anything. At the time, I was doing everything the pediatrician was telling me to do. Everything was conventional medicine. We had all these shots up to age five when he was finally diagnosed. But even at six months old, he wasn't thriving. He was throwing up a lot. He had a lot of stomach problems.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
He seemed to be developing normally other than the stomach problems. He was put on medication at like six months old that already was causing problems for him. He was having a lot of ear infections and just generally wasn't healthy. Two and three, he was obsessive compulsive. He would freak out. He was very smart, but he would freak out at the smallest thing.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
He could figure out if we drove home, if we went somewhere and then we drove home and took a different route, he would freak out. He was that smart. If we went outside of our front door and instead of going straight to the driveway, we say, hey, let's go down the street a little bit. He would freak out. He was pretty hard on his younger brother. He had a brother two years younger.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
And so that was pretty hard. And then just having a problem in school. He was in kindergarten. And it was actually the school that said, you've got to get him evaluated because he's disruptive in class. So that was what led me. to get him diagnosed. We saw a child psychiatrist or psychologist. It was a series of visits and I knew the writing on the wall. I've always been fascinated by autism.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Even as a teenager, I was fascinated by autism. So I knew, but then I got the one inch thick diagnosis that she put the label on her mass burgers and the ADHD as well.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
For me, I always wanted to know why. What's going on? There's a reason. Because at the time, the doctors all just wanted to put him on drugs. And that's not going to lead anywhere. It just seemed wrong to me. And so from going back to my interest in medicine and my background as being an actuary and very comfortable with data, I just started reading and I just started researching.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
A mom at the school took me aside. Her son had been diagnosed at age three with full-blown autism and he was now eight and had lost his diagnosis. He was practically normal. So she took me aside and she started indoctrinating me about the problems with conventional medical care and the doctors don't really understand autism and these are the things you need to do.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
And so I ended up taking two months off work, two months unpaid leave, and I'm like, I've got to get to the bottom of this. What's going on? So I started researching. I got to a phenomenal doctor, which maybe some of your listeners are familiar with, Dr. Jerry Kartzenal. He used to have a practice here in Southern California, just down the road from me.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
So we got there and he started educating me and explaining what was wrong with conventional medical care or the toxins that these kids just can't handle, just the food allergies. So we removed gluten and dairy right away, got him on a lot of supplements. So he wasn't methylating properly. So he was on tryptophan. He had terrible bathroom habits.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
A lot of these kids, sometimes the focus is on their behavior or their mental health issues, but it's a whole body problem. The brain is just another organ. And just because your symptoms happen to be emotional or behavioral, it's still something physiologically wrong with you. And so you've got to heal the body. We got started on the pathway of healing my son.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
He's doing phenomenal now, by the way, at age, he'll be 20 in January. So in those two months, I was researching everything and all different kinds of therapies. Between the ages of five and eight, we did so many different things to improve his behavior, but his health, his overall health, I would say.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
We did so many things. There's never a silver bullet and every child and person is different. So you have to experiment and change lots of things. For him, gluten was huge and is to this day. And when he was a rebellious teenager and started eating gluten again, it became a problem again. And now finally it's come full circle and age 19, nearly 20, he's completely really careful with his gluten.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
So we removed gluten. Dairy was another one. This kid at five years old was addicted to milk. And this is how you can tell it's going to be a problem in their brain. It forms like an opioid in the brain. So they literally get addicted to the casein protein in milk. So we cut out all dairy. I was experimenting with rice milk and almond milk.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
That did make a difference for him and it improved his stomach problems. And if you improve the stomach, it's going to improve the brain. So it definitely improved his mental health as well. His microbiomes were taking a lot of probiotics. And to this day, very careful taking daily probiotics. There was a phenomenal supplement.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
I wouldn't normally recommend an actual company, one particular brand of supplements, but this is absolutely phenomenal. It's called True Hope. Truehope.com is the company, True Hope. And they have a product called Empower Plus. And it is just vitamins, but it is all for the brain. They have done clinical studies on their particular formulation, the way they've put it together.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
So it's very absorbable by the body. For young kids, they have it in a powdered form. We put it in rice milk. But Power Plus has been phenomenal to this day. Now he's on an adult formula that's like a once a day capsule formula. And he could tell if he's not taking it in a few days, he can immediately tell. So that was absolutely critical. But then we did all sorts of other things.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
He would wear pants, even if it was pouring with rain and freezing cold, refused to wear pants, was in shorts and t-shirts all the time. And so one of the things that helped some of those sensitivities was occupational therapy. We had a special occupational therapy, somebody who specializes in things like autism therapy. And so he found that when he works out his muscles, it calms him down.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
To this day, he's a gym rat. He has to go to the gym every day. As a five-year-old, he couldn't sit still in school. And so the teacher would know if he was like fidgeting, hey, go and take these books to the office. And they'd give him a big pile of stack of books to go and take to the office and it would calm him down.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
We have fidget toys and we're bringing back lots of memories now, but the fidget toys, all sorts of different things that he could do with his hands. He had one that went across the legs of his chair for his feet. These kinds of things would really calm him a little bit. We found those kinds of things. We ended up doing neurofeedback.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
I don't know if you've had other guests that have talked about neurofeedback. Absolutely phenomenal. Neurofeedback is basically retraining the brain. He went for about a year, twice a week, and he would sit in front of a computer for two to three hours. And they had these electrodes on his head. And I think he had to move characters and make them do things. But it rewired his brain.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
That was a game changer, particularly his social skills. I saw in the first six months that it improved his social skills. He could hold eye contact a little bit after that. There was a lot of one-on-one training as well. Somebody says hello to you, say hello back, things like that. But neurofeedback was phenomenal.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
I'd say occupational therapy, neurofeedback, supplements, food were some of the main things.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
It was tough. It was super tough. I won't kid you. Yeah, so he was rebellious. He became rebellious a little bit. And of course, he was coming of age during COVID. Fortunately, he was in a school that they ended up staying in school. There was some restrictions and requirements, but he was staying in school. But that really set him back.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
When he first started high school, he didn't have a single friend. He would have his lunch at the back of a building on his own. Then he'd come home and spend his day in front of a computer. He had organization issues too. When he was a teenager, we'd get into what's going to work for him. He can make some of his own decisions. What's going to work with him in terms of keeping track of things?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Is it an app on a phone? He got a phone when he was 12. Is it a notebook? Is it sticky notes? But he figured out what was going to work for him. So he would have this little teeny tiny blue notebook that he would take everywhere. And if there was something he was supposed to do, he would write it in this notebook. And that really helped for him.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
But his social skills really tanked for the first two years during COVID. That was a real problem. I think... They're old enough as teenagers to understand their difference. So we have a lot of very honest conversations about what do you struggle with and how things are for other people. And they don't pick up things by osmosis like neurotypical teenagers.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
They don't just figure out how to do things. If people are playing soccer, they don't just start playing. I spent a lot of time with him figuring out strategies and very good rule follower. So if we could say, hey, if somebody says this, then do that. If there's five kids over there playing soccer, just stand there and they'll ask you to join.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
We had some very specific strategies that helped a little bit. We went to another class. We went to a social skills class he went into, also phenomenal. So a lot of kids on the spectrum and there was like a coach and she would talk to them about teenage topics and how to engage other teenagers in conversation. That was helpful. He did that for about six months.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
When his younger brother started high school, he was a junior and his younger brother's very social. His younger brother said, hey, I'm going to go to the prom. You should come to the prom with me. I didn't want to push him too much. So I left it up to him, but I encouraged him. I said, hey, it'd be really good if you go to the prom and you try and talk to somebody.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
And when we did some strategies, we worked through some strategies and he went and got chatting with a girl. That kind of started everything for him. And yeah, he didn't know what to do when she texted him. I had to help him with the text. Well, she says this, maybe you could say that. So there was a lot of handholding and coaching.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
But then through her, he met some guy friends and he was actually doing pretty well. He had some friends who accepted him, very social guys. Because he was into the gym, that was something they had in common. So they started going to the gym together. He gradually came out of his shell, I would say. But then he becomes a rebel. And then he wants to go out on his own. He gets a car when he was 16.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
He's actually a very good driver. He didn't want to take his vitamins, didn't want to eat what he should eat. And so that had its own set of challenges. Teenage years were a little tough.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
He's extremely smart, and one of his talents is spatial awareness. As bad as he is at certain things, he has amazing spatial awareness. He's an engineer studying aerospace engineering, so he just knows where things are, and it came very easily to him. So actually, the driving wasn't too bad. He's an insane speed freak, so the impulsiveness, the ADHD.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
He's had so many speeding tickets, he actually lost his driving license for a year. But actually, the teaching wasn't too bad. He's a rule follower, so he knows what the rules are and enough to pass the test. And he was great because he's so talented and very spatially aware. He's actually a very good driver. It's his hobby now.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
He races cars and loves his cars and pulls cars apart and puts them back together again. Yeah, that wasn't too bad.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
He'll be 20 in January.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Out of state. He's away from home.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Yeah, I was super nervous, but he's done really. He's got some new challenges there. College, we talk about that because when they're in your home, you put bumpers around them. So there were certain things, very clear schedule. I had a cooked meal on the table. I made his lunches. He made his own breakfast. He did his own laundry his last couple of years and became independent that way.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
And I taught him how to cook. But there was his own new challenges when you get out into the real world and he's living out of state. You don't have those bumpers anymore. Things are coming at you. He's at a major four-year college. He's trying to get an internship. He's a sophomore now, and he's really overwhelmed. He struggled a bit this first semester of his sophomore year.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Freshman year was easy for him because he's so smart. Sophomore year, first term, a lot of anxiety again. Health problems were coming back because of his stress. He hadn't been staying up on his supplements and his routine, hadn't got to the gym. Some things were coming back that you tend to forget about because...
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
No, it's great. I love what you're doing.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
When you get in a routine and everything's running smoothly, then they get thrown into the real world and they've got to find new routines and new way of dealing things. We've had a whole set of coaching that's gone on this last semester. But I think on the whole, I've been incredibly proud of how he's managed himself.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Yeah, that's exactly what happened. They've got to learn through experience, right? He finally admitted, you know what? I can't eat gluten. It messes with me really bad. So he is so proud. He cooks for himself now. Last year, he was in a dorm and he ate at the canteens and stuff. The food was really terrible. So it was tough. But now he's got his own little kitchen. He's become a cook.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
He texts me, hey, mom, do I use olive oil or coconut oil on this? And he's making really amazing food. He's really decided to stick to being gluten free, still working on the dairy a little bit. He still does dairy now and then. When he was really going downhill, he's had a racing heart and a lot of physical problems. He phoned me up. I talk about this in my book, actually.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Mikey has taken no medication. In 15 years since he was diagnosed, we've gone completely natural and it's turned him around and he's super healthy. No medication whatsoever. But I was worried with him going to college and there's all these kids taking Ritalin and Adderall as these focus drugs. I got that phone call a few weeks ago. Hey, mom, I think I need Adderall. I'm like, what?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
Yeah, I was initially in the corporate world. I'm an actuary by background. For those that don't know what I'm, I'm very good with data and risk. I actually wanted to be a doctor when I was in my teens. My father taught me out of it. So I went into the corporate world, but I've always been very interested in medicine. I'm in the corporate world working with employee benefits.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
And he just tried to stay calm and not freak out because he's also still a little rebellious. He's going to do the opposite to whatever I push him on. So I was like, oh, really? Why do you think that is? And it's why I can't focus when all the kids can stay up all night studying on it. And so we talked about it.
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Emma Textra: Transforming Health Challenges into Holistic Advocacy – Supporting Neurodiverse Adolescence Through Nutrition and Natural Interventions
We talked about all the downsides of amphetamines and we just were very carefully educating him because he is so smart. He really appreciates learning about things. So we just very calmly talked it through and other strategies that he could work on instead of just jumping to the pill. So really back on his supplements, I said, you have to take them every day.