Melody Guy: Finding Connection Through Autism and Artistry

Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide?
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world one story at a time. Hi, I'm Tony Mintour.
Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide.
Joining us today is Melody Guy. She joins us today
to unveil her captivating music, vibrant art, and above all,
her extraordinary journey as an autistic singer songwriter. Her powerful
stories of overcoming the challenges of autism while traveling over
two million miles and forging connections with others are nothing
short of inspiring. We're honored to have her here sharing
her transformative experiences with us. Thanks for coming on.
Thank you for having me.
Gosh, oh, it's my pleasure. So if you would, could
you give us a little background on how you were
diagnosed as autistic.
When I was little, I had a problem with connecting
visually as well as I would have shy attacks, super shy, and.
I couldn't speak to anybody.
I had trouble in school connecting and you can see
by my I don't know if you've seen my my
kindergarten picture on Facebook.
Yeah, I've seen it.
Or I look like I'm.
Shooting daggers out my eyes with the Basically the lady
was asking me to smile at the bluebird.
You know. It's like, don't ask me to do anything.
It hurts, you know what I mean.
It's like no, felt like underneath the lights in the room,
the fluorescent lights like steal my brain. They would vibrate
and I could feel the vibration. And I didn't do
well in school. I got through the eighth grade sort of.
I had a panic.
Disorder, but I was really good at singing.
My parents found out I could sing when I was
five years old, and then it would take me to
McDonald's and i'd play with my dad on variety nights,
dressed in the you know, the party dress, and then
the shiny shoes and the painfully curled hair that I
could sing, and then I would retreat back into this
you know.
Yeah, So did you get diagnosed? When was it that
you actually found out what was going on?
Nobody knew what was wrong with me?
Okay, So I got diagnosed older around the same time
my son was diagnosed.
I knew I had some anxiety depression, panic disorder.
Okay.
I was also a victim of violent crime, sexual abuse
as well as abuse abuse starting at nine. That's something
I haven't talked about a lot, but I think other
people need.
To know that they're not alone. It's wrong, and you're
not alone.
Looking back at it now, do you feel like he
was abused and sexually abused because you were autistic?
I think I was an easy victim in the house.
Okay, that certainly makes sense.
I think that as I had gotten older, being gullible
and believing people's words instead of their actions, that's got
me into a bunch of trouble because I want to
believe somebody's words if you say.
What you mean, I'm not good at that. I want
to know the truth.
Sure, So if I ask you anything that makes you
a little uncomfortable, just let me know and we'll change directions. Okay,
Because you were believing everyone on their word, what led
to the abuse that ultimately was cast upon you.
I think that emotional abuse in a relationship where they
say I love you and they love bomb you first
and then it uncovers to be what they really are.
I kept going, Oh, but you said you loved me
back here, so you're going to be that here someday
you're going to come back to doing that. But there's
financial abuse, brickery, people trying to somebody I'm married, thought
i'd be so famous that he'd be hanging out with
Jimmy Buffett and they wrote a screenplay.
About me killing myself.
Wow, I told my family and they're like, oh, he's
just being creative.
What that's not right.
There's a lot of instances where I believed like that
I would be okay because of the words that they said,
and then it turned around to be a situation.
Now, the abuse that you received when you was nine,
was that more sexual abuse?
Yes?
Now, how did that play out? Did it get to
the point where you knew it wasn't right or did
someone else find out and have to step in.
I knew it.
I'm right from the beginning because I was being taken.
Not hey, let's play with dolls or something like that. No,
it's like I'm going to rip your head off. You'd
tell wow, it wasn't right. Absolutely, So how did you
get out of it? How did you get past it? All?
I just survived. Did I have developed since I was
very young? I three sixty And that's another thing with
my superpowers.
I believe that through the abuse, I have learned.
Coping skills that just like PTA, well PTSD, I have
that you developed this keen sense of awareness, like you
can tell when somebody is about to blow or somebody's
trying to get you physically, like in pending doom.
Not lying to your face, Oh my gosh, that kind
of trickery. I've never been into drugs.
I always wanted to be able to run fast, get
away so on the road.
I mean, it served me very.
Well to have the PTSD and hyper aware that I've
developed over the years.
I am super hyper aware.
That's a good thing. It helps you get past whatever
you need to get past. Now, let's talk about your
teen years. It's a well known fact that most teenage
girls will mask their autism. This way they can fit
in and socialize and just go about like a normal teenager.
But when that doesn't happen, they can also slide into depression.
Did anything like that happen to you during your teens?
I never fit in. I had very few friends, but
I can sing. I remember one girl. She came up
to me and her name was Melody Too, and she goes,
I didn't know you could do anything worthwhile.
Wow, I'm like cool, Okay, shrink back into nothingness.
You know.
Basically I was very guy. I had very few friends.
Only when I sang, was I okay, okay.
So once you got past on all, you got through school,
what happened next in your life?
I didn't through school. I left school at eighth grade.
For some reason, I ended up in high school. I
don't remember finishing ninth grade. I got to high school
and I had a major meltdown when someone raped me.
And I told my bishop at church, because I was
a convert in then Mormon church.
That these things had happened to me.
And I was just devastated that I will never get
to heaven that I was too damaged, and he said,
you liked it so much.
You did it again.
Wow.
Right. That was a friend's dad who was the bishop.
So I left school.
I was homeschooled and then I went to beauty school
and I was with I thought adults who would act better.
Not so much.
But I did graduate from Beauty school and that when
I was nineteen, I had a friend named Jerry and
we used to go to this dance club in the
valley San Fernando Valley and I went to go pick
her up at her boyfriend's house and I got kidnapped
at gunpoint.
Wow.
Then me and my sister took my dad's Elderado and
drove off to Reno and yeah.
Wow, that's quite a journey. So when was it that
you transitioned into music.
I played music when I was five, and then I
played a little bit as an adult after the kidnapping,
and then I got married to a guy who didn't
let me play music for ten years to write my
self notes to keep my mouth shut.
Ten years.
Wow. So before we move on, let's address the kidnapping. Yeah,
how long did that last? And what became of it?
It was about twenty four hours.
Okay, the guy had made a call to my parents
saying that they needed to morge their house and that
they needed some ransom money. They said to call back
at seven, and my mom had a bunch of cops
from Seene Valley sitting in our kitchen recording everything. Eventually,
the guy who kidnapped me dropped himself. I mean he
was doing his own drugs. I guess that's not a
good thing to do. And he had his friend come
over and his friend is the one who made the deal.
Dropped me off and told me not to tell anybody
because they'd kill me.
That's crazy. Did they get caught.
Yeah, but they were out within a couple hours because
somebody owned judges.
That's a crazy story, but it's not the first that
happens like that. Now, once you got past all this,
when did the music start to kick in for you?
After that, I got married and moved up to northern
California and was there for about ten years.
It was a terrible relationship. Alwaysn't allowed to play, wasn't
allowed to sing.
I decided to get divorced and I would privately play
music with my friend Donna, and then the neighbor lady
next door.
She said, you're really talented.
You should go to the Northern California Songwriters Association to
this conference. So I went to the conference and I
got a record deal. That's how I got to Nashville
the first time. He wasn't the ultimate guy, but it
got me to Nashville and I met a great producer.
Chris Crawford wrote with Tom Kimmel, He Rodman, Greg Barnhill,
just a bunch of great writers.
And then I.
Started coming back every like five times a year, and
my kids. We moved up to or After a couple
of years, the publishing deal went away, but I didn't stop.
Making records because I'm so focused, you know what I mean.
Don't tell me no, I'm so focused. Right, So this
will be my eleventh project. Some of them I beg
with my grocery money. I just have to do it.
I have to get it out of me.
Sure that makes sense. So do you have sensory issues?
If you do, how do you handle that?
Sometimes it's embarrassing. There is the twitch that flips when
I'm gonna do it. I'm like, okay, boom boom, I'm
that person, right, So a lot of times I will
play under floor essa lights, like if I'm at a
guitar center or something and I can feel the vibration,
so I have to mega mask. Hey, i's going you know,
blah blah blah. A lot of times inside or when
I'm done, I am completely exhausted.
Thank goodness.
I have my my cocoon that I live in on
the road, my quiet room. It's my Ford transit that
I can shut my doors, pull my curtains.
Sure, you need to do what you can do. How
does that affect your emotions?
It's painful emotionally sometimes, Like people think, oh, I just
love this, and I do the cost of what it
takes me to get to do that is grueling. And
I'm not you know, a Barbie doll or anything. I'm
just a real girl.
Okay, that's a good thing. So now what about touch?
A lot of autistic people they have an issue with touch.
A lot of people want to get pictures with you,
which requires touching. Does that affect you?
Yeah?
So my husband thinks that's funny because I don't want
to be spooned, but I'll spoon I take the upper
to touch him there, you know, like hold his shoulders
or whatever.
But I don't want him to do that to me.
It took me for about We're being married for four years,
been together for seven. Just within the last couple of years,
will I allowed him to like, you know, do I
feel safe for a touching kind of thing?
A lot?
Now, what about people that you don't know when you're
out there? People want to get pictures, they want to
get to meet you, talk with you, whatever.
Oh yeah, that's part of the switch. So the switch
is I don't mind that at all.
It's like, hey, how's it going. You know, we'll take
a picture. I used to Okay, you're gonna find this stupid.
But you may have seen my post about Wilson my basketball. Yeah, okay, well.
I used to because he was the only man I
could trust.
Okay, So I used to bring a basketball with me
and for safety for a company.
I got to Scott.
Sail Arizona, a fan of mine who's also autistic. He's like, hey,
I'd love to get a picture with you and Wilson,
you know on model pos.
You know they always Doe and.
Me and Dale looked for him in my van for
an hour and I.
Was absolutely just thinking about it.
I was destroyed. I don't know where he rolled out there.
It's a mystery. Where did Wilson go. He's gone forever.
And I took everything out of my van to look
for the damn basketball. So if people started sending me
basketballs or balls with faces on them.
They saw one on the highway in Arizona.
I think it was Dale actually, and it was a
basketball that he found on the freeways, all messed up
and he wrote mel on it and gave it to me,
and I drove around with that for the longest time.
So when you're out you have people that come up
and grab you, touch you. Do you have any flashbacks
from that with the abuse that you had in your
younger years?
Yeah? I have.
How do you handle it?
I did EMDR which was extremely helpful.
Sometimes I get the feeling where it just happened, and.
My body flinches, like I try to get it off
of me. You know, I have a lot.
Of physical tics that I mask and put together pretty
well when I'm in public, or maybe I don't. Maybe
people just saying I'm quirky, which I haven't told that.
Before, And that's okay.
So you travel across the country at guitar centers. What
else do you do?
I go in demo musical equipment, I play for people,
and I meet people, and it's so exciting for me
to meet people that are still excited about music. Yeah,
and so that is also another red thread that I
can connect to other people through that is not just
a scary.
Person, do you know what I mean?
Yeah?
Sure, So I create red threads.
Okay, I know you because of music, and you're gonna
like me because of music. And I'm gonna like you
because of music. And we like the same thing, you
know what I mean. We have a communication. We now
have a language, just like my son, and video games
and animation and stuff like that. I love to meet
children that are also excited about music too, because I identify.
Sure, that makes sense. Now, I understand you're working on
a project right now. Correct.
Yes. One of the songs is called Invisible.
The lyrics are about my autism and my social anxiety.
Yeah. I'd run down the streets of this town. I
could dodge all the stairs of the dangerous clowns. I'd
be painting the words alive on or around if that,
if that.
Was invisible privacy to clean out my mind of the
clutter of traumas, and i'd have.
A privacy to clean out my mind of the clutter
of traumas. No, no, my mind's overwhelmed. Anyways, it's really great.
Let me get you the lyrics, because it means everything
to people that are like us.
I also have a song called Life in the Spectrum.
I don't know if it would ever, you know, be
a hit song on the radio, but I love it
and it tells the story of how we are.
You know.
Well, that's important, especially that you like it, and whether
it's a hit on the radio anymore doesn't really matter.
If people can hear it, relate to it, that's what counts.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
So what's next? What do you see in the next
let's say three to five years from now for.
You, my plans are to not give up good. I
constantly struggle with walking out the door, you know, like
should I do this?
I couldn't. I can't do this anymore.
It's overwhelming sometimes that the amount of things that I
have to be in charge of to get myself out there.
I have to schedule myself, I have to talk to
a lot of people, pick up the phone, do this,
the emails and organize a lot of things. It may
take me a little bit longer. So the last twenty
years I've relied on friends on Facebook.
To book me. Basically, I'm like, Hey, I'm going from
here to there. Who wants a house concert?
How does that work for you?
I got to tell you, people are good.
I have had the most amazing experiences out there on
the road where I had no idea if I'd even
make it.
Like when I was driving around in the Chevy astro Van.
I would break down everywhere and I had to rely
on people and get out of myself to connect with
these people, saying I'm in trouble, help.
People would help me.
That's awesome.
I am amazed at how good the world can be.
Very scary too. I don't get much sleep on the
road because I have that three p sixty on.
You hear a noise and you jump in the car
sceton and get out of there.
Yeah. Absolutely got to stay safe. Now, what is your
message to the listeners? What do you have to say
to them that might be going through similar things as
you are, or they're just finding out that they're autists
to what message do you have for them to give
them some hope in life.
Oh wow, do your research. There's a lot of foods
that are damaging. I've found out for me, my social
anxiety is less the less oxalates I eat. So mineral deficient,
you're not gonna be able to think properly.
You're low in calcium. It takes it from your bones.
When you're eating oxalates, they steal from your body, so
you end up mineral deficient, and that makes you hyperkinetic.
You have anxiety, you have more social anxiety.
And so once I learned that, I mean a lot
of my symptoms have greatly improved. I would suggest emd
R therapy because we tend to ruminate and remember every hurt.
You know what I mean, absolutely that makes sense.
And they get bigger the more we ruminate, how much
it hurts our bodies.
Also learning to hair less. If we present as strange
or weird, you know, I say, embrace it.
I mean, I've had a lot of people come up
to me, especially after I played the Franklin Theater with
Music Heals Minds and for music therapy and music therapy retreats.
I got a standing ovation there. And because I say
mistakes like me. The song I wrote about my son
and myself. People really connect to music and knowing that
you're being outwardly evident about it, regardless of the news.
I say say it loud, say it proud.
I mean, this is my limitations, and know your limitations.
Just tell your loved ones or your people, just say
this is very triggering for me.
I'm going to try to, you know.
Act as cool as I can, but this thing really
bothers me. And I have to tell people I don't
really do teasing because my brain. You know, I can
deal with drunks in a bar, but not people I
love and trust. They shouldn't be teasing me. They should
be going the sky is blue. Yep, it's blue.
You know what I mean. Absolutely, don't tell me a
story about it.
I don't want to hear something that's not the truth.
I love, you mean the truth. I don't want a
stranger trying to get something from me. You know, I
can't trust everybody. That's another thing is you can't trust everybody.
Yeah, unfortunately, that's so true. People sometimes will say anything
that they need to say to get what they want.
Absolutely, and my son and I both have been bamboozled
because they know that we're golible.
Well, I've been glible, and.
I'm a lot more astute, So I don't get into
situations anymore until I'm very.
Very sure.
Absolutely So, how you navigate around new people you've just
met someone new, how you navigate around them so you
can size them up to find out whether you think
you can trust them or not.
Well, my switch goes on.
First, I meet everybody with love, you know, and then
I keep my mind ticking on.
I saw this or that just in case if.
They show me a sign that I need to back away,
then I have to.
I have to say the words this makes me uncomfortable.
Look, I just turned to significant age, and it took
me all those significant years to gather up the knowledge
and the words to say. When I first came to
Nashville when I was thirty two, I had no idea.
Also being creative like art, I make a lot of art.
I have lots of paintings, and I love them.
It makes me feel somehow connected to the universe, like
all the good things, and I don't need anybody around
to do that.
That's great. Now, how do you handle it when you
have a feeling about a per and how do you
handle it so that it doesn't escalate in any way
at all.
I find the quickest way to get out of there.
Sometimes I have to say the words like this makes
me feel uncomfortable, I've got to go, or look, look
at the time, I've got to get out of here,
or you know, I've been too busy. I do have
to tell people sometimes when they're asking me for things
that I cannot possibly handle, that this is overwhelming for me.
I have to use the words that I know, and
I sometimes I have to say.
I don't know the word for this feeling that I'm having,
but it makes me feel uncomfortable, so I need to
back out.
So what happens If a person makes you uncomfortable but
he doesn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable, and he
tells you that what's your approach?
Then a lot of times those are words.
I've learned that those are words and says I'm trying
not to make you uncomfortable, to be honest or.
Blah blah blah. They're generally dishonest and scary, and I
should have listened to the first place.
If someone says, hey, I'm a bad word, I'm a jerk,
then they are.
You have to take people.
At their word and listen to the words. Careful listening
will unveil so much that I personally let slide because
I'm like, no.
No, you're what I want you to be. You're Disneyland,
but they're not.
Yeah, that's so true. Now let's get back to your music.
What would you like to tell people in closing about
your music and what you're doing.
My superpower has also helped me being able to write
songs with PTSD survivors, sexual abuse survivors.
And so this autism can be a gift.
This pain that I've licked through because of this can
be a gift.
So wh one of the songwriters that you really liked
writing with, my.
Friend of Mark Elliott, he passed away just a year
and a half ago. He was my favorite co writer,
one of them. So he said, hey, Mellie, you'd be
great at this. He was writing with veterans out at
Amy Grant's farm for music therapy retreats with Mac Bailey,
and he said, you'd.
Be great at this. I said, I'll give it a shot,
and so I did and it was so awesome. He
told me, he said, every time I do this, I'm.
Absolutely terrified that I won't do it right, that I
won't come up with their story writer, tell their story correctly.
But every time he does, And so he believed in me.
If he believed in me, he's somebody I could trust,
true blue, great human being. And so I trusted him
and I did it and I've been doing it for the.
Last four years now.
That's great, And I just finished another one this last week.
It just makes my heart blow that they were happy
with what we came up with.
That sounds great. How often do they have that.
It's a couple of times a year that they book
in Nashville.
I've done other ones in Atlanta and also in San Antonio.
As they come up, they just say, hey, do you
have this open? And I'll go drive over and do it. Oh,
I don't fly and I don't do elevators.
That's another work of mine.
Everyone has things they like and they don't like, so
that's not a problem at all. So you drive everywhere?
Yeah, I drive everywhere. I don't want to fly.
You're not alone there. Well, this has been great, great information,
great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to
come on with us.
Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.
Oh It's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for taking
time out of your busy schedule to listen to our
show today. We hope you enjoyed it as much as
we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know someone
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