My Life, My Hope, My Recovery!
Below is something I worte this past February, it started out being a letter to a friend I met while I was at RLP but turned into this . . . let me know what you think.
Before my admission into my third intensive E.D. treatment center, the Remuda LIFE Program late July of 2004- I was literally at death's door. My body weight at that time was not dangerously low, as a matter of fact it could barely be diagnosed as an anorexic weight, so for me I never truly saw/realized my weight as being as low as it was only because four and a half years earlier it had been twenty pounds lower than that for nearly three consecutive years. Whereas my weight was not "dangerously” low, my mind was “dangerous.” At this time, my physical body had finally begun to give up after nearly seven years of starving and binging and purging. When my body started to give up on me in the March of 2004- meaning having to be hospitalized numerous times for acute dehydration and related symptoms, I was surprised. I was surprised because even when I weighed less than seven-dozen pounds my body functioned normally and my labs always came back showing that I was "healthy." The biggest shocker came though when I was in the E.R., literally 12 hours before my plane was scheduled to leave for Phoenix, Arizona, with a life-threatening low potassium level. I had been rushed to the hospital by EMS after I began projectile vomiting at the Redford 24-Hour post office at three in the morning. The only thing I was vomiting, into the large gray wastebasket, someone had pulled towards me, was watery mixture of twelve tablespoons of Cherry flavored Milk of Magnesia I had consumed a few hours prior.
The months before entering RLP I was at death's door because I honestly did not care anymore about the things I was putting my body through and I definitely didn't care how it reacted to my behaviors. I didn't care because I truly and earnestly believed that I could never recover or be in recovery from this thing, this demon inside of me, so why even try? I never had a plan of how I would kill myself, but suicide or my death was always on my mind. I knew that I could die from a fatal car accident when I would be binging and driving- not paying attention to the road (swerving in and out of lanes, running red lights, entering and exiting fast food drive-thru's being too busy unwrapping my burger or stuffing my face with fries, or whatever proved to be the “drug” of choice that day, to pay attention to oncoming traffic.) Nothing could stop my binging “joy rides,” neither rain nor snow.
I hated binging, and I hated purging even more, I wanted to fight, I really did, but my mind was already convinced that I could not win- that there was no chance, no glimmer of hope- so why even try to fight the oncoming binge and purge. I hated how I would be driving, reading, watching T.V., surfing the net, working or doing anything else, and out of nowhere the urge, the idea, the "demand" that I "needed" to binge and purge would come over me and there was nothing I believed that I could do about it - NOTHING!! I tried to distract, I tried to sleep, I tried anything that I thought would or could possibly work. I reminded myself that, “Hey I had been at Rio twice before, I had the ‘tools,’ I should know what to do.” Each failure, each binge and purge, each hospitalization, each therapy session would just remind me of what a failure I was. I prayed every night that God would allow me to wake up in His arms- in simpler terms, I would pray that I could die in my sleep.
When the decision was finalized about coming to Chandler (the RLP), I told myself, so did my mother and she still does, that this was my “last shot”, my last glimmer of hope in the possibility that I could make anything out of my life, anything at all. I told myself that coming to Chandler ment it was “Do-or-Die” time. I remember distinctly thinking to myself, as I was driving south-bound on Merriman Rd. crossing the Michigan Ave. intersection, as I felt the railroad tracks rattling the wheels of my car, that if I would return in 60 days (I ended up staying 90 days) and I would feel the same way (i.e. depressed, low self-esteem, suicidal ideation, low self-worth, etc.) that I would kill myself. I still didn't want to kill myself, but I didn't want to live this way for another day.
I wish I could tell you that once I arrived in Chandler my depression- but more than that my mindset that I could never recover were no longer lingering permissions in my mind, but that was not the case. It took several weeks, probably about a month and a half before I truly began to fight this demon that had haunted me for so long. I began to override my thinking, which had become so automatic by this point, by looking at myself not as a 23 year-old but rather as a 3 year-old. The way I saw it was that a 3 year-old doesn't have any choices or a very limited select few depending on the circumstances involved, they listen to grown-ups who instruct them when to get up, where to go, when to sleep and yes even when and what to eat. I began to do that, and like a 3 year-old, I would pout and cry about the things I was instructed I could or could not do.
Eating disorders are about control- we all believe that to be true on some level or another. Most of us begin in control over our E.D. and we enjoy the extreme sense of power we believe to gain through engaging in E.D. behaviors. An eating disordered person may feel empowered by not eating or eating everything in sight anytime they wanted and not gaining one solitary pound. At the beginning of my disorder, I believed I was in control over my E.D., that I decided when and how I would engage in it. I had the "power" when I would find myself bending my head over a porcelain bowl, a bush, a garbage can, a bucket, or anywhere I was, forcing my body to purge of its contents. In hindsight, I find it ridiculous and sad at the extremes I would go to in order to feel a sense of control, over anything, anything at all.
Sooner or later the control shifts. Most of us begin to lose the firm grasp we believed to have had over our E.D.; it begins to control us more and more. Only seldom will it let us decide when we are going to engage in our E.D. and when it does, the E.D. sole purpose for doing so is to make us believe that we are still in control over it. Through this the E.D. also reminds us that we can still numb our feelings through engaging in it. This period, of us having control over our E.D., doesn't last long and they become fewer and longer in between as the months and years we spend with our E.D. go by. The E.D. grows and becomes stronger by the control we think we have over it, when in reality we have none, it controls us.
The only way I was able to begin my journey of recovery (and this is what I had to do) is that I had to give up complete control over everything dealing with my E.D. This included giving up trying to control my E.D. on my own. This was incredibly hard to do, because my mind was set on the idea that even though I knew and was aware of the control my E.D. had over me and my life, I still believed that controlling it myself was the only way I could recover. I had convinced myself that as long as I made up the calories I had purged, I was still getting the "right" amount of calories or whatever in the day that Kim (my Dietician at RLP) had assigned me.
I don’t know why but the third weekend in September it happened. . . I finally gave up control. That Friday night I walked over to the Chandler Fashion Center Mall after dinner like I had so many nights before, where by 8:30pm I had completely emptied my stomach of its suppertime contents and the binge that had occurred at the mall’s food court that night. That purge proved to be the “beginning of the end” of my eating disorder. Upon arising that Saturday morning I remember for no particular reason following my meal plan to the “T” (so to say), no matter what temptations there were to do otherwise, and believe me that day there were plenty of opportunities to do so. I started with making myself eat my Bagel with the correct amount of Cream Cheese in the MHT Office (both of which to my hindsight amazement were and still are serious fear foods). During our weekly Saturday morning volunteering experiential it would have been incredibly easy for me to say I drank my Boost Beverage and ate my Resource Cookie, but really not eat it. My mind was screaming, "This is your chance Kathrin, this is the only snack where you are able to get away with it,” (because of the Snack Checks and monitoring that my dietician had placed me on were not as enforced during volunteering or rather they were easier to manipulate). “Go ahead, don’t eat it, you don’t have to - you were good at Breakfast, besides you don’t get weighed in till Monday,” my mind kept taunting me. It’s shrieking only intensified at the snap of my Boost can opening echoed endlessly in my ears and the sweetness of the cookie dissolved in my mouth. “Stop, Kathrin, What are you doing?? Are you dumb? You must be . . .,” it continued, without hinting towards any likelihood that it would stop. As I continued to eat my assigned snack and after I had completed half of it, my mind began to try to make deals with itself, such as “Okay, half is fine, at least this way you will be able to say you ‘tried’, that should make them [my treatment team] happy.” But to my amazement, I continued to eat my snack, I felt like a robot programmed to eat my snack as if that was my sole purpose. I heard every word that my mind was trying to intimidate me with I could not shut it off or ignore it, and by this point I knew I couldn’t, so I did the only thing I was told was the “right” thing to do, and that was eat and finish my snack.
That Saturday was the first day for as long as I can remember during which I had not engaged my E.D. in any way whatsoever since this demon took up residence in my body and mind nearly a decade ago. To my amazement one day turned into two, and two days turned into a week, until I slipped. During this week I was in shock- I had no clue of what was happening to me, not the slightest whatsoever, I felt like I was in a dream. MHTs would ask me how it felt, when I told them I had made it another day free of E.D. behaviors, and I could not answer them. I was numb- I knew what I was feeling/experiencing wasn’t bad- but was it good? I had given up complete control, I was never, ever hungry but yet I ate what and when I was told to- I wanted to purge but for some reason it finally clicked that I was not allowed to, that purging was “against the rules.” In hindsight this amazes me, because looking back over my past two treatments at Rio, I remember distinctly purging every single day sometimes more than one meal for that matter and even though I knew purging was against the “rules” then, I still engaged in my same old behaviors that I had grown accustomed to. I find myself wondering what changed this time, which two synapses of my brain decided to finally link together like they always should have, and why not earlier? How did I finally find the right key to unlock my mind?
During these seven days my E.D. was trying everything imaginable to get me to turn towards it as my resource, as my help, as my hope. Hope? What hope? What lasting hope could anyone ever find over a porcelain bowl, on a treadmill with no destination, or at the paper bottom of Starbucks Venti Nonfat Sugar-Free Vanilla Latte cup? My E.D.s efforts to triumph over me proved to be in vain, at least for that week. It could not control me because I had no control to give it. As I stated before, I had given control of my E.D. to my treatment team. So looking at it from that perspective, they were in total control over me including my E.D.
I remember telling Robert, my therapist at RLP, that Tuesday how out of control I felt, but at the same time how I felt more in control than I had in a really long time. I told him how ironic it was that control came when I let go . . . I felt out of control because I had given the little control I thought I had over my E.D. to Kim (by following my meal plan 100% and not engaging in any E.D. behaviors), but I also felt in control because only I was able to make the decision and commitment to give the little control I thought I had to my treatment team. If I was the only one who could make that decision and follow it, I was actually in control.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t like it- I was kicking and screaming, at least in my mind, all along. I had to literally drag myself into the kitchen when it was time for a meal or snack or out of it when I felt the need to binge coming on. Once I remember having a clean bowl in one hand and reaching into the freezer to grab the leftover ice cream from a prior meal earlier in the week with the other, when the realization of what I was doing hit me, I broke down in tears. My E.D. taunting me “come on you have been so good on not B/P, just once won’t hurt, just this one time, besides you already basically started why not finish?” Everything within in me wanted to give in and for a moment I almost did, but I didn’t I forced myself to stop. I screamed, “Jesus, Help me!” in my mind as I closed the freezer door and dropped the unused bowl into the sink.
At that moment I remember what I needed to do, God had answered my distressed prayer- my cry/scream for help, by allowing me to remember the wisdom I had been taught. I ran out of House C, towards House G all along hoping that Kim would still be there, that she hadn’t left yet for the day. I had to talk to someone, and of all people she would understand and know just the right words to say to help me.
When I got to House G, I let go a sigh of relief, Kim was still there she was finishing up her last session of the day. As I talked with her I came to a realization: The idea that engaging in my E.D. behaviors would meet certain unmet needs was no longer an option. I had to figure out different means to meet my unmet needs - I had to use my “tools.” The tools I thought would never work began to work. They had never worked before only because the option of using my ED was still there, without the possibility to use my E.D. I was forced to rely on something greater- something more reliable. I was frightened, terribly frightened, because I had never known to rely on anything other than my E.D. I did not know what it would be like; I had no idea of what to expect- I was treading in unknown waters. Would I sink or swim? I was clinging to anything and anyone I could find who I knew would help keep me afloat. My life preserver took the form of the staff at RLP. Ninety-nine percent of the days, and nights for that matter, were spent in the MHT office if I was not already engaged in another activity with staff somewhere (like in a 1:1 Therapy appt, 1:1 RD appt, Group Therapy sessions, or outings with staff just to name a few). I clung to them like superglue because it was a life or death manner, I was beginning to allow my mind to engage in the prospect of being alive. That I, Kathrin, had the right to live.
They held me afloat as I began to swim ashore. Slowly, as I began to build strength of my own, their hold on me lessened, until I was able to swim along side of them on my own. They never left my side, never believing I had been “cured” - that I had received enough help and support from them. On the contrary, their support for me never lessened and I still believe to this day, having nearly 5 months pass since my discharge from RLP, that they still support me now just the same. While their support may no longer come in physical terms (i.e. hugs) it remains ever present in my memories.
My admission into RLP proved to be a life or death matter in more than one way. Not only was my physical health restored, but also my mental health. But what I believe to have been the defining factor in my treatment and journey towards recovery was the restoration of my spiritual health. My relationship with God was restored into something unbelievable. He used the staff I encountered at RLP to get me back to where I belong, and that is with Him. I truly believe that Jesus used the experiences I had gone through the years prior and the months during my treatment to reveal to me that He is the only way. He is the only light, and the only truth. I believe Jesus used the staff at RLP as a means to show me a glimmer of how great His unconditional love and acceptance is for me. Lord, I thank you for giving me my life back, only so I can freely give it to you.
Before my admission into my third intensive E.D. treatment center, the Remuda LIFE Program late July of 2004- I was literally at death's door. My body weight at that time was not dangerously low, as a matter of fact it could barely be diagnosed as an anorexic weight, so for me I never truly saw/realized my weight as being as low as it was only because four and a half years earlier it had been twenty pounds lower than that for nearly three consecutive years. Whereas my weight was not "dangerously” low, my mind was “dangerous.” At this time, my physical body had finally begun to give up after nearly seven years of starving and binging and purging. When my body started to give up on me in the March of 2004- meaning having to be hospitalized numerous times for acute dehydration and related symptoms, I was surprised. I was surprised because even when I weighed less than seven-dozen pounds my body functioned normally and my labs always came back showing that I was "healthy." The biggest shocker came though when I was in the E.R., literally 12 hours before my plane was scheduled to leave for Phoenix, Arizona, with a life-threatening low potassium level. I had been rushed to the hospital by EMS after I began projectile vomiting at the Redford 24-Hour post office at three in the morning. The only thing I was vomiting, into the large gray wastebasket, someone had pulled towards me, was watery mixture of twelve tablespoons of Cherry flavored Milk of Magnesia I had consumed a few hours prior.
The months before entering RLP I was at death's door because I honestly did not care anymore about the things I was putting my body through and I definitely didn't care how it reacted to my behaviors. I didn't care because I truly and earnestly believed that I could never recover or be in recovery from this thing, this demon inside of me, so why even try? I never had a plan of how I would kill myself, but suicide or my death was always on my mind. I knew that I could die from a fatal car accident when I would be binging and driving- not paying attention to the road (swerving in and out of lanes, running red lights, entering and exiting fast food drive-thru's being too busy unwrapping my burger or stuffing my face with fries, or whatever proved to be the “drug” of choice that day, to pay attention to oncoming traffic.) Nothing could stop my binging “joy rides,” neither rain nor snow.
I hated binging, and I hated purging even more, I wanted to fight, I really did, but my mind was already convinced that I could not win- that there was no chance, no glimmer of hope- so why even try to fight the oncoming binge and purge. I hated how I would be driving, reading, watching T.V., surfing the net, working or doing anything else, and out of nowhere the urge, the idea, the "demand" that I "needed" to binge and purge would come over me and there was nothing I believed that I could do about it - NOTHING!! I tried to distract, I tried to sleep, I tried anything that I thought would or could possibly work. I reminded myself that, “Hey I had been at Rio twice before, I had the ‘tools,’ I should know what to do.” Each failure, each binge and purge, each hospitalization, each therapy session would just remind me of what a failure I was. I prayed every night that God would allow me to wake up in His arms- in simpler terms, I would pray that I could die in my sleep.
When the decision was finalized about coming to Chandler (the RLP), I told myself, so did my mother and she still does, that this was my “last shot”, my last glimmer of hope in the possibility that I could make anything out of my life, anything at all. I told myself that coming to Chandler ment it was “Do-or-Die” time. I remember distinctly thinking to myself, as I was driving south-bound on Merriman Rd. crossing the Michigan Ave. intersection, as I felt the railroad tracks rattling the wheels of my car, that if I would return in 60 days (I ended up staying 90 days) and I would feel the same way (i.e. depressed, low self-esteem, suicidal ideation, low self-worth, etc.) that I would kill myself. I still didn't want to kill myself, but I didn't want to live this way for another day.
I wish I could tell you that once I arrived in Chandler my depression- but more than that my mindset that I could never recover were no longer lingering permissions in my mind, but that was not the case. It took several weeks, probably about a month and a half before I truly began to fight this demon that had haunted me for so long. I began to override my thinking, which had become so automatic by this point, by looking at myself not as a 23 year-old but rather as a 3 year-old. The way I saw it was that a 3 year-old doesn't have any choices or a very limited select few depending on the circumstances involved, they listen to grown-ups who instruct them when to get up, where to go, when to sleep and yes even when and what to eat. I began to do that, and like a 3 year-old, I would pout and cry about the things I was instructed I could or could not do.
Eating disorders are about control- we all believe that to be true on some level or another. Most of us begin in control over our E.D. and we enjoy the extreme sense of power we believe to gain through engaging in E.D. behaviors. An eating disordered person may feel empowered by not eating or eating everything in sight anytime they wanted and not gaining one solitary pound. At the beginning of my disorder, I believed I was in control over my E.D., that I decided when and how I would engage in it. I had the "power" when I would find myself bending my head over a porcelain bowl, a bush, a garbage can, a bucket, or anywhere I was, forcing my body to purge of its contents. In hindsight, I find it ridiculous and sad at the extremes I would go to in order to feel a sense of control, over anything, anything at all.
Sooner or later the control shifts. Most of us begin to lose the firm grasp we believed to have had over our E.D.; it begins to control us more and more. Only seldom will it let us decide when we are going to engage in our E.D. and when it does, the E.D. sole purpose for doing so is to make us believe that we are still in control over it. Through this the E.D. also reminds us that we can still numb our feelings through engaging in it. This period, of us having control over our E.D., doesn't last long and they become fewer and longer in between as the months and years we spend with our E.D. go by. The E.D. grows and becomes stronger by the control we think we have over it, when in reality we have none, it controls us.
The only way I was able to begin my journey of recovery (and this is what I had to do) is that I had to give up complete control over everything dealing with my E.D. This included giving up trying to control my E.D. on my own. This was incredibly hard to do, because my mind was set on the idea that even though I knew and was aware of the control my E.D. had over me and my life, I still believed that controlling it myself was the only way I could recover. I had convinced myself that as long as I made up the calories I had purged, I was still getting the "right" amount of calories or whatever in the day that Kim (my Dietician at RLP) had assigned me.
I don’t know why but the third weekend in September it happened. . . I finally gave up control. That Friday night I walked over to the Chandler Fashion Center Mall after dinner like I had so many nights before, where by 8:30pm I had completely emptied my stomach of its suppertime contents and the binge that had occurred at the mall’s food court that night. That purge proved to be the “beginning of the end” of my eating disorder. Upon arising that Saturday morning I remember for no particular reason following my meal plan to the “T” (so to say), no matter what temptations there were to do otherwise, and believe me that day there were plenty of opportunities to do so. I started with making myself eat my Bagel with the correct amount of Cream Cheese in the MHT Office (both of which to my hindsight amazement were and still are serious fear foods). During our weekly Saturday morning volunteering experiential it would have been incredibly easy for me to say I drank my Boost Beverage and ate my Resource Cookie, but really not eat it. My mind was screaming, "This is your chance Kathrin, this is the only snack where you are able to get away with it,” (because of the Snack Checks and monitoring that my dietician had placed me on were not as enforced during volunteering or rather they were easier to manipulate). “Go ahead, don’t eat it, you don’t have to - you were good at Breakfast, besides you don’t get weighed in till Monday,” my mind kept taunting me. It’s shrieking only intensified at the snap of my Boost can opening echoed endlessly in my ears and the sweetness of the cookie dissolved in my mouth. “Stop, Kathrin, What are you doing?? Are you dumb? You must be . . .,” it continued, without hinting towards any likelihood that it would stop. As I continued to eat my assigned snack and after I had completed half of it, my mind began to try to make deals with itself, such as “Okay, half is fine, at least this way you will be able to say you ‘tried’, that should make them [my treatment team] happy.” But to my amazement, I continued to eat my snack, I felt like a robot programmed to eat my snack as if that was my sole purpose. I heard every word that my mind was trying to intimidate me with I could not shut it off or ignore it, and by this point I knew I couldn’t, so I did the only thing I was told was the “right” thing to do, and that was eat and finish my snack.
That Saturday was the first day for as long as I can remember during which I had not engaged my E.D. in any way whatsoever since this demon took up residence in my body and mind nearly a decade ago. To my amazement one day turned into two, and two days turned into a week, until I slipped. During this week I was in shock- I had no clue of what was happening to me, not the slightest whatsoever, I felt like I was in a dream. MHTs would ask me how it felt, when I told them I had made it another day free of E.D. behaviors, and I could not answer them. I was numb- I knew what I was feeling/experiencing wasn’t bad- but was it good? I had given up complete control, I was never, ever hungry but yet I ate what and when I was told to- I wanted to purge but for some reason it finally clicked that I was not allowed to, that purging was “against the rules.” In hindsight this amazes me, because looking back over my past two treatments at Rio, I remember distinctly purging every single day sometimes more than one meal for that matter and even though I knew purging was against the “rules” then, I still engaged in my same old behaviors that I had grown accustomed to. I find myself wondering what changed this time, which two synapses of my brain decided to finally link together like they always should have, and why not earlier? How did I finally find the right key to unlock my mind?
During these seven days my E.D. was trying everything imaginable to get me to turn towards it as my resource, as my help, as my hope. Hope? What hope? What lasting hope could anyone ever find over a porcelain bowl, on a treadmill with no destination, or at the paper bottom of Starbucks Venti Nonfat Sugar-Free Vanilla Latte cup? My E.D.s efforts to triumph over me proved to be in vain, at least for that week. It could not control me because I had no control to give it. As I stated before, I had given control of my E.D. to my treatment team. So looking at it from that perspective, they were in total control over me including my E.D.
I remember telling Robert, my therapist at RLP, that Tuesday how out of control I felt, but at the same time how I felt more in control than I had in a really long time. I told him how ironic it was that control came when I let go . . . I felt out of control because I had given the little control I thought I had over my E.D. to Kim (by following my meal plan 100% and not engaging in any E.D. behaviors), but I also felt in control because only I was able to make the decision and commitment to give the little control I thought I had to my treatment team. If I was the only one who could make that decision and follow it, I was actually in control.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t like it- I was kicking and screaming, at least in my mind, all along. I had to literally drag myself into the kitchen when it was time for a meal or snack or out of it when I felt the need to binge coming on. Once I remember having a clean bowl in one hand and reaching into the freezer to grab the leftover ice cream from a prior meal earlier in the week with the other, when the realization of what I was doing hit me, I broke down in tears. My E.D. taunting me “come on you have been so good on not B/P, just once won’t hurt, just this one time, besides you already basically started why not finish?” Everything within in me wanted to give in and for a moment I almost did, but I didn’t I forced myself to stop. I screamed, “Jesus, Help me!” in my mind as I closed the freezer door and dropped the unused bowl into the sink.
At that moment I remember what I needed to do, God had answered my distressed prayer- my cry/scream for help, by allowing me to remember the wisdom I had been taught. I ran out of House C, towards House G all along hoping that Kim would still be there, that she hadn’t left yet for the day. I had to talk to someone, and of all people she would understand and know just the right words to say to help me.
When I got to House G, I let go a sigh of relief, Kim was still there she was finishing up her last session of the day. As I talked with her I came to a realization: The idea that engaging in my E.D. behaviors would meet certain unmet needs was no longer an option. I had to figure out different means to meet my unmet needs - I had to use my “tools.” The tools I thought would never work began to work. They had never worked before only because the option of using my ED was still there, without the possibility to use my E.D. I was forced to rely on something greater- something more reliable. I was frightened, terribly frightened, because I had never known to rely on anything other than my E.D. I did not know what it would be like; I had no idea of what to expect- I was treading in unknown waters. Would I sink or swim? I was clinging to anything and anyone I could find who I knew would help keep me afloat. My life preserver took the form of the staff at RLP. Ninety-nine percent of the days, and nights for that matter, were spent in the MHT office if I was not already engaged in another activity with staff somewhere (like in a 1:1 Therapy appt, 1:1 RD appt, Group Therapy sessions, or outings with staff just to name a few). I clung to them like superglue because it was a life or death manner, I was beginning to allow my mind to engage in the prospect of being alive. That I, Kathrin, had the right to live.
They held me afloat as I began to swim ashore. Slowly, as I began to build strength of my own, their hold on me lessened, until I was able to swim along side of them on my own. They never left my side, never believing I had been “cured” - that I had received enough help and support from them. On the contrary, their support for me never lessened and I still believe to this day, having nearly 5 months pass since my discharge from RLP, that they still support me now just the same. While their support may no longer come in physical terms (i.e. hugs) it remains ever present in my memories.
My admission into RLP proved to be a life or death matter in more than one way. Not only was my physical health restored, but also my mental health. But what I believe to have been the defining factor in my treatment and journey towards recovery was the restoration of my spiritual health. My relationship with God was restored into something unbelievable. He used the staff I encountered at RLP to get me back to where I belong, and that is with Him. I truly believe that Jesus used the experiences I had gone through the years prior and the months during my treatment to reveal to me that He is the only way. He is the only light, and the only truth. I believe Jesus used the staff at RLP as a means to show me a glimmer of how great His unconditional love and acceptance is for me. Lord, I thank you for giving me my life back, only so I can freely give it to you.