Six months into my new treatment, I decided I’d had enough. I decided I had enough of being told I’d never get better and I got angry. I wanted to get my daughters back someday, I wanted to be happy again, I wanted to no longer live in fear of my husband. So I started to fight. I started to change what I could in my life, control what I could. I started to pray every day. I wrote out specific affirmations and taped them up on my closet door and bathroom mirror and read them out loud multiple times every day. I read Psalm 18 in my bible out loud everyday as well as other empowering verses. I started reading self-help books on recovery and self-esteem, I discovered a book called What To Say When You Talk To Yourself, by Shad Helmstetter that, I feel, helped to save my life. Before I realized it, my medications were being decreased, I had started to lose weight, started to wear make up again, and cared about how I dressed. I was singing again and I was becoming happy.
I was graduated out of my group home situation into a roommate home. It was still part of the mental health system, but there were no nurses looking over my shoulder, I cooked my own meals, kept my own schedule, got myself to my own appointments. My medical doctor did an annual physical on me and discovered I was Type 11 Diabetic. My blood sugar levels were at 350, which is dangerously close to diabetic coma at 400. I was put on medication and told it could be controlled by diet. Another thing I could control, so I did. I changed the way I ate, the way I cooked, and what I drank. Three months later I asked my therapist if I could graduate from my eighteen month treatment program early. I’d made so much progress she agreed and so I graduated from my program nine months early!
Before I realized it, I had lost 220 pounds and my diabetes was in remission. I talked to my therapist again (I was now in weekly therapy instead of daily), and asked if I could get a part time job. She said yes!
