Testimonials

I met Mary and the team at Lift as I was leaving yet another higher level of care stay in treatment, and things had not gone especially well for me there. I have always been an eternal optimist and never been known to back down from something just because it was challenging. But there was an emptiness and a loneliness about me during this season of my life.  I had truly started to believe that I just might not be someone capable of recovery.  

Exhausted from putting so much effort into my recovery with so little return, Mary’s warmth and candor were both necessary and refreshing.  I developed a mutual trust with the team at Lift; they met me where I was at and never pretended that they knew my future or potential better than I did.  I began by putting one foot in front of the other, then rinse and repeat as the saying goes.  

Months later, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, I realized with my team that it had been the longest streak I’d ever had of doing well in my recovery.  So together with Mary and my team, I made the choice to keep going, a choice I’d make several more times until it no longer needed to be a conscious choice, but something that was now a part of me.  My default network had shifted.

For many years, I’d desperately hoped and prayed to be happy, healthy, and free.  More than five years after I first walked into Mary’s office, I write this as a whole woman, one who is no longer fractured by an eating disorder and her life no longer hijacked by its remnants.  A quote in one of my favorite biographies says “You never know your good breaks from your bad ones!”  I had thought my previous “failed” treatment stay was not only a “bad break” but also a predictor of my future ability to recover. I could not have been more wrong.  What I needed were people who truly cared, treated me with dignity and respect, and were willing to walk beside me as I navigated the road ahead without judgment or conjecture.  Walking through those doors was the life-giving break that I had been needing for so long. 

I will forever remain endlessly grateful for the warmth and kindness I received at Lift. Aptly named, Mary and her team lifted me up so I could become the best possible version of myself.  

When I was engulfed in my Eating disorder, I couldn’t see a way out and I most definitely couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I felt completely hopeless.  I lost myself. I lost my identity. I lost people, pushing them away, becoming someone who would do anything to remain where I was. I couldn’t admit I was sick, and most certainly wouldn’t accept or even come to the conclusion that I needed help. I couldn’t imagine giving up the one thing that, at the time, was the only thing I knew….my eating disorder.  It was the one thing I feared losing- not my family, not my friends or my life but my eating disorder.  I felt I was nothing without it and at the time it was the only thing I lived for. 

As much as I had given up on myself, I had people in my life who refused to give up on me. They believed in me and told me my life was too important.  I finally came to a point where I realized I could no longer live like this. Staying stuck was no longer an option. It was killing me… literally. I knew I wanted to live and living became the only option. 

Admitting I needed help was the hardest thing I have ever done. That was the step that started my journey. The fear of staying stuck in my eating disorder had finally became greater than the fear of losing it. 

 Choosing to go to treatment was life changing and life affirming. Slowly it all started to make sense. Slowly, I realized my ‘why’. What was it I wanted to live for? What was my purpose.? What Are my values?  Slowly I began to crawl out of the hole I had become stuck inside . Treatment gave me that push I needed to jump start and propel me into change, into growth . I became more than the shell of a person I was when I was engulfed in my eating disorder.  I finally saw that light that had been missing for far too long. I finally felt Hope for the first time. I truly believe I could not have done this on my own. Treatment and the people- therapists and nutritionists along the way gave me life. They empowered me, inspired me and  ignited in me, a strength and resilience I didn’t and couldn’t know existed. I never thought it was possible. I never thought I could be on the other side of my eating disorder.  This journey has been the most difficult journey  I have ever been on.  The journey to self discovery. The journey to self worth, to a ‘knowing’ that this is the path I was meant to be on all along. It is hard work and every day I push through and fight for what I know I deserve.  I fight for myself and the life I want to authentically live.  

Grateful doesn’t even fully express what I feel for the opportunity to have received treatment. I am truly grateful beyond words for the people along the way -my family, my friends, my treatment team- that gave me life, hope, strength and the courage to be the me I was always meant to be.