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My Recovery Journey: The Refuge
Note to the Reader: I spent 57 days at treatment. Looking back, I wish I had been there longer. When I went there it was set to 30 days, but was extended as you will read. This blog post is from my perspective and about my time there, everyone’s experience at any residential treatment facility is going to differ person to person and facility to facility. I take the confidentiality of all of the other clients at The Refuge very seriously. While we were there we operated on a first name, last initial basis. I was Heather O. to everyone there unless I chose to share my last name which I only did with a few that are still friends. Also, I am not a medical or legal professional. All of the writing that I share is from my perspective and should not be taken as medical or legal advice. Thank you for continuing to follow me through my journey.
The Refuge
When I stepped out of the car that was driven by my Sober Escort, Candy, I immediately
noticed the Florida weather. The next thing I saw was a group of people whiz by me on bikes, Schwinn Adult Tricycles to be exact. They sped around the corner, hopped off and went into a different side of the medical building. I heard laughter, I saw a bonfire in the distance, I could smell the Florida air and the plants, trees and dirt. I was greeted outside the medical building by someone that referred to herself as an HM. (The HMs (house managers) were the behavioral health techs that I lovingly referred to as the camp counselors). She brought me into a door in the medical unit and introduced me to a nurse. Between the two of them they began my check-in procedure. The first thing that they did was have me hand over my suitcases and allow me to take a small bag with items that I would need for the next 24-48 hours (I had a set of clothes, pajamas, some toiletries, I think a book and a blanket from home) and they told me that I would be able to get my suitcases back once I was transferred from medical to my cabin. I was asked to empty my pockets, surrender my cell phone and then they used a metal detector wand on me to make sure that I didn’t have any weapons or anything else hidden under my clothing, this was a huge shock for me and made me feel uneasy. I then was handed a cup to give a urine sample in so they could run a drug test and tox screen, a ton of blood work drawn, my vitals taken and then a lot of questions about my medical history. I handed them a bag with all my prescriptions in it and they went through each bottle with me and asked me a lot of questions about each one. They asked me if I took any drugs or drank alcohol and when the last time I used any substance. I had never used any drugs in my life except for marijuana, I explained to them that I had my medical marijuana card and told them when the last time I had any alcohol was. The medical exam and check-in process felt like it took forever which was only exaggerated by how tired and overwhelmed I was. Everyone was so friendly and I immediately felt as though they cared. I was very anxious and the nurses in the medical unit were kind and chatted with me and answered all the questions that I had. When I got to The Refuge that evening, I was in good spirits. I was excited to be there and start my path and being somewhere that didn’t feel as though the pandemic existed was even better. I was very open to learning and healing. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I was open to what was coming my way.
The next morning, I was awakened and offered breakfast in the common room in the
medical unit, and I immediately began my medical testing and appointments. I took a range of tests on paper (personality type tests) that asked questions about my life and symptoms that I may have had, questions about my family, my sexual history, relationship history, my history with food, my history of anxiety, general personality questions, and so many other tests. I also began my medical appointments. I met with the psychiatrist for an initial appointment. He asked me questions that I was used to from past providers and explained his methods to me and how he liked to approach care. I was then sent over to a general practice physician where we did, essentially, a new patient appointment where he assessed my overall health. I was then seen by a therapist where we did a very long therapy session, asking me why I was there, why others may have thought I was there, my family history and so on. To say the process to enter The Refuge was thorough would be an understatement. I kind of expected to check in and then just start attending groups and join in with the others. I did not at all expect such a thorough process and evaluation of my health but that laid the groundwork for what I would expect at treatment. Everything was done above and beyond, thoroughly, and it showed me that The Refuge really cared for their clients. Later that day, I was assigned to my cabin and my journey in the forest began.
The first thing I did when I was left in my cabin was go sit out on the screened in porch
on a rocking chair. I love a rocking chair on a porch, and they were throughout the facility with every view more relaxing than I could imagine. At The Refuge we journaled. I still have the notebooks that I journaled through my stay on my bookshelf. My journals were full of my
dreams, thoughts, hopes, anger, hurt, pain, and secrets I would never have thought to ever consider telling a soul. In our groups we were encouraged to write letters. The concept was something that I never thought of before. You write the letter to whomever you need to, your inner child, yourself at a specific age, your parents, your lover, your childhood best friend, your perpetrator, to anyone that has been apart of your life. Letter writing at first was very hard for me. I genuinely struggled with them because I was over thinking it so much. The first letter that I was assigned to write was a letter to my inner child. I didn’t know where to start! I honestly don’t remember at all what I wrote in the first draft, but after I read it in my morning trauma group, the therapist that was the leader of the group started to ask me follow up questions. I learned that my letter wasn’t deep at all, it was all surface, which is how I was living my life out in the world. I did everything on surface level because if I didn’t let anything, whether it be my thoughts, my anger, resentment, sadness, happiness, really affect me I would be fine in life (or so I thought). I was told that I was living behind my mask, which would become a theme of my journey, and I knew it was true. I had become a robot in my everyday life. I smiled, I was courteous and polite, I didn’t share my opinion on many things unless it was asked and then if I was asked, I answered it as a response that was almost rehearsed. I made very specific answers that would be answers that
would be acceptable to my abuser. I was always told to be careful with what I chose to say to anyone (even my close friends) because anything that I said could have a positive or negative outcome for them and their political career. I was always very rehearsed. I knew what I was supposed to keep to myself, and I rarely shared my true opinions with others. At that time, the worst part was that I constantly lived my life with a smile, and I rarely let anyone into my world behind that smile. I was very alone and isolated. Learning to drop that mask was one of the greatest things that I learned at treatment. If I was not authentic to myself, how would I ever be healthy?
While I was at treatment, I learned a lot about myself. Some of the things, looking back
seem as though it makes so much sense and I have no idea how I never realized them before. During my testing when I first entered the treatment center, I tested high on the Sex & Love Addiction test. I was so confused by this as that wasn’t something that seemed to fit. Sex and Love Addiction is different than having a sex addiction. After learning about the subject and starting to attend groups for this and the SLAA meetings it made so much more sense. My abuser and I separated many times during our marriage. I constantly was wanting to end our relationship and a was trying to figure out my “way out.” After years of being told that I wasn’t good enough and that there was no way I could take care of myself, I believed it. I was terrified to leave because if I did, I would have nothing as my abuser said. I wouldn’t have anything in life. I wouldn’t have anyone to take care of me. I wouldn’t have any way to support myself. After hearing things like that for so long you start to believe that they are real. Each time my abuser and I separated I started the process (this is my terminology) to find a prince on a white horse to save me and pick me up, love me, treat me well and save me from my relationship. This led to unhealthy behaviors. While my abuser and I were separated I spent time with other men, sizing them up for “new husband” potential, asking myself questions like, will they support me? Take care of me? Love me? Is this my way out of my relationship? And this cycle repeated. I made decisions that I am not proud of, and I did things that I wish I wouldn’t have but at the time I did not understand how unhealthy I was. Through extensive trauma therapy I learned that this is a cycle a lot of women unfortunately become a part of. A lot of women have unresolved issues from relationships with their fathers that lead to them looking for a protector and caretaker instead of a partner. They try to replace the hole that they have inside with
unhealthy relationships (although they don’t realize at the time they are) because they want to do anything to feel loved, accepted, nurtured. That was 100% me. I was constantly searching for approval and when I didn’t receive this from my abuser, I tried to find it in other places. It was an unhealthy cycle that took me a long time to break (more on that later).
When I was at treatment, I learned that I was doing things to check out of my life. For
example, my use of medical marijuana, daydreaming and dissociating, shopping, anything that would numb the pain that I felt on a daily basis. I would use any of these things to escape my reality, so I didn’t have to live in the moment that was causing anxiety, pain, or heartbreak. I knew that I didn’t need any of these things to exist so I did my best to walk away from these things. I made the decision to no longer use marijuana in any form, because while I was at treatment I learned how to cope with these feelings of needing to escape in the moment, which was so helpful.
One of the stories I share with people about my time at The Refuge was when I was
given the assignment to drop my physical mask. My therapist assigned me with two days of not wearing matching clothes, not putting on any jewelry or makeup, not styling my hair in any fashion. The point of this was that I was supposed to drop the mask of my appearance. This was so hard for me. By the end of the two days, I was angry, vulnerable, anxious, tense. You name it, I felt it. I remember sitting in my therapist's office at the end of the assignment and telling her how much I hated it. She said that was the point of it. The point was to take away things that I was hiding behind to feel comfortable that were not actually providing me with any comfort. I needed to feel vulnerable, to be able to learn how to be honest and genuine with myself. I learned a lot of things at treatment, but this is one of the lessons that I am still so thankful for nearly four years later.
While at treatment, I worked a lot on breaking down the trauma that had happened to me
over my life. I hadn't really dealt with much of the trauma I had experienced that I felt was the reason why I went to The Refuge. It wasn’t that I was avoiding it, it was that the process and journey I naturally went down. I worked through the pain I felt through childhood following my parent’s divorce. I worked through the struggles and insecurities that I had through adolescence, being a classical dancer, struggling with negative body image and unhealthy eating patterns. I worked through a sexual assault that I experienced my senior year in college from someone that I thought was a friend. I worked through my bad relationship history and how those relationships with not only boyfriends, but friends and some family members shaped me into the constant need for approval and the desire to have someone to love me for me. I learned that my need to feel perfect and to not disappoint anyone was a trauma response. I also learned how to work through that and started the process of learning how to be happy with myself as I am.
While I was at treatment, on Sunday, May 24th, I had a conversation with my mom over
one of the landlines that was available for us to use between group therapy and appointments when we didn’t have access to our cell phones (we only were allowed to have our cell phones for two hours in the evening as long as we completed all of our requirements for the day). My mother and I had a difficult exchange with one another early on during my stay at The Refuge and we were back to our usual chatty selves after we had a very honest conversation with each other earlier in the week. My mom was telling me how she had just had a really great night sleep in her new house. She and my step father along with my mom’s parents had just relocated to Peoria and closed on their new house that Friday. I was excited for my mom to move to Peoria. She was very honest with me that part of the reason why she was moving to town was because she knew that I needed a lot of support with my struggles in my relationship and she did worry about me a lot. She didn’t like me being alone in Peoria (alone meaning without family). There were other reasons why she made the decision to move as well, but this was the one that affected me the most. We chatted for a little while after I was finished eating my lunch and she told me that she was really happy she was living in the same town as me. We had plans to sit on her back deck and drink coffee and for her and I to do Happy Hour in Peoria Heights and enjoy a lot of girl time. We ended the phone call with her letting me know that she needed to find some lunch and then she wanted to get in her new pool and enjoy it. She asked me to call her when I got my phone privileges later that evening, we told each other “I love you”, we hung up and I went off to my next group for the afternoon. After dinner that evening and when I got my phone privileges at 7:00 pm EST, I wandered up to the admin
building porch where there was a row of rocking chairs and an incredible view of the barn and horses, as well as the Spanish moss hanging from the trees and a water feature. I turned my phone on, checked to see if I had missed any messages and then dialed my mom’s cell phone number. It rang and rang and she didn’t answer. I thought that was weird because she was expecting my call. I looked at our family’s Life 360 circle and it showed that my mom, stepdad and sister were at the house. I then flipped over to the circle with my spouse and saw that he was there too. I figured they were together so I quickly called him and before he could even speak I asked him to tell my mom to call me. The next thing that I heard was crying and frantic panic and him telling me that all of my family members had just been loaded into six ambulances and taken to the hospital. He just kept crying that it was really bad, and that my mom was really bad. It took them (I believe) seven minutes of CPR to get her heart started again at the scene. I dropped to the ground and wailed and screamed and cried. My spouse told me what he knew had happened, that there had been a carbon monoxide leak in the house, when the fire department reached the scene which they thought was for something else, they walked in a saw four of my family members on the ground passed out as well as my youngest sister’s dog and my parents’ dogs. My mom and stepdad were found in the basement of the house with my cat from college. The next 48 hours were some of the longest of my life. When I hit the ground in the circle drive outside of the admin building, one of the therapists that was still on campus saw me and ran to me; through tears I told him what I knew.
I could not relax that night, so the therapist that was still on campus asked me to stay in
the medical building so I would have round the clock care or access to providers if I needed it, I was allowed to keep my phone on me and the HMs brought up my weighted blanket and anything else I needed from my cabin to my room. I kept reaching out to my sister that wasn’t in the house for updates. I was panicked and so afraid. They transferred all of the members of my family to a hospital in Chicago where they would be put into a hyperbaric chamber to help rid the poisonous gas from their bodies. My grandparents, my sister and her fiancé, and my stepfather all survived as well as all of the pets. My mother was determined to be brain dead on Tuesday May 26th, 2020, and her organs were then donated through the Gift of Hope. I spoke with my stepdad, and he told me that he didn’t want me to leave treatment and come home. He shared with me that my mom had told him that she thought it was really good for me and she was proud that I was there and working to repair my life and that she would have wanted me to stay. Due to the pandemic and the shelter in place that was going on in the state of Illinois, we wouldn’t be able to have a funeral. He said that the knew the best thing for me was to stay at The Refuge and continue my journey. My care team at the treatment center agreed. They gave me grace over the next few days, and I slowly made it back to my cabin. I wanted to be with the community and the friends that I was making and get back to my treatment. When this happened, my care team decided it would be best for me to stay an additional 30 days and I agreed with them. I got back into my groups, and I was more in listening mode than talking mode for a little while and everyone around me understood.
I continued to work my way through my treatment journey and eventually got back onto
the roll I was before my mother’s death when it came back to my letter writing and my trauma. I dealt a lot with the trauma I suffered through my infertility and unexpected hysterectomy and the loss of the family that I always wanted to have. That was something that had affected me for years and I never knew how to deal with it, especially because I felt so alone in my relationship. Through extended therapy and processing this within my groups and my therapist I, for the first time, finally felt more at peace with the circumstances. I held so much anger towards my spouse for not wanting to pursue the process of surrogacy to build my family because he held different priorities that didn’t include me or my desire to have children. I also came to the realization that because of the abuse that I endured during our relationship, I didn’t think it was fair to bring a child into a relationship that was so broken and give that child a parent that didn’t really want it to be there. When I was at treatment there were a lot of adults around me that had been adopted as children and I learned about the attachment issues that some had and the struggles they had not knowing their birth parents. I came to the realization that bringing a child into the relationship that I was in (whether through surrogacy or adoption) would be selfish and not in the best interest of the child. I know that I struggled so much in my life from not feeling wanted by my biological father and the last thing that I wanted to do was to bring a child into my home that the father never wanted to begin with. I hated the fact that I never was able to have a child of my own but I knew, in the long run, that it would be best for me (and that child) not to bring them into my home, which is still something that breaks my heart to this day.
While I was at treatment, I experienced EMDR therapy for the first time. I had done
a session of EMDR with a prior therapist about a year earlier, but what I experienced at The
Refuge was different than that and was so much more thorough. Our weeks were structured
so that we had our trauma groups in the morning and afternoon and with meetings in the evening that consisted of different fellowships we could attend such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Sex & Love Addictions Anonymous, Codependents Anonymous, plus more. We also had options of attending different yoga and meditation classes while at The Refuge in the evenings, as well as others. On the weekends, we didn’t attend our normal trauma groups, we attended different classes about taking groups that had opportunities to involve art therapy, sessions on how to learn to use Cognitive Behavior Therapy, anger management, grief groups, meditation, and others. We worked with our therapists to structure the plan around things that they thought would be best for us as well as things that included our interests. I also was able to participate in Horse Therapy a couple of mornings a week. In our trauma groups we broke down the letters that we were writing and explored them, we listened to each other and gave feedback as well as feedback and guidance from the therapists that ran the groups. A class that I attended towards the middle/end of my journey had a lot of impact on me. It was a class that was based around love, relationships and sex. In this class, we discussed boundaries and discussed the things that we will and will not accept in our relationships with others. We created a list of top line and bottom-line behaviors that we would or would not allow in our lives within ourselves and our relationships. It was this specific Saturday afternoon that I would start creating the boundaries that I went on to hold through with my abuser. These boundaries were set to protect myself from being hurt emotionally and physically as well as boundaries that I would deem to be acceptable behavior from myself. The boundaries that I created that afternoon, with the help of the group therapist and my primary therapist, shaped how the rest of my relationship with my abuser would go. Some of my boundaries included: absolutely no physical violence, any sort of intimate relationship with someone other than me, me cutting out a few friendships from my life that were unhealthy and with people that I relied on when I shouldn’t have, making sure I make myself and my emotional health a priority and to protect that. I made these boundaries very specific and with specific outcomes if any of them were crossed. These created the guidelines for things that I would use to protect myself in the upcoming three years as I grew stronger and was able to finally walk away from my relationship with my abuser for good.
As my time at The Refuge grew to a close, tensions at home surrounding my abuser and
their trial grew. The state’s attorney was trying to subpoena me to testify in the case against my abuser. It was said to me by my abuser’s attorney the previous fall that if they could not find me, and serve me a subpoena then the trial would not be able to be held and the case would be thrown out. There was a trial scheduled while I was at treatment that was unable to be held and was continued to a date after I would be home from treatment. The states attorney’s investigator (according to my abuser) was sitting outside our home constantly. I suddenly started to get very anxious about heading home. I continued through my treatment, working through my groups and my therapy. I began to discuss with my groups the night that occurred the previous July. The night that my abuser was arrested. I kept the same feeling of confusion surrounding the evening even though I felt in my gut that what I was told happened that night didn’t occur the way it was explained to me. I was unsure about leaving. I felt like I was supposed to be fixed and I didn’t feel fixed. I was told that being a client at The Refuge wasn’t meant to “fix me” it was meant to create a foundation to be able to continue the work once I discharged from The Refuge. That’s when the real work would begin. In my last session with my therapist, before my discharge, I remember asking her when I would remember what happened that night the previous July. Her response to me was simple. It was, “you will remember what happened when your body is ready to let you remember.” I didn’t know what she meant when she said that to me, but I would learn soon thereafter.
At the end of June, 57 days after I was driven through the gates and started my journey,
I was “coined out” of my trauma group. I received my treatment coin and then was driven to the airport where I would travel home to face my reality of my mother being gone, the pandemic being back in full force, and the next four months that included me being hidden away from almost everyone in my life.
Please join me next week as I continue sharing my journey through my recovery. I
appreciate you taking the time to read my story and sharing your feedback. My heart has truly been touched by your sweet messages and comments over the last week since I shared the first part of my recovery journey. I don’t take it lightly that so many of you have shared your personal stories with me. I would also like to note that I am not sharing my story to slander others. I am sharing my story publicly to be able to share my experiences from my perspective and create awareness around mental health and domestic violence. If I can make one woman realize that they are not alone and that there is life after trauma, I will have done what I am setting out to do. Again, thank you so much for being a part of my journey. -- Heather