Dear Dr. Richards,
Thank you for healing me.
I struggled with bi-polar disorder for most of my life; melancholia reared its ugly head in my life at five, and started getting more serious, with the onset of migraines when I was nine. By the time I was eleven I was missing almost two months of school each year. I was a ‘gifted’ student, but due to my extreme depressive episodes and manic emotional outbursts my grades slipped rapidly in the seventh grade. I was socially handicapped, and could not relate to my classmates, mostly because I could not understand why they could play and laugh and seem so free when I was in the pit of despair. For a long time I tried to conceal this difference but it became increasingly difficult to hide. It was shameful and humiliating. I really thought that there was something wrong with me, inherently wrong with me as a human being. I was so angry, tired, confused and emotionally scattered that it literally affected every part of my life.
In the fourth grade, I was being sent to the school counselor due to my emotional problems and she diagnosed me with bi-polar and it was suggested that I seek outside counseling. Because of my mother's financial situation, that option was not possible for me, so I continued to manage the best I could. The only thing that kept me from suicide at that point, because I really was close, was the hope/belief/faith that when I was older and had my own money I could seek treatment. I didn't really know if there was a treatment but I prayed every day that I would find it eventually. I made a pact with myself that until I had exhausted every resource, and tried everything there was to try that would help me, I would not take my own life. From my very soul I swear that is the only thing that saved me.
Since then, I have seen therapists, psycho-pharmacologists, hypnotists, NLP specialists, been to AA/NA/SLAA (never had a drinking problem but, what the heck, it was free), spiritual seminars, landmark education seminars, acupuncturists, dieticians, and homeopaths. I have never been hospitalized because I cannot, do not and will not harm myself or others but nearly dropped out of high school sophomore year because I missed two months of class because I could not make it 30 minutes without crying uncontrollably over the negative and disabling thoughts I was having. I have taken neurontin, celexa, Prozac, pretty much tried all the pharmacological treatments deemed safe for me but they provided me little or only short term relief.
I have been relatively stable for five years initially from the pharmaceutical treatments and therapy (the first 3 stable years). The pills helped initially for a year and a half, and helped me to learn a little about what healthy people might feel like although I still had bouts lasting two weeks to a month. But I had more time in the 'even' mode than I had had before.
Last September, over a year ago I went to see Dr. Charles Richards. I was extremely depressed, hopeless and panicky. I cried on the phone to him while making the appointment. But the (three 4 hour) treatments I received from him have given me the first hypo-manic and depression- free period I’ve had in my life. I now have more clarity, function and drive than I have ever had. I have been completely free of the episodes now. I am told daily of the change the work has given to me every day from my friends, my family, and those I work with. I am more effective and powerful than I have ever been in my life. It is really like the fog in my head is clear, the vice around my head is gone, and the mud-covered glasses have slipped off my face and shattered on the floor. I have always in my heart known and believed that life could be like this. Only now I am living it and experiencing my life in wonder.
Thank you for being the answer to my prayers.