My Experience w/ Be Totally Free – Leslie B., Palm Springs, CA

My experience at Be Totally Free has been life-changing.  I was out of options when I got here and without very much hope.  Tricia and the entire team of Be Totally Free have forever changed my life.  I have been bulimic for eighteen years, and several years ago I made a decision that this was how I was going to live my life and this was how I was going to die.  I sought help from therapists, confided in friends, (but of course never the friends I was really close to because then they would scrutinize my eating behavior when I was with them), finally told my doctor hoping that he would be able to help me, and had countless other attempts of seeking help.  All of these efforts seemed to make my disease worse and I felt like I was losing my mind!  I found Be Totally Free through a referral from a treatment center that turned me down because I couldn’t afford their services and didn’t have insurance.  When Tricia called me to discuss my situation, I knew right away they had something different.  They offered to meet w/ me and see me, and didn’t want anything in return from me.  I was amazed the first time I met w/ everyone at Be Totally Free how they were willing to meet w/ me.  I was very skeptical at first because I thought I had tried everything, but I listened to their stories and related to everything they shared so openly and honestly.  I felt love from everyone the first day I met them, and I saw some hope for myself.  I made the decision to come back and let them help me because I knew I couldn’t continue living the way I was living. 

Tricia told me many times that my disease isn’t about the food.  I am beginning to understand the meaning behind that statement as I allow myself to go through this process.  I have not binged or purged in seven days, and that alone is a miracle and something I NEVER thought would be possible for me.  I have allowed some love in my heart from everyone at Be Totally Free – another miracle.  I’m beginning to allow myself to get close to God – yet another miracle.  They have given me a safe place to express all of my feelings, good, bad and everything in between.  I finally feel like someone understands me, and that has been a life-long struggle.  My family, friends, and professionals have tried understanding me for years, but they just don’t get it.  Everyone at Be Totally Free gets it, because they have been there!  They feel what I feel, hurt the way I hurt, etc.  I didn’t think that was possible because I just felt like a hopeless case that would never get better. 

I am eternally grateful to Be Totally Free because they have given me hope for a new life and a new way of living.