FROM LEMONS TO LEMONADE!

1986: it was the worst of times, it was the best of times. As one important chapter of my life closed, another opened up. I was forty-one years old, attending a dysfunctional day-treatment program in West St. Paul. I had joined that program two years before to rebound from an earlier loss. Seven years before in 1979, I entered a residential treatment program for severely mentally ill to address my early childhood traumas and chronic depression and anxiety. Although that program had been a life-changing experience in a positive way, it ended abruptly, closed down by Hennepin County because my primary therapist got involved sexually with two of her clients. Because I had derived most of my support from that program, its being shut down sent me spiraling downward into a deep depression. Things got so bad, I quit my job and entered a day-treatment program that promised to help me with my early childhood traumas by introducing me to re-parenting techniques and regression therapy. I was even assigned a new "mom" to make up for being abandoned by my birth mom.

However, this new program ended up hurting me much more than helping me. They employed extreme confrontations and shaming techniques such as making people stand in the corner, and forcible restraints, to exert control over their clients. Therefore, two years after I joined in the summer of 1986, I quit that program in response to a powerful dream I had which warned me to discontinue. I still recall their director's final comment when I announced that I was leaving. He told me: "Tony, I'm sorry you decided to remain a mental health cripple for the rest of your life by leaving us."

Even though quitting cold turkey sent me into a severe state of shock, I knew in my heart that I had made the right decision. This was followed by two synchronous events that turned my life around. First of all, I became eligible for Social Security disability. I received a whopping one-time check of over $6000.00, plus enough of a monthly income to live on comfortably for the rest of my life. This meant I no longer had to work. I used that lump sum to completely refurnish my apartment. I purchased a bed, a sofa, a dresser, an arm chair, a dining room table, and several bookcases from a furniture store called The Unpainted Place. I then proceeded to stain and finish them.

Secondly, thanks to a good friend of mine, I found a church community that would transform my life forever. I went there for the first time one hot sunny day in July. It turned out that their minister had been the director of the residential program I had lived in five years before. He recognized me at once and invited me to come back the following week. I did just that, bringing along my autoharp and harmonicas. Six months later, I joined them officially.

At this church, I regained a lot of the support that I had lost in the two previous programs. I began attending every Sunday and made new friends. I got involved with various groups like their men's group, the adult education program, and a meditation circle. Thirty-seven years later, I'm still going there. There I was fortunate to find not only the spiritual nurturing I'd been longing for, but also a sense of belonging that I had lost. Yes, this is the story of an important turning point in my life in which I was able to make lemonade out of lemons.