About Us

SaveOurSpirits.org is dedicated to helping you recover from depression, anxiety, panic, post-traumatic stress injury, domestic violence turmoil, drug and alcohol addiction and other mental health issues. We offer education about new choices and new opportunities that you may not be aware of that can help you recover your spirit and your life and to be healthier physically, emotionally and spiritually.
 

I am not a doctor, a medical or a mental health professional. I am a regular person who managed to recover my spirit and my life using a different approach to getting better.
 

SaveOurSpirits.org is also dedicated to helping people eventually get off of medication if possible and return to who God created you to be. Our mission is based on the idea that God did not create us with any defects. I feel that our emotional suffering is not the result of any chemical imbalance but from the wounding of our souls and spirits. This wounding creates symptoms of depression and other forms of mental illnesses that we may or may not know how to handle well.
 

If you are anything like me, I was raised without any real emotional support in my family and not very good communication skills. I was afraid to be myself, express myself and I did not have a lot of self-confidence or self-esteem. I was loved but I did not feel loved or supported emotionally. I felt isolated and alone much of the time. I did not learn skills at home on how to have good relationships including resolving conflict, setting boundaries, dealing with anger, protecting myself and communicating well. I never saw problems being worked out. I only saw yelling, anger and silence for the most part. There was casual conversation but nothing in-depth or emotionally supportive. I know that my family did not have good communication skills and I know that I was loved very much; however, the silence seemed to make me feel unwanted and not cared about as a person. I never felt like my opinion or what I had to say mattered at all. I never felt like I mattered a lot of the time. I know that I was mistaken but when you do not hear that you matter or people do not really talk to you then you start to feel that you don't matter even if it isn't true.

There is nothing wrong with you if you are depressed or having emotional or mental symptoms or difficulties! Actually, there is something very right. Pain and other symptoms are a warning that something is wrong and function as a protective mechanism as well. I feel that until we can learn to deal with the pain in a healthier way or the causes of the pain are removed then no complete recovery is possible. I found that learning new and healthier communication and coping skills, finding emotional support, finding a personal connection with God, better nutritional skills and other methods helped me to recover. I found that new skills helped me live easier in this world with myself and others. Mostly, I learned to listen to my own spirit and what it was trying to tell me about my life.
 

As a result of my efforts and a lot of help, I am free of medications, drugs and alcohol. While I am not 100%, I am living instead of just surviving. I found that love and support heals spiritual wounds. For me, it was God’s love and support that helped me so much. Without Him I think I would be dead now. If you feel alone or unloved please know that God is always with you. Always. Please do not give up hope. You have choices available. I feel that there are ways to ease, reduce and eliminate emotional pain and suffering besides using only medication.
 

I feel that medication has a purpose in treatment. Medication can help us not be so overwhelmed with pain and give us time to find better ways. You may choose to use the medication but know exactly what is happening and be fully informed as you make that choice. I think that it helped to keep me alive until I could find healthier ways and learn better skills but I also feel it is toxic to our brains and that it does not help us learn to deal or handle our feelings and life any better. 

I spent many, many years on medication and finally went looking for healthier ways to recover since I didn’t feel that I received much help from psychiatrists. They pretty much only wrote me a prescription and had a chat with me for an hour or so every couple of weeks. Nothing was really changing for me. There were some periods of time where I felt much better but they didn't last very long and the doctors increased the medication but I was only getting worse and worse over the years. They really didn't offer me any other options and I didn't have a clue where to start helping myself. I felt like the doctors failed me because I felt like I went to the best place that I could be and they only gave me meds and talk therapy which did nothing to help me. One hour every week or two weeks did nothing really for me. What was I supposed to do for the rest of the time that I wasn't talking to someone? Anyways, in over ten years of treatments by what I thought were qualified professionals, I was never referred to any kind of group therapy, some other qualified professional who could help me learn new skills or anything really. Why?
 

I lost my younger sister and my nephew to emotional pain and suicide. I myself was close to suicide at one point, not because I wanted to die, but because the emotional pain was unbearable. I did not have the skills to deal with my emotional pain which has since been greatly eased by many different methods.
 

I suffered from depression, anxiety, panic disorder and post-traumatic stress injury. I also had a three year long drug and alcohol addiction trying to self-medicate. I suffered for years and years thinking that my only option was medication. Out of sheer desperation I started looking for other methods that the doctors never told me about and also for natural ways to get better. I knew that God did not make me depressed. I did not feel that there was anything wrong with me physically because I did not feel bad until I was in my teens.
 

I started looking at how to heal the causes so that I could get rid of my illnesses. After almost fifteen years, lots of money, lots of research, lots and lots of time and trying very hard, I have recovered my life. It took learning to listen to myself and learning a lot of the skills that I never learned in my life as a child or a young adult. I learned to listen to my spirit and to find a personal connection with God because I felt that was the best way that I could get better. How you go about your recovery is up to you.
 

I would like to let you know about other choices you may not be aware of that could help you so I have put together some information on the web site and a book to help others learn to listen to their spirits, find their way home and learn new and healthier ways of living. My approach is based upon a mind, body and spirit approach to life and on learning how to listen to your own spirit to ease and remove your pain.
 

I do not feel that my way is the only way. I feel that each one of us can discover how we need to make our own way back to a connection with our own spirits with some help. I feel that if we learn many of these skills when we are young then our lives will be easier. It took me a long time to put together a program that worked for me because I didn't have any idea how to go about using natural or alternative methods to help me heal. I have tried to put everything I learned into one spot so that it will be much faster and easier for others. I have done this in part by giving you references to professional and other sources.
 

I am not a qualified mental health professional nor do I pretend to have a qualified grasp on all of this information. I feel that the experts have done a very good job with their web sites, books and videos and they should be consulted in this way at the very least, if not in personal counseling sessions. I feel that you getting the information directly from a professional serves you much better instead of me trying to explain some of this information myself. I learned by going to the experts in each field of study that I looked into during my recovery and I still go to the experts and their sites when I need some information. I also feel that you helping yourself, teaching yourself and taking an active part in your own recovery will serve you much better in the long run.
 

I have tried to take the very uniqueness and individuality of every soul into consideration so that each can use the guidelines and resources to develop a program that works for each person as an individual.
 

This is an offer of one possible approach to recovering your spirit and your life in a way that helps you to decide what YOU need to recover.
 

 "Death is not the greatest loss in life.
The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.”
 

                                          -Norman Cousins

I will do my best to add resources to this site on a consistent basis. There are excerpts from my book and guide on this website. I have over 500 pages of resources in the guide which is near to completion. I will gladly take suggestions and comments as to what kind of information might be helpful to you so send me an email and I will do my best.
 

Even if a person didn't know where to start or felt overwhelmed, I think that just scrolling through the information on this site might give a person an idea where to begin. Just having a place to start and knowing that there are some choices out there might help people to have hope that they can get their lives and their joy back. Take a peek and go with whatever catches your eye and your interest.
 

Some of the information might seem to be a little disconnected. This is because you do not have all of the information in front of you and that includes my story on how I went about my recovery. In the book and the guide (when these are finished) you will have my story, some guidelines and many, many pages of resources, divided up into books, web sites and videos. There is also some fun stuff, music and other things included to help lighten things up a bit. It can be a little heavy at times to look at this information and deal with traumas, anger, rage, abuse and the other painful things in our lives so there are places to take breaks in the book, watch a video or do something else. I will try to get some of those sources on this site but in the meantime I hope what I have put up here offers you some hope that things can change and get better.
 

Please know that my life got a whole lot better. You can do this too. I know you can.

"With God, all things are possible." Matthew 19:26