DARP: The best mental health healing I have ever experienced.
First let me say…I receive NO MONEY OR OTHER BENEFITS for this post. It is my honest recount of my experience.
Have you ever had a time in your life you struggled with apathy, sadness, hopelessness, lack of motivation, or sleep problems? Maybe you just feel really stressed out. Maybe you are a very nervous flyer or passenger? Maybe you have body image issues that led you to over eating or under eating. Do you struggle with a screen addiction or pornography addiction? It is time to try something different. You need to try…DARP.
It stands for the Depression and Anxiety Recovery Program. Which helps all and more of the things I just mentioned. It helped me, even when I didn’t realize I had slipped into moderate to severe depression. It was masquerading in my busy mom life as stress, sleep problems, and up and down moods.
Looking back, I can now say that DARP… saved my life…and kept my children from losing me.
You see, I had been struggling with an undiagnosed pain for several months, on top of the daily stress of being a stay at home mom of 4 young children. I was already exhausted, burned out, and in need of a break when the pain hit out of no where.
After several months of no diagnosis, worsening pain, and increasing hopelessness, I was starting to verbalize things like: “Maybe my kids would be better off without a broken mother.” Unknown to me I was already depressed and heading towards serious depression which would have led to suicide.
So when my mother in law mentioned this great doctor “out in California” who was supposed to be able to treat so many things, I took a desperate leap of faith. I signed up for the expensive 10 day residential program run by this “amazing doctor” and flew to California.
It was terrifying leaving my kids for that long, not knowing if this was the answer. However, I knew instinctively if I didn’t do something, I was heading down a bad path that could take me from my kids. Even though I was telling myself I was not depressed, “just stressed out”, I was becoming suicidal.
Upon landing at the airport, I climbed into the shuttle and was immediately flooded with negative feelings and thoughts. I was detached and apprehensive as I listened to the driver chat with the other people in the car.
“Am I in the right place? I am not here for mental health. I just need to see a good doctor” I told myself. I had come to the Depression Anxiety Recovery Program in Weimar, California so I could see the famous Dr. Neil Nedley that my mother in law spoke of so hightly.
Dr. Nedley wasn’t famous through standard methods such as tv or social media, but rather word of mouth. Former patients and people who have attended his education seminars spoke of his skills as a talented physician able to diagnose difficult problems and treat mental health.
Mostly he was known for greatly improving those struggling with forms of depression and anxiety through his 10 day program.
Since I had been unable to book a normal appointment with him, I had signed up for his 10 day program which was starting soon. It allowed me to see him 3 times during the program and get extensive labs done.
It was my last ditch effort to cure the excruciating pain I was suffering with for months. Pain which my other doctors had not been able to diagnose. I was stressed, desperate, and feeling less and less hopeful about my future and the future of my family.
So there I sat, feeling nervous and full of skepticism on my ride to the program site. I never in a million years could have predicted what happened to me as I went through this program.
Upon arrival, I was shown to my room, told a few basic rules, and given a small printed personal schedule. In my room were several stacks of books and other resources that came with the program. We would all take these home as tools to help us continue in our recovery.
The first few days of the program I was still a bit nervous, and was shocked to discover that I was actually suffering with depression and anxiety on top of the mysterious physical pain. I remember vividly bursting into tears during one the first simple lectures that included a brief video illustrating depression in the form of a black dog. I couldn’t figure out why I was weeping. Thankfully one of my fellow program buddies, found a box of tissues and discreetly handed it to me.
Interestingly, my fellow program buddies were incredibly diverse, kind and full of candid humor. There were teenagers, twenty somethings, middle aged peolpe, and people over 65. There was also a diverse ethnicity represented throughout the group and pretty equal males to females as well.
Good people…all suffering with something they needed help with or felt ashamed about. It struck me, looking at the group, that depression and anxiety strikes anyone at anytime in life. It didn’t matter if you were black or white, rich or poor, young or old, or male or female, mental health disorders happen to anyone.
The program consisted of several educational lectures every day, along with other daily treatments designed to improve our mental health. The daily lectures, many given by Dr. Nedley himself, full of research based evidence, showed us “why” the program required such things as “no screens”, classical music, vegan meals, and more. All of which are key in rehabilitating and healing our brain.
The treatments in the program designed to improve brain function included multiple periods of daily exercise, daily hydrotherapy using hot and cold water, strictly vegan meals coupled with intermittent fasting, daily music therapy, a personalized water intake, assigned reading, and massage. We were also given cognitive behavioral therapy sessions, spiritual counseling, and of course the physical evaluation by Dr. Nedley which included extensive labs.
I can honestly say in my years of battling depression and anxiety, I have never had such a gentle, yet extremely effective experience, as I did during this program. The staff was kind, but also firm at times without ever coming across as forceful. I got a lot of answers through the laboratory results, which revealed genetic components that absolutely had been affecting my mental health my entire life. This key bit of information had been missed by every previous doctor or mental health professional I had ever seen.
After graduating the program and getting almost a complete recovery from my anxiety and depression symptoms, with no need of medication, I was shocked that other mental health professionals were not using any of these tools. So many people could hugely benefit from these simple, yet hightly effective treatments, offered by this program. Many of which I still currently use and plan to use to continue managing my periods of relapse. I recommend the Depression and Anxiety Recovery Program to anyone I meet who struggles with any related mental health issue.
I am still currently (at the time of this blog post) in some physical pain, but even this has improved greatly since the program. The difference being I am much healthier mentally to deal with the continued pain and stress in my search for answers.
Most importantly, this post is to give hope to anyone dealing with depression or anxiety or someone who wants to be free of their medication…Dr. Neil Nedley and his team are the best health care practitioners I have ever met who were able to drastically improve all aspects of my mental health absolutely medication free.
The program isn’t free, and at first seems very expensive, but I promise that it is worth every penny and probably more. It has changed my life drastically for the better and more than likely will change yours for better as well. If you need it…say a prayer… take a leap of faith and sign up for DARP. You won’t be sorry you did.