Mother of Narconon Graduate
Donna R.

It was kind of a surprise at first to find out about it. Because, you know, you raise your kid to be right. And she went to Catholic school and had good friends and went to church. And she went to Loyola for her first year of college. She wanted to get her own apartment.

And then she messed up Christmas really good. She didn’t come home for Christmas Eve. She wanted to spend it with her boyfriend. And Christmas Day she kind of breezed in and out in ten minutes, you know. It just was—I’m like, “Where did my daughter go? You know, this is not the way we do things.”

Finally, after about a year, I saw her arms. And I broke down, cried, begged. “No, Mom, I’m gonna stop. I’m not gonna do this anymore. It’s just a phase, you know.” I just dropped to my knees, crying. “What have you done to yourself?” I just couldn’t believe that my baby girl would have done that.

I didn’t understand a lot of it. I didn’t understand the mood swings. I didn’t understand the ugliness. Every time you hear an ambulance or you hear a news report of “Girl found in ditch,” you think it’s yours. I mean as a parent you kind of want to blame yourself for everything. It’s like, what I did wrong, you know. I just couldn’t deal with it. And I said, “We have to find a place for her to go.”

We got on the internet and it did get me to a Narconon. So they got her and off she went, and I’m just bawling all over the place. But everybody at Narconon was so open. I had 24/7 access to Annie. Annie was our counselor and she let me call her at any time of the day or night. And it was a very caring kind of atmosphere. I just can’t describe it. I mean, they care about the family as much as they do the students.

And it’s just like, I come up and I’m hugging everybody. “Hey, how you doing?” I just love these people so much, I can’t tell you. And it became a real family up here, Narconon. It’s like our second family.

Since my daughter graduated from Narconon, I can smile again. I can breathe. I can sleep. It just blows my mind the difference in her every time I see her. It’s just a miracle. It’s an absolute miracle. She is just back. She’s back and she’s better than she was before. I mean it has been two years. It’s just, it’s just a miracle.

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