About seven years ago I lived in an apartment complex called the “LadyWood”. It was an old run down building in downtown Winnipeg. I had moved into this particular apartment for a few reasons. First reason was to distance myself from my then boyfriend and his mother. The relationship had been stormy. His behaviour had become unpredictable and scary. The second was that a friend of mine was in need of someone to sublet this apartment from her and her then boyfriend.

I was apprehensive to say the least. I felt trapped in a strange place. I often felt all alone and very afraid. I had ended the relationship with my then boyfriend suddenly and was very unsure how to handle my new found freedom. He’d had such control over me for so long. I thought my life was supposed to be with him, but deep down I knew I deserved more. I started to spiral into depression, unable to cope with being truly on my own.

I drank and partied heavily. I lost myself. Then the worst of it. I became seriously ill with an eating disorder. I would go days withouht eating. If I did eat I’d take up to 17 laxatives to get rid of it. Sometimes I would take the laxatives even if I didn’t eat anything. Along with the physical deterioration of my health came the mental deterioration. I began to have panic attacks, to lose control of my emotions. I acted nervously most of the time. Some days were so difficult to handle that I just wanted to die. In fact I had my parents take me to emergency to try to talk to a shrink, because I could no longer function this way. The doctor in the emergency room, gave me prescriptions for antidepressants and anxiety meds.

I spent a week lost in craziness. The medications affected me so terribly that I was hallucinating. I was also alone throughout this whole week. After the week was over I went off the medication and went back to work. Determined that whatever my problems were I would not use drugs to mask them. But the pain in my heart persisted.

There were many tears that year. I would work double shifts sometimes to avoid going home to a lonely apartment and my frantic thoughts. I had a new boyfriend by this time. Strangely he was in as bleak of a place as I was. To this day, I am not sure what it was we were doing in that relationship.

Anyhow, I got better and stronger as the months went on. I was still anorexic, but a little more balanced. I made some friends who were eager for me to move out of that apartment, and in with them. Fortunately that arrangement did not work out and I was forced to move back into my parents home. This was not something I was thrilled about either. In fact it took me exactly a month to find another sublet and move in. This particular building used to be a hospital (that is a little fact that comes into play a little later in the story. That and my grandmothers apartment block).

But getting back to the point here. I continued to work long hours. And take laxatives. I did start to eat a little more though, but not enough. I was dying. Though you couldn’t see it on the outside, I could feel it inside me. My spirit was broken. Then through a series of events that I don’t often discuss with anyone except my husband, the relationship with my then boyfriend ended. Even though we hardly ever saw each other, I had held on to hope that this particular relationship would work out, because I thought it had to or there was no hope left.

There had, however, for some time been something that I’d been asking for out loud and clear. One day at work some of us girls had been wishing for qualities we’d like in a man. I just simply stated that I wanted someone who had the time to spend with me. Now you must be made aware of this. Months earlier in my “LadyWood” phase, I had come to work in the morning. Once inside the bar I worked in I noticed a man sitting down in a chair. He was a friend of my boss’s. Instantly something about him struck me as different. But he made no notice of me. I saw him a few other times in the building with another girl. Then one day after a golf tournament put on by our bar had ended, he was there again. This time he defended me against one of his drunk friends who was torturing me over my butt being big. It wasn’t but I believed anything anyone told me that was negative about myself. But this man defended my butt.

A few months more later, when the relationship with my then boyfriend was really getting to me, I encountered this man again. This time I went with him and my boss to a bar. I got frightfully drunk and stole his beer. I then kissed him and told him that if I didn’t have a boyfriend I might like him. He was a big man, he very gently lowered me back down on the floor and said, “You’d better do something about that boyfriend then.”

Well I won’t get into the details of what happened or why I did end it with the boyfriend, all you need to know was that I did it that night. And I didn’t waste any time. But that did nothing to solve my problems. I did however meet up with the man from the bar again. This time we talked for hours like we were the only two people in the room. But I was afraid, and confused. I was a wreck to say the least. I spent two days in my apartment crying about what I had done to end the relationship with the last boyfriend, and trying to let go of him. Then finally in a fit of frustration I said out loud. Just send me “the one”, the one I have children with, the one I marry and buy a house with. Send me someone who loves me for me. I basically said I am ready now, Please can the pain stop.

Within a week he came to me at work, even though I had actually stood him up for a date. When he came in that night and I looked into his face I saw the kindest person I’d ever met. I felt so terrible for standing him up – it was as if a pain shot though my own body. I just knew that I never wanted to cause this man pain ever again. He came into work many nights after that and slowly but surely started to knock down all the walls I had built up. He came, and you know what he told me? “Just Be” I had asked for someone to love me for just me, and here he was standing in front of me.

There were hurdles of course, things that we had to go through like my getting pregnant with our son (which also saved my life). And there were his kids as well. But all in all even though I was unaware of it at the time, I had discovered the Secret.

My son is five now. My husband and I are not married on paper but in heart. We are extremely happy. My health is restored. I am no longer in pain. I have the most beautiful life you can imagine. All because of The Secret. I have used and continue to use the Secret in my life. And I will teach my son about the Secret.