Letters from patients let Rogers’ teams feel the impact of their work

04/06/17 07:17:am

It’s gratifying when patients and families take the time to share how treatment at Rogers has changed their lives.

Rogers-Chicago received the following email from a thankful parent of a patient discharged several months ago. He sent a picture of himself with his daughter at a father-daughter dance to Mary Lee, therapist in the Child and Adolescent OCD partial hospitalization program. Mary says that before treatment, the daughter wouldn’t even have let dad touch her, and now they attended a dance together. He wrote:

“Hello Mary: I hope you’re doing well. I wanted to pass along these photos from the dance this past weekend. (Our daughter) is doing amazing and is back to her old self. We are very grateful and thankful for you and your staff at Rogers. I was thinking about the dance back in October and wondered if she would be able to go. Well, she did and had a blast. Words cannot express how thankful my wife and I are for your wonderful services at Rogers. Keep up the great work!!! Please give Rachel a big hug for us as well, I hope she is doing well.”

This letter came from a Chicago patient:

Dear Rogers,

I would like to send my gratitude and huge thanks to everyone within your organization that I had the great fortune of working with. I was thoroughly impressed by everyone including their knowledge, passion, and commitment to helping people get better. In a short period of time I was able to gain awareness, and utilize the mechanisms of CBT and ERP to work on my OCD. This training was very impactful and will be life-long skills that I take with me. Rogers has allowed me to set my values and get a new grasp on life, and to live it to the fullest. It was not long into my therapy, maybe 2-3 weeks when I realized what my mission statement was:

I am not hiding or scared of you anymore anxiety, I am fully acknowledging and accepting you.
I am not ashamed, and I will no longer continue feeding you.
Anxiety you have had your turn, now it's mine to live the way I want to live."

I could go on and on about the people and program at Rogers, and the countless things I have learned, but really the most important thing I can say is that my life has forever been changed by your program. Rogers has been life changing for me!

Thanks to the staff and everyone I worked with that made such a huge difference! A special thanks to my therapist Terry who led me through this training, and had remarkable impact on me day in and day out. Thanks again.

The following excerpts are from a letter written by a Tampa Bay patient, and members of the care team shared their reaction below:

“Before Rogers, I felt my life was in shambles. Increasingly over the years, the ravenous combination of my anxiety and depression left me hopeless and terrified."

Feeling the way I did, I couldn’t bring myself to go to school and do work, which made me feel even more shameful. I was desperate, and I came to the right place.

The staff will put in the effort to make help personal, and no one will waste your time. This is a judgement free zone, and everyone just wants to see you succeed.

My time at Rogers has given me baby steps to getting better, not huge leaps. But what is so profound is that they teach you how to make those giant bounds when you get out of Rogers. You become self aware, mindful of your emotions and actions and you will know how to tweak and self improve. Even with these baby steps I’ve taken, I’ve noticed significant change in my mindset and how I view myself. I no longer view getting help as a negative thing.

Rogers will put you in control. I’ve become more hopeful and better at being self reliant and pushing myself, which is important at Rogers and leading into the future. The future no longer terrifies me. I’ve better come to terms with the uncertainty life holds.”

Dr. Eric A. Storch, PhD, clinical director, Rogers Behavioral Health – Tampa Bay, shares, “Hearing the positive impact of treatment is why we do what we do, and further fuels our mission of providing evidence-based intensive treatment to those in need.”

Dr. Josh Nadeau, adds, “To see our patients benefit from treatment is the best reward of all, and we hope that our future patients can find some hope and motivation from letters and experiences like this one.”

John Brazill, primary BS Therapist on the case, comments, “It is always exciting to see clients become empowered through Exposure and Response Prevention and the treatment approach Rogers provides! There is nothing more satisfying than seeing an individual re-engage in areas of their life where they would have otherwise struggled due to their anxiety, OCD, or depression.”