I was an atheist, brought up in a "haunted house" filled with fear. I was reared with an alcoholic mother, a very distant angry father, and an alcoholic grandfather. A blind grandmother and a neurotic great aunt aided in rounding out this dysfunctional family along with a twin sister and other siblings at least 12 years our senior.

After leaving home for school, i was told my boyfriend (age 13) had committed suicide. This was when i began to dwell on death...what did it mean...what is it..

The rest of my schooling seemed to be a waste of time...because i could not think of work, only of death. Because of surgery, i had to leave school early. For one year i went home to live with a drunken mother i hated, with a fear filled household and , in the end...decided to go into nursing.

i pondered.....death....but received no answers...It was at this time i got into the occult. and things went downhill from there. Inside i wanted to die...I was a black hole i could not get out of.

I took an overdose of drugs stolen from the hospital ward, cut arteries in my wrists and waved goodby to the world I awoke in pain and with stitches. i was not sure if i was really alive.

They placed me in a room about 6x4 and i stayed there for several years. With 36 plus drugs a day, strapped in a straight jacket on occasion No window, no visitors, no furniture. just a mattress on the floor. no clothes on me...where was I. I did not know it then i was in a padded cell. After 17 months they moved me for short periods, to have treatments. they did not work. I hated life, feared everything, felt alone. There was no God...

The doctors advised therapy that meant outside the grounds in a hospital. High security wing of a psychiatric hospital In other words..an asylum.

On one occasion i managed to escape but was captured and returned. the consultant told me "Liesl Stop running away,you are here for life, the quicker you accept this the easier for us and the easier for you. This is now your home for life." I wanted to die Another time i escaped and got ; into the black market drug scene. became an addict ..My plan was to die from all these drugs. I escaped again to die, on the way went into a hall Heard a man say, *God can do anything absolutely anything He can heal the sick, Heal the mentally sick and set the drug addict free! I went to leave the *God* bit made me angry,,, a lady at the door said *Jesus loves you! He knows what a mess you are in, he really cares, a new record was in my mind,I returned to the hospital.

After many escape attempts those that succeed, and those that failed...some Christian visitors came to see me in hospital.. They laid hands on me and i was healed....

It was after that that i accepted jesus into my life... accepted him as Lord and Savior... Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. These are not mere words but reality.