It seems like everyone loves Tammy Haggerty. A member of the Blessing Hospital Food & Nutrition team, she staffs the cafeteria cash register with quick fingers, an even quicker smile and a heartfelt welcome for everyone. Her customers say Tammy has a “contagiously positive attitude,” “beautiful smile,” is a giver of “great hugs,” and someone that “makes every day a little brighter.”
Looks can be deceiving. Underneath the smile, Tammy wanted to die.
“I didn’t want to get up,” she said. “I just wanted to be gone. I felt lost, like no one cared. I hid it very well.”
The roots of Tammy’s pain reached back to her childhood, one filled with abuse and terror, including witnessing a suicide attempt by her father. He eventually took his own life.
Due to issues flaring up in her life recently, the agony of her childhood flooded back into Tammy’s memory, leading to depression and anxiety – but also to a commitment to get help and to live.
“I have two daughters and two grandsons. Because of what my dad did, I promised I would never do anything like that. I would never want to put them through what I went through.”
She found salvation at the Blessing Empowerment Self Transformation Center, or B.E.S.T. Self Center. So did Ronette Leonard.
Ronette’s story
When she was 12 years old, Ronette was sexually assaulted. That trauma created a psychological scar that never healed. The older she got, the more Ronette hurt.
“I was not a nice person,” the 36-year-old mother of two said. “I treated people the way I felt on the inside. I felt lifeless, worthless, like I was not deserving. I didn’t care about myself, so why should I care about anyone else.”
Eventually, Ronette could not take the pain anymore.
“I felt every emotion at one time - sad, angry, lost. I got to the point where if I was going to have to feel the way I was feeling forever, then I didn’t want to feel at all.”
Because Ronette’s love for her children was stronger than pain, she chose to seek help over suicide. She called the B.E.S.T. Self Center.
About the Blessing B.E.S.T. Self-Center
In medical terms, the B.E.S.T. Self Center offers partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient programs, known as PHP and IOP services. In more common terms, the Center offers care more comprehensive than an outpatient office visit, but less intensive than inpatient behavioral healthcare.
Patients of the B.E.S.T. Self Center meet with a team of behavioral therapists, nurses, a nurse practitioner, medical director, caseworkers, and occupational therapists. Care includes individual and group therapy, mindfulness, enrichment and medication management. Patients receive treatment for four to six hours a day, two to five days a week, Monday through Friday, and go home at night.
Those treated could include patients with depression, anxiety, and other conditions that impact their daily living.
The B.E.S.T. Self Center opened at Blessing Hospital in May 2021.
“It has blown away all of my expectations,” said the Center’s attending provider, Olivia Patterson, APRN-PMHNP (psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner). “We’ve tripled in size and we hear so many amazing stories when patients graduate from the program.”
“We are open, warm, inviting and nonjudgmental,” she continued. “We want everyone to feel comfortable coming into the program, knowing that we are here for their best interest and that behavioral conditions are just as important as any other medical condition in life.”
How the B.E.S.T. Self Center helped Tammy and Ronette
By learning coping skills and making them part of her everyday life, receiving medication for post-traumatic stress disorder, and talking with others in group therapy, Ronette found a new way to look at life, and people began looking at her in a new way.
“Who is this person,” is how Ronette says others responded to her after care. “You are not negative about everything anymore. You smile. You get out and do things and enjoy life. Your finally got rid of the old you.”
“It’s life changing,” she concluded of the B.E.S.T. Self Center. “I want people to know to not be ashamed of what they are going through. There is help at the B.E.S.T. Self Center. Those people are magnificent and will help you get through your struggle.”
“They gave me a voice,” Tammy said of her experience in group therapy. They give you strength. They don’t judge you. The greatest program ever,” Tammy concluded.
B.E.S.T. Self Center patient must be 18 years or older. Referrals to the B.E.S.T. Self Center can be made by any physician, health professional, social service agency, and family member or by the person who needs care.
For more information on the services of the B.E.S.T. Self Center, call 217-214-5665, Monday through Friday 8 am to 4:30 pm.