Back in early January 2014 our lives changed for what we thought was the worse. My eldest twin daughter, Jhordan, began to exhibit some awful behavior. She was lying and really hating life. The light that was in her eyes diminished significantly. She even went as far as to email
Child Protective Services on us stating we were abusing her which all was found to be false. We were referred to therapy where our lives took a turn down a very dark spiral for over 2 years.

We took her to therapy the next day and she advised the therapist that she wanted to die. She wanted to actually kill herself. This took her father and I for a loop. We had never heard this from her. She was always so happy and enjoyed life. We quickly learned that this wasn’t so. The therapist advised us to take her to the emergency room. Advise them of what she stated and have her assessed. We did this and this was her first time being hospitalized for mental illness on February 6, 2014. She was 13 years old at the time. This was the worse night of my life as I had never left my children in the care of a stranger overnight. To leave her was so hard, but I told myself they could help her. Over the course of 2 years, 5 additional hospitalizations and 2 suicide attempts later I knew they didn’t know how to help her. I chose to pray and ask the creator what to do. That’s when real change started to happen.

It was during her December 2016 hospitalization that I got on my knees and asked the creator to fix his creation and send me help. I was tired of it all. I needed peace and so did our household. This mental disorder was destroying our peace in our home. We needed it to cease. I had a friend, Tamla, reach out to me and tell me to get rid of dairy and meat in her diet. I was like what? What is left after that? She said life. True living is what is left. She said we can’t consume dead things and expect to not be dead on the inside. It effects so many people differently. For Jhordan it was causing her so much pain. So, we decided to get some things in order.

So, people started to come in my circle and told me things I had never heard. I never knew a Flour called Spelt or an ancient grain called Kamut.
While we were researching the holidays came around and Jhordan was released from her 5th hospitalization. This was the shortest time we had her home. My parents came from out of state to be with her. She seemed in high spirits. That was until everyone left. She turned back into this depressed child I didn’t recognized. She decided she had enough. She got ahold of her prescription drugs and attempted to kill herself. She was re-hospitalized. During this time, I saw my daughter be unconscious, I saw her struggle to breath and then I saw her come back to me.

This is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. When she came to, they were discharging her to another mental hospital. By now Jhordan didn’t want to return to the one she just left. The name of the game was go to a different one and it takes them a while to figure out what’s going on. So, she has the upper hand to not get better. We wised up to this and took a stand. We told her that she will be going to the same one. She became irate with me and wanted to throw herself out of a window. I never seen this side of her ever. The hospital wanted to admit her to a new hospital and we said no. She is going back to the one she just left.

This was indeed a turning point for us. She ended up staying for 16 days. She was there into January 2017. During this time her sister and I started doing meal plans. We researched many African Nutritionist such as Alfredo Bowman aka Dr Sebi, Dr Afrika and many more. We found an herbalist, Tyrica Nelson of TeaPosh Naturals. She and I found an herbal remedy for Jhordan to detox her on in addition to the meal plan to start after she detoxes her system. So, when she came home, we had a plan and we would work the steps in spite of everything. Tyrica also told me that we needed to change Jhordan’s name. I never thought of that being an issue, but it was.

I contacted my sister circle and we got to praying. My sister, Susan Hall, confirmed what Tyrica stated about the name. We decided to rename Jhordan to Aaliyah. We learned that names have power. We started to research her name and found that the name Jhordan derives from the Hebrew word Yarden. It means to descend or flow down. This is exactly what her behavior was mimicking. We wanted her behavior to do the opposite. We searched for names and found Aaliyah. It derives from the Hebrew word Aliyah which means to rise or ascend. This is what we wanted for her.

So, when she was discharged, we sat her down and laid it all out. She said ok let’s do it. So, we detoxed her system over a week and a half. Started slow with just fruit for a couple more days and then right at 2 weeks we started her on a plant-based diet.

Her behavior began to change dramatically. The food is a huge reason for what is going on with the mental behavior of your body. There is a direct line that goes from your stomach to your brain. We have to start paying attention to what we consume otherwise our food will control us instead. We started making our condiments, entrees, beverages, desserts and much more. I did the detox and the plant-based diet with our daughter to give her moral support. In trying to help and save our daughter this lifestyle has in turn saved me. I was on 14 prescriptions and have been on none. I had a real bad fall in May 2017 where I landed on my head and lost my memory for over a year. The doctors said it would be 5 years before I recovered. I was able to regain my memory in a year and 2 days.

This lifestyle didn’t just help me it also helped my husband who wasn’t eating like us. After 6 months of him resisting he went to a doctor and found he was pre-diabetic. So, he decided to give it a try. He is over a year and a half in and he is a huge advocate for consuming a plant-based diet. He is moving like he did when he was in high school.

My advice to everyone is if you have health problems take a good hard look at what you are consuming. In there you just may find the solution to your problem. We have to eat to live. Otherwise, why and what are we eating for?