Hear from others who’ve been helped

Meditators from around the world have found support on their healing journey at Cheetah House. You are not alone in your experience, pain, confusion, or fear, nor are you alone in the process of feeling better.

  • The work of Willoughby Britton, David Treleaven, Daniel Ingram, and others have validated my experiences, which is healing in itself.

  • Without Willoughby Britton’s consultation and encouragement that it is possible to overcome depersonalization, I would have been at some darker place.

  • There is a quote I dwelled about today: “The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.” But there is somebody I want to thank. Dr. Britton and all the other people from the support group who showed me it is possible to recover from DP. That alone carried me a long way. I can’t thank God, since I don’t believe in a traditional sense of God, but I can thank Goodness.

  • I started developing very disturbing symptoms following a 9-day retreat in 2018. (Major weight loss, depression, fear, dissociation, cognitive issues, etc.) I was in the dark for two years, trying to understand what had happened to me. Finally, I discovered Cheetah House. They helped me understand that I had encountered meditation-related adverse effects, and why this happened. Learning this was the beginning of my recovery.

  • I came away from my years of meditation practice feeling destabilized and it was relieving to know an organization like Cheetah House existed. Scott Lippitt particularly helped, not only in his relatability but to help point me back to connecting with things that were important to me; an ability I felt I lost after my years of practice.

  • …I can tell you with certainty that things can get better. Even when you have no idea how that will happen, or what to do, or where to turn. Cheetah House can help. Your healing might not be linear – you may take some steps back and sideways and up and down, but just keep going. For me, a big part of it meant taking back my power and agency, or at least beginning to…

Thank you so much, Willoughby and everyone at Cheetah House, for your courage and kindness!

Thank you for listening when it seemed like what happened to me at the 10-day meditation course didn’t matter at all to the very people whose instructions I was following when it happened. I felt utterly alone before I found you guys. And while I still believe we all must ultimately go through life alone, we can do it together with other people who have faced similar challenges, as well as with people who care enough to find solutions to help us heal. Then, we aren’t alone.

My virtual counseling session with Cheetah House provided the support, compassion, and resources I needed to finally begin to understand what had happened during my meditation breakdown a decade earlier. Left nearly alone with the experience previously, I had misunderstood my meditation difficulties as being due to my inherent badness, and my shame made life very difficult and painful.

I don’t know if I’m “fully healed,” and I don’t know if being fully healed is even my goal, because I haven’t found a definition of “fully healed” that suits me. It certainly wouldn’t mean that problems don’t exist for me anymore, because problems exist for everyone. It wouldn’t mean I don’t make mistakes, because everyone does. But with the support of Cheetah House’s staff, guest speakers, and wide range of resources, I’ve taken many small steps forward that have added up to a significant improvement in my life. These steps have included reading books about trauma and its effects, giving me my first framework for what happened to me; getting help finding a therapist, which for me was one who understands trauma’s various and lasting effects and offers practical tools for how to heal from them; attending Cheetah House group sessions, such as talks by researchers and others looking into adverse meditation experiences; writing a letter of complaint to the organization that hosted the retreat where my adverse experience occurred; incorporating more vigorous physical exercises into my weekly routine, such as jogging and going on long nature hikes, which provides stress relief for me in ways other practices can’t seem to; and more.

And if anyone reading this is stuck in a similar place where I was, where it just seemed impossible that things could get better … where all you want is to return to how you used to be … I can tell you with certainty that things can get better. Even when you have no idea how that will happen, or what to do, or where to turn. Cheetah House can help. Your healing might not be linear – you may take some steps back and sideways and up and down, but just keep going. For me, a big part of it meant taking back my power and agency, or at least beginning to. I have no idea what it will mean for you because you are 100% unique. And that’s what makes you wonderful! I am cheering you on, and I know Cheetah House is too.

Rebecca Fischer

“Everybody counts, or nobody counts.”