This is a very long post and for that I apologize, but the article has gone to the papers archives and the link isn't direct. Please take the time to read it.
"I Lost Everything That Proved I Existed"
"A gay man hopes the story of his crystal meth addiction will help save those still in the closet about their own drug problems.
by Steve Volk for The Philadelphia Weekly
When Jimmy Dagenhart saw the Christmas card from his son Jay, he knew it wouldn't offer typical holiday wishes. The card featured a painting of his son looking rough and strung out-the same image that appears on the cover of this newspaper. "May the true spirit of Christmas live within your heart," read the inscription. A typed two-page letter addressed to uncles, aunts, cousins and friends accompanied the card.
Jimmy knew his son's troubles, so the letter's contents didn't surprise him. But he wondered how other family members would react to the third paragraph: "This is my story," it read. "I am a gay, HIV-positive recovering sex and drug addict. I've been arrested, bankrupt and have attempted suicide-once by jumping 33 feet off a ledge at a construction site in Washington, D.C., and many other times by acting out sexually in bathhouses while almost overdosing on drugs, hoping-however unconsciously or consciously-to contract the AIDS virus."
Concerned the graphic confessional would upset her, Jimmy called his ex-wife, Jay's mother. But Jay had already read her the letter over the phone.
"I may not have felt entirely comfortable with it," she says now. "But when Jay read it to me, I knew how important it was to him. I wouldn't have dreamed of asking him not to send it. Besides, it's the truth."
She couldn't predict the family's reaction. What she did know is the letter comprised another step in her son's path, a path that may soon make him a controversial figure in Philadelphia.
Jay Dagenhart moved here two years ago to kick a crystal meth addiction. Instead he wallowed for a year in city bathhouses, consuming the drug and becoming part of a subculture within the gay community that uses crystal to enhance sex. He celebrates his first year of sobriety this week. But his personal victory is only a start.
Dagenhart recently co-founded a task force to educate the gay community on the dangers of abusing crystal meth, a pure form of methamphetamine linked to high-risk sexual behaviors that further the spread of HIV.
Dagenhart knows the connection firsthand.
"Buy Crystal, Get HIV Free"
It's 8 o'clock Sunday night. Eight men gather in Jay Dagenhart's living room for a meeting of the Philadelphia Crystal Meth Task Force.
It's October, and Dagenhart, a thin man with close-cropped hair and the small, angular features of a carved idol, passes out the agenda. No single person controls the task force's activities, but the 36-year-old Dagenhart is the group's most vocal member.
His struggle with the drug lasted more than five years and almost killed him. Dagenhart preferred to snort crystal, which can also be smoked or injected. Crystal provides an unparalleled adrenaline rush, turns insecurity into confidence and fuels sexual appetite and desire. Because the drug reduces inhibitions and increases the user's tolerance for pain, it's been tied in the gay community to prolonged episodes of unprotected anal sex or "barebacking" with multiple partners. Binge behavior.
Many of the recovering addicts on the task force say meth can twist sexual arousal into a kind of psychosis. "If you're on crystal," says one, "you can look at a table lamp and want to have sex with it."
Use of crystal in the gay community first drew national notice in summer 2003 when singer Rufus Wainwright admitted his addiction in The New York Times. But so far the crystal meth problem has received shockingly little notice locally.
Tonight Dagenhart displays ideas for posters, information cards and pamphlets he plans to disseminate. He wants to out crystal in part by adapting some of the messages used by activists in New York, including a poster that features a disco ball, a set of bare, ripped abs and a simple slogan: "Buy crystal, get HIV free."
When he shows the image and says he'd like to put up similar posters in Philly, the task force members nod in agreement.
"We should definitely pass stuff out at the Blue Ball," says one man. "We'll tell them, "After you finish partying this weekend, sober up!'"
The men are careful not to offend Blue Ball organizers or partygoers. But they believe a lot of their target audience will attend the annual community fundraiser.
"The Blue Ball isn't all about sex and drugs," says one man.
The others laugh.
"Not everyone there is doing drugs," he insists.
Just 15 minutes into the meeting the group lands in culturally treacherous territory. They want to change the conversation, to get the gay community-their community-to start looking at the cost meth exacts. But crystal sits at an emotionally charged nexus between gay men, sex and HIV, making it a difficult subject to broach. Because of this task force, however, and because city health agencies also perceive a growing crisis, the drug will soon get a very public coming-out party.
"Crystal Is Linked to Sexual Behavior"
"We don't know the extent of the problem in Philadelphia," says David Acosta, coordinator of prevention programs for the city's AIDS office. "But a problem exists. Anecdotally, more and more people tell me there's a lot of crystal out there."
The city is now convening a task force to quantify and address the problem. The Mazzoni Center, a resource hub for the LGBT community, offers some statistics. In 2004, 30 percent of those who tested positive for HIV at their facilities listed using crystal meth as one of their "high-risk" behaviors.
"That's up significantly from the year before," says Mazzoni Center executive director Nurit Shein. "We've been seeing meth use increase for more than a year. We want to deal with it now, while it's still a problem and not yet a catastrophe."
Shein says she believes the number of men listing crystal as a high-risk behavior should be higher, but the methods of questioning leave room for dissembling. Shein also says the drug is probably linked to the increased spread of syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases. The Mazzoni Center is planning an afternoon forum for healthcare providers and a town hall meeting for the community to discuss crystal meth.
Other cities, like New York, San Francisco and Miami, have already confronted the link between crystal meth abuse and HIV infection rates. In New York a small group of activists led the charge.
Playwright Harvey Fierstein moderated a November 2003 public forum attended by more than 300 people. HIV-negative and -positive men openly addressed the stigmatization each felt from the other. Some spoke of seeing twentysomethings being barebacked in New York City bathhouses by older men with KS lesions-the brown, red or purple growths that can signal full-blown AIDS. Peter Staley, a well-known gay activist, stunned the crowd by admitting to abusing meth and engaging in unprotected, anonymous sex without disclosing his HIV-positive status to his partners.
Whether the forum succeeded in diminishing crystal meth use isn't known, but signs are encouraging. "Crystal Meth Anonymous tells us attendance has doubled in New York in the past year," reports Dr. Bruce Kellerhouse, one of the city's leading crystal activists. "But I can't speak with any authority about whether use has peaked yet in New York."
Though much of the evidence linking the drug to HIV infection is anecdotal, the Centers for Disease Control is targeting crystal as a factor in new HIV cases. According to statistics the CDC receives from 32 states, new HIV diagnoses increased in the "men who have sex with men" (MSM) subgroup by 11 percent during the most recent four-year period. New York City suffered a 17 percent spike in new HIV infections among gay men over three years.
Some of this increase can be traced to simple condom fatigue. But meth abuse plays such a big role that it's been touted as the "new gay epidemic."
"Crystal is linked to sexual behavior for a lot of people in the MSM community," says CDC scientist Gordon Mansergh. "And statistically we tend to see a far greater incidence of crystal meth use in the MSM community than in other groups."
Mansergh quotes one study in which men who used meth in their last encounter were twice as likely to have engaged in unprotected receptive anal sex. Meth users were also twice as likely to report unprotected sex with someone of a different HIV status.
Philadelphia's Department of Public Health won't disclose local HIV statistics because they don't trust the accuracy of the numbers they receive from healthcare providers. The difficulty in nailing down statistics for such a pressing public health issue is another example of the topic's sensitivity. The need for political correctness sometimes works counter to the need for openness and honesty, which is why Jay Dagenhart hopes telling his story will help others tell theirs.
"That Means You're a Queer!"
Child psychologists say the love we receive as children creates our foundation. In this respect gay men are born twice. The first birth is joyous-into the arms of waiting parents. The second birth offers conflict. After announcing their sexuality to friends and family, gay men wonder if anyone will hold them at all.
Jay Dagenhart was born and raised Catholic in Richmond, Va. When he was 16, his boyfriend gave him a ring, which he wore on his ring finger. When he told his mother, she stayed home from work for a couple of days to recover. Then he told his father.
"That means you're a queer," his father said, giving voice to a shame Dagenhart would carry with him for years. "You're a queer! If you ever bring a man home, I'll kill him!"
To their credit, Dagenhart's parents adjusted. Elizabeth Dagenhart quickly found the words to address her son. She and her then-husband even attended Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) meetings. "I didn't know anything about homosexuality," says Jimmy Dagenhart now. "But within a year I learned a lot, and Jay did bring his boyfriend home. He was tall, Italian, good-looking, polite and smart. Everything you could ask for."
But Jay couldn't shake that first reaction or the idea that something was wrong with him. He hunted for validation. "I needed a father figure," he says now. "I needed a mentor."
Instead he found a banker in his late 50s. The man shopped frequently in the department store where the then-21-year-old worked. One day the man called the store and asked him to lunch. A relationship formed. The man lived in another town with his wife and kids. When he came to Richmond on business, he visited Dagenhart, whom he'd set up in an apartment.
The arrangement quickly turned dark. The older man insisted Dagenhart phone him and write him every day. He also insisted the younger man not engage in any romantic relationships.
Their union consisted of cold exchanges. "If he came into town for lunch," Dagenhart says, "he'd come to the apartment, and I'd blow him. We'd go eat. Then I'd get him off again. If he was in town for the night, I'd get him off and we'd go to dinner. When we came home, I'd get him off again. He'd sleep, and in the morning before he left I'd blow him. Maybe we'd have breakfast, and if we did sometimes I had to get him off after that."
Dagenhart felt sick. He didn't know how to end the relationship. The shopping, the clothes and the apartment all served as validation. "The material things helped me say, "I'm somebody,'" recalls Dagenhart. But his relationship with the older man felt like prostitution.
Eventually Dagenhart fell in love with someone closer to his age. When the older man found out, he showed Dagenhart a list of stocks placed in a trust that could be his when he turned 30. But he would need to remain loyal. "The dividends on those stocks would have paid $6,000 to $10,000 per month," says Dagenhart. "That was my chance to sell my soul. But I left. I went with my new boyfriend."
He left Richmond and wound up in New York, where he experimented with drugs like cocaine and Ecstasy, then eventually settled on meth. "It was great at first," says Dagenhart. "It seemed to take away all my guilt and shame. Then I lost my mind."
"It Had to Be the Guy on Crystal"
It's 10 o'clock Friday night. "Billy" has been sober for 78 days. "Tommy" has been sober for 12. Phillip has been sober for more than two years. Darren has been sober for 73 days.
Sometimes their ranks swell to as many as 15 or 20 members for a week or two. "These young guys show up," says Phillip. "Then they disappear. They go back to the drug because it's so hard to kick."
Tonight there are six regulars. The meeting follows the format of Alcoholics Anonymous. "Speed is my master," they read aloud. "My name is __ , and I'm an addict."
Tonight they remember their first 10 days of sobriety. The consensus: The first 10 days are like hauling yourself up from the darkness of an earthen pit by your fingernails. Gravity works against your every motion, then things get worse. "After the first 10 days," says Billy, "when the voices stop and you realize everyone's not talking about you, then suddenly you have to deal with what is. And that's a mess."
With the exception of Dagenhart, most of the men don't want their real names published (pseudonyms are printed in quotes). But they don't mind letting a reporter sit in on this Crystal Meth Anonymous meeting so the public can learn more about the drug's dangers.
"Once it shifts," says Tommy, "you never get back that original high. I'd go to the bathhouse, and I couldn't leave. I couldn't stop having sex. I'm fairly well read and educated, and the next thing I knew I looked like a hustler. Then I'd wake up-that's what coming down is like, waking up-and I'd have seven to 10 days of depression."
Darren tells the group he watches a lot of zombie movies. He thinks his fascination with ghouls stems from the similarity between zombiefication and crystal addiction. At first everyone in the group smiles at this observation. So does Darren. Then he enacts the transformation.
"First," he says, "you slacken all of your facial muscles."
He falls silent, his jaw muscles no longer working, and the rest of the group falls silent too, as Darren's performance turns creepy and sadly familiar.
His eyes grow hollow and hard. His head lolls forward like a drunk's. His limbs look heavy as stones sinking into mud. When he reanimates himself, the men in the room smile joylessly. So does Darren.
Then it's Dagenhart's turn. He laughs dryly. "My first 10 days of sobriety," he says wonderingly. "I had so many relapses. I had first 10 days all up and down the East Coast."
Dagenhart tells the group he recently went to the bathhouse for the first time in many months. He was horny and lonely so he went to Club Body Center at 12th and Chancellor streets. He didn't use crystal, though the drug was readily available. He disclosed his HIV status to everyone, though no one asked.
"The first four guys were gonna have sex with me without finding out my status," says Dagenhart. "Then when I told them, they turned away. But the fifth guy was on crystal. He was willing to do whatever I wanted. It figures."
The group laughs.
Dagenhart tossed CMA literature over the walls, into the private rooms where men were having sex.
"Did you get any reactions?" Phillip asks him.
"Yeah," says Dagenhart. "Some of them laughed."
"I Liked Being the Candy Man"
Dagenhart first used crystal meth in 1990, but his boyfriend at the time was a trust fund baby who favored cocaine. Those were great days for a man with Dagenhart's insecurities.
The relationship lasted four and a half years. His boyfriend had a beautiful place in the Hamptons. They ate in the finest restaurants. They bought whatever they wanted. "I was an arrogant little prick," says Dagenhart, "even though none of those possessions were ever really mine."
He tried crystal again in 1998 and quickly found himself addicted. As with many gay men, Dagenhart's use of crystal-also known as TINA-was inextricably linked with sex.
Crystal meth users meet on the Internet, in bathhouses and at cruising spots around town. Dagenhart says crystal is often readily available in bathhouses. "It's a great place for a dealer to set up shop," he says. "What police officer is going to go in there, wear a towel and risk getting his ass grabbed?"
On the Internet the transactions are arranged with the formality of a stock trade. PW found men looking to hook up for crystal and sex within seconds in AOL chat rooms, and in only relatively longer time periods through Craigslist and squirt.org, two online meeting places.
Men interested in combining anonymous sex and drug use employ the acronym PNP, which stands for "Party and Play." They rarely post pictures of their faces but often put up pictures of their penises. "This focus on the body among my people," says Dagenhart, "is so damaging. There's such a focus on huge muscles and enormous cocks."
Albert Luciano, a gay man who works as a substance rehabilitation and mental health therapist in the heart of the Gayborhood, estimates that maybe half his clients abuse crystal or suffer full-blown addiction. About 25 percent of his clients who use crystal tested positive for HIV since starting to use the drug.
"It's very sad," says Luciano. "These are young, smart men who could probably have lived out their whole lives without ever getting HIV if only they hadn't used crystal."
While Luciano acknowledges some people can take crystal once or twice a year and be done with it, he says the unique challenges of life as a homosexual can lead to the insecurity that propels casual use into addiction. And gay society itself is partly to blame.
"I have people come into my office and tell me they're depressed because they're not on the A-list," says Luciano. "This idea that they don't have six-pack abs, they don't make lots of money, they don't get invited to the best parties-I tell them: "What A-list? You're in Philadelphia.' Gay culture, and in part this is because the straight media puts out these images of gay men, is far too focused on material success."
Luciano's challenge is to help his clients focus on looking inside themselves for self-esteem, which is what Dagenhart had to learn. In New York he bounced from one high-paying job to the next in fashion and real estate, and became his friends' meth supplier.
"They all knew where to find it," says Dagenhart, who gave the drug away. "I liked being the candy man. But then I hit bottom. I had no money, and I was like, "My friends! Where are all my friends?'"
Dagenhart spent days at a time in New York City bathhouses, particularly the West Side Club. In a single weekend he might have anonymous, unprotected sex with as many as 20 or 30 men. He fell into a rhythm of spending every weekend at the bathhouse, then running to get tested for HIV on Monday.
A ritual developed: The doctor would usher Dagenhart into his office, then deliver the good news from behind his desk. But after one binge weekend the doctor sat down next to him. "I said, "You always sit behind your desk,'" recalls Dagenhart. ""Go sit behind your desk!'"
"I'm HIV Positive"
Dagenhart confessed his HIV diagnosis and his drug addiction to his mother-on Mother's Day 2000. From there his behavior grew increasingly bizarre.
He moved from New York, back to Richmond, Va., to Virginia Beach, to Baltimore, traveling frequently to Washington, D.C., and New York City to score drugs and visit bathhouses. He lost job after job. Whatever glamour the drug once held for him soon faded.
He did crystal before he got out of bed and made coffee. He began to excrete it through his pores. "It comes out very much in a rock crystal form," he says. "But in a weird way it still had a perverse appeal. I felt like a warrior-a drug warrior. It was the only thing I could say to legitimize myself. I was so ****ed up."
He hatched fantastic plans. There was always a project or business to start, but the drug destroys the creativity it fuels. His apartment in Baltimore was half painted. He moved and half unpacked. When the drug called, he left and never finished what he'd started.
High on crystal, he propositioned a straight man in Baltimore, who beat him for it, yielding only when Dagenhart told him, "I'm HIV positive, and some of my blood is going to get into those cuts on your hands."
Then 9/11 happened-but Dagenhart didn't know until four days later. "I'd been on a binge," he says, "and I turned on the radio, to NPR, and they were talking in these really solemn voices about the Twin Towers being destroyed. I thought, "What kind of bull**** is this?'"
Dagenhart started calling friends on Sept. 15 to try to confirm the terrorist attacks. He drove from Baltimore to New York and parked on the side of the road within site of the city's diminished skyline. He got out of the car and knelt down on the pavement as traffic whizzed by. A cop came up behind him and asked, "What are you doing?"
"Praying," Dagenhart replied.
He spent a little time in a holding cell over that incident and in a hospital, getting rehydrated. Crystal addicts flat-out forget to eat or drink. And there were other episodes.
He once knocked on a strange lady's door, thinking it was his mother's house-but his mother lived more than 100 miles away. He spent the night in the woods and defecated liquid, suffusing his clothes and skin with feces. And finally he stood on the side of a construction site in Washington, D.C. Dozens of workers operated machinery below in a deep pit cut out for a building's foundation. "I said, "If God exists, he'll catch me,'" says Dagenhart.
Then he jumped.
"Snorting Meth and F*CKing and Dancing and Singing"
Dagenhart fell 33 feet and landed on sand. Doctors put 24 steel sutures in his head. He ached all over. But he lived.
A friend, J.D. Talasek, picked Dagenhart up at the hospital and took him home. "He was a mess," says Talasek. "He was just really difficult to look at."
A photographer, Talasek shot the black-and-white photo of Dagenhart (see p. 1
with his head shaved and the sutures protruding from his scalp. The photo is now the central image of the Philadelphia task force's first educational poster. "I figured he'd want to see that photograph some day," says Talasek, "to see where he had been."
Talasek saw Dagenhart through a number of crises, and marvels at the way his personality poked through the haze of crystal. "He could be very cold and manipulative when he was high," says Talasek. "But even when he spun these wild fantasies, they were usually about nonprofits he wanted to run, organizations designed to help other people. That told me he was worth saving."
Dagenhart called an old boyfriend, someone he hadn't seen since the worst phase of his addiction. "The truth is," says Dagenhart, "he was the one source of support I hadn't tapped out yet."
Jeffrey Auch and his new partner helped Dagenhart move his few remaining belongings from Baltimore to their home in Ardmore. Some 70 percent of substance abuse patients relapse in their first attempt at recovery. Dagenhart relapsed a few times in Philadelphia, and Auch had to kick him out.
"We hated to do it," says Auch. "When he wasn't using, you could see what a beautiful, intelligent person he is. But he used again, and we had a rule that he wouldn't."
Dagenhart moved from apartment to apartment, crashing with a boyfriend and people he'd met in recovery. He advertised his services as a "massage therapist," giving handjobs for money.
He spent many weekends at Club Body Center. "It was the same thing," he says. "I'd stay there all weekend, snorting meth and ****ing and dancing and singing."
Finally, he lost an apartment in Center City and his landlord put all his belongings on the sidewalk. "I lost my Social Security card," says Dagenhart. "My birth certificate. I lost everything that proved I existed."
"I Feel Like I Found a Home"
Dagenhart kneels on a hard tile floor, working the bristles of a scrub brush around the edges of a toilet. He's on the top floor of a five-story house on Spring Garden Street, cleaning a client's bathroom.
"I enjoy it," he says. "When I go home at the end of the day, I've done something good for other people in their lives. And I like that."
Once Dagenhart hit bottom, he started working for a friend cleaning houses. Then he started his own business, Angelic Cleaning, which has dozens of clients.
This Thurs., Feb. 10, will mark his first year of sobriety. The 12-step program has been good to him. Because the Catholic Church's prohibitions against homosexual behavior prevent Dagenhart from embracing his childhood religion, he was recently confirmed at St. Luke and the Epiphany, an Episcopal church. "Philadelphia's been good to me," says Dagenhart. "I really didn't know what I was going to do when I got here. But I feel like I found a home."
There might be an element of penance to his new profession, because for years he took so much from friends and family and gave so little. Penance of a kind was also why he sent out such a dramatic and personal Christmas card. He wanted the people who knew him when he was high and selfish to hear that he had learned his lesson.
"I clean other people's houses now," says Dagenhart. "And even though I'm proud of where I am today, it's also humbling. I've really been broken down."
He smiles as he says this. Since he admitted to his own humiliation, the world treats him more gently. And now that he no longer seeks a drug-induced high, bliss sometimes just comes to him.
Dagenhart recently read a passage in the New Testament about a demon-possessed boy. The boy's parents brought him before Jesus. Jesus cast the demon out. Sometimes emotion sits unexpressed for so long that it builds upon itself like layers of sediment, until only an earthquake can move it. When Dagenhart read this passage, he started to cry. "I hadn't cried in 10 years," he says. "The drug just saps your emotions."
On that night his tears flowed freely. He fled his apartment to breathe fresh air. But in the street he heard a voice. Voices spoke to him when he took crystal too. They told him he was worthless, that he'd been weighed, measured and found wanting. They also told him he was attractive-that everyone wanted him. But this voice was different. It asked him a question: "Have you ever bought yourself flowers?"
"No," he replied.
"Go buy yourself flowers," the voice said. "To show you love yourself."
So Dagenhart bought flowers. He knew how crazy an idea this was, but he figured the voice he was hearing was the voice of God. Not the God who preaches, but a practical, loving God. This practical God next told Dagenhart to go buy a sex toy. "You are going to be spending some time alone," this voice said. "Because you are not going to be hitting the bathhouse like you used to, go buy a sex toy."
Dagenhart made the purchase, then walked by a coffee shop, Crimson Moon at 20th and Sansom streets. As he passed the front door he felt his energy level rise. But the rush waned as he walked away. So he walked back.
He did this a couple times. Each time he stood in front of the door he felt ... high. Finally, he opened the door and a wash of calypso music bled right into his pores. He stood there and took in this feeling, scanning the room until his eyes fell upon a well-dressed black man. He looked positively regal, with his legs crossed, holding a walking stick and wearing a fantastic broad-brimmed black hat.
Some may read this story, a tale about a recovering addict who wound up having conversations with God, and decide that this was some kind of delusion or flashback. When Dagenhart was on crystal his mind raced on a tidal wave of amphetamine and endorphins. He remained aware of his surroundings, but they moved too fast for him to appreciate-like scenery passing outside a high-speed train. The rush he felt was synthetic and temporary, its positive effects fading until he could score again.
But when he stood inside this coffee shop, staring at this beautiful man and listening to this music, he felt the presence of the divine. The moment was real.
"Thank you," he told the man.
In return the man nodded once, solemnly, then stood up and walked out the door. It was as if he'd been waiting for Dagenhart to thank him. Now he could go.
"I feel liberated," says Dagenhart now. "My whole life I was so caught up in trying to be somebody. It was all about material things-sex, drugs, possessions. There were so many people I didn't actually respect. But what they thought meant everything to me. I was pathetic. But I needed to get through all those things to be where I am now. And I love where I am now. After all this time, I feel free."
Dagenhart still has his concerns. He declared bankruptcy during his recovery. There are old debts to pay and a business to build. Of course he also still has HIV, and just remembering to take his pills every day is a chore.
He's also still repairing old relationships, which is why he worried a bit about whether his family would approve of the Jay Dagenhart they met through his Christmas card.
It's true, one of his aunts did call his mother and say, "Did he have to write about the bathhouse?" But when he traveled to Richmond for the holidays, his relatives approached him with a new tenderness and love. His uncles, some of them policemen, walked up and shook his hand.
"They'd pump my hand and look right into my eyes," says Dagenhart, remembering. "And it was the way they looked at me that told me everything I needed to know."
He'd admitted who he was and what he'd been through-and in turn he got respect. It was a wonderful lesson for Dagenhart, who feels vindicated in his desire to share his story.
"I think it was an appropriate Christmas card from me," he says. "Because I didn't find God, I didn't find the spirit by being given anything. I found it by losing it all. I found it by suffering. Once all of the material **** was taken away, I found out who I really am. And it's a gift."
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