Hi, Dr. Laura:

This is how you and your book "Bad Childhood - Good Life" saved my life.

My childhood was a life of chaos on the road for nine years with indifferent parents.  I was repeatedly abandoned, including the day I was left on the side of a highway at six years old. I then spent nearly ten years in an orphanage, where no one came to visit.

When I aged out of the orphanage, I didn't know how to rise beyond despair, but I did realize that it was up to me to find a meaningful life.  However, I was not yet emotionally equipped to make that happen. Personal relationships, including my marriage and those with my children foundered and nearly dissolved.

Then I found you, Dr. Laura. I started listening to you on the radio in the 1990s, and was relieved to know that someone seemed to have real solutions that might benefit me. You daily drilled into me themes of self-determination, personal responsibility and willpower to do what was exceedingly difficult but necessary for achieving emotional balance.

I heeded your words, stopped dwelling on my past, changed my behavior toward others, focused on positive solutions, recovered precious relationships, and grew my marriage and family into a haven where nurturance still flourishes.

Though we never met Dr. Laura, you were my mentor who guided me to this point in my life. Several years ago, I realized I had arrived at a destination I had long sought over the past sixty years. It is a sublime place, a place I wish never to leave and one where everyone should dwell--it is the realm where contentment lives.

I am grateful you shared with me a map for finding this place. Like you, I would like to make others aware of the route to a land of contentment, especially those who believe insurmountable obstacles block their way.

Regards,

Joel