SID: Hello, Sid Roth your investigative reporter here with Anita Hill.And AnitaI look at you right now and I find it very difficult to believe what I see on this sheet of paper.Let me just read this.Seventeen peripheral diseases such as: multiple chemical sensitivity, legally blind in both eyes; atypical organic brain syndrome; short term memory loss; loss of balance; falls all the time; hypothyroidism; rare kidney disease; multiple fibroid tumors; osteoarthritis; on kidney dialysis; in a coma; allergies from childhood; psychiatric diseases; schizophrenia; paranoid catatonic episodes; manic depressive; multiple personalities, 14 of them; anorexia; organic disorders.I mean I could go on and on!This is just the short list.How could you even want to live?
ANITA: Well one thing Idid want to say, I was legally blind without my glasses.Now I can see quite well without them.And I didn’t want to live for many years and I had my first suicide attempt at the age of eight because of the devastation that began in my childhood.
SID: I’d like to know a little bit about that.
ANITA: Well I was born in St.PaulMinnesota.And I was born during a blizzard, which isn’t uncommon in Minnesota.And they weren’t able to get to the hospital so I was delivered at home.And the ambulance finally got there after the delivery and they took my mother out.And she got pneumonia from the exposure and it developed into tuberculosis.And she was in the hospital the first seven years of my life.And I saw her a few times at home when she was in remission; but I wasn’t able to interact very much because she had to rest a lot.And most of my experience with my mother was waving at her when she was on the fourth floor of the hospital.They used to take me outside the hospital to wave at her through the window;and so I did not really bond with her.I was raised by about twenty different housekeepers between the age of one and seven.And I had a lot of devastation.I had a brother who was about two years older than me who was very devastated losing his mother.And when I was five…
SID: Now how old were you when your mother died?
ANITA: Seven.
SID: But you didn’t even know her that well even before that.
ANITA: No,I didn’t really know my mother.And when my brother and a cousin took me out in an inner tube to the deep part of a lake;I did not know how to swim.And they left me there to drown.And I hit the bottom of that lake and I can still remember being under all that water.And I saw something moving in the water and I caught hold of it.And it was a man who had dived off the diving board; and I wasn’t going to let go.He couldn’t shake me off and that’s the first experience I had of God drawing me out of many waters.
SID: That really sounds like a devastating background; but lots of people have devastating backgrounds and don’t get as sick as you got.You were known as the woman in the glass bowl.
ANITA: Right.I lived in a foil lined environment starting in about 1980.I became allergic to everything in the world.In fact the doctors told me the only way I could really survive and be without pain and illness was to live on Mars; and that wasn’t possible.So I lived in foil lined rooms.I either had to live by the ocean or in the mountains.I tried the desert and I couldn’t breathe there, so I opted for the ocean and I had problems there too.
SID: Now could you eat? In other words, were there just certain foods you can eat?
ANITA: I had zero foods that I could eat without getting sick.When I left the hospital…
SID: Zero? How does someone live that way?
ANITA: Well they neutralized me and gave me injections for every food I ate.Even lettuce could put me in bed with severe joint pain for three or four days, so I had to take an injection before I could eat the food.Beets were the only food that didn’t make me desperately ill.They only gave me a bad sore throat so I ate beets most of the time.
SID: Just out of curiosity today do you despise beets?
ANITA: Not really
SID: Ok.I would!
ANITA: They were my friends.
SID: But that’s a horrible way to live.
ANITA: That’s true.
SID: I guess we humans can cope, but this is way beyond coping Anita.
ANITA: Well that’s very true and I didn’t even have a bed to sleep in for eleven years.I reacted to the chemicals in mattresses so I slept on a metal frame that was about 24 inches wide.And for
eleven years I slept on my face with my arms crossed in front of me because there wasn’t room for my arms.And I could only use silk or linen for covering because any other materials such as cotton would have been sprayed with pesticides would cause me to go into anaphylactic reactions;asthma.And at one point I was totally naked.I couldn’t put any clothes on my body.But then I was able to wear the silk and the linen.Now I can wear anything.
SID: Out of curiosity, who took care of you?
ANITA: I had a home health aide for part of the time, but even that was difficult; because if she were outside; and brought any odors in, perfumes, car exhaust, it could cause my body to go into spasms.And I would have heart attack pain.I had adrenalin syringes hanging on every wall in the house in case I had a heart attack or went into anaphylaxis; because I would have severe throat closures.
SID: You sound like someone that would be a good candidate for the GuinnessBook of World Records!You had so many things wrong with you.
ANITA: Well I hope I wouldn’t make that book.I can believe there are other people who have even had worse things going on.
SID: Ok, you had an acquaintance; a friend from Harvard, a Jewish woman.Tell me about that.
ANITA: Well she had to drop out of Law School because they sprayed pesticides and she got overexposed and her immune system hit the bottom too.I met her in San Francisco and so we had an apartment together, but then she had to leave that apartment because the woman next door sprayed for roaches.Even though our house was sealed, it still affected her and so she went to live in the deserts of Arizona;and was in a lean-to in an old cow pasture away from civilization.Quite a drop from HarvardLaw School and one day she called me about two years later.And I noticed there was something different about her voice.And I said “What happened?” And she said that God had healed her of this disease.And right away I knew I wanted to know this living God that I’d known as a child; and I’d fallen away and had become an atheist.And I called another friend who’s also been totally healed of this type of devastating illness.And she was my astrologer and I did pendulum readings for her because we were in the New Age trying to get healed.
SID: Did it help you any, the New Age?
ANITA: No, not at all.You’d think it was getting a little better and then it came back seven or eight worse;like you read in the Bible.Some things come back seven or eight worse and so I spoke to her and right away she began weeping and I said “Why are you weeping?” And she said because I’m going to have to give up my guru and she became a Christian too.
SID: This Jewish girl from Harvard became a believer in Jesus too?
ANITA: Yes and my friend who had a guru.
SID: Anita,the New Age doesn’t work.You’ve got this Jewish friend from Harvard that says God healed her.So what did you do about this?
ANITA: Well I called the ministry that was in Florida at that time, and they said it would be about three months before they could take me.But in the mean time they worked with me on the phone, and I accepted JesusChrist as my Savior.
SID: Why had you become an atheist?
ANITA: Because I had been in the Baptist church, and the Methodist church as a child.And in college I joined a Catholic church and I became a nun for seven years.And I really didn’t see any power.
SID: You were really searching for God.
ANITA: Ever since I was a child.I always wanted to serve God and that’s why I went in the convent.But I didn’t find what I needed for my life and now I have.
SID: So you made a decision to believe in Jesus but still you’re a woman in a bubble.What happened next?
ANITA: Right.They finally said… I told them I was too sick to go there because I was on oxygen.I’d been on oxygen eleven years and I really couldn’t leave my home without a lot of duress.And they weren’t able to come and I said well I’m going to come to you.And I turned off that oxygen tank.That was back in 1992; in March and I haven’t used oxygen since.And I flew to the ministry without oxygen.I went in faith and God met me.
SID: Let me tell you something.Here’s the exciting news: what happened to Anitacan happen to you.And you’re going to find out some revelation on healing that very few people have ever heard of.Don’t go away.We’ll be right back after this word.