Last month I entered my first ever blog contest. The contest was being held at Crystal & Company. The rules were very simple. I had to tweet about it, put something on my face book about it and put this button on my site.
The prize was a great totally awesome day planner. I was so excited when it arrived in the mail the other day. Here are a couple of pictures of it.
If you have not already, I recommend visiting Crystal and Company’s blog. She has some really cool things going on over there.
One thing I have done most of my life has been to find ways to help other people. I have volunteered at soup kitchens, given random homeless families food, volunteered in nursing homes, and have participated in many other giving activities. Unfortunately, my reasons for doing all that did not include a real desire to give to others. Instead, I did those things because I craved the high regard people would have for me.
I do not think there is anything wrong with taking pride in the things you do for other people. What I do believe though, is that if you are only helping others for the accolades you are going to receive, then your motivation and actions are very selfish. I also believe that you are missing out on the gifts you might have received as a result of unselfish giving.
My craving for that type of attention was born out of my own lack of self worth. In this last year, I have worked on my self worth, learning that I am a valuable person and that I do not need someone else’s approval to feel good about myself. Once I began to value myself, I began to value other people. That is when my acts of giving changed from trying to make myself look good, to truly wanting to give what I can to other people.
The unselfish giving of myself to other people has done more to contribute to my happiness and satisfaction than I ever got when I was doing it selfishly. The ironic thing is when I was engaging in selfish giving, those are the feelings I expected to get as a result of the accolades of others, and never did.
I have seen very real examples of how you can receive when you unselfishly give in my own family. The repairing of mine and my mother’s relationship would not have taken place if we had not been willing to give of ourselves without any expectation of receiving anything in return. The gifts we received as a result of that type of giving are numerous. Friendship, support, and peace are just a few.
I would like to encourage each and every one of you to examine your own motivations for giving to others. This will provide you with reassurance that you are giving from your heart or that maybe you need to change the reasons why you are giving.
Just like Selurus did in his blog post, I shared a little example of how I benefited from giving to someone else. I would love it if you would share your own example of how you unselfishly gave of yourself to someone and what gift you received as a result. I would also be interested in hearing if someone engaged in the selfish type of giving that I have in the past, as well as what motivated you to stop doing it.
In the last week or two, I sort of took my eyes off the brass ring and found myself struggling mentally. Not really a “true” depression, but I believe if I had not re-focused my thoughts it probably would have led me down the road to a full blown depressive episode.
I know the cause of this mental struggle. May was Mental Health Awareness Month. I really enjoyed the opportunity to help bring awareness to the stigma that surrounds people with mental health issues and things we can do to eliminate that stigma. The best way I found I could do this, was to share my own struggles and challenges. The problem is I have only been in depression recovery for a year, and the experiences, thoughts and feelings that I shared are much rawer and closer to the surface than I thought they were. I started concentrating on the negative and that is when I took my eyes off of the prize.
Fortunately, I am blessed by an abundance of people who, without even knowing they are doing it, remind me that life is good, and that I should take stock of my blessings so that I can turn my focus back to the positive. One way to stay focused on the positive is having realistic goals for mtself, and Chere Michelle’s blog post about Realistic Goals reminded me of that this morning.
My prize, (or brass ring) is a feeling of satisfaction, and feeling good about myself. I know that sounds incredibly selfish, but without those feelings I am no good to anyone. Without those feelings, I start concentrating on negative thoughts and feelings, and withdraw from the people who mean the most to me.
What I decided, after reading Chere Michelle’s blog post, is that I would set myself five goals or objectives. Each of these goals will be obtainable, but at the same time, they will provide me with enough challenge so that I will also learn something. I will be able to use these goals to keep my focus on the positive, and I will have something to feel good about.
One thing I am going to set as a goal is to get to know my parents better, especially my father. I have been awesomely blessed to be able to create a new and positive relationship with my mother and have started to get to know her better. It has been beneficial to both of us, because we now have a friendship that never existed before. We also help each other out in ways we never did in the past. Since I have allowed my mother into my life, it feels as if she has become my greatest supporter. I want to create something similar with my father.
He is getting older and his health is not as good as it used to be. I do not want any regrets when it comes to our relationship, so it has become important to me to work on it. That means, I need to start devoting some effort into getting to know him. Not only will accomplishing this goal make me feel good, I think it would also make my father feel good.
Kicking my anxiety disorder in the butt and not letting it control certain aspects of my life anymore is something I want to accomplish in the next few months. I really think this is a realistic goal because I have the tools and know what to do to conquer it. I just have to get the motivation to do what needs to be done. I have been putting off tackling the anxiety order head on because it makes me feel uncomfortable. It is time that I choose to be a uncomfortable, so I do not end up being stuck in the house again because of my fears and anxiety.
As difficult as it may be, I want to strive to get at least one paying writing job. It may take a long while for this to happen, but I am Okay with that. I really enjoy writing and I would love to be able to start a career that I can do from home. More importantly, being able to make money doing something I enjoy would be a dream come true.
Becoming more proficient at using positive words and phrases when I talk is something that I want to accomplish. I have become very aware of how powerful our words can be. I have noticed that if I cloud what comes out of my mouth with negative or even passive words , then my thinking lines up with that. My thoughts start heading toward downward spiral. If I can keep the words that I speak more positive, then my thinking will be more positive and I can ward off a depressed state of mind much easier.
I believe the most difficult goal I have set for myself is accepting that the people I love are going to do what they are going to do, and there is nothing I can do about it. I just need to accept their decisions, no matter what I think about them, and move on. I need to stop worrying about other people’s decisions and actions, love the person unconditionally, and be there to support them if the decision they made causes things in their life to go awry.
As I review my list of goals, I see I have some work to do. That is good. Putting effort into accomplishing my goals will allow me to appreciate and take more pride in them than if they were easy to obtain.
I will keep you up-to-date on how I am doing with my goals.
What five goals would you set for yourself? Why did you pick those particular goals?
by Anna Mashburn
Silent Summer,
How the birds don’t sing,
How the rabbits don’t hop.
How is it so silent when summer is full of happiness?
Where is the sound of the brook running?
Where is the noise of the children playing and laughing?
Why is it so silent to me?
Am I not listening hard enough,
Or has summer passed already?
I can’t hear a thing!
Why is it so silent,
It’s like I’m stuck in a Silent Scream!
At the end of They Threatened To Arrest Me I was in an ICU room, hooked up to an IV, with my guard in a chair by the door.. By this point, I had been threatened with arrest, stripped searched, and made to feel as if I was a criminal. I know I was suicidal, however, I really felt that the way I was being treated was not helping my suicidal thoughts, instead it was making them worse.
As I suspected, I had a very sleepless night in ICU. I spent most of the night crying. There was a guard in my room all night, who I attempted to ignore. I was still very angry at how things turned out. I wanted to go home, and I was miserable. I also still had that terrified feeling about what was going to happen to me next.
When the doctor came to examine me in the morning, he was oddly silent. Except for letting me know that I had to stay hooked up to the heart monitors to satisfy the psychiatric hospital (which I would be going to the next day), and that I would be moving to a regular room, he said nothing to me. Not even to answer my questions. What I did not know at the time, is that none of the doctors or nurses would give any information to my husband either. They did not feel compelled to, since I had been involuntarily committed. The hospital was considered my guardian at that point, and I was considered incapable of making my own medical decisions. Because of this, my husband also had no right to know what was going on with me.
Shortly after the doctor examined me, I was transferred over to the regular floor, my guard following me over. I still was not eating, for fear of a bowel movement, since all my bathroom activity had to be monitored. The nurse I had at the time, started giving me funny looks when I kept turning down my insulin shots. I am sure they were thinking I was trying to harm myself in another way.
That afternoon I got a new guard, who I think was trying to do his best to make me feel more at ease. It sort of backfired. He tried to prepare me for the transfer to the psychiatric hospital. He let me know that I would be going in a sheriff’s deputy car, riding in the back. In my mind I was thinking “Yet another thing to make me feel like a criminal.” Contrary to what the nurse in the emergency room said, there was a chance I could wear my own clothes to the psychiatric hospital, it depended on what the deputy who was in charge of transferring me decided. Finally, he told me that because of sheriff department policy, I would have to be handcuffed during the transfer. My terror became stronger. I kept thinking about how this would not have happened if I had not called for help, and how could they keep treating me like a criminal when I voluntarily came to this hospital. I burst into a fresh round of tears and quit talking.
That evening, when it came time for me to take my medication for my restless leg syndrome (RLS), I was given a dose that was less than half of what I am supposed to take. I asked the nurse who brought it where the rest of it was. Her response was to roll her eyes and to let me know that either I took what she brought and quit complaining, or she would not give me anything for my RLS.
I got on my cell phone and called my husband and told him what was going on. The nurse left my room, taking the smaller dose of my medication with her. I was so very angry. She came back in and told me that the doctor’s orders were for that smaller amount and there was nothing I could do about it. I believe it was about this time when I said very loudly “that just because I was involuntarily committed, did not mean that the doctor or anyone could make medical decisions regarding me without telling me what was going on“. My husband was still on the phone and he told me he was going to come back to the hospital, in order to see what he could do to help me. I over-heard the guard tell the nurse that if this was going to be how I was going to behave, then he was going to take my cell phone away and not let me have visitors. I guess he had forgotten all the hours that I had done nothing but cry and because I got angry about the medication situation I was now going to be considered a troublesome patient.
When my husband was just about to my room, the guard left my room to speak to him. Apparently, the guard told my husband to calm me down so that I could still have visitors and to make their job easier. I guess I was not supposed to be upset about anything that was going on. Before my husband came into my room, he went to the nurses station to have my nurse get my medication bag and verify the dosage amounts. That is when he discovered that between ICU and the regular floor (which, by the way, are technically on the same floor), my medication bag was lost. After an hour of searching, my nurse found it.
She verified that I was correct about my RLS medication dosage, and then called the doctor. My husband spoke with the doctor, and let him know that just because I was involuntarily committed did not give anyone the right to change my medication dosage, especially without consulting me or him. He also asked the doctor why my other medications had not been administered. The doctor told my husband that as a general rule in that hospital, if you are admitted because you are suicidal they take away all of your medications, and only let you have them back gradually. After much discussion, my husband was able to convince the doctor that it would be a good idea to let me have all my medications, in the dosages I was supposed to.
I still cannot comprehend the hospital’s reasoning for treating me the way they did. Nothing was done to eliminate my terror, instead everything they did do only increased it. Nor do I understand their reasoning for not letting my husband know what was going on with me. Even if they thought I was not capable of making my own medical decisions, he had a right to know what was going on with his wife. I am thankful they did finally listen to my husband when it came to my medications.
When I ended Bumps In the Recovery Road I was in the emergency room of the local hospital, waiting with a front desk lady, while the psychiatrist from the Crisis Team was working with the emergency room doctor to have me involuntarily committed. I was very angry and really wanted to leave, but I knew they would stop me.
After about fifteen minutes, the psychiatrist exited the treatment area and left the emergency room, without saying a word to me. Almost immediately after he leaves, I am called back to the treatment area. At first, things seem to be going along in a fairly normal manner. I am still angry, still feeling like I have been tricked, but I thought that since I had come to the hospital willingly, that it would not be too bad. I. WAS. WRONG.
A very young nurse enters my room, she hands me a hospital gown, and orders me to take off all of my clothing. She then informs me that I will be going to the psychiatric hospital, dressed in nothing more than that hospital gown. I promptly let her know that I was not removing my undergarments. To which she responded with “We will see what the charge nurse says about that”.
After the young nurse leaves, the emergency room doctor arrives and asks me a few questions about the state of my mind, and if I have a suicide plan. After I answer all his questions, he leaves. About twenty minutes after my encounter with the doctor, a guard shows up. I was not surprised or bothered about the guard, I already knew it was standard procedure for anyone that the medical staff think is suicidal.
When the charge nurse finally enters my room, I can tell from the look on her face that things are about to get bad. I had no idea how bad, until she lets me know that she is going to strip search me. I go from angry to absolutely terrified very quickly. I am rather modest and the thought of being strip searched was more than my already messed up brain could handle. I instantly burst into tears. The nurse told me it had to be done to be sure I was not hiding any drugs or weapons. I do not use drugs, and I am not a violent person, except for that time when I was coming out of a coma, so I just could not understand why I needed to be stripped searched. I felt humiliated, embarrassed, and as if I was being treated like a criminal, when I all I did was call for help.
When I told the charge nurse that I refused to be strip searched, she let me know that if I did not allow her to do it, she would have the guard outside my room arrest me! It seems the guards they use are off duty sheriff deputies, so they have the power to arrest people. I have no way of knowing if I really could have been arrested for refusing the strip search. What I do know, is that I was calm, although terrified, and I had not even raised my voice when I told her no. I also know that I felt bullied, and like I was being treated as if I had committed a crime.
When I did not agree to the strip search as quickly as the charge nurse wanted me to, she began to walk out the door, telling me she was going to have the guard come in and take me to jail. At that point, it was a given that I would agree. She checked every place that someone could hide anything. When she finished, I felt completely violated. Even now, months after this, I still feel just as angry, humiliated, and violated as when it first took place.
After the strip search, when it was time for me to put my hospital gown back on, I manged to talk the charge nurse into allowing me to wear my undergarments under my hospital gown. I assumed once I got dressed I would immediately be taken to the psychiatric facility. That did not happen. Because of the ten extra beta blockers I took, the psychiatric hospital told the emergency room doctor that I had to have my heart monitored for at least twenty-four hours before they would accept me.
By this time, I had become so scared about going to the psychiatric hospital, that I did not mind having to stay in the medical hospital for an extra few days. My thought was, if I could be violated the way I had been at this hospital, there was no telling what horrible things waited for me at the psychiatric hospital.
Once a room in the Intensive Care Unit became available, I was transferred (along with my guard) upstairs. After I was settled into my room, I learned that there were a few rules that I had to adhere to. I was not allowed to leave my room. Anything that my husband brought me would have to be examined before I could have it. Finally (the worst rule in my opinion), I could not go to the bathroom without being supervised.
That night I learned that because I was involuntarily committed for a suicide attempt, I would not be given any of my daily medications. That also meant my Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) medicine. Since I was hooked up to monitors, I could not get up and walk around and my legs became extremely uncomfortable. My RlS medicine is the only thing that makes my RLS symptoms tolerable. It took some doing, but the doctor that was on duty that night did allow me to take my RLS medicine. He took the discontinue order away and said I should not have any problems the next night.
With the medication failure already allowing my emotions to be out of control, not being allowed to have any anti-anxiety medication, and feeling terrified, violated, and angry, I was a horrible person to be around. I was short tempered, at times, with certain guards. I barely tolerated most of the nurses and I was rude to the doctors.
I quit eating. There was no way I was going to have a bowel movement while someone had to watch me in the bathroom. When I was not sleeping, I was crying. The terror I felt about what it was going to be like at the psychiatric hospital was and still is the most scared I have ever been.
I do not know if the treatment I received in the emergency department is the norm for anyone involuntarily committed. However, I believe that it was highly inappropriate for the charge nurse to threaten to have me arrested. There could have been many other ways she could have gotten me to cooperate that did not involve threats, especially since I was not being violent or argumentative.
I would like to hear if anyone had similar experiences when they were involuntarily committed for psychiatric care. I would also be interested to know if my experiences, especially with the arrest threat, are exactly how hospital staff are supposed to treat someone who has suicidal thoughts or if there was something not quite right about how I was treated.
I am sure that I am not alone when I say that my depression recovery has experienced a few bumps in the road. In fact, I hit a rather large bump last September, which ended in a brief hospital stay. Unfortunately, because I did not have any medical insurance, the hospital that was chosen for me was a State Run Psychiatric Hospital.
Finding the right depression medication for me proved to be something of a challenge. Since I am a diabetic, I could not take many of the depression medications because they can raise a person’s blood sugar. Then a whole bunch of other medications were put on the black list, because of my restless leg syndrome (RLS). It seems they affect dopamine in much the same way that RLS does so they can make it worse. After several months, we found a combination of medication that seemed to work and did not cause the usual problems.
I was feeling better, I had a better outlook on life and I had a small measure of hope. So when the bump in the road happened, I was taken by surprise. Looking back I can clearly identify certain things about my behavior that should have been signals to me that that I was not doing well.
I had become overly emotional with my anger and sadness. I picked fights with everyone I could, and I was back to crying all the time. The way I was feeling had been my “normal” for several years,so it did not dawn on me that I was in serious trouble. After feeling like this for several days, things sort of tilted to the very bad. I was taking my usual everyday handful of medicine, when I decided that I was going to add about ten extra beta blockers to my usual dose.
What I looked like during this "bump in the road"
Once I fully realized what I did, I called my counselor. She was not in. The receptionist decided that she thought I needed to talk to someone on the Crisis Line, and immediately transferred my phone call. I went through the whole scenario with a lady who answered the Crisis Line phone, up to the point where I took the extra medication. After the lady on the Crisis Line heard that, she suggested that a Crisis Team come to my house and evaluate me. Knowing that her suggestion was really more like she was telling me what was going to happen, I agreed.
The Crisis Team that showed up to my house, consisted of two men. One was a psychiatrist and one was a Sheriff’s Deputy in plain clothes. After asking me several questions, the psychiatrist suggested that I go to the local hospital and be checked out to make sure that the extra beta blockers I took were not going to cause me any problems. He went on to suggest that it might be in my best interest if I went to a mental health facility for a few days, until I got through this crisis (bump in the road).
I did not want to go to either places. I knew I would end up in a state run psychiatric hospital, and I was terrified of going there. However, I also knew that if I told them no, the deputy would call for back up and I would still end up going, except I would be in handcuffs. I could not let that happen in front of my daughter.
When we got to the local hospital, the psychiatrist had me sit with the front desk lady and he went back to talk to an emergency room doctor. This is about the time that I got really angry and realized what the psychiatrist was doing. He was working with the emergency room doctor and they were going to have me 10-13nd. Where I live, that is the code for having someone involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. I felt like all my rights were gone, and in essence they were.
I realize now that the crisis team probably saved my life. Since my counselor was not in her office, I probably would have taken more pills and would have tried to commit suicide again. At the time though, I was pissed. I felt as if I had been tricked into going to the local hospital, and that if I had not tried to call for help, I would not be in this mess.
I was totally refusing to see that what the psychiatrist had done was get me to the place I needed to be, with as little drama and trauma as possible. I was too busy being pissed off to admit that even if I only took ten extra beta blockers, it was still ten too many and was a strong indicator that I was heading down the path to a suicide attempt.
I have to say, I think that it is very good that the county I live in has crisis teams that will go to someone’s house to evaluate their mental state. If I ever got into serious trouble with my depression again, and I could not get a hold of my counselor or my other “safe” people, I would call the Crisis Line and get help that way.
More of my hospitalization experience in another post
Are you in crisis? Please call 1-800-273-TALK
Are you feeling desperate, alone or hopeless? Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), a free, 24-hour hotline available to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. Your call will be routed to the nearest crisis center to you.
* Call for yourself or someone you care about
* Free and confidential
* A network of more than 140 crisis centers nationwide
* Available 24/7
I had an unexpected absence from the blog world for a few days, at the end of last week. We signed on with a new phone company/internet provider towards the end of last week. We had to wait a few days before they could run the appropriate lines to our house, while waiting I had put in an order to cancel the existing services. Those services were turned off before the new stuff got hooked up. So there were a few days that we were without internet service. The new lines were run today and we are back on the internet again. I am liking the new service so far. Not only is it cheaper than what we had been paying, our internet connection is so much faster than we had before, we were on a cable modem then. I could have gone to my grandmother’s house and used the internet there, however, my daughter asked me if I would take a few days and not have “office hours”. I respected what she asked of me and did not worry about blogging during that time period.
I will get caught up on all my blog reading and posting and tweeting and facebooking! I sure did miss everyone and I am happy to be back among friends.
I used to view my depression as a hideous, evil entity that had decided to make its home in my brain. I had no control over it and I believed I would never get control. I knew that I would spend the rest of my life with this thing running around in my brain.
In the beginning of my recovery, it used to make me very irritated when I heard people say that depression was a disease, just like diabetes or heart disease. How could something that had infested my brain and made me feel so rotten be nothing more than a disease? Surely, there had to be some other, fancier word for it, but there wasn’t.
It took several months of counseling for me to finally realize that all those people who had said that depression was a disease were right. I finally understood and it had been my diabetes that had shown the way.
As a diabetic, every day is a maintenance day. I have to monitor my blood sugar, give myself insulin shots, and I have to have a few people I can rely on, whose job is to let me know if I look like my blood sugar has dropped too low. There are consequences for not maintaining my diabetes properly. If I let my blood sugar gets too high it makes me feel very bad and is very destructive to my body. If I let it get too low then I could go into insulin shock and that is also bad for my body. It was when I was thinking about this routine, that I realized that I had set up something similar with my mental health maintenance.
There are things I have to do every single day, without exception, to successfully manage my depression. Daily, I have to remember to take three different medications, which add up to eight pills everyday just for the depression. Making sure my mind is focused on positive things and not getting bogged down in negativity, is a very important step in my depression management. That means not allowing anything or anyone to bring negativity in my life. I watch my reactions to situations and people to make sure that I am not being overly emotional, and review my thinking to make sure it is logical. I also have several people, who know me well, in addition to my counselor, who monitor my behavior.
To make sure that I always remember to take my depression medication and to take it at the same time every day, I carry it with me every where I go. I have a special bag that goes into my purse, that bag holds all my medications. That way if I am not at home and it is medication time, it is right there with me. Keeping it in that bag also makes it much easier for me to keep track of my medication and its location. After all, how hard can it be to overlook a bright purple bag with Tinkerbell on it?
I do several things to make sure my mind stays focused on the positive. I read motivational and inspirational quotes every day. Just having positive little sayings running around in my head is a huge help. I also maintain a policy of always finding something positive in every situation. There are certain types of movie and television shows that I no longer watch because they are too depressing. Probably one of the most important things I do to keep my mind focused on the positive, is not allowing people to bring their negative behavior into my life.
I no longer worry endlessly about anything. If a worry does creep into my mind, I have a way of managing it. I allow myself two “worry times” a day, each lasts no longer than fifteen minutes. One is in the morning and the other is in the late afternoon. I am not allowed to worry outside of those periods of time. This prevents a chain reaction of negative thoughts from forming.
In addition to examining my own thoughts, making sure that they are staying logical, I have assigned several families to monitoring me as well. They make sure that I am making sense when I speak and in how I behave. They also look for clues in what I am saying that might indicate if my thinking is off kilter. These people are very important in my depression management.
These are actually very simple things to do, and well worth any time they take up. They have become part of my daily routine, just like managing my diabetes is part of my daily routine. Now I am one of those people who say, Depression is a disease, just like Diabetes and Heart Disease.
The first time I stepped into my counselor’s office was not “the first day of the rest of my life”, it was not where I wanted to be, and it was not the beginning of my depression recovery. It was not a pleasant experience, it was not fun answering all of her questions, and it was not likely that I would want to go back.
I had been in the hospital for a week, as a result of my suicide attempt, and I had been forced to come to this clinic the day after I had been released. I thought it was stupid and unfair, especially since I felt so rotten and tired. I was furious with the world, everyone in it and myself.
I knew I could talk my husband into not forcing me to go back. All I would have to do is tell him that I would never do something so “stupid” again and I was better now. He would believe me, or at least attempt to believe me. I could have done it, but I did not. I was not being noble or responsible or even doing the right thing. The only reason I did not, is because the person he put I charge of taking me to my appointments was my mother, and my depression did not leave me with enough energy to argue with her.
The next appointment that I had and did not want to go to was with the nurse at the clinic. It was his job to make sure I was medically fit enough to take whatever medications the psychiatrist would want me to take, administer a drug test and find out what medications I was on. There was something about me that day that caused the nurse to worry about me. He became concerned enough about my well being to insist that I see the psychiatrist right then, instead of waiting a few days for my appointment.
When I walked into the psychiatrist’s office, I was unprepared for what came next. He looked at me and told me very plainly that I had three choices. I could take the medication he was going to prescribe me and come to my future appointments, or I could wait there for the sheriff’s car he was going to ask to come and take me to the state psychiatric hospital, or I could go to the local hospital and leave from there in the sheriff’s car to the state psychiatric hospital. I went with choice number one.
When it was time for me to go back and see my counselor, I had a little bit of a better attitude, but not by much. I went into her office with the idea that I would tell her the truth about everything. It was not because I really cared about getting better, I was still mostly at that point of not caring about my life. However, if I told her the truth about everything, at least one person would know why I died when I tried to commit suicide again.
During this session I told her about a promise I had made to my husband. I had promised him I would never try and commit suicide when it was just me and my daughter at home. That was an easy promise to make, because I would not do that with either one of them at home. My counselor is one smart cookie. She figured out very quickly that if I promised something I would follow through. She took that opportunity to hand me a piece of paper.
That piece of paper was a contract. If I signed the contract I would be promising for one week to not attempt suicide, even when I was alone. I did not have to sign it, I almost did not sign it. In the end, I did sign it. Each week I went back, I signed another contract.
The moment I signed that first piece of paper, was the moment I began to make conscious choices to live, only one week at time, but they were still choices to live. When I began making those choices, my depression recovery process began.