Every Woman’s Guide to Managing Your Anger « A Place Of Hope News

It’s been more than 25 years since I founded The Center for Counseling and Health Resources in Edmonds, Washington. During this time I have had the honor and privilege of witnessing hundreds of people overcome depression they once thought insurmountable. Patty is among them, a woman who generously shares her story in the hope that it will help someone else heal too.

Hello, my name is Patty. I am a 54 year old woman and on November 23, 2009, I died. I took an overdose of a muscle relaxer and called my brother and said goodbye and then proceeded to call my dad and do the same. My husband took me to the emergency room where I went to sleep and stopped breathing. This was not the first time I had wanted to “just go to sleep,” “just get a break from life for a little while,” but it will be the last.

Through an exhaustive search process by my children, they found The Center, A Place of Hope.

Now fast forward to December 7^th 2009; my life began again. On December 7^th, I walked into The Center on Dayton Street in Edmonds Washington a very very broken and scared woman, not knowing what to expect, but knowing that this was my last hope. What I ended up finding there was not my LAST hope, but rather my FIRST hope. My only quest when I went to The Center was to get knowledge about depression and the tools to treat it. What I ended up walking out with after a short 30 day treatment stay was self esteem, inner peace and for the first time in my life, happiness.

For me the key to this success was the whole-person approach to treatment. The Center treats your emotional, spiritual, nutritional, relational, and physical self in order for you to leave a whole person.  My days consisted of many hours of one-on-one treatments with various counselors that were handpicked for my particular needs — “My Team” as they were called, and also many group sessions where you got to listen and learn from others that shared your same feelings and challenges.

It meant so much to me to be in a room with others that I didn’t have to explain how I was feeling; they were feeling that too, but even more importantly to be “heard.”  To be acknowledged by counselors that really wanted you to be better, wanted you to succeed. That felt good. Don’t get me wrong, this was not an easy, cake walk of a process; it was anything but that. I had to dig in and want to change, want to learn, and want to be free of this life sentence called depression. It meant working sometimes 8 to 10 hours a day on me, on my issues, and be willing to do whatever it took to heal with the guidance of my team.

On January 3, 2010 I flew back to my home and my family a whole, happy woman for the first time in my life. The days and weeks that have followed have not been met without challenges, but with the tools that I learned through my counseling sessions at The Center, I am able to work through them without that dire, “the world is coming to an end” mentality. I now am able to find my truth in a situation and work through it.

I will forever be grateful to my family for finding A Place of Hope and for investing in my life and in my future. MY FUTURE….what wonderful words those are.

Are you or is someone you know living with depression? Though by no means a scientific tool for diagnosis, our Depression Survey can help you identify contributing conditions in your life — the first step in moving forward toward help, hope and healing.

OTHER RESOURCES

Depression Information from The Center

Depression Treatment at The Center

Moving Beyond Depression: A Whole-Person Approach to Healing by Dr. Gregory Jantz