“We must never be blinded by the futile philosophy that we are just the hapless victims of our inheritance, of our life experiences, and of our surroundings — that these are the sole forces that make our decisions for us. This is not the road to freedom. We have to believe that we can freely choose.” Source: As Bill sees it.
If we leave to chance what happens to us, we soon discover we are like the ship without a rudder. We can continue to go in circles and get caught up in the deadly downward spiral of helplessness or we can make a decision to choose, finding a way out of our despair. We discover that we can choose–we can admit that what we have been doing is not working. The staying in bed with the sheets pulled up over our head; the continued beating up of ourselves with the “what if’s, the “I should have done this or that,” and all the other negative self-talk that has me immobilized.
When I made the decision, when I chose to do something about my desperation, I found a group of people just like myself. We all chose that group because we had lost all hope. The group gave me hope. I too could get better. And we had to face the fact that if we didn’t deal with our depression now and make the choice to feel differently, we would continue to go down that slippery slope that would lead us to who knows where.
Today, take a look at the Twelve Steps (see site menu) , go down the list, one step after another and see how this climbing out of the pit of despair works. And then, if you have a copy of Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition, you can read the real life stories of persons like you and me who made a choice to live — made the choice to use the same program of recovery that has freed a world of people from their prisons of depression. Don’t take a chance–make a choice –save your life. Choose freedom!