“The depression is so bad at times that we feel no one would ever understand how we feel unless of course they have been there.  We just have about given up on our God, church, family and friends as allies on our behalf.  We feel resentments and anger toward people for not feeling more sympathetic toward our never ending sadness. We feel people aren’t kind and don’t treat us with the  same respect that they do other people such as a diabetic, insomniac or arthritic person.  Most people don’t want anything to do with us because they get tired of our moaning, groaning and pessimistic way of looking at life.  Why shouldn’t they?  Life is tough enough without  having to  be subjected to another’s gloom and doom.  But this is the place where we  recognize the difference between ourselves and others, and of course we think our lot is always the worst of all.  This self-pity never brings us into any personal sense of peace, but has just the opposite affect in that it helps perpetuate  the myth that depression floats in like a dark cloud over which we have no control. We need to tell our spouse, family and friends that we want to start again and begin to take charge of our lives and start to chip away at our sadness.  We won’t blame our need to sad ourselves on what my wife,/husband did  or do not do for us, or what a friend said or didn’t say.  We finally have to take the bull by the horns much like the recovering alcoholic, overeater, gambler or smoker, and admit that it is  “I” that has the problem and that it no longer does any good to blame others  for my problem. Once I admit that I am addicted to depressing myself, then I can begin  to walk through the door of the prison that binds me. I must realize the fact that my depression will only get worse unless  I put a stop to all the ill thinking, feeling and acting out behavior that keeps me perpetually locked into my sadness.”

SOURCE:  Copyright (c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 86-87.

Comment

How true it is that only unless one has experienced depression  personally do you know how it feels. It does take one to know one. This is why our 12 Step fellowship of Depressed Anonymous makes it possible for those of us who are or were depressed to find a group of people who know what we  feel and what we are talking about. There is hope here.

Hugh

Today, I want to share with you a prayer that has  been part of my daily life for these many years.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Hugh for the fellowship of Depressed Anonymous

“We are wise to believe it difficult to change, to recognize that character has a forward propulsion which tends to carry it unaltered into the future, but we need not believe it impossible to change. Our present and future choices may take us upon different courses which will in time comprise a different identity….The identity defined by action is not, therefore the whole person. Within us lies the potentiality for change, the freedom to choose other courses…if we then invoke the leopard that can’t change his spots, saying  “That’s the way I am, might as well accept it, ” we abandon the freedom to change and exploit what we have been in the past to avoid responsibility for what we shall we be in the future.

Often  we do not choose, but drift into those modes which eventually define us. Circumstances push and we  yield. We did not choose to be what we have become, but gradually, imperceptibly   become what we are drifting into doing those things we now characteristically do. Freedom is not an objective attribute  of life; alternatives without awareness yield no leeway…” Source: How People Change. Alan Wheelis, Harper and Row, NY. 1973. pp.14-15.

Our  12 Step recovery program  gradually dismembers our  compulsive circle of negative  behaviors  and thinking.

“Now I have to dig in and dismember those core beliefs that keep us repeating the same thinking, the same behavior which can keep us imprisoned in our depression. We have this compulsion to repeat -this ritual of defeat – because, first of all, it is comfortable and secondly it keeps us from having to do something different, namely something that we haven’t done before. We continue to move around in a circle always meeting up with the same me – no major changes evident. If we don’t start the process of change, then not without surprise our life then stays the same. But this also closes the door to the future and with it a sense of hope and relief. It seems that to believe that we have no future and that we will always feel this way can imprison  us as we empower these absolute beliefs that nothing good will ever happen for us.  We are thus chained to our own self will and not only are we imprisoned but we are the jailer as well. The key is in our hands and it is there for the asking.”

Source:  I’ll do it when I feel better.(2013) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 18.

Use the inventory  below to see if you may be depressed or unhappy. “Circle those that you have experienced  over the past two weeks.”

• Have you had a change in appetite (15 lb. gain or 15 lb. loss in weight?)
• Shifts in sleeping patterns (too much sleep or not enough). Waking up early.
• Tired all the time
• Agitated or increased activity –  always on the go
• Loss of interest in  daily activities and/or decreased sexual drive
• Withdrawing from others and wanting to be alone  most of the time
• Weeping/not being able to cry
• Lapses of memory
• Indecisiveness
• Fear of losing one’s mind
• Reluctance to take risks
• Suicidal thoughts

Note: If you or someone you know is experiencing at least four of these signs of depression for more than two weeks, it’s   recommended  that you  consult  a mental health professional. We also recommend that you attend a Depressed Anonymous meeting.

SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

How true. The more we desire to  isolate and hibernate (detaching from others) we realize that something might be  slightly awry. Well. maybe we don’t realize it.  Isn’t  it interesting about our experience of melancholia (depression) that while we are right in the middle of it, something queer begins to dawn on our awareness. For me, this is what happened to me and possibly the same  has happened to you. It felt like  my feet were immersed  in a sea of molasses or that I was walking alone in a thick fog.  And the more I walked along the harder it became to walk along.  My feet were gradually feeling like hundred pound weights with each step slowing  me down to a snails crawl.

Now it’s winter time in our northern hemisphere, which makes it easier for me to hibernate and isolate myself from anything happening outside the four walls of  my life. I am aware that I want to try and figure out how I got into this messy fog as well as asking myself, “Do I really want to leave this cocoon?” Am I able to leave? I feel paralyzed.

I admit my life hasn’t been easy but neither has it been  for  those like me who see isolation and  hibernation  as a way to defend  ourselves from all the feelings of loneliness and personal worthlessness that keep me imprisoned.

I can see it coming. I know the red flags, the signal warnings, telling me about the road that may lie ahead. For those of us who want to  reenter the world of the “living” and walk out into the light, leaving behind the darkness of our very comfortable cocoon, we feel defeated before we take the first step. We think “defeat.”  The battle of thoughts challenge each other in the narrow confines of our mind telling us “I want to stay where I am” or ” I have to move or I will die.”

Maybe we have been at this place many times  before when we just  wanted to leave everything and everybody behind  and shout “leave me alone!”

We have a choice. We can choose life or to just merely exist in  the cave of one’s  own despairing thoughts. So, if you are a bear–stay where you are, please. But if you are not a bear, but a human being, please move your body, make a plan for the days ahead, do something pleasurable everyday. Place it (a pleasurable activity) on a calendar and make sure that you do what you choose to do. Put the plan on the calendar the day before,  and never say, “I’ll do it when I feel better.” That day never comes. You and I know that.

Do it now. Keep it simple. Just do it!!!

If you have a Depressed Anonymous meeting in your community, find out where it is located, the time it happens and then make sure you show up.

And finally, put  a lock on your cave door and never go back!

Hugh