DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Isolation

WE FEEL A CHANGE OCCURRING

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“Our continual saddening ourselves pushes away from any form of pleasant interaction with others and continually builds the  wall higher for our depression.  This is the purpose of our continually making conscious contact with the God of our understanding.  I do believe, and I speak from my own experience that the Higher Power respects our surrender and our letting it take charge of our lives.  It is amazing how in our recovery, our feelings start to thaw out.  We feel some emotions, and the healing begins.  For us who are depressing ourselves, we can learn that the best  way to break free from this chronic sadness is just to admit that we are responsible for our sadness and then pray to God that we want to be serene and happy. We just pray to be free, and gradually with small steps and subtle changes taking place inside ourselves, we feel a change occurring.

Every so often, we come in contact with a person, place or circumstance that causes us some uncomfortableness and we start to withdraw into the comfort of our depression. It is here that we have dumped our trust of the Higher Power and choose the comfort of our sadness instead.

After falling back into our old comfortable habit of depressing ourselves, we then realize we have gotten ourselves right back where we started –depressed and feeing isolated. We realize  that all we have  is today. As Alcoholics Anonymous points out:  “The poorest person has no less and the wealthiest ha no more  –each of us has but one day.  What we do with it is our own business, and how we use it is up to us individually. ”

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Source: Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd Edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. (1998, 2008, 2011)Louisville KY.  Page 96/Step Eleven of the Twelve Steps.

Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Prayer

MOTIVATION FOLLOWS ACTION! MOVE THE BODY AND THE MIND WILL FOLLOW.

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Yes, motivation follows action. I have discovered that by pressing on with an activity even while feeling sad and hopeless pays off in big dividends. I am speaking in terms of my own personal experience. When it became impossible to move my body out of bed in the morning I forced myself to get up –drive to a place where I could walk –and started walking.  I truly felt like a Forrest Gump(see movie) as I have continued this “moving the body” program these past 30 years or so. I gradually ended up with a lightness of spirit and I started to deal with the guilt, shame and other stuff that I continually ruminated  about. This ruminating, in a short time completely immobilized me physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Sue shares her personal story in Depressed Anonymous (pages 144-145) telling us that “Action does precede motivation” and I began working at a local zoo.  It is a beautiful place (and safe from muggers too). I began  talking with people and learned about classes there to become a docent (volunteer teacher). I enrolled and graduated. This gave me a new purpose in life. I get great joy from working there doing outreaches to schools, nursing homes and hospitals. I have made friends with both animals and humans. There isn’t a day that I go to talk that I don’t get thanks by someone, a visitor, or employee (or sometimes an animal)

My family hasn’t changed (although my Mother commented on the change in my face), but I have.  In this, the Serenity Prayer really helps. I know that I can’t change them, but I have new friends and a real support system so that doesn’t matter so much to me now.

Whoever you are, you who are reading this: Believe! The first Three Steps are the most important. Walking or other exercise is important.  Staying with it is also important. Going to meetings and participating is important, but above all else, faith is important. Faith will truly move mountains.”

–by SUE

Acceptance, Belief, Fellowship, Focus, Honesty, Negativity, The 12 Steps

Keeping Our Dark Thoughts Out Into The Open

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” Most of us need the fellowship of the group to keep ourselves honest and in recovery and our dark thoughts out in the open.”

I believe that keeping our dark thoughts in the open  is a must for those of us who are depressed. How often when I was feeling sad and without motivation to just go to my bed and sleep.  I couldn’t continue with  the dark thoughts that kept cycling around in my head. They each would take me right back to  where they started. I always ended up back at hopelessness and despair.

This being open, willing and honest with others  in the group is the beginning of a new adventure. The fellowship provides us with that opportunity to get out in the open those very same dark thoughts that forced us down and into the pit. Were they thoughts of guilt, shame or despair? Where they the hopeless thoughts of killing ourselves? Whatever the dark thoughts, I know from my own experiences in recovery that by bringing them (dark thoughts) into the light — the shame that they once made us feel begins to be diminished. When I tell members of our group that I once tried to kill myself, no one falls out of their chair. No one looks down on me–because, just possibly, there are other members of the group who have had the same experiences as have I.

By coming week after week to the group and feeling that those gathered in the group are in the same boat or have the same experiences, does make it easier for me to  trust them with my story–no matter how dark and shameful.   And as it says in our Depressed Anonymous (3rd edition)  big book, “Remarkable things happen to us when we are willing to admit defeat and talk about our powerlessness over our depression and how our lives had become unmanageable. This first step is the beginning of the flight of steps that takes us up and into our new way of living. At our fellowship of Depressed Anonymous, we talk hope, we act hopeful, and we think hope..” Pages 106-107. Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications, Louisville.

Choice, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Victim Thinking

A VICTIM IN MY OWN MIND

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-A personal story of a Depressed Anonymous member

“Depression was something that I grew up with.  I really had no idea that I had it until my senior year in college. It started with my parents divorce  and ended with me totally losing control over everything in  my life. I couldn’t decide what career I wanted, but hated every job I could think of. I couldn’t decide what city or state to live in, so I kept moving, hoping that the next place I lived in would make me happy. Eventually, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to die or live.   I cried at the drop of a hat, but still found enough rage inside to push the people I loved as far away from me as possible.

I knew that I needed help. I have been to counselors on three other times in my life, but nothing seemed to work or last.  This time, I have been in counseling about two months. I was sick and tired of being like this. I wanted a life and I wanted to be happy.  Every week, someone would notice a change in me, but I still felt the same. Then one day while watching TV (thinking thoughts at 100 mph), it occurred to me that I was making myself miserable.

I had always known  that I was hard on myself. I reamed my self every time something bad happened. “Why can’t I find someone to love me? “Why isn’t God looking out after me?” But for some reason, when I realized that I was doing this to myself, it made me realize that maybe all I would have to so is stop doing it! All of a sudden it made sense.

If I tell myself negative thoughts, I feel negative. If I tell myself nothing, I feel nothing.  So if I tell myself positive thoughts, eventually I have to feel positive.

Of course. I ‘m still testing it out, but I feel better and for the first time in 14 years, I have hope.  So I remind myself of something positive every day. and that’s what I’m going to do until I don’t have to remind myself anymore because I’ll know.

I’m slowly finding out that my life is not as horrible as I’ve made it out to be. I used to tell myself that since it happened before, it will happen again–and that simply is not true.  Yes, my past was horrible and it’s no wonder I ended up with depression. I want out of it and the only person to get me out is me. There is no magic wand to transport you to the life you want. Everyone knows what they wish their life could be  — so do it!  Make the changes you have to make, trust in God and always remember that good things come to those who wait. I’ve waited over half my life. I don’t have to be a victim of my past or of my mind anymore. I’m more than ready for the good things!  With love and hope. ”

SOURCE : (Copyright) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd Edition.(2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville  Pages 120-121/Personal Stories # 9.

Belief, Depressed Anonymous, Focus

PAYING IT FORWARD

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The motion picture (1999) , PAYING IT FORWARD is about the recipient  of a good deed who pays it forward to some other than the original benefactor. Our very own program of recovery, Depressed Anonymous makes  the same commitment to those who are depressed. I have found it to be a truth that the more I offer others what I have experienced in my own recovery the more I strengthen my serenity and peace.

When I shared with a local Depressed Anonymous group how my own recovery from depression has been a gift from my Higher Power — members of the fellowship just about fell off their seats. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? A gift? Well, yes, it certainly has turned out to be that way.  Ever since the first group was founded in 1985 I have been sharing with those others still suffering from depression.  I share that  by practicing the Steps in my own life I have found serenity and hope. I am no longer  alone. I have the tools to stay in recovery and to be  in contact with others just like myself  who are making or have made their way out of the prison of their own depression. It is by paying it forward to others which  has made it possible for me to keep focused on my own recovery and to practice what I preach.

Paradoxically it has been my own brokenness, anxiety and fear, which  led me to a power greater than myself.  I think that God, our Higher Power, inspires us to go and set free, the key, to help others know and believe that there is a way out of their depression. And when the depressed “get it” they too want to  begin to pay It forward to others who still suffer. So, pass it on. It is possibly one of the best gifts you can give to another!

The Twelfth Step of Depressed Anonymous states that: “Having had a spiritual experience as a result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to the depressed, and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.”

Source: Depressed Anonymous (2011) 3rd Edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Pages 104-109.

DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, The 12 Steps

Spoon Feeeding Is No Use To You. You Have To Feed Yourself

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Dorothy Rowe sums it up splendidly in her work, The Way out of your prison, where she states how we have to learn to take care of ourselves. It takes time and work. And  this applies to learning ways to work our selves out of the pit, the prison of depression. She  promotes the solution that joining a self-help group like Depressed Anonymous is a way to do this. This of course entails work and a persistence in keeping one’s hand to the plow and focused on our own recovery.

She states that   ” …joining a self-help group will be one of the most valuable things you can do. You will meet a group of people who knows what it is to be depressed. You don’t have to explain it to them, or apologize, or pretend that you are happy when you are not.  In a self-help group, you give and receive friendship, and in sharing the responsibility for the group, you build  up your confidence and self-respect.

….you can get help, provided you are prepared to go out and find it and to work with what you are offered.

 Spoon feeding is no use to you. You have to feed yourself.”

Comment:  To work on any aspect of one’s own life it does take work as Dr. Rowe suggests. In our own recovery program of Depressed Anonymous we are provided a “toolbox”  where we can step by step learn and use the various tools of the fellowship to overcome our isolation and pain.  All this can be accomplished in the context of the group as well as in the literature provided by the group. By our working the Twelve Step program of recovery, designed specifically for those of us depressed, we can and do leave the prison of our depression. One can read the many personal stories of those who have used the Steps and are free of the bondage of sadness in Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition.

Acceptance, Fellowship, Focus, The 12 Steps

I Am A Sailor Who Sees The Land

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CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

“I know that,whenever my sadness seems unending, I then just admit  that I am not helpless and that I can do something about it because I have the tools and I can learn the skills that I didn’t know were available to me before.  Now I am deciding to think, act and behave differently, much to my personal credit and a new found trust in the Higher Power.  I am a sailor who sees the land, knows the right direction and does the rowing to get where I want to get. The Twelve Steps are my compass. I also know that the group of people which we call Depressed Anonymous will help me assume a sense of no longer feeling out of control.”

Depressed Anonymous, 3rd Edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications.  Louisville  Page 35.

Acceptance, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Spirituality, Step 01, The 12 Steps

We Admitted That We Were Powerless Over Depression And That Our Lives Had Become Unmanageable

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To admit that there is a problem is the first step which can move us into recovery. The First Step of the Twelve Steps begins with the word WE. This is a WE program–a program about us as a group of hurting people. Since we have tried to tackle our problems alone and in the confines of our own mind we soon discovered that for most of us this was not enough. We still were saddled with a life destroying and  unmanageable situation. There must be a solution we thought. Yes, there is a solution. For many of us who have traveled this path of recovery, living out the spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps and being part of the fellowship of Depressed Anonymous we have found peace and a new way of living,

Belief, Choice, Depressed Anonymous, Focus, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Purpose, The 12 Steps

A Most Effective Strategy

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AFFIRMATION

I will be a better person today than the person I was yesterday.

“The first step to change is to see  it is as possible in our scheme of things. The next step is to accept and cope with the anger and frustration that change bring ..coping with anxiety involves accepting it into awareness and permitting its full expression.  This may not lead to a comfortable stare in the short run, but in the long turn it is a most effective strategy.(6)

  CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I believe that all growth is gradual and that each day I have only twenty-four hours in which to live out my life.  In these twenty four hours I can get a lot  accomplished in my efforts to surrender my need to be dependent upon my depression. My depression will no longer be an excuse that keeps me from starting my recovery program.

I know from personal experience that my life is very different from the way that it was before I turned my life over to my Higher Power. (Step 2 of Depressed Anonymous)  Now I can live with the belief that this power is going to walk with me. I can now be assured that life is going to get better for me. It is better already.  Since this program of Depressed Anonymous is spiritual, I know that my healing of my depression is accomplished by my desire to let God, as I understand him, direct my life. (Step 3 of Depressed Anonymous).

The program  of the Twelve Steps has no pat answers  and it will not allow you to be comfortable where you are–in fact it will cause you to want to move out of the prison of your depression and into the light of daily efforts to change.

MEDITATION

God, we are aware that this day and this day alone we are going to trust in you and we will commit  ourselves to you so  that we might commit ourselves to a positive change in our attitudes.

SOURCE: Copyright: HIGHER THOUGHTS FOR DOWN DAYS. Depressed Anonymous Publications  Louisville  Page 90. May 3rd.

Hope is just a few steps away!