“If I were asked what in my opinion was the most important factor in being successful in this program besides following the Twelve Steps, I would say Honesty. And the most important person to be honest with is yourself.” Big Book of AA as quoted in our DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKBOOK, 12th STEP (p.86)
Remember this saying and repeat it often during your day today.
TO THINE OWN SELF FIRST BE TRUE!
That’s right, I am ready for a life turn-around.. I am not a victim. The First step of Depressed Anonymous says “We admitted that we were powerless over depression and that our lives had become unmanageable. ” We know and believe how we are no longer victims. Instead, we are learning how to be survivors, and much more. We refuse to be victims.”
Now that I have admitted that I am powerless over my depression and that I don’t do myself any good blaming myself with those daily reminders of how bad and unacceptable I am. I now am conscious of a new path out of my misery.” BELIEVING IS SEEING: 15 WAYS TO LEAVE THE PRISON OF DEPRESSION. Smith, Hugh ( 2014) DAP, Louisville, Ky 40217 (p.54).
One of the best parts of being a member of Depressed Anonymous (Online or f2f group) is that we don’t have to be alone if we don’t want to be. That might sound strange to some of us but we have to admit that what keeps us depressed is our need to keep apart from others…to remain disconnected and isolated. We have a need to be by ourselves and to stay apart from human contact. For to be in contact with others means that we will have to take some risks and to make some choices. But when I am depressed and alone I don’t have to make many choices or take any action except to keep isolating myself and staying apart.” THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKBOOK. DAP. Louisville, KY 40217. (p.4)
Until I could put a label on the feelings of pain, shame and need to be isolated from others — all I could do was to think how hollow and empty I continued to feel. And, the feelings grew stronger day by day…” I had to make a decision. I had to do something. I believe that this is where many of us begin our journey out of depression. We know we have to do something. We will not just lie down and die. We will not be a victim.
As it states in our Big Book, DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS, (3rd edition ) 2011. (p31).
” But don’t get me wrong – I do not believe that you can snap out of your depression or suddenly and dramatically get your life turned around by going to one Depressed Anonymous meeting or reading the Twelve Steps five times an hour. We know it just doesn’t happen that way, especially if you have lived with your depression any length of time…”
So, here we are. Decision time. What to do and where to go to find help. For myself and others, I have found it in a program of recovery that works (HOME STUDY PROGRAM AND/OR DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS MEETINGS)). It works for me. It has provided me with a “tool box ” of ways where I gradually can loosen up the tight and deadly grip of depression on my life and begin to live with the belief that I am going to get better and feel differently. ARE YOU READY?
A QUESTION
How would you describe the way you usually relate to other people —controlling them or being dependent on them, or varying between the two? Or some other way? THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKBOOK (P.17)
So many times we want people to like us and by this we let others control how we feel. We lose our selves the more our self and our behavior and the way we look at ourselves is dictated by whether they approve of us or don’t approve of us.
I WILL CLIMB EVERY HILL AND CROSS EVERY VALLEY SO THAT I MAY GET BETTER AND SHARE THE STORY OF MY RECOVERY WITH NEW MEMBERS AT MY NEXT REGULAR MEETING.
AFFIRMATION
“Admitting our helplessness, we can abandon our desperate attempts to control everybody and everything, and simply ‘go with the flow,’ taking life as it comes. Many people, emerging from depression or from a major trauma, do this when they decide to take ‘one day at a time.'”
REFLECTION
This is the hard part, trying to stay out of the past and avoid living in the future. It’s wise to be as aware as I can of what is going on inside of me and around me. One man who is a regular at our group meeting said that the trouble with those who were depressed, including himself, was that he always felt sorry for himself. He was overwhelmed that his self-pity would never help him feel better. He’s right. It won’t!
I need to study the steps, especially Step Eleven in which it states that I should make conscious contact with God as I understand God, praying only to do His will for me. This is the letting go that will help me to relax and help me try and live one day at a time.
MEDITATION
Jesus said don’t worry about tomorrow because there are enough worries to concern ourselves with today. He was right. Just keep praying that God, as we know Him, will give us all we need when we need it, and how we need it. It will all come when it is supposed to.
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SOURCE: Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications, Louisville, Ky 40217.
Go to Website store for information on literature dealing with depression and the Twelve Steps.
BELIEVING IS SEEING
AFFIRMATION
I will use a notebook or my Depressed Workbook Home Study program to chart my course, list how each day goes, so that I can repeat the feelings or thoughts that have allowed me to feel I am becoming responsible for my activities.
“”…there is one great advantage about seeing yourself as helpless and in the power of others. You don’t have to be responsible for yourself. Other people make all the decisions and when things turn out badly, you can blame other people. And things always turn out badly. You know this. That’s why you always expect the worse.” (3)
REFLECTION/ CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT
Truly, I know this is where the great serenity lies, being responsible for myself. If all I did was sit around and say poor me, and woe is me, I am not only making life tough on myself but I am making life miserable for those around me. This is why I, as a writer and therapist, and one who has been depressed, knows that it is only when I get moving, even though I felt like death that I began to get better. No one will make me feel better. (See: I’ll do it when I feel better) I will now make myself feel better. Make up your mind to do what needs to be done…TODAY! I want to enjoy this world. I am tired of the pain of feeling worthless. I don’t want to blame anyone for my problems because no one is making me live in the problem. I will live in the solution from now on. The solution for me is working the Twelve Step program.
Blame helps me to never have to look inside myself and ask myself how much of my present state of depression is due to the way I have learned to think about myself and my life? I am not in the blame game and so I am now willing to face the enemy and start the changing process.
MEDITATION
Faith can move mountains. (See: Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression) Ask and you shall receive. Knock and the door shall be opened for you. I believe this. What do you believe?
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SOURCE: Higher thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for Twelve step fellowship groups.
” In order to make a good inventory I need to go to my roots and discover how I came to be the person that I am today. As the saying goes, “We are our parents.”
When we were small we “swallowed” our parents, meaning “swallowed” their main personality characteristics. Even today parents, grandparents, a stepparent, or guardian are all now part of our personality — for good or for ill. For myself to escape from my depression I need to discover how I might have received certain messages about myself from these adults who surrounded me as a helpless infant and child. All of us have received messages as children — some helpful and others not so helpful. Some messages directed toward us might have made us feel worthless because we got the message that we could never do anything to please others. ”
See FAMILY OF ORIGIN in THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKBOOK (P.29) Please visit the store at DA website for more information.
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It has been said that the make-up of one’s personality is a mix of the personal, the biological and the environmental. As for our parents, so much of who we are can be traced back to early childhood beliefs about ourselves. When we t reflect on early childhood experiences are there any messages about ourselves that come to mind presently. These messages could be helpful to our development or not so helpful. Write down in your Workbook some of these reflections.
ALL OR NOTHING
“During acute depression, avoid trying to set your whole life in order all at once. If you take on assignments so heavy that you are sure to fail in them at the moment, then you are allowing yourself to be tricked by your unconscious. Thus you will continue to make sure of your failure, and when it comes you will have another alibi for still more retreat into depression.
“in short, the ‘:all or nothing’ attitude is a most destructive one. It is best to begin with whatever the irreducible minimums of activity are. Then work for an enlargement of these –day by day. Don’t be disconcerted by setbacks – just start over.” Bill W., As Bill Sees it. (p.308)
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I know about this “all or nothing ” experience. It was really made manifest in my daily study of the Twelve Steps and writing down my thoughts in my journal. Now I use the HOME STUDY PROGRAM, which lets me go at my own speed and examine my own life in relationship to the Steps as spelled out in the Depressed Anonymous Manual and with questions asked in the Depressed Anonymous Workbook. Together, these really have helped me focus on one piece of the puzzle at a time. When I first entered the Twelve Step fellowship I wanted to devour everything there was to know about addictions in one big gulp. Gradually I learned that if I took my time, read the literature and continued to use Workbook and Manual one day at a time, that my life began to have that promised serenity and a hope that continues to this day.
“I find the insights of Bill W., to be at the cutting edge of whether or not a person depressed gets better or just simply gets., that is, gets more isolated and disconnected from life. Many hurting folks come to Depressed Anonymous with the mistaken belief that they are coming to a class; while there, someone will teach them about how to quickly get out of their depression. They want a quick fix and then get right back to living the way they used to – never realizing that they have to do some work on themselves if they indeed want to stay free of depression…” DEPRESSED ONCE – NOT TWICE.
One of the main paths that leads out of the prison of depression is for those of us who are depressed is to begin to believe that a power greater than themselves is what is going to set us free. Bill W., a cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous reminds us of the reality of that power greater than ourselves.
“I had always believed in a power greater than myself. I had often pondered these things. I was not an atheist. Few people really are, for that means that blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated as a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere. My intellectual heroes, the chemists, the astronomers, even the evolutionists, suggested vast laws and forces at work..Despite contrary indications, I had little doubt that a mighty purpose and rhythm underlie all. How could there be so much of precise and immutable law, and no intelligence? I simply had to believe in a Spirit of the Universe, who neither knew time nor limitation. But that was as far as I had gone. ” Bill W., AA. p10)
Like any person addicted to a chemical substance, a relationship or a behavior, we know that our will power doesn’t get us free. Our disabling attachments are more forceful than the power of our wills. Our will is essentially like an alcoholic’s first drink or that first dip of ice cream. (I have an attachment to ice cream!)
All of what I have written down so far (Depressed Once-Not Twice) has to do with creating meaning. Humans have as their occupation to constantly create meaning for their lives. Whatever we do has to have meaning for their lives. Whatever we do has to have meaning. I saw that my Dad was gone, my girlfriend was gone, a ministry of 20 years was gone, friends of many years were now gone, and my role as a Christian minister were gone, and most important of all, I had felt that I had lost myself. I lost touch with my real self. I felt alone and worthless. I even had the thought that if someone were seen laughing or having a good time –this made me angry. How dare anyone could smile while I felt so miserable, This feeling made me think that my brain felt as if it were made out of cotton. I couldn’t shove another thought into my head –not even with a jackhammer. It was as if the cells of my brain were filled to the brim.
There was nothing that I could do to shake these horrible and painful feelings. My mind like wise was unable to focus or concentrate on anything. My memory was affected and it was impossible to retain a passage from whatever I happened to be reading. I no longer could keep my mind on anything and to read even a paragraph from a book wore me out.
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For myself, I have found a way out of my pain. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, it’s not complicated. I found a program that is neither hit nor miss. It is what you choose to make it. It is a steady ascent, if you will, into a life of sanity.The program of recovery lets you start at A and go all the way to Z. It persistently confronts you with yourself, your own pain and a way to relieve yourself of that pain–one day at a time. One step at a time. No need to rush. No need to hurry. We are now operating in God’s time. The Twelve Steps of recovery, based on Spiritual principles, is a map that can lead you out of the wilderness of doubt, anxiety and fear. I know. Been there. Done that. And, almost immediately following the admission that I need help in the 1st Step, we read in the 2nd Step of Depressed Anonymous, that we “came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” As it say in the AA Big Book, God either is, or He isn’t. What was our choice to be?” This Power is the God of your understanding. That isn’t complicated is it?
In the latest publication of Depressed Anonymous we read in Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression which states in the 5th Statement of Belief that we want to “Remember that an oak tree was once an acorn –recovery begins by taking one step at a time and accepting responsibility for moving from depression into peace and serenity.”
For a personal home study program to compliment your group work you can use the Depressed Anonymous Workbook and the Depressed Anonymous Manual. You’ll be glad that you did!
When I was in the midst of my depression fog and looking for a way out, I thought–“hey, what in the world is the matter with me anyway.” Since I had never felt this way in my life before it was impossible for me to make a diagnosis. I wasn’t able to attach even a label to my situation.
All I knew was that I had better get moving–out of bed for starters. Now that wasn’t complicated. Just a simple fact that I had to roll out of bed and get moving. I did just that. I continued to do just that–day after day- just kept rolling out of bed. Anyway, after weeks of this I began to feel a tad better. Briefly. Then the fog came closing in on me–much like the Red sea swallowing up Pharaoh’s soldiers.
Because I had already set up a Depressed Anonymous group in our community –I just hopped( I might say a reluctant hop) over to a meeting and starting applying the spiritual Principles of the Twelve Steps to my depression. I knew that worked. Joining was not a complicated deal either. Like the song “Walk right in and sit right down” tells us–that is all I had to do. (You might want to read about my own journey in DEPRESSED ONCE-NOT TWICE –an autobiography of sorts.)
We now have a Home Study Program which you can use the Depressed Anonymous Manual (Big Book) and the coordinated Depressed Anonymous Workbook to help you make your way through the fog–step by step. And, that’s not complicated either. What makes depression a complicated affair is to do nothing. Then it gets complicated.