Purpose

Get out of “park” and put ‘er in first

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Hey, so good of you to come to our BLOG here at Depressed Anonymous website. We try and give encouragement to those of us “who are still suffering from depression.” And let me tell you, we are not alone. Again, we are not alone. We all have work to do. I have work to do – you have work to do. We are in this together.

Have you ever felt like, “what’s the use” or “I just can’t seem to get into gear.” Many days in my life, some more recent. I just feel like I want to stay in “park.” I can’t get in gear. My mind says “let’s get in gear.” My body says, “No, I feel comfortable right where I am at.” So there is the problem. How to put my body in first gear so as to get moving?

I think all of us have heard the saying about making it to a 12 Step meeting. It goes like this: There are two times I should go to my 12 Step meeting. One, when I want to go to a meeting and two, when I don’t want to go to a meeting. That sort of breaks It down in a language that I get. Simple. Basic. No gobblygook nonsense. That’s what I call getting in first gear. We get the car (body) moving. We don’t go to the remote or surf and expect anything that might do us any good. We put another quarter in the “parking meter.”

In the book “I’ll do it when I feel better,” I write about procrastination. I know about it. I lived it. If you want to know anything about procrastination, I’m you’re “go to guy.” Most days I get that little red flag that pops up in the meter. Expired. And when that happens you never have seen me move so fast. Out of park in record time.

This is one of my character defects. I am blatant at it. It might be a hidden anger problem–you know, I really don’t want to go to work today. So my body wants to slip back into “park.” So, where am I going with all this?

Let me tell you this. When I was depressed my life was definitely past “park” and I just gave up. What’s the use. Eventually, coming to my senses, I knew that I needed help. I ended up in a 12 Step group. This move was the best move I have ever made in my life. Really. The fellowship, but most importantly putting the spiritual principals of the 12 Steps got me moving toward health, sanity and a program of self-care that has been my moving force for most of my adult life. For that I am grateful to the God of my understanding or my Higher Power.

Are you depressed. If so, join us. We are online everyday with our fellowship. We are the Depressed Anonymous fellowship. Everyday, I hear and see good people doing good things for those others, like ourselves, now, who have found a “spark plug” if you will in the leadership of all those lives which have been changed. I mean CHANGE. Hear the good news. There is hope. I can hear good news everyday. Set your watch. Go to a SKYPE or ZOOM meeting and hear how others have got moving. They are on it and now they want to help others. If you are out there and wanting to feel differently and live with hope, check us out online.

Fire up that body of yours and your mind will follow right along. For info on our fellowship, please come to this website (www.depressedanon.com) and read and listen and be part of a world where hope starts and resides. Be part of the solution. ZOOM and SKYPE groups are looking forward to meeting you. Don’t wait. We are like you.

Hugh, a recovering procrastinator and member of the DA fellowship.

Fear

I Was A Natural Born Worrier

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Margie, a charter member of Depressed Anonymous shares her story

Her story appears as part of the Personal Stories to be found in Depressed Anonymous, page 131.

I really can’t remember for sure how I became involved in Depressed Anonymous. I believe a coworker told me about a professor at the University of Evansville who had students that were helping people in the psychology department field and wanted to know if I would be a volunteer to help start this new self help group. And it was free! What did I have to lose? I had seen doctors, took their prescribed drugs and still ended up on the same old merry-go-round of ups and downs and “hangovers” from the drugs. I joined a small group at first. We talked, set weekly goals, took short walks,visited with friends or enjoyed a cup of coffee together to relax. We had to do something for ourselves. I had to learn to be good to myself instead of nurturing everyone else. I found a good doctor who gave me a lot of good advice about “pampering” myself more. It hasn’t been easy. I’ve read self-help books, positive thinking books and worked hard on my way of thinking for years. I’m a natural born worrier, so things always seemed worse than they really were. So after four marriages, I finally sat back and took a good look at myself. Why was I making these bad choices and keeping my head messed up? After staying single eight years and working on myself daily, I am now remarried and happy. I have two daughters and two grandsons who are my pride and joy. I work with the elderly at a nursing home and manage to keep busy and happy.

After dropping out for several years, I’m now involved with Depressed Anonymous again. I feel like I have something to offer the group. Hope is the word. I finally got above the edge of the rut that I could hardly peer over for years. I know others can do it too. Don’t give up. It’s a lot of hard work, but it can be done. I know. I was there.

– Margie

Source

Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition – © (2011) Depressed Anonymous publications. Louisville. KY

Box 465, Pewee Valley, KY 40056

Hope, Purpose

Simple is as simple does. – Forrest Gump

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Affirmation

Even though I don’t feel better right now, I am going to make a mental decision to desire to feel better. I have a choice.

“We need to ask ourselves but one short question: Do I now believe or am I willing to believe that there is a power greater than myself.” As soon as a person can say that he or she does believe or is willing to believe, emphatically assure that person that he or she is on their way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that at this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective structure can be built.

Reflection

I have found that the program of the Steps is simple to understand. It is a spiritual program one that doesn’t force me to think of God in pre-established ways. I am truly free to allow the God of my understanding to clear from the path of my life the thoughts and various saddictive ways where I have learned how to depress myself.

I know that the world simple means without a fold. The word denotes a reality that you get what you see. Hopefully I can see that my program of recovery is a most simple one to follow and one to practice in all affairs of my life.

Meditation

We want this God of our understanding to be with us as we face our fears and try to keep my thoughts focused on the here and now, not the pain of yesterday or the fears about tomorrow. (Add your personal comments).

Sources

© Higher Thoughts For Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 Step fellowships. (1998) Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY 40241. June 7. Online purchases can be made at The Depressed Anonymous Bookstore, at www.depressedanon.com

Fellowship

Today I met some good people doing good things

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Updated 29 Dec 2020: The US based ZOOM meetings are no longer being held.

Today was another good day for me.  I was inspired.  I happened to find a group of people, like me, who were sharing feelings   about depression and how it is affecting their lives.. And if you are depressed, so many of us are, you might want to check into this discussion group–all centered on the Twelve Steps and recovery. We can’t do ourselves any good  by living our lives in isolation away from others. Our DNA makes us seek others. We are  social creatures.

A strange thing happens,  when we are depressed. We want to isolate. Our energy level is nil. Our hope is no longer an option. Everything looks bleak and hopeless. We gradually end up missing in action.  Our thinking, feelings, motivation, psychosocial life and behaviors each and everyone   becomes  a symptom  of our sadness. Together they become a syndrome.  Many symptoms  together form  a cyclical  interconnectedness, which being of a negative nature, can cause our whole being  to spiral  downward and  stay helpless.

This group today,  Depressed Anonymous were sharing positives as well as negatives about their individual lives. And by doing so, found  others like themselves who were  feeling animated and energized by sharing parts of their life story with others. It’s a freeing moment. This is what makes it work.  Members of this  fellowship found  themselves a home. It’s  secure and stable home base,  giving each of  us courage to   tell our stories, These good people are doing good things for themselves and the fellow members of this peer led group.

If you are wondering where to find this group, the same one that I attended today, sign in at https://join.skype.com at 12:30 pm CST and or 1:30 EST. A member of the fellowship will invite you in to be part of the group. This group meets everyday of the week. No fees or dues. All one needs is that desire to stop saddening themselves. Simple enough!

If you have questions you can contact us by email at depanon@netpenny.net. I hope that you will be a good person doing good things for those who are still suffering from depression. We need each other. We are no longer alone.

Hugh

Kindness

Learning To Be Nice

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Because you are unaware of being angry does not mean that you are not angry. It is the anger you are unaware of which can do the most damage to you and to your relationships with other people, since it does get exposed, but in inappropriate ways.

Freud once likened anger to the smoke in an old fashioned wood burning stove. The normal avenue for discharge of the smoke Is up the flue and out the chimney. If the normal avenue is blocked, the smoke will leak out the stove in an unintended way…around the door, through the grate, etc., choking everyone in the room. If all avenues of escape are blocked, the fire goes out and the stove ceases to function. Likewise, the normal human expression of anger is gross physical movement and /or loud vocalizations; watch a red-faced hungry infant sometime. We learn to “be nice”, which means (among other things) hiding “bad” feelings. By adult hood, even verbal expression is curtailed, since a civilized person is expected to be “civil.” Thus expression is stifled, and to protect ourselves form the unbearable burden of continually unexpressed “bad” feelings, we go to the next step and convince ourselves that we are not angry, even when we are. Such self-deception is seldom completely successful and the blocked anger “leaks out” in inappropriate ways.

Source

© The Depressed Anonymous Workbook – Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY. Page 33. Fourth Step 4:41.

Fellowship, Purpose

Spoon feeding is no use to you. You have to feed yourself. – D. Rowe

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AFFIRMATION

I  will build up my self-esteem and self-respect by learning a hobby or skill that will bring me pleasure. “Dorothy Rowe says that “Spoon feeding is no use to you. You have to feed yourself.”

REFLECTION

I believe that feeding oneself is really the idea that grabs hold of most people who have a genuine desire to stop  saddening themselves. It appears to me that once I make a commitment to myself to begin to learn how to feel better, I really do begin feeling much better. I imagine that even though my passive depressed behavior had some benefits – like not having to risk changing the  way I lived my life.   I believe that since there is a way out of my depression that I do want to move  into a different way of  living my life. I want to live with hope and I am going to do something about it to make it happen.

I feed myself junk thoughts when I think that there is no hope for me in my life. This is  the stuff that depression is made of. If I want  to get well  and out of the prison that I call depression, I need to begin feeding myself with such hopeful thoughts, that my sadness won’t last forever, whatever I believe and expect to happen, just the way I want it to happen.

MEDITATION

We are thankful that we can feed ourselves healthy thoughts and that we can change our diet by discovering what has been junk food in our past life, substituting healthy food (thoughts) for the present.  God will show us a way to live in a healthy and serene way. (Personal  comment).

SOURCE: (C)  Higher Thoughts for down days: 365  daily thoughts and meditations for  members of 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Kentucky.  Page 89. May 29.

Visit the Store  to order this book online.

Belief

Now I have to dig in and dismember those core beliefs…

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“Now that I have to dig in and dismember those core beliefs, that keep us repeating the same thinking, the same behavior   which  keeps  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 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 doors 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.”

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

Order online at  www.depressedanon.com.

The Promises

The opposite of depression is spontaneity and vitality

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The opposite of depression is spontaneity and vitality.

When we are  depressed we move about as in a fog. We are stuck. Since we desire everything to remain the same and predictable, we are unable to believe that life is or can be different. As we change old beliefs into new ones we believe that things can  change as things begin to change. We will begin to experience hope, light and joy.

Remember, by the time you have reached the Promises in in the  Big Book of AA, page four and page 109 in Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition, you have decided to do something about your life. You not only have been through an exhaustive self-examination of your life but you will also have shared these experiences with some other human being by working Step Five.  You have taken the time and the pain to write down all those areas of your life which   have kept you in the dark –  not only about yourself, but all that your life could be. ”

 

“All that your  life could be.” A promise is a promise. The reality of good things happening as   we  learn about the Steps,  practicing these spiritual principles in our lives. We can  take our story to a f2f meeting or gather with others like ourselves at the many   online Depressed Anonymous meetings, either with SKYPE or ZOOM.  You will find  support and encouragement at these group meetings.  It  will feel like home.

Hugh

Resources

(Copyright) Hugh Smith.  I’ll do it when I feel better. (2013) Depressed  Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky. Page 32.

(Copyright) Depressed Anonymous, (2011) 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky.

Books can be purchased online @ www.depressedanon.com. Visit the DA Bookstore).

Isolation

Fred Took The Plunge

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I remember Fred on his first visit to Depressed Anonymous. He said that he had been depressed all his life. The group listened to Fred, and of course for the most part Fred said he didn’t have the foggiest notion what all this talk of God had to do with his sadness and how it was supposed to help him. (Step 3) But it was the pain of Fred’s depression that brought him back time after time to the meetings, and he started not only to feel better but he began to look better. Then as he heard more about the Twelve Steps he saw that he could trust his Higher Power. And that maybe the depression that had been such a lifetime companion was not for him anymore. Fred took the plunge, came to believe that a power greater than himself could restore him to sanity – and it did just that. Fred said that he didn’t need this depression anymore, got busy making amends to family and friends and co-workers for being such a negative person, and began to take inventory where he needed to Spring clean his home.

It appears that Fred is like the many of those who come to attend their first Depressed Anonymous meeting. They come fearing that the risk that they are taking by attending a meeting, like everything they have tried, will not produce any positive results. They figure that no one could possibly love them for themselves.

I’ll Do It When I Feel Better, © (1988, 2013) 2nd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Pages 73-74

Hope is just a few steps away!