You know, that’s a great question for us who have been , or who are presently depressed. My own reflections about my own experience with depression wasn’t a question that I asked myself. Actually, that came later in my recovery. I really didn’t care who or what created it – all I knew was I had to get rid of it. In fact, the experience was much like Noah’s in the belly of the whale. I was just walking along one day minding my own business, and suddenly bam! physically feeling swallowed up by some invisible creature who was devouring me. And that was that. From that moment on, the feeling continued to overwhelm me for the next year and half.
Because I had no label to pin on this “whatever it was,” and I thought nothing important to talk to anyone about, but only that the feeling of helplessness had me locked down. Oh, I still went to work, trudged through Graduate studies and continued my relationship with others, never revealing my interior mysterious sense of isolation and despair.
My only distraction was to get up early every morning( biggest challenge of the day) and walk for miles, round and round, thankful I was still able to function.
Long story short, during this period, I gradually felt small lift’s in my spirit but they never lasted. So I continued walking until I managed to walk out of the fog. I was feeling hopeful again, able to face life with hope. Finally feeling fully freed from the hopelessness that had isolated me from my world, disconnecting me from everything, everybody, even myself. That was then.
Now reaching back into the past, looking at my life before ” whatever it was” that had me, I began discovering that I’d unconsciously constructed my own prison and confinement. My ruminating on fearful scenarios of losing my job, not able to handle negative life issues and constant frightful thinking plus the continuous feeling deep painful moods, all grinding my body, mind and spirit into the ground. The feeling, best described this is like someone scraping their fingernails on a blackboard all day without end. If you are old enough to remember this particular feeling, (or even a blackboard) then you know it was that painful knife-like feeling thrust through your stomach that echoed throughout your whole body. Well, that was the way I felt all the time, particularly in the morning each day. I wanted never to get up. Here is where motivation follows action . Move the body and the mind will follow.
When I speak of the pain that threw me to the ground and ended the familiar life that I knew, the members of the Depressed Anonymous group know exactly what I am talking about. Depression is physically painful. Usually when I tell someone I was depressed, they normally don’t understand, unless of course, they have been depressed themselves.
In my case, I unconsciously caused and created my depression, and allowed the symptoms to grind me down until I took steps to feel differently. The steps that I took was to attend the “miracle of the Depressed Anonymous group ” where I could share my own experiences, strength and hope, make the 12 Steps a daily part of my life, and to share this message of hope with all who feel the same way as I did.
Believing in a Higher Power greater than myself continues to keep me sane and living one day at a time. It works. It can work for you as well.
For more information contact us @
Depanon@netpenny.net and read what we are about @ depressedanon.com.
Resources:
Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publicatiuons. Louisville, KY 40241.
Home Study Program of Recovery (See DA literature here at The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore).