Walking in another’s shoes

October 25, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Family members also feel guilty about the situation and feelings of their depressed loved one. They somehow feel they have played a part in the melancholia and so are to blame. That is exactly what we don’t want to produce in the family member, more guilt and shame.

Walking a mile in another’s shoes is good advice today. Unless a family member has ever been depressed – then it won’t do to wish that their loved one would just think more happy thoughts or just pray more or just get out and get busy. All these suggestions fit someone who might be sad or unhappy –but they don’t apply to a person who has a mood disorder –like the deep immobilizing mood of depression.

When I was depressed I became overwhelmed by all the situations and circumstances surrounding me til I became consumed by them. They became all ever conscious, these thoughts that I could no longer keep at bay –like a lion tamer wielding chair and whip –poised for action against an angry lion.

Many times the stigma of a family member who is experiencing is often enough for a family to avoid the subject. They pretend it isn’t there. In a way it is like the behavior of those people who live within an abusive relationship, or with a practicing alcoholic, or a verbally abusive spouse. There is an elephant sitting in the living room and everyone quietly walks around it. Nobody wants to talk about the problem that lies in the center of the family.

Gradually a vicious cycle of negative feelings and behaviors manifest in the family members. They feel isolated, resentful, angry or despairing, and this complicates the sense of isolation, guilt or hopelessness.

I believe that DEP-ANON will be or can be a great resource of strength for those members of the family who live with the depressed day after day. They too must begin to work on the 12 Steps, one after another so they can begin, in a supportive group context, facing the fact that that their feelings about their loved one have resulted in them feeling hopeless and helpless. This is the first step for all of us in recovery, to admit that we are powerless over the behavior of a loved one depressed. Once the 12 spiritual principles of Depressed Anonymous are interiorized in our hearts and minds, and actively operating in our own daily lives, we will see progress. Not only will we change but so will all members of the family. The DEP-ANON group provides the whole family an opportunity to experience a new found peace and wellness.

Copyright(c) DEP-ANON family group manual: A 12 Step support group for families and friends of the depressed. (1999) Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky.

Purpose

My course is set for an uncharterd sea. – Dante

October 24, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

For any of us who have a friend or a family member suffering from depression, Dante’s words ring true, as we set sail in an unchartered sea attempting to set them free from their misery and pain.

In Speaking of Sadness, Chapter six,the author, David A. Karp, a sociologist, speaks about Family and Friends of the depressed and how they establish sympathy boundaries in their interactions with them.

The opening paragraph in this chapter quotes a therapist, named Mark, who shares his thoughts on how overwhelming it actually is to deal with someone’s depression — especially that of a friend or relative.

“The thing about depression is that it is overwhelming and anyone who takes it on is going to lose. As a family member and /or friend –anyone who is close –is too overwhelming. And the only way to deal with someone else’s depression is to maintain your own life and to understand that person and emphasize and be there as you can be. But to recognize that fundamentally it’s their experience and you’re not going to shift it. All you can do as a friend is to allow it to happen and to be there again and again and again. ”

When all is said and done it is my own experience that tells me that when I gave them some tools to work with their own experiences, that this was a non-threatening, not in your face attempt to force a change of behavior. Some thoughts that people tell the depressed are “just snap out of it” or “say a prayer” and everything will be better and you will be happy. But the more we tried to force our solutions on them, the more they retreated into their isolation.

INTRODUCTION TO DEP-ANON, A SUPPORT GROUP FOR FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF THE DEPRESSED.

Scores of books have been written on the subject of depression. If you are like most of us, we have all run after and read the latest work on depression. We are looking for clues to see just what is wrong with our loved one and what it is that they face and struggle with. We want to learn how to help.

The DEP-ANON program is very much like AL-ANON where family members and friends gather to help each other learn how to detach and cope with opioid addictions and alcoholism. In the same way, DEP-ANON is an effort of family and friends learning how to live with and cope with their depressed loved ones.

At a planning meeting for DEP-ANON family members were asked to list all the feelings they experienced living with a depressed loved one. These discussions brought out some surprising facts.

When family members were asked to prioritize, describe and list which feelings they experienced most often and most intensly, the following are those which they documented:

Feeling overwhelmed and burdened by a family member’s depression.
Feelings of helplessness
Anxiety about the situation and not knowing what to do about the feelings they were experiencing.
Feeling emotionally drained.
Feeling inadequate faced with a loved one’s immobility and lack of motivation to get out of bed.
Feeling anger and frustrated at the depressed.
Feeling inadequate.

These are just some of the feelings which family members listed indicating they felt as helpless and hopeless as the people whom they were trying to help.

Now that we learn that the depressed and family members and friends suffer from the same problems of the depressed–isolated, alone and helpless. But the thing that we have going for us is the same thing that the depressed have going for them. We have choices. We can begin to be proactive in our own healing and recovery. We have a program of recovery using the Twelve Steps. We now know, as a family member that we are not alone, in a small boat, being tossed about in a turbulent sea.

Together, not to complain or blame but to face our common problems and pain and live in the solution of a program based on spiritual principles, just like the depressed who can get help with their group Depressed Anonymous. One of the more important things for a family member is knowing that their loved one cannot simply think themselves out of their sad moods and isolation.

In both the DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS and DEP-ANON groups there is a place where experiences, strength and hope can be shard with each other. It is in these two recovery groups, one for the depressed and one for the depressed family member, where both can come and talk freely about their path out of helplessness and the feelings of being overwhelmed. In both groups, with time and work they can discover how to use the tools to live through the trauma of depression and the ongoing acceptance and understanding provided by family and friends of the depressed.

It is a fact that the more supportive a family member is of their depressed member the sooner that family member will recover. This recovery is strengthened by looking at our own lives, dealing with the ongoing frustrations and letting go of our need to fix the other. And like AL-ANON it is in the letting go of the other and their depression but taking care of our own lives. We soon learn that we have no control over other’s feelings and emotions. We learn that all we can do is be there, again, again and again. At the same time, like the depressed, get involved with the recovery tools of Depressed Anonymous, go to meetings, pray and join with others like oneself. We want to find solutions and keep the focus on these solutions – not the problem of others.

The Promises

The feelings of uselessness and self-pity disappear

October 22, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

One of the major areas that changes quickly by our attendance at the group meetings of Depressed Anonymous is that we pity ourselves less and less. We begin to be grateful for all that we have and all that we are. We begin to see that once we atart getting connected to others like ourselves on a regular basis, through our Depressed Anonymous meetings, we now are listened to by others on a regular basis. and we are validated. We don’t hear “snap out of it” here.

Suddenly, our years of self-pity, isolation and desolation have been cashed in for a currency that buys us a new competency, a new identity, an autonomy and a burgeoning interrelatedness with others.

We now speak about our experiences with depression in the past tense. We now can share how we have the tools of self care (See Tools for recovery at Homepage Menu ) whereby we can dig out and begin to construct an edifice of hope that will last the rest of our lives. As long as we continue to use the tools of the program we are bound to feel different.

We know that feeling sorry for ourselves promotes a greater attention to and for the problem, while attention to how our experiences can help others promotes not only our own well being but that of others.

As we learn how the program works -and this only happens primarily by attending meetings. The solutions and ideas help us all to become more active in the pursuit of our own serenity as promised by the fellowship.

When we were depressing ourselves we felt not only useless, but unacceptable to ourselves and to others. It seems that the harder we pushed to fight against depression the sadder we became. When we begin to feel differently we also began to believe differently. We learn how to become more hopeful and helpful.

Why do I continue the work of bringing hope to those still suffering? What motivates me to continue to try and help others? What has made the change in my life where now I want to share what I know and how I feel? Basically, I know that the program of recovery works. I no longer feel powerless over my depression, that I can do nothing about my depression. I have seen that the major solution for my symptoms of depression is in the doing and in the feeling and the expressing of my feelings with others in the group. In DA, people speak my language. We see how useless it is to waste time looking back over our shoulders to see if the dark shadow of my own inner fears is going to overtake me again. I now have attained small amounts of hope and strength as I go from day to day. I am prepared for those moments of despair that can overtake me and cause me to feel paralyzed and out of control.

In the first Step “we admitted that we were powerless over depression and that our lives had become unmanageable.”

Self-pity is that feeling where we continue to go over and over again all the hurts that have put us where we are today!

We waste hours and days in our self-wallowing. With the program of recovery at our fingertips we can now see a way out of our depression.

We are never alone and with the Promises of Depressed Anonymous, we now see that all things are possible for us today and everyday of our lives. You will not only regain a sense of finding yourself useful but Depressed Anonymous will show you how your own battle with depression can give hope to those still suffering.

(c) The Promises of Depressed Anonymous: Planting a Seedbed of Hope. (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. Promise # 6 of 12 Promises.

Purpose

I am not about to give up on myself

October 21, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

“Until we have actually been depressed, we do not realize that there is a great difference between being depressed and being unhappy. When we are unhappy, no matter what horrific things have happened to us, we still feel in contact with the rest of the world. When other people offer comfort and love we can feel it’s warmth and support us. When we are depressed we feel cut off from the rest of the world.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I admit to taking full responsibility for my detachment from my world and also from my very self. It seems that by numbing my grief over those matters lost in my past life, this has caused myself to be depressed. By burying what needed to be faced and mourned, I am making a stand to face the depression that I have created over the years. I am going to care for myself and make the effort to hope that this twenty-four hour period I call today, is one of rebirth and movement toward others.

Many times I wish I was merely unhappy rather than depressed. I can handle being unhappy, depression is a different story. I am not about to give up on myself as I step out of depression and begin to take responsibility for my recovery today. Because I have ‘made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand him’ my life is already starting to show the signs of a positive nature.”

MEDITATION

The God of our understanding is truly alive in our lives and we feel that we are still in the early days of our studies, as we attend the school of the Spirit of God, as we search God’s will for our lives. God has given me hope that my depressed days are going to be less and less. God has given us hope.

Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for down days:365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. (October 21).

Higher Power

A Power greater than myself

October 17, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

ANXIETY

(Aware)I find comfort in my anxiety in that I am too afraid to do anything in my own behalf. I am conscious that my anxiety about yesterday with its pain, hurt and repressed anger consumes my life today, while the anxiety and “what ifs” of tomorrow with its’ anxiety and fears about what might happen, continue to overwhelm me. I am also conscious that my beginning to loosen my “death grip” of living in my own will and now letting God move in my life that my anxiety may possibly lessen.

(Motivating) I am reading the Steps everyday and beginning to see that there is hope for me if I can live in the present and jump out of yesterday and stay out of tomorrow. The more I learn how my fears, anxieties are keeping me holed up in my enlarged ego the less possible is it for me to let the Higher Power direct my course. I am developing my faith and learning to let go today.

(Doing) I have already admitted I’m depressed and that my life is out of control because of it. Secondly, I came to believe that there is a power greater than myself that is going to restore me to sanity. I have followed Step Three as suggested and have turned my life and my will over to the care of God as I understand him. I have also learned not to run from my fear but stay and feel it. What I resist persists and gets stronger.

Maintaining. My depression and its anxiety lessens the more that I speak at DA meetings and share with members of the group what my fears are. My progress is one day at a time. I am going to make a daily inventory and continually ask God to remove all my shortcoming.

The Depressed Anonymous Workbook(2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Page 43/Step Four.

Uncategorized

Me: I don’t like the way that I talk to myself. Recovery person: Then change it!

October 16, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves . (Step Four). When I speak of the 4th Step of Depressed Anonymous this means that we are now ready to make a moral and fearless inventory of our lives. It also means that we are ready for action and choose to change the way we live out our daily life. Fearless means brave and courageous.

By now, most of us are aware that because of our depression our lives are unmanageable and out of control. They are out of control to such an extent that we may have even thought about ending our lives.

We have admitted that there is a power out there that is greater than ourselves. We are willing to turn our minds and our wills over to the care of God as we understand God.

If we just take a little time and look at the way we talk to ourselves we may discover the reason for our depression. So often we turn and run when the old feelings of sadness appear in front of us. What we want to try and do now is to look the beast in the face and deal with it. Accept it. Don’t run from it.

Just let’s say that you always took path A home from work everyday. You passed the same old signs, the same old building, the same old malls -you feel you could almost drive home with your eyes closed. This is of course boring and also deadening to our thinking processes as we do everything out of habit. The saying is true that we are creatures of habit. But let’s say that there is a detour along our old familiar path – we become disoriented – we become confused -we say to ourselves -where am I? Now where do I go? Good questions.

Since we may presently be depressed and in that dark deep pit of depression we may decide that we don’t have anything to gain by reading on at this point in our discussion. But I know and you know that you want out of the darkness. Many depressions lift by themselves but many don’t. Because of the way we were brought up as children many of the negative ways we think about ourselves have been with us since childhood. Old ideas about ourselves die hard and so do old impressions from the early days of our lives.

Our personal attachment to feeling isolated, alone and worthless is like a road from which can’t exist. Our attachment to our sadness is a comfort in a strange sort of way – almost like a person who is addicted or attached to a chemical, behavior, way of thinking or even to a person.

But as we have figured out, even though my path home is very predictable it is still a path that is making my ability to keep a focus on my hopeful outcome almost impossible.

Working the 4th Step is like coming home a different route. It is a path that is filled with signposts that point us in a different direction from where we are used to going. And for many of us this is the first time that we are really intent upon taking a hard look at who we are. This taking inventory of ourselves has much to do with our loving ourselves and making ourselves open to a new path and feeling different.

To actually get started on working a good Fourth Step we need first of all to sit down, get a pencil or pen and begin to ask ourselves some questions. As soon as the answers come we then write these down and begin our inventory. It’s always best to look at ourselves through the black and white characters that translate our thoughts and feelings down on paper. Remember the inventory is about strengths as well a our character defects. Character defects are ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that keep us isolated and in pain.

NOTE: The inventory is not to make us feel bad but to help us understand what is keeping us in the pit of sadness.

For more information on how to discover insights of our depression and how we got to where we are today, namely depressed, THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKBOOK will be your tool for coming home a new way.

To order this Workbook click onto VISIT THE STORE at homepage menu depressedanon.com and this will take you to The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore. All Depressed Anonymous literature can be ordered online.

Anxiety, Fear

Discover how our anxiety creates a “first fear” and “second fear”

October 15, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Depression usually carries with it a large dose of anxiousness. I don’t know how anxiety affects others, I do know this, it’s usually a large part of one’s depression experience.

My strategy was to run away from it and not face or accept it for what it is: that is moving my body, walking away and changing the mental channels in my mind. While this is going on in my head I would let the “first fear” overcome me with the “second fear.” What happens at this point is best illustrated with a personal example.

A few years back, I was in the dentist’s chair needing some teeth to have fillings. The Doc gave me a few shots of novacane, lowered the lights and left the room indicating he would return in a few minutes.

As the novacane began to take its numbing effect I noticed that I couldn’t feel my tongue. That is when the “first fear” reared its ugly head. I immediately started thinking I could swallow my tongue and choke to death. The more I imagined that horrible scenario and continuing “listening into ” my own thinking the “second fear” smashed into my mind, like a bull in the proverbial china shop.

Immediately, my mind began to speed up with more disastrous thoughts, my palms becoming sweaty, my heart rate accelerating. I panicked and was ready to yell for the Doc to rescue me before I actually did swallow my tongue, which I could no longer feel.

In the midst of this chaos and anxiety, I suddenly remembered what a Dr. Claire Weekes, taught us to do at this most anxious time. (Hope and Help for your nerves.) She wrote that what was happening to me is what happens to all of us, when the “first fear” is “listened into” and the avalanche of the spiraling downward fearful thinking paralyzes us. We run away from the anxiety and put mental energy into fighting the fear. She tells us to “float” past the disturbing thoughts, refuse to listen into fear causing even more fear, the “second fear.”

At this point in the midst of my panic I started to talking to myself and telling myself that what was happening was uncomfortable, but NOT life threatening. I kept repeating this mantra with its calming words till slowly my heart rate began to slow, my palms no longer were sweating and by continuing to repeat the words, “it’s uncomfortable, but not life threatening.” my whole body returned to a calm and relaxed state. I had almost scared myself to death.

The Doc comes back, turns the lights up and asks me cheerfully “how are things going?” Sheepishly, I answered clumsily with my thick tongue “just fine.” If he only knew.

After putting into play the steps of faceing, accepting, floating and letting time pass, you will with practice find a helpful way to regain your composure. For me, repeating my own mantra, and turning on my own accepting and not fighting my physical symptoms of panic, I was able to calm myself with a reassurance that all would be well.

Dr. Claire Weekes, MD. Hope and Help for your Nerves: End Anxiety Now. 1969. Berkley. Imprint of Penguin Random House. NY.NY.

For more information about depression and anxiety please read the following:

Focus

If you want to get somewhere, you have to know how to get there

October 15, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

That seemed to be my problem years back when I knew I needed to get somewhere, do something about how awful I felt, and move on with my life. There was a problem. I didn’t know where that “somewhere” was.

How many times have I heard people tell me the same story of knowing they were needing to do something — but what? They knew people took pills, some went to psychiatrists, counselors and many went to see their spiritual guides. Some, in despair, drove their cars into bridge abutments.

I for one, was that lost nomad in the desert, feeling a need to get somewhere. I had not an inkling of how to get there. And in today’s world, this potentially life-threatening and painful experience is of tsunami proportions. Many persons don’t know that there is a ” way to get there.”

“Somebody, anybody, show me a way out!” All of us want out of this pain. We have found every path leading to a dead end. The sad spiral downward into dark and desperate moods doesn’t let up.

Yesterday I received an email from someone from the other side of the world. He was wanting to know how to reach an all-knowing guru at the top of the mountain who would teach him a way out. The main thing is that he knew he wanted to get somewhere. He read on the Internet that Depressed Anonymous, a group of people were actively discovering “how to get there.” They had a plan. Not that the group had actually arrived at the top of the mountain, a heightened Nirvana, but realized that there was hope here. It wasn’t a sure-fire plan that always worked for all seekers, but we knew that if you wanted to get there, it was available to anyone who wanted to work its power in their own life.

Our friend from the other side of the world had read on the Internet (www.depressedanon.com) how men and women, young and old, had ended up together on this journey, each one of the fellow travelers becoming like a road sign, with neon lights flashing out in great large letters, “we know how to get there. We’ll show you the way!”

Orders for this Book (used by members around the world) can be made online. You can get there from here or whereever. Visit the Store.

Uncategorized

Is depression contagious?

October 14, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

This week we are going to take the reader, you, back to some previous issues from our Depressed Anonymous blog.

This article, Is depression contagious, was first published on December 3rd, 2018. (You can scroll back through the Blogs and find it at this date.)

I am asked this same question many times and many times the questioner is surprised when I say that, yes, depression can be contagious. If you are asking the same question, discovering that you are feeling helpless as you try to pull a friend or family member out of the quicksand of depression without success. Nothing that you try works!

When all your best efforts and desire to be free from the dark valley of hopelessness fail, you gradually begin to pull away from the relationship. Now, feeling sucked into the whirlpool of the melancholia yourself , you begin to withdraw and head for the higher ground of safety.

So, please look at the article (12/3/18) and see if there is something there which may be of help to you on how to be present to someone depressed–without yourself getting depressed. There ARE ways to help.

Uncategorized

The paradox of our time…

October 3, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

The more we are able to communicate with each other, it seems the more isolated we have become from each other. The number of people depressed is of epidemic proportions. How can this be, we ask. There are many of us who are connected via the Internet, email, and online social media groups, with all the other sophisticated forms of communication.

This brings me to the point of this essay, that if the world needs anything, it needs a world where people can get connected, network, form real communities, where people know us and truly care about us. We all want a real live community of face to face community where we can share, we can cry and we can laugh and where we can actually touch one another. Even though these modern ways of communicating are tremendous helps in moving past our isolation and into the real world they cannot end there.

A prisoner once mentioned in group how he considered depression not as a chemical imbalance but more of a living balance

“Our willingness to hand over to other people and organizations the responsibility which is ours (just as the color of our eyes is ours) stems from our inchoate desire to sink into the mindless bliss of being totally cared for, totally supported, our original wanting and getting everything. We do not want to accept that just as our eyes are organized to see only part of the spectrum of light and no others, so our sense of time is ordered to perceive time only as progressing never as standing still or going backwards. No matter how great our longing, we cannot return to the womb of the Garden of Eden. ” Wanting Everything. Dorothy Rowe. (1994) Harper Collins, London.

One of the major dilemma’s most of us face when depressed is the immobilizing isolation that is ours while being intellectually aware that we need to move our bodies and get out of bed and face our world.

In Chapter Six of I’ll do it when I feel better, the author describes how the addictive nature of the depression experience keeps us spiraled down into that chasm of negativity and hopelessness. Basically we begin to think there is no way out.

“It’s our addictive thinking, our compulsive way of processing negative information, which means that we habitually store the negative and dump the positive influx of information and that gets us wanting to fall back into the old habit of staying isolated and avoiding others. We might fool ourselves and say that people have nothing to offer me so that I distance myself from everyone. Part of my nature when depressed is to avoid and distance myself from whatever I feel is threatening, like a child afraid of the dark.” (Believing is seeing. Hugh Smith. (2018) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Pg. 23.)

At one time in my life I was a part of this epidemic of depression. In order to counteract my isolation and continuing a free fall into hopelessness, I moved my body, got out of bed and started walking–day after day. My daily morning mantra was “I am going to beat this thing!” Was it a cake walk–no way! But if I was to survive from whatever had me by the throat I had no choice. That was yesterday – this is today. Today is all that I have and I intend to help others move their bodies, go to a meeting, learn about the spiritual principles of the 12 Steps and get busy putting them into practice in their everyday lives.

For more information about this program of recovery and the tools that are available for you, and your own recovery click onto our website www.depressedanon.com. You will find a wealth of information about depression and the choices that you will have to choose a life lived with hope and peace. That is a promise.

RESOURCES

Hope is just a few steps away!