DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKS
DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKS FOR PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IN GOD.
DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE UNSURE OF GOD.
DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKS FOR PEOPLE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE IN GOD.
DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS WORKS FOR PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY ARE GOD.
Hugh S., for the fellowship
Definition
Boundaries are things that put a limit on something else. They clearly define the minimum or maximum. Boundaries define what is inside and what is outside. They delineate what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Boundaries can be many things to many different people. In the context of recovery and self-growth, boundaries are put into place to control the poor behavior of people and to protect one from the other.
Boundaries can be healthy or unhealthy. They can be lovingly firm or manipulative and controlling. Healthy boundaries are lovingly firm and should protect you from the poor behavior of others.
Boundaries are not perfect, you may still get hurt, but hopefully the boundary has protected you from the gravest of harm.
Firm, but flexible
Boundaries should be firm yet flexible. You may have a firm boundary where people should not yell and curse in your presence, but it should be flexible enough to allow for a loud and profane interjection after your spouse hits their thumb with a hammer. It wouldn’t permit a non-stop cursing tirade after hammering the thumb, but an involuntary curse after the hit would be understandable.
Creating and maintaining flexible and healthy boundaries can be very difficult but it is well worth the effort. Below is an example of an unhealthy boundary as it is porous.
Two types of boundaries
Protective boundaries are limits that I put into place to protect myself from the poor behavior of others. Protective boundaries can be put in place to prevent persistent yelling, or sarcasm, or any other poor behavior. Protective boundaries typically take the form:
When you do (specific-behavior), I will remind you of my boundary. If you continue to (specific-behavior) I will respond by doing (consequence-behavior).
For example:
When you raise your voice in anger to me I will calmly remind you of my boundary. If you continue to raise your voice in anger to me I will calmly leave the house and go for a walk or drive for between 15 minutes and an hour.
Protective boundaries are not easy but they are necessary.
Containment boundaries are limits that I put into place to protect others from my poor behavior. You mean that I am not perfect? Containment boundaries typically take the form:
When you do (specific-behavior) I (feel-emotion/think-thought) and I will do (limiting-behavior).
For example:
When you talk on and on I think ‘will he ever shut up’, and I will not interrupt you but rather I will recite the serenity prayer in my head.
Containment boundaries are also not easy, but they are just as necessary.
I would strongly suggest that for every protective boundary you have in place that you also create the corresponding containment boundary. For instance, if you do not want others to raise their voice in anger to you, then your containment boundary would be that you cannot raise your voice in anger to others.
Five categories of boundaries
Physical Boundaries
Some examples include:
Emotional Boundaries
Some examples include:
Mental Boundaries
Some examples include:
Social Boundaries
Some examples include:
Spiritual Boundaries
Some examples include:
Boundaries – Parenting your inner child
Many people think of setting boundaries as controlling another person’s behavior. On the surface I would agree with that assessment. However, boundaries have a much deeper context.
Lying within all of us is our own wounded inner child. Face it, we are all broken in one way or another. Boundaries are really about parenting that inner wounded child.
Confronting someone who has violated your boundary sounds like a good thing to do. I would say that this is not always true. In the real world if your child was being bullied by another child you may want to swoop in there and punish the bully. The thing is that even bullies have parents. Confrontation is not always the best solution. Perhaps the best solution is to remove your child from the situation. The same holds true as we set boundaries as an adult. Our mature outer adult is defining what is and is not acceptable behavior and having an action plan that “if you do X” then “I will do Y”.
If you continue to speak to me in a loud and sarcastic way then I’m going to excuse myself and take myself (and my wounded inner child) out of harms way.
Confronting bad behavior can backfire. I would posit that perhaps you are trying to teach the inner wounded child of the bully what is and is not acceptable behavior. The thing is the perpetrator’s inner wounded child could be running the show for their outer adult, and that outer adult may have real power that may be able to harm you (physically, emotionally, financially, etc.).
Be a loving parent to your own inner wounded child. Keep them safe. Create an environment that is beneficial for their growth and healing.
Setting clear and mature boundaries will not only parent your own inner wounded child, but it will model good behavior and perhaps influence the inner wounded children of the people in your life. You can’t control other people, but you can influence them. Be the shining light of reason and serenity. Be loving but firm and protect your inner child’s environment.
My family immigrated from Kharkiv, Ukraine to the USA in 1992 as refugees. When I came to the United States, it seemed like I came from another planet. Everything was different: language, mentality, and environment. It seemed like I lost my identity and I did not belong anywhere. In New York, I went to college. However, I became severely depressed during my second semester and was hospitalized for depression. When I got better, I returned to college and obtained my BA in Liberal Arts and MS in Education. I wanted to become an elementary school teacher but became interested in school psychology and became a school psychologist for New York City, Department of Education. The job was so stressful that i was hospitalized for depression and finally quit the job and went on disability.
One day I saw a yoga studio near where I lived. I didn’t know anything about yoga. I absolutely loved yoga after the first session. Yoga helped me tremendously with my depression. I did yoga in the hospital for myself and the other patients and the nurses. Then I promised to myself and to God (even though I am agnostic) that I will be teaching free yoga to anyone who wants to learn.
I always searched for a cure for my depression and felt the need of a support group in addition to my psychotherapy and medications, so I was happy when I found DA online. My first DA meeting was on September 22, 2020. It’s my first Twelve Step program and I decided to give it a chance. I thought “I don’t have anything to lose except my misery.” I was very skeptical at the beginning, because nothing seemed to help my depression. I couldn’t share anything during my first DA meeting and didn’t have my camera on. I didn’t purchase DA literature for about a month because I didn’t have money and wasn’t sure if DA would help me after everything I had been through. To my surprise, after being in DA for two years, I felt I became less depressed. I didn’t get hospitalized during this time, I made friends by attending daily DA meetings, I was reading DA literature, working the 12 Steps, got a sponsor and joined two co-sponsorship groups. I found my purpose in life by sharing my story and offering yoga to DA members twice a week. I still feel anxious and depressed sometimes but I know that I can use the tools of DA, reach out to my sponsor and DA friends, and count on their support. I can see a tremendous difference in myself. In a sense, I “love my depression” now because through it I found the DA community and feel like I finally belong. I am so grateful to be a DA member and I hope my hard work in DA and my Higher Power (power of DA group, yoga and universal love) will bring me peace and serenity, and I will be able to say one day that I am completely recovered from depression.
Irene S., NYC, October 2023
Depression is a process addiction, just as alcoholism is a substance addiction.
A process addiction is when a person is addicted to a particular behavior. When we speak about one addiction, like the process addiction of depression, we can include them all. We are learning that the Twelve Step program of recovery can be used to overcome negative thinking and compulsive/addictive behavior for the person who sincerely wants to get emotionally, physically and spiritually healthy.
Our Depressed Anonymous fellowship is based on a hope that no matter how bad we feel, no matter how isolated we are, or how painful we feel, we do recover.
We discover that all our negative thinking, feeling and behaviors will no longer keep us captive, isolated and in the prison of our depression. We gradually begin to change the way we think and feel, learning how to motivate ourselves, using the Spiritual principles of the Twelve Steps, and begin to get active in our own recovery. Motivation follows action!
The main positive effect of making the Steps an integral part of our daily Lives is that people can come together and find the support of their Depressed Anonymous fellowship. They in turn will find the emotional nurturing acceptance of their group and learn the social skills that can help them gradually enter life again; with hope and a heightened spirit. Once people realize that they are not alone and that they hope that they too will feel better. The beauty of a self-help group is that a person feels acceptance from the group. No one is there to tell them to “snap out of it” or that depression is all in your mind.
Finally, we see our closed system of depression, with its negative addictive thinking, feelings of despair, coupled with those behaviors which keep us afraid and anxious, gradually are being dismantled. We discover that we have choices. We don’t have to stay isolated. Our positive thinking begins to show us a way out of a system that has had us bullied into submission. Our minds are now processing hope and possibilities for a new life of freedom.
Hugh S., for the fellowship
Depression is something that is so overwhelming. For myself it is like crawling from beneath the earth and facing the light, with fear
that no one would understand how I truly feel.
When in depression, isolation would follow, being my only friend, but actually it was my own worst enemy. I should have been opening up to someone, instead I shut myself off from the world.
Through therapy and a belief in myself and encouragement, facing the days didn’t seem so difficult.
Working on my Twelve Steps of Depressed Anonymous, and reading “Higher Thoughts for Down Days” gave me reassurance that we are not alone.
I now appreciate what I do have when I work through the program.
– Reatha, Canada
As we dig deeper into the benefits of the Inventory, we want to get started with asking ourselves some basic questions,
Who am I? What do I want ? Who is my God?
I recommend that you spend some time reflecting upon these questions as we continue our discussion of seeking more information on who we are as a person. This self-disclosure process can provide us with valuable insights as to those areas of our lives which have been responsible for the way we are today. This includes an examination of the way we think, feel and live out our daily lives.
In the early days of my own recovery, I began to put together a workbook where I used the three questions listed above and focused on each of the Twelve Steps. With each step, I listed a number of questions which I felt would help me discover the areas in my life which I had never really examined in any detail. An important issue here is that when I was depressed I didn’t have a clue as to what was happening to me. I felt like my mind and body were spiraling down a slippery slope.
My first reaction to this sudden fear was to create even more fear as my mind swirled around, attempting to stop whatever it was that suddenly and without warning, had me locked in a mental turmoil. As I was oblivious to the fact that I had unconsciously and gradually beat myself up over the previous months , creating guilt and shame, resulting that I became physically and emotionally immobilized. Eventually , I discovered that this was called depression.
Back to our inventory. Only with the help of the newly formed Depressed Anonymous group, a fellowship that was using the Twelve Steps for their recovery. It was when I admitted that I was powerless over my depression, that the real work had its beginning.
If you want to examine your own life, with a personal thumb print of your strengths and weakness, then today is a good day to get started.
As an exercise in recovery, write down your own responses to the three questions listed in the title of today’s blog . Take your time, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Again , we are taking time out to find out who we are…not who people said we were. It will not surprise you that what others said you were in your early life, favorable or not, stays with you into your teen years, adult life.
As we move along in our recovery, answering the questions in the workbook, gradually our examined life will provide you with information that you may never have thought about.
So, next time I meet with you at our blog, I hope you will have made a start in discovering something about yourself. The inventory is about making progress–not being perfect.
The Depressed Anonymous Workbook. (Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville , Ky.
If you have questions please let me know. My email address is: depanon@netpenny.net
“The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the unlived life is sure not worth living.”
As the publisher of books, the taking of inventory of my product , is critical for the success of my business. When I got started in my production of books I wasn’t sure of how many books I would need for immediate sale on the market. I decided x number of books would be needed for immediate sale and would purchase more from the printer as needed.
I knew that as an order came in for the purchase of our books, I could get them to the customer in one week. The turn-around was quick. As more books were sold, and my inventory became depleted, I had to rush to get more books printed (the turn-around from the printer was two weeks or more , and our shipping to the customer turned out to be three to four weeks). For us, that was unacceptable. We made sure from that experience, to always have an inventory available to meet the growing demands for our books.
In our recovery program, Depressed Anonymous, in the Fourth Step, we are asked to make an inventory. This inventory will help us meet the daily demands of our lives as we begin to examine those negative thoughts, feelings, with their crippling behaviors, which have kept us imprisoned in that loop of helplessness and hopelessness, spiraling us downward into the pit where we lost all hope,
In our ongoing posts on Step Four, we will continue to examine Step F our, which states that we have “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”
In the next days we will post reflections on our own inventory and how our examinations will lead us to a life filled with hope.
Please join with me as we travel this road together.
Hugh., for the fellowship
Recovery works – if you work it!
When I find myself drifting back into the pit (which is where I am at the moment) I need to go back to the beginning of recovery. Steps 1, 2, 3 and repeat. One, two, three like the waltz. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The first 3 steps can be summed up as follows:
A great many things, including my depression, are beyond my direct control. I don’t control the outcome – that is in God’s hands. I am responsible for the legwork. I need to do the work of recovery. I want to do the work of recovery. I don’t want to drift closer to the pit because if I don’t stop the backslide it will be that much harder to get out of it.
Practice the recovery waltz. Become so accustomed to it that it becomes a good habit. You are worthy of love and healing, but you must do the work of the steps to feel that love and healing. I wish you well.
Yours in recovery, Bill R
The topic of victim hood has come up several times in different meetings I’ve attended. There is some toxic self help out there that states that no one is a victim. I firmly do not believe that statement.
Do people inflict pain upon one another? Yes they do, sometimes that hurt is intentional, and sometimes it is not intentional. So I believe that victims exist in the world.
The problem for us as depressed people is not that we have been victimized – the problem is when we identify as being a victim. A better question to ask is:
Have I been victimized? (notice past tense here)
It’s when we make being a victim as our main identity that it becomes a problem.
I choose NOT to say “I suffer from depression” because then I identify with suffering from depression. I’m not denying that I’m often visited by the symptoms of depression. What I choose to do is instead focus on healing and recovery. “I am recovering from depression” is a much better and healthier statement for me. It points me in the direction of healing and hope.
Focus on hope and healing as that is the way out of depression.
Yours in recovery, Bill R