DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous Workbook, Helpful Thinking, Step 01

Who am I? What do I want? Who is my God?

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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

Hope

The unexamined life

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“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

Acceptance, Belief, Choice, Faith, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03

The Recovery Waltz

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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:

  1. I can’t.
  2. He can.
  3. Trust Him.

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.

  1. I admit that I am powerless over depression. When I am on autopilot my life becomes unmanageable.
  2. I believe that a Higher Power exists and they can restore me to sanity. I have to work on my feelings of being unworthy of being saved.
  3. I turn my life over to the care of my Higher Power. This is not one and done. I’m human and I will take my will back. That is only a problem if I don’t surrender once again. To surrender is to win.

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

Acceptance, Act As If, Choice, Courage, Focus, Hope, Purpose

Am I a victim?

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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

Belief, Choice, Hope, Meditation, Prayer, Step 02

Foundation For Life: Self-Examination, Prayer, Meditation

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“We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God,to give to us on order, and on our terms.

In praying, we ask simply that throughout the day, that God place in us the best understanding of His will that we be given for that day, and that we be given the grace which to carry it out.

There is a direct linkage among self-evaluation, meditation and prayer. Taken separately these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven they result in an unshakable foundation in life.”

(c) As Bill sees it, page 33. Hope, service, fellowship March 1, 2014.

Community building, Courage, Fellowship, Helpful, Purpose, Service, The 12 Steps

Service work is a recovery tool that has its own reward

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“THE MORE THAT YOU HAVE A NEED TO SERVE OTHERS, IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR NEED TO BE SERVED.”

The Depressed Anonymous LOGO has these three words written on it: HOPE, SERVICE, FELLOWSHIP. SERVICE IS OUR MIDDLE NAME.

If you are part of a Twelve Step fellowship group, you learn pretty fast about service work. Service is at the center of our recovery. It is the keystone. And, paradoxically, the more we serve others in the fellowship, the more we give to others, the more I am part of living a life filled with hope. When you attain this need to help others, making it your passion, you discover a growing purpose to serve, gradually unfolding in your life.

Let’s say that you came into our fellowship, feeling the hopelessness and helplessness of depression, having lost all hope. You found a fellowship of caring persons. The members do not tell you to “snap out of it.” The group is there because those before them, welcomed them, and let them know there is help. Each of us who are at the meetings today, are getting better, because others are there, willing to serve, in any capacity, using their strengths, hope and experiences,for the service of others. We are not alone. I am not a newcomer, but I am a member who knows, from personal experience, how service from others in the DA fellowship, changed my life. For them, I am grateful.

Hugh S., for the fellowship

12 Step Meeting, Forgiveness, Helpful, Isolation, Suffering, The 12 Steps

Humility is not a constant harping on our faults

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“Humility is not a constant harping on your faults and errors and general worthlessness. When you find yourself doing this (like being unable to say anything good about yourself or constantly apologizing or feeling quite unable to do anything even moderately well) remember what Archbishop Fenelon wrote to one of his parishioners,

It is mere self-love to be inconsolable at seeing one’s own imperfections, but to stand face to face with them, neither flattering nor tolerating them, seeking to correct oneself without becoming pettish – this is to desire what is good for its own sake and for God’s.

Humility, self-acceptance and forgiveness are all aspects of the one process where we come to see ourselves as we are and other people as they are. Since we no longer have the pride and arrogance to try to control ourselves and our world so as to make ourselves and our world into something which they are not, we can now be spontaneous. Since we no longer have to hide ourselves from other people, to put a barrier between ourselves and our world, and so feel ourselves to be alive. Since all desire leads to suffering, ceasing to desire perfection reduces our desires and so our suffering. We then know along with Lao Tsu Tau, that,

It is more important
To see the simplicity,
To realize one’s true nature,
And temper desire.

Learning to accept oneself and others, to be courageous, loving, humble and forgiving, and to face death with equanimity, is no small task. But this is what you must undertake if you are to find your way out of the prison of depression.”

Copyright(c) Dorothy Rowe. Depression: The way out of your prison. Second Edition. Routledge and Kegan Paul. New York, 1986. P.230.

For the fellowship,
Hugh S.

Belief, Choice, Helpful, Hope, Pain, Purpose, Step 03

How to find hope and let it blossom

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“Hope can only exist in a state of uncertainty.
That certainty means total certainty. That certainty means to be without hope.
The prison of depression is built with the bricks of total certainty.

Certainty. Security. No Hope.
To hope means to run the risk of disappointment.
Avoid disappointment. Stay depressed.
To be insecure means not to be in control.
Stay in control. Be depressed.
To be uncertain means to be unsure of the future.
Predict the future with certainty. Stay depressed.

Hope can exist only when there is uncertainty. Absolute certainty means complete hopelessness. If we want to live fully we must have freedom, love and hope. So life must be an uncertain business. This is what makes it worthwhile.”

Copyright(c) Dorothy Rowe. Depression: The way out of your prison. NY. Kegan Paul. 1996.

“Hope is to seek things and have the expectation that what we desire will come true. In the matter of depression, Dr. Rowe warns us that when we predict that we will always bw the way we are, is to predict a life of certainty, but one without hope. In the way that we construct our world we begin to live with some uncertainty and with this uncertainty we are going to little bit by little bit, accept some pain, hurt and disappointment in our life. This is not bad, but it is not always pleasant.

When we are depressed, it is not so important as to how we got depressed, but what is important, is how we see ourselves. Do we believe. like Dorothy Rowe, that we will always see ourselves as bad, worthless, unacceptable to ourselves and to others when we are depressed? If this is the way that we want to look at ourselves, then we are sure to believe that we will never change. We hold these beliefs about ourselves as immutable truths, and ever binding. This is the thing about depression – we believe that it will always be this way – namely, being possessed by this painful hollow feeling and deadly emptiness, which we carry around in our bodies, day after day, year after year.”

Copyright(c) Hugh Smith. How to hope and let it blossom. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Pages 1-2. 2004.

Fear, Indecision, People Pleasing

I learned how to feel helpless

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Learned helplessness.
Four themes.
By Nan Van Den Bergh, Ph.D.

  1. The theme, limit control or mastery over the environment, often begins with the child’s realization that he or she cannot control parental drinking, arguing. Illness or other major and repeated parental behaviors that are consistently detrimental to the child’s home life.
  2. The second theme of learned helplessness is passivity in the face of disturbing stimuli, while simultaneously worrying, being angry, frightened and thinking about them. At the same time the child feels powerless to do anything about the problem…
  3. Disturbed normal routines are the third theme of “learned helplessness.” Here the child has difficulty in knowing what is normal for what is expected will change depending on the cycle of the drinking or the abuse. This means it is difficult for the child to develop clear expectations and to have a sense of security at home, This fact of feeling secure translates over time to low self esteem and poor self concept.
  4. Avoidance of social support is the fourth theme of learned helplessness. The child becomes fearful of what he or she will find at home and gradually begins to disengage socially. The child begins to feel different and reach out to others less often, as he or she is not sure how to share with what is happening at home. Withdrawal also serves to protect the child from being seen by others as dysfunctional and helpless. And, you first learn by watching   our parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles model appropriate behavior within our family. If one of more family members are codependent, meaning they adopt a powerless stance, in times of stress, then this pattern is internalized. We may acquire some of this information through screen memories that are acquired so early that do not have words attached to them. Such memories include being in a crib, throwing food or playing. There may also  be sensations around us that we record as fear or pleasure. By learning to trust external cues only, the child learns dependency, as well as the belief that feeling good comes from sources external to the self. This explains why many children of alcoholics become dependent on others when in a relationship. It also explains why such children learn to eat, drink, take drugs, work, gamble or have sex compulsively.”

NOTE: Persons who claim that they have been depressed all their lives might want to reflect on the above material.

Hope is just a few steps away!