nowhere to turn for help. They may find themselves reading books on depression and other resources, but still feel lost as to what to do. This is where DEP-ANON can offer assistance. It is a fellowship of persons who come together to share their stories and offer support to one another in the process. Their issues may be different from those suffering from depression, but they are just as valid.”
The DEP-ANON FAMILY GROUP MANUAL
the same feelings as the depressed! If you checked off more than five of the items below, you might consider the DEP-ANON Family Group.
When family members were asked to prioritize, describe and list which feelings they experienced most often and most intensely, the following are those which they documented: 1) feeling overwhelmed and burdened by a family member’s depression. 2) feeling restricted around the depressed, feelings of something similar to the to the expression of walking on eggshells. 3) Feelings of helplessness. 4) Anxiety about the situation and not knowing what to do about the feelings they were experiencing. 5) Feeling emotionally drained. 6) Feeling inadequate, faced with a loved one’s immobility and lack of motivation. 7) Feeling anger and frustration at the depressed. 8) Being an enabler. 9) Feeling that one was living an unproductive life as one was stymied by the depressed unproductive depression. 10) Having feelings of irritability and impatience, 11) Feeling inadequate. 12) Unhappy. 13) Feeling betrayed in retirement by spouses late life depression. 14) Indecisive and lacking confidence in themselves.
Are you surprised to learn that the depressed experience the same emotions? You have more in common than you thought!
Quote from the DEP-NON FAMILY GROUP brochure.
AFFIRMATION
I made a decision to turn my life and my will over to the care of God as I understand my God.
“Inside the safety of depression you can refuse to confront all the situations that you find difficult. You can avoid seeing people, going to places and most of all making decisions.” Dorothy Rowe.
It strikes people as a strange thing to say when I tell them I found my depression a comfort. I found it to be a comfort because I didn’t have to make any decsions about anything or anybody. I would just medicate myself with those thoughts of how bad I was and continue to ruminate until I felt completely numb and immobilized. Thanks to the program and its emphasis on personal honesty, the more I get the courage to take charge of my life and change what I knew had to be changed.
Today, I am not going to allow myself to get into addicting to negative and unpleasant thoughts. I am going to risk being myself and step out of the prison of my depression into the fresh air of living with a certain amount of unpredictability and freshness.
Avoidance is a very big reality when you are depressed. I don’t want to see, talk to or have anything to do with anyone else when I am depressed. As I learned through the Twelve Step Program, I am going to have to force myself to get involved with other people if I want to have a chance of ever feeling better.
MEDITATION
“Because of you, O Lord, I wait; you O Lord my God will answer.” Psalm 18 38:16. The more we work our program, God is as near as we are to God. The more we open up our consciousness to the God of our understanding, the more God draws us to himself. We believe that as we wait on the Lord to speak to us, our God will speak to us in some fashion that we will recognize.
RESOURCES
(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of Twelve Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. September 24. Page 191.
(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky.
To order books online from our Bookstore please click onto The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore at depressedanon.com.
If any of our readers here have ever been in prison, the phrase “time on the shelf” refers to the days or years one has left in their sentence to complete before they are released. Good behavior while incarcerated is one of the ways the prisoner can reduce some of that time on the shelf.
A few years ago, a prison staff member and myself spent time setting up Depressed Anonymous meetings in a prison setting. To say the least, it was a sobering experience for myself. It was also a very rewarding experience as well. Rewarding in the sense that there were men wanting to talk about their experience with depression with other fellow prisoners. We had permission from prison Psychiatrist and the Warden. We were given permission to talk and visit with prisoners who wanted to come to the meetings.
Altogether we had three groups of Depressed Anonymous. The groups were facilitated by the staff member, myself and prisoners who already were part of the fellowship, and attended other 12 Step meetings in the prison. AA and NA were an important part of the daily life of any of those who chose to attend this or that fellowship. My point is that they already were working the Steps and attending recovery meetings. They never had been to a DA meeting, sharng their own experiences with depression, until now. Not many of the men had heard of the Depressed Anonymous fellowship till we brought it into their lives.
One of the three groups met in the mess hall. Another on a stair well. And one met in a conference room. Space was limited. With all of this the men came faithfully to the meetings. What impressed me the most was the honesty of those participating. What they were sharing was held in confidence by each group member. It was a sacred trust for the members to keep confidential anything and everything that was shared in the group.
For a DA member to share anything in the prison yard that was shared inside the group would defiitely not bode well for the person talking outside the group. Every man knew this rule had no exceptions.
One of the most discussed issues among the men was how sad they were and how their past was not only locking themselves in prison – it also locked some men out of seeing their children grow up without them. Many times their girlfriends would drop the man for someone else on the outside. Some were saddened by the fact that no one contacted them from home. No one from home came to visit them. This was the greatest pain.
Feelings of anger and despair continued to eat them up. It was here in the group that this emotion poured out of their hearts and souls like molten rivers of despair.
Women with small children, mothers of sons incarcerated, women with boyfriends and husbands managed to meet on any occasion that was permissible.
For myself, this whole prison experience was bitter sweet in that 1) the prison authorities allowed us in two times a week for our meetings, and secondly 2) the therapeutic salve of free sharing about hurts and loss of control, gave each man a sense that he was not alone. The actions that brought him to prison in the first place, gave him time to get some help with all the pain and loss of control over his life that was in his face on a daily basis. I could feel in each group an invisible bonding between each other who were gradually coming to “believe that a power greater than themselves could restore them to sanity.” (Step Two)
Some of the best expressions of freedom I found in a prison at Depressed Anonymous meetings. The freedom experienced by these men, by their group meetings happened in spite of steel bars, locked wards, locked cells and prison guards. Twice a week, for an hour and a half, these men talked of personal remorse, the darkness in their own lives and how the Steps and the spiritual principles continued to provide hope and way out of their own feelings of despair and hopelessness.
Because of what I experienced with prisoners personally over a three year period I know the change that resulted in my own life and the life of those incarcerated, the same positive results, can be replicated with any and all those incarcerated.
***Submitted by Hugh S, a member of Depressed Anonymous in Louisville, KY.
If you, the reader, have knowledge of any man or women incarcerated and facing time on the shelf, please let me know. We will send them a copy of the Depressed Anonymous Manual and Workbook.
Anytime I get a call for material it comes from the prisoners themselves. We will write to whomever you choose, and send our 12 Step literature. Free of charge.
Our email is depanon@netpenny.net or you can write to us as a comment at our website www.depressedanon.com. We want to hear from you.
Hugh
“One of the Steps that I decided to take to get out of my depression was to get myself involved in my Twelve Step spiritual program. It was hard at first to get involved with the program because I didn’t and wasn’t able to have immediate relief from my sadness. I wanted this program to work right now. I wanted someone to say, hang on and in a day or two it will start to work. Instead, I hear that the more meetings I attend, the more I listen and share at my meetings, the more my attitudes about God will start to change and I will understand how God is truly walking wih me out of this prison of sadness, one day at a time.”
RESOURCE
(C) Higher Thoughts for down days:365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Page 157. An excerpt from the meditation for September 23.
Yesterday’s blog spoke about the “lack of power” in one’s life. Most persons are looking for getting some power in their lives. Power to get out of bed. The power to feel better. The power to overcome the feeling of powerlessness. The power to break out of our prison of depression. The power to find a way to have some peace and happiness in my life.
In the beginning of the book, titled Depressed Anonymous, there are articles written by two different therapists who share their views on how the Twelve Steps have helped their counselees work their way out of depression. They are sharing how a program of recovery, with the spiritual principles of Depressed Anonymous, modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Steps, are the basis of recovery from depression for the counselee.
As a therapist myself I have found that the Depressed Anonymous Fellowship is a power that gradually can pivot the counselee from sadness to hope. The group provides individuals with new tools, giving power to their search for freedom and serenity. No longer do they feel alone and isolated. We know that a sure-fire way to remain in a state of depression lockdown is to isolate oneself from loved ones and life in general. By using the “Big Book” of Depressed Anonymous in the group and with a therapist we discover a powerful truth that provides the impetus for continuing on with our search for hope, recovery for our own mental wellness.
We begin to live in the present, believing that yesterday is gone forever and tomorrow hasn’t yet arrived. All we have is the now. No one can promise us a tomorrow – so let’s live for today–one day at a time.
Denise shares how her client , “spent his time alone and many countless hours thinking of all the disappointments in his life, which continually reinforced his depression. Then he started going to DA and found that through being with other people like himself, he didn’t feel as alone as he did before. He started sharing his pain, and found understanding and support. Then I noticed his face began to soften, and he started smiling more. He also found help spiritually from DA, for he started working the Twelve Steps, and as a result, he started trusting God more for his healing. He is one of the many persons I’ve worked with who have found help and encouragement through attending Depressed Anonymous.” Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Page 29/ Therapists views on Depressed Anonymous, pages 26-29.
Denise, as one of the therapists who has shared her views on Depressed Anonymous and who makes good use of the Depressed Anonymous group structure discovers how a group program can position a counselee into a fellowship with people who are having the same experiences. They no longer feel alone and isolated, knowing that they are being provided with a program recommended by their therapist that works. By working with the therapist and the DA fellowship in tandem with each other, they find everyone is on the same page. Not only does the powerful message that the counselee receives validate his/her recovery experience with depression, but it will tie in with the counselor’s treatment plan of recovery. It’s a win-win situation all the way!
If a therapist wants to give their clients another source of help, they might think about referring them to a mutual aid group such as Depressed Anonymous. And if the person reading this does have a therapist they would do well to advise their therapist how much more the therapy experience would be enriched for the counselee.
Not only do we see how depression is becoming a problem of epidemic proportions in all societies around the world, we believe that we have a positive approach to helping those who are still suffering from depression.
Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.KY.
The Depressed Anonymous Workbook, 2nd edition (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky.
All books can be ordered online.
“We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable. Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable? Can God take them all –every one? Do we still cling to something of which we will not let go. We ask God to help us to be willing. When ready we say something like this: “My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen!”
We know that our willpower alone can’t get us out of this prison of depression, but only a belief in a force or power greater than ourselves. So by working Step Six ( “We’re entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character), we continue to be in God’s will and let God help us discover and root out those defects of character that keep us prisoner.
‘So many people choose the predictableness of misery to the risky feeling of being unsure and scared over the new and faint feelings of lightness and cheer. As the depressed person gradually begins to knock down the wall of his/her denial that he/she is addicted to sadness whenever life gets stressful, this is in itself is the starting point in the recovery process…”
The Depressed Anonymous Workbook. Page 55.
Lack of power that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves.”
RESOURCES
(c)Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Page 65.
(c) The Depressed Anonymous Workbook. (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.
“it seemed that I was living in another world until one of my parents gave me a phone number of Depressed Anonymous. The Depressed Anonymous meetings plus reading the Depressed Anonymous manual have provided me with the tools to live without being depressed. Most important of all, the Twelve Steps mentioned in the book have made me understand that God (my Higher Power) will give me strength to deal with my depression and got me on with my life and be happy with myself.
The book with its Twelve Steps, has taught me that I am not alone. And that I am not the only one who is suffering from depression. It has taught me to believe more in my Higher Power and let it handle my depression.”
It absolutely feels that we are living in another world when depression takes over our lives. We believed the our immediate reality of this fog that takes over our mind is the only reality that we can ever know. It’s like driving with one’s car lights on low beam. What lies ahead is hidden. Our driving becomes cautious until we are forced to stop. We are hesitant to move further. Fear and anxiety grip our every thought. What danger can lie ahead? We believe there is no escape.
For me, this is my best analogy for my own depression. I too, like the author of the above sentiment (see Depressed Anonymous manual /Personal Stories) who felt completely alone and helpless.
But that is not the end of our stories. Our feeling alone, adrift and living in constant fear comes to an end. By learning about the fellowship of a mutual-aid group that we call Depressed Anonymous and becoming an active member I found new ways to live with hope.
“As these new tools have helped me and will continue to help all those many others who are looking for help out of their own fog. They have taught me not to dwell on my past, to live one day at a time, and to look forward to the future, but not live there. It will take me a long time to deal with depression, but I’m glad that these tools are available. Life can be good for a change. Please don’t give up.”
You are not alone. I am not alone. Those who have shared their own stories of recovery in the Depressed Anonymous manual, (quoted here) all have the same story; I was depressed and now I am not. If you would like to know more about these persons who have shared their stories of hope and serenity, please check out their stories of how they used the tools of recovery to live again with hope. They know that they do not have to feel alone again.
Besides the groups, there are those who may want to use the Home Study Recovery Program kit, comprised of the Depressed Anonymous Manual and The Depressed Anonymous Workbook.
These two books, written by those who were depressed and now have made these useful tools available for others like themselves. Recovery means that we can now gain critical self knowledge plus continuing to be motivated to devote personal time and study for our own recovery.
RESOURCES
(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.Ky.
(c) The Depressed Anonymous Workbook, 2nd edition (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky.
Sometimes persons tell us that they get sad for no reason at all. All of a sudden they just feel down and don’t know why. Many times after reflecting upon this sudden rush of sadness, they realize that it has come from somewhere and they might as well take responsibility for it and deal with it. One of the best ways to deal with a feeling, especially the unpleasant ones, is to stay with it, and see what it is trying to say to you. When we run from it we lose. Granted, this won’t be easy and you might not find the source of the sudden sadness at first glance, but in time you can feel it and deal with it and then discard it. The more you ruminate about how sad you are and then how bad you are for feeling so sad, the more you have begun the downward spiral into physically feeling weak and hopeless. This is the time to call a friend or member of the Depressed Anonymous group. Just say: “Hey, I’m feeling sad and here is the reason why I am feeling sad – what do you think?” More times than not, your sad feelings will melt away.
Low moods, if not faced promptly can sometimes spiral into deeper moods, filling us with a sadness that slowly paralyzes our thinking and immobilizes our motivation to perform the most simplest of activities. These low moods carve out a beachhead in our psyche and have their own destructive way with our thoughts and behavior.
In my own case, I would be thinking of nothing in particular when suddenly, like a wave washing over me, I would be drowning in the darkness of these feelings, unaware of their source or able to predict their duration. Seeking relief I would escape to taking to my bed and sleeping.
These feelings, as unpredictable as they are, come from somewhere. Just like the rain, the snow and wind, they all come from somewhere. In truth, there is no mystery here as there source is contained in feelings connected to an event in our recent life and more probably have their origin in an earlier period of our lives.
There is truth that our body remembers situations from the past that we have not consciously thought about in years. It’s much like the deja vu experiences we have while at a certain place or life situation and it feels like we have been there before. We might think that we have been there – done that
A client once shared with me how he always felt sad when the cold winter season rolled around and he would become begin to feel sad and alone. As he told his story of growing up he mentioned how every February his mother would hole up in her bedroom and tell them “I am sick. I am afraid I am going to die.” Resultant from this personal experience of his fear that his mother was dying, every February or around that same time, his body would connect him with the sadness and fear felt when he was a child alone with his own fears, and would repeat in his body the same fears he had felt then. It wasn’t about the cold of winter but it was about those sad feelings coming to life at this particular season of his life. The body might remember everything while the mind and feelings remain submerged and hidden. Like a plant which bloom year after year.
In The Depressed Anonymous Workbook we read how early childhood memories connected to our deepest feelings can resurface as we gain adulthood. Because of a painful and meaningful loss of a loved one that was never discussed or talked about as we grew up, the feelings continue to remain and fester, like a wound that doesn’t heal.
Is there someone who was close to you as a child who died but whom you did not grieve or shed a tear for because you were still too young to say that you missed their love and their presence. All of a sudden they were gone and you got on with your life, but your body remembered that this person was once a meaningful part of your life. This might take some investigative work on your part, but we would well to talk to family and friends and see if there were deaths around the time that you were growing up and which you are now unaware, but might have effected your parents or guardians perceptions of life and so affected you.
To discover more effective ways to handle and deal with our feelings, please consider these two books written and published by members of the Depressed Anonymous Fellowship. Click onto The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore for more details on ordering online.
These books can be a great source of help in dis-mantling our own depression and providing the tools to get our lives back on track. Please click onto www.depressedanon.com for more detailed information on ways to find the help you are seeking.
Sources:
Today, Mary, a member of the Depressed Anonymous fellowship shares some of her personal thoughts about her recovery. In one of the personal stories from Depressed Anonymous (2011) she shares
“Today I can experience hope. I will believe I can live this day with pleasant thoughts. I will do one activity that will give me hope and light for today.”
Mary continues to make her remarkable recovery by being part of a fellowship where all members have an opportunity for learning how to use the tools which will deliver them from the pain and isolation of their depression.
She continues to tell us that “today I will not dwell on the past and the losses that have occurred.”
Of the many areas of her life that she reflects on in her story, she shares that instead of thinking about the past and the harm that her losses have cost her personally, she now examines the possibilities which her new program of hope is providing for healing and a new way of looking at life and her role in it.
In the Depressed Anonymous fellowship Mary is learning to accept the fact that she doesn’t have to stay depressed. Now, today, her group is encouraging her to be part of a hopeful journey shared by all its members. One of its main messages is to live one day at a time; to live with the belief that as other members of the group tell their stories of how they escaped the trauma and pain of depression, so too can she. It is a fact that by following and incorporating the Twelve Spiritual principles of the Steps in her own life — this is what has brought her to the point of recovery for herself and many others.
Mary now has a plan that works. She wants to tell others about how she has been willing, open and honest about having that great need to believe in something so much bigger than herself or her depression. She has had a spiritual awakening, releasing in her a new peace and a new purpose, not only for her own recovery but for those many others like herself who are seeking a solution, focused on a new depression-free way to live.
She now believes that living out the 12 Steps of Depressed Anonymous in her own life is what has brought her to this place of freedom from fear and despair.
RESOURCE
For more information on Depressed Anonymous and the Twelve Steps please click onto depressedanon.com and learn more about the program that has given Mary life. You can also order online.
(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Personal Stories. Pgs.134-135.