Category Archives: Helpful Thinking

The Promises

The opposite of depression is spontaneity and vitality

Leave a comment

The opposite of depression is spontaneity and vitality.

When we are  depressed we move about as in a fog. We are stuck. Since we desire everything to remain the same and predictable, we are unable to believe that life is or can be different. As we change old beliefs into new ones we believe that things can  change as things begin to change. We will begin to experience hope, light and joy.

Remember, by the time you have reached the Promises in in the  Big Book of AA, page four and page 109 in Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition, you have decided to do something about your life. You not only have been through an exhaustive self-examination of your life but you will also have shared these experiences with some other human being by working Step Five.  You have taken the time and the pain to write down all those areas of your life which   have kept you in the dark –  not only about yourself, but all that your life could be. ”

 

“All that your  life could be.” A promise is a promise. The reality of good things happening as   we  learn about the Steps,  practicing these spiritual principles in our lives. We can  take our story to a f2f meeting or gather with others like ourselves at the many   online Depressed Anonymous meetings, either with SKYPE or ZOOM.  You will find  support and encouragement at these group meetings.  It  will feel like home.

Hugh

Resources

(Copyright) Hugh Smith.  I’ll do it when I feel better. (2013) Depressed  Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky. Page 32.

(Copyright) Depressed Anonymous, (2011) 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky.

Books can be purchased online @ www.depressedanon.com. Visit the DA Bookstore).

Fellowship, Journaling, Purpose, The 12 Steps

Recovery people delight in how they are becoming more assertive

Leave a comment

 

“Responsibility is the name of the game in recovery and it is here that we need to focus our attention. As we get into a discussion with other people who are depressed – much like ourselves – we see that they talk about feeling better while at the same time acting on their own behalf. These people who are doing better are also taking responsibility on their own behalf. Those   who are doing better are also talking about taking charge of their lives and doing things for  themselves   instead of constantly trying to please others.  In fact at DA meetings the  recovering people often delight at how assertive they are becoming now that they have gained a sense of recovery  over their lives. They are now committed to their own recovery.  People who want to change begin to swallow their pride and ask for help. They begin to   get in touch with their feelings and feel!  This is truth and this is getting in touch with one’s own best self.”

COPYRIGHT(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY 40241. (Page 91. Step Ten)

Acceptance, Mutual Aid

Am I a people pleaser?

Leave a comment

Am I a people pleaser? What would happen if we didn’t please them? Let’s take a look in our Depressed Anonymous Workbook and see what it suggests as an answer.

Has depression distorted us from the truth of life, namely, that life is to be lived with hope and serenity. Nursing along a good habit can in time wean us from old and debilitating habits of thought and behavior. We want to daily fill our day with the gratitude that we are indeed getting better and that the trust we have is indeed placed in the Higher Power.

In order for us to escape depression we need to begin to be aware of the process of how people change. That process for change is of the nature of a spiral instead of a straight line. In other words, now that we are willing to risk feeling differently we have been gearing up to improve our situation. In other words, we are making a very important decision right now about our lives.

Tomorrow we will see how changes are made, and a process that will make this happen. In time we will discover that making any decision in our lives , is doing something that we have never done before, like breaking our habit of trying to please people. There is always a risk. It feels very uncomfortable changing a behavior that we have always done before. But, there is a way to change. The support that you need is to be found here in the Depressed Anonymous online groups, the Home Study Program, and F2F meetings.

Choose support – not isolation, especially now when we all need someone to talk with, helping us get through these tough times. You will be happy that you did. Find help, love and acceptance. YOU ARE NEVER ALONE.

– Hugh

Resource

The Depressed Anonymous Workbook, © Depressed Anonymous Publications, Louisville KY. (Page 41. Fourth Step Question 4.51.)

You can download this Workbook for $1.00 at https://depressedanonymous.org. (Visit the Store). The Basic Text is also $1.00. Get moving forward in hope and serenity – and fellowship worldwide.

12 Step Meeting, Acceptance, Depressed Anonymous, Faith

Isolation and Covid-19 – We Offer Skype meetings – Check Our Past Posts On The Blog Here For More Info

Leave a comment

NOTICE: Whenever a blog post mentions an online meeting be sure to consult the page Online Depressed Anonymous Meetings for the most up to date and correct information. If the blog post is more than a few days old there is a chance it could be incorrect.

Updated 29 Dec 2020: The US based ZOOM meetings are no longer being held.

In our basic text, Depressed Anonymous, one of the words that show up most frequently are the words, Isolation, trust and surrender. It is not surprising that the word isolation is at the top of the list. Isolation is one of those behaviors that can keep us in depression, alone, and deepening a mood of feeling hopeless.

With the corona virus causing death, terror among all people of the earth, it has also forced us to quarantine ourselves from everyone else. Our isolation, in this case, can save our life and keep us from getting infected and suffer a painful death.

Let’s say I am depressed already and isolating because of my need to withdraw from, family and friends and suffer with my pain alone. What do I do now? Who and what can help me? I am feeling desperate. I used to go to the market, the park and at least get out of my apartment. I could feel part of the world and the life around me. At least I had the knowledge that I could go out and be with others, without having to talk or even say hello. Now I feel like I’m all alone on a deserted island.

If you are depressed and reading this now, you can find help online at the Depressed Anonymous website www.depressedanon.com. There are also daily meetings of the group International Online Depressed Anonymous which hosts the meeting via SKYPE meeting at 12:30 pm (EST).

We hope that you can take advantage of these peer led 12 step meetings. I recommend them to you. Please come and join our fellowship. We are people with hope.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

For the fellowship.

Belief, DA Literature, Fellowship, Meditation

Depression gradually dies in the light of day….

Leave a comment

The best way to live TODAY is to be fully conscious of the present moment and create that strong desire to be part of it. Let’s not live in yesterday -the rent can kill you.

How often do I spend time in tomorrow and so miss the joy of today? I think one of the more serious occupations (aren’t they all serious?) of the depressed is just to sit and think , and think some more about how bad life is and what awful people they are. The self-bashing makes one’s ability to change even more difficult, as  continued depressive ruminations promote a great sense of unworthiness and confusion. We feel that we have no control over what happens in our life. Actually, we are not so sure   that we should care.  Everything seems hopeless. Living in yesterday is to pay some high price rent – and when you are done paying the rent, you still have nothing to show for it.

I want to be responsible  though I feel it’s difficult to face the fact that one of the ways of getting out of my prison is to stay and feel the pain of my sadness. I have to live in the here and now – I can’t run and hide in the unknown of tomorrow or disappear into the gloomy fog of yesterday. We begin to get mentally healthy when we take it upon ourselves to admit 1) I have a problem, and 2) secondly, I need to change the way I think about myself and my world.  Again, no one need to blame us for that that we got ourselves depressed – but once we know and believe that we are depressed – we learn that we need to take full responsibility for our recovery.  And one of the best ways to break our dependency on our sadness is to share and admit our depression to members of our Depressed Anonymous group. We know how depression flourishes and grows in the privacy and solitude of our minds.

Depression gradually dies in the light of open sharing and frank discussion. We are only as weak as the secrets we keep and strong as the secrets we share.”

Copyright(c)  Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression. (2020) Hugh Smith.  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Pgs. 39-40.

Courage, Fellowship, Isolation, Kindness, Mutual Aid, Purpose

I’m having cabin fever during this pandemic self-isolation. How are you doing?

Leave a comment

Updated 29 Dec 2020: The US based ZOOM meetings are no longer being held.

Getting a daily rhythm during this time of self-isolation is getting to be a must for me. How about you? After a month of isolating myself this isolation getting old. And, it appears that it isn’t going to be over for a spell. We are all created as human beings to be close to others. We love the fellowship of groups. Ironically, this is what will kill us or make us very sick at the very least. Physical/social distancing is a must now.

I am getting my stride. Athletes talk about getting into their rhythm. I am much aware that I can’t fiddle my time away – getting myself depressed, or just staring out the window, watching TV , streaming on my computer or just sleeping through it.

So, I have developed a schedule. I make sure that I eat every day and at the same time. I use my 12 Step literature for prayer and reflection in the morning. I also do some writing on my online WordPress blog . Because I have gone through self-isolating when I was depressed – I definitely do not let it happen again. In my schedule I go to the park and exercise everyday and at the same time. I spend a part of the afternoon catching up with friends and members of the Depressed Anonymous fellowship. At these times I connect with member s of the large DA fellowship in Iran and other DA members outside US. (Everyone with whom I have contact are going through the same pandemic as we are.)

The Depressed Anonymous fellowship have an International daily DA SKYPE online meeting. I am able to contact and participate in this group in early afternoon. Then there is a new ZOOM online fellowship that has just been formed. You can find times and places at our Depressed Anonymous website. Or on Facebook. Please try and attend these meetings. Great resource for keeping in touch and helping to maintain our recovery – one day at a time. In the late afternoon I follow our Governor’s daily TV meeting(Kentucky) where he keeps us up to date on things that we have to do to keep each other safe and out of harms way. Then evening news and then other news sources. So by night time I am saturated with news – mostly sad news about how there is so much suffering and isolation among all of us who need each other so much.

I am especially grateful for our 12 step fellowship where we can see each other f2f and maintain our sanity and sobriety. Please check out our recent blogs at www.depressedanon.com or FB Depressed Anonymous. Today is the first day where we are offering our eBooks for $1.00 a piece. These are the 3rd edition of Depressed Anonymous and The Depressed Anonymous Workbook. Both of these eBooks can be downloaded on the computer or printed out on your printer. These are the books which we use at our Online group meetings. If you want these books today, they are yours for downloading. We felt that now is the time to make these books available to as many people as possible. We wanted to make them available on line free – but somehow that was not possible. So we went for $1 buck apiece. I do hope others take advantage of this opportunity – especially most of us who might be hard pressed to come up with any money now when food and shelter is our most critical need. Depressed Anonymous Publications is a very small business operation and all our work is done by volunteers – including me.

My suggestion is to do the same thing everyday, have a schedule for each day and now that the children are home, and with the kids out of school, they will always need some help with their eLearning classes.

Do some fun things for yourself – I personally liked the old Three stooges, Jim Carey’s movies and older comedies keep me laughing. It sure helps lift my mood.

Plan to call at least one older person who is alone. Maybe a neighbor who needs food. My wife and I are now trying to make some strategic decisions in our food purchases and TP. Trying to make do with what we have, sharing what we have with others.

Call your sponsor everyday or a fellow member of our 12 Step fellowship group.

Finally, get into your own rhythm – take it one day at a time-make a schedule and as a family get together and decide how we all can decide how we want to spend our day.

Thank you and may all of us remain safe and secure. This too shall pass. We are all in this together. We are going to get through it. We are going to get through it together.

Love and peace to you all.

Hugh, for the fellowship

Choice, Faith, Hope

A Pathway To Hope

Leave a comment

Ray, a member of DA, tells us how to talk about the various parts that make up one’s progress on the path to recovery.

“I think most depression sufferers go through a time of hopelessness. This feeling is very disabling for many of us. But with most problems or illnesses there is always hope. Hope that our problems will be solved or that we will get better. So if hope is part of the solution, how do we find our own path to hope? Before we take that path I think it is important to see how the path is formed.

The first item is choice. We make choices everyday for ourselves, some simple and some complex. These choices may affect us for the rest of our lives, that is, what do I want from my life? What are my goals in life? Our lives are formed and maybe our own meaning of what life is, is revealed to us. So our path is first formed with the choices that we make.

Next comes acceptance. Acceptance for who and what we are, accepting our own ideas, values, feelings and emotions but even more important is accepting the fact that we can change our ideas, values, feelings and emotions. Accepting the fact that these changes can and will be made by ourselves, as other people can’t do that for us. They can only add to or detract from those changes, By accepting our choices and taking responsibility for these choices for our journey on the path of hope has begun.

The third item is trust. Trust in ourselves to make the right choices. Trust, in ourselves to overcome any obstacle we face no matter how difficult it is. Also, trusting another person, especially when that person loves, cares or just believes in us. Trust is important, it tells us we are not alone and we can accept and trust in another to lead us down our chosen path as well as trusting in ourselves.

The last item is faith. Faith in ourselves that things wil be solved even when no answer or situation is in sight or seems impossible. Faith in others to help us when we need help and that they will be there for us. Faith in God or our Higher Power and through Him our anguish, our sorrow, our pain will be lifted. Faith in our path of hope.”

The path of hope for depression sufferers is not easy to build or to find sometimes. That’s why I think it is so important to take your medicine, if medications are prescribed, see your Doctor, counselor, 12 Step sponsor or therapist. Go to a Depressed Anonymous meetng as often as you are able. Remember – when all seems to be lost, there is always hope.

Resource

I’ll Do It When I Feel Better, Hugh Smith. © 2017 Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Pages 66-68.

Please go online and click onto DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS BOOKSTORE for more literature on the 12 Steps and depression. You’ll be happy that you did.

Choice, Fellowship, Higher Power, Mutual Aid

I can make it through the next 24 hours. We will show you how

2 Comments

AFFIRMATION

My best chance of surviving and living through this sadness that is worse than death is to hold on to the conviction that it will not last forever.

REFLECTION

I now can see how the Depressed Anonymous group program changes people from week to week. The longer a person attends DA meetings, online or face to face, I can see  a change in their physical features as they seem  not so brooding and preoccupied. The people who work the 12 Step Program of recovery begin  placing  their trust in their Higher Power which gives them the courage to resist falling back into that old  familiar and comfortable pattern of saddening themselves. Each new day brings with it a stronger sense of hope as living becomes less restrictive and harsh.

My sadness began so long ago that the interminable feelings of hopelessness and despair seems to me so much of being human that is, until others tell me that this sadness is not their own experience. Then I knew I was different but that with  time and help, I would be feeling better about myself as I discovered some of the ways I got the way I am. The more I hear the stories of  others recovering members of Depressed Anonymous  groups (See Depressed Anonymous book/Personal stories section)  , the more hope I have. I now believe  that  in time I will begin to feel better.

MEDITATION

Seeds with proper nourishment grow strong and healthy. Some plants grow well at night and in a cooler environment. Some in daylight. We pray that God will let us go through our present darkness   completely turning  our will and life over to its purpose.

RESOURCES:

(C) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville,. KY.

(C) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.KY

Fellowship, Journaling, Love

The 12 Step program of recovery is helping me learn how to love myself

Leave a comment

AFFIRMATION

I have hope that I can accept myself today and just let fly  by all the old messages from old tapes of childhood.

“You desperately wanted people to love you, but you became very wary of giving your love to others. You reasoned  that the less you loved another person, the less it would hurt when the inevitable rejection came.” Dorothy Rowe

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I have been so holed up in my own little world of feeling hurt and rejected that to attempt to love someone else seems the greatest challenge of my life. I desire so badly to be loved by someone else,  that this lack of another’s love makes my isolation from others so hurtful.

After witnessing the miracle of the group of Depressed Anonymous, where depressed people come with their feelings of being hurt and rejected, I find that other’s love and nurture challenges me to hope once again. I can share with the group the fact that I haven’t measured up, that I am angry and that I want to just lay down and die.

I am open now to let the light of love from others, who like myself, realize that I am not alone and that I am beginning to  affiliate and give of myself fro someone else’s good. In the program  of recovery I am starting to love myself.

MEDITATION

We are going to make a mental decision right now to let God, as we understand God, guide us and instruct us on how to love ourselves.

(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365  daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.KY.  Pg. 38. March 3rd.

Purpose, The 12 Steps

Our whole outlook and attitude upon life changes. A sense of purpose transforms us.

Leave a comment

To  really believe, possibly for the first time in one’s life that I can free myself from the  prison  of depression and begin to feel better. I know  I’m  needing  to be proactive in my efforts at self recovery. But what causes our outlook and attitude to emerge?

I have to begin to believe that hope and healing is possible. Once we have gone through some painful inner changes, such as dealing with our character defects and our isolating tendencies we see there is a way out. We have to have a positive attitude that will move and motivate us to want to go get to the next step.  Watching someone actually take these steps week after week and watch that feeling of wellness rise up in them and can promote a belief that with work and time, their lives do improve. Soon we see  that a sense of purpose begins to manifest itself the more time and work, into our personal recovery.

A door opens ever slightly, and there appears a potential route to freedom. A way out! I do believe that when my hope and faith and recovery rises, my symptoms of depression go down.”

Resource:

(C) I’ll do it when I feel  better. (2017) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville,  KY. Page 46.

Order online from  The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore at our website www.depressedanon.com.