Category Archives: Helpful Thinking

Purpose

Get out of “park” and put ‘er in first

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Hey, so good of you to come to our BLOG here at Depressed Anonymous website. We try and give encouragement to those of us “who are still suffering from depression.” And let me tell you, we are not alone. Again, we are not alone. We all have work to do. I have work to do – you have work to do. We are in this together.

Have you ever felt like, “what’s the use” or “I just can’t seem to get into gear.” Many days in my life, some more recent. I just feel like I want to stay in “park.” I can’t get in gear. My mind says “let’s get in gear.” My body says, “No, I feel comfortable right where I am at.” So there is the problem. How to put my body in first gear so as to get moving?

I think all of us have heard the saying about making it to a 12 Step meeting. It goes like this: There are two times I should go to my 12 Step meeting. One, when I want to go to a meeting and two, when I don’t want to go to a meeting. That sort of breaks It down in a language that I get. Simple. Basic. No gobblygook nonsense. That’s what I call getting in first gear. We get the car (body) moving. We don’t go to the remote or surf and expect anything that might do us any good. We put another quarter in the “parking meter.”

In the book “I’ll do it when I feel better,” I write about procrastination. I know about it. I lived it. If you want to know anything about procrastination, I’m you’re “go to guy.” Most days I get that little red flag that pops up in the meter. Expired. And when that happens you never have seen me move so fast. Out of park in record time.

This is one of my character defects. I am blatant at it. It might be a hidden anger problem–you know, I really don’t want to go to work today. So my body wants to slip back into “park.” So, where am I going with all this?

Let me tell you this. When I was depressed my life was definitely past “park” and I just gave up. What’s the use. Eventually, coming to my senses, I knew that I needed help. I ended up in a 12 Step group. This move was the best move I have ever made in my life. Really. The fellowship, but most importantly putting the spiritual principals of the 12 Steps got me moving toward health, sanity and a program of self-care that has been my moving force for most of my adult life. For that I am grateful to the God of my understanding or my Higher Power.

Are you depressed. If so, join us. We are online everyday with our fellowship. We are the Depressed Anonymous fellowship. Everyday, I hear and see good people doing good things for those others, like ourselves, now, who have found a “spark plug” if you will in the leadership of all those lives which have been changed. I mean CHANGE. Hear the good news. There is hope. I can hear good news everyday. Set your watch. Go to a SKYPE or ZOOM meeting and hear how others have got moving. They are on it and now they want to help others. If you are out there and wanting to feel differently and live with hope, check us out online.

Fire up that body of yours and your mind will follow right along. For info on our fellowship, please come to this website (www.depressedanon.com) and read and listen and be part of a world where hope starts and resides. Be part of the solution. ZOOM and SKYPE groups are looking forward to meeting you. Don’t wait. We are like you.

Hugh, a recovering procrastinator and member of the DA fellowship.

Hope, Purpose

Simple is as simple does. – Forrest Gump

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Affirmation

Even though I don’t feel better right now, I am going to make a mental decision to desire to feel better. I have a choice.

“We need to ask ourselves but one short question: Do I now believe or am I willing to believe that there is a power greater than myself.” As soon as a person can say that he or she does believe or is willing to believe, emphatically assure that person that he or she is on their way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that at this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective structure can be built.

Reflection

I have found that the program of the Steps is simple to understand. It is a spiritual program one that doesn’t force me to think of God in pre-established ways. I am truly free to allow the God of my understanding to clear from the path of my life the thoughts and various saddictive ways where I have learned how to depress myself.

I know that the world simple means without a fold. The word denotes a reality that you get what you see. Hopefully I can see that my program of recovery is a most simple one to follow and one to practice in all affairs of my life.

Meditation

We want this God of our understanding to be with us as we face our fears and try to keep my thoughts focused on the here and now, not the pain of yesterday or the fears about tomorrow. (Add your personal comments).

Sources

© Higher Thoughts For Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 Step fellowships. (1998) Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY 40241. June 7. Online purchases can be made at The Depressed Anonymous Bookstore, at www.depressedanon.com

Kindness

Learning To Be Nice

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Because you are unaware of being angry does not mean that you are not angry. It is the anger you are unaware of which can do the most damage to you and to your relationships with other people, since it does get exposed, but in inappropriate ways.

Freud once likened anger to the smoke in an old fashioned wood burning stove. The normal avenue for discharge of the smoke Is up the flue and out the chimney. If the normal avenue is blocked, the smoke will leak out the stove in an unintended way…around the door, through the grate, etc., choking everyone in the room. If all avenues of escape are blocked, the fire goes out and the stove ceases to function. Likewise, the normal human expression of anger is gross physical movement and /or loud vocalizations; watch a red-faced hungry infant sometime. We learn to “be nice”, which means (among other things) hiding “bad” feelings. By adult hood, even verbal expression is curtailed, since a civilized person is expected to be “civil.” Thus expression is stifled, and to protect ourselves form the unbearable burden of continually unexpressed “bad” feelings, we go to the next step and convince ourselves that we are not angry, even when we are. Such self-deception is seldom completely successful and the blocked anger “leaks out” in inappropriate ways.

Source

© The Depressed Anonymous Workbook – Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY. Page 33. Fourth Step 4:41.

Fellowship, Purpose

Spoon feeding is no use to you. You have to feed yourself. – D. Rowe

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AFFIRMATION

I  will build up my self-esteem and self-respect by learning a hobby or skill that will bring me pleasure. “Dorothy Rowe says that “Spoon feeding is no use to you. You have to feed yourself.”

REFLECTION

I believe that feeding oneself is really the idea that grabs hold of most people who have a genuine desire to stop  saddening themselves. It appears to me that once I make a commitment to myself to begin to learn how to feel better, I really do begin feeling much better. I imagine that even though my passive depressed behavior had some benefits – like not having to risk changing the  way I lived my life.   I believe that since there is a way out of my depression that I do want to move  into a different way of  living my life. I want to live with hope and I am going to do something about it to make it happen.

I feed myself junk thoughts when I think that there is no hope for me in my life. This is  the stuff that depression is made of. If I want  to get well  and out of the prison that I call depression, I need to begin feeding myself with such hopeful thoughts, that my sadness won’t last forever, whatever I believe and expect to happen, just the way I want it to happen.

MEDITATION

We are thankful that we can feed ourselves healthy thoughts and that we can change our diet by discovering what has been junk food in our past life, substituting healthy food (thoughts) for the present.  God will show us a way to live in a healthy and serene way. (Personal  comment).

SOURCE: (C)  Higher Thoughts for down days: 365  daily thoughts and meditations for  members of 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Kentucky.  Page 89. May 29.

Visit the Store  to order this book online.

Belief

Now I have to dig in and dismember those core beliefs…

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“Now that I have to dig in and dismember those core beliefs, that keep us repeating the same thinking, the same behavior   which  keeps  us imprisoned in our depression. We have this compulsion to repeat – this ritual of defeat – because, first of all it is comfortable and secondly it keeps  us from having to do something that we haven’t done before. We continue to move around in a circle always meeting  up with the same me – no major changes evident.  If we don’t start the process of change, then not without surprise  our life then stays the same. But this also closes the doors to the future and with it a sense of hope and relief.  It seems that to believe that we have no future and that we will always feel this way can imprison us as we empower these absolute beliefs that nothing good will ever happen for us. We are thus chained to our own self-will and not only are we imprisoned but we are the jailer as well. The key is in our hands and it is there for the asking.”

(c) I’ll do it when I feel better. (2013) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville Ky. Page 18.

Order online at  www.depressedanon.com.

The Promises

The opposite of depression is spontaneity and vitality

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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

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“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?

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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

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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….

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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.