Category Archives: Helpful Thinking

I am coming to believe that “what goes around comes around”

February 3, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

I am coming to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity. I look forward to my meetings because it is there that I am accepted and I feel worthwhile.

“Seeing yourself as basically good reduces the need for other people’s approval… but if you see yourself bad then you need everybody’s approval.”

REFLECTION

So often I think of myself as mentally deficient because of the way my sadness keeps me from having a sense of mastery over my life. and withdrawing into my own little world of ruminating about how bad and worthless I am.

Now, thanks to the Twelve Steps, I am seeing that I am not alone in my sadness. I can, in time and with work, get out of this thing that I myself unknowingly have created over time. The more I “carry the message” of hope and how the Twelve Step program works for me the more I am feeling better about myself. By helping others I help myself.

I think I would be less than honest if I said I didn’t need other person’s approval of me. The problem is in never wanting to hurt other people’s feelings. I’m afraid that I might not have said things just the way the other party liked to hear them. I sometimes feel guilty because I have to disagree with a friend and then beat myself up over it for days later. Is something wrong with this picture? I now know that I need my approval of myself first of all. That is most important and above other’s approval of me.

MEDITATION

It is one of the immutable truths of the universe that the more we give out in love and hope, the more that love and hope come back to us. What we give can come back to us. If we begin to see how we fooled others into seeing ourselves as less than worthy to be alive, then we give the message to others “kick me.” What goes around comes around.!

RESOURCES:

(c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of Twelve Step fellowship groups. (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. February 2nd. Page s 20-21. (Please add your own personal comment).

Journaling, Purpose, The 12 Steps

How to work the 12 Step program of recovery and put them to use in your everyday life

January 28, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

When someone new comes to a Depressed Anonymous meeting they will hear about people in the group working on the 12 Steps. What this means is that since the group of people are into working the 12 Steps they intend to live out what the Steps mean.

The first Step that all of us make when we walked through that door into our first DA meeting was our admission that we were helpless over our depression. We needed help.

We need to admit that at the present time our will power is powerless over this constant sadness and emptiness that we have been carrying around most of our lives. We just need to talk to someone who will understand us and respect us and not tell us to “snap out of” our depression.

Working the 12 Steps means reading all we can about the Steps and how these Steps relate to my own sense of aloneness and sadness. The manual, Depressed Anonymous is specifically designed to help the depressed person learn about each Step is treated with it’s own chapter in the book.

In order to have a change of feelings we have to work the Steps, which means putting them into practice in all our daily affairs. It means that we have to try and live out the message of the Steps one day at a time.

A person needs to take each Step and reflect on how that particular Step speaks to our own life. If a Step that we are studying is unclear as to how it applies to us then we need to bring that up in a group discussion so that other members can share how that Step has been applied to their own lives. Sometimes persons who have been in recovery for a long time have more experiences with the Steps and they can share how this or that Step has helped them. We know that at the DA meetings there are people who are each at different levels of the understanding of the Steps.

Steps Four and Five really have to be faced head-on if our depression is to go away. Step four and five are all about cleaning house. We must square off with ourselves and begin the rooting out processes that will in time free us from our sadness and our “feeling less than” as a depressed person. So often a person depressed is afraid, panic stricken really, in facing some issues that were never their fault in the first place.

It is possible that our anger hasn’t as yet been released over some things that have been done to us as children.

Step Twelve speaks about practicing these principles in all of our affairs – that means exactly what it says – we have to practice these Steps day by day. We have to say I’m sorry as soon as I am aware that I have said or done anything that is out of the way. We again need to study each Step, tear it apart and get every ounce of truth from the Step as it relates to ourselves. We then write down how each of them has a special application for my life. We also have a practice of finding quality time everyday of our lives for making room to listen to our Higher Power, or God as we understand God and how that power is going to operate in our lives today and everyday. It is like we must learn to let go and let God operate in our lives.

For all of us who have had a dependency on depression and sadness, it is hard to let go of the sadness and thinking that somehow gave us an identity to our lives. Depression can serve as a safe defense and haven againt the uinpredictableness in our lives.

Practicing these principles in al our affairs or as we say “walking the talk and working the Steps” means that we have to be ever mindful through our times of prayer and meditation, which is a way to find out what God’s will for us is for my life. Hope appears on the horizon.

Practicing these Steps, for me, means they will promote an ever growing awareness that the Higher Power is leading me according to its will and promise.

RESOURCE:

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

Ordering online is possible through this website at www.depressedanon.com.

Belief, DA Literature

My beliefs make my world one of opportunities or danger!

January 17, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

AFFIRMATION

I CAN DO WITH MY LIFE AS I WILL.

“Each of us structures and so creates our own world. Because we are free to create our world and ourselves, we are free to change our world and ourselves. We can choose to see ourselves as capable of change, and doing so, the future opens up before us as an infinite array of possibilities, or we can choose to see ourselves as unable to change. Forced to live our lives as we have always lived them.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

So often my belief is what makes my world one of opportunity or one of danger. It’s how I look at my world through the lenses of my life experiences. These condition me to see the world as I see it and understand it. If I think that I am always going to be depressed, I most likely will stay depressed because that is what I believe to be true. We hold these beliefs as unchangeable. Fixed. I believe that I can’t change because that is not possible. I become a believer when I see other people slowly taking mastery over their lives and starting to feel better. (See personal stories in DA “big Book”)

MEDITATION

We make decisions how to love ourselves, to know that the God as we understood him is leading us into those realms of positive changes that will gradually help us walk out of my darkness into the light of God’s presence. Daily will we make that conscious contact with our God and pray that we might do it’s will.

RESOURCES:

(C) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step Fellowship groups. Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY Pg. 11. January 17th.

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

Books can be ordered online from Publications Bookstore at depressedanon.com.

Belief, DA Literature, Fellowship, Hope, Journaling, Love, Meditation, Mutual Aid, Prayer, Purpose, Spirituality, Victim Thinking

That which doesn’t kill you will probably make you stronger – Nietzsche

January 14, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Stress put me in the hospital two years ago. First, pneumonia put me in the hospital for a week. Then, following a diagnosis of clogged arteries with other assorted problems, open heart surgery. Cardio/rehab for 24 straight weeks gave me my life back. But this was not my first experience with stress and /or depression.

Nietzsche had it right. In my case at least. What made me stronger and saved my life was not only heart surgery but my new way of dealing with stress. I now see stress for the trouble maker that it really is. The stress in anyone’s, continues to impress me how dangerous living under stress, of any kind, can be.

I know that the daily stress that I had put my mind and body through every day, every month, gradually destroyed my immune system’s ability to defend against constant fear, worry and anxiety. Because of the environment with which I was living in, day after day, finally caught up with me: pneumonia and then open heart surgery. So you might wonder how can stress do all this damage to your mind and body?

THEN

This takes me back to my first experience with sadness. It didn’t kill me, but it did force me to look at my lifestyle, staying in a bad situation and the ongoing ruminating which poured adrenaline into my veins, hyping up fear and anxiety day after day. Finally, all this weakened not only my body but my mind as well. My thinking started circling around and around as I tried to figure out exactly what the problem was knocking me off my feet. Not only that, I couldn’t concentrate. I would read a sentence or so and then would forget what I had just read. I was always tired. I always wanted to sleep. I never laughed anymore. My sense of humor went out the door. I started to isolate. I pushed friends away. I always had an excuse for cancelling meetings and appointments. Every morning I woke up, dead on arrival. No energy. No purpose and nothing to look forward to. I was losing all spontaneity and replacing it with boredom. I gradually was being sucked down intro the quicksand of futility and hopelessness.

After a year and half of this pain filled life I gradually walked out of the fog. I walked at least five miles a day-like a forced march looking forward to regaining my life. That was 1985.

NOW

Now, I am stronger because I know all the red flags that pop up in my mind, wanting to suck me back down into that environment which almost killed me in the first place. I am definitely stronger now that I have a sponsor, a 12 Step program (Depressed Anonymous) and a daily plan for my ongoing recovery.

My heart is stronger now. My commitment to taking good care of myself with proper rest, good healthy food, and physical activity at least three times a week or more. I also know that keeping in touch with those “still suffering from depression” by email, Home Study, website BLOG (depressedanon.com), phone and reading Depressed Anonymous literature. What we give away comes back in countless ways. For me, continued sobriety and hope!

Resource: (c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.

Online Depressed Anonymous International Skype meetings ( Check website Menu for listing and links).

Order online: The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore

Choice, Courage

Anxious? Please read this.

January 10, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

“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, feel it, and see what it is trying to tell 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 the first glance, but in time you can feel it, deal with it and then discard it. The more you ruminate about how sad you are and then how bad you are for being 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 a member of the group. Just say: “Hey, I’m feeling sad and there is no reason why I think I am feeling sad – what do you think?” More times than not, your sad feelings will melt away.

Our feelings are like messengers. They come to tell us something important. They can tell us , as was the case with our ancestors of primitive times, that either it was time to run or to stand and fight. Flight or fight. Today, in these modern times, we don’t have to run or even fight when the unpleasant feelings rise up inside of us. The only activity that most of us engage in when faced with an unpleasant thought/feeling is to put our mind in overdrive, stomping on the accelerator, and shooting adrenaline into our blood stream. Even though there is no lion nipping at our heels we begin to flee those feelings of fright and find our selves swimming in a sea of fear and anxiety. Our palms begin to feel clammy, our forehead breaks out in beads of sweat and our heart rate is going trough the roof.

The more we “listen into” these frenzied feelings the more frenzied and frazzled we become physically. Now, totally worn out with all this adrenaline pumped through our arteries, and all physical systems on high alert, we become exhausted. After all this, my drug of choice was to hit the bed and sleep it off. Some folks medicate themselves with alcohol or other mind altering drugs.

Our other stance is to stay and fight the lion. No lion? We fight in our mind whatever it might be that is ready to devour us and spit us out. We might be sitting at our desk at work and this negative ruminating will be having the same effect on our body as it did with the native faced with fighting a lion. It was the lion or himself that had to win this fight.

So, for us, as we continue to put emotional energy into the negativity of the thought that affects our moods, we find ourselves spiraling downward into that depressed mood and isolation. Instead we need to listen to the feeling, face the feeling, and tell ourselves that the feeling is uncomfortable, but not life threatening. This becomes sort of a mantra at the time of our panicky thoughts where by gradually and slowly repeating this phrase over and over again to ourselves, our breathing gets slower, our heart rate slides back to normal and the sweating stops. No running and no fighting. No foot on the accelerator resulting in no more adrenaline pumping through our arteries.

This technique of talking ourselves down when our body and reasoning is about to be taken over by unpleasant emotions, really works.

RESOURCES

NOTE: All Depressed Anonymous publications can be ordered online from the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore. At https://depressedanonymous.org

Hope, The 12 Steps

What is a sponsor?

January 9, 2020 Hugh Smith 2 Comments

SPONSORSHIP IN 12 STEP PROGRAMS OF RECOVERY

A sponsor, when speaking about 12 Step programs of recovery is a mutual and confidential sharing between two members. A sponsor is a person with whom a member can discuss personal problems or questions, and who will share their experience, strength, and hope in working the program. It is strongly recommended that the person you choose as a sponsor has completed a Fourth and Fifth Step.

Is having a sponsor required? No. Although it is strongly recommended.

Sponsorship is not a relationship to be undertaken lightly. It is good to give it some thought before making the commitment. No one is a perfect sponsor, but avoiding sponsorship denies us a valuable experience for growth. Sponsorship is a form of Twelfth Step service and a way of expressing gratitude for what we have gained in the program.

In finding a Sponsor look for one who:

Has what we want.
Lives in the solution.
Walks the walk.
Has a sponsor.
Emphasizes the Steps.
Has more time in recovery that I do.
Frequency of contact.
Has worked more Steps than we have.
Is available for telephone calls and meetings.
Emphasizes spiritual aspect of the program.
Gender is the same as ours.

Sponsorship is not a permanent relationship. It is okay to change sponsors when felt that the relationship no longer meets our needs. Sponsees deserve to know that they are welcome to change Sponsors whenever they want. Sponsors and sponsees make this point clear at the initial onset of the relationship. Terminate any relationship that is endangering your own recovery. If after thoughtful consideration one person decides to end a sponsorship relationship, it is recommended that the situation be approached with honesty and love.

Benefits of Sponsorship

Sponsors can learn too. The newest member can give insights to those who have been in the program for months or years. The exchange between sponsor and sponsee is a form of communication, which will instruct and nourish both persons.

We are all seeking peace of mind. Having and being a sponsor are important steps towards that goal and becoming what our Higher Power wants us to be –loving and serene people comfortable with ourselves and the world.

Interview the potential sponsor

Discuss mutual expectations. If we discuss our mutual expectations at the beginning, the Sponsorship will go more smoothly. Our goal in interviewing a potential sponsor is to determine how well we will work together. It is possible to have more than one sponsor.

RESOURCE:

“SPONSORSHIP” is a publication of Depressed Anonymous Program of Recovery. This brochure is readily available to all members of the Depressed Anonymous Fellowship as well as the Dep-Anon family and friends fellowship.

“Sponsorship” is a publication of the Depressed Anonymous Publications office, based in Louisville, KY.

Acceptance, Affirmations, Fellowship

After 14 years, I have hope!

January 7, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

I had always known that I was hard on myself. I reamed myself out every time something bad happened. “Why can’t I find someone to love me?” “Why isn’t God looking after me?” But for some reason, when I realized that I was doing this to myself, it made me realize that maybe all I would have to do is stop doing it. All of a sudden, it made sense.

If I tell myself negative thoughts, I feel negative. If I tell myself nothing, I feel nothing. So, if I tell myself positive thoughts, eventually I’ll have to feel positive.

Of course, I’m still testing it out, but I feel better and for the first time in 14 years, I have hope. It’s not hard to find something positive about myself or my life now. So I remind myself of something positive everyday and that’s what I’m going to do until I don’t have to remind myself anymore because I’ll know.”

Choice, Faith, Fellowship, Isolation, Journaling, Mindfulness, The 12 Steps

My Feelings Are Becoming Unfrozen

January 4, 2020 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

AFFIRMATION

“I pray that God will give me the courage to live today with hope – hope that God’s leading will take me past the dead end of despair.

If we want to live life fully we must have freedom, love and hope. Life must be an uncertain business. This is what makes it worthwhile.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I know how the feelings of depression, and the deadness and greyness of my sadness keep me holed up in the narrow confines of my dark past. Today my feelings are gradually becoming unfrozen as I attempt new things, new connections with other persons. These cause me to reconsider that a life lived in unpredictableness is a risky but nevertheless a healthy way to live my life.

Since I hold on to the belief that since bad things happened to me in the past, bad things will happen to me in the future. I need to live each new day with the belief that I can change the way I think, feel and act. I know now that I am not mentally ill nor am I losing my mind when I am depressed. I want to live just for today to try to learn how to face the uncertainties of today. Life is unpredictable . To have any certainty that it will be other than that is clearly an illusion, and for sure one is being set up for many a disappointment.

MEDITATION

We see that it is only in risking., that is, getting a different map, a map that shows a number of different routes instead of the one that leads us down the road to narrow isolation and despair. I ask the God of my understanding to lead me according to it’s guidance. Hopefully the road that leads to hope and serenity.

RESOURCES

(C) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications . Louisville. KY. (January 5th).

Check out VISIT THE STORE for more material that can be ordered online.

Choice, Compulsion, Fellowship, Isolation

Keeping the dance going: A metaphor

December 30, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

When I was depressed (for over a year) I got hooked up with a dance partner who continually stepped on my feet. I knew that stopping the dance was my only way out. I imagined if I could learn a little more about the dance and the proper step sequence things would turn out better for me.

The more I tried to think things out, try different step sequences the worse things got. It’s like walking up a flight of stairs and carefully watching each foot as it lifts to go from one level to the next. It’s a strange feeling as our mind and body become frozen from what is normally an automatic sequence. We don’t even think about the fact that our feet are taking the steps up one at a time.

From my own experience with this circular dance I learned that the more I thought about why I was doing what I was doing the more my partner (my physical body) came to a standstill. My mind went round and round over a sequence, which I was hoping would free me. Instead, the dance stopped. I left the dance floor (my world) and retreated into my own little life surroundings, going over and over again , completely obsessed with trying to figure out a dance sequence, with a result, like the wrestler’s “body slam” which flattened and pinned me to the floor. No matter how hard I tried to figure out what went wrong, the more this circular dance tightened it’s grip on my thinking, my body and everything else that had made me an active part of my world, friends and future. I am all alone.

In the Depressed Anonymous Publication, I’ll do it when I feel better, we read

“We all know that any addictive /compulsive type of behavior gradually removes you from the regular activities of persons around you, including family, friends and coworkers, until you are established in the narrow confines of pain and isolation. We are always going to be just a little more isolated the more we try to think our addiction through in the circle of our own thoughts. ”

Copyright(c) I’ll do it when I feel better., 2nd edition. Hugh M. Smith (2018) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY. Page 61.

Acceptance, Fellowship, The 12 Steps

Walk day by day In the path of spiritual progress – if you persist remarkable things will happen

December 29, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

“Being depressed means feeling disconnected, isolated and separated. Truly, depression or melancholia is the illness of our modern society. Our desire to isolate ourselves from everyone and everything when we are depressing ourselves, isolates us from ourselves as well.

To recognize how it feels to be depressed, more people will be able to tolerate and unfetter themselves from their own depression. Lives will be saved as well.

People describe their experience of depression as being in some kind of prison. One man said that he was in a pit where the walls were of soft clay. One woman said that she was in a brick maze where there was no exit and the walls were closing in on her. “I’m in an infinite desert” said one man, “the bars are thick and a lone scrawny tree.” “I’m in a cage” said one woman, “the bars are thick and black and there is no door.” In side this prison the person has intense feelings of self-hatred..

Frequently, depressed persons imagine that they are going crazy, are crazy, or being afflicted with some mental illness.

One of the beautiful things about a Depressed Anonymous group is that everyone has the same symptoms, feels the same pain and is relieved that they are not the only ones in the world with this experience. They don’t have to go it alone. They also don’t hear people saying: “Snap out of it,”

The following provides a guide for those of you who are attempting to see whether you are depressed or not. If you feel that you have a good number of these situations going on in your life at the same time and for a number of weeks, your melancholia might be indicating that you need to get in touch with persons like yourself by the fellowship of Depressed Anonymous.

Do I have some or all of the symptoms of depression?

+Wanting to isolate and be alone.

+Changes in appetite.

+Shifts in sleeping patterns (too much/not enough sleep).

+Waking up early in the morning.

+Fatigability or lack of energy.

+Agitation or increased activity.

+Loss of interest in daily activities and/or decreased sex drive.

+Feeling of sadness, hopelessness, worthlessness, guilt or self-reproach and possible thoughts about killing myself.

+Weeping/Not being able to cry.

+Lapses of memory.

+Hard time making decisions.

Fear of losing one’s mind.

+Reluctance to take risks.

+Difficulty in smiling or laughing.

IMPORTANT NOTE: All the symptoms listed above don’t necessarily include all symptoms, but enough of them, together, point to a serious response needed from an individual to seek help. also believe that my own serenity is constantly being assaulted during the day by all sorts of problems and situations that cry out for my immediate care and attention.

The Fourth of the Promises of Depressed Anonymous, tell us how we will be able to “comprehend the word Serenity and we will know peace of mind.”

Agitation, anxiety and jitteriness were all part of my life as I muddled my way through -day after day, one foot in front of the other. Serenity was not a part of my life.

As with my attachment to negative behavior, serenity and peace were the furthest thing from my mind. The new beliefs and thoughts which I had expressed at Depressed Anonymous meetings started to help me change the ay I thought about myself, my world and my future.

I believe that it takes time, work and prayer, and sometimes with medication to achieve the peace and serenity that we are talking about here.

Peace of mind is the result of:

A clear conscience

Living in the present

Gratitude everyday

Belief that the God of my understanding will get me through the problems of my life

Forgiveness of myself and amends to all persons I have harmed

Hope

Doing God’s will. Neither grasping but letting go

As Bill W., co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous tells us in the AA Big BOOK,

“Both you and the new man must walk day by day, in the path of spiritual progress. If you persist –remarkable things will happen. When we look back, we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God’s hands were better than anything we could have planned. Follow the dictates of a Higher Power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world no matter what your present circumstances.”

RESOURCES FOR HELP.

Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Pages 166-167.

Copyright(c) The Promises of Depressed Anonymous (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky. Pages 9-10.

Hope is just a few steps away!