Category Archives: Helpful Thinking

I practice seeing life as hopeful and filled with promise

November 2, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

“You dismantle your depression by thoroughly examining your own beliefs and how you construct your world. It’s in the way we usually think about ourselves and the world that enables us to predict with accuracy the way things turn out.” Dr. Dorothy Rowe.

In the past I usually predicted gloom and doom about everything that I chose to do. I always felt that whatever I did or whatever I tried to do would end up in the trash. I never felt that I could do anything worthwhile because I never really considered anything I did in the past as being worthwhile. I predicted that nothing would ever turn out for me – and you know, I was right! Now I am predicting success as I am beginning to value myself and the things that I do. I have found with some small experience that the more I predict success, the more that success appears on my horizon. It this what they call a self-fulfilling prophecy?

My depression made me an excellent prognosticator. These things were always bad. I always had cancer, was suffering from a heart attack or had some rare and incurable disease. I was always seeing life from the negative and hopeless side. I was learning that it is only when I practice seeing life as hopeful and filled with promise, that I discover my mood beginning to lift. I am feeling more cheerful like when I used to have hope in my life but took it for granted.”

MEDITATION

WE TRUST OUR GOD, TO LET US SEE LIFE AS IT IS AND NOT AS WE USUALLY THINK OF IT WHEN WE ARE DEPRESSED. I SEE LIFE WITH PROMISE AND POSSIBILITIES.

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

Kindness, Mindfulness

Walking in another’s shoes

October 25, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

Family members also feel guilty about the situation and feelings of their depressed loved one. They somehow feel they have played a part in the melancholia and so are to blame. That is exactly what we don’t want to produce in the family member, more guilt and shame.

Walking a mile in another’s shoes is good advice today. Unless a family member has ever been depressed – then it won’t do to wish that their loved one would just think more happy thoughts or just pray more or just get out and get busy. All these suggestions fit someone who might be sad or unhappy –but they don’t apply to a person who has a mood disorder –like the deep immobilizing mood of depression.

When I was depressed I became overwhelmed by all the situations and circumstances surrounding me til I became consumed by them. They became all ever conscious, these thoughts that I could no longer keep at bay –like a lion tamer wielding chair and whip –poised for action against an angry lion.

Many times the stigma of a family member who is experiencing is often enough for a family to avoid the subject. They pretend it isn’t there. In a way it is like the behavior of those people who live within an abusive relationship, or with a practicing alcoholic, or a verbally abusive spouse. There is an elephant sitting in the living room and everyone quietly walks around it. Nobody wants to talk about the problem that lies in the center of the family.

Gradually a vicious cycle of negative feelings and behaviors manifest in the family members. They feel isolated, resentful, angry or despairing, and this complicates the sense of isolation, guilt or hopelessness.

I believe that DEP-ANON will be or can be a great resource of strength for those members of the family who live with the depressed day after day. They too must begin to work on the 12 Steps, one after another so they can begin, in a supportive group context, facing the fact that that their feelings about their loved one have resulted in them feeling hopeless and helpless. This is the first step for all of us in recovery, to admit that we are powerless over the behavior of a loved one depressed. Once the 12 spiritual principles of Depressed Anonymous are interiorized in our hearts and minds, and actively operating in our own daily lives, we will see progress. Not only will we change but so will all members of the family. The DEP-ANON group provides the whole family an opportunity to experience a new found peace and wellness.

Copyright(c) DEP-ANON family group manual: A 12 Step support group for families and friends of the depressed. (1999) Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky.

Purpose

My course is set for an uncharterd sea. – Dante

October 24, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

For any of us who have a friend or a family member suffering from depression, Dante’s words ring true, as we set sail in an unchartered sea attempting to set them free from their misery and pain.

In Speaking of Sadness, Chapter six,the author, David A. Karp, a sociologist, speaks about Family and Friends of the depressed and how they establish sympathy boundaries in their interactions with them.

The opening paragraph in this chapter quotes a therapist, named Mark, who shares his thoughts on how overwhelming it actually is to deal with someone’s depression — especially that of a friend or relative.

“The thing about depression is that it is overwhelming and anyone who takes it on is going to lose. As a family member and /or friend –anyone who is close –is too overwhelming. And the only way to deal with someone else’s depression is to maintain your own life and to understand that person and emphasize and be there as you can be. But to recognize that fundamentally it’s their experience and you’re not going to shift it. All you can do as a friend is to allow it to happen and to be there again and again and again. ”

When all is said and done it is my own experience that tells me that when I gave them some tools to work with their own experiences, that this was a non-threatening, not in your face attempt to force a change of behavior. Some thoughts that people tell the depressed are “just snap out of it” or “say a prayer” and everything will be better and you will be happy. But the more we tried to force our solutions on them, the more they retreated into their isolation.

INTRODUCTION TO DEP-ANON, A SUPPORT GROUP FOR FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF THE DEPRESSED.

Scores of books have been written on the subject of depression. If you are like most of us, we have all run after and read the latest work on depression. We are looking for clues to see just what is wrong with our loved one and what it is that they face and struggle with. We want to learn how to help.

The DEP-ANON program is very much like AL-ANON where family members and friends gather to help each other learn how to detach and cope with opioid addictions and alcoholism. In the same way, DEP-ANON is an effort of family and friends learning how to live with and cope with their depressed loved ones.

At a planning meeting for DEP-ANON family members were asked to list all the feelings they experienced living with a depressed loved one. These discussions brought out some surprising facts.

When family members were asked to prioritize, describe and list which feelings they experienced most often and most intensly, the following are those which they documented:

Feeling overwhelmed and burdened by a family member’s depression.
Feelings of helplessness
Anxiety about the situation and not knowing what to do about the feelings they were experiencing.
Feeling emotionally drained.
Feeling inadequate faced with a loved one’s immobility and lack of motivation to get out of bed.
Feeling anger and frustrated at the depressed.
Feeling inadequate.

These are just some of the feelings which family members listed indicating they felt as helpless and hopeless as the people whom they were trying to help.

Now that we learn that the depressed and family members and friends suffer from the same problems of the depressed–isolated, alone and helpless. But the thing that we have going for us is the same thing that the depressed have going for them. We have choices. We can begin to be proactive in our own healing and recovery. We have a program of recovery using the Twelve Steps. We now know, as a family member that we are not alone, in a small boat, being tossed about in a turbulent sea.

Together, not to complain or blame but to face our common problems and pain and live in the solution of a program based on spiritual principles, just like the depressed who can get help with their group Depressed Anonymous. One of the more important things for a family member is knowing that their loved one cannot simply think themselves out of their sad moods and isolation.

In both the DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS and DEP-ANON groups there is a place where experiences, strength and hope can be shard with each other. It is in these two recovery groups, one for the depressed and one for the depressed family member, where both can come and talk freely about their path out of helplessness and the feelings of being overwhelmed. In both groups, with time and work they can discover how to use the tools to live through the trauma of depression and the ongoing acceptance and understanding provided by family and friends of the depressed.

It is a fact that the more supportive a family member is of their depressed member the sooner that family member will recover. This recovery is strengthened by looking at our own lives, dealing with the ongoing frustrations and letting go of our need to fix the other. And like AL-ANON it is in the letting go of the other and their depression but taking care of our own lives. We soon learn that we have no control over other’s feelings and emotions. We learn that all we can do is be there, again, again and again. At the same time, like the depressed, get involved with the recovery tools of Depressed Anonymous, go to meetings, pray and join with others like oneself. We want to find solutions and keep the focus on these solutions – not the problem of others.

The Promises

The feelings of uselessness and self-pity disappear

October 22, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

One of the major areas that changes quickly by our attendance at the group meetings of Depressed Anonymous is that we pity ourselves less and less. We begin to be grateful for all that we have and all that we are. We begin to see that once we atart getting connected to others like ourselves on a regular basis, through our Depressed Anonymous meetings, we now are listened to by others on a regular basis. and we are validated. We don’t hear “snap out of it” here.

Suddenly, our years of self-pity, isolation and desolation have been cashed in for a currency that buys us a new competency, a new identity, an autonomy and a burgeoning interrelatedness with others.

We now speak about our experiences with depression in the past tense. We now can share how we have the tools of self care (See Tools for recovery at Homepage Menu ) whereby we can dig out and begin to construct an edifice of hope that will last the rest of our lives. As long as we continue to use the tools of the program we are bound to feel different.

We know that feeling sorry for ourselves promotes a greater attention to and for the problem, while attention to how our experiences can help others promotes not only our own well being but that of others.

As we learn how the program works -and this only happens primarily by attending meetings. The solutions and ideas help us all to become more active in the pursuit of our own serenity as promised by the fellowship.

When we were depressing ourselves we felt not only useless, but unacceptable to ourselves and to others. It seems that the harder we pushed to fight against depression the sadder we became. When we begin to feel differently we also began to believe differently. We learn how to become more hopeful and helpful.

Why do I continue the work of bringing hope to those still suffering? What motivates me to continue to try and help others? What has made the change in my life where now I want to share what I know and how I feel? Basically, I know that the program of recovery works. I no longer feel powerless over my depression, that I can do nothing about my depression. I have seen that the major solution for my symptoms of depression is in the doing and in the feeling and the expressing of my feelings with others in the group. In DA, people speak my language. We see how useless it is to waste time looking back over our shoulders to see if the dark shadow of my own inner fears is going to overtake me again. I now have attained small amounts of hope and strength as I go from day to day. I am prepared for those moments of despair that can overtake me and cause me to feel paralyzed and out of control.

In the first Step “we admitted that we were powerless over depression and that our lives had become unmanageable.”

Self-pity is that feeling where we continue to go over and over again all the hurts that have put us where we are today!

We waste hours and days in our self-wallowing. With the program of recovery at our fingertips we can now see a way out of our depression.

We are never alone and with the Promises of Depressed Anonymous, we now see that all things are possible for us today and everyday of our lives. You will not only regain a sense of finding yourself useful but Depressed Anonymous will show you how your own battle with depression can give hope to those still suffering.

(c) The Promises of Depressed Anonymous: Planting a Seedbed of Hope. (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. Promise # 6 of 12 Promises.

Purpose

I am not about to give up on myself

October 21, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

“Until we have actually been depressed, we do not realize that there is a great difference between being depressed and being unhappy. When we are unhappy, no matter what horrific things have happened to us, we still feel in contact with the rest of the world. When other people offer comfort and love we can feel it’s warmth and support us. When we are depressed we feel cut off from the rest of the world.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I admit to taking full responsibility for my detachment from my world and also from my very self. It seems that by numbing my grief over those matters lost in my past life, this has caused myself to be depressed. By burying what needed to be faced and mourned, I am making a stand to face the depression that I have created over the years. I am going to care for myself and make the effort to hope that this twenty-four hour period I call today, is one of rebirth and movement toward others.

Many times I wish I was merely unhappy rather than depressed. I can handle being unhappy, depression is a different story. I am not about to give up on myself as I step out of depression and begin to take responsibility for my recovery today. Because I have ‘made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand him’ my life is already starting to show the signs of a positive nature.”

MEDITATION

The God of our understanding is truly alive in our lives and we feel that we are still in the early days of our studies, as we attend the school of the Spirit of God, as we search God’s will for our lives. God has given me hope that my depressed days are going to be less and less. God has given us hope.

Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for down days:365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. (October 21).

Higher Power

A Power greater than myself

October 17, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

ANXIETY

(Aware)I find comfort in my anxiety in that I am too afraid to do anything in my own behalf. I am conscious that my anxiety about yesterday with its pain, hurt and repressed anger consumes my life today, while the anxiety and “what ifs” of tomorrow with its’ anxiety and fears about what might happen, continue to overwhelm me. I am also conscious that my beginning to loosen my “death grip” of living in my own will and now letting God move in my life that my anxiety may possibly lessen.

(Motivating) I am reading the Steps everyday and beginning to see that there is hope for me if I can live in the present and jump out of yesterday and stay out of tomorrow. The more I learn how my fears, anxieties are keeping me holed up in my enlarged ego the less possible is it for me to let the Higher Power direct my course. I am developing my faith and learning to let go today.

(Doing) I have already admitted I’m depressed and that my life is out of control because of it. Secondly, I came to believe that there is a power greater than myself that is going to restore me to sanity. I have followed Step Three as suggested and have turned my life and my will over to the care of God as I understand him. I have also learned not to run from my fear but stay and feel it. What I resist persists and gets stronger.

Maintaining. My depression and its anxiety lessens the more that I speak at DA meetings and share with members of the group what my fears are. My progress is one day at a time. I am going to make a daily inventory and continually ask God to remove all my shortcoming.

The Depressed Anonymous Workbook(2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Page 43/Step Four.

Focus

If you want to get somewhere, you have to know how to get there

October 15, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

That seemed to be my problem years back when I knew I needed to get somewhere, do something about how awful I felt, and move on with my life. There was a problem. I didn’t know where that “somewhere” was.

How many times have I heard people tell me the same story of knowing they were needing to do something — but what? They knew people took pills, some went to psychiatrists, counselors and many went to see their spiritual guides. Some, in despair, drove their cars into bridge abutments.

I for one, was that lost nomad in the desert, feeling a need to get somewhere. I had not an inkling of how to get there. And in today’s world, this potentially life-threatening and painful experience is of tsunami proportions. Many persons don’t know that there is a ” way to get there.”

“Somebody, anybody, show me a way out!” All of us want out of this pain. We have found every path leading to a dead end. The sad spiral downward into dark and desperate moods doesn’t let up.

Yesterday I received an email from someone from the other side of the world. He was wanting to know how to reach an all-knowing guru at the top of the mountain who would teach him a way out. The main thing is that he knew he wanted to get somewhere. He read on the Internet that Depressed Anonymous, a group of people were actively discovering “how to get there.” They had a plan. Not that the group had actually arrived at the top of the mountain, a heightened Nirvana, but realized that there was hope here. It wasn’t a sure-fire plan that always worked for all seekers, but we knew that if you wanted to get there, it was available to anyone who wanted to work its power in their own life.

Our friend from the other side of the world had read on the Internet (www.depressedanon.com) how men and women, young and old, had ended up together on this journey, each one of the fellow travelers becoming like a road sign, with neon lights flashing out in great large letters, “we know how to get there. We’ll show you the way!”

Orders for this Book (used by members around the world) can be made online. You can get there from here or whereever. Visit the Store.

Hope

HOPE

September 26, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

“Hope is the virtue of a heart that doesn’t lock itself into darkness, that doesn’t dwell on the past, does not simply get by in the present, but is able to see a tomorrow. Hope is the door that opens the future. Hope is a humble, hidden seed of life that, with time, will develop into a large tree –A tiny flicker of light that feeds on hope is enough to shatter the shield of darkness. A single individual is enough for hope to exist, and that individual can be “you.” And then there will be another “you” and another “you” and it turns into an “us.” And so, does hope begin when we have an “us?” No. Hope begins with one “you.” When there is an “us,” there begins a revolution.” FRANCIS

COMMENT/ Hugh S.

There is so much power and wisdom in this short quote from Pope Francis. I was struck the first time I moved through line after line of this powerful tribute to hope. The analogy of hope to a large tree, a hidden seed, a flicker of light, a door that opens to the future, all symbols of possibility and of growth.

I believe that each one, like the desert nomad, starts out seeking hope as individuals, alone, seeking a way out of the desolation that dries up a thirst for a living water — these were the pills, the next therapy, those spiraling negative thoughts, all mirages, dark phantoms. Hope was evasive.

Today, my solution for creating hope as one person is to continue sharing how the ” shield of darkness” was pierced by that “flicker of light,” the light manifesting in a hope, a belief, like a seed giving me an individual growth spurt, empowered me to go through that door that “opens to a future.”

Hope is “enough to exist in a single individual” and for hope to exist in “you,” and then in another “you” and this turns out into an “us.”

Francis asks “does hope begin when we have an “us.?” No. Hope begins with one “you.” When there is an “us” there begins a revolution.”

Like all of us who now have hope, thanks to the spiritual principles of the 12 Steps plus “having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to the depressed, and to practice these principles in all of our affairs. “ Step Twelve of Depressed Anonymous.

The revolution started when this “you” (Bill. W) and then another “you “(Dr. Bob)” –shared their recovery with another –they became an “us” and provided hope to the hopeless and the helpless.

Depressed Anonymous is another “us” who this very day is providing a door opening to a future, that tiny flicker of light that shatters the shield of darkness, and that humble and hidden seed, that with time will develop into a large tree.” This tree represents all those groups (“us” ) branches if you will, that support so many of the alone and solitary people, who are seeking hope, serenity and community. Copyright@depressedanonymo-ln18osjvun.live-website.com.

For more information on how YOU can find hope and join our revolution, please go to www.depressedamnon.com.

(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. This work can be ordered online.

Journaling, Love

Can I think my way out of depression?

September 19, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

That very question is one which I myself have asked. It would have been neat if I could have just set my mind to it and deciding not to pay any attention to those never ending ruminations about my life and all those crazy thoughts and painful feelings that came to roost in my mind. They were unending. You know, sort of dig a hole and bury your head in it. Hoping against hope that all the noise would just stop. It got worse. I told myself–it’s only going to get worse. It did!

It was strange how the more I didn’t want to have these thoughts live in my head, day after day, the more my mood continued spiraling down into that abyss where no kind word, no positive thinking, nor pleasant future for myself dwelt. My thoughts turned angry and my mood was at a ground zero.

Now what do I do I thought to myself? What can I do? All these thoughts were accompanied with an anxiety that seemed to envelop my whole body and turned my insides into to what felt like a shaking bowl of jelly. At this point, my mind was not thinking of anything, but being fixated on how rotten I was feeling. Again, what can I do? How to get this constant agitation and jitteriness removed? And how did it get this way in the first place. No answers.

I told myself. Nothing can help me. I might as well give up– throw in the towel. Even my thinking was changing. I couldn’t read with any comprehension or even wanting to do the most common of my normal daily activities. All my thoughts seemed like sand slipping through my fingers. I was losing my grip on reality. Was I losing my mind?

I knew that I couldn’t lie in bed all day and do nothing. I knew that my mind was not coming up with any solutions that would ignite my motivation to move. “That’s it” I said to myself. I got to get moving. And so that is what I did. I started to move the body–and gradually my mind began to work, but I had to prime the mental machinery to get it operative once again. I made up my mind that I must walk myself out of the mental and physical mess that I was in. I knew that if I just moved the body my mind would follow–at least that is what I was hoping would happen. And after a year or so, my mind did began to work. My thoughts gradually became clearer and by taking care of my body’s physical needs (exercise) my mind welcomed this healthy change. I also had my support group Depressed Anonymous help me at our meetings. I could call them anytime and get some help. I WAS NOT ALONE.

I noticed that gradually my low mood was spiraling upwards and my mood began lifting the fog that had me confused and dazed and immobile.

Did I think my way out of depression? I don’t think so. What did happen is that over time I learned how to create my own “red flags” alerting me when I discovered my thinking was getting off track. Now these “red flags ” pop up in my mind when old negative thoughts, negative behaviors and irrational thoughts want to start their cycling around in my head. The old habits that create depression die hard. Now I use my many tools (see Tools for Recovery at site menu) that defend me against relapsing and spiraling out of control. In other words, I have brought a new and sane balance into my life and my thinking.

Before, when I was depressed, my mind was filled with horrible thoughts, suicidal thoughts and my thinking was getting more and more erratic. In fact, the mind was telling me all sort of negative lies about myself–which I believed. I felt worthless and helpless in the midst of this negativity, an unyielding, relentless, and pounding me down tsunami-like, till I was flat on my back.

My mind has learned a lot since those days when I was a prisoner of my own fears. My thinking no longer focuses on what is negative about myself. Now I am focused on what I like about myself and ways that will help me grow and be of help to others just like me. Now it’s all about the progress I am making on a daily basis and not worrying about being perfect.

One of our best tools is to use the Depressed Anonymous Workbook where I can go through each of the 12 Steps and relate my own depression experience to myself, my past and discover reasons how I got depressed in the first place. Questions in this book prepare us to make discoveries about ourselves and our lives which we never gave much thought previous to our getting into reovery.

I cannot think myself out of depression. I know that now. I tried that route. Funny thing though, is that I always came back to where I started with no more answers than when I started. It’s like a dog chasing its tail.

  (c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.
(c) The Depressed Anonymous Workbook, (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications.  Louisville, KY.
(c) Home Study Program of Recovery.  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.

For more information on Depressed Anonymous Fellowship publications, please check out the Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore. Ordering online is available.

Hope

I need to keep the focus on HOPE!

September 17, 2019 Hugh Smith Leave a comment

“Making direct amends and taking a personal inventory continues our progress in the program and helps free us from all the hurts of the past. We know now that we can’t afford to think long about real or imagined hurts, or we will throw ourselves back into saddening ourselves once again.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

One of the things that is toxic to the depressed person is a negative thought. This thought continues to grow, once nurtured by my attention and rumination, into a large and uncontrolled wild weed taking all the attention from the good things happening in my life. I know that I can no longer give into that first thought that I keep allowing to pound me into the ground. My negative thinking is very much akin to drinking for the alcoholic. Once I give into that first moment of self-bashing, the depression spiral begins.

Hurts form my past continue to grow stronger the more I allow them to dominate my thinking and my behavior. Hurts are best eradicated when I deal with them openly and honestly.

MEDITATION

Our spirit hopes in God as we begin today with a prayer and a belief that this day can be a good one like all the good days that I have had in my past. (Personal comment).

Resources

(C) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous, Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Page 154. September 17.

Hope is just a few steps away!