Category Archives: Helpful Thinking

Fellowship, Mindfulness, Purpose

What’s in your backpack?

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Have you ever embarked and planned for a camping trip where you set up camp  for a couple of days. Remember how you would load up your backpack with what you thought you needed? Gradually, it became clear  that you had too much stuff. How could you possibly carry all that stuff on the  mile long trails?  It was obvious that now you had to figure out what to leave behind.  That is the trick: what do I leave behind?

Almost a year ago, my wife and I moved to a new home. We were downsizing. Again, the metaphor of the backpack comes into play. What to give away. What to throw away. It was now that we realized that we no longer needed what we had accumulated over the years. As Ecclesiastes tells us, there is a time to plant and a time to root out.

The American naturalist Sigurd Olson shares that “years of walking through wild country has taught him a great deal about traveling light. Backpackers learn, sometimes the hard way, that simplicity is always a question of knowing what to leave behind.”

I relish listening to the old tape of George Carlin who gives his spiel about  our “stuff.”  We all have more “stuff” that we know what to do with.  We all carry our “stuff” where ever we go.   Too late are we  aware of what our backpack is carrying. I am referring to the “stuff” of   our sad moods  which if not dealt with, will by the sheer weight of it all, overwhelm us.  Our backpacks could be filled with rage, fear, anger, suicidal thoughts and everything else that weighs us down. Not only our body but our mind  is immobilized.

Most of the time now, my backpack has only the essential items  for my life journey. I have opened up my  backpack, looked inside and removed all the situations and feelings that I no longer felt were positive and life giving. Today, I know perfectly well what is in my backpack.  Along with all the solutions that I carry with me day after day, I have my guide book, giving me a Step by Step plan for living my life with serenity and grateful heart.

I no longer let a negative and unpleasant mood spiral  down  so that my backpack becomes heavier and the depression mood darkens a path ahead. Today after years on the road, I now can tell when I need to get on the unpacking thing, take out what I don’t want or need, and move on.  We can  leave behind that which weighs us down

If you want  to know what might be in your backpack, and want to take out that stuff you no longer need or want on this life journey, please join us, get your guide book, and walk with us. In time and with a lighter load, you can join us (Depressed Anonymous).

Together we will get where  we need to be and with what we need to continue to travel on this broad and wide road, not alone but with each other.

Hugh

SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY.

Visit The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore where you will find your plan for the way out of the wilderness.

Fellowship, Purpose

Is there life after depression?

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The question is a surefire cause for reflection.  In my own case, I can say that   my life  took a new and exciting direction.  As therapist I quickly learned  that my own painful depression experience gave my life and work a special path.

A recent author, in his work The Depths,  shares with us how his experience with depression provided new meaning for his life and work. It was when his depression ran it’s course did he realize that this experience had provided him with a purpose for his life.

“The specific enterprises that  will create purpose in life will differ from person to person and emerge from his or her history and needs. Your mileage will surely vary. There’s no ready made formula for discovering  and rebuilding life purpose (or purposes) after depression. It can and should emerge over time from solo reflection, as well as from conversations with spouses, friends, and therapists.  This diverse process is worth pursuing. This diverse process is worth pursuing. I expect what is common among people is that however purpose is created, it can hold depression at bay…”

Since 1985, my experience with depression  in the midst of my Graduate studies in Psychology,  provided me with a “life purpose” which I live out everyday in my life.  I didn’t just pick up where I left off before my depression but I used what I learned from my experience; used the tools given  to me while in recovery,  and now continue to share my experiences with thousands of people around the world.

Because of my participation in the 12 Step fellowship of Alcoholic Anonymous, this program of recovery I used as  a model of recovery and hope  for those of us who were depressed.

As Jonathon Rottenberg shares in his work, The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic (2014) Basic Books, NY.,  that

“This again is a reminder that we may be better off if we think about recovery, not simply as the absence of depressive symptoms, but as a set of active qualities or practices that prevent low mood from taking root, despite the presence of liabilities elsewhere. ” Pages 194-195.

I do hope that you have the opportunity to read this book as the author shows us in many different ways how the depression experience will not only provide purpose in our lives but also that  strength we  call hope.

Hugh

 

Fellowship, Higher Power, Higher Thoughts for Down Days, Hope

Live for today–yesterday is gone forever and tomorrow isn’t here yet.

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AFFIRMATION

I am going to begin a program today that includes daily exercise, proper nutrition and the right amount of sleep.

“When we are under stress, our auto-immune system, which fights off all the noxious agents which makes us ill, ceases to operate efficiently. This is why people who are depressed get so many bouts of colds, flu and worse.  What makes any illness   worse is that, because you don’t value yourself, you don’t look after yourself properly and you don’t seek the help that you need.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I want to believe that the more I take care of myself, the less likely I am going to be a victim of my own negative stress. I do want to take good care of myself and be healthy. So often in the past, I would worry, be tense, and continually fret about what happened yesterday. I would try to live in tomorrow with all  its own trials and tribulations as well. I never had much luck just trying to live in the present moment. If I want to start feeling better, then I have to live in today.

There is good stress and bad stress. Good stress challenges us to live each day with enthusiasm and hope as we go about our daily routine. Bad stress is  that which causes us to worry, be concerned about things that we have no control over and generally causes us to feel tired. By following our Twelve Step program of recovery, we discover that our life can have hope and purpose.

MEDITATION

We believe that the God of our understanding make it possible for us to gradually eradicate our need to worry and distress ourselves. I am like an  addict who continually needs to medicate those feelings of helplessness and hopelessness by saddening myself when things look bleak and out of control. With the help of my Higher Power, I believe that I can begin to feel better as I take the proper means to take care of my physical health.

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 Daily Thoughts and Meditations for 12 Step Fellowships. (1998) Depressed Anonymous Publications.  Louisville.KY. August 8th.

Acceptance, Fellowship, Purpose, The 12 Steps

Setting A Force In Motion

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“I personally believe that once I have made the first step, and admitted my powerlessness, I set in motion a force – the loving force of the creator in my personal life. In time I am filled with energy and find that this power can change me – restore my life with purpose and meaning. It can prepare me to meet those  who are ready to risk leaving behind the prison of their depression. By my own interest in getting in touch with the Higher Power and getting its direction to “do the next right thing” I find that my own life is gradually more filled with  purpose and energy.

There is a saying that to gain energy you must give energy. I have found this to be true for my own life.

What appears to deplete our energy is when our thoughts implode and collide with each other as they are kept focused on the problem. Actually, a person who is depressed is much like a community which is divided and at war with itself.

If you nurture yourself, you will find that just as in the natural world, the growth will be good and  the growth will be gradual. There are no quick fixes in life –only slow solutions.

We have a competency, an identity, an autonomy and an interrelatedness to everything alive around us. We are truly a part of every living community on the planet and in the entire universe. We are all one – and the more we see ourselves as part and parcel of this universe, we discover that we are a part of creating a wonderful garden of diversity and plurality where everyone feels a part.

We realize again that by my willingness to live in the will of God that I can live in the peace of my own consciousness of being one with all. What I mean by this is that God acts in and through us the more we let go and let God.

We believe that as we can become aware that God dwells in each of us and demonstrates its power in us the more we remain   open to God’s personal presence.

We humans are so grounded in the material and the spatial that it is veritably impossible to be conscious of a Higher Power in and around us. We are so mired in the muck. We can begin to believe that we can tap into this consciousness and let it unfold its plan, its purpose and plot for our life. It will not plan something small and insignificant but will, by small steps, lead us, cause to unfold in our lives that which it has for us to accomplish while we are here on this earth. And I believe the spiritual nature and the fellowship of Depressed Anonymous is what God uses to get us aware and conscious of its love and presence.”

SOURCE:  Copyright(c) The Promises of  Depressed  Anonymous (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. Pages 15-17.

12 Step Meeting, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Journaling, Purpose

I accept and value myself today!

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“Every decision that we make alters the world of meaning which we have created. Deciding to eat Wheat Puffs instead of Corn Flakes  for breakfast may not be a major change, but abandoning  thinking  ‘ I am bad and unacceptable’ and replacing it with ‘I accept and value myself’ is.  Every decision you have made since you decided that you were bad and valueless was based on that decision. Now, all these conclusions need reviewing and changing. ” Dorothy Rowe, Breaking the Bonds. Fontana. 1991.

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

Making  a decision is the first step in getting free and being liberated from my depression. From this step follows the  many other steps that are to be taken that will allow me to begin to see how the thoughts I think,  definitely affect the way I feel. My next step is to review the different ways in which I can value myself.  My first new response to my own negative thinking about myself is to believe that today I will  begin my exit from the prison of  my own negativity and pessimism.

My struggle to wrest myself free from depression means that I am to make some initial steps in my own health. I want to believe that it is the fact  that I want to value myself and my life that I will no longer allow myself to wallow in self-pity, but decide to start to make an effort to take mastery again over the way I feel and think.

MINDFULLNESS/SELF REFELCTION

We will let go of our ignorance about how this universe is operated. I let the God of my understanding take charge. I continue to dip my oars into the water of life and risk letting   God be the rudder master.

I want to make a plan today, to decide how I can do one thing differently so that I might value who I am as a human being. I will write down how I will dip  my oars in the water in the next 24 hours and change what I need to change. 

(Check out The Depressed Anonymous Workbook at   THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS  BOOKSTORE for that excellent tool for self reflection and personal recovery.)

 

Choice, Fellowship, Higher Power, Hope

The 12 Steps are my North Star

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   “Depressed Anonymous means hope -as long as you want to get out of the pit of depression just start to believe that little voice which says “Yes,  I am hopeful. I will feel better too.”  The other members of Depressed Anonymous give me hope. Others have made it  out of the deep lonely pit of depression and so can I.  I choose to be happy even if I don’t feel happy right away. I am going to risk feeling different from this wretched sadness that I feel all the time.   I have nothing to lose – except my fear of the future.

But with OUR new way of living and thinking,  we are going to stay in the NOW. We know tomorrow produces anxiety and fear. Yesterday is there with all the old hurts and anger.  All I have is the now!  If I live in the now, I can begin to stay out of yesterday with all its old wounds and hurts   and resist living in tomorrow  with its unknown problems. Negative thoughts about our past or those tomorrow can numb our feelings so that we don’t have to feel the pain of whatever it is that isolates us from the world around us. We also admit, like any one person addicted to a person, place, thing, chemical or drug, that our lives are out of control. We have to admit that by depressing ourselves, we have chosen saddening ourselves as our drug of choice. We medicate ourselves with sadness any time we might have to change the way we live our lives. Sometimes, our depression over sadness arises out of guilt as we continue to turn our personal  mistakes into giant catastrophes -this continues to make us feel as if we are nothing and valueless. This all adds to our frustration and the feeling of our being out of control. We know that if we just give up our struggles against depression and admit our powerlessness over it we can begin to surrender to our Higher Power and practice letting go of it.  I can decide that I want to feel good again. I can decide that I want to feel happy and put this constant sadness and hollowness behind me once and for all. I know that no longer will I  have to retreat or flee from these sad feelings and escape with sleep, over activity or drugs. I know that whenever my sadness seems unending, I then just admit that I am not helpless and that I can do something about it because I have the tools (see Tools of Recovery at Menu)  and I can learn the skills that I didn’t know were available to me before. Now I am deciding to think, act and behave differently much to my personal credit and new found trust in the Higher Power.  I am a sailor who sees the land, knows the right direction and does the rowing to get where I want to get. The Twelve Steps are my compass…”

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (1998, 2008, 2011). Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.KY. Pages. 34-35.

Belief, Fear, Fellowship

How come I couldn’t get out of bed when I was depressed?

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In his recent book The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic, Jonathon Rottenberg shares with us what he thinks might give an answer.

“Why do depressed people lie in bed? It’s not because it’s great to snuggle under the blankets; it’s because they can’t bring themselves to get out of bed. Almost any other activity or task becomes a painful ordeal, even activities as simple as taking a shower or getting dressed. This seems strange. A perfectly able-bodied  person can’t bring herself to rise out of bed. How does this happen?

The intuitive answer is that this reflects a lack of motivation. Depressed people are directionless because they are undercommitted to goals. Without goals to drive future behavior, current behavior becomes frozen for long periods. Bed is the most natural location for a behavioral pause, as the place in the house most associated with inactivity.”

Comment from the Blog author.

I agree with the above reasons for a depressed person seeking their pillow when depressed. Further on he  tells us that when depressed we seek a pause because our goals are failing us and that “depression results from an inability to disengage efforts from a failing goal is relatively new. Could  it be a  plausible pathway into depression?”

This view surely strikes  a chord with me. I also couldn’t get out of bed in the morning because my  lack of motivation  was immobilized.  It was get up or don’t get up and then lose my job. Everyday my goal was to get up and walk. Everyday. My goal was to save my job. Motivation came with forcing my body to roll out of the sack.

Constant rumination about my goals in life, at that time, were being frustrated or about to be frustrated, till my brain felt like it was filled with cotton.

It was the continued rumination about a personal loss which  gradually and methodically pushed me over the edge. The more I tried to figure out what was going on in my body, continued fatigue with hopelessness,  the more I dug the hole deeper.    I  was in the dark abyss with no way out.  Eventually the walking paid off, my dark mood lifted, the fog cleared and the horizon looked brighter. In time I dealt with the personal loss , plus the help of the supportive group Depressed Anonymous. Life got better.

NOTE. I found this work to be an excellent guide for one’s personal growth and understanding of the experience of depression.  Hugh S.

SOURCES: Jonathan  Rottenberg. The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic.  (2014) Basic Books, NY.

Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (1998, 2008, 2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY.

Purpose, The 12 Steps

What happened?

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Recollections from the founder of Depressed Anonymous

“There was nothing I could do to shake those horrible and painful feelings. My mind was unable to focus on or to concentrate on anything. My memory was affected and it was impossible to retain anything I tried to read. With each new day, I felt my strength ebbing away. I was physically and emotionally drained. I knew that something was wrong – what was it?

The answer to those  question seemed to lie within all the losses that I had acquired over the past months.  I had slipped down into the slippery and dark world known only to someone who has ben depressed. I had to do something besides talking to break out of depression. I had to change the way that I had lived my life. First I had to admit that my life was out of control. I was powerless to overcome my symptoms of depression by will power alone. I needed to believe in a power greater than myself. I had to have a spiritual experience. Having been in the ministry for may years, I thought I had a deep spiritual experience, but I seemed to have lost it along the way.

I began to walk five miles a day inside a mall near my home to shake this awful feeling of emptiness that had taken over my life. I set myself this goal to force myself to walk until  I starter to feel better. This was about a year following that day in August when I felt myself slipping into  the abyss. After doing this exercise of walking day after day,   I began to feel a little better. But then the old message came back and said “yes, but this good feeling won’t last.”  Then I knew that since I had good days before that depression, I could have a good day again. I went on walking, and within time, I walked my way through the fog that had imprisoned me.

But I had to do the work!   Did my symptoms have me imprisoned or did the meaning that I had created in my mind about my life have me imprisoned? I believe it was the meaning I had given to those losses in my life  that gradually threw me to the ground, hog tied  me, and wouldn’t let me go. I had to believe that somehow my walking gave meaning to the belief that I wasn’t going to let these feelings of helplessness beat me down. I just believed that I was going to beat this thing! I learned a great lesson here in that “motivation follows action.”

SOURCE :Copyright(c)  Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (1998, 2008, 2011). Depressed Anonymous Publications, Louisville. KY  Pg. 21.  (Autobiographical sketch of the founder of Depressed Anonymous, Hugh S., in Evansville, Indiana in 1985.)

DA Literature, Fellowship, Higher Power, Hope, Isolation, Spirituality

The “before” and “after” stories of those who freed themselves from the tyranny of depression

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I just want to write a few thoughts this morning about the “before” and “after” experiences of group members battles with depression. Before there was a Depressed Anonymous group for me to attend, where I could address my problems, I joined another 12 step program of recovery. It was at this meeting that I heard and saw people who shared their stories how it was “before” they got into recovery and the “after” now that they are living the recovery program.

The difference was like night and day. I could listen all day to a lecture on depression, alcoholism, overeating or any other addiction and not be as moved as I am when I hear the actual person telling their story of how life is now by actively participating in their own recovery. To hear the changes that have taken place in those many people whose lives had spiraled down into the darkness of isolation and hopelessness is a phenomenal experience in itself.

Most of the books which serve as the basic text of 12 step groups such as Depressed Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous, to name a few, all include many “before” and “after” stories of those who have suffered the loss of their self only to find that with the help of the spiritual principles of the Steps were they able eventually to share how their lives had changed dramatically. Their stories are simple, direct and filled with powerful accounts of human beings who once were lost in the chaos of addiction, but now have been freed, living with hope and serenity.

Depressed Anonymous’ basic text has its own “before” and “after ” stories as well. All the stories, the “before” and “after” accounts, give credit to the program of recovery which has changed the thinking and lives of thousands of persons throughout the world. I see these stories manifesting the miracle of the Higher Power, at work in those persons who made a decision to choose to walk that different pathway out of their addictions. They then tell those others “still suffering from depression” about the power they have received.

“Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to the depressed, and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.” Step Twelve of Depressed Anonymous.”

Sources:

Depressed Anonymous, recommends its basic text, Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition for the many inspiring accounts of those persons who came to a meeting, like myself, heard what others had experienced and decided that to see how it worked for them.

Also another excellent publication with many “before” and “after” stories is A MEDLEY OF DEPRESSION STORIES, by the founder of two Depressed Anonymous groups in North Carolina, Debra Sanford. Her work is available at Amazon.com.

Depressed Anonymous Publications also has books available at depressedanon.com. VISIT THE STORE

Fellowship, Purpose

12 Self-Help Ways To Get Undepressed

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  1. Attribute the depression to a cause, e.g., loss of a loved one, loss of a childhood, loss of a pet, loss of a job.
  2. Attempt to rectify the problems considered responsible for evoking the feelings of depression.
  3. Finding moral and social support (Depressed Anonymous mutual aid group).
  4. Engaging in diverting and distracting recreations.
  5. Keeping busy and working.
  6. Focusing one’s attention elsewhere than on the depressing problems or depressed feelings.
  7. Restructuring one’s thinking so as to minimize the significance of the depressing events.
  8. Engaging in in self-care and self maintenance activities.
  9. Venting one’s feelings.
  10. Taking prescribed medication as long as you and your doctor agree that the medication is working on your behalf.
  11. Finding compensations and boosting feelings of self esteem or self sufficiency through useful purposeful activity.
  12. Taking comfort in one’s religion.

SOURCE: Wounded Healers. V. Rippere & W. Ruth. John WIley and Sons, Ltd, 1985. pgs. 86-87. (Reprinted and published in the ANTIDEPRESSANT TABLET.)