Category Archives: Mutual Aid

Courage, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Fear, Hope, Indecision, Isolation, Mutual Aid, Powerlessness, Purpose, The Promises

Do we believe nothing will ever change? A response from The Promises of Depressed Anonymous. #1

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Excerpts from The Promises of Depressed Anonymous (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.

FOLLOW THE DISCUSSION/COMMENTARY ON THE PROMISES EACH DAY

“I do believe that the pain of our depression originates from inside ourselves. We construct present day reality based on life experiences. The past is the predictor of the future. As it says in Depressed Anonymous, many of us hold the absolute belief that “since bad things happened to us in the past bad things will happen to us in the future. ” In other words – we have made up our minds – nothing will ever change. And of course this belief is what promotes and keeps our depression alive.”

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, that is, predictable, we in no way believe that life can be different for us. If we intend to stay stuck, we make the decision, choose to stay in the rut of being lifeless, hapless and hopeless.

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.”

“… life doesn’t have to be lived alone in agony or misery.” (Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011)Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. Page 41.)

NOTE:
Tomorrow our commentary on the Promises continues for Promise #1.

Copyright(c) The Promises of Depressed Anonymous (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. Page 1-3. The 1st Promise of a total of 13 Promises.

12 Step Meeting, Fear, Hope, Mutual Aid

The Covid-19 and its effect on a pre-existing clinical depression

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

Since we believe that depression just doesn’t come out of the blue, but stems from our relationship to the environment, our past and present relationships and NEGATIVE ruminations and self-talk.

For instance, the pandemic is a good place to start to untangle some of those underlying conditions which keep popping up in our daily lives. The covid-19 continues to create havoc, fear and anxiety in ourselves and communities. The more isolated we are from our normal life activities the more time we spend on all the negativity that continues to envelope us.

Anxiety and fear, both of which are some of those feelings and moods which may have contributed to our depression in the first place. Feelings can change from one to the other while moods are longer lasting with an ability to spiral down deeper in our psyche, resulting in an emotional lockdown. We can couple this with a fear that our life is spinning out of control, as our mind continues latching onto the worse possible scenario for our future, throwing more fuel on the fire, believing that life will always be this way for ourselves. We continue to live in total hopelessness.

And then the pandemic. Here we are, away from all the normal activities that once provided us with some temporary distraction from our fears and anxieties. It’s not as if we didn’t continue to feel the pain of living a life of isolation, holed up in the darkness of our own paralyzing moods, day after day, but now that we are cut off physically from friendships, co-workers, close friends or family members, our isolating pushes our negative moods further down. All this comes with a strong possibility that the virus may have claimed the life of a family member or grandparent or close friend or co-worker.

My own feelings, are the same basically of everyone else. Here we are, gradually realizing that this is now the “new normal” for each of us. We come to realize that we need to step back, and look at where we are today – and face our fears and anxieties. The question arises as what do I do now? Let me share with you my own experiences as my own life is turned upside down.

Because of my involvement in a mutual aid group, Depressed Anonymous, I am able to leave some of the pain of my isolation, join with all those others like myself who together are giving each other hope. All of us can share – not just our own pain of isolation – but ways to deal with and encourage each other with the successes we have experienced in facing our own fears and anxiety now and in the past.

As we try to navigate this “new normal” as best we can, we discover together how we are helping each other, day after day find a real lifeline – even though a virtual one. I am making this path work for myself, actively participating with the rest of the group, finding that my anxieties have diminished. By being in the now and being part of this mutually support group I am finding that there is a way out. I no longer am going to stay isolated.

“There is hope…and we do recover.” Please join us on SKYPE AND ZOOM – there are meetings on SKYPE every day at 11:30AM CST / 12:30PM EST. See Home page menu for DA meetings for more information). This is located at our website depressedanon.com.

Finally, one of our resources is the Depressed Anonymous Workbook that we use at our meetings, helping us to uncover some of our “underlying conditions” that existed prior to the present pandemic.

Presently our contacts with family and friends are stretched thin. Everything that makes us a human being, those live social encounters that provided us with joy, comfort and hope. We all have lost that shoulder to shoulder feeling and the hugs and smiles that gave us hope. Now the new normal is social distancing six feet apart. People older-stay home. Wear mask. I agree with all those solutions to staying safe.

It is here at our virtual online Depressed Anonymous meetings where we share and strengthen our resolve, uncovering those areas of our lives (thinking, feelings, moods, behaviors) that prohibit our personal growth and happiness. Now we are replacing our hopelessness and helplessness with hope and help everyday online.

The Depressed Anonymous fellowship is a potent provider of self-discovery as we move from one Step to the other at our meetings using the Workbook format. It is here in this virtual environment where we not only can take the time to listen to others in the group about their own issues, but listening as well to their many responses to how hope and healing have given them a new freedom, a new self-confidence while being provided a self-discovery tool, the Depressed Anonymous Workbook. This tool, with the Depressed Anonymous manual is used at every meeting.

If you are interested in a HOME STUDY PROGRAM OF RECOVERY you can learn more about this process of recovery from our website.

The Depressed Anonymous Workbook and Depressed Anonymous manual are also both available online as eBOOKS from Depressed Anonymous Publications.

YOUR HOPE IS OUR HOPE!

Hugh for the fellowship

12 Step Meeting, Helpful Thinking, Mutual Aid, Supportive Actions

Mood Rings

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A number of years ago, a marketer of mood rings was making the claim that you could discover your mood by checking the color of the stone in the setting of the ring. Black was for a depressed mood, a blue for a “blue” mood, and green for a normal or happy mood. Well, I bought one and checked out my mood. Bingo! My mood ring indicated that I was in a happy mood, which I was. Hey, “this is great” I told myself. One half hour later I excitedly checked my mood ring again. “What” I exclaimed, “how can that be” as my ring had NOW changed to black. And that is the way it went for the rest of day. Green, black, blue and then blue again. I told myself I was still happy, nothing had changed there. Long story short – it was just another gimmick. So much for “fake” science. I knew that the diagnosis of my own mood was much more accurate and so I got help. But still, when the saddening symptoms of depression began to get worse, such as being unable to get out of bed, lacking any motivation to do what needs to be done, like going to work and keeping my important appointments. It is these daily responsibilities that began to slide. And then what seemed like just a short time I found myself immobilized and in a mental and physical lockdown.

If this is happening to you – we can help or at least point you in the right direction.

Welcome to our Depressed Anonymous meetings. We don’t depend on mood rings, but we do use the spiritual principles of the 12 Steps. These are at the core of our own recovery. By work, time, prayer, going to meetings and reading Depressed Anonymous literature we do recover and we do find our way out of depression. I can only tell you my own experience with depression and what tools I used to move out of isolation and begin doing the things that all of us in the program do to get well and back on track.

Here are some of my recommendations on getting started today, and finding that caring fellowship of men and women dedicated to helping themselves and others, and accompanying them on a path that leads out of depression, sadness and futility. The first Step is to admit that I need help and that my life is unmanageable. “I can’t go it alone anymore. I need support coupled with a belief that I can get better. Give me the tools and I will get to work!”

RECOMMENDATIONS

  1. Attend Depressed Anonymous meeting. They happen every day of the week and sometimes twice a day, dependent whether it is a ZOOM DA meeting or a SKYPE DA meeting. Meeting times and locations can be found here on our website @ www.depressedanon.com.
  2. Attend a virtual (because of the Pandemic) Depressed Anonymous meeting, and click onto the site to gain entrance to the meeting. You will be welcomed by a member of the DA fellowship. If you do attend a meeting you can either pass or share your first name. But remember, you can ask questions, and participate as much as you are comfortable with. It is also important to listen to the members of the group and see if this meeting discussion talks about any issues that may be your issues.
  3. Some group members will post their phone numbers/emails at the meeting so that you might contact them if you would have questions about the group. Every Monday at the Skype meeting there is a Newcomers group meeting. This is a meeting that is very helpful to the new member. This can be a very good venue where some of your questions/concerns may find answers. The website also provides a wealth of literature available for purchase online plus special subject material at the Home Page menu. If you would like a person to help you with questions that you have about depression, they will be happy to share with you their story.

Hugh for the Fellowship
Finally, please trust your own feelings, not the Mood ring. 🙂

Mutual Aid

Untying knots

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

How many times have I spent untying knots, from shoestrings to the reel on the fishing rod, the line erupting in a ball of tangled line. The lesson here is that untying knots is a metaphor for life. I knew from experience that if I stayed with trying to untangle the knot that I would eventually succeed. That happens to be true for the shoestrings –but not so much for the fishing line. I usually had to cut the line, pull out the tangled ball of line and use the line that was left.

Life is like this when a situation arises that needs our immediate attention, we either deal with it, or tell ourselves that there is nothing we can do to change it. We’ll just try and live with it. That doesn’t work very well for either shoestrings or fishing line. Cutting the fishing line and/or the shoestrings is not the best solution but it does take care of our knotted line and tangled shoestrings.

If you are experiencing some tangled knots in your life: depression, despair, divorce, and just all over emotional pain, now is the time to ask for help. We ask if there is someway or someone to help me untie my hard to live with problems? Is the solution just to cut off my lifelines of family and friends? We say no! If you need help now in untying a knot, such as a sadness that continues to spiral you downward, leaving you feeling adrift and hopeless, we can help you find a way out where you can connect with others like yourself.

A mutual aid group is available for those of us who have learned how to overcome our hopelessness and skilled at untying knots in our lives. We are skilled because we are with those others who have been busy cutting the lines of their own attachments to self bashing, feeling worthless and living in isolation.
Throw out a line and we will be there for you. You are not alone. “There is hope….and we do recover.” (The name of one of our Depressed Anonymous ZOOM groups).

WE have our Depressed Anonymous meetings everyday online at SKYPE and ZOOM, please come and join us. Check out our homepage for more information about our groups, online.
Please contact us with an email at depanon@netpenny.net.

For more information check out our literature at our website www.depressedanon.com.
Thank you,
Hugh, for the fellowship.

Fellowship, Mutual Aid

Depressed Anonymous is and has been my salvation

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

I attend Depressed Anonymous meetings quite regularly. I have found that I can attend the meetings regularly.(Depressed Anonymous Meetings are on SKYPE everyday) I get the support of the members who I have found to have about the same kind of problems as I have-maybe not as bad as mine. But I guess each of us feels that our problems are worse than anyone else. I know mine are. But with the regular meetings and my friends support, I find that I am able to manage pretty well from week to week. I have more faith in myself since I work the Twelve Steps the best that I can and trust the Higher Power (God Almighty) with all my heart. I pray to the fullest extent that I will continue to have faith in myself and others. I have become a more whole being than I have ever been. I work a lot. I volunteer a lot and have a far better outlook on life that I have ever had. I attribute all of these good things to Depressed Anonymous.

…I cannot begin to explain sufficiently the support the meetings can give one who is depressed. Depressed Anonymous has been and is my salvation. I know the Twelve Step program is the only way to go to get one on the right track and it takes the meetings to keep you there. They are a “Godsend” for me and I know for a lot of others who are depressed.

I thank Depressed Anonymous and my Higher Power for a life worth living.

– Frances

Copyright © Depressed Anonymous, 3rd ed.(2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. (Personal Stories, page 116)

All literature can be ordered online at The Depressed Anonymous Bookstore.
Click onto VISIT THE STORE at our website www.depressedanon.com

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, Isolation, Mutual Aid

I don’t have to be alone

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

…I had the conviction that a person depressed could find the same strength and serenity as did those who, sick and tired of being sick and tired, had found when they stumbled into their first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. It (Depressed Anonymous) began as a pilot project at the university where depressed people gathered as a mutual aid group. I discovered that people of all ages, beliefs, and occupations could gradually get out of the prison of depression if they were part of a support group, especially if the group followed the suggested Twelve Steps of the group now known as Depressed Anonymous. I saw that a Twelve Step program centered specifically around the subject of depression could help people escape isolation and the painful sense of hopelessness. They would no longer feel alone.

Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous., 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky. Page 22.

NOTE: If you are tired of looking at the four walls during this time of Covid-19, we have help. If you are depressed and seeking relief, there are a number of places where you can go online for help. Depressed Anonymous now has a meeting everyday from 12:30PM (EST). This group is peer led, which means they have been depressed or using these Steps of recovery today to help maintain hope and healing in their lives today! These are excellent groups to attend to find help and hope. You can join and share your story or you can listen to the stories of others. Either way you will find the power at work in your own life.

There are now five scheduled DA ZOOM groups operating in the US and being made available to the Depressed around the world. These ZOOM groups with the SKYPE groups are ensuring that the message of HOPE continues to spread with it’s powerful message. Please join us if you are looking to free yourself from isolation.

We thank all of those who chair these meetings with such dedication and faithfulness. They are true witnesses to the “miracle of the group(s).”

Hugh

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love and peace to you all.

Hugh, for the fellowship

12 Step Meeting, Mutual Aid

A red thread, a beautiful tapestry, patterns and God’s will.

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Some of us, in groups and individually, work the Steps according to the month. What this means is when April 1st (4th month) arrives, we start spending quality time studying our Step #4. This Step states that we “Made a fearless moral and searching inventory of ourselves.” For many of our members, myself included, we use our Depressed Anonymous Workbook in conjunction with our Depressed Anonymous book to discover the patterns of our lives that keep us from being our best selves. The patterns have formed habits and these habits can end up becoming addictions. Could it be that these patterns of our thinking, feeling and behavior keep us imprisoned in our depression? Is it now that we feel we are continually circling around in that morass of hopelessness and helplessness? Like any addiction, we feel there is no way out.

It is here I want to quote from Maria von Trappe (Maria of musical The Sound of Music) who shared this thought:

“It will be very interesting one day to follow the pattern of our life as it is spread out like a beautiful tapestry …. in looking back we can discover how a red thread goes through the pattern of our life: the will of God. ” Quoted in the Publication: Give us this day. Liturgical Press. Collegeville, MN. March 26,

As I examine my life, attempting to discover that red thread, I have found that there actually is a red thread moving through my life tapestry. The red thread is there for me and it is like looking into a rear view mirror showing me where I have been on this life journey. There are these life patterns consistently appearing during the good times and the tough times of our lives. Even a pattern in which I see life as difficult and the world a dangerous place. Many of these negative patterns and fearful thoughts may start in our childhood and gradually become even more pronounced as patterns. But that red thread continues its weaving through our life tapestry into our adult lives. For some the red thread moves forward along with a pattern of pessimism, while providing us at the same time with hope. And as I look over my own past life, I see that my negativity, always following me into most of my relationships. Now as I look at the whole life tapestry as part of my fourth step inventory, stretching as it does from birth to this day, I am able to see patterns which have formed over time, crippling and making feel less than. But even during the painful times I can still see that that red thread, the will of God, has always been there operating in my life, accompanying me on my life journey, invisible, but still there like the silent whisper of the wind, providing me with hope. Now I can see that the red thread hasn’t just formed, it has been there as for long as I can remember. My present belief in a power greater than my depression is gradually setting me free. Today. Everyday.

I know how some Depressed Anonymous groups work this Fourth Step Study on an ongoing basis. For example, there are International Depressed Anonymous Skype Group meetings who come together everyday of the week on the Internet. You can access these group meeting by going to https://join.skype.com and then signing in at 2019depanon@hotmail.com. The leader for the meeting that day will sign you up and you can join the group. Meetings start at 12:30 PM Eastern Standard PM time.

Look back on your life up to today and see if you can recognize how that red thread weaving through your own life, no matter how difficult, how despairing, it is the fact that God has always been there with us and we gradually come to believe that He will always be there with us. And as a member of Depressed Anonymous I want to share with others how that red thread never abandoned me or deserted me, no matter how bad things became. And so when you do your inventory you too will discern that it has always been God’s will that the hope he provides will free you.

Hugh

Choice, Fellowship, Higher Power, Mutual Aid

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

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AFFIRMATION

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

REFLECTION

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

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

MEDITATION

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

RESOURCES:

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

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