Category Archives: Supportive Actions

12 Step Meeting

New DA Speaker Meeting Recording 08 April 2022 – Robin

Leave a comment

We’ve uploaded the talk from Robin that she gave on Friday 08 April 2022.

We have a number of recordings of people sharing their story at a speaker meeting. The link to that page is: https://depressedanonymous.org/depressed-anonymous-meeting-recordings/

The link can also be browsed to by selecting Tools for Recovery from the horizontal menu, then Depressed Anonymous Meeting Recordings

As we record more speakers the recordings will be posted there as well. The list is in reverse chronological order (newest first).

Acceptance, Courage, Helpful Thinking, Kindness, Love, Serenity, Spiritual Heroes, Spirituality, Supportive Actions

Be kind anyway…

Leave a comment

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be Kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true friends.
Succeed anyway.
If You are honest and frank, people may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good that you do today, people will forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best that you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you have anyway.
You see, in the final analysis. it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

– Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Affirmations, Belief, Believing Is Seeing, Choice, Higher Power, Mutual Aid, Prayer, Purpose, Service, Step 12

Time to plant

Leave a comment

To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.
– Audrey Hepburn

Submitted by Robin R.

I might not be planting a garden but I am watching the seed of my faith, service to others, grow as part of my next 24 hours. My efforts to be there for others has a relationship to how I am there for myself. I watch how I can thrive emotionally and spiritually when I believe in a power greater than myself. It is a known fact that when a person has a belief in some higher power, some purpose for living, it usually is due to a belief, that “there is a God and it’s not me.”

I believe in a tomorrow. I believe in living one day at a time. I also believe in keeping my life simple. I try and do the next right thing. As best I can I try to do what needs to be done. I try and do the possible. I have learned that trying to do the impossible, takes a little more time.

I want to live in peace with my neighbor. Treat others as I would like to be treated. Pretty simple and basic stuff. Agree?
I also believe in consequences for what I do or not do in this life. And, do I try and love my neighbor as myself. Yes.

As Bill W., a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, left the hospital room of Dr. Bob, he heard Dr. Bob tell him, “Bill, keep it simple.”
It’s not that complicated. Though it does take work. Much like “weeding” the garden.

Anger, Meditation, Mutual Aid, Prayer

Protecting Yourself From Toxic People

Leave a comment

As a depressive I feel that I am more sensitive than other people. Sometimes I need to determine if it is me being over sensitive orif it is the other person toxic and harming me. Toxic people come in many forms: narcissists, sociopaths, predators, etc. Truly deeply toxic people probably should be avoided completely. How can you recognize toxic people in your life? I found a list of characteristics of “human predators” which can be a proxy for any type of toxic person.

The characteristics of a “human predator”:

  • Human predators are mean.
  • Predators are utterly selfish.
  • Predators pretend friendship and love but they feel absolutely nothing for others.
  • Predators are charming and good at flattery, but they don’t mean a single word of it.
  • Predators brag and boast and make up outrageous lies. When challenged, they blame others.
  • Predators don’t feel anxiety or fear.
  • Predators are impulsive and easily bored. They demand thrills and take dangerous risks. They enjoy pushing others into taking dangerous risks, too.
  • Predators are bullies with explosive tempers.
  • Predators enjoy humiliating people.
  • Predators hate it if anyone else has power or is praised. For the predator, life is a competition and they want to win.
  • Predators weaken people with insults and putdowns.
  • Predators are cunning and manipulative.
  • Predators lie easily and think nothing of breaking a promise.
  • Predators are without conscience: they do not feel remorse or guilt.
  • Predators often boast about the harm they’ve done to other people.
  • Predators are parasites. They are lazy and live off others, giving as little as possible in return.
  • Predators are control freaks, stopping others from taking control of anything if they can
  • Predators force petty rules on others – rules that are impossible to follow.
  • Predators boast about tricking other people.
  • Predators boast about breaking the law.

Jon Atack
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1076831346096293&id=283133205466115

If a person has most of these characteristics – avoid them. You are not being over sensitive, the other person is toxic.

If a person has one or a few of these characteristics they may be able to be managed through clear, firm and mature boundaries. However try not to fall into the trap of hate. Maintain a small amount of love for that person – even if that is just that they are a creation of God. The behavior can be hated but try not to hate the person. It’s been my experience when I hate someone I hurt myself.

If the other person doesn’t have any of the above characteristics I need to be open to the idea that I may be over sensitive regarding this. I need to pray and meditate on it. I need to talk to other mature, serene people who can help me discern my part. I need to own and take responsibility for my part of the problem.

Yours in recovery, Bill R

12 Step Meeting, Acceptance, Affirmations, Community building, Depressed Anonymous, Gratitude, Love, Mutual Aid, Prayer, Service, Spirituality, The 12 Steps, The Promises

Won’t you be my neighbor?

Leave a comment

Remember that friendly greeting? Well, I do and so do my adult children and grandchildren. Even today, Mr. Rogers’ name and face is enshrined in each our memories. What a delight to see him come through the door, moving down a few steps into his living room, heading for the closet, where he cheerfully donned his sweater. All the while he’s singing “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, won’t you be my neighbor? Won’t you be my neighbor.” Then he sits down and puts on his gym shoes. We are now ready and excited to see our friends and neighbor(s) again today.

His neighbor’s became my neighbors, his friends became my friends.

Our day began with Mr. Rogers. Everyday started the same. Everyday was a new day, seeing a new friend or old friend, with lessons to be learned. It was a program that we looked forward to everyday. This relationship with Mr. Rogers continues today for our children and grandchildren. As an adult, I believe that Mr. Rogers neighborhood, all his friends helped my children, my family members all thrive on the goodness and respect that they witnessed day after day.

Mr. Rogers taught me a great lesson. The more I watched his program, the more I wanted to watch his program. I found that I had created a habit for myself, a daily listening with my children happily watching neighbors loving their neighbors. It was a habit I never wanted to break. I found that my thoughts, my feelings of goodness and happiness thrived within me as my attention was glued to the screen.

But as we grow older we discovered that there have been some habits in our lives that did not cause us to thrive. In fact, they caused us to spiral downward where we had fewer and fewer neighbors (friends) that were willing to help us thrive. The lessons Mr. Rogers had taught us early on in life had gradually faded. Now, today, we continue to look for those friends who will help us get back on our feet. I have learned to develop habits that help me to thrive upwards into a serene and healthy human being. In my recovery program of healthy daily living (God, and the 12 Steps). I now watch what I think about. I watch what I say, and I watch that I always show respect for others. I also watch that I speak to myself with respect and that I affirm myself everyday with the belief that God created me because of his love for me. God has a plan for me and is always with me to carry that plan forward for the good of myself and my neighbors.

I spend time, everyday, to pray and meditate (Step 10) as I make a conscious contact with my God. Everyday, every morning, always in the same place, the same time and in the same comfortable chair. In our program, it teaches us the importance of that daily relationship with our God.

Do you know who my neighbors are today? Let me tell you who they are and what happens when we meet. I meet with them as often as I am able. They help me thrive. Do they ever! I am part of a recovery program where all of us come together, meet old and new friends and learn life long lessons. We learn how to love ourselves and enjoy each other’s company. We learn lessons on how to live out our daily lives with hope and peace. Our lessons come from listening to others who have formed a habit, a habit of how to love their selves and their neighbors.
For more information, please click onto the Depressed Anonymous website at https://depressedanonymous.org.

Welcome neighbor.

Hugh S., for the fellowship.

12 Step Meeting, Acceptance, Belief, Choice, Community building, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Faith, Fellowship, Hope, Isolation, Mutual Aid, Pain, Positivity, Prayer, Purpose, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03

Life Is Unpredictable

Leave a comment

The following quotation is taken from the Introduction to Depressed Anonymous, the book used by the fellowship of Depressed Anonymous, a 12 Step recovery program.

Life is unpredictable. Every living organism operates with a certain amount of unpredictability and uncertainty. The uncertainty of life creates in us a desire for predictability. If we did not believe in the possibility of change, we would all be hopelessly lost and forever bored. Hope would be lost. Potential for a better life would never exist. Where there is hope, change is possible. The experience of depression is much the same. Depression is so predictable and unchanging that we lose hope for the pain of our isolation ever coming to an end.

Let me lift one sentence from the above quotation, which turns out to be a truth, attested to by thousands of those of us who are members of Depressed Anonymous and who are in recovery. That sentence “Where there is hope, change is possible” is what brought me into the Depressed Anonymous fellowship.

Like so many of us, who are just trying to get through each day, we are looking for something that could ease our pain and lift our burden of hopelessness. We were not only bored and isolated from life, but we had given up on ourselves of ever beng able to climb out of the hole which had us trapped.

When I walked into a Depressed Anonymous group meeting, I was thinking if those gathered could help me change, take me out of the pit that I was living in, I felt I had a chance – I too would be able to change.

Hope brought me into this fellowship, and member’s sharing their own hope, experiences and strengths, gradually convinced me that it was possible for me to get better. That now became my truth.

Hugh S.

© 2011 – Depressed Anonymous, THIRD EDITION, Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY

12 Step Meeting

New DA Speaker Meeting Recording 11 March 2022

Leave a comment

We’ve uploaded the talk from Irene that she gave on Friday 11 March 2022.

We have a number of recordings of people sharing their story at a speaker meeting. The link to that page is: https://depressedanonymous.org/depressed-anonymous-meeting-recordings/

The link can also be browsed to by selecting Tools for Recovery from the horizontal menu, then Depressed Anonymous Meeting Recordings

As we record more speakers the recordings will be posted there as well. The list is in reverse chronological order (newest first).

12 Step Meeting, Anxiety, Choice, Depressed Anonymous, Faith, Fear, Helpful, Helpful Thinking, Mindfulness, Mutual Aid, Positivity, Prayer, Stress, Supportive Actions

Catastrophic Thinking

Leave a comment

Dorothy Rowe shares with us some helpful thoughts on how to deal with those thoughts which we label as catastrophic.

Suppose that there is some event looming and you are frightened of what is going to happen. Your Mother may be coming to stay or you are required to go to the firm’s ball, or your daughter expects you to go to her graduation or your son wants you to take him along – all fearful events of course – and you can’t see any way of avoiding them other than being very depressed. Try something else. Write down what it is you are expected to do and then say, ‘if I do this, what is the very worst that could happen?’

Write down your answer and look at it in the cold light of day. If you have said ‘I’ll die’ then rejoice your troubles will soon be over.

If you have said, ‘I’ll make a fool of myself’ ask ‘What is the opposite of making a fool of oneself’? Then ask ‘Why is this important’? See if you dare commit to paper just how vain you are.

Then go back to the original situation and say, ‘How many different outcomes can I see?’ List them all, the good ones as well as the bad, the fantastic ones as well as the prosaic, see if you can predict what then actually happens. (No cheating by using self-fulfilling prophecies like ‘I am sure I won’t enjoy it.’)

Then there are the things that you feel compelled to do. No strange force is compelling you, not any person other than yourself. When you see your own values clearly you can ask, ‘Do I do this because I believe it is right or do I do it because the parent in my head tells me to and I am too scared to disobey’?

You are you, you are the parent in your head, you are the child who is scared to disobey. You can spend the rest of your life `going around as three squabbling people, or you can choose` to make into yourself one whole person.

Resource
Copyright(c) Dorothy Rowe. Depression: The way out of your prison. SECOND EDITION. 1983, 1996. Routledge, New York, NY.pp.225-226.

12 Step Meeting, Belief, Choice, Community building, Depressed Anonymous, Despair, Fear, Fellowship, Hope, Pain, Purpose, Spirituality, Step 01, Step 02, Step 03, The 12 Steps

We can do the possible – the impossible takes a little more time

Leave a comment

If there are challenges for me today, I remember other days when what seemed impossible was made possible.
– AA Grapevine

Can you relate to this statement? I sure can. Like most of us, I always felt that when facing an obstacle of whatever kind and size, I just believed that the effort was too much. This was always my thinking, especially when I was living in my emotional and mental desert of depression.

Just getting out of bed was a Herculean task. I didn’t even know why I couldn’t get out of bed, but I did know this, the effort that it would take was just impossible. The challenge was more than my mind and my body could handle.

When I discovered the twelve spiritual principles (steps) of recovery I discovered that I had to face the challenge, admit that and that I was powerless. By using the tools which my fellowship group, Depressed Anonymous, was giving me, I began to climb out of the hole that I was in. From that point on, the challenges that faced me every day, I found they were no longer impossible to face and overcome. Yes, the impossible does take a little more time and work, but no longer living in a hole, makes taking on the challenge worth it.

Hugh S., for the fellowship

12 Step Meeting, Fellowship, Service

New DA Speaker Meeting Recording 04 Mar 2022

Leave a comment

We’ve uploaded the talk from Moore that he gave on Friday 04 March 2022.

We have a number of recordings of people sharing their story at a speaker meeting. The link to that page is: https://depressedanonymous.org/depressed-anonymous-meeting-recordings/

The link can also be browsed to by selecting Tools for Recovery from the horizontal menu, then Depressed Anonymous Meeting Recordings

As we record more speakers the recordings will be posted there as well. The list is in reverse chronological order (newest first).