So often we depend on others liking us to have an identity. I believe they call it “people pleasing.” As long as people smile at us, greet us warmly, we are thinking we are  OK. So much in our lives, and who we think we are or who we are not, is dependent upon  others opinions of ourselves.

In our  program of recovery, it usually is our sponsor (do you have one?) who tells us the truth about ourselves. But also our DA group discussions  have those members who by sharing their strength, hope and experiences  and struggles with depression point us in  a right direction.

I remember a few years back when a member told another member that he was always saying the same thing week after week but never facing the challenge of changing his behavior. She told him that either he do some work on himself or join some other group. Ouch!  I believe that he was one of those DA cats who came to be caressed. They come but never change the way they live their lives. And yes, it’s risky to change. We never know what a change in our behavior will bring–chaos or healing.  We love to live in the predictable. The unpredictable is too frightening. But the Promises of the Twelve Steps (see Chapter 12 in Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition) give us the definite hope that if we follow the path of our spiritual program of recovery, healing with replace fear, anxiety, chaos  and isolation.

Please don’t flatter me.  Tell me the truth. I am not a cat that needs to be caressed.

Hugh

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

After experiencing, for the first time in my life, the traumatizing effects of depression, I learned some very important lessons. I would like to share a few of these lessons with you today.

First of all, I learned in a very short while the devastating effects  produced  by a sadness which sucked me down into a bottomless pit. ..a mental  quicksand.  I didn’t see it coming. All of a sudden it was there.  It ambushed me. My view of life gradually turned grey. It was if someone turned off the color. The more I attempted to figure out what was going on in my body, the more lost I became. I was lost in a desert environment without signposts as to where I was or where I was going. Besides feeling the loss of direction out of this mess, I also felt my mind was  cotton. Describing this as being in a thick mental fog would give a clearer description of what I was feeling.

Secondly, this taught me another very important lesson. It taught me that I had to take charge of what I was feeling and thinking and be responsible for whatever I had to do to free myself from the clutches of this mind numbing  imprisonment. To get right to the point I had to get to work! I had to get moving. I had to get out of bed and find a place to recharge my mental batteries. Of course it wasn’t only my mind that was seemingly frozen with this cottony fog, but my whole body  was now immobilized and incapacitated. This is why I had to move. In the time frame in which I became depressed the word depressed meant nothing to me. I had heard that so and so was depressed–well, I thought, nothing serious here. Later I heard that this person  killed themselves. I never really put together how dangerous it is to do nothing when depressed. For all of us it is good to remember that depression can be a life threatening illness if not addressed. Yes, many persons depressed will never even mention the word “depressed”  because of the stigma attached.   You will never see a cast, a broken arm or them using  a cane telling us  what is going on in their mental  suffering from the agony of mental torture.

My third point is the following: find a group where you can go and tell your story. Yes, let it all spill out. At first it might seem like you are just whining, complaining, but in reality you will  be sharing your life so that in the end you will be saving it. Because most of us living isolated  lives anyway, and most of us  unfamiliar with sharing face to face with anyone else, joining a group will most probably not be easy. Sharing a situation with others which we  feel stigmatize by  is definitely a challenge. So is our depression!

It is the “miracle of the group” where I found my own strength and the courage to  tell others–those just like myself–how I felt. It was in the context of the group where I began my work in recovering from depression. I WAS NOT ALONE!  It was my first attempt to save my life from what I felt was a hopeless life situation. I had lost all hope. I found hope with others just like myself as we climbed out of the pit of depression.  We all felt that we were in an eighty foot hole with the tools to free ourselves from the darkness and fear. We each took our small eight foot ladders, joined them together and found the way up and out of our misery.  It took time and it took work. Work is the operative  word here. If you want to really learn from this experience that you are suffering with, namely the misery and the feeling alone and frightened, then please face the hard fact–you will have to work at recovery. It is possible. I did it and so have hundreds of others. People around the world are suffering from the misery and isolation of depression. We have the “tools” to do the work of  feeling better…now, and each new day of our lives.  And if we don’t have a mutual aid group like Depressed Anonymous in our locality get online and find someone who can help. Get started today.  Force yourself to take up the phone, hit the keys and say help me. I want some hope that I can get better better too.

We want to help. Get in contact with Depressed Anonymous and ask to talk with someone. We are all volunteers and  we are all survivors from depression. Leave a message here and we will get back with you. You too will find a source of strength in the message we  will share with you.

Hugh,

for the Fellowship  of the  12 Step program of Recovery Depressed Anonymous.

For more information please Visit the Store.

How it was before recovery and the way  it is now. Please read on.

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

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

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

I’m slowly finding out that my life is not as horrible as I’ve made it out to be. I used to tell myself that since  it happened before, it will happen again  — and that simply is not true. Yes, my past was horrible and its no wonder I ended up with depression.  I want out of it and the only person to get me out  is me.  There is not a magic wand to transport you to the life you want. Everyone knows what they wish  their life could be – so do it!  Make the  changes you have to make, trust in God and always remember that good things come to those who wait. I’ve waited over half my life. I don’t have to be a victim of my past or of my mind any more. I’m more than ready fore the good things! With love and hope!

-A Depressed Anonymous member

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SOURCE: Copyright(c) : Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition  (2011)  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Kentucky. Pages 120-121. #9 A victim in my own mind.

Thursday I was able to SKYPE a recovery group meeting in a 12 Step- treatment facility in Siberia. I could see them and they could see me–around the world in seconds and here we are talking  with people from all over Russia. The Director of the facility spoke excellent English and the participants in this conference call,  asked questions in their native Russian and then the Director gave  them to me in English. I answered the questions in English  and then he translated the answers  to the group in Russian.

It was a very lively conference, with most of the questions concerning depression and discussing ways to deal with  this potentially life threatening illness. All the participants were from all over the Russian territory and I was impressed with their 12 Step fellowship and commitment to recovery.

My relationship with the Russian 12 Step treatment goes back about 2 years.   I was asked to  take part in a conference  that deals specifically with depression and the 12 Steps of recovery program. I do know of a few Depressed Anonymous programs already extent in Russia. Our program book (Big Book) has  also been translated into the Russian language by a member of the Ukrainian  DA group program.

SKYPE is a wonderful way for all of us to stay connected–especially in the far reaches of the world. We are also in contact with  the national Director of Depressed Anonymous in Iran. The Director tells me there are at least 100 DA groups in Iran which accounts for 1500 members.

They have just about finished translating Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. They have already completed the full translation of the DA  workbook. They will then have completed translating and making public the two main books of our Program. All our transactions are done by email and SKYPE.

Please get involved with us with the great communicating tool SKYPE. My address on SKYPE is hugh.smith75. Call me and I will look forward to sharing whatever I can with you and any national group that is interested.

Have a good day.

Our email address:  depanon@netpenny.net

Hugh for Depressed Anonymous

Beginning with this post today, we will inaugurate a brand new series,  sharing portions of personal stories   of those who  have a new life,  thanks to their participation in the fellowship of Depressed Anonymous. Each of those  who share their story   have made the  12 Steps a central factor in their own recovery.

Lois tells us that “the blackness – the despair – withdrawing more and more into myself – the hopelessness – there was no joy and I could no longer pretend. My husband said “You need to get some help.” I knew that he was right but I was always the one who helped others. Our newspaper carried a listing of all the support groups in the community and I found the notice for a Twelve Step Depressed Anonymous  group. I had never heard of it before, but I knew it fit. This group was just forming and was there when I needed it.

I had knowledge of Twelve Step programs and actually believed that I lived that life. Today I know that I previously had head knowledge but today I live the Twelve Steps.

It was December of 1992 that I made that decision. I know that I was powerless over depression and that my life had become unmanageable. I was  willing to do anything that Depressed Anonymous offered. I wanted to get rid of the pain. If Depressed Anonymous had told me  I would get well if I stood on my head three times  a day, I would have done it.  Daily, I read from the book (Depressed Anonymous)  and consciously worked the Twelve Steps.  I worked them one at a time. from Step One through Step Twelve. Working the Steps to me meant posting the Step I was working on and consciously pondering it throughout the day.

….The book gave me a formula. It promised me that I would feel better if I attended meetings, worked my Twelve Step program, ate properly, got an exercise program, and talked about my sadness to others.  I also started a journal, not just to state my woes, but with the intention of finding a solution. Each week, I articulated my unhappiness and my story to people who would listen and over time, inner wisdom began to unscramble the mess.”

SOURCE:  Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications.  Louisville. (Personal Stories section). Pages 110-111.

Tomorrow we will share more of Lois’ thoughts here online. Feel free to give feedback on her story.

To read more of the sharing of Lois please go to our Depressed Anonymous book to which she refers   and read more of her story. Her story is on pages 110-111 in the Personal Stories section of our manual.

VISIT THE STORE for literature on the Steps and Depression. You will find much of what you are looking for  help with  your own recovery .

 

I get it! When I first  crawled  into my first 12 step meeting I was alone and beaten. I had no place to go but up.  I didn’t know one person in that strange group of men and women united by their addiction.  All I knew is that I might be one of them –that is, an alcoholic. Dread! But  I found a group of men and women who were no longer strangers. I came in the group that day thinking I was  only a guest there for a brief appearance. I didn’t really want to be there. I knew that I probably didn’t belong.

By the time this meeting adjourned I was no longer a stranger nor a guest. I felt I found a home. I no longer felt shame or guilt, These folks were the “real deal.” I felt welcome.  They spoke about me and all that troubled me. The only  thing was that they were speaking of their own lives–and it sounded just like my life. Their lives and battle with alcohol was my battle too.

Then came my greatest curse, so I thought. It popped up soon after I had a few years of sobriety and sanity. It was a darkness that filled my body like a poisonous liquid  gradually filling me up from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. It all began unnoticed at first,  then the poison immobilized me  like the poisonous sting of a Black Widow spider. I had to battle to get myself out of bed in the morning. I began to feel fright. What was happening to me?

In time, the answer would come and the solution which I pursued like a praying monk, finally freed me. Thanks to the “miracle of the group” my 12 step fellowship .  I am free today.  I thank God, my Higher Power, for leading me to that group of alcoholics who gave me a key that released me  from my addictions–alcohol and depression. Now I want to share with you and anyone that needs to hear what I have to say: I know for sure that the key that I have in my hand will fit any lock that imprisons you in pain and despair.

READ ABOUT ALL THOSE FOLKLS WHO HAVE USED THIS KEY. CHECK IT OUT. SEE VISIT THE STORE.

SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

PERSONAL STORIES SECTION (31  STORIES OF PEOPLE WHO USE THE KEY  ). Pages 111-152.

 

Welcome to the Depressed Anonymous

Newsletter Issue #4

We seek to prevent depression through education and by creating a

supportive and caring community through support groups that successfully

keep individuals from relapsing into depression .

 

This Newsletter is published by those of us who are committed to sharing

our journey of hope as we live out the Twelve Steps of Recovery. The

Newsletter continues the tradition of an earlier Depressed Anonymous

Newsletter, the Antidepressant Tablet. Even though our emphasis is the

same, offering information on a regular basis about new Depressed

Anonymous groups forming, giving hope to the depressed, as well as being

an advocate for those who are still suffering from depression.

We also have as an objective the “how” of starting a Depressed Anonymous

mutual aid group, plus sharing the thoughts from the members of the

fellowship who are using the Twelve Steps of Depressed Anonymous in their

own lives and recovery. Their personal experience, hope and strengths will

be welcomed as an essential feature of our online newsletter.

 

How to Start a Depressed Anonymous Meeting

If there is a Depressed Anonymous group operating near where you live, you could go to one of their meetings. But if yours will be the first in your area, you might find it helpful to attend one or two other self-help groups just to see how they operate. Most self-help groups, as well as Depressed Anonymous, have literature about their work which you will find helpful. You can click onto the website at www.depressedanon.com for a full explanation and information about our Depressed Anonymous group.

Once you have three or four people, who, like you, are struggling with depression and who want to set up a Depressed Anonymous group which will follow the Twelve Step program, you can form, a core group to work out how to contact other people as to where you will meet, and when and how you will all share the work and the responsibility of the group.

To contact other likely members, draw up a notice which states the aims of the group, who the group is for, the time, day, place of meeting, and the name and phone number or email address of the person whom you can contact for more information about the group, and who will arrange to meet and welcome new members.

When you are depressed, it is often very difficult to go into a room full of strangers, so having someone meet you beforehand can be a great help. Send copies of this notice to all those in your community who would know of persons who might be helped by this Twelve Step program of recovery. For starters it is recommended that Mental Health Centers are always a good place to start as well as local religious communities. Many people believe they are the only ones going through this painful experience that we call depression. When they discover that there is a group of people who feel as you do, this in itself can provide hope. In time and with regular attendance at Depressed Anonymous meetings, they will no longer feel like victims, but will reach out to others.

If surrender of our wills to the “care of God” is of the essence of the spiritual life, for anyone who truly desires to free himself/ herself from a chronic and compulsive behavior such as depression, then the Twelve Steps can be our stepping stones to a path of a hope-filled life.

The following is a list of publications produced and made available by Depressed Anonymous Publications.

A total of 12 Books have been published including e-books. For more information about these books, you visit our website and do online ordering of our literature. The following is a complete listing of available books.

* Depressed Anonymous

* The Depressed Anonymous Workbook

* Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 Daily Thoughts and Meditations for Members of 12 Step Fellowship Groups

* Teen Care: Helping Teens Prize Themselves

* SeniorWise

* How to Find Hope

* Depressed Once-Not twice: An Autobiographical Spiritual Journey of the

* Founder of Depressed Anonymous

* How to Find Hope

* Shining a Light on the Dark Night of the Soul

* The Promises of Depressed Anonymous

* Dep-Anon Family Group Manual

* I’ll Do It When I Feel Better

* Believing Is Seeing: 15 Ways to Leave the Prison of Depression

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Question: Is Depressed Anonymous a class? Does someone teach this class?Answer: Depressed Anonymous is neither a class nor does someone, such as a professional lead the group. We are a mutual aid group where each of us brings our own experience and shares them with each other. We also live our life based on the 12 Steps, the suggested spiritual principles of Depressed Anonymous.

Question: How much does it cost to join the group?

Answer: There are no fees or dues. All a person needs for membership is a sincere desire to keep from saddening themselves.

Question: Can you come to a meeting even if you are not depressed? Like a family member or a friend of someone depressed?

Answer: Yes, in fact we encourage family members participation in the group. The more we attend meetings the more likely we are to get a better understanding of the experience and nature of depression.

Question: What position does Depressed Anonymous take with regard to antidepressant Tablets?

Answer: Depressed Anonymous takes no position on medications. We are asupport group which has as its base a spiritual foundation as laid out in the 12 Steps. We are not professionally led. We do not discuss topics of a religious nature which are specifically oriented to one religious faith or another. One’s personal medication regimen as well as religious preference is solely the responsibility of that individual and is not discussed in the group meeting.

Question: Do I have to give a talk if I attend a meeting?

Answer: No one is asked to say more than their first name at a DA meeting. We have all been where you have been, namely as a newcomer and we respect one’s right to talk only when one feels ready to talk. Every member of the group is given the understanding that when they have a turn to talk they can just say PASS and everyone is OK with that.

Question: How many meetings will it take before I am no longer depressed?Answer: That is a question that we can’t answer. I believe that even though my good days are now more frequent and my bad days less, I stillkeep coming back to meetings so as to help myself and give help to others still suffering. Our program is one that you don’t graduate from.

It is a lifelong fellowship where one continues to learn that to stay well means to keep connected with the group, use the daily spiritual tools that keep us all out of the prison of depression.

Source: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

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THE MIRACLE OF THE GROUP

It’s the Miracle of the Group where I Can Start Loving Myself! I have hope that I can accept myself today and just let fly all the old messages from the old tapes of childhood.

“You desperately wanted people to love you, but you became wary of giving your love to others. You reasoned that the less you loved another person the less it would hurt when the inevitable rejection came.” Dorothy Rowe

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I have been holed up for so long in my own little world of feeling hurt and rejection that to attempt to love someone else like the greatest challenge of my life. I desire so badly to be loved by someone else that this lack of another’s love makes my isolation from others so hurtful.

After having witnessed the miracle of the group in DA, where depressed persons come together with their feelings of being hurt and rejected, I find that others love and nurture challenge me to hope once again, I can share with the group the fact that I haven’t measured up, that I am angry and that I just want to lay down and die.

I am open enough now to let the light of love from others, who like myself, realize that I am not alone and that I am beginning to feel better already now that I no longer need to be perfect.

This means to be willing to affiliate and give of myself for someoneelse’s good. In the program I am starting to love-myself.

MEDITATION

We are going to make a mental decision right now to let God, as we understand God, guide us and instruct us on how best to love ourselves.

Source: Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous. Publications. Louisville. March 3rd. (Available on Kindle).

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“Depression is Different from Normal Sadness”

Depression cannot be reduced to a single factor. It is the result of the coinciding of different factors. Biological, historical, environmental and psychological factors play a certain role in the beginning and its evolution.

“Many people never reach a state of clinical depression . Such depression, with the feeling of paralysis that it involves, is different from normal sadness. People with clinical depression, in general, demonstrate physical and psychic alterations; people who are not depressed manifest certain mental signs of sadness. In addition, people often confuse depression with unhappiness, and often one can hear the phrase I feel depressed, even though the person concerned only wants to say that he or she is not happy. Until one has really experienced depression one cannot realize the enormous difference that exists between being depressed and being unhappy. When we are unhappy, despite the scale of the tragedy that has afflicted us, we remain incontact with reality. When other people offer us consolation and love w can still feel gratitude for their warmth and support. But when we are depressed we feel like people who are excluded from the rest of the world. The comfort and love offered by other people do not penetrate our barrier and we feel neither consoled or loved. To experience real depression means to feel entrapped in pitch or suffocated by some dense, heavy material or buried alive in a dark tunnel. The depressed person is interested in nothing and nobody, and does not feel any hope.” SOURCE: Jose Saraiva Martins

Comment: If you are a depressed person and are reading this you know the guy who is writing the above material knows what he is talking about. But, if you are a person who has been unhappy but never depressed, it is impossible for you to even begin to fathom what he is talking about.

Yes, you might say, but I don’t see any plaster casts, no sign of physical brokenness and the guy or gal is always happy. You know, the life of the party. There is a night and day difference between being depressed and being unhappy. I know, as I have been depressed. I also have been very unhappy as well. Being depressed is a life threatening illness and for many the trajectory can lead to suicide preceded by thinking that is hopeless and suicidal.

The person who has experienced depression themselves and who seeks help to climb out of the dark pit now has friends in the Depressed Anonymous fellowship of the 12 steps. The new person coming into our group soon learns that the members know about the depression experience. Some have talked about trying to commit suicide. My point is that persons depressed live in a world that they cannot touch, a world which they are viewing from the insides of an enclosed soundproof glass room. They are completely isolated and adrift floating alone in a river of turbulence and dangerous currents. And when the time comes to flee this pain and isolation they run to the people who say they know what depression is. They also have a tool kitwhich they continue to use in their daily lives which helps them to forever stay out of that glass enclosed room. I am one of those persons who never returned to that past time in my life when I felt totally alone, without friends, purpose or meaning in my life. I owe my life to Depressed Anonymous and its powerful focus on hope instead of hopelessness.

THIS MONTH’S BOOK

HIGHER THOUGHTS FOR DOWN DAYS(c)- Publisher: Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.KY. 266 Pages. Author Hugh Smith. Book is available in Paperback and eBook Kindle

CONTENTS

366 daily meditations for 12 Step fellowship members and groups. This is the right book for those of us who want to think and reflect on those Higher Thoughts written by persons who know how to use the Steps for their own recovery. Each days Higher Thought contains an Affirmative thought, a Clarification of thought paragraph and a final spiritual meditative paragraph. All in all, one has a positive and solid base on which to reflect upon the coming day.

One of our fellowship groups makes use of the Higher Thought as a Group topic on which members can center their discussion for the meeting. In order to discover more helpful literature please

VISIT THE STORE at WWW.DEPRESSEDANON.COM

Also please contact us with email at depanon@netpenny.net

(mailto:depanon@netpenny.net)

Depressed Anonymous has saved my life twice now. When I first came, I had been suicidal for some time and was only looking for the right time and place to make it look like an accident. After a few meetings, the suicidal feeling began to leave. I started to realize that I wasn’t the only one who was having problems coping with the problems of life.

In the spring of that year I suffered from another bout of severe depression and had decided to end it all. I had the date, the approximate time, the place,  and the accident all picked out.  I started withdrawing from the Depressed Anonymous group so that  they would not try to talk me out of it. I stopped taking my medication to make sure that I could not pull myself out of it. Our Higher Power had different ideas. Depressed Anonymous members for some reason kept in contact knowing something was not right. That added a great deal of difficulty in carrying through with my plan because I  could not distance myself from people who cared and showed it.  It was a very hard to know that I would be letting them down.

I managed to make the appointed day and had prepared to leave the house. As I said, the Higher Power had other ideas.  Just before I left, a Depressed Anonymous member called me to just chat about themselves.. That took a little time. Then  all the neighbors, one after another, kept coming over to ask me to help them with little projects. It was very hard to put on a “happy” front, but I knew I had to do it or somebody would figure out that what was about to happen was not an accident.

By the time everything was done, it was dark and too late to leave. If I had left after dark, and had the accident, it would have been obvious it wasn’t one. This was a 400ft bridge  in the middle of the wilderness that no one but emergency vehicles goes across in the dark. The day ended and I was still alive and angry that my goal ha not been accomplished. Now I would have to plan for another day.

Depressed Anonymous members came to my rescue again and through their support and listening. I finally overcame the deep depression. I am getting better each week. I know that if Depressed Anonymous had not been there for me that I would have continued on with my suicidal plans. Sometimes I get very depressed,  but Depressed Anonymous is there and it is the vehicle that the Higher Power is using to help me cope and learn how to “knock down this fire within me.”

–Ron

[My friend Ron  has served for many years as  minister who supports and provides spiritual aid to long distance truck drivers in his roadside truck stop chapel and prays with them and for their needs. I have known Ron for many years and his faithfulness to those in need is truly a gift – a gift of hope! God saved his life that others might continue on the road of life and healing.  Hugh]

See more of these Depressed Anonymous members speak about their own recoveries and how they walked the talk of a new hope  who gradually left behind their anxiety and fears of living.  Many more testimonies can be found in Depressed Anonymous, 3d edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. (Pages 149-150. Please see the Personal stories section in our Depressed Anonymous.)

“But  listen to that  still small voice folks — this is the voice that has been trying to be heard for years, only other negative voices and our own old negative mental  tapes have had more training  in getting their  message across.  Now that small voice, that little part of you that wants to have light and some hope is getting up the courage to ask more for itself. It tries to get stronger as it attempts to outshine those other parts of ourselves;  those parts that have been telling us how trapped we are in our feelings of worthlessness. How often do people say that part of them wants to do this and yet another part of them wants to do that. I believe that is the best expression of the conflict that goes on  in many of us when  we are depressed. Usually the part that is hurting and sad speaks the loudest and so often gets the most attention – but why not?  It’s hurting. When that part of us gets hurt it wants to withdraw –to hide and cry. It’s like a small child who wants to run away from all the anguish and disappointment. But inside  of us when the parts are struggling with each other, it’s like two teams pulling in a tug of war, and that takes energy to keep alive. We get worn out as we continually ruminate about how sad we are feeling and how hopeless everything looks. Most days we just want to go to our room, lie down and sleep. Have you noticed that the more depressed you become the more sleep you need or don’t need? There is that constant jittery feeling that won’t go away and reminds us of the hollowness of our lives.  The life we live is as bitter as ashes in our mouths.

Let’s listen now to the long – denied part of us that speaks out in favor of a change-that voice of hope that says we will feel cheerful one day…”

__

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky. Page 33. (VISIT THE STORE for more information on this topic)

Yesterday I went bowling with my grandchild. I learned a life  lesson yesterday at the bowling alley. I noticed that the more my bowling became sloppy and  my  bowling without much of an attitude, positive or negative, my scores continued to drop. It was like I was stepping up to the line and going on automatic  pilot.   Not much gets done with that,  either  in one’s life  or even  in bowling.

I stopped and reflected. “Wait” I said to myself.  At that moment I knew that my attitude of mindlessness and negativity was not helping me. I reflected some more and looked at the ten pins down the alley, picked out the center pin, and became mindful of what I was about to do.  I did better from that moment on. I did not get more strikes — but  fewer pins were left standing. Mindfulness.

In my own life I now have become mindful of “red flags”, those situations that  make me mindful and alert me  that my thinking is becoming erratic, negative and fear producing. I am mindful that this type of thinking, in the past, spiraled me down into that pit of darkness and despair.  But now as I use the “tools” of the 12 Steps, I am mindful, on a daily basis  of living a life of mindfulness, one day at a time.  It is in my prayer and meditation times each day, plus the supportive fellowship of my Depressed Anonymous group, that keeps me mindful of my Higher Power and the path that I want to  travel today.

My bowling score is also getting better!

Hugh