Use the inventory  below to see if you may be depressed or unhappy. “Circle those that you have experienced  over the past two weeks.”

• Have you had a change in appetite (15 lb. gain or 15 lb. loss in weight?)
• Shifts in sleeping patterns (too much sleep or not enough). Waking up early.
• Tired all the time
• Agitated or increased activity –  always on the go
• Loss of interest in  daily activities and/or decreased sexual drive
• Withdrawing from others and wanting to be alone  most of the time
• Weeping/not being able to cry
• Lapses of memory
• Indecisiveness
• Fear of losing one’s mind
• Reluctance to take risks
• Suicidal thoughts

Note: If you or someone you know is experiencing at least four of these signs of depression for more than two weeks, it’s   recommended  that you  consult  a mental health professional. We also recommend that you attend a Depressed Anonymous meeting.

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

How true. The more we desire to  isolate and hibernate (detaching from others) we realize that something might be  slightly awry. Well. maybe we don’t realize it.  Isn’t  it interesting about our experience of melancholia (depression) that while we are right in the middle of it, something queer begins to dawn on our awareness. For me, this is what happened to me and possibly the same  has happened to you. It felt like  my feet were immersed  in a sea of molasses or that I was walking alone in a thick fog.  And the more I walked along the harder it became to walk along.  My feet were gradually feeling like hundred pound weights with each step slowing  me down to a snails crawl.

Now it’s winter time in our northern hemisphere, which makes it easier for me to hibernate and isolate myself from anything happening outside the four walls of  my life. I am aware that I want to try and figure out how I got into this messy fog as well as asking myself, “Do I really want to leave this cocoon?” Am I able to leave? I feel paralyzed.

I admit my life hasn’t been easy but neither has it been  for  those like me who see isolation and  hibernation  as a way to defend  ourselves from all the feelings of loneliness and personal worthlessness that keep me imprisoned.

I can see it coming. I know the red flags, the signal warnings, telling me about the road that may lie ahead. For those of us who want to  reenter the world of the “living” and walk out into the light, leaving behind the darkness of our very comfortable cocoon, we feel defeated before we take the first step. We think “defeat.”  The battle of thoughts challenge each other in the narrow confines of our mind telling us “I want to stay where I am” or ” I have to move or I will die.”

Maybe we have been at this place many times  before when we just  wanted to leave everything and everybody behind  and shout “leave me alone!”

We have a choice. We can choose life or to just merely exist in  the cave of one’s  own despairing thoughts. So, if you are a bear–stay where you are, please. But if you are not a bear, but a human being, please move your body, make a plan for the days ahead, do something pleasurable everyday. Place it (a pleasurable activity) on a calendar and make sure that you do what you choose to do. Put the plan on the calendar the day before,  and never say, “I’ll do it when I feel better.” That day never comes. You and I know that.

Do it now. Keep it simple. Just do it!!!

If you have a Depressed Anonymous meeting in your community, find out where it is located, the time it happens and then make sure you show up.

And finally, put  a lock on your cave door and never go back!

Hugh

“Any thought that passes the  depressed person’s mind for example, such as feeling worthwhile , good, acceptable to self and others just doesn’t seem to sink in to make that much of a difference to persuade the depressed person to really believe that something good is going to happen to them. The depressed seem to have an emotional and physical reaction, much like having an allergic reaction  to anything that even comes close to having a hope that they will begin to feel better.

The best way to cure an allergy is to stay away from those substances, chemicals  and environments that cause us to have a bad reaction. Once  the allergic reaction sets in, the  depressed again plummets down the endless spiral of hopelessness and helplessness. To have that “vital spiritual experience” called for in Depressed Anonymous is second to none when it comes to getting out of the prison of depression. The fellowship of the program is a “sine qua non” of recovery but without having had that “vital spiritual experience”  it is doubtful whether or not one can stay out of the depression pit for any length of time.  We don’t expect that this means that you have to have reached the highest union with God before you can find relief but it just means that you begin trying out the feeling of turning some of this pain that you feel to the ” care of God as you understand God.” It used to be  major concern of mine that when people came to one meeting but never came back for the second meeting I would worry about why they didn’t come back. But this program doesn’t work that way. For those who expect a quick fix –why not? –      we have been suffering for so long and we want it to stop now! We find out sadly  that it doesn’t work this way. Those who do return –week after week-this is where the success stories lie. These brave souls by their struggles to get better and who begin to share their stories of pain and hurt, release in themselves the force of healing that continues with each passing meeting and with each encounter with other members  story of hope and renewal.

SOURCES:

Depressed Once – Not twice. (2000) The autobiography of the spiritual journey out of the prison of depression. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. (See Appendix: The VITAL SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE)

” Many depressed people will say “I don’t know why I am depressed. It just happened suddenly, like a black cloud coming down.” They say this because they do not want to look at the terrible events which threatened to destroy the way they saw themselves and their world. These events might not seem very significant to other people, but to the person concerned, they are very important. It is not the events in themselves which make them important, frightening, or overwhelming, but the meaning we give to these events.

We live in the world of meaning   which we have created. Indeed, as individuals, we are our world of meaning. This is why, when we discover a serious discrepancy between what we thought reality was and what it actually is, we feel that our very self is being overwhelmed, is shattering, and disappearing.

With this sense that our self is being annihilated comes the greatest fear, the worst fear  we can know. It is greater than  the fear of death. We can face death courageously when we feel that some important part of us – our soul or spirit, or our children, or work, or just the  certainty that people will remember us – will continue on. But when we feel that it will be as if we never existed, then we will feel the utmost terror.”

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Quoted from the   FOREWORD(c) , Dorothy Rowe. Page 12.   Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011)  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

COMMENT

So often I hear persons say that they don’t have a clue why they are depressed. “My feelings of sadness just suddenly hit me.”  “My sadness just came out of the blue.”  Feelings as devastating as depression don’t just happen. There is a reason why we feel so isolated and alone.  Do you know that thoughts  over time can produce feelings, which produce moods, moods which ultimately can cause us to behave  in ways that are surprisingly foreign to our normal way of feeling. And if we continue to dwell on shameful, guilt laden and painful feelings,  these have to have repercussions on the way we feel.

Dorothy tells us that our experience of depression is a defense. The defense, depression, gives us a “slow motion” way of living. Our thoughts slow down, our ability to get out of bed and do what needs to be done gradually becomes impossible. A mental paralysis is the “new normal” where we can no longer navigate the simplest matters that once were automatic for our thoughts, feelings and behavior. To put it simply “we are stuck.”

What are your thoughts about all of this? I would love to hear from you.

Hugh

In our ongoing discussion of the ecology of the depression experience, and looking at the personal, biological and environmental factors that are each part of the whole, we can make some observations about how to overcome this human and life threatening reality.

Environmentally, we have seen the post-industrial society, at least here in America, become a nation of diminished size of families (1 in 4 Americans now live alone), fewer family farms and more persons living in isolated and disconnected environments. It appears that we all are moving away from that wholesome community form of life toward an individualistic and Selfie generation. The “we” society is gradually turning into the “me” generation.

To quote David Karp (Speaking of Sadness, Pg. 195.), he states that “The estimated 11 to 15 million people suffering from depression and the million more with anxiety disorders are the victims of a society that has lost sight of what I now see as a shared sociological and spiritual message. It is that our individual emotional health and the health of society are inseparable. If we do not nourish society by realizing our individual responsibilities to it, we pay the price in terms of individual illness. In this way, those millions pained by affective disorder are part of a dialectical process in which the extent of collective suffering eventually creates an urge to change the social structures that have made so many of us ill. During this current moment of cultural discontent we may be better able to appreciate the spiritual message that all of us are connected to and responsible for each other. Although we can never return to the small, intimate communities of the nineteenth century, such a communitarian vision is the necessary starting place for efforts at social reconnection and thereby the creation of a more generally happy society.”

In another place Karp contends that “we may be at a juncture where we are ready as a culture to see the wisdom in the spiritual idea that our individual well-being is inseparable from that seamless web of connections…”

At our Depressed Anonymous group fellowship meetings it is evident how the “we” trumps the “me” at every turn and how the “we” of the fellowship produces, not only spiritual recovery from isolation and being disconnected, it also provides the tools in which a community of people who care about each other is built.

Won’t you care to join in this community building adventure? Search our website menu to find if your community has a Depressed Anonymous meeting. You can also read the personal stories of those who made the choice of a “we” life over the disconnected and isolated “me” life in Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition.

See our guide Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition.(2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

To continue our important discussion about depression and its effect on the ecology of the human person, it is imperative that you and I continue to examine each of the three pillars or legs that make up the interactive systems of depression.

Once we admit that we are depressed (we discover the parts such as feeling worse in the morning, a physical slowing down much like dark molasses, an inner anxiety and hollowness. We also experience a need to sleep more or not sleep at all , excessive guilt or shame, weight loss and crying spells, feelings of worthlessness, suicidal thinking). We now begin to look more closely at what is happening to us, and become aware that there are systems that are always interacting in the human body. We have already enumerated the major three systems: the personality factors, the biological factors and the environmental factors.

It is imperative that we now take a closer look at the biological factors that are attributed to the reality that we call depression. Some persons don’t espouse the common belief that the cause of depression is a chemical imbalance. Some others claim that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance causing a depression. These same folks believe that we have overmedicalized a normal and natural human experience. It’s like the fight or flight syndrome that primitive humans experienced ages ago. They could either run away from a man eating lion or they could stand and fight. Today, we can go round and round in our mental sphere and by continued rumination with our fearful life cycling thoughts find ourselves physically worn out by shooting more and more adrenal fluids into our blood stream. Thinking such unpleasant thoughts over time has to wear down the human body, much like the Chinese torture of a single drop of water continuously falling on the head of a captured enemy. I think what scientists mean when they deny that chemicals are the cause of depression is that they know that by just telling oneself that I am a bad person does not make that person depressed.

Here is an interesting view from a sociologist, David Karp, in his research book, Speaking of Sadness.

“Psychiatric illness in the United States, with its heavily scientific bias, largely presumes biochemical pathology as the ultimate source of depressive disorders everywhere. Such a view is sustained despite the existence of “impressive date that there is no such thing as depression that occurs solely from biological causes.” To be sure, it would be equally plausible to say that real world experiences produce depression by altering biochemistry and thus stand first in the hierarchy of depression causes.

Right now, though, it would be as presumptuous to make this claim as it is of American medicine to claim biology as the absolute foundation of depressive disorders. The truth is that there is no way to claim the greater significance of either way to untangle the intersection of cultural and biological factors and consequently, no sure way to claim the greater significance of either nature or nurture in causing depression. Despite this epistemological problem, the role of culture and the contribution of social science in understanding the role of culture and the contribution of social science in understanding the course of illness remain very much at the margins of American Medical training and practice.”

So finally we know that when a psychiatrist reaches for the prescription pad that he/she is dealing with only part of the personal depression experience. It is just as important to know something of one’s life history to date, what were his early childhood feelings and relationships like, and did the parents present the world to him/her as a safe place to discover, or was it best for this child not to venture out to far away from what was familiar and safe.

Next time we want to share more of how culture can affect the thoughts, ideas and feelings embedded in that culture. We can ask ourselves how does our present culture promote community or isolation. And remember, isolation and being disconnected from others is a critical factor in one becoming and staying depressed.

To learn more on how to get connected and stay undepressed please avail yourself of the HOME STUDY PROGRAM of Depressed Anonymous. If you are depressed you c an very well determine if you are depressed and then if you are what measures to take to free yourself from isolation and pain.

VISIT THE STORE and read about the HOME STUDY PROGRAM and how it is well positioned to give you not only a positive view of a plan on how to overcome depression but also a Workbook where you will gradually find answers in yourself for personal freedom from depression.

“Depression is so often a refuge from having to live out our life. And it is only when we feel that we can live with a fair degree of unpredictableness in our lives that we move out of our isolation into the real world. So often our depression hides behind a mask of superficial friendliness — with people never aware of the deep pain that we feel inside. The risk is in moving out of isolation into contact with other depressed people. We know now that it is the expression of our feelings that gets us free. It is in the telling and the admission of our powerlessness over our depression that makes us move ever so slowly out of the deep pit of darkness and sadness. So often when we are able to make amends, we feel that part of the prison wall begins to crumble and we begin to see the light of day. We discover a way out! We find that our forgiveness of others frees and brings us more into step into the peace of serenity. Getting free is in saying that we alone are responsible for our compulsive retreat from life when we run up against some stressful situation. And the more we study and hear about the addictive personalities and behavior. the more we learn about ourselves and how we have anaesthetized ourselves against any possible feeling of pain, hurt or anger by our sadness and keeping to ourselves.”

SOURCE: Copyright (c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 85-86.

A COMMENT:

Yesterday I talked about the three pillars of the depression experience. I believe that the analogy of the tripod with its three legs can serve the purpose of this discussion. Besides personal factors and the biological factors there is the environmental factor. If we want to embrace an ecological perspective in reference to depression then it is best to look at each of the aforementioned legs that support an understanding of one’s depression. With these three pillars and an understanding of each, and with a fleshing out of the effect depression has upon our personal being, our physical reality and our relationship with our unique environment, we are able to determine what are the causes and what solutions are needed to restore a balance to these inter related systems of the human person.

An author, shares with us the environmental factors that may cause a person to succumb to a deep melancholy. He notes that a “greater probability of depressive disturbances has been described when adverse external factors exist, such as a history of traumatic events, recent stressing events, the premature death of a family relative, an inadequate upbringing provided by parents, poverty, malnutrition, medical illnesses, a family or personal history of negative emotional episodes, and insufficient social support. All those environmental factors which form a part of the biography of the individual, have an effect on him or her by creating a vulnerability to stress. In the same way it has been demonstrated that the appearance of depressive episodes occur when there is an increase in stressing events.” (Dr. Salvador Cervera- Enguix. )

No surprise here. It is important to know that what happens to us, has a direct impact on our personality and our biological self.

So, when we become a member of the fellowship of Depressed Anonymous we begin by looking at these three areas of our lives mentioned above and by use of the Steps begin to live with serenity and hope. Without a doubt this process of dealing with our depression and all the issues that surround it, gradually provide a growth for uas like a well watered garden.

In my life, I have found that most things that we do have their origin in the mind. First comes the thought, then the feeling , then the mood and then the behavior. So, does this mean that what we think we become?

So if I think I am superman, does that mean I am? If I think that I am a giant and only 5’5 tall, it’s obvious that something is not right about our thinking.

But if metaphorically I think I am a giant among others in the way I can shoot pool, then this is just a manner of speech, and not to be taken literally.

Depression and ecology are related. Here is how that works: Each person, according to the LIFE MODEL all living creatures have four essential characteristics. All living beings have a competency, an identity, are autonomous, and are interrelated to every other living being.

When we are depressed, we might feel that we no longer have a purpose in this life, or that we have lost our identity because, let’s say, we lost our job or an important relationship with another; having to retire from a position that we loved, our identity closely identified to our work, we are saddened over this important loss.

Aging presents us with a gradual diminishing of our competencies. We no longer physically able to move around as freely as we wish; our body no longer responds to our mental directives. Now that we are no longer able to get around as we like, we may need a walker, wheelchair or help with eating, dressing, We are now at the mercy of those who assist us and help us keep some of our autonomy, and I might add, dignity!

Because we are social beings, our lives over time have been interrelated with family, friends and others. Our world is without a doubt connected to everything that is alive. We inhabit a world where everything living is connected to everything else.

The ecology of the human person is composed of body, spirit and mind. These three realities are like the three legs of a tripod – each one needing the other. (Depression is the result of a highly interactive dialogue between biology, personal and psychological factors, and the environment.)

In an effort to deal with these factors each one of us must make time to discover what in each of these three factors can be changed so that the depression or melancholic experience can be lessened and even eradicated. What can I do to change what needs to be changed?

The “greening” of our personal environment begins when we admit that something is out of whack in our lives. Not only is something out of whack but is such that the psychic and physical pain is overwhelming. We discover that our mental state is such that we are gradually slipping down into the abyss of despair. It is ironic that only when we are physically immobilized and our mind feels like it is filled with cotton balls, no longer are we able to think ourselves into a happier frame of mind. Our will power is futile in its attempt to straighten out this personal confusion and internal mental restlessness.

So, when does the “greening” start? What gets us feeling more like ourselves, going about our lives with a sense of purpose and happiness. What can we do to get us back on the playing field of live, interacting with others and finding joy in the simple pleasures of life?

I have found the answer to this question. The “greening” of my life, the environmental landscape started to change for the better. I found hope and a way to live my life using a plan that gradually game me my life back.

This plan is there for all to use. It is called Depressed Anonymous. It is a 12 Step approach on how to live. It is a program of recovery which if put to use on a daily basis will help restore hope and give meaning to your life.

Please read about how this can happen for you in the book Depressed Anonymous. It’s happening for anyone serious about getting their life back! You can read some powerful stories in this book and gradually see how you too can get the help and hope that you so strongly desire.

“I commented that once individuals realize that medical treatment is unlikely to fix their problem, their thinking moved away from the medical language of cure and toward the spiritual language of transformation. With that interpretation I was speaking only as a sociologist trying to see patterns in data. Several weeks later I read a nearly identical idea in Moore’s book.
“A major difference between care and cure is that cure implies the end of trouble..But care has a sense of ongoing attention. There is no end. Conflicts may never be resolved. Your character will never change radically, although it may go through some interesting transformation…” (Care of the soul. Thomas Moore.)

” Moore sustains the argument that we ought not become pathological about our depression. He makes then interesting point that the word “depression” itself shapes the way we think about the human condition it describes. Today, consistent with a medically dominated view of emotional pain, we prefer the more clinical and serious word depression to the more human words “melancholy” or “sadness.” This observation is entirely consistent with labeling theory in social psychology that ties the construction of our identities to the labels others apply to us and that we ourselves ultimately adopt.” Karp, David A (1996) Speaking of Sadness: Depression, Disconnection and the Meaning of Illness. Oxford University Press. NY.
___________________________
A comment:
“One of the major indicators of depression is how it permeates our soul with that desire for isolation and being disconnected from life around us.”
Yes, I agree fully with this reality of getting ourselves isolated and disconnected from that world which we once inhabited. The solution is to take charge of our lives –get out the “toolbox” of our fellowship, Depressed Anonymous, and roll up our sleeves and get to work. How tom do this is all contained in our group manual Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. And if we get the Depressed Anonymous Workbook and start to answer the questions contained there, we will begin to see that we have started on a journey of not only understanding the nature of the depression experience but we will begin to understand ourselves.
Hugh

SOURCE: I’ll do it when I feel better.(2014) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 88-89.

     “The medical psychiatrist Dr. Dominique Meggle points out in his talk at an International  symposium on depression in Rome  that modern man, who is individualistic, is enough for himself.  He boasts of being a nomad. He does not admit that changes can modify him. He does not have exchanges; he has experiences that are sufficient for him to continue – at the same level – sex, food, or music.  Upholding his freedom and sincerity of his feelings, he has replaced being with having. He consumes and after gaining enjoyment he feels sad. Pornography spreads in all directions. It shows a form of sexuality to us that is northing else but a consumer good. The modern form of this widespread depression has neither a biological nor a psychological cause. It is a form of depression that springs from something higher. It is a form of depression that comes from the removal of a meaning of existence: it is what Victor Frankel calls “nooegensis neurosis of existential depression.”  It belongs in the sphere of the mind and shows that a society that replaces being with having in a systematic   way produces a whole series of depressed people. It makes them mad. The removal of meaning disturbs the human psyche and human cerebral biology.

  In this case the good news takes two forms: On the one hand, we have the experimental proof that in order to function correctly the human being needs values and to be able to give meaning to his or her life. We can no longer deny the fact. It is in front of our very eyes. Given that we have done nearly everything that we should not have done, by exclusion we now know that what we  have to do to escape from the pandemic of man, his freedom, his values, his search for meaning but also his sense of responsibility, once again at the center   and the summit  of the whole of social, economics and political life.”

SOURCES: Copyright(c) I’ll do  it when I feel better. Hugh S., (2014) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 93-94.

And the reference taken from the following essay:

 Establishing Social Ties in a society that is broken down and devastated by individualism. Meggle, Dominique. In Dolentium Humani: Christ and Health in the World. From the Proceedings of the XVIII International Conference on Depression. Journal of the Pontifical Council  for Health/Pastoral Care. Nov. 13-15. 2004. Rome.