Hope can exist only in a state of uncertainty.
That certainty means total certainty That security means to be without hope.
The prison of depression is built with the bricks of total certainty.
Certainty. Security. No hope.
To hope means to run the risk of disappointment.
Avoid disappointment. Stay depressed.
To be insecure means to not be in control.
Stay in control. Be depressed.
To be uncertain means to be unsure of the future.
Predict the future with certainty. Stay depressed.
Hope can only exist where there is uncertainty. Absolute certainty means complete hopelessness. If we want to live fully we must have freedom, hope and love. So life must be an uncertain business. That is what makes it worthwhile.

Source: Depression: The way out of your depression. D. Rowe. 1996. (2nd Ed.)

Hope is to seek things and have the expectation that what we desire will come true. In the matter of depression, Dr. Rowe warns us that when we predict that we will ways be the way we are is to predict a life of uncertainty but one that is without hope. In the reality of the way we construct our world we begin to live with some uncertainty and with the uncertainty we are going to little bit by little bit accept some pain, hurt and disappointment in our lives. This is not bad but it is not always pleasant. When we are depressed it is not so important always as to how we got to be depressed but what is important, is how we see our depression. Do we believe, like Dorothy Rowe, that we will always see ourselves as bad, worthless, unacceptable to ourselves and to others, when we are depressed. If this is the way that we want to look at ourselves then we are sure to believe that we will never change. We hold these beliefs about ourselves as immutable truths –absolute and ever binding. This is the thing about depression – we believe that it will always be this way–namely being possessed by this hollow feeling and deadly emptiness which we carry around in our bodies, day after day, year after years.

Our identity as persons depressed is to believe that we are always going to be the way we are now and be depressed forever. We know that it won’t always have to be this way. Our identity is that of a free agent who has the option to choose misery for the rest of their lives or to choose hope and so live with some uncertainty that may bring us to a life filled with hope. The more we allow the feelings of pain and the unpleasantness of our feelings to surface the more we will live in uncertainty and hope. To live with uncertainty is to live with some hope that our tomorrow will be different than our today. We hope for things not yet seen. We hope for things to be different. This is the identity of a person who is working the 12 Steps of Depressed Anonymous. This person is the one who withholds judgment about whether this first Anonymous meeting is going to do any good for them. This is where they learn how to cope. They hear other members of the group tell them that they have to keep coming back to the meetings if they are to get help and find release from their feelings of despair.”

Source: How to hope and let it blossom. Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. (1999). Louisville. Ky.

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