Some of us have attempted suicide. A few of us more than a few times.  We had despaired of ever finding peace or hope.  We believed that we had no future and that our yesterdays were as hopeless as our today’s. It was hard to attend our  first Depressed Anonymous meeting.  We felt horribly alone. We just know that no one in the group has been through what we had been through. But as we listened and watched the older members of the group speak we saw ourselves in their stories.

Personally, I believe that whatever you give out to others is the amount that comes back to you. Our experience can usually help someone else.  As the experience of depression is so isolating, so predictable in its misery  that it is bound to have made such impression upon us that it changed out life and the way we think about our life. And then when our life is changed for the better —thanks to the fellowship of DA, this precious gift  of hope needs to be with those still suffering. Ironically, it appears that the farther we have gone down in mood and up again in our recovery the more powerful can this experience be.

The new members of the our fellowship see the “after” of our lives lived in recovery and so they themselves get involved in our fellowship. The fact that we have recovered so completely is in itself a message of tremendous hope for those who are newcomers to the group. Isn’t it amazing that those who can do the most for those still suffering are those who have worked themselves out of the pit of isolation and begin sharing their story of hope and personal empowerment.”

SOURCE: I’LL DO IT WHEN I FEEL BETTER. (2014) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 39-40.