Tag Archives: fear

Belief in myself

Depression is something that is so overwhelming. For myself it is like crawling from beneath the earth and facing the light, with fear
that no one would understand how I truly feel.

When in depression, isolation would follow, being my only friend, but actually it was my own worst enemy. I should have been opening up to someone, instead I shut myself off from the world.

Through therapy and a belief in myself and encouragement, facing the days didn’t seem so difficult.

Working on my Twelve Steps of Depressed Anonymous, and reading “Higher Thoughts for Down Days” gave me reassurance that we are not alone.

I now appreciate what I do have when I work through the program.
– Reatha, Canada

Depression and Security

“Being depressed is a state of great security.Jackie said (client of D.Rowe) , ‘I get very quiet. I don’t want to know anyone. Very angry. I get very hurtful, not intentional hurt, but that’s the only way I can get through to people, so they don’t get any closer. If I hurt them, they’ll stay away and therefore I can be on my own in this depression, and hide behind the mask and just solely by hurting people, being quiet, feeling angry inside and putting the barrier up, that’s how I can keep people away, which I feel helps me in the state of depression.I need to feel safe within the blackness. A fear of being with people. Being really frightened of everything and anybody around you. It’s just so painful. You feel drained of everything. Hiding behind the mask is putting yourself away from the outside world. The world you were frightened of stepping into, but people still seeing you with that smile, the joking, the laughing, and that is where the mask comes on. Behind the mask, I am suffering hurt and pain, rejection, helplessness, but behind the mask and shutting myself within four walls, I feel secure, because none of the outside world can come in unless I let them hurt me.
Because depression gives a feeling of security, the depressed person can feel very much in control. (We are always capable of being two contrary things at once. Depression is always a state of complete helplessness and complete control,) A depressed person can take great pride in being in control.”

SOURCE: BEYOND FEAR. Dr. Dorothy Rowe, Fontana, London, 1987, pp. 307-308.

Published in The Antidepressant Tablet(c) Issue: Volume 4, Number 3 SPRING 1993. Louisville, Ky.