“The depression is so bad at times that we feel no one would ever understand how we feel unless of course they have been there. We just have about given up on our God, church, family and friends as allies on our behalf. We feel resentments and anger toward people for not feeling more sympathetic toward our never ending sadness. We feel people aren’t kind and don’t treat us with the same respect that they do other people such as a diabetic, insomniac or arthritic person. Most people don’t want anything to do with us because they get tired of our moaning, groaning and pessimistic way of looking at life. Why shouldn’t they? Life is tough enough without having to be subjected to another’s gloom and doom. But this is the place where we recognize the difference between ourselves and others, and of course we think our lot is always the worst of all. This self-pity never brings us into any personal sense of peace, but has just the opposite affect in that it helps perpetuate the myth that depression floats in like a dark cloud over which we have no control. We need to tell our spouse, family and friends that we want to start again and begin to take charge of our lives and start to chip away at our sadness. We won’t blame our need to sad ourselves on what my wife,/husband did or do not do for us, or what a friend said or didn’t say. We finally have to take the bull by the horns much like the recovering alcoholic, overeater, gambler or smoker, and admit that it is “I” that has the problem and that it no longer does any good to blame others for my problem. Once I admit that I am addicted to depressing myself, then I can begin to walk through the door of the prison that binds me. I must realize the fact that my depression will only get worse unless I put a stop to all the ill thinking, feeling and acting out behavior that keeps me perpetually locked into my sadness.”
SOURCE: Copyright (c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 86-87.
Comment
How true it is that only unless one has experienced depression personally do you know how it feels. It does take one to know one. This is why our 12 Step fellowship of Depressed Anonymous makes it possible for those of us who are or were depressed to find a group of people who know what we feel and what we are talking about. There is hope here.
Hugh