All posts by Hugh Smith

To Be Depressed Or Not Be Depressed – I Had A Choice!

To be depressed or not be depressed? That was my choice.

“I believe that I’ve been a depressed person all of my life. I’ve had a lot of lows but never as low as this past year. My husband of years left me and my three children for another woman. I lost my job. Depression hit me and I couldn’t snap out of it. My life started to spiral down. I was in and out of mental hospitals and on different medications. I was diagnosed as having a chemical imbalance. In my mind, this seemed to tell me that I had a sickness that I had no control over and which only drugs could cure. Then one night, I began to have a horrible reaction to the last drug. I was rushed to the emergency room and almost died. After that, I refused to take drugs again. Then life really started going down for me. I started sleeping more, stayed in bed mostly, and let the house and the children go. I felt empty inside. No one or anyone could help me. If I hadn’t thought suicide was the cardinal sin, I would be dead today. So one night, I lay on the floor crying and praying from my heart. In the past when I prayed, I wanted God to do all the work. While deep down, I still didn’t want to let go of my miserable yet safe ways of life. And as long as I wouldn’t really let go, God seemed to have no answers for me. This time though, I was at his mercy. Life for me could no longer go on this way. I prayed the most releasing prayer. I offered up my entire self to him. Nothing magical happened after that except the sudden urge to call my church for Christian counseling. They referred me to this affordable, warm lady counselor who I had seen in the past. She suggested that I start attending Depressed Anonymous Twelve Step meetings and reading Depressed? Here is a way out! This was a great effort for me. I was scared and skeptical. Since that first night, I’ve been attending weekly Depressed Anonymous meetings. I also attend drug free therapy, attend church and church activities regularly and continue to pray and walk regularly. I know that my life is richly blessed. I’m also using the Depressed Anonymous literature and listening to people in the Depressed Anonymous meetings where I receive valuable tools which I put to use daily.

The moment that I read that I had a choice to stay in depression, I immediately knew that I could make the choice to get out of my depression. Bingo! It wasn’t an illness. This did not have control over me. And another tool I use frequently through the Depressed Anonymous manual is that “thoughts produce moods, moods produce feelings and feelings produce behavior. ”

So I began to realize that if I thought about bad or disturbing thoughts, I could stop myself and produce positive thoughts automatically. I had control. This is priceless to me. Staying out of depression takes work on my part, as well as God’s. Thank you Lord above for using people through my church, my therapy and the wonderful members of Depressed Anonymous who give of themselves unconditionally. Thank you for answering my prayer.”

– Kim


SOURCE: Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. (Kim’s Personal story included today.)

Anger ties a person more closely to the person he/she is angry with.”

This is your Higher Thought for today.

AFFIRMATION

I believe that by forgiving others and letting go of any grudges against any person or institution that I will find a source for ongoing, daily serenity.

“…actively not forgiving the person who injured you, spending much of your time, feeling and expressing  your hatred, fantasizing  and even carrying out acts of revenge, does not lead to a rich  fulfilling life. Indeed, you become a lesser person that you might have been and you waste your life.” D. Rowe

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

A terrible weight is removed when I rid myself of my resentments and I attempted to make a conscious decision to forgive others. First of all, I learn that in order to truly forgive I must get in touch with my feelings of anger and hurt.  I want to feel those unpleasant emotions so that I can release them. By their  appropriate expression, they no longer can hurt me or keep me depressed. The more I release my bottled up feelings, the less frustrated and depressed I become.

Someone once said that a person’s anger ties a person more closely to the person he/she is angry with. To forgive is to release myself from the grasp of a relationship that is nonproductive and harmful.”

MEDITATION

God, may we make a fearless and moral  inventory of our lives.  May we have the courage to change what we need to change and the energy to carry it out. We believe that it is only by our willingness to quit our addiction that we can have more hope in our power to be hopeful. ‘

(Place your own comments here.)

SOURCE:  COPYRIGHT(C)  Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thought and meditations for  members  of 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. March 26 Page 61-62.

What You Think Is What You Become

 

 

” Our real identity is emerging from the sadness as we try to live one day at a time. Of course I am still testing it out but I feel better and for the first time in 14 years I have hope. It’s not that hard to find something positive about my life now. So, I remind myself of something positive everyday and that’s what I’m going to do until I don’t have to remind myself anymore because I’ll know.   Remarkable things happen to us when we are willing to admit defeat and talk about our powerlessness over our depression and how our lives had become unmanageable. The first step is the beginning of the flight of steps that takes us up and into our new way of living. At our fellowship of Depressed Anonymous we talk hope. We are hopeful, and we think hope. We learn that our thinking depressed and negative thoughts might have got us in the shape that we are in today. What you think is what you become. For us who find sadness our second nature, we at times continue to revert to the old comfort of our old familiar negative thinking and are in actuality returning to self-destructive activity. Sadness is overcome by hope.”

SOURCE: Copyright (c)I’ll do it when I feel better. (2016) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 69-70.

I felt envious of those who were happy and optimistic

This is your Higher Thought for today

AFFIRMATION

The more active I become in working my program, the better and healthier I feel about myself

“If you want to get better you have to act on your own behalf…”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I know this might go against the grain of all of us who felt there was absolutely nothing we could do to help ourselves out of the prison of depression. Now I know that if I want to start feeling  better I have to be active in my own healing.  How does it work? First of all I admit I am powerless over my depression ; secondly, I put my trust in a Higher Power and believe that it can restore me to some sanity. I commit myself to understanding its will for my life.

I begin to believe that by getting active and involved in my own recovery, I will begin to be free of the interminable sadness that I have lived with for most of my life. In my depression, I was jealous of others who I figured had it better than I did. I envied those who felt happy and optimistic.  Now I know that I can feel better, too.

MEDITATION

We want to live with the belief that we can get better. We are recovering by means of our belief in a Power greater than ourselves.”  (You may want to write out your own personal responses to this Higher Thought   here for today.)

SOURCE: Copyright (c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. March 24. Pages 60-61.

Copyright(c) I’ll do it when I feel better. (2017) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.     

NOTE: You can order Higher Thoughts for Down Days online by going to our website at Depressed Anonymous (www.depressedanon.com ). Click onto the drop down Menu  at VISIT THE STORE and  click onto The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore, where any one of 12 different publications can be purchased.

Higher Thoughts can be purchased as a KINDLE eBook.  The Depressed Anonymous manual, 3rd edition and the Depressed Anonymous Workbook can likewise be ordered as eBooks.

I am no longer ashamed to admit my being depressed.

Here is a thought for your day!

“Treating yourself kindly means looking after yourself and accepting  yourself in all your humanness. You are not the most perfect, wonderful person that has ever graced this earth. Neither are you the worst, most imperfect, wicked person that has ever dared to draw breath.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I am beginning to realize , thanks to my program of recovery and my Higher Power, that I am not as bad as I think I am. I am beginning to see that the more I tend to stick to the present and live my life in today, the more free I am becoming  myself and  with others.

My depressed way of looking  at my world prevented me from ever focusing on the fact that I have a lot of value as a human being and as a member of the human race. I know that I am no longer ashamed to admit my being depressed. I am able to free myself away from the bonds of my sadness. I am now able to walk with my head up and believe and trust that God has a special purpose for me here on this  earth.

To be kind means to treat another the way you would want to be treated. When I am depressed, I treat myself like I am a nothing. I try and find ways to help myself to a gentler way of thinking of myself. ”

MEDITATION

We know that the God of our lives has something good for us today.  This good  will help us grow and get through  this day. We will place our trust in God,  as weak as this trust might be at the moment. Our trust is found in our ever growing love for ourselves.  (Personal comments)

SOURCE:  Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. March 23. Page 60.

Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.


+ For information on online ordering of these books, please click onto VISIT OUR STORE  on website menu (depressedanon.com) and then click onto VISIT THE  DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS  BOOKSTORE and this will lead you to the ordering information. Thank you and have a better day!!!

I can visualize myself happy and serene.

A HIGHER THOUGHT FOR YOU  TODAY

AFFIRMATION

I will trust myself to try thoughts other than  the ones that make me feel sad, small and guilty. I will imagine myself happy and serene.

“Any system approaching perfect self-control is also approaching perfect self frustration. The desire for perfect control of the environment and of myself, is based on a profound mistrust of the controller. Because you couldn’t trust yourself to become, to allow   yourself to grow as a plant grows. Rather you have to make yourself, like you make a box. In regarding yourself as a manufactured box, rather than a growing plant you see yourself as an object, not as a living being…” (3) Dorothy Rowe.

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

I know now that I need to let go and to let God guide my life as I attempt to live today. Just one day at a time. I pray now that God, or my Higher Power, will not let me get down on myself. Instead the Higher Power will help me become conscious of the fact that the Twelve Steps are truly  my steps out of the cell of the prison of my depression.

Each and every living human organism on this earth has five major characteristics that link all life together. Each  life organism has an autonomy, a competency, an interconnectedness to others, a self-directedness and an ability to duplicate itself.

MEDITATION

We want to control our lives and we are discovering that the best way to guide our lives is to live in the principle  of this Higher  Consciousness or, the God of our understanding.”

SOURCES:  Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for  members of Twelve Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.  Page 59. March 22.

Copyright(c) I’ll do it when I feel better. 2nd Edition (2018) Hugh Smith, Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

I saw the light! The light of hope. The light on the path to freedom and sanity!

AFFIRMATION

Spring can only start in my mind and, today, the first day of Spring, I want to be a beautiful flower. I will visualize myself growing tall and bright and filled with God’s most beautiful colors.

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

“One of the reasons I am depressed is because I have made this an absolute belief of mine, namely the  belief  ‘Only bad things happened to me in the past and only bad things will happen to me in the future.’ (3) Dorothy Rowe, Ph.D

Now that I am working on myself and admitting that I have to do some housekeeping on myself. I am beginning  to hope and see a light at the end of the tunnel. I also believe that I will begin to feel better, the more I go to my DA meetings and listen to how other people are working the Twelve Step Program.

The future is where I live right now. The future now is the yesterday’s  tomorrow. I am making my future now.

I no longer believe that only bad things will happen to me in the future, because now I hear how people who once were ready to give up on life speak of how they have found hope in the fellowship of Depressed  Anonymous  and are getting, better one day at a time.

MEDITATION

God , please help us live up to our belie that each day we will get better as we live only in today and not in the fears and anxious moment of a tomorrow that may never come.”

(Your personal comments, please)

“MADE A SEARCHING AND FEARLESS MORAL INVENTORY OF OURSELVES. (Step four of Depressed Anonymous).

Step four is a critical step if we want to begin the journey toward wholeness, peace and having good feelings about ourselves again. But if we want to stay in the pit of sadness then the belief that we are worthless and not quite  good enough will definitely limit our awareness of what we can become and what we can do for ourselves.   I believe a lot of our difficulties have their roots in our need to be perfect and to do things the way others expect. It’s as if we have to take care of their needs before our own. ”

Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous  Publications. Louisville. Page 54.

This work, the flagship  manual of our fellowship group, can be ordered online at depressedanon.com at VISIT THE STORE the Depressed Anonymous  Publications Bookstore.


NOTE: Copyright (c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and daily meditations for members of 12 Step Fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. March 21, pages 58-59.

To Order online, Higher Thoughts for Down Days (either in KINDLE edition or paper book edition) at our Bookstore —VISIT THE STORE–at (Depressed Anonymous Publications at depressedanon.com. Discover other great literature about depression and the 12 Steps.

“I have to put my oars in the water if I want to get to my destination.”

MY AFFIRMATION

“The idea that we have to be responsible  for ourselves and that the ways of the world are neither good nor just is too terrifying for you to contemplate. You cannot tolerate such uncertainty. You do not trust yourself, so how can you take responsibility for yourself?”

CLARIFICATION  OF THOUGHT

I don’t like facing the fact that ultimately I am the one responsible for myself, no one else.It  appears to me that  I have to take care of myself, depend on my Higher Power for direction, and go from there. My Higher Power isn’t going to do it all. I know that I have to do all that I can to restore my life and my feelings. God is the rudder to my boat and I have to put my oars in the water if I am to get moving in the right direction.

I am attempting, day by day, to tolerate the unpredictableness  of my life and gradually learn new ways to cope with uncertainty. While I am depressing myself, I want everything to be perfect and under my control. I know now that I will be happier when I learn how to tolerate a pleasant mood without telling myself that it won’t last.

MEDITATION

We believe that the closer that we come to God, as we understand God, the closer our God draws to us. We believe that whatever we want changed in our life this can be best be accomplished by approaching the God of our Understanding and letting this Power greater  than  ourselves steer us across the stormy sea.

(Your own personal thoughts)

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SOURCE: Copyright (c)  Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of the 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymlus Publications. Louisville. Page 57. March 19.

NOTE:   This book and others can help you find the serenity and hope that you are looking for in your life today. You can order on line here at our website. Click onto VISIT THE STORE.

How do we create for ourselves the state of loneliness?

AFFIRMATION

“I WILL SEEK FIRST THE WAY OF HOLINESS AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS AND EVERYTHING WILL BE GIVE N TO ME BESIDES. IN OTHER WORDS, I WILL FIRST BE TRUE TO MYSELF  AND EVERYTHING WILL BE GIVEN TO ME BESIDES.”

“HOW DO WE CREATE FOR OURSELVES THE STATE OF LONELINESS?  WE CREATE IT BY OUR RULES ABOUT OUR RELATIONSHIPS, THE SKILLS WE USE IN OUR RELATIONSHIPS, AND THE EMOTIONS OUR RELATIONSHIPS PROVIDE IN US.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

Fear is at the heart of my depression. Fear of others and their opinions of me make me flee relationships where I feel  alone and vulnerable to another’s critical gaze. I create fear panic in my mind by the imagined hurt that might come to me because of my perception that the word is dangerous and frightful. I fear any unknown reality, be it a place, person or situation.

In my being  part  of a recovery group, I find that the new fellowship and literature of the Depressed  Anonymous group, give me a newfound joy and security.

MEDITATION

God, we choose a-lone-ness with you over our feeling alone.  We will learn all the skills of being honest, open and fearless with others about ourselves. Our faith in you will help us make the move to begin to change ourselves and to seek persons who can help  walk us through our depression into hope and security. (Personal comments).

 

SOURCE:  Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. March 15.

“I can make the hard changes.”

Your HIGHER THOUGHT  for today

Affirmation

I am gaining, day by day, a new and hopeful attitude about my life and my relationship with others.

“Strangely, I feel as if I’ve been incredibly lucky. Logically, I don’t believe in  luck. I believe the people make their own lives when they are what they  are, but still I feel so lucky to have been involved in a group which gave me the opportunity, and incentive, to start to make changes in my life: to understand why I am sometimes so angry, why I have been so  self-critical and self-destructing. Understanding why you feel as you do opens the gates for the even harder struggle of changing what you do.”

Making changes is part of making a life.  If I choose to stay mired in the deep pit of depression, I can choose that. I have that as an option. But, if I want to choose and risk changing  myself, I have the option of working to construct a different way of looking at my world. Just by changing my attitude about my life in the direction where I want it to go, I can make the hard changes. I want to change my attitude. I will now want  to listen to those who have been in recovery for months and/or years and listen to their hopeful attitude and how they are feeling better now that they are living one day at a time. They are no longer fearful that the old nemesis, the sadness, will sneak up and change everything back to the way it was.

I can only change myself. I will always try and keep the focus on how I need to change, not how others around me  need to change.

Meditation

God, we are always heartened  and  healed by the group. Please guide us and let us be led  to that healing community of persons who are  struggling to find the serenity that you promised to those who do you will. “Fear not, for I am always with you.”

SOURCE:   Copyright(c)  Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 step fellowship groups. Hugh Smith. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. Page 43. (2/27/18.)

In order to get started on your own recovery, at your pace, and in the amount of time that you feel you need, we offer a HOME STUDY KIT. Please click onto the Depressed Anonymous Bookstore menu for information on ordering these materials of recovery.