” Many depressed people will say “I don’t know why I am depressed. It just happened suddenly, like a black cloud coming down.” They say this because they do not want to look at the terrible events which threatened to destroy the way they saw themselves and their world. These events might not seem very significant to other people, but to the person concerned, they are very important. It is not the events in themselves which make them important, frightening, or overwhelming, but the meaning we give to these events.

We live in the world of meaning   which we have created. Indeed, as individuals, we are our world of meaning. This is why, when we discover a serious discrepancy between what we thought reality was and what it actually is, we feel that our very self is being overwhelmed, is shattering, and disappearing.

With this sense that our self is being annihilated comes the greatest fear, the worst fear  we can know. It is greater than  the fear of death. We can face death courageously when we feel that some important part of us – our soul or spirit, or our children, or work, or just the  certainty that people will remember us – will continue on. But when we feel that it will be as if we never existed, then we will feel the utmost terror.”

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Quoted from the   FOREWORD(c) , Dorothy Rowe. Page 12.   Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011)  Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

COMMENT

So often I hear persons say that they don’t have a clue why they are depressed. “My feelings of sadness just suddenly hit me.”  “My sadness just came out of the blue.”  Feelings as devastating as depression don’t just happen. There is a reason why we feel so isolated and alone.  Do you know that thoughts  over time can produce feelings, which produce moods, moods which ultimately can cause us to behave  in ways that are surprisingly foreign to our normal way of feeling. And if we continue to dwell on shameful, guilt laden and painful feelings,  these have to have repercussions on the way we feel.

Dorothy tells us that our experience of depression is a defense. The defense, depression, gives us a “slow motion” way of living. Our thoughts slow down, our ability to get out of bed and do what needs to be done gradually becomes impossible. A mental paralysis is the “new normal” where we can no longer navigate the simplest matters that once were automatic for our thoughts, feelings and behavior. To put it simply “we are stuck.”

What are your thoughts about all of this? I would love to hear from you.

Hugh

In our ongoing discussion of the ecology of the depression experience, and looking at the personal, biological and environmental factors that are each part of the whole, we can make some observations about how to overcome this human and life threatening reality.

Environmentally, we have seen the post-industrial society, at least here in America, become a nation of diminished size of families (1 in 4 Americans now live alone), fewer family farms and more persons living in isolated and disconnected environments. It appears that we all are moving away from that wholesome community form of life toward an individualistic and Selfie generation. The “we” society is gradually turning into the “me” generation.

To quote David Karp (Speaking of Sadness, Pg. 195.), he states that “The estimated 11 to 15 million people suffering from depression and the million more with anxiety disorders are the victims of a society that has lost sight of what I now see as a shared sociological and spiritual message. It is that our individual emotional health and the health of society are inseparable. If we do not nourish society by realizing our individual responsibilities to it, we pay the price in terms of individual illness. In this way, those millions pained by affective disorder are part of a dialectical process in which the extent of collective suffering eventually creates an urge to change the social structures that have made so many of us ill. During this current moment of cultural discontent we may be better able to appreciate the spiritual message that all of us are connected to and responsible for each other. Although we can never return to the small, intimate communities of the nineteenth century, such a communitarian vision is the necessary starting place for efforts at social reconnection and thereby the creation of a more generally happy society.”

In another place Karp contends that “we may be at a juncture where we are ready as a culture to see the wisdom in the spiritual idea that our individual well-being is inseparable from that seamless web of connections…”

At our Depressed Anonymous group fellowship meetings it is evident how the “we” trumps the “me” at every turn and how the “we” of the fellowship produces, not only spiritual recovery from isolation and being disconnected, it also provides the tools in which a community of people who care about each other is built.

Won’t you care to join in this community building adventure? Search our website menu to find if your community has a Depressed Anonymous meeting. You can also read the personal stories of those who made the choice of a “we” life over the disconnected and isolated “me” life in Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition.

See our guide Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition.(2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.