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
Who am I? What do I want? Who is my God?
As we dig deeper into the benefits of the Inventory, we want to get started with asking ourselves some basic questions,
Who am I? What do I want ? Who is my God?
I recommend that you spend some time reflecting upon these questions as we continue our discussion of seeking more information on who we are as a person. This self-disclosure process can provide us with valuable insights as to those areas of our lives which have been responsible for the way we are today. This includes an examination of the way we think, feel and live out our daily lives.
In the early days of my own recovery, I began to put together a workbook where I used the three questions listed above and focused on each of the Twelve Steps. With each step, I listed a number of questions which I felt would help me discover the areas in my life which I had never really examined in any detail. An important issue here is that when I was depressed I didn’t have a clue as to what was happening to me. I felt like my mind and body were spiraling down a slippery slope.
My first reaction to this sudden fear was to create even more fear as my mind swirled around, attempting to stop whatever it was that suddenly and without warning, had me locked in a mental turmoil. As I was oblivious to the fact that I had unconsciously and gradually beat myself up over the previous months , creating guilt and shame, resulting that I became physically and emotionally immobilized. Eventually , I discovered that this was called depression.
Back to our inventory. Only with the help of the newly formed Depressed Anonymous group, a fellowship that was using the Twelve Steps for their recovery. It was when I admitted that I was powerless over my depression, that the real work had its beginning.
If you want to examine your own life, with a personal thumb print of your strengths and weakness, then today is a good day to get started.
As an exercise in recovery, write down your own responses to the three questions listed in the title of today’s blog . Take your time, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Again , we are taking time out to find out who we are…not who people said we were. It will not surprise you that what others said you were in your early life, favorable or not, stays with you into your teen years, adult life.
As we move along in our recovery, answering the questions in the workbook, gradually our examined life will provide you with information that you may never have thought about.
So, next time I meet with you at our blog, I hope you will have made a start in discovering something about yourself. The inventory is about making progress–not being perfect.
The Depressed Anonymous Workbook. (Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville , Ky.
If you have questions please let me know. My email address is: [email protected]
The unexamined life
“The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the unlived life is sure not worth living.”
As the publisher of books, the taking of inventory of my product , is critical for the success of my business. When I got started in my production of books I wasn’t sure of how many books I would need for immediate sale on the market. I decided x number of books would be needed for immediate sale and would purchase more from the printer as needed.
I knew that as an order came in for the purchase of our books, I could get them to the customer in one week. The turn-around was quick. As more books were sold, and my inventory became depleted, I had to rush to get more books printed (the turn-around from the printer was two weeks or more , and our shipping to the customer turned out to be three to four weeks). For us, that was unacceptable. We made sure from that experience, to always have an inventory available to meet the growing demands for our books.
In our recovery program, Depressed Anonymous, in the Fourth Step, we are asked to make an inventory. This inventory will help us meet the daily demands of our lives as we begin to examine those negative thoughts, feelings, with their crippling behaviors, which have kept us imprisoned in that loop of helplessness and hopelessness, spiraling us downward into the pit where we lost all hope,
In our ongoing posts on Step Four, we will continue to examine Step F our, which states that we have “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”
In the next days we will post reflections on our own inventory and how our examinations will lead us to a life filled with hope.
Please join with me as we travel this road together.
Hugh., for the fellowship
Have a great day of recovery
Recovery works – if you work it!
The Recovery Waltz
When I find myself drifting back into the pit (which is where I am at the moment) I need to go back to the beginning of recovery. Steps 1, 2, 3 and repeat. One, two, three like the waltz. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The first 3 steps can be summed up as follows:
- I can’t.
- He can.
- Trust Him.
A great many things, including my depression, are beyond my direct control. I don’t control the outcome – that is in God’s hands. I am responsible for the legwork. I need to do the work of recovery. I want to do the work of recovery. I don’t want to drift closer to the pit because if I don’t stop the backslide it will be that much harder to get out of it.
- I admit that I am powerless over depression. When I am on autopilot my life becomes unmanageable.
- I believe that a Higher Power exists and they can restore me to sanity. I have to work on my feelings of being unworthy of being saved.
- I turn my life over to the care of my Higher Power. This is not one and done. I’m human and I will take my will back. That is only a problem if I don’t surrender once again. To surrender is to win.
Practice the recovery waltz. Become so accustomed to it that it becomes a good habit. You are worthy of love and healing, but you must do the work of the steps to feel that love and healing. I wish you well.
Yours in recovery, Bill R
Am I a victim?
The topic of victim hood has come up several times in different meetings I’ve attended. There is some toxic self help out there that states that no one is a victim. I firmly do not believe that statement.
Do people inflict pain upon one another? Yes they do, sometimes that hurt is intentional, and sometimes it is not intentional. So I believe that victims exist in the world.
The problem for us as depressed people is not that we have been victimized – the problem is when we identify as being a victim. A better question to ask is:
Have I been victimized? (notice past tense here)
It’s when we make being a victim as our main identity that it becomes a problem.
I choose NOT to say “I suffer from depression” because then I identify with suffering from depression. I’m not denying that I’m often visited by the symptoms of depression. What I choose to do is instead focus on healing and recovery. “I am recovering from depression” is a much better and healthier statement for me. It points me in the direction of healing and hope.
Focus on hope and healing as that is the way out of depression.
Yours in recovery, Bill R
Foundation For Life: Self-Examination, Prayer, Meditation
“We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God,to give to us on order, and on our terms.
In praying, we ask simply that throughout the day, that God place in us the best understanding of His will that we be given for that day, and that we be given the grace which to carry it out.
There is a direct linkage among self-evaluation, meditation and prayer. Taken separately these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven they result in an unshakable foundation in life.”
(c) As Bill sees it, page 33. Hope, service, fellowship March 1, 2014.
Service work is a recovery tool that has its own reward
“THE MORE THAT YOU HAVE A NEED TO SERVE OTHERS, IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR NEED TO BE SERVED.”
The Depressed Anonymous LOGO has these three words written on it: HOPE, SERVICE, FELLOWSHIP. SERVICE IS OUR MIDDLE NAME.
If you are part of a Twelve Step fellowship group, you learn pretty fast about service work. Service is at the center of our recovery. It is the keystone. And, paradoxically, the more we serve others in the fellowship, the more we give to others, the more I am part of living a life filled with hope. When you attain this need to help others, making it your passion, you discover a growing purpose to serve, gradually unfolding in your life.
Let’s say that you came into our fellowship, feeling the hopelessness and helplessness of depression, having lost all hope. You found a fellowship of caring persons. The members do not tell you to “snap out of it.” The group is there because those before them, welcomed them, and let them know there is help. Each of us who are at the meetings today, are getting better, because others are there, willing to serve, in any capacity, using their strengths, hope and experiences,for the service of others. We are not alone. I am not a newcomer, but I am a member who knows, from personal experience, how service from others in the DA fellowship, changed my life. For them, I am grateful.
Hugh S., for the fellowship
Humility is not a constant harping on our faults
“Humility is not a constant harping on your faults and errors and general worthlessness. When you find yourself doing this (like being unable to say anything good about yourself or constantly apologizing or feeling quite unable to do anything even moderately well) remember what Archbishop Fenelon wrote to one of his parishioners,
It is mere self-love to be inconsolable at seeing one’s own imperfections, but to stand face to face with them, neither flattering nor tolerating them, seeking to correct oneself without becoming pettish – this is to desire what is good for its own sake and for God’s.
Humility, self-acceptance and forgiveness are all aspects of the one process where we come to see ourselves as we are and other people as they are. Since we no longer have the pride and arrogance to try to control ourselves and our world so as to make ourselves and our world into something which they are not, we can now be spontaneous. Since we no longer have to hide ourselves from other people, to put a barrier between ourselves and our world, and so feel ourselves to be alive. Since all desire leads to suffering, ceasing to desire perfection reduces our desires and so our suffering. We then know along with Lao Tsu Tau, that,
It is more important
To see the simplicity,
To realize one’s true nature,
And temper desire.
Learning to accept oneself and others, to be courageous, loving, humble and forgiving, and to face death with equanimity, is no small task. But this is what you must undertake if you are to find your way out of the prison of depression.”
Copyright(c) Dorothy Rowe. Depression: The way out of your prison. Second Edition. Routledge and Kegan Paul. New York, 1986. P.230.
For the fellowship,
Hugh S.