Sometimes persons tell us that they get sad for no reason at all. All of a sudden they just feel down and don’t know why. Many times after reflecting upon this sudden rush of sadness, they realize that it has come from somewhere and they might as well take responsibility for it and deal with it. One of the best ways to deal with a feeling, especially the unpleasant ones, is to stay with it, and see what it is trying to say to you. When we run from it we lose. Granted, this won’t be easy and you might not find the source of the sudden sadness at first glance, but in time you can feel it and deal with it and then discard it. The more you ruminate about how sad you are and then how bad you are for feeling so sad, the more you have begun the downward spiral into physically feeling weak and hopeless. This is the time to call a friend or member of the Depressed Anonymous group. Just say: “Hey, I’m feeling sad and here is the reason why I am feeling sad – what do you think?” More times than not, your sad feelings will melt away.

Low moods, if not faced promptly can sometimes spiral into deeper moods, filling us with a sadness that slowly paralyzes our thinking and immobilizes our motivation to perform the most simplest of activities. These low moods carve out a beachhead in our psyche and have their own destructive way with our thoughts and behavior.

In my own case, I would be thinking of nothing in particular when suddenly, like a wave washing over me, I would be drowning in the darkness of these feelings, unaware of their source or able to predict their duration. Seeking relief I would escape to taking to my bed and sleeping.

These feelings, as unpredictable as they are, come from somewhere. Just like the rain, the snow and wind, they all come from somewhere. In truth, there is no mystery here as there source is contained in feelings connected to an event in our recent life and more probably have their origin in an earlier period of our lives.

There is truth that our body remembers situations from the past that we have not consciously thought about in years. It’s much like the deja vu experiences we have while at a certain place or life situation and it feels like we have been there before. We might think that we have been there – done that

A client once shared with me how he always felt sad when the cold winter season rolled around and he would become begin to feel sad and alone. As he told his story of growing up he mentioned how every February his mother would hole up in her bedroom and tell them “I am sick. I am afraid I am going to die.” Resultant from this personal experience of his fear that his mother was dying, every February or around that same time, his body would connect him with the sadness and fear felt when he was a child alone with his own fears, and would repeat in his body the same fears he had felt then. It wasn’t about the cold of winter but it was about those sad feelings coming to life at this particular season of his life. The body might remember everything while the mind and feelings remain submerged and hidden. Like a plant which bloom year after year.

In The Depressed Anonymous Workbook we read how early childhood memories connected to our deepest feelings can resurface as we gain adulthood. Because of a painful and meaningful loss of a loved one that was never discussed or talked about as we grew up, the feelings continue to remain and fester, like a wound that doesn’t heal.

Is there someone who was close to you as a child who died but whom you did not grieve or shed a tear for because you were still too young to say that you missed their love and their presence. All of a sudden they were gone and you got on with your life, but your body remembered that this person was once a meaningful part of your life. This might take some investigative work on your part, but we would well to talk to family and friends and see if there were deaths around the time that you were growing up and which you are now unaware, but might have effected your parents or guardians perceptions of life and so affected you.

To discover more effective ways to handle and deal with our feelings, please consider these two books written and published by members of the Depressed Anonymous Fellowship. Click onto The Depressed Anonymous Publications Bookstore for more details on ordering online.

These books can be a great source of help in dis-mantling our own depression and providing the tools to get our lives back on track. Please click onto www.depressedanon.com for more detailed information on ways to find the help you are seeking.

Sources:

1. Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition, © 2011, Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville KY. Step 10 – Page 90.
2. The Depressed Anonymous Workbook, © 2001, Depressed Anonymous Workbook. Louisville, KY. Page 75. Step 10.1

Today, Mary,  a member of the Depressed Anonymous fellowship shares some of her  personal thoughts about  her  recovery.  In one of the personal  stories from Depressed Anonymous (2011)  she  shares  

         “Today I can experience hope. I will believe I can live this day with pleasant thoughts. I will do one activity that will give me hope and light for today.”

  Mary continues to make her  remarkable recovery by  being part of a fellowship where all members have an opportunity for learning  how to use  the tools which will  deliver them from the pain and isolation of their depression.

     She continues  to tell us that “today I will not dwell on the past and the losses that have occurred.”

Of the many areas of her life that she   reflects on in her story, she shares   that instead of thinking about the past and the harm that her losses   have cost her personally, she now examines the possibilities which  her new program of hope is providing   for healing and a  new way of looking at life and her role in it. 

In the Depressed Anonymous fellowship Mary is learning to accept the fact that she doesn’t have to stay depressed. Now, today, her group is encouraging her to be part of a hopeful journey shared by all its members. One of its main messages is to live one day at a time; to live with the belief that   as other members of the group tell their stories of how they escaped the trauma and pain of depression, so too can she.  It is a fact that by following and incorporating the Twelve Spiritual principles  of the Steps in her own life — this is what has brought her to the point of recovery for herself and many others.

Mary now has a plan that works. She wants to tell others about how she has been willing,  open and honest about having that great need to believe in something so much  bigger than herself or her depression. She has had a spiritual   awakening,  releasing  in her a new peace and a new purpose,  not only for her own recovery but for those many others like herself who are seeking a solution,  focused on a new depression-free way to live.

She now believes that living out the 12 Steps of Depressed Anonymous in her own life is what has brought her to this place of freedom from fear and despair.

RESOURCE

For more information on Depressed Anonymous and the Twelve Steps please click onto depressedanon.com and learn more about the program that has given Mary life. You can also order online.

(c)  Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Personal Stories. Pgs.134-135.

When I gradually found myself in a mental and physical lockdown, due to a battle with depression, I did what most of us with the symptoms of depression do, I began to isolate. If not physically, at least in my mind.

For those of us who have experienced a root canal, you know what I am speaking of when it comes to suffering pain. Maybe today, the root canal of yesterday is not as bad today because of  advancement in this dental procedure.  But with my own depression I felt a terrible pain and total physical exhaustion.  I just wanted to be left alone. I needed to try and figure out what began as a worry turned into being a  continued ruminating about my own mental abilities.  Because I couldn’t just ask my dentist to drill down and remove the cause of my pain, I chose to hobble away quietly and  begin  to medicate it with sleep and avoidance of everything that I had held dear in my life. I was not dealing with a decaying tooth but with a powerful  mental anguish, sapping me of any positive solution to a life gone sour.

And just as a dental procedure provides a solution  for my tooth, so is there a solution for  finding healing and help for my depression.  I believe that for most people who suffer from depression there is  hope. There is a healing that is available. For many persons their depression lifts of it ‘s own. It’s been said that 85%   of us who have had only one episode of depression in our lives that  this will be the only one we will experience. 

Many seek out medication, some  therapists, some psychologists, and  most a combination of these resources.  But for those who also seek out understanding and who can  find a friend to talk with, these are the ones that gradually find hope and a solution for their misery.

In my own life, I found a group of men and women (  Depressed Anonymous) , of all ages who come together and speak about their isolation   and helplessness and find others   in the same boat  as themselves. It became clear that this is a positive experience and a resource that gradually gave me an anchor to help me survive the storm.  No longer did I feel that the waves of sadness and feeling hopeless would drown me.  It also provided me with a group of people, coming together as a group,  continuing  to provide me with  tools to leave my self constructed prison of depression. Now I am free of living always inside my mind and beating myself up with guilt and shame.

Take charge of your life, piece by piece. Take one small goal at a time. Get busy. Walk everyday. Go to gym. Find that friend to talk with-especially good if they belong to a Depressed Anonymous group and they use a plan  that provides a pathway to hope and help.  Get  a DA Workbook and DA Manual (3rd edition) and follow it’s plan, one day at a time. Learn about the 12 spiritual principles/Steps  of Depressed Anonymous and apply them to your own life.  If you do these simple steps, you will find that just as going to a dentist for help with  your teeth, so will getting involved with people like ourselves provide healing and  focus on taking good care of ourself and our  life without the debilitating pain of depression. That is a Promise!

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RESOURCES

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

(c) The Depressed Anonymous Workbook (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY.

MY LIFE BEFORE

Running out of gas is a scary proposition, especially when you know the nearest town and gas station is fifty miles away. Your mind starts cranking up some o f the most dire scenarios one can imagine . Running out of gas has not been a problem for me in recent years. I have learned that it’s best to keep an eye on one’s gas gauge. That usually takes care of any problems of being stranded on the highway.

For me, being depressed is like running out of gas. Even though I was going about my life as usual, I began noticing my energy level (physical gauge) was reading close to empty. This didn’t cause much concern at first and I kept plodding along. I didn’t give the thoughts too much attention.

Suddenly, yes, it was suddenly like some huge hand reached into my head, turned the mental ignition switch off, with my life spiraling down into a bottomless pit. I was out of gas, emotionally, spiritually and motivationally paralyzed. My battery was dead and my tank was empty. What to do?

MY LIFE NOW

“The important thing to remember about depression is that you are not a victim. You have bought into the belief that you can’t change how you feel. You need to believe that once you change the way you think then that in itself can begin to produce a change in the way you feel.”

It’s been more than 30 years since I spiraled into the bottomless pit. I continue to live, one day at a time, with the strength that daily replenishes me with hope and confidence. That strength I call my Higher Power, or my God as I understand God. (Step Two).

My battery is charged by those others in the Fellowship of Depressed Anonymous who as my companions on this broad highway of recovery, who speak the language of hope. Each time that I read and reflect on the thoughts in the big book of Depressed Anonymous (Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition) and stay in touch with a weekly meeting and my sponsor, I find my strength and resolve renewed.

If you are visiting this website for the first time or the hundredth time, know and believe that you too CAN rise up and resist all those hopeless and helpless thoughts trying to crowd out these new feelings of hope and resolve.

RESOURCES

(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition (1998, 2008, 2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY.

(c) The Depressed Anonymous Workbook, (2001) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. KY.

For more information about ordering material online please click onto VISIT THE STORE at THE DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS PUBLICATIONS BOOKSTORE.