Category Archives: Act As If

Acceptance, Act As If, Depressed Anonymous, Isolation, Mutual Aid, Prayer, Serenity, Service, Step 01, The Promises

I need to get prepared for a new me today!

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I am getting healthier the more I realize that I don’t have to feel the way that I feel. I have the option to feel content and even smile today if I so desire. I will act like I want to smile again even though I don’t feel like smiling.

“If you have made yourself a martyr to your unappreciative family, remember the principle of partial reinforcement and apply it to your family. If you are always at their beck and call trying to meet their every demand, they will not appreciate you, but once they see that they cannot rely on you to to meet their demands, they will appreciate what you do for them.” (Breaking the Bonds, D. Rowe.Fontana, 1991).

REFLECTION
i Know that so often those who are codependent and live all the time in everyone else’s feelings need to remember that the real maturity and happiness lies in being there for me — not for everyone else. I think that reflection points out the fact that I need to reinforce my own worth by going to DA meetings, actively getting involved with my own recovery over anything and everyone else. I am going to begin to be a pleasant person. I will want to learn how to be pleasant to myself.
Now is the time and this is the program where I start to detach from other people’s opinion of myself and start to reflect where I start to detach from those people’s opinions of myself and start to reflect on my own opinion of myself. When I am depressed, I know that I haven’t been able to get angry, not to forgive anyone, much less forgive myself. I feel cheerless. I meet my own demands and continue to work the steps so as to get in touch with what I need to do to reinforce those positive concepts that I am forming about myself. I need to get prepared for a new me today.
“We are now on a different basis: the basis of trusting and relying upon God, our Higher Power. We trust an infinite God rather than our finite selves. Just to the extent that we do as we think he would have us do, and humbly rely on him, does he enable us to match calamity with serenity.” (As Bill sees it.p.265).

MEDITATION
When we gradually work our way to the real self we get closer to the God who made us.

RESOURCE
Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, KY. Hugh Smith. Pages 14-15.

Act As If, Choice, Focus, Purpose

You Can Do This!

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Fighting and managing depression can seem like a daunting task. I know as I feel overwhelmed at times. You don’t need to stay stuck in depression. You can take action. Any action is better than inaction and isolation. Get out of yourself and do service for others. The others can be others with depression, or they can just be the downtrodden in need of support. The women in World War II rose to the challenge and went to work (Rosie the Rivetter pictured here). You can rise to the challenge of doing something to help with your depression.

Easy does it, but do it!
– Slogan heard in AA meeting

If you’ve read any of Tony Robbins work he recommends taking massive action. Being in the depths of depression what does massive action look like? Here are some things that when you are in the depths of depression that are massive actions:

  • Have a sleep regimen. Go to bed at the same time, and get up at the same time every day. I’m not expecting you to be an early riser, but have a routine.
  • Making your bed every time you get up from bed.
  • Personal hygiene. Take a shower. Shave (wherever appropriate).
  • Brush and floss your teeth.
  • Wash, fold, and put away your laundry.
  • Clean the bathroom.
  • Wash the dishes (machine washed is fine) and put them away.
  • Get dressed. My recommendation is to the level of business casual. You will feel like you have more of a purpose.
  • Get outside and take a 20 minute walk.

Put these little regimens into your life. Why did I use the word regimen?

regimen: a manner of living intended to preserve or restore health
Source: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/regimen

No one likes regimen. You are doing it for a purpose. You are attempting to restore health and sanity into your life. As you begin to do these things your depression will lighten, albeit very slightly. The slightly lighter mood will enable you to do even more massive actions. These future more massive actions will have an even greater impact on your depression.

What will those more massive actions look like? I don’t know, that depends upon you. Take the little actions of regimen. You can do those little things. Your depression will lessen even if it’s a mere one tenth of one percent. Accept the challenge, you can do it!

Then you can do even greater things that will have a greater positive impact on your depression.

Yours in recovery, Bill R

Act As If

I practice seeing life as hopeful and filled with promise

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“You dismantle your depression by thoroughly examining your own beliefs and how you construct your world. It’s in the way we usually think about ourselves and the world that enables us to predict with accuracy the way things turn out.” Dr. Dorothy Rowe.

In the past I usually predicted gloom and doom about everything that I chose to do. I always felt that whatever I did or whatever I tried to do would end up in the trash. I never felt that I could do anything worthwhile because I never really considered anything I did in the past as being worthwhile. I predicted that nothing would ever turn out for me – and  you know, I was right!  Now I am predicting success as I am beginning to value myself and the things that I do.  I have found with some small experience that the more I predict success, the more that success appears on my horizon. It this what they call a self-fulfilling prophecy?

My depression made me  an excellent prognosticator. These things were always bad. I always had cancer, was suffering from a heart attack or had some rare and incurable disease. I was always seeing life from the negative and hopeless side. I was learning that it is only when I practice seeing life as hopeful and filled with promise, that I discover my mood beginning  to lift.  I am feeling more cheerful like when I used to have hope in my life but took it for granted.”

MEDITATION

WE TRUST OUR GOD, TO LET US SEE LIFE AS IT IS AND NOT AS WE USUALLY THINK OF IT WHEN WE ARE DEPRESSED. I SEE LIFE WITH PROMISE AND POSSIBILITIES.

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

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

Act As If, Anger, Blame, Journaling, Victim Thinking

#METOO. Shouting out our anger and rage

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THIS SOUNDS RIGHT

Dorothy Smith has shown how women are forced into a secondhand understanding of the world. Women are trained to invalidate their own experiences, understanding, and feelings and to look to men to tell them how to view themselves. Ideas, concepts, images, and vocabularies that women use to think about their experiences have been formulated from the male point of view by universities, churches, and other social institutions.

In Women and Madness Phyllis Chesler describes women’s experiences as psychiatric patients. Very few of the women she interviewed appears to have a mental disturbance. Most were unhappy and responding to the oppression in their lives. Seeking help, Chelser pointed out, is not valued in our society, and women seemed to be punished “for their own good” by the institution for exhibiting such weakness.

Jean Baker Miller looked at the relations between dominant and subordinate groups. She isolated certain characteristics of subordinate groups as typical of any irrationally unequal power relations based on ascribed status such as race religion or sex. Those in a relationship of subordination need to survive, above anything else. Direct response to destructive treatment must be avoided, as it may be met with rejection, punishment, or even death. Women who step out of line Miller noted, can suffer a combination of social ostracism, economic hardship, and psychological isolation. They may even be diagnosed as having a personality disorder if they do not conform to the male-defined norm for a woman.

If conflict cannot be expressed openly, it is turned inward and the ground is fertile for depression. Once depression is identified, the victim is blamed for her illness, and she accepts this responsibility until she is helped to examine her own self-defeating patterns, to see how she allows herself to be victimized.”

SOURCE: Melva Steen, Ph.D, RN. Historical Perspectives on Women and mental illness and preventing of depression in women using a feminist perspective. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 12:359-374, 1991.

Appeared in THE ANTIDEPRESSANT TABLET in the Spring edition (v.5, #3: 8-9).1994.

The following is an excerpt from the Basic Text for the fellowship of Depressed Anonymous world wide.

Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition , 2011,2008, 1998. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Ky. Page 82.

“Maybe I need to make amends to my children for making a clean house the number one priority the number one priority and never allowing them to give expression to their feelings. Or maybe I was the good daughter or son who never told anyone how I really felt because I was afraid of how my parents would react. Now we might be dredging up all the old feelings of anger and resentment that we have submerged under a mask of kindness ands sweetness over the years. We need to voice our anger for having to act like someone we aren’t. I can think of many women who in therapy begin to get in touch with the times when as little girls, they were conditioned to think that good little girls didn’t get angry, and so they stuffed and sat upon all these powerful and unpleasant emotions. Feelings that are not expressed can accumulate in our bodies and can’t get out until we share them and express them. These stuffed feelings get lodged in our bodies and immobilize us until we feel completely wrung out!

Some have heard all their lives that you shouldn’t get angry as mother won’t love you anymore. This makes it quite difficult suddenly to shout out our rage and anger at a world that has made women in general feel less than second-class citizens. ”

Acceptance, Act As If, Belief, Choice

The depression experience is about the way we feel, think and behave

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“When you think of depression do you think of it like it’s one big thing or do you see it   for the many parts that  make up a depression  experience, namely, the way that we think, behave, or feel? In other words, when we make it to be a thing,  it holds power over us – like it came out of the blue – we talk about depression in medical terms – I just had a bout of depression – like it came from outside of us  like an infected germ or virus. In reality, our depression is made up of many parts, such as particular depressed  ways of thinking, behaving and feeling.

Think about the ways that you perceive your depression.  Can you distinguish the various parts that go to form what we call the depression experience?

Which of the following illustrations can you best relate?

 I need to be perfect.

I need to be successful.

I need to please others – always.

I need never to get angry.

I need to have someone in my life before I feel I am somebody.

Please write down  how one or more of the above keep you down, despairing and hopeless. Also write your thoughts  about where you feel these attitudes might be coming from?

SOURCE: The  Depressed Anonymous Workbook. Questions 11.1 to 11.6 inclusive.  Page 80-81.

If you are utilizing the HOME STUDY KIT you can read a corresponding  thought in our manual, Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition.  The   DA WORKBOOK  locates this reference in  its format.

 “…   I’ve been good and I’ve tried to be perfect, so why am I so miserable and unhappy ?” The reason that you’re so unhappy is because you’re trying to be perfect, but you never know when you reach perfection as you always have one more line to cross before you become the perfect person that you’re struggling so hard to become. Depression is so often a refuge from having to live out our life. And only when we feel that we can live with a fair degree of unpredictableness  in our life that we move out of  our isolation into the real world. So often our depression hides behind a mask of superficial friendliness – with people never aware of the deep pain that we feel inside.  The risk is in moving out of isolation into contact with other depressed people. We know now that it is in the expression of our feelings that get us free. It is   the telling and the admission of our powerlessness over our depression that makes us move ever so slowly out of the deep pit of darkness and sadness. So often when we are able to make amends, we feel that part of the prison wall begins to crumble and we begin to see the light of day. We discover a way out! We find that our forgiveness of others frees us and brings us one more step into the peace of serenity. Getting free is in saying that we alone are responsible for our compulsive retreat from life when we run up against some stressful situation. And the more we study and hear about the addictive personalities and behavior, the more we learn about ourselves and how we have anaesthetized ourselves against any possible feeling of pain, hurt, or anger by saddening  ourselves and keeping to ourselves.”

SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 85-86.

The HOME STUDY KIT is  a personal study effort (or group) using both the Workbook and the Depressed Anonymous manual. To find out more about the Home Study Kit please VISIT THE STORE.