Category Archives: Supportive Actions

12 Step Meeting, Acceptance, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Purpose

Personal empowerment step by step

Leave a comment

It is with a personal sense of awe that I see the empowerment  that comes to those persons working the 12 Step program of Depressed Anonymous. The empowerment comes to those who  are conscious of the various ways they will have to change if their lives are to grow and  change.  This is of course not without its risks.

One of the major obstacles that we have to face when we are depressed is to be willing to change the way that we think about ourselves, our world, and our future. We have to dwell on and experience our pleasant as well as the unpleasant feelings in the present. We have to be willing to  face the discomfort of living life with a sense of unpredictability. This is not an easy task.  It is a task that can be achieved with time, patience and work.

Empowerment comes from being informed and making choices that help us change our lives for the better. When I come to a Depresseed Anonymous meeting I am making the first major step –namely, admitting  by my presence at the group meeting that my life is out of control. My compulsion to depress myself is  at the root of my inability to take the challenge of living life with  risk, hope and  enthusiasm. But how can I say that I want to depress myself?   We are NOT BLAMING ourselves but are taking resposnsibility  for our own feelings, behavior and thinking. Now that I am conscious of some negative patterns of my own thinking and behavior,  I can get on  with learning new strategies for my own healing. With the heartfelt prayer of a monk, I now understand that it is by sharing the story of my life –and with the conviction that someone is there to listen to me, that this can in  time  deliver me out of my prison of fear and sadness.

I can be empowered by taking the bull by the horn and choosing each new day, one day at a time, where I can  start   feeling  different.  I now have the support of the group –support from people who have walked where I am walking.

I am investing in myself. I am  making my recovery my highest priority.  I may have been on all the antidepressant medications and  I may have seen all the best counselors and psychiatrists and doctors, but now I am coming to a group of depressed persons, men and women–people who will understand me, not judge me,  but will support me. I investing in myself and my future. What will I find there? I will find some of the most caring people on  the face of the earth. Some of the group members will have been coming for months, and week after week,  know that they are gradually feeling different and having more good days than bad.  And it’s getting better for them.  The more meetings they attend the better they feel and the more support they receive from the fellowship.  They are feeling empowered. It’s the miracle of the group. Instead of living with a compulsion to repeat old negative and life negating thinking, we now have a compulsion to live with hope. We  now  have  a desire for a brand new way of thinking. We want to change the way we live — not just the way that we talk to ourselves.

We  are seeking out a new way to live.

I now feel that I am getting better in learning how NOT to repeat my old way of thinking and bashing myself mentally with bad feelings. I am learning how dangerous it is for me to isolate and separate myself from others.    I now know that healing all takes time and with work and patience I will get better.  For most of us, it has taken a few years to get here (depressed) so why not take  time today — focusing  one day at a time — empowering ourselves, and finding the hope and serenity that others like me are living out today in   own lives. Will you join us?

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

Copyright(c) The Depressed Anonymous Workbook. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

THE  HOME STUDY KIT, A COMBINATION OF BOTH DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS, PLUS THE DEPRESSED ANONMYMOUS WORKBOOK CAN BE PURCHASED TOGETHER. PLEASE CLICK ONTO VISIT THE STORE AND ORDER ONLINE.

Acceptance, Fellowship

Pray, but keep your oars in the water.

Leave a comment

I love this Russian saying. How true it is that if we keep rowing,  keep  praying and believing that God can and will provide his peace for us, we will in time discover that this is not just wishful thinking but reality. The more we take care of ourselves, admit that we need help,  ask this power greater than ourselves to lead us out of our darkness,  the God of our understanding will take us where we want to go.” Move the body and the mind will follow ” is especially true when it comes to our self enforced isolation. To get well we have to move, we have to put our oars in the water and row if we ever want to reach the shores of peace and serenity.

We believe that we already have the map laid out for us in the 12 spiritual principles of Depressed Anonymous that can  take us  to  a land of hope and fellowship. And if we feel we have run aground on the shores of ruin and desolation we now know we can go where others just like us have gone and find a new life.

“Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves  could restore us to sanity.”

SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

VISIT THE STORE for more helpful information on depression and the 12 steps.

Acceptance, Attachment, Fellowship, Purpose, The 12 Steps

Depressed Anonymous. Pollyanna or the real deal ?

Leave a comment

Is Depressed Anonymous the real deal or is it just too good to be true. Are we much like the novel character Pollyanna, over optimistic about everything or are we the realists who take life on lives terms and then deal with it the best way that we can. For all of us who are program people we know the answer to that question.

The best way to deal with any problem or life situation  is to face it squarely and deal with it.  Feelings and all have to be felt, looked at and then dealt with. Take it from me and the  many others who come into our program depressed and who discover that we are not the” pie in the sky “people,  the people with the magic potions or the magic wand wafted over  our heads. But, we are the solution focused folks who will help you build a program that will last a lifetime, giving hope, with a fellowship of hopeful people with whom one can always be in contact with.

One of the areas of life that the depressed has not much experience with is to be like  little  Pollyanna of Porter’s  novels.  Most times the gloom that settles in our minds and heart are those feelings of despair and darkness which we are unable to shake off. It’s that feeling of hopelessness, the feeling of being completely helpless as we gradually make our whole existence one of inner pain  and anxiousness. We can’t sleep–or we sleep too much. We eat too little or we overeat.   Our life is lived out in what feels like a prison cell. It’s a prison without bars, granted, but we cannot  leave it just because we will to.  Will power is initially useless. I know, I tried that route. The Depressed Anonymous fellowship is one of the means which provide  us with a key–a way to leave this prison of isolation.

And then here comes this group called Depressed Anonymous.  Why go to a  group of people who are depressed and listen to stories  about their sense of futility and oppression? That would be depressing! That is, unless they are using in their lives the 12 spiritual principles of Depressed Anonymous. This is the  blueprint which build one step at a time the rest of the structure  that, like the Alcoholic, overeater, all build a structure that can  last a life time. Once they are onboard and begin using Steps for their own personal recovery to build a new life of hope, no adversity can force them to go back to their old and addictive behaviors.

The depression experience is what brings them into our fellowship and it is here that hope is gradually restored. But please, we don ‘t have the easy answers or  magic pills, or the magic wand to make our pain go away.  What we do is provide a plan, a blueprint if you will, a daily dose of hope with a lively  fellowship, sponsors and literature.

There is no sugar coating here. No whitewashing the pain of an individual depression experience. But just like the alcoholic who makes a commitment to keep from alcohol one day at a time, we too have the same program. We come in and decide that yes, I have a problem,  and yes  I will do all in my power,  plus with the ever present  God of my understanding,  change what needs to be changed in my life, one  day at a time.  This is the real deal. And so won’t you join us in this program of recovery and make the effort to discover how you too can live a life of hope and happiness.

Hugh

 

 

12 Step Meeting, Acceptance, Fellowship, Honesty, Hope, The 12 Steps

Depressed Anonymous meetings are normally positive and the focus is upbeat!

Leave a comment

WHAT IS DEPRESSED ANONYMOUS?

Depressed Anonymous is modeled after the 12 Steps (principles) of Alcoholics Anonymous and was founded in Evansville, Indiana in May of 1985. It uses a group approach where members mutually support each other.

In Depressed Anonymous the depressed person admits that he/she is powerless over his or her depression. The depressed person admits that the various areas of his/her lifer are controlled by depression, and that he /she needs help from one’s inner resources, combined with a faith in a Higher Power to help work through one’s time of hopelessness and helplessness.

At Depressed Anonymous meetings, we do not pry into people’s personal lives. We also do not give advice at meetings but instead tell our story and how the 12 steps are releasing us from the tight grip of depression. Meetings are normally upbeat and the focus is positive! Each of us set small concrete and positive goals for ourselves and begin to learn how to gain some mastery over our lives and feelings. Each of us has time at meetings to share our experiences with other member so f the group. As a new member you are ready to make a commitment to quit sadding oneself, and that’s when results begin to happen.

This 12 Step recovery program can be a great healer of personal wounds and provides the depressed with a new start in life. It also provides hope for people like yourself who have been where you are. Hope now resides where once there was only darkness and despair!

SOURCE: (C) I’ll do it when I feel better.(2013). Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville, Ky. Pages 22-23. Chapter Three: What is Depressed Anonymous.

Please VISIT THE STORE and discover the many exciting chapters, which will outline hope for the depressed and how the group can provide essential tools for unlocking the prison of one’s own depression.

Fellowship, Mutual Aid

Mutual aid as integral part of the 12 Step recovery program

Leave a comment

 

The other day I was taking my grandchildren to a children’s amusement center here at home. My oldest grandchild ( 13 years) has an IPhone with a GPS(Global Positioning System) integrated with his phone. So, as we were traveling along on our way to our destination, he points out to me that his GPS indicated we were going the  wrong way. Alas, I turned off the road,  turned the car around and headed in the direction of the children’s amusement center-just as the GPS directed me.

Not too long ago I came in contact with a captivating and insightful work by a Russian author who  described how everything in the natural world, human, animal and  plant life is able to survive because of mutuality among its  species. As many  believe, it is only by the  survival of the fittest that ensures ones survival in the natural world. It is this fact, according to Darwin, which  makes  it possible for its members to survive the struggle between individual members for the means of existence.

Peter  Kropotkin, who was a Russian Prince and an anarchist had these  important words to share about his belief in mutual aid among all species. In the foreword to his work on Mutual Aid the editor tells us how Kropotkin

 drew on his experiences in scientific expeditions in Siberia to illustrate the phenomenon of cooperation. After examining the evidence of cooperation in nonhuman animals, “savages,” “barbarians,” in medieval cities, and in modern times, he concludes that cooperation and mutual aid are as important in the evolution of the species as competition and mutual strife, if more so.

It was in reading this masterful work, Mutual aid: A Factor of Evolution, which was written over a 100 years ago, and all  based on scientific observations in  the real world that Professor Kessler, the  a well known Russian zoologist, in an address  (1880)  to Russian naturalists who is said to have understood the full importance of Mutual Aid as a  law of Nature. The following is part of  that lecture:

I obviously do not deny the struggle for existence, but I maintain that the progressive development of the animal kingdom, and especially of mankind, is favored much more by mutual support than by mutual struggle…All organic beings have two essential needs: that of nutrition, and that of propagating the species. The former brings them to a struggle and to mutual extermination, while the needs of maintaining the species bring them to approach one another and to support one another.  But I am inclined to think that in the evolution of the organic world  — in the progressive modification of organic beings –mutual support among individuals plays a much more important part than their mutual struggle.

I have written all this today just to arouse  the reader’s interest in the power of mutual aid to form viable, supportive   communities–while struggle for survival works against itself and  community formation with self serving individual concerns,  which may lead to more divisiveness and fragmentation in established societies and communities.

In our day,  the “selfies”  mentality mirrors a trend in our societies where the individual now stands like a nomad  in a desert, without  reference points to  past societal traditions which gave value and meaning to one’s life.  Familial breakdown, loss of traditional religious beliefs, migration, poverty and the disappearance of tribal and national customs gradually erase connections between peoples that were formerly in place  providing  support and a sense of security and trust  for the life of the individual and the  community where they lived. 

This leads us to a brief discussion on the importance of the  establishment of mutual aid groups, support groups in our society today.  Mutual aid group members are an integral part of a community where there is fellowship, support and mutuality. When   one member suffers, all members suffer with them and support them. No one suffers alone. No one is an isolated individual who swims alone in today’s  modern cultures of individual competition and struggle.

Amazing as it is, the 12 Steps have brought to us a way out of our isolation and a way into a supportive community and mutuality. Truly, these groups  promote the belief that everyone is equal in the fellowship — mutuality lived out in the real world–and all members of the group come together to serve each other with hope. The mutual aid given to each other in the group provides a dynamic positioning of one’s life so as to  live life with each other with hope and love. One has  a concern for the welfare of all just  as one’s own welfare becomes the concern of all.

Hugh

___________________________________________________________

SOURCE: Mutual Aid: A factor of evolution. Peter Kropotkin. (1902, 2008) Forgotten Books. Org.

 

Service

Happiness is a side product of helping others

Leave a comment

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT
I always wondered –how can I possibly bring peace to others when I feel so low and down in the mouth? It is my wish to help others who are still suffering and living without the hope of ever feeling better. It is by doing what I have to do every day and living today for all its worth, that I will be able to stay in the now and try to change my moods as they start their usual spiral downward. I believe that ‘Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.’ Thus, I can help others.

Happiness is the side product of my letting go of my self and thinking of some larger effort or goal in my life. It is in setting a goal to work on my self just for today, that I get in contact with my Higher Power and listen to his promptings. I am happiest when I am able to live with hope that possibly, just possibly, my life has a purpose and a meaning.”

MEDITATION
We ask God to point out to us where our areas of self-will lie so that they might be brought to light. We can work on them and get rid of them as these areas block us from our serenity and growth in happiness. We again want to turn our lives and our wills over to you God.

SOURCE: Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. (1993,1999, 2016).Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Acceptance, Mutual Aid

For those who never experienced love growing up

Leave a comment

“Depressed Anonymous provides a secure base (love and acceptance) for those who never experienced love or support while growing up.”

After ten years of repeated meetings with the depressed of Depressed Anonymous meetings, it’s clear that the meetings create a secure base for those who in their childhood had neither kindness nor the life giving warmth and affection of family life.

People who keep coming back to Depressed Anonynmous continue to grow and become aware of the inner change taking place week after week as they find not only attention to their story, but find that they are loved and cared for at the same time. Possibly for the first time, they find that they look forward to each weekly meeting and become attached to the positive feelings that emerge inside themselves as they continue to share the story of their pain . In time, they share how their week is suddenly being filled with more good days than bad. It also becomes obvious to the participant that childhood behavior and experiences are carried right on into adult life. Trusting is such a hazard for the depressed because every person is different. You can’t trust your environment because it could suddenly shift and you would be without a certainty that you were bad and worthless. The meetings gradually present to you an opportunity to be someone worthwhile and valued. Your sharing and risking information about yourself begins the construction of a new and secure you. The Depressed Anonymous group becomes for possibly the first time in your life, a very secure and stable enviornmment where you can share, trust and grow.“

RESOURCE: Depressed Anonynmous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Personal Stories. Pages 139-140.

12 Step Meeting, Belief, DA Literature, Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Focus, Higher Power, Spiritual Heroes, Spirituality

Our basic antidote for fear is a spiritual awakening!

Leave a comment

Antidote: “A remedy to counteract a poison.” This is the definition as given by Webster’s dictionary. Fear is truly a poison in some ways and in others it is a gift. We need to fear only that which will keep us locked in the prison of depression. Sometimes our fears are of what tomorrow might bring or might be the fears from the past. One of the better antidotes to fear is trying to live, just for today. Today is all I have.

So often I hear others say that they have been depressed all their lives until – let me repeat- until they hear other stories as to how with work, time and belief in a power greater than  themselves that they did and are feeling better now.  I need to trust that once I have made my conscious decision to turn my life and will over to the care of God as I understand him, that my life will indeed begin to change.

“I am no longer alone in my suffering depression. I believe that by getting more active in my recovery that my life will begin to brighten up.”

“We of (AA) and  Depressed Anonymous find that our basic antidote for fear is a spiritual awakening.” Bill W.

SOURCES:
Copyright (c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed  Anonymous Publications. Louisville. May  10. Page 95.
Copyright (c) Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression. (2015 ) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.
Copyright (c) I’ll do it when I feel better. (2013) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Depressed Anonymous, Fellowship, Mutual Aid

I realized that I was addicted to the self

Leave a comment

“As a person that has suffered depression since childhood, I can say that until you start to open up, share your hurts and feelings, listen to the members of the group, watch them as they grow from the support of the group, you will not be able to get out of the prison of your depression. I have been going to Depressed Anonymous for four years and only until recently have I realized that I was addicted to the self.  Only then did I start to take a good look at myself and start to ask God for his help and truly mean it. I am learning to trust in God  and do His will and not mine. I feel better about myself. I can tell you it is a lot easier to be depressed than it is to work on yourself and admit to yourself that there is a problem. It is God’s will for us to live each day to the fullest because of our time on earth is limited. Live each day, not yesterday or tomorrow. Share with the group and your friends and you will be surprised who will be glad to listen  if you would give them a chance. Accept the fact that all of us at Depressed Anonymous are here to listen to you and not make judgments  on you or give advice. Even if you don’t want to share, come to the meetings because you can always get something out of them. Eventually, you will want to share and the group will listen.

In conclusion, trust in your Higher Power – God as you understand God. Support groups are the  way out of our addictions. We may have given  up on God, but God hasn’t  given up on us. Start your day out by asking God: God I pray for the knowledge of your will and the power to carry it out. ”

-Starr writing about her experience with depression and the healing support that she receives in the Depressed Anonymous 12 Step mutual aid group.

Read Starr’s whole story in Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. (Personal Stories section/Pages 129-130 ).