Did you ever feel that your depression would come back and swallow you up? This question had been asked of me many times.

 

That question comes to most of us I would think who have been depressed. It crossed my mind  the day I felt   better. My mood lightened up momentarily. It was  a flashback to the time–a year and half before — when my life was running on a flat trajectory and life was good. And then, suddenly,  with this heightened mood flashed the frightening message on my mental screen, “yes, but it’s not going to last!”  That was the message that suddenly knocked me to the ground causing my mood to plummet to the pits. .  And here I was I thought, back to square one. The thought came to me as I  continued my walking–a practice that I started a year before,  and which gave an incentive for me to keep trying to move beyond the grip of whatever had me by the  throat.  Because I did continue to walk I gradually restored that brief momentarily heightened mood which has endured to this day. My life did take a turn for the better because now I found out that there were areas in my life that I needed to change.

The fact is that those of us who have had only one experience with depression will most likely  not have another one. Thank goodness, that happens to be true in my own case.  But after involving myself in a Twelve Step Support group, where I found acceptance for my story of pain and isolation,  plus the tools that were used for freeing myself  from depression. I have been using these same tools for more than 30 years.

I also discovered by my participation in Depressed Anonymous that by sharing with the groups  which I attended, that these meetings and the work that I was doing on my own recovery,  gave me the freedom which the Promises of the Steps had provided me.

Jonathon Rottenberg,  in his very hopeful and helpful book, The Depths, he tells us his deep  feelings about depression.  He tells us why we are losing the fight against depression:

“We are losing the fight against depression in part because our fundamental description of it –as reflecting defects is wrong. The first step to finding more effective solutions is getting that fundamental description right, and my book is one effort toward that end. Finally, I am skeptical of any easy, one -size- fits all solution for depression, and you should be too. The genre of self-help for depression is littered with well intentioned books that overpromise solutions and false hopes. It would be nice to defeat your depression in ten easy steps, but rarely is it  so easy. Books that over promise solutions produce frustrated, disappointed, and demoralized readers and damage the credibility of experts. I haven’t written a self-help book, or at least not in the usual sense.”

Even so, Jonathon has given us   a helpful read and one which someone depressed or not depressed can gain  a positive take on depression with  helpful ways to spiral upward instead of downward.

“What you seek, will seek you.”

 

 

 

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