Holloween is a great time to pretend to be someone else. It’s a day when we can all live out our fantasies of being someone than our selves. On this one night of the year we are given permission to be a super hero, a great army leader, an Olympic champion, the world’s greatest athlete. This year there was a great number of Supermen running around, accompanied by a few Spidermen for the evening , plus the little Princess and the powerful Wonder woman.
It was great fun. Parents walking with their little one’s, going from door, carrying the bags of booty, like little pirates, with such dreadful threats as “Trick or Treat” belted out like they meant it. I recognized some of the monsters and figures of fame, and most I didn’t. But we all had a great nite acting like we were someone else.
This reminds me of a friend that shared with me his great secret and who he was pretending to be. This wasn’t Holloween though. He was a doctor addicted to cocaine and other addictive substances. As he gradually removed the mask from his face, tears streaming down his face, and he told me his story. The painful and gradual sinking into the abyss of darkness. He told me the following and I will never forget the emotion with which he shared this secret of himself.
“I just wish, I wish I could go to the roof of this hospital and tell everyone, those who respect me the most, as what a fraud I am. I can’t. I want to do it. I haven’t the courage or the guts. ” And of course he never did. He kept his secret until he died of an overdose.
I took off my mask years ago at an AA meeting. And yes, I told them I was a fraud. Alcohol had given me the best false face a person could have. A fun guy. A happy Jack who never met a stranger. Then it was time to share another secret, my depression. How I always had a smile pasted on my face even though the tormenting demons of fear, anxiety, and isolation were my constant companions.
What freed me? It was others just like me–all telling their secrets and paradoxically becoming free. We, all of us in the Depressed Anonymous Fellowship no longer have “to fake it til we make it.”
If you want to tell your story, join us in the new online group called the Home Study Program. Sign up before November 15th. Here you can have a one on one Home Study program, with a sponsor and guide. Check out the story of Kim at our NEWSLETTER issue #5. Read how Kim’s life has been changed by working the DA HOME STUDY combo, composed of the Manual and Workbook.
The title of our new Newsletter is THE ANTIDEPRESSANT TABLET, ISSUE 1, FALL, 2017.
hugh