In thinking about my experience with depression and the painful isolation that followed, I felt I was being knocked down by some invisible force. The force was so great that I felt I was going to be swallowed up in its vast black hole of nothingness. Indeed, I felt that I was going to end up being a hole in the doughnut. So, what could I do but try and ride it out–much like the surfer on their surfboard, riding precariously on one wave after another. I just knew that I would be forced out to sea as my body gradually began to slide off the only means of survival. I thought that I had no options except to just surrender and go the bottom of the sea.
Well, that’s half of the story. I knew I had to do something. Do anything but lie down and just linger on –immobile and lifeless. So, I picked myself up –got out of bed and started walking.And walk I did. Five miles a day. Almost two weeks later, with miles on my bodily odometer, I began to feel a little lighter – a little more hopeful that somehow I could get back in the game. I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel — and it wasn’t a train. And so it was possible — a person so depressed that I couldn’t force myself out of bed before, but now I know that I could raise myself up and move. I could move, not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I felt hopeful and I felt a gratitude and relief that I was not losing my mind.
The greatest benefit was that it brought me into a program of recovery where in order to remain standing up –raised up if you will, is my living out the 12 Steps of recovery in my daily life. Now all this happened some thirty years ago. Thanks to Depressed Anonymous and participating in the fellowship, I learn not only how to live a life of serenity but I also how I have a gift of sharing my own experiences of depression and offer others a way out of their depression. And today if you are depressed, please follow us in our program of recovery. All you need is a willingness to get better and live with hope. That’s it. A desire to get better. Admit you need hope and help and then get started. Move the body and the mind will follow. Please join us.
SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.