It’s really amazing that I don’t get more depressed when I share with another human being. In fact, I get lighter and more hopeful about my life. I know people understand what I am feeling. These people who know depression never ask us to “snap out of it” and for that I am grateful.

What I am really looking at here are areas of my life that keep me down and depressed. My need is to be always in control causes an awful fear and gloom to come over me. I do not know their origin, just that they are present. I know that my defects of character can only be removed when I face up to them and prepare to make amends to myself and to others.

Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. (2002) Louisville, Ky. Pages 140-141.