Not Getting There

I have been re-reading my own blogs and the address I saw is "Depressed or Getting There". This blog started out as a way to help people who were getting depressed to pre-empt the sadness from turning into a full-blown depression or to help turn around one.

Again, these are my thoughts and experiences that I am sharing. I have a strong belief that the mind is very powerful. I am not sure, of course, of how genetic factors come into play. I AM NOT PLAYING PSEUDO-DOCTOR. A trained psychiatrist or therapist has their domain and are the "healing professionals". I am not bashing them.

However, due to my own experience, I propose that I know some information of "NOT GETTING THERE". The power is in one's experience and awareness. We learn or are forced to repeat our mistakes, correct? Yet...I am open to be taught more about genetics...definitely not my area of expertise.

Not getting there. Not getting to the "hole". Not getting depressed. Do we have that kind of control? I think we can. There are in-patient and out-patient programs for hospitals in which they teach how to avoid relapse. It perplexed me. Now I understand...there are warning signs. Hard to apply when one is already depressed...at that point...you just want to be UN-depressed...not thinking of having another depression (G-d Forbid) and having to get out of that one.

Once when I was hospitalized for a clinical depression and a very kind volunteer named Bob was going over a chart with Avoiding Relapse on it...I told a new friend, fellow sufferer..."I just want to get out of this one! I don't want to even think about another one!" She agreed. So...with my training in analyzing language from Columbia University's graduate program...I realized I had to change negative thinking into positive thinking.

The chart listed so many types of negative thinking -- all or nothing thinking --I can't thinking--etc. and the antidote i saw was positive thinking...but there was no break down of it---only positive thinking on the chart. I told my friend Carol...I think we need to find words for the positive thinking. Let's take the list of types of negative thinking and change them into different types of positive thinking.

Staring out into space...walking aimlessly....watching t.v. for hours...are common activities in a mental hospital. So...when we started talking with a purpose we were like a magnet...and others were pulled in to see what we were up to. A self-help group in the hospital had been formed.

to be continued...

I saved this relapse sheet filled with negative thinking to avoid. I created labels for new positive thinking and put it into practice. This may be hard to believe, but it is true. I was so depressed and wanted to escape from my own mind. All my thinking was negative.

So...Carol and I spoke from about 3pm until 11pm with nurses urging us into our rooms to go to sleep. I replaced any negative speech/thought with a positive one in this dialogue with Carol. We were smiling and I was afraid to stop talking ... that the depression ... (a seeming entity outside of myself) would return. I was exhausted from thinking and talking so much. Anyone who has been depressed will know how elating it is to get out of the negative thinking and how frightening it is when it returns. The next morning I was depressed again. I spoke to a nurse who was a doctor in her own country, not America. "'That is how it works." she reminded me. "You get out...but it happens little by little." Her words encouraged me. So...I continued with my experiment of speaking positively and changing negative thoughts without so much intensity this time.

I had also learned of a healing meditation. I advertised and led a group on "healing meditation". One guy who had had about 30 shock treatments said he had a response. I asked everyone to give a response to this guided meditation. "I felt connected." he said. "To What?", I asked.
"To the whole world." he responded.

WOW!!! This helped my depression lift even more. I helped someone with 30 shock treatments feel connected to the world. Getting the focus off oneself and connecting with others is so important in getting out of a depression.

I want more trained meditation practitioners to go into the hospitals. I will volunteer soon.
If any health professionals already do this or have any input, please post or email me.