Archive for the ‘Growing Up with Depression’ Category

Family Fury in a Small Space

Written by john on June 6th, 2009
4 Comments

Some Rights Reserved by _marmota at Flickr
This is a story I had to get out of my head onto paper purely for healing. It’s still hard, though, and I may not be getting it right – best I can do for now. A name has been changed, but otherwise this is the way I can [...]

Read more »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Permalink

Family, Forgiveness & Peace

Written by john on May 29th, 2009
4 Comments

Some Rights Reserved by carulmare at Flickr
I always had a hard time linking forgiveness and peace with my early family life. In fact, it was hard for me to understand what forgiveness itself was all about. I thought of it as a remote dream, a utopian feeling. There were many people I had struggled with, [...]

Read more »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Permalink

Growing Up Blue: Children & Trust

Written by john on February 3rd, 2009
15 Comments

Some Rights Reserved by Indigo Goat at Flickr.
A psychiatrist I visit now and then once summarized a basic tendency he saw in children from their earliest years. What he observed was that a child could grow up either trusting the people and world around him/her or else fearful and insecure about what could happen in [...]

Read more »

Permalink

Who’s Watching Me?

Written by john on November 20th, 2008
6 Comments

Some Rights Reserved by fdecomite at Flickr

I’m not sure when it began, but I most often trace the conviction that I was constantly being watched to my very early Sunday school classes. After mass, I would follow the sweeping black robe of the nun along with a troupe of boys into a bare room of [...]

Read more »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Permalink

Growing Up Blue: Picturing Depression

Written by john on October 31st, 2008
4 Comments

Some Rights Reserved by ssh at Flickr

Have you ever wondered what a very young boy sees when his mother is staring at him through a camera lens? I don’t mean the digital cameras that do the looking for you, leaving your face fully visible as you press a button. I’m thinking of cameras that used [...]

Read more »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Permalink

Forgiveness & Recovery from Depression

Written by john on October 18th, 2008
15 Comments

Some Rights Reserved by …Zeyneeep! at Flickr

Recently, Melinda wrote a post about the role of forgiveness in her recovery and the difficulty she has had in forgiving her unrepentant father for abusing her in childhood. Reading this made me aware that I wasn’t very clear in my own mind about the meaning of [...]

Read more »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Permalink