Forgiveness & Recovery from Depression

Posted by JohnD Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:44:00 GMT

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 forgiveness. It is always mentioned as an obligatory part of recovery, and yet there has always been something elusive about the idea for me. How was it different from understanding past trauma, dealing thoroughly with its impact and letting go of the feelings of anger or hate? For I did learn to stop the constant blaming of present problems on those who harmed me when I was so young and unable to stand up for myself. Is that forgiveness, or is there something more. I started thinking and reading to stop the confusion about the ideas and feelings I have about forgiveness. I quickly found that I was not the only one who had a hard time getting at the deeper meaning of this concept. It has different meanings in different religions and cultures, but there are a few major approaches I've found that helped me grasp more deeply the connection between what I had experienced and forgiveness. Read more...

Posted in Growing Up with Depression, Fighting Depression, Spirituality and Depression | Tags anger, blame, change, childhood, depression, forgiveness, harm, recovery, soul, spirituality, vengeance, victim, violence | 13 comments

Healing Sound and Depression

Posted by JohnD Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:54:00 GMT

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Have you heard it, felt it? In the sound of a human voice there may come a wave of healing. Of course, it could also be a scarring knife edge or shriek of pain that can hurt or terrify, but here I want to talk about the power of voice to restore lost harmony. Let’s put it as a question: in your experience can the human voice help move a depressed, disordered being closer to wellness?

The voice, after all, comes from deep sources. It finely carries the emotions, reflects the slightest change of feeling, broadcasts the intention of a speaker and can load the simplest words with complicated meanings. It is a big part of all the nonverbal bonds we form with people that are the real basis of relationships

Once I heard a speaker of the Dine (Navajo) Nation give a prayer and blessing to a conference room packed with almost one thousand people. He sent his prayer out slowly at first, the English words and separate phrases clear, much as you would hear in any invocation, but then he picked up the pace, building to a chant in the rapid rhythm and intonation of a ceremonial singer.

Creating a Way Out of Depression -1

Posted by JohnD Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:10:00 GMT

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WARNING: IDEAS UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Thanks to a series of compelling posts on creativity by Isabella Mori at changetherapy (part of an exchange with Psyblog), I’ve been trying to understand more clearly what happens when creative work takes place. I haven’t gotten there yet (can’t say I expect to solve this puzzle since more learned and insightful people than I have been trying for a long time). But I would like to throw out a few ideas I’ve picked up in my reading, and then ask you to share your thoughts.

Now why should I get into this in the first place? Simply because I know that when I’m working creatively I’m in a different state where depression doesn’t exist. Just like the spiritual encounters I’ve been trying to describe that stop time and this despairing condition, there is something about creating, even at my modest level, that draws out a force within me that dissolves depression. What is that? Can I package some and pull it off the shelf when I need it? Here are a few of the insights that gifted thinkers have offered. They make sense to me, but this is just a starting point. I hope we can build a dialogue to go further into creativity and its ability to make depression disappear, at least for a short time.

Depression and Imagination

Posted by JohnD Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:27:00 GMT

Some Rights Reserved by Karo666 at Flickr

I’ve been looking back at the way I’ve thought about depression and my stance toward dealing with it, and I’ve started to wonder: Could I imagine and adopt in my life a different approach to this illness?

What starts me on this track is my encounter with the experiences of so many other thoughtful fellow-sufferers who have achieved a way of living with depression that finds some positive value where I find none. What are they seeing that I’m missing? As I’ve indicated repeatedly, I see depression as an intruder, a trespasser that steals the vital energy of creativity that is its opposite. My last post recognized that while others whom I respect may have very different experiences, I have always wound up cheering on a Jane Chin or Therese Borchard or Peter Kramer who see depression as a disease that is just as welcome in life as cancer. – Ah, cancer—well, that gives me pause. I find a similar tension in the experiences even of terminal cancer patients. Some kick at their condition in anger and bitterness while others find a transformative spiritual experience in what they have to endure. This has nothing to do with the fact that cancer is a disease; it has everything to do with adapting to the experience of living with a potentially deadly problem. My own experience with cancer brought out a fighting spirit that got me through and that persists in my stance toward depression. I firmly believe in the need for using all available treatment options in responding to depression -it is an illness that can kill me. What I’m thinking about now is the way I live my life with this condition as a permanent part of my mind, body and soul. Can or should I adapt to it in a different way?

I’ve been trying to pull together my own sense of how my imagination has brought about my current adaptation to illness with ideas from Donald Karp’s intriguing book, Speaking of Sadness. The results are surprising.

Crossing the Stream

Posted by JohnD Sun, 12 Aug 2007 01:06:00 GMT

Here's something that happened years ago, but it gave me a memory, an image, of healing that comes back again and again.

(Rights Reserved)

My wife (L) and I were hiking with three friends into the back country of the Grand Canyon to spend a couple of nights at Phantom Creek. Most people hiking into the Canyon for a day trip go down the main trail from either north or south rim and wind up at Phantom Ranch, where the Bright Angel Creek joins the Colorado River. (Phantom, Bright Angel, who came up with these spirit names?) Our trip started in just that way, but then we found a trace of trail next to a campground, and we switch-backed our way up a steep hillside – hoisting our heavy backpacks on ropes at one hard-angled spot. The heat was at a hundred or so, and, having already spent hours on the initial descent down to the Colorado, we strained and groaned in the early evening up that slope onto a natural shelf of long, broad boulders. In that unlikely spot we made camp, in sight of a good starting point for the morning. As I lay uncomfortably on that craggy stone surface, looked back down the canyon at face after shadowed face of massive rock, reddened and purpled in the late summer day's very last light, I couldn't help saying aloud, though it was far from the camaraderie and happy escapism of our little adventure, "What on earth are we doing in this barren place?" I had already fallen deep into a dark mind but didn't realize it until the next day.

Posted in Connecting | Tags anger, depression, healing, isolation, mind, recovery, soul, spirit, stream | no comments

Writing to Recover Life from Depression

Forgiveness & Recovery from Depression

Healing Sound and Depression

Creating a Way Out of Depression -1

Depression and Imagination

Crossing the Stream

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