Recover Life from Depression

The Crowded Emptiness of a Depressed Man

Long before I began to recover from depression, I stumbled my way into moments when time seemed to disappear. My mind cleared itself out completely, and I found myself in a kind of stillness that I can only call spiritual. Those were hopeful experiences, the closest I’ve come to the sense of oneness that Jill Bolte Taylor describes so well in her book, . But for me these precious moments were too often balanced by […] Read more »

What Can Help Prevent Depression Relapse?

Written by John Folk-Williams

Depression has an especially cruel season called relapse. It always happens after the worst seems to be over; hope like sunlight is restored; life without depression is in full bloom. Then suddenly it’s winter again. The more often it happened to me, the more impossible the goal of recovery seemed to become. I was surprised to read recently in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression that relapse has received attention from researchers and therapists only in […] Read more »

A Never-Ending Family Story Has to End

Written by John Folk-Williams

My never-ending family story has always been a hard scene in which I am very young and small and terrified. I’m staring at my parents and brother locked in combat. There may be no action, it usually flashes at me in tableau form, but there is plenty of rage, fear and hurt. There is a pause between shouts, threats, perhaps punches, hands at a throat, something grabbed and about to be thrown, once even a […] Read more »