It took me a long time to understand the connection between depression and anger. One psychiatrist I visited would often ask a simple question toward the end of a session: How’s your anger? I couldn’t understand why he asked. I hadn’t been talking about anger. Depression was my problem. I’d usually respond with a puzzled, […]
rage
Growing Up with Fear and Depression
I’ve always wondered why the stories of veterans with PTSD, like those I’ve been reading for the recent posts here and at Health Central, have resonated so deeply. I have nothing close to the unimaginable violence of war in my experience, or any of the other overwhelming traumas associated with PTSD. The aftereffects, though, feel […]
Family Fury in a Small Space
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 remember it. This seemed to happen […]
Early Steps Toward Recovery
Lynn left a comment on Why Depressed Men Leave that ended with a question I’ve been thinking about all week. She summarized the wrenching story about her bipolar husband and his blaming her for everything that was wrong with him. Then she asked me how I gained the insight that my blaming and raging behavior […]
Healing Waters in the Grand Canyon
Some Rights Reserved by efleming on Flickr This is another of the first posts on this blog that I’ve revised. It describes an incident from many years ago, but the experience gave me an image of healing that has never left. I come back to it again and again whenever I need to push off […]
Meditating through Depression
These are journal excerpts about my fitful beginning work with meditation as a guide through depression. After a day of feeling the chaos of panic, immobilized at work, I went to see JL, first therapist in years. This guy is real. He wasted no time, quickly running through some patterns he observed (explaining that he […]
