Depression

By Maria Etta Anabel

My family has a chemical imbalance that causes sever and debilitating depression.  I have close relatives who have attempted suicide and been hospitalized for their depression.  I have suffered from bulimia and spent six weeks in a clinic.  Bulimia is considered by many to be a sign of depression.

My own battle with depression has been epic.  I have struggled with it my entire life.  At times, I have been nearly agoraphobic, afraid to leave the house. There is much pain in dealing with depression and it has the ability to sap all life energy from your body, mind and spirit.

I have used anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications in addition to seeing therapists, however, the depression continued and I continued to suffer as did all those who loved me.

What finally worked for me was moving to LA, getting clear about my thinking and evolving.  The LA sun and exercise have helped me tremendously.  Exercise helps stimulate seratonin and dopamine, the happy chemicals in our brains.  Being active has given me confidence and prevented me from becoming physically disabled. 

I had not exercised or really moved beyond my couch and home office for many, many years.  This sedentary lifestyle was slowly crippling me through arthritis and would have eventually given me problems with my heart and blood pressure.

I tend to disasterize any and every situation.  If my partner was five minutes late coming home from work I would go so far as to actually visualize the police coming to the door to tell me that my partner had died in a car accident. 

If I had a medical test, I feared for hours on end that it would come back negative if it was supposed to be positive, positive if it was supposed to be negative, high if it was supposed to be low and low if it was meant to be high.  I would imagine the cancer eating my body, my heart torn into bits, my kidneys on dialysis.

Then one day, the worst did happen.  My darling Pekingese was run over by a car and died in my arms. I assumed that I would die if something I loved died. Instead, I found that I grounded myself through this pain and not only survived it but understood that the gift my peke had given me was the knowledge that I would not die.

We are terrified of pain and alter our lives in accordance to our fears.  We develop diseases that either allow us to live our worst fears or that allow us to avoid life, thus avoiding all our other fears.
They give us the excuse we need to hide from life and hide we do.

Depression is an insidious disease.  Anxiety which is also a part of depression is painful and difficult. You are in a constant state of angst.  You worry and fret and fear and suffer when you are dealing with anxiety, however, depression is a release for me. 

Deep, deep depression where I go so that no one can help me and so that I do not have to care about living is almost a release from the worry causing anxiety. In a depressed state, I am relatively free, caged on my couch, I slowly lose ground and gratefully relinquish my hold on life.

I do not fight depression.  When we use the term “fight”, we encourage more of the same energy to come into our lives.  We literally send out an engraved invitation that says, “come pain, come anguish, this is the place to be.”

Instead of fighting, I spend time in meditation, on my bike and in the ocean.  I do sometimes have to push myself to walk out the door, but I do it lovingly with promises of how much joy I will feel.  I cannot visualize the joy in my depressed state, and sometimes
I cannot even feel it when I am doing something I normally love, but in being active, I am working with my body to produce those all important chemicals, dopamine and seratonin.

Probably the best thing that I have done is to understand that it is my thinking that gets me into trouble.  I find myself fantasizing about a potential disaster and I tell myself that that is low energy thinking.  It will create more of the same life depleting energy in my life and I stop mid-sentence, mid-fantasy.

I instantly replace the disaster fantasy with what I would really like to happen.  I imagine my partner coming home from work with a big pile of money.  I imagine making love to him the moment he walks in the door.  I imagine his breath on my neck and his heart beating in the excitement of finally getting some from a wife who rarely puts out while depressed.

I have suffered from depression from the age of 17. It is now something that I choose not to have in my life.  I am clear that I must exercise and get out.  I am clear that I must stay vigilant and watch for the warning signs and I am most clear that I must be in control of my thoughts instead of my thoughts destroying my life.

If you are suffering from depression, then own it.  Do not spend months, years of your life denying it and thinking that you are just having a rough spot.  Get help.  See a doctor, a therapist, a friend who gets you. 

Meditate, visualize health and joy in your life and never ever stop trying to figure out who you are and why you are choosing depression.  Choosing depression is not like choosing a chocolate ice cream over vanilla.  Whenever something comes into our life, we choose it because that is what we need to evolve at this time.

Remember depression is in your life to show you the way, to guide you to evolve.  It is a low energy system to be sure and life depleting, but if you work you way to the other side with the help of medications, therapy, meditation, exercise, yoga or any one of a million other aids that exist, then you will be better for having endured this period.

Interested in Energy Therapy, you may contact me at:
elloboproduction@sbcglobal.net.