sadness vs depression

[ebjco]

I am a 53 year old male acoa. I was the only child of two abusive alcoholics. I am having a hard time dealing with an intense feeling of sadness that has come up. I was told this was progress as I would usually just go into a depression. I was wondering how I deal with these feelings. I spent years going to alanon and acoa meetings in the past but never "felt" anything. This last bout of depression started after my father died three years ago. Acoa in not new to me but feeling stuff is.

[Lin]

Welcome to EOR!

Depression seems to be a deeper and more intense form of sadness. If I fel myself slipping into a "sadness" mode..I try to focus on others around me. I play with the dogs...go visit a freind with small kids...work on a hobby, or jsut come here and psot to others who have posted. By getting outside of myself I can halt a "sadness" befroe it becomes a depression.

Feelings are very difficult to sift thru sometimes. They are like walking thru fire...hurt like heck while you are re-living them...but we know it will get better on the other side.

Many folks go to a counselor in addition to ACOA and AlAnon. That helps us have a neutral outside person who can help us deal with these things we need to put behind us so we can get better.

Life does get better. I hope you will hang around and chat...come to our meetings and let us meet you.

AlAnon is in less than an hour. I'm not sure if you will chek back to this by then. ACOA here is Sunday evening. Perhaps you can joins us then. (8 PM eastern)

Glad you stopped by!
LIN

[lildee]

Dearest ebjco,

Welcome to our site.

You asked about the difference between sadness and depression. Sadness is like any other feeling we have. It comes and stays for awhile then our feelings change . Depression is sadness to the extreme and it does not go away. There is a morbid nature to depression. Many with depression have suicidal thoughts.

For me I was put an a new blood pressure medicine and it caused severe depression with suicidal thoughts. I never had any thoughts like this before. Once the medicine was changed the depression and thoughts were gone. So check out your meds if you are on any of them.

As to the feelings of sadness you must look within yourself to find the answers. There maybe something you are carrying in your"baggage" that is still unresolved or that you may feel you need to make amends for. Just a guess but I would check the meds first.

Please note there is a long post about depression « Thread started on: Oct 12th, 2004, 05:55am in the general recovery section.

Hope this helps.
Love and God Bless
lildee

[Lin]

Thanks for p[osting that locations Lildee. Great minds think alike! I came back this morning to look for it and post it to our new friend. It's a very good post on depression. I hope you will take a look at it.

LIN

[ebjco]

where do I go to log on to the chat area?

[Lin]

the chat room is linked to the home pAge. essence-of-recovery.com

you will have the link to chat and to these boards and to many other helpful links.

Hope to see you tomorrow evening!

LIN

[Tiger]

Feelings are very difficult to sift thru sometimes. They are like walking thru fire...hurt like heck while you are re-living them...but we know it will get better on the other side

Hi ebjoc,

As Lin posted, you must *stop* re-living the past!

I'd like to share an exercise the old-timers of the 60' and 70' era of AA taught me:

Buy a carton of milk and pour it over the kitchen floor - that milk represents all the grief and hurt from the past. Now, you would like to put all that milk back into that carton....but.....it's impossible!

Now, you have two choices - you can keep starring at it (re-living the past) -or- you can wipe up the milk and go on with *your* life!!!

Accept the past, it's history and can not be changed but the future can - that's where you must be focused!

Hope this helps

Tiger

[caressa]

Dear ebjco.

Sadness is a part of depression. Every time we go through a loss in our life, whether it be a change in our job, our home, our way of thinking, our life, a loss of a loved one in our family, an aquaintance be it on the job or in church, sadness is a normal part of the depression and the letting go of what was and is no longer. In order to get rid of the sadness, I have found that I need to fill that void with spiritual and positive things. Acknowledge the feeling for what it is, then let it go and let God fill it with His grace and wonder.

It isn't a place to stay, it is a place to acknowledge and move on. It doesn't mean we don't come back and visit once in a while, but again, we need to let go and continue our journey in a new direction and hopefully in a happier and healther way.

[lildee]

Hi ebjco,

You asked about the chat room.

There are three ways to get into the chat room:-

1. On the Home page there is a link to the chat room , click on it and it will take you to the chat room.

2. On the top of the main page of these message boards there is a scrolling message one of those messages is to the chat room.

3. or you can go to this url. www.essence-of-recovery.com/page3.html

Once you reach this page just sign in with a nickname hit enter and join us.

Hope to see you in a meeting.

God Bless
Arlene

[poetprose]

>>>This last bout of depression started after my father died three years ago<<<

Hello I had to drop you a note to say I identify with this
as this is exactly what happened to me

it was after my father died , when i was most effected

only in my case I had to get professional one on one councelling, ACOA/ was fantastic too , in that it helped me realise I was not alone......


But in my case my river was running quite deep and i started developing symtpoms of PTS so i sought out councel for me

Best thing i ever did actually:-)

[ebjco]

Hi,

I was so verbally abused that I also have symtpoms of PTS. I am also seeing a therapist. People tell me to stop living in the past. This is no help at all. If I could choose to not be depressed and anxious I would. I'm just really tired of it. I have been unable to work for the last two years because of the depression. And shame! I am so shame based. My three most common emotions are shame, depression and rage. The rage usually comes out in panic attacks. I just wish it would all just go away. I am envious of the people who really connect with the program and find serenity.

[caressa]

Time and the program are great healers. I have PTS disorder also but was never diagnosed, probably because at the time I was never able to get honest.

The program helps us heal when we share our feelings, and it is only by feeling them, that we are able to let them go. The five As of change are "Awareness, admittance, acceptance, action to bring about a change in attitude, or in my case, it is generally, change the attitude so I can take action.

Serenity is a feeling just like everything else. It too can pass, but in recovery, we are given the tools to find it a little more often and hopefully with practice, achieve it a little more regularly.