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Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Help, I'm Sliding into Depression Again

Hi, A.B.

I hope you don't mind but I wanted to reach out to you for a little help again.  I was feeling so great and confident about using the BrainSwitching techniques and as I told you in a previous e-mail, I was starting to wean off my anti-depressants (regarding which you cautioned me about weaning problems).  I took it slow and was very careful but just recently realized that depression was popping back up.  I tried to use the book techniques and they may be keeping me from slipping lower than I could be at, but I do feel somewhat disillusioned because I thought I could work with my mind without the drugs and yet, can't seem to. 

Any thoughts or advice?

Right now, I'm bumping the anti-depressant dosage up again because I just want to feel better and despite my efforts can't bump myself out of this "on my own".

I have been listening to hypnosis CDs for Anxiety and am about to do a hypnosis for depression, but feel that I keep trying and trying and getting so discouraged with life.

Thanks for listening.
M

Dear M,

Sometimes I slip into that old habit again myself. I have found that the techniques always work. However they will not make me happy. The techniques keep me from succumbing to depression.  They are used as a stop-gap, a kind of brake on where I go in that direction. I acknowledge that the old stuff has been somehow triggered. However, once I put the techniques into action, and stop the slide, then I turn myself immediately to some task or project and carry the heaviness along with me, accepted and basically ignored, into that opposite direction. Into the direction of new and more productive action.

Remember, the brain ALWAYS follows the direction of its most current dominant thought. You have to keep rethinking and concentrating on what you are doing, turning away from the darker reflections and getting fully immersed into some more positive action thus making those thoughts dominant over the anxious thought. If you give too much credence to some negative feelings like "Oh, no, here I go again, I can't bear it..." the brain takes it more seriously.

No, you must accept the darker feelings   (Oh, yes, I remember this crap and it always goes away when I get busy and concentrate on other things..." ).  I felt a little dark this morning. I've had a stomach flu and haven't been able to do much. But here comes your question and I feel well enough to reach out to you. And in that reaching out to you, I am already out of my own murkish world and heading back into the land of the living and okayness. I will invite you to go along with me this morning. Find something worthwhile to do, no matter how humble.

You could look up the Desiderata on my depression website and commit it to memory. I did that a while ago. It dawned on me then what it meant by "go placidly amid the noise and haste." Sometimes it's basically the noise and haste of our own upsetness and moving in the wrong direction. We can always turn around.

Hypnosis is good as well. Get Emil Coue's book. And remember that depression is a kind of self-hypnisis as well, although accidental. We can always trade accidental, passive thinking for on-purpose, directed thinking.  If you haven’t had a check-up with a homeopathic practitioner or nutritionist, that might be a good idea. When the cells get what they need, we feel good. A. B. Curtiss