Yes...and the point is?  I'm listening really.  (((hugs))) 

Depression is when you simply cannot see the future working out to your advantage ... you get trapped in your mind, your thinking gets mired down in a thick muddy rut ...

Change the WAY you THINK will, change your life ... ... ... Chemical imbalances may certainly play a role too ... BUT the mental process CAN overcome the physical, if you have faith ... but you must seek this power of prayer and of faith ... it doesn't just come to you like 'fairy dust' ... ... ...

Great tread for the Thinker- The Alcoholic.  I use to and still can over-think just about anything.     It's usually when I'm trying to force my will into something.  But, the way I read this Tasha, was can I be depressed when not thinking about ME.  I guess the short answer is NO!  I can feel empathy and sympathy for things outside myself, but it's a short window.  To me, feeling depressed has a much longer tail and it always comes back to ME in some fashion.  It does involve our faulty negative thinking.  The diesase of misperception or delusion.  I was taught in AA that we have to act of way into good thinking!  Thinking our way into good acting doesn't work for us.  It surely didn't work for me.  The 12 Steps of continuous action changes the way we think.  We get a change in attitude & outlook, a new freedom and a new a happiness etc.......  We find a power outside of ourselves that we come to rely on and trust.  Continuous action (step 10-12) keeps us spiritual fit!    Today, I have more gratitude for life than in the past.  It's hard to be grateful and depressed at the same time. 

justadrunk wrote:

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Ask yourself: 

Have I ever been depressed when I was Not thinking about me?

 

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 Great topic Tasha :)

Answer: only once about ten years ago when I gave up smoking. I went a bit cranky, mostly short tempered, and it went on for about three years. I didn't relate it to smoking at the time however, I thought I was on the wrong track spiritually. My doc diagnosed clinical depression, which I suppose was fair enough but when I look back I wasn't doing much to help others either. It cleared and I became much more active working with others. A year or two later I met an old AA buddy who had the same experience. She had also given up smoking and gone cranky for three years.

My conclusion was and is that there was much more to my smoking than mere chemicaL addiction. The experience was like going right back to step one and starting again. Smoking was my way of dealing with things, especially anger, and when I stopped, all hell let loose.

In early days, sitting around the rooms it was common to hear talk about being depressed. the conversation would go "how are you?>... oh I'm a bit depressed today". Sure we were feeling down and a bit anxious, but only to the extent that these feelings are characteristic of early sobriety. I called myself depressed but really it was a case of poor me.

Then, one day I met a AA friend who really suffered from depression. His illness made my "depression" look like a walk in the park I never suffered as he did. That's when I learned the difference between the common self pity and the much less common serious depressive illness.

Without a doubt my bouts of self pity stemmed from page 62, SELF CENTREDNESS... the root of all my problems.

Nowadays there seems to be a belief that we have a right to avoid such feelings through the use of "miracle" drugs, but in so doing we can also avoid emotional growth. I can't remember whether it was Freud, Jung, or someone else who once said " The refusal to suffer legitimate emotional pain  is the cause of much mental illness."

God bless,

MikeH.