Alvin said:
I learnt much more about life, both through the trauma and AYP. I get to know what I value most in my life. But so what? If I can return back to 3 years ago, everything would be fine. Now it’s just regret and regret.
Alvin, did something in particular happen three years ago? Or is this just a general habit you have?
You can answer on the forum or send me a note if you want.
-D
Hi David,
How to send notes? Do you mean the e-mail poster? What’s that for?
A story too long to tell here…Many things happened for the past few years, though what I had been noticing for the past 3 or 4 years was so radically different from what I value most (and regret most) for this few months. (notably after I started the AYP in Nov 05)
I’ve been in a deep depression since the end of 2002. Suicidal thoughts, extremely self-centered, loss of interests in everything which I once enjoy very much. I didn’t see any moment or anything which I could truly enjoy without worries. Indeed there are. I just couldn’t see. Only much later, especially in these few months, that I discovered there some most valuable moments in my life. I just couldn’t see them before. I was living in a world which I created for myself. During that period, I did many things wrong. As I “wake up” from that stupid dream, things are different then. I lost many things. The really important things in life which I will never have the chance to get or to give again. The consequences of my mistakes and ignorance may take my beloved’s life—I’m literal about this. I experienced both great loss and a deep regret. So how could I feel well, when I could see clearly now?
If you would like to hear, I can certain say more.
No matter what will happen next, I will have a difficult path to go for years. May be for my whole life.(hopefully not) That’s something I’ve to pay for my mistakes. Also I have to be careful enough now not to lose further parts of my life (well, not much left besides my family). Fortunately I seems to have a better mind-set and attitude now.
Alvin
Depression is an awful thing. It takes away a lot from you. I am sorry Alvin you had to go through it. I went through a bad depression too after I had my second child. I cannot remember my children growing up. I lost almost 6 years of their lives. I wish I could turn the clock and give that little baby a big hug and actually feel it. I did everything for them, but I don’t remember enjoying any of it. I watch videos of them, I can see a smile on my face and I can feel the pain in my heart.
The first good thing you did was to decide you did not want to live that way, you want your life back. Once you have that in yourself everything will just fall in its place. The second good thing was to make AYP a part of your life. Not only are the lessons a blessing(thank you Yogani), but there are such awesome people on this forum, who are ready to listen and help you with good advice and chocolates. Keep up your meditation and other practices you do. I have a hold on my life again and am making the best of it. I make sure I spend a lot of time with my kids and enjoy it, just to make up of the time I lost with them. Not that I don’t wish I could turn back time… ever so often I wish I could… but that is not possible, so I try to make the most of today. If ever you feel the need to talk, just email me or David (that is what he meant by a note, I think!!!). Just click on the name on the left and you get an option the send an email. For chocolates you need to get in touch with Jim 
.
>> If you would like to hear, I can certain say more.
Hello Alvin,
I would be happy to hear more, but think carefully about whether you wish to divulge it on a public forum, in which I think you have registered with your own name.
When I said you can send me a note, yes, I meant you can send me an email by clicking on my name.
Regards,
-D
I’d like to hear more, but I understand if you want to keep it private.
I’ve been through quite a bit of depression also.
Etherfish
Dear Alvin,
We have all made many mistakes in our lives some small and some we may have deeply regretted. There is little we can do about the past other than to accept our human nature to make mistakes, to learn from our experiences and to resolve to act differently if similar situations are to come our way again. Holding on to past pain and regret doesn’t help us or those around us. There is no need to punish ourselves for our past mistakes just every need to learn from them and to eventually accept and move on.
I am sure I am not alone in saying that it shows that all the AYP practices and meditation you have been doing have already had an impact in the way you express yourself here in the forum and that you seem to be already healing and moving in the right direction. You are in a “letting go” process and on the path of healing, there will be good days, bumpy days and smooth days but the road will ultimately lead to peace and contentment.
Keep going and know that there will be a little more inner-light around the corner each day!
Anthem
Thank you very much nice people. It’s sad but inspiring to hear those who went through a depression and is living well now. The most terrible thing is that when someone have depression, he/she seems to hold on to those meaningless thoughts and “decided to” ruin the other (more important) parts of their life. At least that’s what I’ve observed.
I have very similar feelings as yours, Shanti. Except perhaps that my smile are overwhelmed by the pain. I made many mistakes actively, rather just being ignorant and losing interests. It’s easy to say “take it easy” or “relax” to myself. The problem is that I don’t want it to be easy, because they are what I value most! Now I tend to be more positive. For most of the time I am no longer in the depression mode. But deep inside me I am still confused and worry much. I learnt much from the experiences, but there’s little chance that I’ll come up with a similar situations in the future. Hope that’s just my illusion.
A long-term depression can change me sharply. Way back in 1998, when I was 16 years ago, I had another depression(not exactly, but I forgot the medical term for it) because of a religious issue. Fear, inner struggles, anxiety all pervaded me 24 hours a day. The result of that 1-year struggle is a switch from a highly devoted Christian to a scientifically oriented guy.
When that’s over, it’s really over–there were no regrets and pain afterwards. Because only I myself was involved in that religious issue. I found later, that knowing more doesn’t mean living better. But I had to move on. And life was not bad for many years.
That’s my background. What sharped me most before the current event. May be there will be another transformation, a more balanced one, who knows? And I prefer to think and act positively, unless my emotions burst again: this unstable state has been with me for the past few months.
It’s nice to know the nice people here, and that we can talk via e-mail. Indeed my hope is that I don’t have to talk about sad things because I don’t have any! But soon, I’m afraid, I will burst into tears again. And I won’t forget then, that I can still have someone to talk to here.
Alvin
I suffered from depression for years. All better now. It CAN be done.
This is not the advice of AYP, just my own (based in heavy experience): I strongly recommend a vigorous regimen of asana, especially inversions and backbends. Avoid seated forward bends. And if you suspect that your depression is worsening over time, suspend AYP (Yogani disagrees, but classical hatha yogic opinion is that meditation worsens severe depression, and if you’re suicidal, don’t take chances!!). Use asana to invigorate yourself and work through the coarse blocks, then, when you are more open and stable, come back to AYP to work through the finer blocks. That is the classical purpose of asana: to straighten out body/health/energy problems in prep for deeper work.
Five years ago I hit a bad, bad point…maybe even worse than you could imagine. I did four years of very heavy asana work - 60-90 minutes a day, plus two classes a week. I lived and breathed asana (plus aerobic exercise…that’s important, too). It brought me back, and it literally put me back together again (I had been completely shattered inside). And then - and only then! - I started AYP, and was so primed from all the asana work that I made fast progress. It was absolutely the right way to do it. There was absolutely no other way to do it. I’m currently happy (and believe me: I don’t use that word lightly!), and am living through something right this sec that is even worse than the shattering experience five years ago. But it can’t touch me.
Yoga fixes depression…in time. And the way it does this is complex. But the main help is that it takes you out of the habit of existing in your head (always a problem for depressives). So it’s extra important that you not use yoga as a route for intellectualization, i.e. just another opportunity to get tangled up in thoughts. I know you’re sick of hearing me caution you on this again and again, but as a former depressive, I can very clearly see this in you, and I sincerely want to help. The mind can be a prison.
NOTE:
I need to interject a caution. don’t START OUT at 60-90 mins a day of asana. Asana, like any yoga practice, requires prudent self pacing. And you mustn’t approach it in a brute force way (zestful, yes, forceful, no; think like a child at play rather than like an athlete). Follow your inner guru. Work up slowly.
And get a good teacher. Alvin, you’re young and you’re depressed. I recommend a vinyasa school (where poses are done in sequences, rather than held for a long time), like Astanga Yoga. It’s a bit more invigorating than Iyengar yoga. But a few classes with an Iyengar teacher (if there is one over there) will always help. If you can’t find those specific schools, play the field, taking classes here and there, until you find a teacher who feels right. Don’t listen to their yoga philosophy - most asana teachers are shockingly naive and shallow on that. Ignore all that. Just find one who seems to understand your body. i know that’s a puzzling instruction, but when you find one, you’ll know it.
FYI, don’t anyone send me a note today — my email account is temporarily disabled. The note could be lost.
-D
Sounds like Jim’s advice is very good. I can say i got rid of my depression also, but in a different way. Wish I would have had Jim’s advice so I could have tried that.
Of course Jim (and I too) had the one primary ingredient that is necessary for any therapy to work: The intention for the problem to end, and the willingness to put a constant and massive effort into it.
I used to play little mind games with myself. I would think of my mind as separate from myself. I decided i was going to pull myself out of depression, by observing and trying different things.
I would tell myself “This month you don’t get to do anything you want to do. We’ve been doing what you want for years and look where we are.
So this month we only do things for other people. If you run out of stuff to do for other people, you will do something you don’t like that is good for you, like exercise.”
It was amazing what I found out about myself. When I was following that regimen I was happier. I came to the conclusion that I had no idea how to run my life before, and i had to put more discipline into it. I’m sure that’s where I could have used Jim’s system had i known about it.
But the point is I found by observing myself that I had certain things i did that made me unhappy. Certain thought patterns that I habitually followed that weren’t necessary that I indulged in,
and others that I avoided that could have helped me.
Then aerobic exercise combined with making myself avoid certain thought patterns made a big difference.
This is where you have to be careful of scientific thought. Just because a thought or idea is true doesn’t mean you should habitually think it.
So as you follow the asana work, if you become unhappy, examine your thinking. What are you thinking about? Is it to your benefit to be thinking these things?
The best remedy for regret is to live well today. If you did something wrong in the past and regret it today, you’re still doing something wrong.
If you hurt someone, do something good for them. Not what you think is good, but what they want; it doesn’t have to be related to what you did. If that person isn’t available, do that for someone else. give people what they say they want, not what you “know” is good for them.
Well, that’s what helped me, but it depends on your life if it can help
you. Each person is different. The main thing is observe your own behavior and look for patterns.
I’m glad you’re here- talking stuff over is very good, and it’s fun to talk to people halfway across the world!
I’ve been depressed too. From inside it, it can look as if you can never fix it.
Your mind seems to be very like mine in some ways, with similar strengths and weaknesses, so I might be able to give you special pointers.
Understand that depression talks, and does not tell the truth.
You may be taking what you think is a rational survey of your situation and it is not in fact rational, but rather it is depressive.
For example, say someone lost a lover. They say, ‘I’ll never find that person again, it will never be the same again, I can never find that happiness again’.
This is false. It’s depressively false. It’s true in the sense that you will not find the very same thing again. It is false though that happiness can no longer be found. It always can, but not in the very same place, or very same form, that it was in before.
People may tell you to ‘look on the bright side’ and it may be useless to you. You may need to instead learn when a thought is depressively false.
Those thoughts that tell you that ‘if you had the last three years again, you would be happy but otherwise you cannot’ – these are false. They are mistakes. They are wrong. Understand that. Understand that your mind is actually making mistakes because you are depressed.
Understand your mind as a thing which makes mistakes (and forgive it for it). When you think these thoughts, note that your mind has made a mistake again. See it as if it has made a mistake in a calculation, as if you had just wrote 2 + 2 = 3. Be loving towards it. Say ‘there it goes, making mistakes again, silly mind’.
This is only one aspect of the ‘fix’. Fixing depression, like keeping a garden, is not generally done in one move. It is done in a long sequence of sustained moves.
Here is another ‘move’ for you. Try this drill on occasion:
Just feel whatever you feel. You have a fast, agile mind and you are probably constantly using your mind to defend yourself from things that feel unpleasant. Possibly always looking for a way out from what feels unpleasant, mind getting more agitated and over-worked in the process. Reverse that. Pull right into your feelings, even if unpleasant. Feel the unpleasantness of it. The sadness. Most of the world is in there with you – sadness is common. Quit trying to get rid of it by thinking. Have a good strong feel of it, and note that that feeling is part of what it is to be human and to have experienced life. You may get a sense, ‘this is sadness, this is pain, not as scary as I thought’. And when you get less scared of sadness and pain, your mind may stop exhausting itself and making itself worse by continuously trying to dart away from it.
Sounds downright Buddhist, David.
David, the example you have given will work if you know the reason you are depressed (I think 
). However in my case, I had no reason to be depressed. I has 2 beautiful children, a home, a loving husband and family, and yet I was depressed. That is one reason why nobody understood why I was depressed, I did not understand why I was depressed. I looked for support, but people just told me, why would someone who has everything be sad? I asked myself that too. I don’t know why I was sad all the time. All I know is that this sadness consumed me. I could not think, I could not feel anything but pain. Fortunately my “mom instincts” did not go away… I think, because when I look at the videos, I see myself laughing and playing with my kids, but my eyes are sad and far away. I don’t know if they missed me, I hope they did not, but I surely missed them. How do you overcome depression like this? Truthfully I don’t know how I did it. I know medication did not help. I know meditation helped. But how and when I got better, I cannot tell you. Divine intervention I think …
Yup. In fact, the worst thing you can ask a depressed person is “why are you depressed?” The question itself is depressing.
My depression was like that. Unspecific. Sure, I could point to things that got me down, but it wasn’t really the things; it was the depression that made those things depressing in the first place.
Yes Shanti, every depression is different. The fixes that work for one do not necessarily work for another. Just like something going wrong in a garden, the cause could be weeds, bad weather, insufficient fertilizer, too much fertilizer, bad soil, pests and so on. Or all of the above. The fix that will work is the one that happens to match the particular problem(s).
When it hits, the underlying problem(s) which are causing it may have been there for years.
Sometimes depression does not seem to have a cause. It may have causes we don’t know. It may be significantly physical or genetically determined in some cases.
And it may lift without the reasons for its lifting being known.
By the way, Omega-3 fish oil supplements may be a good organic support to help lift or avoid depression. There is a theory that the common vulnerability to depression after childbirth is caused by omega-3 depletion in a woman’s body during pregnancy. What is known is that Omega-3 is significantly depleted in a woman during pregnancy. It may take years to build it up again, and a second or further child can deplete it more. This could be of particular interest to you.
Have you tried taking fish oil supplements regularly? They certainly help me. click here
Using British data compiled from 14,541 women who were expected to deliver between 1991 and 1992, the researchers used a statistical model to analyze the association between omega-3 fatty acids and depression.The subjects’ omega-3 intake was recorded at 32 weeks’ gestation and was compared to the mothers’ scores on a standardized depression test given at 18 and 32 weeks’ gestation and again at eight and 32 weeks after birth. Even after the researchers adjusted the data for confounding factors such as age, prior history of depression, education and substance abuse, the association remained strong.
Their findings were supported by an additional analysis, which showed that in countries where omega-3 intake is the highest, the incidence of depression appears to be the lowest. “We suspect that too little omega-3 in the diet may be a risk factor for depression,” Davis says.
Thanks David. I will try the fish oil.
Just a note that I added a note of caution to my posting above (the one that starts with "I suffered from depression for years. ")
Dear Jim,
The reason why meditation is believed to make depression worse IMHO is the fact that the purification effects are greater leading to a greater amount of cleansing in a short time
L&L
Dave
‘the mind can see further than the eyes’
Thanks, Jim and David. In fact I’m doing quite a lot of asana (about 1 hour a day, but sometimes up to 2.5 hour) And yes, the vinyasa type is my favourite. It helps me when I am feeling weak. The only problem is that when I’m deeply depressed, I don’t want to do anything (even if I know they’re good for me)
The method you mentioned sounds promising for me, David. (in which case depression is always due to SOMETHING) It’s “witnessing without (value/moral) judgement”, right? I guess it requires some concentration (to maintain this quality of wittnessing rather than falling back into crazy thoughts), so may be it takes time to develop the habits.
Shanti, let me give you some advices on supplements: try to find the brand of fish oil that guarantee “free of mercury” (and may be other heavy metals, though mercury is the most dangerous.) Fish oil is great, but heavy metals like mercury can damage your nervous system seriously, leading to depression, loss of memory, decline of cognitive function, damaged kidney, etc. Just about every bad things you could think of. The best way (which I’m doing) is to take plant-based DHA/omega 3 supplements, or even better from natural sources. One of the best source of omega 3 is flaxseed. Grounded flaxseed is the best. For plant-source DHA, you can look into something like the following page: click here
May be I am over-concerned about the danger of heavy metals (given the well-supported research on fish oil). But I prefer to be absolutely safe and not have something so toxic cumulating in my body.
During my depression, I took something like 30 kinds of supplements with a total of over 60 capsules per day. They didn’t help me much. But I learnt much about the common supplements in the process.
Regarding the fish oil, yes, I was going to mention that myself. Fish oil from the North Atlantic is generally fine.