I welcome any approach that sees depression as affecting us on many levels and offers tools to help with the struggle to face and push back its pervasive effects on daily living. But there are elements in Wootton’s discussion that tend toward a more moralistic view of depression. The sufferer all too easily starts getting blamed for not being up to the job of dealing with this great “spiritual challenge.” Depression as a disease is glossed over or called into question, and the focus is on the will to change. Of course, the will, the mind, the focus on decisions and action are paralyzed in severe depression, and who needs a moralist telling you at such a time to remember the suffering of the saints and what good use they put that to!

I will look closely at Wootton’s approach because I need every tool I can get. There is a lot to be learned in exploring spiritual pain as well as the physical, emotional and mental aspects of the illness.

I think there is a degree of understanding that can be obtained from battling depression and beating it. Tumultuous emotions of friends and those around us would seem more logical and easier to cope with. I agree that there are plenty of life lessons that could be learned without bipolar disorder or depression, but experience and emotional understanding-wise, there is no comparison, hose who have suffered these disorders have a given advantage because they can percieve and draw conclusions from other peoples emotions like no one else can. How else would people with these disorders help so many people with their books?

Whether it’s depression, bi-polar or other manifestations of emotional/cognitive distress, victims derive some compensation for their suffering, which keeps it alive. In my book, “Emotional Honesty & Self Acceptance,” I refer to “victim power” of people who use and abuse others since they are unable to cope with their own pain. (I had plenty of experience suffering along with my former wife’s paranoid schizophrenia.) This disseminated suffering taught me a lesson I now work to provide preventive emotional health education for pre-teens. I’ve developed a Coping Skills for Kids & Brain Works” classroom project and website so pre-teens have open access to resources and information that can help them cope with everyday emotional distress. Fortunately, kids 9 to 12 are eager to understand and avoid instinctive brain impulses that tend to distort their emotional pain into punishment of one’s self or others. Lots of kids (bullies) go around inflicting pain on their peers without understanding brain-based coping skills. Fortunately, we can teach kids to recognize how our brain becomes over-stressed with emotional pain. Even kids can learn to manage and cope with brain stress in more honest, direct and healthy ways.

Today when my boyfriend came home with a beer (while taking drugs that prohibit drinking)I asked him why he has beer when it is time to take his medication that warns against drinking; and he has colitis that flares up with beer sitting in his gut all night. His attacking reply was why do I say this now when I didn’t stop him at his brothers party a week ago. I said don’t change the subject. He defends his inconsistant behavior by attacking me - asking why don’t I lead by example, like why don’t you be perfect first. Today is the first time he didn’t look like my boyfriend - he looked like an alcoholic. How much do ya put up with, how much should I forgive. I feel like co-dependent, trying to hold our world together so I can live in his house. He hints that it is my job to take care of him. He delegates more and more of his responsibilities to me. He says we need to care for each other when we are sick, like team mates. But now I am thinking it is more of a one way street. He takes antidepresents and sleeping pills and has been on this mood hacienda for 3 years. No sex or kisses or cubbles, just take care of him mode. He says he is bipolar, chemically imbalanced, and although I miss loving, I thank god for not exchanging body fluids so I wont catch what I believe he has yeasts, (candita like) and unhealthy bacterias and organisms. I am afraid I wont be able to forgive him for this limbo he creates. After 2 years, I envy seeing couples in commercials because I don’t have those moments. I can’t stop thinking that my boyfriend is broken. How can things be any different when I think that way? Or maybe he is broken and I should leave him and cut my losses. I feel lucky we didn’t marry, but I am angry that he had me move in with that plan, and now I see him living more for his reasons rather than what he would be committed to. He just drifts. And I am worse, sitting with my mouth open, wondering and wondering what I should do now. I would appreciate advise!

as a bipolar i may only say it is a double-edged sword. no ‘normal’ may touch me at poetry, ad-copy, and other ‘creative’ work. however, i would prefer to be a ‘normal’. while creative genius has made me at least 17-21 $mil—’spending-sprees’, poor fiscal judgment and the near constant depressive aspect are a far greater problem than most ‘normals’ encounter. society, at large, has been the prime beneficiary. over time, i have found alcohol as destructive as ‘dr’s-error’—and most of us will abuse it, and be hit with ‘bad-shrinks’. double trouble.
my best work has been while sober, not manic or depressed. regrettably ‘Big-Pharma’ has proven my greatest enemy—i was far better ‘going-with-the-flow’ than resulting to either booze or drs. my mother/father were
nasty ‘borderline’ cases, so i married one–bad move. ‘tricked for decades.
you mention ‘co-dependency’–not good either–
you’ll never change him, only you. and he seems more a ‘borderline’ case vs. bipolar. it’s your life–You must decide. seems ‘co-dependent’ is the problem.

tommy’s girlfriend hi regarding the message above - he can change , anyone can change however it doesnt happen over night and it takes time and there are many bumps along the way. I notice you dont mention therapy he needs to start with this then move forward via whatever methods are available to him . At the moment he is like a stuck record- the drugs should only be used as a method to move forward, preferably on to psychotherapy but not necessarily - spiritual practice works for some there are other paths. You may need to face up to the reality that hard as it seems you may need to take time out from the relationship and allow him to stand on his own two feet. This is doing neither of you any good right now however if either of you are ever to be content either together or apart somthing needs to change radically. It’s hard to think about I know but the correct choices are not always the easy ones to make.

Well… I can read… and, read about “the advantage” but I do not see the point. For me, there are not advantages, there are survival skills.