Hi Chuck,  I hear you and like what you say. I could wallow in my
exhaustion, grief, remorse, loneliness,
etc., and be on a downward slope or I can and do have my little cry and then
get busy and see if someone needs a friend or some work should be done, or
maybe it's time to take care of myself (which I had neglected)
Those things are helping me heal.  But I think some are too far "down" to be
able to do it alone.
I learned at a very early age that the only thing I have control over is
myselfand I am a surviver.
Thanks so much for the sites you posted and all your posts.  You are a deep
thinker.  Cheers,
Audrey in Pa.
----- Original Message -----
From: Charles E Murray <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2000 5:30 PM
Subject: Re: depression


> I have watched a blister grow on the skin of a hypnotised subject touched
> by a finger tip, but told it was a lighted cigarette.
>
>  I have watched a brother with terminal liver and colon cancer, given a
> two month prognosis by oncologists at the U  of A (after surgery and
> other medical efforts for two years failed to halt the spread), decline
> chemo, adopt a macrobiotic food diet and the practice of meditation, then
> be pronounced cancer free 13 months later.
>
> Twenty years ago medical science denied any connection between diet and
> cancer.  Today this has changed, but scientists still resist the
> possibility that diet can be curative.  Few physicians would deny that,
> at times, medical science finds intself playing "catch up," with
> disciplines not restricted by the "scientific method" of research.
> Witness the slow acknowledgement of the efficacy of accupuncture as one
> example.
>
> Studies have demonstrated that certain attitudes correlate with good and
> bad prognoses in many illnesses.
>
> My dad, troubled most of his life by migranes, learned biofeedback and
> today has absolute control of migrane cycles, stopping them at the outset
> with mental imagery.
>
> Is it possible that, given the incredible power of our mind, we can
> affect the physiology of our bodies, including the brain's chemical
> balance, by the patterns of our thinking?
>
> Sinead and I believe diet and "positive" thinking patterns can be
> therapeutic because that has been our experience.
>
> Some folks in 12 Step programs apply the rationale that if someone quit
> drinking (using, etc.) without a 12 step program they must not have been
> a real alcoholic (addict, etc.) in the first place.  With this simple
> logic they dismiss all input and declare irrelevant all experience from
> such people under the conclusion that such folks are "not one of us.":
>
> Are some of us using this same kind of logic to dismiss the experience of
>  those who say diet and positive thinking were effective in their
> depression, i.e, "They were not suffering from true CD."
>
> Wouldn't it be interesting if someday we determine that negative thinking
> patterns change brain chemistry, and that, with rescue and transitional
> help from anti depressant meds, diligent training in positive thought
> patterns proves to be the best method of keeping brain chemistry healthy?
>
>
> In the meantime, I'll keep taking my St. John's Wort and Requip for
> whatever they have contributed to my coming "out of the darkness and into
> the light."  (Title of the book- written by a psychiatrist -  that
> boosted me down the path to peace of mind). And if I go back to a darker
> place I will use all the resources I can find, medical and spiritual, to
> come back out again.
>
> Chuck