Overcoming depression

Personally, I have found it to be a lifelong practice and struggle to ward off depression. Here's an example - A week or so ago, I saw a film called THE LAND OF STEADY HABITS. It was an interesting film with good acting but the part that stuck with me and tortured me for days afterward was about a depressed young man who was accustomed to using drugs to enhance or excape from him emotional state. In the film, he is drawing a graphic novel about Laika the dog the Russians sent into space. He says "One of the scientists regretted for years having sent the dog into space because he said they learned nothing of value to justifiy the death of that dog." I actually remember that Sputnik event and the dog, Laika.

It makes me cry every time I think of that betrayal of trust and hope that they displayed toward that dog. Some of the Russians actually felt the same but went along with it anyhow. One of the dog handlers took Laika home for a few days to be with his family to do something nice for the dog - What a horrible betrayal to show that dog a family that might be hers and then turn her over to die from a torturous rise in heat in the capsule. Her heart and respiration rate displayed her terror at take-off and a few hours later the cabin got hotter and hotter until it killed her.

They knew when they sent that dog up into space she would be going to her death. They had no plans for return. They rounded up a bounch of homeless dogs and picked the female that was friendliest and most docile.

I was driving in the rain today, with my dog in the car, running errands and in the drive-through at Walgreens, I suddenly became overwhelmed thinking about Laika and began to cry. I used my magic mantra to save myself BE HERE NOW. And I stopped thinking about anything beyond the moment and focused on a beautiful evergreen tree beyond the fence of the parking lot. It saved me once again.

All of my life I have practiced and struggled escaping from the quicksand of melancholy; mostly I have become skillful at not allowing it to drag me down and crush me. I have read many books that dealt directly or indirectly with mood control and emotional balance and most effective of them all has been Pema Chodron's books. She is the Buddhist teacher and abbot of Gumpo Abbey in Nova Scotia and she has written two dozen books on coping with fear and uncertainty and the many 'derangers' of the army of melancholy. I have read them all and listened to all her cd's. She has saved me.

I read up some more on Laika and the Russian Sputnik era, we Americans also are guilty of animal abuse and have used primates, our closest relatives for space and many other lab crimes.

A graphic novel actually has been written about Laika by graphic novelist Nick Abadzis, but I won't be reading it. I have to leave that story alone and simply do what I can in my life to help the animals I have adopted and care for. Also, I have to care for myself.

It gave me an insight into my daughter and her efforts to protect herself from my sometimes contageious anxiety and melancholy. I inherited the melancholy from my father. The anxiety runs through the whole family for many generations, most markedly on my mother's side. If you don't get a grip, it grips you and you smoke, or drink or take drugs to get awway and none of that helps. Those tools are the tricks of the evil demons of depression.

The helpers are meditation, nutrition, the outdoors, books by Pema Chodron and many other Buddhist teachers, and all kinds of mindfulness training like yoga. I am now signed up for Chair Yoga - very helpful.

Happy Trails, my friends, and I hope these breadcrumbs help you find your way out of the woods when you are lost. Jo Ann