‘My Story: How I Was Healed From Depression’ by Douglas Bloch

It was great to recently hear from Douglas Bloch who asked if I might include his Story as posted on his website. Great idea, Douglas!

‘In his book, Prayer is Good Medicine, physician and researcher Larry Dossey maintains that praying for oneself or others can make a scientifically measurable difference in recovering from illness or trauma. It is one thing to understand such a healing intellectually; it is another to know it from experience.

Such an experience came to me in the fall of 1996 when a painful divorce, a bad case of writer’s block, and an adverse reaction to an antidepressant medication plummeted me into a major depressive episode.

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‘Surrendering to Heal’ by Ellie Schoenberger

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Last week I had two blogs on Ellie Schoenberger, one an interview and the other focused on Ellie’s work. Couldn’t resist including one of Ellie’s blogs, this one from WomenHeal.

‘I am currently in recovery from two chronic, life altering diseases that if left untreated are always fatal.

Always.

The first one is alcoholism. In 2007, after years suffering in silence and struggling in vain to get sober on my own, I gave up. I stopped kicking and screaming and trying to do things my way and went to rehab. For thirty days. I had been to rehab before. Twice, in fact. The difference with my last rehab was that I surrendered. I got out of my own way and let people who had walked the path before me carry me when I didn’t feel like carrying myself.

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‘My Story of Recovery: Prayer, Community, and Healing’ by Douglas Bloch

dbloch‘In his book, Prayer is Good Medicine, physician and researcher Larry Dossey maintains that praying for one’s self or others can make a scientifically measurable difference in recovering from illness or trauma. It is one thing to understand such a healing intellectually; it is another to know it from experience.

Such an experience came to me in the fall of 1996 when a painful divorce, a bad case of writer’s block, and an adverse reaction to an antidepressant medication plummeted me into a major depressive episode. For the next ten months, I was assailed by out-of-control anxiety attacks which alternated with dark, suicidal depressions. Each day felt like an eternity as I struggled to stay alive in the face of overwhelming feelings of hopelessness and despair.

My depression was called “treatment resistant” (a condition that applies to 10 – 20% of those who suffer from a depressive disorder) and for good reason. Medication, the mainstay of conventional treatment, simply did not work. Drugs, such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft, made me agitated; others such as Lithium made me even more depressed; and the rest did nothing at all.

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