I have lived with chronic depression for about 30 years. I am currently seeing a Counsellor, and have seen a few in the past, but talking therapy is not helping me at the moment. I have in the past also done CBT (no help at all) and DBT. The only aspect of DBT that helped me was Mindfulness and being aware of my thoughts. I am exploring the idea of meditation and have been reading about the various types. I feel that I am at my lowest now, and that I may need to manage all the darkness in my head by going into my soul, trying to access love again. I have heard that Tonglen meditation can be great, but I am interested in hearing how others living with long-term severe depression have fared with Meditation. Thank you.
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Chrysalis20
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I've been a meditator for about five years now and I would not recommend it for somebody struggling with mental health. While I've heard of studies that prove meditating is beneficial for stress reduction and lowering blood pressure, I have had the opposite experience. As a matter of fact I can trace my mental health issues to meditation. You see, meditation actually teaches our brain to do something it doesn't do regularly: break down our experience into it's component parts. This may sound like a great idea until you realize that what we experience is not what is actually occurring. You see, our mind makes a lot of assumptions based on past experience and adds that to our current experience. Discovering this, in my opinion, is not something that leads to good mental health. Struggling with the nature of reality while simply trying to get through the day the best we can is not a good combination.
You speak about darkness in your head. There is a period in meditation some reach known as 'The Dark Night of the Soul.' This is a stage not to be made light of. It is a difficult stage that I reached 'by accident' after six months of doing simple breathwork. I needed a lot of help to regain balance in my life. You will not hear about this stage from the mindfulness community as it wouldn't help them make money.
Thank you Pugglesworth for a very honest reply, from your own experience. I have been interested in meditation for 15 years, strangely enough it was when I began to read about it that my negative feelings really dominated and my life seems to have gone downhill since. But I don't attribute that to my interest in meditation, rather in my living in my head and either living in the past or projecting into the future, which I did for 10 years and only now am I waking up to that. I did attend some Kundalani yoga, sitting on chair, on a few occasions about 5 years ago. I got a sense of peace from those few sessions, but I fear that perhaps the "awakening" might have done me some harm, but again, that is only a guess. Re the dark night of the soul, for most of my adult life I have lived with some level of depression, and on the whole was able to function professionally, but struggled on a personal level, which worsened as I lived and continue to live alone. But the feelings I had then are nothing to how dark/low I have been feeling since about 2016, which died down up until this summer.
The dark night of the soul is now the worst it has ever been. I have definitely had an awakening over the summer, not necessarily a spiritual one, but bought on by an event which shook me up, the realisation that I had perhaps disassociated for a brief period of time in response, which then led to my waking up and becoming very aware of my "living in my head" in the period of time I mentioned above, and how much this had destroyed my life and led to my being where I am now. I have had a couple of months to come to terms with that wake up call, yet I find it terrifying and ultimately, fear that I have no future anymore. There is a scene in the film "A Clockwork Orange" where the characters are forced to watch a violet film via their eyes being forced open. That is how I am feeling right now, that I have seen something I didn't want to, and now I cannot forget it or go back to put it right. My Counsellor is doing what he can, but I feel that the only thing to save me is a Spiritual solution. Hence my investigating mediatation again, and also looking into the idea of Spirit guides. Sorry for the very long and detailed response, just trying to elaborate on the dark night of the soul idea. But yes, I am slightly fearful of going down the mediation path when I am very fragile. Thanks again for your time.
I am not a spiritual teacher; however, what you describe sounds to me like you may have some 'psycho-spiritual' issues. For me, it is difficult to 'tease out' what is strictly a psychological issue versus a what is a spiritual one. I usually attempt to deal with one before another. I can't regain any 'spiritual ground' if I'm off-balance mentally. So that is where I tend to go first. I try to eat healthy food, get good exercise, read something NOT related to spirituality or mental health (something fun) and get good rest. When my balance is restored I can tackle spiritual issues.
I do recommend you get help for where you are at. There are mental health practitioners who recognize and incorporate spiritual teachings into their treatment plans. My current therapist uses Somatic Experiencing and Qigong to help re-establish proper hormonal regulation when I am off-balance. You can even find doctors who support spiritual regeneration.
As far as The Dark Night is concerned, you will find a wide range of opinions and descriptions. And, honestly, it is a very personal experience that many people simply do not have nor understand. Some say you need to be at a higher spiritual level to go through this. Others say it is very rare and most people who think they are in a Dark Night are simply having a depressive episode. Only you know what you are going through.
I’ve also suffered chronic depression and pain over 30 yrs.
So our minds actually live in a negative thought pattern.
The truck is to trick it to think positively.
This is where meditation comes in.
Yes I can be very beneficial and take you to places that one woujd have not experienced before.
I’m sorry but I forgot the books I started with but I did some hard core meditation for 8 yrs living on my own.
Regarding pain it would help you over come the pain in a totally different way.yup the pain was there but one would be enlightening to the fact it was actually really rather ok to be in pain unless obviously you had broken a bone and that’s the resin fit pain,to tell our body somet is up and more or less stop seek medical help.
Yes it can help very much with depression.ok once you first start on your journey of meditation which it is a journey.there is much to be accomplished being in an enlightened state.
You are more in tune with your self.
Ok some one may say more in time with your self,omg I’m gonna feel more pain but that’s not the case.yes you start to feel more things,more things around you.how blessed you are to have say a nice smile nice teeth.
If you mediate you will yes have good days bad days like life it’s self.
Try NLP neuro linguistic programming.its wonderful and if done properly will go hand in hand with meditation.
I’m sorry I can’t be more help to you then that.
I could go on for hours and hours regarding the amazing moments I had and still have.
It can’t hurt really well it didn’t hurt me and by christ have I got more than my fair share of mental and physical problems.
Deepak kopra is a pretty good author and has some very easy to read and understand books.
I think it’s called the 12 spiritual lessons the way of the wizards.
I did once have this really thick book which was very detailed and was my go to bible
If I can find it I’ll let you know the name of it.
Usually once I’ve finished the book practiced what I need and understand I pass them on to the next soul who may benefit from it.
Thanks so much for your reply, very helpful. Yes, I completely agree about living in negativity. Sadly, I realised this years and years ago, and did take an interest in meditation as a way of allowing the thoughts to arise. However, for whatever reason, I didn't commit to mediatation, and instead seemed to wilfully indulge in the negative ruminating, escaping to my past, or going on flights of fancy into a future. I lived like that for at least 10 years, and it really destroyed my potential. At this stage I am willing to do anything to save my own life. It is a case of having nothing to lose. I have recently seen recommendations for Tonglen meditation, which is about taking in negative energy of either an individual or a collective, for example taking in the pain and energy of everyone else suffering from depression; so taking it all in on the in breath, feeling it in the heart - and then sending out healing energy. My understanding of it is that by considering and actively healing others, you help yourself. It makes sense in the same way that doing voluntary work or kind acts for others is supposedly helpful for those of us that struggle with our own problems.
Interested particularly to hear about your hard core mediatation when you lived alone. I have lived alone for many years, still do, and wonder if meditation might be beneficial to me as someone who does not like my own company?
Love to hear more about those books you mention, and are you still meditating?
You need to learn to circular breath to start of with.
Then you need to breath thinking of nothing but feeling,may seem simple but I bet you can’t do it for more than 3 seconds to begin with.
Like anything,it takes practice,to put 5 mins every day,same time if possible and 5 mins every day with out fail.it will take you Atleast a month to learn to breath thinking of nothing.
If your serious about this pm me and I’ll give more of a helping hand ok.
I don’t know what time zone or part of the works ur in but I’m in the uk.
Ps
I was able to manage to sit against a tree and bring up the earth in to my body and feel this.
This gave me goosebumps hairs standing on end and a massive massive stupid smile.thats called a moment they are very special.
Working as a volunteer makes you happy boosts your ego as your doing somet for somebody else.
That’s not meditation,it’s all about once self absorbed being aware of what is around you and let nature let you be happy.
Also yes it will help your self to be on your own and be happy in your own company,there starts the being confident in your own self
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Depression and anxiety 
Meditation 
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