What, or who, has saved your life?

here's to you Andrew. Grab some clay and mold a playmate.

I'm not being flip….I have no answers, but I do pray. Here's to Andrew again.

Carla, you and Andrew both have my prayers.  Having been through depression with two of my kids (in their late teens and early 20's), my best advice to you is to make sure your son sees a doctor or therapist.  Sometimes the hole gets so deep there is no way in this world they can dig their way out alone, even if you–or they–think they can.  You never want to get to the place where your son's life has to be saved.  Believe me, I know.

You have my love and I am wrapping a mother's prayer all around your Andrew.  Please get in touch if you need to talk or need some moral support.  I'm here for you.

Carla, so glad you found your own joyous path.  Enveloping you both in love, I pray, knowing Andrew will find his own path in his own perfect time…  And in the meantime, I second what Mamakat said…the divine mystery works through us all, including doctors and therapists (and in my case, an antidepressant to counteract my chemical imbalance.)

Healing prayers, love and support from here already sent to you and Andrew.  Depression is soooo hard, on the person and on loved ones (yep, been there myself.) 
hugs,
Sprite

Carla, you and Andrew are in my prayers. If the depression has been ongoing please get professional help, it can be a simple chemical imbalance, or there may be deeper reasons. It may be difficult but better to encourage him to talk about it than bottle it up.
Also look at physical health, excercise and fresh air and natural sunlight can be beneficial in depression, also a good diet. Is he artistic or musical, both are good therapy for depression  Is there a history of depression on either side of the family, this may point to a possible cause?  Hope things improve soon will keep you both in my prayers

You have my full support in prayer. Yes you ought to consult with a specialist and don't try to tackle it alone. There are lots of possiblities available that might attract him. Granted, he will have to agree and engage ultimately so prayers are still the right thing at this time, particularly that you will find the ideal solution to work with him.

Sincere blessings and love to you. Sherri

Sending love and support to your son Andrew, Carla.  It is so hard when our children (even grown ones) are depressed or suffering.  I am wondering how intense it is.  Is it something that it looks like he might work through….or something that might need some intervention?  You have modeled something precious to him, in finding the truth and gift of your own life.  Perhaps this is part of the life rope that he might grab….  Prayers to you and him….

My Love, Light and Prayers to you and Andrew…May he find his Passion =)

God bless you Carla. I will write you separately with an 'out there' suggestion.

Sherri

Are you serious…Andrew must be within a hop, skip and a jump of me.
I can go kick his ass if you want me to :-D

Aaah Carla~ what could be more difficult than watching our kids - even the grown ones- struggle? I think you have given the best thing already in the example of being your own heroine and making positive changes for yourself. You have shown him what is possible.

I reiterate the “sweat” part of my own lifesaving and say that the best antidote for depression that I know is getting physical and pushing to that limit over and over. You get the natural endorphin rush that resets emotions and the benefit of gaining physical health. Even just fast walking can do it. No special equipment required. That's the encouragement I would give.

Loving thoughts to you both.

Andrew lives closer to the Park than I did, and I spent most of my teenagehood there every day. There's the Botanic Garden there too…both have beautiful lakes and waterfalls and the like.

He certainly must be biking through the Park. Perhaps I've even seen him, tearing through the mountain bike trails… =)

There's hiking trails too, dunno why he says he misses nature…it's all around us. Maybe it's not Wild Life, but still a connecting place…and they even do Tai Chi there at dawn everywhere.

Ehhh…he'll be alright. =)

B-b-but the World is soooooo Beautiful in the Light :-D

LOL. The Japanese Garden section in the Botanical Gardens is awesome. Just had a mulit-million dollar renovation there a few years back. Turtles and swans and great places to sit and watch the koi…And in the park, there's a new aviary…huge bird-watching setup!

He's actually very lucky to have these within walking and biking distance! It would be better to spend all day there than in the house! That's where I always went, alone, at crucial turning points…lots of wisdom and inspiration and motivation to be soaked up there.

Do let him know. It's all right outside his door and at his fingertips.

I have to say that ultimately it will be his choice if he wants to live a fuller life. He's seen the options; he is a bright boy, well actually, man. People that get a lot of attention for their diversity and divergences can sometimes soak it up as a privilege, irrespective or unaware of how it hurts their mommas and siblings and even their partners.

Just follow your heart Carla and your bliss. Perhaps on recognising your desire to have that harmonious relationship with yourself and your children, he'll get the point that his choices affect you and take a different action. Perhaps…

Someone said to me recently 'If you care more about someone than they care about themselves, then they are in control of you'. It was a little grim to consider but I realise I have placed other peoples' happiness so high that they didn't recognise how much it destabilised my wellbeing, in their disconnected space…

Much love, Sherri

Yes, I did the same , and my life changed dramatically . I was up and down like there is know tomorrow. Arts got me through my healing stage. I continue to heal through the arts, and also with my new family here on Gaia.
I send healing thoughts to the world each , and every day. Today I will send a extra special one for your son. Yes , another thing that helps is music . Music does wonders.Also Earth therapy. laying on the earth by a tree, and being still within nature.
These are all thngs that have helped me, and so much more.
LOve , and light,

Loriann

Dear Carla,

        I just came across this post and to say that it is “poignant” is to say the least.  I can only imagine your feelings with respect to your son by reflecting on my Mother's expressed feelings toward her sons. 

        To heal is to make whole, and that can only start with ourselves.  In my way, I don't try to heal anybody unless they ask for assistance, and then I laugh loudly at them and ask them if they're really prepared to really get into trouble!   ; our journey here is too wonderful to limit itself to our interpretations of others' experience - or our own! .  The presumptions that belie our “problematic addiction,” and which seem so “reasonable” in our culture as to seem almost automatic, are the same presumptions that lead us to “heal” Iraq politically, or to “heal” people that smoke pot by throwing them in jail, etc.  We insist on “fixing” other people.   Tyranny is precisely the subjection of others to our good intentions.

              This is not to equate your care with the above.  I celebrate your caring, your reaching out to others, and your search for solutions.  Yet the question arises as to how I relate to caring.  Right now I am going through a situation with a very close family member who has allowed his health to deteriorate to the point that he often doesn't even remember that I saw him two weeks ago, or sent him an e-mail, and he's 45 y.o.!  And, yes, there are all kinds of things that i could DO to, for, with him.  But the invitation isn't there.  Maybe he will die.  Maybe he will kill himself.  Maybe he'll get better.  Maybe he'll end up in some institution.  I don't know. 

              Nevertheless feelings arise because this is the only person that knows the dimensions of tough times that we went through as kids, and not only the tragedy of that, which is so apparent to all who hear “the story,”  but also the gift, the toughness, the brilliance, the love that is imperceptible to most in the presence of that narrative.  And in his presence I have to confront my feelings of anger with him: at the violence he sowed in my life, of the violence he has directed at himself, at his callousness toward others, at the guilt that I might feel about what I do or don't DO about, for, to him.  And there is no HOPE.  There is only This.  Somedays there is connection, some days I feel hatred from him toward me.  And I am challenged:  challenged to behold the sacredness of my person, my path, and challenged to behold that his person and his path are fully participant of that same whole-liness, and that HOPE is another gambit for control, for sedation, for manipulation of what-is.

The caring is MINE.  The pain is MINE.  The longing is MINE.  And it so happens that my relative and your son trigger this.  Be grateful and dare to simply taste what is moving within you.  There is no feeling such as “sadness, anger, grief, frustration,” these are all labels that we use as mental diving boards to launch ourselves away from what we are feeling.   Feeling is feeling:  you feel it and you experiencing it moving, it invites you into FEELING, just feeling, like taking a kayak down a river: one river, many eddies, many rapids, many sunbeams through the trees, blue herons, etc. 

            This is the invitation of Being which we so often refuse because we are acculturated to launch off of that diving board through doing. 

             Just BE.  FEEL it.  Your willingness to just BE, without having to DO something for, about, to your son - or yourself and bygone stories of how conscious you were or weren't when Andrew was younger, invites true transformation.   Then we can touch our innocence, be with it, without doing anything to our self, without doing anything to others that they haven't asked for.  This is the very basis of the non-aggression principle: people are their own property and have a right to do with their property as they wish. 

             Andrew sounds magnificent, a young man who lives in the night world, rides his bike through NYC, trips out a little excessively on his Adderal which helps him to focus through distraction, and is exploring his mind, heart, body, and mortality with a courage and grace that is HIS; unique, not in subjection or obedience to your or anybody else's evaluations.  As you know, his experience of his existence is more poignant yet than any discriptions we could muster, and he's faced illness for a long time, feeling the thrust of young, virile nature dampened by whatever pain he's facing in the moment, surely riding waves of bliss and despair.  What a tremendously courageous and beautiful journey this young man is on.  I hope he meets some MEN who can DIG him just as he is and I know that YOUR presence as a loving mother, woman, elder, artist and adventure in the dimensions of Your Being are one of his greatest gifts.  Please don't underestimate yourself and what your simply Being-as-you-are gifts to him, the space that you open up in his awareness to not only know his freedom, to explore his nature, but to also learn to love and care for Being with increasing skill.

              That is how the mystery moves.  If he is a healer, a real one, an ass-kicker with a set of balls and a huge heart, Life will disassemble him so that he can be reclaimed fully in his brilliance and innocence.  And it won't look pretty at times, and the best thing you can do is simply love him, BE with what you feel and own it invitationally, instead of reacting to what you're feeling by doing something to someone else.  Let the space be Whole and Spaciously Equanimous.

              Healing is BEING, any doing associated with it is simply ceremonial invitation to Being!  Let us dare to BE those Beings  simply BEing within the unfolding of Being, and celebrating it. 

                One of the heaviest and pithiest words of wisdom I have come across came from My Very Reverend Docta Sistah Carla Sanders who told me:

“Yeah, all of this seems like a problem as long as you're buying into the story that you exist.”

                  One resource you might profoundly enjoy is http://thepresenceportal.com/, presenting the work of Michael Brown who spent 4 years apprenticed to one of my close Cheyenne friends.  There are free audio downloads that I think you might enjoy and I highly recommend his book The Presence Process  which is a treasure trove of liberative wisdom beyond the control and sedation paradigm that remains our culture presumption.

                 Carla, I celebrate your journey as a Mother, I celebrate your wisdom, your angst, your consciousness and I celebrate everything you thing has any shame or guilt associated with it.  I hope you take the time to delishnify it all, including all those feelings that arise that you would like to DO something about.

                 Taste!

There is only One Movement and we are all expressing it Wholly!

I love you!

O

As I read this, delighting in each person person showing up, I came to the bottom to find this great gem of wisdom that O has provided.  Simple beingness … the allowance of all life, not pushing away from, or grabbing hold to but just being.  I will hold my space, my awareness open with a heart of love where all can come to lay their heads - weary, dying, happy, sad, depressed, angry …

Reminds me what Whitman said when he said, “When I give, I give of myself … “  Maybe I'll look at what I can give and how I can give it … but first the invitation.

This is remarkable that all these sparkling stars have shown up in beingness to sparkle here … Thanks for this open space of sharing and communion.