Brandon Dean Lamson recalls how he turned away from his decision to commit suicide, and went to go sit zazen instead. Practice, for me, began on the Dunlavy Bridge that spans eight lanes of traffic on US-59 in Houston, Texas. Several stories above eighteen-wheelers and commuter Saabs, I grabbed the railing and considered jumping, suspended in the late-afternoon light that [...]
Mental Health Archives
Please note that these articles are not intended to provide treatment options for those who may suffer from clinical depression or other forms of mental illness.
I Did Not Lose My Mind
It took an illness of the brain for Meg Hutchinson to discover the inherent sanity of her own mind. Her breakdown was actually a breakthrough. I was twenty-eight years old when my life fell apart. I had been quietly struggling with depression since I was nineteen, but increasingly the lows were followed by periods of ecstatic exuberance and boundless energy. What I had [...]
Every Day a Reprieve
Josh Korda knows he is not cured—and he never will be—but through honesty and diligence he enjoys a daily reprieve from depression and addiction. I woke up sweating, gulping for air. I was in the grips of a panic attack, my stomach cement hard yet churning. In my mind, movie screens played horror films in a loop; the images in this multiplex were darker than [...]
My Practice Without Meds
After years of treating her depression with medication and therapy, Kiera Van Gelder turned to Buddhist practice to heal. But when her depression and suicidal thoughts returned, she was forced to reevaluate her view of an unmedicated spiritual path. When I lived at the dharma center, I slept in a room directly above the kitchen. Our center also had a meditation hall, a [...]
Medicate or Meditate?
In this 2009 Buddhadharma feature, physicians and long-term meditators Roger Walsh, Robin Bitner, Bruce Victor, and Lorena Hillman explain why both antidepressants and meditation have an important role to play in treating depression. When we first set foot on the spiritual path, many of us believed that spiritual practice was all we needed. Ancient texts spellbound us with [...]
I Thought I Was Alone
Susan Moon -- whose piece "I Want to Tell You About Coming Apart and Struggling Through Depression" is among our readers' favorites -- on how pharma, dharma, and sangha have helped her bring things together. I’ve been a Zen practitioner for thirty years. Ten years ago I was in a deep depression. If I sat down to meditate, demons took advantage of the opportunity to torment me, [...]
Forum Essays: Depression
Depression is violent and merciless. For anyone who has struggled with serious depression, the idea that it could possibly serve as an incentive to meditate is to grossly misunderstand just how debilitating major depression is. The constant barrage of negative thoughts seem to form an unbearable “helmet of doom,” and it is simply not possible to become curious about these [...]
