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Sarasota DBSA Chapter of the Bipolar & Depression Support Alliance DBSA. The Barlow Group, Peer-to-Peer self help Support group. We Have Been There, We Can Help
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Local Peer-to-Peer Support for Bipolar & Depression Why Should You Attend Local Support Group Meetings? Are you suffering form Depression or Bipolar; you do not have to face your condition alone. Having caring people around you is important for everyone. When you have depression or a mood disorder, it's even more important. We are sadly 15% more likely to take our own lives. Take Joyce, in an e-mail just last week, she made a statement about living with a mood that touch a nerve with me, she said: This illness as far as I am concerned is worse than cancer. At least with cancer you can be understood, you can be kind to others and at least die with a little dignity. I would RATHER HAVE cancer. This illness affects everyone around us even though much of the times the sick ones are not rational enough to understand this. This illness is capable of destroying YOU. You can't let that happen.. As told by Joyce after another attempt to take her own life. Joyce later admitted having problems with her medication along with feelings of no purpose; no meaning to her life. This was the main cause that she took such extreme measures. She regrets here actions but knows with out help the next time she might succeed. That is we can help, weather you are newly diagnosed or a long time veteran as a group we have more experience with mood disorders than anyone in the medical field. How? Because we live with it! The information is more valuable than gold, we make carry with us the key to unlocking the hardest questions to answer when dealing with depression or bipolar. How can you live a normal live again? It may be hard to believe but it is possible. In the group, we are all volunteers not therapist, we hold no medical degree, we have no real schooling but we do have experience from the school of hard knots our lives are our degrees. By sharing them, we can help other deal with their issues. In the groups we Share information about your condition and its treatment. Listen without judging or criticizing. Empathize with your problems and experiences. Provide opportunities for fun activities and social interaction and add mean back to your life. If you believe and feel like Joyce that there is no meaning to your life and you attempt and succeed in taking that extreme step. Not only will it effect your friends and family but you may be taking with you the key that could unlock so much for so many who are suffering just like you did. You have an obligation, a purpose to use you life�s experience to help other. That goes for any who thinks they are beyond a group setting. Here is a really check, you will never be healed! We will live the rest of our lives with this illness, but we will own it, it will not own us anymore, not again. We will use like it used us, but we will do good, we will help others who suffer find the help then need. Come to our groups, help up build a network of city wide supporter, we can live up the Barlow motto, non nobis Solum, this means, �not for ourselves alone�. Let us come together as one, pool our experiences, our money, our love and lets make a difference. Volunteer:. We need you, help us build our groups, find supporter, locater meeting places. Stuart Barlow