The Black Dog .

K

Kevin the grey

Joined
Aug 26, 2005
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: The Black Dog Don,t Believe In Sin , : ( Partial line from a song . )

So many cultures have one . Some have two dogs , one black and one white .
For some it is the eternal fight between good and evil , For others it is simpler . It is just the utilisation of energy in a positive or negative fashion . For others it is simpler still , being just the utilisation of energy . For some it is simpler yet . It is less control/change of potential of the energy which may lead to binding of yourself to it . It is more just guiding it which in this case suggests the minimum of interference . So on and so forth .

O:K: back down to Earth . What is the black dog to you ? Does it come from within you or without ? Do you live with it or attempt to shield yourself from it ?

: Look At Where The Black Dog Has Been . :


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Was Churchill's term for depression - the depression he fought all his life.

We fight his black dog in my house too. Occasionally even that dog wags his tail - and the depression gives a gift of growth or awareness.
 
Funny thing Tom . I had that ugly black dog rear its head for about five seconds yesterday . Started thinking a black thought on my way out of one room and banished it before I got to the next room .

Ah well , simpler minds loan themselves to easier solutions .

Less kind folk would say . : No brain , no pain . :
 
Nick Drake has a good song about a Black Dog following him home.


I don't have any black dogs dogging me. Yangdu told me once there was a mean streak in me, a black ghost. I thought that fit.

Now we have to get to the black kingsnakes....
And I heard a blues song about a black rat.



munk
 
The black dog knew his name.

Hey; we can get into Banshee's too....


munk
 
Banshees? I take it you haven,t heard my whistle playing ? L:O:L

There do seem to be a lot of entities that like to make discordant sounds . Must be the almighty,s way of getting back at discordant musicians . I think he calls it . : Rappers Revenge :
 
Some believe there are two *wolves* inside each man fighting.

The one that wins is the one you feed.

Thanks to Edutsi...
 
Ain't never tangled with a black dog, but there was this white one once when I was out for a walk in the country. Great Pyrenees, looked big as a bear, surly cuss, wasn't fenced or chained, and he was coming after me like he wanted a piece of me. I slipped my tomahawk out of my knapsack and got ready to bury it in his skull. He must have sensed something was up, because he stopped dead in his tracks and didn't pursue me any further. Good thing for him and me, things were about to get pretty bloody otherwise. :eek:

I know, I know, the "Black Dog" ain't a real dog, he's a manifestation. And you're right, my old tomahawk wouldn't do much good on him. No worries, if I'm out prowling on a moonlit night, and I encounter that spectral beast, I'll give him cause to regret his incautious choice of prey. ;)

Sarge
 
TomFetter said:
We fight his black dog in my house too. Occasionally even that dog wags his tail - and the depression gives a gift of growth or awareness.
Click to expand...

Very perceptive Tom.

In some Circles the Black Dog is called the "Dark Night of the Soul." It appears when you are about to experience a new level of "growth or awareness."

Sometimes it is called "Chapel Perilous."

Whatever you choose to call it, extreme depression is the precourser. If you can get through it with meditation / physical exercise and realization that every cloud has a silver lining. You can get the gift of a new level of awareness, or you can go back around again.

You will realize that gift when you can look back on the state of depression and say to yourself, "Hmmm, I realize, now, why I had to go through that.

Think back on past events that you thought would destroy you and you will see what I mean. Maybe, just maybe you will (now) see a progression of events, sometimes a straight line that has led you to a good place that you can now enjoy.

Problems are stepping stones.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Every silver lining has a cloud.

Stepping stones.


I must be climbing a ladder of stepping stones.
 
The Black Dog takes a lot of lives, and is more common than you'd think. It killed two of my cousins- one, a suicide, the other an OD, basically.

When I was living alone in a wrecked house in a ruined city, a Dr. gave me Lexapro. He told me, "If I could, I'd put this in the city water." I took one pill, one time. :) :mad: :eek: Not for me. Horrible side effects.

But a lot of antidepressants help a lot of people. Anyone who has a problem with this Dog should give Paxil, Efexor, or Wellbutrin a try.

Depression is when you are free to go anywhere you want- in your cell.


Mike

PS- A hysterical typo and revelation while writing this- "Hillbillies take ain't-depresants."
 
Gents this is getting depressing . L:O:L

I have fought it from time to time . A short conversation with a friend of mine brought me outside of myself to see it from her point of view . I realised :depression is: . For it :to be: it must be something . If it is something then it can be fought . Our worst enemy is ourselves . We create the thing which fights us .

Since I learned this depression does not exist for me . At least not in a permanent sense . I can feel it coming on .

I create it .

I own it .

It is mine .

I have no need for it ,

so I stop it .

This is all easily said . It is certainly not the same dog for everyone . I think there are various manyfold reasons for getting down on yourself . I think there are chemical imbalances that won,t let you step free from it no matter how hard you try .

For me I know diet is important . I am a gobble gook when it comes to food . I have observed that it is rare for there to be an onset if I am eating well .
If there is an onset I can kill it faster than the stink from my last flatus fades away .

On that sour note I will leave the Black dog to his own devices . This started out as a different black dog thread . I am glad of the change . Nothing lessens the black cloud over my head like tallking with friends .

Keep on with this and I will Bring my Black Dog thread to bay by starting another with his brother .
 
I really like Bill Marsh's view of The Black Dog. I have had him in and out of my life over the years and I have generally kept him at bay and have learned from him. But I have had a cousin and a very good friend commit suicide and so I am very well aware that The Black Dog can take you away with him.
 
No silver lining without a cloud. Yep, Bill.

My wife's fought depression since she was 2, as has her sister. From age 6 on, slept with a bottle of rubbing alcohol under the bed, so she could end it if the pain became too much.

Over the decades, multiple suicide attempts - it's astonishing that either of them are still with us. Neither can tolerate any of the classes of anti-depressant meds - the side effects turn them into zombies. Decades of unhelpful therapy, where they could out-think the therapists.

In their case, it's an organic, chronic condition ... not unlike other folks suffering from diabetes, or severe arthritis. Mostly manageable, but if the triggers get pulled, they go into a pit I've experienced but once. "Secondary" depression can be a communicable disease ... I need to watch myself carefully, to keep my head above water. Reflection helps.

Questioning the depression, working it through, has made my wife the single most spiritually aware person I know. It's been a gift with very sharp edges ... a gift to both of us.

But a gift indeed. My kids have echoes of her awareness, and a compassion for suffering that they'd never have learned otherwise. And thankfully, no sign of the black dog trailing them.
 
Prozac does work for most of us, Bill - an analogue worked for me, once. About an 85% success rate, last I checked the stats.

My wife and her sister are in the remaining 15%. Their neural wiring was laid down differently, as a result of severe neglect when they were under 2 years of age. Think "Romanian orphan" degree of neglect. We're told that most folks with her degree of neglect end up dead, in prison, or in mental institutions.

That she's avoided all this, and has become who she is, is a testament to her will and God's grace.
 
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