In the depression, anxiety and the accompanying low self-esteem, I had a tendency to avoid contact and stay isolated, which only intensified the condition. Grow is an invaluable source of support, helping me to get outside of myself, to grow in self-acceptance and confidence and in active concern for others.

I was dependent on medication – I thought I had no other choice but to live in a stupor. Grow’s caring and its advice on how to deal with hallucinations helped me. Under the care of a new doctor, I had reduced the medication to about 25% of the old dosage. Life is now exciting and worthwhile.

I still don’t know how or why changing little things about myself has made me well. But why should I worry about how or why? I may not know how the changing works, but I do know that my life used to be hellish misery and now I am well and happy.

I was depressed and despairingly alone and had developed the habit of talking to myself. But when I discovered a Grow Group I found that they not only listened but also seemed to understand where I was at – they were accepting of me. I began to feel all was not lost.

“What made me return to Grow for a second week was knowing that I’d found a haven where I could be with people who understood me and didn’t criticize me or judge me. I felt safe.”

I was in some ways successful in life (both real and according to popular myths). In other ways I was an anxious mess of a man. Life was full of confusions and basic unhappiness. Sometimes things went very wrong. More than 30 years ago I joined a Grow group. That move has changed my life around, many times. In Grow, initiated by people who had usually been at some point, far more broken than I, I have learned about the true meaning and importance of having good friends. My life is so different from the way the trend suggested it was to go. I believe I correctly understood the peril I was in

I had been suffering from the effects of a relationship break up. Without me realising it, the friends that I thought I had were NOT MY FRIENDS and I was very much on my own. All my thoughts were going around and around in my head without stopping. I went along to a Grow meeting and discovered other people and heard ideas other than my own. I discovered the truth of friendship and the huge value of diversity of understanding.

Instead of my life being finished it was really just beginning. The others in the group believed in me so I was able to believe in myself. Where there were darkness and despair, Grow gave me a way through.

Recurrent depression had finally brought me to attempt suicide and repeated hospitalizations. Grow provided individuals who understood me, supported me and challenged me to solve my problems. Growers understand because they’ve been there and they succeed because of a well-thought-out program developed by Grow leaders since 1957.

“The idea of group therapy for anxiety made me worry more, until I went along” by Charles Graham-Dixon (The Guardian – UK edition)