Thanks for your responses:
For the record. Yes, I have suffered from depression on and off over the years and about 20 years ago it was really extreme (suicidal), somehow came through that period with a little help from friends, one who helped me get a job back then. So, probably just being out in the real world helped in that case - meeting and mixing with people, although thinking about it it did take several weeks (I can even remember hiding in the back office once or twice when customers came in the shop as I was so nervous at the time. However, that was a long time ago (I'm 42 now) and long before I ever did my first retreat in 2001.
Actually, I just came back from a 1 month retreat in Thailand, feeling a lot better than I have done for a long time, even though nothing "spectacular" happened whilst on retreat, and some of it was really hard work but I still enjoyed being there if enjoy is the right word. Let's just say, that being there at that time just felt right. The time. The place. The teachings. The practice etc.
I posed this question purely because I was reading Jen Pearly's practice journal and her recent admission of stream entry. I then read another thread about depression
(wowwww this path is confusing by Adam..) and Jen Pearly commented on her own struggles with it. That's what gave rise to the question.
Eric M W:There are a few criteria for determining whether or not someone is a sotapanna-- cycling, cessations, and jhana access are the ones I see discussed the most. What leads your friend to believe you may be a sotapanna? Some people get stream-entry without knowing it, but they usually are in other traditions without good map access.
If you have read Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" and elsewhere in some of his books/talks, he talks about the time he had his "awakening experience". He was seriously depressed at the time and afterwards, when he woke up both literally and metaphorically he did not have a clue what had happened to him only that he felt good. And everything seemed alright. It took him years to work backwards as it were to understand on an intellectual level about what had happened. Later he met zen monks and others to find out that he had reached "the place" so many others are striving for. He was not doing retreats, never meditated, was an academic etc.
Whether in Buddhist terms he is an anagami or arahant I have no idea. Seems like it to me though. I can only rationalize it that he must have been doing some consistent practice probably in his very last existence and possibly in many many lifetimes, otherwise how can he just "wake up" when so many others are burning holes in their cushions without getting much of a taste of what he talks about.
Talking therapy is also helfpul. Working with your psychological stuff is an important part of the first training, there's no shame in it.
You are right that there is no shame in it. However, apart from not feeling drawn in that direction at all, I believe there are very few good therapists out there. Many many therapists but I've a feeling that some of them are just as messed up as the next person, only they somehow seem to function in society without too many hiccups or else they manage to hide it. Is that too harsh an opinion?