I've become mildly depressed and it's getting worse

[Eonwe5]

Hi there folks, 

 

As the title states, I've developed symptoms of a mild depression during the last 4 months, and I think it is getting worse from week to week.

I've put it off to write about my problems for quite a while now, but I finally managed to sit down and do it, firstly to get some order into my thoughts and clear up my head, secondly to share it with you and maybe receive some insights and feedback. (Thanks for taking the time)

 

I think that most of my depressive mood comes from my habit of procrastinating. Most days of the week I feel too fatigued and lacking the willpower to start the things I have been planning to do for ages (Planning a trip, starting to paint, reading a book, writing an application letter...). Every time I think about how few of the goals I set myself I actually have achieved, every time I realize that I have let the months go by without actually doing the things I want to do, I feel frustrated, hopeless and depressed. That feeling is getting worse, as I still didn't manage to overcome my procrastination habit. 

Lately I start not being able to get out of bed in the morning, because I don't want to tackle the daily challenges. I am aware that that's the wrong thing to do, but I just can't make myself to get up... I also started getting thoughts that going to sleep and not waking up again would be pretty convenient...

Now, I keep thinking that this is the "night before the dawn",  that at some point in the future I will hit rock bottom, in a moment of absolute despair will swear myself to turn my life around, and then I'll have the willpower to change myself. You sometimes read stories of alcohol addicts who keep having relapses, their lives keep getting worse, and then one day when they can't take it anymore they make a desperate wish to change, and after that, their lives get better and better. 

That scenario is what I keep having in mind when I give in to procrastination, or when I get back into bed after my alarm went off.

"I haven't hit rock bottom, I need to experience absolute despair to be able to turn everything around.", Is what I often think.

I'm just not sure anymore whether that's what will happen, or if I'll be unable to make the change, and become more and more depressed...

 

I keep using this "I need to hit rock bottom" - story as an excuse to not do anything, the problem is that there actually could be some truth to it, and I don't know for sure what to do. Because it's the most convenient thing to not change anything, I propably will keep procrastinating until I either have hit "rock bottom" or I'm convinced that It is unlikely that I will recover from falling even deeper into depression.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? 

Thank you for everything guys. 

Have a wonderful day! 

 

 

 

[Bluebird]

Quote

I need to hit rock bottom

I've had this same thought. But what exactly is rock bottom? How deep you think you can go? Narcotics, Rape, Murder, Jail, Suicide? Where does it end, surely there is always a lower low you can get to and a higher high.

Guess what, if from this moment onwards you commit to doing what you want then this moment will literally be rock bottom for you.

But you don't need to turn everything around, nor can you. 

Just pick something to do and do it every day. Start by reading a book every day, commit to reading at least one word in a book every day just one word inside the book and commit 100% no exceptions for 60 days.

Make it a book you're interested in as well (maybe one on procrastination or psychology or depression). Read Loving What Is by Byron Katie and then do The Work on the belief "I need to hit rock bottom".

Good luck!

[SQAAD]

@Eonwe5

On 3/4/2019 at 1:32 PM, Eonwe5 said:

I think that most of my depressive mood comes from my habit of procrastinating. Most days of the week I feel too fatigued and lacking the willpower to start the things I have been planning to do for ages (Planning a trip, starting to paint, reading a book, writing an application letter...). Every time I think about how few of the goals I set myself I actually have achieved, every time I realize that I have let the months go by without actually doing the things I want to do, I feel frustrated, hopeless and depressed. That feeling is getting worse, as I still didn't manage to overcome my procrastination habit. 

You just need to start doing slowly the healthy habits you know are good for you . It is easier said than done though.

I make a TO-DO-LIST every day with small goals like reading one hour per day. This has helped me. If you wait to feel "right" & motivated you will never do anything.

You gotta start bulding some momentum...

Edited May 14, 2019 by SQAAD

[studentofthegame]

There is no single one answer to this (mental ailments are complex and individual as you know) and like trying to dig out a deep rooted tree stump, you need to hack at it from many angles, whether that’s therapy, exercise and nutrition, reading etc.

I will speak from experience here. One thing you can do right now. Choose one thing that is do-able every day, and do it for 30 days. For me it is filling up a water bottle once or twice a day and sipping water. It comes with me everywhere. For that first 30 days, no matter if i failed to do anything else i had set in mind, as long as i filled up that water bottle and sipped water i had done the work, i was making progress. The confidence of 30 days (and counting) of little victories is huge. I chose water because i was fed up of walking around dehydrated and the negative effects that had on me.

You may find that whatever you choose acts as an anchor and you get more stuff done than you thought. But if not, you are still on the road because you are doing the one, manageable thing. After 30 days, add another habit.

Wish you all the best.

 

[Yellow_Girl]

 

 

 

On 4/3/2019 at 4:32 AM, Eonwe5 said:

I think that most of my depressive mood comes from my habit of procrastinating. Most days of the week I feel too fatigued and lacking the willpower to start the things I have been planning to do for ages (Planning a trip, starting to paint, reading a book, writing an application letter...).

 

 

I have an answer that is entirely theoretical, but it really makes sense when it comes to my situation and there are many psychologists who agree with this assessment. I'm not silly enough to think that this covers all depression, but certainly the "lack of motivation" style.

Depression stems from a cause and effect mismatch. Or, "learned helplessness" (Google it if you haven't heard of it).

Meaning, you do something because you think it will produce an outcome. When it fails to produce the outcome over and over again, it hurts you emotionally, which causes you to feel like laying low so you can heal.

Nature gave this to you to keep you from accidentally killing yourself. If you put your hand on a hot stove, thinking the stove is not on, it burns. The only way to heal the hand is to stop using it for a few days. If you kept touching the stove, you'd die of an infection.

In modern life we must fail ALL THE TIME to get what we want because we are in high competition with each other. After a string of painful failures, your protection mode gets activated and you crawl into your cave to heal. Your dopamine gets very low and you don't feel like doing anything.

I have found only two cures for it and it seems to work for me much of the time. 

1 - I do a fasting stint. Fasting opens your dopamine channels so you "seek out food" which gives you motivation. Of course the "need to seek" isn't just for food, it applies to anything you want. Just a 24-hour fast helps my depression quite a lot.

2 - The idea that "doing things does not require motivation, it CAUSES motivation." The simple act of setting a timer on your phone and saying "for two minutes, I will research that trip I want to go on" will break the inertia and cause you to have more motivation. Do enough strings of this, and you can do all the things you've wanted to do.

I really hope some of this helped. It took me many painful years to figure this out.

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

@Yellow_Girl Good recommendations you give. Fasting is so powerful and simple and a great initiator into different facets of healing.

In connection with the second recommendation, I've had helpful insights from pondering spontaneity juxtaposed to reactivity. Reactivity seems to happen from ones contracted and fearful conditioned ego and spontaneity is the action of the True Self at ease in the present moment connected to a larger context and a state of flow. Spontaneity seems to cultivate the capacity for more spontaneity.

[Eonwe5]

Thank you guys for all your helpful suggestions. I'm still struggling, but It is getting better. 

Have a wonderful day everyone!

[JohnnyBravo]

No you dont have to hit rock bottom.

Your body is not producing the standard amount of electricity is normally does. Due to stress, or a change in your diet or medications or suppliments, and without sufficient water/salt intake, tiredness is the logical thing for the body.

Its ok to be stressed and allow stress in. Its not ok to abuse the body.

What you say as "Im tired and procrastinating" nope youre not.

Youre dehydrated. And hence the stress and lethargy and lack of chi to the brain.

Youre brain cant get the chemicals it needs because not sufficient channels open and available for water to flow to.

Your body naturally produces all the chemicals you require for what you got to do. Question is, why arent you thus feeling happy?

Not enough water.

You are tired and cant get out of bed. That is not a motivation issue thats a dehydration issue.

You procrastinate in task you wish you could do, why? Because you mentally KNOW that those items will require some effort, yet, your body is not fuelled and adequate enough to tackle the item.

Procrastination is never a "thing" its usually a lack of physical energy. Yes physical energy. So there is no sense in beating yourself up or getting philosophical now.

The remedy is simple: fuel your body with tons more water and salt.

Youre tiredness will VANISH.

You will sleep easier and deeper (and less hours).

Youre inspiration will skyrocket.

Youre dehydrated. This is not a psychological issue its a physical bodily one.

Many people interested in spiritual ideas usually forget we have a physical side as well. We are spiritual beings, yes, but we are on the Earth Game. So take physical requirments.

But for you specifically its water. I know. Don't focus on tackling your life now. Focus on spending the next 3 hours drinking water with salt, and repeat for 5 days.

Youll find by day 2 or 3 at max youll have tons of energy and the tiredness will vanish and the procradtinating will vanish also.

Hydrate your body so it starts producing enough electricity to zap someone dead. Once you have this ability, you can focus on any task and deal with it without any fear or stress at all.

Doctors wont tell you this. But I will.

[Bill W]

On 4/3/2019 at 11:32 AM, Eonwe5 said:

You sometimes read stories of alcohol addicts who keep having relapses, their lives keep getting worse, and then one day when they can't take it anymore they make a desperate wish to change, and after that, their lives get better and better. 

"I haven't hit rock bottom, I need to experience absolute despair to be able to turn everything around.", Is what I often think.

 

I am a recovering alcoholic. My alcohol addiction and other addictions were a big part of my rock bottom. In terms of rock bottom, my personal view is that you know rock bottom when you hit it. For me it was almost like some kind of enlightenment moment (of course it wasn't but that's the only way I can describe it). I realised "the game was up" and that I was in deeper than I thought. I knew I needed help. I knew I needed a new direction. I knew that many aspects of the current ways I am living needed to be surrendered and/or changed. I am not saying that you have to have a rock bottom to make positive change, but for me, it was the catalyst for change. It also made me realise that I am too limited to recover just on my own willpower and my own mindset. I needed help. I needed to radically look at all the things I was not doing. All the things I was either consciously or unconsciously ignoring.

I also believe rock bottom to be a very personal thing. What is rock bottom for one person, will not be rock bottom for another. A rock bottom doesn't have to be mega dramatic such as going to prison, nearly dying, or some other highly traumatic event (although it can be). For me, rock bottom is a very internal experience, that involves a deep level of surrender and acceptance. By the time I got to my rock bottom it was actually a huge relief. It involved huge failure in my work place, a lot of shame and embarrassment, but at the time, relief that the previous way of living was going to be  abandoned and dismantled (to a degree). 

I was lucky. I had a plan in place already. I think I sensed my rock bottom was close. 

8 months later things are now very different, but I still have my bad days and I still have a lot of shit to work on. There is still loads of surrendering to do. Working on being disciplined, open-minded, humble, compassionate, forgiving, looking after my physical, mental and spiritual health is often a daily battle. I make mistakes and have elements of poor performance / spiritual practice every day. 

On 5/15/2019 at 5:58 PM, studentofthegame said:

I will speak from experience here. One thing you can do right now. Choose one thing that is do-able every day, and do it for 30 days. For me it is filling up a water bottle once or twice a day and sipping water. It comes with me everywhere. For that first 30 days, no matter if i failed to do anything else i had set in mind, as long as i filled up that water bottle and sipped water i had done the work, i was making progress. The confidence of 30 days (and counting) of little victories is huge. I chose water because i was fed up of walking around dehydrated and the negative effects that had on me.

 

This makes a lot of sense of me. For me that's like building some foundational habits. To start to do things EVERY day. Start small and build from there. 

On 5/14/2019 at 9:58 PM, SQAAD said:

 

You gotta start bulding some momentum...

 

Yes! This the same thing studentofthegame is saying above (I believe). 

Edited May 18, 2019 by Bill W
Typos

[studentofthegame]

@Bill W Yes, it's all about momentum and confidence in the beginning. And foundational habits, as you put it. Have you started putting something like this together for yourself?

Interesting to read your experiences about rock bottom. I can't say with any certainty that I've had that moment myself, but I have had smaller tipping points. One was late Saturday night / early sunday morning when I was in despair after a night of heavy drinking, drama and no sleep. Amidst the chaos I had a clarity about what my real issues are. This is after drastically reducing my alcohol use this year and feeling much better for it, but on Saturday I was on a stag weekend and my best intentions fell apart. 

There's an old saying along the lines of 'the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom'. When we find ourselves in dark places there is a window out of it, if we are able to take it.

[Bill W]

21 hours ago, studentofthegame said:

@Bill W Yes, it's all about momentum and confidence in the beginning. And foundational habits, as you put it. Have you started putting something like this together for yourself?

Interesting to read your experiences about rock bottom. I can't say with any certainty that I've had that moment myself, but I have had smaller tipping points. One was late Saturday night / early sunday morning when I was in despair after a night of heavy drinking, drama and no sleep. Amidst the chaos I had a clarity about what my real issues are. This is after drastically reducing my alcohol use this year and feeling much better for it, but on Saturday I was on a stag weekend and my best intentions fell apart. 

There's an old saying along the lines of 'the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom'. When we find ourselves in dark places there is a window out of it, if we are able to take it.

I'm trying! Seems like a case of one step back, one step forward, then occasionally having a mini-breakthrough and putting two steps forward. I think the trap I keep falling into is being inpatient and trying to change multiple habits and personality traits all at once. Just reading something on this site yesterday (I think a comment by Leo) that we should try and stick with one new habit at a time makes me reflect on the error of my ways. Currently I'm always asking myself... Am I practising humility? Am I being openminded? Because if those two are not right, nothing else will go as well as it could do. In terms of practicalities, I'm really focusing on cleaning up my diet. This is a daily battle. 

I think I've taken my eye off the ball in terms of how to efficiently build new habits. In my mind and heart I know that getting some "quick wins" and foundational habits in place can help build the momentum but I keep bailing out of my new simple habits, mostly due to poor impulse control and being unable to delay gratification. 

[Michael569]

Any chance your fatigue, depression, lack of mood/motivation could be caused by physiological factors? 

While large chunk of depressions come from lack of vision, clarity, purpose and disallignment with one's values, there is another huge portion of people who suffer with neurotransmitter imbalances, slowed down re-uptake of inhibiting neurotransmitters (easier to get sad and it takes ages to stop being sad and depressed) or excessive removal of stimulating neurotransmitters (meaning you get happy very quickly but it dissapears really quickly as well),  gut dysbiosis (bad balance of the good/bad bacteria in large intestine) could mess up with your brain chemistry. L

Lack of nutrients such as B-complex, magnesium and general protein intake may reduce production of ATP, your energy molecule. A disbalance of Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids may cause a lot of inflammation in the body and again have an impact on mood and motivation. 

A long period of antibiotics that wrecked your gut may cause a sudden onset of depression and same could be for viral infection that is causing central nervous system inflammation...and other medical blah blah blah

I am just throwing this in there as I assume you are already addressing the vision/purpose portion as guys above have suggested.