Another Day Of …... Nothing

A saying I heard growing up was , “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”. What it means is that you have the desire or intention to do something, but lack motivation to do it. I feel like I've been living in that space for a long time now. And as a result, there are so many things that need to be done, that have gone un-done. And now there's too much to be done. What used to be a molehill is now a mountain of chores to be attended. I look around and I can see that A, B, C, and D need to be done, and yet I can't seem to activate myself to respond. My get up and go has got up and gone. Today I can't even read an article because it's too much effort. It's so frustrating and I feel like anyone looking in from the outside, would just see “lazy”. “Sloth is a sin” … heard that growing up too. But it's not laziness. It's not a choice. It's an actual inability to motivate to action. It's like my leg following my knee surgery. The physiotherapist would say, “lift your leg”, and no matter how hard I tried , nothing happened. No matter how hard I focused and attempted to lift my leg, it remained on the bed. The message was just not getting from my brain to my muscles. That's what this funk feels like. My brain is saying, “get up!”, but the message isn't transmitting to my body. And it perpetuates this down in the dumps feeling. My “on a roll” from a few weeks ago has rolled to a stop. Talking to Sean yesterday he said it has something to do with dopamine. Of course now I can't remember exactly what the connection was ….... this is the fog my mind is in! I can't even remember a conversation from yesterday!! I think he said that low levels of dopamine impair motivation. I'm not sure what causes low levels of dopamine though.. Does depression cause low dopamine , or does low dopamine cause depression? What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Getting going ….. finding that one sometimes infinitesimal first step to get the ball rolling. I should know this from dog training > splitting vs clumping behaviours. Oh damn .. I said the “s” word. And avoiding putting pressure on myself , as well as ridding negative self talk such as , "get your act together". In the trauma group they talked about practicing self compassion and positive self talk, but I still have difficulty with this concept … it's so foreign.

I still find that I'm exhausted the day after a day when I do manage to get things done.. Sean asked me if perhaps I'm over doing it on those days. It's possible. I may have to better pace myself on those days when I have the motivation to tackle chores. Assign myself one or two chores and adhere strictly to those limits, rather than go go go until I'm worn out

Procrastination is The Thief Of Time

So here I am experiencing another day of the blahs. Can't seem to get into gear and get going. Even focusing long enough to write this entry is challenging. The cycle is I need to do X ….. sigh ….. I'll do it tomorrow. Then tomorrow rolls around and the same thing happens. And before you know it days, weeks, months, and even years have gone by and X still isn't done. A total lack of energy can also be a side effect of depression, , and that lack of energy can make it difficult to start (never mind finish) the simplest of tasks. Chores like washing your hair (I've gone more than a week between washes at times), getting dressed (with nowhere to go why get out of those pj's), cooking meals (microwave everything), doing dishes (I've resorted to using paper plates and bowls), and doing laundry (I've been known to buy new clothes rather than do laundry!) are all insurmountable tasks. In my defense of the latter, I have to do laundry at the laundromat which is a half hour drive away, and a huge drain of time. Poor sleep means I'm never well rested and always fatigued, and sometimes just getting out of bed in the morning feels like too much effort.

There are things that I can't procrastinate such as caring for the animals. I can't leave that until tomorrow. But some days the effort is exhausting. There's no joy left in anything because everything is such a challenge.