Overcoming depression/lethargy, developing motivation

[thomas mg]

Due to work and home related stress, i suffer from quite severe depression and lethargy making it hard to achieve tasks.

 

Does anyone have any practical advice in this area?

 

I have asperger's syndrome.

[SidiousUK]

I know where you are coming from Thomas.

 

That is how I am feeling at the moment and the meds seem to have stopped working for the past couple of weeks.

 

Like many carbon based lifeforms, I don't take my own advice but have you though about finding a new hobby or talking to someone about how you feel.

Perhaps your GP could help?

[LancsLad]

Thomas, I personally suffer from clinical depression which is very cyclical. The thing I find most usefull is monitoring my mental health on a daily basis and rate it on a 1 to 10 scale which I see very much as a ladder. Over time I have included half levels as I have become more attuned with using the system.

 

For me a level 1 would be when I am suicidal, and there have been instances in my life where I have been in a secure unit for this issue. Level 2 is a very empty place where I feel I am loosing control other my thought processes etc... At each level of the ladder I know what I am capable of doing through experience. For example as a designer I know there is no point in trying to be creative at anything below level 5 but at level 4 I can do routine design tasks such as annotating up ideas, rendering in work etc. At level 3 the only work I would ever consider doing would by tidying up my computer files, priniting stuff off etc. I very rarely get above level 7 in my life and the only time I was at the top of the ladder was at the birth of my son which I have set as a benchmark 10.

 

By using this ladder scale on a daily basis I am very aware of which way I am trending at any one time either upwards or downwards. What I will say is that when I get to level 5 and below structure in my life becomes really important even more so if I am going down rungs. I have found that I would rather be without medication and have my faculties about me to monitor my health on a daily basis rather than what was for me a very flat experience on medication. The one thing I have found as a replacement to medication is exercise. When I decided to give up medication I knew there were going to be bad times ahead of me where I would get depressed but that structure and discipline was something which based on my own evidence always helped the situation.

 

What I now do is when I am at level 3 I simply make myself follow a very structured regime, of getting up at a regular time, getting breakfast, checking e-mails, going out for a run, recording training, etc... and simply work through my day. A lot of the time this does not make me feel better about myself, depression is too strong a condition for that but I know I am doing something proactive rather than sucumbing to its negative draw. I know that in most instances I will work out of this even if in the short term the trend is still downwards. Often the time to develop routines is when we are feeling better about ourselves and our mental health is at a good place, a case of preventative self medication.

 

Where I find this discipline from I am not too sure as when I am on a good mental footing I am a very creative and spontaneous type of person in reality, and structure is something I would not naturally call my normal approach to life. If there is a reason I think it is because I know what it feels like to be really low and no concern at all if my life was to end tomorrow. I am not in denial about this nor my depression which is a big part of my make up. I have a wonderfull partner and son and as such I feel I owe it to them to do everything I can to ensure I am here to support them as they do me. I know what I can not do is wait untill things are very low in my life and then and only then want to do something about it because at that point I might not. So for me the only way is to work hard on my mental health every single day. At the end of the day I believe it is about taking responsibility for yourself, we all know what we should do to make things better for ourselves and its about getting a grip and hauling our bodies and mind into action even if for me that might mean spending 2 hours doing something which I could do in 10 minutes in better times.

 

Just a few thoughts, we all struggle at times because we are human.

[SidiousUK]

I've been stuck in a rut for 2 weeks now.

 

Really can't be bothered with much and everything is a major effort.

 

Think I should speak to GP and tell them that the meds seem to have stopped working now.

 

LancLad,

You reached a 10 at the birth of your son.

 

My empathy quota is very low due to my AS and when my daughter was born I was about a 3!

 

All I could think of was the 18 year millstone around my neck, constant visits from family (which was a real pain) and another mouth to feed.

I only reached a 10 when I was about 14.

 

One of the family dogs had been very very ill and was being kept at the vets. One the day of my birthday, I came home to the best surprise present I have ever had. The dog was back and was all better!

 

SidiousUK

[LancsLad]

Sidious the 10 being the top of the scale for how I felt emotionally. The point being this is by far the happiest point in my life and so I give it a maximum score of 10. The lowest point 1 being given for when I have tried to take my own life. My ladder scale them fills in the space between these two emotional extremes in my life. Hope this makes a bit more sense.

[thomas mg]

LancsLad, if i was to apply your scale I would say I spend 90 % of my time in a state of melancholy around level 4. Somewhere between joy and despair, but not severe enough to consider suicide. Luckilly (?) I've only been a level 1 a couple of times or in a place where I would consider suicide. Its more the lethargy than the actual depression per sae thats the problem, however the depression is a strong component of it. Most of the time I feel completely tired and sapped of energy. If I want to do something simple like read a book I cant accomplish it because the walls of text seem like a mountain to read and the pages feel like ton weights.

 

Is it just me that gets this?

[LancsLad]

I would say I spend a lot of time at my level 4/5 threshold which can be reasonably productive. When at level 4 I simply work through a lot of routine stuff. For example at this level I can train for triathlon as all the basis structure to my training has been predefined at an earlir date when my mental state was pretty good so its a case of simply executing the sessions which can amount for 20 hours a week. At level 3 I simply make sure I do one hours of exercise as a minimum and not worry too much about the quality of it, rather I drag my ###### out of the house. A lot of the time I make a start and can do a decent session but I put no pressure on myself.

 

At level 4 I can come on this forum and interact but might be a bit carefull of which posts to reply to. When I am a bit lower at my level 3 I know I have to be a bit more carefull as things are harder and so I write my responses in microsoft word and look at them over a couple of hours to see if they seem fair and balanced and with this check in place I post them into the forum. So if my post is littered with spelling mistakes you can work out I am fine.

 

It may well be the case that my own clinical depression moves around levels a lot more than many peoples and as such I need to work harder at managing it on a day by day basis. What I will say is that when it is fine I try and do a lot and take advantage of the situation. I know a few manic depressives and to be honest it is not as severe as that in terms of a roller coaster of emotions, I do not get their extreme highs rather it tends to swing in phases over a period of a couple of days or so into a new state and with a lot of effort i can kind of push it back in the right direction.

 

The only time when I would fit your own description Thomas of 90% melancholy would be whilst I was on medication for depression. To be honest I would rather face a few level 2 periods and have a similar amount of time at levels 6 and 7 to re-ignite my passions that to go back to those drug induced flat periods of my life, but thats a personal position and one I do not expect everyone to agree with.

[thomas mg]

I think you have to remember at the same time joy and depression are abstractions. We all have our own expectations from life from which we base them on. Level 4 does not mean to me necessarilly what it may mean to you, so its really kinda arbitrary.

 

Suffice to say the issue is causing me enough grief to start a thread about it, so it is a problem. If i can overcome this thing, then the missing parts of my lifes jigsaw could fall into place.

Edited March 26, 2012 by thomas mg

[LancsLad]

Thomas I fully respect your position and how you feel and that anything is relative to your own experiences. I agree that these things are abstractions and we live in a society which seems to be far too preocuppied with trying to find happiness, personally content would be a more achievable top end goal for me and many others.

 

Going back to your first post I think there are often lots of life elements which can contribute to our own levels of stress, then anxiety which can lead to levels of depression which is a response to a feeling of not being in control of ones own life.

 

I am in a very fortunate position where I can choose a lot of things which make up my lifestyle. In many ways I see my own mental health as being 'the' most important aspect in my life and my partner shares this belief. As a result I have been able to minimise negative influences which has had a significant impact on my overall well being. I know if I had to go out and work at a job which held no positive attraction for me simply to pay the mortgage things might be very different in my life. I think it is in areas such as this where we have to be realistic. Life is about making compromises I do not believe however they should have an ongoing negative impact to the point where we find it difficult to get enjoyment out of anything, let alone get close to striking a balance in our lives.

 

I think it might be the case that you take a look at where you think your energy is being spent in your life Thomas. I think at times it is very easy for us to give too much away to others and leave too little back for ourselves. By being a bit more selfish and getting closer to a better life balance it is possible in the long run we might have a bit more to offer in future by conserving energy today. I think when we get flat it is the mental energy which is the first thing to go, at these points my routines act as a holding pattern, what I would say is that diet is an important factor to get right when I am like this. I try to make sure I keep off alcohol and starchy heavy foods and try and put good quality fuel into my body which I believe is really important.

 

Mental health is a massive part of my own jigsaw and one around which I have built my life. I think we need to be realistic about our capabilities and also understand that there needs to be some spare capacity built in otherwise life events can often push us a bit too far and it often needs extra energy to get us back on track. All too often when we are running at full capacity we never seem able to claw our way back to a better place. Thomas if you have been like this for a good period of time and feel stuck it might be time to try and change something to take some of the pressure off. I say this having experience two severe mental breakdowns which led to me having to retire somewhat prematurely from my chosen career. In hindsight I should have seen things were slowly going down hill and done something to protect myself, instead I risked an awfull lot by trying to maintain a far too demanding lifestyle. I was looking after the interests of everyone else and totally neglecting my own, hope you are not making the same mistake.

 

Best wishes.

[oxgirl]

Sorry, haven't had time to read all the responses.

 

The one tip I can recommend for lack of motivation and lethargy is to just set yourself one, very achieveable task per day, something that you know you can cope with and succeed at. I find that if I have too much to do, then I can very easily become overwhelmed with it 'ALL' and I end up doing nothing because the weight of all the things hanging over me to do just seems to sap my strength and resolve.

 

I would avoid writing lists of things that you need to do, again, they can feel daunting and too much and add pressure, which, certainly in my case, leads on to becoming almost paralysed and incapable of completing anything at all. Also, don't set yourself too much or set something that is too challenging that can lead to failure. It has to be something that you can easily achieve.

 

So each day, decide that you are going to achieve ONE thing, whether it be hoovering one room or writing one letter or cleaning one sink, or whatever it might be. It might be helpful to set a time that you are intending to do the task or it might be better for you to be flexible. For me, I prefer to know when I'm going to do something and to plan it out, so I'll say to myself, I'll have lunch and then I'll hoover and then when I've achieved that one task I feel a lot better, like I've succeeded at something.

 

~ Mel ~