our hell is a good life

[erika]

So I've talked to my therapist, my psychiatrist, and just about anyone else who would sit still (or be tied down) long enough to listen about feeling apathetic.

Some of the ideas were totally wrong ("think about the people who have it worse off than you"? Really?) and some of them have been helpful.

Some of the ideas that have been helpful were:

• Take the time to mindfully connect more often to the things you do care about. I love my dogs, so I have been spending more time playing with them. I feel better when I see my friends more often, so I've been making a point to see people outside my house at least twice a week.


• Relate the things you care about to things that you want to care about but don't. For example, relating my success at school with the pleasure that my family & friends take in my success at school helps me feel a little pleasure from it.


• Talking to my psychiatrist—he upped my Wellbutrin, and hopefully we'll see an effect from that soon. I'm reluctant to admit it, but I think it may be time to try something else—maybe over the summer. The problem is that my current meds keep me functional, if not anywhere close to normal, so I don't want to go off them and maybe not get even as much relief as I have now from something else. And I'm on so much that my psychiatrist is hesitant to add anything else, though we've tossed around adding Lithium or Lamictal. For now I think he wants to wait and see if it's related to the season and/or if the Wellbutrin change will fix it.


• Not fighting so hard against taking my PRNs. If I need the klonopin, I need it, so be it. I'm not a substance abuser just because I'm using what's prescribed to me.
  Related: taking my medication on TIME, DAMNIT.


• Letting go of my perfectionism. This is really, really hard and I'm still working on it, but the gains I've realized from it have been immense. i.e. I can actually turn in homework now. Not beating myself up for doing something "other" than what I "should" be doing is also a tremendous relief.


• I don't even want to admit this to the point of talking about it on my list, but let's just say that my low self-esteem and "it doesn't matter" attitude were ingrained in me early in life by abuse, and addressing the truth and effects of that has been probably the most productive thing I've done to get me engaged in life again.


• Telling my therapist I needed weekly sessions.

Things that have not been so helpful:

• Forcing myself to do the things anyway. I CAN do them, which is different from when I was full-blown depressed, I just still don't care.


• Thinking about people that have it worse off than me and would kill to be in my position. (Not kidding, this was someone's suggestion.) Uh... yeah. I'm just not gonna do that, because that's a great way to get me suicidal for days. ("I don't deserve to be alive" yadda yadda.)

Comments

[rydra_wong]

For now I think he wants to wait and see if it's related to the season and/or if the Wellbutrin change will fix it.

Upping the Wellbutrin does sound like a good thing to try first, given the dopamine factor.

Do you think there's a seasonal element?

ETA: Er, not commenting on other aspects because there's not much I can contribute except to nod a lot and say that I'm listening. But I realized belatedly that silent listening doesn't come across very well online.

[enotsola]

The problem is that my current meds keep me functional, if not anywhere close to normal, so I don't want to go off them and maybe not get even as much relief as I have now from something else.

Can completely understand this feeling.

Letting go of my perfectionism. This is really, really hard and I'm still working on it, but the gains I've realized from it have been immense. i.e. I can actually turn in homework now.

I swear, most people I know with mental issues are so compounded by perfectionism. And if I can't get it good enough, then I'm completely unmotivated. I don't want anyone to see anything I've done unless it is better than I can generally manage. And so instead, I curl into a ball and hide because I'm just not good enough. Of course, I'm not getting the right feel of this out in words. And the urge is there to just delete the comment, which is generally why I never comment anywhere. It is obvious to me that nothing I say will contribute in a worthwhile way, so why bother.

Thinking about people that have it worse off than me and would kill to be in my position.
Yeah, not so much. I'm unworthy of even what I do have, and maybe if I weren't here, someone more deserving could get some of it. Of course, that's logically nonsense. Doesn't change it though.

[msilverstar]

good luck in this!