Motivation

Motivation

This post is not meant to diagnose, treat, or save you from mental illness, if you or someone you love is in danger, please get help. You can text HOME to 741741 to be connected with a crisis counselor. I personally have.

http://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts

Where do I start? Where do I find the motivation to discuss motivation, when I myself struggle with getting out of bed in the morning. Firstly, I would say that it is normal, only in my manic state do I find getting up in the morning easy. That is simply because I have a massive amount of serotonin rushing into my body. I don’t know what to write about today, I was hoping maybe it would just come to me; but as I sit here with the keys and my coffee, I am at a loss for motivation reader. Some days I feel as though I can take on the world, and others, I just want to give up and let all of the troubles pile on and wash over me.

I am trying a new tactic: scheduling my time in hour blocks. I am fortunate enough to have a husband/partner who will sit down with me the night before, and go over some of the things I am thinking about accomplishing, even if I really don’t want to. This breaks up my day into hour blocks that I can refer back to. Feeling like I am on track for doing what I set out to do, leaves me with a sense of accomplishment. That sense is usually hard to find for those of us with depression. We sit and toil over the things we cannot change, because there is nothing that gives us pleasure. Our receptors are blocked in the area that creates the serotonin that feeds our energy core.

What I can say that works for me, is breaking up big tasks into smaller tasks. Mind you this doesn’t always work, but it makes the things I do not want to do in depression seem less daunting and unobtainable. I start with my schedule, if it says “blog” I need to first get my coffee and sit down and the computer. Then I pull up the website and get myself to a blank new post. I then look at the blank page and the keyboard. I begin brainstorming what it is that is weighing heavily on my mind. What things can I put down in words that may help someone else who is like me.

There are many road blocks that get in the way when I am trying to complete a task while in depression. My brain starts feeding me the “what ifs”: “What if no one ever reads my posts”, “what if this is a waste of my time?”, “what if I can never get the website to work correctly”, “what if I put my words out into the world and others are mean and harsh and they use my words against me?”. The “what ifs” can go on forever. I instead have to stop my brain, either by imagining a stop sign, or by saying “stop” aloud for my own ears to hear it. This method works well with may different overthinking episodes.

So after I kill all the “what ifs” that I have allowed to take up space, rent free, in my head, I next try to shift my thoughts to one thing at a time. I have to find a way to force myself to slow down. For example, I am currently typing with my left hand only, in order to clear my mind from racing ahead and skipping the main topic that I am trying desperately to get to for you. Sometimes it takes these little tips and tricks in order for our mentally ill brains to be able to accomplish anything.

I want to tell you that you are doing great by just trying. You are doing amazing for staying alive each and every day. Battling what you go through is not easy. Mental illness is not a choice, because I can assure you that we all want to be “normal”. But find what works for you and stick to it. Whether its a favorite tv show that you can look forward to at the end, a walk you know you love to take when you are feeling great, that friend that always makes you feel better, that book you read once that brought you so much joy, or that video game that you can immerse yourself in for hours and hours. ALL of those things are the coping skills that keep us alive, keep us going, and make up who we are as a whole.

What I have had to learn: is what coping skills to use for which symptom I am having. For example, on days when I am having a depressive episode, I know that I need a nap. This is not the same case for me when I am feeling manic, as I can not sleep hardly at all without routine and medication. Find what works for you, and give yourself time to learn it. Once you find a good day, take those few things that worked and repeat them. Write down the things that make you happy when you are happy, and do those same things when you are sad. Regardless if you want to or not. These skills will create new pathways in your brain for a new course that is healthier than the one that came before it. For one of the reasons you cannot find motivation is that you have fallen into an unhealthy pattern of living again. Give yourself some time and try one new thing at a time that may bring you joy. Over time, the little things really do add up to big things.

-A Manic Monday