Discussion Finding the will to act

[lavenderlilylies]

I'm not sure if this should be posted here or in the recovery tab, but there are more people here so..

there's this thing i heard somewhere on the internet, maybe you're familiar with it. That the issue for depressed people isn't that of willpower. On the contrary, the thing that keeps them somewhat functional is sheer willpower. As they don't have the motivation to do anything, there's no incentive, no reward, so when a depressed person gets out of bed, it's solely because of their willpower.

While I'm not diagnosed with anything, this perfectly describes my life. It takes everything in me to do the most basic things. And although I know doing certain things would make me happier, i simply can't bring myself to do it.

For a week or two, I'd have enough energy reserves to follow a set schedule. I'd wake up early in the morning and do the thing I have to do, even those I want to do sometimes. But my energy quickly dies down. And I'm back to barely being able to pull myself out of bed. And it takes me months to accumulate that same energy again.

I know this sounds like a bunch of lazy excuses, even to me. But I'm not looking for a perfect moment or a sudden burst of energy, when I finally get on top of my life it's not because "i feel like it", i just have the energy to get through things.

I can't get on meds or anything like that, but if you have any other tip or advice I'd very much appreciate it.

 

[Jadeith]

I know this sounds like a bunch of lazy excuses

Nope. It's a description of your condition, not an excuse. And afaik it's very similar for many others.

if you have any other tip or advice I'd very much appreciate it

In my case it's a sense of duty. I have other beings (be it animal or person) who heavily rely on me and that's what keeps me going.
Like - if you have a pet, don't rely on automatic feeder. Make schedule of feeding times and follow it to the letter because little one won't be able to survive w/o your help. If you have a person that relies on you, don't use doordash or similar services. Do the shopping yourself with that person in mind. If you don't have any family member or a friend, you can try to "adopt" one. Elderly neighbor, homeless or disabled person. If you can make yourself useful to someone, sense of duty will probably drag you out of bed even if in autopilot mode.

 

[quietism]

For a week or two, I'd have enough energy reserves to follow a set schedule. I'd wake up early in the morning and do the thing I have to do, even those I want to do sometimes. But my energy quickly dies down. And I'm back to barely being able to pull myself out of bed. And it takes me months to accumulate that same energy again.

That's really tough. I sympathise, I'm kinda stuck there too.

It's really challenging to set and keep to schedules when you can't reward yourself for it. Waiting for an external reward for something like that is basically wishing for a shooting star, unless you have a supportive friend who knows you well enough to coax you through with lots of encouragement.

Especially when rewards are unpredictable it's really hard to stick to any kind of regularity. Part of that is just the nature of homoeostasis working against better interests.

Yes, SMART goals and atomic habits are good ideas. Yes, they are boring, yes they are hard to make. This is all true. (I'm referring to the atomic habits book, by the way.)

Knowing I'll get a reward or something to look forward to is probably the single biggest motivator for me. So I just try to find positive things I can ration to use like that. The activities I can do that with, I find, tend to be what I perform best at.