When Depression Kills My Motivation

I have a kind of depression called Dysthymia or Persistent Depressive Disorder. It’s a kind of depression that has less of the ups and downs most people think of when they think of depression. I’m pretty much always depressed and, of course I have times that are better or worse, but my mood is always lower than it should be. In some ways this type of depression is easier than Major Depressive Disorder in that I don’t often have huge dips. In other ways it’s harder because it’s so relentless. It’s always with me.

One of the symptoms of Dysthymia that I find the hardest to deal with is the way it kills my motivation. I’ve been trying to get myself to sit down and write a blog post for days now. It only takes about an hour to write a post usually and I’m not currently working so I should have plenty of time to do this. But I’ve just been so distractible. And it’s not like this is a task I don’t want to do. I like writing, a lot.

It’s not just writing I’ve been procrastinating on. I’ve been jonesing for some BBQ meatballs for almost a week now. I bought all the ingredients last week. The only thing that finally motivated me to make them was the use by date on the beef. Apparently my fear of food-borne illness is stronger than my depression.

This struggle is additionally complicated by my physical illnesses. When I feel utterly exhausted, it can be very hard to tell if the cause is my depression or if my body is legitimately worn out and needs rest. If it’s the latter and I push too hard it can take weeks to recover. Fear of that outcome makes me hesitant to push myself, even when I suspect the problem is depression.

I have a couple of strategies that can help me deal with this. Some are coping mechanisms for depression in general but some are specifically aimed at helping with motivation. One thing I do that seems to help is forcing myself to go outside, especially if the sun is out. If the weather is nice, I’ll just go sit outside for awhile. If it’s cold, I’ll try to go for a short walk or do a small bit of yard work. It’s been important for me to be clear about the goal here. The goal is not the yard work or the walk, success is measured simply by if I got myself to go outside. Not how much I get done while I’m out there. As an example I just forced myself to go outside and rake some leaves. The amount of the yard I raked doesn’t even begin to put a dent in it, but that wasn’t the goal. The goal was to go outside, and so this venture was a complete success.

Another thing I sometimes do is make an extremely long to-do list of all the things I could possibly do that would be helpful in any way. Then I look through the list and find the thing that looks the least horrible and do that. Then I can check something off a list, which always feels good. This kind of thing helps me to take some baby steps. I might not accomplish the most important things on my list but I can at least accomplish something.

When there are specific things I need to get done I will ask for help. For instance if I really need to exercise I’ll ask my husband to help me get to the gym. He has no problem with this task most of the time so he is more than happy to drag me along. This is another situation where the success is simply in doing it, not in how much I get done while I’m there. Even if all I do is my warm up that’s more than I would have done otherwise. We call that a success.

Another important part of my strategy for this is being kind to myself, because honestly I fail often. My husband and I have created a culture in our house of over-the-top encouragement. It’s pretty silly sometimes and we started doing it half as a joke but we’ve both found it to be incredibly helpful. I can’t tell you how often the phrase ‘you’re a champion’ gets thrown around at our house.

All these things help me some of the time. Other times I struggle to get anything done. I hope to continue finding helpful strategies and in the meantime I will continue to be kind to myself and do what I can manage.