Am I depressed or just lazy?
Lachrymose Loungers! Graham here.
First off, thanks to the many(!) of you who sent in such encouraging words in response to the guest post from Amie. That issue struck a deep, collective feelings nerve.
This response in particular got me:
“I was recently admitted to hospital and am about to try ECT, so to say your words are timely is a bit of an understatement… Thanks especially for helping me feel seen and breaking down some of the aloneness that comes with being in hospital.”
Another reminder of just how profoundly tender this little club is.
I’ve passed all your feedback onto Amie. More guest posts to come I think.
Meanwhile…
It’s time, people.
Time for issue #2 of the Existential Crisis Line. The world’s least regular advice column (that offers very little actual advice).
Woop!
Check out issue #1 over here.
This week, two related questions:
Q. As people who have dealt with mental illness, how do you find the personal 'oomph' to keep going with your projects? So much of my time seems to be talking myself down from things or forcing myself to kick into gear and work. Do you ever feel like it's a war of attrition? — Anonymous
Q. Am I lazy and unproductive or depressed? And what if I'm both? How do I get myself to do things again? — Michie
I relate strongly to both these questions right now...
It’s somehow May already, and I feel like I still haven’t really ‘done’ anything this year.
A few months back I wrote a piece for the ABC partly on this topic. The brief for the piece was, ‘how do we plan our personal goals and achievements in another unpredictable, COVID-affected year?’
But here’s the thing. As a sensitive cat, it can sometimes feel like every year is an unpredictable year.
If you’re prone to a certain degree of introspection (who, moi?) sometimes you have the ‘oomph’ to keep going (as our anonymous questioner put it). And sometimes you’re going to spend most of your day wondering not only where’d the oomph go, but just what was the point of all that oomph in the first place.
You never really know what it’ll be.
The war of attrition
And then there’s the life stuff that pours in and derails your best laid plans. Health issues. Mental health crises (your own, and people you love). Break ups. Loss of loved ones.
A global pandemic.
Life stuff that either makes all your projects and goals much harder to focus on, or else makes them seem just plain insignificant.
So to answer Anonymous’ question (‘do you ever feel like it’s a war of attrition?’), my answer would be: ‘Oh yes. Regularly.’
There are two situations where it doesn’t feel like a war
In fact, I’ve recently realised there are really only two situations where it doesn’t feel like a war.
Those rare times when the moons align and I have the right project with the right people at a time when I have the energy for it.
Those times where I lay down arms and stop trying to ‘do’ so much.
1. Those rare times when the moons align
Examples of this include our ABC podcast, No Feeling is Final (the right project at the right time with the right people) and certain periods in Big Feels Club history.
In fact, it seems those moons are aligning again lately, with Honor back from working on the Royal Commission into Mental Health, and long-time feelings mentor Gareth Edwards joining us in recent weeks to help us cook up plans for where we take the Big Feels Club next. (More on that as it happens. Stay tuned.)
But these times when the moons align are far from typical. And they always feel like a fluke.
This means I can spend many months waiting for another one of those periods. Going through the motions, feeling like I’m not really living up to my potential. And feeling like all this makes me less than a viable human.
Which brings me to the only other situation in which I feel I get some respite from this war of attrition…
2. Those times where I lay down arms and stop trying to 'do' so much
Last week, despite the moons aligning and me having multiple deadlines I genuinely did want to meet, I suddenly lost my oomph again.
Someone had turned up the gravity in my bedroom, and I was spending most of my days in bed.
Which brings us to Michie’s question…
‘Am I lazy and unproductive or am I depressed?’
I know this question intimately Michie, because it was running through my own mind all last week.
For me, there’s another question attached to it. ‘Am I depressed because I’m lazy and unproductive?’
So even if I was depressed in the first place, am I now stuck in a loop of my own making?
I’m depressed so I do less. And because I’m doing less, I get more depressed…?
I think there may be some truth in this, for me at least. I’ve been craving a bit more structure recently, more things I can point to at the end of each day and say, ‘well, at least I did that.’ So I’m in the process of figuring out what that structure might look like for me just now, taking into account the things that are seemingly out of my control. (Like the level of gravity in my bedroom.)
But at a certain point, I need to stop the war. (At least for a little while.)
Back to last week, where I struggled to do much of anything you might call ‘productive.’
I ended up writing two words in my journal at the top of a fresh page, in all caps:
‘DEEP REST.’
It’s an old line about depression. That when you’re depressed, it’s your body’s way of telling you what you need: ‘deep rest.’
When I wrote these words, I was feeling particularly overcome by big feelings. Sadness, on top of my usual ever-present fear. A tender, hurt bruise in my heart. A heaviness to the world.
I knew why it was happening, kind of. In that way that we sort of know what’s going on, but we never quite know why it hits us when it does, or why it’s suddenly so overwhelming.
A sad thing had happened a couple of weeks before, which at the time I’d thought hadn’t affected me all that much. (‘Sad, scary life stuff? Pffft. I’m sad and scared all the time, what else ya got??’) Until it did affect me. Deeply. All at once.
The words ‘DEEP REST’ were a kind of prescription for myself. Giving myself permission to lie in bed another few days and focus mainly on one simple task: getting through at least two seasons of The Sopranos.
(It’s good to have goals.)
Of course, you can bet within half a day of writing myself that prescription, I was back to doubting the whole approach. Am I wasting my talents? Am I just not contributing to society? Should I just get a regular job and stop wallowing in all these feelings?
So I'd keep coming back to what I’d written in my journal.
The heart of the question: ‘is this allowed?’
To me this is the heart of Michie's question.
In one sense, the phrase ‘am I depressed?’ is just our culture’s latest version of a much older question when it comes to big feelings: ‘is this allowed?’
The guilt and uncertainty that come with big feelings. The question of ‘am I allowed to feel this way?’
Because if I am allowed to feel this way (this sad or this numb or this scared or whatever it may be) then maybe I might just allow myself to respond in the only way that feels appropriate to these big feelings.
To curl up in a ball and say ‘ooooouuuchhhh!’
But if I’m not allowed to feel this way, then I’m sure as shit not allowed to respond to that feeling in a way that feels tender and caring, because through that lens, it’s just self-indulgence.
I’m not even sure what the answer is here. Maybe it’s not really this black and white, in practice. I know the ‘bed and Sopranos’ routine can only hold up for so long.
(There are only six seasons of the show, for one thing.)
But I also know that in those moments when I can give myself permission to respond in a way that feels appropriate to my big feelings (instead of pretending I’m fine, and just getting on with things) something feels different. I don’t suddenly feel any less sad or heavy or tired, but there’s more room for whatever’s happening.
It’s not a prescription for feeling ‘better’. It’s something else.
It’s more like a permission slip, for really feeling whatever it is I’m feeling.
The question of whether or not this has value to you right now is not a question I can answer. I don’t even know quite what value it has to me yet, but I’m curious to see where it takes me.
One last thought: taking it less personally, when you can
One thing I’m trying through all this lately: taking it less personally, when I can.
Those magic times when I’m super productive? I’ve been really noticing lately just how much of that is out of my control. The right project at the right time with the right team. External conditions I can look out for in future, but that I can’t just conjure up out of nowhere.
And then there’s the really big stuff we can’t control, like the ongoing pandemic. All of which can leave you wondering, as you put on your life drag and start your workday… what’s the point of all this again?
It’s hard not to take all this personally when you think you’re the only one struggling to soldier on as usual. So perhaps that’s the main thing I can offer here, the main thing we ever offer at Big Feels. The reminder that it ain’t just you.
As I said to a dear friend the other day, who’s been wrestling with this same ‘what’s the point again?’ stuff I have, and wondering if it makes her an irredeemable weirdo:
‘If I’m using myself as the template, you are the most normal person I know.’
So I’ll end on that dubious compliment, extended to you all.
Thanks for your questions.
I’d love to hear your thoughts
Share your thoughts on this issue, or send a question of your own with the pink button below.
(No Sopranos spoilers plz.)
