Talking...my own personal, easily attainable therapy

Do you ever find yourself clinging to things that are therapeutic to you? Things that help dissipate the horrible *depression* feelings (or lack thereof) and make you feel more "normal" or "human" or "not mentally diseased"?

I do.

And the number one thing that I find to be therapeutic? Talking things out. For me, if I can express it verbally, whatever "it" happens to be, it always seems to leave my brain and let me focus on other things.

And the talking can happen with almost anyone... my mom, my friends, my counselor, and sometimes, yes, even strangers. Obviously I tell different sorts of things to different people, depending on how much I know them and how much I think they'll understand. Strangers obviously don't get the really detailed stuff that my close friends and family, or my counselor for that matter, would get.

But, all the same, talking about things has always been a sure means of therapy for me. And I've found that talking to strangers...that is, people who don't know me or my situation well...is someone incredibly therapeutic at times. That's one reason I like counselors so much. They are strangers when you first go see them. They know nothing about you, and they are not in any way connected with your personal life. What's great about counselors is that even after they get to know you, they still are completely separate from your personal life, so in some ways, it's always like talking to a stranger...because they aren't connected to your life except for that hour every other week when you sit for a chat.

I should clarify here...because as I read over this post, it kinda sounds like I'm saying that I like chatting up random people about my life and my issues and whatever. That's not true at all. I define "stranger" in this case to mean someone I don't know very well, but whom I'm comfortable with. Like a friend of a friend, or someone. They get the title stranger because I haven't known them quite long enough to dub them "acquaintances" but they're most likely on their way to getting that distinction.

And these kinds of strangers are very therapeutic to talk with. About life, about ideas, about anything. Usually I don't get so far as to tell them I've got depression (reference former post about the taboo on depression in our society), but I talk about things that are linked to my depression...sort of selectively letting them in on bits of knowledge about me. Not too much, but just enough to be therapeutic for me, and keep up an interesting conversation with the person.

Hmmh, I feel like I'm rambling in this post. Not the kind of writing that I like...because I feel like I'm going nowhere, and only saying things to say them. However, in saying that talking is therapeutic for me, this blog also counts. I used to journal all the time, and my style of writing is to write as if I'm talking to someone. But a journal is never really read...and my hand always got cramped because I write a lot. (I also went through so many notebooks, it was getting a little ridiculous!) But here in my blog, I am actually talking to real people. Albeit, people I probably will never meet...*real* strangers, if you will. But nonetheless, I'm talking to someone as I write this. And so it's therapeutic for me because I'm verbalizing it. Putting it all to words and sending it out into the world, because that's all talking is, right?

I guess I have to wonder WHY talking is so therapeutic for me. What is it about verbal expression that makes me feel more at ease once I've done it? I said earlier that it's like the words pull the issue out of my brain as they leave my mouth (or in this case, my fingertips and keyboard). But I think it's gotta be more than just that. There's something amazingly wonderful to me about talking out problems and little issues...no matter how serious or not they actually turn out to be... And I'm so curious now as to WHY THAT IS.........

On fear and its affect in my life..

They say you should do at least one thing every day that scares you.

Okay. Sounds simple. There are many things that scare us, right? Little things, big things. The saying is certainly open for interpretation. But lately I find that those "things that scare me" are everyday things. Common responsibilities that people have to do everyday, or important items that will help make my life a lot better if only I did them. I suppose the saying still applies, it just seems that it suddenly applies in a way that wasn't originally intended...

Things that tend to scare me:
- paying my bills; reason: money is scary, not having enough money is scary, admitting to myself that I have to spend less money is scary, having to be responsible for my financial situation is scary
- taking my medication (well, this is an old fear that I've since dealt with); reason: admitting that I'm dependent upon a pill to control my moods and emotional state is scary because I takes control away from me and gives the control to the medication
- applying for jobs; reason: the rejection if they aren't interested in hiring me, the thought of doing something wrong - like applying for the wrong jobs or writing the wrong thing on my resume
- calling someone back (be it social or business or financial or whatever); reason: what if I run into something in the conversation that I wasn't prepared for or hadn't already thought through...what if I didn't know how to deal with the situation? - what would the person think of me?
- socializing (well, this fear is an on-again-off-again fear...it isn't always there); reason: what if I say something stupid, what if others judge me, what if they're all pretending to like me but really don't like me at all and talk about me when I'm not around, what if I make a fool out of myself and have no idea, what if I act in some way that I would judge others for?

Detect a pattern? Yeah, thought you might. But if you're not sure, let me help: the paranoia about 1) being judged or not liked and 2) doing things incorrectly. Ridiculous, right? But still there, nonetheless. And what do I do with these fears? They're not usually all-consuming (we are in summer right now, so I've got a much better grasp over these fears than I tend to have in the wintertime). But they are always there somewhere in the recesses of my brain, like a predator waiting to pounce. And that creates another fear: what happens when the "pounce" occurs? What if I can't handle it? What then?

Fear of the unknown. A fear we all share as a species. A very human fear. It requires a sentient being to worry about something that hasn't happened yet, something one can only speculate about, something waiting in a future that is impossible to predict.

And so, I take this saying to heart as I try to deal with these fears lurking in the shadows of my mind.

"Do at least one thing everyday that scares you."
- Today I called about 5 people that I needed to call. Was it scary once I got them on the phone? No. Everything was fine.
- Today I balanced my budget. Was it scary? Sure, a little. Money is scary. But I figured it out. I'll be okay.
- Today I started rearranging my resume. Was it scary? Sure, a little. I don't know exactly what words I'll use. But it's all good, I'll finish it tomorrow, and it will be fabulous.

What got the better of me? What didn't I do for fear of it?
- Applying to jobs. I have 8 of them in my email, waiting for me to write a cover letter and send them out. Did I do it? No. I'm afraid of it. I'm afraid of not ever finding a job...so you'd think I'd jump at applying for new ones. But I'm afraid to apply to the new ones. It got the better of me. I'll try harder tomorrow.
- Packing (I'm moving to a new apartment at the end of August). I'm scared of changing housing yet again. I'm scared of leaving my current roommate...the best roommate I've ever had, and one of the best friends I've had. My roommate and I get along so well together, we live well together. This year with my roommate has been so wonderful. And now, I have to leave. I have to start again with new roommates. I think I found a roommate situation that will work out well...but that unknown factor is still there. What if I'm horribly wrong, and my new roommates are a nightmare? I don't think that's the case...but regardless, neither of my new roommates is my current roommate. They'll never live up to the bar set by this roommate. I don't want to leave, I'm scared of changing.

Hmm. Another pattern emerges. I've already covered fear of the unknown. I guess with that fear comes the fear of change. They go hand-in-hand, right? Perhaps they're even different ways of describing essentially the same fear. Fear of change is simply a fear of leaving something familiar and dealing with something new and unknown. Fear of the unknown is really just a fear of something unfamiliar, a change in the familiar world of the present circumstances in which we live.

Then perhaps it's not that I'm afraid of all of these little details. I'm afraid of the unknown future before me. I'm afraid I can't handle the change that ultimately will occur in my life in the very near future. I'm afraid I won't know what to do with the new and unknown situations that exist in my unforeseeable future. I'm afraid I won't like the change that happens in my life.

So doing at least one thing everyday that scares me can apply to those details...the ways in which these larger fears manifest themselves in my everyday life. But I guess, on a broader scale, it means that I should face my fears of the unknown and of change every day. I should find new ways every day to cope with and perhaps overcome a bit more these underlying fears of what I can't predict and what I know has to change.

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And suddenly I get back to that place familiar place that every depression sufferer knows all too well: where is the line between where my depression affects my fears and where I'm a normal human-being with normal human-being fears? And how do I know the difference? And, really, when it comes down to it, does it really matter what the difference is if the depression is always there anyway?

Hmm...interesting thought, that. Does it matter whether a fear is caused by my depression or by the simple fact that I'm human like everyone else? On one hand, I'm inclined to think it doesn't matter. Like I said earlier: the depression is always there anyway. So it's just another cause of inevitable fears that others may or may not experience. On the other hand, though, I say it does matter, at least a little bit. The best way to learn to cope with your fears is to honestly assess the cause of said fears. What is the at the heart of those fears? Where are they coming from? Can I eliminate the source of the fears and therefore help eliminate the fears themselves? Or can I change a behavior to lessen the affect of a fear that will never truly go away (like fear of the unknown)?

If the cause of a fear is depression, then there's no away to avoid that. But I would approach coping with a fear due to depression differently than I would approach a fear due to a scary movie or a discernible and tangible danger. So, perhaps it is good to know where that line is...?
(You'll notice the ...? That would be my way of saying, "Yeah, I don't actually know the answer to that question.")

So, I conclude with that saying: do at least one thing everyday that scares you. For me, that could be taking care of everyday responsibilities, or facing broader fears that manifest themselves in the small daily life details, or dealing with some aspect of the complicated system that is my depression.

Depression can breed such bad habits...

How do you tell the difference between when you're apathetic because you're depressed and when you're apathetic because you're just lethargic and unmotivated?

For so many years, I've used lethargy and unmotivated as a way to escape from the horrible feeling I get when I'm depressed. Or should I say the horrible "unfeeling" since it's a lack of feeling really? And, now, well, I certainly can't say that I've found a way out of the depression. (Because that's not possible.) But I can say that I have found better ways of dealing with the depressive episodes. So, now I'm realizing that I have to deal with the habit of being lethargic and unmotivated to do anything. It's no longer a convenient way to hide from my depression...it's simply an annoying habit that deters me from feeling like I live each day to the fullest. And, as Chicago would say, it's "a hard habit to break."

Lethargy is like an addiction...and it's attached to so many home behaviors. I have a million ways of 'distracting' myself from things I need to get done. And I find myself wasting 3-4 hours at a time doing things to "calm down my brain" before I start in to the things I have to do. But my brain doesn't need calming down. Rather, my addiction to lethargy needs to be fed.

Oh, I find millions of justifications for why I didn't get something done on any given evening. But really, I hate the fact that I have such a hard time doing the everyday things that I'm responsible for. Most people think of drugs, alcohol, food, or eating disorders when they hear the word "addiction." But there are so many other things you can be addicted to. And I'm addicted to lethargy.

And I hate it. It just amazes me that it can be SO DIFFICULT to get myself to do something (anything) productive. When I really WANT to be productive. I WANT to get things done. I feel good when I accomplish things. Why is it so freakin' hard to get myself to do them?

It seems that this will be something for discussion with my counselor over the next few months...