Ball & Chain

Depression is a real drag. (No pun intended.)

The truth is, it’s hard for me to do anything most of the time. It varies in intensity from day to day; but I usually suffer from a chronic case of laziness and lack of motivation.

When I say it effects everything, I mean everything. It’s really rare for me to be able to focus on anything. Things that I can focus on are hard to start as well. I rarely ever start things purely on my own motivation. A good example is crochet. I can crochet for hours, but it’s rare for me to start purely on my own. I love art related activities in general. I usually have encouragement from another person when I get around to them. Even then, it is very hard for me to start. Almost everything makes me feel like I’m dragging a ball and chain around.

Homework is hard to do. Well, I guess that is an under statement. I grew up with various people helping me do my homework up until college. I really doubt I would have gotten as far as I did through high school and before without that help. I think my worst year was the 6th grade. I actually don’t know how I got out of it. It’s a miracle they didn’t hold me back. I did literally almost nothing in that year.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a solid form of depression back when I was in grade school. I was probably more lazy than depressed. I feel like I was better at doing things that required me to memorize a lot of info. I think things were less of a drag to me back then. My first year of college after things started going downhill with my best friends my depression started kicking in. I completely bombed my first year of college after high school. I mean straight across the board E’s. I had no motivation to really try and I had no clue what I wanted to do for a career at all. I was paralyzed mentally and couldn’t unfreeze myself. The college was even kind enough to let me repeat my first semester, but I couldn’t do it. I had no discipline. I took 3 years off after that and it’s been an on and off struggle when it comes to motivation ever since I returned to school. I also have a huge problem with procrastination. No doubt caused by my lack of motivation.

I know very well that it is impossible to get anything done when you are waiting for the perfect opportunity to come around. That perfect mood so many of us are waiting for is a fantasy. That opportunity will almost never come around. The sad fact is that you have to push through it, and that can feel nearly impossible sometimes. The fact that I haven’t failed every semester will tell you that I am in fact capable of working hard. I have pushed through before. Like I said, it’s hard for me to start stuff, but once I get into things I can usually stick with a lot of things and pull through if I know how. In school I don’t always know how, and that has a real impact on my motivation, and of course my performance. Stuff like writing large papers, and any form of math or hard thinking in general is really hard for me to push through. I’ve had to face failure quite a few times because a lot of the time I just can’t bring myself to do hours of homework a lot of the time.

The few times I have managed to push through that stress were some of the most rewarding in the end though. Though, the effort made me feel like I was slipping into insanity in some cases while I was working. The things that confuse me are usually the things that end up causing me the most trouble. Procrastination and I are best friends too often. When I defeat procrastination, it feels great.

Enough about school for now. I will get more into that in another post.

Believe it or not, I even struggle with fun things. I have this really big problem with skipping through things. I skip through books, I skip through music, and I even skip through Netflix shows. Sometimes I am just to eager to get to the point and find out what is going to happen. This is also one of the side effects of when I fail. When my lack of motivation, laziness, and procrastination end in failure; I am often a little too eager to get back into fun. I then end up becoming impatient and try to hurry through that fun. I am in a hurry with a lot of things. That probably doesn’t help my motivation.

I’m not impatient with everything mind you. I’m actually extremely patient with a lot of things and in a lot of situations. I’ll elaborate on that some other time.

Relationships are mostly out of the question for me. Most of the time I have very little or no motivation to socialize. Even when I want to, the drag I feel is nearly impossible to resist. It’s rare for me to want to spend time with people and to be honest, I don’t really enjoy the process of making friends. I’d rather just keep the ones I already have most of the time. Sometimes I meet people I want to be friends with, and even talk to a lot; but that is very rare. I hardly ever talk to anyone except for people online. Random people, not friends. I don’t even talk to my family that much to be honest. The time and effort it takes to make relationships drags me down a lot and I’m kind of awkward. I value relationships I do make so much that it hits me extremely hard when I lose them. It’s hard for me to relate to a lot of people and I’m not particularly knowledgeable in anything. I get so confused when trying to form new relationships that my anxiety kicks in and I end up having to give up a lot of the time; on a lot of non family relationships. I don’t even have the motivation to talk to my best friends.

When I find a guy I like it’s a bit different, but I think I should talk about that in a separate post.

This might sound weird, I don’t know. The things I usually want to do the most are sometimes just as hard to do as the things I don’t want to do. Like what I said above about art. I always want to do art related stuff, but it’s so hard for me to actually start and do it. I don’t particularly dislike learning or even being social. It’s just very hard to navigate the difficulty, confusion and my lack of motivation. I should probably mention that I hate cooking. I eat pretty healthy despite that fact. One thing I do have a lot of motivation and respect for is staying healthy. You only have one body and you should take care of it. I highly encourage people to prioritize health. Not just physical health, but mental health and if you are spiritual, spiritual health too. Those make up your entire life.

Anyway, I think my brain is trying to quit now. This was really hard for me to write. I knew I absolutely had to push myself however. I try extra hard with certain things like this, and my French study. I’ve actually made improvements in both. Also, this might surprise you, but exercise is one of the things I have the least amount of struggle with. Well, maybe not, considering what I wrote above. I still have to push myself, but I’ve managed to become better about fitness. That is a huge triumph for me. I used to never exercise.

I am slowly learning to push through things. I still have a long way to go with everything though.

Grammar advice and corrections are welcome on anything I write. I am no pro at writing. I just love to write.