I’ve been on a slow but steady decline for the past several years. I don’t move at all, barely leaving my room let alone the house; I’ve taken to eating shit I order out instead of cooking meals myself; I don’t get involved with any local orgs besides sending dues every month; I haven’t read a book in months; I regularly fail to perform bare minimum hygiene. The only reason I’m able to keep alive at all is because I haven’t moved out of my parents’ house, burdening them with helping me. It would be understandable if I was living hand to mouth and had barely any free time, but I am one of the small percent of burgers who isn’t a month away from destitution and I have more than enough free time. Not to mention I receive no shortage of help.
Since I can’t blame my material circumstances, I can only conclude that I am this way because I always refuse to take personal responsibility. I know that changing myself so that I can be, at bare minimum, not a drain on society is going to take a lot of work, work that I always put off due to cowardice. Idealist as it is, I feel like I have some innate metaphysical trait that makes me this way, and the entirety of my failure to pick myself up is due to a moral failing on my part and nothing more.
How do I force myself to unfuck myself so that I can actually be useful for revolution instead of yet another useless first world lotus eater?
The feelings you described are pretty much a textbook definition of depression. I would strongly suggest seeing a psychiatrist and basically showing them this post. Not only because there are many options of effective medication that exist today, but also because depression is often comorbid with other mental conditions.
The longer you exist in this state, the harder it becomes to come out of it on your own. Mental health professionals exist specifically to help and guide you through it.
Part of what makes this difficult is that I’ve been going to therapy, seeing a shrink, and trying various different prescriptions for years now. It’s at a point where I don’t know what else to do about it.
That really sucks then, I’m sorry to hear it. Since you’ve already tried (and should keep trying) different traditional methods, have you looked into psychedelics? I personally have had good lasting results with psylocibin, and there are now avenues for MDMA and ketamine therapy for depression.
As most others said, this is definitely clinical depression.
I’ve experienced extremely similar things, and am just now coming out of it (and it may be too early to declare victory). I see you’ve been getting help and it is ineffective. That is pretty common, sadly. Psychology is still in the dark ages.
I don’t have any perfect silver bullets for you. What I will say is that you are NOT broken, you’re not undisciplined, you’re not a piece of shit. We love you, and you’re worthwhile.
It can start off very small. Literally just get out of bed for the day and shower. If that’s all you can do, so be it. The notion that it’s all or nothing, fail or success, is not true when it comes to mental health. Brushing your teeth for 30 seconds once a day is far better than not at all. Rinsing off in the shower is miles better than not even attempting. 10 push ups is a step toward truly working out.
These are all very small things, intentionally. You literally cannot just pull yourself out of it in one swoop. It’s not possible for people like us (or anyone in this situation), and so you shouldn’t be down on yourself because of it or expect to be able to.
This was really ranty and probably all shit you’ve heard before and I apologize for that. These things might not even work for you. I just want you to know that if you keep trying, it will pass. Change is constant - dialectics! You’ve got it, my friend. It may not be soon, but it will get better. And those better days are worth living for.
I’m glad to hear you’re doing a bit better Teezy, best wishes to your continued recovery and reclamation of your life.
For me, when I start working out, it improves me and my live in multiple ways. Apart from the obvious health benefits:
- it makes me want to eat well
- it forces me to take hygiene seriously, because you don’t wanna be unwashed after having worked out
- it encourages me to have a good routine because I work out early in the morning
- it helps me quit smoking and drinking because it gets in the way of gaining muscle
- working out helps improve mental health because of some neurotransmitter/hormone/science bullshit
If you are in a rut you should think about getting into some kind of exercise routine. Simplest one is joining a gym and maybe getting a personal trainer if you can afford one. You can do other things too, like cycling or rock climbing so feel free to explore other options.
You will be useful to the revolution if you don’t feel like shit. Your parents will also appreciate you looking after yourself. So I highly recommend it.
For the past two years I barely worked out because of a back injury. Now I have almost completed the rehab and worked out for four days straight and feeling really well. My body is sore from neck down (except the core). It feels great. I am not an expert. The weights I lift are very modest and I also work out alone (the exercising itself and deciding the workout plan) by myself. But if you are hesitant feel free to shoot questions my way. I will try my best to help.
Part of the issue is getting myself to actually exercise, along with any other form of self care. It’s like something in the back of my mind paralyzes me whenever I consider doing something I know will make me feel better.
Interestingly enough, several years ago, when my self loathing was even stronger than it is now to the point I would basically be shouting at myself in my head most of the time, I managed to exercise pretty regularly.
Start extremely small. And I mean extremely. You can find motivation to do five push ups today, 100%. It might suck, but you can do it.
After you’ve accomplished those you’re not allowed to feel like “I could’ve done more, that was nothing”. You’re the fucking hero of today. What an accomplishment.
Tomorrow you do another five, repeat that for a week if you can, perhaps even a month. Some day you might feel like “eh, I can do 10 today”. Then you do that. If not, you don’t.
After a while you might feel like “Maybe I can do a very short slow walk today”. Then you do that. And if that never happens, you don’t. But perhaps instead you feel like “damn, I’m a person who have done push ups every day for 10 days. That person can akso brush his/her teeth every night”. Then you do that.
Perhaps you feel like that person can have a genuine conversation with their parents for five minutes listening to their day. Now you’re suddenly that person as well. You know what more that person does? Helps out with cooking once a week.
Small good habits, that you credit yourself for, can help build other great habits. And even if they don’t, and you just manage to do those 5 push ups a day. Well, that person beats one who doesn’t!
Edit: Push ups can be substituted for basically anything. Sit ups, burpees, talking a short walk inside your room, meditating, you name it. Anything that’s quick, and “good” for you. That you need to push yourself to do.
Are you much of a gamer? Because playing Ring Fit Adventure is the only exercise I do most days. I absolutely don’t have the willpower or know-how to invent an exercise routine and stick to it so gamifying fitness helps me stay active. The completionist drive in me is stronger than all my other impulses I think. Plus, being able to work out alone in the basement at 3am is convenient. The Wii Fit games are good too and I believe cheaper.
Let me agree.
When things feel out of control, focus on small things you can control: sleep at the time you decide to, exercise the time you decide to, meditate the time you decide to, get pen and paper, write down everything that comes to your mind, be aware of when your mind go to places you don’t want it to, volunteer and support those that are close to you selflessly. And then maybe you get closer to finding yourself.
But if you have the means, professional therapy, for sure!
Don’t have much to add, and I don’t want to sound like “just take a walk bro” but I was going through some similar stuff a while back, and what worked for me was the following. Obviously, medical help is always best.
First I carefully and deliberately dropped all the meds my leech of a shrink put me on based on a horrible misdiagnosis. Obviously don’t do this without a lot of care and consideration, but it was an important bit of the journey because both being on chemicals and dropping them clearly affected my brain.
Then I spent a whole lot of time walking around in my city trying to understand it first hand. Y’know, finding spots where homeless people are safer, where to forage food, places where actual nature still exist and where it has either been destroyed or turned into those sterile settler grasslands. I’m not from around here, but I don’t think people from car-heavy settler cities ever truly know their city on a deep level.
This helped both build some love for the region but also hatred for the impacts of the societal organisations. Parallel to that I researched a lot about how to safely and reliably kill myself (not as an immediate desire, bit for curiousity), and noticed it’d be incredibly expensive.
But honestly, the part that really helped along with all of that was the people. Due to neurospicyness I don’t really enjoy friendships so this is not some mushy “love gives life purpspose” thing, but actively throwing myself at the problems of people around me really made life make some sense.
I guess since I already decided my life had no worth to myself, it can at least serve as a tool to help other people who actually enjoy living have some worthwhile ones. This obviously isn’t the only or best way to this, but thought I should share.
Hope you find a way that works for you somehow.
Unironic anti psychiatrics gang, my best friend just quit Vyvanse and he feels significantly better
You’re describing clinical depression. Seek medical assistance.
I empathise with so much of this.
Except: stop being hard on yourself for not meeting some threshold of usefulness to revolution. You’re in burgerland. The fact that you have class consciousness is already a W. Maybe in alternate timelines there’s versions of you with higher paying jobs, paying their mortgages or maybe even owning property and driving a car. I guarantee to you all those versions of you are libs, and if any of them have class consciousness they’re either capitalists or they’re in denial about it. Those other versions might look like they’re individually winning, but they’re contributing less to humanity winning than you are.
You’re a commie in burgerland. You’re no coward. The currents of capitalism are so strong that it takes more work for you to stand still than it does for libs to swim in the direction they think is ‘forward’.
When this storm passes, consider doing some self-crit about this self-hate. There’s a lot of good advice in this thread but you’re the only one who truly understands your circumstances enough to know which advice is the best for you, and you’re the only one who can choose to follow it.
Hi, I’m a student studying therapy. I just learned about this yesterday!
The emotion of discipline is “resolve”. If you are having a problem learning how to be disciplined, or cultivating discipline in your life, you should figure out how to have resolve. Learn what it feels like.
Resolve comes from when you really want to do something. You feel excited and motivated to do it. In order to develop a discipline, you should find something you feel resolved towards and take a “snapshot” of that feeling. Remember it.
Every day, every morning, think about that feeling, and pick something small to apply that to. Try to intentionally do that for about a month. Develop discipline for something small. Then, as you get better at that, you can level up to more difficult things to have discipline with.
I never thought of it like that until seeing your comment. “Discipline” always makes me cringe because it has connotations like the issue is me, that it’s an internal or personal failing, that I’m not trying hard enough, etc. Thinking of it as “resolve”, though, really does make it feel more like I’m surviving, I’m pushing through, I’m overcoming. Be it a mental block or all the external bullshit we have to endure. I think I’ll quit thinking of it as me lacking self-discipline, and try thinking of it as building greater resolve now. Thank you :)
I’m glad I decided to open Lemmy tonight to see this comment. Thanks for the change in framing
Executive disfunction is a nightmare, what you are saying here almost describes me to a tee too.
I’m not gonna say you have X or Y, but you definitely need to seek mental health evaluation. I know it is probably tough even thinking of doing that, I only managed to after years of being afraid of doing it.
And please don’t be so though on yourself, it’s easy to take blame for everything, if you really were a coward you wouldn’t make this post. You clearly care about this and want to change, and that shows strength and a will to turn your life around.
I don’t think forcing yourself to change is gonna do you good, instead take it slow.
Something that is really helping me over the years is realizing that much of the reason I have these issues is because of something outside of my control, even when something doesn’t look like it is that. Also being kinder to myself, instead of thinking I’m dumb or a idiot for doing or not doing something and beating myself over it, I try to accept it and realize this stuff happens, telling myself it’s gonna be ok and I try to take it easy. It is really slowly changing my self image, but it is a change nonetheless.
It’s not a linear progression tho and there are gonna be times when it gets tough, but it is possible to get better, I believe in you, comrade.
As some other comrades have said I think executive dysfunction is something to look into. If you can get evaluated for ADHD I definitely would try to. I have struggled with extremely similar issues and Covid especially compounded that, but about a year ago I finally got my shit together and got an ADHD diagnosis and medication to treat it. I still have a long, long way to go to achieve the things I want to but I can firmly say I have accomplished more in the past year of my life than in the five previous to that.
Progress is going to be slow and incremental, sometimes nonexistent or outright in reverse but it can be done I think. Hopefully you can access some half decent resources where you are.
I feel a bit like this but not nearly to this extreme. When I’m tired (which is basically every school day) I tend to only be able to do the easiest thing in front of me. If I have my phone I’ll keep scrolling or checking notifications, if I have a book I’ll keep reading. If you can find it within you to actually grab a book or even play an audiobook while you play a game the inertia will be more productive. You could try keeping your phone outside of the room and read when you go to bed. For another disciplined thing that doesn’t require movement, I suggest meditation. Obviously, this should be in conjunction with dealing with the underlying issues, but I hope it does some good.
This is great advice. No phone time, and meditation, even for short periods of time, really does help.
Don’t get yourself down comrade, you’re doing a ton of great work on lemmy, and while this isn’t irl organizing, we do have the potential to change the public narrative in a positive way. If we even manage to convert even one liberal to communism, either through our technical labor or our communist agitation, then that is a victory we can be proud of.
I’ve also had to take a break from irl organizing, because I tend to take on way more work than I can handle, and know I’d be too overburdened and can’t handle the extra work right now.
I can only conclude that I am this way because I always refuse to take personal responsibility.
I don’t personally believe mindset is ever a real problem, the only problem is that we haven’t yet formed habits to acheive what we want for ourselves. Habits are formed by repetition, not willpower.
I encourage you to write down 10 or so long term goals, put it on a piece of paper, and stick it on your wall. Then recheck that list periodically, to see how you’re doing on it. Make sure it’s things you actually want and like doing. If one of them is “learn to cook”, pick out some things you’ve had at restaurants that you enjoy, and youtube recipe them. Shoot for making one meal you like a week from scratch.
Or if one is “get in good shape”, then create a weekly workout regimen, there are tons of swole and fit comrades who can give pointers who’ve been doing this for years. My one was that I wanted first to be fit, then to have low body fat, then to have a strong upper body, then to get a six pack. Rather than shame or willpower my way through these goals, I slowly formed consistent habits, that I check off in my todo app.
If you want to read more, pick out some books you want to read, and start out with say 10 minutes a day, no internet, reading only. Once the habit forms, you can increase the time if you want to.
I recommend a todo app either like tasks.org, or loop habit tracker… something where you can set recurring habits, and feel satisfied when you check them off. Even for things like hygiene, they can really help you form habits.
You are not a coward comrade, you’re just correctly seeing things you’d like to do to improve yourself, and are failing bc the willpower and shame method doesn’t work.
Habits are formed by repetition, not willpower.
Well put. I am a relatively healthy person yet I can barely get off my phone most of the time.
You gotta have something to look forward to which is edifying and socially satisfying. You’re in a great position to get into a new sport from the sounds of it, actually. Have you tried rock climbing, jiu jitsu, kickboxing, or getting into swimming? Just something that requires using your body and building confidence, giving you something to get better at, which means you look forward to actually going out and doing it.
Actually thanks for posting this. My situation is different but I’m in a rut too. Let’s get better together!
Edit: oh yeah, I’ve got ADHD and definitely recommend getting professionally evaluated for that. Getting evaluated for mental health can help you reframe your difficulties with being effective, thus alleviating some of the guilt and shame, making it easier to stick with healthy habits when things don’t go how you intended, which is inevitable but ultimately not insurmountable.
Something I’m still learning is that, while having a diagnosis of ADHD (specifically, not talking generally here about disorders or anything) is helpful, it’s important to not get wrapped up in that diagnosis. ADHD is simply a different mode of processing the material world and sometimes you have to embrace those differences instead of trying to correct them. This can be challenging because you need to A) communicate to people this difference in a way that they can understand and B) advocate for doing things differently so that they align with that difference.
Sometimes it’s simple things like telling someone “Hey thanks for reminding me about that, but I’m about to walk out the door, so could you text that to me right now so I can remember it?”
Sometimes it is more structural things like “Hey once a week can we have a formal sit down to talk about X” where X is, house stuff, project stuff, whatever the thing is you need to track internally but can’t. I have house meetings with my spouse each week, and it has dampened the underlying frustrations we both were having.
I see myself becoming this as well. I have some joint injuries/arthritis that put a stop to lifting and proper exercises for a while now I just lay around all the time. My job saps what little mental energy I have left. I barely get anything done. It sucks. There’s a part of me that WANTS to not be this way but it’s so fucking hard to get motivated. A year or two ago and I was doing so much and lately it’s just… It’s just gone.
I think, imo, you really just have to force yourself out of it. It’s takes just putting all your will behind it. I have broken out before and will be better for a while but it’s tough. K owing that it’s a problem is at least the first step in ripping yourself out of the suck.
Something I have done in the past to help pull myself out of it is what I like to call “Doing the one thing.” It’s to do one thing, just something, every day, that will make tomorrow you glad you did it.
It’s like, every day we go to sleep and when we wake up it’s like a mental and emotion reset and we are a new person from the one that went to sleep yesterday. So my goal becomes, to do one thing today, that will make tomorrow me wake up and be glad I did a thing. Doesn’t matter what it is. Just something “extra.” Something that’s more than just mindlessly existing.
Today I took a few cardboard boxes that have been sitting in the side of my office. I broke them down and put them in the recycling. That was my one thing. My one extra. So it’s not there anymore, weighing on my mind like a sore.
Eventually maybe you do more than one thing. Or the one thing becomes a part of the rogue and you just push a little more, but as long as you did the one thing, you can just take the win. It’s one hand up on the rope to pull yourself out.
I started drinking 1 part raw apple cider vinegar and 1 part raw honey daily (both have to be raw, about a tablespoon each) and my nascent arthritis has been greatly reduced; I got the idea from my mom who also started developing arthritis in her 20s. It took her about a year to see results, it took me only 2 weeks.
Not much to add but re-emphasizing the usual: small things add up. I know it’s cliche but it’s cliche for a reason: diet and exercise (again, tiny changes are realistic and attainable and sustainable) go a long way in the medium term.
See yourself not as a failure but as someone who has been caught in a self-fulfilling feedback loop. You have much greater potential than your current existence, you yourself have said how you were once more functional. If it took you years to get here, it might take a long time to build new habits. As long as you can maintain the will to change, cherish the small victories and don’t give up when you have hiccups or speed bumps or back slides or even nose dives if they happen, as long as you keep trying, eventually your will will reach a critical mass, reverse the inertia, and you will slowly find yourself in a position you can be more proud of. Be patient with yourself, it is not antithetical to being firm or disciplined. Your desire for change shows you are already in a better frame of mind and will have better success than most.
Trust me, my life ate total shit in 2022-2023, I’m only barely starting to see the results of attempt and re-attempt and re-re-re-re-attempt to stop the death spiral. Do not let the fog make you blind to a better future you can slowly build, the fog and its lies about you are not truth, they are delusion.
Also, some minor radical change goes a long way in tandem with small victories. Like, I don’t know, I once took 4 days where I didn’t speak to anyone and refused to use technology, I basically just writhed inside my head the entire time, but it was a good thing, fuck the internet. Same thing with sobriety.
Best of luck comrade.
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