I’m going to preface this with all the things I’m going to say sound simple, but are surprisingly difficult, and trying to maintain the mindset in which to do them can prove exhausting. Remember that, on the path to self-actualisation, it is okay to stop moving forwards, or even take steps backward for self-care. You are, after all, the only person in the world that can advocate yourself.
So, to start with, you’ve at least identified some things you can do. I’ll start from the end of your post because I think it’ll be easier for me.
You don’t need to do acts of self-harm, even if they’re mental or emotional and you think deserve it. This is going to sound really patronizing, but I don’t mean it that way, I’ve been where you are, and I visit there sometimes too: if you think you have a worthless life, find something of worth.
It does not have to be huge, and indeed, probably won’t be; there are billions of people in this planet, and probably about the same over the course of human history. The overwhelming majority won’t make a blind bit of difference to anybody outside of their immediate proximity, and that’s okay. You don’t have to cure cancer or anything, you don’t even have to make and difference. Just find something. Go out, make friends. Volunteer an hour a week at a care home or picking up trash or whatever. Have a conversation with a stranger, who cares if they think you’re weird, you don’t have to see them again.
Who cares if you don’t have the skills to do anything, you can learn. People aren’t born good at things, they need to take active time to figure things out. You don’t have to be the best at something to do it, or enjoy it, or make a difference with it.
Therapy is a tricky one, because you kinda need to click with your therapist sometimes to get value, but you also need to know what you want to get out of it. So, if you did explore therapy again, think about what you would want to get out of it? How to cope with anxiety better? How to break out of unpleasant thought spirals? How to worry less about the future? There are probably more examples than that but it’s 2am and it’s waaaay past bedtime. But I want to see you succeed at this, and the only person making me continue is me.
However, one thing I would like to point out is the therapy wasn’t a failure. You figured out that the angry fantasies aren’t useful, even if you have to break yourself out of them multiple times. That’s not a failure, emotions ade stupid sometimes and even if you logically understand that there’s no need for you to be feeling a particular way, or that it’s not actually helpful, it sticks around. Sometimes that happens and it isn’t failure on your part, it’s being human. Pobody’s Nerfect.
It’s okay to feel bad, even if you don’t know why or feel like you don’t have a good reason (you don’t need a reason to feel things, dammit!) but sometimes you just need to acknowledge it’s happening and ride it out. Emotions are finite, even if the finite part of it is your energy levels and you get exhausted from it.
Depression makes it hard to focus on things and concentrate, and sometimes you just need to accept that you’re not going to be able to do anything “productive” while you’re experiencing it. That does not necessarily mean moping around, do something to distract you. Go for a walk, read a book, veg out in front of the TV, stare at the clouds. Whatever you want.
Anyway, I don’t feel I have explained anything particularly well, and it’s getting late and I want to be relatively well rested for a me day tomorrow, but I will part with the continued not-meaning-to-be-condescending-but-still-probably-trite: “the only person who can make a difference for you is you.” Things won’t get better just by wishing it, but you do need to think hard about it and make an effort, and I know that’s hard to do, especially when you feel lost. I dunno what to say about it, really, but think about something you enjoy, or something you might want to try, or what you need.
The hardest step to make is the first one, to end in a horrible cliche. It is okay to feel bad, and it is okay to feel lost. That doesn’t make you bad or wrong or useless. It makes you like everybody else.
Author
Topic: Things that made you mildly upset today thread (Read 1274407 times)