I'm stuck

Hi @spooniepixie I want to congratulate you on learning better ways to manage emotions, it's hard to get that far with depression symptoms creating mayhem with our thoughts and feelings.

Low-functionality, low-energy is a common symptom of major depression and it's quite hard to overcome. As people living with depression, we're hoping to achieve a few things by doing new activities:

rewire our brains to accept rather than reject a vision of us being productive and enjoying our efforts. Rebuild competence and confidence with each successful attempt at a new activity (note that success isn't meausre by whether we believe we absolutely crushed it or we beleive we did it badly, rather it means we began and completed the activity we set out to do). Finally, we want to build functionality by adding activities in bits, and we don't want to use neurotypicals as our measuring stick for what we "should' be doing.

So what does this mean? Instead of getting on the computer, try taking a walk while listening to some music if that's possible. Fresh music rather than music you're accustomed to and familiar with is better. If/when you feel resistance to this idea,of walking, "I'm too tired", "I don't feel well", etc. acknowledge that yeah, this could be true. But tell yourself that you're going to find that out by doing by trying - not by thinking about it. You learn what you can or can't do by experiencing, it's not some "thought experiment" - and that's very important because the voice of depression is a big ole liar. Set a reasonable time or distance for how long you'll walk and then head back. That's it.

I realize I'm throwing darts in the dark by tossing out this suggestion, I don't know what your symptoms are like or even whether you're mobile. This is just one example for how to increase functionality. Others include, coming here to 7 cups and posting about how you feel, writing in a journal about your day, visiting with a friend or relative for a small chunk of time, trying a creative activity like writing a poem or song lyrics, drawing or making music. Whether you are "good at it" is not the point, we're not "trying to be" anything. We're stimulating our brains by trying new things, and that's the only outcome that matters.

I wish you the very best on your journey to recovery and I hope we'll be hearing more from you about how it's going!