Promises you make to yourself

[Lil Welby]

I've got nothing in me today, but I promised myself that I would make the effort to get on these forums daily, and I intend to keep that promise. If we can't keep our promises to ourselves, what else do we have? I feel like most things in life should be viewed as quality over quantity, but that doesn't appear to be the case with depression. For me, it's very much quantity over quality. I can choose to do nothing, or I can choose to do something and deal with my feelings of my actions being sub par. I have to have faith that even an ounce of effort can make a difference.

Mental illness is like that though, it's like a perfectly tailored suit of misery and despair. The disease is as unique as the individual, and I feel like the more I try to understand it and figure it out, the less sense it ultimately makes. So I try to simplify things, and boil it down to a matter of action vs. inaction. I have made my action, and at least I can remind myself that I took the time to do it.

[Spleefy]

Thank you for sharing these thoughts, Welby.

“Mental illness is like that though, it’s a perfectly tailored suit of misery and despair”. I like this sentence. It’s very accurate, too.

I think simplification is the way to go rather than OVER-analyzing things.

It sounds like you are on the right track. Overcoming depression is really just a matter of action. Depression thrives in stagnation.

Overcoming depression is about finding that formula that works for you. I suppose this is where quality is important.

In my case, no matter how much therapy I received or meds I took, I remained just as depressed.

It wasn’t until I took quality action that I began to get real results, which in my case it occurred when I redirected my time and energy into optimizing my health, as my thoughts were: disease cannot exist in a healthy body. So with this logic, I figured I would raise my health so that it became stronger than the illness.

So I do think, ultimately, we need to do quality actions for real results. But we don’t always know what they are, so sometimes we need to just do quantity outputs until we find the quality ones.

Generally speaking, one high quality output or action will be the equivalent of several lesser quality outputs. So all action is important, as it is all a part of progress and avoiding stagnation. And, eventually, the more action you take, the more likely you will discover the quality actions that will propel you to new heights.

[Lil Welby]

Thanks for the reply Spleefy. Glad you like my little quote. I find myself aiming for simplicity, trying to take something complex and undefinable and giving it some sort of shape. I write a lot of my own, and I always save quotes I enjoy. I did want to clarify my stance on quality vs quantity, because you make excellent points. I seem to find myself being so concerned with the quality of an action, that I tend to overwhelm myself and decided on complete inaction. Which I am convinced is exactly what my "depression" wants. So the only way to combat that in this scenario is to focus on quantity first. You make excellent points all around, and I thank you for your insight.

With that I'll nest another story inside here, about keeping promises to yourself.

I'm a stay at home dad, and my daughter is a key focus in my fight to get better. They say that depressed parents raise depressed children. I'm convinced there is truth to that as my father and his father before him suffered from depression. I will be breaking that cycle. So I made a promise to myself that I would participate in some way shape or form on this forum daily. The time that I have been taking to do that is usually between 9-10am, during my daughters nap. I'm the type of person that likes to sit and focus on the task at hand, distractions are hard to deal with. My daughter decided today that nap time is overrated. My mind immediately went to the negative, "Guess I won't be participating today." or "Will there even be time to do this later on?" but where there is a will there is a way. Sure, it wasn't my ideal path. Took me an hour to write this vs. maybe 10 minutes, and I had to carry my laptop from room to room, but it's done. You might not achieve a goal with the means you were hoping, but at the end of the day you either completed what you set out to do, or you didn't, plain and simple.

[Spleefy]

Ah, that makes sense. Then focusing on quantity sounds like a good idea to keep you motivated to take action and gain momentum.

I think having dependents is such an excellent motivator. I’m an informal carer for a family member and I find that it keeps me motivated to keep on top of my game.

It sounds like you may have a depression gene. Depression also runs in my family. I think this makes it all the more challenging to prevent and overcome depression.

It’s like someone with parents that have the fat gene. It doesn’t mean the child will be overweight. However, unlike someone with lean or thin parents, the child with the fat gene will be fat storers, and so they will need to work ten times harder to keep it off. On the other hand, the child with lean parents will be able to get away with a lot more sloppy eating habits and less exercise without putting on weight as fast.

I would imagine someone with the depression gene would be in the same predicament. It would take fewer stressors for them to develop depression than someone without the depression gene.

Because I know I have a genetic predisposition to depression, I do my best to keep stress down in my life. And if I confronted with a lot of stressors, I will do things to counteract it, such as exercise, recreational activities, spending time with friends, watching movies, gardening, and so forth.

Great job on finishing what you set out to do, despite the distractions and setbacks. It’s so easy to procrastinate or even throw in the towel when confronted with obstacles, especially with depression.

Now I can see why you are focusing on quantity over quality for the time being.

Thanks for sharing. I find your determination to keep your promise very inspirational.

Hey, a song just popped up into my head as I was talking about "stress". I will leave a link. What a classic song!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

[Thierri012]

I've got nothing in me today, but I promised myself that I would make the effort to get on these forums daily, and I intend to keep that promise. If we can't keep our promises to ourselves, what else do we have? I feel like most things in life should be viewed as quality over quantity, but that doesn't appear to be the case with depression. For me, it's very much quantity over quality. I can choose to do nothing, or I can choose to do something and deal with my transfert aéroport feelings of my actions being sub par. I have to have faith that even an ounce of effort can make a difference.

Mental illness is like that though, it's like a perfectly tailored suit of misery and despair. The disease is as unique as the individual, and I feel like the more I try to understand it and figure it out, the less sense it ultimately makes. So I try to simplify things, and boil it down to a matter of action vs. inaction. I have made my action, and at least I can remind myself that I took the time to do it.

The only thing positive in my life is I try to go out, and I work in a better job than before.

[Spleefy]

The only thing positive in my life is I try to go out, and I work in a better job than before.

Come now, I'm sure you've got quite a few more positive things in your life right now