bloodygranuaile (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bloodygranuaile) wrote2003-11-23 03:51 pm
bloodygranuaile) wrote2003-11-23 03:51 pm
Indulgence, distraction, and occupation
There are three responses to feeling depressed: indulgence, occupation, and distraction.
Indulging depression is generally what the depression wants you to do. If depression is the little voice in your head telling you to stay in bed and be miserable, indulgence is listening to the voice and staying in bed. It is sometimes alright to indulge depression a little--honestly, it gets tiring constantly striving to be happy, even when you're not depressed--but indulging depression tends to make it worse. When you sit and do nothing but think about how depressed you are, you sink further and further into self-pity and lethargy, and it becomes harder and harder to convince yourself to do something to distract or occupy yourself. This is why it's so bloody hard to talk people out of being depressed--depression does not want you to get better. It attacks your will to do anything, so you do not want to get better either. It is the times when you don't really feel like doing anything that it is most important to go do something; but you usually won't, because you don't feel like it. And when you tell someone who's depressed to go do something, they will usually tell you they don't feel like it, and who are you to make them do something they don't feel like doing?
Distraction is slightly better but still does not help. Distraction is doing something so that you are not focusing on being depressed, but that does not lift your mood enough so that it will stay lifted once you stop. For example, today I was writing as a distraction. The moment I got distracted from my writing and Rammstein, I started sinking again. For most of last year, I used LotR as my distraction. I wrote the first drafts of the first two chapters of PPC:DAC in one weekend. I spent endless hours reading Tolkien's work and LotR fanfics. But they didn't usually enable me to then focus on anything once I put them down. Distractions usually don't take much effort, and people seem to pick one and stick with it, running back to the one interest whenever they can.
Occupations are different. Occupying yourself is doing something to get your mind moving, not just off the fact that you're miserable. An occupation is something that will enable you to focus on the things you need to do. For me, going to the swings is usually an occupation--walking there and back involves physical movement, and it's outdoors, and it is both a good place to think and to stop thinking. I can usually deal with work or other people much better when I come back. And sometimes schoolwork itself is an occupation. More often it is something which you need an occupation to be in a state to do, but depending on the work (and how depressed you are) it can sometimes help. The problem with occupation is that it is very difficult to make yourself go "do something", and when people start snapping at you to go do something you tend to start making excuses as to why you can't, or just tell them you don't feel like it. But this brings us back to the fact that: it is precisely the times when you don't feel like doing anything that it is so vitally important to do so!
It is a fairly simple concept that it is bloody difficult to mold behavior around. To feel better, you must do what you do not feel like doing. Not very inspiring. And it becomes even more difficult when dealing with other people who are depressed: If they want to stay miserable, do you give them what they want and let them be miserable, or do you do what they do not want you to and force them to do something, which might make them feel better, or might make them simply angry at you for disobeying thier wishes when they're in such a state, should you choose the wrong activity? All you can do is listen, should they choose to talk, and be sympathetic. Trying to poke them into doing things is tricky, and should not even be attempted unless you know what you're talking about (and just to be perfectly clear, if you haven't been through it, you likely do not know what you're talking about).
-Claudia
Indulging depression is generally what the depression wants you to do. If depression is the little voice in your head telling you to stay in bed and be miserable, indulgence is listening to the voice and staying in bed. It is sometimes alright to indulge depression a little--honestly, it gets tiring constantly striving to be happy, even when you're not depressed--but indulging depression tends to make it worse. When you sit and do nothing but think about how depressed you are, you sink further and further into self-pity and lethargy, and it becomes harder and harder to convince yourself to do something to distract or occupy yourself. This is why it's so bloody hard to talk people out of being depressed--depression does not want you to get better. It attacks your will to do anything, so you do not want to get better either. It is the times when you don't really feel like doing anything that it is most important to go do something; but you usually won't, because you don't feel like it. And when you tell someone who's depressed to go do something, they will usually tell you they don't feel like it, and who are you to make them do something they don't feel like doing?
Distraction is slightly better but still does not help. Distraction is doing something so that you are not focusing on being depressed, but that does not lift your mood enough so that it will stay lifted once you stop. For example, today I was writing as a distraction. The moment I got distracted from my writing and Rammstein, I started sinking again. For most of last year, I used LotR as my distraction. I wrote the first drafts of the first two chapters of PPC:DAC in one weekend. I spent endless hours reading Tolkien's work and LotR fanfics. But they didn't usually enable me to then focus on anything once I put them down. Distractions usually don't take much effort, and people seem to pick one and stick with it, running back to the one interest whenever they can.
Occupations are different. Occupying yourself is doing something to get your mind moving, not just off the fact that you're miserable. An occupation is something that will enable you to focus on the things you need to do. For me, going to the swings is usually an occupation--walking there and back involves physical movement, and it's outdoors, and it is both a good place to think and to stop thinking. I can usually deal with work or other people much better when I come back. And sometimes schoolwork itself is an occupation. More often it is something which you need an occupation to be in a state to do, but depending on the work (and how depressed you are) it can sometimes help. The problem with occupation is that it is very difficult to make yourself go "do something", and when people start snapping at you to go do something you tend to start making excuses as to why you can't, or just tell them you don't feel like it. But this brings us back to the fact that: it is precisely the times when you don't feel like doing anything that it is so vitally important to do so!
It is a fairly simple concept that it is bloody difficult to mold behavior around. To feel better, you must do what you do not feel like doing. Not very inspiring. And it becomes even more difficult when dealing with other people who are depressed: If they want to stay miserable, do you give them what they want and let them be miserable, or do you do what they do not want you to and force them to do something, which might make them feel better, or might make them simply angry at you for disobeying thier wishes when they're in such a state, should you choose the wrong activity? All you can do is listen, should they choose to talk, and be sympathetic. Trying to poke them into doing things is tricky, and should not even be attempted unless you know what you're talking about (and just to be perfectly clear, if you haven't been through it, you likely do not know what you're talking about).
-Claudia