MixedNuts, I’m in a similar position, though perhaps less severely, and more intermittently. I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar, though I’ve had difficulty taking my meds. At this point in my life, I’m being supported almost entirely by a network of family, friends, and associates that is working hard to help me be a real person and getting very little in return.
I have one book that has helped me tremendously, “The Depression Cure”, by Dr. Ilardi. He claims that depression-spectrum disorders are primarily caused by lifestyle, and that almost everyone can benefit from simple changes. As any book—especially a self-help book—it ought to be read skeptically, and it doesn’t introduce any ideas that can’t be found in modern psychological research. Rather, it aggregates what in Ilardi’s opinion are the most important: exercise works more effectively than SSRIs, etc.
If you really want a copy, and you really can’t get one yourself, I will send you one if you can send me your address. It helped me that much. Which is not to say that I am problem free. Still, a 40% reduction in problem behavior, after 6 months, with increasing rather than decreasing results, is a huge deal for me.
Rather, I want to give you your “one trick”. It is the easiest rather than the most effective; but it has an immediate effect, which helped me implement the others. Morning sunlight. I don’t know where you live; I live in a place where I can comfortably sit outside in the morning even this time of year. Get up as soon as you can after waking, and wake as early in the day as you would ideally like to. Walk around, sit, or lie down in the brightest area outside for half an hour. You can go read studies on why this works, or that debate its efficacy, but for me it helps.
I realize that your post didn’t say anything about depression; just lack of willpower. For me, they were tightly intertwined, and they might not be for you. Please try it anyway.
Thanks. I’ll try the morning light thing; from experience it seems to help somewhat, but I can’t keep it going for long.
If nothing else works, I’ll ask you for the book. I’m skeptical since they tend to recommend unbootstrapable things such as exercise, but it could help.
There is one boot process that works well, which is to contract an overseer. For me, it was my father. I felt embarrassed to be a grown adult asking for his father’s oversight, but it helped when I was at my worst. Now, I have him, my roommate, two ex-girlfriends, and my advisor who are all concerned about me and check up with me on a regular basis. I can be honest with them, and if I’ve stopped taking care of myself, they’ll call or even come over to drag me out of bed, feed me, and/or take me for a run.
I have periodically been an immense burden on the people who love me. However, I eventually came to the realization that being miserable, useless, and isolated was harder and more unpleasant for them than being let in on what was wrong with me and being asked to help. I’ve been a net negative to this world, but for some reason people still care for me, and as long as they do, my best course of action seems to be to let them try to help me. I suspect you have a set of people who would likewise prefer to help you than to watch you suffer.
Feeling less helpless was nearly as good for them as for me. I have a debt to them that I am continuing to increase, because I’m still not healthy or self-sufficient. I don’t know if I can ever repay it, but
Yes, I’ve considered that. There are people who can and do help, but not to the extent I’d need. I believe they help me as much as they can while still having a life that isn’t me. I shouldn’t ask for more, should I?
If you have tips for getting more efficient help out of them, suggestions of people who’d help though I don’t expect them to, or ways to get help from other people (professional caretakers?), by all means please shoot.
You indicated that you had trouble maintaining the behavior of getting daily morning light. Ask someone who 1) likes talking to you, 2) is generally up at that hour, and 3) is free to talk on the phone, to call you most mornings. They can set an alarm on their phone and have a 2 minute chat with you each day.
In my experience if I can pick up the phone (which admittedly can be difficult), the conversation is enough of a distraction and a motivation to get outside, and then inertia is enough to keep me out there.
The reason I chose my father is that he is an early riser, self-employed, and he would like to talk to me more than he gets to. You might not have someone like that in your life, but if you do, it is minimally intrusive to them, and may be a big help to you.
This sounds like a great idea. I have a strong impulse to answer phones, so if I put the phone far enough from my bed I had to get up to answer it, I’d get past the biggest obstacle.
There are two minor problems: None of the people I know have free time early in the morning, but two minutes is manageable. When outside, I’m not sure what to do so there’s a risk I’d get anxious and default to going home.
Seth found that his mood the next day was significantly improved if he saw enough faces the previous morning. There was a LessWronger that posted somewhere that this trick helped him a lot, but I can’t remember who or where right now.
I see quite a lot of faces in the morning already. Maybe not early enough? Though I’m pretty skeptical; it looks like it’d work best for extroverted neurotypicals, and I’m neither. I added it to the list of tricks, but I’ll try others first.
MixedNuts, I’m in a similar position, though perhaps less severely, and more intermittently. I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar, though I’ve had difficulty taking my meds. At this point in my life, I’m being supported almost entirely by a network of family, friends, and associates that is working hard to help me be a real person and getting very little in return.
I have one book that has helped me tremendously, “The Depression Cure”, by Dr. Ilardi. He claims that depression-spectrum disorders are primarily caused by lifestyle, and that almost everyone can benefit from simple changes. As any book—especially a self-help book—it ought to be read skeptically, and it doesn’t introduce any ideas that can’t be found in modern psychological research. Rather, it aggregates what in Ilardi’s opinion are the most important: exercise works more effectively than SSRIs, etc.
If you really want a copy, and you really can’t get one yourself, I will send you one if you can send me your address. It helped me that much. Which is not to say that I am problem free. Still, a 40% reduction in problem behavior, after 6 months, with increasing rather than decreasing results, is a huge deal for me.
Rather, I want to give you your “one trick”. It is the easiest rather than the most effective; but it has an immediate effect, which helped me implement the others. Morning sunlight. I don’t know where you live; I live in a place where I can comfortably sit outside in the morning even this time of year. Get up as soon as you can after waking, and wake as early in the day as you would ideally like to. Walk around, sit, or lie down in the brightest area outside for half an hour. You can go read studies on why this works, or that debate its efficacy, but for me it helps.
I realize that your post didn’t say anything about depression; just lack of willpower. For me, they were tightly intertwined, and they might not be for you. Please try it anyway.
Thanks. I’ll try the morning light thing; from experience it seems to help somewhat, but I can’t keep it going for long.
If nothing else works, I’ll ask you for the book. I’m skeptical since they tend to recommend unbootstrapable things such as exercise, but it could help.
There is one boot process that works well, which is to contract an overseer. For me, it was my father. I felt embarrassed to be a grown adult asking for his father’s oversight, but it helped when I was at my worst. Now, I have him, my roommate, two ex-girlfriends, and my advisor who are all concerned about me and check up with me on a regular basis. I can be honest with them, and if I’ve stopped taking care of myself, they’ll call or even come over to drag me out of bed, feed me, and/or take me for a run.
I have periodically been an immense burden on the people who love me. However, I eventually came to the realization that being miserable, useless, and isolated was harder and more unpleasant for them than being let in on what was wrong with me and being asked to help. I’ve been a net negative to this world, but for some reason people still care for me, and as long as they do, my best course of action seems to be to let them try to help me. I suspect you have a set of people who would likewise prefer to help you than to watch you suffer.
Feeling less helpless was nearly as good for them as for me. I have a debt to them that I am continuing to increase, because I’m still not healthy or self-sufficient. I don’t know if I can ever repay it, but
Yes, I’ve considered that. There are people who can and do help, but not to the extent I’d need. I believe they help me as much as they can while still having a life that isn’t me. I shouldn’t ask for more, should I?
If you have tips for getting more efficient help out of them, suggestions of people who’d help though I don’t expect them to, or ways to get help from other people (professional caretakers?), by all means please shoot.
You indicated that you had trouble maintaining the behavior of getting daily morning light. Ask someone who 1) likes talking to you, 2) is generally up at that hour, and 3) is free to talk on the phone, to call you most mornings. They can set an alarm on their phone and have a 2 minute chat with you each day.
In my experience if I can pick up the phone (which admittedly can be difficult), the conversation is enough of a distraction and a motivation to get outside, and then inertia is enough to keep me out there.
The reason I chose my father is that he is an early riser, self-employed, and he would like to talk to me more than he gets to. You might not have someone like that in your life, but if you do, it is minimally intrusive to them, and may be a big help to you.
This sounds like a great idea. I have a strong impulse to answer phones, so if I put the phone far enough from my bed I had to get up to answer it, I’d get past the biggest obstacle.
There are two minor problems: None of the people I know have free time early in the morning, but two minutes is manageable. When outside, I’m not sure what to do so there’s a risk I’d get anxious and default to going home.
I’ll try it, thanks.
If you’re going to go to the trouble of talking to someone every morning, you might as well see their face:
http://www.blog.sethroberts.net/2009/10/15/more-about-faces-and-mood-2/
Seth found that his mood the next day was significantly improved if he saw enough faces the previous morning. There was a LessWronger that posted somewhere that this trick helped him a lot, but I can’t remember who or where right now.
I see quite a lot of faces in the morning already. Maybe not early enough? Though I’m pretty skeptical; it looks like it’d work best for extroverted neurotypicals, and I’m neither. I added it to the list of tricks, but I’ll try others first.