May I recommend an experiment then? Try ignoring force of habit for a few days and see how you feel about all those activities. It may help you to come up with internal reasons to want to do things rather than relying on the external pressures of habit and expectations. If, after a few days, it turns out that lying in bed doing nothing is actually preferable to escapism through computer games and surfing the Internet, I submit that it means your medication isn’t doing everything that it should and that getting that fixed should be your first priority. In all other cases I would expect that it will turn out that you do have reasons to get out of bed that aren’t dependent on habit.
For me, no matter how depressed I am I always get out of bed at the very least, even if it’s just so I can stare at the wall while I try to focus and motivate myself to do something enjoyable or productive. If I inspect my reasons for doing so, “habit” is definitely a large part of it. But a larger part is “boredom”, as in, I can only contemplate my utter worthlessness for so long before my thoughts start feeling repetitive and boring, and I feel the need to distract myself by getting up and doing something that I find at least marginally engaging.
I’ve tried the whole “lying in bed doing nothing” thing. When I wake up, I’m usually groggy and can end up spending an hour or two in bed half-asleep. I’m usually not thinking about much of anything at all during this time, or at least I’m not thinking in words, so I’m not “contemplating my utter worthlessness”. When trying to go to sleep, though, I tend to get frustrated if I don’t fall asleep quickly, so I’ll often turn on a portable game system (leaving the lights in the room off) and play until I basically can’t stay awake any more. I strongly suspect that this is a bad idea, though, as it tends to shift my sleep schedule later and later. I also have a tendency to take naps during the “day” and then get back up. (I do this once or twice a week, I guess.)
Sometimes, I really do play video games because the playing of the game itself is fun. (Persona 3 Portable is the most recent game to have taken over my life.) Some games have both boring parts and more interesting parts, and I play through the boring parts so I can get to the more interesting parts. Once in a while I’m playing one so I can say I’ve finished it before I go on to another one; I’m a bit of a completionist and often get annoyed if I don’t get Hundred Percent Completion. Or sometimes it’s because I’m simply curious about what happens next even though the game itself isn’t really all that good. (I’ll occasionally see a movie I don’t expect to be very good simply to satisfy my curiosity about it.) And I’ve found that carrying around a portable video game system (or a novel) is a great way to avert boredom when doing things like waiting in line. So “habit” and “convenience” aren’t the only reasons I play lots of video games.
There is one specific thing that I’ve noticed about games, though: even a bad game gets a lot more interesting when I have some work to avoid. It’s often exciting for me to have something that I should be doing but don’t want to, and then not do it. (I noticed this phenomenon when I was in college; it hasn’t seemed to apply very much since then.)
Right, so it sounds like you do value engagement over doing nothing. That’s certainly a good start.
Basically, I think it should be possible for you to find some better (as in: likely to help you change your terminal value) goals that you actually want to do, without necessarily having to introspect about your desire to kill yourself. Of course, I could well be generalising from one example.
There is one specific thing that I’ve noticed about games, though: even a bad game >gets a lot more interesting when I have some work to avoid. It’s often exciting for >me to have something that I should be doing but don’t want to, and then not do it. (I >noticed this phenomenon when I was in college; it hasn’t seemed to apply very >much since then.)
Oh boy do I know that feeling. The corollary being that after I finally got the work done or sat the exam or whatever I suddenly realised that I’d wasted 20+ hours on some piece of dreck :)
May I recommend an experiment then? Try ignoring force of habit for a few days and see how you feel about all those activities. It may help you to come up with internal reasons to want to do things rather than relying on the external pressures of habit and expectations. If, after a few days, it turns out that lying in bed doing nothing is actually preferable to escapism through computer games and surfing the Internet, I submit that it means your medication isn’t doing everything that it should and that getting that fixed should be your first priority. In all other cases I would expect that it will turn out that you do have reasons to get out of bed that aren’t dependent on habit.
For me, no matter how depressed I am I always get out of bed at the very least, even if it’s just so I can stare at the wall while I try to focus and motivate myself to do something enjoyable or productive. If I inspect my reasons for doing so, “habit” is definitely a large part of it. But a larger part is “boredom”, as in, I can only contemplate my utter worthlessness for so long before my thoughts start feeling repetitive and boring, and I feel the need to distract myself by getting up and doing something that I find at least marginally engaging.
I’ve tried the whole “lying in bed doing nothing” thing. When I wake up, I’m usually groggy and can end up spending an hour or two in bed half-asleep. I’m usually not thinking about much of anything at all during this time, or at least I’m not thinking in words, so I’m not “contemplating my utter worthlessness”. When trying to go to sleep, though, I tend to get frustrated if I don’t fall asleep quickly, so I’ll often turn on a portable game system (leaving the lights in the room off) and play until I basically can’t stay awake any more. I strongly suspect that this is a bad idea, though, as it tends to shift my sleep schedule later and later. I also have a tendency to take naps during the “day” and then get back up. (I do this once or twice a week, I guess.)
Sometimes, I really do play video games because the playing of the game itself is fun. (Persona 3 Portable is the most recent game to have taken over my life.) Some games have both boring parts and more interesting parts, and I play through the boring parts so I can get to the more interesting parts. Once in a while I’m playing one so I can say I’ve finished it before I go on to another one; I’m a bit of a completionist and often get annoyed if I don’t get Hundred Percent Completion. Or sometimes it’s because I’m simply curious about what happens next even though the game itself isn’t really all that good. (I’ll occasionally see a movie I don’t expect to be very good simply to satisfy my curiosity about it.) And I’ve found that carrying around a portable video game system (or a novel) is a great way to avert boredom when doing things like waiting in line. So “habit” and “convenience” aren’t the only reasons I play lots of video games.
There is one specific thing that I’ve noticed about games, though: even a bad game gets a lot more interesting when I have some work to avoid. It’s often exciting for me to have something that I should be doing but don’t want to, and then not do it. (I noticed this phenomenon when I was in college; it hasn’t seemed to apply very much since then.)
Right, so it sounds like you do value engagement over doing nothing. That’s certainly a good start.
Basically, I think it should be possible for you to find some better (as in: likely to help you change your terminal value) goals that you actually want to do, without necessarily having to introspect about your desire to kill yourself. Of course, I could well be generalising from one example.
Oh boy do I know that feeling. The corollary being that after I finally got the work done or sat the exam or whatever I suddenly realised that I’d wasted 20+ hours on some piece of dreck :)