A therapist friend once told me that depressed people often feel lazy or guilty for lack of motivation and progress. He said “they’re not lazy, they just use most of their energy trying to survive.”
Facts.
How can I be the best I can at anything when a vast majority of my time is spent telling myself to quit looking at that bridge. Quit thinking about the firearm in the closet. Quit thinking about a car wreck that would look like an accident for convenience.
Oh ya btw, clean your kitchen and make that appointment, finish your work on time.
It's always a good reminder that everyone has the same amount of mental energy.
Some people choose to focus that energy on family, on providing for others and being a caretaker. Some choose to focus on their ambition, on proving themselves and let others be known. Some simply choose to enjoy themselves.
Those are their prioritizations, but the way they manifest it can be differently.
A family caretaker can be thrifty with their spending, always looking out for discount and clocking in at work diligently every day. Another family person might focus on getting as much money as possible (because they also have a smaller priority in getting rich), therefore wouldn't spend much mental energy on figuring out where to get discount codes, or remembering which store sells at the lowest price, but instead focus on learning trade analysis, finding new opportunities, etc. to expand, rather than conserve. Both use same amount of energy, for a same goal, but in different way. Both also probably wouldn't read an essay-long Reddit comment, because 'aint nobody got time for that'.
Your ranking list of priority will dictate how they choose to do things in a certain way, but in every way, you will always spend energy as you keep on living.
When you spend energy, you usually want something in return, whether it's recognition from people around you, or you getting to be free to do what you want at the end, or simply see yourself improving every day. It is these feedbacks that give people the will to go on keep doing what they do.
There are thousand things to be depressed about. You being bullied by people around, or someone halfway around the world dying in a senseless war. But as long as you have a thing that give you back your positivity in life, you can focus on that and regain your energy to deal with problems rationally.
When you're truly depressed though, things that you spend energy on doing, doesn't seem to give you anything back. You keep being dragged on doing things you don't want to do, or things that used to give you joy no longer does, while you're feeling forced to keep doing them. People who used to give you positive feedbacks have all left you, in one way or another. You stuck spending energy on finding where to spend energy, spending your time on Reddit and jumping between subs to see something that catches you. You become obssessed with even the smallest thing, because you're desperate for any kind of positive feedback that could give you energy for the next day. And when you can't find anything, you just sleep, drink, smoke away to forget your depression. Those themselves are also energy being spent, and chances it was already on their priority list at the low end, but the depression just amplify it into addiction.
Everyone likes being praised, being well-rested, winning, as well as many things. But how much satisfaction it gives for each of those things will form the list of a person's priority ranking. But everyone always have a focus they spend energy on. Just because their war doesn't matter to you, or that it's a completely 'meaningless' hill to die on, doesn't mean they aren't fighting it with all the energy they have.
Unfortunately though, these days many of the 'wars' are usually distractions that people don't even realize they're falling for. There are so many ways you can get lost focusing on the wrong stuffs (or even the right stuffs) that people just aren't having enough energy left to be empathetic to other people's problem. After all, more information means more kind of priority you otherwise would not have learned if you just stay in a smaller and simpler life. But it also means now you have more ways to discover the world and yourself. Eventually you will find something worth fighting for again.
It's a fickle reality of modern world that you might lose something the day after you found it, because you see so many people better than you at your thing while seemingly spending less energy than you would to achieve it. But at the end of the day, your life is your life, and personal wars cannot be compared to each other. Like the rabbit who is talented at running fast, but hindered by distractions and instead spending energy on them while forgetting the race, and the turtle who move slowly, but surely focusing on finishing it. Maybe in real life, the rabbit might still win while also seemingly encounter a lot more stuffs than the turtle, but it never would have never seen the colony of ants moving a piece of candy from the pavement all the way into the nest. Does it matter at all? Probably not, but it gives the turtle a complete different experience and struggle than the rabbit, who might be struggling with easily losing interest because they're so good at everything. Maybe the turtle will also have 'lose interest' struggle too, on top of being slow, but as long as they know they're gaining something after every fight, they will keep making a walk into a mile.
If anyone read it all the way, good luck on your struggle. And may you find real people to share it with.
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u/HugePurpleNipples Apr 06 '23
A therapist friend once told me that depressed people often feel lazy or guilty for lack of motivation and progress. He said “they’re not lazy, they just use most of their energy trying to survive.”
That one really got me.