A depressed brain is full of “I can’t” and waiting…
Waiting to feel better…
Waiting to have more energy…
Waiting for a better mood…
Waiting for a spark of motivation…
Waiting to care (as in to give a damn about)…
Waiting… Waiting…Waiting…
It is hard to do anything when you are in the depths of depression.
Getting yourself to do even the simplest thing like getting dressed, eating breakfast, brushing your teeth, etc. might seem like an attempt to climb Mount Everest.
Should you continue to wait?
I believe that for the sake of your recovery you must discipline yourself to do things (take actions) in spite of how you feel.
Even further, the worse you feel the more effort you must put into taking them (yes, the small actions that might seem so simple and trivial to a person who has never experienced depression).
At the beginning of a recovery journey, action often will come before caring.
You have to do what you have to do regardless of how you feel. Care will follow, along with brief moments of joy and satisfaction that only completion of a task can bring.
You did it!
You took another step forward in your recovery!
You took an action despite the fact that you did not feel like doing it at all!
You did what was right for your recovery and you did it while you were weighed down by depression.
That, my friend, is strength!
In that very moment of your action, you made a victory over depression!
That is something to be proud of!
You felt depression and did it anyway!
Love, light and healing!
I have to remind myself of this basic truth all the time — action creates motivation, not the other way around.