Need so much intense motivation to accomplish so little!

[manuel_moe_g]

Just typing up a placeholder here. I am struggling with understanding why I need so much intense motivation just to accomplish so little. Working up intense emotional visualization for motivation - imagining my daughter crying because of lack of finances to take advantage of educational opportunities, just to work myself up to do a few seconds of work. Doing work tasks feels like my skin is burning off my body.

But, the alternative to facing up to this truth is forgiving myself for doing nothing and back-sliding, and I refuse to give myself permission to back-slide. I am a piece of shit for having a working day measured in seconds, but I am the very best piece of shit I know how to be!

[dare i say it]

I wish I knew how to answer that question for you. It's something I have struggled with from time to time (like now for example). In my case, it helps to be very clear and very honest with myself about how I want my life to be and what I can do to make it that way. Then I try very hard to let go of any shame and judgment surrounding my productivity. This process takes tons of practice and, for me, professional help.

[manuel_moe_g]

I have had this harmful pattern in my life where I believe there exists something that will magically make all my problems disappear and turn all the past wrongs into future successes.

So when realistically I have to work very very very hard just to be a slightly better piece of shit, but still a piece of shit - that makes me just collapse and give up and back slide and go to a dangerous place.

I am staring right in the face of (1) strategically applying extreme motivating visualizations (2) careful planning of my day --- and all I will get from it is just a few more minutes of productivity and my anxious brain says "you are still at great risk of failing failing failing big time, with consequences that will make you want to step in front of a commuter train"

But "success is not an option" as Mike "The 40 Year Old Boy" Schmidt says. In the final accounting, I will use free-will and discipline to work to be a slightly better piece of shit, but still a piece of shit. I have to grade myself on a curve - because I know myself well enough to see that the ONLY alternative is collapsing and giving up and back sliding and going to a very dangerous place.

"NOT BACKSLIDING" is my "FANTASTIC SUCCESS" - and that is not shitty, that is, for me, awesomely great. I am depressive, I have debilitating anxiety that leads to breakdown and surrender, I have rage issues, I get fatigued easily, I have an unrealistic reaction and relation to failure, I have a compulsion to self-sooth. Those are my challenges, a magical pill or person or situation that will lift me up out of these DOES NOT EXIST...

and indulging in the fantasy that the MAGICAL PILL does exist has time and time again led to:

• allowing myself to be dormant while I wait for the magic to arrive,
• and when I finally see through the lie I get so disheartened I turn into a sack of potatoes and I want to die.

So, with realism and love, I say to myself "NOT BACKSLIDING IS MY FANTASTIC SUCCESS" - I WILL FAIL BIGTIME, BUT IN THE FINAL ACCOUNTING I WILL HAVE MINIMIZED THE FAILURE

Thinking about the Adam Carolla Show "drop" that says "SHUT UP AND BE EXCITED!"

(As you can guess from my writing, I am still a bit conflicted at this time, but I do not feel confident this is the path of greatest love and realism and maximizing potential)

[dare i say it]

This all sounds very serious. What if you got a professional involved? It's not about a "magic pill" or a "magic person." There's nothing magic about any of it. But when your mind is not working the way you want it to, there are people who have made it their life's work to help you with that. All you have to do is find a professional you can trust, find a way to pay for it, and then be relentlessly honest about how you're feeling. Trying to take on serious psychological problems on my own was a bit like learning ballroom dancing without a partner. It's technically possible, but why make it harder than it needs to be?

[manuel_moe_g]

Yeah, I am dancing around the idea of looking for a therapist again. I idea of going to a therapist is fraught for me, because the time commitment is difficult and my wife is definately not supportive - she comes from the R. Lee Ermey "Full Metal Jacket" school of mental health!

I am talking through this because this has been an extended depressed period in my life, but I have many more tools than previously so I am able to scrap by - and I am talking through this because the risk of "backsliding" is so great.

[dare i say it]

Time commitment? How many hours/week do you spend on your mental health as it is? Having professional guidance could make all that work much more effective. If anything, I would expect it to be a time saver. I hope I'm not being too pushy. I'm just concerned.

[manuel_moe_g]

When I went to a therapist, my boss and my wife were profoundly disturbed that I wasn't available immediately on-call, so after a session, I had the anxiety of messages on my phone (part of the reason is that I needed to decompress after the session too, I probably abused this taking time off, and I left my phone off for then too)

I just looked up places near me, seems reasonable, surprised at the quality of a clinic nearby - I guess I am more informed about what I want and need from a therapist and what I can reasonably expect.

[threeletters]

First, I would like to say that I relate to this on a very, very deep level. I'll say to myself "Just get this one thing done, it's not that hard, and you can say something moved forward...even if it was just a little bit." My "magic pill" for a long time was planning. If I can just get the planning down, if I can buy the planner that will allow everything to simply fall into place, then the whole universe will align and I will be AMAZING.

I definitely do not have an answer to this. But I know it comes from a depressive/anxious state of being, and it's no bueno. Right now I'm trying to tell myself that not failing now will give me the strength later to do more and more. But I can only do so much without getting overwhelmed and quitting entirely. I also try and envision my goals (my saying is "I will feel SO good when.....is crossed off my to do list"). As much as I hate to hear this when people say it to me, try not to be too hard on yourself. This shit ain't easy to deal with.

I would definitely recommend going back to therapy. And you may need to tell you wife and your boss that for everyone's sake it's going to be a couple of hours out of the week (geez!) that you will not be available. What would they do if you had kidney failure and needed dialysis every week? Would they really get on your back for not being available while your blood was being filtered? Doubt it. This is a real illness whether they like it or not, it's obviously taking a toll on you.

Good luck! You're not alone!

[manuel_moe_g]

I am typing this out because I am working through this in my mind.

Recently, for work, was learning more about Bayesian statistics and studying causality and such. Was working through this:

The data/perceptions we collect are just a tiny facet of reality. So they get collected into very simple tables/mental-structures, because they themselves are very simple, because they are based on just a tiny facet of reality.

But the mental-structures that we can use to commit informed action are of a very different sort. They are not reality, but they have to be "fleshed-out" - to be usable to decide and take decisive action they cannot be "two-dimensional" they have to be "three-dimensional" even though they are artificial (because humans can only construct artificial simple mental-structures, we cannot make any mental-structures as rich and as complete as reality)

So the data/perceptions we collect are like a bunch of simple stick-figures drawn on the sidewalk with chalk, and our mental-structures are like watching the 3D animated movie "Up" - both are artificial, they both don't stand up to reality, but we all are aware of the massive difference between the two - if you tell your kids you are going to see a Pixar movie, but instead you show them some chalk drawings on the sidewalk you made yourself, acting out scenes from the story, your kids are not going to be satisfied.

The two can have a relationship - two Pixar animators can construct a scene from the movie drawing a bunch of stick-figures on the sidewalk - they will return to their animation workstations and work on different elements on the scene in perfect harmony, because the really was a real relationship between the chalk stick figures and the final animation on the movie screen.

OK that is data/perception (like the chalk stick figures) and mental-models we can use to commit decisive action (like the Pixar 3D movie) - and we know neither is of a kind of reality. There is a gap between the stick figures and the Pixar 3D movie and there is a huge gap between the Pixar 3D movie and reality.

So today I was thinking about the gap between (1) my range of actions knowing my limitations (2) the range of actions available to a person working in perfect effectiveness and harmony with moral responsibility and goals and (3) the actions available to Mother Nature who can subtly make tiny particles move in perfect concert and perform an action perfectly in a way that leaves nothing undone.

In the past, I would see the gap between my available actions (knowing my limitations) and the actions of a person of perfect effectiveness. In the past, that gap would make be so disheartened that I would become inert. And the gap between my pathetic self and how moral goals could be perfectly accomplished also would dishearten me.

[To be continued]

[dare i say it]

I am typing this out because I am working through this in my mind.

It seems to me that your head is spinning like a top. I know this feeling. I get it often. It's not a good feeling. Your wife and boss are probably not going to be as supportive as you would like them to be. However, that's their issue and you don't need their permission to take care of yourself. I was encouraged by something you wrote a couple of posts up the page. I firmly believe that there is a wise part of Manuel's mind that already knows what needs to happen. It's not going to be a completely emotional decision. Nor do you need to intellectualize the decision. Some people refer to this as their "better judgment." Please be good to yourself. I think it would mean a lot to the people in this forum to see you taking full advantage of the help that is available to you.