YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Happy New Year everyone!

Personally, it's one of my least favorite, overhyped holidays. I hate new year's resolutions - I think if you are going to make a change in your life you shouldn't wait until some arbitary day to do it. Do it today, or tomorrow, or whatever.

Anyway......... LOL

I hope 2012 is a year of good health and prosperity for all of you.

Happy new year to you too!

I feel the same way about New Year's. It's technically not so different from any other day. Although, I guess any excuse to get together with friends and family to celebrate is usually a good thing.

Year-long resolutions tend to be a little self-defeating for me. (I might as well say I'm never going to eat junk food ever again. Ha!) If I can think of a good resolution, I'll probably set a goal for 1 week. Then I'll reevaluate later as needed. Goals & resolutions are REALLY hard for me because I either make my goals too ambitious or not ambitious enough. I also get super pissed at myself if I slip up, and then the whole resolution goes out the window. I'm pretty jealous of people who are good at making resolutions and sticking to them. I suppose I can be happy for them, too.

It's always good to start the year off puking. lol. Jesus.

Happy New Year people.

This is the year I "get my shit together".

I never made it a resolution before, however I've been trying since age 18.

I like the concept of New Years. Fresh start. Number one. I like resolutions, and marking up my calendar with plans. I think it's good to have a tic mark every once in a while, it makes the whole life endeavor less relentless seeming- illusion of progress. Birthdays are the depressing one for me.

dare i say it wrote:If I can think of a good resolution, I'll probably set a goal for 1 week. Then I'll reevaluate later as needed.

Yeah, I am realizing how bad I am at modifying my plans/resolutions/goals. I need to to modify them "on the fly" based on new evidence - but for some reason I am stuck with the thinking that if I cannot will myself to execute the plan perfectly as I originally thought it, then I must not really want to succeed.

if I cannot will myself to execute the plan perfectly as I originally thought it, then I must not really want to succeed.

Ah, the perfection trap. I read somewhere that perfectionism is a symptom of depression. My husband and his family suffer from this - lots of talk of the perfect way to do something, and then no one ever tries. If you try, they tell you how you should or ought to have done it. I call it perfection to the point of paralysis. I am more of a "doer" myself. Due to the demands of my job I often have to figure out how to do things on the fly, and that's often not the "perfect" way.

I have to say since my husband has been treated for depression and ADD he has gotten SO much better about the perfectionist thing. He finishes his home improvement projects and hobbies regularly. There was a time when this was not the case. It's so great to see him throw himself into things now and really get the joy out of doing them, versus the angst of not having done it well enough.

next year wrote:I have to say since my husband has been treated for depression and ADD he has gotten SO much better about the perfectionist thing. He finishes his home improvement projects and hobbies regularly.

That's very encouraging to hear. Thanks. Perfectionism runs in my family too. One time, it took my brother and I three hours to hang a picture on the wall. Three hours! To be fair, it was over a staircase and we had to jerry-rig something as a base for the ladder, but still.

The best discussion I've ever found on this topic (It's perfect! ) is in the book Ten Days to Self-Esteem by David Burns. Irritating title, good book. None of it is rocket science and I'm sure he's not the only one to have said it, but he makes the point that perfectionism can take many forms.

1. I must live up to some ideal of physical attractiveness.
2. It's unacceptable to fall short of a goal in my career/studies.
3. I have to impress everyone all the time.
4. I must always be in total control of my emotions.
5. I need to be the smartest and most successful person in the room.
6. I should never fight or argue with someone I care about.
7. I can't form lasting relationships because I become preoccupied with people's shortcomings.
8. It's unacceptable that people are ever selfish or unreasonable or that life sometimes fails to live up to my expectations.
9. I spend excessive amounts of time cleaning, organizing, or planning.

Ugh. This is hard to admit, but I can relate to pretty much all of these--some more than others. Lots of work to do. Although, on the bright side, my life can get that much better when I get some of this crap out of my head.

Cheers,
Dan

Happy New Year, "next year"!

Yeah, that is the exact dynamic between my wife and I. My wife - I admire her so much; when she gets depressed/anxious she just kicks it into 2nd-gear, and works her way out of her problem with a burst of energy. She is very much about focusing in like a laser on the activity that gives the biggest bang for the buck, and never worrying if she is doing things perfectly.

Myself, my anxiety makes me imagine all the things that could possibly go wrong, and that can be an exhausting way to live, and it can drain the joy out of anything, and it can terrify me into inaction, basically.

In the new year, I am consciously breaking large projects at work into [1] worse is worse, [2] worse is better, [3] better is better

[1] worse is worse: try to solve the problem with duct-tape, spit, bubble-gum, Vise-Grip, etc. The worst possible solution has value if can be done very quickly and done with minimal impact. Nice, because you get a tactile appreciation of the problem space.

[2] worse is better: this is the solution that is optimal without expensive analysis upfront. It is straightforward, simple, clean, inviting to any and all to try to improve step-by-step.

[3] better is better: this is the perfect solution that is only revealed after extensive/expensive analysis of the problem space. Could be optimal. Could be pie-in-the-sky. Thank goodness you have [1] & [2] to compare it to.

[[ I know I over-thought this, as I am prone to do. Typing this out for my own benefit. ]]

But anxiety still can drain me - I sometimes need a quick lie-down to recover, or else I will just waste hours web-surfing in a haze if I don't rest to clear the anxiety from my mind.