Need so much intense motivation to accomplish so little!

[manuel_moe_g]

So I try over and over again to find ways to step outside my comfort zone, but not so far out that it will be traumatic. That's tough when everything feels traumatic.

Yeah, I am trying threading the needle with being in the area between [1] not coddling myself and [2] forgiving myself and healthy self-soothing

It's important to remind myself that my progress in therapy has a speed limit. That limit is imposed by my psyche and how much change it will tolerate. If I'm honest this limitation pisses me off because I wish I didn't have to suffer through this for so long. I wish there were a shortcut. Unfortunately it takes as long as it takes and all I can do is try to stay close to that speed limit every day.

Arg! This is the key one for me. Why did I wait until the age of 25 to have a breakdown! Why am I still running just to barely stay in place 16 years later! I am obviously a broken person, why do I still dream? Why why why why why! Why can't I just be dead inside, a lot less trouble for everyone.

Hey, talk about just upgrading your problems. I used to be dateless. Now I am in post-40 sexless married life. I would complain, if it wasn't for the fact that I have much more than I deserve.

Going to write more about this, this was interesting, an intervention that helps people make life changes, with much less effort than expected

Revising your story
Social psychologist Timothy D. Wilson argues that behavior change may be easier than we think.

offers a surprisingly simple approach for behavior change. Wilson calls this process "story editing,"

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/03/revising.aspx

http://www.reddit.com/r/psychology/comm ... timothy_d/

Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change; Timothy D. Wilson

http://www.amazon.com/Redirect-Surprisi ... 0316051888

[dare i say it]

Why did I wait until the age of 25 to have a breakdown! Why am I still running just to barely stay in place 16 years later!

I don't know. My own "breakdown" occurred at age 23, although it was brewing for a long time before that. I'm now 33. The last few days have really kicked my ass and humbled me.

Thank you for the links. I really enjoyed the article. I found some peace in just reading it and considering how I might use it. Here's my attempt at editing my own story: Where I am right now is the natural outcome of everything that happened to me and all of the choices I've made until now. I may not be able to specifically nail down every single cause and effect relationship, but I might as well accept that everything happened the way it did for a reason.

Maybe my dad was verbally abusive and emotionally withdrawn with my mom because that's the type of marriage he saw with his own parents. Maybe he and my mom didn't have a healthy way to air their frustrations, so they would hold on to them until their was a blow-up and it would all come out in a way that was very confusing and traumatic for me to witness as a kid. Maybe my mom put keeping the family together above taking care of her own needs because of messages she received throughout her life about her role in the world. None of this is okay, ever, but there was a reason that it happened.

Maybe I have a hard time forgiving myself, feeling worthy of love, and being vulnerable with other people because I didn't have a good role model as a child to show me how to do these things. It doesn't do much good to hold on to resentment for my parents, but acknowledging a problem and admitting to myself that I'm angry about what happened may be necessary steps.

That was hard to write. Time for a break.

[dare i say it]

How would I know what to change my story to? Is it trial-and-error until I find one that works pretty well? I think we all surround ourselves with people who see the world the same way we do, or else we write off those who disagree with us, and insist that we were right all along. This is frustrating.

[manuel_moe_g]

I am guessing change the story to "The beginning of the story leads to a crisis point, the crisis point leads to a resolution" or "the biographies of people who turn it around perfectly matches the beginning painful part of my own story"

One bad thing about having more life skills is that my depressions are masked, because I can work around many of the things that would blow up previously. It is clearly better to have improved life skills, but I am really feeling it that I have been compromised by depression and anxiety for many months

Thanks for doing the spam work here, DISI, and I feel so wonderful how you tend to all the open threads here. I am so glad people don't have to rely on my own weird alien replies and attempts to help

Today was overtaken by fatigue. Must work on my motivation. Was thinking about what you said "if it's comfortable, then I'm doing something wrong", was thinking that "things that feel natural, and easy, and comfortable are actually quite dangerous for me, as they play out as a lifestyle" - continuing to think this through

[dare i say it]

I am guessing change the story to "The beginning of the story leads to a crisis point, the crisis point leads to a resolution" or "the biographies of people who turn it around perfectly matches the beginning painful part of my own story"

Love this. Thank you.

I am so glad people don't have to rely on my own weird alien replies and attempts to help

I think you're doing great. You're not expected to have all the answers or know exactly what to say to help people. In the forum, and often in my life, I have to remind myself to trust other people to handle their problems as they see fit. You can't really fix someone else anyway--it has to come from within them, right? I think the best that we can do is 1)show empathy and 2)exchange ideas about all the different ways to make a better life. This second part is tricky for me because I want to abide by the rules of this forum and not seek or give too much advice.

[manuel_moe_g]

Letting myself be a "failure", feel more confident about it.

Wife is taking meditation classes. This makes me happy.

Oh yeah, Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager were talking about how "you owe it to your family and the world to be happy" and "being sad is selfish, not being happy is selfish". I will be serious about my choice to be happy, explore that choice.

[dare i say it]

I never cared for Carolla's take on that, but I will say this: When I got back into therapy recently, I was motivated mostly by the intense fear that I was bring everyone around me down or that (and this is hard to say, but it's honest and I feel it needs to be said, just please keep it in the context that I'm not speaking casually about it and I'm as aggressive as ever about getting help) if I killed myself it would have a devastating, permanent effect on people who cared about me. Now that I'm a little ways into it, I can see that I am worthy and capable of having a better life for my own sake.

I wonder if it's similar to what my dad when through beginning about 2 years ago when he got really serious about losing weight. I don't know this for a fact, but I would bet money that the primary thing that got him started on a path toward losing 120 lbs and exercising every day was shame--hating the way his body looked. Shame by itself can be profoundly debiltating though, so I don't really know what to think about that. Now, of course, it's the unbelievable improvement in the quality of his life that keeps him going, including some things he never would have anticipated when he started the journey. But at first, sadly, the starting point included a ton of shame (and fear that he was on the verge of a heart attack).

Maybe the forrward progress begins not just with shame and fear, but with at least a kernel of hope that maybe, just maybe, things can get better if we try. In my case, there is a daily battle to set my ego to the side, set my pessimism to the side, set aside any excuses that come up, and just do things anyway that might be good for me. If this is all a little too rah-rah for you right now, I understand.

[manuel_moe_g]

Yeah, I am trying not to feel shame about feeling shame!

I think I read that people's fundamental motivation type never changes after early youth, and my primary motivation type is fear and shame. So I am learning to not feel shameful about it, paradoxically enough. I can be motivated by fear and shame, but still be at peace and be a good person and be a happy person - part of living a good life is being honest and realistic about myself, and not beating myself up over things I cannot change.

[dare i say it]

I think I read that people's fundamental motivation type never changes after early youth

Is it possible that the person who was making this claim was incorrect, or at least not totally correct? Is it possible that he mistook persistent psychological patterns for permanent ones?

It occurred to me today that things that have been around for a long time are, above all, good at perpetuating themselves. This seems to apply to a very wide range of things including all forms of life, computer viruses, political parties, businesses, nations, cultures, relationships and most mental illnesses. Mental illness in particular has a number of really powerful tools at its disposal to feed itself, and for me one of the big ones is pessimism. It seems to me that pessimism doesn't necessarily serve reality. It doesn't serve me. It only serves to maintain the status quo.

When I have a thought like, "Who am I kidding? I'm wasting my time trying to change. My brain is broken and it always will be," I try to view it as a sign that my depression is fighting back in a desperate attempt to preserve itself. So, in a sense, those thoughts are a sign that I'm doing something right! I'm rocking the boat. I've poked my depression with a stick and it's growling back at me. Does that make sense?

[manuel_moe_g]

When I have a thought like, "Who am I kidding? I'm wasting my time trying to change. My brain is broken and it always will be," I try to view it as a sign that my depression is fighting back in a desperate attempt to preserve itself.

Yeah, I agree 100% with this. I am not going to tolerate the "giving up" part of my brain being in charge. As long as the "giving up" part of my brain is not in charge, then I try to be pretty accepting of my brain - I am not interested in beating myself up or always feeling like I am wrong. I guess I see the "giving up" part of my brain and the "tendency toward a depressed mood" part of my brain as different.