All Entries Tagged With: "motivation"
Triangle Concept
This week Tareak and I met with the one and only therapist that has agreed to see us. Unless we are able to find someone else that is willing to see us (which is unlikely) we will be sticking with her. At the end of our appointment (which went 20 minutes over and she didn’t seem to mind!) she brought out a chart like the one I’ve created below. With it she was able to explain the concept that I’ve been unsuccessful at explaining to Tareak since we got married. I was so glad that she was able to explain it in such a way that we could both understand it.
Here is what she explained:
By looking at the chart below you can see that your thoughts lead to the way that you feel. Then those feelings determine your actions.
As a person who is depressed, I rarely have positive thoughts and therefore I feel down and bad about myself. This leads to feeling totally unmotivated and so I don’t do anything productive with my time. By being unproductive, I am left thinking how useless I am and the negative cycle begins again.
She explained that one way to start feeling better is to reverse the order of the triangle. First, you need to do something that is going to make you feel good. You could exercise, put on an outfit in your favorite color, go enjoy the sunshine, or do anything that will make you feel good. You should ideally do this first thing in the morning. By DOING something first, you will then FEEL better and those good feelings will lead to you THINKING more positively.
Deep down I have always known that this is what I needed to do, but I didn’t have a triangle graph to help me put it into words. Since getting married I have always told Tareak, “If you want me to be productive during the day you just need to get me started. If there is laundry in the dryer that needs to be put away, start putting it away. I will see you doing something and come and join you. Put your shoes on and tell me you are taking Kaya for a walk and ask if I’d like to come. Chances are pretty good that I’ll say yes.” I’ve recognized from life experiences that when I am busy doing something, ANYTHING, from the time I get out of bed in the morning, it is like a snowball effect. I pick up momentum and get more done that day than a lot of people accomplish in a week. In a past post I compared myself to feeling like a rock on the top of a mountain. I just need a good shove and then I’ll usually roll down just fine. Accomplishing so much leaves me feeling good about myself and the negative thoughts are less frequent. Being depressed leaves me with little motivation and it is hard to convince myself to get going, but if someone else can help me out and give me the shove I need, I think I can begin to make progress.
Now that Tareak and I are both on the same page and understand the triangle concept I hope that we will be able to implement it at least a couple times a week.
Anomaly Pending Explanation
Last week something very strange occurred. I felt good. I would even go as far to say, I felt peppy! Unfortunately Tareak was having a rough week at work and not sleeping well, so he wasn’t able to fully enjoy my mood. I’ve been trying to figure out what caused this anomaly to take place and I have come up with a few explanations, none of which are yet confirmed.
Possible Explanation #1- Last week it was sunny most of the week. With the sun out, Kaya and I went for walks about every other day. Tareak was able to join us a few times as well. I’ve always known that exercise makes me feel better, but actually getting myself to do it is an entirely different problem. I’m not sure why I had the motivation to put my shoes on and go for walks, but I believe that it definitely contributed to my mood.
Possible Explanation #2- I have been taking fish oil every day for the past week or so. I haven’t been taking the fully recommended dosage (3 tablets daily) because I was afraid my body wouldn’t like it and so I have been introducing it slowly. Because I haven’t been taking the full dosage I am hesitant to give credit to the fish oil, but I will not rule out the possibility that it has been helping.
Possible Explanation #3- Our insurance changed and they want us to fill all our prescriptions through 90-day mail order. When I filled the prescription for my birth control pills they sent me the generic brand. I was feeling nauseous and had bad headaches when I started to take it, so I researched the brand and saw that these were possible side effects. What I didn’t expect to see was that DEPRESSION is a possible side effect from the birth control! For someone who is already prone to depression it would make sense that I would be more susceptible to this side effect. Since the birth control was making me feel sick anyway I stopped taking it. Tareak doesn’t want me to go back on birth control pills now that we know depression is a possible side effect, but I think he just wants me to accidentally get pregnant! =)
There are obviously several possibilities that could explain the change in mood and I’m not yet sure what to attribute to my success. I’m not going to be able to start on birth control pills for another few weeks (if I decide to start using them again), and I am going to keep taking the fish oil, but it is supposed to rain all week so I can definitely say that I won’t be going for any walks. I guess it is now just a game of trial and error until I find the winning combination for my moods.