Get It Done When You're Depressed (35 page)

Remember:
Create a schedule that helps you manage depression so you can get things done—realistically during the time you have each week.

These are the days of fast food, instant downloadable music, and love at first sight (or so the movies want us to believe). But when you want to make changes to lessen your depression and increase your productivity, time can feel like your archenemy. Often, when you make a positive change your depression eases, but the big changes may take quite a bit longer. In fact, you’ll probably have to go through a lot of trial and error to find what strategies work for you.

If your depression is a result of a certain situation in your life such as the wrong job, a troublesome child, or a bad romantic relationship, making some big changes in the troublesome area can likely produce very quick mood changes in a positive way. But for those who deal with a more chronic depression that seems to just hang around no matter what they try, change will have many steps and setbacks. This can lead to frustration and possibly giving up before they have a chance to get better.

Unfortunately, many changes don’t give a reward or even a great feeling right in the moment. It can often take time for the rewards to build. For example, saying no might be so uncomfortable for you that you don’t see the point. Asking your family to do things around the house might cause such chaos—especially if they’re used to you doing everything—it can feel easier just to maintain the status quo. Dealing with a difficult co-worker, a child’s angry basketball coach, or a boss who keeps piling on the work can feel unbearable. But most change is like this. You have to get past the unpleasant feelings to get to the good ones. You have to give yourself time to get better.

Do you see in yourself any of these signs of impatience?

Using the strategies in this book to get things done might produce results more quickly than you think. On the other hand, some strategies might take a long time to result in more productivity. Expect both.

I stopped caffeine, started walking, and tried to keep away from the people who make me stressed and nervous. After two months of craving coffee and dealing with the nonstop arguments in my family, I saw little change in the depression except that I slept better at night. So I went back to coffee, started yelling at my brother again, and missed my walking days.

What a disaster! I never realized that my new regime was actually helping my anxiety and my attitude so much. I just didn’t see it. In reality, it was a relief to sleep better. The changes really were making a difference. So I started them again.

I started to manage my depression eight years ago. It took a few years for me to figure out what worked and what didn’t to manage my symptoms. And it took my family many years to understand what I was doing and why I needed their help and understanding. I’m glad I didn’t know how long all this would take or I really would have been discouraged!

Eight years later, I still face the same challenges. But the difference is that I use my strategies to make the most of my time when I’m depressed. I know I’ll do this the rest of my life. I truly believe that I’ll only get better at management as time goes on. If I focus on immediate results, I’m often disappointed.

Depression is serious and involves my brain. It’s not simply an emotional issue caused by something in my life. If that were the case, I could make some quick changes and definitely get positive results much more quickly. When a person stops cigarettes or decides to lose weight and sticks to it, those results can be fast and immediately feel worth it. Knowing that I have the rest of my life to deal with the depression reminds me that the results of positive change may take a lot longer than I want them to. When I stopped eating what I call junk-food sugar almost a year ago, I expected my moods to get immediately better. They didn’t. But my body changed, and that made me feel better about myself. I had more fun with my clothes and going out with friends. This helped my depression.

Depression brings with it powerful and pervasive effects of negative thinking that color all perceptions and predictions for the future. Hand in hand with that is impatience and low tolerance for frustration.

For most of us, large tasks like completing a significant work project or finishing a college course require a considerable amount of stick-to-itiveness and what psychologists call “delay of gratification.” A lot of what enables the nondepressed person to persevere is being able to keep the long-range goals and anticipated positive outcomes in mind. Neurochemical changes in the brain (primarily decreased metabolic activity in the prefrontal lobes) make such delay of gratification as well as the ability to accurately project into the future very difficult for those who are depressed. This, added to generally negative evaluations, makes it tremendously hard to fight off the impatience. Breaking expectations into small sections can help you to see that progress
is
being accomplished.

It’s true that time marches on no matter what you do. So why not make the time matter? Why just let that time pass without making positive changes? The decision may be instant, but the results can be a long time coming. That’s okay. When things are going slowly and you think you’ll never be able to get things done and improve your life, remind yourself that this isn’t true; it’s just taking a lot longer than you want or expect. Be patient and think in the long term. It’s worth the wait.

Here are some other thoughts to consider:

Remember:
The strategies in this book are lifelong. As you try each one, ask yourself,
What is the
realistic
time frame to see results?

Sadly, artistic creativity is one of the first things to go when you get depressed. It’s as though your eye for color and design disappear. Ideas dry up, and your usually active and creative mind becomes static. This is especially hard to deal with if your livelihood is in the arts or your job requires new and creative ideas on a regular basis.

A depressed mind often forgets the motions of creativity. Getting things done in terms of the practical parts of life is difficult enough, but when it comes to creating art, you can feel especially depressed. It’s one thing not to be able to do your bills; it’s very different when you can’t create something beautiful that enhances your life in so many ways.

But just because the desire to do something when you’re depressed is gone, it doesn’t mean your ability to actually create is gone as well. The ability is still there. Your memory of art and your skill don’t go away. Reaching that creative place just isn’t as easy as you want it to be.

But you have to find it. You have to dust it off and use it like you usually do. You can even use your depression as an artistic tool. What you create might really surprise you.

Do any of these signs indicating you need to resurrect your creativity ring true for you?

If you remind yourself over and over that you don’t have to feel a strong creative spark to create, you can start to produce again.

I’m very creative when I’m well. I usually have to choose between all the projects I want to do. When I get depressed, I stop creating. I don’t get out my paints. I don’t make the comics I love to story-board. I stop drawing in my idea notebook. Everything stops.

Sometimes I don’t even realize it’s happening until my partner asks, “Why aren’t you painting?” I answer, “I just don’t feel like it these days. I can’t think of what to do.” She knows this means I’m depressed, and she knows what she has to do. She gets out my paints and literally says, “You
know
painting makes you feel better and not painting makes you feel terrible. You don’t have to come up with something new right now. You can just copy something or work on an old idea. You expect too much of yourself anyway. Just make something!”

I feel so much resistance when I see the paints. I’m sure nothing will come out of me. But it always does. My subject matter may be darker, but that’s okay. Art changes with moods anyway, and I know that just doing it is what matters, not how easy it feels or how it looks. It’s the process of using my hands and getting something on paper that’s important.

I had a very serious depression last year when I had trouble with my publisher over a project that we couldn’t get to work. I ended up working for free for five months. This crushed me. I did what I always do and just kept going; but looking back, I see that something changed at that time but I just assumed I was burned out on writing and needed a break.

A few months ago my therapist said, “Julie, I’ve really noticed that you’re not as creative as you used to be.” At first I thought she was crazy. I’d been writing and was getting projects to publishers, but I realized she was right—I was basically completing old ideas.

She then said, “You used to constantly bring in new projects to show me. All the book ideas and ways of managing your depression. You used your colored pens and made charts and mind maps, and I could tell how happy that made you.” She was right. My ideas had dried up. My pens that I usually loved so much actually upset me. The big pads of paper I usually carried around with me were on my bookshelf. How did this happen? For the first time in the five years since using the strategies I write about in this book, I stopped doing something I loved so much: creating treatment plans and book ideas.

I thought a lot about what she said and realized I had to find the old me. I missed my passion for ideas. Sometimes it takes a person on the outside to point out that you’ve stopped doing something you love.