Get It Done When You're Depressed (4 page)

When you feel depression start to close in and you feel yourself getting defensive, isolated, whiny, weepy, or complaining, remember to look outward and think of others besides yourself. You can be honest and ask for help instead of keeping it all inside.

If this feels difficult and you really do need to vocalize your symptoms, as many people do, this is a good time to find a compassionate therapist so you can focus on more outwardly positive talk when you’re around friends, family, and colleagues.

Here are some other thoughts to consider:

Remember:
It’s terribly hard to think outwardly when you’re depressed—it can feel like having to sing when you have laryngitis. But you
must
do it.

Depression is a harsh judge. It tells you that you rarely do anything right. No matter what you write; who you call; what you create; or how you give a speech, clean your house, plan a party, or do anything that has a specific result, depression judges you harshly before you can even finish a project. And if you feel that your work isn’t up to par, you might quit the project in the middle—or not even start it at all.

This is a natural response to the pressures the judgmental side of depression can put on you. Judging what you do is a quick way to either not start a project at all or stop in the middle to avoid the very unpleasant feelings that you’re going to do an inferior job.

When you ignore the internal critic until the end of a project, you at least can complete some projects. You’ll probably want to quit many times over, but quitting would mean you’re giving in to the fake judge, not your real judge—you. When you’re depressed, it can even be hard to think of what you do well. But it’s essential that you remind yourself—constantly, if necessary—that you can wait and realistically decide how well you did a project when it’s complete.

Learning to be an objective judge of your own work when you’re depressed may be one of the most difficult strategies in this book you take on. Depression is a very negative and unforgiving illness. It’s ruthless in how it makes you put yourself down for being inadequate when you want to complete projects. By taking over from depression and judging your work realistically, you can recover much of the control depression takes from your life.

Have you had these thoughts while trying to get something done?

When you at least know these thoughts are often unreal, you can better ignore them and just keep going with your project.

I taught English in Japan for a few years. I enjoyed the work and especially enjoyed creating ESL (English as a second language) curriculum, but I often struggled with the depression I’d had since I was a teenager. About one year into my stay, I was asked to train a large group of Japanese ESL teachers. At first I wasn’t sure I could do it, but I decided what the heck and wrote up a plan.

When I got there, I was amazed to see more than 100 women teachers in the audience, all looking at me expectantly. Then the thoughts started:
You aren’t prepared enough. It’s always like this, James. You think you can do something and then you take on too much and make a mess. You remember what it’s been like in the past. Nothing but mistakes. You’re sweating like a pig.
It was at this point that I really started to sweat—just from these negative thoughts! I felt the dark cloud come over me in a wave. It was just a familiar despair that once again I was stopped from doing something I loved.

But this time I kept going and started to teach. I worried throughout the presentation that no one was really listening and that they were bored, but I decided to focus on myself and what I was doing in the moment. I didn’t get an emotional break the whole time I was onstage; I just kept going. When I was done, I was proud. When the judgment language resumed, trying to tell me what I’d done wrong, I focused instead on what I’d done correctly. I looked to the people in the audience for judgment. They were talking excitedly, and some came up to me and said they learned a lot. If I had listened to the harsh depression critic like I used to, the experience would have been terrible no matter how well I had done. When I’m depressed, it’s better for me to get my reactions from the people on the outside instead of listening to what’s going on inside.

As I write this, I have these thoughts:
This book makes no sense. People will see through my writing and know that it’s all terrible. I will be seen as a fraud because I’m no good. This book will be rejected by my publisher. The editors will think, “Good God, we made a mistake here!”
I have the thoughts that everything I do is subpar. I think,
This has all been written before—who am I to think I have something to say?

Even writing down these thoughts is stressful because I can see how they affected my work so much in the past. I was never able to fight these terribly judgmental thoughts, which is the main reason I never—and I mean
never
—finished big writing projects before I changed my perspective and stopped letting depression define my work. Now I wait until I have the
finished
project in my hand before I judge it. I have never once looked at a finished project and said, “This is no good. I’m no good.” I’m always proud that I just finished something.

Ongoing negative appraisals feed the fires of low self-esteem and powerlessness. This is a hallmark of depression. It’s always helpful to try to suspend judgment and just focus on what you are doing. Tell yourself,
In this moment, I’m doing the best I can.

Of course, sometimes your work might not be your best, and you might realize this in the middle of a project. In this situation, your thoughts are usually backed up by facts, which means you can make changes and keep going.

On the other hand, the depressed brain makes subjective judgments that can’t be backed up by facts. Depression never critiques a project objectively. Impartial, kind, and realistic judgment is best made after you’ve done your work and the project is over.

Here are some other thoughts to consider:

Remember:
The projects you judge harshly in the middle usually turn out just fine and look and feel as good as the projects you can easily do when you’re well.

Have you ever felt so depressed that it seemed impossible to decide on anything, even something as simple as what to have for dinner? Depression takes away your ability to make decisions. Due to chemical changes that take place in your brain when you’re depressed, decisions you can normally make without thinking twice can become Herculean tasks. You can often feel panicked, afraid, and worried simply because of the fact that you have to make a decision. Considering how many decisions you have to make in a day, not being able to make even the simplest of decisions is a real problem.

When you’re depressed and have to make a choice about something, there’s a good chance that your brain will put up a fight. It’s as though your brain is always trying to negotiate for something different from what you want to do. You might struggle with making a decision so much that you wind up confused and tired—and with nothing decided at all. And while you’re going through all that, you might miss many positive opportunities to get out and feel better.

Plus, depression can create strong feelings of guilt over what decision you eventually make. This guilt can make you very uncomfortable because you think that either someone is going to get hurt or something is going to be missed as a result of your decision. This feeling can be so stressful you may feel it’s easier not to make decisions at all. Unfortunately, this route simply leads back to more depression for not having made a decision.

But you can make your own decisions when you’re depressed. Ask yourself what decision you would make if you weren’t depressed. If that’s not possible, override the pointless back-and-forth with your brain by making a decision, whether or not you like the decision, and then move forward. You might then have to deal with the voice of the depression telling you you’ve made the wrong choice, but that’s easier to deal with than the sense of uselessness that can come from not making a decision at all.

Do you have trouble making any of these kinds of decisions?

People are bombarded with decisions daily. Whether these decisions are large or small, overriding depression and making a choice is what matters.

I can remember being so depressed that I would just drive in circles because I couldn’t decide where to go. It was terrible. Then I decided I would drive in one direction toward where I wanted to go—no more getting in the car just to drive aimlessly. When my brain said,
Wrong direction, Mike!
I drove anyway. One time I stood on a street corner and turned in all four directions; it seemed so impossible to decide which direction to turn that I just stood there like a statue. And it drives me crazy when people tell me I should get outside and just do something to feel better when I’m depressed. I often feel so confused as to what I want to do that I do a little bit of everything. But nothing ever feels good.

After years of this, I decided it was time for me to take charge of this situation and to realize that making a choice is actually easy if I just
make
one. It never feels right at first, but I always feel better after I do it.

For many years I had so much trouble making decisions that it really upset people around me and made it difficult for me to get anything done with pleasure. No matter what I did, my brain told me it was the wrong choice. I would choose one dish in a restaurant, and immediately I knew I should have taken the other one. I’d decide to do something on the weekend, and my brain would say,
Everyone else is doing something different—you made the wrong decision!
When it was really bad, it felt impossible for me to make a decision at all. After going through this for years, one day I just said,
Enough. I’m going to make a decision and stick to it no matter what. I’m
so
tired of letting depression control my decisions.

When I write, I have many decisions to make—how to structure the book, what language to use, what audience to target, etc. If I let myself get overwhelmed with these decisions, I lose writing time and feel terrible. Instead, I often let the decisions work themselves out so I can simply function enough to write.