I have been so encouraged by everyone’s comments on the topic of knowing your limits – both that I’m on the right track and that I’m not alone in the journey.
Barbara from TherExtras brought up a really great point in her comment:
I relate to having learned and accepted my limits for helping people through therapy. People are still surprised, and resistive, when they are told the work must be done by them, the change must happen within themselves or their lifestyle, for themselves or their children.
How true that is – there is no magic pill, even though medication and therapy can help you get to the place where you can make the necessary changes in your attitude and your actions. I have had a few glimpses of what it is like to feel good about your life and the way you are interacting with the world, and it is a little more disheartening each time those feelings start to go away.
So now, instead of letting myself be swept along by emotions and circumstances or berating myself for not handling everything I think I should without a hitch, I’ve decided to apply my analytical, researching nature to dealing with it.
I found a good article at HelpGuide.org called Dealing with Depression: Self-Help and Coping Tips. While at first glance, it contains a somewhat overwhelming number of practical tips and steps you can take to make your way toward recovery, I was encouraged by this advice:
The key to depression recovery is to start with a few small goals and slowly build from there. . . . Take things day by day and reward yourself for each accomplishment. The steps may seem small, but if you make time for them each day, they’ll quickly add up.
So, that’s good, right? I don’t have to tackle it all at once, and I can be proud of each step along the way. But I still didn’t know where to start.
I have “tried” (in quotes because none of these were consciously chosen coping strategies but in reality that’s what they were) getting involved in everything that comes my way to stay busy, hyperfocusing on advocating for Michael until the team was probably tired of hearing from me, organizing and re-organizing my schedule and house, and even going the other way and retreating into reading and watching TV.
Obviously, none of these things have worked.
One of the many links offered at the end of the HelpGuide article led me to A Case of Catch-22 at Psychology Today. This article addresses a key issue in the treatment of depression – that the very “things a person needs to do to get well are the very things the illness makes it difficult for any person to do. Resistance is intrinsic to the condition, making recovery an extraordinary challenge that typically takes a long time.”
I can definitely relate to that, and to much else of what was said in the article. One part that really caught my eye, however, was the advice given by one of the doctors quoted, who gave his recommendation of how to proceed:
[He] recommends that patients prioritize. “Think in terms of a hierarchy moving from the physical to the mental to the interpersonal. Start with sleeping and eating. Then add activity; start with a 10-minute walk. Tackle the cognitive and interpersonal stuff later.”
So, okay. This is what I needed – a plan. A plan that I didn’t have to come up with myself and therefore don’t have to second guess again and again.
Now I just have to follow it. First goal – get eight hours of sleep every night.
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