I can't cope with life

[BertieBotts]

I don't know how to do the things that normal people do. It's a struggle to remember to look after myself, let alone do normal things like housework.

How can I function as a human when I can't think ahead enough to wash my hair regularly?

I'm so afraid that everyone who loves, supports or cares for me will find out soon enough that I'm letting them all down and then they will disappear and I will have nobody. I'm so afraid that my son will grow up to be lazy and disrespectful because I am lazy and don't respect myself.

I'm spiraling now, so hoping that writing this will help. If I disappear it's because I've reached the point where I can sleep rather than overthinking all night.

I'll check for replies in the morning. I'm going to go and talk to DP and see if that helps. Thanks in advance if anyone is there :)

Okay scrap that - is there anybody there now?

Anyone? See I even sabotage my own help threads

I'm not here as I'm asleep but I was here when I was typing this (sorry if i sound mad or horrid, i really am knackered) but I wanted to say hi not 'read and run'

My partner finds Black Dog Tribe really helpful. Absolutely best wishes, will look in when I wake up, hope you get some good support.

Thank you Isabeller, I understand :) Hope you sleep well. I'll take a look at your link.

I'm here

Bertie.

I don't visit these boards much, but I'm listening.

Thank you Shirley.

I don't really know what to say bertie, but as sufferer myself from depression I wonder whether you have any rl help, have you been to your gp? Self neglect is a biggie for me as well and is not uncommon with depression.

Hi Bertie, you ok?

I'm here for a little bit. Ah yes, the drift away from the "normal". Into a sort of decision/emotion fog, yes? Circular thinking?

How's your meds or any other therapy at the moment?

I am off to bed too but wanted to say it sounds like you are really hard on yourself. Some people have difficulty with planning and organisation that doesn't make them lazy, it doesn't make them bad, it just means that some everyday stuff is hard to get done.

What sort of things do you struggle with?...and more importantly, what are you good at? Can you say some good things about you?

I won't be here for long as I need sleep too, but I've been there. People who love you love you for who you are. You are not letting anyone down. You are clearly going through some difficult times, but you can and will get through this.
I don't have advice I'm afraid. But things will get better. They always do. Is there someone in RL you can talk to?

It's ok. We're here and we're all ready now to talk to you if you want.

I'm having counselling at the moment, which was supposed to help me get organised and sort my life out, but it feels completely pointless, if I haven't done some task my counsellor sets me then she gets frustrated/says there's no point in coming if I'm not going to do the tasks, which I KNOW, but that's the whole POINT, if it was as easy as me saying "Okay, I'm going to stick to this rota now" then I would have done it, and the problem is that I can't/don't/won't and I don't know why. Also we keep missing each other or having trouble with childcare or the room and so I don't have sessions for 2-3 weeks at a time which makes it all feel even more pointless.

I need someone to stand over me and remind me to do the basic stuff all the time, but nobody will do that. I have to do it for myself and I just fail every time. I've been living away from home for six years and I haven't managed it. Most people grow up but I don't know how :(

MadBusLady I have the fog ALL THE TIME. I thought it was normal :( I have rare moments of clarity out of it but then they go away and I forget to look at my diary, the list I've made and stuck in a prominent place on the wall, the alarm I've set on my phone, everything I have tried, none of it works.

And I ordered a pizza tonight and they sent it with cheese on which I'm allergic to and I phoned to complain but the replacement never turned up. So I'm hungry.

It's hard to have therapy and then not have it consistently, especially when it sounds like that would be important for you to not have big breaks inbetween tasks.

You say a task that the counsellor sets you. Do you agree it together or is it something she suggests and you agree to?

If you have written in your rota - 9am Weds, wash my hair, and then you are not up to it, are you able to think about what got in the way for you at that time?

Ok, so it sounds like you and your current counsellor are not the right fit.

Are you on prescribed meds? Are you taking them?

This is about more than just "not growing up" chick, you're not well and you need to try and be kind to yourself and take each step slowly, and celebrate everything you're managing to acheive.

Like posting in here.

Well, the counsellor doesn't sound massively helpful to be honest. Is this CBT you're having? I've never had that, so maybe it's part of their script to get impatient with you. But I doubt it. I had two lovely, lovely people (neither counsellors, one my GP and the other a sort of life/careers coach) who were just brilliant whenever I (again) messed up on something I had been scheduled to do.

They just said, "Oh. Well, that's ok. People mess up. You'll probably do it next time."

That was just so helpful. It was like a penny dropping. I didn't have to beat myself up for not having a shower before 1pm, not making a dentist's appointment I really needed to make etc etc. I'd probably do it next time. Each time I failed, I had that thought. And they were right, I did eventually do it next time. They were also both very good at nudging me to make the next appointment.

In what way do you feel you haven't "grown up" where others haven't? What would "grown-up" look like? I write this, note, as a 33-year-old who should definitely be in bed but who is in fact on the sofa surrounded by cupcake wrappers.

Okay three examples that I can think of:

1. Writing a sheet about negative thought patterns, when the thought occurs, what I was doing, emotions about that thought, evidence which supports/doesn't support it etc (I was just supposed to fill in the first few and we'd go through the rest in the session)

I just totally forgot about the sheet, the format didn't work for me, I wrote some notes on my phone when I thought about it, but this wasn't doing it properly. I forget exactly what she asks me to do if I don't write it down, and if I write it down I put the paper in my bag and then lose or forget about it, which is unhelpful.

1. Getting up at 7am every day, jumping straight in the shower when half asleep before DS woke up. I didn't do this most days because I had been up late the night before and so didn't want to get up (also not a morning person). However I just realised tonight that at that time I did do it twice over the course of that week/2 weeks (I can't remember) and so I could have latched on to that as an improvement on nothing, instead I thought that because I hadn't done it every day I had failed and so skirted over it in the session.

1. Was agreeing that I would only go on the computer when DS is in bed. I felt fairly opposed to this (even though I agree that I need to rely on the computer a lot less and would definitely like to break the habit of it being my automatic position when at home) I just didn't want to do it, so I didn't.

I'm just going to post this MAHOOSIVE essay what I've written and then I'm going to answer what you've just posted about your tasks, because I have some, ahem, views. If nothing else, hopefully reading all of this will send you off to sleep.

x-posts

MadBusLady I have the fog ALL THE TIME. I thought it was normal

It's not! You poor thing. How long has it been like this? The worst thing about this kind of thing is that it's not really visible to other people. They can't see how bloody hard everything is all the time.

I really, really wish I had the magic answer. I tried it all as well, post-it notes on the fridge, blah blah. I realise this isn't very coherent but eventually I started to "get better" by taking little victories. As in "Ha! I went to the supermarket like a mo-fo-ing champion today! Take that supermarket!" I got through half a degree like that and I'm about to start the other half. It did all go a bit wrong in the middle, it'll probably go wrong again, but I'm not as scared of it any more. When you're as low and fuzzy as that, ANYTHING (and I do mean like washing your hair regularly) is a major victory.

I have no idea what the correct medical diagnosis for the "fog" really is, nobody has ever talked to me about depression in a way that makes sense to me. I've never felt suicidal or had sleep problems or appetite problems or cried a lot, or any of the classic headline stuff. I just have the... fog. I can only imagine it's something in the brain not firing correctly, making simply stuff very, very hard.

Another thing, it got easier when I stopped looking for the magic answer, the organisational tool that was going to make it all right. I just accept that I need to change strategies a lot. A while back my strategy was going to the gym twice a week. At the moment my strategy is always having a tidy desk while my hard-won gluteals go for a Burton . I still work slower, and achieve less on a day to day basis than most people, certainly a lot less than I should if you look at me on paper. But it's the life I've got, and I'm very lucky to have it - and I still achieve a lot more than some people anyway. It's about trying to have a little victory every day and be ok with that, not be beating yourself up for not doing more, or better, or conforming to some abstract standard.

Yes I'm having CBT. A friend had it and I thought it would be helpful but she keeps saying things like "But this isn't a counselling issue" and "But that isn't an irrational thought because you are disorganised". THANKS. So helpful.

It would be nice for someone to keep saying that I'll manage it next time, I've got to the point now where I've given up hope that I'll ever manage and even DP says to this "Well if you think like that then you won't manage it, will you?"

Okay, I'm not grown up because - I don't notice that stuff is dirty until I really look, and then I avoid it (usually by going on the computer). I put everything off for as long as is humanly possible. I take DS late to school most mornings because I fail to get out of bed at a normal time. I have no working lightbulbs in over 50% of the downstairs rooms of my house. Often I leave the house and realise I've forgotten to brush my hair, wash my hair or myself or apply deodorant or brush my teeth (I now carry dry shampoo, a hairbrush, chewing gum and deodorant in my bag, but sometimes I take them out and forget them.) I don't read my post, because I'm scared that I'll be reminded of how I'm letting someone else down. I don't call people back or reply to texts, I don't send thank yous. I don't like answering the phone. Tonight I convinced my almost four year old that he didn't have to re-brush his teeth after eating a smartie, because I couldn't face taking him all the way downstairs and having to play the special tooth brushing game again and THEN come back upstairs and read a story and get him to sleep. He was really upset and he was right :( I told him that one smartie wouldn't hurt and he could do them in the morning, which is probably also right, but I've broken the responsible adult rule of going with the simplest rule ie no food after tooth brushing, and I take shortcuts like this a lot.

So you are definitely having CBT by the sounds of it. Sounds like your therapist is rushing you, maybe they feel pressured by the fact they can only offer limited sessions (NHS?) and are trying to push you through. Not helpful though for you if it makes you feel like a failure and makes you skip over what you have done - which is something, not nothing, you made some notes for your thought record, managed the shower more than once. They need to understand that, setting yourself and achieving manageable goals is what matters, it sounds like the goals were not realistic for you.

You know you are not a morning person so can you think about when in the day you are most likely to get things done and then work your rota around that (and not too packed a rota!)?

Not going on the computer, again, too big a goal to change the behaviour so fast? You haven't yet got ways to replace it so that makes it too hard to change so suddenly?

In CBT you should be setting all of the goals, not being set them, some therapists do forget this.

x-posted with your last post. So sorry to hear what a struggle it all is for you.
It's hard to feel different.

Sorry just realised I've missed out on loads of posts!

I've never been on ADs or any kind of meds and over the past year or two I have wondered if I should ask about something like this, but I am afraid that they might make it worse, or that I might become dependent on them or that they would change who I am. (I know the last one is ignorant and wrong but it still worries me )

Changing strategies sounds good. And counting small victories helps a lot, I have a tendency to beat myself up when they slip, which perhaps is less helpful. But more often I just forget to do either and coast along doing absolutely nothing at all and life passes by and deadlines come up and then I panic (and then beat myself up ) - This is helpful, though, if nothing else I hadn't noticed this particular pattern before.