Tag: depression

The Depression/Messy House Cycle

unfuckyourhabitat:

When I first started Unfuck Your Habitat, it was a housekeeping blog very squarely aimed at lazy people. Mostly because I am one. As the blog gained momentum, though, I started hearing from people who were using the fundamentals to help them battle through something more serious than laziness: mental illness. More specifically, depression.

Now, I’m no stranger to depression. I don’t make it a secret that I have issues with depression and anxiety, just like I don’t make it a secret that I have poor eyesight and a bum knee. Depression, however, has its own set of related life issues that my poor arthritic knee has never caused. And one of those is the self-perpetuating cycle of depression and a messy home.

When you’re in the midst of a depressive episode, cleaning your house comes in on the List of Things You Want to Do somewhere after taunting a hive of bees and tap dancing on live television. Things are awful. It’s a struggle to walk to the bathroom. Making dinner seems more impossible than advanced calculus. Anything that’s not your couch or your bed might as well be hot lava. And so the mess builds around you. I purposely use the passive voice there because when you’re depressed, it seems nearly impossible that you’re contributing to the chaos of your house, because that would require energy, and you sure as hell don’t have any of that to spare.

Then you look around your messy house. And you feel worse. You feel more depressed, because now you’re exhausted and hopeless and can’t pull yourself out of bed, and on top of that, your house is a shithole. Which makes you feel useless on top of everything you were already feeling, and then probably overwhelmed on top of that, and quite frankly, having that many feelings at once during a depressive episode is like being crushed by a ton of bricks. So your depression gets worse, and your mess gets worse, and the two keep feeding on each other and it seems like there’s no end in sight.

Keep reading

lucyelizabeth:

this is a PSA

  • depression does not vanish just because your life is technically ‘going well’
  • depression does not vanish just because good things are happening to/around you
  • depression does not vanish just because you’re surrounded by people who love you
  • depression is an unconditional illness that comes and goes as it pleases, regardless of what might be happening in your life

Hi Katuro!

Lore is still around and well. Thanks for remembering him! He is one of my very favorite creations.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Lore, he’s my legit imaginary friend. Back in high school, when the panic attacks and self-destructive tendencies were going from bad to worse, he showed up in my sketchbook one day and from then on was sort of my conscience/guardian/voice in my head.

I may be crazy, but at least Lore is adorable… and, as he’s told me, a manifestation of my friends from all over the place. I was alone waaay too much of the time back then… and it helped me cope.

He’s also omnivorous and loves cat food. This, and many other interesting facts about Lore, are covered in the first novel I ever wrote – My Imaginary!

Depression is humiliating. It turns intelligent, kind people into zombies who can’t wash a dish or change their socks. It affects the ability to think clearly, to feel anything, to ascribe value to your children, your lifelong passions, your relative good fortune. It scoops out your normal healthy ability to cope with bad days and bad news, and replaces it with an unrecognizable sludge that finds no pleasure, no delight, no point in anything outside of bed. You alienate your friends because you can’t comport yourself socially, you risk your job because you can’t concentrate, you live in moderate squalor because you have no energy to stand up, let alone take out the garbage. You become pathetic and you know it. And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation. If you’ve never been depressed, thank your lucky stars and back off the folks who take a pill so they can make eye contact with the grocery store cashier. No one on earth would choose the nightmare of depression over an averagely turbulent normal life.

It’s not an incapacity to cope with day to day living in the modern world. It’s an incapacity to function. At all. If you and your loved ones have been spared, every blessing to you. If depression has taken root in you or your loved ones, every blessing to you, too. No one chooses it. No one deserves it. It runs in families, it ruins families. You cannot imagine what it takes to feign normalcy, to show up to work, to make a dentist appointment, to pay bills, to walk your dog, to return library books on time, to keep enough toilet paper on hand, when you are exerting most of your capacity on trying not to kill yourself. Depression is real. Just because you’ve never had it doesn’t make it imaginary. Compassion is also real. And a depressed person may cling desperately to it until they are out of the woods and they may remember your compassion for the rest of their lives as a force greater than their depression. Have a heart. Judge not lest ye be judged.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS.

Depression is not a synonym for being sad or having a bad day/bad week.

It’s not a PHASE. It’s not a CHOICE. It’s not LAZINESS.

(via general-grievous)

This reminds me of the time I filled out a similar survey at BYU’s counseling office. Hmmm. 😐 

Part of me is now thinking ‘oh no I didn’t follow the rules.. they said to only circle three! Will I be in trouble?! ahhhhh oh nooo my counselor will hate me ;__;’