Gee, *thanks*, Willpower, like you haven't screwed me enough already

The BBQ Pit
1

Smoker since I was 14. I’m now 26, so in principle I can quit now and still lead a pretty decent life. But can I quit? Fuck, I can’t even get into the frame of mind where I want to quit. I know I should quit. Some mornings my lungs feel pretty shitty, and I can’t have a cigarette until prolly around ten because of how sensative they are. But what do I do? Shit, I can’t make it passed noon without hitting a cigarette.

Then my Willpower retreated further. I am now a good 50 pounds overweight. Nothing earth-shattering, but clearly a sign of things to come.

Can I pay my bills ontime? Well, maybe if my willpower got a fucking clue. Oh, I can get those bills paid before they are 30 days late, but what the fuck. I have the money. It is sitting right there in my account doing fucking nothing. Why the fuck am I so lazy?

And now, for the passed three weeks, my willpower left yet another area of my life. I can’t go to sleep. Oh, I am tired alright. My concentration gets low, my eyes feel ready to shut. I yawn, even. But do I just get into bed and go to sleep? How fucking hard is it? So 4AM rolls around and I have a luscious three hours of sleep to look forward to. You’d think I’d go to bed on time the next night, right? Heh, fat fucking chance. I’m that much more tired, sure, but hey, why fucking go to bed when I can stay up and get nothing done? Oh, and smoke. And eat. :rolleyes:

What…the…fuck. And the worst thing is, I really don’t feel like I have any esteem problems. I don’t hate myself. I enjoy my life, more or less. I could use some more friends (read: any) since I’ve moved away from Ohio, but I’ve never been the most social guy in the world anyway so it has never been a real priority for me. I could use a girlfriend, but my last attempt turned me a little sour (she said she didn’t want a boyfriend, and then promptly went out and got a boyfriend… hey, all you had to say was ‘no thanks, erl, I’m just not interested in you.’ Fuck). I could use a little more money, but who couldn’t?

In short, I got piss all to really complain about, and I am far from unhappy. But why the fuck am I such a lazy bastard? Has anyone here gotten out of a laziness funk? I’d say I’m getting sick of it, but if that were really the case you’d think I’d fucking do something about it. Gah.

2

Go talk to your doctor about depression. Not seeming to be able to get things done is a sign of depression.

3

Wow. I think I’m your long-lost girl twin. Except I’m five years younger. Whatever.

I’m a control freak, but I lack the willpower to do anything requiring self control. Result? I get angry and self-destructive. I’m on meds and in therapy, but I’m still pretty miserable most of the time.

Do you ever feel like you’re struggling to do something, anything, but you just keep lying on the couch or fooling around on the computer or whatever? I get that all the time.

This sucks. Let’s both of us get better soon so things suck less.

4

Wow, hey, I used to be a control freak. I gave it up completely about two years ago. I am super lackadaisical now.

Reeder, is it really? I would think that depression has something to do with, well, being depressed. :confused: (that is a really nice sig, BTW :))

5

And I’m your twin brother! Especially the weight and bills things. But who is this Will Power you keep talking about? I don’t believe I know him.

6

Actually, what you’re describing does seem to be an awful lot like depression. More than just feeling sad, one of the symptoms of depression is the inability to motivate yourself to do (what should be for most people) very simple things, like the tasks you named.

I remember reading somewhere that a therapist described this symptom of depression as often being so severe and consequently immobilizing that you could put a bottle of pills that would “cure” the afflicted person across the room, and a person in this state would simply NOT have the energy to get up, walk over, and grasp salvation. I agree with Reeder that you should talk to your doc.

Hope you feel better!

7

Yeah, that’s true. I forgot mine this morning and they are about twenty feet away and I will have to make an ardent effort to take them before I go to bed. My lack of motivation is what’s left when I’m medicated. It was worse before.

Listen to Reeder and creaky, erislover. They’re making a good point about the doctor.

8

Others have said what I was going to…sounds like depression to me.

Talk to your doctor.

9

AND:

see a doctor who knows something about depression (been there) - with the pills now available, many will simply hand you 'script and forget about you unless you harp.

I have pills that I will need to take for the rest of my life - try not to join that club.

10

Well, I was gonna put all this in an email instead of posting, but then I thought maybe it could prompt some other folks to drop a little wisdom on you, so here goes:

First, as others have said, talk to your doctor about depression. Please.

Second, you are not alone. There are resources available no matter where you live in this country, and you can’t browse through the 'net without tripping over good information about depression, motivation, time management, and anything else you need to know about what’s happening and what you can do about it. And there are plenty of people you know who’ve either suffered from depression, kicked smoking, reformed their lazy habits or changed their lives in dramatic ways to improve their health. It can be done

Third, only you can change your habits of thought and action. But as soon as you decide to change, you’ll be amazed at how easily you can recruit the people in your life to help you make that change. (They don’t even have to know they’re helping you.)
About the smoking: If you’re gonna quit, do it right in the middle of a pack of smokes and carry that half pack around with you until they’re stale and dry. Really, it’s not willpower that’s keeping you addicted, it’s perception. Sure, you’re physically addicted, but the physical withdrawal symptoms aren’t dangerous. The really insidious symptom is your belief that you need the smoke. The purpose of carrying the cigarettes that you’ve decided not to burn is to reinforce the perception that you own the tobacco, not the other way 'round. (It wouldn’t hurt to change the little things you do that make smoking more enjoyable. Coffee, alcohol, sitting still after a big meal… Any habitual procedure that makes those butts luxurious should be modified or even avoided for the time being.)
About the weight: Don’t sweat the scale; it’s not important how far you can displace the dial on a force gauge by standing on it. What’s important is your general health and how you feel. Stay active. Move alot during the day; get up from the desk, even if it’s just to stand in front of your keyboard and stretch or groove to the tunes while you type. Don’t stop eating! Eat healthier. You’re a mid-twenties American; you’ve watched enough tv by now to know what you’re supposed to eat alot of, and what you’re supposed to eat sparingly. There’s no need to walk around hungry. Just eat the good stuff.
About the bills: C’mon, brother; you’re inventive. Either find ways to make sending the payments more fun (attach little puzzles or clever doodles with every check… write one check for 27cents and another for the balance… include a note asking how the weather is, just to see if anyone answers…) or find ways to automate or anticipate your bill paying so you can get it done before you have a chance not to get it done (ifyaknowwhatimean).

About Will Power: Ignore him. He’s a lying little shit who’ll make you pay attention to the wrong things. Talk to Anita Reason to change. (You’ll find her sitting precisely where you want to go.)

11

I feel your pain. I, too, must be a long lost relation. And, yes, I do suffer from depression and I am on medication.

As far as your bills are concerned, you might check into the online bill pay companies. Set your bills to be paid automatically so nothing important gets disconnected. However, you must remember to write it down (or download) into your check register. That is about the most effective way I have found. I am not as bad as I use to be, however, and try to make a concious effort to pay bills as soon as I get them, rather than putting them down on a desk and walking away.

Medication helps. Really. I can see a big difference in my motivation when I forget to take it. I tried to organize that as well, with those weekly pill holders.

Put yourself on a reward system. Pay the bills and then you get to lie on the couch. Don’t smoke during even numbered hours. Find a very controling SO. The last is my salvation. He harps on me to take the meds, he bitches when a bill comes in marked “past due”, he complains and nags when things are not done. I am sorry to admit that without him, there would be no decoration on the walls, dinner would be a box of Stove Top Stuffing and I would go out only when I absolutely had to have something (like cigarettes). But I would rather do the stuff and get it over with and not have to listen to him nag. The lesser of two evils, as it were.

Take the others advice and get to a doctor. Talk to him/her about your lack of motivation and the smoking. I am battling smoking, also, but have not heard enough nagging to quit altogether yet. Since the weather will be turning nice shortly, drag yourself to a park and go for a walk. That will help get the moticational juices going.

12

Yea, it couldn’t hurt to drop by a doc and ask about depression. You’re showing some of the signs, not of a huge drop in mood, but a chronic “funk” where you just do feel like doing anything.

Other than that listen to xenophon41’s ideas, he sounds fun. (If I misaligned gender, please forgive.)

Paying bills, I have all of mine go onto my credit card and I write one check a month. (well, technically two, because I also pay rent.) Get it automated, as much as you can, then you only have to write one check, stick one stamp, and remember to drop one envelope into the mail. Some months its still a close deal for me, but I manage.

13

Hey, maybe it’s depression, but I would be wary of two things:[ul]
[li]running into a doctor who really likes prescribing psychotropic medications[/li][li]having “mental illness” written in the fine print of your medical records, just waiting to jump up and demand attention whenever questions of insurability arise[/ul][/li]Now, I would never try to dissuade someone from seeking help if they need it, I just wouldn’t go to the doc and say, “I think I’ve got clinical depression”. I would go to the doc, but not for depression.

Smoking is addictive, man, big time. Not quitting smoking is not a sign of depression or of no will power–it’s a sign of addiciton. Talk to your doctor about ways to quit. Many companies also have smoking cessation programs. If your health isn’t incentive enough, you generally get an insurance break as soon as you enter a qualified program. Cash in pocket, buddy. Beer in hand.

You might also talk to the doc about weight. I’ve met you and don’t think you are dangerously obese (but then again, I don’t think I’m dangerously obese either, so take that for what it’s worth). Like xenophon41 said, the answer here is really physical activity and sensible diet. Failing to follow such a regimen does not make you depressed, though, it makes you a fairly typical American. Besides, light beer is an abomination before the lord and one has to maintain at least some principles.

Staying up too late and not getting enough sleep is also a pretty common element of American life. On the bright side, as you get older you need less sleep so eventually healthy sleep patterns will catch up to you. :wink: Seriously, 8 hours a night is a luxury. I haven’t met that standard since I was 14 and look at how I . . . Um, on second thought, turn off your computer and goto bed, man. Or at least do teh erl van winkle thing on the weekends in order to catch up.

Medea’s Child hit a homer on the bills. If not a credit card, have as many bills as possible taken directly from your account. (I personally prefer the cedit card, because I like to know exactly when money is leaving my account and maintain as much flexibility as possible. If you might be tempted ot not pay the card of completely each month (or if you don’t have a card available which isn’t carrying a balance) then do not use a card. Paying interest charges on your bills is salt in the wound.

As to a girl, well, good luck. I have no advice whatsoever. I got lucky, so it really can happen to anyone.

14

Heya Erislover,

I understand exactly how you feel. I tend not to enroll in my classes until the last possible minute- and by then they are all full. I wake up every morning at eight o’clock with grand plans about what I am going to get done before class at two. Every morning I end up sitting on my butt until two. I tend not to go to the kitchen to get something to eat until I am in so much pain from hunger that I can’t think. I still havn’t bought books for my classes because I am too lazy to go to the bookstore. I can’t understand why I am so incapable of doing the simplest things in my life- things I know will make my life easier- unless I am absolutly forced to.

My problems get a little wierder, though. The other day I was too lazy to wait for the bus, so I walked six miles to get home. I still can’t figure out the logic behind that one.

I know I am profoundly depressed. Of course, I am too lethargic to do something useful like seek help. My theory is that all of this lack of action serves a good purpose- it helps prevent you from gaining the energy it takes to harm yourself.

Anwyay, good luck. You know my screenname if you ever need to talk…

15

Heya Erislover.

I can be exactly the same. Every now again I’m okay and I get things done but mostly I’m just like you described. I did finally give up smoking though - I ignored the willpower issue and just called my stubborn streak into action.

It may or may not be depression. For me, when I’m getting really bad at doing anything I know it’s time for me to consider starting meds again. Sometimes I pull myself out of it, sometimes I take some meds for a little while until I feel ready to get on with things on my own. I don’t think meds are the cure for everything though - I think it’s much better to work out strategies for dealing with your own behaviour. “Baby steps” often works for me. For example, when I’m in a self-destructive/lazy phase I’m really, really bad at doing laundry. So what I do is do it in very tiny stages. I’ll move the laundry basket downstairs. That’s all I have to do. It’s not like I’m actually doing laundry or anything. Then a little while later I’ll sort the clothes. Still not actually doing any work. Then a while later I’ll put the clothes in the machine. Woo! Half way there and I haven’t actually done anything! And so on and so forth. It sounds good and often works, but sometimes even that doesn’t. Sometimes all that works is to wait for down-time" to wear off. And sometimes a swift kick in the ass works too.

I think what it comes down to is an underlying unwillingness to do good things for yourself, to look after yourself. Like you do things just to annoy yourself, in some perverse way. The fact that you purposefully stay up late when you know you’re tired indicates that this might at least be part of it (I do this too). It’s not necessarily a lack of self-esteem, but it can be to do with how you percieve yourself. It often feels like underneath I don’t want to be happy and on time and energetic because, well, it’s just too much effort. Really, it takes much more effort to be lazy because you spend your time feeling anxious about “I must be the laziest person on the planet and what the hell’s wrong with me that I can’t ever pay my bills on time and why the hell am I eating all the time when I know I’m overweight and why don’t I just get up off my ass and DO something?” It’s draining hard work thinking like that all the time. Lazy people don’t care about being lazy.

So yeah, I don’t really know where I’m going with this. Just letting you know that I often feel the same way and that in my opinion it’s not just “laziness”.

16

Heh, Spiritus, you’ve had the distinct pleasure of seeing me in action. Remember that girl at the bar when we were playing the garbage game? You said, “Well, she didn’t come over here to talk to me, man.” But that’s totally it. I knew it, even. But I just couldn’t fucking do anything about it. And man, she was pretty damn cute, too.

sven, :slight_smile: If I talked about my problems, that might change the whole paradim of our conversations! But, I did talk to a semi-friend (a close coworker but distant friend) about this today, so maybe I do need to get some specifics off my chest. And I think the “walking six miles versus the bus trip” is very interesting indeed.

Fransesca, your mention of anxiety is chillingly accurate. Ever see requiem for a dream?-- how the refrigerator leers at the mother? That’s my bills. I stack them up very neatly, sort out all the junk, and watch them ominously collect dust. Well, of course, the allusion to the fim is a little over the top, but there is a very clear anxiety element there. Some strange self-fulfilling prophecy of inability to pay bills leading to the very act of not paying bills. Or something.

Everyone, I am simply very leary about seeing a doctor. It isn’t that I don’t believe depression exists, or that I think most doctors are quacks, but…well, I don’t know. I’m going to have to read up on this whole thing before I can decide to do something like open myself up to the possibility of taking any medication. If only this stubborness could be manipulated into constructive behavior. Maybe I should think about xen’s suggestion of implementing creativity on something besides a vanity webpage.

The coworker in question (who, ironically enough, was the one who decided to find another boyfriend) says she will work to become closer to me… something she says she thinks about quite a bit (she’s lonely, too, just moved here from another country with no friends!) but didn’t feel like invading my privacy. Obviously I wasn’t clear enough to her: I have no privacy I wish to keep. From basically anyone, really.

Best of all, I really do like this credit card idea. I was in rather bad debt, but this situation is pretty much fixed. I’ll really have to look into it… one bill a month (well, of course, not including rent) would really be convenient as hell.

Thanks, all, I can’t say it’s made me feel better, but it has certainly given me food for thought.

17

She was cute, you dope. She was good at trivia games, too. You shoulda ppounced like a hungry leopard. Chicks dig pouncing leopards. :wink:

Hey, I’m the last one to talk. My wife lusted for me for years, apparently, while I obliviously considered her a cool friend that I hoped wouldn’t notice my occassional uncontrollable leers. Like I siad–I have no advice to give on women, except that if your lucky enough to be grabbed by the right one, grab back and hold on tight.

Do follow up on the bills, thing. Late fees are a stupid thing to spend money on. Also do see whether your employer has a smoking cessation program.

BTW–it takes some will power and initiative to dive into some of teh debates we’ve had. I don’t think you lack either–I think you’re just not motivated by the same things that sane people are. :smiley:

18

No, that which does motivate me is possibly a bit different than most. And that is a good point… I obviously have some motivation. But hey, who doesn’t when it comes to the SDMB. :slight_smile:

I have some pretty good news on the bills, though. I recently asked for a substantial raise ($6000/year, pretty substantial to me) and… woo-hoo! I got it! sigh Now, pay the bills and don’t rack up more pay the bills and don’t rack up more pay the bills and don’t rack up more…

19

Spiritus makes a good point. I don’t post a lot in GD but I do read it and although I’m interested in a lot of the threads you participate in (philosophy ones mostly), I don’t have half the willpower you do to keep stating your case in the face of critques and criticism. heh.

And really - go for the Direct Debit thing on bills. It makes life so much easier, and you often get a discount for paying DD (at least, you do here).

20

Congrats on the raise. Beers are on you next time I’m in Boston. (Actually, I got a raise/title bump myself just 2 days ago–the karmic wheel is rewarding us for tackling Wittgenstein, obviously.)