Feeling of not wanting to get better
Hi all,
I've had a burning question for a while now, so here goes....
How do you get out of not wanting to get better?
I think I've struggled with some level of depression for most of my life. It's never been officially diagnosed but my counsellors at KHL have brought it up on occassion along with finding someone closer to home to talk to. I've always been reluctant to tell them the bigger reason why - other than being afraid to be open to a stranger about how I really feel cause I've been so used to hiding it from everyone. I don't know if I want to get better. It probably sounds weird but I don't really have goals or dreams for myself. I've never really been interested in life or wanting to grow up and be somebody. I feel like if I do try and realise I dont want to get better then I would have just wasted someone's time.
I'm not really sure what I'm looking for. hahaha i feel awks now. Thanks for reading if you made it this far xD
Comments
Hey bumble-d
Its ok if you are at a stage of not knowing what your goals are, its not always competely clear for everyone what they want to do.
However, it might be a good idea for you to search around for some interests that you have. I'm not saying you have to go career searching, however you might like to find some hobbies or activities that you have not tried before and perhaps you will find your goals and ambitions there :).
Also, well done for posting bumble-d. You mentioned that you have been hiding how you feel about to the people around you, so I'm glad that you have been brave and posted here to let us know where you are currently at. 
@ElleBelle i think you're right that it's become all that i know. haha, you would have a nice long chat to my parents! but my friends and siblings have the same idea about dreams as you do. im in my fifth year at uni now 😛 I feel like i should know at least some direction of what im doing after i finish uni....
oooh, do you get to live that dream sometimes? it sounds awesome!! havent had nachos in a while now.... 😛
@Lightuptheworld hehe, i see what you did there! nice segway. i think i need to work on how i define and think of goals... i've been meaning to get back into volunteering but haven't had a chance to look around (after all that procrastination and doing assignments XD)
@Birdeye yeah, i think i've fallen into that trap. you're right, if i was upfront about it then no one would be misled.
@m-y93 i made of those lists before but i've forgotten where i've placed it now.. lol, organisation skills! 😛 yeah, i want to make that decision for myself too. just a bit torn over the decision. i'm a fence sitter until the fence becomes so uncomfortable that i have to make a decision, which can take a while in some cases.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I really appreciate it. (:
Sometimes it take time to figure out what you want to do with life. You just have to explore and find out who are you, you are still young. Engaging in fun activities helps depression too, maybe you need to look outside, and see what you are passionate about.
I know it can be difficult to get better, its normal for us to be afraid to change. Sometimes I too feel. I'm scared if my moods were stable, I would lose my creativity, I know it sounds weird. Being a little high tends to ignite ideas in my brain.
It helps to great professional help, I hope it all turns great for you. Stay strong. Hold on
Thanks for replying. 🙂
@Creativegirl12 - I'll try and push myself to get out and about and do what I used to love. I don't think it sounds weird about being afraid to lose you creativity.
@Nath - hmm yeah, im starting to come around to the idea that we dont always know where we are going or have goals. it was such a shock to me when i first heard that. I hope i'll find some motivation to try something new. I need to get on top of my procrastinating and assignments.
I think that's probably a really common thing, and it's a difficult one to answer.
Not only can we start having things like depression as a comfort zone, but we can also start to let the things about ourselves that come with it to help define us. That then makes it even scarier to think of getting help and breaking away from it, because that makes us a different person right? If we take away such a fundamental part of our current everyday lives, we're no longer us and that's really scary because if we're not us, who are we?
But that isn't true. You're still you, you're just a happier you, a you who appreciates yourself more, or a you who does the things that you held yourself back from doing before. The illness isn't all that you are.
You really don't need to know what you want in your life right now. You're still new to the world, there's so much that is still to be looked into and tried. You don't need some grand idea of what you want to be in 10 years in order to get anywhere in life, and the way you see your life going doesn't have to be mapped out nor the way anyone else expects you to have it.
You are going to grow up and you are going to be somebody, but you don't have to know who that somebody is. You don't ever have to decide who that somebody is, you can just be doing whatever you feel is right for you at the time, and then someday you'll find that you are who you are.
If you take a class and then decide it's not for you so you move to a different class did you waste that teachers time? No, because you can't know whether or not it's right for you until you try. Rather than having wasted their and your time, you'll have done yourself a favour by letting yourself know for sure whether it was right or not.
I think it'd be really good if you could speak to someone and tell them that you're not sure that you want to get better. If you're upfront about it, you're not misleading them and wasting time, are you?
Hi @Bumblebee , You seem to be feeling the same way alot of people do sometimes in life. I don't think anyone can really give you a straight answer you really have to do it for yourself.... once you are commited to doing it for yourself you'll feel amazing and you'll understand why you fought to feel this way. At the moment it seems that you have no interests in life but I gurantee you once you find the help you need you'll be full of life and you'll have alot to look forward to. You now just have to take yourself to that place, What hobbies, interests do you have ? What makes you smile and happy? Try to make a list of all those things and really depend on them when you start feeling down again!!! It can really help.
The fact that you are seeking help both at RO and at KHL shows that you do have motivation and the desire to feel better.
It can feel hard to open up to strangers but once you are able to express your feelings and not bottle them up you'll already feel better. People are often scared and reluctant to seek help, they feel embarassed or feel as though noone is interested in their problems. BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE. Health professions dedicate their life to helping people and trying to make them feel better about themselves.
I encourage you to read this ---> http://au.reachout.com/Seeking-help-early
and seek help from a local counsellor or psychologists. It can seem daunting but it will get easier each session you attend.
This forum also has personal experiences of first time sessions with professionals and what helped people get through them.
Hope this helped.
Goodluck and stay strong
Hey @bumble-d - that's a good question! I definitely think you need some desire, even if it's just a spark, to get better in order to start seeking help. However, you're posting here and speaking to KHL so that means you've got a spark somewhere inside! When you've been living and feeling a certain way for a long time, it's easy to just get comfortable and accept that 'that's how things are.' It's a bit weird to think of depression as a comfort zone, but it totally can be! Change is scary and most people are hard-wired to be afraid of it. So to some extent, if you don't want to get better it might just be because you are used to how life is right now.
As far as not having any big dreams or goals, I'd love to meet the person who said you're meant to know what you want to do with the rest of your life when you're a teenager. I'd give them a good reality check! Dreams and goals are inspired, not inherent. Sometimes my dream is just to eat nachos and binge watch a whole season of some TV show!
Hi @bumble-d .
It sounds like things are tough for you and have been for quite a long time. It's good to hear you've been taking about it with KHL, that's a really positive step as ElleBelle said.
I'm wondering whether there's some things you like doing in your spare time such as listen to music or write or something else and whether you could create mini goals from there like writing a poem or creating a character for a story or making a playlist, etc. Sometimes I find if I'm feeling a bit directionless that it's helpful to have little goals first that help me to work out bigger ones. Even talking to others about how you're doing can be a goal- for example: this week I'll aim to be a little more open with my KHL counsellor or today I'll share my experince on ReachOut. 🙂
