Lucem Ferre

Oh, pfff, that's obviously from a lack of discipline in your child hood. Should have sent you to military school.

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The Batlord

I thank military school for helping me to realize that my lack of initiative isn't a character flaw but simply part of my character. I just don't want to do stuff and no amount of telling myself I need to do stuff is going to change my DNA.

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Lucem Ferre

I think it's probably rooted more into depression or self worth than just being a character trait. Then again, I could just be projecting.

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The Batlord

I was a lazy kid who wanted to watch Batman cartoons and never do home work ever since I can remember, but I'm pretty sure I've been depressed for as long as I can remember, and I clearly remember thinking in elementary school that my grades would take a dive when I went to middle school because I wouldn't be able to bring myself to care enough, and lo and behold I was right and my entire life has been built on all of that. So all of the above? But also yeah all of this **** is swirled together as my personality. I'm never going to pull myself out of this funk because this funk is who I am and always has been.

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Lucem Ferre

I was the same way. Like, I did all my work at school, got perfect grades until they introduced the concept of homework to me. I got home and didn't want to do some boring ass bull**** that I already did all day. I wanted to escape and play games and draw and ****. Explore my imagination. That's how I am now. I work my ass off at work and I don't wanna do **** when I get home. I notice that when I force myself to get up and do more I'm usually a bit happier. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, I always return to hopeless laziness in the end. I don't know if I'm doomed to be this way. I just know that I don't exactly know how to change.

Either way, it reminds me of a lot of my friends who suffer from the same severe depression. How they molded their identity around their depression. I think that they dwell in it and feed off of their own sadness because with out it they don't know who they are. Maybe that's me too.

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The Batlord

It's probably the way you are. You probably are doomed to be this way. I say rather than try to change yourself to fit an ideal you've built up in your mind that is probably forced upon you by a society that doesn't know who you are or care you should conform your hopes and expectations around the person you actually are.

You're never going to wake up one day and be different. You're never going to mold yourself into someone different. You're simply always going to be this way. If you can figure out a way of life that accounts for this and doesn't feel like you're beating your head against a wall, you won't be happy, because that's not the way we are, but you might be able to live a life that makes sense to you at least.

It's depressing, but ask yourself if the people you wish you could be like could ever be like you are now. Of course they couldn't and of course you couldn't be like them.

Their identity isn't their depression. Long term, life long depression is a concept created by a society that doesn't feel it, so they must come to terms with an idea that they feel is an aberration. But it simply is you, the way you think, the way you live. Everyone molds their identity around something that makes sense to them, which is just another way of saying that it simply is the way they are, and you mold your identity around sadness because you're sad. But even the concept of sadness is in opposition to what other people see as their status quo. Their status quo isn't yours. If to them you are sad then that's their definition. You're just you. And I guess you're sad. I'm sad too. But really I'm just me. And you're just you.

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Lucem Ferre

I'd be willing to accept that as an answer if I were happy as is. I'm not though. I'm not going to convince myself to embrace it and be okay with it when I'm not. I know you don't just wake up one day a changed person. It takes time and effort to change. You have to break yourself out of the cycle that you don't want to be in. I don't want to be here. I don't want to quit trying to change based on the defeated attitude that I can never change. I just don't know how to pull myself out.

I made one small change that drastically helped during the past few weeks even when I see myself sinking back into the same insecurity and self loathing that consumed me at the beginning of October. Rather than sitting around staring at my phone or pointlessly scrolling through MB in a mad anxiety ridden fever I'd force myself to listen to music. I've listened to a **** ton of new music and I've enjoyed it. That whole Death catalog only took me, like what? Two days? Cleaned up my room, bathroom, etc. Went to the grocery store and actually ate meals rather than gorging myself on junk food at night. It's been a better time than usual. I wasn't constantly dwelling on everything that bothers me. I'd like to keep moving in that direction rather than convince myself I'm complacent as is.

Edit: I know that I can't ever escape depression. I'm bipolar, I have PTSD it's encoded into my DNA, hard wired into my brain. It's inevitable. I just don't want to dwell in it or let it consume me over and over again especially over this idea that that's just who I am.

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rostasi

World Music with Deirdre Saravia | Texas Public Radio

She appears to be playing a LOT of Caetano Veloso tonight. No sign of flamenco yet.

The Batlord

By all means, focus who you are into something that is meaningful to you, but just remember that you are who you are and always will be. The fantasy that you can be someone who will be "happy" is ever present and inevitable, not even just in you but in everybody, but in you it isn't just a goal but a desperate hope that will destroy you if you can't temper that hope with reasonable expectation. You can be somebody who you respect and are to some extent satisfied with, but everyone has an unrealistic ideal of who they can be, the difference is that the distance between you and that person is far greater and more unrealistic than most and so it can be far more destructive if you don't take a step back and just accept that you're a lazy depressive and always will be.

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Lucem Ferre

I've spent more than enough time doing that. Never helped me not a none bit.

Could also be that me and you are experiencing two different things. Or maybe you're just trying to comfort yourself in giving up because it's easier. Regardless, I hope this one small change brings you something better.

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