I Don’t Care (but I do)

I don’t care….but I do.

Does anyone know what I am talking about? I don’t know if I can describe it properly. It’s sort of contradictory. I want to study vision and eye disease, but I don’t care enough to get involved. I want to learn how to paint, but I can’t be bothered to pull out the paints and try. I want to sleep, but I lie there, awake, thinking of nonsense. I want to keep in touch with friends, but talking to them is too hard. I want to be successful, but I let myself get so distracted by my self loathing. My mind wants me to care, but there is no heart, no passion, nothing behind it, so I can’t do it.

I wasn’t always this way. I used to be motivated to learn, to exercise, to participate in life. It gets harder every year. I want to be creative and learn new things, but I can’t think. Some things I can do. I have to fight myself to do them, but I can. For example, if you give me a task and tell me to follow the instructions, no problem, done, but figuring something out, making something work….that part of my brain has been removed. Or maybe it’s my heart that’s been removed and I just don’t care enough to figure it out. It has been this way for several months now and it is just getting worse. The only way I can think of to describe it is that I don’t care about anything or what happens to me anymore, but that’s obviously not true if I am worrying about it now…..

I’m not sure if this makes sense to me in the end…I’m just thinking out loud.

Self-esteem Challenge: Day 22

This blog challenge was developed by betterthandarkchocolate.tumblr.com. If you missed the introduction or want to see a summary of all the questions, go here.

Day 22:
What do you think others like about your personality?
Which of your skills or abilities to you pride yourself on?

I think other people like that I am nice. I like to make other people comfortable and feel good about themselves. I try to always be polite and pleasant despite how I am feeling. I also try to be considerate of other people by thinking about how what I say and what I do will affect them. It drives me nuts when people don’t consider others. For example, getting off the escalator. They take the escalator at the mall up to the second floor, get off and stop right there, blocking the path, trying to decide where to go next. I come up behind them and have no where to go because the escalator is still moving and they are standing there at the end of it. So I say “excuse me, please” to remind them that people need to to get by and I get a dirty look! What do they want me to do?! Walk backwards on the moving stairs until they decide to move….I’m not the most coordinated, so that’s not going to work. Move aside to think about where you are going next instead of blocking the moving stairs. It’s such a small courtesy, yet so many people don’t do it. It drives me nuts! It’s not because they are bad people, most of the time, they just don’t think. Sorry for the rant. :S

Normally, I pride myself on my work ethic. Normally, I am a hard worker. Lately (the last several months) it has been getting harder and harder to do anything. I am extremely unmotivated and feel like I’m going nowhere. Work is the worst, but I’m not motivated to do the things I enjoy either. I need a prompt of some sort to draw or blog. I’ve stopped reading books, going out with friends and enjoying Netflix. Hubby has to be on my case everyday to get me to exercise. I feel really lost. Usually when this happens, I force myself through it. I do the things I know I should do anyway. It has been months now and this feeling isn’t passing. I’m finding it very difficult to force myself to keep going, doing the things I should be doing. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Self-esteem challenge: Day 12

This blog challenge was developed by betterthandarkchocolate.tumblr.com. If you missed the introduction or want to see a summary of all the questions, go here.

Day 12:
If you could change something about your personality, what would it be and why?
What’s the last thing you did that made you feel proud of yourself? Why did it make you feel this way?

I’m starting to feel like I’ve answered some of these questions already…. Anyway, I have always wished I were a more passionate person. Sometimes I feel like there is something standing in the way of me really enjoying something or really caring about something. My husband is a very passionate person, I admire that about him. Within the first few conversations, anyone who meets my husband will know that he loves Batman, wildlife, Coca Cola and Aerosmith. These are his favourite things, but there’s more to it than that. There’s an enthusiasm behind it. I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s like he is inspired by them, maybe. He knows all about them and can spend hours getting to know more or experiencing more. I don’t have anything like this. Sure, I have favourite things, but there is no drive behind them like there is with hubby. Everyone knows I have a sweet tooth and like cake, but there’s no passion to it. It’s not like I bake or decorate them or try exotic flavours. I pretty much eat the same type of cake every time I want a treat. I enjoy drawing, the blogging world knows that, but it’s something I often have to force myself to do. Eventually I get going, but there is no enthusiasm to it. I don’t know if this is a personality trait or if my medication has numbed all the passion out of me.

The last thing I did that made me feel proud of myself was comps. This was late last fall. Comps, or comprehensive exams, are a must for Ph.D. students. Basically you have to prove that you have what it takes to do a Ph.D. dissertation. My comps consisted of four questions from four experts in fields that were similar to mine, but not the same. My field is low vision and I was asked questions on certain vision research technology, age-related hearing loss, molecular biology of macular degeneration and genetics of retinitis pigmentosa (tunnel vision). I had to write 10 page papers on three of them, answer the fourth in a power point presentation and then do a presentation defending my research proposal. I opted to do my genetics question as a presentation. There was no way the answer to that question would have fit in 10 pages! The question itself was almost a page long! Anyway, the presentations went well. I got a sneaky thumbs up from my supervisor when the rest of the panel wasn’t looking. The molecular paper was ok, but it was the other two papers I was really proud of. I felt I had taken topics that I knew little about and told a cohesive story. My supervisor even mentioned publishing them! I actually felt like maybe I did deserve to be where I was. I knew what I was doing and didn’t feel like an imposter. Part of comps is finding out if you can find information, but you can’t just regurgitate what others have already said. You have to put it together and tell your own story, offer an opinion and insight for future research. I felt I did a really good job of that on those two papers.

Self-esteem Challenge: Day 7

This blog challenge was developed by betterthandarkchocolate.tumblr.com. If you missed the introduction or want to see a summary of all the questions, go here.

Day 7:
When do you feel best about yourself?
Do you think you care too much about what others think? If so how can you change that?

I feel best about myself after having been exercising and eating right for several weeks. I just feel lighter on my feet and my muscles feel tight and strong which somehow makes my reflection look better (even though I know it takes more than a couple weeks to see real changes). Lately, it has taken a tremendous amount of effort to exercise once or to eat right for a day. If I’m not exercising and eating right, no wonder I’m not feeling great. You want comfort when you feel bad and there is just nothing comforting about eating vegetables or getting out of breath. I actually find both quite uncomfortable. I don’t have the patience to focus more on the long term rewards of exercise and eating healthy. I think I’m too preoccupied with the immediate rewards I get from eating cake or lying on the couch in my sweats.

I definitely care too much about what people think of me. I want everyone to think highly of me. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. When you really think about it, it’s a waste of time to worry about what people think. Most of the time you’ll never know what they are thinking. You can assume, but you’re probably wrong most of the time. Besides, it’s impossible to please everyone all the time. It’s pointless to try. Some of you are probably judging me right now and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Some of you will like me, some of you wont. Some of you will respect me for sharing my experiences with depression and some of you will think I’m whining and attention-seeking. I could drive myself crazy agonizing over this and sometimes I do, but it’s not worth it. Why? It’s kind of depressing, but I’m not that special. To put it in perspective, the world is vast and I am small, most people don’t care or don’t know that I exist. In comparison to that, why should a few people who don’t like me matter? It’s not like anything actually happens when people don’t like you. Most of the time, you don’t even know when someone doesn’t like you.

How can I change my worrying about it? If I knew the answer, then I wouldn’t be doing a self-esteem challenge now, would I? I think I need to build my self-esteem and remind myself of what I said above. I am working on it, but it wont happen overnight. It takes a long time to change thought patterns that come to you naturally. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember.

Self-esteem Challenge: Day 6

This blog challenge was developed by betterthandarkchocolate.tumblr.com. If you missed the introduction or want to see a summary of all the questions, go here.

Day 6:
Something about the way you just are that you like.
What are some obstacles that are preventing you from accomplishing your goals? What will you do to overcome them?

Something about the way I just am? I really don’t know. Does this mean it has to fall outside of the way I look, my personality and the way I think, because those were covered by previous questions? What does that leave? My organs? I like my heart. It has a good rhythm and helps provide oxygen to the rest of my body.

The hurdle I’m trying to overcome at the moment is my lack of motivation. If I have things organized step by step and laid out in front of me, like this challenge, I can get myself to do it, but when things are unstructured, like making drawings to go with my posts, work or exercise, it’s really hard. Everything just takes sooo much effort and I don’t get anything good out of it in the end. So I’m spending energy I don’t have and still feeling like crap. Why bother? I know there are long term benefits to doing these things, but it seems like I keep at it and never seen the benefits. I need a more short term reward….and it can’t be food!

I tried to give my life more structure, hoping that would inspire some motivation. I was planning my meals, getting up early to run and then going to work. That lasted for about a month. Life threw a wrench in my plan and it fell apart. I’m thinking maybe I should try again, but I’ve been saying that for about a weeks now. I decided I’d try the Insanity workout again. I’m hoping it will give me a bit more pep. I’m two days in and I can barely walk. It’s a good kind of pain though. Here’s hoping I can stick to it!

For those of you who don’t know Insanity, you can check it out here. It’s always a good workout, no matter your fitness level.