Tag: motivation

samxcamargo:

If you’re scrolling through tumblr trying to distract yourself from something you don’t want to think about or you’re looking for a sign that everything will be okay, this is it. So, breathe. Relax into this moment. You’re alive & that’s all that matters.

https://www.tumblr.com/audio_file/thehashslingingslashshipper/174456092066/tumblr_nplwzlmn7z1s21hl6?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio
http://thehashslingingslashshipper.tumblr.com/post/174456092066/audio_player_iframe/thehashslingingslashshipper/tumblr_nplwzlmn7z1s21hl6?audio_file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tumblr.com%2Faudio_file%2Fthehashslingingslashshipper%2F174456092066%2Ftumblr_nplwzlmn7z1s21hl6

fabriziolori:

“Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”

dangerously-human:

batmanisagatewaydrug:

wearywater:

batmanisagatewaydrug:

batmanisagatewaydrug:

gifted student™ brains are about as functional as horses when you get right down to it 

which sounds like a shit post but consider: horses? hypothetically MADE for running. look at this magnificent muscle beasts. look at those legs. they must be so good at running, right? wrong. horses are fragile as fuck. horses break their gotdamn legs so so easily, and if they break their legs you just have to fucking shoot them. if they run, the thing they are MADE FOR, too fast their lungs will start bleeding. I just googled horses to see if I was missing anything and apparently if they lie down for a day their organs start collapsing or something so they can’t rest from their One Horse Purpose even when they’re hurt. they’re made to do one thing but they can only do it under Very Specific Conditions and if a single thing changes they just die.

 which, you know. gifted students™ get applauded for being naturally smart when we’re five or whatever and then develop a terrible inflated sense of self that makes us highly averse to anything we’re not naturally good at, because it challenges our fragile childbrain egos and if we wait too long we’ll develop mental fences around entire subjects and skillsets (mine are math and studying) because we think we’re Bad at them, when in reality we just need to practice but are frustrated by that because it’s harder than being ~naturally talented~ was. we get applauded for doing One Thing but the second we run into slightly different things that our brains don’t comprehend as readily? it’s a Bad Time. I still have so much anxiety over things I don’t feel Naturally Talented at that I’ve been sitting here writing this post for like 10 minutes rather than read the feedback on my religion paper. I got a 100% on it, but I’m still That Scared of anything other than straight heaps of praise because that’s what my childbrain was acclimated to. just send me to the glue factory already. 

I…..I needed to hear this

that’s intriguing because this is not a particularly happy or uplifting post but I hope that whatever you got out of it was positive and that it could be a good thing for you

Sometimes it’s incredibly freeing to hear that other people are familiar with a feeling. No falsely spun cheery “positivity” needed.

closet-keys:

One thing I think is useful to conceptualize when thinking about the severity of depression is figuring out what counts as a ‘task’ to your brain

for example, healthy people outlining the tasks they need to do that day might be something like 

– class
– work
– homework

if a healthy person is having a low energy day, maybe it becomes 

– make breakfast
– go to class
– class
– go to work
– work
– come home from work
– work on an essay
– do 2 readings 

a depressed person, on a high energy day will probably see that same day as 

– make breakfast
– eat breakfast
– take meds
– shower
– get dressed
– walk to bus
– take bus
… etc

a depressed person, on a low energy day will see that same day as

– wake up
– get out of bed
– walk to bathroom
– use bathroom
– stand back up
– walk to kitchen
– open fridge
– take out juice
– set on counter
– go to cabinet
– reach up arm
– take down glass
– unscrew lid of juice carton
– pour juice
– drink the juice
– finish the juice
…etc

the sort of chronic exhaustion manifests in how each ‘task’ takes a certain amount of energy and when you have depression, what begins to take that amount of energy- and thus, cognitively count as a ‘task’- are smaller and smaller subdivisions of what other people consider tasks. 

And the more ‘tasks’ you do, the less energy you have, and the smaller the subdivisions must be to take equivalent amounts of energy. And the longer that “to do” list of tasks is, the more exhausting and overwhelming and hopeless it feels, which creates a feedback loop of dysfunction.

So say our depressed person on a low energy day gets all the way to finishing their glass of juice. They’ve actually gotten through a lot of tasks! They’ve tried really hard. 

But to a healthy person, even on a low energy day, that probably looks like not having done anything- not having gotten through any tasks. And when our depressed person is surrounded by healthy people, they will likely internalize that they haven’t done anything, and further that they can’t complete any tasks no matter how hard they try. And that feeds worthlessness and suicidal ideation 

That, I think, is why it’s so important to encourage your depressed and chronically low-energy friends when they accomplish tasks, even if they’re operating at a level of subdivision that you don’t recognize. It is an accomplishment to get water and actually drink it for some folks. It is an accomplishment to get to class or to work. 

And acknowledging how hard someone is trying and how much energy they’re putting towards accomplishing those tasks can make a huge difference in whether they feel worthless and hopeless or whether they feel like it’s worth it to keep doing what they can.