One of the things I've feared the most has happened, and it's that I've gotten into a depression slump again.
And now, I'm on my way to a degree in a country I wasn't born in, engaged with someone here, basically. Which seems really nice and yeah, it is. But I've got to get my degree first.
Now, I've had low swings before, but over time, the voice I'd be doing so well to shove away with a more reasonable voice until a decent time has come back fully, and it doesn't care what's really the truth. All it cares about is winning, and if pushing aside everything else is what it does, then that's what it'll do. It's like the new strain of a virus that was vaccinated.
In the past two days, it's taken me so much back-and-forth thinking (and even thinking about that back-and-forth) just to stand up or do anything. I still have so much work to do, and some of it's a lot, some of it's not. I know what I need to do, it's just... getting to it.
I've sometimes in the past drowned out the voice by doing something like playing video games, but at this point, I'm playing video games while that voice just constantly yells in my head. And now it feels like a very uphill battle.
I know this is probably something to tell a professional, but in the case that I don't have much of a choice, has anyone done anything in regards to this?
Where there's a voice that, much as you try to push aside, it just won't ever go away?
I worked with a hearing voices consultant for a short while and what he told me actually surprised me a lot but made me able to make peace with my voices.
When you ignore the voices, they become angry. When you try to drown them out, they become angry. Anyone would if they were deliberately ignored and voices are not that much different in that respect. The key to being able to live with them is oddly enough to listen to them. Because they have something to say and it's usually important in some way. Voices speak in metaphors, like the dreams we have a night, and sometimes it takes a bit of work to interpret what they are trying to say.
But their normal intentions are often to be helpful. When we ignore certain needs and desires for long enough we become unbalanced and that is what the voices are trying to make us pay attention to. If we listen to the voices, we are actually listening to the part of ourselves that we have ignored.
Try not to fight it off. But try to ask it what it wants and what it thinks you should do. This made a world of difference to me. If you can find access to a consultant form the hearing voices organisation, i highly recommend it. They are very good at what they do and they can often help.
I hope this made just a bit of sense. Keep talking here when you need to. We are listening.
So I looked up what you recommended, and I think the issue I'm having has nothing to do with what I suggested it does.
To be clear, I'm not having any kind of hallucinations, and that's not even me in denial of anything.
What I was referring to in my OP was negative thoughts that feel like a certain voice talking in my brain. One of the things that helped me in my initial CBT was developing a counter to this, of positive thoughts and reaffirming reality as it is. But it's gotten to a point where much as I keep thinking "Okay, is it really like this? x, y, and z say no" the initial thoughts won't give way.
So, here's a sample what it'd be like in my head during CBT and shortly after:
Thoughts1: "You know, you still need to get on with your work. You're lying around right now"
Thoughts2: "Yes, and we've already done some. Quite a good amount, in fact"
Thoughts1: "Okay, so how is this going to get done? You could just lie around like you always do and blow it off"
Thoughts2: "Just rinse and repeat, that should take care of it"
And then Thoughts1 shuts up after a grunt.
Over time though, it started to persist. Shortly before I wrote my post, I had this going on:
Thoughts1: "You haven't done a single thing today"
Thoughts2: "We went to the cafe. We worked on a print and reworked an important part of it. It's Pokemon day, and we met a couple friends for a few hours"
Thoughts1: "You didn't do anything planned"
Thoughts2: "Pokemon Day. Cafe. That was planned yesterday"
Thoughts1: "And still no homework done. And look what you're doing right now, you're playing Tetris(99). Today was supposed to be about getting a lot of animating done"
Thoughts2: "Kinda hard to do that when all I can do is think about how I'm not working"
Thoughts1: "No excuses. Look, you can clearly multitask. You just pulled off a tetris, and you're well on your way to making top 10. Why can't you do that with your work?"
Thoughts2: "Maybe because all you'll do is nitpick every single little hand motion I do?"
Thoughts1: "It's to help you improve. Isn't that why you went to uni?"
This all kept going until I went to bed. No matter how much I debunk these thoughts, there's no stopping the goalposts.
There has even been a time in recent months where I would be doing the very exact thing I'd be telling myself I'd be needing to do.
"You need to be working on x project" ""We ARE working on x project!"
I've done a little better in the last couple days in regards to ignoring, but I can do that only for so long.
I wasn't sure about the voice being a voice as such, but i made the kindof reply i did in case you felt it was a voice beyond your control.
I think most of us can relate to the feeling of feeling guilty about not doing enough even if we have done enough. I don't know if this is possible for you but i was once or twice (or possibly a million times....) adviced to set aside a certain amount of time in which i was allowed to worry about stuff. Stuff that would be on my mind constantly and leading to feeling guilty. They told me that maybe i could set aside half an hour every day to let me mind go crazy on whatever might be bothering me but for the remaining time i was allowed to just push it aside and ignore it.
Do you know why you feel like you haven't done enough work even if the evidence speaks against that????
Sounds like you had a pushy parent. What people respond to gets inside them. If a kid has a pushy parent and resent them, the "voice" and the spirit of it gets inside the subconscious and drives thoughts. Most people are extensions of someone else to one degree or another. Don't be "for or against" the pushy spirit inside. You recognize it for what it is and you will modify it
I have this terrible habit of posting a thread, maybe responding once, and never returning again. I'll try better this time around.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zurg
I think most of us can relate to the feeling of feeling guilty about not doing enough even if we have done enough. I don't know if this is possible for you but i was once or twice (or possibly a million times....) adviced to set aside a certain amount of time in which i was allowed to worry about stuff. Stuff that would be on my mind constantly and leading to feeling guilty. They told me that maybe i could set aside half an hour every day to let me mind go crazy on whatever might be bothering me but for the remaining time i was allowed to just push it aside and ignore it.
I suppose this might be something to consider, though I'm unsure if it'll help or hurt more.
Quote:
Do you know why you feel like you haven't done enough work even if the evidence speaks against that????
I think a lot of that simply comes from how often I have something I need to be doing, and I'll do about anything under the sun that's exactly not that. The thing is, it's not like it's something I don't want to be doing, either. It could be something I love doing, and many times it has been that.
