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...trapped, bound and gagged.

Too much to do and it seems like the list just grows daily.
And I can't get myself to do ANYthing. What is this place I'm in? Who is this person I am?

I was laid off my job this past friday and am now unemployed. My T tells me what I'm going through is to be expected, to feel lost, w/o purpose, w/o direction, depressed, in shock (even tho I knew it was coming a month ago that my last day was to be the 13th).....grieving, she calls it.

Maybe SHE expected it....but I sure didn't! All that I'm going through right now. I thought I'd just start yesterday (monday) doing what I have to do to look for another job, get my finances in order, sort out my health insurance dilemma, ...and take care of things here at home that need tending to, the mountain of laundry, the mountain of dirty dishes, the filthy fish bowl, vacuuming.....the list goes on.

And what have I done so far? NOTHING. I feel paralyzed, motionless..not knowing what to do first. Well, it's obvious what I have to do first...but it seems like once I take that first step then the rest is going to just pile on top of me and I'm going to drown in it all. Like once I start there is NO going back to the beginning, NO GOING BACK...and I'm committed to doing ALL of it. Very black and white, I know! Sit here and do NOTHING or drown doing ALL of it.

I know the usual phrases "one step a a time", "just do one thing, dont think about the rest", etc etc etc...people tell me these things and my T tells me these things. And yet, here I continue to sit, afraid to move, screaming at myself to just GET UP and DO SOMETHING, anything!!!.....but I am bound and gagged and frozen in time and space. I've made schedules for myself that I ignore. I've made lists that I ignore.

My daughter is going to be pissed at me that I havn't done anything today. I'm pissed at me. All I really want to do is crawl into bed and sleep and hide for the next century or two. *sigh* Anyway out of this besides the usual worn out phrases?

It certainly sounds like you're quite immobilised by depression. I hate to say it Laura, but getting up and doing one thing at a time will help you to feel BETTER.

The depression will make it hard to be as motivated as you normally are, so I think you should be kind to yourself about that. However I think you would benefit from staying focused on getting some of that stuff done you talked about. I was fired in my last job, so I didn't foresee it at all. I had very little motivation and also found it hard to get anything at all done. What I found to be a very helpful exercise was to write a list. Write down all the stuff you need to get done, then divide it into small tasks. Eg:

- collect clothes for washing
- put load of washing in machine
- put washing out to dry
- get clothes off washing line
- fold clothes and put in drawers and wardrobe.

As you get through the day, grab a brightly coloured fat texta and cross each item off. Seeing each task get crossed of the list is very satisfying and motivating. Each task is so small it takes less than 5 minutes, so all the tasks seem bite sized. And make the first task on your list "write list" so when you're done you can already cross something off.

I can't tell you how hard your depression is to overcome and I won't suggest it's easy. But be careful not to give up, bc it will take you longer to find your feet again. You can choose to try to tackle these difficulties right now, or you can choose to be completely immobilised. But please be careful not to allow your fear of failure to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You managed to write this post, so you are able to get out of bed and type. That's a start!

Have you tried using rewards/treats to motivate yourself?

Another trick that often works for me is to set the kitchen timer for 15 minutes. If you feel you really can't face 15, just set it for five. Spend that period of time doing the things that have to be done, but when the timer goes off, you can stop, and don't have to do any more if you don't feel like it. I find about half of the time, once I've got moving I do feel motivated, and will carry on. The other half of the time, well, having spent 15 minutes on something is better than not doing it at all!

Finally, if your list is too long and you feel overwhelmed, try prioritising and delegating (if possible). Or just pick a few things you need to do today, and ignore the rest of it. Remember that you probably won't function as well when you're depressed as the rest of the time, so try not to be too hard on yourself, and figure out what the really important things are.

I hope that helps a little. I don't know if you've tried any of those things, but they often work well for me. I use Sarah's suggestions too.

Sorry to hear about your job. I hope you start feeling better soon!

I have been in your shoes many times, this feeling of being frozen, being trapped with no way out is only too familiar! Right at this moment, I am going there again and have been for the last couple of days. I agree with the prior postings, these are good suggestions, especially the list with little tasks that are not so overwhelming. Is there anyone you can call on the phone and who would be willing to listen without judging and giving unwanted advice? That always helps me because saying it out loud sometimes eases the pressure a little bit. People in recovery from substance addiction decrease one day at a time to 1 hr, 1 min. until this is doable so the kitchen timer is also very helpful, I guess. I just wish I had the ideal method to help you lift the paralyzing fears and thoughts and I agree with you that the same old same old sometimes just does not do the trick because you/I keep thinking what's the use and the sheer effort is too exhausting. I feel with you and hope you find a way to take the edge off!

i just want to say i have been in the exact same situation so many times. today is one of those days for me as well... it really really *sucks* to be stuck. i'm sorry to hear you are feeling so bad...

i hope you feel better soon...
erin

Thx everyone, for you suggestions and support. Yes, I've made lists and schedules...however not as detailed as you suggest or broken down into even smaller steps. I'll try that. ...and yes, I guess I am rather depressed, altho it's a different kind of depression, not like how depression was for me in the past...now it feels more, I dunno...numb, I feel this intense nothingness, just numb and oblivious to it all. (maybe I should try beating my head against a wall, might "wake" me up? or knock me out, whichever comes first)..and rewarding myself, maybe when I actually get something done.

I'm sitting here right now, and I HAVE To get to the unemployment office to turn in my app if I want to get benefits for this week. If I wait and do it Monday then I will not get benefits for this week. Seems pretty simple, eh? GO!!!

But I've been sitting here, in this chair, watching TV and messing around on the computer for this past 5 hours!! Before that I did manage to get all the dishes washed. But the place closes in 1 hour and I keep screaming at myself to GET UP and GET THERE...just get it over and done with, will take less than half an hour.

Maybe I don't really care. Maybe I'm just thinking "so what?" if I dont get benefits for this week. Maybe I'm just feeling like I really don't care what happens with anything. I saw my T yesterday and we were talking about all this (and more, as usual), and when we were done I was sure today was going to be different, that I would get done what needed to be done...or at least just the first two things on the list that she wrote for me...two things that I could have had done in under an hour, then spent the rest of the day doing nothing.

But really....it's true. I don't care. Maybe next week I'll care. This week I do not. T says I should just accept that this is how I am right now and not be so hard on myself. I wanted to cry when she said that ...but of course I didnt. It's *extremely* rare when I cry....I hate doing it, it's weak, out of control, pointless, etc etc (T and I are contining to work on that belief, tho..she challenges me on it quite often).

So I continue to sit here...locked up, strapped down, and ... I really don't care.

i just want to throw this out there... i have noticed that with myself personally, when i say things to myself or other like "i don't care" i end up realizing some time down the road that i do care somewhere deep inside but i am just avoiding the issue because it brings up very uncomfortable feelings and further issues for me that i have not yet resolved. does that make sense? i guess it seems that if this is something that bothers you, and you also are having trouble showing your emotions in ways like crying, it follows that maybe this is just another way of avoiding how you really feel about something...

you say you feel like crying is weak, etc... are you afraid to go to the unemployment office because you are embarrassed of your current unemployment? if you have trouble with feelings of weakness and vulnerability maybe that is partly why you are avoiding going there... i can imagine feeling pretty low... i have felt that way when having to deal with disability stuff and having to let the hr department at my job find out all about my problems... it can be hard to face up to reality when we feel it makes us look inferior so we avoid it.

i'm not trying to psychoanalyze you or overextend my advice... i hope all this makes sense. just trying to help you figure it out. if that is okay...

erin

Does your state have online apps? Laid off at 4 PM, filed online before 5. They accept those till midnite here. Good pay for fifteen mins work. I know its not your real issue. But it is pizza dough.

Yeh erin, it's ok, really ...I appreciate the insight and assist with this. And you're right... ive just been avoiding quite a lot lately, not just about my job situation, but with many other things too. My T has been hinting at me about that also, so you're not the only one. I just don't know what to do anymore. In the past, when I had an emotion I was all OUT THERE with it, everybody knew it. Then I went through DBT and learned about distraction and thinking other thoughts, etc which was fine for a while.....but now it seems what I'm doing is just going to the other extreme and keeping it all IN and NOT thinking about things I shoudl be thinking about or talking about things I should be talking about...just keeping my distance and staying oblivious to it all....and yet deep inside I've got chaos and emotions that ....well, I dunno, I don't even want to go there right now. Suffice to say that now it's all locked down inside so tight that I dont know what to do.

I was talking with T about this yesterday and basically we defined it. I'm totally disconnected from everyone, everything and from myself right now, and have been for quite a while...but now more than ever because loosing my job was very triggering for me (we're not sure how yet for me personally...besides the obvious). So T is going to be working on getting me to reconnect and to be OK with that, on my terms, etc. At least now I'm more aware of it, which is the first step, right? Soooo...we shall see.

Yes I can file the unemployment app online, however there are a couple questions on it that I'm not sure how to answer, so I need to go to the unemp office so they can help me with that.

It's ok..I'm just going to try to get there Monday and call this week a wash out.

Laura I appreciate that losing your job can render you dumbfounded, but reading your last 3 posts I think there's something more going on.

You say your T says you're disconnected from people right now. Well, not leaving the house will result in that. But the disconnection seems to me more like a consequence than a cause right now. The cause appears to me to be a big dose of self-sabotage. The stuff about going to the unemployment office, well, you could have done it, but instead you chose to sit at your computer and type here. This to me sounds like you're sabotaging yourself with an audience (us). Not only will you not get your payment now for last week, but you will feel less like going in on Monday bc of the little mess created by not going in on Friday.

When trying to get one's shit together, the first step is usually damage control. Going and fixing up the little piles of mess we've created around us. Then we move into what needs to be done immediately, like going to the unemployment office (ie: avoiding the damage control you'll now have to do on Monday). Then one can begin to work on future aims.

The only person who can change your situation is you.

Sabotage is a way of hurting ourselves, right? Another name for hurting ourselves is self-injury. You don't need a knife to SI. Self-injury is such a central aspect of BPD that it's included in the diagnostic criteria. Think about this for a moment Laura and how right now you are expressing your BPD tendencies (which you're here to overcome).

Every time you allow an important task to slip by you are informing yourself that you are not worth caring for. My experience with low self-esteem and self-injury is that these messages actually DO sink in. If you think you're worthless then you won't have the energy to care for yourself and you will continue the self-perpetuating cycle by giving negative messages to yourself about your worth. The only way to stop this cycle is get in there and involve yourself in creating positive messages about your self worth. I bet right now you're feeling foolish and guilty about not going to the unemployment office. Of course you don't need to beat yourself up about something that's now done and you can't change, but you need energy now to stop yourself from beating yourself up about the things you didn't do. Energy that could otherwise be expended on the next step to help your situation.

When something unfortunate occurs, like losing one's job, it is very easy to fall back in a heap of self-pity. To enhance how pathetic our situation is, how victimised we are, how consumed by hopelessness we are, we can make it worse by sabotaging ourselves. But the result is more than just dramatic effect, it gets into our self worth. I see this as a BPD pattern: becoming consumed by helplessness.

Have you tried using The 5 Steps? This is a technique we encourage at BPDR which helps with making healthy decisions for ourselves, overcoming the negative influences in our heads, and putting ourselves into action. I can't stress to you what a valuable recovery tool The 5 Steps are.

If you feel you need the support of the BPDR community there's a forum for The 5 Steps where you can run through each step and receive guidance in how to apply this tool. It's also a forum where you can receive encouragement and praise for applying healthy strategies to your life.

Do you think you understand the 5 Steps enough to begin applying them to your current situation?

This is very true. We have to see what the important things in life. If we don't work on getting better there is no one that is going to do it for us. I for one was in the same state that Laura was in. My situation is different from her's though. But I knew something was wrong inside and I wanted to find out what in the hell was wrong with me. So I decided it was high time to find out and get it fixed. You're right you do not need a knife to SI. I used to have people hurt my feelings all the time and I felt I deserved it. But I know that is not true. People can get well you just have to sit your mind to it and apply that thought in your brain that you can get well.

Thank you all for your responses and I'm sorry for the delay in writing here, but it's been a major hell-week to get through this week...I almost seriously lost it a couple times, but somehow managed to keep myself together just enough to get back home (OH, and yes I did get my unemployment form turned in on monday..altho I had a meltdown afterwards but luckily happened to have a T appt later that day), and TODAY..well, instead of picking up a blade and you-know-whating...I picked up the phone and called my T who successfully got me grounded again and thinking straight.

But about the 5-Steps, yes I did read through them and I believe I understand them and today could be a day that I can definately attribute to Step 1 HALT, as I was feeling ALL of those after the crap I was put through at County MH ( no insurance and trying to find out how to continue on my meds..ugh).

As for the other steps, no I dont really understand how to apply them to my situation(s) all that well. I guess I'll be wandering over to the Steps section here.

Oh, and Sarah what you said about self-sabotaging myself .... this thought has been lurking in the darkest shadows of my head quite a bit lately, and I've been avoiding it and sometimes denying it, and I want to thank you for bringing it out into the light where it should be because unfortunately it's true and I really need to look at it. I'm trying desperately not to go back to old ways, old habits of being and yet it seems everything I do..or rather NOT do, and the thoughts running through my head lately are doing just that and it seems unstoppable. But...as T so diligently pointed out to me today that today might have been hell to go through, and yes I might have had those old thoughts in my head to do not so good things, but the fact is that I did NOT do them, and this is progress that I should reward myself for and is proof that I am not going back to my old ways, that I am in fact still moving foward.

..whew.

exactly!:)congrats on your progress... i'm glad that you have been sticking it out and not going back to those self-destructive habits... it has been a hell of a week for me as well and i can definately relate to that temptation, but the sense of accomplishement in finding better ways to cope really makes it worth it. hang in there... (((laura)))erin