I was going to write this and update the blog a few days ok, but you know, I just couldn’t be bothered. Meh.
I’m so unmotivated to do anything I need to do, that I just while away the time doing nothing. Even writing this blog – I started writing it, wrote the first sentence, then propped my head on one hand and idly googled images for ‘motivation’ and ‘lack of motivation’, because I couldn’t be bothered to finish writing. And this isn’t even the important stuff! (I couldn’t find an image I really liked, but this pretty much sums me up I think…)
So… not so good so far this week. Having been really positive going to my counsellor a week ago, and feeling like I’d made a really good first step, doing my homework, getting some sleep, being more positive, it’s all hit a big ol’ slump again. And it’s all down to motivation really. I never try at anything. Why?
- Partly I think that’s through fear – if you don’t try, you can’t fail, can you? And as a perfectionist, I don’t ‘do’ failing. Or rather, obviously I do fail sometimes but the self-recriminations are so enormous it’s probably best not to try in general.
- Partly it’s sheer laziness. I am lazy. Given a choice between spending a day in bed with a cup of tea and book (well, a number of cups of tea), and doing something useful, I’d be under the duvet before you could say, er, duvet. I like to think that this is down to some deep psychological issue on my part – a fear of engaging with the world, a need to be apart and spend time in solitude, but mostly I think I’m just downright lazy.
- Partly it’s boredom. I feel like I’m living in a big world of ennui, where everything is boring and unsatisfying and meaningless, and it’s much better to waste my life just clicking links on the internet and letting things flash before my bored eyes, than actually engaging in life, or at the very least emptying the bins. Last night I didn’t go to bed until midnight, despite being unwell, because I was (and I am ashamed to admit it) looking through the first 37 pages of ugliesttattoos.com. Now I have no particular interest in tattoos, particularly ugly ones, but it was easier to slump in my computer chair and click ‘next page’ than it was to put my pyjamas on and go to bed. Despite knowing that my children would wake me up, I’d be tired, and I’d been ill. Can anyone explain this to me?
- I think partly (and this may sound arrogant, so apologies), I’m not in the habit of trying with things, because I never learnt it. As a child/teenager/young adult, I was one of those people who could get A for attainment, with an E for effort. All my work was always done on time, deadlines were met in all aspects, I was never late or naughty or anything, but mostly I found things easy (academic things, not, like, life). When things started to get harder – when I was 18 or so – I freaked. What, I have to ‘try’?! I’m not saying I’m a super-genius with a brain capable of taking over the world, but I generally found things easy for much of my life. And now that I’m a real adult, who has to tackle real things that aren’t interesting and require effort, I can’t be arsed.
I might be reading too much into all this. Maybe I just am lazy. Really bored and lazy. But it does worry me (apart from anything else, I now have the image of a lot of really ugly tattoos to deal with…)
So here’s what I can’t get motivated to do:
- my counselling homework. And this is despite me being determined that this time was IT. I was going to get moving, and feel the benefits. AND despite the fact I started and I did start to feel the benefits. And it’s not even that much, as a minimum. I’m ashamed to go back to my counsellor next week and admit this. I have so many reasons to get on with it, and nothing’s working.
- work for a qualification I’m doing. It’s all through CPD (continuing professional development) which means it’s about motivating and challenging yourself. I’m screwed, aren’t I?
- working in my job. This is quite serious really, given that it’s my job and all. But again, bare minimum. I won’t be fired – I get things done, I deliver – but it’s all a bit last minute, and I hate that. I’m someone who’s not comfortable with last minute things, and yet the motivation to prepare things beforehand just isn’t there, so I faff.
- being healthier. Not necessarily an ‘action’ that I need to do – but changes I need to make. I should be exercising (I started after all), eating healthily, drinking more water, and getting more sleep. I haven’t exercised in a while – OK, I’ve had some really manky illnesses, but I could have done. Eating is out of the window again despite the fact I’m sure I was so ill yesterday because I’ve been eating badly (I’m dairy- and yeast-intolerant but can’t be motivated enough not to sit and eat chocolate and bread). I barely drink water, or indeed anything beyond a couple of cups of tea, and the fact that I was up until midnight browsing tattoos would suggest that I’m not doing so well on the sleep issue either.
- day-to-day stuff. Why are there piles of paperwork in my bedroom? Why is the ironing pile turning into a living breathing beast, it is so large, that will one day suffocate me where I sleep? Why is the washing up left until midnight; washing never folded and put away; the toy-tidying done at the last minute, if at all; and the ‘to do’ list now standing at 3 pages long?
There’s so much more. Basically nothing is getting done. I just want to let time wash by me, while I sit and stare at nothing and let my mind wander. I want years to pass by without me noticing, despite the fact I already feel the children are growing up too fast. I don’t want to engage with anything, I just can’t be bothered. Life is just meh. (In another moment of idle-time-wastingness, I just google imaged ‘meh’. And this pic is exactly the pose I’m sitting in.
Although not with the hat or nappy, obviously.)
It’s driving me mad. I’m someone who gets twitchy and irritable with a messy house, panics about lateness and missing deadlines, stomps around if I’m tired, and feels guilty and ashamed for letting people down by not doing things. So why am I not motivated? What the flippingly heck can I do to GET motivated? Anyone?
***
In other news, an ex-colleague came around yesterday. Her husband left her and their son in November and is, by all accounts, being a twonk. I don’t like to judge other people’s relationships too much these days, because having looked more closely at mine, I can see how you can never really see what it’s like. But he IS acting like a twonk. It was nice to see her (despite the fact I was so nauseous and icky from illness/wrong food that I wanted to go to bed and weep self-pityingly), and actually quite good in some ways to feel that I am further on that I used to be. I know that’s inevitable but to offer an insight as someone 3 years further on than she is, did make me think ‘god, I’ve done the hard bit’. I don’t sit and sob in corners any more, I don’t cut myself or scratch myself, I don’t actively want to die, every day any more. That’s got to be good, even when there are days when I can’t swallow for the lump in my throat or when divorce papers come through and the ink runs from my tears. I have to remember that the depression IS lifting. The fog I was living in, that means I can’t remember the first year of child 2’s life at all, is clearing a bit. Some days it comes back, sometimes it’s just a mist, but there are even sunny patches some days. That’s good to be reminded of.
***
Anyway, I was going to write more, but no. I’m going to go and put the sodding bins out, and wash up and do my counselling homework, and be in bed before 11. I so am today, I really really absolutely positively am.
Let me just check up on those tattoos again first.
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