Thanks everyone. i am still trying. with regard to practical things, i have tried doing things like just bills for 15 minutes, tried setting a specific time of day (at 2:00 i will work on bills for a half hour) and lots of other things. i just can not get started. i have not given up on it yet though. there are some times during the day when i think i can get started. when i try to act on it, either setting a plan, or just striking when i have the energy and enthusiam and right when the thought crosses my mind, at that point even just the first physical movement toward the bills i just use it all. i usually end up with an almost instantaneous energy drain that puts me back in bed. two days in a row now i did manage to stay out of bed all day though.

i do want to look into voc rehab. it was suggested a while ago but i learned a short time ago (mostly from the people here) that with the options available i could find something good there. i guess originally the name had me thinking of learning to make license plates or something, like they train you what they want to train you. i didn't know that i might be able to get money for school for some of the things i want to learn anyway.

anyway i do keep that in mind but i'm still at the same point where i just drain when i even think about making the first call or even looking up the number. i have been working on this specifically with my therapist.

sundance yes i am in therapy and with a pdoc. short history: i've been depressed about two years with not much treatment, got really bad 5 months ago and i went into the hospital for a week, left for a day program until insurance ran out and have been in weekly therapy ever since. have been unable to go back to work since the hospital stay.

one thing that makes this so difficult is part of my philosophy of mind and healing that i've developed my whole life. many of you here know i am struggling with philosophical issues of things i deeply believed that i am not sure about any more. equivalent of reconnecting with my religion.

i've dealt with serious illness much of my life and for a long time i have believed in a balance between medicine and mind. i strongly believe that your state of being is strongly linked with your state of wellness, even for diseases that seem purely mechanical. I am not someone who believe that everything can be cured by believing. I always value medicine and doctors. but i also believe they are not the whole story of what is going on. sometimes it seems like only western doctors are hung up on the idea of science and nothing else. at a minimum i believe that even with the best doctor's care, you can not get back to health unless you have a good state of mind to do so as well.

a common example is cold and flu season. once i took that philosophy to heart i hardly ever got a cold anymore. when i do i don't try to "work through it" i don't necessarily take the day off work, but i do not load up on medications that only cure the symptoms. i try to get as much rest as i can, and i will stay home from work when i need to. it is not that i don't believe in viruses and communicable diseases but i really believe there is a factor that when i get sick, my body is trying to give me a signal to slow down and take a rest. when i do that the cold usually passes very quickly.

with the depression everything is topsy turvy because i don't know what to believe. with regard to the depression itself i strongly believe that which is why i keep fighting it and trying to remain as hopeful as possible. but with the side effects of depression it is hard to know which ones to "listen to" and which ones are the depression lying to me. if causes a very fundamental disconnect. the sleep thing has been such a huge problem that often even my doctors think that maybe it is not always the depression, maybe by body really needs the rest. the arthritis i have could be causing mechanical stress that my body needs rest to deal with. but i believe i am the only one who can really distinguish that and it is hard to find a balance. i can't just sleep all day everyday. if i am sleeping because of the depression that is bad for curing the depression. if my body really needs the rest and i am fighting to stay awake, that weakens me and would also be bad for the depression.

Like EVERYTHING else in life the answer is to find the right balance. something i used to be very good at-balance between happiness and depression, work and fun, alone time and together time. the yin and yang thing. the depression not only throws the balance off it also throws off the ability to see or judge the balance. it is like an illness that attacks the immune system, working on the "mind" part of the equation instead of the "body" part of the equation. impairs my ability to figure out what i have to do to heal myself.

-- The world is what we make of it --
-- Dave
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