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Old Oct 16, 2017, 04:18 PM
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Carmina Carmina is offline
Poohbah
 
Member Since: Sep 2017
Location: A Growlery in the UK
Posts: 1,158
Quote:
Originally Posted by north-polar-coaster View Post
You guys are lucky, I have a billion hobbies but I can't seem to find the motivation to do much of anything these days besides work, eat, pay bills, and sleep, even when I feel like I'm at baseline.
Me too - so I have hierarchies of interests and activities (although I hate the term hobbies) graded in terms of amount of energy and motivation they require from me. I enjoy reading, writing (mainly poetry for myself but I'm also a researcher so write research papers and articles), painting, gardening, cooking/baking, walking, cycling, badminton, yoga, natural history, watching films, listening to and composing/playing music.

When I am well I can do all of them, when I am most unwell (like this summer) I can do very little, like yourself, but do find I can at least take myself outside and cycle or walk, even if not far, as it feels like an escape and doesn't demand too much.

Things like cooking/baking and gardening demand a bit more from me so I need to be more motivated and have more energy but are still relatively low demand and easily gradable so I can just do a little amount - but when I'm really feeling bad these too are out of reach for a while.

The creative stuff takes a lot more - I need to be in touch enough with my emotions to be able to create, but not so overwhelmed by them I feel powerless and useless as that just stops me doing anything or if I do I feel it's no good. That's a fine line and I need to be in the right frame of mind, there is some gradeability though, for example I currently don't have the energy to paint physically but have been making some digital artwork on my Mac which is less demanding and I see these as sketches for bigger things when better functioning. It enables me to get ideas down without having to setup my studio space which is beyond me right now. Music at least I can improvise stuff but at the moment my motivation is pretty low still, not even been listening much lately.

The things that takes the most from me are the research writing, I'm seriously behind and feeling overwhelmed by that, and also I am tending to read slowly as concentration isn't good, and confining myself to light stuff (LOTR, scifi like Iain M Banks etc). Same with films, can't bring myself to watch the heavier arty stuff I usually prefer when well.

Sorry tldr

Point is activities are my therapy, more so than so called psychotherapy, I don't like to see them just as hobbies, they are so much more.
Thanks for this!
north-polar-coaster