Both past and future thoughts make me struggle

[Markness]

My mind has a difficult time staying in the present. It is either thinking about my past or looking far ahead into potential futures. This causes me to struggle in the present moment and the depression I suffer from is magnified. I know that sitting around won’t change anything but my efforts to change things usually don’t go the way I want them to go and I get discouraged. Sure, I did a drawing after not drawing for so long but I still can’t make a comic like I wish I could even though I don’t know what my comic would be about. Plotting feels daunting to me as well as the level of drawing required for it. If I had friends to help me, I think I would feel more encouraged but I have no friends who are interested in doing that and what little social life I have has been cut off by the corona virus. I also played through some songs my guitar regardless if I got every thing right or wrong but I feel like I should be better especially after taking guitar lessons since 2003 (though I’ve had periods where the lessons stopped).

I feel defined by my past and I get scared thinking about what the future holds to the point I wish I could either stop time until I am ready or even stop living because life can feel unbearably hard at times. I am turning 32 this year and I still struggle with so many things. I used to naively and wishfully think things would come together on their own but reality has been far more harsh. Even back then, my mind was thinking far ahead into the future. I fear it will always do so.

 

[AngelaS267]

Watch Teal Swan on youtube titled, "How to heal the emotional body." That helped me.

 

[Wolfgangus Faldestolius]

I've been there. We have to build life up from the simple things. Twang the guitar for the sake of twanging it. Draw anything (including stand-alones) and keep drawing. Covid makes us do what we were doing anyway.

Projecting is natural. If I was to breathe my last in a day or so (like people I have read about that were just popping out to the shop), what would I like to know I had been doing? Yes re-reading what had been a favourite book. Enjoying a pot of tea. That I had done a minor bit of sweeping or dusting (emphasis on minor).

Get the satisfaction of (semi) organising (or even further enhancing) the corner where you keep or display your drawings.

The simplest things ARE the most normal.

I know I like to keep breaking off a task and that I achieve more in the longer term by small spurts of a few minutes each. That's just me.

It took me a lifetime to enjoy what comes in through my senses. The haze and the clouds outside the window.

Most things in my home are at 90 or 45 degrees to the walls because the harmony is easier to understand, navigate, retrieve. To me, the practical is the aesthetic.

 

[SusanLR]

@Markness Depression comes from wanting things to be what they aren't.
Living in the past, worrying about the future is a common human trait.
You've probably heard the old psychological positive about the past is history, the future is mystery, today is a gift and that's why they call it the present?

Open the present and it's full of poo? Yeah, I understand.

May as well feel sorry for yourself, no one else will. AKA Love yourself, no one else does.
That could go under the thread on what I've learned from life.

There are little things that can give some temporary pleasure. Take time to look around.

 

[onlything]

Depression and anxiety were and probably always will be a challenge to me. Such is life, I suppose? Without the sadness, there would be no happiness, huh?

I think there are lessons to be learnt from it. There was one where I realised that no one will, ever, truly care about or love me, or stay with me until the end - that such thinking is but a fantasy of the mind, passive thoughts that won't come into fruition. The only 'person' that will keep to your side until you die is you, yourself. Learning to accept that fact and to accept and love myself, each part of myself, crippling flaws and past included, may be the most important and the most difficult lesson I, or anyone, will ever encounter. In the end, it's a choice to stay as you are or move forward. If you hate yourself, you'll always be hated. But if you start to accept and love yourself, you'll always be loved and accepted.

Surprising, but this kind of a change in mindset even helped me with things such as procrastination. Why do you procrastinate, after all? Because you're anxious, you don't see a point, you're fearing failure? I remember that one of the saddest reasons for my procrastination and passiveness in life was because I hated myself - and I hated both who I used to be and would become, and if you hate someone, you want them to suffer. So, I caused my own future suffering and disappointment, because I felt like I deserved it.

But what happens when you start to care for yourself? When you start to see the future you as someone that needs help, maybe even as a.. friend? You don't want your friends to suffer, do you? Suddenly, you may start wanting to work for that person, for the potential of what you could become...

I still hate the 'past me'. I still dislike the 'present me'. But if I start to believe in the 'potential me', the 'future me', if I see the person I could become as a friend, I find it easier to accept the 'present me'. And if I accept the 'present me', I can just as well finally forgive the 'past me', because without them the 'future' and 'present mes' would never exist...

Ah, it may make very little sense to other people, I suppose. What I'm trying to say is: life will get much easier if you find a way to forgive and accept yourself as you are.

 

[SDRSpark]

You're definitely not alone in this. Staying in the present is something a lot of people struggle with. (I find it almost impossible to stay in the present, personally.)

 

[Markness]

You're definitely not alone in this. Staying in the present is something a lot of people struggle with. (I find it almost impossible to stay in the present, personally.)

The bad weather combined with the quarantine isn’t helping things.

 

[Markness]

Watch Teal Swan on youtube titled, "How to heal the emotional body." That helped me.

There’s probably a lot of stuff like that I need to watch.

 

[AngelaS267]

There’s probably a lot of stuff like that I need to watch.

I hear ya. I had a hard time getting through a lot of the self help videos on YT, they all said the same thing. For some reason that video changed a lot for me. I think it was more about me being fully ready to take responsibility for the direction of my life.