Going To Therapy When You Can't Get Dressed?

[Lola Nocheprieta]

@GMW, I don't know that I have much to add here, as I agree with everyone else who said now is the most important time to go. But sometimes you literally just cannot move. If that's the case, I like the suggestion about changing the session to a phone session. Sometimes people don't realize how much effort it takes to just get dressed when you are having a major depressive episode. To me it feels like trying to run a race while stuck in wet cement that is slowly drying around you. You're working so hard so very hard, and yet to everyone else it looks like you're just sitting there like a lump.

Personally, I would call or email my T and say that "I'm seriously considering canceling the appointment, but for the wrong reasons; I don't want to do that and I need your help. I haven't showered or dressed in X number of days." Not showering, not getting dressed, those are all really big warning signs for me. Although to be fair, sometimes I do allow myself to take a mental health day. I crawl into bed in my jammies, with my stuffed animals, pull the covers up around me, and put myself into a sleep coma.

Finally, here are two other online resources for guided meditation:

UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center

Kristin Neff's website on Self-Compassion

Good luck, and hang in there!

 

[Sideways]

Depression. Sux.

"I can't get out of bed" means I don't get out of bed. And when I don't get out of bed, there's more ammunition for the "I can't get out of bed". And I get it. You can't get out of bed.

Except, we can get out of bed. It's physically exhausting, and oftentimes I end up going straight back to bed. And if I DO get out of bed, what happens? I end up feeling shite because there's nothing (nothing!) left in the tank to do anything else.

Breaking that cycle, where function is rock bottom, you have to start small. You have a couple of days, practice getting out of bed. That's it. Stay in your pj's if you have to, but make a point of it. 7am? This is me getting out of bed (often followed by 7.10am, this is me going back to bed). End of the day comes, and the "I literally did NOTHING today" cloud rolls in. Check yourself. I did, actually. I got out of bed even though all the forces of nature were working against me.

Breaking the cycle is doing the things you can't do. In baby steps. Tiny iddy biddy frustrating as hell baby steps. Can't do it. Do it anyway.

Heads up: you will NOT feel better if you get out of bed. Your brain is going to come up with a thousand reasons why you can't, shouldn't, no point. And when you do, your brain is going to follow it up with a thousand more reasons why "See! This is even worse!" Do it knowing in advance that your brain is going to do that. Do it knowing in advance that you won't feel better for doing it. The sole purpose is slowly adding small tasks, doing a tiny little bit more each day. The depression lifts when you start functioning again, not the other way around. If you wait for the day that you CAN get out of bed,or you FEEL like getting out of bed, in bed you will remain for a reeeally long time.

I'm suggesting that you do the impossible, and telling you that you're going to feel like rubbish if you do it. Great way to sell a cure, Ragdoll. But there is no way around it. Function first, feeling better second.

Of all my symptoms, depression is easily the most debilitating. And I end up right where you are, fairly regularly. But you can do it. Brain is malfunctioning. You actually can do it.

Thoughts are with you. Depression is hell.

 

[EveHarrington]

:hug:

 

[Sandstone]

For me, not being able to get out of bed, shower, dress etc are about overwhelm, not depression. It is right at the opposite end of the scale. I need to give into it, for a day or two while I keep everything as calm and quiet as possible. Can you tell @GMW which it is for you? This slide from Peter Levine might help https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/c0/f0/df/c0f0df2a42ba2bea20f9763c57f533ff.jpg

But whichever it is, I'd do everything in my power to get to that appointment. I've only ever cancelled two therapy sessions, one when my daughter needed me with her at a cancer test, one when I knew leaving the house would send me over the edge into an overdose. I'm still not sure the second one was a good enough reason to cancel.

I think you should give yourself permission to do whatever it takes to get there. If you go unwashed, in the clothes you found on the floor, that's fine. If you decide not to speak at all for the whole session, or find you cry throughout it, that's fine. If you need to eat a whole pot of peanut butter on the way, and have a mega bar of chocolate waiting for after, that's fine. ( and if you don't, I'll be glad to eat them for you). Just turn up, and if you can, tell her how this feels and how it has affected you. I think you'll find she is able to understand how you are feeling, and to support you in it.