Personal Struggles - Why Can't I Motivate Myself........?????

[RedAlex76]

There are many things that I find hard and make my life a constant struggle and a lot of the time I feel like that I am just constantly banging my head against an increasingly bigger wall..... 

One of the biggest of these is my seemingly complete lack of motivation to start doing one specific thing. Yeah thats right one specific thing is so key to myself right now and yet the motivation to do something about it is just non-existant and surprise, surprise it makes me feel even more low every time I let it get the better of me.

I like many people am not the slimest person in the world and I know that at times it seems that this is one thing that people have little to no sympathy about! Always saying that you're the only one who can change that! Yeah that is true but when your feeling low through your depression and in a relationship where the other half is always impulse buying absolute crap when it comes to food which then has to be used up, no matter how many times you say something about it she never changes! What makes that situation worse is that she keeps saying that she wants to lose weight as well why can't she see that everything she impulse buys makes the whole situation worse!!!

The really hard thing for me to deal with is the fact that I know if I can get motivated I can do this as I've done it before! Almost 6 years ago now I was out of work for a long period initially I spent a lot of time down the pub with a friend drinking everything away, spending money that we couldn't really afford to spend (I was the main bread winner). It took a trip to see the cricket which my mate got tickets for, on the train up he took a pic of me and then posted it on a popular social network. The next day I saw it and was truly disgusted with how I looked! From that moment on for the next 18 months I made several changes such as regular exercise and stopping the drinking and I lost almost three stone in weight in that time! I was making the the right changes and doing what I needed but then something changed!

What was that one thing that changed??? Well I found work again and that took away the focus on going to the gym as i refocused on the new job took some time away from the gym and then time went passed the attempts to get back to the gym were broken at best! Slowly and surely the weight started to come back on and then 2013 happened and that made everything ten times worse! The gym went out of the window as quick as started to go back in January. I spent most of the first three months of the travelling up and down the country as I my dad was taken seriously ill and spent three months in hospital which it was finally discovered that he had cancer that had not been diagnosed for over a year and in March he passed away. From that moment on I have never really recovered from the loss but at the same time I still to this day I don't think I have let it truly sink in either. I have spent my time trying to be as strong as I can for everyone else that I have just never let my emotions get anywhere close to the front of my mind! This also had one other big negative on my life! I have spent the last 10 months as my fathers passing as an excuse to forget about everything else and react by drinking (not excessively thank goodness) and over eating. So I am easily almost back to the point I started at almost 6 years ago now!

But even though this is the case and the fact that I knew my Dad was pleased with my weight loss before I can't seem to turn the whole situation in to the motivational kick up the rear end that I truly need it to be! This of course is just making my lows just that little bit lower and less likely for me to personally make the changes I need to............

There are times I feel like screaming my lungs out at myself or out into empty space to try and get my life back on track but unfortunately I seem to be stuck here banging my head against the same wall over and over again!!!!! 

[Pip]

I haven't been on the forums for a few day due to having cellulitis which hasn't helped.

When you are getting depressed food and eating the wrong things doesn't help but it can make you good in the short time.  People who don't suffer depression will make comments that are aren't helpful.  They don't get it that depression affects people so don't understand how you feel.  I never talked to my family about it as they thought I was moody, attention seeking, a drama queen  The first time I told my family about it was in 2005 and their response was we hope you get better soon.  I may as well have told them that I have flu. The only family member who finally knew how bad I was was after 1st April 2011 when I told my sister and I told my sister.  She has honoured my wishes not to tell our dad who is 84 now.

The loss of your dad wont help and I know from experience of when my mum died they didn't know whet to say.  If you can get focus on one thing at a time it will be good for you and there is no shame in taking 'baby steps' 

[JC]

Lack of motivation is something I can completely understand. There are many things I know I should be doing or even want to do but summoning the will and energy is an entirely different thing; then I feel guilty for not doing those things which = lower mood and less motivation. It is a vicious circle.

People can be very judgmental of those who are overweight and very rarely consider the circumstances that may have lead to a person gaining weight - poor mobility, depression, medical problems etc. Where eating is concerned I am the opposite to you in that I do not eat well enough or often enough, which has lead to me losing weight and, guess what, I get comments like 'you should eat more', 'you are losing too much weight'; seems which ever way we go we can't win!!

The loss of your dad must have been very difficult for you, especially as his cancer had not been diagnosed, and I am not surprised you have struggled since that time. My siblings and I lost our dad to cancer in October 2012 but he had been battling the disease for a number of years. Like you though I felt that I had to hold everyone else together so kept my emotions in check and my feelings bottled up, which is not the healthy thing to do but some of us just find it difficult to open up to others and admit that we need support too.

I can understand your frustrations but, as Pip has said, try to focus on achieving one small thing at a time and hopefully the rest will follow.