Motivation is a major problem for me. As in, I have 0 personal motivation to do anything. People look at my list of diagnoses (chronic clinical depression, severe anxiety disorder, borderline personality disorder [BPD]), and go, “Well, duh,” but it’s really bothering me.
I’ve basically become a housewife. I don’t really work with/for anyone, anymore.
It’s partly because when I’m going through shit, I start dropping the ball, and instead of explaining myself to the people I work with, I mostly just stop talking to them. I’m sure they see me posting on social media, and think I’m fine, everything’s fine, I’m just blowing them off. But it’s not like that at all. In reality, I’m a mess, everything’s crazy1, and the only way I know how to cope is to retreat inside myself and shut everyone out but M. I know that’s crazy unprofessional, and I have no excuse besides mental illness. And in truth, I don’t think that should excuse my behavior. It wouldn’t in an actual work setting, so why should it anywhere else?
Of course, there are some exceptions, like the company I told I was going on hiatus right after their system changed. I lost my login info while on hiatus, so I asked them for help, and they told me they “forgot” how to get it, offered to direct me to a blogger, and then I never heard from them again outside of mass affiliate emails. It felt very much like I was being blown off, so I’ve since removed their banner from my sidebar. I haven’t removed their other links because I really liked working with them, and would love to again, but we’re in a serious money crunch, so if I’m going to promote sales again, it’s going to be for companies I can potentially make a commission from, and not one that won’t even help me figure out how to get into my affiliate account. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I do have a set chore list that I don’t follow like I should, which is really shitty because I asked for the damn thing. It’s not even very big. M kept it short and simple on purpose because he’s not interested in micromanaging me the way he was in the beginning (which is a good thing because I’m not interested in being micromanaged), and even if he was, he doesn’t really have the time. I’ve been sitting on it for a while (read: a couple years) because it felt silly to share because it’s so short, but here it is:
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kitchen Litter box French or Spanish Write |
Masturbate Edit Write |
Bathroom Litter box French or Spanish Write |
Kitchen Edit Write |
Masturbate Litter box French or Spanish Write |
Of course, this is not, like, “You will only do these things on these days!” Obviously, I’m supposed to do dishes as needed, and clean the litter box as often as possible/necessary, and ask permission to masturbate whenever I want to. This chart is really just a guideline. “These things must be done on these days, but also do them when you want/need to.” It was made at least partly out of necessity, because at the old place, my mental health kept me from cleaning as often as I should, and our house was absolutely disgusting sometimes2. Mandatory cleaning days mitigated most of that.
Even with the requirement to masturbate, I never ask to do it. I guess I got it in my head that if it’s a requirement on those days, then he should tell me when he wants me to do it. And then when he said I should be bringing it up and asking when he wants me to, I…blew him off.
I’m really not a very good slave, these days.
He, of course, tells me I’m a great slave with a “few small issues,” but he’s just being nice, and we all know how I feel about that.
At some point, I forgot what I like to do. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But it’s apparently a normal thing for people who struggle with BPD and depression.
Besides that, Donald Trump winning the election hit me pretty hard. Partly because of my fear of what he will do (is doing) to our country, and partly because of what it means that half the active voters in this country saw a rich white supremacist mock a disabled person, brag about sexually assaulting women and getting away with it, and openly perpetuating hatred for many races and cultures that look nothing like his own, and went, “Yeah, okay, I can get down with this guy.” But mostly because my very own father voted for him and called me on Thanksgiving to gloat about his guy winning.
I’ve been glued to social media, pretty much every minute of every day, praying to whoever is listening that one day, I’ll open up Twitter, and the headline will be “Donald Trump Ousted from the White House,” or something similar. I’ll take a resignation, if we can’t get an impeachment, but he’s too narcissistic for that.
Instead, every single day has brought a new scandal, and it’s becoming more and more apparent that America is in crisis, and I really had no idea that this many people were this fucking ignorant and bigoted. I think that hit me harder than Donald Trump winning the election. And then the “rally” in North Carolina happened (rest in power, Heather), and I realized that I need to step away. Not permanently, but definitely for an extended period of time. And it seems like such a bad thing to do, what with white supremacists getting permits to parade through our streets pushing their racist agenda, and so many other major problems in our country, so I haven’t. But I am losing my fucking mind over something that I literally can’t do anything about besides tweet or write3, and that’s not healthy.
I have been very much stuck in, “This world is shit, so what’s the fucking point?” since November 8th.
That’s really not like me. I have always been a “never lose hope” kind of person. But you only have to wade into the mire that is political discourse on social media for five seconds to have the hope ripped right out of you.
I’ve had the hope ripped right out of me.
So my motivation level is -2934989375 right now. And I hate everything about it.
I tried to discuss my issue with M, and he had all sorts of M/s ideas for fixing it. It’s great that he’s so ready and willing to help me, and I love him for it, but in truth, I think that would just make things worse. He’s too busy to micromanage me all the time. He’s already super stressed out due to how busy work is right now, and money is crazy tight because we have a lot of necessary repairs on the car and winter is looming which means buying heating oil (for which the price is obscene because of this year’s bout of scary destructive hurricanes). Having to force me to do things I should be able to motivate myself to do would just add more stress on him, and strain our relationship, and we’re in a really good place right now, all things considered, so I really don’t want to go down that path.
And besides that, the problem isn’t him, it’s me. It’s something within me that is stealing my interest in doing the things I used to really want to do. Which means that all the M/s resolutions in the world aren’t going to fix it. Because until I fix the problem within myself, the second he stops micromanaging me (because he’s too busy, or he thinks I’m better, or whatever), I’ll just go back to having no motivation.
M thinks it’s social media, but that’s an easy out; an excuse, if you will. If I take a break from social media, I don’t magically start doing the list of things I’ve always wanted to do. Instead, I binge stream something, knit, play video games, or find some other mind-quieting, wholly unproductive activity. And then I spend the next five days being unproductive because I feel guilty about that first unproductive day, and I get stuck in this cycle of nothingness and guilt that fuels the “I’m completely worthless” reel that plays in my head on nonstop loop.
I need to break out of this cycle. I need to figure out what I’m avoiding with all the things I use to keep myself from focusing on myself.
And I guess that’s all I have to say about that. 
1. My relationship is great. We’re actually in a really good place, at the moment. But our finances are FUBAR because of the car, and my mental health is a roller coaster, and there are a lot of outside stressors that we have no control over that are making things so much harder than they need to be.
2. Here, even though I don’t always follow the chore chart, I do always do some chores every day. The house gets cluttered occasionally, but it never gets dirty like it did at the old place. Except, occasionally, the bathroom, but who likes cleaning the bathroom? Not this little gray duck.
3. Please spare me all the things you think I can or should be doing. I am still a slave, so I’m limited by what M is willing to allow me to do. The car is still broken, and winter is fast approaching, so we can’t afford to donate a whole lot of money right now. And even if the car wasn’t broken, I don’t drive, so M would have to drive me to protests, and we cannot afford to just pop off to whatever town is allowing a protest. So tweeting and writing are it, right now, and I’m having a whole lot of feels about my writing that are mostly due to imposter syndrome, so writing isn’t something that I’m doing a whole lot of.