Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / you're not lazy. you're depressed.

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you're not lazy. you're depressed. · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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  I spent years as a teenager and then as a full grown adult
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  wanting to be more, wanting to heal, wanting to change, wanting
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  to grow, wanting to achieve more but just being too depressed
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  too. Starting to heal, starting to do
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  better, starting and then stopping all over again because
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  I hadn't dealt with the mental illness that was plaguing me.
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  My name is Ethan Jewell and welcome back to Feel Your
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  Feelings. I want to start today with
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  something I think a lot of you have never heard named out loud.
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  There's a particular kind of pain that doesn't get talked
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  about in mental health conversations very much.
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  And it's it's not just the sadness, it's not the
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  exhaustion, it's not the numbness.
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  It's something that lives beneath all of that.
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  It's the gap. The gap between who you are and
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  who you want to be. It's the gap between what you
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  can do, what you can manage, what you can get out of bed and
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  face, and who you know you're capable of being.
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  You have dreams, real ones, a life that you want, something
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  that you can picture right in front of you.
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  It's clearly there. Things that you want to build,
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  places that you want to go. A version of yourself that feels
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  more alive, more connected, more you.
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  And you can see it. It's right there.
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  Maybe you've even been there before and you just can't get to
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  it because depression or anxiety or trauma or whatever shape your
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  mental illness takes is standing between you and everything
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  you've ever wanted. And that gap is the most quietly
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  devastating thing about living with mental illness.
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  And today we're going to talk about it. 1st, I want to name
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  this experience as specifically as I can, because I think a lot
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  of people living with this feeling have never had any words
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  for it. And when you don't have words
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  for something, it's really hard to process it.
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  I preach this all the time. You have to be aware of
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  something before you can start working on it.
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  What I'm talking about is the gap between ambition and
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  illness. I mean, ambition isn't just for
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  high overachievers. It's not just for Type A
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  personalities. Ambition is just the human
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  desire to grow. And we all have it.
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  And we want to be more tomorrow than we were today.
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  We want to connect, to create, to contribute, to experience the
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  world. That's not some extra thing that
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  only the top 1% of people have. That's a feature that everyone
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  has, that you have, that I have. But the problem is when that
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  collides with things like depression, you know, real
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  clinical depression, the kind that makes getting out of bed
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  feel like climbing a mountain. That depression doesn't erase
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  that desire. It doesn't get rid of it.
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  It doesn't turn you into someone who no longer wants things.
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  It just makes those things unreachable.
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  So you're left in this impossible place where you still
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  want, you still dream, you still have that voice inside of you
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  that knows what your life could look like.
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  But your body won't cooperate. Your mind won't cooperate.
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  Your nervous system is so taxed just keeping you functional that
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  there's nothing left for anything else.
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  And then this is the part that makes this much worse.
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  You watch everyone around you doing the things that you
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  desperately want. You watch them travel, you watch
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  them achieve things in their career or in relationships that
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  you desperately want. You see them building things,
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  making new friends. And something in you lights up
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  with recognition of I want that. And then it's immediately
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  followed by something that feels like grief.
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  Because you want it. And you can't have it right now.
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  Not because you don't deserve it, but because you're
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  struggling with something much deeper.
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  Something much deeper that many people will never understand.
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  And that's why we have to talk about this feeling directly like
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  this, because it is very difficult to understand.
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  Most people know that those who struggle with depression have
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  trouble getting out of bed. But what a lot of people don't
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  know is how badly they would love to just hop out of bed in
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  the morning. When I was the most depressed, I
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  wanted to get better so bad. I didn't just watch the days go
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  by laying in bed thinking, well, this is how it just is going to
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  be. I'm depressed.
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  No, I desperately wanted what everyone else seemingly had.
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  I desperately wanted to get up in the morning and be excited
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  for the day. I wanted to get up and know what
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  I was going to achieve, know that I was going to see people,
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  know that I was going to be a light.
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  I wanted it so badly. Depression doesn't erase the
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  desire to be more. It doesn't erase the desire to
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  grow. It just makes it feel impossible
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  because it would be easier if depression just turned
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  everything off, you know? If it made you stop caring, stop
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  wanting, stop dreaming, it honestly would be easier.
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  But for most people it doesn't work that way.
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  The wanting stays, the dreams stay, the self-awareness stays,
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  sometimes even painfully so. You still know exactly who you
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  want to be, but you just can't access it.
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  And what that creates is a very specific kind of suffering.
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  It's the suffering of someone who can see the door but can't
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  quite reach the handle, who knows the answers but can't get
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  the words out, who wants to move but can't seem to get their legs
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  to work. And this creates this narrative
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  that you are not enough because we're told we need to achieve.
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  And when we have an illness that makes it nearly impossible, of
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  course, it feels like we're not enough.
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  And that is an indescribable type of grief.
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  And most people never give themselves that permission to
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  grieve what they've lost to mental illness.
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  When mental illness takes time from you, weeks, months, even
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  years, there is real loss there. It's not metaphorical loss.
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  It's it's a real loss. The friendships that didn't form
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  because you physically couldn't show up.
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  The opportunities that pass because you weren't well enough
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  to take them. The version of yourself at 22 or
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  25 or 30 that you imagined in the distance between that and
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  where you are, that is grief, and that deserves to be treated
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  like grief. It is hard to want to be more.
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  It is painful to want to be more but have a mental struggle that
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  stops you from getting there. And it's a lonely feeling
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  because everyone else starts achieving and you are just
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  trying to get going. I think people with depression
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  carry an enormous amount of shame.
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  Like I wasted my 20s, I should be further along.
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  Everyone else is building a life and I've been stuck.
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  But you can't shame yourself for this.
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  You can't shame yourself for wanting more and not being able
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  to do it because you're struggling.
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  Shame says that you did something wrong.
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  Grief acknowledges that something real was lost and that
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  that loss is worth mourning. That's an important part of
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  healing. Our mental health is being able
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  to grieve the things that we've lost because you didn't waste
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  your time, you didn't do anything wrong.
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  You were surviving, and surviving when everything,
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  including your own brain, is working against you is an
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  incredible task. It is not laziness dressed up in
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  a soft language. Survival under conditions that
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  mental illness causes is genuine hard work, even when it's
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  invisible. And you are allowed to grieve
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  what depression is taken from you, The experiences, the time,
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  the ease, the lightness that other people seem to just
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  naturally have. You are allowed to feel that
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  loss without shaming yourself for hurting and for surviving.
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  It was a loss, it counted. You can grieve it and keep
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  moving towards healing. My entire life I've wanted to do
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  more, but I've been too depressed to.
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  I want to succeed and travel and make more friends, improve my
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  life, build something, become someone, actually live.
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  But for years I couldn't because I was just trying to stay alive.
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  And nobody talks about how much that hurts.
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  The gap between who you are and who you know you could be.
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  The life that you can see but you can't reach.
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  That is one of the loneliest feelings in the world.
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  Because you're not lazy, you're not wasting your potential,
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  you're not unmotivated. You are fighting a battle that
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  most people can't even see, most people can't even understand.
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  And you are still here, you're still fighting, you're still
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  trying to heal. And that is not nothing.
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  That is everything. So what can we actually do now
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  that we have found this gap between who we are and who we
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  want to be? Now that we know how difficult
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  mental illness can make living our lives and trying to be
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  somebody that we want to be, what can we do?
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  And I want to be careful here because I don't want this
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  episode to turn into a list of productivity tips for depressed
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  people. That's not what this is.
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  And if you've spent any time searching for help with this
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  online, you've probably encountered a lot of well
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  meaning advice that essentially boils down to try harder.
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  That's not what I want to offer. What I do I want to talk about
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  is the way that you hold tension between your ambition and your
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  current reality is what's destroying you.
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  The first thing that helped me is decoupling your worth from
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  your output. This is easier said than done
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  because we live in a culture that values hustle and hard work
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  above everything else. We equate productivity with
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  value. Your worth as a person, as a
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  human being, is not defined by what you build or create or
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  achieve. It is not contingent on what you
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  produce. You are allowed to exist without
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  justifying your existence with productivity.
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  You are not a machine. You do not have to do well to be
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  loved. You do not have to achieve in
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  order to mean something. You mean something exactly how
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  you are, and by trying to force yourself into productivity, you
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  are doing yourself a disservice. If you're struggling with any
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  kind of mental health issue, that is what you should be
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  focusing on. So go slow, be kind to yourself.
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  Yes, it's OK to want to achieve, but it's not OK to define your
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  worth as a person as how productive you are.
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  So that moves me to my next point.
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  It is very, very hard to do big things to achieve the things
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  that you want when you're struggling with mental illness.
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  Because many mental illnesses, what they do is they attempt to
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  take all of your focus. They try to take you away from
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  your life and convince you that something's wrong with you, that
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  you deserve to suffer, that you don't deserve to achieve
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  anything. And it's very, very hard to do
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  the things that you want to do, to be the person that you want
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  to be when you have a little voice in the back of your head
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  telling you that. So I urge you to temporarily
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  shift your attention away from these goals that you have and
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  focus it on healing your mental health, on finding coping
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  mechanisms that work with you and establishing a routine that
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  helps you whenever you're feeling bad.
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  I spent a really long I'm learning the things that help
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  me. I still struggle with mental
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  illness to this very day, but it's much more manageable
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  because I've developed a routine that I can fall right back into.
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  I have habits that are easier to keep doing even when I'm feeling
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  depressed. So start really, really small.
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  Start one day at a time and find little things that help you feel
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  better. The small things count.
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  I know how hollow that can sound when you're aiming for something
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  much bigger, but the depression brain tends to operate in all or
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  nothing terms. AKA if you can't do the big
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  thing, nothing counts. And that is a lie.
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  That is an absolute lie that keeps you from recognizing the
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  real movement that is happening. Getting out of bed with
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  something, eating a meal with something, sending that one text
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  with something. These are real acts of forward
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  motion under genuinely difficult conditions.
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  So start small, start pushing yourself a little bit at a time,
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  and recognize that you are doing the hard work and that you are
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  helping yourself, and you're doing a real, genuine good
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  thing. There's a fear that you've
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  waited too long, that the window is closing, that everyone else
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  has already gotten so far ahead that catching up is impossible,
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  that the best years for building the life you wanted are already
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  behind you. I want to sit with that fear for
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  a second, because I think it deserves more than a quick
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  dismissal. That fear is real, it has real
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  shape and it comes from a real place, from watching time pass
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  while you were just trying to stay upright.
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  It comes from the genuine feeling of wanting and not being
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  able to. But here's what I need you to
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  hear. The window is not closing.
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  You have time. You have time to heal.
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  You have time to move towards the life that you want.
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  You have time. The life you want, full of
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  connection and purpose and growth and experience and joy
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  does not have an age limit attached to it.
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  You can keep working towards it one day at a time and it's OK if
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  the progress is slow. It's still progress.
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  The whole point of life is to learn and to grow one step at a
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  time. There's no timeline on that.
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  So start small, start taking care of you, start healing your
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  mental health in moving towards the things that you want.
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  Get professional help if it feels necessary.
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  Reach out to people. There's no shame in this.
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  So many of us struggle. You are not alone and that life
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  you want is still there, so start ridiculously small.
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  Every day that you stay in it, Every day that you stay and you
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  choose to keep fighting, you give yourself another chance to
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  work towards that future and you are not disqualified.
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  You are not too late. You are still here, and still
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  being here is the only requirement.
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  You are doing much better than you think and I promise you that
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  you can heal one day at a time. That's gonna wrap it up for
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  today's episode. Thank you so much for being
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  here. If you need help feeling your
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  feelings, you should check out my music on all platforms under
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  the name of Ethan Jewell. I almost guarantee it'll make
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  you cry. Also, please drop me a comment
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  and let me know what you thought about today's episode.
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  I would love to hear your thoughts or just hear how you
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  are doing. If you like this podcast, one of
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  the best ways to support me is by getting merch.
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  I'll put a link in the description.
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  So thank you so much for being here.
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  Thank you for understanding that the gap between who you are and
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  who you want to be does not define you.
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  And as always, thank you for feeling your feelings.
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  I'll see you next time.