F**k Depression, Duff is back!!

Alright everybody, gather round. I am here to tell you all about the second installment of Hardcore Self Help. F**k Depression. Written by one of my favorite people Robert Duff, Ph.D. Now if by some bizarre circumstance you have missed one of the many times I have mentioned Duff and/or his first book F**k Anxiety or his website DuffthePsych.com I suggest you do two things before reading the rest of this blog. First, check the review I did on F**K Anxiety and second, scurry off to buy yourself a copy, here I’ll even give you a link. Don’t worry I’ll wait. . .

Now that we have that taken care of let’s talk about F**k Depression. I could literally break this book down chapter by chapter and give you about a thousand reasons why you should buy it, read it, and share it with your friends. However, I’m guessing most of you don’t have time for that (and if you did you should just buy and read the book) and truthfully I don’t have time to write all of that. So I’m going to do my very best to break this down into some overarching points and a few specifics I most appreciated in this book. So let’s do this.

Starting with general thing I find to be awesome about F**k Depression (Some of these will sound familiar from my review of F**k Anxiety, I mean it was written by the same dude so the style is similar):

• Easy to Understand – One of Duff’s many talents is that he can take a subject and break it down and explain in a way that is easy understand, not overwhelming, and does away with all the professional jargon we, the professionals, love so much.
  
• Feels like a Friend – Just like in F**k Anxiety the tone/voice of this book is that of a friend. Someone who understands that where you are at the moment sucks and genuinely cares about you getting better. And just like any good friend he knows how to use humor to lighten the mood and bring a smile to your face. As I read through the book, I laughed or smiled frequently and even found myself talking back to the book or making comments in agreement, out loud, talking to a stack of paper. No I am not crazy (most of the time) it’s that vibe of talking with a friend that bring it out in me.
• Awesome Suggestions – From easy wins to logic barometers (no I won’t tell you what either of those means, read the book) F**k Depression is full of suggestions on how to get started and  take care of yourself. And he explains EXACTLY how to do them step by step and even includes pictures (Who doesn't love pictures)
• Ain’t No Fillers Here – This book is roughly twice as long as F**k Anxiety (about 150 pages) but it keeps with the idea that Duff says what needs to be said and then moves on. He doesn’t write extra just for the sake of making it longer or for the sake of proving to everyone that he knows how to use big words and professional jargon. Part of the reason this book is a little longer is that there isn’t the same urgent feel to this book as there was in F**k Anxiety. Duff himself has said that he took more time writing this book than he did F**k Anxeity. I think that intensity worked for F**k Anxiety and having a little less of that works REALLY well in F**k Depression.

Okay those were some general things I liked about F**k Depression, now let me dive into some specific things I value and appreciate.

I have been working as a therapist for coming up 8 on years (And I just made myself feel old). Working with individuals struggling with anxiety and depression has been a passion and focus of mine since the beginning, so I’ve seen it a lot. And while these jerks often like to hang out together, and can often be dealt with using similar techniques and interventions, there is one thing that sets them very far apart from each other. Motivation. Depression can become particularly tricky to deal with because it just ZAPS the motivation right out of you, and you’d just as soon lay in bed in the dark and not bath for a couple of days as you would get up and do something that might make you feel better.

Let me put it this way, you remember that time you had the flu and spent 4 days in bed and the sheer act of walking to the bathroom and back took all your energy. Yeah it’s like that only instead of a virus it’s your brain being a douche. Duff does an excellent job of tackling that particular challenge, and gives some ideas on how to get the ball rolling. It’s like the physics principle, an object in motion stays in motion an object at rest stays at rest. This book can be the force that gets things moving again so you can be an object in motion.

One of my favorite things about both of Duff's books, the letter to support people to help them understand the ins and outs of depression and what your loved one may need in terms of support and patience. All too often when talking with clients I hear about how their family and friends suck at being supportive. That doesn’t mean that they are bad people it just means that they don’t get it and that can be frustrating when you are having enough challenges getting yourself vertical in the morning, let alone explaining why to other people. This letter is something you could easily give, as is, to a support person in your life, or could serve as a jumping off point for you to write your own or start a conversation.

Two chapters in this book, I believe, are possibly the most important chapters. The first is on treatment. Not only does Duff talk about various treatment options but also gives you a little bit about what to expect with each and how they can be helpful in you learning to kick depression’s ass.  I often here from people during our first session "I've never done this before so I don't know what to say". Luckily for them the first session is a lot of questions and information gathering which gets the ball rolling. But I think this chapter helps people have a little better idea what to expect, particularly from therapy, to take the edge off that uncertainty of going to the first session.

The second chapter that I think is of vital importance is regarding Suicide. Duff says right in the beginning of the chapter that we tend to treat the word suicide like Voldemort or Beetlejuice and if it is said aloud that all hell will break lose and someone will decide to kill themselves. This is not the case AT ALL, and sometimes I wonder if our lack of conversation about it actually contributes to the problem. In this chapter Duff makes this topic seem not so scary to talk about while not diminishing its importance. He also talks some about the process of hospitalization and what that experience is like, taking some of the fear and feeling that hospitalization is a punishment out of the equation.

I will let you read that chapter for yourself but I will say this. I have had a handful of clients over the years that either think I would enjoy sending them to the hospital, or if they are completely honest with me about their thoughts and feelings that I would "ship them off" to the hospital because they are "nuts". Neither of these statements are true. Hospitalization is, and should be the option of last resort. Meaning there is NO OTHER way to keep you safe than to have you in the hospital.

Finally, a personal note. Many of you probably know from previous posts that I have had a personal battle with depression and anxiety in addition to my role as a mental health professional. Reading this book struck a chord in a way I didn’t expect.  As I read this it brought back some very unpleasant memories, but it wasn’t a bad thing, I mean it wasn’t fun but it turned out to be good.  Memories would spring up from the worst depressive episode I've ever had (waaaay back in college). As I sifted through the memories that came up and felt the emotions that came with them, it gave me an opportunity to be reminded of how far I have come, and all the things I have overcome to build a life I am very happy with. That all to say, regardless of where you are in your battle with depression this book can be informative, touching, or helpful for lots of people.

Image from www.duffthepsych.com

Okay that’s it, that’s everything. I know this is one of the longer blogs I have written lately, if you have hung in this long, gold star for you. Please check out F**k Depression and all things Duff related. He really is one of the most genuine, caring, smart, funny, compassionate, (that’s probably enough adjectives although I could go on) all around good guy I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing, with a lot to offer to world. And he's written another phenomenal book.

The Problem of Procrastination!

It is currently 10:15pm Sunday night and I am just now sitting down to complete this blog for a self-imposed deadline of Monday morning. Actually the original deadline for this blog was last Monday, which seems appropriate given today’s topic is procrastination. And here we are. . .after 10pm writing this blog when I should be getting ready for bed because I spent the rest of today procrastinating all the other things I wanted to do today and am now in the mad dash to still get them done before bed.

Let’s start with a definition. Basically procrastination is the process in which you are doing “fun” tasks before “necessary” tasks for putting urgent tasks off to address less urgent tasks. There are two categories which most procrastinators fall into. A) You just plain struggle with time management and prioritizing or B) you are a perfectionist. I know a bunch of you just went “Huh?” to reason B, but I promise I’ll explain juts bear with me.

I will be the first to tell you that I have ALWAYS been a procrastinator. I will readily admit that during college it was not uncommon for me to start writing a paper at 10 pm the night before it was due (gee that sounds familiar) and writing till 2 or 3 in the morning. Usually that resulted in not enough sleep but, by some miracle, I was getting decent grades so I continued to operate that way. And we won’t even talk about how little use my textbooks got in college.

 And to further prove my point I just took a break to play a round of candy crush, sigh.

As I got older and realized I could no longer operate on as little sleep as I used to and had more and more on my plate and putting all of it off to the last moment just doable any longer. So I decided it was time to change my ways. Over the last decade or so (let’s not talk about the fact it’s been a DECADE since I graduated college) I have actually become quite good and NOT procrastinating and getting things done a head of time. However here recently those old habits have been creeping up on me again and I feel like I have been doing everything at the last minute. So I thought if shared some of the things I do to stave off procrastination it would also help me get my own self back on track.

Earlier I mentioned there tends to be two general categories that people fall into when it comes to WHY they procrastinate. The first is pretty straight forward, struggles with time management and trouble prioritizing.  Some people no matter how hard they try just can’t seem to get themselves organized. That can be pretty straight forward to get a handle on in the way of easy tips and tricks to facilitate that process (I’ll get to those in a moment)

The other category, and the one I tend to fall into, is that of the perfectionist. Now I’m sure that sounds strange to some of you, it certainly did to me the first time someone said it to me. My response was if I was a perfectionist I would be working on things way in advance and revising and reworking things till they were just so and ready to go. Yes, that is one way in which perfectionism can manifest itself. However, if you think about it, it also makes sense as manifesting itself as procrastination. For me it gives me an outlet other than my own shorting comings as to why I didn’t get a perfect grade on that assignment or that session prep wasn’t as good as it could have been. I didn’t have enough time to do it perfectly (never mind I am the reason I didn’t have enough time, our brains are very good at ignoring logic when it suits us)

 So how do I/we overcome the problem of procrastination? Well if you fall into the perfectionist camp that is going to require some work on accepting the fact that no one is perfect and that is okay. Sometimes that work can be done on your own through the use of thought logs and other cognitive behavioral methods. Since there is going to be some anxiety tied to that, allow me to link you HERE to my favorite resource for starting to address anxiety. If you find yourself struggling to get that in check on your own don’t be afraid to recruit the help of a professional.

 As for general time management and organization allow me to share with you the 2 things that work the best for me:

Lists

I live and die by my lists, if it’s not on a list chances are I will forget that I am supposed to do it. Now don’t just go make a list that is 3 pages long of things you need to get done. That leads to getting overwhelmed and then inevitably Netflix and chill. Instead make several lists.

• Most important every task has to have a deadline, whether it is imposed by you or by someone else deadlines help trust me.
• Next I have 2 bigger lists labelled “This week” and “Later”. I think those are self-explanatory but just in case “this week” is stuff I need/want to get done this week and “later” means it can wait.
• Then each morning at the office I make a “today” list. This list I try to keep to 3 to 4 things. What 3 or 4 things are the most important to do today.  I also keep this list short because I want to feel accomplished every day. If I get more than that done in a day GREAT but if I don’t I still want to be able to be at the end of the day and feel like I accomplished what I needed/wanted to. 

Rewards.

Now this one works well for some and not so well for others. For me this is an amazing motivator. If I am working on a task that is not one I am super excited about but is necessary (session notes and accounting work comes to mind) I set myself up for success by working in some rewards. Sometimes this is based on working for a certain length of time or completing a certain portion of the task once that is complete or that time has passed I get a reward. Now these are not major rewards, usually it’s like 5 minutes to play a game on my phone or 5 minutes on twitter to see what’s happening then it’s back to work. This works for me for 2 reasons, one it breaks things up into smaller chunks, I don’t have to worry about ALL my session notes I just need to work on them for 25 minutes then I get a break, and I can do just about anything for 25 minutes. And two, I just like rewards, who doesn’t like taking a minute to pat themselves on the back and give themselves treat.

 So there it is, my tips and trick to combating the evil procrastinator monster. Now that it is almost midnight, I am going to rewards myself with some sleep and try again tomorrow to conquer the procrastination tendency living inside my brain.

***All images from google images***

Anxiety Strikes Again

 Anxiety strikes again. I have talked a few times on this blog about anxiety in general and my own struggles with anxiety. And every once in a while my anxiety rears its ugly head in an expected way and we talk about it again. That’s probably the biggest pain about anxiety. You think you have it in check and have made it your bitch and then you find yourself in a situations having intense anxiety thinking what the hell? You know what makes that feeling even better? When it happens in front of someone you have just recently met and has no idea that you struggle with anxiety. Welcome to the story that inspired this blog.

A few weeks ago I went on a date with a new fella and we hit it off right away. Only hitch was he was getting ready to move for work and would be residing in a city about 3 hours from where I live. We decided not to let the distance stop our relationship from moving forward since things were going so well, so last weekend I went to visit him. The city he is living in is quite a bit bigger than the city I live in and more importantly I had been to this city a grand total of one time before this and driving in unfamiliar cities is one of the things that sets of my anxiety pretty quickly.

 So I set off Friday afternoon with my map and directions in hand, directions mind you I had read SEVERAL times prior to leaving. I only got turned around once and successfully made it to the hotel with minimal issue, but I had been so tense driving I felt like I just finished a marathon when I arrived. This is what driving in unfamiliar places does to me. So now that you know that, let’s fast forward to Saturday morning.

Saturday morning we get in the car and are headed to an art museum (which I had looked up directions for from the hotel), as we pull out of the parking lot my fella says I want to show you downtown before we go to the art museum. I said okay but you will need to tell me where we are going and how to get back to the art museum. He agreed an off we go. We get to the middle of downtown the freeway is about to split in about 6 different directions and I ask okay which way are we going? My fella says I don’t know.  Excuse me what? He says just figure it out, this is how you learn a new city. I'm immediately anxious and losing my mind, what do you mean you don’t know, I told you to figure this stuff out, I don’t need to learn to navigate this city I don’t freakin live here. These are all things flying out of my mouth as I’m desperately trying to remember the address of the museum so I can put it in my GPS. (Just for the record I don’t recommend ever typing anything while driving on the highway).

 Fear not we eventually made it to the art museum and I calmed down and we had a wonderful time. However this happened again on Sunday when I was dropping off my fella before I left town. This time he didn’t have an address of where he was going and he was navigating on sight. That time we got into a little bit more of an argument because again my anxiety was spiking pretty high. Ultimately we got to where we were going got him dropped off and I got myself headed home.

As I was making the three hour drive home it finally started to click to me that anxiety was the reason I had gotten worked up (yep sometimes it even take a therapist a while to connect the dots of her own brain). And then I started thinking about how much of this do I explain to a guy I haven’t known all that long and how I do even go about doing that. I have been very blessed in my life that I haven’t had to explain my anxiety to too many people, many of the people in my life have been very understanding without much conversation or explanation.

While thinking all this through on the way home I was also found myself concerned with how he would react. Would he understand? Would he respect my need for a little more planning or would he continue to think the best way to help me is to put me in incredibly uncomfortable situations thinking he was helping. As I contemplated all these different questions I also started to get angry. Angry that my brain works this way and gets all worked up over things that really aren’t a huge deal. Angry that my anxiety had interfered with my weekend and caused us to get in not one but two arguments that just weren’t necessary.

By the time I got home I was exhausted, not just from a fun filled weekend but from having to spend SO MUCH time thinking about how to introduce a new person in my life into the craziness that is having an anxious brain. If I had to guess I would imagine that many of you out there struggling with anxiety can relate to this on many levels. Coping with anxiety can be exhausting in and of itself. Explaining your anxiety to people have been in your life for years and you know care about you can be a challenge. Finding the courage to overcome anxiety and meet NEW people can be a HUGE challenge. And then you get through all those hurdles and you find yourself in a situation where you feel you have to explain yet again, and to a new person, why you are freaking out over something that you know isn’t a big deal.

Some days it can all feel like it’s more work than it’s worth. But I think we can all agree that we know that isn’t true. Yes there are times when we are rejected by people we care about and who we thought cared about us because of our anxiety. But the times you find someone to add to your support army, who gets it or at least tries to get it and can be there for you makes it all worth it.

As for my current situation. I haven’t talked with him about my anxiety in the days that I have been back, and I’m still not sure how I want to go about it or how much I want to share with a person I don’t know very well yet. He did notice my scars over the weekend and didn’t run away screaming so maybe there is hope for this one yet ;). If any of you have suggestions or techniques you use when you are telling someone about your struggles with anxiety, I would love to hear them so leave me a comment below.

                                           *All images were taken from Google Images*