Treading Tuesday #3: Peer pressure is good, actually

Sometimes you just gotta hitch yourself to someone else's raft.

These past few weeks—months?—I’ve been feeling my suicidal ideation in the form of good old-fashioned apathy. As is par for the course where depression in concerned, I’m apathetic toward the things I usually care about—socializing, creativity, enjoying the summer weather while it lasts—and I’m apathetic toward most of my go-to flotation devices. And, you know, toward life in general. I just have…no interest in participating. The world sucks. Doing things is exhausting. I want to stay inside and do nothing. (Except play The Sims and watch bad reality TV. Yes, still.)

If you can relate, you probably also know that this sets off a nasty cycle, because of course that makes us feel worse, which makes us even more apathetic and unmotivated, which makes us do even less, and so on and so forth. And the longer that goes on, the less attached to life I feel, because life in this cycle is really depressing.

Unfortunately, psychology tells us that a reliable way to break this cycle involves…well, just Doing The Things. Thanks to a little thing called behavioral activation, if we can take that first step and do the feel-good activities, it becomes easier to get out of the cycle that left us feeling so unmotivated and apathetic in the first place. In other words, even when it’s hard to do a thing, there’s a good chance you’ll feel better after doing the thing.

AND YET. Knowing this doesn’t make taking that first step any easier. Because of this, as I struggle through my apathetic era, I’ve come to realize that one of my invaluable flotation devices has been…peer pressure. When I’m in an isolated funk, my friends have my full permission to (lovingly) bully me to get me out of the house and help me kick off a cycle of healthier behaviors.

I was reminded of the annoyingly effective magic of behavioral activation and peer pressure a few days ago when a friendly stranger at my neighborhood cafe invited me to a party that night. Had I not been with another friend at the time, I probably definitely would’ve pretended to consider the invite before inevitably staying inside with my cats. But my friend bore witness and reminded me that I’d just been complaining about how isolated I’ve been, so I couldn’t turn down an opportunity that basically fell into my lap, could I?

So I went. Even though I was exhausted and cranky and depressed and very much did not feel like going. And sure enough, once I got there, I felt less exhausted and cranky and depressed, and now I’m looking forward to going to the next one. It’s so annoying. But maybe if I do it enough, I’ll learn how to break out of these cycles myself. For now, though, I’m down to hitch myself to someone else’s raft.

So that’s my FOTW. What about yours?

Are there any floaties that you don’t utilize as often as you want to because getting over the initial hump feels like it takes superhuman effort? Have you learned ways to Do The Thing anyway? If you have, please share with the class!!!

As a quick reminder:

• This is a safe space to talk about SI and no one should feel pressured to keep it ~positive~. For safety reasons, however, please try your best to stay on the topic of how you’re coping and avoid detailed descriptions of suicidal feelings.

• When replying to others (encouraged!), refrain from giving advice or recommendations to others unless specifically asked for.