Struggling with everyday tasks

Hello! To whoever is reading this, I hope you’re well.

For the past two months, I’ve been experiencing quite a terrible depressive episode. The first month was extremely unpleasant. I couldn’t do anything at all. I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed, to eat, to study, or even do something I enjoy like painting or riding my bike outside. It was exhausting. I felt as though there was no point in doing anything. It got so bad to the point where I just felt like I didn’t even know how to do basic things or rather I just didn’t have the will to. I managed to slightly get out of that mess after a month, I began to eat more and at least do one thing a day such as reading or studying – or something as simple as drinking enough water. However, my progress has been quite unstable at the moment. I keep going from having good productive days to days where I just want to stay in bed all the time and do absolutely nothing. It’s like I want to pretend that I have no responsibilities or tasks to get done but that’s not true. In reality, I can’t stop time and not care about all of life’s tasks, it’s sort of like everything is too fast-paced for me at the moment. When I sleep all day and don’t have the will to get out of bed, it’s really because I just don’t want to face life. Well, that’s how it was for the first month, I would spend my days laying in bed.

Currently, I’m trying to get myself together because I have exams soon. This exam is quite important as I need its results to apply for university. Basically, I’m studying just one subject at home by myself and I’m going to give the exam for it as a private candidate. The issue is that I’m still struggling to just get back to normal life and so it’s been extremely difficult to actually stay focused and study. I really want to get things done, I really need to but I’ve been prone to just sleeping most of the day because I don’t feel like getting up and doing anything – and even if I fix my sleeping habits they only really last for a couple of days and then at some point I go back to sleeping in the day. I have no idea how to keep myself going and that’s been stressing me out a lot too. I’m quite frustrated with myself for not being able to do such simple, everyday stuff and when I’m in that mindset I can’t help but think of questioning what’s the point of everything.

I would love it if I could get some advice on just how to get back to performing these everyday life tasks without feeling drained and help with staying focused on my studies because my exams are two months away and I really have a lot to get done to prepare myself.

Assalamu ‘alaykum, 

 

Your description of how you have been feeling is so vivid. It’s exactly what clinical depression feels like for so many people. Normally in situations in which people have clinical depression, the most effective (and quickest) way to start being able to face life again is start on some sort of antidepressant medication. It lifts the clouds just enough that you can begin to work on the stuff underneath that is causing the depression. Once the causes of the depression are taken care of, some people are able to come off the medication. However, if your body is not making enough of the proper compounds to keep your mood in a normal range, you might need to stay on the medication longer, perhaps even for life.

 

In order to know if medication is the best route, you would need your doctor to run tests to make sure there is nothing else happening. For example, sometimes people who have low thyroid function can experience a lot of symptoms that look a lot like depression. After those tests, you will have a better idea of what is going on inside of you. 

 

Many families are nervous about taking medication for an emotional challenge. (Even when they wouldn’t think twice about taking insulin for diabetes or medications for heart condition!)

 

If you know that it will take you some time until you can get to the doctor, some things that might make a small difference in the short term are:

1) Getting plenty of sun, perhaps considering a vitamin D supplement if your doctor is okay with that

2) Trying to exercise for a short time every day.

3) Imagining things that you wish to live for, perhaps even cutting out pictures of what life could be once you get through this time so you can focus on that as your goal

4) Making sure you do something each day that makes you feel alive – this could be as simple as taking a shower and getting ready for the day, or taking out your paints and spending a few minutes painting.

5) Making dhikr while elongating the oo or aa sounds 

 

These won’t replace the need to check with your doctor, and it might feel really slow because clinical depression is really hard to get through on your own. 

 

Good luck, and may the sun come out soon. 

Sincerely,

Your sister in Islam

“Fatima Z”