No to Low Motivation...

One of the hardest aspects of depression for me to deal with is the absolute lack of motivation I sometimes have.  I have been a pretty busy person most of my life.  I have many different interests and used to partake in many different hobbies.  I never got bored because there were just so many things I wanted to do.  I still have many interests and many things I could do, but most of the time I just don't feel like doing them.  Sometimes I force myself but I don't enjoy them the way one should enjoy hobbies.

Aside from the obvious parts of depression like sadness and difficulty being around people, depression robs its sufferers of life in general.  That's the difference between blues and true depression. It sucks the life out of me and the joy out of life a great deal of time.  

I don't like to talk about my mental illness much because I don't want to seem like I'm always complaining about it.  I usually don't complain about it.  It is what it is, and to a degree , what I make of it.  But there are the really crummy parts that make me miserable at times, and to be honest about how bipolar and depression affect my life I have to talk about the bad times as well as the good. 

I can hardly read, which is probably the hardest issue for me to get over.  I love literature, majored in literature, and spent the first eighteen years of  my life buried in books.  Presently, though, my concentration and ability to attend to the task at hand is nearly impossible, thus making reading equally impossible.  I tend to "read" magazines now because they require far less attention.  I do have periods of time though when my concentration is better than usual and I get a lot read in a short period of time.  It's just never for certain when and for how long it will last. 

Depression does rob me of some quality of life, but it also makes me appreciate the better times all the more.  Sometimes it affects my life as a wife, or my ability to clean the house or keep up with "chores".  It certainly affected my ability to work and maintain employment.  I'm determined to keep pushing through though and finding the bright spots.