Procrastination Or Depression ?

Let's start with me! I tried to write this post about 2 days ago but I could not. And the reason behind it was that I was procrastinating or you may call it as dithering and I was depressed.

People usually get confused about how a person can be aware of differentiating between either they are procrastinating or are they just depressed. Let me go back a few days in my life and tell you my share of the story.

Its been about 2 weeks ( 12 days, to be exact ) that I haven't posted anything new and why was that? For starters, I always try to remember what I do or I did each day and therefore, I try to maintain a proper journal. Now, I am not punctual about writing it each day but Praise Allah ( Praise Lord ), I remember each day down to every little detail which gives me the benefit of filing the details in my journal even after a few days.

This month was all about high's and low's for me in terms of my mood. Talking about the very specific date that I Last posted on my blog, I had started fostering a few kittens and their Mother and the very next day, I was totally off my mood game and I was very irritated and sad, not that something had happened with me but it was just an extremely low day. The next day, I remember being a little enthusiastic about writing down a new post and it just didn't happen, I have a few memories of that day because all I did was binge watched a cartoon show and play with the kittens (procrastinating) . So, in order to get back to my rhythm, the next day I tried to give myself a little self-care, so I went to get my nails fixed and get my hair color done. The day goes well, I was extremely tired after coming back home. To me, I guess I tried too hard and went too far. And then the next day arrives and it starts off with me being highly active and energetic and I completed a lot of chores but by noon I was completely drained again. This is where I started emotional eating, Ahh! I ate a lot, like a lot-lot and I even bought myself an entire chocolate ganache cake and the very same day I realised that after pre-lightening ( bleaching ) my hair - that was about a week ago I have showed a delayed allergic reaction to it and I had this scab on my scalp and it was covered with huge chunks of dandruff, it was definitely gross and I had to buy medication for it and it made me very upset. And so the other 5 days are gone in a drift of my high and low mood tides. The 6th day, I did something insane and I was so upset and overwhelmed with emotions and I completely lost control of myself. I rather not talk about it just yet, it will be a story for another day. But the next two days, I spent recovering myself, I gathered my strength and here I am, back to work!

Now how do we differentiate either I was procrastinating or was I depressed? To be honest , it depends on how did you understood my patterns in my story, above! To one person, I may seem to be having a great life and they would cast me out as a lazy brat who likes to procrastinate and is very gluttony. But to a person who relates to me like a mental health physician and someone of the category of the same mental illness as me, they would understand that I was clearly Depressed and was caught up in my ADHD mood swings along with my eating disorder.

A normal person has the ability to delay their work irrespective of being well aware of its negative consequences, its voluntary. What makes it different in mentally ill people is that, even though you may think its voluntary based among us, its not! We do not want to hinder or differ or even delay or lay off the work or the daily chores, it only builds to our distress. But we do, we do so cause of many reasons that are related to our depression or other mental health disorders , imbalance in hormones , low self-esteem , sometimes medication and more.

Its the ' WILL' of a person that differentiates a lazy person from a mentally ill person. A lazy person has no will to do anything, and a mentally ill person has the will but not the strength nor the courage or the focus of a normal person to do so.

yours, Che7rry Blossom