Lived Experience Forum

[Tyler77]

Anyone else struggle to get the will and ambition to clean up nice.  Meaning shave, shower, put on nice clothes, deoderant, cologne, etc.  Really make a effort to look and smell nice?

I lounge around most days in sweatpants and a hoodie.  I can go days and days without even thinking about showering.  I have no desire for it.  No energy.  Why bother getting dressed up and clean if I feel terrible all the time?  I mostly have adopted a IDGAF attitude.  Whereby, I will do whatever is comfortable for me, and if others are offended by it, tooooo bad.  

But at the same Time, I know I look like and smell not great.  But I can't seem to will myself to respect myself enough to take proper care of myself.  

Anyone else suffer from this degree of depression?  Where nothing, not even hygiene seems worthwhile?

[Mazarita]

Hi @Tyler77, good to see you around again.  

Yes, I still struggle with personal hygiene too. Though I have improved a lot in other ways in recent years, I can still go up to 9 days without a shower sometimes. I aim to shower once every two days but quite often it just doesn't happen. I too see this as a sign of lingering depression, even though I have managed to rise out of the depths of that in many other ways.

It's taken quite some time but I now almost always clean myself up even when not having a shower, using baby wipes, facewasher, brushing teeth, hair, putting on some perfumed stuff, etc. So that I'm almost as clean as if I had a shower anyway. This is a major step for me, that was partly due to suggestions made by @Faith-and-Hope a while back.

But probably the first step to better self-image in this regard was buying clothes (from the op shop mostly) that made me feel better about going out and facing the world. Prior to that I wasn't leaving the flat for very long periods of time, partly due to being ashamed of what I was wearing (my clothes were getting ragged and didn't fit me properly due to weight gain with medications etc).

With the shaving, I would find that an incredible chore if I was a man. One thing off the top of my head is that trimmed beards are a lot more acceptable these days than they used to be. Maybe you could let yourself off the hook with that and just grow a neat beard. Just a thought.

Having said all this, I can say that I always feel better after a shower. Even if I can't manage that, it does make me feel better to clean myself up in the ways I described above. That makes it more likely that I will get out of the flat, instead of just hanging around and getting more depressed by that.

Sending good vibes and best wishes for improvements in your state of being. 

[Lunar]

Hello @Tyler77

It would be good to work through that feeling of worthlessness with your psychologist, that would be really important. Do you have a psychologist or counsellor at the moment? That symptom of your depression sounds really hard to be dealing with all on your own, and like it is affecting alot of aspects of your life at the moment.

I can understand how your depression is making you feel like showering or self-care isn't helpful, but those small things can start to make you feel more worthy of other bigger things. But also sometimes it helps if you make showering and those other activities more enjoyable, like put on some nice music, wear your favourite clothes, buy some nice smelling body soap, etc

Thinking of you

Lunar