The answer is: peanut butter on a fork. The question is: What does low-functioning depression look like? I was trying to figure out what I could say here. How I could start to explain how bad it gets with motivation for even the simplest things. It’s a challenge to come up with examples for two reasons.

First, the evidence is extremely incriminating. I know that if I start to go into detail about how I live, I’m going to make myself look very bad. Shamefully so. I don’t know that I’m quite brave enough to do that. Not from where I currently stand. Maybe in the future, with more progress under my belt, I can give examples of what I’ve overcome.

Second, struggling with motivation / drive is not met with a lot of compassion from outside sources. Sometimes it feels like everyone around me is just waiting for a chance to berate me for my laziness. I know there are people who think I’m lazy. That I’m not bothering. That it’s all simply a matter of choice. It is so frustrating not to be seen from my side.

But, okay, let me at least give you peanut butter on a fork. That’s a disposable fork, incidentally. Not as though there are clean metal forks available. Peanut butter on a fork happens when I’m so depressed that I don’t want to bother with a meal. I can’t even persuade myself to make a sandwich? Nope. But the hunger is going to pop up, and eventually I have to bother in some basic bottom-line way to consume nutrients. So instead of skipping food altogether, I eat forkfuls of peanut butter to tide me over, until some motivation returns another day.

And I know, sadly, there must be other people out there that aren’t even making it that far. If I can barely manage to want to sustain myself, I can easily imagine people that are skipping right over meals, going hungry because… Why? Why are we doing this? Food isn’t the only thing that gets neglected in this state.

Why is eating so hard? Why don’t we want to sleep? Why is every little chore suddenly herculean in its requirements? Why is effort so elusive? I don’t have all the answers. What I do have is some of the wrong answers in the public opinion multiple choice category.

Is it laziness? No.

Is it apathy? No.

Is it voluntary? No.

Is it going to change overnight? No.

It’s not all bad news. I don’t see this state as unchangeable. It is absolutely something that can be worked on. It can seem overwhelming because it’s so many tasks stacked up needing so much effort. Taking that mountain and breaking it down into steps can feel daunting too, like any moment there’s going to be rock slide of guilt and shame.

Recently, I’ve been trying to embrace a perspective of compassion. I am doing my best to forgive myself for the state of my life and work forwards instead of back. Sometimes it really seems like the mess was made by some other me and now I have to fix things for her. But anger, resentment… it doesn’t get me anywhere. And I have to give myself some credit too. I am facing my problems, which is the first step and not an easy one. I try to remember that I have done better in the past, and I can do so again.

I also try to remember that even when things get very bad, not every day ends with peanut butter on a fork.