People misunderstand that depression is more than just feeling sad. It makes it difficult to muster the motivation and energy to complete tasks that seem simple to everyone, such as showering.
KC Davis, a licensed professional counselor and founder of Combat Care, knows this from both personal and professional experience. In 2023, she gave a TED talk titled “How to do laundry when you’re depressed.” Davis offered sage guidance for completing basic caregiving tasks when it’s hard to do anything else, and reminded everyone that if they struggle with these things they are not failures.
Davis explained that there is nothing wrong with making accommodations for yourself when you need it.
For those struggling with depression, anxiety, job loss, or any of the other myriad challenges that life presents, Davis had tips for cooking, cleaning, and maintaining basic self-care.
“If it’s too hard to take a bath today, buy a baby wipe,” she urged. “It may not be the normal way to do it, but you deserve to be clean.”
While we all have to do things like eat to survive, Davis said it doesn’t have to look perfect or be overly complicated. “If it’s too hard to cook, get paper plates, reheat frozen,” she continued. “You’re going to cook and wash the next day, but that day isn’t today. And meanwhile, you deserve to eat.”
“If you’re too lazy to do your dishes, buy a two-gallon Ziploc bag and keep it in your bedroom, because if you put a dirty plate in a two-gallon Ziploc bag and seal it, it will keep the bugs out. Because you deserve a sanitary environment even if you can’t get out of bed.”
It’s easy to feel guilty when you can’t complete self-care tasks, but Davis said there’s no reason to.
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Davies explained that she works at the intersection of mental health and caregiving functions, and she discovered a philosophy. “And it all starts with a simple idea. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, it doesn’t make you a good person or a bad person,” she argued. “Hear Me Out: Care Duties Are Morally Neutral.”
In other words, fulfilling these duties does not define a person as good or bad. These jobs are lonely, and even when you can’t do them, you still deserve care and love.
“When we get rid of the idea that we’re a good person or a bad person with the job of caring, we can think about the right way of doing things, about the way things should be done, and instead think about what we can do with the current constraints to improve the quality of life today,” she said.
Viewing the duty of care as morally neutral allows us to stop measuring our worth based on someone else’s standards and discover what works for us as individuals.
It’s far from the idea that Davis just came up with it. Psychologist Deborah Serrani, PsyD, confirms that dealing with depression can make things that once felt trivial suddenly seem “unobtainable.”
Despite some people’s belief that depression is not serious, science shows that it actually changes the way the human brain works. Serani explained that living with depression usually means your frontal lobe isn’t working properly.
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This part of the brain controls executive function, which includes things like judgment and planning. That’s why it becomes so difficult to bring yourself to complete tasks that the rest of the world believes are no big deal.
Davis acknowledged that for people who live in a world inundated with the “perfect Pinterest aesthetic,” it can feel like a moral failure to struggle with these tasks. Like it’s because we’re lazy, or irresponsible, or dirty.
But this, she said, is completely wrong. “You have to allow yourself to do less. Do it with shortcuts. Do it while breaking all the rules,” she said. “And replace that inner voice that says, ‘I’m a failure’ with the one that says, ‘I’m having a hard time right now. And people who have a hard time deserve compassion.’
Allowing ourselves to be just “good enough” when it comes to navigating an increasingly challenging world means giving ourselves grace and showing ourselves the love and attention we naturally deserve, something Davis strongly advocates.
Alexandra Blogger, MFA, is a writer who covers psychology, social issues, relationships, self-help topics, and human interest stories.
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