Content note: This essay discusses depression and suicide.
I originally began writing this last week. Then I became so focused on everything I was getting done that I never got around to publishing it.
The hopeful things I wrote are still true. But since then, I have also had setbacks. A new relationship I was excited about ended because she wasn’t ready. I was deeply disappointed. That same day, William Catner, the cat I adopted in late April, suddenly became ill and died. My veterinarian assured me there was nothing I had done wrong and nothing I could have done to save him.
Adopting William had lifted my mood and become an important part of my recovery. I hope to adopt another cat eventually, but I am still recovering from the shock of losing him. I am not giving up on dating, either. Rejection hurts, but it is also practice in learning that I can be rejected and still be okay.
The tools I learned in a partial hospitalization program, or PHP, helped me bounce back from these setbacks more quickly than I once could. That doesn’t make the losses less real. It does reassure me that I am still moving in the right direction.
When working harder stopped working
When I became severely depressed earlier this year, I wasn’t getting anything done, personally or professionally, and I didn’t even care. That is how bad it got.
Before that, though, I had become consumed by the feeling that I was never getting enough done. It started simply. I made commitments I could keep only by working harder, working longer, or dropping something that seemed less important. I also failed to enforce my boundaries consistently. I could tell people no, but not often enough. When I did drop a ball, I usually picked it right back up as soon as someone called attention to it. The squeaky wheel, right?
Over time, shame and guilt accumulated. Feedback from people close to me reinforced it: How could I miss something important I said I would attend? How could I forget something someone told me? Why didn’t I take the advice or implement the suggestion? And, most painfully, if I didn’t do those things, did that mean I didn’t care?
The truth was that everything and everyone felt important, and I worked hard to prove it. I told myself everyone drops a few less-important balls. I would rest when things slowed down. I praised my work ethic because I was putting in so many hours and receiving such positive feedback about what I accomplished.
I had a lot of goals. I achieved some and told myself the others were merely delayed because they weren’t important right now. I would get to them later. I believed that if I worked hard enough, I could separate my work from my feelings. I believed I could push through.
Eventually, it all came tumbling down. So much for separating feelings from work.
Fear led me to ask for help
By the time life became too much, I no longer cared that I wasn’t getting enough done. I didn’t care that I wasn’t getting anything done. I did care that I felt so terrible I wasn’t sure I had the will to change it.
Caring wasn’t enough. Fear was.
Fear can be a powerful motivator for a while. Fear of being fired can make us work harder. Fear of losing a home can make us sell nearly everything to cover a payment. Fear of losing a relationship can make us accept unreasonable demands and treatment.
What motivated me was not fear of my life ending. It was fear that I would make my life even worse. I was afraid a suicide attempt would fail and leave me more disabled. I was afraid I would try again. I was afraid I would never stop being afraid. I asked for help because I knew I did not care enough to help myself, and I feared where that would eventually lead.
When I asked, help came from many places. Hospital and clinic staff helped. The person who drove me to the emergency room helped. Friends checked on me while I waited to enter the PHP. Once I began receiving help, it felt as if a dam broke inside me. Suddenly, I could relax.
And relax I did. I mostly slept during that first week. I still slept a lot during the second, but something changed when I learned that I would be starting the PHP: I began to care again. I was exhausted, but I cared. Because I cared, I could ask for more help.
Reducing the cognitive load
I asked for rides to and from the program. I relied heavily on Uber Eats for food. Paying for help is still asking for help. As my home became messier, I asked my family to help clean it because I knew that facing the whole job alone would overwhelm me and slow my recovery.
The help came. Family members kept my house clean. Friends invited me to lunch or dinner. The PHP staff taught me both how to ask others for help and how to help myself. I learned about cognitive load and body doubling.
Asking is still difficult, but practice has made it easier. I have experienced the relief—and even the joy—of getting something done because I asked for help.
Recovery has changed the way I think about productivity. Getting more done isn’t simply an exercise in working harder. It can mean asking for help, lowering the cognitive load, and giving myself less to do.
I have also learned that many of our “shoulds” come from inside us. Of course I need to pay the mortgage and utility bills. Of course I need to eat, bathe, dress, and care for my basic needs. But no one says I must accomplish those things in one particular way. I often impose that part on myself because I want to appear respectable and avoid other people’s judgment.
“Don’t should myself” is one of my mottos now.
My first steps were to limit myself to two hours of work a day and refuse unpaid work. I asked someone to help me read my mail because that required less cognitive load than using the cumbersome tools I sometimes need to access it independently. I asked for help keeping my house clean. I still clean, but I get help staying caught up. My kids and I clean together because working as a family feels easier and more satisfying than working alone.
I also asked for help with fundraising and finding volunteers. Then I began asking a new question: How could I help myself? The ideas didn’t come immediately, but they began to flow. This week, I found a real game changer.
What AI changed for me
With help from Codex and ChatGPT, I cleaned out my entire email inbox. I started with 2,199 messages and got down to six. I described how I wanted to respond to three of those six, reducing the inbox to three. One message belonged to someone else, so I forwarded it. That left two bills.
One bill was easy to pay, so I handled it. The other arrived as a PDF that was nowhere close to screen-reader friendly. Its online payment system was somewhat more accessible, but I still needed information trapped in the inaccessible PDF. Codex read the PDF, opened the payment system in Chrome, filled in most of the required information, and left the page open for me to enter my credit card details and submit the payment myself.
Did that finish the task faster? Maybe. Did it make the task feel far less complicated? Absolutely. That difference matters.
Tasks can feel too numerous to handle, but they can also feel too complex. Complexity makes it harder to start and harder to finish. We should ask not only, “What is the fastest way to do this?” but also, “How can I do this with the least cognitive load?”
The answer might be doing it ourselves. It might be working alongside another person. It might be accepting practical help. It might even be using AI.
I am excited to say that my recovery is going well right now. I am learning to manage my cognitive load and to accept support from people and from technology. Nothing will ever replace the role people play in our lives. At the same time, AI has real potential to reduce the burden of navigating an increasingly online and digital world—especially when that world was not designed with all of us in mind.
Enthusiasm is returning
I have discovered something else: as I accept help from others and make thoughtful use of AI, my enthusiasm is coming back.
I am having ideas for software products and seriously considering how to build and market them. I am exploring ways to lower Penny Forward’s costs and make the organization sustainable, even with my limited work schedule. Things that once seemed too ambitious suddenly feel possible again.
It is a wonderful feeling. I have had wonderful feelings before, and I have also had setbacks. I am sure I will encounter more. Asking for help is not a silver bullet. AI is not a silver bullet. Both are pieces of a much larger commitment to making recovery my top priority.
For now, I am accepting and enjoying these good feelings for as long as they last. I am grateful for them. I am also grateful for everything I am learning, because each lesson leaves me better prepared for the next difficult stretch.
What helps you manage your cognitive load and get things done? How do you rekindle your enthusiasm? How do you bounce back after setbacks? Share your thoughts in the comments. If you receive Permission to Be You by email, you can reply directly. If you are not subscribed, please join us. I post no more than twice a week, and subscribing means you won’t miss an essay.
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