I’ve basically lost all desire to socialize with people and improve myself. I’ve been seeing a therapist and taking various different psych meds for years and have basically made no improvement. All I want to do anymore is eat way too much junk food (I feel like my friends and family would judge me very hard if I went back to toking and drinking like I did before rehab), play video games, and lie down doomscrolling chapo.chat.
The worst part is I know I have a lot going for me in life and I have a negative number of excuses to be this way: I’m in a cushy overpaid computer toucher job with a promotion on the near horizon, I’m doing well in my education, I haven’t had anything really bad happen to me in years, and even the things that have gone bad for me are incredibly mild at most - first world problems. Even when I do the occasional good thing like walking or not eating like complete garbage for a day, I’m incapable of actually feeling any sense of accomplishment.
Whenever I talk to any of my mental healthcare providers about it, their advice basically boils down to “let yourself feel good about good things”. There’s also the more actionable advice, like use a sun lamp to make up for lack of sunlight and make some time to write my thoughts down every day, but I suck about following through on them. Trying to make myself feel good beyond split-second dopamine hits from base activities like stuffing my hamplanet pie hole with empty calorie laden garbage feels like trying to draw blood from a stone.
Often times I find myself thinking that maybe people like OrganizeOrDie are right. Depression is no excuse to stay out of organizing (something I’m also shirking my responsibility to do, largely because I’m at an intersection of privilege where I benefit from capitalism and imperialism far more than I am harmed by it), let alone doing the barest minimum to keep myself healthy, all of which will at least increase my chances of not feeling like an soulless automoton all the time. I know that humans are social beings and that community is essential to being human, but my temperment makes it so I don’t actually feel good from socializing - not even in a social anxiety or lack of social skills kind of way - so I stay in my room and continue to rot. I feel like I’m part of the problem and not part of the solution and that if I’m incapable of actually becoming better then I may as well just self-destruct in silence.
I’ve been depressed basically since I was a child - over 20 years at this point - and it’s so ingrained in who I am that I don’t know how to get rid of it, or if I even want to. People who want things work to make them a reality after all.
I’m not sure what I want or expect from this vent-post. I just hate that I am the way I am and have no will to change.
I’ve been depressed basically since I was a child - over 20 years at this point - and it’s so ingrained in who I am that I don’t know how to get rid of it, or if I even want to. People who want things work to make them a reality after all.
I feel you on that one. Been depressed as far back as I remember, so it just kinda feels like my natural state.
I wish I had some kind of advice, but all I can say is you’re not alone feeling this way
yeah there’s never been a me without depression. like the gag where someone tries to blow the dust off something but the whole thing just disintegrates instead, except i just suffer for decades because i’m too afraid of a botch.
Hello Fellow Large Adult (son/daughter/them/etc)! Glad to know there are more of us on here. It’s some solidarity being large together, I hope you know you are not alone.
One of my biggest radicalization moments was when I got kicked out of an eating disorder clinic because my insurance decided I was “all better”. I continue to struggle with my eating disorder to this day.
Coming out of left field here but looking back on your past, do you think ADHD might be in the cards for you? Just asking bc I was trapped in that cycle of posting and feeling shitty about not getting more done for years, I have been on antidepressants for a while and have felt “okay,” certainly better than I did, no ideations etc, but still not totally with it. Two weeks ago I started ADHD treatment and the change has been extraordinary. I haven’t felt this good since I was a teenager.
I’ll have to look into that. I suspect I might be autistic or schizoid, but doctor-wise I’m not sure where to look for help with that. The last time I went looking for that kind of help the mental health evaluator pressured me into going to rehab because I decided to answer the substance use related questions honestly for once. Granted, I am an alcoholic and marijuana addict, so it’s not like they were wrong, but after over 3 months of being clean and sober the only thing that feels different is that I have fewer ways to cope. I’m what AA would call a dry drunk; I didn’t even want to get sober in the first place.
A pet could help
I do have an amazing puppy.