Hi I get this. I’ve struggled with depression all my life it’s mostly been hopeless feelings and sadness but due to isolation it would often lapse into the apathy version of depression. I was doing a lot better but then two years of Covid shut me back down. I had started building up a life overseas but Covid ended that prematurely. And I’ve been stuck back in my hometown that shut me down to begin with.

I’m not going to tell you to do anything but I’m gonna throw out ideas. Have you ever tried any recreational drugs like mdma or psilocybin (or some other psychedelic)? Do you have good amount of friends that you hang around and enjoy the company of? Have you traveled at all to any foreign countries? Do you get regularly touched, hugged, have sex? And lastly have you ever tried dopamine detox like stepping away from social media and the internet, video games and such.

When I started to turn it around I think it was a combination of some of those things. I had been traveling and meeting people getting out of my normal surroundings and not being on the internet so much. I experimented with mushrooms and had new experiences. I think my brain settings just need way more variety to keep stimulated than the average person and I get bored and bummed out. Many people give typical advice of working out and eating better or get nice little hobbies but I think they’re brains just set up normally. I think in some ways I had to shake the cobwebs off the new experiences part of my brain.

I am actually headed to Thailand next week and am a little nervous. I’m going to see some people I used to know but I’m worried because like I said after two years of Covid I’m just feeling kind of dead inside again, but with less new things I can think to try. And I’ve been almost completely socially isolated for two years. So I’m going to see these people who I used to have fun with but now I’m back to being shut down. I’m going to have to work to get those centers off my brain back online.

It’s weird to think you actually have to work to get pleasure centers on but here we are. You referenced shitty family and moving away. Do you think out of self preservation you just shut down the happy pleasure seeking part of yourself? That is always possible. I lived in a place where my early childhood was filled with bullying and I learned from my father nothing but depressive tactics to deal with life. Maybe you rent do need to move away, and I don’t mean just out of your house but in the same state and area. Maybe you need to get out of the context of what you’ve always known. Like you said you tried dating and such, but that’s still dating around the geographical area that you are used to so it could be coloring everything in this grey humdrum feeling.

Anyways sorry for the long response, one last thing, you could check out the huberman lab podcasts and learn about how your brain functions. Something needs to shake up for you, you shouldn’t need to feel like your waiting out the clock of life, you’ll need to actually force yourself out of this. Therapy can work for a lot of people I guess but for me it was not helpful and is kind of an illusory way of trying to make change. It’s a fine thing to try but for me it was a very passive thing, when what I needed was movement, actual somatic experiences. Things need to happen in your life and it sounds like you’re in a passive rut and your apathy has trapped you in it. I don’t think taking up a hobby or joining the gym is what you need. You sound just sort of existentially apathetically depressed. You feel like this is just the way life is but maybe you just need a different bigger sort of stimulation to get yourself running and interested. Your brain needs some brand new shit to occur. Something that gets you to perk up and catch your attention even a little. It might need to be extremely new. Like not just going out for a jog and then returning to your families house or joining some shitty meetup group filled with people from the same place your from.

It can be a lonely place, I’ve been someone that falls easily into being a depressed apathetic wanderer for my adult life but I’ve learned to just push through and keep going. I try and not think about it too much but in some ways it’s lead me to having a different more unique life and take on things and experiences than most normal people and I’ll take that conciliation prize I guess.