Ask Lemmy

See a professional, seriously, because this sounds like textbook early depression.

There's a meme in Norway for this where professionals always ask "did you try hiking?"

Seriously though did you try hiking? There are no problems in the back country. Or people.

This question is way above Lemmy's pay grade. I hope your situation gets better. People are right in saying that if self-help fails then it's time to give professional help another chance if that's accessible for you.

I do listen to a lot of podcasts and have recently heard something relevant from an expert in the field:

The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos: How to Find Your Purpose

Episode webpage: https://omny.fm/shows/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/how-to-find-your-purpose

Media file: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/pdrl.fm/057e02/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/96c5c41e-0bc8-4661-b184-ae32006cd726/e1cedd34-b720-49da-98d1-b28f00c5badf/audio.mp3?in_playlist=d623ef0b-3fee-4c26-b815-ae32006cd739

Your post history also indicates that you're routinely steeped in the worst doom news that social media serves up. It seems like it would be worth taking a break from consuming this material and find alternative ways to spend your time.

Did you try jerking off?

I think that is called the human condition.

Antidepressants

If possible, I recommend therapy. Been relying on it for decades and eventually learned to love myself. Everything good in my life now is because therapy helped me become a better person.

Learn to love yourself. And look for help. You don't know what the future will be, things can change drastically sometimes in just a few weeks.

Schedule everything then? If you’re already nothing then suffering through some anxiety to plan something new isn’t much worse than literally nothing right? So plan shit out, and stick to said schedule. Find a hobby where you can meet people you don’t hate? Music, games, fostering kittens, whatever idk.

You clearly need a community. There are millions of them, plenty accepting. Just ideally find a positive one before you end up in a negative one.

I've read through all the replys here, so I'm not gonna suggest something that's already been suggested. You've already given your opinion on therapy, and on changes/new things.

Let me start by telling you this. You say you don't have a bright future to wait for. My friend, none of us have. Your future is what you make it to be. You set your own course and build your bright future yourself, no one else is gonna do it for you. That's life, and that's what makes it beautiful.

If therapy doesn't work for you, that's fine. I personally don't believe in medication for these kinds of issues, but that's my opinion. Try meditating. Seriously, it does wonders. Start with a few minutes a day and gradually increase, doesn't have to be hard. It's gonna make you into the kind of person who takes a step back and thinks about life.

I do agree with others here that it sounds like you need to find your purpose. Purpose isn't necessarily something you actively look for, sometimes it's just something that pops into your head. For example when meditating or doing other things that don't require any active thinking.

Also, one more thing: If you don't like doing new things, try removing something. Take a digital detox, as I like to call it. I do it from time to time, and I always enjoy it and I come back with renewed energy and motivation for life. Just a few days or a week where you don't open any social media, digital entertainment (music, streaming, web surfing etc.) or anything else not strictly necessary. You're gonna be bored first, I'll tell you that. But then you're gonna find out how nice it actually is. You're gonna start craving for something to do, and if the rule of digital detox is set in your mind, you're gonna start finding new things to fill your time with. Like taking a walk or reading a book. Though it does require determination.

What I like to do when I'm in a digital detox period, is to remove entertainment focused apps from my home screen on my phone, and then put my screen in black & white (called reading mode on some phones) to make it "boring". That's definitely gonna help you.

Life is short, please make something out of it, for your own sake.

Therapy

Not ironic here: I was at a very low point, and what I did was ditch everything, brought some gear to sleep outside, and decided to see how long I could stay outside with just my fishing gear.

To be fair, I brought freeze-dried food for a couple days, but after about a week I felt better enough to head back to society.

What I did that week was primarily fish for dinner and gather firewood for the evening. Did wonders for my psyke.

Been in that state a lot. That's classic depression. Evo-psych has some stupid ideas but their read on depression is solid. That urge to withdraw from society is a human urge. The urge is designed to lead to either, you leaving your band of primates to seek another, or your fellow group members coming and finding you to show how much you matter to them. Modern life doesn't let that happen though. So many of our relationships are digital or just shallow so no one can tell you're leaving, and changing your group in a real way is hard. If you want to feel betterment you have to use your rational brain to seek out what your body is instinctively reaching for. Pick something that you have always cared about, and go to a real life event centered on that thing. This can be almost anything, as long as there are real people, really sharing a physical space. Talk to the people about that thing. Don't do it just to tick it off the list, you have to pay attention to what they are saying because you need to be able to articulate their ideas and then respond to them.

Life is like a garden. If you want to sit around and curse at the thistles and weeds, you can, but they will continue to grow as you fixate on them. If you see beauty and follow it, then cultivate it, you will be in a beautiful garden. It’s not instantaneous, and it takes work. The work starts in your mind. Negative thoughts will blind you to good opportunities. If you don’t know where you’re going, any place will get you there. Maybe a good place to start is finding the tolerable humans, and see where it takes you.

Get a dog. Always happy to see you when you get home, will pester you relentlessly into moderate excercise, #1 wingman for meeting friends or significant others.

shit sucks

no fucking doubt about it

antianxiety medicine helps but

really you need to find you

nothing else matters.

once you can understand your self, telling others your limits and expectations is just the flow of life that you're expecting

I don’t know what to tell you. One of the major reasons I decided not to have children is because the future looks so bleak.

You’ve already given your opinion on therapy. All I can suggest is that you keep trying. I know that’s exhausting, but please hear me out. Finding the right therapist is essential, and can take several attempts. The same goes for the type and dosage of medication. Depression isn’t like other forms of disease. What works for one person may not work for someone else.

What I’ve learned from the various psychiatrists and psychologists I’ve seen is that there’s still a LOT we don’t understand about how the brain works. I don’t think less of them for trying anyway. They’re (mostly) good people trying to do their best.

Well, that turned out to be a lot for a reply that started with “I don’t know what to tell you.” Oh well. I’ll skip the platitudes and simply wish you well.

Change your name and/or pronouns. Half joking, a lot of us live overcast lives as a result of feeling trapped in someone else's life. If you don't have friends then what's there to lose?

This is a discussion to have with professionals in a professional setting. No one here is responsibly equipped to answer this in a chat forum. This obviously includes me.

That being said, I do not think about the future - live your life second-by-second.

Despite what people say, life is not meant to be enjoyed. We live in a time of lawlessness and over-abundance, so people often equate life with enjoying things. At your core, you are a biological package of electrical circuits and tools. When you do something your body deems beneficial, you enjoy it (as in signals reward your brain).

If you want to enjoy, then a general tip is to return to the fundamentals. Eat healthy food, exercise, explore, learn, and talk to people in real life. If this doesn't work, then you need to speak with a professional (probably a therapist) to find what does.

Hating humans is not viable, you simply need to stop that. This is not to say let yourself be abused and runover, but you need to form bonds with people - this is our inescapable nature.

As others have said, find a professional. It can take alot of tries before you find the right person, but it's extremely helpful when you find the right person.

As someone with ADHD I also get anxiety with changes in my day-to-day events. My coping mechanism for a while has been coming up with practical contingency plans. That makes it so I at least have an idea of what to do and at what point there is nothing left to do. It's helped me get through many situations.

As for your future and social problems, those likely need some personal analysis and personal change (professionals are meant to help with this). A lack of future is often not an actual lack, it's usually a personal failure at seeing other potentials, seeing a new path to follow. It's sometimes called learned helplessness and can be hard to deal with alone. Becoming antisocial (not wanting any human interaction) is also usually a difficult thing and is usually caused by a personal neuroticism. But we need purpose as humans, and we also need comradery quite often.

Thinking of yourself as a collection of habits can be helpful for this. You should be asking yourself what exactly makes you upset about about other people, and try to relate it to something about yourself.

You can't change other people, but you can change how you react to other people. Quite often that requires a shift of perspective that acknowledges that you are a biased viewer enterpretting a limited view. Instead of "people talking about themselves are annoying" for example, "I am bothered by people when they talk about themselves" can be more useful. That way, you are talking about the emotional response you have to others rather than the perceived traits of others - your lense is now focusing on you instead of on others.

That's all I've got. The path to being content is difficult, and I wish you luck.

Psychedelics

Either get used to change in the hopes it will become better, or get used to being miserable in my life you have now. By the way, you’re gonna be uncomfortable in One Direction or the other, so I suggest you choose the better one.

If you hate your life now, but are also terrified to change, you’re gonna have to decide which one is worth, and during that discomfort: things staying the same, the way you hate it, or enduring the terror of the unknown, your life, possibly improving.