I don't enjoy anything anymore

Hi

What do you do when you feel like you don't enjoy the things you love anymore. I don't know whether its because of my Asperger's, because of COVID or of something else completely different. I'm really sorry but I don't feel like I can talk about this to anyone close to me. I haven't done anything music related since I graduated from unviersity, I hardly do anything outside of work, i.e. don't go out to places, meet up with friends as I barely know anyone outside of work. Also recently, I feel like I'm starting lose my other passion for books as well as I have barely read for the past week or so.

I feel like I'm stuck. Help

  • I think this sounds like depression, or burnout. 
    I don’t know if you’ve experienced either before, but to me, they feel different.

    Depression does respond well to medication,  but burnout does not, so it’s important to decipher which it is. I’m afraid to say that a GP isn’t really qualified to know the difference. If you go in and say you have no interest in things, and no motivation they will assume it’s depression.

  • Been there. For me it's a cyclic phenomenon, and after enough times around the loop the depression part kinda looses it's sting, because you know the next part is worth waiting for. I'm working to discover ways of shortening that depressed, "I can't get anything done" rut, but so far the only effective thing I've found is to go and help someone else out, when I can't help myself.

    Or play with the cats, anything to be giving some joy to others, even if I don't feel it myself. It's my way of "pushing back" against the source of these feelings.. 

  • I have been at this level for a while.  I am going trekking after Easter, probably on the Trans-Pennine trail for a week or two.  that should sort me out for a bit.  Until then I just muddle on from day to day.

    I hope you soon feel better.

  • You have no idea how much your message cheered me up. I will definitely try and arrange something for myself, like a city getaway or a hotel in the countryside. 

  • Thank you very much for your lovely message. I read it this morning and it made me feel not only a great deal better, but have also given me a few ideas on different things to try.

  • Thank you. I think you might be right about burnout. Sometimes I come up with a plan in my head of what I would like/need to do the next day, but when it comes I have mental energy or motivation to do anything, not even send a message to anyone. Any tips on how to cope with burnout

  • I feel this way as well a lot of the time. Feel trapped and have no strength and energy to do the things I love to do. Half depressed and half in burnout. I get burnout a lot, think it's my work that does it. I talk to my doctor on the phone a lot she's almost become my therapist in a way always talks to me, lovely woman. It might help you if you reach out to your doctor as well, he or she may be able to advise you with this and what you can do.

  • I feel this way most days and have done for years.  I am a serial procrastinater.  Mañana is my answer to most things.

    I think this is partly the Aspergers, mostly it's burn out.  You sound like you need a holiday with complete cut off from everything. 

    A couple of times a year I go off on holiday on my own and do what i want.  Some years I ride my motorbike to random places in the country and explore and camp in a tent.  I talk to people I want to or don't and basically just enjoy everything around me.  Other times I go trekking for a week, walking 10-15 miles a day and camping.  I take a phone with music, headphones and a rucksack with the usual stuff you take for trekking/camping (tent, food, clothes, etc).  I don't go online except for online maps and online music, I don't do emails or social media while i'm away.  I might talk to my family on the phone every couple of days to let them know im ok, but thats about it.

    You sound like you need something similar.  When you are re-energised, then go back to normal life.

    If you need a break from work, ask your doctor.  Tell him/her how you are feeling and that you think you are burning out and that it is taking a toll on you mentally.  See if they will sign you off for a fortnight or month.  Then go and disconnect from the world for a while.

    Drug wise, antidepressants might help, but you might want to try St John's Wort first for a few days and see if that lifts your mood before you start going into the more hardcore end (sertraline, fluoxetine and the other SSRI's).  St John's Wort is pretty mild in the grand scheme of things.  I use it if I feel my mood is low and it generally straightens me out inside a couple of days.  I never take it for more than 4 days.  Not to mention its cheap and you can get it from Superdrug and many other health food shops.  Worth a try if you want a mood lifter.  Don't use it at the same time as SSRI's, or you will suffer the wrath of Serotonin Syndrome (as discovered by personal experience)!

  • I'm sorry you feel so stuck.  I went through a phase like that.  It was burn out, I think.  I wasn't particularly depressed just tired all the time and no motivation for anything.  I'd have lots of plans in the morning but couldn't seem to make my body move at all.  It is getting better now.

    Maybe you need a chat to your GP to establish whether this is a mental health issue or whether you're just burnt out.  If the latter, you won't stay stuck.  Enough R & R will eventually fix it,

  • i just hope you can still manage to work i lost my job due to mental health and now i am really lost

  • I'm really sorry to hear that you're feeling this way, and I've been there myself - not too long ago. In some ways, I'm still emeging from that state- with effort. In my case an emotional trauma tilted my world on its axis and while I sought to make sense of everything (an impossible task I couoldn't stop attempting anyway) the only thing I could feel was intense anxiety coupled with a complete inner deadness. OUtside of work, all I could handle was a quiet room, a ticking clock, and the space to ruminate - endlessly. Then gradually, I could tolerate the glacially paced reintroduction of diversions, entertainments, hobbies. Starting with the blandest food, the least noisy tv, the quietest and most sober podcasts, and so on. There's a clinical term for it - anhedonia (the inability to feel pleasure, even in things once enjoyed) and you may be relieved to hear that it is often temporary, even if you have it for quite a while. Please hang in there and don't give yourself a hard time - the issue cannot be forced, and recovery is slow. But you will get there. Maybe contact your doctor and see if you might need treatrment for depression - or just a chance to talk things through with them, therapeutic in itself if not a magic bullet. Very best wishes for the coming days and weeks, and I hope you find yourself picking up a book, or playing a tune (an instrument?) or something, almost without thinking about it as an act of recovery, sooner than you may be expecting. Take care.