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

Parents
  • 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. 

Reply
  • 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. 

Children