Hi All,

I'm posting because I haven't felt like myself, or felt anything at all recently. Emotionally numb, detached, directionless and lost. I guess I'm getting to the point where I don't recognise or feel familiarity with much at all, so I'm hoping writing will help in some way.

I'm not enjoying my university studies, work, connections with family and [most] friends. I feel like I shouldn't be living with my parent still but financially I need to right now. It's hard to know how to fix how I feel because I'm not sure what activities/relationships are temporarily feeling worse or what has truly changed. I have continued to make effort with maintaining relationships, exercising and eating relatively healthy in an effort to try and do the things that in theory, should help - even if I'm not noticing it at the moment.

I use to feel emotions intensely, which meant the good times were great (uncontrollable and unforced laughter with friends, joy in playing music, getting energy from entertaining others) but the hard times were intense (anxiety/panic attacks, depression). I seem to have flattened out into a constant lull of apathy or ambivalence towards everything, and find it really hard to make up conversation with people - just a complete mental block of thoughts, feelings and sensing the world. I've always been a people person, so completely drawing blank in conversation over the last 6-12 months has also made me feel worse about myself.

I guess I'm trying to work out how I can improve my situation, especially in the context of my psychologist being very busy at the moment. I'm usually booked in once/month, but I cancelled my last appt as I thought I had nothing to talk about. In hindsight, I don't think I was actually going well, it was the mental block tricking me a bit. Now I'm still 2.5 weeks away from the next appointment and feel like I need to go more regularly for a while.

Hey there, thank you so much for your post.

I'm so sorry to hear about your experience. Especially in the past few years, I can resonate with a lot of the things you're saying. I too have traditionally been one to experience emotions quite strongly, but now I struggle with a degree of emotional ambivalence. I've also generally been a decent communicator, but social situations recently have felt so challenging, and I often feel an absence of things to say.

This may not necessarily be applicable for everybody, but one way that I find I can motivate myself is looking back through old photos and videos. I'm not sure what it is, but something about seeing old memories of myself having fun with others and making the most of my life inspires me to carry this same energy into whatever I'm currently working on. I also tend to watch a lot of motivational content on YouTube (there are some really good Ted Talks out there), and I've also tried my hand at journalling or writing blog posts that are only visible to me, just to help me express some of my feelings and self-reflect a little. This can be so helpful for restoring motivation or recognising which areas of your life you may need to dedicate more time to.

You could always try having a chat to your GP or a therapist, if your psychologist is difficult to get a hold of.

Please feel free to continue chatting some more with us, we'd love to support you.

Take care, and I wish you all the best.

SB