So I’ll start of by saying that I’m an 18 year old college student. The reason I’m posting on here is that I’m hoping to obtain some secondary opinions to help me better understand whatever it is that I’m going through.
So ever since I can remember I’ve always had a very rational, apathetic mindset. In saying this I don’t mean that I’m cold, emotionless, blah, etc.. I mean that for lack of better words I’ve always felt pretty dead on the inside. I can easily explain this away as depression and I’m sure I can come up with a few life events to justify depression but even so this dead empty feeling dates farther back that any of these “events”.
I can remember being 12 years old, having absolutely no reason whatsoever to be depressed in anyway, and just having constant thoughts of death and life in my head and wondering if there’s any logical point to life it if it’s guaranteed to end in death no matter what. These thoughts only got more and more pervasive and construed as I got older.
I’ve also never been very reactionary. When my parents divorced I couldn’t care less. Even when people that I’ve loved passed away, I still felt nothing. I can say I missed them but I can’t really say I felt any actually sorrow or pain over their passing. I simply thought “oh well, that’s the way life works, there’s no point in wasting time being upset that was so assured to happen eventually”. This is more or less a decent representation of my overall thought processes on most matters including my own life.
Really, I can’t ever remember feeling complete or at peace ever.
I can say that while I am currently not “actively” suicidal, I have daily thoughts of it and lately I’ve felt that these thoughts will soon turn into action. I don’t really know why but I’ve always felt, even when I was 12 and hardly understood the thoughts I had, that suicide is inevitable for me really only being a matter of time. I had these same thoughts in middle school only at a lesser intensity. The idea of drowning seems appealing to me.
As my title post says, it really does feel like I was born without a will to live, I’ve never in my life felt any strong desire to live, I’ve never felt passionate over anything, I’ve never felt truly motivated over anything, and I’ve always been indifferent to world events and just about everything going around me.
While I’m pretty sure that I’m currently depressed, I doubt I was born depressed so I don’t think any of this can be explained away with depression. These past few days I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to figure out why I’ve always been this way. So any thoughts or opinions?
3 comments
Sounds almost like me, honestly.
Many times in my life, when i was younger, while trying to get myself to do things i would just not see the point, tell myself it’s pretty much pointless and just give up doing things.
It might not be clinical depression, but it’s still a sort of depression. Existential Depression, or something, i guess?
If i had to take a guess of what triggers it though, in my case at least, is all the thoughts of other people regarding certain things and the way they talk about life, and hearing other people’s explanation of things and how they actually tell you it’s just how things work and that’s how life is, and all these really unsatisfiying answers that make you think to yourself it’s all just a bunch of pointless nonsense.
Sorry for not giving more uh… Personal detailed examples, insted of giving a general idea of what i mean, but if you want any i could add some.
Any child asks these kind of questions sooner or later, but i guess when you get certain answers that make you think more and more about it as a result, can cause this sort of thing to happen.
But, i think bothering too much with thoughts about life and death is just useless, and can just drive people mad.
And maybe you just didn’t find something that would make you motivated, or something you’ll strongly like and want to stick around for.
I don’t know.
Thanks for answering and I do think you’re right with the existential depression thing to some extend. I simultaneously feel jealousy and confusion when I meet and talk with people that are so sure they know the meaning of life and all that. I’m jealous over the sense of peace it must bring them but I’m also confused over how they can so easily accept such basic surface meanings.
I’ve tried convincing myself that it’s a useless waste of time but honestly I think I’m just too stubborn to let these ideas go even knowing what dead ends they are and how they affect me.
Usually people who claim they know the meaning of life and everything for sure, are just deluding themselves. It might make it easier for them but i don’t know if what they are doing is worth it.
I don’t even know if they are completely peaceful even at that state.
Some of the things about life and death are pretty difficult for the human brain to understand either ways (like the concept of nothingness for example, and even the way a lot of people can’t just understand the big bang) So even if you’re too stubborn, i would think fighting to get yourself to just leave trying to figure these things out, will be more worth it than trying to get to figure them.
It’s hard, i know. And for me it still pops up every once in a while and it’s horrible.
But it’s so… pointless.. to think about how.. pointless.. everything is. I guess.
… I’m really not one to talk i think. It’s still bugging me as well.