Apathy – Why It Matters If You Stop Caring About Anything

David, it sounds tough. We don’t know what country you are in, but were you offered and after care or support for your cancer? Cancer is mentally and emotionally tough, not just physically. There are several charities in the UK which help with things like this, and that can give you advice on counselling as well as free support groups, Macmillan cancer support, for example, but if you aren’t in the UK, you would have to do a google for what is in your area. Note that feeling like it’s hard to get out of bed and continue is a classic sign of depression. We’d say it’s time to start taking this seriously and gathering up all your courage to try to find some support. If you are on a low budget, note that it’s still possible to find free to low cost counselling, we have an article that can give you ideas of where to look herehttp://bit.ly/lowcosttherapy. Even after a decade long sh*tstorm you are still standing, still here researching. Give yourself some credit. And know that with the right support we can all see some light in the clouds – perhaps clouds are easier to lift with some help than all alone, even if feeling alone is our comfort zone. We wish you courage. Best, HT.

Hi there, that’s a tremendous amount of loss by a young age. Our question is, did you ever have any kind of proper support? Not a family or friend, but proper? Like grief counselling or a grief support group? Intense grief can lead right to not caring and to in fact sabotaging our lives, as we can have ‘survivor’s guilt’. As well as a heck of a lot of anxiety and depression. So sounds like you did the best you can given all that loss so give yourself some credit for struggling along and staying afloat at all, even if at times it was barely. And yes, when we are in the woods, so to speak, we can’t see the forest for the trees, if that makes sense. When we are living our life we are so busy living it happens fast when things go off the rails. That’s why outside support or a support group can be amazing, people around us can see what’s happening before we might and gently and kindly give us a nudge. We really hope you do consider seeking support, even if we feel we are ‘okay’ we can know that on a certain level our grief is still there and we can live in fear of the sadness and anger pouncing, and that’s no way to live. A therapist or support group will help you learn tools to navigate any sort of trigger. If you are on a low budget know that most grief support groups are free, google for one in your area, and there are many, many ways to find free or very low cost counselling these days, we have an article full of ideas here http://bit.ly/lowcosttherapy. Another free tool that can really help can be a mindfulness practice which is easy to learn and free, but requires daily commitment http://bit.ly/mindfulnessallabout. We wish you courage! best, HT.

Hey there LJ. Nope, you aren’t broken. But you aren’t fixed either. None us are. You see here’s the thing. Being a human is messy. It’s not about being fixed or broken, as throughout life we all go through cycles where we feel together and where we feel fractured. This is how we learn who we are and what we want from life. What we sense here is an inability to value yourself or feel you are as worthy as others might be. Where you always put yourself last and spend your life trying to be someone others like instead of being you, messy and all. And after awhile this charade gets so exact we lose who we even are. No wonder we feel lonely, others never get the chance to really SEE us. To be ourselves we have to be not just the seemingly ‘positive’ (we hate this word as its’ a judgement, who gets to say what is positive and negative anyway?) but also all the rest of it. We are whole entities, if we function as a part of ourselves we end up feeling we are malfunctioning. And then we can also start to be paranoid. We’ve led our lives being a sort of show of what we think people want then a part of our unconscious mind is worried we’ll be found and we have anxieties. Does this make sense? And yes, then we also feel apathy, numb, as we get so used to blocking out the parts of us we have decided are unacceptable we are numb. So long story short, we think that it’s courageous and fantastic that you want to try taking a look at yourself. We’d suggest that you could truly benefit from counselling. If you are on a low budget it’s still possible, there are ways to find free to low cost counselling use this article as inspiration http://bit.ly/lowcosttherapy. Other self help tools that can help are mindfulness http://bit.ly/mindfulnessallaboutand directed journalling, for example. http://bit.ly/journallingHT. Anyway, the moment we realise we want to make a change is the most powerful first step, we hope you keep up the courage and take some next steps towards seeking support. Best, HT.

Hi there. So first of all, you are a teenager. So cut yourself some slack and go easy on yourself. When we are a teen our hormones are raging, our brain is still actually growing, we are stuck on a time schedule that doesn’t match our circadian rhythms and leaves us exhausted, we are trying to figure out who we are, and, to top it off, nowadays we are presented with this endless stream of social media telling us who we are or aren’t supposed to be. Most if not all teens go through periods of panic, hopelessness, fear, and low moods. Also note that many young females have very intense friendships and tend towards very dramatic thinking. It’s the time of life we are learning about relationships. So none of this is at all strange to us, except that then you mention suicidal thinking. And your thinking does seem very black and white, even for a teen. In summary, it’s time for you to reach out for some support. Talk to a trusted adult, like someone in your family, or the school counsellor, about this, and let them know you are floundering and having dark thoughts. We have an article here about how to talk to your parents about mental health and asking for help to seek counselling http://bit.ly/talktoparents. We’d also suggest you teach yourself mindfulness, which helps us appreciate the present instead of obsessing over a past we can’t change and a future we can’t predict. It’s an easy technique to learn, and therapists now use it with clients to help with stress and depression. We have a free guide here http://bit.ly/mindfulnessallabout. Also get a list on hand now of free helplines so that if suicidal thinking happens again you can call. Many of the ones for teens now offer support via text and email as well as phone call. Here are help lines in the UK, if you are outside of our country google for a helpline in your area. http://bit.ly/mentalhelplines. And, again, go easy on yourself. Life constantly changes, and tough things happen, but good things happen too, eventually. Best, HT.

Hi Caleb. First of all, we think you are far from a hopeless case, we see a lot of evidence here of a resourceful, self aware young man with potential. It’s actually very useful that you can recognise the problem is anger. Anger can leave us feeling numb and depressed as we are so damn angry inside we are repressing a lot of it and all that repression takes so much mental energy we have precious little left for living. But you are evidently having troubles keeping it all in, note how you can’t resist lashing out at the end and being mean, calling our site dumb. It’s also interesting that you want to be saved by a woman, anyone (even as we suspect you know you are the only one who can save yourself) and did reach out for help but then must also insult therapy. So it’s kind of push pull, push pull. And we get it. This is what happens when we are full of rage and self hatred because of difficult childhood experiences… we stick out our head, then we pull it back in, and it feels easier to blame everyone else so that we can at least like ourselves enough to survive. We have few friends as without knowing it we are sending off a huge radar signal of anger and we are passive aggressive and casually mean, ending up really lonely. Most of the time we are angry at everyone as we are really angry at ourselves and blame ourselves deep down, hate ourselves, and that’s the root that has to be worked on, you see we need to have at least a modicum of compassion for ourselves before we can have any for others But the thing to really take on board is, change is uncomfortable. Very. Sometimes it WILL feel boring, and dumb, tedious, and annoying. Think about when we are growing as kids, we have what is called ‘growing pains’ where our body actually hurts. Mental and emotional growth is the same. So first things first, accept that it’s not going to be easy or fun, but that it will be worth it. And you have to ride the wave of all your frustrations. That’s the difference between being a child and being an adult. You are now transitioning to being an adult, and it’s normal at this age to sometime struggle with the weight of being responsible for yourself, particularly if you are still living at home. A child throws up their hands and says I can’t, they have a temper tantrum, an adult says, well I have to, I am in charge of my life now, it won’t be easy, I must do this. 20 is very, very young. But again, very fact that you realise you have all these issues, plus you have even tried therapy, well you are further ahead than you realise. This shows to us you ARE resourceful, you CAN pull yourself out of this, it will just take time, and some bad moments, but also some good ones. Life is not one thing or another, ever. It’s complicated. But if you stick it out, change does happen, like it or not. So what was this therapy you tried? How many sessions did you last? Therapy is like dating, it can take time to get the right click, we have articles on here about how to find the right therapist, etc. And you won’t like any therapist at first, given that you hate people, and they are a person, so don’t make liking one part of the decision, look only for someone think you could grow to trust over time, that deep down you can sense is genuine. In general you need to give it at least 4 sessions before you decide if you get along. As to what sort of therapy, we’d imagine there was traumatic experiences in your childhood and it would be great to try a short term therapy where you don’t really talk about your past much but retrain your brain so that you can actually feel grounded and present enough for other things to actually help. BWRT is interesting, or EMDR or clinical hypnotherapy. CBT would then be a great short term choice, again it doesn’t focus on your past, but on your current addiction to negative thinking, and how to break it so it doesn’t send you on endless cycles of low moods and poor decision making. From there, when you are feeling more stable, a longer term therapy like schema therapy or compassion-based therapy be a great choice. Otherwise it would be great to find self help tools to start working out the anger. Writing out all the fury inside as fast as you can then ripping up the pages. Using a punching bag and boxing. If you are home alone setting a timer for three minutes then ranting out loud about all the things you hate, not letting yourself stop until the timer goes off (harder than it sounds, you’ll see). Safe techniques, not ones that hurt you or others.You will say they are dumb, this is stupid, etc. So what. try them anyway and see. The dumbest thing of all is not realising you are a resourceful and powerful young man. Also note that all Western countries have free help lines for young people, our list of UK helplines is here http://bit.ly/mentalhelplines, if you aren’t in the UK google for some in your country. Finally, we suspect things will massively change when you move out, it’s often the best thing a young person with a difficult parent can do, do make that a priority, as independence makes a massive, massive difference. Best, HT.

Hi Bodhi, we get it. Sometimes for a variety of factors we are just 100% numb. But we’d point out that a part of you does care, or you wouldn’t be googling this and commenting. A part of you, no matter how tiny, has hope this could change, and we confirm it definitely could. Again, this severe numbness doesn’t just come from nowhere. We aren’t born that way. It comes from a set of difficult experiences that hurt our very soul, and left us with thinking patterns that all is hopeless. Trauma, for example, can leave us constantly in the brain’s stress response, and it’s not just fight or flight like once thought, it’s now recognised there is a third response, ‘freeze’. And when we are permanently frozen we are numb. So we think all is hopeless, but thoughts are just thoughts, not reality, and not who you are. You are more than your thoughts. We’d highly suggest therapy. Yes, of course we would, we are a therapy company, but we suggest it as it works, as it is life saving sometimes, not easy, a tough road sometimes, but worth it. You might want to try existential therapy, which helps you recognise your values and create a sense of meaning that works for you. But first if there is trauma you might require brain training therapies that help you feel grounded enough other therapies can work at all, so you can feel grounded and out of the severe stress response of ‘freeze’ enough that things can help. Like CBT, EMDR, BWRT, clinical hypnotherapy. If you are on a low to no budget, there is still help available with a bit of research, we have an article here with ideas for how to find it http://bit.ly/lowcosttherapy. Also, if you ever feel really low and need someone to talk to fast, don’t over look free helplines, there are nice people waiting to talk, we have a list of ones in the UK here http://bit.ly/mentalhelplines or google for one in your area otherwise. Best, HT.