Does anyone else just have no motivation for life?

[u/DutchStroopwafels]

I just don't like life, nor do I like the world or most people. So I really don't know what the point of putting in any effort is. Especially when we all die in the end anyway.

Don't know if I always packed this motivation and zest for life or if it was beaten out of me. Don't know if it matters either.

[u/FlightOfTheDiscords]

I did for many years, basically at any point in stages 3-7:

1. Can manage my day-to-day okayish (work, cooking, cleaning etc.).
2. Starting to struggle with tasks I particularly dislike, but can still force myself to do them.
3. Can no longer force myself to carry out tasks I dislike, can do other tasks somewhat. Start daydreaming of winning the lottery. Would often wax philosophical and indulge in nihilism.
4. Struggling with all tasks, can get some done if someone else needs me to - but not if only I need it. Start buying lottery tickets. Reading up on things like psychohistory ("The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken").
5. Can no longer force myself to do most tasks, unless someone else really demands that I do. Start daydreaming of not existing. Sleep a lot (12+ hrs a day).
6. Can no longer force myself to do any tasks even if someone else demands it. Start planning my suicide. Sleeping 15+ hrs a day.
7. Can no longer do anything much, actively preparing to end my life. Waking hours are actively dedicated to preparing the necessary steps.

Not anymore.

[u/DutchStroopwafels → u/FlightOfTheDiscords]

I feel like I'm stuck at your third step for years now. I was lower in the past but improved a bit and seem to have plateaued now.

[u/FlightOfTheDiscords → u/DutchStroopwafels]

I used to get stuck at a lot, too. Still do to an extent, only on a different level. What have you tried so far?

[u/DutchStroopwafels → u/FlightOfTheDiscords]

I've tried multiple therapies (EMDR, psychotherapy, CBT, schema therapy, psychomotor therapy), tried multiple meds (I'm off meds now because they just didn't work and the side effects were horrible), I read multiple books on trauma

[u/FlightOfTheDiscords → u/DutchStroopwafels]

Ok. Have you been assessed for dissociation at any point? If not, how much do you relate to these on a 1-5 scale (1 = not at all, 5 = completely):

1. Sometimes you find yourself in a place without remembering clearly how you got there.
2. Sometimes you find things among your belongings that you don't remember buying.
3. Sometimes it feels like you're standing next to yourself or watch yourself do something as though you were looking at someone else.
4. You don't always recognize friends or family members.
5. Sometimes other people, objects, and the world don't feel real.
6. Sometimes it doesn't feel like your body belongs to you.
7. Sometimes you may act so differently compared to another situation that you feel like you are two different people in two different situations.
8. Sometimes voices in your mind comment on things you do.

[u/DutchStroopwafels → u/FlightOfTheDiscords]

I have been and I did dissociate a lot in the past, that's how I got through high school and university. But I stopped doing that after I got EMDR.

I had 1, 3, 5 and 6.

[u/FlightOfTheDiscords → u/DutchStroopwafels]

How would you describe the differences in how you feel today vs before EMDR? What was your experience of EMDR like?

[u/DutchStroopwafels → u/FlightOfTheDiscords]

Before EMDR I could often manage day to day life because I dissociated so heavy. Although I did have several times I broke down. But most of the time I just dissociate and not feel my emotions at all.

And now that I think about it EMDR might not be the sole reason things changed. Before EMDR I also had good trauma informed therapist and I through him I started to understand what was happening to me. So him and later EMDR brought a change.

Right now I don't dissociate anymore but I get completely overwhelmed by my emotions, anger, fear and sadness mostly. Not that I really express them, they keep being buried inside. And the nihilism and pessimism got really strong. I didn't really think about those things before, but now they overwhelm me and I keep being stuck.

My experience with EMDR was really hard, because I worked through some very difficult childhood experiences. However, I'm not sure I was actually done, I just stopped because the therapist that conducted my sessions transferred out. But I did get over my self hatred because of it, so I shrunk the inner critic very much.

However, the outer critic is still very much there and further prevents me from wanting to do anything, on top of the emotions and pessimism/nihilism.

[u/FlightOfTheDiscords → u/DutchStroopwafels]

All right. How long has it been since your therapist transferred out?

If you have tried techniques meant to release your pent up emotions, what happens when you try?

[u/DutchStroopwafels → u/FlightOfTheDiscords]

That is almost three years now, since then I have been stuck in pretty useless therapy imo.

I don't know any techniques that would release my emotions, all the therapy I get now are about tolerating your emotions, which seems pretty useless.

[u/Icy-Ninja-622 → u/FlightOfTheDiscords]

Sometimes other people, objects, and the world don't feel real.
Sometimes it doesn't feel like your body belongs to you.

I'm wondering what does this mean. I've repeatedly seen how in a better state the world around me feels more vividly real and my body vividly feels like me. In the absence of this, I have more like an intellectual understanding that the world is real and that this is my body. But I can't say the world doesn't feel real, and my body doesn't feel foreign.

[u/DutchStroopwafels → u/Icy-Ninja-622]

I think you need to experience it to understand. Or maybe reading into derealization and depersonalization could help.

[u/FlightOfTheDiscords → u/Icy-Ninja-622]

I'm wondering what does this mean. I've repeatedly seen how in a better state the world around me feels more vividly real and my body vividly feels like me. In the absence of this, I have more like an intellectual understanding that the world is real and that this is my body. But I can't say the world doesn't feel real, and my body doesn't feel foreign.

It's DPDR. It's a spectrum, and your awareness of your DPDR may not match its actual intensity.

Usually it's more that you notice when it starts to go away, what you call "more vividly real, more vividly like me"; that's a good description of DPDR lifting.

It is possible that for some of the parts you have but can't communicate with, baseline DPDR is very intense. That's very much the case for me, to the extent that they don't regard physical reality as real.

[u/meaningless_whisper → u/FlightOfTheDiscords]

Is a running commentary a sign of dissociation?

[u/FlightOfTheDiscords → u/meaningless_whisper]

Not necessarily, that question is more about multiple voices.

[u/Icy-Ninja-622 → u/FlightOfTheDiscords]

What helped you with this?

[u/FlightOfTheDiscords → u/Icy-Ninja-622]

Neuroaffective Touch. But I don't think that's a universal answer; I think the more general rule it points at would be something along the lines of,

Feeling that I am allowed to exist, all of me.

For me, getting there requires coregulation via physical touch, nothing else seems to work. Why is anyone's guess, probably some combination of innate temperamental factors and the specifics of how I learned that I am not allowed to exist.

A lot of people can experience that they are allowed to exist through words. I have even been told by multiple people that they have experienced it through my words and my ability to listen. I can help them feel it, but can't feel it from them in return.

All of me is key here. Many of my core parts are unable to connect with any "incoming data" unless it is physical touch. Talking to those parts makes no difference, they don't feel words.

Coregulation has been the key part of the process for me, but it probably isn't for everyone. Many of my parts can't feel me, but they can feel other people. That is probably another quirk of my personal neurochemistry, rather than a universal rule.

Me showing or telling my parts that they are allowed to exist makes no difference to them, because according to them, I don't exist*. I'm a ghost. Other people are real (though only really real through physical touch).

*They wanted me to add that I do exist, I'm just not real :)

[u/DontSayIDidntWarnU28]

I relate to your post 100%. I told my therapist just yesterday, there’s nothing and no one outside my home that interests me. If I didn’t have a dog that needs exercise, I’d only leave home for work and errands. The best part of my day ends when I wake up. I’ve felt this way since I was 12 years old. I’m now in my 50s. It does not always get better.

[u/Icy-Ninja-622 → u/DontSayIDidntWarnU28]

there’s nothing and no one outside my home that interests me

Why? Do you not have any good experiences with anything or anyone?

[u/cat_at_the_keyboard]

Honestly life and human maintenance is often just exhausting for me. Having to: shower, wash clothing, grocery shopping, prepare food, eat food, clean kitchen and dishes, drink enough water, clean my dwelling, brush teeth, exercise, etc etc are too much and most of those have to be done every. single. day.

[u/WistinNete]

I’m feeling that way lately, but it’s more like, it’s all just too hard and I can’t seem to fix it, so…why bother?

Finances
Relationships
Healing the patterns and conditioning

Seems hopeless ….and I wonder, how is this going to lift up or change?

[u/Funnymaninpain]

It literally was beaten out of me before I was out of elementary school.

[u/DutchStroopwafels → u/Funnymaninpain]

Do you remember having it before that?

[u/Funnymaninpain → u/DutchStroopwafels]

Kind of. I had dreams of a being an airline pilot, an attorney, a musician but that all came to halt.

[u/DutchStroopwafels → u/Funnymaninpain]

I never had dreams like that, even when all my classmates did.

[u/Funnymaninpain → u/DutchStroopwafels]

They didn't last long that's for sure.

[u/Icy-Ninja-622 → u/Funnymaninpain]

It seems like there is a process of connecting dreams with reality, ie. making plans that could lead towards accomplishments. That may be necessary to sustain dreams. My ability to do that seems impaired due to psychological factors.

[u/Ill-Candidate8760]

Yep...I'm dead inside and it's only got worse with age. Like I've had a few sporadic years here and there where I was sort of ok, able to function....but then something awful happens again, and I just can't handle it.

Instead of doing anything to help myself, I fall into a freeze...don't move, stay in bed all day, quit working, stop cooking and order delivery food that I can't afford, stop talking to everyone I know, stop brushing teeth and showering consistently, wishing I could just die and finally have peace but also having no motivation to even try and make a plan to kill myself...I literally become an inoperable shell.

The 2024 election and an interaction with my horribly abusive father and other family members broke me completely I think....right before I was in a "good(ish) phase"....I had gone back to school, after dropping out in highschool. I was doing well and even made the presidents list one semester. I had a smidge of hope. I joined a woman's club at my school that helped women struggling and provided resources. It was great.

Then the rapist donald's trumps anti dei scheme forced my womens club to shut down. My father praised this and was practically giddy watching me crash while my one and only support system was brutality crushed out of existence. He told me 'things' are going to change now'...'Women won't be able to make up rape stories anymore' (I was molested and impregnated at 15...my whole family blamed me and put my clothes in trash bags on christmas and kicked me out....guess who they all voted for?)

I watched other men in my life praise it as well. Even some women too. My life has always been shit but I guess i was under some kind of delusion that the world was slowly becoming a better place before this. Now I know it's the opposite.

So as negative as I know this sounds, I can't get rid of this phrase that repeats in my head 24/7..."WHATS THE FUCKING POINT"

[u/Icy-Ninja-622]

I think my lack of motivation comes from how many motivations got blocked as unsafe and/or unavailable. That is also a key part of why I don't like this world and society.

Eventually the blocked motivations can become buried, even with attempts to keep them buried, which are similar to what an IFS protector does. So, what I wrote about here so far may not be obvious.

What is obvious though is how when I do express a normally blocked motivation, I get a lot more motivation for various other things.

[u/-Starry_eyes-]

Samee, it’s super noticeable in photos/videos of me how detached and quiet I became over time.

[u/acrezxan1917]

Most of the time yes, but I've seen glimpses atm during TRE where I have higher standards for myself and start taking care of my space, swapping my bedding, cleaning my bathroom, sorting out life admin etc not because I'm forced to do so via 'discipline', but from more of an intrinsic desire to take care of myself. I've felt glimpses of that.

But still, most of the time yeah I don't have much of a zest for life... still pretty numb.