Should I seek help?

[Nowhere_boy]

Hello forum world,

I stumbled across this forum opportunity tonight as I was googling “why do I not want to see my friends and stay at home”. It’s a Sunday night and I cancelled all my plans this weekend so I didn’t have to see anyone and pretty much just watched Netflix and stayed in bed except to buy a huge amount of junk food to eat to make me feel better about not doing anything.

During the weekdays, when I have the structure of a work day I can function normally, I can do my job and I can go to the gym and sometimes go to dinner with friends. But when I have no structure on the weekends I just let myself completely disconnect and feel so tired and miserable and lonely. But at the same time I don’t do anything to change that behaviour. I know sitting alone in bed all weekend makes me feel bad but I still keep doing it.

I keep making all these plans to change these attitudes but at the end of the day I just have, at some point lost the appetite to really do anything about it.

I don’t know if I am just being lazy or if this is a real mental health issue I should address. I feel like everyone else around me is so much more motivated and I am just on some zombie auto pilot mode.

[Croix]

Dear Nowhere boy ~

Welcome to the forum. You sound very down and worried and so I'm glad you came here where you can get other people's perspectives.

Working when you have to and just letting go when you don't is a worry, and there really are multiple reasons why this could be so. None of us here are doctors and so I'd suggest you have a professional diagnose the likely problem. In some ways it reminds me of myself when depression has hit, but it could just as likely be something else.

If you booked a long appointment with a GP and said what has been happening to you it would be an excellent start. If you thought you might run into trouble explaining things face to face why not do what I've done, write everything down first, then share the paper. In my own case professional support was definitely needed to improve.

I'd think your current state of affairs can't be allowed to continue for too long. One of my mistakes was to let things slide, I did myself no favors by doing that.

You have mentioned you go to work, the gym and have friends. Are there any particular troubles you are having at the moment that are making life more difficult than usual?

I mentioned getting some medical attention, apart from that do you have anyone in your life to help? Someone you can talk with who will care and want to support you? It can make a real difference, as I've found.

Croix

[PamelaR]

Hi Nowhere boy

Thank you for sharing your story. I agree with everything Croix has suggested to you, especially about seeing your doctor to get a diagnosis.

I too used to do the same as you. I'd work all week, and stay at home all weekend. Though not necessarily in bed. Had a hubby and 2 cats that made sure this didn't happen. Part of my thing was - I am naturally an introvert, however, my job required me to be extroverted. Let me rephase that, all the people in the team i worked with were introverts, and extrovert was needed to help move things along. I chose to take on that role. This completely and utterly left me exhausted by the end of the week. Like you though, I did do things during the week, but come weekend. It was my time to recharge all my batteries. I've retired now and find that I go out when I want and do things with friends when I want. Don't have that exhaustion any more.

I too have anxiety and depression, along with a couple of minor health issues, that I have regularly monitored by the doctor. So it is hugely important to get an assessment done to keep track of your health.

What kind of work do you do? Does your work require you to interact with people a lot of the time?

Kind regards

PamelaR