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The Restless Boredom of Depression
Motivation is meaningless when you’re numb to all emotion
I can tell, now, when a depressive episode is coming. I couldn’t always. For years, even long after the diagnosis — Major Depressive Disorder — I couldn’t see them coming. But now, I can.
It starts with a restless boredom. Nothing at all interests me. Not any of my “normal” stuff, and nothing new, either. Everything is just blah.
I’m not sad. I’m just numb. There’s no feeling at all. I’m just here, existing.
If I sit still long enough, go within myself deep enough, I find a small stir of something… terror. The terror that this will be another of those months-long episodes, just when I was starting to find some balance after two years of pain and chaos.
But going deeper still, I find that there’s also determination not to slip down that road again. A determination that can only exist because I know those signs so well now, after having recorded them for oh so long in my journals.
Restless boredom is the first one. It’s not sadness. It’s wanting to do something, anything at all, but absolutely nothing sparks interest. And so I sit there, at my computer, or on the couch, with unspent motivation that has no direction.
