Not caring about consequences or quality of life

Does this ever happen to you as a part of negative symptoms?

It is something that I have experienced on/off throughout my life. I just completely lose my ability to care.

In researching various things, I’ve considered it as a possible PD trait, but I don’t fit with the rest of AsPD, I’m almost opposite emotionally half the time and it would be hella nice to have less emotions, especially anxiety and worrying about bad things happening to people or my pets.

I’ve considered depression as a suspect, but often it happens without feeling suicidal or hopeless.

It’s more like I just don’t inherently care about what happens to me or my life, or my quality of life, or the consequences of things like if didn’t show up to work or for a doctor’s appointment, or pay a bill, or whatever. I could just sit or pace in the same spot all day and do absolutely nothing, and not care. Not shower for two weeks and not care. I’ll know I probably have a cavity and that it will get much worse if I don’t go to the dentist, but I won’t go, because I don’t care.

It feels sometimes like I am missing some sort of instinct that most people have, like to survive and thrive in general. Looking back I can see many times when it has bit me in the butt with the consequences, but even then it was like I still didn’t care.

At a job I had years ago, sometimes I would wake up, and I had no reason to move. I knew that not showing up to work might cost me my job, which might mean I’d lose my apartment, and die on the streets, but it didn’t matter. I would go back to sleep. And going into work the next day, people would be passive-aggressively upset with me, but I didn’t care. And I wasn’t showered or dressed right, I think most people would be embarrassed, but I didn’t care.

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Yeah I get it. My self care goes out the window a lot

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I’ve been through that… long hits of negative flatness… numb…

It was like I was in a cocoon of not caring about anything… even getting up to eat took a lot of effort…

My mind was empty… my time was empty… it was almost catatonic. I had no care of anything… just empty.

It took a lot of work to break free form that. Even now… if I sit too much… it creeps back

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Do you like things OK this way? If someone could turn it around for you , would you do it?

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They say that negative symptoms are the most difficult to get rid of… I do not know how to fight them I only can talk from my experience. When they hit me I am trying to do the contrary. If I don’t shower, cause I am not bothered, I am doing it anyway and I apply make up as well. If I don’t want to go to work and to cancel at the last moment I go anyway. If I just want to lay in bed doing nothing I hit the gym even though making that effort to get outside is almost unbearable. Of course it is not always doable as when I feel that low that I just sit somewhere in the corner staring at the wall… but believe me whenever I make myself to do sth, the rush of endorphins, sense of achievement and kind of pride that I overcame the symptoms hit me big way. The more often I do it the easier it gets. As if my mind and body change their wiring… as I say this works for me, everybody is different, I assume you have tried different techniques already… I sympathize deeply with you and hope that things will get better. Btw. Are you in love? Finding a partner you really care for help extremely forming the motivation… good luck.

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I got myself a dog instead, best roommate I’ve ever had.

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So you are in love :grin: my dog helped me to survive my childhood and teenage times. Best friend ever! One day when we get bigger place to live I definitely gonna get one. I miss their company terribly…

What you describe is pretty much the only thing I’m still struggling with, now that positive symptoms are gone. These issues make the difference between good periods and bad periods for me. It is like I know what I am supposed to do in order to, well, live an ordinary life. But the incentive is gone or something. It affects even the smallest chores that can make a big difference.

In another thread I mentioned that in good periods, I find myself surprised about how easy these things go at times. I’d be like: well look at me I got myself a good deal with just a simple phonecall. Or, I spent 20 minutes doing the easiest chores and now I got myself a half-decent looking appartment again. The thing is though, easy as they may seem at these times, the fact that I am surprised about these things shows that it is not quite automatic behavior that goes without any thought at all. I think for most ordinary people, these chores that will improve quality of life are ‘no-brainers’, so to speak. They are so obviously worthwile to them that they do them without a thought. Doing them while surprising myself about it seems the closest I can get to this.

In worse periods, I just do not care about the improvements these things can make to my life. The ends towards these chores are the means are just not obvious to me. So I would accidently drop some packaging on the floor in the kitchen, and the ordinary reaction would be to pick it up without a thought because that’s just what you do. In bad periods, I do not so much think it is a big deal to do so, it is more that I’m indifferent: yeah I could pick it up, I could also not do it, who cares?

That’s just a small relatively harmless example, but it affects more serious things in my life as well. Preparing something for my studies: in good periods I would know this is important to me and I’ll do it, and afterwards I’d be thinking that it is pretty surprising that if one just executes this chain of minor operations you end up actually living a life. In bad periods though, I’d think something along the lines of, yeah I decided to enroll in this programme, but what’s the difference? I might as well not do it. My bad periods now aren’t accompanied by particularly bad moods really. I would not feel that tasks are extremely difficult and would not feel bad about not being able to do them. Indifference fits the situation much better.

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It is as you have described myself… schizophrenianot feeling low. Indifference… I put it wrong… hmmmm… I wonder what lays behind that feeling… some kind of temporary dumbness? Lack of activity between the neurons in the brain? Smaller blood flow? Have you ever read about that @Turnip and @Flybottle?

Stupid autocorrection! This “schizophrenia” word I don’t know how it got there…

yeah that’s what it does… schizophrenia shows up without invitation :slight_smile:

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I don’t know too much about the workings of the brain… But this is my guess: the old dopamine dysregulation may have something to do with it. I think I recall that dopamine makes not so much for the feeling of reward itself upon completing some task. Rather, it makes for one anticipating this reward, such that one will be moved to act in the first place. (if there would be no ‘clue’ about a future reward, then this reward itself wouldn’t make a difference). So obviously, our condition and our medication tinker with the dopamine levels throughout our brains. Higher than usual in some areas, lower in others, and then medication tends to lower it across the board. Now, if it is lower than usual in the relevant areas of the brain, it would make sense to me that we do not anticipate a reward when confronted with a situation that offers possibilities for some actions. Which will show up in consciousness as not caring - not being moved to act.

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You are better than Wikipedia @flybottle… it totally makes sense now… especially the element of surprise after completing a task coming together with “oh wow, I feel good” no matter how many times I did that in the past… lack of anticipation… brilliant. I will teach my brain to anticipate despite the lack of the transmitter which would do it for me. I am in power here! :no_good_woman: thank you so much. This forum is amazing…

This is my huge deal. It was what I struggled more with in the past, I overcame most of it, and now I still have some of it lingering but am dealing with it in therapy.

I used to don’t care about paying bills, have a huge amount of debt to take care of because of it.
Get late to work a lot, or even missing a day because I wanted to do other things instead.
Not going to school because it’s better to sleep.
Having abusive relationships and weird friendships because I don’t think I deserve better.
Not cleaning my house, having difficulty in doing laundry, only cooking because I like to cook, but eating poorly every day and loosing a tone of weight because of it.

I’m better now, been fighting it, so there’s hope.
Being recovery oriented helps a lot, not to repeat myself, but it does.
■■■■ Learned Helplessness.

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And you know what is the best? I feel so much better about myself now… I have always thought that I am just lazy, that I need more will power and that it is all my fault, making me feeling guilty and hopeless… seeing you guys struggling with the same makes me feel sooooo much better about myself! in good times I suspect that it might be just neurological reasons of that inertia but at bad times I just feel horrible about myself. I tend to call myself a lazy bi… Not anymore, I won’t… but definitely will be trying harder to fight these feelings although I will be trying not to lose respect to myself if I fail…

There’s something called self compassion. Treat yourself like you treat your friends, don’t be so hard on yourself or put impossible standards to yourself. It’s been working wonders for me.

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I always teach my patients about it. But we are the worst patients for ourselves… “work in progress…” :blush:

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