Sulurith

You're definitely on to something with the empty feeling.

Thanks for the input. Unfortunately I just don't have the schedule to do that it seems to me. Any of the meetups I've found in my area seem to be meeting up when I'm at work during the evenings, or during the day in the week when I'm working on my classwork for University.

I don't really have any hobbies at all, and I wouldn't know how to cultivate them if I did. I understand that part of getting and enjoying hobbies is trying new things and spending time on the stand-out activities, but it will be at least a month before I'm able to spend some serious time on doing such things, so I'm looking at a deeper idea of fun, so let me explain a bit about what I understand to be fun. I spent a lot of my time in my childhood as many young boys do, engrossed in video games. Gaming was my "hobby" and I joined groups and lead groups of adults to at least some achievement in that world. It seemed fun at the time. As I've gotten older it has rapidly lost its appeal, and the gaming I do now is done exactly as an escape. Gaming isn't fun, it's just better than my current situation. Similarly, my outings with nearly life-long friends, have changed over the last few years as well. Formerly I enjoyed heated discussion and the respect I got from my peers. Now I am more affected by my self-doubt and my friend-group has gotten smaller, losing the people with whom I had the most vigorous conversations. After a gaming session or good outing with friends I had a lasting satisfaction from the events that had unfolded that night. This lasting satisfaction is what I've noticed to be missing. The actions remain adequately distracting in the moment, but they are not as fun because I've lost my rigorousness in my approach to them. With this gone, not only do I return to my previous emotional state when the activity ends, but the "high" of fun during the activity isn't so high any more.

Alright everybody, been a long time since I've posted anything. I've been seeing a therapist for a few months, and even started attending a local group session as well. One of the revealing things my therapist has said to me is that it sounds like I don't do anything I find fun. As an affect of my depression and current dependence on my parents (as an aside, I am thinking about de-fooing, but as Stef said in at least one podcast, it has to happen naturally and when you're ready, and I just don't think I'm ready yet despite the harm) I've really lost some of the things that I used to have fun doing. I get stuck in a rut where I do the things that I used to find fun, because I think they should be, but they just aren't. Has anyone else lost what they used to think of as fun as they gain self-knowledge? If you have, how have you gone about finding new fun things to do?