Apathy or new kind of depression?

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I used to suffer extremely from anxiety and depression all of the time. Long story short, major diet changes have greatly lessened the instance of these things and I almost don't have either of them without good reason. My attitude, social interactions and interest in life improved greatly.

However, i think I have noticed that over the last month or so, I have suddenly become very apathetic. It is not exactly the same as the depression I remember, as I am not necessarily sad about not caring not an I upset with myself for not trying at things or for missing out on things. I just really am not interested in much of anything, and the few things that I still care about are not exciting or make me happy like they normally would. I have an overall lack of emotion. I feel kind of indifferent to everything.

I am thinking that maybe this is just depression by itself, and it's different because the anxiety isn't there to make me flip out about my disinterest and fixate on the fact that I may be missing out on things. But maybe this is just apathy or something else entirely new.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this or experience with changing depression or the onset of new odd psychological states like this?

This sounds so familiar to me. I have also had clinical depression & anxiety disorders (so I really sympathise with what you have been through & congratulate you on having improved so much with diet, which I agree makes a huge difference.)

When I was diagnosed with clinical depression, I was also diagnosed with something called dysthymia. Dysthymia is like clinical depression, only much less acute and much longer lasting (more than two years). For me it began in childhood and was (and still is) my constant state (apathy, disinterest, exhaustion...) so I didn't recognize it as a problem...until its big brother Depression came along and I eventually had to get help.

I don't mean to suggest to you that you have dysthymia, just that depression seems to be a spectrum of symptom-clusters with a wide range of severity - from mild & persistent (like dysthymia) through intense & acute (like major clinical depression)...and what you describe sounds a lot like my experience of the mild end of the spectrum.

Other than sticking with your good diet & maybe increasing exercise I don't have too many suggestions. Get help if it worsens (don't let it slide you back into major depression or anxiety states).

This article has some good ideas for self-help that you may not have tried yet (it synthesizes most of what I have been advised & have read) http://www.helpguide.org/articles/depre ... ession.htm. And this site has good resources in the self-help section that apply to both depression & anxiety http://www.anxietybc.com/

Good luck - I hope you can get back to your happier self soon