I feel bored and purposeless

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When I was at work, I'd come to feel ancient, but now that I'm out on disability I feel bored and purposeless and anxious. There is nothing that I want to do, but at the same time this fills me with great boredom.

I cannot even express fully here what I'm feeling, but it is agonizing.

I wonder if I can ever return to work full-time consistently.

Do what I did and change your routine of doing things. Start going to new places, like to a bookstore or library. Keep your self occupied with new things.

I know how you feel. Is there any chance you can volunteer for a local charity? Personally, if I could, I'd pack a bag and take off into the sunset. Only with my Fibromyalgia I wouldn't get far.

There is nothing I want to do. Sometimes, I'll get thoughts of wanting to, say, play an old video game, but those thoughts are fleeting and I always lose interest. The most interest comes from bouncing around the room to the same song over and over again and having pretend conversations with people. There, I feel somewhat alive, but I'm in no mood for that at this time, so what I have left is this agonizing boredom.

Right now, I have just less than 7 hours before I take my meds to go back to bed.

It seems you are craving contact with other people. Maybe find a meetup group and give it a shot?

Talking to real people is nothing compared to the pretend conversations that I have. In the pretend conversations, with the same exciting song playing over and over again, I can find real excitement and meaning. With real people, I am anxious and bored. I always can't wait till it's over and get home or to some solitary activity.

If you allow yourself to have constant contact with the same group of people over an extended period of time, you will become acclimated to their presence and they to yours. Anxiety will decrease and small talk will give way to more deep, meaningful conversations. It might be more rewarding than having the same conversation with youself over and over again.

Already tried multiple times at the urging of my parents throughout my life. Interacting with others is always a bothersome, boring chore that I can't wait till the end of.

It's not that I'm just afraid and avoidant of social situations and I just need to get more comfortable; it's that it almost never offers any level of fun at all. Even with my parents, with whom I am not very anxious at all, I always end up getting bored and can't wait to return to a solitary activity. Unstructured conversations, or conversations where I can't see the point or structure, are especially torturous and tiring because I have difficulty following them.

There's a distinct lack of pleasure that I've often had from social situations. It's agonizing now when there's nothing pleasurable to do on my own, which in the past I've found to work to give me pleasure. Being on disability gives me a lot of free time, too much free time.

This lack of pleasure in social situations has always been with me. It's been noted repeatedly since early childhood that I simply don't seek out social contacts.

I think I have strong social anhedonia, which is what my therapist thinks, too. It means I can't derive very much pleasure from social interaction. Working out any feelings of anxiety won't overcome the anhedonia, the lack of motivation.

As evidence of that I score a 9 out of 9 on the No Close Friends subscale of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire, which according to Wikipedia is a measure of social anhedonia:

http://schizotypaldisorder.webs.com/test.htm (This test doesn't work on Chrome, I believe)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anhedonia ... _anhedonia

EDIT: Here is Wikipedia's source:

http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjour ... l.pdf+html

I just had a nostalgic feeling for Final Fantasy IX, so now I'm listening to this song:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbwqTgJjtE0[/youtube]

I know how both of you feel, too Babyheart & Beneficii.. I have the stupid fibro/CFS too and right now it is hitting me hard. The fatigue is unreal sometimes. Every night I am bone tired and I have done barely anything during the day. I sit at home and I am bored out of my gourd but it sucks when you don't have a car - if I did I'd at least go to the library for something to do that doesn't cost anything. I could take the bus but my bus pass has no rides on it and I have no money to reload it so I'm basically stranded at home mostly. I have the TV but there's nothing on I want to watch - some nights I don't even turn it on, just the computer.

I feel purposeless too. Welfare is going to put me into a computer course so at least that'll get me out of the house for however long that lasts. On good days I try to at least go for a short walk but it's been rainy here plus the dampness makes my breathing difficult.

Sigh.

Hey, sorry to hear you have FM too. I know it can be crippling. In terms of pain, I am a lot better and only get a flare-up if I exert myself physically. I'm in no pain at all resting. But this didn't happen all by itself. I refused to take medication cuz I know too well how toxic drugs are to the mind and body. I quit all junk food/take aways. That was hard cuz I loved snacking on crisps while reading a book at bedtime. I gave up hormone and antibiotic laced chicken, eggs, mercury-laced tuna, and avoided tinned foods as much as possible. I quit drinking tap water (full of chlorine and fluoride being a nerve toxin - so you can imagine how good that is for you : p ) I know bottled water isn't all it's cracked up to be either but better still, it's than tap water. I quit bread too. I started eating more fish, lentils, brown rice and fruits and veg and there difference is amazing. But I still have a long way to go. Because we don't just need good food to stay healthy, we also need happiness as loneliness and stress contribute to poor mental and physical health. I hope that helped.

All the best with your IT course : )