[thethingundone]

That text is describing my life since 10 years or so. I am in my 30s and lost the capability to do the thing, _any_ thing, with the exception of going out with friends/family/my partner to do social activities. Everything else is literally impossible for me to do.

I’m currently kicking off my second attempt to fix this by talking to a psychologist about it. But I am not very hopeful. Still searching for the root cause. I have all the ground works set to having a good life, except that I am incapable of moving to start that damn thing.

Where is my interest in stuff gone? Why do I prefer my couch over just typing "git clone" and play with some new tech? Why is my 3D printer sitting dusty in the corner even though I was one of the first adopters? Why is the act of hand-craft wood working, that I am dreaming of since forever and would now be able to do, impossible for me to start?

My motivation is high. My brain thinks whole projects through. I start fixing things in my head. But I am not even capable of dumping all that planning into an speech-to-text-LLM to build an actual design document out of it.

It feels like I played everything through already, so no point in starting that thing.

What the fuck is my problem?

[Terr_]

At the risk of making unqualified self-diagnoses, the phrase that always comes to my mind is "anticipatory anhedonia": On some level I do not expect the thing will actually be that fun, and I'm not filled with bubbly joy now about how awesome it'll be when it happens tomorrow.

I may have fun during the thing, but beforehand it's mostly trying to plan for what might go wrong, and afterwards it fades to the satisfaction of checking something off of a list.

https://www.britannica.com/science/anhedonia

[thethingundone]

Thanks, will read about this!

[tillcarlos]

You probably lost the “finish” muscle. That happens when you lack wins for a long time.

Best way to to train yourself to win again. Start, finish, and celebrate a 1h task. Then half day. etc

[thethingundone]

That is probably one of the causes. I don’t feel comfortable to put in effort into any _thing_. I probably unlearned that.

Finishing small things like cleaning dishes is no problem for me. It gives some sort of gratitude, but most likely not what bigger tasks would give.

[andai]

Are you burned out at your job maybe?

[thethingundone]

I definitely lack motivation to do anything at my job, but it’s the same will all private/hobby stuff. IT is probably not it for me anymore, however I have that job situation under control. I wish I could do something else though (not IT at all), but that also requires me to start that thing (and take some risk).

[andai]

Sounds like you'd benefit from working with a therapist, i.e. someone specifically trained in understand these kind of problems and guiding you through them.