Apathy is your brain's way of protecting you from pain
For the last year or so I’ve felt apathetic about, well, everything.
It’s not that I don’t actually care about shit—I genuinely care about my friends and family and I do want to do well in my vocation and endeavors. I’m not depressed or removed, I’m just a little detached.
There are many mornings I wake up with tremendously low energy and motivation to do, well, anything. To get myself going I’ve found it helps to get outside, move, and connect with someone. Enter, walk ‘n talks.
“Mom, it’s happening again.”
My mother has become an excellent sounding board, which is ironic because for many years all she wanted was to be my go-to phone call in times like this and she was the last person I wanted to call (we have done a lot of work to build this relationship, read more about that in my memoir).
“I don’t know why I just wake up and cannot bring myself to start anything. I feel like I’m having a mid-life existential crisis but I don’t know if it’s because I’m not happy with what I’m doing or that I’m just not seeing how wonderful it is. Like am I just wearing really shitty colored glasses?”
I asked my therapist this same question today. And after about 30 minutes of me jabbering and her “mhm” ing, she said,
“I wonder if the reason you don’t care about things as much is because you’re afraid if you do, it will hurt when you lose them.”
Jesus, m’am, why you gotta do me so dirty like that.
“Perhaps you are apathetic because if you cared, it would hurt if you lost what you cared for.”
My therapist has a funny way of cutting right through my constant overanalysis and finding the meat of the matter.
“Shit, yeah, fuck I’m so scared of feeling that pain again. It makes sense I’d do everything to avoid it, including just not care that much about, well, pretty much anything.”
The less I care, the less it hurts if I lose it.
I’ve done this in myriad ways:
Care less about the quality of my writing (doesn’t matter as much if people don’t like it)
Care less about dates I go on (doesn’t matter as much if I’m rejected)
Care less about connecting with people socially (doesn’t matter as much if I’m not accepted)
Apathy has protected me from pain.
Bravo apathy, well done.
So when I asked my therapist what I should do, she suggested I try tipping the care-scale just a little
Instead of going from 0 fucks to 10 fucks, just try to give 3 fucks. Maybe pick one more thing to care about—not all things. Start small, and go slow.
So this is my plan for the week ahead: care about one more thing, 3/10, instead of 0/10.
I’d love to know what you’re caring about, in small ways, in the comments.
Here’s the kicker—apathy has also protected me from pleasure.
Some of the greatest joys of life come from caring. Passion is an immensely indulgent feeling that inspires a ferocious amount of joy, energy, and fire behind almost any endeavor. Caring about others creates deep and meaningful connections that can keep us grounded, supported, and in love with life.
Caring feels so, so fucking good.
I want to be someone who cares.
I want to be someone who leans in.
I want to be someone who risks the potential pain of losing it all so at least I can say, I had something to lose.
All my messy love,
Rachel
for my visual bbs, below is a TikTok I made describing this phenomenon: