La realidad de la apatía: el camino de vuelta a sentir

There's a state that's hard to explain to anyone who hasn't been there. Not tiredness—tiredness goes away after sleep. Not laziness—laziness implies you want something but aren't doing it. This is different. You wake up in the morning, stare at the ceiling, and realize: you don't want anything. Nothing at all. You don't even want to want. A recursive loop of despair that would confuse even a programmer.

I've been there. More than once. And every time it felt permanent—because when you're inside it, you don't have the energy to even imagine things could be different. The world doesn't become hostile—it becomes grey and indifferent, and somehow you become the same, like wallpaper in a rented apartment: technically present, but nobody notices.

If you're in this place right now—I'm writing this for you. Not to motivate you, and not to give you a list of five steps to happiness (the title's lying, by the way—there won't be any five steps). I'm writing so you can see: someone was in the same place and can talk about it calmly now. Not because I'm stronger, but because at some point it got slightly easier, and then slightly easier still.

What it feels like from the inside

The word "apathy" sounds almost harmless—like "runny nose" or "mild discomfort." As if the person just needs a vacation and some vitamin D. In reality, it's much harsher.

You open the fridge—and close it. Not because it's empty, but because choosing what to eat requires effort you don't have. You put on a show you've been waiting months for and turn it off after five minutes—not because it's bad, but because you genuinely don't care who killed whom or why. A friend invites you fishing, something that used to feel like the meaning of life—and you reply "maybe next time," knowing there won't be a next time. And the strangest part—you're not even sad about knowing this. You feel nothing at all.

Delicious food becomes just food. Music that used to move you—just a collection of sounds. A beautiful sunset—just a sunset that makes you want to close the curtains because it's too bright.

Therapists who like to categorize everything (and good for them) distinguish between two states we usually lump together. Apathy is when you lack the motivation to start something. Anhedonia is when you can't feel pleasure even if you do start. Sounds similar, but the difference matters: sometimes it's enough to just begin—even if you force yourself, even if you're grumbling the whole time—and the enjoyment comes along the way. Other times you start, do the thing, finish—and nothing. Emptiness. Like a light bulb burned out inside you and you can't even find where the switch is.

And in both cases—it's not your fault. Seriously. It's not.

Where it comes from

Apathy usually has three roots, and often they're so tangled you can't tell where one ends and another begins. Which, of course, makes diagnosis so much easier (it doesn't).

Burnout isn't just being tired

The WHO added burnout to the International Classification of Diseases—it's not a trendy Instagram word, it's a diagnosis. And it doesn't look like people usually think. Burnout isn't when you heroically work fourteen-hour days and then collapse dramatically like in a movie. It's when you've supposedly rested, slept well, spent the weekend without your laptop—and on Monday you get up and realize you have no energy. Not physical energy. Some other kind. Like your battery charges to 15% and stops, and you walk around in this permanent power-saving mode where all functions are disabled except basic breathing.

I remember this feeling: sitting in front of the computer, knowing what to do, knowing how to do it—and being unable to make myself start. Not because it's hard. Because "why bother?" That question—"why bother?"—it's like a crack in the foundation. As long as you don't notice it, everything stands. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Usually the same cycle leads here—I've watched it in myself and in people I know: you set the bar, don't reach it, beat yourself up, set it even higher—"so this time for sure." Don't reach it again. And the inner voice whispering "you're not good enough" gets louder and louder until it stops feeling like a voice and starts feeling like truth. Such a caring inner critic, caring about you roughly the way a fox cares about a henhouse.

Here's what's important to understand: rest isn't a reward for work. It's the condition that makes work possible at all. Without it, nothing else works, like a phone without a charge—you can be as angry at it as you want, it won't turn on. But when you're already burned out, one vacation won't help—because the problem isn't the amount of rest, it's that you've lost the answer to "why." And without a "why," you can lie on a beach until retirement—you won't feel better.

When you stop believing in yourself

This can happen after one big failure or after a series of small ones that accumulate like snow on a roof—unnoticed until the roof sags. And from the outside, everything looks normal: you walk, talk, even joke sometimes. But inside—silence and the certainty that nothing good will ever come of you.

Sometimes the roots go deeper—into childhood, where criticism was the norm and praise was handed out so rarely it might as well have been rationed. Then the voice saying "you can't handle it" doesn't feel like a voice. It feels like a fact, like a law of nature—that's just how the world works, nothing to discuss.

At some point you stop trying new things. Why bother, if it won't work anyway? And this isn't pessimism—it's a defense mechanism. The brain decides: if you don't try, there won't be pain from failure. The logic is bulletproof. And completely destructive—because along with the pain goes the possibility of joy, and the feeling that you're capable of anything. The brain meant well, of course. It worked out the way it usually does.

Therapists who work in the cognitive-behavioral approach say one thing helps here, and it sounds almost insultingly simple: notice small wins. Not for Instagram and not for a gratitude journal—for yourself. The brain says "you're incapable of anything"—but you have it written down: yesterday you finished a task, the day before you made a decent dinner, last week you helped a colleague figure out a problem. This isn't about "think positive"—that phrase alone gives me a nervous twitch. It's about facts that contradict a false belief. The evidence isn't for others—it's for you, so the inner prosecutor finally shuts up.

Depression is different

And sometimes it's not about circumstances or self-esteem. Sometimes it's biology—neurotransmitters, genetics, brain chemistry that decided to surprise you without your consent. Depression is a clinical disorder, and it's important to say that out loud, because there are still too many people who believe you just need to "pull yourself together." As if hands are some universal tool for all problems.

They're not.

If apathy doesn't pass for weeks, if you can't get out of bed, if your thoughts turn really dark—it's not laziness, not being spoiled, and not weak character. It's an illness that has treatment. Seeing a specialist is roughly like going to the dentist: you can walk around clenching your jaw, pretending everything's fine, heroically enduring—or you can go to the dentist and stop enduring. The second option, strangely enough, takes more courage.

Recent research shows that for anhedonia—that inability to feel pleasure—behavioral activation works best. This isn't motivational posters on the wall and not "just start running in the morning" (that advice is maybe only beaten by "just stop being sad"). A therapist helps build small, manageable steps toward activities that used to bring joy—without expecting the joy to return immediately. The idea is that action comes first, feelings follow later. Not the other way around.

What actually helps

I won't pretend I have a magic recipe. If one existed, apathy wouldn't be a problem, and I wouldn't be writing this—I'd be at the Nobel ceremony. But there are things that helped me and that research supports—not as a cure-all, but as a direction.

Don't wait for motivation to start. The most counterintuitive of all. We're used to thinking: first the desire appears—then I'll start doing. With apathy, everything works backwards: first you do—through "I don't want to," through "what's the point"—and the desire might come later. It might not come right away either, but the chance only appears when you're moving. Therapists call this behavioral activation, and today it's one of the most evidence-based approaches. Sounds boring, but works better than waiting for inspiration on the couch.

Shrink the scale to something ridiculous. Not "get my life together," but "take a shower." Not "find my dream job," but "open the laptop." Not "start working out," but "go outside and walk one block, slippers are fine." When you have no energy for big goals, small steps aren't defeat or a pathetic spectacle. They're strategy. And every step you take—small proof that you still can. I once started with just washing one cup. One. And I felt—no, not triumph. But something like: "okay, I'm still here."

Stop beating yourself up for being apathetic. This is the most vicious of all vicious cycles: you feel bad → you beat yourself up for feeling bad → you feel worse → you beat yourself up harder. Meet the infinite loop that could win a prize for efficiency, if efficiency were measured in suffering. Cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches you to stop it with one simple question: "Would I say this to a friend in this situation?" Usually the answer is no. To a friend you'd say: "It happens, rest up, try again tomorrow." To yourself—completely different words. For some reason we're more ruthless with ourselves than with anyone else.

Say it out loud to someone. Doesn't have to be a therapist, doesn't have to be detailed. Just say: "Things are hard for me right now." Not to get advice—advice in these moments irritates more than it helps—but to stop pretending everything's fine. Maintaining the "I'm okay" facade is a separate job that drains energy, and energy is already scarce. When you call things by their names, they stop taking up so much space in your head. Like opening a window in a stuffy room—there isn't more air, but it's already easier to breathe.

See a professional. This isn't the last step when nothing has helped and you have no choice—it can be the first. A therapist won't say anything magical and won't give you a happiness pill (unfortunately). But they'll give you something that's hard to give yourself: a judgment-free space where you can be honest, and tools that work not through willpower but through understanding what's happening in your head. It's like taking a broken mechanism to a repair shop instead of fixing it with a hammer and hope.

When it's not you, but someone close to you

There's one more thing that rarely gets talked about.

Sometimes you've already made it out—and someone close to you is still inside. You watch them drowning in the same thing you went through. You know that phrases like "just get it together" and "you need to go outside more" don't work—because when people said them to you, all you wanted was to turn to the wall and pretend you didn't exist. You know there are no magic words.

And you feel helpless. Because knowing the way back and being able to guide someone else along it—those are two completely different skills. Roughly like knowing how to swim versus knowing how to rescue a drowning person—one doesn't follow from the other.

In psychology they call this compassion fatigue—exhaustion from empathizing. You've been feeling for someone so long that you start losing energy yourself, feeling drained and even guilty that you're doing more or less okay. The irony: the one trying to help risks ending up in the same place they once escaped from.

One study showed that having at least one stable source of support reduces the risk of a severe depressive episode by 40%. Forty percent—that's not margin of error, that's a huge number. It means that just being there—not treating, not saving, not giving wise advice from the internet, just being there—already changes the situation.

But for that, you need to take care of yourself first. Not because you're selfish. But because you can't pour from an empty glass, no matter how hard you try—physics won't allow it.

One last thing

I won't say "everything will be fine"—when you're in apathy, those words sound like noise in a foreign language. And I won't say "believe in yourself"—motivational posters only make things more depressing, I've tested this.

I'll say something else.

You're not broken. What you're feeling—it's not a sentence and it's not who you are. It's a state. It can change. Not necessarily tomorrow and not necessarily beautifully, but it's not forever, even if right now it feels like forever. I know, because I was certain it was forever. I was wrong.

And the fact that you've read this far—that's already something. Seriously. A person in the deepest apathy wouldn't read an article about how to get out of it. That means somewhere inside you there's a part that's still searching. That still wants to want.

Don't rush it. Just don't get in its way.

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If apathy lasts more than two weeks and interferes with normal life—that's a reason to talk to a therapist. It's not weakness. It's taking care of yourself.