Anyone got this combo?

Can confirm. I try to avoid fun because that requires energy.

I hate when I plan a specific "fun" activity for a specific time (like firing up a new server and testing it after kids go to bed), but when the time comes to do said task, my brain goes "nah, [other thing] is more fun" and suddenly it's 2 weeks later and the initial activity has been successfully avoided.

It's like two parts of my brain are fighting against each other. Drives me absolutely insane.

Ha! At least your brain has the decency to recommend something else that'll be more fun. Half the time my brain just says "nah" to whatever I was about to do without giving me any alternatives so I just sit there, for a while, thinking about other things I could do instead.
- Ha! At least your brain has the decency to recommend something else that'll be more fun.
  It only happens when I plan something, like working on a specific computer or one of my cars or bikes. My scooter needs some attention (little guy fell over yesterday due to me putting it on the center stand on top of soft asphault crack sealant 🤦‍♂️), and I put it off because creating doomsday scenarios in Universe Sandbox until 1AM was more appealing for some reason 🙃.

Fun? What is fun?

Guilt and Obligation that's all there is.

Sometimes I don't know if I am actually depressed, or if it's just that video games mostly suck now. Or both. I barely can be arsed to play anything, and even when I do I feel nothing. 😔

Half the videos games now make you run around doing the regular life shit that you can't achieve in the real world so why would we be able to do it in the game?
I never got board of gaming, my taste just changed from stuff like shooters and action to Factorio and Rimworld. Most big game franchises are corpo slop with gambling mechanics anyways.
Growing out of video games is a thing. Maybe youre just not into them anymore but its hard to realize because they've been such a constant in your life.
I obviously can't be sure about you, but in my case my tastes have crystallized pretty dramatically, and I'm now much harder to please than when I was younger.
One thing that has changed though, is that games in general tend to have much more detailed stories and dialog in a way that just wasn't in the budget or storage space previously. Nothing annoys me more than having to watch a movie when I want to play a game or to jump through hoops just to get to the next chapter of a book. These are very different activities which require very different moods to enjoy.
- Yeah, I also got way more picky. I don't see it as a bad thing at all.
Do you get joy from simple things like eating a nice meal or taking a hot shower on a cold day?
Can you anticipate joy, if you are planning to meet up with friends or watch a movie or read a book; does thinking about the activity lift your mood even a little?
When you think back to happy memories do you feel happy, do you remember what the sensation of happiness felt like?
Not a professional and none of this is diagnostic one way or another, but it's probably worth checking if you have exhausted or outgrown a hobby which just means you need to find more things you enjoy even if it's just to add variety to your week. Or if your ability to feel joy itself is failing, in which case you probably need to a professional
Idk dude. I think I flipped a switch and now just playing games doesn’t do it for me because what’s the point really? There’s too many and too many of them are just cash grabs. I can basically only play old or indie games and only if I stream it so that my friend who’s depressed can get some virtual company.
I don’t regret having spent so much time with games but I guess there’s a time and place.
- Yeah. When you start to realize that video games are just success surrogates to help you compensate for a lack of success in real life, it gets depressing fast!
  I did so much gaming in my 20s. Now in my 40s it’s hard to motivate myself to play more than a few minutes!
That's rough mate. The nothing is just a void, emptiness and it's hard living with that. It sounds more like depression to me. Have you reached out at !mentalhealth@lemmy.world they're really supportive
Hey! It could be both!

I miss having a Jacuzzi in my master bath. For some reason it made reading more enjoyable. It's like it provided enough sensory stimulation to keep the "squirrels" occupied that I could soak in it and read a book without feeling bored. I love to read but I've done very little of it since I sold that house 5 years ago.

You might have the same kind of luck with a hammock or rocking chair. Some kind of tactile experience for you while you read.
I like the treadmill or walking outside.
- Do your isometric bullshit workout while you read.

I used to fucking love harder video games. I grew up with Nintendo Hard. Now, even easy games are bugging the shit out of me, and the hard games are infuriating and cause me to rage quit (looking at you Hollow Knight).

This is the fault of an overly stressful existence, and mobile games starting off to easy so they lure you in. You have to find something else engaging at this point I. Most games beyond the actual gameplay aspect, like story, or art style. It doesn’t help that everything seems to be a rehash or a sequel to something that was released in the past.
- It doesn’t help that everything seems to be a rehash or a sequel to something that was released in the past.
  This literally describes everything in human history including entertainment, and the older I become the more apparent it is. Coming to accept that is comforting, and I can once again enjoy something just because it reminds me of something else.
  Except why didn't they learn from the earlier stuff! Arrrgggghhhhhh!

ADHD meds cured my depression

And therapy

Both individually were more effective than antidepressants ever were.

Of the three if I could only pick one though it would be therapy

Of the three if I could only pick one though it would be therapy
How???
- To use a nerd analogy you wouldn't attempt to fix a system without first understanding that system.
  Therapy teaches you to recognize the drivers behind your emotions and how to redirect mental energy in healthier and more productive ways. It rewires your internal dialogue.

This. I like DMing for ttrpgs, and I love drawing and painting. You'd think I'd be extatic about prepping homebrew and assets for a digitally run Savage Worlds campaign set Tamriel (or a weird homebrew mix of cyberpunk and vampire the masquerade), the truth is I'm more than just a bit burned out.

I want to start the campaign now, and I've had the story and characters ready to go for a month now, but prepping all those art assets has been tedious. So far I've done about 20+ tokens, 5+ maps, 15 character portraits, and some 10 general purpose pieces to aid narration. I got about 7 tokens left and I'm done, and I can barely get one out a day, every other day.

The worst thing is I have a very clear idea of what I want the campaign to look like and I've already made concessions by using RPG Engine to design my maps instead of doing it all by hand and just retouching it later. I don't want to make any more concessions, so I'm SOL.

I’d say just start the campaign and then create the rest as you go along. You’ve given yourself enough slack to be able to do it at a leisurely pace, especially for how scheduling can go with a ttrpg, plus, you never know when your party will basically make you throw out all your hard work because they wanted to go to the whorehouse instead of the expected direction which leads to the activation of the quest.
- Oh I've taken that into account, lol. Things will happen in the story even if the players aren't there to see it, because of faction Clocks (though those will tick if the players do things in quests that would benefit any of the three factions, not through time). I think I got my bases covered with enough brush strokes that I can spin up some bullshit to bring it all back to the main story if necessary.
  And yeah, I see your point. I'm doing that, though, lol. Besides the enemy mobs which I'll need for/if they decide to go a random cave or something, I'm only doing stuff I'll need in the first 5 sessions. Maps, characters, and narrative aid artwork that might/will be used afterwards will be done then. Most of the stuff already done will be reused later (unless the players decide to start killing people out of the blue), but they might see all of that stuff early on, barring one or two characters.

Is that what that is? shiiiiittt....

🖐️ here