Can't Even Enjoy Video Games Anymore

[KafkaF]

Quick prelude: Have had depression on and off for over 10 years. Suffered my fifth heavy depression at the start of 2022. Got brought out of it more-or-less by meeting a girl. We were together throughout most of 2023 and during this time my depression transitioned to light and I slowly started getting better. She basically out of nowhere dumped me in the middle of October and despite seeming so in love with me throughout most of our relationship seems to have been able to drop me as if I was nothing to her. Since then I've fallen into a deep depression again.

Anyway, I like to play video games. My favourite video games are probably the Elder Scrolls games, Civilization games and the original Halo trilogy. Been playing and enjoying video games for basically as long as I can remember.

As I said at the start, I've been through depressions before. Between 2010-2011, then 2011-2015, then 2018-2019, then 2020-2021, then 2022 and then finally now 2023.

Throughout most of these depressions there have been exactly 2 things which have given me some relief:
1. Writing.
2. Playing video games.

When I was doing either of those things I could be alright for a little while.

During the 2022 depression is the first time that I got so depressed that I lost my ability to write. I started regaining it slowly in 2023 when I was doing better but since the break-up my depression has returned to full force and since then I haven't been able to write again.

During all previous depressions I've been able to play video games though. They didn't help THAT much but they were enough of a distraction and enjoyment that they could provide a short reprieve from the worst parts of the depression for a few hours.

Throughout the last few weeks (since the break-up) I hadn't been able to get myself motivated enough to even think about playing. Then throughout the last week or two I started thinking "I'll play one today" a bunch of times but never managed to gather up the energy to actually do it. Well, today I finally managed to gather up just enough energy to load up "Halo 2" (my favourite Halo game).

I've been playing it for the last half our or so and I feel nothing.

I feel no joy or tension or excitement. And it doesn't even distract me anymore. I can barely focus on the game because I keep thinking about and missing her. Replaying everything over in my head again. Wondering what I could've done differently. Wondering if she still misses me at all. Fantasizing about the idea of going on a date with her in the city again. The game is just something that's going on in the corner of my eye. But my actual attention was on her the entire time.

And so, yeah. It seems that life has finally done it. It has finally taken away the last thing in my life that brought me the tiniest bit of joy.

It took away my ability to write in 2022. And now it has taken away the remaining ability I had to enjoy video games in 2023. Not to mention taken away my girlfriend, whom I loved more than I've ever loved anyone else, of course.

The only thing that keeps me around is that non-existence terrifies me. But I'm going to have to overcome that eventually, hopefully soon. Because I am literally living in hell. I'm in constant pain and now even the very last thing that brought me any sort of joy, relief or satisfaction, relief from the endless darkness, has been taken away from me.

I need to die. It's the only way I'll be okay again.

 

[WAITING TO DIE]

Has your depression turned into Anhedonia ?
I'm Anhedonic these days and find no pleasure in anything anymore.

 

[KafkaF]

Has your depression turned into Anhedonia ?
I'm Anhedonic these days and find no pleasure in anything anymore.

Already had some degree of anhedonia throughout all of my depressions. But writing and video games were originally slight exceptions to that. In that they were able to provide at least some excitement and distraction. Now apparently I don't even have that much anymore.

 

[WAITING TO DIE]

Already had some degree of anhedonia throughout all of my depressions. But writing and video games were originally slight exceptions to that. In that they were able to provide at least some excitement and distraction. Now apparently I don't even have that much anymore.

I used to love games too, they were the only form of escape from my mind.
Yet nowadays I can't concentrate on anything and I feel dead inside all the time.

 

[gbi2]

I got into playing Rimworld again at the end of last year. It was the only thing I could do because I could put as much or as little effort in each time. But I can't even bring myself to open the game now. Exactly like you. As Nembutal Dreams said there is a name for this symptom, It's not something that can be fought to change anything what with it being a symptom and not a cause but it does help understand what is going on it you look up about it.

While on the subject of games, I have an Epic Games account of anyone wants it. I've been keeping two accounts with just the freebies they give away, intending to sell one one day but ebay took my listing down earlier in the year. It doesn't have every free game they've done because I've missed some but it has most of them.

If anyone wants it, just say. I'll not be requesting any information from anyone, I'll DM the account details and password for the email address (which is a 'hotmail' address only used for creating that account.) You can change that and the username at your leisure as far as I am aware. Then just let me know you have logged in successfully and that's it. No money is wanted for this.

It might give someone 5 minutes of fun or even act as an extra Christmas present for someone. I don't think I've ever installed ay game from that account, so all awards, times and achievements should be at 0.

 

[tiger b]

Games do very little for me now...I guess I've played them to death. The itch is scratched. Very enjoyable at times (like the Civilization series, for instance) but the idea that entertainment can keep everyone engaged forever is fanciful.

I dropped an obscene amount of hours in the biggest timesink of them all imo: Elite Dangerous. That was like crack cocaine for me. I think I've got 1.63 trillion credits - shame I can't cash them out irl. I haven't played in ages, my shiny spaceships I 'worked' so hard to max out and upgrade sit rusting on a carrier 3,000LY beyond Sag A. If that bores you reading about it, it bores me more writing about it.

I wish I'd been that addicted to work...Now my health is poor, it would have been great to be a gamer. I guess I got it all the wrong way round...oh well.

 

[user56765567]

I used to play games a lot as well. For me the experience has been like I would start trying to play a game again just to get so frustrated and upset with myself and just get really lonely trying to play it by myself. Even games that I used to play for a long time like Minecraft and Pokémon (single and multiplayer) just became games I hated after a while like I just couldn't enjoy doing them and it would just get worse and worse the more I tried to fight through that and give it another shot so I quit trying about a year ago when I could not take it anymore but Idk it been very boring just scrolling youtube and surfing the internet all the time. The last thing I had tried was vrchat to try to find some friend or at least some people to hang out with but man it was so toxic there.

 

[KafkaF]

Games do very little for me now...I guess I've played them to death. The itch is scratched. Very enjoyable at times (like the Civilization series, for instance) but the idea that entertainment can keep everyone engaged forever is fanciful.

I dropped an obscene amount of hours in the biggest timesink of them all imo: Elite Dangerous. That was like crack cocaine for me. I think I've got 1.63 trillion credits - shame I can't cash them out irl. I haven't played in ages, my shiny spaceships I 'worked' so hard to max out and upgrade sit rusting on a carrier 3,000LY beyond Sag A. If that bores you reading about it, it bores me more writing about it.

I wish I'd been that addicted to work...Now my health is poor, it would have been great to be a gamer. I guess I got it all the wrong way round...oh well.

It's not the amount of playing those games that has caused this. It's not that I'm sick of them. That's not it for me.

It's just that my depression has become so severe at this point that I've basically developed complete anhedonia across the board. Maybe with the slight exception of some food. Whereas before my anhedonia was limited to most things but games and writing used to be somewhat of an exception (though I still had decreased enjoyment out of them compared to when I wasn't depressed at all).

 

[dopaminedeath]

Yeah, antidepressant helps with this

 

[KafkaF]

Yeah, antidepressant helps with this

Not me. Taken them before and they don't do anything for me. Unfortunately while antidepressants work for some people, some people are immune. And I am one of them.

 

[WAITING TO DIE]

Not me. Taken them before and they don't do anything for me. Unfortunately while antidepressants work for some people, some people are immune. And I am one of them.

I'm the same: untreatable persistent depression. Nothing works.

 

[todeswunsch]

Not me. Taken them before and they don't do anything for me. Unfortunately while antidepressants work for some people, some people are immune. And I am one of them.

I'm sorry you are in this too. I got full anhedonia since my last depression wave, and it seems antidepressants aren't doing nothing anymore. They used to help, but not anymore. I also tryed some other meds. I'm on Lithium + Lurasidone now and it helps a little with humor but still anhedonic. And its hard to think of recovery if you don't feel any pleasure. I fear there's no escape from that.
Good luck to us! I wish you the best!

 

[KafkaF]

I almost kinda feel like this needed to go in the gaming part of the off topic forum.

I thought anhedonia was part of every major depression and of course there will always be slight enjoyment from some things even if its all gone down a lot and for many things gone altogether.

I considered putting in the "off topic" part, but I think this was the better place for it. Because at the end of the day this thread isn't to talk about video games. It's a thread to talk about how bad my depression has gotten, taken away the final thing that gave me any joy and made me want to CTB even more. It being video games is really just incidental.

As for anhedonia, yes it is a normal part of depression. It is one of the DSM V criteria to diagnose depression. Although it is not a strict requirement so long as there is still depressed mood. And it can also exist on a spectrum of more or less severe.

Source: Psychology was actually what I studied in college.

 

[livinginhellnation]

I played D4 but ctb at S2.

 

[Darkover]

i was a hacker and programmer until i got a brain injury in 2016 i can't even play games anymore due to it

 

[Lookoutbelow]

Quick prelude: Have had depression on and off for over 10 years. Suffered my fifth heavy depression at the start of 2022. Got brought out of it more-or-less by meeting a girl. We were together throughout most of 2023 and during this time my depression transitioned to light and I slowly started getting better. She basically out of nowhere dumped me in the middle of October and despite seeming so in love with me throughout most of our relationship seems to have been able to drop me as if I was nothing to her. Since then I've fallen into a deep depression again.

Anyway, I like to play video games. My favourite video games are probably the Elder Scrolls games, Civilization games and the original Halo trilogy. Been playing and enjoying video games for basically as long as I can remember.

As I said at the start, I've been through depressions before. Between 2010-2011, then 2011-2015, then 2018-2019, then 2020-2021, then 2022 and then finally now 2023.

Throughout most of these depressions there have been exactly 2 things which have given me some relief:
1. Writing.
2. Playing video games.

When I was doing either of those things I could be alright for a little while.

During the 2022 depression is the first time that I got so depressed that I lost my ability to write. I started regaining it slowly in 2023 when I was doing better but since the break-up my depression has returned to full force and since then I haven't been able to write again.

During all previous depressions I've been able to play video games though. They didn't help THAT much but they were enough of a distraction and enjoyment that they could provide a short reprieve from the worst parts of the depression for a few hours.

Throughout the last few weeks (since the break-up) I hadn't been able to get myself motivated enough to even think about playing. Then throughout the last week or two I started thinking "I'll play one today" a bunch of times but never managed to gather up the energy to actually do it. Well, today I finally managed to gather up just enough energy to load up "Halo 2" (my favourite Halo game).

I've been playing it for the last half our or so and I feel nothing.

I feel no joy or tension or excitement. And it doesn't even distract me anymore. I can barely focus on the game because I keep thinking about and missing her. Replaying everything over in my head again. Wondering what I could've done differently. Wondering if she still misses me at all. Fantasizing about the idea of going on a date with her in the city again. The game is just something that's going on in the corner of my eye. But my actual attention was on her the entire time.

And so, yeah. It seems that life has finally done it. It has finally taken away the last thing in my life that brought me the tiniest bit of joy.

It took away my ability to write in 2022. And now it has taken away the remaining ability I had to enjoy video games in 2023. Not to mention taken away my girlfriend, whom I loved more than I've ever loved anyone else, of course.

The only thing that keeps me around is that non-existence terrifies me. But I'm going to have to overcome that eventually, hopefully soon. Because I am literally living in hell. I'm in constant pain and now even the very last thing that brought me any sort of joy, relief or satisfaction, relief from the endless darkness, has been taken away from me.

I need to die. It's the only way I'll be okay again.

Hey, it's me again. You know, the guy that is going through the same shit as you. I can only speak for myself, but after a couple of months my dread and despair has turned into resignation. I would still love to have my girlfriend back, but I'm also resigned to the fact that I'm just going to have to kill myself. Nothing brings any sense of relief. But, like I said at least all my super anxious dread and despair has turned to a colder numbness. Hopefully by the end of this month (which is when I will have to jump) I will be completely numb. Keep us posted and I'll do the same.

 

[hermestrimegistus]

Ah. I get it. Right after I graduated high school, games were my escape. Halo 3 campaign, Halo 4 online, I could play for hours. I remember playing Animal Crossing for nostalgias sake and then reality hit in and I realized what I was playing was exactly what I was escaping. Paying bells to Tom Nook hahaha. So i've stopped playing video games since then. Maybe the occasional throw back to Smash Bros/Brawl lmao. But yeah. I get it

 

[Hotsackage]

I know, that's why I watch them all day. At least I can see others enjoying themselves

 

[Andro_USYD]

Depression had destroyed my life as well in the same sort of way if not worse. It started with taking away my ability to play COD, then it became all games, then it became my writing, then birthdays, friends, complete loss of sexuality so that I'm not even attracted to women anymore.

The only upside I have is it hasn't taken away my ability to play chess with an overseas friend from Cali, I live in Australia and we usually spend the entire day just playing chess, Ive also found comfort in drugs tbh as they boost my interest levels. Kratom in particular keeps me interested in things a lot better but there's a tonne of anhodenia, it's shit and I wish the days I could play Minecraft for an entire day effortlessly would still be around.

 

[Old Friend]

I've got games I still haven't played from 2 years ago. Haven't read a book in over a year. I might have to see if I can make a point of doing so. It may help getting back into a habit of sorts. I'm really not well at this point so it's gotta be worth a try.

 

[Wyldfyre4948]

It took me forever to get into video games again and even still it's not like before. Not becoming as deeply immersed as I used to. Losing your biggest escape is very crushing. If you're lucky you'll find some ability to enjoy them again.