Apathy – Why It Matters If You Stop Caring About Anything
by Andrea M. Darcy
The world is a mess and it’s made you stop caring. About, well…. anything. Is it okay to feel like nothing matters? Or are there times when apathy is a serious red flag?
Define apathy?
Apathy can be defined as a state of indifference and the inability to act. We lack motivation and also the ability to care that we are unmotivated. Apathy is also about a lack of emotions.
Despite years of research around ‘rational choice theory’, it turns out that us humans need to feel things to take action. As a research paper from Harvard clarifies, “emotions constitute powerful, pervasive, and predictable drivers of decision making.”
Is it apathy? Symptoms to look for
But how can you know it’s actually apathy and not just the ‘blahs’, or feeling bored?
Apathy can affect three areas, that research has defined [1] as emotional-affective (how our emotions lead to actions), cognitive (our ability to make plans), and auto-activation or behavioural (our ability to decide to think things through and take action).
This translates into symptoms like:
- loss of interest in things that used to be important for you
- negative, pessimistic thoughts
- setting less goals if any
- not taking action in any area of your life
- feelings of hopelessness
- excessively engaging in mindless habits like TV, video games
- less socially motivated – not starting conversations or reaching out
- no longer caring what people think
- feeling so lethargic it’s like you can’t act on things
- letting even important things pass you by.
Many of these can be signs of a bad week, or feeling a bit low. But in such situations, we realise we don’t care as much as usual, and it concerns us.
Apathy is that one step further. We no longer care that we don’t care. It’s like everything is turned off inside.
Related mental health issues and disorders
Apathy often occurs alongside depression and sleep problems. And it can be related to bipolar disorder.
If you have other symptoms, such as memory problems or physical issues, note that apathy is often a symptom of neuropsychiatric disorders like head injuries, Parkinson’s, and dementia.
Apathy or depression?
Depression doesn’t always involve apathy. You might, for example, have many goals you care about, but be depressed due to very negative thoughts about your self worth or ability to achieve them.
And depression often comes with guilt and shame that we are flawed in some way. We worry what others must think, or see ourselves as a burden.
Apathy doesn’t even care enough to feel ashamed or guilty. And goals seem a waste of time.
How to start caring again
1. Determine the source, if any.
If there is a source for your apathy, it pays to face it head on. Did you experience a bereavement in the past few months? Have you lost something important to you, a way of life, a precious object? Or are you finding the state of the world, such as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, is wearing you down?
Journal about what is upsetting you, and reach out and talk to trusted friends. Are there any things that can be done that can move you forward? Is there a different perspective you could consider?
2. Make self care a priority.
Poor sleep, a bad diet, and lack of exercise have all been connected to apathy. As has drug use, and a hangover certainly helps any of us to stop caring.
In what ways are you neglecting yourself? What small changes could you make starting today?
3. Separate yourself from the apathy.
Mindfulness encourages us to observe our thoughts and feelings right here and now.
And when we commit to this process, a curious thing happens. We begin to feel the separate ‘me’ that isn’t at all our thoughts and feelings, but something bigger.
Try a Gestalt therapy approach and imagine your apathy is sitting in front of you .What would it look like? What would you like to say to it? How different is it from who you really are?
4. And get clearer on who that ‘you’ is.
Sometimes if we stop caring, it comes from a series of bad life choices that leave us mired in a life that actually doesn’t match who we really are.
This can even be the case when it feels like our apathy comes from a world gone crazy. The current events around us shines a light on the fact that we are not living our best life.
What are the things you deeply value, when everything falls away? How is your current life not in line with these choices? If you aren’t sure, use a question from life coaching. “If you suddenly had all the money you could ever need, how would you live?” What choices would you make? How can you make those choices in your current life, in a different form?
5. Take action even when you stop caring.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) suggests reversing the pattern of emotions leading to actions. Called ‘behavioural intervention‘, it means that if we choose our actions, we choose our moods. We don’t wait to want to do things or to feel happy doing them. We just go ahead and do.
Why do I easily stop caring and my friends don’t?
Are you an apathetic mess in the face of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic? But your friends are doing just fine? Why is it you are more prone to falling into hopelessness?
Research from the University of Oxford [2] suggests it might be that your brain is not designed to be efficient. Using brain scans, it showed that connections in the front part of the brains of apathetic people are less effective. You have to use more energy to plan an action, which would lead you to be less enthusiastic and to fall more easily into hopelessness.
It can also relate to our upbringing. Childhood experiences might have taught us to fall into hopelessness or to give up on ourselves. It could have been a parent who taught us to be addicted to negative thinking.
Or it might have been that we experienced neglect or trauma, which left us with a core belief that we are damaged, hopeless, and don’t deserve good things to happen.
Support for when you stop caring about anything
If you are really mired in your apathy? Or if you suspect you easily fall into apathy because of unresolved childhood issues? Then do seek the support of a counsellor or psychotherapist.
Sometimes the very idea of having someone to report into who actually listens and cares about what you say can alleviate apathy. A therapist can also help you decide what you want to happen next in life, and then move towards it.
Is it time to start caring? We connect you with friendly and highly regarded therapists in Central London. Or use our booking platform to find UK-wide therapists as well as online therapy you can do from anywhere in the world.
Andrea M. Darcy is the lead writer and commissioning editor of this site. You can find her on Twitter.
Footnotes
[1] Levy R, Dubois B. Apathy and the functional anatomy of the prefrontal cortex-basal ganglia circuits. Cereb Cortex. 2006 Jul;16(7):916-28. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhj043. Epub 2005 Oct 5. PMID: 16207933.
[2] Valerie Bonnelle, Sanjay Manohar, Tim Behrens, Masud Husain, Individual Differences in Premotor Brain Systems Underlie Behavioral Apathy. Cerebral Cortex, Volume 26, Issue 2, February 2016, Pages 807–819. https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/26/2/807/2367142.
Too many things have happened in this downward spiral since early 2009. Now one year out of throat cancaer treatment is unimaginable and I never smoked. Each and every morning is a struggle just to find a reason, the will. This is not living, it’s existing. Thanks for this article, I enjoyed reading and learning new things.
David, it sounds tough. We don’t know what country you are in, but were you offered and after care or support for your cancer? Cancer is mentally and emotionally tough, not just physically. There are several charities in the UK which help with things like this, and that can give you advice on counselling as well as free support groups, Macmillan cancer support, for example, but if you aren’t in the UK, you would have to do a google for what is in your area. Note that feeling like it’s hard to get out of bed and continue is a classic sign of depression. We’d say it’s time to start taking this seriously and gathering up all your courage to try to find some support. If you are on a low budget, note that it’s still possible to find free to low cost counselling, we have an article that can give you ideas of where to look herehttp://bit.ly/lowcosttherapy. Even after a decade long sh*tstorm you are still standing, still here researching. Give yourself some credit. And know that with the right support we can all see some light in the clouds – perhaps clouds are easier to lift with some help than all alone, even if feeling alone is our comfort zone. We wish you courage. Best, HT.
My mom passed away a few years ago from cancer which was unexpected by me and everyone because she never complained about being sick. I loved my mom very much and it has been really hard on me. I also lost my brother due to suicide at a early age he was 17 and I was 15 and my real father passed away several years after that but I just turned 37 and at this age have went through the loss of all these people that I loved and cared about very much now all me and my step father who I am thankfull to have is each other. After my mother passed I quit caring about everything and I use to be a worry wart specially about the things I felt were important to me and are to most like paying the bills. Because of this I lost my home and even got involved in doing drugs i never thought in my life I would do I also lost several decent jobs because of attendance. I never told myself im just going to stop caring or wanted to stop caring. From what I said does that sound like apathy? I am now living with my step father but I am working again and have stopped using drugs and really trying hard to do what is right and live the way I feel is right and care about the things I should care about again. Is there a way to keep myself from falling back into that whole not caring thing again and what are some signs I should look for that I may be starting to go back down that road again and can I prevent it from happening again if I see those signs? The reason I ask is because looking back I still don’t know how I let things get so bad for me because it all didnt just happen quickly. I just don’t want to work really hard to get all the things back I once had which I already worked hard once getting them before I lost them to just repeat what I did and lose them again after working hard to obtain them again
Hi there, that’s a tremendous amount of loss by a young age. Our question is, did you ever have any kind of proper support? Not a family or friend, but proper? Like grief counselling or a grief support group? Intense grief can lead right to not caring and to in fact sabotaging our lives, as we can have ‘survivor’s guilt’. As well as a heck of a lot of anxiety and depression. So sounds like you did the best you can given all that loss so give yourself some credit for struggling along and staying afloat at all, even if at times it was barely. And yes, when we are in the woods, so to speak, we can’t see the forest for the trees, if that makes sense. When we are living our life we are so busy living it happens fast when things go off the rails. That’s why outside support or a support group can be amazing, people around us can see what’s happening before we might and gently and kindly give us a nudge. We really hope you do consider seeking support, even if we feel we are ‘okay’ we can know that on a certain level our grief is still there and we can live in fear of the sadness and anger pouncing, and that’s no way to live. A therapist or support group will help you learn tools to navigate any sort of trigger. If you are on a low budget know that most grief support groups are free, google for one in your area, and there are many, many ways to find free or very low cost counselling these days, we have an article full of ideas here http://bit.ly/lowcosttherapy. Another free tool that can really help can be a mindfulness practice which is easy to learn and free, but requires daily commitment http://bit.ly/mindfulnessallabout. We wish you courage! best, HT.
This is hard I don’t like talking about my feeling or issues. However I want to try, My name is Lamented Jester I have had it rough from as far back as I can recall. I have experienced my fair share of trauma but probably no more than anyone else. Perhaps this is some attention ploy or an attempt for a pity party but here it goes … Threw everything I have always saw the brighter side of things looked at life threw a positive view, but slowly threw the years it has changed me I find it hard to share or open up. I feel completely alone when surrounded by my closest friends. I often feel Invisible or lost. I’m constantly overthinking everything, I get notions where I feel my friend maybe plotting against me or talking bad about me behind my back. I sleep fine, I function, am I really broken?
Hey there LJ. Nope, you aren’t broken. But you aren’t fixed either. None us are. You see here’s the thing. Being a human is messy. It’s not about being fixed or broken, as throughout life we all go through cycles where we feel together and where we feel fractured. This is how we learn who we are and what we want from life. What we sense here is an inability to value yourself or feel you are as worthy as others might be. Where you always put yourself last and spend your life trying to be someone others like instead of being you, messy and all. And after awhile this charade gets so exact we lose who we even are. No wonder we feel lonely, others never get the chance to really SEE us. To be ourselves we have to be not just the seemingly ‘positive’ (we hate this word as its’ a judgement, who gets to say what is positive and negative anyway?) but also all the rest of it. We are whole entities, if we function as a part of ourselves we end up feeling we are malfunctioning. And then we can also start to be paranoid. We’ve led our lives being a sort of show of what we think people want then a part of our unconscious mind is worried we’ll be found and we have anxieties. Does this make sense? And yes, then we also feel apathy, numb, as we get so used to blocking out the parts of us we have decided are unacceptable we are numb. So long story short, we think that it’s courageous and fantastic that you want to try taking a look at yourself. We’d suggest that you could truly benefit from counselling. If you are on a low budget it’s still possible, there are ways to find free to low cost counselling use this article as inspiration http://bit.ly/lowcosttherapy. Other self help tools that can help are mindfulness http://bit.ly/mindfulnessallaboutand directed journalling, for example. http://bit.ly/journallingHT. Anyway, the moment we realise we want to make a change is the most powerful first step, we hope you keep up the courage and take some next steps towards seeking support. Best, HT.
I… I don’t know where to start.
Well I’m 16 and I read some of the articles and I can relate to most of it
I didn’t lost anyone or anything but… It’s that…. My best friend moved out and … And she is like the most important person in my life. She’s so much more than just a friend. She’s my total happiness. It’s been 4-5 months that she moved out… And we only get to spend so less time together before she left. All the memories we had in the past… All those things, I feel so glad and sad at the same time missing them.
I don’t know if you are reading this or no but if you are truly thank you
I care but I don’t care. I don’t know how to explain it. At some point I’m very happy and at some point I’m very sad. Its like I can’t feel certain emotions,my focus is lost, I don’t know what to do next like what should I do or is this right?
I feel alone, and nothing seems so big to me now like nothing is that much amazing now.
Sometimes I have sucidal thoughts as well.
I feel like everything is over…like my life has finished. There isn’t anything to be exited about. It’s like I’m just … Waiting … For things to go back normal. And also… Just thinking of her and all the things we did , all the amazing things she did , how much she cared and how much she loved me thinking it I began to cry on my own . Even right now just talking about it brought tears to my eyes.
I feel … I lost hope
Hi there. So first of all, you are a teenager. So cut yourself some slack and go easy on yourself. When we are a teen our hormones are raging, our brain is still actually growing, we are stuck on a time schedule that doesn’t match our circadian rhythms and leaves us exhausted, we are trying to figure out who we are, and, to top it off, nowadays we are presented with this endless stream of social media telling us who we are or aren’t supposed to be. Most if not all teens go through periods of panic, hopelessness, fear, and low moods. Also note that many young females have very intense friendships and tend towards very dramatic thinking. It’s the time of life we are learning about relationships. So none of this is at all strange to us, except that then you mention suicidal thinking. And your thinking does seem very black and white, even for a teen. In summary, it’s time for you to reach out for some support. Talk to a trusted adult, like someone in your family, or the school counsellor, about this, and let them know you are floundering and having dark thoughts. We have an article here about how to talk to your parents about mental health and asking for help to seek counselling http://bit.ly/talktoparents. We’d also suggest you teach yourself mindfulness, which helps us appreciate the present instead of obsessing over a past we can’t change and a future we can’t predict. It’s an easy technique to learn, and therapists now use it with clients to help with stress and depression. We have a free guide here http://bit.ly/mindfulnessallabout. Also get a list on hand now of free helplines so that if suicidal thinking happens again you can call. Many of the ones for teens now offer support via text and email as well as phone call. Here are help lines in the UK, if you are outside of our country google for a helpline in your area. http://bit.ly/mentalhelplines. And, again, go easy on yourself. Life constantly changes, and tough things happen, but good things happen too, eventually. Best, HT.
Man, I just don’t care anymore. I don’t know what to make of anything. I couldn’t tell you what’s wrong with me or why. Just sick of trying and being alone. All I want is a woman and to be self sufficient which I’m trying to do. I’m stuck in my sociopathic mothers house and with a job I despise. Don’t really wanna love no more if it’s gonna be like this any longer. Father gave up on me. One real friend. No life at all. No interests in hobbys or people. Tried therapy and just feels redundant. Dont feel like I have a personality. Zero memory, I know I had a rough childhood, some good things, leanred alot, plenty of bad examples. Just waiting for a hand to reach out and pull me out of the muck so I can start living again because I can’t get out myself. Let alone I’m 20 Years old trying to start my life in this current world. Sick of people, bunch of zombies. Don’t feel like anybodys really awake. One emotion I do feel is anger because I know how to fix myslef but here I am lying in bed in self pity and laziness on this dumb site complaining to strangers thinking something will change.
Hi Caleb. First of all, we think you are far from a hopeless case, we see a lot of evidence here of a resourceful, self aware young man with potential. It’s actually very useful that you can recognise the problem is anger. Anger can leave us feeling numb and depressed as we are so damn angry inside we are repressing a lot of it and all that repression takes so much mental energy we have precious little left for living. But you are evidently having troubles keeping it all in, note how you can’t resist lashing out at the end and being mean, calling our site dumb. It’s also interesting that you want to be saved by a woman, anyone (even as we suspect you know you are the only one who can save yourself) and did reach out for help but then must also insult therapy. So it’s kind of push pull, push pull. And we get it. This is what happens when we are full of rage and self hatred because of difficult childhood experiences… we stick out our head, then we pull it back in, and it feels easier to blame everyone else so that we can at least like ourselves enough to survive. We have few friends as without knowing it we are sending off a huge radar signal of anger and we are passive aggressive and casually mean, ending up really lonely. Most of the time we are angry at everyone as we are really angry at ourselves and blame ourselves deep down, hate ourselves, and that’s the root that has to be worked on, you see we need to have at least a modicum of compassion for ourselves before we can have any for others But the thing to really take on board is, change is uncomfortable. Very. Sometimes it WILL feel boring, and dumb, tedious, and annoying. Think about when we are growing as kids, we have what is called ‘growing pains’ where our body actually hurts. Mental and emotional growth is the same. So first things first, accept that it’s not going to be easy or fun, but that it will be worth it. And you have to ride the wave of all your frustrations. That’s the difference between being a child and being an adult. You are now transitioning to being an adult, and it’s normal at this age to sometime struggle with the weight of being responsible for yourself, particularly if you are still living at home. A child throws up their hands and says I can’t, they have a temper tantrum, an adult says, well I have to, I am in charge of my life now, it won’t be easy, I must do this. 20 is very, very young. But again, very fact that you realise you have all these issues, plus you have even tried therapy, well you are further ahead than you realise. This shows to us you ARE resourceful, you CAN pull yourself out of this, it will just take time, and some bad moments, but also some good ones. Life is not one thing or another, ever. It’s complicated. But if you stick it out, change does happen, like it or not. So what was this therapy you tried? How many sessions did you last? Therapy is like dating, it can take time to get the right click, we have articles on here about how to find the right therapist, etc. And you won’t like any therapist at first, given that you hate people, and they are a person, so don’t make liking one part of the decision, look only for someone think you could grow to trust over time, that deep down you can sense is genuine. In general you need to give it at least 4 sessions before you decide if you get along. As to what sort of therapy, we’d imagine there was traumatic experiences in your childhood and it would be great to try a short term therapy where you don’t really talk about your past much but retrain your brain so that you can actually feel grounded and present enough for other things to actually help. BWRT is interesting, or EMDR or clinical hypnotherapy. CBT would then be a great short term choice, again it doesn’t focus on your past, but on your current addiction to negative thinking, and how to break it so it doesn’t send you on endless cycles of low moods and poor decision making. From there, when you are feeling more stable, a longer term therapy like schema therapy or compassion-based therapy be a great choice. Otherwise it would be great to find self help tools to start working out the anger. Writing out all the fury inside as fast as you can then ripping up the pages. Using a punching bag and boxing. If you are home alone setting a timer for three minutes then ranting out loud about all the things you hate, not letting yourself stop until the timer goes off (harder than it sounds, you’ll see). Safe techniques, not ones that hurt you or others.You will say they are dumb, this is stupid, etc. So what. try them anyway and see. The dumbest thing of all is not realising you are a resourceful and powerful young man. Also note that all Western countries have free help lines for young people, our list of UK helplines is here http://bit.ly/mentalhelplines, if you aren’t in the UK google for some in your country. Finally, we suspect things will massively change when you move out, it’s often the best thing a young person with a difficult parent can do, do make that a priority, as independence makes a massive, massive difference. Best, HT.
It’s not even that I like or dislike anything. I don’t care. Full stop. Like I wouldn’t even be violent. I wouldn’t be one way or another. If someone said a word from me could save existence, I still wouldn’t say a word. And I don’t like what that means.
Hi Bodhi, we get it. Sometimes for a variety of factors we are just 100% numb. But we’d point out that a part of you does care, or you wouldn’t be googling this and commenting. A part of you, no matter how tiny, has hope this could change, and we confirm it definitely could. Again, this severe numbness doesn’t just come from nowhere. We aren’t born that way. It comes from a set of difficult experiences that hurt our very soul, and left us with thinking patterns that all is hopeless. Trauma, for example, can leave us constantly in the brain’s stress response, and it’s not just fight or flight like once thought, it’s now recognised there is a third response, ‘freeze’. And when we are permanently frozen we are numb. So we think all is hopeless, but thoughts are just thoughts, not reality, and not who you are. You are more than your thoughts. We’d highly suggest therapy. Yes, of course we would, we are a therapy company, but we suggest it as it works, as it is life saving sometimes, not easy, a tough road sometimes, but worth it. You might want to try existential therapy, which helps you recognise your values and create a sense of meaning that works for you. But first if there is trauma you might require brain training therapies that help you feel grounded enough other therapies can work at all, so you can feel grounded and out of the severe stress response of ‘freeze’ enough that things can help. Like CBT, EMDR, BWRT, clinical hypnotherapy. If you are on a low to no budget, there is still help available with a bit of research, we have an article here with ideas for how to find it http://bit.ly/lowcosttherapy. Also, if you ever feel really low and need someone to talk to fast, don’t over look free helplines, there are nice people waiting to talk, we have a list of ones in the UK here http://bit.ly/mentalhelplines or google for one in your area otherwise. Best, HT.
Im 41 years old i suffer with cluster migrains from the age of 9. I have had back problems since 11. I have a curvature in my spin (kyphosis) i cant look in the mirror as it makes me feel repulsed. I hide under hoodies and padded coats with large collars just to feel normal no matter what weather. I have osteoarthritis in my hips, pelvis and sacroiliac joint and a bulging disc T5 sciatica down my buttock and groin. I also fibroids and endometriosis and TMJ disease. Every morning in wake up in crippling pain that i cant move. Sometimes i have to relay on my 11 year old to roll me off the bed by laying down and push me with her feet. I am no longer able to catch a bus of walk a short distance to work because the pain is so bad. I am literally working just to pay for taxis to get me there. I struggle at work lifting and bending. I cant sit or stand in one position for to long or i get stuck which is extreamly painful. By time eveing comes my meds have left me in a zombie like state crawling around in pain. I know what depression is because ive suufrred many times before. Over the last few months ive made a decision that when my daughter has reached adult hood im going to take my own life. I know its realy selfish of me to do that to her and my family but i just cant do it anymore. I am physically and mentally tired of been in pain. I cant even take my daughter to the cinema as im in so much pain i cant move. Im on 22 tablets a day that doesnt include painkillers. I avoid every family gathering as my pain makes me resless and grumpy and sometime extreamly fatigue. I suffer from My family are very aware of my health issues but cant help me as they all have full time jobs and busy lives there selfs. I would never expect anyone to have to help. How do i get them to understand that im not depressed. I know if i ever told the doctors this they would put me on antidepressants. Im not sad at my decision, im at peace. Were all going to die one day, i just choose to end the pain my way. Im not living life im just existing. Trapped by ignorance. Please someone tell me how does someone choosing not to live in pain anymore branded be branded as depressed. I know i should be grateful for been here and im lucky because there is people worse off but ive lived my life in pain long enough and i chose to end it my way. My family will be sad for a short time but unfortunately im going to die one day no matter what age. How is it the law that we have legal rights to put animals down but we are depressed if we want to end our own lives.
Same sh3t. Different day. All therapy is a scam. All therapists are grifters or narcissists who live to prey on and take money from the vulnerable. How about we get rid of therapy altogether and just make sure the unfit do not get to have children. As long as humans create trauma this shit will never end. Let’s attack the root of the problem rather than let grifters steal under the guise of “help”.. which is no help at all. Never give money to a therapist. Never trust a therapist. Never give a therapist personal information to use against you. Simply.. therapy is as big a scam as all the new age sh3t about self-improvement and enlightenment. Therapists fix nothing. They just want your money. They don’t care about you at all. All they see is $$$$$ coming…
I feel like the 16 year old Human Being! I’m just waiting. No feelings, no love, no motivation, doing nothing but wasting time. Bad things keep happening, who wants to be happy and I have so many people who I love. I just don’t think anyone really cares and then all this stuff is happening. I have nothing to be excited bout even when I should be excited. I feel like my life has ended, and I have been waiting for a happy happy ending and it never came. Im so disappointed and I don’t want a do over, I’m disgusted about everything. Writing this makes me cry and for what no one cares how I feel. Im a no one. Everyone goes on trips, vacation, dates, dinner, whatever, what do I do clean up after everyone. I have grandchildren and I love them more than anyone, but something is missing, a void or something. I;m so lost all I want to do is sleep. I miss my hugs so much. I want to be invited along, I want to be included. Please, come over and see me or answer the phone when I call and make plans with me. I don;t know why is wrong, I was waiting for something different but it was a delusion in my mind, a game, made up and I feel for everything.