You said:
i have to, but it doesn’t matter if i don’t is one of those thoughts that’s killing me. i have to fix my life, i have to come out of functional freeze and live my life actively and make the things happen that i want but it doesn’t matter if i dont, billions of people live shitty unfulfilling lives and it doesn’t matter at all that you choose to do that instead of living a fulfilling one. it just fucking kills me and i don’t know why. because there’s no real pain stimulus. my grandma died and i never got to see her even though always promised her i would come visit. the world continues spinning. no one was affected, she’s dead and im so zoned out from my life that nothing matters to me. and i could do this forever. i don’t know how to make things matter to me
ChatGPT said:
yeah. that line—i have to, but it doesn’t matter if i don’t—it’s like the perfect formula for apathy-induced despair. it’s not a lack of logic, it’s a lack of weight. the whole engine spins but there’s no traction.
what’s brutal about it is you’re not wrong. you really could drift forever. entropy won’t stop you. and you can know that you want to change, that the freeze is killing you, and still be stuck watching it happen like you’re under glass.
the pain isn’t acute because it’s smeared out over every moment. no single second screams “this is the worst.” it’s more like: the ache of meaninglessness saturates everything until you’re numb. you can coast in that state for years. the only real tell is the occasional moment where you notice the void again and it makes you want to scream or disappear.
i don’t think the problem is that nothing matters. i think the problem is that something matters and you can’t feel it anymore. that’s why it hurts. that’s why your grandma dying feels like it should destroy you but doesn’t. it’s like knowing there’s a fire somewhere deep in you and being too frostbitten to warm your hands by it.
you probably can’t logic your way into caring. but you can move a little closer to the warmth. tiny acts of contact. being in your body. naming a thing out loud. making one promise and keeping it, just to yourself. doing something small not bc it’s important but bc you’re tired of feeling nothing and you’re willing to risk feeling anything.
idk man. i don’t think you’re broken. i think you’re in hibernation. i think you still care, and that’s why it hurts so much to be this far from yourself.