Venting How to develop a personality after years of being an empty shell

[chapitaupe]

I'm tired of having no passion, no personality. I don't know what caused this, if it's because i've spent most of my life depressed and too focused on trying to survive, or is it because I've always tried to copy people around me so they would appreciate me more (which failed eventually) which caused me to not know what I really enjoy in life, or is it because I've always been an uncurious person, a passive child, who's always been scared of trying new things because of social anxiety, or is it because my parents never supported or pushed me to try activities when I was a child? I really don't know but for the past few weeks I've become more self aware of how shallow I am.
Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy some stuff, like reading, watching movies and TV shows, music, video games, nature... Mostly internet-related stuff tbh. But when someone asks me what are my hobbies, I'm usually ashamed of responding one of those. They make me look like a lazy "couch potato". No offense, I reckon that's literally what I am. But I'm ashamed of that.
Even when I want to take a simple walk in the forest, anxiety takes over so I stay at home and feel guilty. When I want to try something new, I feel bad if I'm not immediatly good at it. And I keep having this strange feeling, when I wanna try something new, when I want to start doing more exercise for example, I just feel like an impostor, that I'm not allowed to do it. I keep getting negative feelings towards it. I really don't know how to explain it or what causes me to feel that way. Or I think I know, it's because I'm ashamed of my own existence and I always felt like those type of stuff are for other people, not me. That I'm forbidden to live like them, since I'm such a strange non-human.

Anyways, it is getting really tiring because it makes me isolate myself even more. I don't know how to overcome this deep feeling of shame. I really wish I had more courage.

 

[hurts2b]

Irrelevant to the post but I like your PFP. It sounds like you definitely do have interests and a personality. They're just being impeded by shame.

Honestly I know this advice gets tossed around a lot. But if you have access then a therapist can really, really help with this type of situation.

Normally they'd do exposure therapy. Essentially just pushing through the shame long enough to accomplish a goal despite it. I recommend therapy because doing this wrong can make it worse. If you can't access therapy though you can still do self exposure. The important thing is start small.

So for example if you can't bring yourself to go out in nature, just sitting on your porch is still progress. Stuff like that. Also sometimes it's not even necessary to make progress, sometimes it can be more about not regressing (if that makes sense).

 

[Chocomel]

I really really feel you on this one. I am in the same boat too. Sorry that I cannot provide any how to because I myself also stuck. But I want to say thank you for making this thread, I'll be watching it from now on so I can get tips of how to get my personality back

 

[chapitaupe]

Irrelevant to the post but I like your PFP. It sounds like you definitely do have interests and a personality. They're just being impeded by shame.

Honestly I know this advice gets tossed around a lot. But if you have access then a therapist can really, really help with this type of situation.

Normally they'd do exposure therapy. Essentially just pushing through the shame long enough to accomplish a goal despite it. I recommend therapy because doing this wrong can make it worse. If you can't access therapy though you can still do self exposure. The important thing is start small.

So for example if you can't bring yourself to go out in nature, just sitting on your porch is still progress. Stuff like that. Also sometimes it's not even necessary to make progress, sometimes it can be more about not regressing (if that makes sense).

Thank you so much for your advices! I'm also trying to build enough courage to go to therapy, because I know there's so much more to unpack and I can't do it completely on my own.
"Not regressing" totally makes sense to me, since I've felt like I've regressed a lot on a few aspects of my life because of depression. But yeah, most important is to start small, that's always a great beginning, better than nothing
Thank you a lot for your words, it really helped