I almost don’t feel like the same person I was just 5 years ago. Granted, this is my first 5 years of working full-time, outside of schooling, so I’m no longer actively studying and practicing my mathematical skills.
But beyond that, I just feel like I don’t have free will? My health is degrading because I have unhealthy eating habits, and I really want to stop, and I don’t even really enjoy eating unhealthy food anymore, but I think I might actually be chemically dependent on the refined sugar, carbs, and fat. I work 10 hour days and then I’m too exhausted to eat healthy. If I meal prep healthy food, I sometimes just waste it because I’d rather order a couple burgers. I used to be vegan, and I still think vegans are basically correct, but I no longer have self-discipline.
It feels impossible to fix this shit. Reading what I’ve laid out, I think, “what you need is therapy”. And yeah, maybe, but I’ve had like 7 different therapists and somehow I feel like it usually just becomes a space for me to go and be all introspective and sharing everything about myself to this quiet professional who isn’t really leading the conversation, isn’t contributing much, isn’t giving me an idea of what therapy is supposed to be. There’s just long awkward silences while I think of things to say? And I’m paying $90/hour? So far the only utility to me has been a place to vent. But now I’m doing that here instead because it’s free.
~40 y/o vegan checking in: What you’re describing sounds like burnout. I got it around age 35 after failing to establish good professional/personal limits, and using food and pot as pressure valves.
For me, I had to make a bunch of lifestyle changes that weren’t easy, but were necessary. The first one was quitting my job. If you change your situation, then fix your food, get moderate regular exercise and sleep your brain will indeed still work. For many decades in fact (or so I’m told).
Now I will stray further into ‘what worked for me’, so I risk telling you things that are tuned for my personal situation, but you still may find them useful. A therapy recommendation: just read Feeling Good by Burns and self-service. Therapy doesn’t need to be a lifelong subscription service and, outside of severe cases, anti-depressants mask and delay dealing with depression. Meditation is similarly a free tool that can be quite useful. As are walks outside looking at trees.
Good luck!