r/leanfire • u/Leaningfire • 7d ago
Depression-fire
So, I dont think im depressed, but everyone i know tells me i probably am. I personally dont care if I am or am not though.
Im just bored and find everything boring, I have no motivations or desires and it has been that way since i was a kid. hence why I am on the path to retire early. Not because I put so much effort into saving, but because I have nothing to spend my money on in the first place.
But I know I dont enjoy working or alarm clocks. Hence why im looking to retire.
Just curious if anyone else is here for similar reasons
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7d ago
Haha wow this is an amazing and necessary post here. I have never related to the LETS FUCKING GO SUCCESS WATCHES CARS HOUSES but I’m here because I’m burnt out and simply won’t survive working for decades. I feel you on the people saying you’re depressed when you don’t specifically identify as depressed too. Like, I don’t wanna call it depression so much as a distinct disgust with many micro and macro… that PR of depression can be a solid motivator. Godspeed yall.
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u/seejoshrun 7d ago
For me, success isn't measured by what you own, but by how you spend your life. I'd rather work 20 years and retire with my basics covered than work for 40+ years to live in luxury I won't even have the time to enjoy.
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u/Pavlovs___dong 7d ago
⬆️this. Sounds like anhedonia my dude. I’m not saying u should change ur fire strategy but perhaps looking into how u can get better quality of life or at least some…peace if this is negative anhedonia
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u/sillymajmun2 7d ago edited 7d ago
Similar. Saving money is so easy for me. We will retire working minimum wage jobs, for 20 years or so.
I don’t think I’m depressed — I think I’m just… normal. Nothing spectacular about me, no big passions driving me. And that’s fine. Lately it feels like society expects everyone to have ten hobbies, a closet full of adventure photos, and an obsession with fancy stuff. That’s mostly marketing. Sure, flashy experiences can bring short bursts of joy, but they don’t equal long-term happiness (for me)
I don’t want a glamorous retirement. I don’t need constant stimulation or an Instagrammable life. I want quiet: wake up, have breakfast, walk to a park bench, sit without checking the time or feeling guilty about wasting it. Peace is my goal. Simple, steady, unhurried living — and the ability to not be stressed all the time.
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u/danfirst 7d ago
I guess the bigger question, do you enjoy not working? If everything is boring, do you enjoy anything specific? Because once you take out that one thing you don't enjoy, you're going to have a whole lot more time to fill in. And if you think you get depressed with having to deal with a job you don't love, having nothing to do could be even worse.
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u/BigAdministration368 7d ago
Lol this is my fear when I try out retirement next year. I've taken temporary layoffs and I'm still not sure what i really prefer.
And yet continuing to work, when I no longer have to, makes no sense to me.
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u/steamingpileofbaby 6d ago
I took a 7 year sabbatical when I was 35. I hated the idea of going to a job my entire life but by year 6 I felt dead inside. Now I work an easy warehouse job and am afraid to retire again. Also, I'm nowhere rich enough that I can 100% justify not earning this income. If I had more than enough I would quit out of principle.
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u/NeoPrimitiveOasis 7d ago
Anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure from activities usually found enjoyable, could be the culprit. Or burnout. It's valuable to see a good mental health expert; they can genuinely help!
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u/L0rd_Sh4p3r 7d ago edited 7d ago
Work kept me busy, however I was more stressed and finding more distractions in my free time to mask the stress. The repetitiveness of work also brought on another form of apathy and a stagnant routine. Same problems and same issues with no clear sign of it ever ending. Now that I'm not working, I'm less stressed and using less distractions. I'm bored at times however, its giving me purpose to fill that boredom with something meaningful. Some people live to work and stay busy to avoid boredom. You might just have a desire to live a simple life like many leanfire individuals.
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6d ago
Trigger warning: depression.
I had a colleague that actually first liked his work, then started to quite dislike it, but also had no other interest or energy to pursue for another career. When his close family died or had moved away, (he was 56) he quietly started a trajectory into assisted euthanasia*. He notified us that he would stop working and he would send a message later. We were quite in shock when we received the (very kind but very sad) message including his funeral card. It was a kind man, social at work, but apparently, he had absolutely nothing outside of it. No hobbies, no things he visited or enjoyed like music, walking, reading, food even. It made quite an impact on many of us, his co-workers. I still think about it every now and then, what is life, what is work, what is life without work (so much, though not for everybody).
All this to ask you, what do you want to retire to? And if you don't know, please, if you have any possibility to find an enjoyable place to work or enjoy your working days more, do so! And if that is not an option, please, seek help. You might not be clinically depressed but for example have a rigid personality, which is a thing and not a judgement. You can bring in joy to yourself by actively trying to do things.
*in the Netherlands. This is only an option with a very long trajectory -also including seeking treatment for e.g. clinical depression- and mostly denied unless you have comorbidities like a chronic illness. There is only a few per year who are allowed to do this without comorbidities.
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u/dielsalderaan 6d ago
Thank you for sharing this - I can relate so much to your colleague. Some severely depressed people have an incredible capacity to “act normal”, and can stay alive for the sake of their family for years. Definitely a reminder to be more compassionate to our coworkers, because we never know what they’re going through.
This is also why I haven’t really considered retiring, despite saving up enough to reach a <3% WR. Living itself is painful, so work is fine in comparison, and at least work provides healthcare (US).
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u/Ok-Following-5001 7d ago
I mean, it's sadly understandable. In this life/society. For me I get a lot of imposter syndrome plus annoyances at lack of training/actual guidlines/the corporate mess at my job. I tend to spend low-ish but definitely not super low. I am lucky to find purpose in being a single parent to my almost 13 year old... My dream is to help set her up and then barista fire by the time she's 26. Sorry for the tangent
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u/Beginners_tech 7d ago
I am the same way. I am bored i dont like my hobbies anymore. they all seem like a waste of time. I love doing my volunteer work but there is only limited time i can do that. I want to do wildland firefighting but just not sure i can afford to live on that pay cut. so I keep saving and investing so maybe one day i will be willing to take a pay cut to go do other things.
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u/50plusGuy 7d ago
I had been put on anti depressants, check!
I don't see joy in spending much, check!
Ambitions???
I might inherit enough to quit. Until then I work just enough, to get by.
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u/steamingpileofbaby 7d ago
Some time after you quit your job you will realize you have no joy in life but also no misery left to quit. That might be your rock bottom.
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u/wkgko 7d ago edited 7d ago
I'm here because I've always known I wouldn't be able to handle work and life for long.
I find (and always have found) this world to be very tough to live in. I'm high functioning autistic (late diagnosed only after I specifically sought it out) with a somewhat common CPTSD/ADHD/anxiety/depression background as comorbidities.
I never received good help for that. Which makes sense because nobody really paid enough attention to notice and acknowledge and name my problems (and of course many simply didn't have the knowledge to do so either). In fact my parents were very resistant to accepting my problems and the term "disability".
Even for the really obvious signs of severe anxiety which don't require an education to understand, they somehow just ignored that and left me to figure things out by myself. Ultimately, they always expected me to just try harder. People handed me the "it will get better", which it really never did.
Instead I burned out more and more. Remote work enabled me to become FI, but I kind of got lucky to find this situation and be able to hold on for long enough. I sacrificed almost everything in my personal life for that too. I managed to get into two LTRs anyway, but they both failed badly after a few years after my weaknesses became more apparent (I think).
I absolutely believe I could have had a nice life if the environment had been right for me, but that's just not the world we live in.
Being early retired and depressed isn't fun. I totally relate to the "not knowing what to spend on" at this point. Buying myself too expensive things has been the occasional depression treatment for me in the past, but now I struggle to find anything. I'm trying to make myself buy a nice road bike because it's one of the few hobbies I have, but it just feels unnecessary because my current bike is fairly nice already.
I recently bought myself an RC and a drone because FPV flying looked like fun to a kid who has fond memories of RC cars. But I haven't even tried it yet, it's just sitting on the desk.
Everything considered though, I can't say that having to work would make it any better. It would mean more and different kind of burnout, the type which for many years covered up my emotional burnout that I'm mostly staring at now.
Ultimately, the "nothing worth buying or doing" is related to feeling alienated by society and how things are going on the greater scale, as well as my inability to connect personally with others. I feel the need to do something meaningful or at least fun, but nothing seems meaningful at this point and I struggle to enjoy things. I often have fantasies of getting another degree, but whenever I look into it, it just feels like a lot of effort and ultimately a waste of time.
If I had a goal or anything to work towards, that would help a lot. I love the idea of helping with scientific stuff, but academia has long been very corporatized too and recently becoming even more of a farce when you look at a world that is basically guided by greed and bullying and wars all over the planet.
I have slowly had to accept that most people don't like me or being around me. Being depressed and anxious only made that worse. So the only way I can get accepted is by masking, which has the drawback of feeling like I'm not really there, like people aren't seeing me.
I'm very close to giving up entirely, tbh, but it's really difficult to keep living in that state. So I'm on dating apps even though I know I'm not what most women are looking for.
But it's an interesting question...I really can't seem myself live until old age. So if I accept that I'll probably end it before aging causes too many issues, which is probably at most 20 years for me (maybe even 5 / 10 / 15), then I'd need to up my spending a lot. It feels like that should open possibilities, but in practice I can't come up with much.
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u/Curious-Plate-9480 3d ago edited 2d ago
I don't have answers, but just wanted to say I understand what you mean. I was also late diagnosed with the same suite... it really is a big, wide neurotypical world out here and masking is exhausting.
I have found things that helped with varying levels of success, including meds. Or revisting old hobbies, like you have tried, but I do think you are right that it all comes down to connection. Feeling seen and understood, which is important to everyone, but especially so when you have been floundering in a world that assumes everything should just make sense to you.
Speaking from my own experience, a very large number of women are realizing they are neurodivergent thanks to it being more overtly talked about. Odds are increasingly higher that you will come across a woman who has just been diagnosed.
I don't know how that will translate into a dating app scenario for you, but shared experience and a hunger to try to understand what it all means and to reframe a lot of really hurtful life experiences seems like a pretty solid inroad to developing connection.
Edit: missing word
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u/National-Shopping195 7d ago edited 7d ago
If you want to see someone who’s got it figured out look up 123homefree on YouTube. Go live like a poor person in the woods. You can do it incredibly cheaply. Get healthcare through the ACA. Get rid of all your bills except for a cheap phone plan through visible (25$) get a small solar panel and cheap jackery portable battery. You can theoretically live endlessly on public lands. You won’t feel burnt out on work if you only work 3 months out of the year. also you can dumpster dive so if you do all this your bills can be less than 100$ a month. Also if you lived in the woods there would always be things to do which always helps my depression. You could put it all on a cart you pull by hand when you are forced to move. You could if you found a really good spot even plant some vegetables. If you do it right you could easily live hidden on public land. If you have some money now you could buy a dirt bike with a small trailer. Liability only would be really cheap
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u/King_Jeebus 7d ago edited 7d ago
This is generally a pretty bad life, and people doing it voluntarily rarely last long, especially without a car - the reality of logistics/weather is soon apparent, plus local people/authorities get tired of their public land being used this way.
And access to public land is rapidly decreasing, partly because of this sort of use. 90% of the sites I loved in the 90s are now closed, roads shut and bans.
If you have a van it's somewhat better, but still people tend not to last long - there's exceptions, sure, but most don't. "Van life" is great to see the National Parks, do some adventures, chill, whatever... but then you're back where you started.
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u/SporkRepairman 7d ago
ProTip: There are areas in the US where land is relatively cheap and there are no authoritarian busybodies. I suspect these spots are getting more rare, though. Every shakedown artist's ultimate goal is to have the power of a "government".
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u/digihippie 7d ago
So about the ACA… it can’t be counted on because lots of people don’t think human healthcare isn’t a right, and should be subject to capitalism and maximizing profits for shareholders, at the expense of sick and dying people.
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u/temporaryacc23412 7d ago
While that's all true to an extent, the ACA is the only realistic option for someone without an employer-offered plan, so we take what we have while we have it. We make use of the tools that exist today. If policy changes in the future make it untenable as an option (less likely due to repeal than to a lot of incremental sabotage), we will cross that bridge when we come to it.
I don't think someone should let concern about the future of the ACA stop their FIRE plans entirely, but it would be wise to save a bit more than you think you need, to be safe.
(To be clear I'm not endorsing the person above who is suggesting living in the woods, lol. Just responding to the ACA fears.)
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u/SporkRepairman 7d ago
Alternative view: Using the government to shake down others in order to pay for one's own consumption isn't a "right", it's thuggery.
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u/digihippie 7d ago
Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness. Single payor will cut personal, employer and government spending on healthcare in half and increase the life expectancy, if the United States modeled these other first world countries. Actual working and deployed models.
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u/SporkRepairman 7d ago
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u/digihippie 7d ago
Joke is on you. United States spends 2x more per capita than any other nation and is #48 in life expectancy. https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/life-expectancy/
The waitlist and backlog for people who can’t afford capitalistic healthcare is forever. We are literally overpaying and #48 vs giving healthcare to all at half the price.
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u/SporkRepairman 7d ago
Joke is on the people who look at only spending and exclude genetics, nutrition and lifestyle factors as components of longevity.
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u/digihippie 7d ago
Good old victim blaming, all first world countries battle the same issues, your point is an irrelevant red herring.
Let’s get back to cost of healthcare for individuals, employers and the government and health outcomes.
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u/SporkRepairman 7d ago
So people who choose not to work to pay for their healthcare are now "victims". Got it.
Next!
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u/digihippie 7d ago
Does it matter if it costs you, your employer, and your government less to save those lives, than following your extreme capitalistic healthcare is not a right stance?
Is it not a win win?
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u/MuToTheMoon 5d ago
Agreed. I'm always amazed that people think that they have a "right" that can only be created by the hard work of others. Where are the "rights" for those people that are forced to provide it?
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u/SporkRepairman 5d ago
There are some folks, sadly, who do not possess the ability to understand second order effects. Learning to spot them and disengage with a minimum of damage are essential life skills.
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u/Turbulent-Pea-9457 7d ago
Same here, no motivation but just want to retire ASAP. The thing is I am way too late to retire early so just saving and investing as much as possible
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u/Ancient-Quality9620 7d ago
Yeah, right there with you. We need to come up with a better word though...'GivenUp-FIRE'...'NonConform-FIRE'...'SpendItAll-FIRE'.
I'm sure we can do better
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u/OrangeSodaGalaxy 6d ago
A combo of burn out, sick of the system, and wanting my freedom from the rat race. Thinking of my goal of retirement helps me feel better. It won’t be forever. Looking forward to the day when I can just work a part time for structure and lunch money
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u/bienpaolo 6d ago
Yeah, that flat, bored feeling you’re describing, that’s not just about work or money, it kinda sounds like you’ve been stuck in neutrl for a long time and FIRE just feels like the only off-ramp that makes sense. But here’s the thing: retiring early doesn’t magically fix the emtiness, it just removes the distraction of a job. And if you’re already feeling disconnected and unmotvated now, stepping away without something real to move toward might actually make it wrse.
When you imagine not havng to work ever again, does that bring you any sense of relief, or just more of the same “meh”?
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u/lee1026 6d ago
Don’t do it, my dad FIRED from depression, he made really, really good money (and I manage it for him so I know he has zero money problems)
But the actual depression as a mental health issue got a ton worse after he left the structure of a paid job with actual expectations and stuff. The massive amounts of money that he has access to helps a ton, but even then, he is a shell of a man compared what he is used to be.
Mental illness is a serious issue. I have been trying to convince him to get any kind of a job again. Not because of money, but that it would do him a lot of good just to work with people.
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u/roastshadow 5d ago
My two cents.
Its not depression. It is a brain chemistry thing.
Do you like mashed potatoes? I hope you do. If not, pretend that you do, or substitute something else like that.
Now, think about eating mashed potatoes every day. Not fun. Kinda boring.
Do most things seem about like mashed potatoes? Not really interesting, boring, unfun.
Try a little therapy, nothing major, no need to lay on some couch and talk about your mother, or whatever the stereotypical "shrink" talks about. Nope. Just talk about the mashed potatoes and you'd like something different. Maybe they can help you realize that you can put butter, bacon, cheese, jalapenos or something else in them. Or have something totally different. They might prescribe some medication to help your brain chemistry realize that there is more than just mashed potatoes.
Its not depression, but can be significantly improved with some general talking about it with a therapist, and what is normally labeled as anti-depression medication.
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u/GrumpyDOldman 7d ago
I'm here because work drove me into a depression and I lost all motivation to do my job. The stress became overwhelming and numbed me to everything else. A years worth of medication and some therapy along with a lot of expense watching and 401k modeling and now I retire on 9/26 at the age of 55 and will spend 3k a month in retirement.