Can anxiety be a result of not doing anything important in your life?

[ThePoint]

When I got severe depression out of nowhere a year ago (possibly from burnout) I had zero anxiety. None.

I went from being a high-functioning, productive person, working all day, to struggling to get out of bed.

All that happened was that I felt like I lost my self and my personality. I no longer enjoyed the things I was previously extremely passionate about. Everything suddenly felt dull. It felt like I wasn't living life, I was just surviving life, just trying to get through the day. I was not sad either. Just numb. It's the depression that persists despite of circumstances, not the one that is caused by circumstances e.g. financial issues.

I was apathetic, indifferent to everything. No longer cared about anything. Just completely emotionally numb.

I couldn't even care more about researching to get out of this depression. I had so much fatigue, low motivation, and emotional numbness, that I felt no emotional charge to research to heal myself. All of my motivation to research to heal myself is a logical "should". As in "I should be doing this, I should know that this is not the way to live life" rather than "I want to do this, I know that this is not the way to live life."

With this, my ability to do things and be productive had completely plummeted. 

As the months went by, I was doing less and less important things, and I ended up developing anxiety. 

So now, not only do I have this issues I mentioned above, I also have anxiety, catastrophization, and paranoia on top of that. 

Could this anxiety/paranoia be a result of my apathy/depression? No longer feeling passion for my vision and goals like I used to? No longer feeling like my self? 

It sounds weird but I want to "be numb" again. I think emotional numbness was causing me less suffering than this anxiety/paranoia. 

Edited August 16, 2022 by ThePoint

[Hugo Oliveira]

I think nobody here can tell you the reason for your anxiety. But it seems curious someone saying that want to "be numb". Question if it is true for you or just a facade.

We all have psychological and emotional needs, if you don't have these needs met, you can get sick, even if you are already sick, you can get worse. 

I've seen people who "just don't care" about their lives and their depression. But it has a cost.  Begin by asking yourself what you really want and what you don't. 

[Hugo Oliveira]

Just now, Hugo Oliveira said:

We all have psychological and emotional needs

"Significance" may be one of them.

[at_anchor]

22 hours ago, ThePoint said:

It's the depression that persists despite of circumstances, not the one that is caused by circumstances e.g. financial issues.

It is always the circumstances. For me personally at least. And your anxiety and paranoia could also be caused by real world threats. Yeah, maybe they are not there all the time and you stay depressed when you shouldn't, but how do you know? In the end it could be that circumstances caused you to feel depressed, anxious and paranoied. Maybe someome threatened you or broke the law on you real hard repeatedly, but you don't have any proof and then you feel the way you feel.