Loads of depressed friends and acquaintances of mine joke that they're funnier or make better art when they're in a bad place, and it's always worried me, because my experience is nothing like that

Ever since I became properly depressed around 2020 and fell out of love with digital art, I feel like I don't think as creatively anymore and don't have the same spontaneity and excitement that used to drive it- I barely draw or write anymore, and when I do, it feels trite and basic in a way it never did before. I look back on stuff I drew or wrote when I was 16 or 17 and had some enthusiasm for life, and it feels like it was created by a completely different person

My social life has also just disappeared (for a lot of reasons- I'm not close with my family, I dropped out of school, I don't relate to the conservative community I live in), but in the rare event I do talk to someone, I've become the "haha yeah" guy who's just incapable of holding a conversation- I used to be able to crack jokes and make witty observations and hold people's attention, but for the last few years, it feels like it takes loads of effort just to string together a sentence, and I can only function in group environments where other people are doing most of the talking

These are kind of linked together because I'm so low-energy now. The best way I've found to explain it is I constantly feel like I just woke up an hour ago and my brain's only about 60% woken-up? I don't feel like I have running background thoughts anymore, my mind's-eye is just white noise and I have permanent brain fatigue and can't focus on difficult mental tasks anymore

It's especially bad because I'm friends with tons of artists and writers and comedians, and it REALLY fucking hurts to see them making incredible things and constantly improving while I'm stuck in a rut, or feel them drifting away because we no longer have creative work in common as a passion