This article explains exactly what's happening in my life. I never knew happiness and I'm almost afraid to be happy. I've been in my neutral, numb state for as long as I can remember, and I think this has caused me not only to not be happy but also not even recognize opportunities to be happy.

But, there's another thing that this article does not mention, and that's falling into a pattern of inaction because you were guilted and goaded into action as a child. This happens when there is someone in your life (e.g. a parent) that constantly tells you what to do and guilt-trips you for not doing something. The effect is you eventually hate action and will never take it on your own until someone forces you to do something or your life literally depends on it. Even then some people still don't do it and the results are obviously tragic, but at that point I think the person doesn't care about themselves anymore anyway. This thing happened in my life and the net result for me was that I did not want to do something out of my own effort, everything became a "chore". I'll be quite honest now, I am overweight, but the constant bombardment of information from my family and stuff on TV telling me how I'm going to die young, and how unhealthy it is, and all this negative information has demotivated me so, because they all make a mountain of a molehill. All their talk is making it sound like such a huge thing to tackle that you don't even want to attempt it. And, I'm actually now at a point where I would like to die young, so I really don't care anymore and that obviously means I do nothing about it. So that's another factor that they should add in to the article, is to avoid people who have already attained success (i.e. success stories, because it is the case with so many people that other's success makes us feel WORSE about our own situation and leads to inaction) or people who THINK they are coaching you by interfering or guilt-tripping you in your life, seek a professional to help you. The worst two words that are often used are "come on...". I guess to sum-up what I'm saying is when someone tells you to take action that often leads to inaction. People need to inspire you to do something, not tell you.

To nummy, yeah, I had an alcoholic father too and much of what you describe is what happened to me too. It was always best not to argue with him. Thing is, I have no brothers or sisters so there was no one to turn to or escape with. I believe that today I am a lonely person because I just found a way to do things by myself being an only child. It was difficult growing up as a young boy with a drunken dad. There was a time in my life when we never communicated (when I was about 9-12) and I recall him not wanting to do anything with me but rather sit and drink with his drinking-buddies. Towards the later parts of the evening they would always (in a drunken state) drag me closer and then begin to preach about all sorts of stuff and tell me to go fill their glasses again. All this stuff I believe is what made me withdraw eventually. Couple all of this with Asperger's syndrome (recently diagnosed) and about 10 years of bullying at school (which I never told anyone about of course) and I'm pretty much dead inside at this point. I see no reason to do any action. Tackling one problem is unfortunately only the tip of the iceberg for me. I have hundreds of issues in my life that all need attention. It's all just too much .