Normally I'd be inclined to say that "laziness" is a symptom of many mental illnesses, but since "lazy" has such moral baggage attached to it, I avoid describing it like that.
In writing or talking about similar problems, I've used descriptions such as, "It's basically like being really lazy, except when people are lazy for normal reasons, they can stop being lazy whenever it suits them," or, "It's like being lazy, except laziness normally comes with some expectation of benefit, and this does not."
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Originally Posted by ScientiaOmnisEst
But, viewed from the outside, it does sound supremely lazy. "Oh, I just don't have the energy to work, so I'll sit and watch Netflix all day because I'm sad." How, to a typical person, does that not sound like a character flaw rather than weakness or laziness?
Not too long ago I mentioned something in a Youtube comment section about how medication and various medical conditions can cause weight gain (in response to someone basically blowing those claims off as excuses). Someone then shot back that "There's no disease that makes you shove cupcakes in your mouth all day." I think a similar mentality can easily be put here: "Wanting to sleep and watch TV all day doesn't make you helplessly mentally ill." I suppose I'm a little concerned here - things like credibility?
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It's certainly a public relations concern, so I recommend people choose their descriptions carefully if they're publishing something....
But if someone is devoted to being arrogant and hateful, there's not much you can do. Take that person who said, "There's no disease that makes you shove cupcakes in your mouth all day,"--um, yes there is. I bet the person who said that has never felt a soul-crushing, mind-consuming compulsion to eat on any kind of chronic or frequent basis. They just feel normal-person cravings, and they are patting themselves on the back for being able to resist those cravings, while looking down on other people for failing to resist what they assume are the same level of cravings. (Plus, if that discussion was about obesity more generally, many medications and medical problems make you gain weight
without increasing your calorie intake or decreasing your physical activity. And I feel like it should be pretty obvious that lots of health problems will interfere with physical activity, thereby reducing calories burned.)
I feel like wanting to sleep and watch TV all day
does make someone mentally ill, especially if they want to do it on a regular basis. (Normal life-related weariness would cause that kind of behavior occasionally, but something's wrong if you want to do it all the time.) If I even try to imagine that, it sounds really unpleasant--who the heck would want to do it if they
weren't mentally ill?! Okay, if you have some good TV shows, I can understand numerous hours of TV-watching, and things like Netflix will be much better than broadcast television. But sleeping? Sleeping is boring. Once you get whatever amount of sleep your body wants, you can't even keep sleeping; you'll end up laying there just
trying to sleep and failing. Booooooriiiiing. And if you're vegging out on Netflix really often, it's eventually going to start running low on new shows you actually like. You will either have to watch reruns or lower your standards. (I used to veg out with the internet rather than TV, and I remember thinking, "I know I must be depressed because
the internet has run out of captioned cat pictures.")
It sounds boring to me even though I'm introverted, but extroverted people (about half the population) tend to dislike large quantities of solitary activities, so I imagine it's even worse for them.