How can I recover my motivation?

I have been unemployed for almost a year due to POCD, severe anxiety, and depression. I almost have no motivation to do anything. I am almost 26 and I am ashamed of myself to be in this position. 10 years ago I never would've imagined being like this; a loser who lost his job due to severe anxiety/depression and living with his parents. I have been out of college for almost a year, and I am thinking of going back. I lost my motivation when this depression hit. It involved porn, which then turned into ocd. Its been about 2 years and I am still dealing with it. I am no longer viewing porn and I have gone better. I just can't explain the hopelessness and depression I feel. My therapist doesn't think I am applying myself enough to get a job. In fact, he thinks I am not trying. But I am. I don't know how to get out of this depression. This is rock bottom. I don't know how to recover my motivation. Please help me.

I think trying to find work AND motivation at the same time. And in the same place. Is a really big ask. Are you on meds for the depression or anxiety / OCD? It's possible they might need a tweak to reflect where you are now. Rather than where you were then.

What do you enjoy doing? Without judgement about whether it's a "good" use of time or not. Where in the day do you feel involved or interested?

I agree with Ada in that doing things you enjoy and are interested will starting guiding your actions and increase your motivation. I also believe you should take some time to acknowledge how far you have come on your journey. It's very easy to be hard on ourselves, but you have been doing the work on yourself. You have come far since you first started your healing process.

Sometimes we lose motivation because we need to take a time out and do nothing.
Sometimes we lose our motivation because we need to make decisions about things we want to do now that we are healing and have healed.
When I was going through some personal healing, doing things I enjoyed took some time.
I took baby steps. I started taking walks again, being in nature, and I when I wanted to get a job, I sought assistance.

Many local communities have Workforce One Centers and One Stop Centers. I learned how to do a really good resume, got acquainted with online job searching and got back into the game.
If I started to lack motivation, I took a little break and engaged in the things I liked doing.

Good luck. Keep experimenting. You will find ways that can help increase your motivation. If something doesn't work, let it go, and keep trying other things.

I feel better when I'm listening to music on my ipod. I guess its what's keeping me going right now. I've always wanted to learn to play an instrument. The guitar, for instance. It just never came up. I want to pursue something new. I want to go back to school to get my Masters.

The problem is that I feel like I am stuck in the past and I can't seem to move forward. Like I forgot to do something or complete something to the point that it kills me. After 9th grade, strangely as it sounds I didn't want to leave despite the bullying and the abuse. I wanted to stay with the same people. Its kind of hard to explain, but I feel like I belonged there. I moved and met new people and I was never bullied again, but I always wondered what would've happened if I stayed with them. I was never able to let them go or move forward. I wanted to go back and I don't know why. To this day, I still think about it a lot. I feel that the past caught up with my present. I started watching the year after I left those people. Now that I am leaving porn, I'm starting to feel everything I did in 9th grade: getting angry a lot, not letting things go, feeling anxious/depressed. Money is a problem right now, so I am not seeing my therapist regularly. I don't know what I am looking at as far as the problem. I know that I have problems, but I don't know how to tackle it.

You are never alone, please remember there are so many people who can relate to everything you're feeling. Hope you can start feeling better soon

Motivation isn't what you need its self discipline. Motivation comes and goes but discipline keeps you going. Research it about has helped me in my life and get stuff done. Focus on finding a job and resolving the roots of your depression and anxiety. Hope this helps and God bless.

Some psychiatric drugs cause anhedonia,

Anhedonia (/ˌænhiˈdoʊniə/ AN-hee-DOH-nee-ə; Greek: ἀν- an-, "without" and ἡδονή hēdonē, "pleasure") is defined as the inability to experience pleasure from activities usually found enjoyable, e.g. exercise, hobbies, music, sexual activities or social interactions. While earlier definitions of anhedonia emphasized pleasurable experience, more recent models have highlighted the need to consider different aspects of enjoyable behavior, such as motivation or desire to engage in activities (motivational anhedonia), as compared to the level of enjoyment of the activity itself ("consummatory anhedonia")


Sometimes person experiences a mental side effect, such as anhedonia, he or she is likely to attribute it to something other than drug, perhaps blaming it on a loved one or on their own "mental illness."

That's what happened to me. The drug I was on zombified the crap out of me all day but I didn't realize it cause I only took it at night to sleep.

I found Adderal motivating when I was on that but the crash was lame.