'Working from home depression' is leaving some young people isolated and numb

• Young people are in a working-from-home slump.
• Some are describing the isolation and numbness as "working from home depression."

Young remote workers are stuck in a rut — alarm, laptop, sleep, repeat.

Some are describing the isolation and numbness as "working from home depression."

Grace Phelan is one of them. She posted a TikTok in October, because she thought she it couldn't be just her. And she was right.

Phelan said working from home, and the rainy British winter weather, made her fear she would barely leave the house for months to come.

"For the last God knows however many days, I've literally gone from bed, straight to laptop," she said in her post.

"On a good day, potentially walk to the gym, do an average gym session and come back, and then watch TV. But not really watch TV because I'm sat on TikTok. And then go to bed and do the same thing all over again."

She said she'd broken down in front of her boyfriend because the monotony was getting to her, and she didn't want to live this way anymore.

"But equally, I start looking for a new job or whatever, and I don't think I would want to go into the office every day either, and have to deal with the commute, and talking to people, and actually having to put makeup on," she said.

"So yeah, struggling to find a solution."

Despite having few followers, Phelan's video connected, and dozens of people told her they felt the exact same way.

Insider spoke to Phelan, who said she works for her mom's sustainability-software business, but had trained as a pastry chef at the high-end restaurant chain Ottolenghi.

Before that, she was working in an office as an account manager, but "completely burnt myself to the ground."

"I was working in London, I was going out four or five times a week, I was spending way beyond my means," she said. "It was crazy and I burnt out."

Now Phelan is in a strange limbo where she wants a new job, but is reluctant to accept the tradeoffs of in-person working.

"I feel privileged to be in the position where I can work from home, so it made me feel guilty, the thought that I was feeling so depressed about being here," she said

"But then when I'd look at jobs where I have to be in the office every day, I was thinking, well, I also don't think I would want to do that either, because I've done that before and I hated it."

A TikToker, who goes by the name Bemsie, posted along similar lines a couple of days before.

She said she wakes up when her alarm goes off at 9 a.m. every morning, grabs her laptop, and then works from bed for about two hours before really moving.

She then battles distractions like Netflix and TikTok all day before finishing work, watching some TV, then going to bed again.

"Then I lie awake in bed for about four hours on TikTok or other things, or getting my head completely messed up, thinking about things that I don't need to think about, but I do," she said.

"And then eventually I fall asleep because I'm so tired I can't keep my eyes open. And it's like 4 a.m. at this point. And then the alarm goes off at 9 again the next morning."

When the weekend rolls around, Bemsie said she rarely had the energy for socializing, while her peers seemed to be cramming in full and rewarding lives.

"Why am I stuck like this?" she asked

Kelsey Latimer, PhD, a licensed psychologist based in Texas, told Insider that those who are extroverted, and get energy from being around people, are likely to struggle most with working from home.

"Even those that are introverted can still struggle because there is a sort of lack of structure that comes from being at home versus having an office to go to," she said. "People may get lax in terms of getting ready for work, taking a morning shower, getting dressed, and start to develop bad habits such as working in their bed all day."

These things are nice once in a while, Latimer said, but if they become the norm it can form an unhealthy cycle.

To help break it, Latimer recommended a daily routine of getting up, showered, and dressed to make you feel ready for the workday.

She also discouraged the idea of working from bed — our brains associate it with sleep so it'll likely make us feel slow and sluggish. It can also make it harder to properly rest.

A small work area can solve this problem, Latimer said, such as a dedicated office, or even a little desk if you don't have a spare room.

Phelan said she incorporated a walk into her daily routine, which helped, although she sometimes feels bad for not being at her desk.

Beth, a TikToker who posts about living with ADHD, provided her own take about the working from home slump. She said she too used to be a work-from-bed person.

"My life was so fucking depressing," she said in one post.

One thing that helped her break the cycle was finding time for herself, whether taking a morning walk, a yoga class, or even just spending an hour in bed before work.

"You are doing something for you before you do anything for your employer," she said — something that makes you feel like you're not "rotting away and just working your life away."

As expected, post about work-from-home depression attracted naysayers. Some described Phelan and Bemsie as just being "lazy" or told them to stop moaning.

Phelan said she didn't let it bother her though. The good far outweighed the bad.

"I just try and see the funny side of it," she said.

"They're obviously not in a good place themselves if they're writing negative things on people's TikToks."