Anyone else living with anhedonia? Feels so pointless.

[halfway_y]

So I think I've been anhedonic for about 10 years now. It means I've lost ability to enjoy anything I've liked before, I can't connect with anything, be it people, stories, games, movies, everything feels the same, zero feedback inside my head. It's been a gradual process, I think it wasn't as bad when I was still in high school, but even since I've started university I completely died inside. It might be comination of genetics, stress, trauma, just bad things happening in life at inconvenient times. I've tried meds a few times, but they didn't really do anything other than kill ability to masturbate. I've tried therapy, it sort of did nothing as well. I tried to open up and dig deeper and unlock emotions or whatever, but it was all futile so far.

Life is really pointless this way. And so few people understand this. I wonder if anyone here can relate.

 

[SASU-KE]

Utterly brutal. I'm capable of love, affection, sadness,empathy,pretty much every emotion. Reasonably high functioning.I have a good job, I work hard. Have a decent family.

I'm only unable to feel happy. There's no joy in anything. I have the means to travel. I can buy what I want. None of it brings me any happiness. I'm just existing and not living.

I still do everything I need to do out of a sense of duty though. It is just tiresome as hell.

 

[akafuka1999]

I think only drugs work for anhedonia. At least for me. I cant enjoy anything without an opiate.

 

[Star67]

Utterly brutal. I'm capable of love, affection, sadness,empathy,pretty much every emotion. Reasonably high functioning.I have a good job, I work hard. Have a decent family.

I'm only unable to feel happy. There's no joy in anything. I have the means to travel. I can buy what I want. None of it brings me any happiness. I'm just existing and not living.

I still do everything I need to do out of a sense of duty though. It is just tiresome as hell.

I'm in the same boat. The worst thing is that I can't enjoy music like I used to. Most times it sounds like noise. I remember being younger and putting on a song and getting goosebumps and having to hear it over and over again. I remember becoming obsessed with bands, musicians, movies. I remember being full of life
I've had anhedonia for 11 years continually and it's terrible. Most times I'm not sad or depressed, I just feel dead on the inside. I can still laugh, enjoy food, get some very baseline pleasure from things. But I've completely lost the ability to become engulfed by positive emotions. Music being the worst. I no longer get goosebumps when I listen to music or become obsessed with things. It's terrible and no one seems to understand. I've also tried countless meds, most of which have not help. Some scratched the surface and then stopped working. Im currently doing ECT but I have such a nasty drinking problem that I don't know if it'll work. Being drunk, especially to the point where I feel nothing, is the only thing that works. And being an addict/alcoholic it's real hard to quit for long periods of time.

 

[HopelessScientist]

Hello! Yes, I've had complete consummatory anhedonia for four years. Not even substances work!

I still have some anticipatory wanting however, and completed a degree in neuroscience. What I learned from that is: we're kinda fucked. We need more research on how to treat consummatory anhedonia.

I am trying agomelatine and bupropion for it. I tried MIF-1, MAOIs and ketamine (all DIY).
It's tough, but I knew someone who apparently recovered after 10 years.

 

[itsgone2]

Yes. It's awful. Joy in nothing.

 

[SASU-KE]

I'm in the same boat. The worst thing is that I can't enjoy music like I used to. Most times it sounds like noise. I remember being younger and putting on a song and getting goosebumps and having to hear it over and over again. I remember becoming obsessed with bands, musicians, movies. I remember being full of life
I've had anhedonia for 11 years continually and it's terrible. Most times I'm not sad or depressed, I just feel dead on the inside. I can still laugh, enjoy food, get some very baseline pleasure from things. But I've completely lost the ability to become engulfed by positive emotions. Music being the worst. I no longer get goosebumps when I listen to music or become obsessed with things. It's terrible and no one seems to understand. I've also tried countless meds, most of which have not help. Some scratched the surface and then stopped working. Im currently doing ECT but I have such a nasty drinking problem that I don't know if it'll work. Being drunk, especially to the point where I feel nothing, is the only thing that works. And being an addict/alcoholic it's real hard to quit for long periods of time.

I tried drinking but I'm never doing that again. I don't like myself when I'm drinking. Your situation is pretty similar to mine. The worst thing nowadays is that I just sit down and look at the floor for a long time sometimes when I could be doing 10 different other things.I'm wilting on the inside. One thing I've learned from experience is drinking is not going to help. It only makes things worse.It does feel good initially, I'm not going to lie, but down the line it gets much, much worse.

 

[Star67]

I tried drinking but I'm never doing that again. I don't like myself when I'm drinking. Your situation is pretty similar to mine. The worst thing nowadays is that I just sit down and look at the floor for a long time sometimes when I could be doing 10 different other things.I'm wilting on the inside. One thing I've learned from experience is drinking is not going to help. It only makes things worse.It does feel good initially, I'm not going to lie, but down the line it gets much, much worse.

I've been there; I've lost a lot to the bottle. I was sober for nearly 2 and a half years but life has its own plans I guess. And so here I am now. The bottle the only thing that brings me any sense of solace, no matter how small

 

[halfway_y]

What I learned from that is: we're kinda fucked.

That's really unfortunate. :(

 

[charlavail]

yeah, i have no joy in anything. even when i had a puppy briefly (had to give her back bc it was gonna fuck with my bipolar/sleep/manic) i remember having this cute little thing in my car and thinking "wow, i still wanna die and i feel nothing."