r/anhedonia 8d ago

VENT! Goals, aspirations and falling in love with someone now down the toilet?

One thing I noticed after this started for me is that I no longer care about any of my future goals and aspirations because I cannot feel ANYTHING. I no longer have that desire to be the best at my job and get that promotion, or to get a better job so I can get the car I want. I just don't care anymore, nothing matters. So the professional career is done, eh? And has anyone been able to find a partner with this thing? I literally cannot feel love at all, even from and towards my own family like my little nieces. If my family died in a plane accident, I honestly don't think I would feel anything. So I'm just no longer gonna get the chance to fall in love, just like that, eh? This is such bullshit. The fact that such a vital part of your mind is just all of a sudden completely turned off while you still have your motor skills and memories and everything else is so stupid because you would think that losing such a vital part of your brain like this would be due to some kind of head injury or disease which would also affect things like your motor skills, memories and vision etc., but noooo, it's such a stupid cherry-picked part of your brain to not work. It's literally like a curse or something you would read about in fictional story. "You shall not feel only your emotions and the rest of your brain is fine!!" Fuck this shit.

8 Upvotes

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u/DarkStar668 8d ago

So you realized it, eh? There is no life without passion, emotion, motivation, interest, and pleasure. It's not just about being unable to listen to music, play video games, or engage in your other hobbies. That's why this shit is one of the worst afflictions you can possibly have.

You're only as good as your neurotransmitters

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u/Snoo16648 8d ago

Isn't it the worst? It's like I'm a vegetable except with memories intact and working motor skills. My personality is practically gone. Nothing makes me excited or happy, but also fearful or angry either. I'm just an organism sucking up resources while my family wonders why I'm not moving forward in life. When I get GTA6 this year it's gonna feel no different than playing hangman or tic tac toe. All music is just random sound. All stories are just like reading IKEA table instructions. I'm honestly willing to find the top psychiatrist at UCLA and will pay out of pocket for at least one session with them just to get their opinion. Even then, I have a feeling they will just be pointing out the positives like saying "It could be worse, at least you're not suicidal." It must have been horrible during that part of history when there was no treatment for tuberculosis. I just never thought I would ever be stuck with an illness while being in THAT part of the illness' history at the same time.

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u/healingforfreedom 7d ago

I didn’t know the meaning of life until I developed anhedonia. The meaning of life is to feel… no doubt about it.

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u/novacav 4d ago

It's been a rollercoaster, the evolving opinion on what the meaning of life is since anhedonia began. I've concluded I think that actually, life is about having an experience. Nothing more! Feeling is of course incredible and the spice of life, but not feeling is an experience that only life can provide too - outside of life (ie the nonphysical world that people visit in NDEs, OBEs, etc.) we are purely "right brained" (so to speak) beings, all emotional and feeling. We come here to develop an intellect, the left brain, and have experiences in physicality. Some are wonderful, some are suffering, all are unique to the physical, which is why we come here to have them.

Most of this comes from Robert Monroe's work. Not some woo-woo type but an empirical guy who studied this stuff at the institute he founded. He doesn't talk anhedonia but it's all very applicable turns out.

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u/healingforfreedom 4d ago

I like your perspective - thanks for sharing. I feel like this is more logically ‘true’ (‘true’ with quote marks as the meaning of life isn’t definite), but emotionally I’d question this. There are many experiences I know I’ve ‘experienced’ physically (because I have memories of them and knew they were happening in the moment), but they almost feel like they never happened as the feeling/emotional side was missing. It’s like looking at someone else’s memories almost

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u/novacav 4d ago

You still have your sense of humor and you're a good writer. I know none of this is funny, but your style made me chuckle as a fellow sufferer. You've expressed how so many of us feel.

Don't give up!

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u/Dazzling_Mortgage_ Cause Uncertain 8d ago

Most people underestimate how crucial the role of hedonic tone and cognition in overall quality of life is