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Hey /r9k/, I drafted something to explain what my mental illness feels like, and I'd really appreciate some feedback. No outline was used in its making, so it could definitely use some tweaking. Call it shit if you'd like, I just want to know what you think.
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Now that my depression has leveled out, it looks like there's nothing more beneficial for me, and possibly interesting to you, than for me to explain my affliction in-depth, and show how foreign it really is to the rest of mankind. I want to make it clear that I don't speak for everyone with the symptoms I listed - only myself. One of the harshest parts of mental illnesses are how they isolate us from one another, despite being quite similar otherwise.
To begin with, Anhedonia is a medical term that denotes the inability to feel pleasure, and may be subdivided into motivational anhedonia (pleasure from motivation) and consummatory anhedonia (pleasure from the activities themselves). Whereas the former saps one's energy to do enjoyable activities, the latter removes the potential for enjoyment itself. Someone with only consummatory anhedonia may remember why a thing was enjoyable in the past, but return to do it only to find that you feel nothing.
And that's it. By describing a feeling as "nothing", you run the risk of associating it with a sort of artistic emptiness like the sort found in Existentialist literature, but the reality is much less grand. You're simply feeling the physical activity itself, while your brain yields roughly the same amount of joy as watching paint dry. Certain activities, like lurking 4chan, give just enough stimulus to keep you mildly entertained until the day is over. In this state, the brain often goes on auto-pilot, and mindlessly clicks on the first threads it sees that promise a cheap thrill. This road inevitably leads to endless clickbait, twitter screenshots, and other content which leaves one ending the day not a little better off than they began it.
(cont.)
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But in a way, it's necessary. Anything else, and you run the risk of staring your problem in the face. Buy a new video game, for instance, and after several hours of rudimentary action it becomes unplayable when you realize you should be feeling some kind of pleasure at this point. Create a song, and the absence of gratification is striking. Show up to an after-school club, make yourself a bit outgoing, and even have them laugh at a few of your jokes - you laugh too, because it's a natural physical reaction, but nothing about it feels good or indicates in any way that you'd like it to happen again.
Yes, you're different at the core. Even to other Depressed people, the Anhedonic person is a true outsider: While a Depressive may be fixed helpessly at the bottom of the scale of emotion, fully Anhedonic people are almost outside of it, and any glimpse of it is like the impression of a current under a thick layer of ice. At times, one can almost sense the pleasure being blocked in their minds at a spot just behind the temple, especially during headaches.
It does not budge, either. Common recommendations to aid Depression such as exercise, proper nutrition, and meditation help in maintaining a stable life, but do nothing to restore the experiences you've lost. Your best odds come from remission through dumb luck, or through medication, where chances are slim. Few on the internet claim to have Anhedonia, and even fewer claim to have escaped from it. For every ambiguous post writing about the unforeseen joys of convalescence, there's more than a dozen posts from people several years in showing no signs of progress - for some, even decades.
In this state, it's difficult to say you're truly alive. No human subject is interesting, and you sense deep-down that no experience can truly satisfy you in the state you're in, which is confirmed every moment you attempt something new.
(cont.)
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>>37463524
this is too long for my attention span, but I'm bumping for potential.
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Sufferers of this disease have little else to do but wait patiently for their illness to subside, and if it ever ends, come to regard it like a very long nightmare from which no real lesson can be learned, except that there are no limits to the human experience, and some people can be very unlucky indeed.
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>>37463543
Appreciate it, man.
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>>37463524
Bumping so maybe others can read
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There is a lot that I left out. The final version should be much longer, since there's whole fields I didn't even touch on. Some big ones include hope, the different kinds of pleasure (AKA atmospheric stuff versus physical stuff), internal debates about life/art being meaningless, and losing touch with your former self. If anyone's curious about one of these things, I'd be happy to explain it.
>>37463719
Thanks anon.
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>>37463524
does anyone want to make this a general mental illness thread?
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>>37463524
I didn't read all of this but Ive been diagnosed with profound Anhedonia and dysthymia. It sucks but it gets you the bux.
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>>37463776
That would be excellent. I've always wondered exactly how other people with mental illness view their problems, and how they explain them rationally. Sure, they make you see the world in a certain way, but rarely do you see people really trying to understand it.
I'm pretty curious how severe social anxiety works, if anyone feels like going in-depth on that.
>>37463803
For how long now? And what solutions have you tried?
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>>37463827
Finally got diagnosed 2 years ago but I've been this way my entire life. I'm 29 now and in some ways it seems to be getting worse. I try to do things all the time, writing, drawing, reading, gardening, exercise, eating good but it can't cover up my underlying nothingness. I've come to accept it I guess and live as good as I can.
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>>37463867
You've never felt pleasure, then?
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Depression is a meme. With proper diet, sleep, excersize and mentally stimulating activities, it is impossible to be depressed.
Fuck off attention seeking normie
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>>37463887
Not in the sense that I've had it described to me by normal people. The hardest realization was that sex and intimacy does nothing for me. I also shot up heroin for a three month period and was able to drop it with literally zero withdrawal effects because it brought me nothing but oblivion. It's easier to just drink for the same blankness.
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>>37463913
Imagine if, for no foreseeable reason, everything in your life ceased to be enjoyable. No, I'm not talking about ennui, where it's getting lame and you need a fresh take on things; I mean everything simply ceasing to bring you any kind of pleasure or satisfaction. It may sound ridiculous, but this is a real thing, and it is very difficult to remove.
>>37463944
That's fascinating. Ever speak to a professional about that? You could be an interesting study.
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>>37463965
How is your sleep?
Your diet?
Do you excersize?
Do you talk to others regularly?
Also if you jack off that means you still feel pleasure
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>>37464013
My sleep is decent. Diet could be better. I don't exercise much. I talk to people regularly at my job, including occasional jokes with coworkers.
You're right about the masturbation. Along with candy and super-accessible melodies, it's one of the few things I still enjoy. I doubt it invalidates what I've said, however. Some people enjoy absolutely nothing, and I'm just thankful that hasn't happened to me.
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>>37463827
I think that the problem isn't that people are mentally ill, but that society is mentally ill.
The fact that the country can reach a point where over 50% of the population will be considered to have a fatal problem in their mental functioning indicates that most mental disorders aren't so much the fault of the person who has the disorder, but rather the world around them.
Perhaps the most sick element of our society is that people who want to commit suicide are viewed as inherently being mentally unstable/incorrect. Like, who the fuck are these people, and who the hell do they think they are, to say that not wanting to live in such a sick world is a sign of insanity and irrationality.
That's the worst of it. A person who wants to kill themselves isn't justified unless they have a physical disorder causing constant horrific pain (and which is also incurable).
But a person who was locked in a cage as a child and raped daily, who has known nothing but abuse, who has no friends, no family, and lives in poverty. A person who ceases to fear death by virtue of becoming death itself, is a sick and selfish person for deciding they want to quietly opt out of society's madness.
That is the problem with the world we live in. I pray for the all the people with mental illnesses to be delivered from the mental illness of society which has been thrust upon them, that this crown of thorns may be lifted off of their heads, and that they may find peace.
For my own part, I am not very mentally ill. I have however been diagnosed as having OCD, and was also retroactively """diagnosed""" as having depression. I also was in a mental hospital two times: once last year, and once when I was 7 years old.
to all with mental disorders: you have not abandoned society, rather, your society has foresaken you!
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>>37464039
First you should fix your diet, then you should find a sports club or something along those lines. Frankly, you sound bored of your current life, and that's pretty normal in today's world. Try and find something you like doing and pursue it.
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>>37463536
>one can almost sense the pleasure being blocked in their minds at a spot just behind the temple
For me, it's like a buildup of pressure. I'd roughly describe it as confining. Just like you say, no real discernible emotion, only bodily sensations.
>>37463758
>The final version should be much longer, since there's whole fields I didn't even touch on
Could you put everything on a document that's easily edited and put the link on here (before the thread dies). Thanks.
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>>37464107
I think you're right to some degree. Our current world is pretty fucked up, and we coast off of a combination of convenient facts and our shallow emotions to ignore everything else around us. When you dissect the world and get really analytical, especially in regards to society, you find a lot of hypocrisy that shows how little people care about actually doing certain things, and it mostly just feels nice to say it and pretend. If you haven't, I recommend Schopenhauer's essay on suicide.
>>37464137
I understand where you're coming from, anon, but what I have experienced is on another level entirely. I experienced a prolonged slide over two years into apathy, and was cognizant of it for the second half. My life continues to change and grow around me, yet despite the success I've encountered, I'm still lost in the same mental fog. Last Christmas, I came upon my mother unconscious on the floor. She nearly overdosed, and my first reaction was a delayed panic, because I noticed I wasn't at all scared at the idea of losing her. It goes well beyond simple boredom.
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>>37464137
>Anhedonia
>find something you like
It's not that easy desu
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>>37464212
I'd be happy to add it onto a document, do you know how to set one up with google?
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>>37464238
>do you know how to set one up with google?
Not at all desu, I was hoping you knew. I'll try to look into it now. I'm not sure if pastebin would be a better option, since idk much about it either.
>I'd be happy
From one to another, "heh."
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>>37464217
It could be a number of things affecting the way you feel. Please try and fix your diet and exercise regularly, you might be surprised how much it helps.
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>>37464232
>Making big names for a set of broad symptoms to make it sound more legitimate
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>>37464280
Appreciate the concern. I am the closest to a healthy weight that I've ever been, which is nice, but my diet of coffee and chocolate isn't doing any favors. Lately I've felt too drained to cook any actual food, but maybe I should go for it.
>>37464277
I'm up for Pastebin. Won't be here tomorrow until about midnight EST, if that's important. Do you have any more feedback on it? I'm interested.
>heh
Well, you know what I mean.
>>37464297
Anhedonia is a very concise term for the symptom. It's not at all vague like Depression, but means precisely what it says: You physically cannot enjoy something.
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>>37464357
>Do you have any more feedback on it?
Nothing in particular I can think of at the moment. I was just hoping to weigh a comprehensive and articulate account of the thing against my own experiences. Not sure I've ever seen a post here about anhedonia or the persistent emotional flatness, let alone delineating anticipatory and consummatory forms, that's all.
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>>37464039
>You're right about the masturbation. Along with candy and super-accessible melodies, it's one of the few things I still enjoy.
When I was severely depressed I didn't enjoy anything but music (very slightly). I wonder if there's something to that, or if it's just coincidence. It'd be interesting if music was enjoyed because of some biological reason separate from other things.
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