[Photo ID: text saying “People who are unable to experience joy from activities that once brought them delight and satisfaction may be suffering from anhedonia, a symptom of a raft of psychiatric disorders marked by a lost or greatly decreased capacity to experience joy and pleasure from the things and people that typically provided joy. People with anhedonia may lose interest not only in hobbies and social gatherings, but even in food and sex.”]
Anhedonia is most commonly associated with clinical depression, but is associated with a wide variety of other mental illnesses as well, from schizophrenia to PTSD, and even some physiological conditions like thyroid disorders, diabetes, and vitamin deficiency.
Anhedonia can take a number of forms and has a wide range of severity, from not feeling any positive emotions at all, to things you used to like doing “not hitting the same”.
Anhedonia is not normal, capitalism or no capitalism, and if you are experiencing it you should seek professional help. Presence of anhedonia is a major risk factor for suicide - if you have two otherwise “equally” depressed people and only one has anhedonia, that one is much more likely to attempt suicide. Even if you’re not suicidal, it, well, sucks. It has a negative effect on relationships (romantic and platonic). It reduces your likelihood to work towards your future - I’m not talking like “you don’t put in 110% at your shitty retail job in hopes of getting a promotion to secondary assistant sub-manager”, I mean things like eating food with nutrients, replacing the burnt-out lightbulb in your bathroom, staying in contact with your friend that moved away, practicing your drawing, and yeah, if it matters to you, it’ll probably screw up your grades/your job too, especially a passion-driven side-job. It inherently by definition involves you not being happy (or as happy as you could be), and isn’t that enough? It’s not something you should ignore and dismiss as a sign of the times.
It is, however, treatable in the great majority of cases. Talk therapy, medication, ECT, ketamine, TMS, vagus nerve stimulation, etcetera - between all the various treatments, there are verrrry few people for whom it is legitimately true that “nothing works”.
If you feel like this, GET HELP. It is almost definitely a sign of a larger condition, and ignoring it could very well be fatal - but also help, well - does help. YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS. Even if it really is “just” this… this sucks, and you don’t have to put up with it.
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