Anyone Experience Anhedonia?

[darian]

I have suffered with Anhedonia (ie lack of joy in life) for as long as I can remember. I can get excited about things, but it never leads to a payoff of something more and I strongly feel that there should be something more I am not experiencing, judging by the reaction of others.

I can experience sexual excitement, reach a peak and ejaculate, but I don't think I experience an orgasm. The ejaculation is just a feeling in the muscles, sort of like a sneeze, but it doesn't translate to a brain experience. Looking at male partners when they ejaculate (or even when they can't ejaculate because of prostate surgery), I can tell they are experiencing much more, which is the classic orgasm.

The medical profession have been no help whatsoever as they seem to believe that if I can ejaculate, I should also be experiencing an orgasm and they have more important medical issues to deal with.

It doesn't take much stimulation for me to experience ejaculation: I am overly aware of the sensations leading up to it and it's like they overwhelm me and I can't moderate them or hold them back: to do so kills even the "sneeze" experience. If I use painkillers to dull the sensations, then I don't even reach ejaculation. I don't get pleasurable feelings from prostate stimulation: it's just uncomfortable bordering on painful. I feel my whole sexual response is out of sync and disorganised and I am not experiencing what most men take for granted.

This feeling of missing out on what others seem to enjoy, leads to depression and envy that I struggle to hold at bay.

It could be because I experienced anxiety in my earlier years, which was replaced with ongoing pain in the later years: both of which probably upset the usual nerve signals and chemical balances. However I don't get high on opiates, just experience dulling of pain and "drifting off" into sleep, which perhaps is also significant.

My testosterone level has been quite low (just over 6) and I did trial HRT via a topical testosterone gel, but despite assuring me that my testicles would not shrink or I would develop gynecomastia, that's exactly what happened: my estrogen levels increased far more than my testosterone levels and so I stopped the treatment. Subsequent investigation confirmed that testosterone can be converted to estrogen via aromatase, so I'm not sure why they couldn't use dihydrotestosterone to bypass the process. Essentially the specialists demonstrated they didn't know what they were talking about and so I gave up on that avenue. None of them could discuss my situation at the level of complexity that I experience it.

Perhaps I am an unfortunate unique individual who just isn't equipped with the mechanism to experience joy.

It may sound strange, but I don't experience joy: the best I experience is the lack of "unpleasantness", it's a difficult thing to describe.

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone else has had a vaguely similar experience, how you dealt with the ramifications and anything you found helpful to be at peace and accept how things are.

 

[Croft85]

Your not alone I to have Anhedonia. I been like this for as long as a remember. So to say but Nothing has really helped yet me yet I take meds but they make me feel hollow. I just try to make myself feel better with hobbies. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.

 

[darian]

I once took Prozac for depression, but I felt like a zombie and stopped that.

Have tried various antipsychotics and antidepressants since then, but all make me feel physically ill and worse than the Anhedonia.

I don't think blunting what we are feeling is the right approach, but trying to reach acceptance through acknowledging what we are feeling and that it is legitimate. I think it is working through grief over loss whilst enjoying what we can, and that means periods of feeling blue. However, life does go on and the world has more to offer than just orgasms.

I have hobbies, interests and the usual domestic chores to keep me occupied and have attempted to be more philosophical about my situation and be more at peace with being how I am (we might envy someone for being more good looking, etc but at the end of the day we are dealt the cards we are given and often that can't be changed so why beat ourselves up over it: but it is difficult seeing the kid with the candy and knowing we can't enjoy it).

I should stop punishing myself by watching porn as it reminds me of everything I am missing, but if the excitement I feel is all the "enjoyment" I will ever know, then I at least want to experience that, if nothing else.

My early years were filled with terrifying anxiety and so the absence of that could be considered "enjoyment" in comparison: I feel lucky that my anxiety is much less of an issue now as I have better control over my world.

I have a gut feeling that I am simply overwhelmed by feeling and sensation and can't catch up: much like ADD sufferers exist in a world of over-stimulation and need stimulants to catch up with it.

 

[ShadowCat]

I think I could have that was at an amusement park and practically felt nothing. Had a birthday felt nothing christmas nothing pretty much walking through a very dense fog!

 

[seven2go]

^ You have described classic signs of depression.
You really need to see someone.
You're missing out on life........

 

[darian]

^ You have described classic signs of depression.
You really need to see someone.
You're missing out on life........

I used to suffer from depression, which were really dark times when it seemed like I was in a black hole that I couldn't climb out of and it was collapsing in on me, leading to suicidal ideation to stop the "pain". Antidepressants simply blunted all feeling, which stopped the "pain" and the suicidal thoughts, but they didn't make me feel happy or have any joy.

I think there is a difference between depression and anhedonia: with anhedonia you often don't feel classically depressed, you just don't get joy from anything and life is meh (although it does fluctuate up and down about that bland level). I think you can get depressed with anhedonia because missing out on what others naturally receive in life can really get you down at times, but I don't think that is the "depression" that most people refer to.

I believe depression comes in two guises: a chemical imbalance in the brain and the point where an individual can no longer deal with the pressures or demands of their life as it becomes overwhelming and there seems to be no hope. So, someone with anhedonia can become depressed if they can no longer deal with the blandness of their life or the envy over others experiencing more fulfilling lives. However, I am not a professional and these are my own personal observations and thoughts.

I concur with seeking professional help if you find your life is unfulfilling and not what you want it to be, as you could be suffering from depression and at least you might get a diagnosis that could lead to treatment.

 

[m1thousand]

I have thought that I might have a bit of anhedonia. I have no interest in life because I convinced myself that I would one day kill myself and that was in 1982. But I still think that that is how Ill go out. I have major suicidal ideation. Im not suicidal. I just dont want to live and I dont want to die.

I have never really had any interest the way other people do. They have hobbies but my only hobby is watching t.v. I turned to it as a friend when I was bullied in high school and I still think of it that way. I look forward to certain shows and thats the only joy I have in my life. I have dealt with depression for 40 years

I dont think I have a text book case of anhedonia, but I can relate to how you are feeling

I am constantly comparing myself to others who I think have a better life than me. Right now, and always, I beat myself up when I see muscle guys. I think they have a great life (despite the dieting) and I feel inferior when I am around a muscle guy. Luckily, there arent many muscle guys where I live.

I see all these Jub Live models who are in shape and have tattoos (not that Im into tattoos) but they all look the same. I record them thinking that Ill go back and watch them later but all it does is make me feel like crap about myself. If I hadnt been depressed, I would have liked to have a muscle body that others admire but the depression got the best of me

 

[darian]

I have thought that I might have a bit of anhedonia. I have no interest in life because I convinced myself that I would one day kill myself and that was in 1982. But I still think that that is how Ill go out. I have major suicidal ideation. Im not suicidal. I just dont want to live and I dont want to die.

I have never really had any interest the way other people do. They have hobbies but my only hobby is watching t.v. I turned to it as a friend when I was bullied in high school and I still think of it that way. I look forward to certain shows and thats the only joy I have in my life. I have dealt with depression for 40 years

I dont think I have a text book case of anhedonia, but I can relate to how you are feeling

I am constantly comparing myself to others who I think have a better life than me. Right now, and always, I beat myself up when I see muscle guys. I think they have a great life (despite the dieting) and I feel inferior when I am around a muscle guy. Luckily, there arent many muscle guys where I live.

I see all these Jub Live models who are in shape and have tattoos (not that Im into tattoos) but they all look the same. I record them thinking that Ill go back and watch them later but all it does is make me feel like crap about myself. If I hadnt been depressed, I would have liked to have a muscle body that others admire but the depression got the best of me

I don't think anyone clearly understands the difference between depression and Anhedonia because they are so poorly defined. I think Anhedonia can often be confused with unhappiness and depression.

From my own perspective, depression and unhappiness seem more like negative feeling states as a result of unpleasant stimuli, whereas Anhedonia is more like the absence of positive feeling states in the presence of what would normally be positive stimuli; where life is generally experienced as a sort of neutral (but which can dip into unhappiness or depression if there are unpleasant stimuli). I can understand how experiencing Anhedonia could lead to negative feeling states over time as we anguish over things we are aware that we are missing out on that others manage to have.

I'm not particularly unhappy or depressed, because I have sort of come to terms with having this condition and I doubt it will be improved, but I don't experience peaks of enjoyment above the everyday neutral. If I get enough annoyances in my life, then I do tend towards unhappiness or depression if they are sustained and I can't resolve them.

I'm reminded of women many decades ago who never experienced an orgasm because it was not understood what stimulation was required to trigger such an event or that such stimulation was necessary. It was not that they were physically incapable, just that they had not experienced the right environment. The problem was compounded by the patriarchy not believing that women could experience such a thing anyway. I believe it was only women's generally greater expression of emotion that suggested something was not right with many of them and which eventually led to medical techniques of stimulation to induce "hysteria" and eventually release (which we now know as appropriate masturbation or sexual technique). The problem is that men have generally been assumed to naturally have orgasms, easily, especially if they ejaculate and I don't think Anhedonia is a result of lack of technique per se, more that the mechanism of enjoyment is being impeded.

I felt sad when I read your post as even I have hobbies that provide something to my life above neutral. I hesitate to say that I "enjoy" them because I'm not sure that is the right word: perhaps "interest" is more appropriate and neutral. For me enjoyment is a very positive emotional state like an orgasm (theoretical), or a large spike above the usual neutral of life, but perhaps it's simply a matter of degree: perhaps those with Anhedonia simply do not get high enough spikes of positive emotion in their lives for some reason or can not interpret those positive situations correctly (much like those with autistic tendencies have difficulty interpreting social cues and signals).

I also believe we are biologically programmed to prioritise negative experiences for survival and thus they have a greater impact on us than positive experiences. I think that it takes more positive experiences to outweigh a single negative experience and if one keeps receiving negative experiences then even the occasional positive experience gets overwhelmed by the accumulated negative. Unfortunately society doesn't go out of their way to ensure every individual has an overall positive balance sheet and I think this is where many fall through the cracks into unhappiness and eventually depression.

Bullying is an evil that should have been stamped out, but it's so pervasive in our society at all levels that we don't recognise it in the form of coercion or even majority rule and so it remains. It's an extreme form of someone demanding something of you versus asking for your compliance with what they want. External demands versus what I want are something that I still struggle with at many levels: it stems from my childhood and early adulthood where I did not believe I deserved my own needs to be met in deference to others needs/demands and I think is related to a sense of autonomy and self-competence (or lack of it).

The problem with comparison is that we can always find those who are better or worse off than ourselves, so the logic should balance out, but we can tend to concentrate only on those aspects that we believe are important and in which we think we are deficient. If I suddenly turned into a muscleman tomorrow, I would still have other impediments to attracting someone. It is said that one should learn to love oneself before expecting others to be able to love us. Unfortunately we want things to be different right now and do not have the patience to walk before we can run as we are afraid of missing out.

I think it is difficult to love ourselves because we have absorbed decades of external demand that we live the way others project onto us: heterosexual, hypermasculine in perfect physical shape but which is not possible in our particular circumstances. We have not been allowed to be ourselves and to thus be comfortable with how we are at any point in time. Sure there might be room for change, but it has to come from within when it is something we want for ourselves and not because we have been told we should be that way. When I finally discovered homosexuality existed, I was bombarded with the societal message that it was unacceptable: too bad that I found parallels between myself and homosexuals, because I began to fear what I was. I can very well understand how homophobia can be created in a homosexual individual and I am beginning to understand how overweight-phobia can be created in an overweight individual by demonising what they are.

Sorry, I'm starting to babble and move away from Anhedonia, but these are all issues of personal interest to me.

I think it is having an interest in a wide range of areas (the universe is filled with awesomeness) that has kept me going, even in the absence of highly positive experiences, just as your interest in non-judgmental TV watching has kept you going.

 

[m1thousand]

Thanks for your post Darian ;-)

 

[darian]

I have just had an interesting experience: as an experiment, I tried a variant of masturbation by touching only small areas of my body at a time and focusing on the sensations. This led to a slow arousal where I could follow the sensations without them charging ahead of me. Eventually I reached a high level of arousal and I wanted to cum, so I increased the stimulation to deliberately trigger ejaculation. I think I had the best ejaculation feeling for a long time, but I'm not sure I am yet experiencing an orgasm as it still seems to be coming only from the muscles around the abdomen.

The upshot is that I had a positive experience for a change and am optimistic about a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe Anhedonia is simply not enough positive experiences because the individual does not know how to achieve them in the way that others do, within their particular circumstances: they require a different approach that is difficult because it means being an individual, going against accepted (and approved) modus operandi and thus risking censure, shunning or worse. Kind of sounds like the gay struggle.

 

[branleur]

Have you guys ever heard about dysthymia?
Is a mild and chronic depression.
Cognitive Therapy helped me at the beginning.

 

[branleur]

Most of the times I masturbate just to reduce anxiety (anxiolytic JO) and not because I'm horny. Sexual anhedonia is a thing.
When I have sex I need some extra seasoning. For a stronger stimulus I go to bathhouses (kind of fetish), fortunately I never used drugs (popper is a drug!) except for cialis, even me being a bottom, just for self-confidence

 

[darian]

Have you guys ever heard about dysthymia?
Is a mild and chronic depression.
Cognitive Therapy helped me at the beginning.

My Doctor mentioned it as a possibility years ago, but it didn't make any difference as they were just clutching at diagnoses and not really understanding what was going on.

I used to bewail the fact that most professionals I spoke to, leaped on a keyword that was in their scope of interest and that would be all she wrote, as they wouldn't consider any other information and merely head down their pet rabbit hole. I had specialists diagnose me with Borderline Personality Disorder when half the symptoms didn't apply to me or were 180 degrees off course of what I actually experienced.

I have had no success with CBT, partly because I think if you are not experiencing pleasure, looking at it from a different perspective or behaving differently is not going to change that gulf in one's life. I think it is a physiological issue, but no-one is interested: certainly when they have more important issues like Covid-19 to worry about.

I did have a Psychologist mention that I had difficulty getting my needs met, but no-one has since bothered to follow that up with me. It's an interesting situation when my needs are largely dependent on another person meeting them, but it's something you can't control or encourage without begging or changing yourself to be what the other person wants (which is counterproductive to those needs anyway). How can one be authentic and still have others meet ones needs without it becoming quid-pro-quo?