I’ve been dealing with some form of Anhedonia for most of my adult life. Only recently I managed to find a coping mechanism in the darkest place, basically taking it as a premise that I’m gonna carry that with me forever, and trying to use my life as a platform to help people who actually can enjoy life instead.

This effectively influences every facet of my life. I’ve structured my future plans in a way that doesn’t hold any expectations of living into old age. I plan how I spend my time with regards to productivity (towards people I help, not towards wage thieves), rather than my own pleasure. I spend all my free time either planning and doing volunteer work or resting from it.

I’ve even started exercising and eating well in order to have more energy and disposition for the projects.

And I’ve been the most stable and functional I’ve ever been. I talk to a lot of people with ease, wake up early, and people even seem to enjoy my company and work a lot.

From an outsider perspective, it might even seem like I “tricked myself” into enjoying life by hating life, but I still hardly feel any joy, definitely not enough to justify how much work it’ll need to maintain this body for a long life.

And I think that’s okay. I’m fulfilling some sort of functions to society. And if I haven’t managed to fix my issue with years of therapy or medication, I think it’s more reasonable to work with the hand I was dealt than idealistically long for better.

But now, from all this socialising, I’ve met a person who I uncritically enjoy a lot (context: I’ve only uncritically enjoyed a person’s company once, and it was a time-limited thing), and started having romantic feelings towards her.

That’d actually be completely fine, just a small inconvenience from either the temporary joy when together or the anxiety when overanalyzing things when apart. This part is not really new to me, and I think I could live with it.

But then this one friend (who’s also my ex and also the only person I consider a friend) took this as one big sign that, yes, I can actually enjoy life. Then she went on to try and get the idea in my head that “I deserve to be happy”, as if I was punishing myself with this lifestyle (which I think is really inaccurate).

But now the idea is there again, and every single inconvenience I get massively angry because “I deserve to be happy” and how unfair it is how I can’t enjoy shit.

Case in point, one “expert” that volunteered to collaborate in one of my classes made it flop massively because he has no idea how to conduct a class. The reception by the students was night and day. (Context: I think it’s fair to say I’m a pretty good teacher given the sheer amount of praise I always get)

And instead of just working with what I was dealt like I’ve been doing, I’m just so fucking angry because “obviously it’s unfair”, because I’m “damned if I do, damned if I don’t” regarding helping myself or others. It’s irrational and borderline religious, but I feel like, if I’m not going to be allowed joy, at least life shouldn’t also throw completely unforeseeable curve balls at my projects to help others.

I’m also really annoyed at this “romance” thing. I can’t tell at all either what kind of body language I transmit to neurotypicals or what they imply. So to avoid trouble, every time something like this happens I just wait it out until it’s no longer relevant. I probably missed a lot of people being interested in me this way, and I never minded that.

But this time, this person is basically being framed as a “reason to enjoy life” in my brain, which feels deeply unethical. Basically putting her in an uncomfortable position if we were to get involved and then part ways. On the other hand it feels strange as fuck to try and argue for anything more “basic human joy” than deep human relations (platonic or romantic).

So again, it’s damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Can’t try to proceed this thing because I’ll be moving to an unstable and unethical position, but can’t walk away because “I deserve to be happy”. Not to mention the downsides of romance with all the anxiety regarding subtle cues I can’t really read.

It’s also so hard to form any lasting relationships (platonic or romantic) because I mostly just “tolerate people very well” and hardly ever enjoy their presence, let alone uncritically. So it feels like a huge lost opportunity.

It’s so strange seeing people so invested in “me being happy” despite many years of first-hand evidence showing that’s unlikely. This kind of naïve hopefulness feels weird invalidating, even without deferring me to therapy (which I already do regularly).

Hopefully this will pass, and I’ll revert back to the certainty of hopless grumpiness soon. Dreams are for those who sleep.

Pessimism of the Intellect, and pessimism of the will too