Anhedonia. The inability to feel pleasure. I wonder if I have sort of been this way for as long as I can remember. Is that why I’ve always been somewhat reckless and impulsive, because I needed more than the average person to feel something? I don’t have journals from my childhood, so I can only base this impression of myself from my foggy memories.
I recently re-discovered I have a gene that predisposes me to lower dopamine levels. Re-knowing this gave me a sense of relief, because it would explain a whole lot, and it is as though I can stop blaming myself for being a chronically miserable person.
This past week or so I have had so many philosophical questions: Is it possible to overcome genetic wiring? How much personal responsibility does one truly have towards their own life if we cannot overcome our inherent traits? Is it possible to live a fulfilling life without the ability to feel positive emotions? If the brain is plastic is it possible to rewire the brain to increase its baseline capacities?
I look back at my life and see many occurrences of myself trying so hard to feel something: falling in “love”, having obsessions or hyper-focuses on new hobbies, eating incessantly, keep wanting to travel to new places and experience new things so I can keep putting carrot sticks in front of myself.
I believe that our attitudes towards life is heavily influenced by an invisible ledger. The amount of positive experiences must out-weigh the negative, in order for a typical person to feel like life is worth living, that we should overcome any immense suffering because there is something better or greater waiting for us after.
But can a person chalk up positive experiences without the ability to feel much pleasure? The problem is the lack of dopamine can lead to depression – since nothing ever feels rewarding – and depression can skew our perception and memories. Traumatic events keep playing on repeat mode in my mind, whereas positive events hardly come up. I keep getting surprised when I look back at journals or my old posts on social media and my timeline was more positive than I remembered. This is why I end up noting things down obsessively. I literally need a second brain, because my original one does not work well.
Every single day I am persistently haunted by anxieties and worries. I don’t remember the things I am supposed to remember, and I cannot forget the things that cause me suffering. My mind is exhausted simply from existing: I have no control over the swirling thoughts, and every simple task seems to take a herculean effort because of executive dysfunction and the reward system in my brain is broken.
I go through the motions. I do things not because I enjoy doing them but because I intellectually think they are good for me. Do I continue to publish because I like it or because there is nothing else left for me to do? I don’t know what I like because we associate the concept of liking something to enjoyment. Is it possible and enough to intellectually like something? Is it enough to like the idea of it?
This seems to get worse as I age. I cannot tell if physically ageing is making my brain worse as now I have unfortunately accumulated more negative feedback loops and I have acquired too much knowledge to live in idealistic naivety. I also cannot tell how much it is objectively me worsening or truly the world is actually getting more depressing to live in. It feels difficult to me to convince myself to carve out something positive in a timeline that seems to be doomed. It seems almost selfish even, to try to seek some joy and happiness in a world full of suffering.
I like the concept of zen, because it teaches us not to rely on emotions, not to label things good or bad, and to learn to maintain some emotional equilibrium. But I am a fragile human and I still wish to derive enjoyment from the things I do. Yet I think it is not sustainable for me to keep expecting myself to feel something when nothing is coming.
I feel like I keep going through these phases when I try to fake it till I make it. I make up these routines so my life seems full. I am not sure if I am pretending to enjoy doing certain things or there is some subtle enjoyment I have not yet learnt to recognise. Doing things and going through these routines takes considerable willpower. I feel like a salesperson trying to sell the idea that life is worth making an effort for. I tell myself I have not reached some elusive stage yet where I can start to properly live, because I am still unwiring my chronically broken mind, which I have zero idea if I can unwire enough before new negative wiring starts to form. I am 42, and I am still bad at living.
Once in a while I break down from the exhaustion from all this trying. I tell my partner tearfully I don’t want to try anymore. But it seems like not wanting to try is not an actual valid choice, because no matter how much I would like to end my own existence, I don’t have it in me to practically end other people’s existences. So, despite me getting nothing much out of my own existence, I continue to carry on even though the weight of my worries, anxieties, mental burdens, chronic suffering – is crushing me every single day.
Is it really every single day, my partner asks. What about all those times I seem happy? I tell her it feels like all of that is a pretense, that if I don’t at least try to pretend then life would become unliveable for me. But is it really a pretense, or is it my broken mind is again skewing me towards a distorted perception? Is there a difference if I can’t see it?
I feel terrible for all of these thoughts and feelings. That the warmth and generosity of my partner’s love is still not enough. But I am convinced without her I would be dead by now. I still believe the will to live has to come from me, it cannot be propped up by another person.
And then there are countless people begging at another chance of life, and here I am squandering mine away. So many would kill to be in my shoes, and yet I am drowning in them. This makes me feel worse, and much more worse if someone tries to tell me I should feel tremendously grateful because I am so lucky. I intellectually know I am, but gratitude, despite whatever they say, doesn’t magically heal a broken mind.
Imagine living with a loudspeaker blasting unpleasant sounds at the highest volume every single day. That is my mind trying to drown me with my own thoughts and emotions. I am unable to escape, unable to get much relief. I can only seek temporary distractions. Try to snuff it out with other sensations. If there are other rewarding parts of life perhaps I can convince myself that I can put up with the unpleasant effects of the loudspeaker. But I am incapable of feeling any sense of reward.
Knowing that I am even alive to hear that loudspeaker doesn’t make me feel much better. That my partner loves me despite me walking around with an invisible loudspeaker that she cannot see makes me immensely grateful still, but the loudspeaker is still there.
There is no happy ending here, again. Nor am I trying to write a meaningful essay or pass on some great life lesson. I am simply just writing. I am not sure if I feel pleasure from the act of writing and then publishing, but at the very least I am being. Maybe one day I can learn how to convince myself that it is enough just to be.