Escape from Anhedonia

I've been sitting here for the better part of two months, trying to convince myself that it's well past time that I get back to working on all the projects that are competing for space on and around my desk.

I've been trying to get myself to pick up one of the many books stacked by my bed, which I got for the purpose of reading, but are instead collecting dust at an exponential rate.

Same goes for the shelves full of all the movies I love, but can't bring myself to watch, and the playlists of all the music I love, but can't bring myself to listen to except when I'm at the gym working out.

If there's one way I can say that Depression has changed me since my breakdown in 2011, and don't think for a second I take any measure of pride by coming clean with this, it's that all seemingly all the things I used to enjoy doing, all the things I used to self-identify with, and gravitate to, and be an unabashed nerd about...

...none of them matter all that much to me anymore.

I didn't realize there was an actual term for this sort of situation, but it turns out it's listed in the dictionary as Anhedonia, which is just a $2.50 word that means, "The inability to feel pleasure."

Editorial Note: In hindsight, it makes sense that there would be such an antonym for Hedonism, but given our proclivity to pursue a hedonistic lifestyle at all costs, I suppose it's easy to let its counterpoint slip by the goalie.

In a lot of ways, it feels totally surreal because for the majority of my life, all those things I enjoyed were avenues I used to try and escape from whatever emotional strife I was dealing with at the time.
I could either bury myself in a book, get lost in a movie or one of the dozens of comp tapes I'd made, or either crack open another spiral notebook or sit at my computer and just let all the things I didn't want to say or know how to deal with spill out through my fingers.

But when you start waking up day after day and finding that those avenues are now seemingly closed off due to the unilateral decision of your own mind that there's no point in going there anymore...?!

Because, honestly, when you feel like you've been told over and over and over again that what you think, what you know, what you like, what you love, and what has come to define you on certain levels as a person doesn't matter to those same people who's perspective, thoughts, feelings and attitudes toward you are of significant emotional value...?!

Well, to paraphrase an old CCR tune...,"Ho lord, stuck in Anhedonia ug-gain."

To be fair, while going through the Year of Hell which I found myself in during 2017, there were times when I felt I was getting those pieces of emotional enjoyment back through a combined regiment of necessity and repetition. Considering most of my days were spent sitting in the local Starbucks or on the T passing the time waiting for work to start, and my nights were spent sprawled out on my severely uncomfortable makeshift bed in the back of my Jeep, having whatever means of escape I could get my hands on was beyond essential to just get from one terrifying day to the next.

When I came out the other side though, the reservoir, as best as I could tell, had finally run dry.


What I've found to be my primary outlets for emotional escape now is either getting lost on YouTube watching other people do the sorts of things I'd wanted to for the past few years, only to have the window of opportunity slam shut, or just turn on my PS4, load up the game No Man's Sky, and escape into galaxies full of 19 quintillion planets that look nothing like Earth...and neither do their inhabitants.

When I was a kid and in the midst of discovering the things I'd grow to be passionate about, I never even considered the notion that they either could or would leave me some day.

Then again, I had no way to foresee that this was how my life was going to go, either. That I would find myself only feeling safe and comfortable in the limited floor space of the house I currently share, and that creating things or doing any artistic or cultural endeavor that calls for me to interact with people for that matter, felt anathema to my existence.

The most basic answer to why this happened, of course, is to point to my Depression and how its come to take over said existence in the last 7-8 years...but that also feels like going after low-hanging fruit.

I can't help but shake the thought that there's more at play here. That it's both a byproduct of the signals I'm getting internally from my own frazzled mind and the external demands, spoken and unspoken, from all sides to just stop trying to get out of this state of creative apathy and non-existence.

The problem is that I can't stay here forever. I know that and have known it for a while. But then there's the rub of trying to figure out what the point of escaping from anhedonia when it feels like no one really wants you to?


Or worse yet...that it won't change anything?

Frayed

I know it's been a while since I've done one of these, and in keeping with my reasons for being silent for so long, I'm going to preface this with something I should've said to someone I used to love very much, when I was given what I didn't realize at the time was my last chance to speak to her.

What do you want me to say, because there's two options here: I can either lie and tell you what I think you want to hear...or I can speak my truth and you're going to have to accept that it's going to be a fairly uncomfortable ride from here.

If you're going with option #1, then it's probably for the best that you pull the ripcord now. No hard feelings, gang, I get it. I've been in this world long enough to understand that real honesty is only valuable if it serves your perspective rather than mine.

Now that I've most likely cleared the room out...I guess I need to get the basics out of the way first.

To say the last few weeks have been difficult in terms of what's been going on in my headspace is a gross understatement. Frankly, they've been nothing short of fucking brutal.

Editorial Note - Now before you find reason to start comparing whatever current calamities you're going through regarding work, family, kids, money, politics, Twitter or whatever else it may be, understand this. It's not that I'm neither unsympathetic or unempathetic to your ongoing conundrums. It's not that I'm not interested in trying to help you figure them out, if you need said assistance.

Mental illness and all that comes with it isn't about engaging in a proverbial pissing contest with the rest of the world about who's got it worse, but whereas your issues go away 99% of the time once the particular problem is resolved, my Depression and PTSD are always there to remind me that not only are they never going away, but I get to operate on their clock, no matter how productive or positive my life is at that moment in time.

Since leaving the job I got here in Cleveland back in September, (on account of it both not being a good fit for me long-term and the tandem of my boss and his boss being passive-aggressive about everything including my attempt to get said mental illness finally under some semblance of control, thanks to having real-honest-to-God-health-care for the first time in my adult life...seriously) I've been trying to make heads or tails of what I'm going to do next.

To that end, I've done the usual applying for jobs that I either never hear back from or get the standard-issue rejection letter which I've grown beyond accustomed to over the last twenty-odd years. I also told myself that because I made a point to save up every nickel and dime I could from my paychecks, it gave me a little flexibility to take this downtime and focus on some things I've been wanting to get back into.

Now that I have all my worldly possessions within reach, that includes going back through the box of notebooks containing all my ideas for the books I wanted to write once upon a time. I also have the file folder on my computer with all the scripts I wrote with the intention of converting them into video essays for the YouTube channel I started back in 2014.

There's also a fresh stack of books next to my bed which have been wanting my attention, which make sense since I bought them for the sole purpose of reading them this year, and my camera, which still takes perfectly good pictures last I checked.

Except there's this rather big problem that's keeping me from doing much else but existing in the small corner of the house I've been camping out in since pulling the ripcord on Life 3.0 back in January...

I don't care about writing...
I don't care about reading...
I don't care about learning or creating...
I don't care about all the things I used to be so immensely passionate about...
I don't care about earning a paycheck, just so I can say I get a paycheck from someone who thinks I'm only marginally worth part of what I'm actually worth...
I don't care about the state of the world as it seems to be hurtling towards political, social and cultural self-immolation...
I don't care about trying to better myself physically, mentally or emotionally because it doesn't seem to change how I'll be seen, perceived, accepted or rejected...

...and I really don't care about people in general anymore because if the majority of the past decade has taught me anything it's that people, even the ones who tell you they love you, or care about you, or want to see you succeed and are willing to help make it happen are just as fake as the facades the rest of humanity have plastered all over social media.

I really just don't seem to fucking care anymore...about anything.

To be clear, I wasn't always like this.

In fact, I've spent most of my life trying like hell to not let this sort of bitter, cynical, angry, jaded, nihilistic malaise get its hooks into me, despite all the times I got emotionally pole-axed into the ground. I kept telling myself that things would get better for two reasons; they couldn't get much worse and because I was willing to do whatever it took to earn the pendulum swinging back in my favor.

Now that it's more than half over, the seemingly inescapable truth of my existence is that's not likely going to happen, no matter how badly I wanted it or how much energy I put into fighting through every obstacle that separated me from who and what I always wanted to be.

That fight has left me utterly spent and beyond exhausted. And yet, I go to bed at night and argue with my brain for hours about convincing myself to get back up and keep going or if it's better that I just finally accept defeat.

At this point, I've truly lost count of the number of people who've tried to convince me that I'm not alone in this world. From my parents on down to people who only know me as another name on a Facebook friend list, they've all said it at one point or another.

But alone is what I feel, more now than I think at any time in my life, because as I've said many times over the years, I'm screaming at the top of my lungs that there is something insanely wrong with the world because it allows a person's life to be this way, and then I realize that everyone in the room who's benefited by it through the dumb, friggin' luck of privilege, either have plugs in their ears or their heads conveniently buried in the sand.

And it's not like I don't understand why they did that either. It's the parable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, playing out in real time. The only difference being that my wolves were there the whole time and they've taken so many bites out of me that I'm amazed I haven't bled out on the carpet yet. What I've taken away from it all is the simple directive that my Depression-addled mind is all too happy to reinforce whenever I get to the point where I want to open my mouth, my mind or my heart.

'Sit down. Shut up. Nobody cares what you have to say because you're no one and nothing. They didn't then and they sure as shit don't now.'

So I find myself sitting here in the near-dark, looking at a box full of stories that I'm wondering why I haven't thrown them away yet, as well as a hard drive full of ideas that I should've deleted by now and a heart full of feelings about a million things that I force myself to keep at bay for the benefit of everyone I'm still connected to. I know I'll get into bed soon and that same argument with the illnesses that have ravaged my brain, identity, confidence and self-worth will carry on for another round.


And the ropes tethering me to this world and this life will continue to fray and unwind just a little bit more. For now, I'm still hanging on, but if I'm honest...if my life has to stay this way, I'm really not sure how much longer I can.