I'm going on 17 years (I'm 30) of more or less total anhedonia and depersonalization. I've tried dozens of medications and treatments, I've read/listened to about 200 self help/mental health books, I've been in and out of therapy for 15 of those years. It's so bad I quit smoking cigarettes a while ago because they stopped making me feel anything and I was too depressed to go through the hassle of walking to the corner store to get more just to continue a ritual that doesn't improve my mental situation even a little better, although it's still tempting because I've been assured that cigarettes are a great way to make my life not last as long. Knowing my luck however, I'd probably be one of those freaks of nature for whom cigarettes are healthier than vegetables and I'd live to be 100+

Life to me feels like watching a bad art house movie over which I have no influence, and I'm not allowed to leave the theater. The plot is convoluted and nigh impossible to follow, there was a cool moment several hours ago but it went nowhere and it's showing no signs of getting any better any time soon. I'm surrounded by a crowd of people in the theater who are all enthralled with the movie, hoping it will never end. Some are holding hands or quietly chatting with their friends/family, occasionally one gently pokes my shoulder and says to me with a big toothy grin on their face "man, this sure is something isn't it?" and in order to be polite I contort my face into something resembling a grimace and muster out a "sure" so as to not be impolite or draw attention to myself.


I get up to leave only to find the door is locked, and upon hearing the "clank" of me trying to open the exit door now at least half the theater is staring at me in various shades of "apalled", some are concerned, some are angry, most are confused. I may have even turned around and gone back to my seat had I found the door open, just knowing to option to leave was there for me whenever I wanted to, but now I know I'm trapped. At what point do I get to definitively say this movie is stupid and I'm sick of being forced to watch it? Life is not for me. I'm incapable of feeling joy or accomplishment. I fell in love once which was kinda neat but it was short lived and it's been 10 years since then with absolutely no sign of it happening ever again. I feel less and less every day, I'm sick of being told to "stick with it". Hope hurts the worst, because I know deep down the anticipation that comes with it will never actually pay off.


I don't even know why I'm typing this anymore to be honest.