It's like this, for me: after I found a way to turn my back on the depression I was in for the first decade-plus of my life, for the next couple of decades I was go-get-em, doing the right things all day long, making strides, making money, the whole nine. Even inspiring people around me. But, it wasn't out of true volition, rather it was as though I was corralling myself, pushing myself through life all the time. I knew I was deficient where volition was concerned, but I was determined to "fake it till ya make it" as they say.

But it turns out that the point to which I could fake it was until I finally just ran clean out of that energy. I can't fake it anymore, can barely pretend to fake it; just cannot compel myself. It feels like I'm outside of a part of myself that must exist but which I've lost any access to, like it's locked me out and won't even talk to me through the peephole.

I wish I could go back and find a different way to approach my struggle besides what was mostly just faking it. Who knows though.. at the time it seemed like the only available option for me with any chance at a positive outcome, and it may just have been. It might not even have been wrong; a lot has happened since then to re-traumatize me, and I may be ascribing too much weight to how I managed to handle what was almost an impossible situation back then to move forward from in the first place.

I prefer in my posts to have at least a seed of positivity, but this really speaks to the core of what I struggle with. Apologies.

I agree with what others have said here about anhedonia being besides the point when there's severe avolition. I'm able to feel pleasure, it's just that it doesn't even occur to me to strive for that, or for anything really. It's funny to me, from the perspective of my own experience, that anhedonia seems to be a so much better known "feature".