Everyone's responses are welcoming and informing. I always enjoy your responses Willow. I didn't know you suffered from it too though. About my using the term "anhedonia" i agree with your criticisms of my use, but i can feel --not depression--but anxiety and angst still. I can also still have a hardy laugh. So those are my three things i can still hang on to. Laughing is largely a cognitive surprise to me. I'm not sure how that works.

Empathizing use to be my strongest attribute too. The boy who felt too much now feels nothing at all mostly. As cognitive as empathy is, there is still an element of sympathy to it. Sympathy is like a magnet that helps the feeler attach/connect to an idea or a person, and i totally lack that ability now, which now makes music near useless. I can no longer love the same way as i did before.

It's strange. I sat in my recliner and my cat jumped on my chest and just laid down facing me. I felt attached to her, and i love her, but it isn't as rich as it use to be. I sat there admiring her beauty, and her stoic look as she calmly purred on my chest. It's the deepest connection to a living thing i have now. I feel myself even distancing from my sister. I feel like a stranger in a strange world. If my sleep gets worse then that means trouble for work, and that's my livelyhood.

Why am i so numb to pleasure, sadness, and sleepiness? I don't even get angry anymore. I usually feel either nothing, or anxiety and angst. I use to dwell on a relationship from the past and the loss of my college career, but i don't feel any emotion regarding them now.

I'm not optimistic anymore about getting my emotions back. Now that i know it's not surpressed by a med this time, it's not looking good. Not even sex makes me drowsy or gives me a shadow of euphoria. I've been off lamictal for over 6 months now, and that was the last of the mood affecting drugs. This is my life now.

I do wonder if my brain had an emergency shut off valve, if they do in general, if the brain can tell when things are going to be too much to bear so it turns off the switch to the emotions so that the feeler doesn't commit suicide. The brain is so complex, i wouldn't be surprised if it had defense systems to protect against emotional throws that might affect it's very existence.