[Faltering]

Does anyone else suffer from chronic anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure)?

I've felt this way since I was a teen. Even when I should be happy, I never really am. I think it explains a lot of my life, especially my lack of social relationships. I just don't have the energy/desire to maintain friendships.

[Icare dixit]

Yes, but I blame it on the schizo-, not the -affective. It can also be part of a PD (including schizo- ones). If it's really chronic and severe it's likely schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia. If it's just because you have had bad experiences doing fun things (because they cause extreme, relatively short-lived instability), it could be BPD (or similar PDs).

But it's all psychotic. Negative symptoms. Unless it is an ASD, but in theory (mine and those of quite a few theorists/researchers/clinicians; there's not really a consensus about it) that can't co-occur with BP or any psychotic disorder (nowadays it's no longer considered to be a psychotic disorder but a mood disorder, but that's bollocks..., basically).

People with ASD generally want to be more sociable but they also have had bad experiences due to difficulties picking up on emotions (by association and intuition). People with schizo-* don't want to do much of anything. We really have chronic anhedonia (even when manic it's not about pleasure; it's self-transcendence, losing oneself, not caring about oneself). To a degree.

[Icare dixit]

And it's really an inability to derive enough pleasure from "pleasurable" things to make up for the investment/effort required. If someone else really wants to reconnect, it might very well not be too much effort. It's not selfish, it's extremely selfless. Things many people nowadays think they want because a caricature of "Eastern religion" adds some colour to their bleak existence, but which is quite awful. It's good, being enlightened, but it's no fun for the one that has it. Taking care of oneself is pretending to care.

[Wild Coyote]

Originally Posted by Faltering

Does anyone else suffer from chronic anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure)?

I've felt this way since I was a teen. Even when I should be happy, I never really am. I think it explains a lot of my life, especially my lack of social relationships. I just don't have the energy/desire to maintain friendships.

I've had a lot of anhedonia because I've endured a lot of depression. No personality disorder. A mood disorder.

There can be lots of reasons why you might not have the energy for friendships.


WC

[Icare dixit]

Originally Posted by Wild Coyote

I've had a lot of anhedonia because I've endured a lot of depression. No personality disorder. A mood disorder.

There can be lots of reasons why you might not have the energy for friendships.


WC

Chronically. Mood disorders are episodic.

[rwwff]

Only when depressed, but when depressed, its hard for me to remember what it was like when I wasn't depressed, so it could feel chronic even though it wasn't.

[Unrigged64072835]

Some medications can give you that flat feeling.

When I have anhedonia, it usually leads to depression. I still try to keep my mind occupied, though--even if it's cruising the forums of PC.