On having long-term anhedonia
Those who have anhedonia may over time develop an attitude that striving and adventure are not worth it. They try to engage with the world, but again and again living feels “weary, stale, flat and unprofitable”, so their striving and ambition cool, and they settle into an attitude of stagnation.
They may not receive signals (craving, wanting, satisfaction) to do the things that support their wellbeing—maintaining friendships, dressing up and going out, getting out of their routine and trying new things—so they turn their backs what might buoy them and withdraw from the world.
In the prison of their mental illness, they may lose faith that there are better days ahead. They then might give up, subtly or dramatically, and allow themselves to decay and decline.
A dramatic example of this condition is described in Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search For Meaning. While Frankl was a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, he noticed that at some point some of the prisoners gave up:
The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future… he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. Usually this happened quite suddenly… it began with the prisoner refusing one morning to get dressed and wash or to go out on the parade grounds. No entreaties, no blows, no threats had any effect. He just lay there, hardly moving. If this crisis was brought about by an illness, he refused to be taken to the sick-bay or to do anything to help himself. He simply gave up. There he remained, lying in his own excreta; and nothing bothered him anymore.
But the prison camps could not break Frankl’s conviction that his life was worth living; that striving in a limited life is worthwhile; that even in a bleak tragedy there is meaning.
What to do
One source of meaning for Frankl was having faith in the future. The assumption that he would one day be free gave him something to strive for. In Auschwitz and Dachau, he imagined this vividly: he had fantasies of the wife he was torn away from and of himself in a warm, comfortable lecture hall talking about his experience in the past tense.
Those who have had anhedonia for years need to live with the faith that one day they’ll break free from the prison of their condition and step into a bright, vivid world where things are richly rewarding. They then will strive and build up their lives in the present for the future.
What can you do now for your future life? What world might you step into one day?
Anhedonics must also recognize that striving and adventure in this chapter of their lives can be worthwhile. If you live a life without pleasure, there are some things that are at least compelling and engaging, that you can become pleasantly lost in, that make you forget the idea that life is meaningless. Who or what in the world does this for you?
Instead of figuring out what’s most compelling, you may, in the empty spaces of life, have allowed your attention to drift toward the light distraction of websites designed like slot machines, like Instagram and Reddit. Schedule time in the day when your mind isn’t pulled toward these, and in that vacuum you’ll be in a space to discover what the deepest, most meaningful projects in life are.
And spend time away from the spaces you normally live in, where, over the months and years, you may have fallen into the attitude that engaging with the world is not worth it. Here the tranquilizing drug of stagnation dulls your ambition and striving.
This state may even be comfortable. There is no signal to exit.
But you must exit it. Break out of your tired old routine, and you’ll discover what’s compelling in the world.
Lastly, meaning can be found in the heroism of taking on the challenge of this tragedy. Life does not always give you the task you want. Often, life will set a challenge before you, and you must take it. So, as Viktor Frankl would say, asking “What do I expect from life?” is the wrong question. Ask instead, “What does life expect from me?” “What task does life give me now?” Or, to use religious language, “In this tragedy, what task might God have for me?”
One day you will look back on this period of life, and, when telling your life story, you will either admit that you gave up, submitted to victimhood—or you will be able to boast that you bore this burden gallantly; that you rose to the task; that the world gained a hero; and that, while you still have a pulse, tragedy will retreat back and good will expand.