Stop replying then victor. I know the abuse trauma makes you fight till the very end but come on! It’s high time to have some self awareness dontcha think … I expect that to be the last message from you so bye now! 
Much love x
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I haven’t had too many mental “highs” in the sense of positive experiences. Most of my most intense experiences were experiences of loneliness and alienation in the world, a kind of heightened awareness of despair. Later I developed occasional psychoses that took over my mind and usually ended up in intense paranoia. I would also have hyper religious thoughts.
As a result of my first outright psychosis, I was put on very potent anti-psychotics. After that the only times I ever felt any kind of intensity of any kind was when I went off my anti-psychotics for protracted periods. However, I would end up again on anti-psychotics when I would eventually have another psychosis.
As far as I’m aware, the main side-effect of anti-psychotics is a kind of ‘zombie’ like apathy about things overall. It’s really a very bad way to live but if I don’t take anti-psychotics, then I develop psychoses where my thoughts become bizarre and I completely lose touch with reality and finally end up more or less mentally paralyzed with fear and anxiety from paranoia–often being hospitalized (unless a caretaker can get more anti-psychotics into me without sending me to the hospital).
So having a “deep sense of love of life” (in terms of feeling intense emotions) just doesn’t happen in me and having any intense mental experiences just doesn’t happen in me anymore (other than paranoia, if I go off meds).
Now as far as the question of whether it’s “selfish” to love life; I don’t see it that way.
I don’t love life, mostly the opposite but it really doesn’t concern me much if others do love life. It’s no skin off my back and nothing that detracts from me in any way. Generally, I don’t want good people to feel dull and apathetic because I feel dull and apathetic, I rather wish I could feel alive and intense love or joy, or even the intense despair I used to feel before that, than essentially being a more or less lifeless zombie in comparison.
Anhedonia is a shitty mental state to live in. However, it does me no good and is of no interest to me that anyone else should feel bad only because I feel like shit. (My situation is no one else’s fault anyway, so it makes no sense for anyone to lose joy over my pain.)
As far as I’m aware mental illness is just a random thing that hits some people for no rational reason. It just happens to some of us and it’s all a part of the chaos of a natural world where there is little rhyme or reason to the fates that befall us.
As far as I can tell, good things can happen to kind people sometimes and good things can happen to unkind people sometimes and the same goes for bad things. Generally I’m agnostic as to whether there is a God or not but I’m mostly of the opinion that if it is the case that there is a God, then God doesn’t seem to micromanage the world to ensure that it’s fair and just. I would see God as more of a divine keeper of what amounts to a giant universe scale vivarium. Maybe a God created or set the world in motion, but everything basically runs on a morally chaotic basis after that.
But I also understand the shame and guilt that comes with being complicit in the suffering of others. If my country is in an unjust war where innocent people are dying at the hands of my government, then, as a taxpayer who is contributing to the war effort, I can see such a situation as the suffering of others detracting from the possibility of me feeling good. That really makes me feel like shit.
It’s also difficult not to feel like shit when I see bad actors creating suffering in others that I’m not responsible for because of the fact that I realize that the only thing preventing those bad actors from creating suffering in me is opportunity and circumstance, the fact that I don’t happen to be in that part of the world that some monster is trying to dominate or coerce. Therefore, I can understand someone who feels uncomfortable feeling good about life when they see others around them suffering. It seems like bad behavior on the part of some can affect all sometimes.
But if you love life in spite of others suffering, that’s a good thing. No such thing as too much joy, unless it’s the joy of a psychopath destroying the lives of others. In such a case, if a psychopath feels like shit after making someone’s life horrible, then it doesn’t make me feel bad.
/rambling
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Hi gary thanks so much for your beautiful ‘ramblings’!!. It has given me quite a lot to think about!! I appreciate you sharing such vulnerable things in such an honest way.
First of all I hope everything is alright and you are okay, whatever version of that is for you
I will admit I completely didn’t know (or was fully aware of) Anhedonia. I did not even consider an outlook at all with such an infliction. And how difficult it must be for you to feel constantly like a zombie. I’m sorry for that and hope you are not suffering too much..
As for your loneliness, I too have felt that intense, out of body loneliness like we are ALL truly alone because in our minds we honestly we are. Whilst sometimes that makes me full of dread and horror, however, for me it was profound too, I think the lines of profundity whether negative or positive blur. And frankly profundity and beauty are synonymous.
Not trying to convince you of anything btw just sharing my own logic behind why that loneliness is something like.. just hyper awareness and can lead to ‘joy’. But of course.. Maybe you are lonely in a different way like physically or in companionship.. Loneliness is different for everyone. What were your thoughts during these intense moments of loneliness? (Again, No need to answer if dont want to)
As for your thoughts on chaos, i fully agree. We really are just hurdling through random sequences of events brought upon us by chaos, regardless if God is real or not. In tandem, I say consciousness and the ability of, is the only thing ‘combatting’ said chaos in this whole universe, which makes me wonder on our sort of ‘hidden moral duties’ further..
With that I share these same grievances with moral complicity. In a world where there is war and the like, Everyone is complicit in many ways, collectively and individually. But in your words maybe thats just it.. not selfish, but just difficult..
Is there such a thing as too much joy? I suppose you are right. As with everything it just depends. Somehow, in a great conclusion, I find that amusing. Thanks again gary!!
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Selfishly, I’m wondering about your state of mind. It seems although you suffer from anhedonia you still manage to observe the self. How does that play out for you?
Oh my gosh sorry i did not see this until i reread the comments! I actually feel the exact same way… As long as i remember that feeling then genuinely there is nothing i cant go through. I wonder, what did you write about?
Much of it is on here, lots of different things. I’m also writing a book for older kids, but it’s fallen by the wayside a bit, have done about 8 chapters. Need to get back to it.
Type shit.
By type, I mean quality.
Thank you.
