Discussion DAE feel like they've never experienced happiness?

[mouseteacup]

Like, I'm seriously not sure if I know what that is. I've gotten excited for things, but it doesn't feel like what happiness is described as. I've been on antidepressants for a few years now and I've gone from an average of "bad mood" to "neutral mood," but that's it. I don't think I've experienced joy or happiness. I won't go into the details of my childhood, but it for sure wasn't a good one or a happy one... so I have no idea at this point if I've ever experienced that emotion. I'm also autistic and struggle with alexithymia (inability to recognise what emotions you're feeling) so that doesn't help.

I'm curious what others' experiences are with this, too, so please share if you have something to say. And a question for those who do — if you are/have been on antidepressants or mood stabilisers, did they affect that?

 

[Suicidebydeath]

I'm not sure, I've never been in a situation that wasn't traumatic. So I don't know if I would know for sure unless I had a peaceful life. I want to die because everything is hopeless, so it seems unlikely.

 

[Gaga786]

Well, I do know for a fact that I have experiences happiness, but I can rarely remember it and if I do then it's not that meaningful. I was on anti-depressants for 5 years, so that affected me immensely, I eventually found myself being a zombie. I found zero pleasure from anything

 

[olearius]

I have alexithymia - though I do not feel it adequately describes my problem. It's not that I can't identify emotions or describe them, as I'm incredibly perceptive and have developed excellent emotional intelligence and cognitive empathy, out of necessity.

It's that I don't feel *anything*.

Happiness. Sadness. Grief. Love.

It's not numbness. I've been this way for as long as I can remember. I do not even have an emotional narrative about the extreme abuse I experienced over my childhood/teenage years.

Very rarely I can experience a hypervigilant state if I'm triggered, but that is just a physical state of hypervigilance without the mental anxiety part tbh.

The closest thing I've ever had to an emotional experience is interest / intellectual curiousity - specifically from learning. But now my depression is so bad that's gone - which is very very dangerous for me. It is largely how I have survived. I have severe treatment resistant depression, lifelong chronic suicidality and PTSD, and I'm autistic as well.

I am struggling deeply to see how this doesn't end with me unaliving myself very soon. And I want to want to live. I've exhausted all the (legal) drugs. I've been in therapy and done the work. I meditate, I'm mindful, I have a gratitude journal, etc.

I'm sorry. I wish I had something more helpful to say.

 

[FuneralCry]

Happiness doesn't even exist to me, I just see existence as being suffering, dread and emptiness, having the ability to exist has always been something completely undesirable to me, there's nothing "happy" about being forced to exist in this world where there is so much senseless cruelty and endless suffering, I've never wished to exist, I've only ever wished for the true peace of eternal nothingness.