My hedonic setpoint is so low that it's not even funny.

[Lethargy]

To those out of the know, a persons hedonic setpoint is the baseline happiness that they feel even after good/bad things happen to them. So if you go through a good event, then your happiness rises for a bit before returning back to the baseline.

My baseline is insanely low. It doesn't matter what happens to me, no matter how good, it always returns to me feeling like shit shortly after. How am I supposed to want to live when I feel like shit in even the worst of scenarios? It's as if it's over for me before it even begun. I can't possibly be happy for any prolonged period of time, if at all. Even if a good thing happens to me just knowing that I will inevitably feel awful when it's over clouds my experience and makes it feel worse.

Is this all that life is? Distracting yourself with good happenings before returning to the trenches? What a sick joke.

 

[BrontesA]

This is exactly the state I also find myself in, friend. Even if something pleasant happens, I fall back down very soon after. My only consistent source of bliss is weed pens, cause I can sit down, get baked and game after work without those extra depressive thoughts seeping in, or at least not so much. Plus it's the only thing that lets me fall asleep, I cannot sleep sober until like 4am. Issue is, when I have none, I get to feel the full weight of everything. Part of me feels as though my relationship with drugs is at least a partial cause behind this drop in baseline dopamine production.

I hate to say it, but for me at least, this is what life is. All food tastes the same gray flavor. Alcohol and sex bring zero pleasure. I feel no sense of achievement or pride.

 

[Fahrenheit Fox]

To those out of the know, a persons hedonic setpoint is the baseline happiness that they feel even after good/bad things happen to them. So if you go through a good event, then your happiness rises for a bit before returning back to the baseline.

My baseline is insanely low. It doesn't matter what happens to me, no matter how good, it always returns to me feeling like shit shortly after. How am I supposed to want to live when I feel like shit in even the worst of scenarios? It's as if it's over for me before it even begun. I can't possibly be happy for any prolonged period of time, if at all. Even if a good thing happens to me just knowing that I will inevitably feel awful when it's over clouds my experience and makes it feel worse.

Is this all that life is? Distracting yourself with good happenings before returning to the trenches? What a sick joke.

Not to diminish what you're going through at all but just FYI that isn't how the hedonic treadmill works. The setpoint defines the neutral state. The problem isn't that yours is too low, its that it is too high relative to your current life.

 

[Lethargy]

Not to diminish what you're going through at all but just FYI that isn't how the hedonic treadmill works. The setpoint defines the neutral state. The problem isn't that yours is too low, its that it is too high relative to your current life.

Maybe I used the wrong terminology, I was just trying to explain that no matter what I do, I never feel happy in the end which makes me want to ctb even more

This is exactly the state I also find myself in, friend. Even if something pleasant happens, I fall back down very soon after. My only consistent source of bliss is weed pens, cause I can sit down, get baked and game after work without those extra depressive thoughts seeping in, or at least not so much. Plus it's the only thing that lets me fall asleep, I cannot sleep sober until like 4am. Issue is, when I have none, I get to feel the full weight of everything. Part of me feels as though my relationship with drugs is at least a partial cause behind this drop in baseline dopamine production.

I hate to say it, but for me at least, this is what life is. All food tastes the same gray flavor. Alcohol and sex bring zero pleasure. I feel no sense of achievement or pride.

I wish weed was legal where I live