Struggling with nihilism and the inability to enjoy things
Preface #1: I know the first response with something like this will be "go see a therapist" - I have been in therapy for over a decade now. There are a lot of things it has helped with (specifically trauma-focused), but nihilism is not something I've been able to get help with. The help has ranged from things like "focus on the micro over the macro" (which I think is probably the best advice, but also can be boiled down to "don't think" and I can't not think), to "find religion" (for me at least: religion doesn't breed hope, hope breeds religion), to "I don't know how to help, I can't relate to that" (...not all therapist are good).
Preface #2: I know the quick response to "life is meaningless" is "so make your own!" but I absolutely despise that logic. If everything is meaningless, than that means making your own meaning is meaningless. It's self-defeating in and of itself. That said, I don't really care about "meaning" anyway. I personally view things as "irrelevant", as if you dig deep enough you get to a point where everything is relevant to nothing. And the conclusion to draw from that is: "it's irrelevant that everything is irrelevant" - similar meaning, but checks out logically significantly better to me. But this has it's own problems that I will go in below.
Preface #3: I know the quick response to the inability to enjoy things is "you don't enjoy things because you are depressed." What I'm positing is the inverse, "I no longer enjoy things, and it's causing me to be depressed." I'm very much not saying the former doesn't happen and I've gone through time periods like that. What I am saying is that the latter is also true, and I'm sure that other people who have dealt with depression for decades understands both "My depression is causing this to happen" and "This is causing my depression to flare" happen.
To give quick context for myself: I had become a nihilistic atheist by the time I graduated elementary school; I had a rather traumatic childhood and my official diagnosis is (C-)PTSD and all the offshoots that come from it like depression and anxiety (Bringing up as I recognize myself these are thoughts that, according to the DSM/ICD, would be from someone with mental disorders). This led to things like dropping out of high school and becoming a mute hikikomori. To make a long story short, in my late teens I got to a point of either suicide or completely revamping my life with the belief that enjoyment could be found via actually being social (friends and dating) and proper self-sufficiency/money. I chose the latter for one simple reason: there was nothing to lose, so just trust the process. It took over a decade of constant self improvement, but I became a sociable person part of different clubs and hosting my own parties/gatherings with a very active dating life. I also got my degree in comp sci and have done quite well for myself with that. And a lot on top of that just in terms of trying to make the most out of life.
Unfortunately, none of that actually helped. Having to mask to be able to be social/date is exhausting and frankly people suck, and wasting life working 9-5 one of the most depressing things to me. The reason I bring this up is because I did really fucking try, I tried the stuff that everyone says brings happiness - but it don't. And it's all just so irrelevant.
Over the last half decade or so, I just can't bring myself to care about anything. And I mean anything, even super simple things. I'll talk to people or listening to a song and think "why do I care what you have to say?". I'll watch a movie or read a book and can't keep focus because seriously who cares about these imaginary things some person thought up? People I know die and I'll just think "yeah that happens." And the absolute worst for me was when it came for knowledge. Because knowledge was the thing I always cared above all else. But what does "knowing things" matter if "things" don't matter to me?
Which brings me back to preface #2. Everything is irrelevant, but it's irrelevant that it's irrelevant. Except that society demands relevancy to justify ones own existence within it. It's not possible to live an irrelevant life and be part of society. I personally really only see two options: reject society or embrace absurdism.
Speaking strictly personally, I do not see rejecting society as a means of living an enjoyable life. Mostly because I know it will lead to me living out of my car again, spending my time embracing hedonism via drugs and alcohol to fuel escapism until the end comes. And if in the end I'm just going to fuel escapism, why not just escape to begin with?
Absurdism is mostly what I fed into while "turning my life around". But I do have issues with it. One is how much it feels like the "this is fine" fire meme; it recognizes the problem but then rejects that it's a problem. This is fine if "life" itself is not a problem and you are able to enjoy your time regardless (after all, the problem itself is irrelevant so yeah just reject it as a problem), but then that gets to my second and main issue: if you don't enjoy life, what defense against suicide does absurdism have? Yes there is the whole thing of "suicide just adds to the absurdity by claiming meaning is needed" but that's only if you are committing suicide because life has no meaning. I don't care that life is irrelevant, I care that life fucking sucks. Suicide then is not rejecting the lack of meaning, it's rejecting time spent unenjoyably.
I've been able to get through things being both meaningless and unenjoyable with the belief that things would become enjoyable. Now I'm nearly 40 years old, things have played out, and I do not buy into it anymore. Either life needs to be enjoyable, or there needs to be some relevancy to it. Which, I reject the later as even being knowable as a human. Which leaves the former.
Which then comes to the silly question, how do you just enjoy things?
I am able to recognize one of my issues with enjoying things: In order to raise my emotional floor, I have embraced being stoic. Things happen that are out of our control. Things are lost, hardships are had, people die. They are simply facts of life. The problem is that it also prevents enjoying things - enjoyable things are also out of your control, so do not embrace them for they will be gone. Which, moments in time then neither "good" or "bad", they simple are just moments in time. Every moment is simply some indefinite, irrelevant moment in time.
Which, kind of tied to that as well, but another issue I recognize: as I have understood my own trauma and how it's affected me, I've really understood just how much is deterministic in life. Which is especially sad in the case of trauma responses, and how much society basically double downs on the trauma (just easy eg of how "hysterical women" have been treated throughout history, but look at the overlap of BPD and traumatic childhoods).
But now these are not just moments in time, but determined yet irrelevant moments in time.
But that still doesn't preclude enjoying things. And I guess that's mostly what I'm for the search for in life, to figure out what things I actually enjoy/how to actually enjoy things I want to enjoy. Because enjoying life is certainly enough, but that requires life to be enjoyable.
And it's actually part of why I'm even posting this. With all the different ways I've changed my life and such, I've tried to look back at what was actually enjoyable. And long-form text communication is definitely the way I prefer to communicate (oh do I miss when 'social media' was forums). I also recognize the importance of being part of more smaller, tighter-knit communities compared to being a blob in a mass. So it's part looking for help, and part just trying to get back into posting on smaller communities.
But I also feel like I'm all over the place and I do apologize for that. I think to try to summarize to bring the points clearer...like I said before, life either needs to be enjoyable or there needs to be some kind of relevancy to it. So either how do you find relevancy/where am I wrong on that, or how do you find enjoyment (and I don't mean "try new hobbies until you find what you enjoy!" kind of stuff - I've already ran that gauntlet. I'm not asking where to find enjoyment, I'm asking how to feel enjoyment; how are you able to care about things might be a better war to phrase it)?
My answer will not be able to resolve your question, because it has been with you throughout your life. But I went through a years-long stretch where I felt almost exactly as you describe feeling. And ultimately, there are three things you can do, when overwhelmed by that all-consuming nihilism: you can kill yourself, or you can 'prove' that life does have meaning (turn to religion, for example), or you can invent your own. I know you already said that this last is a self-defeating, illogical answer. I agree to an extent, and I also am strongly in favor of it, so please bear with me.
I tried to kill myself a bunch of times, and it didn't work out. Religion, or accepting some absolutist philosophy, didn't help either. And I was left unable or unwilling to eat, to shower, to get out of bed in the morning. I was clinically depressed, yes. And medication, and a gender transition, and getting rid of my primary stressors -- these helped, but they never got rid of the feeling that everything I was doing was just killing time, waiting for the inevitable end, the cessation of all drudgery, the long, dreamless sleep.
But, I think like you, I didn't WANT to feel that way. I wanted my human experience to mean something. I wanted to enjoy things, to see in color, for the dimensions of life that I couldn't move through to exist. And of course there is no objective value to anything, everything is irrelevant in the face of the Universe, and I have very little control over my own life. But in that desire for relevance, value, and self-actualization I think there is the seed of something that is, at least, a sort of ultimate subjective value. I wanted to enjoy art and music and conversation and I wanted to be able to sit alone with my thoughts without internally dissembling on how meaningless and miserable my life was and since I wanted those things, so so badly, I had to be willing to actually put in work to get them (I told myself). Fundamentally, though, the type of "work" (emotional labor) I decided to put in was arbitrary. Completely arbitrary.
"I want to care more about people," I told myself, "so I'll spend time talking to people, and every work of art I engage with, I'll look for insight into its characters and what drives them, and I'll do what I can to make the people around me happy." And I did this for months, not enjoying myself at all. It was, again, work. But it was also a way in, to teaching myself how to love and value the people around me, to enjoy their presence, to be... Happy, I guess. At some point, it was like a switch flipped, and my previous way of seeing the world became inaccessible to me, so distant that I almost don't believe myself when I talk about it.
Look, here's my point. In the end, all of this is pointless and soon I'll be ashes and dust. That's fine. But my experience of the world is all I have now. And if I have to make up some arbitrary bullshit to value, because it makes me happy and gives meaning to my life, that's fine. Subjective meaning is still meaning. It still contextualizes and gives relevance, even if you can't prove it with logic and axioms. But nowadays I don't even view it as arbitrary or subjective. You are not alone in this world, you are not the only speck adrift in the sea of night. Your experience of the world is not in any way special or unique, and that's beautiful. The people I love most in the entire world, when I told them how I felt, how I struggled with nihilism, they told me that they felt it too. And I tried to follow their path and they were so kind and understanding with me... When those relationships wither and die, will they erase the positive effect that they are having on me right now, in this moment? Will they render the work I put in to get to this point irrelevant?
Thank you for sharing your own experience, definitely a lot of relating for myself as well. I left a longer top level comment of an update if you're curious, but the big thing for me has been changing my definition of love. That instead the nihilism was a misdirection - that yes this was a thing, and it had been solved for me...but I didn't have the thing to fill it yet. So I was blaming the emptiness within nihilism instead. But now it's beginning to fill :)
To your point of wanting to enjoy things, that change is what has allowed it happen for me. Now that that space is filled, I can take control and ownership over my own actions and not care about shit that doesn't matter. Because none of this matters.
And thank you again for your response. What you've said really is it...it's about habit forming. So form the habits that you want and trust the outcome. No it won't always be pleasant but nothing is. Except pizza.
I want to thank everyone for responding. I am sorry for disappearing - unfortunately being so vulnerable was a hard place to come back to. It was especially frustrating because I was very appreciative of the outpouring of support. So while it's taken me this long to respond, please know that you did help then.
Going to respond individually but just giving an overarching update first: I actually had a massive breakthrough a couple of months ago. A lot of my issues stem from the fact I had an insanely limited ability to feel self-love (which I knew and was my expressed goal with the work I did in therapy) - which is also going to be tied to feeling love at all; the less self-love, the lower the ceiling of love period. And I've always attacked this problem as a problem with myself; I don't feel self-love because I am unworthy of love. Become worthy of love, and you will feel self-love. And it's definitely fun coming back later and reading my post again and seeing the ways of that, that I was just trying to figure out what way possible I could fix myself.
Well, while I was sitting with a microdose of ketamine, I posited a question to myself: what if the problem of lack of self-love wasn't that the self isn't worthy of love, but how I think about love? After all it's a hyphenated word and I've only been focusing on one.
That opened the floodgates. Like I said, I had a rather traumatic childhood and my definition of love had been written by my abusers. Because love would only be received if you did what they wanted you to do; it would not be received if you didn't, aka you then weren't worthy of their love. And while I have done so much work over the years to redo the effects of their abuse, it's one of those things you have to go from the outside in. And there was a lot to go through first.
(Also as an aside to be more explicit, I'm an adult male survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I guess I'm just putting it out there because I don't really care that others know but I very well know it's hard for other men to be open about because it's literally impossible to get support groups filled even though it's so common. And I guess kinda, if anyone needs an ear for their own experiences, because I know how hard it is to find)
But I also believe I finally have found my core issue. As in I tear up just typing that sentence, which shouldn't be surprising with just how frustrated my original post was. But that the core issue was what "love" was for me
If anyone's particularly curious, for me it was a matter of changing from love being this emotion to seek (and you get it when you are worthy) to instead a choice that is made. What actions I take speak to what I love - in other words, love is what you do (aka similar to the "love is an action" belief).
This was a paradigm shift to basically EVERYTHING in my life. Shifting my definition of love obviously meant shifting my definition of self-love (which, since it's now a choice, I define it as the choice to provide and protect myself. So have actually done things like set boundaries with toxic people in my life [it's funny how quickly the trash takes itself out when you do this, with how anxious I had been about the situation for so long], and made better choices for my health). My life goals have completely shifted from being ways for me to become (eg being social, being fit, etc) to instead being ways for me to act (my life goals are now to love, to do, and to share). How I interact with hobbies and such...just how much of a domino effect it has had.
But yeah, I'll go through and do some more individual responses. And thank you again for all the support.
Also, serious shoutout to ketamine (especially IV). It's not some magic drug; I've used it as a tool for over two years now so it certainly ain't some quick fix. And used it as a tool as it has been an insane amount of work on my own. But it allows that work to be done. I personally consider it defragging the brain. But strongly recommended if you can afford it
Also I would NOT recommend outside of medicinal setting if you cannot trust yourself (different story if you can trust yourself). There's a reason I never did mushrooms and stuff, because I read the warning label and knew what would happen. And yeah, it did happen and those bad trips were some of the toughest moments of my life. But god damn did I need to have them
It's great to read about how things have changed for you. I didn't participate in the thread but I remember reading it and I think there's a lot of value in your update for people with similar struggles. Also I'm just happy for you!
Maybe edit your OP with a link to your update since it's a bit buried in the thread?
Edited it at the top, thank you for pointing that out
I really appreciate your update. My story isn't the same as yours, but your idea of self-love being an action is truly profound. I think that may have been a missing piece for me as well, so thank you for sharing! :)
Yeah, it's always one of those things where we all have our completely own path to walk - but there's little pieces from others we can pick up to form our own picture. I am legitimately forever grateful for what the internet has given me in terms of being able to read and connect with people I never would have had the opportunity to otherwise, and just how much I've been able to learn about myself from it. Best of luck :)
I'm a fully-fledged nihilist. I don't "deal" with it anymore because, like everything else, it doesn't matter. But here's my process:
Acceptance is the only way forward. Your life was meaningless before, and it remains meaningless today. The only thing to do is to accept it and move on . Not go "I accept this premise" and try to move on, but to fully internalize the idea and the fact that it simply doesn't matter. It didn't matter when you were a happier four year old, and it didn't matter during the best times of your adult life. It's not going to matter if you're lying in bed thinking of fifteen ways to kill yourself, either.
Something I would suggest is meditation as a practice. Nothing fancy, just sit there, let your mind run, and don't stop or react to anything. The end goal would be to reach a point where, rather than "focusing on the present moment" or any other stuff, you at least detach from your anxiety about the nature of existence. You don't even need to sit still if you don't want, I think it's enough to do some menial repetitive task, or play a video game that allows it, and just focus on the practice. If you start grabbing onto thoughts, bring it back to your breath or the relatively mundane thing you're occupying yourself with.
In a sense what I'm describing is a bastardization of meditation as described by Zen Buddhists (and related Chan/Soen practices in China and Korea). I want to be transparent, but do think it's a great way out. In these practices, at least the simpler, more non-theistic schools, the goal of "enligthenment" is not to ascend to some higher plane of existence or escape reincarnation, but simply to not let your thoughts run you, to not be in your own way. A major teaching is that this is the default state of being, and your goal is to return to this.
In essence I see there are two ways out of nihilism: Existentialism if you can buy in, or enlightenment, if I may put this ridiculously. I'm not an enlightened being at all, but I do believe this is how I've been able to not be crippled by it.
Meditation has helped me out a ton throughout the years for sure. I specifically do breathing-focused meditations, so that I have controlling my breath to calm myself down in bad situations.
I have a longer top-level update if you're curious, but that enlightenment has come for me in redefining love. My problem wasn't nihilism, it was that the tools I had were bad. So fix the tool by taking ownership over love, and now the result is a lot better :)
Have you been medicated for depression or any of this?
Therapy helps, but chemistry helps too.
I am currently prescribed a micro-dose of ketamine, but it has been a varying amount. But yes, the improvement in neuroplasticity has been massive in healing from trauma.
I have also been prescribed a gauntlet of SSRIs (like Lexapro and Prozac) and had such a horrible reaction to them that I question their actual usefulness (but also accept it's my own anecdotal experience). Wellbutrin did nothing.
He then tried to convince me to do electroshock therapy for my "treatment resistant depression" instead of accepting that maybe the treatment was the problem.
I am not a fan of psychiatrists to be frank lol, they have done significantly more damage than good in my life. I'm very grateful that drugs that actually help people are finally being legalized.
I suspect that nihilism is not really the heart of your issue. It is common for people to struggle with the concept of meaning in their lives, but even deeply religious people can experience depression and anhedonia, and people who believe life is inherently without purpose (such as myself) still generally find it joyful and worthwhile.
Virtually everyone who enjoys a work of art or the loss of a loved one will, on paper, agree with you: Nonfiction is imaginary, death is an expected part of life, etc. And yet they still experience emotional reactions to these things, while you do not, so I do not think the philosophy is the root cause here.
I don't think enjoying things (nor finding pain in things) is something people can just philosophize their way into doing or out of doing. Emotions are automatic processes in the unconscious portions of the brain, and while we can certainly influence them (through generally indirect means, like avoiding stimuli that trigger negative feelings) and decide how to react to them, we can't just opt in or out of having them altogether, any more than we can opt in or out of growing new cells or having immune reactions to microscopic invaders.
I fear you are unlikely to find a solution to this issue by limiting your efforts to philosophy and conventional therapy. I think it is likely that there is a biological cause. Some potential biological factors are easy to diagnose and treat, such as nutritional deficiencies and hormonal deficiencies, so I would strongly recommend starting there — but considering how long your anhedonia has gone on for, I suspect your issue is multi-faceted and will take a concerted effort to investigate. It might be time to set aside these philosophical questions and start familiarizing yourself with neuroscience literature.
Ding ding fucking ding hahahaha
I avoided talking about my usage of ketamine in my post because I know it's a controlversial topic. I am happy to see others who are interested in neuroscience. But yes it has been insanely helpful in my path to recovery. And I always thought that would be the case - I have wanted to take them since I was 13 years old and listed to Lateralus lol. But I read the warning label so I waited until I could do it medicinally.
And thank fucking god I have been able to. Because yes, my problem was with my concept of love. And ketamine was what has allowed for me to rewrite that to actually be able to find meaning and purpose within myself. Not in life, in myself.
I flirted with nihilism for a very long time. This might fall into preface 2 territory but I ended up moving from "life is pointless" to "life is weird as fuck". I think absurdism is a lot of fun, it's effectively the nihilism without the sadness.
I'm curious how much philosophy outside of nihilism and stoicism you've thought about?
In my view nihilism is an incomplete philosophy, and has limits on the wisdom it can offer. Maybe you're butting up against one of those limits and wanting for something that a nihilistic philosophy can't answer, and need to start looking elsewhere?
This is true of all philosophies, of course, but thinking about how each of them would affect you if you applied them seriously is something that helped me find values to care about. To steal a quote from Dara O'Briain - Philosophy knows it doesn't know everything, otherwise, it'd stop. (Originally he was talking about science)
If you're interested, I'd highly recommend the podcast Philosophize This! He goes through chronologically, explaining the context that spawned each philosophy and their core beliefs in a really accessible and friendly way.
I love that podcast actually! Though I haven't listened to it in years; I started from his first episode instead, since like you said it's a chronological series, but stopped when I no longer had such a long commute to work.
But yeah, my problem was not in philosophy at all but within the heart. I have a longer top level comment update if you're curious, but main thing was being able to redefine love for myself. Which then allows for fulfillment within the nihilistic paradigm. Cuz it REALLY does not work without love haha
Congrats on making some big progress! I had a similarly strong paradigm shift a year ago after taking a different thing. In both cases re-examining our situations with a different mindset seems to have been really valuable, so I'm happy for you :)
All the best for future self-discoveries.
I confess to not reading all the recent replies, so first I'm sorry if this doesn't entirely fit the tone of the conversation as it's evolved.
When I read
I felt like you had sorted your purpose question, and came to the same goal a lot of folks in our demo: since life is absurd, the purpose is to enjoy it as much as possible.
That's the hard philosophical work done. The rest is an engineering problem, as they say.
You do talk about the engineering side a bit, and I think you'd be well served to spend more time there. Your writing reads similar to my internal monologue, so I hope this is relatable. Thinking about what to do to find joy is not helpful in finding joy. Unlike philosophy and math, finding joy is more science than art. Hypothesize, experiment, measure, and repeat. This is where normies' routines come from. If there's room in your schedule to try something new once per week, or push to develop a new skill once per month, then think you'll stumble into elegant solutions to that engineering problem eventually.
I'm also late 30s, over-educated, and periodically lose battles with the void. In the past I leaned on fragments of routines involving hobbies, travel, and fun reading. Quite on accident I stumbled into a relationship that totally changed my life about six years ago. Now I'm a dad and revisiting a lot of these ideas from a new perspective.
Idk if any of this is helpful or reasonable, but if you ever need to talk or anything lmk
From what you described of stumbling into your relationship and being a dad (and the rest, but specifically that), I think you might also then relate to what I actually realized what my problem in life was: my definition of love.
And now that I define love as something you do instead of feel, that means I actually have a reason to do. And so to your point of just doing stuff, yes that has helped so much. I've been less social and that's a damn good thing, because it's meant that instead I've done the stuff I want to do lol. But also just how fun it is to be curious and learn and all that, and can only do that if you do. So gotta do :)
Thank you for sharing your own experiences
I'm happy to see the more jovial tone in your reply there. This stuff is weird, and the void is loud.
My friend used to tell me, when playing chess, "you've just gotta make a move, man". Surely he was just getting bored with waiting, but those words stick with me in a lot of different contexts.
Yeah it is legitimately good advice. It's actually funny because I had an ex-gf I had gotten into playing Othello when we'd go out to a local bar - and it was very hard for me to not say the same to her. And not because I was bored, but literally because it's a bad use of time; rather than spending time in the cerebral thinking about how things might play out, it's better to just do it and see what actually happens - so that next time you'll have that experience to go off of. But, that's not something for me to dictate so kept it to myself.
It was the same thing I experienced when I went to university as an adult - everyone was focused on "what" or "how" to study instead of just...studying. I learned very quickly that "study groups" were actually a bad thing to join, because of the bad study practices within them. Hell I've been experiencing that same thing right now as I've started using this great markdown notes taking program called Obsidian (pretty sure I found it from here lol) and it was frustrating because almost all of the material you'll find for it online only has to do with how to set it up for things you might theoretically want and to look pretty - and significantly less about actual usecases and best practices while using. I honestly feel like I've gotten more out of the program in the couple weeks with nothing but a couple plugins (Templater, Projects, and Dataview) I've used it than a lot of the people who've written guides for it, since I'm actually using it every day and not just thinking about using it lol
Sometimes, what's needed out of a game is to simply experience a board state that you haven't experienced before rather than thinking about things in terms of wins and losses. Sorry to rant about it but I just definitely agree with it haha. And just glad I'm finally able to make my own moves again in the void :) Thank you.
I can relate to some of the things you described (I also went mute for a bit when I was younger in middle school), though probably not to the same extent. Here are my 2 cents.
I'd say, first and foremost, family is important and absolutely vital. Whether that's your actual kin or people you've developed a bond with, you need people in your life you are categorically committed to and who are categorically committed to you. Among other things, this eliminates a full degree of freedom in the chaos of living and being, and frees up your thoughts and emotions in ways that are hard to imagine. Something also tangentially related: nothing can substitute in-person interaction with others. Maybe it's certain hard-wired unconscious scripts that run in the presence of a physical other or something else truly mystical, but engaging with people online just isn't enough.
Second, with nihilism I think there are a few ways to approach it. If you're not bringing religion into the solution, you could become an Epicurean hedonist. That is, continually aiming for "high" pleasures. Drugs and alcohol provide a short-term burst of "low" pleasure, but the sublime comes from relationships, nuanced and engaging art, physical sport, etcetera. Optimize for higher pleasures, and allow yourself to reorganize your life accordingly. I don't consider myself an Epicurean, so I'll just describe what made nihilism much less compelling for me personally. I just came to the feeling/conviction one day that, ultimately, we've been given "the best option". Either God exists and we're all going to heaven/getting reincarnated (the concept of a true, irreversible hell I feel confident is false), or the concept of an eternal afterlife is absurd/undesirable (like the last season of The Good Place, you'll turn into a vegetable without material struggle) and we've been blessed with a finite life.
Lastly, I would say that, even if you're convinced that you're experiencing a philosophical crisis, always keep it in the back of your mind that, at bottom, it may be purely psychological. The mind is ultimately embodied, and the particular arrangement of the human body is in many ways arbitrary.
I have a top-level comment update if you're curious for the whole thing, but to this point the way I've been able to actually do better is by redefining what love was for me. And so by doing that, that helps fill this out properly.
Because what's interesting is also then the opposite of the problem: if what that family is is toxic. It's actually a reason I've had these issues pop up again later in life. I got into a very bad relationship with a very toxic person that left a lot of damage. And I mean I got into that bad relationship because I was in a depressive episode at the time - even after getting out of the relationship, I let the depression say whatever and allowed that toxicity still in my life for years. Cutting that person out, who was also then limiting what family could be, has helped tremendously.
Thank you for the help and support :)
I don't think I have any good advice. But one thing I'll ask about: it's true that often, enjoyable things don't last. I'm wondering when that worries you. For example, enjoying a nice meal hopefully isn't spoiled by thoughts about how it will soon be over?
Lots of what you wrote resonates with me. Sometimes I wonder if I am really experiencing an emotion or if I'm just in a situation where I know that's what I'm supposed to be experiencing. Kind of like I'm watching myself experience things from a remove.
Anyway, about a year and a half ago, I almost died. I choked on a piece of food and just managed to get into the kitchen and knock myself into a counter and force it out before I blacked out. It was (perhaps unsurprisingly) very traumatic. I kind of came apart for a while, though things are much better now.
Since then, I find it really hard to engage in things unless I can convince myself that it matters it is fulfilling in some way. So I've started putting a lot of energy into just ... helping people. Some of it is volunteering, but some of it is just trying to put positive things out in the world and not worrying too much about how they are received.
Another thing that helps me get out of my head and more connected with my body is a practice that is a mix of yoga and chi-gong. I sort of stumbled into it, but it's much better than most of the "just" yoga classes (though I've gotten a lot out of just yoga in the past).
Yeah, I actually realized my problem wasn't with nihilism but instead with my definition of love. Which now having that ownership over the definition, basically all of my actions only come down to my own fulfillment. And to your point, that's in a "I want to volunteer more" and such way. Just want to put good out there like you said
Glad you were able to survive and able to get meaning out of such a scary situation.
Hey so I typed a whole pile out here & then I DMed you lol
Like others, I also flirt with nihilism, but nothing to your degree.
Couple of concise points:
Yeah you are correct that I was misdirecting blame towards nihilism. Reworking my definition of love is what has allowed to deal with the anhedonia; I have a top-level comment update if you're curious.
And to your third point I have been on a prescription for ketamine. Which was how I was able to have such a breakthrough.
I’m really glad you’ve had a breakthrough :), and thanks for letting me know, it’s always great to hear success stories!
I endured a childhood filled with abuse. I have not been diagnosed with cptsd, but there’s no need, noone could have lived through my childhood without developing sever trauma symptoms.
These symptoms show up as “maladaptive” personality traits, and they have ruined most of my relationships and careers. There are times i have been unable to move, draped in spiritual and emotional void. I am not sure why I have not killed myself, but two reasons are that it takes too much energy, and I know I might be wrong about everything.
The reason I don’t feel so bad today is community, and genuine connections. I cannot speak to your experience, but when i was dating/partying/enjoying/doing a family/getting some career success, ai was only pursuing outside representations of connection, and it failed miserably.
I have since managed to connect deeply with some people, and now i can directly experience being a part of something that is more than an absurdity or miasma.
I feel a lot now. I feel the things Inwas meant to feel as a child but suppressed. My relationships are simpler but more robust, satisfying, and interesting. My path here was adult children of dysfunctional families, but there are other ways. But as far as I know only one solution: feel and grieve the injustice done to me, and end my isolation.
100%. I have an update in a top level comment if your curious to read it, but what made the change for me was being able to redefine love. And that now having ownership of that, I can do those exact things you are talking about. So that now I can actually feel :)
Wouldn't be surprised if you had to have a similar journey about redefining love with what you've said. But regardless I'm happy for the love that is in your life now.
Oh, and also YES to simpler relationships. I've cut out so much fat and god has it helped a lot. That doesn't just meant cutting people out of my life, just how I interact with other people as a whole. That I'm focused on myself first, and my relationships to other people are just very simple things.
I hear you when you say that nothing you've mentioned above matters to you. I'm sorry to hear that you've had to force yourself to go through the motions.
Consider, for the sake of possibility: you were right all along and society is wrong? Society's definitions of value, and by corollary what things have no value, are suspect. We live in late-stage capitalism, where it's perfectly normal for an insurance company to assign a numeric value summarizing one's life. Maybe going to the movies (spending money to feed into some asset holder's coffers) isn't the answer? Maybe holding down a steady job, while providing stability as a means to lessen cost of living anxiety, doesn't extinguish the creeping dread imposed by a system that solely attributes value to your productivity as a member of its workforce while whipping you along with bills and deadlines to meet its inexorable demands?
It's incontrovertible fact that nothing ultimately matters. Someday relatively soon on the cosmic scale, humans will no longer exist. Any scrabbling attempts we make to leave marks of our existence behind will almost assuredly fade. Our glories and our mistakes both.
Since I had this realization as a younger adult, my who cares? Has turned into a stubborn who fucking cares. I for one don't give half a rats ass about my assigned value. I couldn't care less if I were to be brutally murdered tomorrow. I don't even care if I'm in pain or mildly (again, on the grand scheme of things anything on the scale of me, personally, is mild and meaningless) inconvenienced.
This small shift, for me, has given me the freedom to figure out what I do care about, even when it doesn't matter. Me, personally. I read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and have decided that hey, her words resonated with me enough that I planted a bit of native mint at the corner of the sidewalk. Somebody dug it up and stole it from public property (now, since it's on the sidewalk) yesterday, so it's likely halfway to China as part of some silly plant black market scheme. And I don't care. I say good, that serves the original purpose of selecting a native plant. I say, I did my part and got a sense of satisfaction out of my own actions. Me, not whatever society has told me is worthwhile or worthless. It's my middle finger up to the shitty lottery of existing. I'm here only because the universe made a cosmic mistake so the wibbly system of late-stage capitalism can go suck itself off. Despite despite despite.
I don't know what it'll be for you. But I don't think you'll find it in what somebody else keeps telling you.
Yeah that's what I've been able to conclude as well really. That I was able to gain a lot by "buying in", but it also comes with a crap ton of fat. And so now it's just time to chop off the fat and have what I gained as the takeaway.
And yeah, just how clear what you're talking about is now. Embracing that has been HUGE for me. Because that's how I think life should be lived, and so that's now what I'm doing. I have a update in a top-level comment but what helped me a ton was being able to redefine love. Because now I know what -I- want to do. Which, the answer is "whatever the moment calls for" :)
Actually I will share one of the things I have absolutely loved doing. There a springs state park near me that nobody goes to, because it's in the middle of nowhere and they don't allow drinking. I go on a weekday, when all the kids are in school and people are at work...literally just me floating down a river hanging out with turtles and birds and hopefully one day a manatee. And hopefully not a gator lol, I've stopped going since they'll start going into springs now that all the water in the state is cold.
Other people brought up good points about psychology and brain chemistry as well as mindfulness. The way I see it, focusing on the micro doesn't mean to stop thinking, but rather think more about the current task at hand. It's hard to do that if your mind is too far into the future (we're all dying in the end, so what's the point of XYZ?).
Have you talked to your therapist about exercises to bring you back into the present? There's something like hyper focusing on one of the 5 senses to interrupt yourself when you catch yourself drifting.
I'll also echo what others said about medication. If it hasn't been explored yet, it sounds like an important piece of the puzzle.
On a side note, have you thought about a more cottagecore lifestyle as a means of rejecting society (rather than hedonism)? Like living in the suburbs or countryside and taking up more homestead activities. It's totally fine to be more reclusive if you feel drained by trying to fit into a social mold that doesn't feel authentic to you.
I've definitely been embracing being reclusive a lot more. I have a top level comment if you're curious about an update, but the main thing was that I redefined what love is for me. And doing that has allowed embracing stuff like that better. Thank you for the response :)
Hey! It's great to hear that you're doing better now. I checked out your other comment as well, and I'm so happy for you. Wishing you the best! ☺️
You say that life is meaningless but you also seem really angry about it. You seem to be suffering a lot. That sucks, I am sorry.
I don't know if any of this will help but when I was super depressed, philosophy made it worse.
Some books that I have read that I think might be helpful (at least they helped me) are
Flow the psychology of optimal experience
Zoobiquity what animals can teach about health
The Bonobo and the Atheist in search of Humanism Amongst the Primates