baseline anhedonia

// what, most people don't live like this?

>>> so, i've come to the realization that most people enjoy socializing significantly more than I do. this isn't a recent realization, to be fair. but i forget about it and then am reminded of it every time i hang out with a friend. i re-realized this today, and at the same time, realized that perhaps my baseline anhedonia--social or otherwise--is not the average experience. it is, however, my baseline state.

>>> i saw this post on tumblr or something a while ago that discussed this 'baseline adhedonia.' it talked about how anhedonia seems to be something most people talk about as if it is inevitable a person will overcome it, or as inherently suffering. the thing is, this post said, these discussions fail to realize that some people experience anhedonia most, if not all, of the time. this can happen with schizo-spec disorders. there are probably other things that cause this, but i don't know as much about that.

>>> i don't necessarily see anhedonia as a bad thing. it just kind of...is. it's just reality for me. i understand why it can feel bad for other people who might experience it episodically, but when you don't have any experience beside anhedonia, it's hard to be disappointed with it, y'know? though i do find myself curious what the alternative feels like.

>>> just wanted to briefly talk about this. it's nice to know i'm not the only one on earth with chronic anhedonia.

// WRITTEN JULY 16, 2026 | POSTED JULY 16, 2026 | EDITED FOR SPELLING JULY 19, 2026

on being abstracted

// not in the "amazing digital circus" sense. content warning for discussion of delusion.

>>> i had a conversation that made me feel strange a while ago, and i couldn't figure out why it made me feel that way until recently. basically, my boyfriend was taking a class on philosophy of disability, and they discussed a hypothetical scenario about a person with delusions. the scenario was that the person, who i'll call bob, frequently experienced delusions at night when he was convinced he was in danger for one reason or another. bob, being afraid, calls his friend in the middle of the night for help and/or comfort. since this happens so frequently, the friend is exhausted from being woken up night after night.

>>> the question posed to the class asked if bob was responsible for recognizing the harm he causes his friend in calling him in the middle of the night so frequently and therefore stopping it, or if his delusions mean he can't be held accountable. the argument of that particular class was that bob, despite being delusional, has the agency to decide not to call his friend because he can recognize that he is suffering from delusions.

>>> now, obviously people have agency and deserve agency regardless of their mental health. that being said, i felt conflicted. my boyfriend posed this question to me, finding his class interesting, and i became very aware that...i was bob. well, before my meds. i'd be terrified all night because i thought things were coming to hurt me and my loved ones, so i'd wake up my family, desperate for help. i always felt bad about it later, but in the moment, it's really hard to tell what's real and what's not. why would i NOT wake up my family if the Evil Man of Death is in my house? i fully believed it! i was just doing what made sense! i do understand how exhausting dealing with that must be, though. more than anything, i feel this question reveals a shortcoming in resources for people with delusions. but that's actually not what i'm feeling strangest about with regard to this question.

>>> this question made me feel odd because it felt like...the way it was described to me, it seemed like when the class discussed it, they assumed nobody who had any similar experience to bob was in the room. now, i don't now if there was anyone who had ever experienced delusions in that classroom. but still, the assumption that they're talking about delusional folks as a 'hypothetical' bothers me. like, they didn't account for our possible presence in these spaces. they just assumed we're some far off idea of the 'delusional,' which sort of takes away that we're real and our experiences are real. also, when my boyfriend asked me this question after his class, i realized...even though i had told him about having these sorts of delusional experiences in the past, he didn't really process me as a 'delusional person.' he asked me this as if i was removed from the question, had no stake in it, like an interesting thought about an academic theory.

>>> i felt like i and other people with delusions had their experiences abstracted away by the question and the way it was posed. like we existed as an academic question or hypothetical-but-not-quite-real 'disabled' person for the class to discuss. it felt...bad.

>>> i don't have much else to say about this. just...schizo-spec people (and other people who have delusions!) are real, not just an idea.

// WRITTEN JULY 2, 2026 | POSTED JULY 8, 2026