# Anxiety Disorders > Social Anxiety Disorder >  >  Anhedonia

## Keddy

Has anyone else heard of (or do you have) anhedonia as a symptom or result of depression?
Anhedonia is defined as the inability to experience pleasure from activities that normally make people happy.
I feel disinterested in a lot of things that people normally enjoy- going to the movies, going out to dinner, partying, socializing, exercising, going to the beach, shopping, doing artwork, etc. I still do these things a lot of the time, but it feels forced (especially with exercise) and I don't really get any pleasure out of it. I would love for life to make me happy but it doesn't.
I feel like I'm never actually happy. I'm "fake happy" a lot of the time, and I smile and laugh enough to make people believe that I'm OK, but I'm never truly happy. I'm never satisfied with myself either or with anything that I do.
I hate feeling like this because I think it makes my boyfriend and my friends think I'm bored with them or I don't want to hang out with them. That's not true at all. I just feel miserable and have a lack of interest in doing much of anything.
My medication helps with this symptom to an extent and it has improved since I started the meds I'm on now, but it's still there a lot of the time. Does anyone else have any experience with this or has anyone heard of it before?

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## nothing

I was thinking of that exact word as I tossed and turned in bed last night. I try really hard to fake it during the times I'm around others, but it's just that, fake. When I actually had "friends" they'd mention and harass me about being a downer because it was really obvious that I wasn't enjoying myself. Unfortunately it's even worse in a way when I'm alone, I still feel unhappy/anhedonic, but I also feel lonely because I think I should be around other people.

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## IllusionOfHappiness

Sounds like me alright. 

Even when I know I should be enjoying myself and there's no reason for that not to be happening, it's like I've got to remind myself what being happy feels like. I guess when you feel shitty for X amount of time, it's all you really know anymore.

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## Otherside

Yeah, I have this problem during depression. I stop caring about things. I just don't care about anything at all. Things that I once enjoyed take to much energy to do and they don't mean anything to me whatsoever.

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## compulsive

I lost interest in pretty much everything including speaking to people. Sleep is the only thing i enjoy.

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## Kaffee

Depression seems to come and go for me these days, but when things aren't good that's precisely how I feel. There were periods where the emotion I was displaying on the surface never matched what I felt. I could be laughing or goofing off, and inside I'd still just feel a mass of nothingness blocking everything else out, if that makes sense.

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## Misssy

eh, I don't care about depression right now because I had a terrible spell of it that cost me thousands of dollars art-christmas-coffee-cool-sweet-Favim.com-248882.jpg

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## 1

No

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