Anhedonia

I think instead of writing here, I’ve been processing so much through songwriting.  Which sounds fucking pretentious, but is true.  Songs about depression/mental illness, gay marriage, growing up poor, hell, the damn bird who nested on our house.

I did write one song I released to the world, but everything else is waiting its turn for the next time I go into the studio.

 I was up early this morning, scrolling around the internet, and found myself looking at the word “anhedonia,” which appeared in an article I was reading.

noun, Psychology.
1.
lack of pleasure or of the capacity to experience it.

Well shit.  There’s a name for this crippling and suffocating experience that happens every so often to me.  It’s not all the time.  It’s not every day.  But it’s prompted me to fuck around (with Bob and my doctor) my brain medicine because I hate that feeling so much.   Imagine you’re Mr. Finger Guns, without your fingers!

It’s the one, lingering, relentless symptom of my brand of mental illness.  It emerged sometime about six months ago.  I tweaked my old medicine a bit, and it got better.  It went away.  I was laughing and high-fiving.  I was also shouting at my kid a lot.  The other times during the day, I was always threadbare with my patience.  It wasn’t working.  It wasn’t balanced.

I’m in week two of the new pills, and for fuck’s sake, tweaking with your brain chemistry is so tricky.  Some days are good.  Some days are really bad.  I’m going through the motions.  I’m at the bar, singing songs.  I’m in the woods on a hike.  I’m making pancakes and drinking coffee.  I’m trying to be in the now, in the moment, but that’s proving hard when the moment feels like it is so awful, despite no actual awfulness, or cause to the effect.

Next week, we’re going to the beach.  I can’t breathe when I think about feeling like this on my week off of work, where I plan on sitting in the sand in the sun all day, on my favorite place on earth.

Today, I’m making my packing list.  My vacation grocery list.  Prepping my brain for a good time.  Hoping for stability and balance.  Hoping the sand and sun and waves can help recalibrate my inner self.