The Pleasure Principle

 

Schizophrenia, and the related illness, schizo-affective disorder, which I have, is generally misunderstood and sometimes people react with fear when they discover you have it.

 

What probably comes to mind when normies do think about it are the banner symptoms like hallucinations – hearing voices – delusions and magical thinking, and paranoia. I’ve had all those things but generally speaking, since I was hospitalised a decade ago and put on a depot injection of paliperidone, an antipsychotic medicine, every three weeks, I’ve been stable and able to lead a productive, fulfilling life. I haven’t heard voices in years and, while the paranoia comes and goes, it’s generally manageable. 

 

But there are things about schizophrenia the meds don’t treat. Many people who have been diagnosed suffer from anhedonia, or the inability to feel pleasure. We also have flattened affect, so we don’t emotionally respond to things because we don’t feel them, and we also struggle to make connections with people, both socially and romantically. 

 

These are the aspects of schizophrenia that have an ongoing impact on my life. I rarely feel anything, I find it hard to make connections and I wrestle with trying to understand why people don’t see things the way I do. I just don’t have the emotional responses to people and situations that most folks do. I can appreciate others' points of view, and I can show empathy in an academic sense (I get that I have to, and I can recognise the situations where it's important, but it's an intellectual, learned response, not an emotional one), but that's about it. The only things I can get passionate about are my kids, music, literature and poetry and writing, things that are woven into the core of my being. Nothing else has an impact, makes me feel anything, or gives me any joy or pleasure.

 

Recently I was in a romantic relationship and while I thought the person was nice and kind, I think I got into it simply because they showed an interest in me, which was good for my ego. I didn’t have feelings for that person – I wasn’t in love - and when I ended it, I never thought about it again. Breaking up didn’t induce any emotional response. I basically didn’t, and couldn’t, care. If I did 'feel' anything, it was a sense of relief that I was no longer being asked to provide emotional support to the person I'd been involved with, emotional support I was incapable of giving. 

 

I’ve kinda reconciled myself to the fact I am unable to be in, or maintain, a romantic relationship. I also find the physical aspects of a relationship boring – again, another symptom of anhedonia – and I’m unable to be in the moment when they do happen.

 

Personally, if I had a choice between an 8-ball of cocaine, or the opportunity to have sex, I’d choose the rack every time. At least the drug makes me feel something, makes me feel normal. Not ‘high,’ just normal, whereas the physical activity, as I said, is boring and I just can’t enjoy it. I don’t feel a ‘connection’ – it’s just work and I don't see the point.

 

I’d like to care about things. I’d like to feel things, and have a relationship with someone that I could fall in love with. Or, at least, I’d like those things in theory. In practice, it doesn’t bother me that much. I am happy and content the way I am and, besides, there's no way to change things. I know I said these symptoms have an ongoing impact on my life, but that’s only in so far as they stop me from feeling like I'm a normal, functioning and emotionally healthy member of society. And normal society is something I’m not sure I want to be part of anyway.