Anhedonia: A New Mood That's Manifested Since Pandemic Lockdowns

I have been staring at my laptop screen for 21 minutes now. It’s the fourth time today I’ve picked it up and stared into the glow, tapping my fingers along the keyboard. Usually flowery and flourishing, words spill out the end of my fingers but now there is a tap and nothing more. There is a foggy sphere where my brain used to be and this trouble is not just my own.

As we are released from lockdown another mood has manifested: anhedonia.
Anhedonia is the inability to feel pleasure. It is a common symptom of depression and other psychiatric illness but a symptom that now clouds over post-pandemic spirits.

The day I noticed the anhedonia had returned it was my birthday. The lights dimmed low and my dad walked through the door with a giant cake, my family singing happy birthday unmelodious and loving, and cake was then placed in front of me. I stared at it in all its glory, topped with elegant candles and flowers and I smiled but I didn’t feel it. At the moment I knew I should have been happy; I should have felt love so I smiled but my heart just felt empty. I’d describe anhedonia and numbness as a painful side effect of depression, but it is the absence of feeling. It is the inability to feel pleasure and, in my experience, partially coincides with the inability to feel anything at all.

There are times in most people lives when they were occasionally lose the interest in the things they enjoy. Feelings changing and waning are a part of life and the jeopardy of living but anhedonia is extreme. Joy is impossible. Things that once thrilled; sex, music, food, travel and love all dissolve into nothing. Instead, you feel numb. The world drained of color and you experience life in black and white.

We have all been dealing with situations that we are not equipped for since the start of the pandemic including isolation; an experience humans aren’t very good at. Anhedonia and emotional numbing can be a reaction to trauma and a way our brains cope with challenging events. Even if we haven’t had direct contact to traumatic events, we all lost our activities and links that keep us active and happy. We became stoic in seclusion. Now lockdown is “over” and we return to normal life but there is a new pandemic; mental health and depression is at the top of the list. With health care services overwhelmed and with limited access, we are riding a new wave of depression and for most a new, challenging and serious situation. Lockdown living has spawned a mental health epidemic with few having the support and intervention to recover.

As a feature of major depression, anhedonia might sound subdued and repressive but it is a condition that hides extreme risk. In the absence of joy, people may be pushed into reckless activities and substance abuse just to find that spark again. Happiness is addictive; once devoid the soul starts to die and our survival instinct is to create more at any cost.

For many of us anhedonia may have impacted in lockdown, but its ripples are now coursing through our everyday life as we struggle to get back to what we once felt before. The pressure to return to “normality” is causing frustration and lack of self-worth when we do not see ourselves as successful. The pursuit of happiness causing more stress than solace.

Then there is the guilt. The shame that the wonderful things we are lucky to have do not bring us joy. The emptiness felt from the kindest gestures make us feel so ungrateful. Our relationships suffering and depression pushing you further away.

Anhedonia doesn’t just steal your emotions; it also begins to steal your life. Although given the dire situation we have faced the last 18 months, it is a normal and justified reaction but it is not something to be ignored. These feelings, or lack of, are a sign something is wrong may require medical and therapeutic help. In the meantime, speak to your loved ones and tell them how you feel because I guarantee you are not alone. Shaking off the shell from lockdown is easier with support and to even admit your feelings can relieve some pressure.

From once was what a roaring fire, my soul now feels like a flickering candle. This was my thought as I stared at my birthday cake. However, as I look around the room at my smiling family, I might not feel love but I can see it is there for me.