I never feel actually _happy_ about anything

[pokey]

When I was a kid I was happy sometimes I think but I know that around the time I was ten I stopped feeling it and couldn’t remember for sure if I was even happy as a kid or just sort of pleased. Then one day in my late 20s one day I was lying on the couch and I became really happy. I know it was the pot but I’d smoked pot before and never had that reaction. So that really made me realize what I’d been living without. I was disturbed to find out how it felt to be happy and felt more than a little ripped off. However, it was an isolated incident. For another 4 years or so it never happened again. I only smoked pot maybe 5 times in my life and I think that was actually the last time I ever did. It’s not a habit of mine.

Then a couple of years ago I started to feel happy on a regular basis. I don’t really know why. I would just be looking out the window and feel really happy, or be making dinner and feel good and feel happy that I feel good. Now I just feel happy a few times a day. It’s a weird feeling like maybe something good is going to happen and I don’t know what. I don’t try to think about it too much or that would ruin it. Like if I think it through, what’s going to happen? I don’t know why this happens but it’s really nice.

[wonky]

[QUOTE=pokey]
It’s a weird feeling like maybe something good is going to happen and I don’t know what. I don’t try to think about it too much or that would ruin it. Like if I think it through, what’s going to happen? I don’t know why this happens but it’s really nice.
[/QUOTE]

I get the opposite one. All of a sudden, something terrible is going to happen and I can’t stop it. It doesn’t matter that the bad thing has never happened yet. (At least, when I’m expecting it.)

Blah.

[Yag_Rannavach]

I get the opposite one. All of a sudden, something terrible is going to happen and I can’t stop it. It doesn’t matter that the bad thing has never happened yet. (At least, when I’m expecting it.)

The bad thing is just preparing itself. You’ll see, in about 20 years all of the stored up bad things will happen at once.

[Least_Original_User_Name_Ever]

[QUOTE=BarnOwl]
I get absolutely ecstatic about my identical twin grandchildren.

I can get that way in their presence or not - just thinking about them. I mean I was whomped out with pneumonia, feeling rock bottom rotten because it was night time, I was lying in bed, and couldn’t sleep. Then I thought about those kids, how wonderful they are and my very being was swept through with such happiness my heart went pitter patter and I felt right with the world. I don’t know if I fell asleep soon after, but I remember that things weren’t so bad, after all.

Grabbing a cigarette outside of work on a summer day, I looked at my gorgeous little Miata and experienced untrammeled joy at the sight of it. And it’s a used car!

I took my brand new RWS Model 48 air rifle out in the back yard, loaded it, closed the breach and took my first shot at a dead-ish tree. The whole experience was a study in joy for me.

Frylock, you and all the others who are like you in this regard need help—i think.

Like has wonderfully joyful moments. Smell the flowers and let your heart go pitter patter, for crying out loud.
[/QUOTE]

It’s not that I don’t get the little joys in life. I’m happy with all the little joys in life, but I’m not really referring to that. If I were told that I accomplished something I were working on, it’d be a very temporary and fleeting euphoria followed by “okay, let’s get back to work and make it better”.

Meh?

[BarnOwl]

[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever]
It’s not that I don’t get the little joys in life. I’m happy with all the little joys in life, but I’m not really referring to that. If I were told that I accomplished something I were working on, it’d be a very temporary and fleeting euphoria followed by “okay, let’s get back to work and make it better”.

Meh?
[/QUOTE]

Your reaction to the smaller things in life are normal.

But suppose you make a MAJOR accomplishment. You wouldn’t be riding a big high all day long? You couldn’t sit back and say, “Damn! Life is great!!” ? I hope so.

But poor Frylock doesn’t know what it’s like to be ape shit happy. I feel so sorry for him and others in the same boat.

[Squink]

[QUOTE=BarnOwl]
But suppose you make a MAJOR accomplishment. You wouldn’t be riding a big high all day long?
[/QUOTE]
Post accomplishment letdown is pretty common.
Here it is in athletes

Even with the best preparation, however, there will be a natural motivational lull. When you’ve spent months working toward a specific event and you’ve reached the finish line of a significant physical test, even the most focused athletes experience a psychological letdown. The challenge has motivated you to be regular with your exercise, to keep pushing your endurance limits on long runs, and to reach down deep for motivation and the strength to go on. Like any almost unique lifetime accomplishments, the day of achievement is an emotional peak day, followed by a downturn.

and soldiers

Following the ground war in Iraq, mental health personnel were proactive in facilitating and conducting post-battle and post-trauma debriefings. They taught leaders how to recognize and deal with “cease-fire letdown,” a reaction to the decrease in tension after combat in which some soldiers engage in daredevil behavior. This behavior, which led to death and injuries, was identified for the first time following the Gulf War.[14]

It happens in grad school, and real life too. It sucks when it happens too fast.

[Quiddity_Glomfuster]

[QUOTE=Yag Rannavach]
I would have to disagree with this. Existing in a constant state of contentment is…hard to describe. The best I can think of is “nothing”. There’s no reason to get out of bed, no reason to stay in bed. There is a lack of anxiety and regret, but there is also a lack of everything else. This isn’t depression, as there is no associated sadness, and it’s not like you want to stay in bed, it’s just that you have nothing better to do.

That is not a state of being that is desirable to anyone except those who haven’t been there.
[/quote]

I don’t believe that’s what’s meant by contentment. Contentment includes a peaceful, comfortable feeling. If you don’t go someplace, it’s not because you have nothing better but because you are happy where you are.

I would look into getting checked for depression. You don’t have to actively be sad to be depressed; being unmotivated is a symptom.

However, some people with depression don’t feel depressed at all. Rather than sad, they feel lifeless and empty. In this apathetic state, they are unable to experience pleasure. Even when participating in activities they used to enjoy, they feel as if they’re just “going through the motions.”

From here

[Yag_Rannavach]

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
I don’t believe that’s what’s meant by contentment. Contentment includes a peaceful, comfortable feeling. If you don’t go someplace, it’s not because you have nothing better but because you are happy where you are.
[/QUOTE]

Ah, I was using it to mean satisifed with the way things are. And taking satisfied to mean that your desires are met (and they are, since you don’t have any).

I’m not sure how else to describe it…it isn’t depression. There’s a lack of motivation, sure, not because everything is hopeless, but because you have no reason to do anything. Not “if I do this it won’t matter”, but “I don’t care if I do this or not”.