I have depression and anhedonia (emotional numbness) and this brief story I am about to present about the couples (the man and the woman) is my own personal attitude in life regarding my depression/anhedonia and this is who I would be, metaphorically speaking, if I never had depression or anhedonia. I am also an atheist and this is my own personal attitude regarding my atheism as well just like the attitude these couples have:

A man meets a beautiful woman and they become lovers. The man then says:

“We will live our own perfect blissful fantasy world in loving each other and pleasuring ourselves. Hardships and despair–we don’t need them. They will only make us lesser people and our lives more worthless. In a way, we are superior god-like beings for ourselves because we dominate over this life of suffering and despair since we basically don’t have to have any of it. Our feelings of love and pleasure are the greatest things in life and about us and we will pursue these feelings all we want for our entire lives. They allow us to live in this blissful fantasy world and to not be bound by this inferior life of suffering and despair. If we were bound by this inferior life of suffering and despair and had suffering and despair in our lives, then that would make our lives inferior and would make us inferior for not being able to live this blissful fantasy world that we wish to live so badly. I don’t care what anyone else has to say such as that we are better people for our suffering and despair and for helping others through our suffering and despair. Our lives would still be inferior and worthless and we would still be inferior anyway for no longer living this blissful fantasy world since that is the only life we will ever care about living no matter what. But thankfully, there is no suffering and despair in our lives and we still have our sacred feelings of love and pleasure fully intact and there will be NOTHING that will ever take these feelings away from us!

We also believe in God and a heaven and that is what further makes our lives a blissful fantasy world unlike those people who are atheists and live in this inferior reality that is the exact opposite of this blissful fantasy world we are living. We are superior for ourselves and our lives are superior since we don’t EVER have to face reality by realizing that there is no God or heaven and by having suffering and despair in our lives. We will forever live our blissful fantasy world both in this life as well as in heaven separate from this inferior world of atheism and suffering/despair and that is what makes us the better people for ourselves and is what makes our own lives better! Some people would go bored and insane from living a life of pure bliss and no suffering. But not us. Unlike these people who value hardships and suffering and need some of these things in their lives, we have no value whatsoever towards such things and we instead have full value towards living a perfect blissful life. Because of this, we will never get bored or go insane from living such a perfect blissful life. Ignorance is bliss and this is who we will forever be and how our lives will forever be.”

A man then comes up and explains something to these couple by saying:

“Far be it from this life being anything perfect. I am an atheist and I have to deal with reality as well as suffering and despair myself. There will come a time in your lives where you will have to deal with these same things as well.”

The couple then replies back by saying:

“If you are going to take our beautiful perfect blissful fantasy world away from us, then we are just going to have to slaughter you! Our feelings of love and pleasure are the most precious greatest things and if we were to ever lose them due to a perhaps lifelong depression or anhedonia, then we will start slaughtering people like you!”

Now that you’ve read that story, here is another story I will present with a mother and her daughter. This is not my own personal attitude in life, but I see the mother and daughter as being better people with better lives anyway. I would like to share to you this story of a mother and her daughter just to make you realize just how much ******** this unfair life is and to make you even more enraged towards it. Therefore, here is a story of a mother and daughter who lived happily ever after taking the lives away from innocent suffering people which is, apparently, what made them the better people in this unfair life where we are truly the inferior ones who have suffering and despair in our lives:

Daughter: “This life is so beautiful.”

Mother: “It truly is. For being unfair to those with depression and anhedonia and fair to us happy folks for rewarding us more for having more in life and for taking away from those people for having less in their lives.”

Daughter: “We should take even more away from these people to make them feel even worse and give these things to the happy folks like us because we are the fortunate ones.”

Mother: “We as a happy family will create a happy fantasy world of our own by taking away from those who suffer from depression and anhedonia, making ourselves and other happy folks like us more happy, and by rubbing it in the faces of these suffering people in making ourselves even more happy.”

Daughter: “We will happily overcome and defeat these suffering people and celebrate our blessed lives and victory.”

Mother: “The fact that we live in a happy fantasy world makes us superior to struggles and reality itself because we don’t have to live by such silly things or accept any of these things. The people who do are the ones who need to be taught that they are just going to have to accept that they are worthless inferior human beings who don’t deserve anything. We will take away from such people in order to teach them this valuable life lesson and to teach them that this life is unfair and that they are just going to have to accept that.”

Daughter: “Especially for those who suffer and are atheists. We, with our religious beliefs, will go to heaven for living happy lives while those who suffer from depression and anhedonia will live in hell.”

Mother: “That’s right, honey. Not only is this life unfair, but the afterlife is also unfair as well and gives us heaven and those other people hell. The afterlife is evidenced as unfair because if we drive an innocent suffering person to suicide, then that person would live an eternal life of suffering in hell for having killed his/herself which is obviously not fair for all the suffering that person has already gone through in this life. The afterlife is, therefore, no different than this life because both are unfair and the unfair afterlife will grant us heaven for having lived nice happy lives and will grant hell to those who suffer from depression and anhedonia. If there was a fair God, then He would not of sent this innocent suffering person who committed suicide to hell. Therefore, it wasn’t the fact that this person killed his/herself that sent him/her to hell because a fair and loving God would never do such a thing to an innocent suffering person. Rather, it would of been because this person lived a life of despair which sent this person to an afterlife of despair (hell). This person’s soul was in despair, could not find its way to heaven, and only found its way to hell. But we are fortunate and our nice happy lives will send us to an afterlife of eternal happiness (heaven). Our happy souls will find their way into heaven and there will be no way that they would find their way into hell since our souls will not be in despair or numb (lifeless) unlike the souls of those who suffer from depression and anhedonia which will be in despair and numb (lifeless).

Once a happy life, always a happy life. And a life of despair will always be a life of despair. These people have to ask themselves the question of what they can do to make the best of this life. Yes, they will burn in hell for all their lifelong despair of depression and anhedonia. But they are just going to have to accept all their suffering not only in this life, but also in hell. Even I have hardships that I have to deal with. I scarred my beautiful face and I have to live with that scar my entire life and to just accept that.”

(Story Note: I bet you feel quite offended by that last paragraph there about the mother having to accept a scar on her face and telling us to accept our suffering of depression and anhedonia and in hell that is far worse and that this is a complete offensive joke to us who suffer greatly. How greatly offended you feel from this is how greatly offended I would be if someone told me to accept my suffering of depression and anhedonia and if this person were to then give an example of his/her own suffering, how he/she accepted it, and told me to accept my suffering which hardly compares because pleasure is the greatest thing in life and defines you as a human being. To lose that would be the worst thing. Any other form of suffering hardly compares. I would even find it very offensive if someone with depression and anhedonia told me to accept mine. I would find it very offensive because all of my reasons stated in my writing).

Mother: “Our happiness is our greatest gift in life and is what makes us better and superior to those who don’t have it and suffer. Those who frown upon it and upon us for not helping others are just jealous of it. For us to take away from those people suffering through our own happiness is our greatest gift in life and many others will envy it. Innocent suffering people will also envy the fact that we can achieve great things in life through our pure happiness alone just as good as (and much better) than they can.”

The daughter then makes a gleeful retarded facial expression and says:

Daughter: “I’m going to pursue pleasure in life to the max. TO THE ABSOLUTE MAX!!!”

Mother: “I know honey, I know. This life is just too beautiful for us and we are so blessed to have it.”

Now since feelings of love and pleasure feel like the greatest things to me in life and that nothing else in life compares (other than the feelings of love and pleasure that others possess), this is what makes these feelings the greatest things in life and is what makes everything else in life virtually nothing in comparison. These feelings may be nothing more than science and brain chemistry which makes them not all that special and great in terms of science. But there is a big difference between how nonspecial and ungreat these feelings are in terms of science and how special and great they are to us based on our own personal experience of these feelings. But if your own personal experience in life somehow tells you that these feelings are not that great or not even great at all for that matter and that other things in life have greater value, then you obviously have not experienced these feelings nearly as profound or meaningful as I have to know that they are the greatest things in life.

If you were to accept any loss in life besides your loss of pleasure and moved on in life, you would be the better person since you have found pleasure despite your loss and for no longer being depressed about that loss. But pleasure will forever be the greatest thing to me in my life (as my personal profound and meaningful experience of it says so) and, for me, to accept my loss of pleasure would make me the lesser person. It is the greatest aspect of me as a human being based on my experience of it and I would have demeaned myself for allowing myself to live my life as the lesser person through acceptance of living an entire life of depression or anhedonia that might never get better or fully recover.

Now there are people who have lost things in their lives that made their lives worth living and have moved on in life anyway. But the fact is, they have found something else in their lives that now makes their lives worth living which is what enabled these people to accept their losses and move on. As for me though, pleasure is the only thing that will always make my own personal life worth living and I will never find anything else in my life worth living that will enable me to accept and move on like these people have.

I would be driven to homicide if someone told me to accept that my depression and anhedonia might never get better and that I am likely to have to live with it. I would be on the verge of homicide due to pleasure being the only greatest thing to me in life and for anyone to reject my yearning for my pleasure back and tell me to just accept and move on, they would no longer be compassionate human beings to me. However, the only thing that is keeping me calm is the possibility of a full recovery in the future through therapy, medication, or just over time on its own. So unless it was proven to me that I will never get better or fully recover, I will not be driven to homicide.

Also, we are all inferior because we are not superior immortal god-like beings who can rule over this life of suffering in having no suffering and despair in our lives. I realize that is just a fantasy nor will there ever be the possibility of that ever happening. But this still makes us inferior anyway regardless of the fact that it is nothing more than a fantasy.

Finally, if you are going to say suffering and despair is not a choice and is something we all have to deal with, as for me, I could have chosen to not look up things on the internet such as the fact that there are treatment resistant people who do not get better. Knowing these things was the cause of my anhedonia and depression.

• This topic was modified 10 years ago by Matt.