When is the last time you have felt joy

It has been four years since I have felt joy. A few times I have felt it, while I was terribly weary. Life is not joyful for me anymore. It’s more of just enduring through the pain of life thinking there will be a better day, a day that I have no hope of happening

Yeah I feel the same way. Life is just a constant struggle even rolling out of bed. Strange thing is I think I experienced the most joy while I was totally wacked out delusional.

1 Like

A couple of years ago I was feeling some joy from religious delusion. I was completely out of my mind, but I was feeling joy. I also have lost hope having relief from this thing, I’m just trying to suck it up and make it till the end.

1 Like

@BrianTex I know exactly what you mean. When I was physcotic and delusions, I was extremely more happier then I am today. I don’t know why, I just didn’t have insight or have to worry about the things going around me. The cares of this world didn’t even cross my mind. There is just more problems now

It’s been so long since i’ve felt joy, the memory of it has become very faint.

I don’t laugh anymore either, it’s more of a cackle really, not a happy thing at all.

I don’t smile anymore either, i never smile because im happy, like the cackling.

1 Like

I get flashes of joy on occasion (maybe once a week and they last for a second or two). It’s funny how you don’t even realize how precious it is until it becomes an occasional passing feeling. Even then, when you go without it for so long you forget what joy feels like.

Though, being bipolar II too, I get (hypo)mania. So there is this odd feeling of ecstasy and awesomeness when manic…but it lacks that feeling of joy. Like the fantastic feeling is just hollow. It’s hard to explain, but it shows that there is a difference between euphoria and joy. You wouldn’t think there would be a difference since euphoria, ecstasy, happiness, and joy are all kinda grouped together as different grades of a single feeling and they really aren’t.

I feel joy often when I laugh by myself alone when I have heard a good joke.

Here is one joke I heard recently.

There are some nonFinnish speaking doctors at the hospital. Once one person had some heart troubles and told a doctor that he has not drank any alcohol in 17 years. This nonFinnish speaking doctor had misunderstood and commented that there you see when you have been drinking alcohol since your 17 year age. This person was in his 50s. Basically, the doctor had understood that this person had drank alcohol over 30 years which had caused his heart troubles. I thought this was funny.

1 Like

I hadn’t felt joy in a very long time until I went to Norway and went to this place called Molde; we went to an Island and it was so wild, so quite bar the wind and the birds. I smiled more than I have in a long time that day. Since my life has just returned to the non joyful event of my struggles, but I remember that day and it reminds me that happiness is possible.

My life dooooddd omg ewwwww

I don’t know that I often feel full on joy.

I think that when I decided to fight I made the silent bargain to accept that most of my “joy” was mania infused.

What about the cruise? Did you have any fun on that?

I know that I will never feel the same euphoria as when I’m manic, delusional and out of my head. But that’s not healthy. That’s off the hook. So I just have to learn that people don’t feel euphoric joy all the time. It’s muted for most people.

I went through a period where there was no joy is I wasn’t delusional and euphoric.

But a therapist brought it to my attention that if I focus on the misery 100% then that’s all I’m going to notice. The more I focus on the horrid, I have NO room for anything else.

Try of contentment and then work up to joy.

1 Like

I don’t feel joy, I can only feel euphoria and bliss occasionally, when I am hypomanic, sometimes triggered by a med

I would love to go into a circular philosophy about contentment begets joy begets contentment…

But in all honesty, I do feel joy when I’m on the board a long way off of shore and the only thing I hear is ocean.

I also love surfing in the rain. When it’s raining, the tourist run away. I have a wet suit. :wink:

:surfer: When I’m care free and there is no danger for miles and miles around, then I’m joyful.

2 Likes

I know anxiety/fear/paranoia/sadness- all negative emotions but positive ones like joy are far more elusive.

1 Like

I have a suicide attempt, overdose attempt, self harm and involuntary commitment for assault under my belt. Get on medication and you might find that all of this ■■■■ just goes away.

I have felt immense joy and positive feeling since I got on the right meds. My life went from a waking nightmare to a dream come true- symptoms virtually extinct most days and achievements and new joyful experiences all of the time.

This stuff wont get better, its a chemical imbalance in the brain and there are meds for it. If you had cancer, would you refuse chemotherapy in lieu of hard illegal drugs? Why are you treating schizophrenia like it isnt likely to take your life? Heres a fact- 15% of us kill ourselves, period. So get help

I didnt appreciate the ignorant 12-year old level insult you gave me about my sexuality but I am sharing my experience of how I left the place you are stuck in. I dont care what you think of me, think about what I am saying instead.

i am not trying to tell you to come off any meds or interfer with anybodies care plans or anything but what i wanted to say to everybody is that all of our quality of life needs to improve, if we are not feeling basic emotions then that is not right, we still have a brain and meds should not block the wrong parts, it needs to be targeted and not an all over chemical labotomy,

i stopped my old med and tried a couple others and ended up with a much better drug at a low dose which was so much better for me, i realized that my old med had been holding me back a lot and i notice myself starting to feel things again,

sometimes (and this doesn’t mean everybody) the meds we take are too strong or they take away some things that were not supposed to be touched like basic emotions etc and thats what was happening with me,

When I feel no happiness it means that my life is not the way that I wish it should be, I know I have to change it, but if I wasn’t able then I try to get used to it and then find a way out of the routine that keeps me miserable…it works with me…a person might feel sad for sometime but then it must go away, change makes it work, it makes it go away…
I’m saying this and I know that this year was my worst year in my entire life, but it was the weirdest one I have ever been through…so much sadness and so much misery, but even in hell I was able to see the light of joy, and it felt so good. Without misery there is no happiness…

@Resilient1 I was on a high dose of risperdone and a antidepressant celexa. Ativan for anxiety. I took risperdone for 3 years. They believed it kept me stable and brought me out of psychosis. I’ve been of all medication for a little less then a month, and life has improved dramatically. The positive symptoms of this illness has nearly stopped. Only hear voices 3 times a day for a minute or so. My delusions have stopped as well. From being trapped like a slave to religious delusions, to thinking in zonkers land, my thought started to adjust to thinking about the things around me. I know it is going to take awhile to see the full effects off medication.

well i hope you dont mess it all up with those illegal drugs and if you do begin to slip (not saying you will) but maybe you should keep in contact with your care team and let them know what is happening