“I’ve rebuilt the house after the fire, but I don’t feel like I live in it”

Anhedonia

I can’t even go into my entire 16 year journey with mental illness but I think the worst news (regarding my diagnoses) I ever got was when I found out I was bipolar and they told me my good days were “too good”. Did anyone else just always get put down as anxious or depressed and then you just thought you were having some random really great days sometimes? I used to (what I now know were manic or hypomanic days) say to myself during my especially happy episodes “This is it, this is what life is supposed to feel like. This is why we’re sticking around because this is the goal. We might go back down to the lowest low but we know this is possible.” (Positive) manic episodes were what gave me hope?

I’m the most stable I’ve ever been rn. I’ve been in this spot for about a year ish I would say? Not self sufficient I still had to move home and work from home and I have zero friends and everything but like I’m stable. But I would KILL to feel passionate for a single second. I do feel things like I’m not numb and I know I’m doing “well” and getting by so maybe I’m being too picky now but fuck me I just want to get pulled into a book, absorbed into a video game, go down a random internet rabbit hole just SOMETHING. I cry and get angry at stuff, I do care deeply for my family, I have emotions. I can feel content. But I want to feel happy, feel joy, feel excitement, feel passion…and I can’t. And idk if this is just how my brain works now like because nothing will ever be as good as mania I’m not capable of being excited like I see other people get. Idk! This is such a fucking cyclical motherfucking illness and I’ve managed to plateau in a safe place but fuck me is that all there is?