anhedonic apathy

Any one else here just extremely nihilistic? I wonder which came first. Did my nihilism make me depressed, or did my depression make me nihilistic. Of course when you have both they just feed off each other and make everything worse. The more depressed you are, the more meaningless and empty the world seems. The more you think about how meaningless everything is the more depressed you get.

How do you get out of that though. Especially when you are convinced it is the absolute true, and anyone that believes differently is simply self deluded. I mean I could stand in front of the mirror and tell myself all day that this has meaning, or that is important. I don’t believe it though so I just feel like I am lying to myself or trying to trick myself. Which is just frustrating and annoying. Its like standing there telling myself over and over 2+2=7 no matter how many times I repeat it I will still “know” its wrong. It just seems like that such a basic unquestionable truth that there is no meaning or purpose and nothing matters.

I noticed a discussion on acts of charity or altruism. Whether or not they are actually good deeds, or egotistical self promotion. Its a question I have always found interesting.

Psychological egoism is the view that humans are always motivated by self-interest, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly, from doing so.

It is a theory I personally agree with. I believe everything we do is inherently selfish and all actions are taken with the belief that we will gain some benefit from the action. Every action takes energy, so why would anyone expend energy if they gain nothing from it? Of course if everything we do is selfish, then the word selfish itself is rather meaningless and redundant.

Kind of curious what other peoples thoughts are.

My personal belief is once you have depression it’s a lifelong battle, you never get rid of it.  You might be able to put it into remission and be happy most of the time.  It will always be there though waiting for that next traumatic trigger to bring it right back to the surface. You will always have to be wary of relapses. All you can hope for is to manage it as best you can. With medications, therapy, coping mechanisms, self awareness, meditation, whatecer.  But you never escape it completely.