A commonly overlooked symptom of depression is anhedonia, the inability to feel joy or pleasure. The reason that it's easy to overlook is that it's easier to miss the absence of something that's not around all the time than it is to miss a symptom that causes active distress, such as feeling tired and miserable all the time.

Anhedonia is good at being a persistent undercurrent to your life. My aunt, who has major depressive disorder, related to me that she figured out that something was wrong when she looked at the daffodils she had planted blooming, and couldn't recognize the emotion that she felt when she looked at them. It had been long enough since she had felt happy that she lost the ability to recognize the emotion.

It's a particularly dangerous depressive symptom, because it robs you of the ability to feel those little spots of joy that keep a lot of people going, while not doing anything to impair your ability to function. If you don't know that this is a treatable symptom of depression, it's easy to assume that your ability to feel good is permanently broken, and decide to commit suicide because you don't want to live like that. It's not an irrational conclusion, but it is an uninformed one, and everyone deserves to have all the information when making a major decision.

This is what a lot of questionnaires are trying to look for when they ask about "loss of enjoyment". If you can't remember a loss of enjoyment because you can't remember enjoyment, then you probably have anhedonia. If you struggle to define how it is to feel "happy", "content", or "good", or how it feels when you feel those emotions, you probably have anhedonia. If you can't remember feeling any of those emotions for a week or more, you probably have anhedonia.

Symptoms commonly co-occurring with anhedonia are fatigue (often the cause), clear and thoughtful consideration of suicide, loss of desire to socialize or do activities that used to make you happy, and weight loss (due to lack of enjoyment of food).

This section is anecdotal. In what I have observed, anhedonia due to fatigue rarely responds well to depression treatment unless depression was causing the fatigue. If fatigue and anhedonia are co-occurring and are not both alleviated by depression treatment, consider other causes for the fatigue.

Astrology's weird bc if you've only ever had fun with it and come across someone w seething hatred for it you're understandably like, what the fuck is this person's problem? But also if you've seen someone take it Too Far, any mention of it understandably becomes a red flag

Like imagine if you really liked Pokemon and you're like, "I really don't see why people would hate this unless they're just assholes for no reason?" Like it's a totally normal opinion opinion to have. But also imagine if you took a quiz and learned you were a Bug type and people stopped talking to you because they were like "It's in your nature to be emotionally manipulative." It would also be totally normal to be like "Oh okay fuck Pokemon fans then."

Now you may be like, "But the latter situation doesn't happen!" and that tells me you are fortunate because you have not dealt with the worst that the west coast of America has to offer

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It has been.... many, many moons since I read the Gone series.

But sometimes I still think about Hunter and get sad. You deserved better, microwave boy.

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here have my shitty ramen + it's gonna be may explanation graphic

Did you know? Tumblr DOES have a post length limit. Strangely, though, it's based on how many blocks of text you have. Supposedly this implies that you can have any length post so long as it's one block of text? Very strange, will have to investigate further.

Bad and naughty kitties get put in the fish bowl to atone for their sins

I prefer not to use tools like this, tbh. I find they damage trust and make animals MORE anxious about future grooms. My usual go-to method is a slow desensitization, with lots of positive reinforcement and distraction techniques. My next method is to use drugs in tandem with this.

Unfortunately, Kara is VERY spicy and has had bad reactions to sedatives in the past. Given her age and arthritis, she's at a relatively high risk of getting ingrown nails. To make the fish bowl less upsetting for her, she's being desensitized to it and from there we'll bridge to making overall grooming events less upsetting in general.

Until then, she gets fish bowl'd for nail trims to keep her paws (and staff) safe.

"Willy’s Chocolate Experience LA"— organized by a collective of local artists unaffiliated with those behind the Glasgow event — had a similar vibe. This time, however, attendees knew what they were signing up for. Held in a worn-down warehouse embellished with a few candy cane props, the one-night only pop-up event stayed true to the underwhelming decor of the Glasgow event, complete with artificial intelligence-generated art. Attendees were even offered two complimentary jellybeans, just like in Glasgow. Paterson, who went viral after a photo of her looking miserable at the Glasgow experience became a meme format, said she was excited to travel to Los Angeles to play the iconic knock-off Oompa Loompa role once again. Jacob Alpharad, 28, was among the attendees who showed up to see Paterson. “I don’t think there’s any celebrity I could meet that would impress my friends more than her specifically,” Alpharad said. “I was just happy to be born at the same time as [the Glasgow event]. It sounds like a skit right out of a sitcom.”

This is incredible. I love this. This is like if someone made a crappy DashCon II complete with ballpit which btw we should do, there's still time.

Listening to the Fallout 4 soundtrack and.... LYNDA FUCKING CARTER?!?!?

BEHOLD...

you're welcome ✨

Alberta recorded the highest number of influenza deaths in 15 years, and some people are attributing the death toll to a decline in yearly immunization rates.

According to data from the province’s respiratory virus dashboard, 15,215 cases of lab-confirmed influenza cases were recorded this respiratory virus season, which started last fall. Currently, 42 people are in hospital and three people are in the intensive care unit because of the virus.

So far, 167 influenza deaths have been recorded so far during the 2023-24 flu season. One death was recorded from April 14 to April 20, according to data.

Many of the people who died were between 60 and 89 years of age.

Recent wastewater data in Alberta shows that influenza B cases have continued to rise since April 11 in the Calgary North, Calgary South and Calgary Far South regions.

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @abpoli

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