Charlie B:
I have anhedonia. There really is no sense of pleasure. And im not being dramatic about it. There just isn't. If there was something pleasant to focus on I would love to focus on it.
I hear you. You have an appetite for ice cream, though. What is driving that? You could eat some ice cream very very slowly, a tenth of a teaspoonful a minute, and attend to the pleasant sensations of that, for instance. Even if it has negative associations for you, there must be some positive sensations driving the appetite.
Charlie B:
The only reason I was observing my negative thoughts was to dislodge them because they were becoming unbearable. That was a year ago. None of the debilitating stuff had happened yet by then.
I know, I I know. I've been there. It's a natural misinterpretation of the teachings which I made too. It's nobody's fault, it's just the way things worked out.
Charlie B:
...I don't intentionally focus on them. I just note them. Is it my fault that the only stuff that seems to come up is negative? I really really can't help it.
One thing I've been doing lately when I've been particularly stuck in finding something pleasant is resting for a second or two at each peak or trough of breathing, until the natural urge to keep breathing appears. When the breath starts again, there is a sense of pleasure associated with this. If you try this, don't hold your breath, though.
Another recommendation from my teacher which I have found helpful is to help other people or animals. If I see an earthworm struggling on the sidewalk, I move it somewhere safe. If someone asks me for money, I ask them what they want it for and I go with them to buy it for them. I provide dharma advice to people on the internet. :-)
Charlie B:
Now the problem is not thoughts. The problem is I can't even function right for God's sake. I don't really nearly have as many thoughts as I used to like a year ago.
No, the problem is not thoughts, the problem is conditioning of attention. You've actually made really good progress in your meditation which will stand you in good stead when you're able to move forward again. But right now you're in a cul-de-sac, because your natural tendency to negativity led to an emphasis on negative phenomena. The way out of that cul-de-sac is to recondition your attention to note the positive phenomena too.
Charlie B:
The problem is first of all, having some clear confirmation that I'm in the dark night.
Yes, you are totally in the dark night. This is insight disease. You can get out of it, though.
Charlie B:
Second of all finding someone who has been through the type of dark night I've been going through. Not every seems to have such a debilitating experience. I'm looking for someone who has, so I can learn what to do from them.
I've been there. Try my advice. After a decade of driving my practice with insight and power, someone finally got through to me earlier this year and persuaded me to
use metta and compassion instead. It's paying off handsomely. It was also my first step to managing symptoms very similar to yours, and to stream entry, which happened a couple of weeks ago.
Our culture reveres insight and power, and we are drawn to spiritual practices which promise this. We want to manipulate and dominate our environments, including our internal experience. What could be more seductive to a modernist than a meditation manual which lays out step-by-step instructions and diagnostics of progress so you can figure out whether it's working for you? And the seduction isn't based on false advertising; these are very powerful approaches. The trouble is, they inevitably get subverted by our natural desire to manipulate and dominate ourselves. So we attend to the bad things we want to fix, seeking to understand and destroy them, never realizing the power we are granting them in the process, never realizing that the problem is with the direction of attention itself.
I'm not saying you were wrong to attend to these things, just that you moved too quickly. One result of meditation is attention to all sensations of the present moment, mental and physical. That means the pleasant and boring sensations as well as the unpleasant. And the pleasant sensations can be important, because they provide the confidence and stability to go deeper into the unpleasant ones. But that is the path of loving-kindness, not power or insight, so it's less appealing to us.
Given your belief that you have anhedonia, this might make your situation seem hopeless. But the fact that the anhedonia arrived after your insight practice supports the idea that this is actually conditioning of your attention, in which case you will still have room to move, no matter how powerful the conditioning so far has been. In that case, you basically have a bad habit you want to kick, not a disease.
Charlie B.:
I know cats and stuff are nice to look at it but I have been spending WAY too much time on the internet since the crappy symptoms starting appearing, since I don't have the energy or money to too much else. I want to try to spend less time on it.
I am happy to mail you pictures of cute animals if you like. Let me know. :-)
Oh, and also, I am by default a ruthless,
mildly sadomasochistic person who sees doom in every portent and to whom this sappy stuff doesn't come easily. I am recommending it because it works.
You can go too far in the other direction, of course. Then you end up like
this person, addicted to bliss. Buddhism is called the Middle Way because the broadening of attention enables you to keep both extremes in mind (positive and negative) so you don't fall prey to either one.