The harder I tried to escape depression, the deeper I fell. I experienced depression and anhedonia for years, but more recently have found more and more pleasure in life – the more I let go of the expectations and beliefs I’d had before about what my life should be like. Meditation has helped more than anything else, because almost all of the depression was actually *caused* by the mental turmoil I was putting myself into. I do understand about trying to think things straight, but it just doesn’t work.

I gained pleasure only when I stopped pushing so hard for it. That does not mean the same thing as not valuing pleasure – but I do accept that pleasure is only ever fleeting, not continuous.

Who are “these people” – “In other words, I would have become these very people I hate by living my life through acceptance, being at peace, and being content with a lifelong loss of pleasure that never gets better or fully recovers.” How are you so all-knowing that you know that they have a lifelong loss of pleasure? What if you were wrong, and they recognised that nobody can be constantly happy? (Maybe pleasure exists only in relation to displeasure, so it can’t exist continuously? Or maybe by ‘pleasure’ you really mean hypermania, which isn’t something that is sustainable – or comfortable.)

I’m confused by this: “This is unlike the personality of normal human beings since the personality of normal human beings are more “settled” and “down to Earth.” So it would seem as though the creators of anime make the personality of characters more life-like as well as superior and god-like to match their superior god-like world (environments) as well as their superior god-like forms.”

You seem to be saying that you need to be like an anime character – I rather doubt that any of the anime creators expect anyone to see them other than as metaphor – nobody could live like that. You sound extremely cut off from real life, living exclusively in a world of ideas, rather than of realities.

I genuinely hope that someone can help you to find a tiny chink in the armour you have built around yourself. You sound as though you are trying desperately hard to work things out, but you’ve got yourself very tangled up. People do care, but it is very hard to reach someone who pushes everyone away so very very vigorously and insists that they know the only truth. I wish you well.

• This reply was modified 10 years ago by rosamundi.