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# When Wegovy Took More Than My Appetite
- URL: https://fessup.mymidnight.blog/when-wegovy-took-more-than-my-appetite/
- Published: 2026-06-20T15:15:43.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-07T16:11:04.000Z
- Description: My experience with Wegovy, anhedonia, and the search for a middle ground.
- Author: Jerry Fess
- Tags: joy, bleak, wegovy, boring, anhedonia, depression, mental health, GLP-1, gray, friends, Newsletter, #Migrated-1791389245739, #Import 2026-10-07 11:10

*What follows is my personal experience with Wegovy. Many people take GLP-1 medications and experience significant health benefits without experiencing what I’m describing. This isn’t medical advice. It’s simply my story.*

I had bariatric surgery three years ago and quickly lost over 200 pounds. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and for a while it felt like I’d finally gotten my health headed in the right direction.

Fast forward to today. I’ve developed fatty liver disease and have regained about 50 pounds. Not all of it was because of bad choices. Some of it was life, some of it was health, and some of it was my body’s way of fighting back after massive weight loss.

I decided to go on Wegovy because it seemed like it could help with both problems. Not only is it effective for weight loss, but research has shown it may also help improve fatty liver disease.

The thing is, Wegovy wasn’t completely new to me. I’d been on Ozempic before. They’re essentially the same medication, just marketed differently and with different dosing schedules. I thought I knew what I was signing up for. Nausea? Sure. Reduced appetite? Expected. Digestive issues? Been there.

What I wasn’t prepared for was a side effect that brought me to my knees and nearly ruined my life.

It’s called anhedonia.

Most people have never heard the word, but it’s a medical term for losing the ability to feel pleasure or interest in things you once enjoyed. Not sadness. Not grief. Not even necessarily depression.

Just... nothing.

No excitement.

No anticipation.

No desire.

The things that used to light up my brain suddenly didn’t.

Music felt flat. Writing felt pointless. Playing games with friends felt more like an obligation than something I looked forward to. My libido disappeared. Socializing lost its appeal. Even when I did things I normally enjoyed, there was no reward waiting for me on the other side.

Everything felt gray.

Not tragic. Not devastating. Just gray.

Now, I’ve experienced anhedonia before. Anyone who has battled severe depression for decades probably knows what I’m talking about. Sometimes it was caused by depression itself. Sometimes it was caused by medications. Sometimes it was both.

But in more than 35 years of dealing with depression, I had never felt this detached from life.

And here’s the strange part.

The Wegovy was working.

My food cravings were down. I was losing weight. My liver numbers were improving. My blood pressure was fantastic. My lab work looked better than it had in years.

On paper, everything was a success.

But life itself was disappearing.

Everything that used to feel good, funny, exciting, rewarding, or meaningful was slowly fading into the background. It wasn’t just food cravings that were gone. It felt like every craving was gone.

The craving to create.

The craving to connect.

The craving to laugh.

The craving to look forward to something.

I haven’t played my favorite online game with friends in over two months. Not because I was busy. Not because I was depressed and hiding. I simply didn’t care. The excitement wasn’t there anymore.

![](https://cdn.mymidnight.blog/faafda66202d234463057972460c04f5/2026/10/3fce24b2-ae86-41a2-91da-f6275d1a42bd_1536x1024-jpeg.jpg)

My favorite online game became bleak and boring. I wasn’t interested in friends.

Writing my blog, something that normally gives me purpose and helps me process life, felt like a chore. Music didn’t move me. Conversations felt flat. Days blended together.

At first, I didn’t connect the dots.

I thought maybe my depression was getting worse. Maybe I was having a rough patch. Maybe I just needed to push through it.

But while the Wegovy was quietly doing its job in the background, something else was happening.

The loss of pleasure, motivation, and desire was creating the perfect environment for my depression to come roaring back.

And when I say roaring back, I mean like a force of nature kicking down the front door.

My depression was setting off every warning siren it had.

Something is wrong.

Pay attention.

This isn’t normal.

This isn’t just feeling flat.

Eventually those warning signs became impossible to ignore because what started as emotional blunting was beginning to drift into something much darker.

Suicidal ideation.

Not because I wanted to die.

Because I had stopped wanting anything at all.

And for someone with a long history of depression, that distinction matters.

Around that time, my Facebook posts started changing.

![](https://cdn.mymidnight.blog/faafda66202d234463057972460c04f5/2026/10/42213d5e-9e2e-48ad-a7e0-f34af76cbf48_3600x3600-jpeg.jpg)

My Facebook posts became more bleak and gray.

I was posting depressing poetry. Sad songs. Thoughts filled with despair. Looking back, they were cries for help, though I don’t think I fully understood that at the time. And honestly, it wasn’t anyone else’s responsibility to decode them.

Something was wrong, but I couldn’t see the full picture yet.

Then I started researching.

And as anyone who has spent time online knows, once the algorithm figures out what you’re looking at, it starts feeding you more of the same.

Suddenly my reels and shorts were filled with people describing experiences that sounded eerily familiar.

One woman had lost 85 pounds and said she should have been thrilled, but she couldn’t bring herself to care about anything happening in her life.

Another man talked about losing his libido completely. Not just sexually, but his desire for life in general. He didn’t care about hobbies, relationships, goals, or much of anything else.

Then I started seeing doctors discussing the same phenomenon.

Several were saying the same thing:

*“We’re getting more and more reports of this.”*

As I dug deeper, I learned something that made a lot of what I was experiencing start to make sense.

GLP-1 medications don’t just work in the stomach and digestive system. They also act on parts of the brain involved in reward, motivation, and dopamine signaling. That’s one reason they can be so effective at reducing food cravings. They help quiet the constant drive to seek out food and the reward associated with eating.

For most people, that’s a benefit.

But I couldn’t help wondering if, for some of us, that effect might be a little too effective.

If these medications can dial down the reward value of food, could they also be dialing down the reward value of other things?

Music.

Creativity.

Relationships.

Sex.

Hobbies.

The simple anticipation of looking forward to tomorrow.

One of the things that really got my attention was what happened to my ADHD symptoms.

I take Vyvanse for ADHD. Like many people with ADHD, it helps me with motivation, focus, executive function, and getting started on things that otherwise feel impossible.

![white medication pill on orange plastic container](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1583604310111-9cd137d6ffe5?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=M3wzMDAzMzh8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwyOXx8cGlsbHN8ZW58MHx8fHwxNzgxOTY3NDYxfDA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=80&w=1080)

Photo by [James Yarema](https://unsplash.com/@jamesyarema?ref=fessup.mymidnight.blog) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?ref=fessup.mymidnight.blog)

But even with Vyvanse on board, I felt stuck.

The drive wasn’t there.

The spark wasn’t there.

The desire to engage with life wasn’t there.

I wasn’t suddenly more productive because the food noise was gone. If anything, I felt less interested in doing the things I normally care about.

That was one of the biggest red flags for me.

Because if this was simply depression, I would have expected Vyvanse to at least help me push through some of it. Instead, it felt like something deeper was happening. It was as though the reward system that normally tells my brain, *“This is worth doing,”* had gone quiet.

Again, I can’t prove that Wegovy was responsible. I’m not a researcher and I’m not making a scientific claim.

I only know what I experienced.

Even with Vyvanse, a medication that normally helps me focus, engage, and function, I still felt emotionally disconnected from the things I loved.

That scared me.

I’m not a scientist, and I’m not claiming that’s exactly what was happening to me. But when I started hearing story after story from people describing the same emotional flattening, it became harder to dismiss as coincidence.

The challenge, doctors explained, is figuring out how to keep the benefits while minimizing the cost.

How do you quiet the food noise without quieting everything else?

How do you help someone lose weight while preserving the things that make life feel rewarding?

As I shared what was happening, some people would ask, *“Well, which do you want? To lose weight or to have those good feelings back?”*

And honestly, I understand why they’d ask that.

From the outside, it sounds like a straightforward tradeoff. Your health improves, your weight comes down, your lab work gets better. What’s the problem?

But it isn’t a black-and-white issue.

It’s literally gray.

That’s the whole problem.

Yes, I wanted to lose weight.

Yes, I wanted to improve my liver disease.

Yes, I wanted lower blood pressure and better health.

But I also wanted to care about my friends.

I wanted to laugh at something stupid.

I wanted music to move me.

I wanted to feel excited about writing.

I wanted to wake up looking forward to something.

The choice wasn’t between food cravings and happiness.

The choice felt more like food cravings versus the very things that make life feel worth living.

And that’s not a choice anyone should have to make.

What I was searching for wasn’t one extreme or the other. I wasn’t looking to go back to obsessive food thoughts, but I also wasn’t willing to surrender my personality, my creativity, my relationships, and my sense of joy.

There had to be a middle ground.

A place where the food noise was quieter without silencing the rest of my life.

So I sent a message to my doctor explaining everything that had been happening.

To my relief, they didn’t dismiss it.

In fact, their response was remarkably similar to what I’ve been writing about here. They agreed that what I was experiencing deserved attention and suggested we try backing down the dosage to see if the emotional blunting improved. Given my long history of depression, they also wanted to keep a close eye on things moving forward.

That conversation gave me hope.

Because this wasn’t simply a matter of not enjoying ice cream anymore.

This wasn’t about missing a favorite food.

This was about not enjoying life anymore if this was what life was going to feel like.

It was about waking up each day and feeling disconnected from the things that once made me feel human. The music. The creativity. The friendships. The laughter. The anticipation of looking forward to something.

So I’ve stepped the dosage down a couple of notches and now I’m waiting to see what happens.

My hope is that I can find a balance.

A place where the food noise stays quiet enough to help me lose weight and improve my liver disease, while allowing the rest of my life to return in full color.

Because living in a world where nothing tastes good is hard.

Living in a world where nothing feels good is terrifying.

I don’t know yet whether lowering the dose will be the answer. But I’m hopeful.

And if you’re reading this and some of what I’ve described sounds familiar, please know you’re not alone.

Talk to your doctor.

Pay attention to changes in your mood, motivation, and enjoyment of life.

This phenomenon needs more attention. It needs more research. It needs more understanding.

Weight loss matters.

Physical health matters.

But so does the ability to feel joy.

And for some of us, finding the balance between those things may be one of the most important parts of the journey.

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