u/Dazzling_Mortgage_

TL;DR: Public session police RP is fundamentally unsuited for immersive roleplay and can be extremely frustrating.

Lobby Dynamics & Regional Differences

• American Free Aim Lobbies: Offer the highest probability for actual roleplay encounters, but also carry a very high griefing risk. Tend to have more adult players who consciously choose to be toxic, reserved, or pro-RP.

• European Lobbies: Feature a much higher proportion of younger players or players from cultures unfamiliar with RP. Many European and Asian players do not know how to react to a police car turning on lights and sirens.

Common Player Reactions to Police:

• Ignorance or ignoring the police entirely.

• Attack or defense (fearing the cop wants to kill them)

• Ramming or provoking to drag the officer into a 130 mph inner-city sandbox chase.

• A tiny minority (mostly high-ranking veterans) intentionally commit realistic traffic violations to see what happens and accept the consequences.

• Putting on a Gruppe 6 or prison guard uniform, spawning an ugly modded police car, and trailing and ramming the officer for attention.

Nationalities & Participation:

• Most likely to roleplay: Americans, British, and French players.

• Least likely to roleplay / most likely to turn aggressive: Spaniards, Latin Americans, Eastern Europeans, and Arabs.

• Most toxic players: Americans (highest), followed by Russians, Spaniards, and Germans.

(Disclaimer: my findings are based on unbiased, subjective observations)

General Driving Behavior: Most players are very poor drivers with jerky driving habits who only know full throttle and full braking.

1. Indicators of a Pro-RP Playstyle

High player level.

American and sometimes French gamertags (with specific exceptions listed below)

Gamertag Red Flags: Automatically generated gamertags (e.g., ⁠renard-celeste⁠, ⁠rotten-simulator⁠) are most heavily associated with awkward, annoying or toxic-awkward behavior. Toxic gamertags include stylized names like ⁠''LouderThanYourMom⁠''. The French trend of combining name + location (e.g., ⁠enzo_du_55⁠), also correlates with toxic behavior.

• Car enthusiasts with realistic, clean vehicle builds (a very strong recognition marker).

• Realistic clothing choices.

• Female gender (not just a female character, but a female-sounding PSN gamertag and profile).

• Reaction behavior: Slowing down and adjusting to the traffic flow upon encountering a police car instead of immediately ramming and shooting.

Semi-RP Mafias, Street Gangs & MCs (Special Category): Often found in free aim lobbies (including European ones). It varies wildly: they either roleplay like real mafiosi/bikers or immediately attack and grief (especially in groups). Multiple playstyles often coexist within the same group, and they can be unpredictable.

2. Traffic Stops & External Bystander Reactions

• Bystanders in the open world react to traffic stops even more frequently than ignoring and passing motorists.

• They often disrupt stops out of curiosity or toxicity by ramming parked vehicles, trying to steal the police car, or launching attacks.

• On rare occasions, bystanders simply observe quietly—usually when they are connected in some way to the person being pulled over. The dynamic changes if the detained individual is a woman and a 12-year old simp believes it is a reasonable idea to disrupt the traffic stop using a disproportionate amount of force and ''saving'' the female player (who is probably a man anyway) from the officer

Police RP Subculture in Public Lobbies

Lobby Indicators: RP interaction likelihood increases when multiple police officers are present in a lobby; specific individuals or groups can signal an RP-friendlier lobby. I could drop some names but would rather refrain from doing so.

Casual vs. Hardcore: The vast majority of RP cops in public lobbies play casual RP rather than hardcore. Jurisdiction boundaries, grooming standards, tactical procedures, and realistic driving/shooting are rarely or never respected.

Aesthetics & Vehicles: Some players use professional glitched outfits. Aside from federal agencies, players like to imitate Californian agencies, their home agency, or agencies which are notorious for a Republican style no bullshit philosophy (e.g., Georgia State Patrol, Clayton County Sheriff, Arkansas State Police, Florida Highway Patrol, etc.).

Most Popular Police Car: The Bravado STX Pursuit (probably due to the fact that it was obtainable for free by GTA+ members a couple months ago). Very few players use police cars overall (even for casual RP like hunting bounties), and an even vanishingly smaller fraction attempts realistic play or models their cars/uniforms after real-world authorities.

Some additional informations:

Agencies & Vehicles Tested: Operated primarily as LSPD, LSSD, and SAHP (San Andreas Highway Patrol), testing various police vehicles. Determined that the Bravado Buffalo STX offers the best overall package and is the fastest and most practical police car in the game.

Geographical & Jurisdictional Dynamics:

LSPD (City): Experienced the highest frequency of griefing because the city has the highest concentration of players.

LSSD & SAHP (County/Highways): Resulted in minimal interactions due to strict adherence to jurisdictional boundaries (only LSSD), lower player density in rural areas, and players using the county primarily for missions rather than open-world wandering.

Assisted Aim vs. Free Aim Lobbies: Assisted aim lobbies featured more players using highways and interstates, but significantly fewer players willing to participate in actual roleplay.

Attack Rates: Attacks on police officers occurred at an equivalent relative frequency across all agencies, scaled directly to the local player population density.

Strict adherence to internal Policies & Fictional Law: Enforced slight department-to-department policy variations alongside a custom, fictional San Andreas state law modeled directly after real-world U.S. state legislations.

Final Verdict: Public session RP is fundamentally unsuited for immersive roleplay and can be extremely frustrating. You will however meet a lot of chill (and potentially likeminded) players.

To me, the worst part is the loss of passive hedonic tone and atmosphere. Sure, feeling pleasure from activities is great but if anhedonia was only centered around activities, I believe there would still be ways to cope with it. But the profound loss of any hedonic stimulation in basically everything, that would normally be caused by subliminal micro valences in your environment, is a state so distinctly unnatural and inhuman it’s almost impossible to ignore. For me, this induces the most suffering of all things. I can’t even abuse substances to cope with it since nothing works due to the blockage

I am not looking for people to play with, it would just be helpful to have a couple more North American players in my friend list so I can access predominantly North American lobbies. I just prefer them over European lobbies, especially free aim. If you would like to be my portal to the land of opportunities, please drop your PSN. It would be very much appreciated

Give me pleasure. I want atmosphere and consummatory buzz unblocked instantly.

Game over. I must say I had a pretty amazing life until the day the anhedonia suddenly appeared in my life. My childhood and very early teens were pretty cool. I consider it to be very likely that my life will come to an end in the foreseeable future, however I still kind of want to at least play through GTA 6 once now that we have all waited for it for so long - so I am not going to ''kermit the slide'' like very very soon. The only thing that has made me question whether I want to end my life is that taking a life unjustly constitutes a major sin in Islam. However, due to the blunting, I barely feel any spiritual connection to my religion anymore. That’s very dangerous.

In case I pass away, it would be cool if guys used my posts to raise awareness of this gruesome condition that psychiatry isn’t taking seriously enough. In this day and age, no one should have to end their life over a random onset brain blockage.

After 7 years of total anhedonia + complete emotional blunting, I’ve realized something devastating:

Even if some miracle treatment fixed my brain chemistry tomorrow, I don’t think I could ever go back to viewing life like a normal person.

I now see that almost everything that drives human life - love, friendship, hobbies, ambition, meaning, the quiet joy of just existing - is ultimately just intact brain chemistry. One mysterious condition during puberty, one pill, or one random inflammatory disease and it can all be permanently erased. I unfairly view people who can enjoy a summer night out or whatever as extremely naive now.

I’ve lost the ability to be ''innocent'' about life. I can’t unsee how fragile and biological it all is.
Anyone else with severe, long-term anhedonia feel this way? That even hypothetical recovery would feel hollow because the illusion is permanently broken?

I have been battling sudden onset extremely treatment resistant anhedonia and emotional blunting since 2019 without a clear cause. I have reached a point where my sensory perception of the world is so blunted that I am almost completely unable to perceive any kind of well-being or positive stimuli. I cannot feel love or warmth for my loved ones. I cannot feel anything when petting a cute animal. Orgasms feel completely muted. I cannot feel the atmosphere of places or seasons. I am a practicing Muslim and visiting the holy sites of Islam did not make me feel anything. No treatment, conventional or unconventional, has been able to penetrate through the blockage. Doctors are clueless and stomped on my case. My physician admits she has never seen that level of anhedonia before and that it is too much for her and that I needed a team of experts. Not even substances can temporarily alleviate my suffering as those are also affected by the reward blockage.

Surviving in this state is becoming increasingly difficult. I do not feel any depressed mood or low self esteem - I do believe I matter and that I am valuable - however the sensory blunting of pleasure is a state so existentially torturous most people aren’t able to comprehend it. I cannot live a normal life, travel or work a real job. Despite being physically able to and not necessarily lacking the drive for it, the absence of any stimulation in my brain creates tremendous suffering when I try to engage with real life situations over a prolonged period of time. My issue is not motivation, my issue is that it feels like the neural pathways that allow pleasure to flow through are severed.

I have tried a bunch of stuff. Aticaprant, tVNS, Parnate, ketamine, psychedelics, touching grass. Please do not give me any advice along the lines of ''you need to try a 6 week water buffalo fast and snort 120mg of Parnate every day''. I don’t want to hear it, I have no incentive to even continue trying. I don’t want medical advice, whatever you say, I’ve probably heard it before (unless you happen to be u/caffeinehell, that dude is much smarter than me). Nonetheless, I’ve educated physicians and professors on this shit.

After over 7 consecutive years without an ounce of true consummatory reward, the idea that things have the potential to make you feel good has become alien to me. Even if I did end up recovering one day, I would never be able to view life the same way again. Knowing that the things that makes us feel they have a purpose completely rely on intact brain chemistry and that even the strongest emotional connection with another person can go poof in an instant because spontaneous onset anhedonia exists. People who do not value their hedonic tone are insanely ignorant. How dare you say ''I’m bored'' when you can literally derive background pleasure from just existing?

I’m feeling very passively suicidal these days. The only things that are preventing me from doing it is that I believe suicide will lead to a punishment in the afterlife and that I lack the needed impulse to truly ''want to die''. I also struggle with severe apathy and my willpower itself is blunted. However I cannot guarantee that I am ready to complete a decade with this condition. I can’t even believe I am saying this but I might end up actually doing it. It my religion didn’t prohibit it, I would even consider it in the near future. No family member could stop me, even if they told me how much they love me and everything. Sometimes, loving someone means letting them go. We see it with severe CFS patients all the time.

I am currently working on building a network of RP police officers for private roleplay sessions with Mafias, street gangs and civilians. My objective is to mirror the policing of real life US law enforcement agencies and prioritize realism over chaos (yes, there are limits because it’s still going to be a console RP but we are going to compensate those issues through rules and a bit of fantasy).

Our group is still under under construction as we only have 8 members as of now. If we ever have enough members for sustainable roleplay sessions, you will get to choose between four agencies that cover different jurisdictions:

1. Los Santos Police Department
2. Los Santos County Sheriff’s Department
3. San Andreas Highway Patrol (State Troopers)
4. Federal Agencies (FIB, US Marshals, etc.)

If this concept resonates with you (and/or you are tired of getting yelled at by grumpy FiveM mods for using the wrong radio code 😂), feel free to shoot me a message and I will add you to our PSN group chat. No RP experience required by the way. You just need to have some experience with the game and be acquainted with the controls. Mic would be ideal too

I am currently working on building a network of RP police officers for private roleplay sessions with Mafias, street gangs and civilians. My objective is to mirror the policing of real life US law enforcement agencies and prioritize realism over chaos (yes, there are limits because it’s still going to be a console RP but we are going to compensate those issues through rules and a bit of fantasy).

Our group is still under under construction as we only have 8 members as of now. If we ever have enough members for sustainable roleplay sessions, you will get to choose between four agencies that cover different jurisdictions:

1. ⁠Los Santos Police Department
2. ⁠Los Santos County Sheriff’s Department
3. ⁠San Andreas Highway Patrol (State Troopers)
4. ⁠Federal Agencies (FIB, US Marshals, etc.)

If this concept resonates with you (and/or you are tired of getting yelled at by FiveM mods for using the wrong radio code 😂), feel free to shoot me a message and I will add you to our PSN group chat. No RP experience required by the way. You just need to have some experience with the game and be acquainted with the controls. Mic would be ideal too

I am currently working on building a network of RP police officers for private roleplay sessions with Mafias, street gangs and civilians. My objective is to mirror the policing of real life US law enforcement agencies and prioritize realism over chaos (yes, there are limits because it’s still going to be a console RP but we are going to compensate those issues through rules and a bit of fantasy).

Our group is still under under construction as we only have 8 members as of now. If we ever have enough members for sustainable roleplay sessions, you will get to choose between four agencies that cover different jurisdictions:

1. Los Santos Police Department
2. Los Santos County Sheriff’s Department
3. San Andreas Highway Patrol (State Troopers)
4. Federal Agencies (FIB, US Marshals, etc.)

If this concept resonates with you (and/or you are tired of getting yelled at by FiveM mods for using the wrong radio code 😂), feel free to shoot me a message and I will add you to our PSN group chat. No RP experience required by the way. You just need to have some experience with the game and be acquainted with the controls. Mic would be ideal too

After having suffered from anhedonia for 7 1/2 years and having tried treatments for 5 1/2, it is finally time for me to surrender to the final boss of neuropsychiatric conditions. None of the things I have tried have even remotely tickled my anhedonia/blunting. No ketamine, no psilocybin, no Aticaprant, no Prami, no MAOI, simply nothing. I have no incentive to push any further, even though I haven’t exhausted all available options. I have somewhat come to terms with the fact that my life ended 7 1/2 years ago. The rest of my life will be centered around minimizing suffering and palliative care until I pass away naturally.

Well played, anhedonia. You got me this time.

Ich leide seit über 7 Jahren an chronischer Anhedonie. Anhedonie wird häufig als das verminderte (antizipatorische) Interesse oder fehlende (konsumatorische) Freude an Aktivitäten im Rahmen psychischer Erkrankungen definiert. Jedoch geht es für mich weit darüber hinaus. Es scheint so, als sei meine Fähigkeit, jegliche sensorische Wahrnehmung von Belohnung zu registrieren, komplett abgetrennt. Ich spüre eine physische Blockade in meinem Vorderhirn, welche nicht zulässt, dass ich Wohlbefinden verspüren kann. Angenehme Berührungen auf meiner Haut fühlen sich nicht mehr gut an, ich kann keine passive Belohnung oder die Atmosphäre von Orten spüren, ein Orgasmus fühlt sich nach nichts mehr an und meine Libido ist ohnehin kaum noch existent. Ich spüre keine Liebe zu meiner Familie mehr, ich kann mich nicht mehr romantisch verlieben, ich freue mich nicht, meine Freunde zu sehen oder über Komplimente und Geschenke.

Es geht sogar so weit, dass Substanzen wie Ketamin, Psilocybin, Kratom, Dopaminagonisten, Benzodiazepine und andere keinerlei emotionale Reaktion mehr hervorrufen, sondern bestenfalls nur Nebenwirkungen. Während meiner Trips mit Ketamin habe ich nur die haptischen, motorischen und visuellen Veränderungen wahrgenommen, war währenddessen und danach aber gleichermaßen emotional taub. Klassische SSRIs oder NDRIs wirken bei mir globuliartig. Dazu sei gesagt, dass ich keinerlei Vorgeschichte mit Substanzmissbrauch habe und alle Substanzversuche in einem rein kurativen Rahmen erfolgt sind. Psychotherapie war nicht hilfreich, da die sensorische Blockade in meinem Gehirn nicht adressiert wurde. Gleiches gilt für die Verhaltensaktivierung, da ohne konsumatorische Belohnung schlichtweg keine positiven Lernschleifen entstehen können. Meine Ärztin ist aufrichtig und sagt, dass es sich um einen Spezialfall handle, der über eine klassische therapieresistente Depression hinausgeht und unbedingt von Experten evaluiert werden müsse. Sie würde mir aber erst eine tagesklinische Überweisung zum lokalen Klinikum geben. Ich solle dort auf keinen Fall mit irgendeinem Assistenzarzt sprechen sondern gleich zum Chefarzt gehen (wie zur Hölle soll das funktionieren)?

Die Symptomatik trat schlagartig mit 14 Jahren auf und hat sich seitdem chronifiziert. Vorher konnte ich ganz normal Belohnung und Emotionen verspüren und war sehr ambitioniert. Ab 2021 kam auch immer mehr ein Blunting von negativen Emotionen und eine extreme Gleichgültigkeit dazu. Schlagartig habe ich zum Beispiel meine Phobie vor Ärzten verloren. In einer lebensbedrohlichen Situation wäre ich wahrscheinlich emotional vollkommen gleichgültig. Ich vermute chronische psychische Belastung in Verbindung mit einer undiagnostizierten Neurodivergenz als initialen Auslöser. Mittlerweile gibt es keinerlei externe Lebensumstände mehr, die mich belasten, ich leide lediglich unter der Erkrankung selbst. Ich weiß, dass diese Erkrankung nicht meine Persönlichkeit ist. Ich weiß rational, wen ich lieben sollte, ich weiß, was meine Interessen sind, und so weiter. Ich bin das nicht – mein echtes Ich ist empathisch, hilfsbereit und möchte am Leben teilhaben. Es mangelt mir auch nicht an Motivation und in der Regel habe ich keine depressive Stimmung. Hätte ich meine Fähigkeit Wohlbefinden zu verspüren zurück, würde ich sofort wieder am Leben teilnehmen.

In den mittlerweile über sieben Jahren gab es keinerlei Verbesserung, im Gegenteil. Es ist so schwerwiegend, dass ich seit meinem Abitur, durch das ich mich noch durchgequält habe, vor vier Jahren quasi den Anschluss an das Leben verloren habe. Ich arbeite alle paar Monate mal an Wochenenden und gehe keinem festen Beruf und keiner akademischen Laufbahn nach. Andere junge Männer in meinem Alter haben Bedürfnisse nach Partnerschaften oder möchten verreisen und die Welt erkunden. Ich eigentlich auch, aber wenn ich dann mal verreise, kotzt es mich nur an, dass ich keine Atmosphäre spüren kann und nur den Stress des Verreisens ohne Belohnung spüre.

Mittlerweile habe ich es vorerst aufgegeben, nach einer Lösung zu suchen. Ich könnte zwar noch EKT oder dergleichen versuchen, aber ich habe die Schnauze gestrichen voll davon, dass in diesen knapp fünfeinhalb Jahren, in denen ich aktiv die Symptome bekämpfe, einfach nichts funktioniert. Ich toleriere mehr oder weniger, dass das jetzt kein Leben ist. Es braucht unbedingt eine Lösung dafür. Auf r/anhedonia berichten Dutzende Menschen genau dasselbe, und es ist unfassbar, dass uns nicht geholfen werden kann.

(Skip to the last paragraph if too long)

Summa summarum: Anhedonia, blunting, sexual dysfunction, blockage for 7 consecutive years. Nothing has been able to penetrate though my (consummatory) blockage yet. I decided that I will try ECT as a last resort and then finally give up in case it does not work and consider myself permanently disabled. No more ''oh, but have you tried PTX-456 Robocop Juice?''. This decision will hopefully give me some peace of mind.

The issue with ECT however is that where I live, it has to be performed in an inpatient setting and requires a clinic stay of up to 6 weeks. Psychiatric clinics in Germany oftentimes do not provide an environment in which treatment resistant cases receive a treatment and assessment that is tailored to their respective needs and symptoms. A lot of doctors do not even know how to properly assess anhedonia at all, let alone the blockage level kind that does not respond to any substances and CBT. I have also read a multitude of anecdotes of anhedonic patients who get misunderstood by medical professionals - the same has happened to myself, even in outpatient settings.

To be quite fair, I also don’t want to give up my autonomy as a patient, given the amount of knowledge I’ve gathered surrounding this and similar conditions, and the thought of staying at a hospital for over a month is just extremely eerie to me.

This is why I thought about getting ECT in the Netherlands, where outpatient ECT is generally possible. I just have no clue at all how I should go about this. Has anyone ever traveled within the EU to get ECT and how was your experience? Most importantly, is it possible to get that covered by insurance, especially since ECT is generally possible in the county I live in.