This is a hard symptom to explain but basically every hour I'm awake I am stuck in a daydream about something. It is impossible to pull out of. I think it's eating up all my dopamine. It's too hard to quit because it feels too damn good, and because I'm anhedonic nothing else distracts from it.
I experience my emotions very intensely. I'm tired of crying all the time, and I'm emotionally exhausted. I want to become emotionally numb. What is the best antidepressant for that?
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.
and I'm just wondering when it's ok to quit.
My upcoming life events likely include beloved pets eventually passing away, and then the race between my sister and me to see who dies first.
I genuinely can't think of anything that would make me happy, so what am I even doing any of this for?
I'm so tired...
Will us medication induced anhedonia sufferers ever see an ounce of justice? The people who let this happen to us deserve to be in a brazen bull right now
This might confuse some people but I wanted to ask if anyone else feels this with their anhedonia after something might have worsened it. I got tinnitus in November 2025 and I have had my anhedonia since the beginning of 2024 I noticed very quickly that my anhedonia worsened since tinnitus. When I look back to let’s say march of this year or April I feel worse thinking back to that particular time. Nothing bad happened but it’s like my anhedonia was worse since having the tinnitus making me more miserable since I have to stop doing a lot of things because of loud noise. But when I look back to most times with the tinnitus and anhedonia I get an almost sick feeling. But if I look back to memories before the tinnitus those feel so much better even though I couldn’t feel happiness from the anhedonia. I do the same things constantly though like I sing random song lyrics or open an app I just checked it’s the same things and I became really aware of my personality since getting the anhedonia it’s so weird
I cant even differ bad and good music, i just know what i liked 4 years ago.
Pls also tell me how did you become anhedonic, especially if you got it from meds
I've never told anyone I can hardly feel any emotions. I don't think anyone would understand or take me seriously.
I'm just interested to know how others have dealt with this.
Hello I’m someone that suffers from SSRI/antipsycotic induced anhedonia. And, I suspect that I am in a near complete anhedonic state. I feel no positive or negative emotions, and have pretty what’s called consummatory anhedonia where I can’t enjoy much of anything. I feel like I’m unable to care about anything, or feel love, etc. I feel like it’s hard to navigate myself with this and to work/function.
Has anyone heard of anyone being able to recover from such a severe condition?
I’m Looking for hope but also honest answers. Thank you.
I have this bad, no love, nothing from a hug , kiss, compliments, things I do for myself like shower or self care , nothing when I smoke or eat or drink. Is parnate or mirapex even a possible solution? I miss love and connection to things especially my spouse. I feel nothing when I watch TV or do hobbies or see a photo or an animal..
It seems like I have complete anhedonia as well as either ego deathor dpdr .. but idk why ..except I started smoking cigarettes again around when this started..I was vaping and then hit my husband's pipe tobacco..I used to smoke weed..I may of had possible psychosis but it ended naturally...I feel seprated from who I am... my spouse who is so important to me... even my family, I see my sister and it's like huh who is that stranger...I've had an mri. A CT..eeg.. they got nothing..I had a stroke in 2018 but it wasn't like this for years after my stroke
I'm 15, and for the past several weeks (or longer), I've felt like I can't enjoy anything anymore.
I don't remember the last time I was genuinely happy. Things I used to enjoy don't really make me feel anything now. I can still laugh sometimes if something is funny, but the feeling doesn't really last, and most of the time everything just feels emotionally flat.
I'm still able to study, and I have an exam in a couple of days. I know I'm capable of doing well, but I have almost no motivation to practice. I mostly feel pressure because I'm scared of letting my parents down or not meeting my own expectations.
Apparently this feeling of not being able to enjoy anything is called anhedonia, and I wanted to post this in here.
Is anyone going through the same, or has any suggestions? Please let me know.
Thanks for reading.
Had this for 1.5 years. Only thing that helps anhedonia and the nervous system which is in freeze (google it) is ice cold showers. The shock of the cold must release either norepinephrine or something similar that I think is missing from my neuro transmitter transmission.. I read others that had theory’s of norepinephrine being an important role in this
Hello, since I quit smoking weed and tobacco joints after 13 years of daily use, my cognitive abilities have been extremly impaired, I can't learn anything new and I forgotten so much of what I used to know that I will have to give up my job as a teacher. I also forget words. My days are empty because I can't recall anything. I didn't have this problem before.
I also don't have any pleasure in anything at all, and everything bores me. I tried to watch a movie last friday, I still haven't finished it, I don't care at all about anything.
Doctor only gave me some prozac which I didn't take because they are irrelevant in my knowledge.
I wish I could die in my sleep and be done with this existence. All I had is gone.
Last year, maybe around August or September, I started noticing that my personal experiences didn’t feel so personal anymore. I would talk about things, myself, my family, and they just kinda felt like words I was reading off a script. There was nothing behind anything I was saying. Fast forward to now (July) and I’m just completely numbed to my emotions. I’ve never been like this before, even though I’ve dealt with emotional numbness in the past, it was never to this extent. Everything is just flat to me. My family, my hobbies, people that I work with or interact with, whatever it is. It’s just empty. I don’t feel anything. I can’t feel a connection of any kind. I can’t cry, I don’t even get mad or frustrated anymore. I do also suffer from DPDR, so I’m dissociated from myself and my surroundings 24/7.
In terms of medications, I’ve been taking Pristiq and Lamotrigine for over 5 years. I just recently went off of the Pristiq because I read studies that said emotional blunting is a very common side effect of that medication. However, I’m completely off of the medication now and have been for just over 2 weeks and nothing has changed. I feel the exact same.
I personally think that I started feeling this way (emotionally blunting, and dissociated) shortly after I started these medications. I do not remember feeling anything like this prior. It was seemingly a gradual process because the total numbing happened over 4 years after I began taking them. I didn’t start putting the pieces together until earlier this year, that I got progressively worse after I started taking those meds.
I don’t know what to do. I talk to my therapist, but it doesn’t do anything for me because the words I’m saying have no emotion behind them. I don’t feel any different after leaving a therapy session no matter what I try to “get off my chest.” Over the past few years, I’ve tried EMDR, Ketamine infusions, CBT, all that stuff. It had no effect on me. My psychiatrist seems to think therapy is the answer, despite me telling him several times that therapy cannot work for me right now. I just feel absolutely lost. It’s never been this bad before. Any advice of any kind would be awesome.
Hey guys,
I have schizoaffective bipolar type and have had pretty bad anhedonia for 2 1/2 years. A little over a week ago I started lamictal and since then I have been feeling a sort of calm, felt some euphoria listening to music a day ago which I havent felt in a long time, and have noticed I have some motivation to get out of bed and on with the day in the morning. Are these early signs the lamictal will help fix the anhedonia?
Is anyone else devastated they've lost their connection to their people like their spouse
Not really a question, but was the closest flair I could find. I did a couple of months on abilify, starting at 2mg then up to 5mg. I initially felt a lot of activation, but was probably just hypomanic. So it felt like it was working because I was actually doing things but that wore off. Went up to 5mg and still nothing. So going to taper off of that and try Pramipexole next. I’ll give an update when I get there. I’ve tried so many things that haven’t worked it’s hard to have any hope, but gonna try anyway. Interested to hear anyone’s experience with either of these drugs.
Hi all... I think I am experiencing anhedonia.
I got diagnosed with brain cancer, 2 surgeries, and brain infection. I was dating a nightmare of a woman who made my life difficult during this time.
Then, my mom gets diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and my building evicts me because they are demolishing my building.
I had to move all my shit while managing all this and when my girlfriend dumped me because she told me I was too stressed about cancer. LOL
Anyways. For the past 35 days, I have felt absolutely no joy.
Nothing brings me joy. I walk around like a fucking robot.
The way I deal is making f'n lists I have to do, and I just do it liie a robot.
I just pretend I am a being that simply does not feel emotion, and I get shit done on conscious will alone.
Time feels LONG. 4 days felt like 4 fucking years.
From the sounds of things, nothing else can be done.
Hello, I’m someone that suffers from severe SSRI/antipsychotic induced anhedonia.
Does anyone know the recommended amount of time to attempt to heal naturally before trying medication or supplements?
Or is it just different for everyone. Thank you
Idk why but I notice a pattern: that I struggle to eat enough food throughout the week and my anhedonia is constant. Then I hit a point where I eat all the missing calories in a short period. For the next 24 hours or so my anhedonia will lift. I can feel things again. But it doesn’t last even if I keep eating. It also could be stress because I eat less when stressed.