This bears almost no resemblence to Alexithymia. You are saying you don't seem to feel much emotion - that's anhenonia. A common symptom of depression. It could well be substance induced. Would you mind sharing what substances where abused? If not, what class of substance? I.e. opioid, stimulant...etc?
How is it possible to tell the difference between not feeling emotions and having them but not being able to feel them? Looking at it now it makes sense that it is probably anhedonia. The substances I abused were many and varied, but the ones that seemed to have knocked me off kilter so drastically were some stupid doses of MDMA and random combinations of all kinds of research chemicals especially stimulants and phenethylamines. I also had a month long addiction to methoxetamine, and have gone in and out of opiates for a few years (nothing heavy, tramadol, kratom and codeine mainly). About 4 years ago I did a ridiculous amount of mephedrone, well over 50 grams over the space of about a year, sometimes going up to about 5 grams in a single session (that shit is more fiendish than cocaine). Considering the mishmash of drugs I have done I doubt that'll be much help, but if you can glean any insight from it then that'd be cool.
How is your sleep?
Do you tend to eat more than before you felt like this, less? the same amount?
Are the symptoms worst in the morning, evening? steady?
are you tearful or were you?
you mentioned anger, how strong is the feeling, in what context?
are you irritable?
have you ever had any psychiatric diagnosis before?
-My sleep is usually pretty disturbed, I often wake up repeatedly throughout the night and have trouble getting back to sleep. However I'm slowly fixing that with CBT-I which is fucking awesome.
-I seem to eat more, or at least when I'm at the fridge I'll just gorge shit. I have pretty poor self-control in general, which is also something I'm working on. Although it's difficult when you're in the 'I don't give a fuck' mode.
-The symptoms seem to be worse in the morning, although that could be because I usually exercise and meditate late morning which noticeably puts me in a better mood.
-I have been a bit tearful recently. It's strange though, sometimes I'll get it by thinking myself into the abyss and sometimes I'll get the beautiful kind like when listening to a song that really strikes a chord in me.
-I think I was angry because of a recent relapse on tramadol and ketamine. I was angry with myself because I had been feeling good for a while then I hit a wall one day and just got high for a few weeks.
-Generally I can sometimes be irritable with people I'm completely comfortable with, which are those that deserve it least.
-I've never had a psychiatric diagnosis but I know that I have been depressed for quite a bit of my life.
The most effective psychotheraputic treatment is behavioural activation. Doing stuff. Exercise is good, socializing even if you seem to gain nothing from it, even just picking up a book to read. Continue to build that up until you are functioning normally. google it. Look into mindfullness and cogntive therapy as well. The intentet and books have been shown to provide CBT and mindfulness interventions as well as any therapist so no need to worry about splashing out on one if you can't afford it.
I will try some behavioural activation, sounds like a very good idea. I'm just a bit bogged down with uni work at the moment, coming up to the end of the academic year I have many assignments due.
I would advise the use of pharmacuticals. Start with an SSRI and follow a standard treatment algorithm - something I will provide more information on if you would like to hear it.
If you are suffering from a depressive episode - something I am quite convinced you are (once/if you answer the questions I will become more or less so); then you would fit the melancholic specifier which responds to increase noradrenaline neurons firing. DLPA, is a precurser to noradrenaline and between 500-2000mg may be helpful. Serontonergic functioning is usually a problem and so 5HTP at 50-100mg is also a good idea. NMDA and glutamate functioning has shown to be a problem in anhenonia. Acetylcysteine (in the form NAC) modulate NMDA receptors among other things.
Starting an SSRI seems a bit of a drastic treatment, considering the already altered state of my brain. And I will look into DLPA, sounds like it could be useful... I do usually feel very invigorated after a cold shower, which IIRC increases noradrenaline. I think I might have some sitting around actually, although I think it's just the L-isomer. Thanks for your detailed reply anyway!
I also was kind of acting like a robot, in extremely logical and rational ways, no place for subtility and truly it was something hard to bear because in the end you don't feel like you're human.
I had this kind of extreme apathy as well.
Now this is almost cured if not already cured, my problem was dopamine deficiency and serotonin overload.
Very interesting. Given that pretty much every drug of addiction disrupts dopamine production and that MDMA and psychedelics mess with the serotonin receptors, this may well be relevant to me.
If you dont mind telling, how did you find out that you had these things, and what course of action have you almost cured them with?
I would say a lot of luck and coincidence.
I started supplementation back in mid-2011 after reading a post on longecity saying oxiracetam could make you more social and talkative through google.
Did a lot of racetams, Se-methyl-L-selenocysteine, choline, fish oil without significant results this lasted until june 2012.
Also did sulbutiamine from time to time but other supplements probably overrided the results (I guess bacopa did).
Then 4 months with bacopa + fish oil + vit C, a huge mistake as bacopa is extremely serotonergic, it caused PLMD when going to bed. Some research led me to the fact that bacopa lowers dopamine, knowing that sulbutiamine was dopaminergic I knocked down a few tabs and it worked for my PLMD.
October 2012, I stopped using bacopa, started with several vitamins and antioxidants, no improvement still...
Early 2013, I tried L-tyrosine + NALT, L-tyrosine didn't gave me anything, maybe NALT did.
Early February 2013, found out that vitamin D could help conversion of amino acids into their respective neurotransmitters (l-tyrosine -> dopamine, tryptophan -> serotonin, etc...) so I upped my vitamin D from low quality 2500IU to 10000IU, for about one week I had a dopamine surge (indicated by increased motivation, leg tapping, less brain fog, more sex drive).
mid february 2013 I went back to the good old sulbutiamine and it started rapidly to solve my problems, I took it for 1 month then withdrew 1 week (just a test) then started again 1 week ago, this is what I got from it :
- much more increased motivation, no more lethargy (no more sleeping during the day etc)
- no need for an alarm clock, I wake up naturally after 6-7h of sleep totally refreshed, before I would need an alarm clock to wake up after 7h of sleep and would wake up 9h after and with some tiredness
- increased sex drive
- dopaminergic syndrome (leg tapping, tweaking, ...)
- less brain fog, increased memory retention
- reversal of anhedonia
- anecdotically I don't feel ashamed to show my tastes to show what I do to people, before I was very "secret", ashamed of showing what I like to others and I was also very submissive I was trying to not annoy people even if they weren't actually annoyed.
- social interaction is much more easy, instead of being a challenge it's a no brainer, eye contact was something really hard for me to do, with sulbutiamine I can look at the other one without making an awkward eye contact or avoiding eye contact
also before I was kinda "mute", you know like a feeling of being unable or not willing to talk to another person
- words came out much more easily and therefore I can interact socially, before I was mentally slow and it would take me time to form proper eloquent sentences or just even have a normal discussion with another person
It's much more easy to manipulate the memories of my brain.
- Sentiment of fear is almostly inexistent
in other terms I almost reversed most of my issues and this make me feel really great, I guess most of my problem was because of lack of vitamin D that impaired conversion of l-tyrosine, eating too much which downregulates dopamine, etc... I also combine sulbutiamine with HIIT exercise.
Serotonergics are definetely my enemies, bacopa was truly destructive and counterproductive. (but I was like that before bacopaso it isn't entirely the culprit).
Serotonin is 99% the culprit for me and this is in adequation with studies showing that serotonin makes you lethargic, submissive (I guess that's a factor in being alpha male or not) and even suicidal (notably 5ht2a receptors).
I was indeed almost like you, too cerebral, too logical and so on and this destroyed my social life, also I was irritable to my family and they didn't deserve this, I was a total zombie alive in the outside but dead in the inside your nickname is a good analogy to that problem, an opaque mind that is.