18 replies to this topic

[paulj12]

I am 29 years old. Growing up I was lucky enough to be constantly motivated. My dad died almost 10 years ago, and that's when my lack of motivation started. My friends even told me they could see I changed into a lazier person. It wasn't by choice, I still tried to get involved in things I used to love to do, but I didn't feel the same excitement in it. Right now, I feel no excitement for anything in life. I've seen counselors and cognitive behavior therapists, but that didn't help. Also tried Wellbutrin and Lexapro, and I regret that very much since I feel it made things worse. I exercise regularly but get only very short 20 minute motivation spurts (of which I'm very greatful, but its not a permanent solution). Does anyone have any suggestions at all? Supplements, lifestyle changes, general life advice, anything please???

[stablemind]

Methylene blue I heard works well on motivation and energy, check out the methylene blue experience thread

[Anewlife]

You need to increase dopamine.

A high protein, moderate carb diet. Steak is the best source of protein, chicken is good, tuna has the most complete amino acid profile.


http://www.livestron...lease-dopamine/

[nupi]

If that was actually working, I should have super high dopamine levels from all the whey, fishoil and other proteins I eat...

[Anewlife]

What is your carb intake like?
How much sunlight do you get per day?

if lifestyle things are in check, I would look at hormones, heavy metals.

Did you give CBT a good run?

[nupi]

Carbs: not highish but also not super low. I eat normal amounts of rice, potatoes, bread and pasta (also Xylitol if that counts as carb) but mostly stay away from sugars. My diet is pretty clean, overall, if maybe a bit lacking in veggies.

Sunlight: Very little (heliophobe) - I look much younger than my age and I intend to keep it that way (my Vitamin D levels are spot on though)

Hormones: My T is a little on the low side, but so far doctors have refused to do anything about it (I will give it another shot in Jan, I do have most of the low T symptoms, after all)

CBT I never found a good therapist for but ultimately I think of myself as not very receptive to therapy (people who know me well generally agree). For example, in therapy I often find myself trying to play games with the therapist (along the lines of "let's see if I can make him believe I am symptom X today").

I still maintain that I believe that I have low DA (I do not think it is diet related, even supplementing L-DOPA does little to nothing for me) but so far shrinks have not let me try any real dopaminergics - that is another thing I will push for in Jan.

Edited by nupi, 25 December 2012 - 06:27 PM.

[Anewlife]

Lower your carbs by about 1/4-1/3 a normal amount might be a bit high replace the calories with fat, saturated and monounsaturated.

would you sit infront of a light box? Sunlight is very important not just for vitamin d. this could be your problem.

you need to check your t levels before 10am btw or they could come back low.

if you have the money find a good psychologist, there is a big difference between them.

[nupi]

Seeing that I do not eat much sugar and little junkfood like crackers, I would argue my carb intake is probably a little below average and yes, I do make it up with fats (I even tried gluten free for 40 days, mostly replacing the lost carbs from wehat with macadamias and some whey shakes, for zero apparent gain). But I should do the math one of these days.

I am not so sure this is light related - I feel equally miserable even dead on the equator where you get a shitload of sunlight whether you want it or not (I dont). I also do not have any noticeable change of moods between summer and winter (except that I tend to sleep more in winter).

As for therapists, I am not really money constrained, it is more time that I am short on and energy to go shopping around for therapists (AvPD and shopping around do not go well together)... Priorities for Jan include kicking my shrink (he's wasting both my insurance's money and more importantly my time) and seeing an endo...

Edited by nupi, 25 December 2012 - 06:46 PM.

[Anewlife]

I would try a light box still, the good ones are uv free. It sounds like you are smart and need a good therapist, someone smarter than you that you can respect intellectually and not play games with.
You also need to try foresee the benefit in such things.

[nupi]

Yes, ideally, I would find a therapist smarter than me - unfortunately, in my whole life, I have not met many people I truly consider my intellectual peers ) and fewer yet I would consider my superiors (this may sound arrogant, but on the one standardized test I have ever taken, I surpass the criteria to join the triple nine society, I also have always been very close to top of the class in whatever educational thing I was motivated enough to pursue).

So looking for a therapist I respect on that level is likely to be fraught with disappointment -so I would settle for one who respects my judgement enough to let me mess around with relatively unorthodox approaches...

Edited by nupi, 25 December 2012 - 07:27 PM.

[Anewlife]

You won't get proper help from someone who lets you mess around. You need a professor, my iq is 135 not as high as yours but higher than most therapists.

My psychologist is one of the top ones in my country. He is mentally sharp, he could be writing down notes seemingly not paying attention while i ramble on and a month later recall something i said at the time.

I am an introspective person with a fair knowledge of psychology and my psychologist sees things with me I wouldn't see and I have questioned it myself and then later found it to be the truth.

Don't shop around, rather start calling universities and find a head/senior clinical psychologist specializing in anxiety disorders (avpd stems from anxiety).

You would be shocked how on the ball professors are with their shit compared to doctors.

[Mishael]

Dopamine is an important ingredient but more important is targeting the part of the brain that is lacking which I would guess be the frontal lobe. That is probably the most precious.

Aside from that dopamine robbers are things like liqueur drinking, tabbacco, stimulants, narcotics, sexual excess.

Things that may bring joy and motivation are bring around people you like. Having someone besides yourself to think about (children, wife, pet).

Are you a tidy person or more on the other spectrum? Do you procrastinate or give yourself enough time? How do you feel around people?

[nupi]

Anewlife: That is actually an interesting approach. Switzerland's two leading research universities (only one of them deals with medicine though) are close enough and my health insurance would actually cover all of that. In defense of my shrink, he's actually a psychiatrist (IOW, MD specialized in psychiatry) who in general seem to be quite a different breed than the Psych Majors that become regular therapists (I've never met one who was not even crazier than myself).

Then again, I once tried to get the university's ADHD specialists to see me (there is at least some overlap between AvPD and ADHD-PI, in fact Wikipedia claims that ADHD-PI could lead to anxiety disorders, and I have many of the ADHD-PI symptoms they just do not really manifest in the standard way because I can compensate many of the downsides with sheer brain power) - without so much as even getting an answer to my email :(

As for tidy, I am anything but. But then again I am not really bothered by chaos nearly as much as people around me.

Edited by nupi, 28 December 2012 - 01:03 PM.

[Anewlife]

They need to have a clinic, if they arnt clinical they dont have patients, they wont see you.

[nupi]

Oh they see patients alright (even say so on the web site) - my ex-gf got her adult ADHD-PI diagnosis there. Maybe a referral from my shrink would help.

[magniloquentc0unt]

If you happen to find the aforementioned intellectually superior psychiatrist, let me know please nupi.
The one im going to at the moment is a funny guy, but i believe he does not have enough experience for my taste.

[nupi]

I am not all that convinced they actually exist. The closest I have seen would presumably be the guy who writes the Rational Male blog (behavioral psychologist but that's close enough)... I may yet get in touch with him and see if a trip to the US would be worth wile.

Or some of the coaches my company (some of which are positively brilliant plus they at the very least know how my work life works) uses but the (list) prices are out of this world. Most are actually not psychologists/psychiatrists but that might actually be a plus. Shrinks seem to always come up with some lame variant of CBT (which essentially boils down to get over it), anyway.

Edited by nupi, 13 January 2013 - 07:01 PM.

[heymazing]

Carbs: not highish but also not super low. I eat normal amounts of rice, potatoes, bread and pasta (also Xylitol if that counts as carb) but mostly stay away from sugars. My diet is pretty clean, overall, if maybe a bit lacking in veggies.

Sunlight: Very little (heliophobe) - I look much younger than my age and I intend to keep it that way (my Vitamin D levels are spot on though)

Hormones: My T is a little on the low side, but so far doctors have refused to do anything about it (I will give it another shot in Jan, I do have most of the low T symptoms, after all)

CBT I never found a good therapist for but ultimately I think of myself as not very receptive to therapy (people who know me well generally agree). For example, in therapy I often find myself trying to play games with the therapist (along the lines of "let's see if I can make him believe I am symptom X today").

I still maintain that I believe that I have low DA (I do not think it is diet related, even supplementing L-DOPA does little to nothing for me) but so far shrinks have not let me try any real dopaminergics - that is another thing I will push for in Jan.

There is a VERY interesting branch of therapy that I myself have found help from just reading about it. Seriously. And I am a non-receptive type too. It's called Schema therapy and it was created by a therapist because he noticed that some patients were just nonreceptive to normal therapy. I'll let you google it and read about it. The problem that can arise with a lot of normal therapies is that if they don't address the belief schema that we are working from within, and everything gets done from WITHIN our schema. So we problem solve, etc, all from within the schema. The FIRST step is the understand what schema we are working from...and then move on. Kinda like a meta therapy. Really interesting and I think it can be really helpful. Just realizing what my own schema was helped me a lot. HTH!

[medievil]

If you happen to find the aforementioned intellectually superior psychiatrist, let me know please nupi.
The one im going to at the moment is a funny guy, but i believe he does not have enough experience for my taste.

my pdoc is excellent, i know him from drug probation, prescribed ritalin straight away last year also he sees me as a collegue as he admits we can learn for eachother wich is def true, he educated me about qt syndrome for example, before i was mixing a shitload of drugs that prolonged it and once kept losing conscious every few minutes with severe chestpains, now i know to take a beta blocker when mixing alot of things that prolong QT, learn alot from the guy and he from me, excellent pdoc.

In belguim drug help is excellent, in uk its completely retarded nhs thing with a doc that doesnt prescribe dex for amp addiction with ppl that have adhd or anything complete shit like most of the nhs.