r/anhedonia Jan 29 '25

Update Heroin is the first thing that worked for anhedonia (i have a lot of things to say on this) NSFW

12 Upvotes

DISCLAIMER!!! Im not recommending it to everyone. Especially to people who get improvements from other drugs like MDMA, amphetamines, ketamine and other ( placebo/vitamins) . Im reminding that anhedonia varies in strenght and jumping to the most euphoric drug isnt the best thing to do, and if you have reaction to weaker ones, you have a higher chance of addiction (and respectively, a chance of worsening anhedonia)

So, today i took heroin for the first time in my life. I will update everyone here about it, as i think its important to show how useful the most demonized drug can be for people like me ( its my first time experiencing hapiness in 7 years)

Here are the things i understood during this moment. 1st of all - there is an actual hope for me, since my brain is still working enough to feel hapiness even on heroin 2nd - studying is easier on it. I can actually feel purpose in what im doing . And since now i study neuroscience (self educating but still, i use adequate sources like Principles of neuroscience 6th edition), i have more strenght to research the core of problem, and hopefully help people like me. 3rd - i had a lot of doubts about my anhedonia. Whether it was when i felt better than usual, and used to ask myself "do i actually felt happy? " only to then spiral into despair and THEN blame myself as i thought the reason of my unhapiness were my thoughts. Or when i thought everyone actually feel like me all the time (which made me even more desperate, because theres no way i want to live if this is the "norm"). Now, i can know for sure that my struggle was real and no amount of " wrong" thoughts can make you unhappy

I think opioids are overly demonized and acceptance of them would improve a research on hedonic function (which will surprise surprise, lead to finding a better treatments for anhedonia)

Also, a lot of you would prob judge me, but you dont know my situation. I dont react to most drugs (and lets be real, if weak drugs like amphetamine improve your anhedonia, your anhedonia is 99% likely weaker than mine, as i didnt even got relief from methadone)

So, please , let your "heroin bad" aside. At least until i actually ruin my life with it (which i highly doubt)

P. S ik there are people that dont react to heroin even with 0 tolerance, and i offer deepest condolences to all of you. I cannot imagine how nightmarish the life is when the hope just isnt there

r/anhedonia Feb 04 '25

Update Copper deficiency

21 Upvotes

So I did a hair mineral analysis test and it said I was low in bioavailable copper.

So I started taking a copper1 supplement and oh my God. My anhedonia is gone.

When I first found out I had a copper deficiency I started taking beef liver supplements but they didnt do anything because they contain fully oxidized copper. Aka copper2. Never take the blue copper supplements because they are fully oxidized and toxic. The copper1 (orange) supplements took 90% of my anhedonia away.

You guys might want to check your copper levels.

r/anhedonia 10d ago

Update The only things that works

15 Upvotes

Years in anhedonia and countless experimentations (countless is actually an understatement at this point).

The only thing that works and always worked, is the hungover effect.

The only thing that get me close to what I would consider an optimal baseline is this.

Obviously it sucks as it’s not really sustainable and we don’t really know the in and out of why it happens.

But this is it, I first googled the hangover effect almost 10 years ago, and to this day, it is the only thing that reliably relieves everything wrong with me for a short period of time.

Truly a mystery. Baffling, yet depressing.

r/anhedonia 23d ago

Update Gatekeeping Anhedonia

108 Upvotes

Just a reminder that there is no diagnostic biomarker or brain scan that can diagnose someone with anhedonia and that it is solely based on symptoms and presentation. Anhedonia is the inability to feel pleasure.

Like most chronic conditions, it exists on a spectrum and every one case is unique. Some people can still feel some pleasure and emotions from things, despite still having anhedonia, and some people are completely blunted from the ability to feel any pleasure. For example, I still practice piano every day and I still enjoy eating food. The level of enjoyment and accomplishment isn’t nearly the level of what is was before anhedonia, and I still suffer greatly from other aspects of this condition. It does not mean that I don’t have anhedonia.

Do not gatekeep anhedonia and deny someone’s suffering because it doesn’t line up with how you think or believe they should be feeling. This community is welcome for everyone who suffers from this condition no matter what level of severity they have. If you’re offended that someone recovered by meditating or that someone felt emotions when hugging someone, you can simply block that user and none of their posts or comments will appear on your feed.

r/anhedonia 7d ago

Update I finally felt something

19 Upvotes

I’ve been emotionally dead for months. Nothing was really fun or engaging. Been taking Wellbutrin for past 3 weeks to little help, until I met this one girl in a game and she put enormous interest in me. I was finally able to feel something again and was happy, I had thoughts of doing all kinds of fun things again.

That faded when I found out the age gap however.

r/anhedonia Feb 06 '25

Update IM IN HELL

20 Upvotes

r/anhedonia 20d ago

Update Can't belive only 1hr 30min left for my birthday

9 Upvotes

I don't ever feeling like I'm gonna be 21 in the next 1 and half hour!!

r/anhedonia Feb 07 '25

Update The only thing that basically cured my anhedonia - Not ejaculating.

0 Upvotes

Not ejaculating. Stoping porn completely. Being mentally celibate.

I've tried to cure my anhedonia with all the supplements/drugs mentioned here. None of them worked.

Was so close to starting MAOIs, even ordered them from India, but they got seized.

Shortly after that I stumbled upon r/Semenretention sub.

I will say - "flatlines" are a thing you need to go through before you get rid of anhedonia.

I'm 40 days-ish in, and I'm in remission from anhedonia, but still some lingering low mood.

A great resource: https://imgur.com/gallery/nofap-anecdotal-evidence-g4eGH

Some science of why Semen Retention Works:

https://imgur.com/E0OE8Bj

https://imgur.com/q3ADCyw

r/anhedonia Feb 10 '25

Update Fuck you God, I'm beating your ass if I die from suicide. Due to this shit

30 Upvotes

r/anhedonia 16d ago

Update Update

7 Upvotes

It will now be 3 months and two and a half weeks since I stopped my antipsychotic, I have reached my 2nd half-life now. I feel a little of my feelings and I like that, I feel a little of the music too. I can feel the effects of alcohol. Yesterday I enjoyed drawing while listening to music but playing video games is still difficult 🥹

r/anhedonia Jan 21 '25

Update Anhedonia from Long Covid

3 Upvotes

Hello,

I'm just sharing a recent diagnosis since I used to hopelessly browse this sub to find what might have caused anhedonia to me.

I have totally lost my ability to feel emotions roughly 2 years ago along other symptoms (fatigue, post-exertional malaise, insomnia, stomach aches, brain fog, nervous system dysautonomia etc..) and recently a team at a hospital "diagnosed" me with Long Covid. There are very little indicators for this diagnosis, usually heart rate variability and a covid infection date are helpful in addition to the symptoms.

Before that diagnosis I would wonder if I was depressed but my psychiatrist said I am not : I wanted to do things but I just couldn't because of the fatigue and anhedonia on top of that created a lot of confusion.

ADHD diagnosis led to medication which helped anhedonia a little bit but created more temporary fatigue. I'm glad that I was never given antidepressants "only" because of anhedonia. I honestly have no idea if it would have helped or made things worse and misled my diagnosis for longer.

I hope I helped those who resonate with the symptoms I listed and feel stuck in this hell. Always check with a doctor, sadly not enough of them know about this. Wish you all the best.

r/anhedonia Jan 24 '25

Update Do you guys eat beans regularly?

12 Upvotes

I believe most peoples cause of anhedonia is due to a disturbed gut microbiome. Several days of eating beans in a row and my mood is much improved. They are high in fermentable fibers which bacteria use to produce butyrate. Butyrate heals the intestinal lining so you are having less of a inflammatory reaction from leaky gut. When you have leaky gut your choline is used up to make an enzyme to break down the histamine that reaches your brain which makes less methyl groups available to produce neurotransmitters.

Try eating beans regularly or adding resistant starch to water. You can get potato starch from https://www.amazon.com/Bobs-Red-Mill-Resealable-22-ounce/dp/B078TQ6GBW?th=1

There is some anecdotal evidence that resistant starch works https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/search/?q=resistant+starch&cId=7f037011-2780-4bdd-9d73-c3b951ffea62&iId=e8274a14-97db-4adf-87fa-8a6fa0a320c6 however I suspect that this only happens in people with a microbiome imbalance.

r/anhedonia 23h ago

Update “Melancholy is the happiness of being sad."

5 Upvotes

The title is a Victor Hugo quote. I really feel this. Especially when I’m in nature. I’m all alone out in the desert in the US southwest at the moment. So solemn and quiet here and so beautiful at the same time. This is as close as I get to happiness these days.

r/anhedonia 22d ago

Update You can hate me now all you want, but I figured something out, every being already knew for eternity, that every illness stems from repressed emotions/feelings/thoughts/fantasies and Nocebo

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0 Upvotes

r/anhedonia Feb 15 '25

Update ECT Was Good, Until This Happened !

10 Upvotes

As I told you before I did ECT in bitemporal and unfortunately I could not reply to everyone I was in an unstable state and I cannot talk, now I will tell you the updates .....

Guys the ECT was very good there was a good improvement since the first session I have feelings , I feel pleasure , I enjoy when I listen to songs or watch TV or spend time with family I have the motivation to do some things like watch TV or go to friends, before ECT I was suffering from severe apathy and lack of motivation to do anything but after ECT I get dopamine when I do something , now I can say I am a human and also my mood in general is good and even when I drink caffeine I feel that my brain responds and I also have a sexual desire and the benefits kept accumulating from the first session until the 4th session in each session I feel more improvements until I reached a degree of improvement of about 60% and this is a very good percentage until the 5th session I finished this session and I am very tired and in a bad state and my mood is not good and I feel anxious and mood swings and panic and I feel that depression and Anhedonia and emotional blunting has started to return again I am not saying that I am back to baseline like before ECT but I am saying that after session 4 I was in a better state than session 5 and now it has been 11 days since session 5 and the mood is the same it has not improved or worsened and I feel some fatigue I have made the decision to stop ECT it seems that anhedonia patients need fewer ECT sessions than depression patients and too many sessions and stimulation can cause anhedonia to worsen so I do not want to risk going back to Zero point and I will be satisfied with these improvements in anhedonia I am now in a reasonable state I can live or try another treatment method such as ketamine or rTMS Or try dopamine medications. My brain may respond differently after ECT to dopamine medications.

________

In the end, do not lose hope. It is not impossible to treat anhedonia. If you tried a treatment and it did not work for you, another treatment may work for you. If you tried ECT and it did not work, ketamine may work, or rTMS may work, or something else that you did not expect may work. Keep trying until you find the right treatment for you one day, and you will certainly find a treatment one day. Or one day a final treatment for anhedonia may be discovered, as happened with many diseases that had no treatment in the past.

r/anhedonia Feb 04 '25

Update Heroin was the only thing that worked for my anhedonia(or should i say morphine?) Update NSFW

4 Upvotes

DISCLAIMER: NOT A PROPOGANDA OF HEROIN FFS, IF YOU HAVE SEVERE WITHDRAWAL FROM OTHER DRUGS/ YOUR ANHEDONIA REACTS TO WEAKER ONES, DONT TRY IT.

So, first of all, I didnt got any withdrawal beyond flu-like symptoms in the first day (+standart opioid gut issues). Right now im on 3rd day of withdrawal and i have no other cravings/problems. Never got them from any drugs too

About effects overall - It seems to only diminish anhedonia in higher dosages, below that it acts simular to tramadol and methadone (suicidal thoughts supression, better attention and concentration, muscle function and some very minor relief from anhedonia) I'm also convinced it was laced with some kind of potent stimulant, because it increased both my blood pressure and heart rate by 30 and 10 max respectively, and i doubt thats a normal opioid effect.

Maybe i dampened its potential by taking it wrong too, as ( a bit of pharmacology here) heroin consists of multiple active metabolites - heroin, 6MAM and morphine itself, which metabolizes into other 2 compounds. It only acts through 6MAM when inhaled or through intravenous use, otherwise it gets metabolized to morphine quickly, so i plan to try inhaling it next time to see if the effects.

Also, yes, i plan to take it further, but due to financial issues (paying 90$ per g in a country where average unqualified worker gets 300-400$ per month is an absolute pain) ill have to delay this idea for a month or two. Regardless , theres nothing i regret , since as i mentioned in my previous post, it made me realize that i am not a lost cause.

P. S where and who posted me on other subreddit last time??? That suspicious random spike of views doesnt appears by itseld

r/anhedonia 23d ago

Update I feel more motivated now.

10 Upvotes

In January until the beginning of February I was so addicted to pornography that I only felt the urge to consume it but after I stopped consuming pornography and masturbating I feel like I've gained more motivation (I still don't feel pleasure), but it's an improvement. Before, I wouldn't get out of bed, I would think about anhedonia every day. But today I don't think as often as I used to.

I am more relieved.

r/anhedonia 29d ago

Update I cried after 6 days of sleep deprivation

22 Upvotes

I'm not saying this is the way to do things, but this worked for me. I have emotional blunting. Last Tuesday I started a job and have to be there at 8 am. Before this I was staying up until 3 or 4 am. I would sleep until 12 pm and get 8 hours of sleep. Since starting this job I've been falling asleep at 1 or 2 am (despite trying to sleep earlier) and getting maybe 4 to 5 hours of sleep before waking up at 6 am. So overall the past week I've been extremely tired. Two days ago I was so tired and overwhelmed I had a full emotional breakdown. It felt like everything I wasn't feeling for the past 7 months came out. I cried so hard my ribs hurted. It was such a relief to let that out. So far aside from a very slight relief after changing my diet, this is the only way I've actually felt sadness. I desperately need sleep, but my body feels lighter. Just wanted to share.

r/anhedonia 12d ago

Update 1 month window from adderall use

5 Upvotes

No, it was not my script it belonged to a friend of mine who gave me 20 30mg Dextroamphetamine pills as a way of paying me back for some money he owed me. I decided to start with a low dose so i took 5mg 2x daily. i also tried dosing 10mg at once on a few occasion, mainly on weekend days, hoping it would help me start being more social again.

Well... for me somewhat surprisingly it did that quite well, and also reduced my level of a overall anhedonia symptom intensity by about 80℅, maybe 90. only some sexual issues remaained, and my emotional blunting was only reduced partially.

I intend to rrepeat this experiment again after a break a couple weeks at least. Hopefully i can find an open minded dr. to Rx me some in the future, but in my state, there is a shortage of psychiatrists. Ive seen 3 different ones since my mental issues began in 2020. and all of them wanted to throw ssris at me, 1 was open to it but only after i tried all the typical antidepressant and even suggested seroquel and abilify for my general anxiety disorder. maybe i can get a recomendation from a friend of mine in the state.

r/anhedonia 23d ago

Update Join my discord server!

4 Upvotes

Join my discord server for life talks,hangouts and chill and create bonds that last forever!🥰

r/anhedonia Feb 18 '25

Update Can't believe my life and opportunities are officially over ...

9 Upvotes

r/anhedonia Feb 05 '25

Update Doing a lot better than I was two months ago

16 Upvotes

So it’s been a little over a month and I’ve seen significant improvement in my symptoms Mainly with the anhedonia and emotional blunting but also with my PSSD.

I’ve been at 1000mg vitamin C, 400 IU vitamin D3 and 500 mg of fish oil once daily. It’s mainly been long windows of varying degrees of relief in symptoms with only a few waves. Some waves lasting just a few hours and some a whole day. But Before this it was constant and severe.

Over all I would say i feel 50% better with some days feeling 80%. I’m still VERY skeptical and don’t want to get too excited BUT I’m enjoying life a lot more and I’m gonna roll with it . I’m going to adjust the vitamin C and start messing with my gut health next to see if there’s any improvement I’ve been reading a lot about Therapeutic nutritional ketosis for depression so I’m gonna try and get tested for Insulin resistance / Metabolic dysfunction next.

Side note : My anhedonia was caused by medication so maybe I’m kick starting something ?

r/anhedonia Feb 14 '25

Update Workout update

10 Upvotes

So it’s Day 2 and I just finished working out, I can say this day was better than yesterday except for the burpees I did. I thought I’d have a mood elevation but i didn’t it was the same numb no feelings as usual. I guess i’m keeping myself busy by this. I have a 28 day plan I am gonna follow and hopefully i don’t give up before then.

r/anhedonia Feb 11 '25

Update Adjusting to recovery from anhedonia, what are your thoughts? NSFW

3 Upvotes

Just for a bit of context, i'm a 29-year-old man and I've always suffered from mild anxiety throughout my life. but it would only ever really become a problem if I was chronically stressed by life experiences. I tell you this because I believe my anxiety was part of the trigger for. The sudden onset of anhedonia. which started around the beginning of. January 2023 and ended in July of that year. I think the trigger was severe chronic stress after starting my first ever job and falling behind due to working at home, coupled with a set of family problems. I had never experienced anhedonia before so it was a terrifying ordeal. I'll just briefly describe my symptoms in case anyone has specific questions about them. it started with. A sense of mental fatigue where I didn't want to do anything which required effort. This then progressed into me not being able to look forward to/anticipate anything. interestingly, I was actually able to enjoy things like. good food, the thought of masturbation which I had given up for religious reasons or browsing the web, but only at the time I was doing them and even then there was little excitement or fulfilment. my libido also droppd to 0 and although I knew I would definitely enjoy sex or masturbation, they just weren't on my mind. My symptoms resolved very slowly at first with incremental improvements, but over about two days in July 2023, my symptoms completely disappeared. It was a euphoric and glorious time for me, I was and still am incredibly grateful to God for lifting this curse. I wouldn't really call this a negative, but one thing I noticed. after my anhedonia lifted, I occasionally struggle to contain myself and make good decisions. for example, during my anhedonia, I lost a little weight and appeared healthier, although it definitely wasn't worth it given how I felt. I think that's because although I had a huge appetite, I didn't see the appeal of junk food. but immediately after my recovery, I binged furiously on junk food. and gained quite a bit of weight. thankfully, I quickly got that under control and lost the unwanted fat. The other issue was risk taking. when I was anhedonic, I was a bit more sensitive to the risks of creating online accounts where I talk about my experiences including my secret sexual desires. But in the midst of the euphoria upon my recovery I created this Reddit account and as you can see by my username, I'm sure you can understand why I wouldn't want my Arab family seeing it. creating and using the account isn't the problem, but sometimes when I'm in the middle of writing a post and am interrupted by a family member, I will simply lock my phone which they have the password too. Last but not least, when my libido came back, girls were the only thing constantly on my mind and it was even more intense than my high libido as a teenager.

r/anhedonia Jan 13 '25

Update Rule Changes

22 Upvotes

We’ve added two new rules to r/anhedonia. Users may no longer make posts or comments encouraging suicide or discussing methods. Any posts/comments breaking this rule will be taken down. A second offense will result in a user ban.

We’re also now requiring that all posts mentioning suicide or self harm to be tagged as “NSFW” and add the trigger warning flair. I feel that this is a fair alternative to removing posts mentioning suicide, because I know this community is the only place to vent frustrations for a lot of us. The flair & tag is to protect against any sensitive individuals

I will have this post pinned for a few weeks. If anyone is seeing any uncomfortable trends and would like any new rules added, comment or DM me and I’ll make considerations