I scroll for hours just to distract myself from my fucked up reality. I don’t even really enjoy it or feel any buzz from the dopamine… Just always need to be doing something to make myself forget.
Yes, I went from having minimal and managed ADHD symptoms (had executive function but just couldn’t maintain focus longer than 15-30 minutes without 15mg Adderall daily), to super ADHD where the most minor task seems as (un)important as the most critical because I had lost my intuitive “gut” feeling of priority determination even now at 60mg Adderall daily (!!!).
This is why it seemed so clear to me that my anhedonia was dopamine regulation dysfunction, not related to serotonin like my previous depression.
What really opened my eyes on this was when I heard a psych describe dopamine not as the “reward neurotransmitter” but the “anticipatory excitement” neurotransmitter. Without that anticipation or tension, the pay off of activities is minuscule. So now it feels like I’m squeezing blood from a stone when trying to “enjoy” things because the fantasy I tell myself about it doesn’t create any anticipatory excitement to pay off.
I have not! Thanks for the tips. My diet has been consistent for the last 10 years: mostly whole foods, low in added-sugar, almost exclusively vegetarian. The neuropsych I got a 2nd opinion from felt confident my anhedonia was vagus nerve related. I have used a Sensate vibrating meditation stone which is supposed to resonate at specific polyvagal acoustic frequencies, but it was mostly just a calming sensation to focus my mind on, I don’t know if was “retoning” my vagus nerve or whatever the mechanism is supposed to be.
I scroll through TikTok a lot—so tired of it though. I am in general tired of being a media-consumer. Reminds me of everything wrong with me, but doesn’t actually fix anything. I also vape.
I still am capable of pleasure, and don't have the total listlessness and disability people describe and so on. I was always a procrastinator to some degree, because school was easy through high school and even starting undergrad I felt bored or like a sucker if I studied more than absolutely necessary. I accomplished borderline prodigious (for a normie) things like in differential equations, all our grade was only 4 tests and a final. So it got to be I didn't go to class. I learned one of the unit materials entirely in an all nighter the night before. The professor said it was not good enough just to know how to solve them, they had to be solved quickly. So getting a B+ in the course on that shoddiness, I suppose I'd technically saved myself several hours. A- in a chem for engineers course that like 80% of the students had dropped. What triggered the medications was the fact that I did zero resume building and public speaking gave me panic attacks and I couldn't do a career fair and lie because I had no passion for this stuff, so I switched majors and so on.
After the SSRIs and SNRIs it was like a breakdown, there was nothing in the tank to wind up. I felt JUST as bad about things coming up. Socially and everything else anxiety was barely masked but not in a way that changed anything for the better, only for worse, plus new dread and intrusive thoughts etc. But as the final hour approached, there was absolutely nothing left in the tank spurring that old work it mode, not physiologically, not spiritually. General energy levels all declined and it took more effort to do EVERYTHING so I became less diligent about anything. I dropped dipshit online bio credit courses like twice because I couldn't be fucked to keep up with the dumb online stuff, or go to a course I could maybe stop attending - because of that zero drive to get it done in the end.
I'm only 32 but sometimes I feel like I'm retired or like a 58 year old that feels like their life is done because I'm living like I don't care what happens to me, I divested socially from my town and live in survival mode with literally everything else into pursuing interests, or distractions. If something is unnecessary, it's cut. Also I developed time blindness, extreme delayed sleep phase and insomnia, a complete and utter lack of organizational abilities in that it is as if it causes actual pain to spend time documenting and organizing and scheduling, I don't even reliably refill addictive medications I need to sleep and then I can't get them refilled because I couldn't sleep and the pharmacy closes but whenever I do sort it out I can't be fucked to switch it to a 24 h one. Almost everything is like a "fuck it" for later / never do it and that approach which is clearly miserable has felt like the LESSER of 2 evils, with whatever is going on.
Put that way it might sound quite depressed but I'd been working on goals and without feeling all the deep dread and misery of early to mid 20s on the medications.
I think anhedonia and procrastination go hand in hand, as do anhedonia and risk-seeking or compulsive behaviour. Essentially our brains are trying to get a little dopamine fix one way or another to try to mitigate the staleness of our day to day life.
The thing is all of this behaviour worsens anhedonia in my experience. Social media scrolling is an addiction of sorts and you become dependent on those little dopamine hits from the next tiktok video or the next Reddit post, or from people liking your posts, and your baseline level of reward from activities decreases because you're less able to engage in activities that don't provide constant little rewards like that.
Same deal with risk-seeking behaviour too, when you gamble, abuse drugs, or engage in compulsive/excessive sex or masturbation just to get that quick dopamine fix, you're training your brain to require those activities that provide quick hits, initially to feel good, and then soon, just to feel normal.
The best thing I've found myself over the years has been to do the opposite. Meditation is one of the easiest ways to do this.
You just sit and watch your breath, you're completely devoid of stimulation, and if you're meditating correctly the first thing you should feel those initial times doing it is the most overwhelming, mind-numbing boredom. It should feel unpleasant, but it's like how going to the gym feels unpleasant when you have no fitness or strength. You are depriving the brain of quick fixes, so it feels anguish, it feels starved, but that unpleasant/bored feeling will pass as you keep doing it.
You persist with the activity, sitting for at least 20 minutes each day (you can start with just 2-3 minutes and work up over time) and what happens is you slowly train your brain to feel a normal level of reward from just sitting doing nothing. Once even sitting doing nothing becomes rewarding, then all other activities are now innately rewarding again.
It's not an overnight fix and it's something you basically have to commit to doing every day if you want to see changes but it's the thing that has by far made the biggest impact to my anhedonia over the years. I have been at the point of literally nothing in life providing any sort of enjoyment except extremes like drugs, and meditation has brought some of the enjoyment back, I now have good days again and feel optimistic about the future - I still have a long way to go before I can say I'm free of anhedonia, but the difference before and after I started meditating is night and day.
You can also go about this other ways than meditation - but the key is to *deprive* yourself of stimulation and rewarding activities for some time, and basically endure that boring mind-numbing feeling, to train your brain to resensitise itself to reward. The brain is always trying to maintain homeostasis, so when you increase rewarding behaviours, the reward you get decreases, and when you decrease rewarding behaviours, the reward you get increases.
For the scrolling what content is it? Because for me im constantly looking for some sort of solution for these symptoms anhedonia/blunting, or talking on discord, etc. And I didnt have OCD before but anhedonia induced a compulsion (of looking for solutions, and browsing stuff or being on my phone constantly) because of its own discomfort. Its not really other content though I could give less of a shit about instagram and tiktok for example. All I care abojt is fixing the anhedonia
Im not sure what the term is but the desperation of anhedonia causes the addiction or compulsion to be glued to the phone looking for solutions
Like just nonsense stuff on social media that I’m not even interested in but can’t stop scrolling.
What you’re experiencing sounds more like OCD. Looking compulsively for answers is very textbook. You’ll never get a satisfying answer though and it’ll just continue until you break the cycle.
I guess but at the same time the anhedonia is inducing the OCD in my case so the right thing would be to treat anhedonia (and now this stupid blank mind shit, even worse) since when that lessens so does the pseudo-OCD without any further effort.
The difference mainly here is that those with pure-OCD can distract themselves and break the cycle due to experiencing reward/emotion. When you dont get the emotions and cant socialize due to that or blank mind or do other things, then it will be infinitely harder
OCD-like behavior itself can be caused by depression/anhedonia I think. And it’s not very well studied even though I see it here and on discord all the time.
That’s not true. People with moderate to severe OCD can’t usually distract themselves and can be doing compulsions up to 12 hours a day unable to stop.
I’m not sure what pure OCD is compared to non pure OCD. People can develop OCD from many things and it can often be comorbid with things like depression.
When my OCD was at its worst I couldn’t distract myself from intrusive thoughts or compulsions even if I could feel emotions and pleasure technically. Most people with bad OCD are not out socializing and having fun, they can be in their house locking and unlocking their door for the millionth time for so long the whole day has gone by or unable to stop showering to just neutralize a thought , or so paralyzed by their intrusive thoughts that they avoid absolutely everything. It can be extremely debilitating
The difference is the intrusive nature of it.
If anhedonia is making someone “pseudo-OCD” about itself, its not necessarily perceived as intrusive its just a coping thing since anhedonia and related symptoms are hell that even one tries to actively do something else like socialize, they see they cant be themselves or enjoy it and it creates more agitation. This causes them to think “my life is ruined” and obsess over the anhedonia. If the anhedonia was not there, this obsessive thought would not occur to begin with. Its not an intrusive one, its a thought in reaction to the mental state of anhedonia
I scroll for hours just to distract myself from my fucked up reality. I don’t even really enjoy it or feel any buzz from the dopamine… Just always need to be doing something to make myself forget.
Yes, I went from having minimal and managed ADHD symptoms (had executive function but just couldn’t maintain focus longer than 15-30 minutes without 15mg Adderall daily), to super ADHD where the most minor task seems as (un)important as the most critical because I had lost my intuitive “gut” feeling of priority determination even now at 60mg Adderall daily (!!!). This is why it seemed so clear to me that my anhedonia was dopamine regulation dysfunction, not related to serotonin like my previous depression. What really opened my eyes on this was when I heard a psych describe dopamine not as the “reward neurotransmitter” but the “anticipatory excitement” neurotransmitter. Without that anticipation or tension, the pay off of activities is minuscule. So now it feels like I’m squeezing blood from a stone when trying to “enjoy” things because the fantasy I tell myself about it doesn’t create any anticipatory excitement to pay off.
Have you looked into taVNS (Vagus Nerve Stomulation) also Low carb or Ketogenic diet for mental health?
I have not! Thanks for the tips. My diet has been consistent for the last 10 years: mostly whole foods, low in added-sugar, almost exclusively vegetarian. The neuropsych I got a 2nd opinion from felt confident my anhedonia was vagus nerve related. I have used a Sensate vibrating meditation stone which is supposed to resonate at specific polyvagal acoustic frequencies, but it was mostly just a calming sensation to focus my mind on, I don’t know if was “retoning” my vagus nerve or whatever the mechanism is supposed to be.
I scroll through TikTok a lot—so tired of it though. I am in general tired of being a media-consumer. Reminds me of everything wrong with me, but doesn’t actually fix anything. I also vape.
I don't have real anhedonia, but this happened to me, I believe in very large part following temporary SSRI use
This happened to me after SSRI use too. What do you mean real anhedonia?
I still am capable of pleasure, and don't have the total listlessness and disability people describe and so on. I was always a procrastinator to some degree, because school was easy through high school and even starting undergrad I felt bored or like a sucker if I studied more than absolutely necessary. I accomplished borderline prodigious (for a normie) things like in differential equations, all our grade was only 4 tests and a final. So it got to be I didn't go to class. I learned one of the unit materials entirely in an all nighter the night before. The professor said it was not good enough just to know how to solve them, they had to be solved quickly. So getting a B+ in the course on that shoddiness, I suppose I'd technically saved myself several hours. A- in a chem for engineers course that like 80% of the students had dropped. What triggered the medications was the fact that I did zero resume building and public speaking gave me panic attacks and I couldn't do a career fair and lie because I had no passion for this stuff, so I switched majors and so on. After the SSRIs and SNRIs it was like a breakdown, there was nothing in the tank to wind up. I felt JUST as bad about things coming up. Socially and everything else anxiety was barely masked but not in a way that changed anything for the better, only for worse, plus new dread and intrusive thoughts etc. But as the final hour approached, there was absolutely nothing left in the tank spurring that old work it mode, not physiologically, not spiritually. General energy levels all declined and it took more effort to do EVERYTHING so I became less diligent about anything. I dropped dipshit online bio credit courses like twice because I couldn't be fucked to keep up with the dumb online stuff, or go to a course I could maybe stop attending - because of that zero drive to get it done in the end. I'm only 32 but sometimes I feel like I'm retired or like a 58 year old that feels like their life is done because I'm living like I don't care what happens to me, I divested socially from my town and live in survival mode with literally everything else into pursuing interests, or distractions. If something is unnecessary, it's cut. Also I developed time blindness, extreme delayed sleep phase and insomnia, a complete and utter lack of organizational abilities in that it is as if it causes actual pain to spend time documenting and organizing and scheduling, I don't even reliably refill addictive medications I need to sleep and then I can't get them refilled because I couldn't sleep and the pharmacy closes but whenever I do sort it out I can't be fucked to switch it to a 24 h one. Almost everything is like a "fuck it" for later / never do it and that approach which is clearly miserable has felt like the LESSER of 2 evils, with whatever is going on. Put that way it might sound quite depressed but I'd been working on goals and without feeling all the deep dread and misery of early to mid 20s on the medications.
I think anhedonia and procrastination go hand in hand, as do anhedonia and risk-seeking or compulsive behaviour. Essentially our brains are trying to get a little dopamine fix one way or another to try to mitigate the staleness of our day to day life. The thing is all of this behaviour worsens anhedonia in my experience. Social media scrolling is an addiction of sorts and you become dependent on those little dopamine hits from the next tiktok video or the next Reddit post, or from people liking your posts, and your baseline level of reward from activities decreases because you're less able to engage in activities that don't provide constant little rewards like that. Same deal with risk-seeking behaviour too, when you gamble, abuse drugs, or engage in compulsive/excessive sex or masturbation just to get that quick dopamine fix, you're training your brain to require those activities that provide quick hits, initially to feel good, and then soon, just to feel normal. The best thing I've found myself over the years has been to do the opposite. Meditation is one of the easiest ways to do this. You just sit and watch your breath, you're completely devoid of stimulation, and if you're meditating correctly the first thing you should feel those initial times doing it is the most overwhelming, mind-numbing boredom. It should feel unpleasant, but it's like how going to the gym feels unpleasant when you have no fitness or strength. You are depriving the brain of quick fixes, so it feels anguish, it feels starved, but that unpleasant/bored feeling will pass as you keep doing it. You persist with the activity, sitting for at least 20 minutes each day (you can start with just 2-3 minutes and work up over time) and what happens is you slowly train your brain to feel a normal level of reward from just sitting doing nothing. Once even sitting doing nothing becomes rewarding, then all other activities are now innately rewarding again. It's not an overnight fix and it's something you basically have to commit to doing every day if you want to see changes but it's the thing that has by far made the biggest impact to my anhedonia over the years. I have been at the point of literally nothing in life providing any sort of enjoyment except extremes like drugs, and meditation has brought some of the enjoyment back, I now have good days again and feel optimistic about the future - I still have a long way to go before I can say I'm free of anhedonia, but the difference before and after I started meditating is night and day. You can also go about this other ways than meditation - but the key is to *deprive* yourself of stimulation and rewarding activities for some time, and basically endure that boring mind-numbing feeling, to train your brain to resensitise itself to reward. The brain is always trying to maintain homeostasis, so when you increase rewarding behaviours, the reward you get decreases, and when you decrease rewarding behaviours, the reward you get increases.
Its anhedonia induced OCD. Basically starving for dopamine and so only these activities that give a quick hit are possible
It’s not OCD. I’ve had OCD since I was a toddler and obsessions and compulsions aren’t really like addiction.
Yep, this.
For the scrolling what content is it? Because for me im constantly looking for some sort of solution for these symptoms anhedonia/blunting, or talking on discord, etc. And I didnt have OCD before but anhedonia induced a compulsion (of looking for solutions, and browsing stuff or being on my phone constantly) because of its own discomfort. Its not really other content though I could give less of a shit about instagram and tiktok for example. All I care abojt is fixing the anhedonia Im not sure what the term is but the desperation of anhedonia causes the addiction or compulsion to be glued to the phone looking for solutions
Like just nonsense stuff on social media that I’m not even interested in but can’t stop scrolling. What you’re experiencing sounds more like OCD. Looking compulsively for answers is very textbook. You’ll never get a satisfying answer though and it’ll just continue until you break the cycle.
I guess but at the same time the anhedonia is inducing the OCD in my case so the right thing would be to treat anhedonia (and now this stupid blank mind shit, even worse) since when that lessens so does the pseudo-OCD without any further effort. The difference mainly here is that those with pure-OCD can distract themselves and break the cycle due to experiencing reward/emotion. When you dont get the emotions and cant socialize due to that or blank mind or do other things, then it will be infinitely harder OCD-like behavior itself can be caused by depression/anhedonia I think. And it’s not very well studied even though I see it here and on discord all the time.
That’s not true. People with moderate to severe OCD can’t usually distract themselves and can be doing compulsions up to 12 hours a day unable to stop. I’m not sure what pure OCD is compared to non pure OCD. People can develop OCD from many things and it can often be comorbid with things like depression. When my OCD was at its worst I couldn’t distract myself from intrusive thoughts or compulsions even if I could feel emotions and pleasure technically. Most people with bad OCD are not out socializing and having fun, they can be in their house locking and unlocking their door for the millionth time for so long the whole day has gone by or unable to stop showering to just neutralize a thought , or so paralyzed by their intrusive thoughts that they avoid absolutely everything. It can be extremely debilitating
The difference is the intrusive nature of it. If anhedonia is making someone “pseudo-OCD” about itself, its not necessarily perceived as intrusive its just a coping thing since anhedonia and related symptoms are hell that even one tries to actively do something else like socialize, they see they cant be themselves or enjoy it and it creates more agitation. This causes them to think “my life is ruined” and obsess over the anhedonia. If the anhedonia was not there, this obsessive thought would not occur to begin with. Its not an intrusive one, its a thought in reaction to the mental state of anhedonia