How Do I Regain Touch With my Emotions?

For about 10 years I spent my life searching for activities that gave me intense pleasure, and had filled my life with such activities and people until I suffered a mid brain stroke when I was 38 yo. Since then i have never felt intense instinctive pleasure, not from exercise, fear, a job well done, love or sex. Even alcohol does not gave me the happy drunk feeling, and the only thing that does give me some form of intense pleasure is comfort food, which doesn't work, really, because I am always conscious how pizza, whatever, is making me fat, which my partner/carer hates, so comfort food just means having to deny myself nice stuff, which is NOT a pleasurable feeling. This has gone on for 20 years, and is a major problem in this relationship. My old dog could sense that I had stopped loving her, so it is not just a psychological thing because my partner now despises me.
I was on Effexor for probably a year, I have no idea what strength, sorry, I weaned myself off because I heard that it can cause fatigue, which is something I have battled with since the stroke.
It is at the stage where life does not seem to be worth it, if I cannot find any sort of pleasure in it, and my being so unhappy all the time, has had a negative effect on my partner's mood, so that he tries to avoid being alone with me whenever possible.
I have considered suicide as it seems to be the only solution for us both

maree12 wrote:For about 10 years I spent my life searching for activities that gave me intense pleasure, and had filled my life with such activities and people until I suffered a mid brain stroke when I was 38 yo. Since then i have never felt intense instinctive pleasure, not from exercise, fear, a job well done, love or sex. Even alcohol does not gave me the happy drunk feeling, and the only thing that does give me some form of intense pleasure is comfort food, which doesn't work, really, because I am always conscious how pizza, whatever, is making me fat, which my partner/carer hates, so comfort food just means having to deny myself nice stuff, which is NOT a pleasurable feeling. This has gone on for 20 years, and is a major problem in this relationship. My old dog could sense that I had stopped loving her, so it is not just a psychological thing because my partner now despises me.
I was on Effexor for probably a year, I have no idea what strength, sorry, I weaned myself off because I heard that it can cause fatigue, which is something I have battled with since the stroke.
It is at the stage where life does not seem to be worth it, if I cannot find any sort of pleasure in it, and my being so unhappy all the time, has had a negative effect on my partner's mood, so that he tries to avoid being alone with me whenever possible.
I have considered suicide as it seems to be the only solution for us both

Did you seek out a specialist who can help with such problems resulting from brain trauma? (Not saying it's definitely fixable but sometimes these things can be fixed.)

Your suicide isn't the solution for your partner - he/she can leave you if he/she decides so, you do not have to commit suicide for that. Or you can leave your partner, too. He/she would probably feel really sh*t if you committed suicide, anyway. More sh*t than if you just left them.

It's not the solution for you either, perhaps. This is why I asked about the specialist for example. But also relationships focused psychotherapy, maybe?

Wow, I'm surprised there were actually any responses.

abstractinfinity1 wrote:Forgot to say. I guess the other aspect of this beyond lack of awareness is fear of loss of control (or similar) when facing certain emotions. So I also had to do that, literally stop the intellectual side and let the emotions come out. That happened when I got impatient enough about my being stuck in distraction from those emotions/feelings. When I saw that with the distraction I was never going to get anywhere. And then emotions/feelings came out and yes it was very negative and stressful but it feels like it was worth it. Because then I could start fixing some life situation issues for myself. Instead of ignoring it all and getting stuck there. It's all work in progress still but I feel this is going well.

I agree that for me it's also been very much about suppressing many kinds of emotions, or a fear of lack of control in social situations in the sense that I have been afraid of letting people know how I've truely been feeling.

Out of curiousity, how did you end up letting the feelings come? It really sounds like the right approach to me, but did you do that alone, or with the help of a therapist or in some other way around people? I feel like even if I managed to let the emotions come when I'm alone, I would still automatically suppress them when with other people.

Whatever you do, I agree that something that focuses purely on rationally looking at your emotions isn't going to cut it. There definitely needs to be a strong emotional component (and emotional support component) in therapy for this kind of thing.

Noitartst wrote:I'm not getting any help, myself...zero moral support, can't find any reason to trust. I'm trying CBT, right now...

I'm not an expert, but having trouble trusting people sounds like you might have gone through something that made you lose that trust, either suddenly or over a longer period of time. Your story may be different, but I think for me it's very largely been about having developed difficult and conflicted thoughts and feelings that I became scared to express to my friends or anybody, and gradually losing trust as a result.

You would probably need something where you can begin to build that trust again. Having an understanding therapist (or other person) who is close enough to you in personality to understand you might help. The personality and chemistry with the therapist is probably very important here. (Of course that's also more difficult to figure out when you're emotionally numb... but still worth trying.)

Again, I'm not an expert; just my gut feeling. Evaluate for yourself whether this might make sense to you.


I guess I could also answer the questions Clinpsych gave for reference.

1.) How do you feel in the mornings, as opposed to how you feel in the evenings? I think I sometimes feel a bit better and less numb in the evenings. It might have something to do with not having to put on a face when there are fewer or no other people around, or that the darkness is somehow more calming.
2.) Inhibitors: Vortioxetine, which is a weird combination of SSRI and some other effects. Perhaps a very mild effect at best.
3.) Other mental disorders: not screened; I believe the numbness might be connected with suppressing anxiety and anxiety-provoking feelings and internal conflicts, though. Also potentially slightly traumatizing life events, but no diagnosis for that.
4.) Results from talk therapy: no significant improvement so far, although the therapist acknowledges my lack of emotional response and wants to understand it.
5.) Is it possible you may experience these emotions, but are unfamiliar with them? I think I feel them sometimes, but I got really, really emotionally confused and conflicted regarding many matters at one point, and felt like I had the wrong feelings that I was afraid to express, which probably lead to suppression. I guess I might need to start recognizing them again, too, but I'm also fairly sure there's a component of just not feeling.
6.) History of mental disorders in your family: not really, and probably not directly relevant here
7.) Any illegal drug use? no