How Do I Regain Touch With my Emotions?

For crying out loud, I've escaped depression, or have, given that I'm now emotionallly numb? I don't feel things viscerally, anymore, and am joyless and ambitionless, if calm. I've tried running meditation, and karate, but don't know if there's any drug that might unclog me; is there? Is there even a technical term for this?

Numbing is a variant or phase of depression, not an escape from it. And my Wellbutrin sure as hell made it tough to be numb!

rustybrain wrote:Numbing is a variant or phase of depression, not an escape from it. And my Wellbutrin sure as hell made it tough to be numb!

I tried it; didn't help a lick. WHere might I learn about this phase of depression, though? It seems obscure in the literature, compred to the others, and it's affecting my creativity.


I don't quite know how to describe it, though; I unknowingly, it seems, repressed my feelings while battling massive anger and depression, but while the rage and depression have totally evaporated, well, the numbness has not; ideas used to be bursting out my skull, but no more; I used to be really enthusiastic, but I just don't feel it, and you're talking who takes regular karate, and has tried unsuccessfully for that runner's high. I used to get it, but no more. (Drugs, far as I can tell, have had no discernible impact getting me into, or out of, this state, either.)

I'm stuck, and I don't know how to escape, despite deep breathing for over a full hour for a year-and-a-half. I'm short of ideas, and desperate.

I'm surprised dopamine/norepinephrine reuptake inhibition didn't do anything. How long were you on it? I'm not a psychiatrist, of course, and I guess I'm mostly going off of my experience.

Anyway, it sounds like anhedonia. Depression can have many faces - the same depression in the same person, even. Anhedonia was a big part of my depression and I think it's a big part for most people. What was your depression like before this?

Anhedonia; I'll look it up.

As for my depression before this, well, it was copious amounts of rage (past the pain threshold) and fear, physical exhaustion, and an inability to concentrate, and uncontrollable erections. I don't know what I d call it, though.

As for inhibitors, I tried large dosages for something like three weeks. Too short?

It took six weeks to kick in for me, which I think is pretty standard.

I think anhedonia is actually a more common symptom of depression than rage, hypersexuality, fear, difficulty concentrating, etc. That sounds very "up." Have you considered the possibility that you might have something cyclic?

Hey there, let me see if i can help.

Couple of quick questions:
1.) How do you feel in the mornings, as opposed to how you feel in the evenings?
2.) What type of inhibitors were you prescribed? There are different kinds, and some people are inherently immune to some types (if unsure, you can list the medications you took, and i can classify them). Please include dosages, time of day taken, how often they were taken daily, and other medications you were/are on.
3.) Depression is often present with some other types of mental disorders, such as ADHD and Anxiety Disorders. Have these ever been mentioned to you, and were you screened for them?
4.) What has been your results in talk therapy about your lack of emotions? Have you tried talk therapy for help with this specific problem?
5.) Is it possible you may experience these emotions, but are unfamiliar with them? (Think about this one before answering. Don't blindly say you feel nothing, just numbness. If you can reflect and truly say there is only numbness, that's fine. I just want to be as sure as possible that what we are dealing with is what we think it is. Learning to recognize emotions again is something quite a few people who struggle with depression have to work at. I know i did.)
6.) Do you have a history of mental disorders in your family? If so, which disorders?
7.) Any illegal drug use?
(***I realize some people would feel uncomfortable providing the answers to some of these questions. That's fine, i wont press if you are uncomfortable. Answer only ones in your comfort zone, and answer honestly please. The more information we have to look at, though, the better chance we have at deciding a course of action***)

While all these answers may help us form a more clear picture, it still may take time and work for emotional recovery. What worked best for me was talk therapy. I'm a huge fan of talk therapy above all else. When i was involved in talk therapy, part of my recovery was learning how to recognize my emotions, and learning when it was ok to be mad at someone, or when it was normal to feel sadness (not depression, warranted sadness, like if my dog died or something), or when it is normal to be anxious. I even had to relearn when it was appropriate to feel anger for being blatantly cheated out of money by someone else.

Talk therapy is a step that should be taken before all other steps, because a counselor/psychologist has had a complete education in these matters, and can provide information about things such as medications, symptoms, screenings for other possible disorders and can even discuss and answer the questions about Anhedonia you have. Also, i would trust a psychologist over a website for information. You KNOW the psychologist has degrees and certifications for exactly these types of things. A website can lie, be unintentionally misleading, or misinterpreted.
Hang in there, ill visit back often should you want to chat a bit more,
~Robert
Edit: Had to include a bit more info, and corrected some grammatical errors.

The numbness that Noitartst describes is something I often think about in relation to depression. I think I have been numbing out emotions nearly all my life. I often think that my depression is just that numbing-out of emotions going out of control. I think numbing out emotions was always the "safe" option for me and my depression is just my body trying to be super-safe. Numbing out emotions is familiar to me and I suppose I have found refuge in the familiar. The debilitation and pain that comes with my depression is perhaps more familiar than feeling emotions.

When I go for periods without depression, I find that I still numb out emotions. That is just me going back to bad habits I think - probably habits I will never kick entirely, but something I should tackle.

I know this is some major thread necromancy, as the original thread is from 2011. I'm sorry if this is frowned upon here. However, what Noitartst wrote sounds very, very much like me. If anybody has experience with something similar, I'd be keen to hear. I suppose the difference between me and Noitartst is that I still often feel anxious and not calm. But I am largely out of touch with my emotions.

Unlike my previous experiences with depression, this one is massively different: I can (generally) do practical things, go to work etc., but I get no joy or satisfaction from just about anything I do, and I feel like I'm just constantly going through the motions, kind of like acting a role where even I don't really know what that role is supposed to be. I achieve those practical things by distancing myself from them and other people emotionally. Everything's just more or less a blur.

At some point I began to question just about everything, which easily turns even momentary good feelings into anxiety. Feelings of uncertainty and emotional insecurity make me socially rather anxious and withdrawing, and since I've been unable to express any of this and tried to keep up a facade in most of my social circles, I've sort of built myself into a situation where the social me is this mostly calm and rational role rather than the anxious and massively insecure guy who has a really hard time dealing with almost any kinds of emotions. I've been kind of trying to act the guy I feel I used to be, but it's been more and more difficult, and I've been getting more and more tired of acting. It seems to be leading nowhere, since emotionally I just haven't been able to be what I used to be. I'm sure many people around me even notice something is not right or the way it used to be, but I haven't been able to blurt out the truth that I've been having some major emotional problems.

This has been going on for a few years already, and while I sometimes feel a bit better for a while, sometimes I'm afraid I'm too far down the road to be able to get back. I'm getting talk therapy now (finally) and I hope it's going to help at least a bit. The therapist has already noticed that I intellectualize things a lot, so maybe he could try to help me regain touch with my emotions, at least so some degree.

Like Noitartst who started the thread, I've also tried similar things (actually all of those things, although I've mostly done a different martial art). But the issue is that a lot of my original anxiety and pain is actually associated with those things in one way or another, so that has not been helping. And meditation I've found occasionally calming, but at other times just yet another something that I'm forcing myself to do regardless of how I feel, and I then question whether it is a good idea at all or whether it's just going further down the same road.

Any experience with something like this?

I want to know this too.

I've been in this unemotional comfortable cocoon since the end of high school. I was functioning still on a level, I was actually academically and financially very successful and whatnot, but then I started having a problem with maintaining all that.

I'm trying to get back to work at least now after having worked through some issues that crashed down one me on day (not exaggerating). Not all issues, I'm sure... but I now feel like I want to be doing something with my life again.

But it looks like I can't while I am in this cocoon. It's incredibly hard to exit it to do things. I always run into very bad emotional pain and whatever negative emotionality. It's insane. Then when I managed to live through it, I can work for a while. Then when I stop work, I often can't boot back up for the next time. I thought I could, but again it's hard to.

So I figured I have to get used to the thought that I can (should) no longer exist in my comfortable unemotional "cocoon". I somehow have to find a way to actually destroy the cocoon. So that I'm outside it always, even if that means experiencing incredible pain emotionally. Then maybe I'll be able to get through this. I don't know. I don't even know how to finally get rid of the whole cocoon.

I really do have to get rid of it though, because when I am inside it (right now too), I'm able to so easily block out any sensible thoughts about how to get on with my life and actually live a full life as the goal. I block out everything really, so then I remain unmotivated and just lose time further.

I did break through something about a few weeks ago, where I left some "hypomanic episodes" behind that kind of were a waste of time, a distraction from real issues. I did get into some painful stuff then that I worked through since then and it compelled me to fix some situation in my life (and I did fix it finally, that one situation). But I didn't leave the baseline "unemotional cocoon" with it. That state matches anergic-anhedonic dysthymia.

Any idea on how I can make myself leave it????