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Emotionlessness
Hello!
I just signed up here after reading a question where someone asked for help for regaining there emotions. I'm an 18 year old male. I've been searching around the internet for more than a month about this problem, as I've also been afflicted with this "emotionlessness" for more than a month. I can't believe that most of the people answering that question consider this a "gift". I, for one, think that this is the WORST thing that can EVER happen to anyone. Reading the answers there started creeping me out, because there doesn't seem to be a cure for this. But your post gave me a bit of hope and hence, here I am, seeking your help. I'm going to give a short summary on my life and hope that it doesn't bore you that much.
I have always been a very sensitive and "feeling" person since birth. I remember many times of happiness and sadness in my life. I have a great family who've always been great to me and I've always loved them dearly, until now. Around the age of 14, I started feeling ignored by several of my cousins who I really admired and was good friends with and some financial problems started in the family and some problems between my parents. Being a really sensitive and emotional child, I always took everything more seriously than a child should and the easiest thing anyone could do was to make me cry. So I sort of became an emo (I didn't even know what an 'emo' was at that time) and started crying every night for me and and family's state of affairs. Even if a certain day went good, I'd still force myself to cry myself to sleep. I started liking crying. There was this soothing feeling right in my heart that I found very comforting. So it became a habit to cry myself to sleep each night (well, not literally EACH night, but it was very frequent). I continued this for more than two years and around the age of 17, things started to look better. I became friends with my cousins again and the general problems were lessened and I stopped that crying habit. I became content with life and started enjoying it but this only lasted an year and a half. I have always been a HUGE music fan and always considered it to be one of the most important part of my life. So one day, in March 2011, I realised that I wasn't enjoying music as much as I used to, but I didn't take it seriously and thought that I may not be in the mood for music today. Then, one April day, while listening to music, I realised that I had stopped enjoying music AT ALL. I became really worried because. I've never received more pleasure from any other activity than listening/playing music. Soon I realised that I was losing interest in everything that I liked. Video games, movies, company of friends etc. Everything. My emotions gradually started dying. I couldn't derive any pleasure, feel any sadness, anger, stress about anything and now in a month and a half, I've totally become a robot. I don't even feel anything for my mom anymore and I used to ABSOLUTELY love her. I hate this. It was my top goal in life to give my mom a lot of happiness and to be the man she always wanted me to become. I've gone from being a person who was SO EASILY emotionally moved to a cold, heartless, soulless machine. I really really really don't like this one bit. And I don't know why this is happening to me. I mean if it happened to me at the time of my life when I was actually down, it'd have made some sense. But it happened to me at a time when I had actually learned to appreciate life and everything... this just doesn't make any sense.
Just one day, I'm sitting and listening to songs and all of a sudden I get affected by this plague that sucks up your soul. I mean is there even a cause for this? I was perfectly fine and normal, living my life...
I don't know what's happened to me and why. I just want to be my old self again, not that emo one, but the positive one. I want to feel for people like I used to, feel that sense of fulfillment that I used to get after helping people and animals. Enjoy watching movies, listening to music, playing video games, reading and writing. I want to be able to enjoy all these things again. I've never even repressed my emotions. Yeah I'm a really shy person, and I don't really express my emotions a big deal but that doesn't mean I repress them. I'm not afraid of emotions, I love emotions and I want each and every one of them back, even sadness.
So there, that was my story. I tried to keep it as short as possible. I know it sounds stupid and I'm very sorry if I wasted your valuable time with this non-sense. But you look like a really nice person, so I'll be waiting for a reply from you. I want to know how you recovered from this and hope that you're able to help me out of this abyss I'm falling into. I'd rather accept being afflicted with Cancer than this! :(
Thank you for reading! I appreciate it!
Take care of yourself!
Hope to hear from you soon! :)
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Maybe give some free advice about: Mental health?
I can totally sympathize with you on the Cancer bit. the zombie-like emotionless state that you are experiencing is by far the worst thing I can imagine and I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy. and for the record, I am actually still in the process of recovering.
tell me, how are you sleeping? what is your sleep schedule like? and your diet? I can tell you that (based on my knowledge), the surest way into this mess is chronic sleep deprivation. I'll tell you what got me:
2 years ago I was prescribed this drug Strattera (as a study aid...i was taking a really tough graduate biochem course). I took the drug for 4 weeks. I was fine for the first couple weeks.... during the fourth week, my world turned completely upside down. I couldnt tolerate all the side effects. Not to mention, I lost 15 pounds in the final week. I was about 7% bodyfat at the time, so i hardly had anything to spare...it was all muscle that I lost. Bodybuilding was practically my life at the time, so when i dropped down from 175 to 150 in just a matter of a few weeks, I was completely frustrated. With the side effects (which i wont even get into now) keeping me agitated, all I could think to do was train. I was practically maddened by it. I was driven to achieve in a few months time what had previously taken me about 5-6 years. I ignored all of my knowledge of fitness/health/bodybuilding....I overtrained. A few hours each day....eventually it got to the point where my body was ill-equipped to deal with the physical stress and i was unable to sleep (a natural stress response). I keep on training until this whole thing snowballed to the point where anytime I do so much as light aerobics or jogging, I cannot sleep for days. Once I got to this point it was very easy to fall into this depressive/emotionless state (due to lack of sleep/recovery/harmony of the systems).
As you can see, it all started with unhappiness. In my case it was more of a loss of self-identity after taking a drug. I felt as though I had lost an integral part of myself, and I needed to get it back before I could continue enjoying my life. Of course, that mindset is gone now, but I am still dealing with the sleep issues and exercise intolerance. I'll get through it eventually. The only way is up.
For the record, exercise is the best remedy to depression. Forgive me if i've misinformed myself from your story, but you sound like you could benefit from more interaction with friends/loved ones, or just people in general. Pick up a hobby too, something you like to do...something that makes you feel slightly better when you're doing it....you will grow to love it. Surround yourself by the things you love. You're 18. Young. It's good you're going through this now (when your body/physiology is much more resilient and likely to rebound back). Take up Bodybuilding, its the perfect time....or Yoga. Try to look at this differently. The fact that you're experiencing this now is going to make you feel that much more amazing when you recover from this. You will be living in ecstasy, trust me. I've been there. It's amazing.
hang in there buddy
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