thefaultinourstars
New Here
Hello everyone, I have been lurking in these forums for quite a while and wanted to share some info about my situation and hope someone is going to reply to this post with helpful suggestions to kelp me move forward. I believe I discovered this community this summer after looking up ''anhedonia/dissociation/complex trauma forums'', hoping I would find something other than the subreddits (I am off-Reddit and all social media consumption as part of my recovery). This forum seemed really nice and tight knit, so I decided to join. I will try to make it short, a little background about me:
- I am a post highschool young person (located in eastern europe, NOT the USA, so please no US specific advice like ''insurance this, Obamacare that...''), this part is important, because I am from a small country (<10 million people), so the pool of qualified therapists and psychiatrists is quite small, and therefore the pool of trauma specialists is even smaller and I've personally had very bad luck with professionals, most where unhelpful at best and unprofessional at worst. One gave me a stigmatizing BPD diagosis immediatey and put me on aripiprazole despite having known me for half an hour at best and despite me having made it clear that I've never had an active suicide attempt, a self harm problem, or a fear of abandonment or anything like that. I would not describe myself as ''emotionally unstable'', unless being sensitive to mean people counts, but even that won't affect me for over a day at worst. I had some harmful autism stims (dxed at 5) that could have looked like SH to some psychiatrists so I can see her logic, but this event solidified to me how damn difficult it is to find even a competent professional, let alone a fitting one.
- I also don't have flashbacks, or even what people describe as ''emotional flashbacks'', I had some very limited degree of dissociation as a kid but otherwise no traditional PTSD-like symptoms which I find strange. I experienced certain components of DID as a kid and I remember a couple incidents but otherwise no fight or flight symptoms. So yeah, I did not really understand the BPD diagnosis, which the doctor herself later aknowledged was wrong, before that she said something like ''all people with ideation are borderlines because it is a core symptom of the disorder, it is not a component of other conditions'', some obvious outdated information like that, that you can debunk with a quick googling.
- my core symptom which I remember having from my earliest memories seems to be some form of severe emotional blunting, some sort of dissociation, which I discovered the correct term for a handful of years ago, when I became self aware about my condition, and it's called ''anhedonia''. Basically loss or diminishment of positive emotions, and often general blunting. It is supposed to be a central symptom of MDD and bipolar but I have been screened multiple times for both and my doctors agreed I do not fit most criteria, which I found confusing. But I also learned it is something people with certain trauma responses experience, (and also a component of TBI/brain injuries, this will be important later).
- I've had middling luck with regular psychiatrists, it is super hard here to find a good professional doctor, let alone a fitting trauma specialist. Most of the time I could only afford a psychiatrist who is also trained in CBT and not a psychiatrists + a therapist specialized in trauma symptoms or something else, or it was much much easier to afford. So my only option was medications and CBT (I was a minor/living with family still at the time and you should know in my country it is not common or financially possible to ''move out at 18'', and people earn lower wages). Long story short, I tried multiple practicioners and shopped around for practicioners which is damn hard to do when the pool of doctors is small to begin with, most where either okay but unhelpful or at worst unprofessional and giving me stigmatizing diagnosis within 20 minutes of meeting me, or even telling me to just live with it because '' this will be hard to treat'' or ''this doesn't have a standard line of treatments like major depression''. One gave me the only available adhd medication in the country in hopes of helping me, 10 mg, but I did not really respond to it. I could have trialed it for longer or raised the dose but I was shamed out of taking it by family. I trialed it for maybe two months, before that I was given low dose antipsychotics for six months by the ''you're borderline'' psych, needless to say that did not work and if anything gave me a little bit of akathisia and handwriting deterioration.
- personally I have not found cognitive behavioral therapy helpful or doing worksheets about ''cogitive distortions'' remotely helpful, and most of my doctors aknowledged I am generally self aware and most of the time could not find many ''distorted thoughts'' even in sessions, and when I did have worries they were always based on evidence or likely to happen or did happen. I am not the kind of person to believe I am worthless or undeserving of love or anything like that and have a generally very high view of myself, I believe thats uncommon for trauma sufferers, correct me if I am wrong. If I want to unpack a worry and see if it is reasonable to have, I've had a journaling practice since I was in middle school and that works for me and does much of that work. Self-ERP worked for my very mild OCD tendencies and milder things, like, literally a fear of bugs of whatever. But my primary condition has not responded to merely cognitive restructuring. I consider myself quite fortunate and generally positive, despite my trauma. There are many times where I should have been screwed but I was not and I am thankful for that. It feels like the universe is conspiring in my favor.
- after seeing my middling luck with doctors, I tried to take things in my own hands, I took vitamin supplements, I started a semi-daily intensive meditation practice, I took up self DBT/ACT, I did workbooks and started engaging more with life, did Behavioral Activation and exercised more. To this day I walk the length of my neighborhood very often. I took up mindfulness practice, and mindfulness of emotions, and through that I got to 15 % - 20% relief, maybe close to 25% or 1/3 on a very very good day, where I do everything right and conditions are favourable and the weather is good. Right now I am a little under 20% most days, so, I feel less blunted and have more interest in life than usual, and can now fully feel sadness and anger which were kind of blunted in me until very recently, until a couple years ago or so. Most of the time I am actually not sad or angry though and I have learned to be at peace with my condition on the days where I am close to or back at square 1 and my progress drops to <10% or something close to it. My mood can range from flat and hedonic zero to quietely content and at peace when I do the neccesary lifestyle modifications, to 6 or so on a very very very rare good day, and if I do the right things I have learned I can keep it between a 5.3 (mildly below flat/hedonic zero but peaceful and even a little bit pleasant) to maybe more on a damn good day. So, I am no longer in hedonic zero but even my progress greatly fluctuates and drops to zero quite often, and suddenly I am back to my old state, even when a day before that I was feeling some subtle but present more interest in life. It is complicated, I am no longer 100% flat, but I am also not euthymic or in remission or whatever they call it?
- I have no sex drive at all barring occasional wet dreams that are far and few between that I started having after I began my recovery practices (In highschool). It is better than nothing, though.
- I may have had a concussion as a baby according to my extended family, that may have affected my development but nobody took seriously when it happened. I know from my halfsister that I was likely exposed to alchohol and opiates during fetal development (from my bio mom, I grew up with extendend family which I live with at the moment). I want to look into that this year.
- I did get exposed to some ugly addiction stuff as a kid (from bio dad) but I have had my condition for much much longer than that and frankly remember going to preschool feeling this way. And it was much more severe than it is now and I remember having horrific nightmares in my very early childhood, and some behaviors that allude to potential abuse, I imagined violent or humiliating things a preschooler is not supposed to know but much of my extended family other than my halfisis refuses to reveal things to me or answer questions about my biofamily or my earlier years. I don't know if it just means I was a very weird preschooler or sick in the brain in some way or if it is something from a past life that I will never remember. But those explanations sound a lot less likely than trauma, and hence, I came to this community instead of a general anhedonia/depression/dissociation/whatever one. The stuff I was exposed to later certainly contributed but I feel like the Root of the thing started before I could remember or even read. I was also already blunted when I did see some ugly things later so they likely affected me very differently than they would most kids.
- my nightmares where about monsters or the supernatural or horrific distorted faces and creatures that a preschooler is NOT SUPPOSED TO be able to imagine, or someone chasing me to hurt me in some way, usually a malicious figure. It was not about a real event I could remember which confuses me. Maybe this could count as ''emotional flasbacks''.
- I've been on three meds, abilify, my country's equivalent of ritalin, and also a sleep medication which works for my sleep pretty well and helps me not have (Now much tamer) nightmares or wake up after exactly 4 to 5 hrs almost every night. None have worked for anything other than sleep, the new doc I see will probably trial me on SSRIs or something, I hope that will help. I have seen anecdotes of people with my constellation or similar hedonic tone problems being helped by wellbutrin or MAOIs or nootropics they found online but it's probably too early for most of these options.
- I would like to know what therapy modalities are my best shots that aren't general cognitive therapies, aren't formulaic and repetitive, aren't short form interventions, and are ideally geared towards trauma or body awareness in some way. I know about EMDR but it seems geared towards people with clear memories that they get flashbacks or panic attacks about, it seems geared to people with traditional PTSD, or flashbacks or a panic disorder. It seems like exposure therapy. I don't have such memories or flashbacks and the much later events I do remember do not scare me or traumatize me or hunt me or interfere with my daily functioning in any way, I just experience them as regular memories. It feels like a more gentle exposure therapy, quite frankly. Somatic experiencing also just sounds like an other word for exposure therapy but feels more broad, so I am interested.
- The new doc I can afford atm is trained in psychodynamic therapy, which could potentially help me with more general mundane problems and my relationships, and personally I really resonate with the ideas of existential therapy, but it does not seem geared towards trauma in particular and I don't see how it could increase me hedonic tone directly. I know IFS but hold religious ideas against the notion of a central permanent ''Self'' or soul and I don't know if a practicioner could work with that or adapt it to my beliefs. I would like to know if you guys have any more suggestions.
- Some self DBT (mindfulness module mostly, and learning to name emotions) has given me some modest relief, but otherwise, most standard therapies that are widely available through insurance here have not helped me. I am open to all suggestions, including alternative things, I am looking into hypnosis after a friend's reccomendation. Maybe something like sound healing or bach flower remedies? Could be placebo but some people claim it really transformed their lives. And they also claim it helped their dog or whatever, and dogs can't feel placebo.
- I could try some mild nootropics soon, ie, rhodiola, reishi mushrooms. I am continuing my meditation, mindfulness and behavioral activation as usual and getting more consistent too. If I get more consistent in the next 18 months, I might get some more results and get to 1/3 relief, but it seems the rest needs pharmacological or therapeutic attention.
- Any and all suggestions including unconventional are welcome. Feel free to share what worked for you. I will be going to vocational school sooner or later and might be able to afford more soon. Thank you if you read this far, I tried making this post easy to read. I appreciate your time and effort. Take care!
- I am a post highschool young person (located in eastern europe, NOT the USA, so please no US specific advice like ''insurance this, Obamacare that...''), this part is important, because I am from a small country (<10 million people), so the pool of qualified therapists and psychiatrists is quite small, and therefore the pool of trauma specialists is even smaller and I've personally had very bad luck with professionals, most where unhelpful at best and unprofessional at worst. One gave me a stigmatizing BPD diagosis immediatey and put me on aripiprazole despite having known me for half an hour at best and despite me having made it clear that I've never had an active suicide attempt, a self harm problem, or a fear of abandonment or anything like that. I would not describe myself as ''emotionally unstable'', unless being sensitive to mean people counts, but even that won't affect me for over a day at worst. I had some harmful autism stims (dxed at 5) that could have looked like SH to some psychiatrists so I can see her logic, but this event solidified to me how damn difficult it is to find even a competent professional, let alone a fitting one.
- I also don't have flashbacks, or even what people describe as ''emotional flashbacks'', I had some very limited degree of dissociation as a kid but otherwise no traditional PTSD-like symptoms which I find strange. I experienced certain components of DID as a kid and I remember a couple incidents but otherwise no fight or flight symptoms. So yeah, I did not really understand the BPD diagnosis, which the doctor herself later aknowledged was wrong, before that she said something like ''all people with ideation are borderlines because it is a core symptom of the disorder, it is not a component of other conditions'', some obvious outdated information like that, that you can debunk with a quick googling.
- my core symptom which I remember having from my earliest memories seems to be some form of severe emotional blunting, some sort of dissociation, which I discovered the correct term for a handful of years ago, when I became self aware about my condition, and it's called ''anhedonia''. Basically loss or diminishment of positive emotions, and often general blunting. It is supposed to be a central symptom of MDD and bipolar but I have been screened multiple times for both and my doctors agreed I do not fit most criteria, which I found confusing. But I also learned it is something people with certain trauma responses experience, (and also a component of TBI/brain injuries, this will be important later).
- I've had middling luck with regular psychiatrists, it is super hard here to find a good professional doctor, let alone a fitting trauma specialist. Most of the time I could only afford a psychiatrist who is also trained in CBT and not a psychiatrists + a therapist specialized in trauma symptoms or something else, or it was much much easier to afford. So my only option was medications and CBT (I was a minor/living with family still at the time and you should know in my country it is not common or financially possible to ''move out at 18'', and people earn lower wages). Long story short, I tried multiple practicioners and shopped around for practicioners which is damn hard to do when the pool of doctors is small to begin with, most where either okay but unhelpful or at worst unprofessional and giving me stigmatizing diagnosis within 20 minutes of meeting me, or even telling me to just live with it because '' this will be hard to treat'' or ''this doesn't have a standard line of treatments like major depression''. One gave me the only available adhd medication in the country in hopes of helping me, 10 mg, but I did not really respond to it. I could have trialed it for longer or raised the dose but I was shamed out of taking it by family. I trialed it for maybe two months, before that I was given low dose antipsychotics for six months by the ''you're borderline'' psych, needless to say that did not work and if anything gave me a little bit of akathisia and handwriting deterioration.
- personally I have not found cognitive behavioral therapy helpful or doing worksheets about ''cogitive distortions'' remotely helpful, and most of my doctors aknowledged I am generally self aware and most of the time could not find many ''distorted thoughts'' even in sessions, and when I did have worries they were always based on evidence or likely to happen or did happen. I am not the kind of person to believe I am worthless or undeserving of love or anything like that and have a generally very high view of myself, I believe thats uncommon for trauma sufferers, correct me if I am wrong. If I want to unpack a worry and see if it is reasonable to have, I've had a journaling practice since I was in middle school and that works for me and does much of that work. Self-ERP worked for my very mild OCD tendencies and milder things, like, literally a fear of bugs of whatever. But my primary condition has not responded to merely cognitive restructuring. I consider myself quite fortunate and generally positive, despite my trauma. There are many times where I should have been screwed but I was not and I am thankful for that. It feels like the universe is conspiring in my favor.
- after seeing my middling luck with doctors, I tried to take things in my own hands, I took vitamin supplements, I started a semi-daily intensive meditation practice, I took up self DBT/ACT, I did workbooks and started engaging more with life, did Behavioral Activation and exercised more. To this day I walk the length of my neighborhood very often. I took up mindfulness practice, and mindfulness of emotions, and through that I got to 15 % - 20% relief, maybe close to 25% or 1/3 on a very very good day, where I do everything right and conditions are favourable and the weather is good. Right now I am a little under 20% most days, so, I feel less blunted and have more interest in life than usual, and can now fully feel sadness and anger which were kind of blunted in me until very recently, until a couple years ago or so. Most of the time I am actually not sad or angry though and I have learned to be at peace with my condition on the days where I am close to or back at square 1 and my progress drops to <10% or something close to it. My mood can range from flat and hedonic zero to quietely content and at peace when I do the neccesary lifestyle modifications, to 6 or so on a very very very rare good day, and if I do the right things I have learned I can keep it between a 5.3 (mildly below flat/hedonic zero but peaceful and even a little bit pleasant) to maybe more on a damn good day. So, I am no longer in hedonic zero but even my progress greatly fluctuates and drops to zero quite often, and suddenly I am back to my old state, even when a day before that I was feeling some subtle but present more interest in life. It is complicated, I am no longer 100% flat, but I am also not euthymic or in remission or whatever they call it?
- I have no sex drive at all barring occasional wet dreams that are far and few between that I started having after I began my recovery practices (In highschool). It is better than nothing, though.
- I may have had a concussion as a baby according to my extended family, that may have affected my development but nobody took seriously when it happened. I know from my halfsister that I was likely exposed to alchohol and opiates during fetal development (from my bio mom, I grew up with extendend family which I live with at the moment). I want to look into that this year.
- I did get exposed to some ugly addiction stuff as a kid (from bio dad) but I have had my condition for much much longer than that and frankly remember going to preschool feeling this way. And it was much more severe than it is now and I remember having horrific nightmares in my very early childhood, and some behaviors that allude to potential abuse, I imagined violent or humiliating things a preschooler is not supposed to know but much of my extended family other than my halfisis refuses to reveal things to me or answer questions about my biofamily or my earlier years. I don't know if it just means I was a very weird preschooler or sick in the brain in some way or if it is something from a past life that I will never remember. But those explanations sound a lot less likely than trauma, and hence, I came to this community instead of a general anhedonia/depression/dissociation/whatever one. The stuff I was exposed to later certainly contributed but I feel like the Root of the thing started before I could remember or even read. I was also already blunted when I did see some ugly things later so they likely affected me very differently than they would most kids.
- my nightmares where about monsters or the supernatural or horrific distorted faces and creatures that a preschooler is NOT SUPPOSED TO be able to imagine, or someone chasing me to hurt me in some way, usually a malicious figure. It was not about a real event I could remember which confuses me. Maybe this could count as ''emotional flasbacks''.
- I've been on three meds, abilify, my country's equivalent of ritalin, and also a sleep medication which works for my sleep pretty well and helps me not have (Now much tamer) nightmares or wake up after exactly 4 to 5 hrs almost every night. None have worked for anything other than sleep, the new doc I see will probably trial me on SSRIs or something, I hope that will help. I have seen anecdotes of people with my constellation or similar hedonic tone problems being helped by wellbutrin or MAOIs or nootropics they found online but it's probably too early for most of these options.
- I would like to know what therapy modalities are my best shots that aren't general cognitive therapies, aren't formulaic and repetitive, aren't short form interventions, and are ideally geared towards trauma or body awareness in some way. I know about EMDR but it seems geared towards people with clear memories that they get flashbacks or panic attacks about, it seems geared to people with traditional PTSD, or flashbacks or a panic disorder. It seems like exposure therapy. I don't have such memories or flashbacks and the much later events I do remember do not scare me or traumatize me or hunt me or interfere with my daily functioning in any way, I just experience them as regular memories. It feels like a more gentle exposure therapy, quite frankly. Somatic experiencing also just sounds like an other word for exposure therapy but feels more broad, so I am interested.
- The new doc I can afford atm is trained in psychodynamic therapy, which could potentially help me with more general mundane problems and my relationships, and personally I really resonate with the ideas of existential therapy, but it does not seem geared towards trauma in particular and I don't see how it could increase me hedonic tone directly. I know IFS but hold religious ideas against the notion of a central permanent ''Self'' or soul and I don't know if a practicioner could work with that or adapt it to my beliefs. I would like to know if you guys have any more suggestions.
- Some self DBT (mindfulness module mostly, and learning to name emotions) has given me some modest relief, but otherwise, most standard therapies that are widely available through insurance here have not helped me. I am open to all suggestions, including alternative things, I am looking into hypnosis after a friend's reccomendation. Maybe something like sound healing or bach flower remedies? Could be placebo but some people claim it really transformed their lives. And they also claim it helped their dog or whatever, and dogs can't feel placebo.
- I could try some mild nootropics soon, ie, rhodiola, reishi mushrooms. I am continuing my meditation, mindfulness and behavioral activation as usual and getting more consistent too. If I get more consistent in the next 18 months, I might get some more results and get to 1/3 relief, but it seems the rest needs pharmacological or therapeutic attention.
- Any and all suggestions including unconventional are welcome. Feel free to share what worked for you. I will be going to vocational school sooner or later and might be able to afford more soon. Thank you if you read this far, I tried making this post easy to read. I appreciate your time and effort. Take care!
