The worst aspect of PFS to me at least is the emotional blunting and the inability to feel pleasure nor pain. Has anybody had firsthand success in dealing with this? I know it’s common and it’s a downstream effect of the AR signalling system, likely neurosteroid related, but as we’re not at the stage of being able to deal with the underlying AR dysregulation issue, has anybody found some level of reprieve from this? If so, by what means?
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Yes, when I had my crash 4 years ago I had complete blunting of emotions
As much as I worry about other symptoms
I was actually willing to trade for those symptoms just so I could feel emotion again.
Thank God I recovered completely in that regard. It took about 4-6 weeks I’d say to get back to myself where I’d enjoy music, feel anger or even tear at an emotional moment in a movie or thought or something.
Recovering is definitely, definitely possible.
It’s almost as if even feeling ANY kind of emotion we should be grateful
Every sense and emotion everything.
I didn’t do anything other than rest and wait. I got up every morning, made some breakfast and just prayed and waited. At some point I was ready to go to work. I went back too early but that’s besides the point.
I was happy even to feel motivated or stressed that I wasn’t working at the time.
I came a long way from that time. And so can anyone else
Keep Hope.
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how did you recover from PFS?
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I recovered as in I bounced back from the symptoms with just time and hope
Staying away from certain things that trigger it
Mostly time
It’s tough to say honestly
All you can do is just give yourself rest and time
I’m 4 years in and losing hope, it’s so depressing and the distress is huge.
how long did you have it?
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Don’t lose hope man please
Your 4 years battle hardened for something that can be solved who knows petals very soon
I mean I’m almost 40 and took it in my early 20s so that’s a while but as much as I’ve suffered I’ve been ok mostly Thank God
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I’ve resolved it but sadly don’t know how besides being able to feel extremely stimulated and get that high flying dopamine/pleasure rush feeling. It gradually over time improved, in the very beginning almost all I could feel was a consistent overarching feeling of dread day in, day out. Literally nothing else, not even my own skin all over most of my body. So it’s been the longest lasting symptom with the longest gradual improvement but it gets more tolerable the further out you get. Probably almost a year for me at this point out.
My depression and anhedonua is crippling me. I’ve just lost all connection to everything in my life. People, music ,family, nature. I’m so beyond depressed and it’s not going away. I walk around in a fog of nothingness. Blank brain. No inner monolouge. I had to leave the park.because I was so upset I couldn’t feel anything. I dont care if I die anymore. This is existing not living.
I’ve never ever in my life been this low.
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I don’t know what to say other than that j hope you get some relief. No one should suffer like this and only a few know what it’s like at this level. May God’s hand be on you. I love you my friend. I
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Love you too man. Hanging on as best I can. Very difficult. May you find some relief from this soon bro.
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It had to bounce back
Unfortunately some quicker than others but it has to subside or at least get gradually better at some point
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Yeah, it’s one of the worst aspects. That and a loss of an inner monologue which some people experience. I consider it the worst syndrome. I feel kind of like a zombie a lot of the time.
I have had occasional very brief windows of remission where these symptoms suddenly all vanish and my mind feels like it comes back online, and my inner monologue even restarts. I take this as an indication that this syndrome is not due to some irreparable or fundamental damage or a loss of neurons, and that hopefully a proper cure could provide the right stimulus or switch for the brain to undo this dysregulation.
Sodium butyrate for me recently seemed to make a huge difference at first with anhedonia and allowing me to feel emotions again. But this is one of the substances known to make people crash, so I won’t recommend taking it, at least as a casual thing to try, and I’ll probably take a break from it for now.
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