Hello everyone. My name is Teb. I’m 23 years old and I was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. I had an episode of psychosis without any voices hallucinations or anything of the sort. It’s a long drawn out story but the point is I’ve been on anti-psychotics for over a year now and I’m tapering it off and getting off of it. The medicine has made me feel complete anhedonia. You can google it if you want but basically you don’t have emotions, you can’t feel pleasure, you can’t enjoy anything, their are no windows, and it is such a horrible feeling that its torture to me. No one can stand living like this permanently. It feels like you have been permanently brain damaged. A lot of people have had this happen to them as a result of antidepressants and some have had it happen to them through anti-psychotics. I don’t know if it is something that happens only to people who have been misdiagnosed with schizophrenia or if it can happen to anyone who takes anti-psychotics. The problem is when you get off the medication it doesn’t go away. It takes a long time for it to leave your system, and for some it has taken years, and some haven’t recovered. Anyways I just wanted to people to know that if you feel like this you need to get off immediately because it’s not going to change number one, and it’s only going to make it worse. I feel like this 24/7 because I’ve already been damaged, the damage is done. So I’m just praying that God will heal me. I wanted to know if anyone knows anyone who has had this happen to them. I’d like to keep in contact with them so that I can hear about the success stories and hear about anything that has cured them. This is a huge epidemic that no one talks about and no one knows about. They do not warn us about this when they prescribe us this medicine, and it is something that has ruined peoples lives. I’m only 23 and I can’t imagine living like this. The sad part is I didn’t even have schizophrenia.
A lot of people on this forum, including myself, have experienced this and gotten over it. I myself got it BEFORE I was ever on medication. It can be a symptom of schizophrenia, or a side effect. Medication helps people. Sometimes the good has to outweigh the bad.
Hello,
Last year I experienced such a powerful form of ahnedonia. I have now been recovered completely from it in just a matter of three months. Before those three months, like you have explained already, I felt no emotions, or pleasure in anything. My mom had to really encourage me to eat and not sit and stare all day. I took myself off the medication, and that didn’t seem to change much. I bought some supplements, 5-HTP, L-Tyrosine, and Citicoline. I’m unsure how much those have helped, but something was working and things were starting to churn around in the brain. I started taking care of myself, and then I would begin to use the internet, then start conversations with my family, then apply for work, then I found an apartment and moved out of mom’s. Today I don’t feel ahnedonic hardly ever. I’m also not on medication. So apparently it’s possible to recover in just three months, maybe even sooner. I just hope you can recover from this too. Stay strong!
I had this to some degree. Wasn’t good for me psychologically, I’m over suicidal thoughts but it just left me wanting to stay in bed forever. Had to reduce the meds. I feel better now, something are about balance. It sucks though because the condition really is chemical and it’s impossible to overcome without changing something up.
@spokety hi there pal, what makes you believe you were misdiagnosed in the first place? I had a psychotic episode last summer and things have spiraled downwards ever since, I have exactly the same symptoms that you do: anhedonia, avolition, poverty of thought / speech. But I don’t blame the antipsychotics for all these symptoms, I blame the deficit schizophrenia which is the diagnosis I came up with after seeing several doctors and doing a lot of research online.