i’ve had bad anhedonia for the past 3 months or so, other negatives too but the anhedonia has me feeling just terrible. drove me to decrease the meds which has had no effect.
i dont know if we all experience it the same, mine is like i don’t feel any positive emotions, just dysphoria all the time. i have no interest in anything. im also lethargic sleeping 13-16 hrs a day.
don’t know how im going to get through this, just living feels painful. have been having suicidal thoughts. life just seems so meaningless.
i hate everyone feeling like life is so easy fir everyone else. i can’t escape the anhedonia no matter where i go, its like ive been banned from feeling happy. its torture.
what worked for your anhedonia, what helped you snap out of it?
I have good news for you !! Hope is possible…you just need to work with your pdoc and find the med that doesn’t rob you of your life…!! I am on generic prolixin and I am happy all the time…maybe you could try that…other than that for a quick fix maybe reach out to family and friends to help you with your days.
just talked to my parents, semester is starting on tuesday, have to see if disability office offers options to take a semester off when disability flares up. hopefully they do.
decided to drop one of my two classes this semester, not medical leave. still feel like a ■■■■-hole. parents aren’t supporting me and don’t understand or care. mother sneered and ignored me when i brought up anhedonia, doesnt even know what a negative symptom is, thinks im just lazy and need to work. i think she hates me a little. dad just ignored me totally, acted unimpressed. they have no sympathy
they aren’t really internet people, they don’t understand technology, could never learn, too hard headed. have too many kids, not enought time to focus on any of them.
they are convinced they had learned everything they needed to know when they turned 40 or so. very jaded too. u cant reason with them.
they aren’t interested in learning new things, just angry and tired of life. used to a life of hard work, if you don’t work no respect for you, you’ve gotta get with their program. i think they’re embarrassed a little that i got this from their terrible family history, kind of ashamed of me a little too. but thats the only consideration i get from them, then its back to the reality of hard work and cynicism.
Well just so YOU know, you should be proud of yourself. It doesn’t matter if you take 2 classes or 1, in the grand scheme of things, you’re making progress.
ur right, but compared to how i used to be im backsliding, it seems everything goes to ■■■■ inevitably for people like us. don’t feel pressured to reply, im going to bed anyway.
I suffered with bad anhedonia for about six months - it felt terrible and I can relate to how you are feeling. It must be difficult for you given that you can’t reason with your family too.
What worked for me was switching from Depixol to Abilify combined with Sertraline 150mg. It’s a bit difficult to tell which med is making the difference as I started both at the same time, but I guess APs which are partial dopamine agonists are better for the negative symptoms so you should consider mentioning this to your pdoc.
i’m currently on abilify, ive titrated down from 30mg with 200mg seroquel prn over the past 6 months to 10mg abilify with maybe 100mg seroquel for breakthrough symptoms OFFICIALLY! im taking just 5mg abilify right now nightly, with seroquel as needed. the abilify isn’t a therapeutic dose but the seroquel wipes out the breakthrough symptoms and fills in the gaps as i need it.
i thought decreasing my abilify gradually would improve my situation with apathy and amotivation, unfortunately it seemed to just morph into anhedonia. i have all the negative symptoms to some degree, though some are more intense, and they vary over time. so im a deficit schizophrenic.
Have you considered taking Amisulpride as your main AP - it blocks pre-synaptic D2 receptors leading to increased dopamine concentrations in the synapse which then bind to D1. There are some good evidence base for Amisulpride use in treating negative symptoms
The other option might be to stick to Abilify, but augment it with a SDRI such as Wellbutrin - many people have found this beneficial for treating negative symptoms too
but at which dose? ive heard on this forum that amisulpride is stellar for negative symptoms at low doses, not higher ones. which is it? there are also side effects with amisulpride i would like to avoid like prolactin elevation which i cant tolerate.
as for wellbutrin, i’ve heard from hearsay on this forum that many people have short term improvements in negative symptoms but a long term return to baseline. also, wouldn’t the the extra dopamine from wellbutrin’s action just be partially agonised by abilify, so the one would cancel out the other. i also don’t think wellbutrin has been shown in studies to benefit negative symptoms, if it did do that, well, it would probably be the miracle cure for negatives were all looking for. but it isn’t
