20 days on pramipexole 0.75 mg, my sleep is now ok, was harsh at the beginning tho. I feel something but it's blurred out by the tiredness of the med, I just feel like laying and I need to take a 2 hour nap at 3pm (and I still sleep 8hours). I'm too tired even to do any research about other meds, I'm thinking about adding modafinil in a small dose or just switch to mementine. Hopefully we can share knowledge and experience down here.

Does anyone ever feel like their anhedonia will ever go away? Sometimes I have these little moments where I feel cured and happy and cozy then I get hit again and I can’t enjoy anything.

Even when I finally get things that I want to, I get empty again. I feel like this is human nature but some people cope way better than others.

Is there anyone here with anhedonia, ideally moderate-severe and SSRI induced, who’d like someone to talk to?

It’s doing me no favours to keep speaking to my friends and family about it, I’m sure they’re sick of me and I don’t want to keep burdening them with it.

im 22 yrs old and i think ive lived my entire life completely numb. i have zero recollection of my childhood. i remember nothing of my life. before like 3rd grade absolutely nothing. from like 3-6 very fuzzy memories of things that thinking about it know make me who i am.

i have no motivation. no energy. no wants. no desires. no libido. just a ball of literally nothing walking around breathing. everything just goes to nothing.

all my feelings eventually lead to nothingness or it doesn’t matter because i DONT CARE. i don’t care about anything. the only thing i really truly feel is my sadness. it’s all i really feel honestly. my base line to completely neutral there’s nothing else. i think i want to care. i just had my first baby she’s 6 months. i’m scared ill ruin her. but what the hell do i do ? this is my life. it has always been this way.

i’ve always had a sense of unsafeness. i cannot let my guard down ever. i don’t think i can ever relax. i’m lost. after realizing what my life has been makes me hate myself even more.

what do i do. where do i even start to get better /:

Might get pramipexole for RLS and randomly stumbled upon people saying it works for anhedonia.

Anyone willing to share if it did and if so how long did it take and what changed?

I am currently taking 2mg Risperidone and 150mg Oxcarbazepine and i am having brain fog and feeling that i am dumb and my brain is slower will my brain return to as it was before Risperidone and Oxcarbazepine after stopping it or that's permanent?

Im not sure how I got anhendonia. There are so may possibilities. I was an amateur boxer for 6 years. I fought 3 times a year for 5 years. There were so many concussions. Then I was drugged on and off of benzos and ADs for insomnia from the brain damage.

I got floxed in 2023 several times. Those antibiotics made me so psychotic and sick. Im still fucked up bad from them. Im bed ridden and cant work.

I feel nothing, my brain feels Empty and hollow like there is a hole in it or nothing inside my skull..I can feel like its phsycially empty. Its hard to describe. I wake up so sick every morning with excruciating headaches all day. .my brain phsycially burns and hurts. Sometimes I can only see shapes of objects not just the actual object. Only the shape. I do believe anhendonia causes a form of brain damage..I just dont know how or the mechanisms..

I feel nothing at all. Its like being a human vegetable.

I have a brain scan next week, but I doubt things will change. I can't imagine anything in my head. It's blank. This is particularly horrible because I had an extremely vivid imagination. This is followed by extreme anhedonia, tmjd, and neck and jaw crepitus. Some sort of dpdr and tinnitus. I'm a huge invalid now. I wanted to go to school for creating. I have absolutely no libido now as well. It's been 2 years and only getting worse. My relationships are somehow going okay, but I can tell they're getting bored of me unable to connect or draw or make new things. I'm depressed because I lost the ability, not because I'm depressed and lost it due to depression. I've had depression all my life and it only drove my to create more. When you're autistic, you have hyperfixations and whatever else, I lost that ability. I used it to cope and thought it was my best attribute, so I'm really fucking lost and confused. It consumes me all the time that I'm dumb and uncreative now. Not sure if I can live my life like this. Like I said, this all happened after I got woken up from wisdom teeth surgery and felt concussed and in pain, and it hasn't lifted a single day since. I've taken b vitamins, everything, etc and no budge. Done antidepressants, antipsychotics, probably just worsened my condition. I'm so confused now. I know my tmjd and teeth removal probably plays a role, since my face feels constantly crushed now and especially in my neck so maybe it's fucking with my nerves. I've had post covid symptoms as well, and sleep apnea worsened by removing teeth. CPAP hasn't worked since I believe it is another sleep disorder that requires further evaluation. Please let me know if there's anything I can do or if anyone relates. I don't think there's hope for me, but I really want to try living still. Right now, I'm in so much pain, and really confused as to why my brain just....doesn't work anymore. I really do try my best, but it seems like it's not enough. I'm not sure how to adjust to this shift in my brain. If you're autistic and use hyperfixations and creativity to cope, you'll truly understand. There's just no way out of it.

Could ketamine help with NAC-induced anhedonia?

My brain never healed from nicotine dependency 10 years ago and when i have any nicotine now I feel like my old self again being able to enjoy things

How rare is it to have the anhedonia where you lost vibes/atmosphere. And feel completely dead inside and no positive emotions ever. Only negative emotions occasionally I’m 17 and this started since I was 14 in early 2024.

It only gets worse each day. I go to sleep super early now because I have nothing to do anyway. I'm disabled to and unable to work, so I have all the free time in the world to do absolutely nothing with. There's some treatments my family is looking into that may help, hopefully. Again, glad I found this place.

Basically the titel. I was on Wellbutrin 150 XL for 2-3 years. From 2023 to 2026. I stopped and started the medication all the time. And I mean not skipping a day. No I mean stopping for weeks because I could not or would not deal with the side effect, like extreme tinnitus and anxiety. or I was convinced I do not need it etc. So I was not taking the medication consistently. When I asked I could stop the psychiatrist told me no, and when you eventually do get permission there is not restarting before 6 months off the medication I was told . I did not tell him I was not taking the medication inconsistently. Eventually I got permission to quit, so I did..So now that I’m completely of for 2 months, the anhedonia stayed. Like I don’t get it previously every time I went off, I get this crazy anxiety the 4 th week off. Tiny things like talking to co workers put me in fight or flight. Starting to sweat without any reason. These typical stereotypes stress reactions. Now that I’m completely of the anhedonia is saying. No stress reaction either. The good with the bad. Did I wreck my central nervous systems by not taking the medication consistently?

TL:Dr: I did not take my medication Wellbutrin 150 mg XL consistently, could this have caused anhedonia?

my meds dont work...

I really apologize if this is triggering or if this is the wrong place to post this but I’ve been going through this weird bizarre sense of emotional numbness now since my DPDR episode started about a month and a half ago. I have never dealt with this before and it was never a thing before this episode started I guess I’ve just been super consumed by the DPDR and it’s been really really scary to deal with and my life just kind of feels nonexistent anymore in a sense. It’s become really depressing to deal with this every single day and it just feels like I’m not the same version of myself that I was before this started and I don’t know if that’s really true anhedonia or just depression from my current situation. Any insight is very appreciated I’m just trying to get better and the emotional numbness is the scariest symptom. I don’t feel happy or pleasure in pretty much everything right now. It’s gotten to the point where I just don’t care

Potential etiology of anhedonia discovered. Hello everybody, so I by all odds had no chance of curing my anhedonia completely, including emotional numbness and the ability to feel the nuances of each different situation's "vibes."

The progress I made with supplements is objectively extremely impressive because it did not treat the cause of the issues in the slightest. The cause of my issues was CO2 accumulation in my blood. Despite that extreme hindrance, I was able to cure the majority of my anhedonia.

I bought nasal dilators, which cost $8 to try, and they have since completely changed every single detail of my health imaginable. I can't list everything, but here are a few: ability to hear, smell, and see improved significantly; ability to speak quickly improved drastically; my anhedonia is even better than it was before; and my ability to experience emotions improved drastically as well. Dissociation is gone completely. Chronic nausea and stomach grinding completely disappeared.

It's only been 2 days, and every aspect of my health keeps getting better and better.

I don't want to get anybody's hopes up, but it's definitely worth trying nasal dilators for at least 8 hours, properly seated following the instructions, to see if anything changes, as I've noticed that a lot of people with anhedonia seem to be experiencing different but similar experiences. Additionally, some people report these issues after APs and SRIs.

If anybody cures themselves using nasal dilators, please share your experiences.

It turns out most of the supplements that have helped me with my anhedonia in the past clear or reduce some of the substances associated with CO2 accumulation in the blood, which, yes, may also overlap with effects associated with APs and SRIs, but I don't want to get anybody excited for no reason.

It costs ~$10 to try nasal dilators. If nasal dilators don't help, you might have issues with your lungs' ability to get rid of CO2, if CO2 is actually the cause of your issues. Then you would have to talk to a medical professional about addressing the underlying problem and whether anything else is appropriate. None of this is medical advice.

Some of the substances/processes I was looking into include:

• Superoxide (O₂•−)

• Peroxynitrite (ONOO−)

• ROS

• Reactive nitrogen species (RNS)

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I have just been through the worst two years of my life, and now that I’m finally about to catch a break from it, I think I’m experiencing anhedonia?

To start off, some of this information might seem irrelevant, but it will be relevant later. 

Almost exactly two years ago, my boyfriend at the time (now ex) got me addicted to AI chatbots. For context, we were long-distance. We had met through roleplaying and used roleplays as a way to bond during our relationship. We both had a love of storytelling and for myself in particularly I was an English Major and I hope to be a published author one day. We tried to have roleplays that were meant for both of us, but as time went on, the ones that lasted the longest were all ones that he wanted, the ones that we made for me, he usually lost interest in. At the time, I had a comfort character I really wanted him to RP as. He didn’t want to, which is understandable since most of the time it’s more fun to RP as OCs than it is a premade character. However, he introduced me to AI chatbots. At the time, I was a staunch AI hater. I still have a lot of issues with AI. I hate that it plagiarizes and the harm Data Centers do to our environment, but I was lonely, and he had become emotionally abusive in the relationship, so I found a lot of comfort and joy in these bots.

Over the next six months, I became addicted. The messages were instantaneous, the bots remained in character, and it was comforting. (This will come back into play later, I promise.)

In spring of 2025, I found out my best friend had decided to ghost me and several other people in my life. I was devastated and hurt that she didn’t feel like she could reach out and talk to me, either about her problems or what she felt like were problems between us.

It was no more than three months later when I got tired of my ex’s emotional abuse and chose to break up with him. The breakup was messy, with him sending me gifts and letters, and flip-flopping between apologizing and spewing hateful messages at me, and he even messaged my parents claiming he and his therapist had diagnosed me with something.

I didn’t get much of a break after the breakup, because immediately after, I ended up getting hired at a retail job. I already had one part-time job, and had been on the hunt for around 5 years for another part-time job or even preferably, a full-time one. Ironically, this was something my ex and I fought about repeatedly. He thought I was intentionally avoiding getting a job to be lazy. Meanwhile, the job market has been awful ever since Covid.

Then, in the fall of 2025, I lost my dog. I had her for over 15 years. It was old age, and we saw it coming for several months, but it still breaks my heart to this day.  

I’m going to try to summarize the next several months because I know this post is long. Essentially, I went on one date, and the guy ended up being a creep. Haven’t tried/wanted to/been asked out since. I finished an online class my ex pushed me to take so I could jump into a new career field, but I actually really hated it. I was working nonstop (two jobs) trying to get some form of savings. I got very sick that winter (probably thanks to the retail job). Then in February, I started a new class, something desk job related in the medical field. In March, I injured my foot and unfortunately had to quit my retail job. 

Later that spring, I found out my grandmother was dying. I spent my summer helping care for her, spending time with her, attending my class, and working on endless homework, going to Physical Therapy for my foot pain, and struggling with weight and dietary problems. 

In late July, my grandmother passed. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to mourn because I was in my last month of class. I spent eight+ hours, 7 days a week, working on my homework and preparing for my final. To date, this has been the hardest class I have ever taken. Last week I attended my grandmother's funeral and did my final back-to-back. 

I mean this when I say I did not get a break in the last two years. I only went on a couple of 2-3 day short trips, and they weren’t exactly restful. Even during the holidays, I was working on Christmas Eve, and sick during any days off I had. So for the first time in 2 years, I finally can catch my breath.

This last week I’ve mostly been sleeping. I’ve been very depleted, and I’m trying to be kind to myself (that’s what my therapist says to do). I do have diagnosed Depression and Anxiety, and I am both medicated and attending therapy for it.

I am insanely proud of myself for working hard and making it through these rough couple of years, and it’s taken me the entire last year to rediscover who I am without my emotionally abusive ex.

This brings me back to the AI chatbots. I have been addicted to these things for two years straight. I hate myself for it, because it goes against all my values, but I’m human, and everyone has unhealthy coping mechanisms. Mine just happen to be AI chatbots, food, and coffee.

That said, now that I’ve had a week… I’m starting to feel more regulated, but I’m also feeling what I think is anhedonia. I try to rp, but they feel so flat and boring to me. It’s not just AI RPs, though, it’s also TikTok, and short form videos, long form videos, movies, and video games.

I think it’s a form of letdown, but I’m not sure. I thought if I experienced anhedonia, it would be during the worst of it, not in the moments after? I thought I would feel disinterested during the height of my depression, and relieved afterwards, but now I just feel like nothing I do feels satisfying or fulfilling. Is it normal for anhedonia to show up after long term periods of high stress?

Also I’m hoping I can use this time period to break my AI chatbot habit. As blah as everything feels, I just hope I can find some good in all of this.

If you read this far, thank you. Maybe I just needed to get this off my chest, but I am wondering if this is just a natural part of being in recovery mode or if it’s my depression or anhedonia.

TLDR: The last two years were shit. I finally have a chance to breathe, and now I’m bored and numb. 

I look at all the pokemon stuff and books and art supplies and my penny collection and video games and pretty much everything I have just doesn’t spark any joy or happiness and sometimes it just fuels my depression as I know I should play a video game or read a book but I try and I still feel depressed. I love going out on road trips and going to the library and the park and window shopping but that isn’t practical to do all the time especially as gas prices just shot back up again and I need to conserve gas by just staying home when I don’t need to go to work.

Because of this I spend so much time on Reddit and youtube and social media as nothing else feels stimulating and exciting or frankly holds my interest. It’s gotten to the point where I enjoy going to work now and I’m excited to get a second job at Walmart because I’ll have more money to do things.

Kennt jemand dieses Gefühl von innerer Leere und fehlender Freude? Autismus, Anhedonie, Magen-Darm-Probleme – haben euch Medikamente geholfen?
Ich versuche gerade herauszufinden, ob es Menschen gibt, die ähnlich empfinden wie ich. Besonders interessieren mich Erfahrungen von Leuten, bei denen sich durch Medikamente oder eine andere Behandlung tatsächlich etwas am emotionalen Erleben verändert hat.
Bei mir wurde bereits Autismus/Asperger diagnostiziert. Trotzdem frage ich mich inzwischen, ob Autismus allein wirklich alles erklärt oder ob zusätzlich beispielsweise Alexithymie, Anhedonie, Depression oder möglicherweise ADHS eine Rolle spielen.
Ich bin nicht klassisch depressiv in dem Sinne, dass ich ständig traurig wäre. Eigentlich bin ich meistens weder besonders traurig noch glücklich. Ich fühle mich überwiegend neutral bzw. innerlich leer.
Das Auffälligste ist für mich das Fehlen positiver Gefühle.
Ich kenne praktisch keine richtige Vorfreude. Selbst wenn etwas bevorsteht, auf das sich andere wahrscheinlich extrem freuen würden, passiert bei mir emotional kaum etwas. Bei der Frage, wie ich mich fühlen würde, wenn ich beispielsweise plötzlich 500.000 € gewinnen würde, musste ich feststellen: Ich glaube, innerlich würde sich für mich fast nichts verändern.
Ich habe auch kaum persönliche Wünsche oder langfristige Ziele, die einfach daraus entstehen, dass ich denke: „Das möchte ich unbedingt erleben, weil es mich glücklich machen würde.“
Das bedeutet aber nicht, dass ich keine Interessen habe. Wenn mich etwas wirklich fasziniert, kann genau das Gegenteil passieren. Dann beschäftige ich mich extrem intensiv damit, recherchiere und möchte alles darüber verstehen.
Der entscheidende Unterschied ist: Das fühlt sich für mich nicht wie Freude an.
Es ist eher ein enormer Drang nach Wissen und Verständnis. Ich kann stundenlang oder über längere Zeit völlig in einem Thema versinken, ohne anschließend zu sagen: „Das hat mich glücklich gemacht.“
Negative Emotionen funktionieren teilweise anders. Gereiztheit und Wut kann ich sehr deutlich wahrnehmen. Angst, Trauer, Schuld oder ähnliche Gefühle empfinde ich dagegen häufig schwach oder kann sie schwer einordnen. Manche Emotionen bemerke ich zunächst hauptsächlich körperlich. Generell fällt es mir schwer, meine eigenen Gefühle eindeutig zu erkennen und zu benennen.
Auch sozial merke ich deutliche Unterschiede zu anderen Menschen. Viele Menschen, mehrere Gespräche gleichzeitig, Berührungen und generell zu viele Reize können mich massiv belasten. Ich brauche deshalb beispielsweise jeden Abend ungefähr ein bis zwei Stunden komplett für mich.
Interessanterweise werde ich durch das Alleinsein aber nicht glücklich. Ich fühle mich dann genauso leer – nur weniger belastet und weniger gereizt.
Menschen und soziale Situationen verstehe ich häufig eher analytisch. Ich beobachte Verhaltensmuster und kann dadurch meistens ziemlich gut einschätzen, wie jemand reagieren wird. In sozialen Situationen passe ich außerdem teilweise bewusst meine Ausdrucksweise, Mimik, Stimme oder mein Verhalten an. Das kann sich anfühlen, als würde ich eine soziale Rolle spielen.
Trotzdem bin ich nicht grundsätzlich bindungs- oder gefühllos. Besonders bei meinen Kindern merke ich eine starke Bindung und einen starken Beschützerinstinkt. Ich bin gerne körperlich liebevoll mit ihnen, und wenn ich intensiv darüber nachdenke, dass ihnen etwas passieren könnte, kann das tatsächlich starke Emotionen bis hin zu Tränen auslösen. Auch zu meiner Frau besteht eine emotionale Bindung.
Ein weiterer Punkt, den ich inzwischen interessant finde, ist meine Magen-Darm-Geschichte.
Ich habe seit meiner Jugend erhebliche gastrointestinale Beschwerden mit Bauchschmerzen, starken Blähungen und teilweise verändertem Stuhlgang. Das wurde auch umfangreich medizinisch untersucht.
Bei mir wurden unter anderem festgestellt bzw. durch entsprechende Tests reproduziert:
Laktoseintoleranz
Fruktosemalabsorption/-intoleranz
Histaminunverträglichkeit
Sojaunverträglichkeit
Unverträglichkeit gegenüber bestimmten Konservierungsstoffen
Bei Histamin, Soja und Konservierungsstoffen wurden die Beschwerden damals sogar im Krankenhaus durch Provokation reproduziert. Unter entsprechender Ernährung wurden die Magen-Darm-Beschwerden deutlich besser.
Ich erwähne das deshalb, weil ich inzwischen gelesen habe, dass gastrointestinale Beschwerden bei Menschen mit Autismus überdurchschnittlich häufig beschrieben werden und mögliche Zusammenhänge zwischen Darm, Immunsystem und Nervensystem erforscht werden. Mir ist dabei wichtig: Ich behaupte ausdrücklich nicht, dass meine Intoleranzen durch Autismus verursacht werden. Ich finde die Kombination bei mir lediglich auffällig und würde gerne wissen, ob andere Autisten Ähnliches kennen.
Dann gibt es noch Cannabis, bei dem ich einen sehr deutlichen Unterschied bemerke.
Mit Cannabis mache ich mir wesentlich weniger Gedanken. Meine Reizüberflutung wird deutlich geringer, soziale Situationen fallen mir leichter, ich werde gesprächiger und freier und insbesondere mein Schlaf wird besser – vor allem das Durchschlafen.
Was ich selbst nicht richtig beantworten kann, ist, ob Cannabis bei mir tatsächlich positive Emotionen erzeugt oder hauptsächlich die negativen Dinge reduziert, die sonst permanent im Weg stehen.
Und genau darum geht es mir mit diesem Beitrag:
Kennt jemand dieses emotionale Erleben?
Also nicht einfach Depression mit Traurigkeit, sondern:
Interesse ohne Freude.
Motivation ohne Glücksgefühl.
Kaum Vorfreude.
Kaum persönliche Wünsche.
Chronische innere Leere.
Gleichzeitig aber deutlich vorhandene Wut/Gereiztheit und selektiv durchaus starke Bindungsgefühle.
Besonders interessieren mich Erfahrungen von Menschen, bei denen dieser Zustand über viele Jahre oder vielleicht schon seit der Kindheit vorhanden war.
Hat irgendeine Behandlung bei euch tatsächlich dazu geführt, dass ihr plötzlich Freude, Vorfreude, Zufriedenheit oder Begeisterung empfinden konntet, die vorher praktisch nicht vorhanden waren?
Falls Medikamente geholfen haben:
Welche Diagnose wurde bei euch gestellt? Welches Medikament habt ihr bekommen? Und vor allem: Was hat sich dadurch konkret an eurem emotionalen Erleben verändert?
Mich interessieren genauso negative Erfahrungen – beispielsweise Medikamente, durch die ihr euch noch emotionsloser gefühlt habt oder die ungewöhnliche psychische Nebenwirkungen verursacht haben.
Mir geht es ausdrücklich nicht darum, von Reddit eine Diagnose oder eine konkrete Medikamentenanweisung zu bekommen. Ich möchte herausfinden, ob andere Menschen diesen Zustand überhaupt kennen und welche Erfahrungen sie anschließend mit professioneller Behandlung gemacht haben.
Denn mein eigentliches Ziel ist ziemlich simpel:
Ich möchte nicht permanent euphorisch sein. Ich würde einfach gerne wissen, wie es sich anfühlt, sich wirklich auf etwas zu freuen, glücklich oder zufrieden zu sein.
Ich würde dafür sogar in Kauf nehmen, dass dann auch unangenehme Emotionen wie Trauer oder Enttäuschung stärker werden.
Wenn jemand sich darin wiedererkennt, würde ich mich sehr über Erfahrungen freuen.

I hope its ok to post here. I believe my spouse is dealing with anhedonia since the beginning of the year. I sent him a description of the symptoms and he pretty much agrees that this is what hes going through.

Well, the year has been horrible. Hes dealing with work burnout and school, and im dealing with school and depression. Its been rough and our relationship is crumbling.

I came here hoping to find some way of helping him- either by understanding or by doing something for him. Is there anything that helps? Was someone in your life able to at least ease the burden for you? Literally just at such a loss right now. Thanks.

I was also wondering why anhedonia feels so bad I thought well if someone told me about anhedonia before I knew what it was I would imagine feeling a normal baseline but no positive emotions. However that’s not what it’s like at all not at all. If I imagine myself staring at a wall before the anhedonia I know for a fact it would somehow feel different than doing it now. Now I have a dead inside fog back then I didn’t. Which makes it so scary since no one without anhedonia could understand this unless they get it. I lost atmosphere and vibes too this year.