Wow are you me??? Do you identify as asexual? How have you navigated things this way? It’s for me…humans are social animals, right? So I have a very deep need for connection and intimacy…just not of the sexual or romantic kind. So it’s a struggle to be in such a fringe group of seemingly contrasting needs that aren’t compatible with 99% of the world.

Damn both of y’all getting really hardcore in the comments over some milk.

On Samsung phones, you can turn off your phone via the notification bar drop down.

That being said, I still prefer to have my power button bound to…well…power options lol.

Well luckily you can change this on Samsung phones. I’m assuming phones with the default bound to Google Assistant will be similar. Annoying and stupid, for sure, but at least you’re not locked in. I’m sure a lot of the general population won’t have the basic know-how to change it though, unfortunately.

Have you ever succeeded in the chemistry part?

Hey man sometimes we just need to shout to the world about something good! I feel like my life is at a turning point as well (altho it’s in less of an optimistic way and more of a dramatic change sort of way). Wishing you the best for your future. :)

Jeez I’m so sorry. Please be safe. :( I’m happy you’re getting out of there at least.

Yeah lol I have heard that often it’s a lot better for family/friends to be able to tell than yourself! I live alone so I don’t have people to really notice that haha.

Like I have a friend with schizophrenia. When she sometimes decides she doesn’t need any meds anymore, it’s VERY obvious!!

Yes I absolutely relate almost exactly to what you are talking about! It’s frustrating because I feel like I feel these certain things so deeply and others just don’t have that type of intense emotional pain that I do.

It’s funny you mention ADHD because whenever I look up things like “emotional dysregulation” and “rejection sensitivity”…for some reason ADHD is one of the top results/conditions lol.

I relate to all of the ADHD related bullet points that you say, but I just don’t really have core “symptoms” of ADHD. I have the same emotion issues, but I don’t have issues with attention and etc. to my knowledge. I’ve always had issues with things like keeping up with household chores and staying neat, but beyond that none of the “core” features seem to fit me. My older sibling has very obvious ADHD though lol.

Dunno much if any of what I have is real trauma, but my therapist the other day that my frantic efforts to predict and prevent negative emotions from others is a “trauma response”, but idk how much of that is true for me.

I’m guessing the main med helping you is some ADHD meds, right? Do you take anything else?

Yeah there is a theme.

1. People getting upset with me, especially if it’s not because something I did or if it’s because of something I didn’t intend
2. Rejection from people I care about
3. Someone stopping to criticize and nitpick me about dumb insignificant shit when I am working as hard as I possibly can and trying my best. My supervisor does this which is part of my issue with functioning at work
4. Less common to cause a big outwardly external reaction, but more internal panic and/or sadness…failure/inadequacy at work related tasks that others do well

What happens is that I have periods of high energy low mood and low energy low mood.

The high energy low mood states involve things like distress, frustration, rage directed inward, impulsivity, urges to self harm, etc. These episodes are the most damaging to the self, my workplace, and my relationships.

Sometimes when I am in a high energy high mood state, a trigger can actually cause me to rapidly switch into a high energy high mood state.

In the low energy states, they are still extremely painful, but not really dangerous to the self. Sometimes I get in states where it actually feels physically difficult to move. Even getting out of a chair feels impossible like I am paralyzed or have 50 lb weights scattered across my body. Sometimes I end up sleeping excessively during these phases.

In between, I am totally normal!

Maybe it sounds similar to it, but I do NOT meet the criteria for bipolar disorder. I do NOT meet the criteria for hypomania, my “episodes” are almost always caused by triggers, and most of them are not long enough in duration to meet the criteria (although sometimes the low energy low mood states can last a few weeks). If rejection is reverted, the negative mood state can be relatively quickly relieved.

I also have significant baseline anxiety, but I’ve always been that way ever since I was a kid. The distressing and damaging parts to me are the mood episodes, not generally the anxiety (but it can be disabling sometimes). It is possible that some of my “episodes” might be triggered by anxiety.

Tbh I never entirely wanted to be meds long term…because I think 1. My life stress is just incredibly high right now and 2. My issues could eventually be mostly greatly reduced (but never entirely resolved) by therapy.

But therapy is a slow as fuck process and I’m wondering if I’m in a state where meds are “needed” as an adjunct to therapy and how to tell they are even working.

I tolerated SSRIs just fine tbh. Was exhausted initially, but once I got used to them I felt totally normal. The presence or absence of sexual side effects were not something I would ever be able to ascertain because I had never had a libido or the ability to feel sexual pleasure my entire life even before trying SSRIs. But I know it’s one of the most significant SSRI side effect for many.

While the SSRIs did seem to marginally help in certain areas, they didn’t at all touch on my main issue or make me more resilient to it or make it easier to tackle or anything.

I’m in therapy now to help with the mental side of things. I know that ultimately that will work best.

But yeah it’s gonna take a damn long time…so I just don’t know how to know if in the meantime if meds are needed for me as an adjunct treatment to therapy or how to know if they are doing anything.

Well I mean I certainly know that they are psychological and not physical, but I think some people can still need them for psychological reasons if that makes sense.

I’m in therapy now to help with the mental side of things. I know that ultimately that will work best. But yeah it’s gonna take a damn long time so idk if in the meantime meds are needed as an adjust treatment to therapy or how to know if they are doing anything.

So I kind of uncommonly get mild panic attacks. They happen I guess, but not to the frequency that I would necessarily find the need to try them. By the time I am panicking, I already calm down on my own before the time it would take to take the med and for it to kick in. She isn’t necessarily prescribing it for panic attacks, but to help prevent a big reaction from me later when I am having a stressful day. Yeah it’s just as needed as opposed to daily. Supposedly it will take around 30 minutes to kick in.

What I will say is I have a very significant and predictable and prolonged stressor for several days out of the week that occurs in the evenings. One day, I took the propranolol in the morning and was still very on edge in the evening. But I noticed that today, I took it a bit later in the day and was a smidge less on edge in the evenings. But I was also very tired today which also just decreases my anxiety lol. But I will keep testing. I probably need to try taking it closer in time to the known stressor, but not too close such that it doesn’t have time to work.

Daily I am taking lamotrigine right now. Not sure if it is doing anything at all for me.

I think what people are seeming to miss in my novel is that I am currently on 2 meds… lamotrigine daily and then propranolol as needed. I’m glad you had a good experience with it. Interesting how you ended up feeling like a zombie on it because it effects more of the physical side of things. I think my propranolol dose is pretty low.

Yeah just when I think things are better now, life hits me with another baseball bat to the head!! Good luck to you all lol.

I’m so very happy for you! :)

I have known one person who took something like Ozempic and she described it the same way…the “food noise” was significantly reduced. Also she got sick if she overate which seemed to be very unpleasant for her, but it helped to further control some of it.

Interestingly, I have another friend who is on metformin instead for diabetes specifically. As an unintended effect, she also describes food being less appealing overall to her and having some weight loss as an unintended, but helpful side effect.

So it’s interesting how these drugs not only seem to have physical effects, but mental ones as well.

Curious…are you planning to take Zepbound for the rest of your life? Unfortunately, the person I know who was taking a similar drug couldn’t afford it again and found that all of her “symptoms” came back on discontinuation.

I feel this so much. I wish the world had more compassion. It’s weird because I feel like I do but I am constantly hurt by those who don’t.

I had my therapist recently say something like “people are assholes…not everyone is like you and you can’t expect them to be”.

Yeah I started maybe like last month. Have been on the meds for like 6 months.

Wow wtf I had no idea it was available over the counter!!

I think part of the reason it’s difficult to tell if psych meds are “working” is NOT necessarily because they aren’t working at all. They have a slow and insidious onset that is often not really immediately noticeable to the user.

But like I have a friend with schizophrenia. Occasionally she feels like she is totally “better” so she stops taking the meds. Well…you can imagine what happens next…

The difference is subtle to her, but significant over time that we all notice from the outside. So idk.

My particular issue is mostly extreme negative responses to certain triggers to the point where I want to self harm or even go further than that. It has threatened my job. My ups can be super high and fun but my lows are incredibly extreme…more extreme than others seem to have. But I don’t come anywhere close to bipolar symptoms.

It’s just like…I seem to just generally feel things (particularly negative things) much more intensely than others for some reason. And that really isn’t any sort of diagnosis or disorder itself.

Wow. I don’t think I have 12 years of concerted effort to go through. I’m glad you finally figured it out after all those years tho. Sucks you weren’t able to figure it out sooner.

I was “diagnosed” with the vague/classic combo of just “anxiety and depression”, but was 100% ruled out as being bipolar.

Tried Lexapro for a bit but I was still having some major emotional issues so I discontinued it. Had a major outburst upon first decreasing it which sucked major balls and will have possibly cost me my job. Dunno if that was withdrawals, if it meant that the drug was helping me somehow, or if it was totally unrelated.

My provider has now been trying me on lamotrigine for emotional dysregulation in combo with therapy. But I mean the evidence for that working out is pretty poor. Took several months but I finally reached my “target dose” 2 weeks ago. I don’t know that it does anything for me either idk.