Hello everyone,I have a quite unusla case of what I think is a form of
depression.I hope somone can be kind enough to read my case: Even from
a young age I had obessevive compulsive/depressive tendencies. However
these were quite mild, ad I would probably have passed into adulhood as
a normal member of society, were it not for the unfortunate facts that
I was born into an extremely religious family. I say religion, but it
was more like a cult, and I suspect that at the back of my mind I
always knew that the religion was a big lie, but I had to force myself
to follow it's practices. Living a lie like this led to my obessive
complsive behaviour to get much,much worse. Things came to a head in an
extrmeley unusual manner: During my teen years my sexual development
was normal, watching porn (albeit with a lot of guilt due to the
religion), wet dreams etc etc. However at the age of 17,when I began to
masturbate, a very shocking thing happended, I developed severe urinary
frequency, and would literally feel like going to the toilet every five
minutes to urinate, and when I did urinate I only passed tiny amounts
of urine.
For a long time I did not tell anyone what was happening, but the
stress was so severe that my hygeine became very poor, from getting
excellent grades at school, I begane to fail the exams, I became
severely depressed. I thought maybe God was punishing me for not
praying enough, however even after I prayed to Him to stop the urinary
problams, He did not reply, at this point I think I stopped believing
in God.
Even though the urinary freqnuecy began when I started to
masturbate,for a long time I did not really make the connection between
the two facts. However when I did finally make the connection I knew
that I had to completely stop masturbating. At this point it was about
7 months into this hellish expereince, and I was on the summer break
from school. An Ultrasound scan showed nothing to be physically wrong
with my bladder.
It took all my will power (and I consider myself above average in
will-power) for me to stop masturbating. You don't understand what a
powerful force the sex drive is until you have to put up a fight
against it. However, by the time I had to go back to school I had
ceased masturbating, and no longer even had the urge to do so.
At this point I would like to guess that there was nothing physically
wrong with my bladder that led to the urinary frequncy when I began to
masturbate, it was my 'primal mind', telling me that it couldn't carry
on believing the religon my parents had forced upon me. Or some other
psychological reason.
At the age of 17 when I went back for my final year of school,needless
to say I was severely emotionally damaged. I should not have been
anywhere near a school,but my 'loving' parents insisted on me returning
to school. At that time I did not know what I was suffering,but looking
back now, I can see that I had all of the symptoms of severe
depression: complete inablity to concentrate,severe
constipation,negative thoughts etc etc.
Needless to say that I was so mentally damaged that I dropped out of
college.
Fast forward to today, I'm thirty years old, and my life is a mess.I am
unable to hold down a job, and year by year the illness has gotten
worse and worse, as is the case with depression. Although I must stop
and say that I really don't know what I suffer from. I mean i seem to
have almost all of the symtpoms associated with depression, but with
the big exception that in the 12 years since dropping out of school,
and until today I have almost never suffered any of the sadness
normally assocated with depression. Although it may be that the sadness
has been repressed. Here is a list of my symtpoms: 1)complete absense
of any emotions,such as sadness,anger etc etc. I feel like Spock from
Star trek
2)zero sex drive, although I am able to ejaculate but I feel absolutely
no pleasure from doing so
3) Complete absence of any feeling of pleasure from activities like
work or other activties. In fact, in 12 years I don't think I've felt
more than a few seconds of low level pleasure
4)Severe irrational anxiety over otherwise trivial events
5)Severe obessive compulsive behaviour
6)Focussing on the negative of any given situation,rather than having
an optimistic outlook.
I realise that from the above symtpoms that the first diagnosis would
be depression, however I don't think I suffer from depression. I have
tried 3 different ssri anti-depressants, Paxil, Effexor and Anafranil,
and they only lifted my mood a little, and had absolutely no effect on
me not being able to feel pleasure or emotions (and since I already
don't have any emotions, wouldn't ssri's which are known to numb a
person make my situation even worse?) . Although, due to my messed up
life I only gave each of these pills 4 weeks to take effect.
Instead I think my current illness is related to me stopping
masturbating. The sex drive is such a fundamental part of the human
psyche, that I feel that my emotions shut down, and I became anhedonic
directly due to this.
Now the question is, if it is the sex drive which is the root cause of
my current malaise, how can I restart it? I mean, I know that the human
brain is like a nueral network, and has a level of plasticity. So I
feel that the pathways for the sexual urge have been downgraded.
Someone, recommended that I use Amphetamines to see if I can repair the
damge done to my sexual instincts.
Initally I agreed with the person, and 4 weeks ago when I used Ritalin
combined with GHB, I felt pleasure for the first time in years.
However, I had to stop this expereiment since I ran out of Ritalin.
The reason for me thinking that amphetamines will not help me is
because after the ritalin ran out, I have not felt any pleasure since.
Surely if I use more powerful amphetamines, they might give me a lot of
pleasure for the few minutes that I use them,but as soon as I stop,the
pleasure will also stop. And what makes it worse, is that I read that
amphetamines,in high doses, can cause as much brain damage as drugs
like speed.
However I feel that my problem is related to the molecule Dopamine,more
so than the Seratonin molecule. Whenever I have taken a drug which
stimulates the dopamine sytem, I feel much better than when I take
something related to the seratonin system. On top of this I have to
bring up the fact that for many hours at a time I feel a pressure on
the right side of my head. Initially I thought it was a physical
symptom, however this pressure actually feels good,it feels like
pleasure which is being unconsciously repressed. And on top of this, I
always feel the pressure after I do something which should provide
pleasure. For example, if I was to masturbate, I would be able to
ejaculate, but would feel absolutely no pleasure at all from doing so.
However for the next 6-8 hours after ejaculating I would feel this
pressure,which seems to orginate from the right side of my head, about
where my right ear is. I think what's happening is that 12 years ago,
when I stopped masturbating, I had to somehow figure a way to fight the
very strong sexual urges, my unconscious mind must have figured out a
way to block the pleasurable sexual urges. The problem is, now that I
have resumed masturbating, my conscious mind does not know how to undo
the blockage done my my lower,primal mind. Hence this feeling that
pleasurable sensations are being blocked.
This brings up another fact for me. It was about 4 years ago that I
sort of acknowledged to myself that I had a serious mental problem, and
in my utter stupidity I thought I could use drugs,like GHB, or magic
muchrooms to analayse my brain. However,as you might be able to
predict, whilst I was on a particular drug, I often felt great, but as
soon as the effects of the drug ran out, I was back to being depressed.
However it is interssting to note, the out of all the drugs I tried,
GHB,ecstasy,cannabis,2cb etc etc, I felt almost all of the effects
commonly felt by normal people who consume these drugs WITH the
exception, that I never felt any pleasure. So for example, on GHB, a
drug which provides users with euphoria,increased sociability, and
increased tactile sensations, I felt absoltely no pleasure in my body,
I actually felt numb, on some occasions when i was taking GHB, my hands
and arms felt almost completely numb for 2 days.
To comlicate matters even more, in the past week, I read a book, called
'Depression is a choice', by an American author called AB Curtiss, and
it was an amazing book to read. The author suggested that depressives
like to blame other people for their bad choices, and that in order to
lessen their depression they need to try to reintiegrate themselves in
to the community, and by doing so, it might stimulate their brain's
neural networks to change from being in a depressive state into a more
normal one. From this book, I realised that I blame my parents for a
lot of my problems, but I can't escape the realisation that I too have
to take some responsiblity for how my life has turned out. Life is a
serious of decisions, and ultimately I could have chosen some different
ones, for example I could have asked to speak to my parents about the
fact that the religion was causing me obsessive compulsive thoughts.
At this point I am very confused. I have been a total fool, out of the
6 billion human beings alive, I feel like i should be in the top 1%
most stupid losers. I have thought of commiting suicide many,many times
in the past 12 years, and as my illness has gone untreated for so
long,it has gotten worse and worse.
At this point I feel like I have 2 main course of action:
1)Try some kind of dopaminergic releasing drugs to see if I can kick
start my pleasure system, or even try something more radical like ECT.
2) Go with what the 'Depression is a choice' author said, and try to
improve my current living condition, such as moving out of my parents
house, and see if gradually this has any effect on my brain. But I'm
worried about how I will do this. Currently I feel like I have an
unloaded gun, i have no emotions,can't feel pleasure etc etc, but this
book says I should try to get a job,learn to drive a car, and other
things. It feels like a catch-22 type situation, how can I do the
things to get out of my depressive state, when I don't feel like I have
the tools in the first place to do the job?
The past 12 years of my life have been hell on earth. I had no idea
life would be so cruel. I have thought of suicide many times. And to be
slighlty glib and off-topic, in my childhood, I was glued to the
television,watching cartoons all day long, I often wish I was living in
that cartoon universe than the present reality.
I welcome all suggestions. And even though  though I know this is a
very unusual case, I hope no one feels the need the flame my post.
Bye my friends.