Loss of Love

For those who have this symptom or did have this symptom, how do you cope with the loss of love?

 

I can't really feel love toward any people nor do I feel interested in really any activity anymore. Every day is just going through the motions and pretending to feel okay and act normal. But if joy or love never return, what is one to do? What's the point?

 

Have any people recovered from this symptom?

Im feeling the same. I hope it returns. Its like you said, "What's the point?" Its tough to simply exist in pain with no passion for anyone or anything. Im 23 months off and I hope I regain those feelings again. I'm definitely struggling with this, as well, Boom!

When it gets bad I watch really touching videos with beautiful emotional exchanges.  Surprise adoptions and such.

  I get all shaky and geeked out while doing so, but consistently find a renewed connection to my emotional attachments to my family a day or so after some of these treatments.  The empathy trail evoked when watching tears of love and joy seems to provide a different pathway to accessing my emotions.

  If I watch any current events stuff or go on FB, reddit or other social media platforms= same as the good stuff, it will access fear/hate/frustration/rage and it will percolate through my relationship with my family and perceptions of the world.

  For daily sanity, I personally advocate either never using social media platforms or scrub them of anyone/anything that you strongly agree or disagree with.  Either way they invoke negative emotions that effect your daily life when running on hightened sensitivity and perceptions

It is called anhedonia. It is so boring.Lack of pleasure and emotion. I guess it is due to dopamine deficiency.

I have watched many videos that bring me to tears as I've gone through this. It's literally the only way I can cry and then I usually do feel a little better on those specific days. I watch the Fresh Prince video where Will's dad leaves him and the final scenes in the last episode of Friends and also a scene from the movie The Road where the father dies and talks to his son for the final time. Occasionally a song can bring on those same feelings and elicit some tears.

 

I'm in the process of cutting out another long-term bad habit that will hopefully help me restore some dopamine. I will just let you guys guess what that is. It's going to be the toughest habit to break. But I've been able to give up alcohol so hopefully this won't be hard either.

The fact that you can emote while inducing it with classic tear jerkers is definitely a good thing.  It is still there but it is difficult to access the positive emotion receptors while they are already being lit up with negative emotions that are swamping out anything good. 

  My worst addiction= Politics. It eats my positive emotions for breakfast.  I keep slipping and returning to my politics.  The emotional highs/lows + sense of justified anger/frustration is the same as many of the other OCD obsessions/addictions that I have phased through now.

  I have managed to quit for months at a time and it is amazing how much my emotional regulation and capacity for positive emotions increase.  It is harder than quitting nicotine for me, but is so worth it while I am able to maintain totally abstaining. 

  There is no capacity to have stable appropriate feelings when am falling prey to the political extremists and thus feeding my emotional addiction.  I know all about warped perceptions and severe responses delivered with felt justified rage while thinking it is because I am just intellectually/morally superior to those that piss me off. 

  I slipped badly recently and was emotionally degraded pretty fast.  Even though it felt dishonest, I removed all voices of dissent from the media I am exposed to.  I quickly discovered that it doesn't matter whether or not I am only exposed to opinions that I agree with.  It just further aggravates the severe emotional responses because there is absolutely nothing to temper my perceptions with and they blow the heck up!

  That bubble is something many people gravitate to nowadays with the newfound ability to customize information feeds and it is in my opinion the cause for excessive political polarization evolution.  The emotional response to feeding an addiction is still there and it wipes every daily life positive emotion out.

  It is really damn hard to not seek out validation of our personal ideological matrix.  When I am not pushing that media needle in my arm, life is better, my perceptions are not nearly as extreme and I have room for real feelings for real people in my life, no matter what they believe.

 

I've noticed in my personal experience that the pendulum swings wide.. hyper sensitivity of emotions that swings to anhedonia or almost catatonic states.

Its amazing what we go through in all of this.

For those who have this symptom or did have this symptom, how do you cope with the loss of love?

 

I can't really feel love toward any people nor do I feel interested in really any activity anymore. Every day is just going through the motions and pretending to feel okay and act normal. But if joy or love never return, what is one to do? What's the point?

 

Have any people recovered from this symptom?

Same.

I forget sometimes that life used to be less dull and sad.

I've noticed in my personal experience that the pendulum swings wide.. hyper sensitivity of emotions that swings to anhedonia or almost catatonic states.

Its amazing what we go through in all of this.

 

I sort of feel the same, but the only time I'm hypersensitive is when my wife and I talk about separating. Then I get super sad and within a few days I'm back to the anhedonia, anger, and catatonic states.

My worst addiction= Politics. It eats my positive emotions for breakfast.  I keep slipping and returning to my politics.

It's really tough to stay away these days. Yesterday, I found myself having to check the news to conduct a feasibility study on visiting my friend in a couple of weeks. COVID makes things so complicated. It's not just finding out whether you're allowed to do something, it's trying to ascertain whether something is a good idea given the various restrictions that may apply. I inevitably found myself clicking through to different stories and then reading analyst pieces even though I think they're basically propaganda.

 

I swore off politics about 6 months ago as part of what I'm calling a "stress audit". I've missed politics so little that I don't even list it as an example when I am describing to people here how they can look to reduce stress. In truth, it's one of the easiest and quickest wins.

I'm in the process of cutting out another long-term bad habit that will hopefully help me restore some dopamine. I will just let you guys guess what that is. It's going to be the toughest habit to break. But I've been able to give up alcohol so hopefully this won't be hard either.

Interesting. It sounded like caffeine or sugary treats until you said it was the toughest habit to break having given up alcohol in the past.

 

I'm happy for you that you're able to address these things. Breaking a bad habit is great for the psyche on multiple levels.

I'm in the process of cutting out another long-term bad habit that will hopefully help me restore some dopamine. I will just let you guys guess what that is. It's going to be the toughest habit to break. But I've been able to give up alcohol so hopefully this won't be hard either.

Interesting. It sounded like caffeine or sugary treats until you said it was the toughest habit to break having given up alcohol in the past.

 

I'm happy for you that you're able to address these things. Breaking a bad habit is great for the psyche on multiple levels.

 

I'm trying to give up porn now. It's my last terrible habit.

That makes sense. I'm no expert but I suspect this is one where cold turkey is a good idea if you can do it!

 

Good luck. I hope you see the benefits you hope for.

Yep, it's a super unhealthy habit. That's why I'm giving it up. Five days and counting. For me, something I've had is anhedonia and wonder how much the unhealthy habit is contributing. I have to try everything to improved health. I hope my brain can be restored.