Bonde wrote: ↑Sun Sep 11, 2022 2:42 pm
From what you write, It is not clear to me that you have an affective disorder. It could be something else. If the diagnosis is not right, you could end up spending a lot of time on therapy that do nothing for you.
I have been functional and 'successful' at family career and finance...but my internal state seems different from most.
Many people seem to go through life smiling, laughing, crying, getting attached to things and people, etc. My day to day experience is generally of emotional numbness. I simply don't experience emotions often, or at all. It is like that part of my brain is dead. I can best describe it as a constant state of sadness and low energy levels combined with a low level mental pain. I am very sensitive to sounds, stress, sugar, caffeine, conflict with others and processed 'junk' food. A simple argument might wipe me out for days where I have hardly any energy to do anything, can't think, can't remember simple things, just lay in bed all day because I don't have the energy to get up, etc. Simply breathing in second hand smoke once will give me a headache.
Some days, I will have feelings. The strongest feelings are sadness. I will break down crying uncontrollably with an overwhelming sense of loss. Other days I have moments that I feel happiness. Where the world seems fine and I look out and see the natural beauty of things. I have trouble sleeping at night and have always been a light sleeper. Some days I will go to sleep for 3-4 hours and wake up and not get back to sleep.
If I experience stress I may not sleep at all. My last company had toxic management. I endured for several years because the money seemed good at the time. Eventually it became too stressful and I did not sleep for 3-4 days straight. After the 4th day of not sleeping I started to think that job might literally kill me and resigned. This is why I save the money - to avoid these bad work environments.
I have a hyper sexuality. When I was younger I would often have an erection from waking up until noon. Even talking to a girl, or looking at a girl would cause sexual fantasies to flash through my mind and I have a constant urge to have sex with most girls I see. I may go to the grocery store and see a girl and immediately get an erection and will have sexual fantasies of her.
Of course I would never act on these urges but I do wonder if it is common for other guys to also have the constant urge to have sex with every girl they see and we are all just hiding this urge...or for that matter if it is common for girls to have the constant urge to have sex with every guy they see. I married a girl who is also hyper sexual and constantly desires sex so we had sex 4-5 times a day for years. I'm not even sure which of us is more hyper sexual because she constantly wants it to the point of hunting me down if I don't have sex with her for a day.
It is odd how my hyper sexuality contrasts with my emotional numbness...I can fall in love with a girl though and I have discovered it is better to have sex with a girl you are in love with who also highly desires sex. Having sex with a random girl you are not in love with also or who does not have that much sexual energy or who is faking it isn't that enjoyable at all...in my experience. I am kind of obsessed with sex but I have no ability to have sex with a girl who doesn't also deeply crave and want me to have sex with her. Ergo I eventually just found one hyper sexual girl who is great in bed and stayed with her.
I'm not sure if I actually have an affective disorder or not. Some doctors have said I am simply hyper aware and hyper sensitive to things, people, food, etc. If I have no stress, follow a routine, eat right and meditate I can live a pretty normal day to day life from the outside looking in. But internally I experience very little happiness in my day to day life. Also, If one thing gets messed up I don't sleep well for days, have low energy, low mood, and have some trouble thinking and focusing during that time. If I eat a single deep fried onion, for example, I may be mentally sick for the next 2-3 days.
I am deeply introspective and very aware of my thoughts and feelings and general state and what I ate and how I slept for the last day or two, which all seem to play into how I currently feel. My goal is to simply experience more happiness and energy in my day to day existence of life.
I have a sort of existential depression as well - a sort of existential dread. A constant feeling like - we are all going to die someday and life doesn't have any inherit meaning at all what is the point sort of thing. Sometimes I will have a happy experience and then think - I will die some day, all of these people that I had this experience with will die someday, the earth will be consumed by the sun someday and the only known intelligent life in the universe will die out. What is the point of all of this life we are living?
Then I try to forger about this thought and go back to my day to day experience of life...I have never been able to really shake this thought though. It is kind of like my shadow - it is always there, in the background, but I don't really notice unless I accidentally look at it.