Aphantasia Induced by SSRIS

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cdraham
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Re: Aphantasia Induced by SSRIS

Unread post by cdraham »

Its a sign the membrane potential of neurons has changed
Sofa
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Re: Aphantasia Induced by SSRIS

Unread post by Sofa »

Maxin wrote: Tue Apr 19, 2022 2:15 pm Interesting as my imagination is not even close to what it used to be. I was reading about this the other day and apparently this person cured themselves with this technique . I have yet to try it but I’ll link it her-


https://photographyinsider.info/image-s ... ographers/
Have you tried it? Did it work?
B>b4
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Re: Aphantasia Induced by SSRIS

Unread post by B>b4 »

Yes. I have it too. Before pssd I was able to visualize, fantasize and daydream easily and vividly. Ever since pssd all I see is black. I feel like I’ve made some progress with dreaming at night but still cannot visualize when awake. I discussed this in one of my other posts:
B>b4 wrote: ↑
Well, I’ve been dealing with pssd for about 10 years so it’s hard to know what “normal” is anymore. As for fatigue, yes I think I’m fatigued. When I was very into my regime – taking supplements, eating well, exercising a lot – well, then I seemed to have lots of energy. That lasted about a year until covid started. As I said Covid and lockdown and everything has taken a lot out of me. So, now I do feel somewhat fatigued, certainly depressed, and I’m trying to get out of it.

Ya, the visualization thing is a weird one. Like I didn’t even notice it’s been missing until I read an article talking about how some people can’t visualize at all (from birth). Now, when I was young I had an extremely vivid imagination. My dreams were magical. And I could conjure up images in my “minds eye” super easily. I did it all the time actually. That article got me thinking about when that went away, which I also think correlated to the onset of my pssd symptoms. I do remember noticing, but I thought it was just one of those “you’re getting older” things.

I had the same revelation with MW. It was weird, I had noticed I wasn’t having them anymore but I just thought that’s a normal thing that happens when you get older. Then one day I stumbled on this site and a post that listed all the symptoms for pssd and almost every one of them I had experienced. And then around the same time I was talking to an older man (a bit older than me) and he was talking to me about intermittent fasting. He said that he hasn’t even noticed he didn’t have mw anymore until he started IF and then they came back. So that was what originally kick started my regime and IF. And, eventually, a lot of things DID improve. Which got me thinking that, with the right regime, pssd can be completely recovered from. I was, I think, pretty close. And then I took SJW and it kinda collapsed the progress I had made. As I said it helped with some of the sexual stuff, like arousal and maintaining an erection (perhaps at about 80% though), but it destroyed what little libido I had left, and I went back to near complete anhedonia.

So… why am I telling you all this? Well, I feel like they are all inter-related. If you can’t visualize, you can’t dream. If you can’t dream, perhaps you can’t imagine sexy thoughts. That might stop you from being aroused in your sleep. That might mean you don’t have mw. I think it’s interesting that my mw returned around the same time as my dreams came back. Even the anhedonia. It’s like I’m incapable of imagining a different future, so I have no motivation. Even sex is like a struggle to keep “in the moment” or I will lose the erection. Doesn’t that also sounds like a function of visualization, fantasy, or imagination?

This was actually one of my original reasons for trying sjw, trying to bring my dreams and sexual function back. I’m not positive it’s the reason my dreams came back but it was shortly after my sjw experiment and around that time my mw came back too. Both of these things have stuck. I dream almost every night now. I have mw almost every single morning. I should say both of these things came back very slowly. I think it was a month or maybe more between my first and second dream. And the dreams were super simple (almost just a fragment of a thought) at first. Over the past 2 years they have gotten more and more regular and more and more vivid. I’m still not at pre-pssd levels but I’ll take it. Same process for my mw too.

I think dreaming is actually a key to fixing whatever damage the ssri did to my brain. It’s like my brain is remembering what “normal” was supposed to be and then reorganizing things to try to get back to that state. So I’m super happy with that progress. I’m just super discouraged by the lack of libido and anhedonia coming back. I hadn’t fully recovered them before sjw, but they were probably at 30% of normal, which was huge progress.
Sofa
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Re: Aphantasia Induced by SSRIS

Unread post by Sofa »

B>b4 wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 8:43 pm Yes. I have it too. Before pssd I was able to visualize, fantasize and daydream easily and vividly. Ever since pssd all I see is black. I feel like I’ve made some progress with dreaming at night but still cannot visualize when awake. I discussed this in one of my other posts:
B>b4 wrote: ↑
Well, I’ve been dealing with pssd for about 10 years so it’s hard to know what “normal” is anymore. As for fatigue, yes I think I’m fatigued. When I was very into my regime – taking supplements, eating well, exercising a lot – well, then I seemed to have lots of energy. That lasted about a year until covid started. As I said Covid and lockdown and everything has taken a lot out of me. So, now I do feel somewhat fatigued, certainly depressed, and I’m trying to get out of it.

Ya, the visualization thing is a weird one. Like I didn’t even notice it’s been missing until I read an article talking about how some people can’t visualize at all (from birth). Now, when I was young I had an extremely vivid imagination. My dreams were magical. And I could conjure up images in my “minds eye” super easily. I did it all the time actually. That article got me thinking about when that went away, which I also think correlated to the onset of my pssd symptoms. I do remember noticing, but I thought it was just one of those “you’re getting older” things.

I had the same revelation with MW. It was weird, I had noticed I wasn’t having them anymore but I just thought that’s a normal thing that happens when you get older. Then one day I stumbled on this site and a post that listed all the symptoms for pssd and almost every one of them I had experienced. And then around the same time I was talking to an older man (a bit older than me) and he was talking to me about intermittent fasting. He said that he hasn’t even noticed he didn’t have mw anymore until he started IF and then they came back. So that was what originally kick started my regime and IF. And, eventually, a lot of things DID improve. Which got me thinking that, with the right regime, pssd can be completely recovered from. I was, I think, pretty close. And then I took SJW and it kinda collapsed the progress I had made. As I said it helped with some of the sexual stuff, like arousal and maintaining an erection (perhaps at about 80% though), but it destroyed what little libido I had left, and I went back to near complete anhedonia.

So… why am I telling you all this? Well, I feel like they are all inter-related. If you can’t visualize, you can’t dream. If you can’t dream, perhaps you can’t imagine sexy thoughts. That might stop you from being aroused in your sleep. That might mean you don’t have mw. I think it’s interesting that my mw returned around the same time as my dreams came back. Even the anhedonia. It’s like I’m incapable of imagining a different future, so I have no motivation. Even sex is like a struggle to keep “in the moment” or I will lose the erection. Doesn’t that also sounds like a function of visualization, fantasy, or imagination?

This was actually one of my original reasons for trying sjw, trying to bring my dreams and sexual function back. I’m not positive it’s the reason my dreams came back but it was shortly after my sjw experiment and around that time my mw came back too. Both of these things have stuck. I dream almost every night now. I have mw almost every single morning. I should say both of these things came back very slowly. I think it was a month or maybe more between my first and second dream. And the dreams were super simple (almost just a fragment of a thought) at first. Over the past 2 years they have gotten more and more regular and more and more vivid. I’m still not at pre-pssd levels but I’ll take it. Same process for my mw too.

I think dreaming is actually a key to fixing whatever damage the ssri did to my brain. It’s like my brain is remembering what “normal” was supposed to be and then reorganizing things to try to get back to that state. So I’m super happy with that progress. I’m just super discouraged by the lack of libido and anhedonia coming back. I hadn’t fully recovered them before sjw, but they were probably at 30% of normal, which was huge progress.
Have you seen any improvement in your PSSD? Can you visualize more now?

Can it get better?
B>b4
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Re: Aphantasia Induced by SSRIS

Unread post by B>b4 »

Sofa wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 11:40 am
Have you seen any improvement in your PSSD? Can you visualize more now?

Can it get better?
Yes. My pssd symptoms have improved and I have visualization in my dreams now. Very rarely I have managed to visualize something for a split second and then it disappears, usually just before I fall asleep or when I’m just waking up. So I think, I’m my case I’ve seen improvements in both areas and I believe that I can get better ultimately.
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