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do I need psychological help?
howdreadful
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Apologies for the alt but a lot of people I know in real life know my handle on here and I'd prefer to remain anonymous.
I'm a freshman in college and for the past few years I think something has been wrong with my brain. I am one of the most stress-free, level-headed, and content persons I know. Occasionally people comment on how mellow and laid back I am. I can't remember the last time I was angry, or jealous. I have lots of friends and can't say I know a single person I don't like or doesn't like me.
This is a problem you might ask? This might sound crazy, maybe it is. But its just not human. My problem is that I hardly experience emotion of any sort. Maybe I'll get frustrated at someone for a moment or two. I'll forget it entirely a few minutes later. I used to really anticipate the latest video games, bounce off the walls when they are released, and every moment it took to drive home after buying it was torture. Now, a game that looks cool is released (I haven't anticipated a game in a few years) I might buy it in a few weeks, and then won't even care about getting home in a reasonable amount of time. The video game thing is just an example, this is what its like for everything. I've been ignoring this issue for awhile (if I had to pick a point it happened at it was around Summer 2003). It just really hit me a couple weeks ago when I went to an amusement park with my cousins and they were all super excited and couldn't wait to get on the rides etc. and I was there thinking "I don't care if I ride 1 ride or 100, or how long we're here." I actually sat on a bench and slept through a couple rides because I just didn't care what I was doing. It wasn't like I was scared of them or anything. I don't know if I can be scared because all of my emotions are so incredibly dull I'm not sure that I could identify fright.
I wonder if it might stem from being incredibly successful my entire life. I'm rather intelligent and so breezed all through grade school and am breezing by at a top US college now (that has a reputation for being unbelievably difficult). But thats just more evidence that my emotions are dulled. When I received my nearly perfect standardized test scores I was like "whoop-dee-doo" and its my parents who were ecstatic. When I got into my first choice college I didn't celebrate or anything like I know some of my friends did. People asked me if I was excited about going to X college and I was like "I guess." When I think about the colossal amount of loans I'm taking out now to go here it hardly even registers on my radar of things to care about.
College isn't the issue though. I'm not just going because its expected of me, I've always wanted to go to college and I plan on staying in college for a good long time (probably get a PhD). Its my emotions. They just aren't there. I'd say its depressing, but its not that depressing, because depression is an emotion, and I hardly experience emotion.
tl;dr: I hardly experience emotion, and while its probably the main reason I'm so level-headed and well-liked, I just want to be human.
I'm a freshman in college and for the past few years I think something has been wrong with my brain. I am one of the most stress-free, level-headed, and content persons I know. Occasionally people comment on how mellow and laid back I am. I can't remember the last time I was angry, or jealous. I have lots of friends and can't say I know a single person I don't like or doesn't like me.
This is a problem you might ask? This might sound crazy, maybe it is. But its just not human. My problem is that I hardly experience emotion of any sort. Maybe I'll get frustrated at someone for a moment or two. I'll forget it entirely a few minutes later. I used to really anticipate the latest video games, bounce off the walls when they are released, and every moment it took to drive home after buying it was torture. Now, a game that looks cool is released (I haven't anticipated a game in a few years) I might buy it in a few weeks, and then won't even care about getting home in a reasonable amount of time. The video game thing is just an example, this is what its like for everything. I've been ignoring this issue for awhile (if I had to pick a point it happened at it was around Summer 2003). It just really hit me a couple weeks ago when I went to an amusement park with my cousins and they were all super excited and couldn't wait to get on the rides etc. and I was there thinking "I don't care if I ride 1 ride or 100, or how long we're here." I actually sat on a bench and slept through a couple rides because I just didn't care what I was doing. It wasn't like I was scared of them or anything. I don't know if I can be scared because all of my emotions are so incredibly dull I'm not sure that I could identify fright.
I wonder if it might stem from being incredibly successful my entire life. I'm rather intelligent and so breezed all through grade school and am breezing by at a top US college now (that has a reputation for being unbelievably difficult). But thats just more evidence that my emotions are dulled. When I received my nearly perfect standardized test scores I was like "whoop-dee-doo" and its my parents who were ecstatic. When I got into my first choice college I didn't celebrate or anything like I know some of my friends did. People asked me if I was excited about going to X college and I was like "I guess." When I think about the colossal amount of loans I'm taking out now to go here it hardly even registers on my radar of things to care about.
College isn't the issue though. I'm not just going because its expected of me, I've always wanted to go to college and I plan on staying in college for a good long time (probably get a PhD). Its my emotions. They just aren't there. I'd say its depressing, but its not that depressing, because depression is an emotion, and I hardly experience emotion.
tl;dr: I hardly experience emotion, and while its probably the main reason I'm so level-headed and well-liked, I just want to be human.
howdreadful on
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Kinda makes me wonder if laughter/humor is in a different part of the brain from other emotions.
Maybe you just have an acute control over yourself? The fact that you still laugh genuinely would suggest that. I wouldn't consider that nonhuman, but rather a boon, something that you have done right. Too many people act on impulse and emotion without thinking. I think that emotion is one of the most important parts of being human, but clarify for me,
do you still feel the emotion, just not act like it? Or, is it a complete lack of feeling?
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Its funny that you mention focusing on something with single-minded intensity. I consider this one of my character flaws. I do it all the time, to the detriment of everything else, and I've been that way my whole life. And then once something is sufficiently "resolved" in my mind it goes on the back shelf to make way for the next thing I pour all of my mental efforts into. Like this issue right now that I made this thread about I will probably think about the entire weekend or longer until its resolved in my mind.
I do feel that I have acute control over myself and my emotions and have pretty much my whole life, but that because of it its somehow repressed my emotions.
Maybe you just have too tight a grip, and haven't discovered how to release it yet.
Talking to some sort of mental health professional is probably in order, if only to rule out any form of mental illness.
If you're still able to laugh and interact with other people meaningfully, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Don't worry about being human or whatever, you are what you are. Some people express and feel emotion intensely and some don't; it doesn't make the people who don't less "human" somehow. If you really want to experience emotion more intensely you might take some of the suggestions of other posters in this thread though.
This man. Listen to him.
Depression isn't necessarily crying all the time and wanting to commit suicide. Depression can manifest as an all-encompassing shade of 'meh' where you just don't really care about much of anything.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
"Talk" therapy, or seeing a psychologist, is pretty worthless if not counterproductive. I imagine that's what you may have had in mind....don't even bother.
Honestly, I'm kind of the opposite of you - I have trouble making friends and I feel frustrated with most people. It's not that I'm a loser, I'm not, I just don't get along with people. Maybe you shouldn't look at being stoic as "something wrong," look at it as a blessing. I wish I wasn't so reactionary, that I had more control over my emotions.
Howbout this though - maybe you're just bored. Try doing something exciting, that get's your blood flowing. For me it's running miles away from any other people, on mountain trails for maybe hours at a time. It fills my need for adventure, in part because because of the danger (bears, cougars, and cliffs), because it's fun to explore the mountains, and it's a physical challenge. Just leaves me feeling happy afterward.
This is terrible advice and you might in fact be a terrible human being for writing it.
Psychology/psychiatry is probably as much art as science and the OP would of course be well advised to do a bit of due-diligence to find a doctor whose approach matches his needs, but claiming that the mental health industry exists to sell drugs is horseshit of the first water. It's like you're vomiting the contents of Dianetics all over the keyboard.
As usual Feral had the right idea in this thread. I know it's been a few days; I hope the OP has taken steps to at least look into this.
Honestly, it sounds like mild depression. As long as you don't find that you've stopped even laughing or you no longer care about things like grades, you should be fine in a few weeks.
STEAM
And I think that you may be ignorant. Taking that quote out of context is deceptive; there's a need for the mental health industry, I clearly stated that. But there are only a handful of medications for depression, each with an associated risk, with no guarrantee of positive results. I know for a fact that some doctors irresponsibly prescribe medication where it's not required. I also know that medication takes precedence over other, safer, yet equally effective treatments, such a supplements or diet or cognitive behavioral therapy, because there's money to be made off the drugs.
Honestly I don't know what you're thinking, I don't care what you're education is, recommending that some evidently functional and healthy individual seek help from a doc is foolish. This guy doesn't need help from what he described. If he were suicidal, violent, seeing shit that's not there - yeah, go see a psychiatrist.
A campus counselor is cool. But studies have shown that the "talk" therapy, or meeting on a regular basis just to chat, is ineffective.
any example of such?
I'm going to have to see proof of this, cause I really doubt what you're saying is true, or even credible.
On another note:
I'd say go just to rule out any depression/illness. You certainly don't have to go on meds, and talking to someone who is well versed in mental illnesses could help.
my apologies.
There is NOTHING wrong with not enjoying amusement parks, or enjoying math or physics. As someone who gets rabidly excited over computer programming and... *shudder*... long division, I can identify with you completely there.
I think you may have found the source and solution to your problem, sir.
Passion and excitement works on a level of intake; you need enough information and stimulus pouring in to max out what you can take in as a total. Smaller or less exposed minds are more easily amused at simpler things, larger and more complex minds need more complex stimuli and levels of engagement.
Your difficult math problem for example, lets you think and follow that information trail as fast as you can. Your intake and processing revs up to full throttle- whoohoo! Hooray for fun!
A few flashing lights, gravity games and some crowd chatter might not work for you the way it does on say, an eight year old child.
Seems pretty normal, though maybe you've absorbed a lot of the local information themes around where you live, so there isn't as much new stuff. A change of location might help, and of course, meeting new people- nature's infinitely detailed bits of organized chaos. Strengthen your perceptions, exercise them to extract more out of any given situation, and you'll find the world more exciting as a whole.
Something that challenges you physically, emotionally and mentally. Take up mountain climbing and climb some huge mountain. Go to a survivalist camp and then spend a week as far from civilization with only what you can carry in your pockets. Go skydiving. Date the wildest, hottest girl you can pull.
Something needs to rock the core foundations of your life. If everything is ho-hum, you have to actively find the thing that is going to make you look forward to waking up in the morning...
I would say this is pretty good advice. While it is possible that you could be experiencing some depression, I don't think that's the case. You can always compare your thoughts with depression according to the DSM IV.
I believe that when people enter college, they change a lot. Things probably aren't as exciting as they once were for you, and I think that's pretty normal... you're all grown up now and things that appealed to you as a child just won't always appeal to you now. To me, it sounds like you are just a very laid-back easy going person, and you have just unexpectedly mellowed out a lot recently, which is not a bad thing. You should try new things, meet new people and take up new hobbies. As nerdy as it might be, it sounds like Math could be a great hobby for you, and there is nothing wrong with that... just do whatever makes you interested and alert.
You mentioned not really being excited for new video games, and I know exactly what you mean. I used to love video games of all sorts, and my dream was to be a game designer and I really wanted a degree in computer science. Well, here I am now, six years later and still in school but now i'm finishing up my degree in psychology, I have entirely different interests. Instead of video games as a hobby I now really enjoy photography and travel. Perhaps it is difficult for us to accept that we've changed, I remember I used to think that I'll always love video games and i'll be the coolest old man playing them all the time and I would never change. well, I did change, which most people experience in college.
Also for some more ideas, have you experienced a crush on someone recently? I think I'm a lot like you in the fact that it takes a lot to become upset or bothered by something emotionally, but whenever I experience a heartache I think that behavior is magnified and I lose interest in most things. Last March my fiance broke up with me, and even though I wasn't depressed, my roommate said I was like a zombie. I think heartache will make people lose interest in a lot of things.
And also, don't listen to Sammysmall about not seeing a professional. Talking about issues with someone will help, and a professional will be able to give good advice on how to change things if change is needed.
Good luck figuring this out, I think you'll be just fine once you realize what some new interests of yours are.
I am like you in many ways.
I don't think its a problem.
I feel intense infatuation quite easily when I meet a new girl. I am very good at making others laugh and laughing myself, and because of my relatively emotionless self, I am able to keep a straight face while doing so, which just makes it funnier.
However, whenever I see something unfair, such as a group of boys beating on a kitten that I heard about the other weekend, my anger burns white-hot, and I know that I'd be capable of murder.
Literally. When I heard about that group of 8 year old kids torturing a kitten and laughing while they did so, I could have brutally murdered all of them and not felt a single jab of remorse.
Oh yeah, and go skydiving.
When I went, the high lasted for days.