"Dopamine detox", having been popularized by TikTok, is probably a term not to be taken seriously by most. Fair enough. But I did not come to it from TikTok – I came to it from desperation. A year and a half of indulging my every whim and constantly seeking for more and I can't take it anymore. And trying to take a measured approach wasn't working. Quitting gacha games became nightly cannabis became doomscrolling became CoD addiction. I couldn't stop hunting for anything to make me feel something.
So here we are. Day 3. No games. No social media. No compulsively checking Discord. No anything that gives easy spikes of dopamine. This is the hard part. I just white knuckle it. Because anything that would truly blunt the desperate boredom or bring color into the now anhedonic world would be undercutting the upregulation of dopamine receptors I'm waiting out. Nothing heals the brain but time (and sleep, and nutrition... but mostly time). If memory serves it should feel bearable somewhere around 7-10 days. And normalcy returns in a month or so. Things that felt excruciatingly boring and hard to do in my dopamine disordered state will start to become gratifying.
So for now I wait. It goes in waves. And the walks help. The fall cold especially.
Finding joy and beauty in the dying foliage of fall is certainly not the easiest task in this state. So I'm just experimenting with things. New film sim recipes, new perspectives. Trying to retrain my mind to be present in the world and take it all in.
And I can already feel some progress. As mindnumbing as today felt, the pull of the compulsions was also quieter. Cooking – something I haven't done in months – actually sounded like a welcome respite to the feeling of nothingness.
It feels like forever right now, but it will be over before I know it, and I'll be glad for the person who comes out the other side.
Snippets of the last half week