Social impairment during POIS - anyone else experience this?

[Prospero]

Do you guys describe your selves as hypersensitive personalities? Like small things that shouldn't matter, matter to you and make you react inflammatorily?

If yes check this out: My Hypersensitivity Is Real: Why Highly Sensitive People Have ADHD

My father's side relatives are very sensitive people and that gets them into lots of trouble. My father still has ADHD at age 65; he can't figure out how to open a bag of chips and gets easily pissed off at for example.

Perhaps we suffer from a type of ADHD that makes us sensitive to strong dopaminergic stimuli such as sex due to bad dopamine levels in general.

I don't believe that I'm 'hypersensitive' as you mean it (though when I was younger I was indeed very sensitive to noise), however since teenage years I'm extremely sensitive to stress triggers such as speaking in public, watching a nerve-racking film/series, playing a videogame that requires me to 'act in a situation of emergency', or simply having a planned meeting with someone. My heart rate speeds up very importantly, my breathing is distorted, I'm trembling, and it can even provoke something like a crisis of tetany or spasmophilia, with an 'internal paralysis', pins and needles... Even if I know perfectly that there's nothing at stake and I do my best to relax.
A few years ago, the anguish resulting from my first big POIS crises also used to provoke such a crisis of tetany, until I get used to it and began to hear about POIS.
Strangely enough, it has also happened that spasmophilia / anxiety attacks provoked by other triggers than sex/POIS, while I was already in a POIS state, would suppress all my symptoms, as if there had been a complete reboot in my body at the end of the attack.

[Clues]

As a counterexample wrt the idea of an ADHD connection: I'm personally very even-tempered and patient when I don't have symptoms. When I do have a symptom episode though, I can be testy, quick to anger, clumsy and restless.

[LookingForACure]

I spend a lot of time researching conditions that have some similarities to POIS in terms of symptomatology, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, sluggish cognitive tempo, and hypothyroidism with the idea that treatments for these conditions may apply to POIS. For those of you who are not familiar, these conditions are all associated with brain fog and fatigue, often as primary symptoms. One symptom I have not seen in any other condition is social impairment like the type we have been discussing in this thread. I am wondering if anyone has found another condition associated with this symptom? Social impairment is more specific than brain fog and fatigue, which mean different things to different people, so another condition that shares it seems very likely to have at least some pathophysiological similarities. Whereas, the fatigue described by us POISers may be very different than the fatigue experience by someone with POTS, for example, meaning the conditions are likely not similar.

[bdn9494]

Yes, I've spent the last 7 years rather socially isolated because I just couldn't come up with stuff to say in conversations, but now that I'm fixing my POIS by abstaining from masturbation, I'm regaining the desire to be social.

[cyberguy137]

I have struggled with POIS for the past ~5-6 years. I ability to socialize, social anxiety, and brain fog are major symptoms for me.

I have tried many supplements and medication without much success.

I find abstinance is the best. So I limit O to once a week or once every week and a half. I am hoping to move to biweekly soon.

One issue though is I get 'on edge' and anxious after about a week of abstinence. Still, it's better than POIS!

[Clues]

cyberguy137, I can identify with that. I've mostly been abstinent for 4 months or so. While abstinent, I have constant light symptoms. While having an orgasm (or exercising) regularly, it's more of a rollercoaster, where I have peaks where I'm nearly symptom-free, but obviously crashes post-orgasm that are quite bad. Overall, abstinence seems like the better option for me right now.

[OpiesDad]

I strongly relate to OP's description of his condition, even the four day post ) cycle matches mine.  The brain fog, disassociation from personality and emotional disturbance all part of the POIS symptoms kind of explain the social awkwardness.  I do find that the most helpful medication I have treated with is propranolol (beta blocker).  Anywhere from 30-80 MG increases my ability to handle social situations.  I also use adderall, but interestingly, anything more than 10 MG overwhelms my brain and causes severe brain fog and confusion.

[LookingForACure]

I strongly relate to OP's description of his condition, even the four day post ) cycle matches mine.  The brain fog, disassociation from personality and emotional disturbance all part of the POIS symptoms kind of explain the social awkwardness.  I do find that the most helpful medication I have treated with is propranolol (beta blocker).  Anywhere from 30-80 MG increases my ability to handle social situations.  I also use adderall, but interestingly, anything more than 10 MG overwhelms my brain and causes severe brain fog and confusion.

This is very interesting. In what ways would you say propranolol helps your social abilities?

[OpiesDad]

I was getting intense involuntary stress reactions in advance of and during social situations including rapid heartbeat, sweating, and light headedness. It was not a panic attack in the ordinary sense as I did not actually feel nervous/anxious psychologically, just exhibited all the bodily manifestations of it. The propranolol in the right dosage just shut that all down so my body remains cool and composed.  Then, in social situations, I sometimes would get an intense headache and pressure in my eyes.  Have not had a bad event like that since the prescription, whereas before the prescription I had a 7 or 8 very embarrassing and uncomfortable instances of that happening in a several month span.

[Hadouken]

The social impairment you speak of describes one of my main symptoms to the T.
ever since I was 17 I was trying my best to lose my virginity. I attributed my virginity due to my social awkwardness, which I thought was because I lived in a 3rd world country and didn?t have access to women to break me out of my bubble.
Anyhow I tried my best to cold approach women and learn pickup ever since I came to the United States to break out of my bubble. But it never worked, because I?d always be in a state of never know what to say, or be in a shitty state of not wanting to speak to others, and not be able to approach.
But out in the blue, my speech would become so pristine that I?d be able to convince anybody of anything. And then it goes back to shit when I masterbate (something I didn?t know then).
My social super powers didn?t show up until , I went to Miami to RSD winter summit which lasted about 10 days. In those very adventurous  days. I accidentally fasted for 80% of the time and didn?t have time to jerk it. And guess what? My speech and social calibration was through the roof.
At that point I think I had a manic episode combined with low inflammation (due to fasting) and lack of POIS induced social empanelment due to not masterbating.
In Miami that week, I was able to pull a 20 year old hottie from the street at 10AM in the morning back to my hotel, literally 2 hours of meeting her. And then proceed to try to lose my virginity with her. Being a virgin at the time And the lack of condom caused me to only barely have sex. The girl quickly sensed that I?m a virgin because the way I acted before the bedroom resembled russel brand, yet when I was in the bedroom I didn?t know how to put it in haha. Non the less I lost virginity that time and was able to spit some insane game for the rest of that week in Miami, and be able to pull a 30 yo non English speaking Brazilian chick. (Something I never had the balls to do), at the age of 18!

Fast  forward I go back to Orlando and randomly jerk it then the next days I?m extremely anti social! Literally lost all those superpowers that I had less than a few days ago!  Setting in college classrooms surrounded by hotties whom are eye Fucking me not even able to look them in the eye.

It seems like when one experiences POIS, the brain part that regulates social intelligence turns off thus leaving the person completely un calibrated. Once one rises from the symptoms, social interactions become extremely easy and free flowing.
All those ?gamey? tactics just work without practice when the brain finally works.

[mindlesstree]

It is actually one of biggest things with me, I severely mentally impaired altogether. I feel like a broken robot pretending to be human and I feel extremely tense. My body simply has no idea what to do with itself and my voice tone and ability to form sentences also goes down the toilet to a large degree. My posture also gets screwed up, I don't know how to position myself anymore and hands move in very awkward ways at my side. But when I don't ejaculate for a week this all goes away and I become a human being again. But the second I ejaculate at all I turn into "the thing".

[VSmasher]

Same experience here. This social impairment seems to be linked, at least in my case, to a deprivation of energy, happiness, strength and mental alertness - an inability to 'feel' my moral, intellectual and physical strength, and the soft euphoria which normally accompanies this feeling. After an orgasm, I feel emptied, slowed down, weakened, and socially unfit, it seems closely connected. Too much of this and I have also 'true' social anxiety, which is also linked to the fact that since I have POIS my physical development seems to have brutally stopped, and I have developed a kind of social complex due to my physical inferiority to others.

I shall add however that this was my condition a few years ago. Now I have become so sensitive (POIS is triggered by a few seconds of arousal), and POIS episodes have become so long (many weeks) that I don't experience complete remission anymore, even after one year and a half of complete abstinence, and can barely remember what it was to be socially at ease, agreeable and happy. I miss the good ol' days of high school when I had friends and only needed not to masturbate for several days in order to be full of energy, joy and sociability...

Yes. I'm the SAME!