Re: Anti-depressants
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It affected my thinking and emotions in a weird way. I felt "artificially better", if you will. Combined with the side-effects like loss of libido, I was left wondering who I was and what I liked and where was I going in life.
Without it I felt depressed, but I least I was thinking clearly ; I understood the roots of my feelings.
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This is the polar opposite of my experience with antidepressants, although I do have to say that the brief period of time that they had me on Paxil (which is also prescribed for anxiety) is the closest I remember to feeling this way. So it may be a characteristic of that drug.
With Zoloft and later with Wellbutrin, I felt MORE like myself, not less. Depression is a curious thing. It seems so normal when you're in it, as if this is your world.
This was my daily thought process when I was depressed:
"You are lazy and unmotivated and doomed to be unsuccessful and everyone dislikes you and the people that like you wouldn't if they really knew you...so you better try as hard as you can to prevent anyone from getting too close. All you've done with your life is piss away all of your advantages and opportunities, even though you know that you're intelligent, all you have done is waste it. Now it's over, you're too far gone, you have no way out, and you just have to survive until you die, which hopefully will be soon. Maybe you'll be in a car accident. Of course, then they'll see your messy closet and find out what a loser you are."
Things like that literally ran through my head for most of my waking hours. And every night I'd tell myself, "tomorrow, you lazy idiot, you're going to get up and be productive and do all the stuff you have to do. It won't help, but you're going to do it."
During this time I was a college student, lived with roommates, had a regular boyfriend, held down jobs, all the while with this constant litany of self-hatred. I didn't do any of these things up to my expectation, though. I was never good enough to my boyfriend, I felt like a crappy roommate, I didn't go to enough classes, I was bad at my job. The fact that I got As and Bs, was an honors student, was always being promoted, and my roommates loved me (and are still my closest friends to this day), and my guy couldn't get enough of me never even pinged my radar as hints that I might be wrong about myself.
When I lived alone for the first time in my life was when I had a breakdown. For the first time I wasn't accountable to anyone else, and I had lost the ability to care about doing things for myself.
I won't go into details, but it essentially forced me to get help. My doctor put me on Zoloft. Taking the Zoloft was a revelation. I remembered what it was like to feel like myself. I discovered that I didn't have to take crap from people. I was able to reasonably assess my situation and apply my brain to making it better. I discovered goals and desires and wishes and motivation. I could think clearly.
After about a year, they took me off the Zoloft, which was a relief. Some of the side effects weren't great: stomach troubles, occasional flashes of rage. But I was more like myself than I had been in years. I finally felt like the person everyone around me saw, and the person that I dimly remembered being. Which was funny, because while I was depressed, I had no memory of that person at all.
Kind of stupid example: my whole life I have loved thunderstorms. I find them compelling and magical. I like to stand out in them, to watch them, to hear them. When I was depressed I didn't even notice storms, AND I didn't notice anything different. I just stopped doing something so completely simple that gave me so much pleasure. Same thing with hot baths. Reading. Wearing earrings and perfume. Anything that was just for me, I didn't do. And I didn't notice.
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