The sexual side effects were more depressing than the depression.
I take fluoxetine. It doesn’t have an immediate physical effect like Tylenol, Gravol, and the like. The effect builds up with time. I would describe it as feeling like “quiet”. Fluoxetine gave me the ability to quiet bad thoughts. From there, I had more stability to climb out from the pit of despair and anxiety.
The first few days (maybe two weeks or so) after starting, I slept a lot. Where I used to go to bed at 11:30pm and wake up at 5am, I was now out like a light at 8pm. My brain was finally quiet, so I could feel my body’s exhaustion.
The next thing I noticed is that I was able to let small annoyances slide. I used to be triggered by stuff like someone playing music too loudly in the bus. Instead of hyperfixating on that sound and ruminating for the entire bus ride, I could now let it fade in the background and think of something else.
After a few weeks, I noticed less crying, less blowing up at my partner, and less panic spirals. That time and energy I could now put into other stuff: chores, hobbies, socializing. I wanted to be happy and I felt empowered to make it happen, rather than at the whim of the exterior world.
While fluoxetine greatly diminished my lows, it also muted my highs. In my manic-ish days I felt “happy” for hours, and often hypersexual. Now my happiness was different, like… instead of going on fun rollercoasters and having my heart race, I was now sitting in a cozy armchair with a cup of tea and a snack, and my heart was peaceful. I do have a lower libido, which is tough on my partner. (OTOH I now contribute a lot more to household tasks, so it events out lol.) I do miss the euphoria I used to be able to feel, but I don’t wish it back because I know the price I had to pay for it.
I would describe it as feeling like “quiet”. Fluoxetine gave me the ability to quiet bad thoughts. From there, I had more stability to climb out from the pit of despair and anxiety.
The next thing I noticed is that I was able to let small annoyances slide. I used to be triggered by stuff like someone playing music too loudly in the bus. Instead of hyperfixating on that sound and ruminating for the entire bus ride, I could now let it fade in the background and think of something else.
This is the best description of my personal change as well. Medicine won’t fix a single one of life’s annoyances or solve your problems or help your relationships. What they will do is remove what I would describe as an emotional stickiness.
Like the noisy bus rider you mentioned, that alone is something I can easily deal with now. But back before medication, that frustration would just stick in my brain. And then thoughts of other people doing things from my past would creep in and stick to the initial annoyance. Every minor problem would stick to anything else I could remember, so now instead of a tiny, temporary problem, I had to suddenly deal with every problem I could remember.
Now the thoughts about unrelated things don’t creep in, and I can deal with the minor annoyance without everything else.
Other people’s comments have mentioned many other effects similar to what I had, but your comment is the only one that mentioned the persistent focus in negative things and the thought creep, or at least that’s how I read it.
But back before medication, that frustration would just stick in my brain.
Yes! Exactly that. What you call emotional stickiness I call spiralling. Before meds, once something upset me it was nearly impossible to stop. That minor annoyance made me feel anxious and upset, which in turn reminded me of other times I felt that way, and it all amplified.
I’m glad you’re in a better place. Remember, if you can’t make your own neurotransmitters, store-bought are fine. 👍
I’m glad you are too!
My partner is also on treatments for bipolar, so between us it does make planning…romantic encounters very difficult as well, but as you said too, we both prefer each other leveled out as opposed to dealing with each other at our extremes. We’d probably be a disaster if we were both doing poorly at once. We still have a very friendly love for each other though, which helps fill the gap left in the physical things. I’m sure it help that it’s similar for both of us, than if it was just one of us on mood numbers.
Omg same! Like everything just feels more mellow. My happiness feels sorta like “meh”, but not in a bad way.
Like all of the bad parts of a very low dose of LSD without any of the fun.
They have no effect until you stop taking them. Then you hallucinate for a few weeks, like a low to medium dose of LSD.
I feel pretty much the same as when off of them but my anxiety isn’t nearly as crippling. There are some side effects like a dulling of emotions but to me it’s so worth it
Marginally happier for a few weeks and then absolutely nothing
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Duplicate, please delete.
First week it made me feel like there was a very light electric current running through my body. Not unpleasant, just a bit odd. Tingly. And yawning uncontrollably for a few hours after taking them for a few weeks.
Again, not unpleasant. But I absolutely embraced them, I did not fight the effects. I was very, very glad to try medications.
Now, after like 4 or 5 years, I can clearly tell the difference between before and after - the difference is, instead of downward spiralling into a hideous pit that I couldn’t climb out of, that spiralling downwards still starts, but it stops.
Instead of falling into the pit, I can just choose not to keep going down.
Things are still upsetting and I still take things worse than other people but I dont become out-of-control spiralling downwards forever until I can’t function. I have gained the ability to shrug and go “that sucks but, whatever”.
I felt this way, too. I also had a pleasant butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling near constantly for the first couple weeks.
For me personally, it didn’t really feel like anything. Kind of like taking an over the counter pain medicine, it’s not an obvious change but the pain that was there before is numbed or even entirely gone. Not noticeable unless consciously thinking about it.
It took a while to find the right dosage (roughly a year, multiple hospital visits, and a divorce from a toxic marriage), but I went from being obsessed with suicide and doing multiple attempts every day to being horrified at the thought of suicide and wanting to live as long as possible.
Do you ever think it might have been getting away from the marriage that was the ultimate antidepressant? I’m starting to think 99% of the problem is environmental (like home life) and antidepressants are medicine’s way of modulating a status quo that is otherwise not economically changeable or feasible to change
I used to be sceptical of antidepressants as well, wanting to try and fix things “properly”. But after getting in a really bad state, I decided to accept their “help”. Lifestyle changes are important, but antidepressants “take the edge off” and make it easier to implement those changes.
I think antidepressants should pretty much always be paired with other support or lifestyle changes though.
I think antidepressants should pretty much always be paired with other support or lifestyle changes though.
I completely agree with you. That’s not the experience my wife has had though. Finding the right professional to work with has been a challenge for her and her general practitioner has prescribed her SSRIs on more than one occasion without providing any guidance/assistance beyond “take this to feel better”.
Honestly I don’t think I would have filed for divorce before the medication. I was convinced that I was not only the problem, but that I was an evil villain, and that I was making the world a better place by killing myself. Suicide was the noble and heroic action in my mind at the time, and it’s only with the benefit of hindsight, continued medication, regular therapy, and reassurances from my family that I’m able to recognize how toxic my former situation was.
On the right one, the sense of utter futility and doom gets out of the way. I’m able to feel normal, to do things that previously I’d put off through some sense of dread or other nonsense. Things that were hard for no good reason get reset to their normal values.
SSRI’s don’t feel like anything (if you are lucky about side effects). The depression that they replace is more of a feeling that I could describe endlessly because it’s a pit of despair that never ends.
Great explanation. If they are well dose and manages, they should feel like nothing, instead your emotions should feel a bit more manageable.
What in the actual fuck are SSRIs?
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, ie antidepressants like Prozac
Common antidepressant. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors work be limiting how much serotonin your neurons gather back up after use. More serotonin around leads to more happy. Or so the theory goes. Antidepressants are very much vibes based and the best way to see what works is trial and error.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
It made it a shade easier to overcome OCD - BUT a decade on I feel drowsy, oversleeping, dulled intelligence and creativity, difficult to feel pleasure “driving with the handbrake on” These meds need to have a yearly review factored in - 10+ years of use make it almost impossible to come off (even with good advice and the liquid form (that can taper 1mg change at a time) I had to BEG for in the UK. The standard advice of splitting pills for moving doses means a change far too large to handle (2.5mg is a massive drop). The brain and all its systems get very used to having more serotonin and resist this change with terror, confusion and upset. I’m on 7mg after starting with 10mg then 9, 8… and it gets tougher with each drop (no professional had any advice to give except try to come off in a few weeks :0 ).
Like the first ten minutes after waking up from a really hard, hot, nap, all day, every day.
Small, oblong, smooth but not slick. Very similar to many other pills.
Like you’re one of a kajillion people who have ever lived, like an ant, and if someone came along and stepped on you, you’d be dead, just like most of the kajillion people who have ever lived, only to be replaced by another.
ETA- also sweaty, yawny, and either very interested or very not interested in sex and/or food.
That sounds more like mushrooms.
🤷 That’s how it felt to me.
IRC one of mushrooms’ main effects is to increase seratonin levels, so … Yeah, same basic thing.
