Posted by Ritch on March 5, 2005, at 9:58:20
In reply to Re: Why apathy / bad behaviour on Effexor? » Jen2, posted by Dinah on March 5, 2005, at 8:24:51
> There is something in the Tips section of Babble about SSRI's having a disinhibiting effect in certain people. I'm one of them. I guess when your apathy goes up, your normal guards against inappropriate behavior go down.
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> I think it concluded, and I'm paraphrasing bigtime here from something I read long ago, that if you work hard at not doing something, the effect of SSRI's would make it harder to keep up the effort to work hard at not doing it, You would say "oh, so what" and do it.
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> But for the exact same behavior in another person, who does it or doesn't do it for a different reason than hard work, it might have a completely different effect.
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> So I, for instance, found a huge increase in my self injury on Luvox, but other people find reductions in self injury. It depends a lot on the inner dynamics of the motivation to do or not do it.
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> I wasn't on Effexor long enough to discover if it had the same effect, but it works on serotonin, so maybe it does.Hi Dinah, I thought I would note something that I've been finding over the last several weeks.. I read JRBecker's post about the antidepressant induced irritability syndrome from two or three periods back (as relates to bipolar, etc.). Anyhow, I take a microcosmal dose of liquid Celexa (about 1/2 mg) every other day. I have charted and found for SURE that on the days that I take the Celexa .. I get a mild "cruel streak" towards other people and get easily irritated over minor stuff. But if I stop it for several days my anxiety gets WORSE. It is like some kind of *displacement* thing. If I don't take it, the anxiety goes UP. If I DO take it, anxiety goes down, but irritability goes UP. I believe it has to do with disinhibition processes as you mention above.. however .. that would be assuming that the cruel "streak" would have been there in the first place and that it is an impulse that isn't acted upon (without the disinhibiting SSRI). BUT, it really kind of seems that the chemical "setting" or "environment" in my head that the SSRI creates *fosters* this instead of just "letting an impulse out" that already exists. Sorry for the rambling, but it is just a phenomenon that is for real and creates this dilemma for me (and probably a lot of others)---- take an SSRI feel less anxious/panicky, but lose empathy towards others and become cruel somehow versus don't take the SSRI and feel panicked, uptight, and crappy.
poster:Ritch
thread:466720
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050304/msgs/466913.html