Recently I read an interesting article about women and anti-depressants. You can read it here. I would encourage and recommend you to read the entire article so that nothing I write is taken out of context.
I can only speak for myself when it comes to experiences and side-effects of anti-depressants. A handful of friends have used them and have had positive experiences. Others have experienced what the writer is talking about and have stopped using them. I don’t know if they’re overused by women or not; I was once prescribed Prozac for PMT. I didn’t take it because I didn’t need it. What I felt I needed was something to help balance my crazy hormones at the time. In fact, I found another doctor who put me onto Indol-3-Carbinol which aids in the clearance of oestrogen. The I3C worked for me. I believed that taking anti-depressants would be inappropriate because I was suffering from neither depression nor anxiety at that time.
There is one paragraph of the article, in particular, that I want to address.
The most common antidepressants, which are also used to treat anxiety, are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (S.S.R.I.s) that enhance serotonin transmission. S.S.R.I.s keep things “all good.” But too good is no good. More serotonin might lengthen your short fuse and quell your fears, but it also helps to numb you, physically and emotionally. These medicines frequently leave women less interested in sex. S.S.R.I.s tend to blunt negative feelings more than they boost positive ones. On S.S.R.I.s, you probably won’t be skipping around with a grin; it’s just that you stay more rational and less emotional. Some people on S.S.R.I.s have also reported less of many other human traits: empathy, irritation, sadness, erotic dreaming, creativity, anger, expression of their feelings, mourning and worry.
Let’s start with sex! I’ve alluded to an on-going health issue which has played a role in why I’m on anti-depressants. Basically, in July 2013, I began a period and it’s never really stopped. First of all, I was put on the Pill but that didn’t work so I was taken off of it and put on a high dose of progesterone to stop the bleeding so I could have tests done. The Provera held it at bay for five glorious weeks. Following that, I had a D&C and had a progesterone releasing IUD (Mirena) inserted. After a year of waiting for the bleeding to “settle” I was put back on the Pill for a month to “reset” things. It didn’t work. Most recently, I’ve taken a course of antibiotics for a pelvic infection. I certainly had an infection but I’m still bleeding. In all fairness, I experienced four blood free weeks after the antibiotics. It’s been back now for over a month, though. Needless to say, with all this happening, my libido went from healthy before the big bleed to non-existent way before I was on anti-depressants. I can’t conclusive say that they’ve reduced my sex drive. I used to have sexy dreams a lot, too. I haven’t had one in ages. I don’t know if that’s from the meds or the hormones. I think, however, that they stopped before I went on the SSRI. The truth is that I was too distressed to notice anything, except in hindsight.
SSRIs tend to blunt negative feelings more than they boost positive ones. This is true. It’s exactly what I wanted and needed when I went on them. As well as the bleeding which was terrifying me because my mother died from a gynaecological cancer, I was dealing with three other on-going issues in relation to my family. I was tired, scared, angry, anxious and depressed. I hadn’t felt happy in months. I didn’t care so much about feeling happy again; I simply wanted the edge taken off what I was going through. The SSRI did exactly that and I’m grateful. My health issue and two of the other issues are on-going so I still feel like I want to be on my SSRI. I’m considering a hysterectomy. When that’s done, I think I’ll be in a better position to deal with the rest and will ease off the meds then. It will be interesting to see how low my lows go, if my anxiety worsens and if my libido and sexy dreams return.
As far as the other feelings go, I may have lost creativity. I can’t be sure because I think my creativity, like my libido, was waning in the light of the other things going on in my life. In 2012, I was more creative than I’d ever been in my life. By 2013, just holding it together took all my energy. And that was before the anti-depressants. I’m doing well enough to write blogs and think about a novel.
Being on an SSRI has done nothing to blunt my empathy, especially in relation to my loved ones. In fact, I feel I'm better able to help them with their issues because I'm not falling apart myself.
Ultimately, I like to believe that we’re smart enough to know if we need anti-depressants or not and to experiment, in conjunction with our healthcare providers, to find the right one. It’s not my place to say whether they’re overprescribed or not. I found the article great food for thought, though.
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