Posted by lp on October 6, 2000, at 9:38:14
In reply to Re: 1st time taking an anti-depressant » lp, posted by cmm on October 5, 2000, at 20:22:11
cmm-
Thanks for writing back.
I don't think Wellbutrin has really affected my personality, at least as far as I can see. My friends haven't noticed anything either, other than the fact that I haven't been AS upset as I used to be.
I guess the real reason I feel so guilty for taking medication is that I started feeling like this after my long-term boyfriend ended our relationship one day, totally out of the blue and moved 3000 miles away. Of course anyone would be devastated by this....people get through these situations all the time without a crutch. However, I know myself well enough to know that while this will eventually pass, it would make me absolutely miserable in the meantime.
Anyway, I'm wondering if there was any single event that threw you into this "funk" (as I call it) or if you've generally been feeling down in the dumps?
And don't feel weird about getting treatment from Canada. Although I may see my doctor, he doesn't ask me anything he couldn't ask me on the phone. In fact, he's only my General Practitioner and has no idea what's going on in my life, other than that I went through a bad break up.
So what do you think? Is it terrible to be doing what I'm doing simply because someone dumped me?! You see now why I'm feeling especially guilty.....
-lp
> I haven't told my parents, either - and I happen to be living with my mother at the moment (for better or worse), who has been medicated for depression in the past herself.
>
> I think I've been fortunate in that most people I HAVE told have been supportive - bewildered, I think, but supportive. One friend of mine is almost a doctor (6 more months), and she phrased it this way - if I lost a limb, sure, I could fuction without a prosthesis and maybe do OK, but what's the point if there's a tool which could help me function at my best?
>
> I like that one - the other one I've gotten (which is similar) is that if it were any other disease, I wouldn't reject care and feel like I should just exert a little more willpower and kill that cancer on my own.
>
> Those were my two closest friends - then again, in a moment of weakness, I told someone I shouldn't, and she sort of circuitously said that there are other ways and medication interfere's with nature's plan. Which, naturally, deflated me for a week.
>
> Part of it, too, is that a couple of days after receiving the prescription (in Canada, where I'm from), I came to Japan where I've been living for a couple of years. My doctor said she had no problem treating me in this very distant way, but I'm a bit uncomfortable about the fact that what treatment I'm getting will be by email.
>
> I don't even know if Celexa is legal in Japan (they only approved the birth control pill for general use about a year and a half ago, so it's a distinct possibility).
>
> Anyway, I really like that someone feels the same, too. I guess it's one of those feelings which would be almost impossible to imagine if you didn't have to feel it yourself - the idea of wanting to help yourself while all the while wondering what the action means about your character.
>
> I have a question - have you wondered at all what Wellbutrin may or may not do to your personality? Fear number 546 that comes to me as I wait to fall asleep at night...
>
> take care,
> C
>
> > cmm-
> > I've never been on this board before but recently started taking wellbutrin and have the exact feelings you do. I was looking for some answers and what you wrote is almost identical to what I was thinking.
> >
> > I too am not sure if I should be on something or not. I feel better just knowing there's someone else out there who has the same feelings that I do. My friends think I am absolutely ridiculous to take anti-depressants. I've never even told my parents, who I am very close with. I have always been a happy, upbeat person and it's hard for them to come to even imagine that I could ever be the slightest bit depressed. My advice to myself is to take it for 6 months and see how things go (I've been on wellbutrin for 1 month now). I don't see anything wrong with attempting to feel better, no matter how "deserving" I am. I may even start taking celexa, who knows.
> > -lp
> >
> > > > One thing I've been wondering about, though - my doctor said that I should contact her after taking the pill for six weeks and we would evaluate if I was feeling 100% - what on earth is that? I don't mean to say that I never feel happy, because I do, but I assume the goal of all this isn't to turn me into some Gigit-like nightmare. What I want is to feel good and bad and ambivilent and everything else as situations demand, but I don't know how that would be.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks for your encouragement
> > > >
> > > cmm you are welcome for the encouragement and keep your chin up, things get better, really they do. as far as the doctor wanting to see u in 6 weeks to see if you are 100%, well are any of us really 100%?? even those in society that dont take medication?? the doctor did the same re evaluation w/ me but at the time i rated myself at a 75% < grin >
> > > what dose are you taking again and are you just taking celexa??
> > > T~
> > > :-)
poster:lp
thread:45725
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000926/msgs/45866.html