Posted by Sarah T. on April 16, 2006, at 12:30:54
In reply to Re: I'm apathetic, but I don't care » Sarah T., posted by ed_uk on April 16, 2006, at 6:10:01
> The SSRI-induced apathy can be very dangerous. People's lives can be falling apart around them and they don't do anything to change the situation. >
Hi Ed. Yes, that is what I have experienced and seen in others. Quite a few years ago, I was sitting in a room at work. I was on an ssri. I think it was Zoloft. A gigantic wasp flew into the room. Actually, I don't know whether it was a wasp or some other humongous stinging insect. A few people were trying to swat the beast with a magazine. Everyone else in the room was jumping around and trying to run away from the monster-wasp, but I just sat there, as calm as could be. Everyone was yelling at me to get away from the menacing creature, but it just didn't bother me one way or the other. Fortunately, I knew something was wrong with my reaction, and I knew it was from the medicine.
Every once in a blue moon, I come across someone who does well on ssri's. I've met a few people here who like Lexapro, and I met one woman at the gym who said her life was better on Lexapro. She gained a lot of weight on it, and all the exercise in the world didn't seem to help the weight, but other than that, she said her life was better. It seems that those who do moderately well on ssri's are those whose depressions are characterized mostly by anxiety.
> Although SSRIs have helped my anxiety, they have also damaged me. I could have achieved something without SSRIs. Now, I have achieved nothing and I don't even care.>I'm sorry, Ed, I forgot. Are you on an ssri right now? I know how you're feeling, but I don't think it's true that you haven't achieved anything. It's clear from your posts that you've achieved a lot. Perhaps you haven't achieved as much as you would have liked, but don't minimize all you have accomplished. You are so knowledgeable and very helpful to us. I don't know how old you are. I gather from your posts that you are still very young, and you still have a lot of time to overcome the difficulties you've had.
> >No matter how terrible their lives may be, apathetic patients may just shrug it off, so their doctors may be led to believe that their patients are much better than they actually are.
>
> I think there's a lot of truth in that Sarah.>
> EdWhat I was trying to say (and what I think Linkadge meant by his subject line) is that the very nature of the problem (the problem of the apathy and amotivational syndromes caused by ssri's) makes it less likely that patients will report the problem to their doctors, so it becomes a vicious cycle.
poster:Sarah T.
thread:633179
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060412/msgs/633826.html