Posted by sk85 on May 3, 2011, at 15:14:19
I've had few episodes in my life when starting or discontinuing antidepressants I become very highly productive and "hyper". It is difficult to describe precisely but it feels like my mind is working 150%, I'm very enthusiastic about almost everything, I have flight of ideas (usually very creative, but then again I'm bit artistic to begin with), I tend to feel like I could take on the world...but all this is colored by background anxiety and sometimes irritability. This lasts couple of weeks and then subsides.
Now my doctor thinks only people who have underlying bipolar illness get these "symptoms" on antidepressants and I tend to disagree. First, I don't operate like this when I'm off meds: most of the time I tend to be bit slow and sluggish and generally low on energy. I have no relatives with bipolar. And third, the effect seems to fade out usually, only to reappear perhaps when life circumstances provoke anxious thoughts or I've accomplished something great.And foruth during "these" episodes my sleep isn't usually disrupted.
My theory is that I don't have bipolar but just weak "brakes" that would normally function just enough, only to stop temporarily working when on meds which then manifests in hypomania-like state. If my doctor is right and I'm wrong then I should perhaps consider a different diagnosis for myself (which currently is depression with OCD)? Or is this BS and it's normal for meds to do this? And I probably don't have bipolar? I do have to say that I've had relatively little success with antidepressants alone, they work great for depression, but poorly for anxiety and compulsiveness. I'm confused.-Ikaros
poster:sk85
thread:984450
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110502/msgs/984450.html