Medication Increasing Suicidal Thoughts

[Eto]

Well, it's been over a month since I've last taken my medication for depression. The initial shock of quitting cold-turkey aside, I actually feel better not on the meds than on them. I had been taking Effexor XR for around two years. Initially, yes, I think they helped. I became more active, organized, and suicidal thoughts were pushed from my mind for a while. I believe that during the final six months on the meds they actually increased my thoughts of suicide and added deranged thoughts about homicide. I remember day-dreaming about strangling people. I remember envisioning a knife held by my hand sliding into another, watching their life drain from their eyes.

I've read my various posting on enotalone from the past couple months and think was that me? God, I was up!

The drug companies warn that their drugs can further destablize a person but man, I can't believe I was thinking the things I was thinking. Yes, I still love reading about serial killers and viewing "disturbing" videos on the internet but I have NO inclination to become a monster.

I signed a final contract today selling the rights to a story that I wrote. I was given a check for $3000 from the publishing company. My dream of becoming a writer seems to be materializing. Well, sort of. I have a long way to go but I actually think I can do it. I have hope. I want to live. In a week I turn 25 and I have to say, I think I was 12 the last time I felt this way. That was the last time I was in a "natural" state. I wasn't on medication and hadn't started my long road down habitual drug use.

Anyone else have a similar experience while taking medication for depression? Anyone else feel like they made you crazy?

I guess that's it.

[eremy]

That's incredible to hear how you're doing better now. I can't say that I myself have gone through those experiences, but I did once date a girl who's been through similar things. She'd had issues with cutting/violence, ect. While I was with her I remember her complaining about how her medication (I don't remember what she was on) made her quite apethetic. Occasions where she should have felt sadness or anger, she was simply unable to have those feelings. She went off of her medication, with some troubles, but managed to stay off of it. I do still talk to her, and I think she is a much better person now then when she was on her meds. Just thought I'd share a little bit of what I've witnessed. I hope that you can continue to go in the direction you are going!

[lonestar_80]

It is good to see that you are better and you are at a place where you are at peace with yourself. I just hope and pray that you will come to a place where you can find an equal balance and deliverance from all that troubles you. In the name of the most high, I pray for you and I pray that you will find the peace and the happiness that your heart desires.

[nottoogreen]

Hi Eto,

 

I followed your story with interest since reading your thread about the suicide attempt which moved me very much. I am very interested in understanding depression and look for explanations and solutions which do not require long-term use of AD.

 

Congratulations on receiving your first check.

 

And grand congratulations on stopping AD.

 

I experimented with one of the earlier AD's in '94. I had just given up on my first love and wife of 9 years who was mentally ill after having been raped age 9. She could not have children and went manic and became a monk.

 

I was exposed a bit to psychiatry during these years with my wife by talking to her counsellors. I research medications before using them so I was aware of long-term side effects of my AD.

 

What is depression? Depression is a mental pain caused by an imbalance between expectations and ability. To make the pain go away, one has to improve ones ability (do better) and/or change ones expectations. In other words, to avoid depression, one ought to balance ability and expectations. Balance is it, as so often in life. From: Wicked

 

I had two main expectations at that time.

1. was about wanting a happy family with my wife
   
2. was my engineering consulting business.
   

Expectation 1) was unmeetable by her illness and expectation 2) was hard as hell to meet, however necessary for survival as well as quite enjoyable in a way by being able to travel a lot and work on interesting projects.

 

So, I took the happy pills and felt better after a month or so. I remember the feeling: "Life is not that bad, what were you worried about".

 

So far so good, next (being a little paranoid about medications), I looked for "bad changes" and sure enough after a few months, I could feel that my old feelings returned. Why? Because I had changed nothing, the brain was compensating the AD away!, it's logical. I stopped AD after about six months and have never taken AD again. Getting off AD was not that bad, I had new hope in form of a pregnant gf at the time who was to become my 2nd wife. I finally changed and balanced myself over the last 3 years after a business down turn forced me to.

 

Eto, please think about your experience, your brain made more and more pain regardless of AD use, it's just a question of time. As to "mounstrous" thoughts, the imbalanced brain will come up with ever weirder ideas to get attention and one counteracts ever extremer to keep happy/surpress the pain. There seems to be no limit.

 

Whenever the pain get's through SI and suicidal thoughts seem to be common. All of this is agravated by dropping performance and problems interacting with others.

 

One real concern is that AD enable us to be more imbalanced in the end and IMHO progress should be monitored independently to assure change takes place and to prevent extreme situations. Seriously, there should be therapist(s) and an independent specialist monitoring.

 

My answers/opinion in short.

1. Change involves balancing of expectations and ability
   
2. Change is the only *cure*
   
3. Lack of change can lead to extreme acts and to self destruction
   
4. AD should only be used under specialist supervision
   
5. AD can support treatment, again change is *cure*
   
6. Use of AD without change constitutes abuse
   
7. Abuse of AD can lead to more extreme acts and faster self destruction
   

It is understandable why people on AD still are doing SI and still are suicidal and after some years, some are all but untreatable and why it does not make sense to prescribe AD to people which are in situations where expectations are unmeetable. Some examples of unmeetable expectations

• Abuse - You can't fix your abuser and he won't stop, get out
  
• Alcoholic dad breaks family - You can't fix alcoholic dad, write him off, focus on your future
  
• Friend/partner addicted to * - You can't be a therapist, if he does seek therapy or does not get better, get out
  
• Loss of a loved one - The only solution: Get over it
  
• Parent left the family - Life goes on, your future matters
  

[Shadows Light]

EXCELLENT WRITE UP NOTOGREEN... AWESOME....

 

I've had bouts of depression through out my whole 18 year relationship w/ my "X"... back and forth to the couselors, on and off various drugs. When I'd get on medication... miracles would happen, I'd become NUMB to whatever it was that was triggering.

 

Counseling.... I didn't listen. I'd talk talk talk. And when I was offered advice... I did not listen. Why??? because I was not willing to face making those type of changes.

 

It took me a long time to come to the realization that my "X" wasn't really a nice guy. My "X" didn't love me, he loved me for what I could do for him, and as long as I performed... was the wife he, his family and friends expected me to be... I was great.

 

I would stay on the drugs for 6-9 months.. and then ween off. Sure as the sun rises in the morning... it would begin to build again and months would pass by and I was there again.. thinking about the ULTIMATE OUT.

 

Intrusive thoughts about.. suicide. They scared me. I honestly thought something was very very abnormally wrong with me.

 

In the end.... there was something wrong, I refused to "see" things the way they were. I refused to take that chance and change.

 

Throughout the years... I've tried everything to swing the marriage the other way. And thats just it.. when one person is working the "relationship" its not really a relationship is it???? It took a long long time for the light bulb to click. For me..it took seeing "X" start his verbal/emotinal/phsyical abuse with the kids. THAT DID IT. I filed for Divorce and got out. As painful as it was.. it had to be done. Almost like amputating a limb.

 

Since... I've been embracing "change" and I've been MED FREE. I still have my down times... during the down times, I try to stay active and keep things in perspective. It works.

[nottoogreen]

Hi Shadows Light, it's so nice of you to post your experience and thank you for your kind words!

 

Good for you to frequently ween off.

 

We all have our down times, but thankfully the downs get smaller and shorter.