Do antidepressants cause brain damage?

I’m not sure. What I have noticed is my brain is a lot duller than it used to be and my memory is not as good. It is hard to say because stress does a fair amount of damage to the brain.

But I have found that I think a lot slower and retain very little information. I also struggle to concentrate and focus. I also find I get tired after something as simple as reading a book or writing some notes.

It is difficult for me to believe that I have a Masters in Economics from a top university. Of course this was before the days when I played Russian Roulette with the antidepressants. So that is what leads me to the link.

I still feel sadness that I took the antidepressant route and worry deep in my heart that they did some damage that is irreversible. For example my sleep has been messed up ever since going off Elavil, whereas before I took Elavil my sleep was ok-not a huge problem.

Anyway Im thinking the next line of attack could be “smart supplements” such as DMAE, Choline, PS, and Gingko.

Still depressed

Ive taken a variety of supplements….5-HTP, ginseng, fish oil, adrenal support, thyroid support, and many other supplements reputed to have some benefits for depression. But in truth Im just as depressed as Ive always been. Worse, my depression intensified on holiday as it always does. Perhaps it is because of the change in environment, or simply that I do not have as many distractions.

The problem is that there are so many products that claim to work for mild-to-moderate depression, but I have severe depression and any mild difference these supplements make goes unnoticed. What I really want is to feel a significant and sustained improvement in my mood. Ten percent isn’t enough. Fifty percent would be a bare minimum but my dream is to be completely free of depression so that I can enjoy life.

All I really know of is lifestyle improvements such as exercise, fish oil, healthy diet and while those may give me a modest mood lift Im not convinced they can on their own defeat depression.

Also lifestyle improvements are SO hard to maintain! Taking a pill once a day is so much easier.

I still want a magic bullet and I don’t think one exists and for that reason I despair of ever completely ridding myself of depression.

And that thought really really depresses me!

Reached a dead end

My urologist gave me a stupid speech earlier this week basically saying that he believed the pain I continue to feel in my testicles and urethra is just my imagination.

Then my integrative health doc told me that since my thyroid blood tests are now perfect and there is no change in my mood and energy, and I do not seem to tolerate the Armour that well, that he does not believe my thyroid is the problem. He said the only other route he could think of was intravenous vitamin C. Unfortunately this costs £3000 excluding considerable travel expenses and time off work.

His theory is that I have some sort of low-grade infection/virus which is making me tired and depressed. He suggested some tests but at £200 for the lot I’m not sure I can be bothered. But as a hypochondriac I do wonder whether he is right and I do have some sort of virus.

I figured seeing as I was no longer going to bother going to see him I could do some more self medication. I’d heard that olive leaf was a natural antiviral and antifungal agent while samento was meant to be good for lyme disease (which if you believe the stories 1/5 of the population has.

I have a crazy weekend of work and because as usual I leave everything till the last minute I had to take some coffee, couldn’t sleep and felt a mess all day.

There were some very attractive girls on the trains today. I admired but as usual I felt no lust at all. This is another thing that makes me despondent.

I’m so tired of running on empty. I cannot imagine what it must be like to wake up refreshed and full of energy and enthuiasm for life.

In Limbo

I’m very impatient. These last few years I kept hoping something would change so I could move forward with my life. But nothing did. I do see the mistakes I’ve made in the past and have learnt from these. But I still struggle to consistently take positive action without seeing instant results.

I’m so tired that I’m running on empty just to complete my work for the week and have little energy left for anything else. Yet when I’m doing nothing I get agitated and restless. I never seem able to truly relax and rest, which is what I really need.

I need to occupy myself somehow without wearing myself out, but I struggle with motivation and have lost interest in many of the hobbies I used to have and without a desire to do something it just seems like another chore and I find excuses not to do it.

So I just slide back to passive activities like watching TV or chatting online which give me some relief from thinking but aren’t really benefiting me in any way.But maybe until I start to feel some spontaneous motivation or energy, Ill have to continue living this way. But I really hope it won’t be for much longer.

Rules of attraction

Something Ive always noticed is that all the girls I seem to attract also have depression. I’m not sure whether this is just a reflection of the fact that many 20 something girls in London are depressed, or whether there it is a case of birds of a feather flock together/misery loves company or whatever other cliche you want to use.

I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand you are able to understand each other, and if you are depressed that can be a very nice thing. Perhaps you might also be able to work together to fight depression. Also I often find that depressed people are very sensitive and deep people-and that is a very attractive quality in a girl.

But there are disadvantages. In my experience depressed girls often find it hard to deal with relationships perhaps because they worry more about things not working out or are do not feel as though they deserve happiness. Without over-generalising on the whole women seem to take relationships much more seriously than men and find them a lot more stressful.  Some also use destructive addictions like drugs, cigarettes, alcohol or casual sex as coping mechanisms-which end up making them feel worse.

I’m not great in a relationship either. I cannot speak for other depressed men. I’m quite cold and distant. There is always a part of me which is somewhere else so I find it difficult to give girls my full attention. I’m also not good with intimacy and as im emotionally numb most of the time it takes a lot for me to feel anything for a girl.  When I do feel something I screw it up by acting needy and get addicted to that transitory high that I can still sometimes feel during the early stages of a relationship. Also as I have virtually no sex drive I leave girls feeling unwanted and try as I may to explain that it is just the depression and the drugs, on some level I think the girls feel rejected and unwanted. Viagra helps a lot on this front as does faking orgasms. Unfortunately Im possibly the worst actor in the world!

More generally if two negative people are in a relationship you can feed off each other and sink deeper and deeper.

I don’t really know if a relationship is good or bad for depression.

A loving relationship with someone who supports you, accepts you and makes you feel secure and encourages you to take positive action….well that would be ideal. But it is also very hard to find.

But many relationships are unstable, volatile and destructive and leave you feeling stressed, insecure and unhappy.

Others are just a bit empty. A bad habit of mine in the past has been sticking with a girl I wasn’t that keen on just because I felt the companionship was better than nothing and wanted a bit of affection and an ego boost. I feel bad because in a way I was using the other person and depression or no depression there is never any justification for taking advantage of others.

I used to drift from girl to girl like a leech. I don’t know what I was looking for. I had given up on love having been burnt badly by my first girlfriend. Perhaps I was trying to substitute hedonism for happiness…but it didn’t make me happy or give me any pleasure…I just felt empty.

So I’ve resolved to just enjoy being single and as I get more energy try to be more social. Not with the intention of meeting girls, but just trying to meet new people and if I feel a connection taking it further but if not just learning to enjoy the companies of others having isolated myself so long because of depression.

PSSD (Post SSRI sexual dysfunction)

Something that is not publicised a lot is that SSRI’s cause sexual dysfunction ranging from total loss of libido, anorgasmia or even impotence. I guess it is tricky because one’s sex drive is generally low anyway because of depression. But when I first went on Lexapro sex went out of the window: no desire, impotence and anorgasmia. When I got some tests done apparentely my prolactin had gone through the roof. It has come down now and I gave up Lexapro after around six months when I couldn’t bear the sexual side effects any longer. But since then I’ve had no sex drive to speak of and my sex life has been completely dependent on Viagra which makes it just mechanical, like a workout in the gym…rather than a sensual, pleasurable experience.

Im 24 years old! This should not have happened to me. I feel emasculated and while Viagra has at least given me some confidence it is not something I want to be reliant on for the rest of my life. Moreover without the chemistry of lust and desire, my relationships become glorified friendships. None of my relationships have been at all serious so it has not become a serious issue. But I worry that one day I will meet a girl I actually care about and won’t be able to satisfy her in the bedroom department.

Many girls have asked me if I’m gay or assume Im not interested. A few girlfriends have asked me that horrible question “Don’t you want me?” or “Don’t you find me attractive”. I try to explain, about the SSRIs, but on some level they still feel rejected.

There is even a support group for PSSD illustrating the prevalence of the problem. It is slightly ironic….antidepressants are supposed to treat depression but the sexual side-effects make many people even more depressed!

I don’t really get the mechanics. The theories ive heard of are

a) The antidepressants permanenently alter your brain chemistry and by raising serotonin and suppressing dopamine your sex drive is reduced

b) By flooding your body with serotonin, it affects some of the receptors and nerves responsible for sexual responses.

I don’t know. Im hoping with time it will get better, especially as the depression improves. I guess in a way there are advantages. Because Im not obsessed with sex like other guys my age, in relationships I look for someone who is good company. (Although strangely I still have a weakness for pretty women: nothing to do with desire because they don’t turn me on-I guess it is just an aesthetic appreciation of beauty. ).

I’ve also avoided unwanted pregnancies and for the most part STDs. I also don’t spend every night drinking in bars in the hope of “getting lucky”, so have been able to develop other interests.

But I hope that someday in the future Ill be free from depression, be fully sexually functional and be able to enjoy a great sex life with a girl I love.

Vulnerability

I think the biggest impact of getting sick/depressed has been the loss of that feeling of invincibility you have when you are young. You see it all the time in healthy guys in their early 20s. They are cocky and arrogant despite having no life experience and often very little success to back this up. They take chances and sometimes succeed in a big way.

I was never cocky or arrogant. But I did have a certain degree of self-belief. I knew I was smart and if I worked hard I could achieve many things. I think if I had not gotten depressed I could have had a very successful career. But now there is something holding me back. I know that I have a breaking point. When depressed even something as simple as getting out of bed and making breakfast seems like an impossible challenge. So it isn’t really surprising that deep down I do not really feel myself capable of being successful in my career or being a good boyfriend/husband/father. Even in the part time tutoring I do, I don’t feel that competent.

I sometimes tell myself: “Matthew, if you can overcome depression, then after that any challenge in life will seem trivial in comparison”. Sometimes this thought does give me motivation to keep trying to defeat my demons. But then I think to myself “You got depressed in the first place because you can’t handle stress. Just play it safe and avoid stress”.

Of course a life without stress is a very boring, unfulfilling life. I have a high IQ and great qualifications and even doing this teaching I feel bored because I’m not really using my brain or learning anything new. Of course I sometimes have new challenges such as teaching a higher level or a new subject. In a sense these are more rewarding but they also stress me out because I feel a huge pressure to be like the perfect teacher and new material to teach stresses me out.

I guess the only solution is to learn to control depression rather than letting it control you, so that you feel able to take on challenges and be able to cope with pressure and stress.

The situation I’ve always been scared of is being stuck in a stressful situation where I am spiralling into depression and there is no way out e.g. I’m in a stressful job and I need to pay the bills, support a family etc.

In all other situations in my life there has always been a way out. At university if I was stressed I could skip lectures. Exam stress was just about manageable because I knew it would be over soon. In my current job I only work three or four days spread over the week so there is plenty of time for rest and relaxation and often I can rearrange my schedule if Im feeling particularly depressed.

But working full time with a family to support/bills to pay 48 weeks a year is something that Im scared of hell about.

I like the flexibility of a teacher’s lifestyle and the long holidays. But my personality just isn’t suited to it and having to talk and “perform” for hours is stressful. I prefer just working on my own without having to deal with people.

So Im trying to find an alternative career but it is not easy and it stresses me out when I should be focused on getting better.

Bottomline the future is scary especially if you are depressed or have been depressed and worry about your ability to cope with life’s stresses and problems.

Anxiety

I’m surprisingly used to depression. OK it would be nice if I got more enjoyment out of life and had more motivation to do things. But depression is my own personal affair. In fact very few people are even aware Im depressed. They just think I am serious or unhappy and there is no stigma about that.

But anxiety is something that is very hard to hide and it really makes me feel bad about myself as a person. The way my face freezes and tenses up, the slight tremor, the tendency to talk too fast and make wild gesture, the constant feeling of tension inside of me and inability to ever feel relaxed, the racing thoughts and the butterflies in my stomach.

It is especially a problem in social situations and interviews.

I know I’m intelligent and have a lot to offer both socially and in the workplace. But this anxiety gets in the way of me relaxing and letting my light shine. I only really feel I can be myself with a few select people, and even the although the social anxiety isn’t present I still feel a degree of anxiety inside and am nervy to some degree.

I’ve noticed that while depression is usually interpreted by observers as seriousness, anxiety is usually perceived as insecurity, shyness or lack of confidence. All qualities that cause people to form negative opinions about you especially if you are a man.

I think ive been anxious longer than Ive been depressed. When I was a lot younger I cared what people thought about me and was worried about how I came across and scared of saying something stupid. I also hated being the centre of attention and wanted to just observe in the background. I remember around the age of thirteen I used to blush all the time. Strange…i haven’t blushed since my teenage years.

Come to think of it even as a child I was anxious. Perhaps it is a feature of being over-sensitive and having weak nerves so therefore unable to absorb external stressors and instead reacting by panicking.

All I know is that I need to conquer anxiety if I am ever to be truly free.

Rebound insomnia

Ive been taking melatonin the past few weeks. It worked in the sense that I fell asleep within an hour of taking it. But I felt sedated in the morning and ended up oversleeping (presumabely until its effects had worn off). After a couple of weeks I realised I wasn’t getting any work done so stopped taking it.

That night I did not sleep a wink. The same happened the following night. From my experience with prescription sleeping medication I recognised it was rebound insomnia. I was amazed! I only took melatonin because it was billed as being non-addictive. Guess I was wrong.

This threw me completely out of loop and faced by a day of work with my mind all over the place I fell back on coffee to focus me, which probably made it harder to sleep that night and the vicious cycle began.

It ended when I got sick yesterday. It is strange but the only time I ever sleep really well is when I have the flu or a cold.

But after those unpleasant few days of rebound insomnia I really do not want to take sleeping medications of any kind, prescription or natural.

Sleep has been an issue for me ever since I first got depressed around eight years ago. Even then I remember being able to get up every morning for school and concentrate. Somewhere along the line, probably since university i got stuck in this stupid 3am-11am sleep cycle which really does not fit in with working life.

Moreover this sleep really isn’t refreshing. I cannot remember a day when I have woken up feeling refreshed and full of energy.

Probably there is a connection between my weird sleep patterns and the poor quality of my sleep. I just do not know how to break the cycle. If I force myself to wake up early I cannot function during the day and feel depressed and anxious all through the day.

Exercise is supposed to help but so far I have shown very little discipline when it comes to maintaining an exercise program.

Also reducing caffeine as I know im sensitive to its effects. But one of my greatest pleasures is a good cup of tea or a warm latte or a fizzy drink.

But if I do manage to stick to an exercise programme and lay off the caffeine I think my body will find a natural rhythm again sleeping when it is supposed to. We’ll see

My supplement protocol

I have a bad habit of spending money on health supplements in a haphazard fashion. Part of it is impatience. I want to be well as soon as possible so assume more is better. I also want a full recovery so have different supplements for each health concern. I also get all enthusiastic about a new supplement and am in a rush to try it thinking it will be the missing piece.

I like to think that somewhere out there are miracle cures. Conventional western medicine just seems to reduce symptoms, managing health conditions creating a dependency for extended periods on medication with the associated side-effects.I want to believe that if I find the right supplement or combination of supplements I will one day be healthy and happy.

Right now it is out of control. I’m trying to cut back and eventually I want to reduce to the following:

1. Essential fatty acid supplement providing EPA and GLA

2. Multivitamin providing added Bs

3. Calcium+Magnesium+Vit D multimineral

4. Adaptogen taken on/off schedule and rotating according to what my body needs

5. Something for my mood

6. A male sexual performance enhancer to give me a little extra in that department

Ideally no more than £100 a month on a long-term basis.

This year because I feel I need a kick-start Im thinking of adding some extras. Namely:

1. Added folate and B12 because of the strong links to deficiency state in depression

2. Probiotic as I was on antibiotics for quite a while in 2008

3. Milk thistle as ive subjected my liver to a helluva lot of abuse with all the prescription medications over the years

4. D-Ribose for energy/chronic fatigue

5. Adrenal glandulars