Mental Health Update

Some of the side effects of medications are hard to detect.

As an aside, a personal observation: Although antidepressants probably saved my life, they also seem to kill my creativity. A few years back, I was in a really bad place, very depressed. First antidepressant prescribed for me was Pamelor, a tricyclic (essentially a serotonin substitute) — the kind where you have to get your blood tested every few weeks because only a certain ‘window’ of dosage will work for a given person. I got some good effect from it though, a mood lifting…but I wasn’t creative at all while on it. Nine months later, I stopped taking it at my shrink’s suggestion — and all of a sudden, I was writing like crazy. For nine months after, roughly, I was producing a new chapter every week or two. A few years later, I tried the serotonin reuptake blockers — Paxil (made me sleep 14 hours a day, so wasn’t exactly a good choice), then Wellbutrin. Once again, the antidepressant really helped (more effective than the Pamelor, actually), and I got a lot done. Made huge and positive changes in my life.

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