I think my antidepressants have caused me to have a manic episode.Is this possible?
About 5 months ago I was prescribed citalopram for anxiety and mild depression. After a few weeks, my anxiety lessened and my confidence grew. I couldn’t believe how well they worked and I’d never been so happy in my life. This confidence and happiness has kept growing, to the point where I’m totally different around people, charming and chatty when before I was shy. Over the past 2 months I started getting quite fidgety and never wanting to stay in the house. I’ve been out drinking very heavily a lot, to the point where I’ll take days off work for being hungover.
I started flirting a lot, and cheated on my boyfriend, despite the fact I would never ever ever have considered this before in my life and I adore my boyfriend. Intellectually, I knew it was bizarre and wrong, but I just didn’t care and had no emotions about it. I also managed to spend my entire month’s pay cheque in 2 1/2 weeks on going out drinking and buying drinks for friends. I’m meant to be saving, and previously had been good with my money.
Last night, needing to feel fun, I took herbal ecstasy to see what it was like. By myself. It had a profound effect on me and I was suddenly confronted with feelings about my recent behaviour and realised something was very wrong.
I googled some of my behavioural changes and ‘mania’ came up. Could that have been started by the citalopram? What should I do? Or have I just changed into a bad person?
The anti depressants definately could have caused this, this happened to me. I was finally diagnosed with rapid cycle bipolar disorder. And no you did just suddenly turn into a bad person, the meds have messed you up. Get back to the Doctor Immediately !!!!! I can not stress this enough.
If you have bipolar disorder and it really does sound like it, then anti-depressants by themselves can trigger mania or worse mixed episodes with very rapid cycling - which is what ended up happening to me - energetic, agitated and depressed as hell, up and down like a yo-yo changing every few minutes at it’s worst - very dangerous situation to be in. (see Kurt Kobain !)
I started feeling good the same day I took the meds - the psychiatrist said that was impossible, just placebo effect. As time wore on I just got worse and worse. I was not wrong and studies have proved this to be exactly what can happen if you have the "wrong brain chemistry" for these drugs.
Please please get straight back to the doctor, you either need to get off the anti depressants or need a mood stabilizer in addition. They gave me Depakote / Epival (uk) name. That worked quite well to get me stable again. I beleive you may need this now to counter the imbalance you now have. DO NOT WAIT to get this sorted out before you destroy the life you have worked so hard for.
I don’t take anything now, 10 years after the anti-depressant mess - with pyschiatric approval, to the point where they think I was possibly mis-diagnosed. They didn’t come all out and say the serious deterioation of my "bipolar" symptoms were a direct cause of the anti-depressants, but given that I am ok now .. and have been for over 5 years with healthy eating and lifestyle - I think that speaks for itself.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
I have been under medication for several years but recently stopped taking them due to a trauma i just suffered (a divorce: i was labelled mentally ill). I realized most of my anger was controlled at the start of medication but just as years past by, those feelings of guilt started to come up like a plank of wood that was burried deep into the sea tied to a heavy object. Thats what the medication does atleast in my case, it buried my feelings n emotions at that time when i had to get things done in my life. It could be the medicine you are taking, those pills in my case really dug up my dirty past. The things you don’t even want to remember they just come to you in a flash back sequence leading you to hold your head in both your hands.
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October 6th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
The anti depressants definately could have caused this, this happened to me. I was finally diagnosed with rapid cycle bipolar disorder. And no you did just suddenly turn into a bad person, the meds have messed you up. Get back to the Doctor Immediately !!!!! I can not stress this enough.
If you have bipolar disorder and it really does sound like it, then anti-depressants by themselves can trigger mania or worse mixed episodes with very rapid cycling - which is what ended up happening to me - energetic, agitated and depressed as hell, up and down like a yo-yo changing every few minutes at it’s worst - very dangerous situation to be in. (see Kurt Kobain !)
I started feeling good the same day I took the meds - the psychiatrist said that was impossible, just placebo effect. As time wore on I just got worse and worse. I was not wrong and studies have proved this to be exactly what can happen if you have the "wrong brain chemistry" for these drugs.
Please please get straight back to the doctor, you either need to get off the anti depressants or need a mood stabilizer in addition. They gave me Depakote / Epival (uk) name. That worked quite well to get me stable again. I beleive you may need this now to counter the imbalance you now have. DO NOT WAIT to get this sorted out before you destroy the life you have worked so hard for.
I don’t take anything now, 10 years after the anti-depressant mess - with pyschiatric approval, to the point where they think I was possibly mis-diagnosed. They didn’t come all out and say the serious deterioation of my "bipolar" symptoms were a direct cause of the anti-depressants, but given that I am ok now .. and have been for over 5 years with healthy eating and lifestyle - I think that speaks for itself.
References :
http://www.bri.ucla.edu/bri_weekly/news_070329.asp
October 6th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Yes it is very possible. You need to report these symptoms to your doctor.
References :
October 6th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Yes. Even if you have never had a manic episode before. And the bad part is that even if you go off the antidepressant and it has gone away, you can re-experience it again. Once the brain has learned how to achieve the manic state it knows how to repeat it.
I take my antidepressants during the depressed part, but if I start going "hyper" I start slowly coming off of them. It has to be slow. They are addictive and can cause very unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.
Hope this helps.
References :
Alice Baby is right. A mood stabilizer is necessary. There are a few. Personally I love Depakote. It works great.
October 6th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Antidepressants can definetly cause mania. I was on an ssri also and went into mania. I was put onto a mood-stabilizer which helped about 50%. I did some research online and found that ssri’s can cause mania. I got off the ssri and the manic episode began to fade. I didnt need a mood-stabilizer but what I did need was to get off my antidepressant. Sometimes I wonder how many people diagnosed as bipolar ae actually not and had manic episodes that were solely the responsibilty of the ssri’s.
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