Posted by Celia on December 26, 1998, at 15:36:08
Partly at my urging, because I had a good response to Serzone, my sister saw a doctor who prescribed Paxil for her. Unlike my gradual and undramatic improvement on Serzone, she had a classic "Listening to Prozac" response--waking up one morning feeling transformed. But that feeling has led her down some odd roads. She began a new hobby, which soon became a consuming passion, so that she was going out three or more nights a week to pursue it (leaving husband and 3 kids at home). That led to an affair, she and her husband have separated, and the kids are suffering. I don't mean this as a "Paxil made her crazy" story. She doesn't seem to be manic, she hasn't done anything dangerous or totally out of character. There were problems in her marriage pre-Paxil, and it's not exactly unheard of to have an affair! But from my vantage point, she does seem driven or sensation-seeking in prolonging the husband vs. lover conflict, and oddly unconcerned about the havoc being wreaked in her life and others', including the kids'. As she puts it, "I know I've made my life a shambles, but somehow that's OK with me." We're tempermentally different, but close and share support and advice. I'm worried about her, but I just don't know whether what I'm seeing is a subtle, but damaging "shaping" of her personality by the Paxil, or just a way of working out her destiny that is hard for me to comprehend.
Has anyone experienced anything similar on Paxil or other anti-depressants? If you've tried more than one, did you find that they emphasized or de-emphasized different aspects of your thought or emotion in different ways? Thanks for any insight you can give me!
poster:Celia
thread:1751
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19981201/msgs/1751.html