Posted by Gertrude on April 3, 2000, at 0:54:06
[REPOSTED because seems not to have gotten on the first time. Perhaps because I gave no email address? Apologies if this winds up being posted twice]
I am bursting with this information and this seems to be the right place to post it. I had never heard it before even though I've spent the past 6 years (since I started SSRI's) reading everything about depression, antidepressants, herbs, cognitive enhancers, "Smart Drugs" (nootropics)...
Here it is: my new psychiatrist just told me (I'm simplifying here) "SSRI's make you happy but dumb, Wellbutrin can make you more anxious but smart". All the time I was on Luvox and Effexor I was beating myself up about not being smart enough (I tested at 170 IQ in high school), not giving my (Silicon Valley) employer their money's worth, and I tried every health food supplement that offered "cognitive improvement". I even spent a few months charting what I ate, pills I took, and even the barometric pressure against my feelings of cognitive impairment.
It amazes me that I never noticed that the feelings of inadequacy started about when I started the SSRI's, and they let up significantly within a few months of switching to Wellbutrin. Since I started the SSRI's about when I moved to Silicon Valley and started my "career", and switched to Wellbutrin about the time I switched to my current job, I had always thought that the feelings of inadequacy were caused by what was going on at my last 2 jobs and my feelings of competence were caused by my current job.
I'm writing this primarily to share the information with others who might be affected similarly, not to go on about my history. But I do want to mention that on Effexor I had the "sleeping all the time" effect reported by Renee N., although again all my obsessive self-observation somehow managed to miss the correlation.
poster:Gertrude
thread:28729
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000401/msgs/28729.html