There is NO WAY I am allowing these as an excuse or reason for their behaviour, just wondering.
to start the ball rolling, my husband has been diagnosed with Cyclothemia, which is similar to Bi-Polar but not such extremes of behaviour, depression to highs, but cycling between the 2 at a faster rate, even hour to hour. My husbands depressions(moody, argumentative etc) were the strongest, with his highs only appearing as 'being in a good and productive mood'
It went like this:
"You use Effexor too? Omg! I think I love you. It must be fate - we were meant to be together!"
Later, they both used the depression as an excuse for their unacceptable behavior.
Being around those assholes made me depressed.
What you might see if your friend or family member has a severe adverse reaction when trying to stop taking SSRI/SNRI antidepressants…
1.Your loved one begins to feel sick. Physical symptoms such as flu-like aches, dizziness, nightmares, heart palpitations, headaches, brain zaps, etc. appear. Depending on the half-life of the specific drug, this can occur even within a day or two.
2.He/she might express shame and embarrassment or anger for having ever taken the drug. They might talk about feeling like “a druggie.”
3.Anxiety and confusion set in along with an inability to focus. Your loved one starts to act and look a little lost or muddled. They might worry that they’re “crazy.” They worry they’re going to hurt you by making you “go through this” with them. You can see an inability to connect thought patterns or thoughts with emotions as the abstract thinking process is compromised.
4.Their dreams become more vivid and often disturbing if they’re able to sleep at all. Insomnia can get brutal at this point.
5.Aggression, irritability, homicidal and suicidal thoughts and actions can pop out of nowhere – and you’ll be stunned. Personality and attitude changes become very apparent to you because you’ve been close with this person, but co-workers or casual friends might not see anything wrong.
6.Gaps in memory begin – very often memories that were formed while taking the SSRI or during withdrawal are the ones that seem to go. You might bring up the movie you saw with this person the day before and be told you've gone out of your mind! Emotions reappear in sudden, intense bursts and rollercoaster the person between uncontrollable crying fits and anger. You might seem them sob for hours then turn and want to rip someone’s head off. Preferably whoever prescribed the SSRI in the first place. ;-) 7.Your loved one suddenly feels the need to make big decisions, life-altering changes, keep moving - this symptom is called akathisia. The “fight or flight” mechanism has completely malfunctioned.
8.The person feels depersonalized and disconnected from him/herself or reality. You might hear he/she "feels nothing" as emotional responses are flattened. They might say they feel like they’re “floating outside” their heads. They usually still have an awareness of something wrong at this point. 9.Your loved one might eliminate input from those nearest (including you), often stressing independence and competency to an unreasonable, paranoid level. He or she now appears selfish and arrogant a lot of the time.
10.Manic and psychotic episodes can come and go at random intervals, triggered in part due to severe insomnia. Perceptions of people, timeframes and events can become skewed and completely inaccurate. 11.The person’s connection to the consequences of his or her own actions is severed. Conscience and compassion disappear. That awareness of "something wrong" may disappear, too.
12.The person vilifies and pushes away the people they care for the most, almost always including a spouse or significant other first. The person in withdrawal might start to believe they never loved their partner, shifts blame to them for events that may or may not have happened, or fails to recall positive, defining events in the relationship. Duration or quality of the relationship seems to have little bearing on this response. 13.Autistic responses kick in, meaning physical contact and affection become repugnant.
14.Your formerly calm loved one can display unusual impulsive behaviors such as promiscuity, impulsive spending, drinking – even if they never did these things before. The five senses shift into overdrive. 15.The "going back in time" phenomenon appears. The person reverts to anything "ex," grasping mentally and emotionally to people or things they were attached to prior to their first dose of the antidepressant.
16.Waves of rebound depression, anxiety, etc. hit. If a health care provider is unaware that withdrawal symptoms mimic bi-polar disorder and other mental illnesses, a new diagnosis can result in further medication, trapping the person in an endless cycle of psychotropic drugs.
17.Physical symptoms subside gradually. The person often doesn’t have a full awareness, sometimes for months or even years at this point, that many of their behaviors and decisions are a continued result of withdrawal. They believe their thoughts, memories, feelings and actions are absolutely correct, and no one can tell them otherwise.
18.People begin to experience "good days" or "good weeks" only to have a bad episode hit weeks later out of the blue. Sudden downswings in emotions have been repeatedly noted at the six- and nine-month marks following the last dose. This, too, shall pass.
19.At 1-3 years out, folks are reporting sudden intense neurological twitches and muscles spasms. Very scary, but they seem to self-correct.
20.Final Note: Every brain is chemically individual. The severity, order of symptoms and duration of withdrawal vary from person to person. Some experience a handful of symptoms. Others experience every symptom imaginable. Others experience very few or almost none. Cold turkey or abrupt withdrawal drastically increases these symptoms.
[This message edited by naivewife at 1:28 PM, March 6th (Thursday)]
His two sexual encounters with OW (4 years apart)both occurred when she and other "friends" of his convinced him that if he didn't take his meds, he'd be able to drink with them and have "fun". The downside, of course, is that self-medicating with alcohol made his ADHD and depression worse.
Hello, stupid decisions!
I don't see his condition as an excuse for the A either, and neither does he; he knew he needed his meds, but it does mean that recovery, for us has to be handled slightly differently, because the way he processes information and feelings is very different to others.
I sometimes find it hard to remember that whilst I am hurting, he's also going through his own type of hell, getting his medication levels right so that he can feel "normal" again.
(((hugs))) and best of luck to you, Gemstone
AON
Cyclothymia Personality disorder with 90% narcissistic traits 90% obsessive compulsive traits Ptsd Sexual compulsive behaviour
Former 80s Icon wishful thinking
That's all interesting. I think I will do some googling.
Together 17 years Two great kids.
He doesn't get it. Moving us to his hometown with his toxic mother is going to
The eight most feared words used together in the English language: We need to talk. Th
Naivewife, - i hope you don't mind that i have copied your comments, they are extremely helpful and I would like to show them to my husband, who doesn't use this site. So many of the points you have raised fit exactly what he was like before the diagnosis and before he was on meds especially points 5, 11, 12 (and 14 although this is what led to the affair so I didn't see it at the time)
His doctor has said it may take time to get the meds right and at the moment he is trying to reduce slightly as they were making him too tired and with no 'go in him' at all which is making running our business etc a bit difficult. I will watch out for any of these symptons appearing and will read as you have suggested. Thank you, while I am still not at a place to let him use this illness as a total exscuse, it has given me food for thought to maybe be a litte more understanding
I do think that the personality disorder fed the entitlement, and the mood disorder fed the jonesing for ...anything that felt good. Unfortunately, part of the "high" (which was pretty damn low, in reality) was trashing me---that was part of the sport of infidelity for him.
These are not excuses. It's just who he is. People say, "It's not really him, it's the illness," but in the case of personality disorder, that's not really true. It IS him. It's his character.
Unfortunately, what is also part of his character is wearing a Nice Guy costume and lying; I had no idea who he was until after d-day. I was left living with a complete stranger who I didn't like at all. Now, I can spend a few minutes with him---even a graduation dinner or something---and be all right. But it's never far from my mind that this guy is a cipher. I have no idea who he is, other than a man who is capable of portraying himself in a variety of ways, in a variety of (often sordid) situation, and convincing those around him that he belongs.
It's quite bizarre.
As for the SSRI/SNRI excuse, it doesn't fly for me. When therapeutic level is reached, the brain produces neurotransmitters at a level consistent with "normal" brain function. For some, this means that depression is not experienced. For others, it means that it is ameliorated to a more tolerable level.
The changes in neurotransmitters that occur during withdrawal from SSRIs/SNRIs are in NO way illustrative of anything that occurs, in the brain, when therapeutic levels are achieved.
If you want to argue that someone in the midst of SSRI/SNRI withdrawal is not him/herself, I will wholeheartedly agree. I would also argue that someone in the throes of untreated depression or mania is not him/herself---and a person who is experiencing severe pain, or has unusually high blood glucose and needs insulin, or has just had surgery is not him/herself. But a person whose depression has been successfully treated with therapeutic levels of an antidepressant? THAT is when s/he IS him/herself. THAT is what helps him/her ACHIEVE the state of mind that is NOT altered by illness.
Just my 0.02.
[This message edited by solus sto at 7:38 AM, March 7th (Friday)]
He's never used depression as an excuse but thinks it's a factor in why he did what he did. It makes sense, as an affair is often about getting that boost because they don't feel great about themselves.
