My Story
I've been in an extremely peculiar state for the past 8 months. I have literally lost everything inside of me and no longer have a sense of "inner being". My personality has been completely erased, along with the inner psyche I've spent a lifetime building. When I attempt to "look inside", it is impossible because there is literally nothing there. Everything that made up my specific sense of personal being is gone, including including my hopes, fears, dreams, goals, opinions, values, morals, likes/dislikes, and most strikingly, all emotions and feelings.I have no feelings associated with past events, and no emotional connections with anything in the world. Specific emotions that defined my personal sense of being are no longer there. People, places, things and events that I thought were etched in my soul as having significance no longer mean a thing. Absolutely nothing, I can't stress this enough.
I am unable to look backward or forward, have no sense of past accomplishments and no desire for future ones. The strangest thing is, I cannot feel anything toward being in this state, as that part of me is gone too. It's like a recursive erasure of everything I ever was, am, and will be.
It doesn't feel like life is a conscious experience that I am having anymore, as there is no inner construct within me to absorb an experience on any level. I see, hear, touch, and smell, yet each of these is so devoid of emotional content that they don't coalesce into anything meaningful I can call a human consciousness. My sense of being has been replaced by a constant void of nothingness that is unchanging, 24/7, I feel nothing towards the nothingness. It is not like feeling empty inside, there is no inside to feel empty within.
Getting to this state was a long process that started with gradually losing my emotions. This started when I decided to withdraw from the antidepressant Wellbutrin/Bupropion which I'd been on a high dosage of for 5 years. Strangely, going back on it did not help, but made things worse. When I stopped and started the drug a second time, I experienced one tremendous day of improvement followed by a seizure while sleeping, and woke up in a confused state. After this I regressed and felt completely dead inside.
This waking up in a confused state happened 2 more times, once in May 2010 and once in September 2010. Both of these were preceded by sudden improvements. But upon waking I felt like I had lost a basic part of my self. Not just feelings, but the core of my being. What I felt to be the complete and final destruction of my inner being happened on September 7th, 2010, and there hasn't been a change since (it has now been 8 months). Six months of the state I described above.
Obviously, antidepressants affect neurotransmitters. Maybe my neurotransmitters were severely imbalanced by the manner in which I withdrew, along the seizure(s) (there is only one I am sure of). What I don't understand is how a neurotransmitter imbalance could completely erase me as a human being. What I'm experiencing is not depression, anhedonia, or flat affect, but a permanent change in my consciousness that literally destroyed my humanity. All the parts that made up my being are literally gone. I don't understand how this is even possible, or what (if anything) I can do to change it.
If not neurotransmitters specifically, is there anything else physically affected in the brain that could lead to this state? I had a brain MRI in September of last year (without contrast), and that came back negative. I am unsure of what to do. Any suggestions or advice?
DeVoid
31-35, M
5 Responses
2
May 2, 2011
I abused antidepressants and they damaged me a great deal
There have been many people to have a problem with Wellbutrin /Bupropion. My suggestion is maybe talking to your doctor and voicing your concerns and asking if maybe he would consider trying something different, I have seen warnings on television about this medication, and took it for only a short period of time, I am glad I stopped it before I had any bad experiences with it.... Many anti-depressants can be helpful, but sometimes it's hard to find the right medication(s) and dosages that work for each individual. I have known people who have been through very long journeys of trial and error, before finding the proper medicine. Once the right one is found, the results are worth the journey because the person can start living their life again....I wish you luck, I don't know of any thing else that I can tell you that night be helpful...
my friend was like an odd zombie for the year he took them to try and re-alighn his brain from his chemistry experiments where he took a lot of home made exstacy. neither were helpful to him, but he was told it was all he could do to find some balance from another imperfect excess he'd confused those neurotrnsmitters by his 'mad scientist' years. when the year was up for the antidepressants. it took hin a few months of weaning and adjustment but he is fun again and paying attention to what matters to him' except extacy. Valium helped the seizures to stop.
I understand completely. I have been on antidepressants for 8 years and recently felt I was outgrowing them so I tapered off about 3 months ago. I started smoking mj to help with the feelings of depression. Smoking mj also gave me motivation to exercise and lose weight which really helped (mj makes most people lazy and tired depending on the strain. For me, having a depressed brain chemistry, it worked the opposite). I work out very hard and am losing weight. I feel great. I get depressed once or twice a day and go exercise or do something nice for myself. I have been looking for more information about this change of psyche, though, because I have noticed when I was on the meds (Prozac, then Prozac and Wellbutrin, then just Wellbutrin, then Wellbutrin and Zoloft) I felt numb and all my creativity and emotions felt erased. I am here to tell you this is a side effect of the meds. It is not you. Please remember that. Read more from Carl Jung about the la<x>yers of the psyche. Meds work on your outer la<x>yers. You are still there beneath those la<x>yers will your traumas and memories and feelings. It is the meds talking, not you. I am finally starting to see life with clarity again because I weaned myself off. It is hard but it is the best thing I ever did.
Antidepressants have changed me as well, many many times. I have a long and complicated history with these meds. One time my personality was drastically changed. I quit Remeron cold turkey (something I will NEVER do again), and I felt like I became a completely different person. I developed a sudden and severe fear of spiders, I couldn't even leave my house at night b/c I knew there were several above the door. When I was younger I actually used to play with them! I also went from having a very low sex drive to nearly being a sex addict. There were many more changes than that and it shocked me how a medication could make me someone else entirely! I have come to realize that the concept of self is exactly that, a concept. I believe that the self can be changed, but usually is not in such a dramatic fashion. But we're messing around inside our incredibly complex brains w/o really knowing what we're doing! I'm still on antidepressants, and at this point in my life I cannot live w/o them, but I often wonder how different things would be if I had never taken them in the first place. My suggestion is to go to seek counseling and/or keep trying different antidepressants. This may sound counter intuitive, but you and I, our brains are broken and our options for repairing them are limited. It may take a long time to find something that helps you, and it can be a very difficult road (believe me, I have and still am traveling it), but don't give up! Focus not on who you were, but who it is you want to be. I'm sure someday you will find your "self" again.