purtell@reed.UUCP (Lady Godiva) (10/17/85)
In article <973@vax2.fluke.UUCP> entropy@fluke.UUCP (Terrence J. Mason) writes: > >My friend had a troubled upbringing which spawned a troubled adulthood. ... >I found out that the most recent counselor >had strongly recommended lithium as a means of controlling the depression that >my friend was experiencing, advice that was soundly rejected. > >I felt (or hoped) that the lithium (lithium carbonate) might just be of some >help and proceeded to argue, fight, cry, threaten and comfort my friend over a >period of several days until an agreement to try the program 'for my sake' was >reached. > >The difference was almost immediate and striking! By my friend's account, >clear thought became more possible and a sense of a connection to reality, >long since forgotten from early childhood, began to grow. First of all, I'm glad for Terry's friend. But, the main reason for this posting is to talk about how drugs alter moods. I don't mean drugs like heroin, but perscription drugs, given to you by doctors. I have a mild form of epilepsy (or something very similar.) I finally went to a neurologist to do something about it. First he put me on dilantin which caused me to break out in a painless, but very noticeable, rash. So then we switched to phenabarbatol (sp?) This seemed to work fine. Then something a little strange started happening. I slowly began to get more and more depressed. It started out as just your basic blahs, and I blamed it on school. Then it progressed to the point where I didn't want to do anything. I had absolutely no motivation at all. This didn't do much for my school work. This was about the time I started to wonder what was wrong, because I'm normally a very happy person, and although I'm not always thrilled about studying, I usually rather enjoyed it more than this. After about a month I started feeling suicidal. This really frightened me because I have never felt suicidal before in my life. And I had no real reason to feel suicidal. In fact, my life was going better than normal. There were times when I would just lay on my bed and not let myself go into the bathroom, or near any pills at all. It was a very odd feeling because although intellectually I knew that I really didn't want to die, emotionally I really wanted to. Fortunately my intellect won out. Anyway, I'm off that drug now, and on another. And I'm feeling much better. But when I saw the posting about drugs altering the mood of people who are depressed or suicidal, I thought that I would post something talking about the reverse. Has anyone else had similar experiences? cheers - elizabeth g. purtell (Lady Godiva)