Comment by mvcosta91 3 days ago
“God, I see what you’re doing for others, and I want that for me.”
I had a very similar experience, except it killed my libido, so I chose to endure the suffering of Winter rather than live with emotional numbness.
Still, I strongly recommend it for people flirting with the abyss. It was life-changing for me while I was raising an autistic 2yo during the pandemic.
I have switched to lamotrigin, it helps to balance mood as I had bad mood in months with less sunshine. Lamotrigin is not an antidepressant, previously it was used for epilepsy stabilisation but now it is prescribed for mood swings. (This is not a medical advice.)
Speaking from personal experience, people react to different SSRIs differently. I took a popular one that had significant side effects without a whole lot of benefit, and so I stopped it and didn't try anything else for 10 years. Then I spoke to a psychiatric nurse practitioner who suggested trying several others until we found something that worked for me. I had (incorrectly) assumed that if you had e.g. sexual side effects from one SSRI, that you'd have them for all. That is not the case.
I have no experience about antidepressants myself so please excuse my stupid question.
When I hear people say "it killed my libido" I always think about the fact that hyper-sexuality can be a trauma response, and if your body is healing the hyper-sexuality is most likely also reduced.
It's like when you have a disease and then read the side effects of a medication and notice that a lot of the side effects are basically also something that can happen when your overall condition is improving but still some people report them as adverse effects and then these are added as side effects to the package label.
For example you take antibiotics but bacteria can have toxins in their body, and when the bacteria disintegrate you get more sick from the released toxins. It's called the Herxheimer effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarisch%E2%80%93Herxheimer_rea...
When I started methyl-B12 supplementation I also had inflammation in sinuses for weeks but it was just from my immune system starting up again and being able to attack long-standing inflammation. Someone else would've put "fever", "headache" and "stuffed nose" onto the side effects medication label of methyl-B12.
Stupid question - why do you keep suggesting that having a libido equals hypersexuality?
Is this your trauma speaking, or do you automatically associate any sexual needs with a pathology?
You've done it twice in this thread alone.
I didn't read their comment as insinuating libido is 1:1 to hyper-sexuality. I read it as: "consider if you have a libido, and depression, you may also be hyper sexually."
The situation is PersonA has determined they need an anti-depressant. So one thing is 'wrong.' It stands to reason that they may be using sex as a painkilling mechanism. After all, sex feels great. When the anti-depressant kicks in, the body may determine it doesn't have to use that painkilling method anymore, hence, the decreased libido. It doesn't mean having a libido is bad, it means that the person potentially was overdriving it.
>When I hear people say "it killed my libido" I always think about the fact that hyper-sexuality can be a trauma response, and if your body is healing the hyper-sexuality is most likely also reduced.
That ... feels like an edge case, for a very narrow set of circumstances (history + one of several possible responses to that history).
Anti-depressants seem to have a clear effect on dopamine pathways that better explain what's going on here. I have been on several that have this effect very visibly (at least Cymbalta): whenever I'm close to climax (whether from sex or masturbation) there is a mental block against pushing through to that release.
Fortunately, there are many that avoid this effect now, notably Zoloft, Trintellix, and Wellbutrin.
Edit: Okay what the heck just happened? This comment went dead (flagkilled?), despite being good faith and productive, as best I can tell. I would really appreciate feedback on what I did wrong, from anyone who can still see it. I did it on a semi-throwaway account for (what should be) obvious reasons.
I spent $300 on high lumen output light bulbs. 28 200W equivalent LED bulbs and 2 LED corn bulbs. Just a TON of light. Depending on severity either run it all day (late January and February tend to be the worst months), but even 10 minutes in the morning helps substantially. Just a lot of light. You can get hung up on high CRI and full spectrum but just do it badly first, then if it works worry about perfecting the setup. I just kept buying more bulbs and as I bought, I felt better and better.
Edit: this was the blog that gave me the idea, it comes up on hacker news a lot. https://www.benkuhn.net/lux/
Libido can be supplemented with Wellbutrin. Works great, even better than before.
i'm sorry this happened to you, this was of the reasons i held off trying them for so long. ubiquitous indeed, also on this front I got lucky...
please people, take my post for what it is: anecdotal evidence. SSRIs can basically give you any possible side effect, including destroying your libido.
> I had a very similar experience, except it killed my libido
Did you, as well as the other people seconding this, have any libido left in the first place? I got on Sertraline because I was depressed, and it actually brought my libido back, by virtue of just bringing me back to a better emotional baseline.
All to say, if it had affected my libido, it'd have been a NOOP anyway in my case.