To view original article click here
eNotAlone
Seventh Member
Dec 9, 2006
I wanted to ask if any of you out there had any personal experiences with antidepressants (either yourself or others) and how it affected your sexuality or behavior related to fidelity, cheating, lying, obsessive behavior and all that.
I have been in a long term realtionship which ended recently in a very sad and tragic way (for me).
My ex went on antidepressants almost ten years ago (started on Zoloft) due to a number of very serious problems related to depression and my loss of a job, her father’s dying of cancer, her brother’s suicide, and childhood sexual abuse (her brother’s suicide was precipitated, I believe, by the fact that both he and her were sexually abused from infancy for almost 7-8 years by an uncle who was never prosecuted – the parents did virtually nothing except keep them away from the uncle – her brother died at 21).
The impact of the antidepressants on our sex life was immediate and serious. She withdrew from the world, dropped out of college (with huge student loans, didn’t even finish her last sememster after borrowing many thousands for it) stayed in bed most of the time and did not even really attend to the kids who were little. After awhile when I would approach her at all for romance it was either total rejection or hostility (not something that had happened before. We would try to fool around whenever we had a chance, though due to her abuse history she had some issues with intimacy).
At one point she kind of snapped and was horrible to me. Blaming me for everything. She changed her meds ultimately to prozac but before that she cheated on me once (after almost twelve years together, and was romantically obsessional about a celebrity, writing him endless letters in a kind of erotomania (which obsession had existed to a less serious degree prior to the medication, but became more obsessive after the meds).
There is a LOT of information online from reliable sources about Prozac and other SSRI’s causing mania and obsessions or making them worse, contributing to behavior which damages relationships and caring about family and loved ones, sexual acting out, loss of inhibitions, etc.
There is also a lot online about these drugs causing total loss of libido, inability to orgasm, — which is what most people are familiar with.
My question for folks is have you or a loved one had depression, begun antidepressants and had them either totally screww up your relationship, your sex life, or in fact made you or your SO (or friend) engage in risky sexual behaviour, obsessional behavior, indiscriminate sex and promiscuity.
About two years ago she began obsessing about a celebrity whom we met and she flipped for – and she began writing him erotic letters and explicit things indicating that she felt they were meant to be together and “he was the one”. This went on for over a year before I figured out what was happening shortly after she indicated she wanted to leave me as she was “in love” with this man and wanted to be free to try and be with him (even though he had barely even responded to her except politely – she believed – or wanted to believe – he was sending her signals)
I recently discovered that the women I love (or loved), the mother of our two beautiful children, when this celebrity guy didn’t pan out or didn’t respond, put on her myspace that she is a “swinger”, bicurious, she blocked from her myspace (she had previously had it that she was “in a relationship” and ended up hooking up with a creep from an adult swap site who had been arrested for surreptitiously videotaping a woman he was having “relations” with and putting it on the internet (behind his wife’s back and that of another girlfriend who he’d also videotaped secretly doing it with him). She moved out shortly after hooking up with this creep and beginning a sexual relationship with him. I think he conned her by pretending to be a “couple” witha bicurous girlfriend and , from the emails she left on our computer when she left, it appears she never showed up when they hooked up.
Neddles to say I have been devastated by this. I worry for my kids and for her. I believe that the Prozac has seriously changed her and damaged her and made her engage in really risky behavior that is totally out of character for her.
There is plenty of good research online by reputable authorities that antidepressants cause manias and obsessions and that the loss of sexual inhibitions as well as the loss of romantic and realistic feelings for your loved ones can harm families and relationships.
But the media and pharmaceutical industry seems to be hiding the truth about these very common and serious and sometimes even deadly side-effects,
So I wondered if any of you had experiences that might help me understand. It seems that while the antidperessants helped her briefly to get through a serious time when she needed them, but the side effects seem to have made her much much worse. She is addicted to them (gets seriously ill and sucidal without them) but she believes she needs them. They “help her” get over her shyness and inhibitions now.
PLEASE comment if you have any experiences or know of any. This is such a serious issue today with so many on drugs like this, and the possibility that they are contributing to the destruction of families and relationships and lives is too important to deny or ignore. PLEASE comment – we all have stories.
Thanx.