Or is that just me?
I mean, in addition to the brain zaps, irregular momentary jolts of intense vertigo (feels kind of like my brain is running on gears and every so often the teeth slip and the world snaps to one side, like dizziness except instead of the world swimming, it shifts quickly and suddenly like the second hand on a watch), I also experience periods of intense emotional numbness, sometimes accompanied by intense aggression. This makes me sometimes find the suffering of other people amusing, though, being a highly logical person, I try to avoid causing other people undue stress, but I acknowledge that I can be incredibly manipulative.
Even when I am medicated, I can’t think of a time when I have felt guilt or remorse (I do feel regret sometimes, though), but I know that I am capable of empathy. But when the withdrawal gets really bad, like it is right now, I feel no emotion at all, except perhaps tension that makes me want to destroy something or punch something. The other night my girlfriend was really upset about my apparent personality change (which is ironic really, because she is a practising pharmacist), so I made some effort to comfort her, but only because that’s what my head tells me I should logically do and I had to fake the emotional connection. Her suffering meant nothing to me, and still doesn’t. I think perhaps when I start on the new meds, I may start caring about things (and people) again. I told her that she was lucky really, that I’ll probably be like this for the week or so in between meds, because there are some people out there who live their whole life like this, for instance Ted Bundy.
“Who’s Ted Bundy?” she asked.
“He’s a famous American… uh… basketballer” I said.
Has anyone else experienced this kind of thing during SNRI withdrawal? I imagine everyone experiences withdrawal a bit differently, but is this unusual?
5 comments
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not deliberately a bad person. I do actually want to impress people with how special I can make them feel, but you can’t deny the enormous role empathy plays in conscientious social interaction. Don’t be fooled by the illusion of altruism; even the most altruistic person gains personal benefit from their deeds by way of empathy. You make someone else happy, therefore you are happy.
Take away any person’s ability to do that, and any psychologist could tell you how selfless people really are when they have no emotional gain from being nice to other people.
about two weeks ago my meds got cut back a bit, lately I have been so crazy in my head that I dont even know what I’m feeling, what I’m thinking…
“I mean, in addition to the brain zaps, irregular momentary jolts of intense vertigo (feels kind of like my brain is running on gears and every so often the teeth slip and the world snaps to one side, like dizziness except instead of the world swimming, it shifts quickly and suddenly like the second hand on a watch)”
This… is the closest way I could come to explaining how I feel… plus the anger and numbness too, a bit.
The intense vertigo has been a killer… just walking around and it hits me. Feels like I am going to pass out for a secondand feel so strange and weak, JUST like a gear slipping off.. Its like you can feel your brain fucking you up. I hate it, but that you for helping me define how I feel, and knowing someone else is feeling it makes me a little more relaxed and not freaking out about the side effects. I hope it doesnt last long, love.
Engie, that’s a interesting statement.
I just come up with the thought that all humans are evil, perverted, sick, slow, negative, brainless or egoistic until proven otherwise and if not I can likely turn them into that on 2 seconds. People have started to become something to resent and avoid. It sucks because I want to find someone on Earth which I like.
Thanks. I feel good knowing I’m also not alone.
Well, it really depends on how high you set your bar for liking someone. Don’t forget that humans are basically machines, and like any other machine, they are going to make reasonably predictable responses to a given set of inputs. If you can follow those inputs, then their responses are simply logical.
I don’t believe that people are basically good, and I don’t believe they are bad either. If you could see the world from the perspective of another person, follow their thoughts, their emotions, you could understand every choice they make as well as you understand your own.
That said, I agree, to some degree that the mere concept of friendship is like a poorly conceived joke. I find it nearly impossible to trust other people and the fickle nature of friendship is always in the forefront of my mind. Earlier this year, the only friend I really trusted started making up rumours about me trying to murder her and her boyfriend, which resulted in me getting death threats from people I never met. Obviously, people who knew me weren’t quite so willing to jump to the conclusion that it was all true. Had she told me she had a problem with me, I would quite happily have stopped talking to her. Of course, I’m sure that in spite of everything she’s done, she sees herself as the victim in all this. I knew her well enough to realise that much. I knew she could be like this before she did it to me. Yet, I am still good friends with her sister. Ironic, really.
If you’re trying to find a perfect friend, don’t bother looking. There is no such thing. At best, friendship is as fickle as romance between black widow spiders. It’s rare for any kind of relationship to last forever. Just enjoy the joke while it lasts.