I have been struggling with this question a lot. I had so many talents in high school. I was top student in nearly every subject for my year. I won contests in writing (editorial, persuasive, fiction, descriptive), science, mental math, even first place in a state championship (for small schools) in physics. I was a very good artist. I didn't even know it until I took art class as my fine arts subject to graduate high school. It was a small school, so the fine arts choices were band, drama, home ec (I did NOT want to sew), and art. People told me the art teacher realized not everyone had great artistic talent, but as long as you signed your work when possible meaning you were not ashamed of your work (couldn't do it on every project: silk-screening a T-shirt for example, without it looking weird) and behaved, she would give you a good grade. Well, little did I know I could draw from pictures, size them up or down (using squares, measuring them all of course to get the proportions right). I was never that great at painting or using colors, but I did awesome art in pencil, a really good pencil drawing on perspective, charcoal, silverpoint, even using fingerprints dipped in black ink to create a picture. The fingerprint work won me a grand champion ribbon at the annual school fair (the biggest thing that went on in that town) and an additional ribbon as overall grand champion in the high school (grand champion over the other high school grand champions like science, English, history, etc.). My silverpoint work got displayed and earned me an Artist of the Month recognition award. And I'd always thought I sucked at art before taking that class. Afterwards, I loved to draw portraits (faces) in pencil & charcoal. Found some of my old drawings the other day and thought, "Wow. I was great at that.". I was a very good writer, wrote short fiction stories all the time for fun, just a notebook and pen. I didn't have a photographic memory, but it was nearly so. I'd take a test, read a question, and think, "Oh yes, the answer is under that picture of a building in the chapter on X." That made history and biochemistry memorization very easy for me. Even in the throes of anorexia in college, I still got straight A's & one B from Texas A&M University (the largest university in the state of Texas, a bit ahead of the University of Texas in Austin, which despite the rivalries between the 2 schools is also a very good school to attend). Texas A&M focused more on the sciences, especially agriculture & pre-vet school, medical students as well, while UT is a bit more liberal, so while future doctors & vets do go there, they tend to have a better fine arts program.

Now, all that creativity is just gone. What happened to it? I think even if I got off the meds (tapering everything in a doctor-approved manner), taking no meds, those talents and creativity would still be lost and gone. I feel like the meds have permanently changed the wiring in my brain or something, especially since I took tons of SSRIs for over 10 years before an excellent pdoc came along. After one year, she realized, it wasn't postpartum depression or just that but it was bipolar. Took her a bit to decide between 1 & 2, but after a spectacular manic scene in her waiting room and office, she had no doubts any more.

And of course, life has happened. I had bad things happen to me before high school, sure. But I didn't have stressors like finances & bills, raising a child, keeping a marriage together, etc. I hadn't yet gone through an eating disorder (I fortunately have few pictures of that time, but they are triggering and sad). I hadn't nearly been a gunshot victim. I hadn't almost died of a ulcer I never even knew I had burning through my stomach & into my small intestine. I'd never been pregnant, never faced secondary infertility (i.e. people always asking "And when are you going to give your daughter a brother or sister?, not realizing I had been trying and trying and just couldn't get pregnant). I hadn't had that sexual abuse incident at a massage parlor.

So a lot of life did have since I started on meds. I entered the psych system when I was 19 and am 40 now. I've been on meds nearly all that time except 6 months pre-pregnancy and during most of the pregnancy (OB gave me something at the end, Zoloft, I think and some Xanax). After going over options, I ended up breastfeeding my daughter while on Cymbalta (it wasn't studied or recommended, but I don't feel it had a negative impact on her). In fact, I think nursing is part of the reason she almost never gets sick and may even have helped her IQ. Though she was smart from the beginning. I did not realize it was abnormal for a 3 month old baby to sit contently on your lap while you read her full-length Dr. Seuss books (not the board pages, the whole book composed of paper pages), book after book after book, 4 or 5 in a row and the same with Beatrix Potter books until my youngest sister had babies, and I'd visit her and realize they would be held to read 1 board book, maybe 2, and that was it. Abnormally, too, my daughter never tore, tried to teethe on/eat, color over paper books.

Does anyone else feel this way? Like your brain has been re-programmed and even off meds, even if you weren't dealing with bipolar and MI, your whole personality and self would be changed from what it was before meds? I just do, like the meds have messed up my thinking & my brain and going off them, I still wouldn't get my creativity back (especially as it didn't happen pre-pregnancy and while pregnant, though obviously I know pregnant women deal a lot with hormones practically ruling their bodies).