[bewise93]

This might sound strange, but meds have made me totally different people. When I first took risperdal, suddenly the next morning until I was taken off it I loved jazz and swing music. Now I could give a crap about jazz and swing. Geodon made me want to suddenly go back to school and be a librarian. Again, now I have no interest in being a librarian. Then of course, seroquel. Seroquel made me lazy and just want to lay around eating Cheetos and reading lots and lots if books. Seroquel really really made me want to read. Now zyprexa makes me want to spend lots of time outdoors, even though it was 20 degrees this morning and I usually like sitting next to a heater in my apartment with a blanket, popcorn, and comic books. I'm so many different people. I'm a different person for every different ap I've tried.

That's pretty interesting! I guess the Zyprexa personality isn't that bad. The outdoors are good!

I don't know if meds have really changed my personality, per se. My illness and aging has to a degree. I still think the core of my personality is the same, but when I was very ill I felt like a different person in significant ways. Wellness has brought me back to my younger self in the core ways. My struggle and lessons learned have made me a better person in various ways, and wiser. I'm no longer able to do many things I used to do. I'm less courageous in ways, and more in others. I'm not sure that is related to personality, though.

My interests have varied throughout my life and I sometimes like one thing one minute and another another time. I don't listen to music or dance like I used to. That was a huge part of my life for 30+ years. I still love those things, but they are no longer present passions. I never paid much attention to some things in my youth that I pay a lot of attention to now.

[pirilin]

Yes.
It's incredible I let my wife lure me into going to a shrink.

My life is wonderful now without meds. I'm back to being my crazy self. I like myself again.

Short story.
I needed to take a long trip this weekend, so I took the car for service.
I was there an hour and a half almost , with nothing happening.

Crazy Carlos came out of the cold, and in less than 15 minutes, I had a rental for the weekend, paid by the dealer. 800 miles less in my car.

My toilet is very depressed, thanks to the huge amounts of big pharma drugs I've fed it.
It needs a shrink. Bad.

Good luck. Cheers.

[Skeezyks]

The one thing I can say about this, with regard to my own med experience, is that being on antidepressants in general loosened my lips & made it possible for me to talk about things I would never have mentioned had I not been medicated. (Actually... I'll always regret that.) Oh & then there was Effexor...

[TheSeaCat]

I wouldn't say that meds have changed my personality but I do notice that meds make me feel different. I've been on a few that have made me horribly angry and irritable. I've been on a few that I just felt blah if that make sense. I haven't noticed any of them truly affecting my personality.

[downandlonely]

I don't have much experience with anti-psychotics, but I think anti-depressants helped me get rid of my social anxiety. I was very shy before I started meds, and now I'm not shy at all.

[Fuzzybear]

One med did sort of change my personality, I wasn’t as shy.. it reduced my social anxiety, but also made me more apathetic and I made some bad decisions I wouldn’t have made before ..

[xRavenx]

High dose seroquel and klonopin changed the way I speak to an extent. I used to sound like someone with a lot of energy, but this combo makes me sound kind of monotone at times and not as active.

I do notice when my Seroquel isn't high enough, the "speediness" and pressured speech comes back really bad, and I do so many things at once. I tried to lower my Seroquel recently (significantly). My pdoc was on the fence, but agreed when I was feeling a little bit better again. In the end, it didn't work out well at all, and I had to up my dose again.

[Wild Coyote]

I notice meds can change my mood.
I have not noticed meds changing my personality.


WC

[Sunflower123]

When I was deeply depressed, I was also deeply empathetic, compassionate and others pain was my pain. Since I started my new medication, I still have those qualities but there is a difference. I always reached out before to comfort others and now I feel awkward and unsure what to say to help and like I really wasn’t helping before. That’s why I post less often. I still care...just can’t find the words. I really don’t like it and am working to improve. It took away the intensity of some very good qualities.

[Fuzzybear]

I was just trying to edit my post at the exact time the edit window expired... I haven’t had that happen before. I was going to say the “bad” decisions were complicated, not bad as such.. or maybe they were. They certainly caused me pain.

[Pookyl]

Meds haven’t changed my personality but illness has.

[Blueberrybook]

Sometimes meds give my personality a “flat” affect. I hate that.

They have made me less creative, not able to write poems and short stories or draw. I was very good at art, as long as it wasn’t in color; I never worked well with color, but pencil, silverpoint, charcoal, black ink. I was really good at it though I usually had to work from an image (like a magazine model or a still life set up in the room, could not just imagine it). But the end result did always differ from the original, and usually it looked okay, even been for the small changes. I got so many awards for my art in high school. I still have some of it, though my mom accidentally lost my 2 best pieces of work. I stored them separately when I left for college and then never really lived with my parents again. She found some of the other artwork. I need to photograph it and upload it.

I am sad I cannot write the way I used to. I carried a pen and notebook everywhere. I was rarely without them. Laptops were years and years away, let alone tablets and smartphones.

I miss that I started off so promising - excellent, good in all my subjects and a good writer and artist.

I miss what my life could have been, but I was changed by the ED, by the bipolar hitting hard in my mid20s, by PTSD, by a crazy shooting have nothing to do with me other than a shooter with a lousy aim (causing severe anxiety and panic).

So I don’t know. Meds have changed me. So has life.

[Wild Coyote]

Originally Posted by Pookyl

Meds haven’t changed my personality but illness has.

Isn't this the Truth!
It's soooooo very true for me, too!


WC

They made me like sleeping. That's about it.

[rebeka]

my Effexor/venlafaxine made me manic. 'twas fun...

[MJLouise]

Being on mood stabilizer changed my personality back to what it was in high school before I got sick with this in 2002 so it was s good change. Being depressed and Unmedicated changed my personality for the worse. I look forward to getting back to myself again. I hate this. I think I did feel like my creativity was stiffened a common complain from googling it lol but it wasn’t by much and I don’t create anything when I’m severely depressed so staying unmedicated for the possibility of being more creative during a rarer hypomanic episode doesn’t make sence. I knew that when I went off meds and it wasn’t why I stopped meds. I’m more productive and my personality is more what it used to be when I’m stable.

[MJLouise]

Originally Posted by bewise93

This might sound strange, but meds have made me totally different people. When I first took risperdal, suddenly the next morning until I was taken off it I loved jazz and swing music. Now I could give a crap about jazz and swing. Geodon made me want to suddenly go back to school and be a librarian. Again, now I have no interest in being a librarian. Then of course, seroquel. Seroquel made me lazy and just want to lay around eating Cheetos and reading lots and lots if books. Seroquel really really made me want to read. Now zyprexa makes me want to spend lots of time outdoors, even though it was 20 degrees this morning and I usually like sitting next to a heater in my apartment with a blanket, popcorn, and comic books. I'm so many different people. I'm a different person for every different ap I've tried.

Wow I also am bipolar II with an anxiety disorder. I went back to school unmedicated and hypomanic on and off in hindsight) for my Masters inLibrary and information Studies and graduated got the state certification then became so unstable I decided I’d never be able to work. Then I tried working landed a great job and it was an embarrassing disaster. I resigned for medical reasons after 2 weeks I couldn’t handle being around so many people and felt like my every minute I was stared at watched and examined. I was tryin all sorts of diets (ketogenic, paleo, then vegan , dairy free, juicing, all sorts of homeopathy, supplements (niacinimide-inositol, vitamin c, magnesium, omega 3 lol the list goes on. Then I tried pot which is legal where I lived putting CBC-Thc 40 in my tea at night. Nothing worked to release my fatigue (in hindsight I was alternating between hypomanic and mild depression but was sorta addicted and trying to keep a hypomanic state where I’d had tons of energy). I’d feel better and as if something was working for a month then it would go away (prob placebo ). Anyway my personality changed for the worse being off meds very unstable in hindsight.

[MJLouise]

Originally Posted by Wild Coyote

Isn't this the Truth!
It's soooooo very true for me, too!


WC

Truth. This is so true and happens to me too

[Victoria'smom]

I have become really, really quiet.

[wiretwister]

I believe ( if my own self awareness ) is correct ... all my senses and feelings ( the joys and sorrows ) of life are very much changed ... I have become very quiet and withdrawn ... my confidence and self esteame is completely gone ... and I fear every step I take ... but without the meds ... I would surely be dead ... you tell me which is better ...

... Tigger ...

[Fuzzybear]

I don’t know which is better

Because I can’t tolerate the meds.........

[Faltering]

My personality doesn't appear to change from meds.

[Nola0250]

My underlying personality doesn’t change with meds, but my self expression definitely does

[Moose72]

I think you are not y[ur diagnosis. But yes these meds are messing with our brain chemistry so i expect that they'll have an effect on our personality.