I feel odd. It might be the Wellbutrin and/or the depression and was wondering if anyone can understand...

I am unsure of myself a lot and forget things in a strange way...besides the normal brain farts that seem to come with the territory

If you view your brain as a kind of file cabinet where everything is there, you just have to look for it and there is a "system" to looking for it if you know what I mean...well, I will be trying to remember something and know the associations should lead me to what I need but when I try, the file is missing It can be something very small (like a specific event in my past that my family is talking about), or it can be a split-second of feeling that a place or thing is totally unfamiliar. This all happens within a few seconds, but it's very disconcerting

This is kind of a messy, incomprehensibly explanation. I just worry that my brain is permanently changed and I will never again be the person I used to be.

Anyone? And thanks for reading this.

[spring2014]

it can do it .my meds does it to me at times. I feel like I can remember everything but other times I can't remember what the hell has happened to me especially after I had my car accident ten months ago . apart of my mind was gone cuz of the paxil . it drove me crazy like hell . I had to revisit it when I had my session with my therapist a couple of days after my accident . I talked to my therapist the day I was in the emergency room at the hospital . I was shaken up big time. I needed my therapist to comfort me cuz of the accident . then I talked to her the day after the accident .









Diagnosis: Anxiety and depression
meds : Cymbalta 90mgs at night
Vistrail 2 25 mgs daily for anxiety prn
50 mgs at night for insomnia

[cryingontheinside]

I can get very forgetful when I'm under a lot of stress or when I'm very depressed . there were times when if someone asked me my address or another simple question my mind would go blank . once I gave a really old address instead of my current address because it was the only one that popped in my head. I don't forget all the time but only if I'm extremely anxous or not doing so well . and I'm only 34 and its happened over the years . I also blocked out child abuse and I think when you block stuff out it can affect your memory a little bit . hopefully when your feeling better you will remember more easily .

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I have felt like different medications caused different problems with the way my brain worked and with my memory. Very often I seemed to get used to the medication and then my brain would regain much of its prior functioning.

It's hard to know if depression itself is doing something to my brain.

Then there's also the question of what normal aging would be doing to my brain if I didn't have depression and medication issues to deal with.

I just try to notice how my brain is functioning, and if something isn't working the way I think it should and it's causing me a problem, I try to figure out a way to fix that. Sometimes it means a meds change. Other times things like not skipping meals or not allowing myself to multitask or keeping notes of what's going on in my life and what my goals are can help.

Getting enough sleep also seems to help, too. When I get overly tired, my brain pretty much turns into mush.

I suppose I'm trying to say that the things that medication has caused usually seem to be temporary and some of the other things seem to work well when I'm well-fed and well-rested.

Your description was good, btw. I don't know that I've ever had that particular experience. I usually seem to have a problem sometimes finding the right associations to lead me to the file. I can spend time wandering around in circles before I eventually find them (or sometimes, I don't find them.)

[LifeInProgress]

You are definitely not alone in this. I feel like I can't remember even the simplest things sometimes. It is very frustrating and confusing to say the least.

I also find that I remember things very differently to the way other people do. Sometimes I will "remember" things that others say never happened at all.

[i dont matter]

I think the term that I heard was "psychomotor retardation".

You may want to google it. I know that it has hit me pretty hard.

[CatLuver]

I can totally relate to you. For about the past year and a half, I have just had a completely blank mind, aside from negative recurring thoughts and anger. I can think positive thoughts but no emotion is associated with them so they dont stick. I am on wellbutrin (150 mg daily) and concerta (18 mg daily) for depression. I am 29 and I dont feel any love for anyone including my husband or any excitement for anything, I just know I should feel that way so I intellectually feel things if that makes any sense. I know this is what depression is but does this go away for anyone? When depression is cured can you laugh and actually feel good? I have been on this combination of medications for a 3 weeks now, with no help. I have been on the wellbutrin alone about two monthes now. Thank you!!

Originally Posted by CatLuver

I can totally relate to you. For about the past year and a half, I have just had a completely blank mind, aside from negative recurring thoughts and anger. I can think positive thoughts but no emotion is associated with them so they dont stick. I am on wellbutrin (150 mg daily) and concerta (18 mg daily) for depression. I am 29 and I dont feel any love for anyone including my husband or any excitement for anything, I just know I should feel that way so I intellectually feel things if that makes any sense. I know this is what depression is but does this go away for anyone? When depression is cured can you laugh and actually feel good? I have been on this combination of medications for a 3 weeks now, with no help. I have been on the wellbutrin alone about two monthes now. Thank you!!

Hi, CatLuver....I can only tell you what I have read here as well as my own experiences. Some people seem to be able to get back to where they were...some temporarily, some (I hope because they no longer need to post here) permanently. For myself, I was not always like this but I don't think I can be back to where I was, mentally. I am much improved from the dark days, but I now have a new "normal" and there are ups and downs within that normal. My new normal is not my old happy self, though

Depression really robs you of hope and the ability to want. These are exactly the things you need to fight depression.

Please stick around and keep posting. It helps to know that you're not alone.

[Fuzzybear]

[creativecortex]

I can completely understand and relate.
Although I can manage day to day life and have more optimism for the future, I fear that the intense episodes of depression and anxiety I have experienced, as well as the prolonged periods taking antidepressants, have had a long-term impact on my personality and intelligence. I feel limited, my imagination reduced. Where quick-wittedness and animation might've been before, these days are replaced by dull, humourless, forgetful plodding.

I wonder if it's part of the recovery process, though, that perhaps I'm only half way there and in order to get back to "me", or my concept of it, I need to address my thought processes more closely than I have yet dared to. It's more comforting to think that, than to accept this change is permanent and negative, I think...

I truly thank everyone for the support here.

I don't like what's happening, but in my own case I truly believe that there has been a change in my brain function. Ever so subtle (and usually over in a split second) as to be almost unnoticeable.

Today I used the scissors and that I keep in the kitchen drawer. It's an automatic thing that you don't think about it happens so often. But this time I went to put them away and the mental picture of the drawer disappeared from my memory. I wasn't walking around scratching my head as it only lasted a second or so. But I had them in my hand and was standing right in front of the drawer and I glanced down at them and *poof*....the mental picture of the drawer was gone. So for that second I had to search my brain for what I knew I knew.

Such lame explanations from me, I know, but trying to convey this oddness is beyond my capabilities.

I know it's nothing that could be explained to a doctor and, if it could, there would be no test for it. But I know it's happening and it didn't happen before. It's not even like those times when you walk into a room and say "what am I doing here" or "where did I put my car keys"....I think that's a pretty normal thing and all you have to do is mentally work through a bunch of files and you KNOW it's going to be there. This does not feel like that.

Thanks for listening everybody who is reading. It's appreciated.