I have just been prescribed 20mg citalopram and am experiencing a few concerns. I’ve never been prescribed any medication before for anything, and am wary about crossing this line especially as I would not consider my ‘condition’ as severe.
I’m concerned that it’s an easy solution for physicians to dismiss a patient as having ‘depression’ and fob them off with anti-depressants as a simple, generic ‘solution’ with no regard to the person, the problems, or their root causes.
I’m suspicious of anything that artificially alters the neurochemistry of anyone so radically.
Most of all I’m concerned about possible changes to my personality. I may not particularly like who I am occasionally, but it’s who I am. I’m used to that, sometimes I quite like the feeling of being different, and as an aspirant writer I sometimes rely on it.
That said, the bouts of emptiness, impotence (literal not sexual), futility, pessimism and lethargy adversely affect me and those around me, making life more difficult that it should be (that isn’t to say that life should always be easy, but even so).
I’m less worried about becoming dependant upon citalopram (though I’d be interested to read the experiences of users and in the perceived changes in those that have stopped taking it). Nor am I particularly worried about the (apparently rare) side-effects documented.
I’d like to think that citalopram will be some panacea that will help me focus, be motivated and energetic, confident, and optimistic (as well as those occasional episodes that I experience which most closely approximate what is referred to as depression). But I fear it will simply suppress my personality and, for want of a better description, make me blander. Or perhaps I have an old-fashioned, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest –style view of mood-effecting drugs.
Perhaps these are normal concerns, but I’d be interested to hear what other users think.
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