harasgenster
04-11-13, 00:05
Hello
I can't sleep, mostly because I drank coffee at a silly time of night, not realising how late it was.
But while I've been sat up I've had a song in my head I wrote when I was a teenager and I started looking back at when I suddenly 'quit music' after 16 years of previously being pretty much addicted to it. I performed as a child and all the way up to when I was 20 years old, then just...stopped. I also found around that time that I was finding it very difficult to write, having previously been an avid writer. I've still done ok at writing, but find that the stuff I was writing pre age of 20 is more imaginative, more free and flowing...in a word: "better".
I'd always put it down to my having just recovered from agoraphobia at the time, and how that might have affected me, but then I didn't get any of those effects while actually suffering from agoraphobia or the extreme anxiety I was suffering around that time. It all started when I went on medication.
Perhaps it's just hopeful thinking. I'm now well and am coming off meds (going really well so far) and I'm really excited about being off them forever. Perhaps I'm just hoping some of the things I once prized about myself that are no longer part of my life will come back.
But in case I'm onto something here, anyone else noticed that they have dropped out of creative activity, or found it much harder to be creative, on antidepressants?
---------- Post added 04-11-13 at 00:05 ---------- Previous post was 03-11-13 at 23:46 ----------
Probably should have just looked it up...answer is 'yes, in some patients': http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/195/3/211.full
And it's probably more likely to bother you as you recover/make a full recovery...as with me. There you go then!
I can't sleep, mostly because I drank coffee at a silly time of night, not realising how late it was.
But while I've been sat up I've had a song in my head I wrote when I was a teenager and I started looking back at when I suddenly 'quit music' after 16 years of previously being pretty much addicted to it. I performed as a child and all the way up to when I was 20 years old, then just...stopped. I also found around that time that I was finding it very difficult to write, having previously been an avid writer. I've still done ok at writing, but find that the stuff I was writing pre age of 20 is more imaginative, more free and flowing...in a word: "better".
I'd always put it down to my having just recovered from agoraphobia at the time, and how that might have affected me, but then I didn't get any of those effects while actually suffering from agoraphobia or the extreme anxiety I was suffering around that time. It all started when I went on medication.
Perhaps it's just hopeful thinking. I'm now well and am coming off meds (going really well so far) and I'm really excited about being off them forever. Perhaps I'm just hoping some of the things I once prized about myself that are no longer part of my life will come back.
But in case I'm onto something here, anyone else noticed that they have dropped out of creative activity, or found it much harder to be creative, on antidepressants?
---------- Post added 04-11-13 at 00:05 ---------- Previous post was 03-11-13 at 23:46 ----------
Probably should have just looked it up...answer is 'yes, in some patients': http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/195/3/211.full
And it's probably more likely to bother you as you recover/make a full recovery...as with me. There you go then!