Side Effects

Adventures in SSRIs

We begin with an update of my seventeen-year coherent-narrative dream cycle about David Tennant, which, if you are not familiar with it, consists of a series of dreams in which David Tennant makes it very clear that he does not want to get off with me. Dream DT was last seen pleasantly hosting Sunday lunch for me and all his family. That would have served as a perfectly good ending to our nocturnal platonic relationship. But in what I can only describe as a cataclysmic betrayal from my subconscious, or at the very least a deeply ill-advised post-credits sting, a little while ago I dreamt that David Tennant was giving me a lift in his car, and that as he drove, he started telling me about how he needed to get a prostate exam. Why?? WHY??? MY OWN BRAIN IS DOING THIS TO ME. I can barely think of a less sexy scenario. I know it’s tempting fate to say that it can’t get any worse than this, but SURELY it can’t get any worse than this. Can it? (It probably can. Oh god.)

Vivid and unusual dreams are, as it happens, a side effect of SSRIs, which I have recently started taking. SSRIs are commonly referred to as anti-depressants, but as I don’t suffer from depression I find the terminology unhelpful. I am taking them for anxiety and panic attacks. Imagine my delight to discover that as well as dreaming of former Doctor Whos having invasive medical procedures, the side effects of SSRIs include: anxiety and panic attacks.

I’m going to go ahead and assume that the side effects of all anti-anxiety medication include anxiety, because if anything is going to cause an anxious person anxiety it’s taking drugs that you’ve been told are going to alter your brain. It can’t possibly help, though, to read the rest of the extensive list of potential side effects on the enclosed leaflet and discover that this thing that you are ingesting can also cause (to name but two):

• Total loss of the ability to orgasm, which may be permanent even after you have stopped taking the drug

• Breast swelling and lactation - in both women and men

Don’t tell me anyone doesn’t feel a twinge of nerves popping a tablet into their mouth and thinking: I may never enjoy sex again. And I’m going to hazard a guess that the average man, who has never had a day of anxiety in his life, will have a panic attack when he wakes up one morning with milk coming out of his nipples.

As for me, it’s a perfect storm, because the most common side effects (anxiety, nausea, loss of appetite) are identical to my symptoms. My GP prescribed the drug and then went on holiday, leaving me with the following instructions: if it isn’t working, increase the dose. But if you have side effects, decrease the dose.

Right.

A deeper sense of unease comes from the idea that the drugs might actually work, and the anxiety and panic that have been a part of my personality since I was a young child will just go away. Don’t get me wrong, I want them to go away, but if a drug can do that, what else can it do? Could a pill take away my sense of humour? My imagination? Can I just sever part of what makes me me, even if it’s a part of me that I don’t like? And how do I learn to be the un-anxious person who is left behind?

And of course an even deeper sense of unease comes from the idea that the drugs won’t work, I’ll be out of treatment options, and I’ll be stuck like this forever.

Like I said: is it any wonder that the side effects include anxiety?

Anyway, right now it’s too soon to say what the results will be, but at least I am not spontaneously lactating. Yet.

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As chance would have it, the question of how psychiatric drugs interact with one’s sense of self is one of the stories on this week’s This American Life, ‘Me Minus Me’, in which I also have a fictional story about sibling rivalry with a supernatural twist. You can listen to it here or wherever you get your podcasts.