So, now I'll just stop the lithium

I was looking for something online, and in my keyword search, this seemingly unrelated result came up. A piece of the text caught my eye, so I took a look. What I found was a forum conversation about people misdiagnosed with Bipolar Disorder after being prescribed an SSRI. Apparently, it happens all the time.

It seems that antidepressants can make people who aren't bipolar hypomanic. This can take the form of dysinhibition, personality change, impulsive spending, hypersexuality. You mentioned regretting your behavior while on paxil... I have the same regrets. When on antidepressants I had less empathy, could be somewhat impulsive with the things I said to people, and was occasionally incredibly insensitive to the feelings of others. I also expressed a lot of anger that I think in large part was due to the meds. My spending wasn't outrageous but it was beyond our means and we are now in debt.

After reading some more, I feel that I can finally discontinue the tiny amount of lithium I've been taking. I've suspected for a long time that this was a misdiagnosis. More drugs just made the whole mess much worse. After having discontinued everything except a daily token dose of lithium, this is the best I"ve felt in about eight years.

It make me so sad that this happened to me. Very sad. Not sad enough to take an antidepressant. Never again. I tried tri-cyclics in the 1980s, SSRIs in this decade, and a few other things mixed in along the way. I have learned this for sure:

There is not an anti-depressant on the planet that doesn't make me far worse off than what nature has made of me. Those things should be illegal until they're better understood. Doctors need real training, not just what the pretty pharmaceutical reps whisper in their ears.