I feel like my meds have changed my personality, and not sure how I feel about that

[neighbour]

I'm on a medication to treat depression: lamotrigine, which tends to be used on bipolar patients.

I've been on it for a year and a half after having resisted drugs for years.

I don't feel like myself anymore. I mean, the changes are good--I'm more functional, less tearful, less suicidal. But my memory is bad, and I feel like my emotions are being "controlled" in a way I don't like.

Of course I'm grateful that I'm more productive than I've ever been, andmore importantlyI'm less an-again-off-again mother. But on the other hand my old self was my "real" self and I'm beginning to resent the medications.

I know that for most people, especially those with PND, drugs bring them back to their 'real' self, but for me it feels the opposite. Anyone else?

AD's make me very calm, which is not an integral part of my real personality. I am naturally hyper, which is linked to anxiety, and a desire to please and be liked.

What parts of your 'real' personality do you feel are missing, Neighbour?

Thanks for your response, lw.

I used to feel things with a lot of intensity. Often it was horrible, because it was like every moment was freeze-framed, and I could almost "see" loss as it was happening. I know I was quite ill: often had to duck into loos to have a cry, or fell apart at my kids' plays and concerts and so forth. I mean: it was not a realistic way to live, or to be a mother, and I found it almost impossible to sustain that level of emotion on a constant basis, and was always trying to think of ways out of it.

But on the other hand I miss it. It helped my work. I haven't lost my creativity, and if anything i work more now than I ever did, but it's different. Nowadays I see something and it doesn't make me cry, and I can't understand why it doesn't, but I don't feel relieved that it doesn't. I don't have that feeling that others have on ADs who say things like "Suddenly the fog lifted and everything was clear again."

But as for you: it makes total sense that ADs make you a more authentic version of you, given what you said.

I have been on mood stablisers and ADs for depression/rapid cycling bipolar and felt jsut as you describe. It's a judgement call between functioning well as the old self or better as the new self. I think a lot of us have a personal benchmark - and when things get below a certain level of functioning/tolerence then we opt for the 'improved' self. But you're right - it's not the same, and I have read that many people treated for BP feel like that.