I have been dating this guy for past two months. He is extremely nice, caring, practical & cute looking, in a nut shell perfect. His behavior would get weird sometimes but he has lot of baggage from his family. Today I told me that he is on antidepressants & he intentionally avoided to tell me and now 2 months of dating he felt it’s a right time. He likes me a lot and I like him too and he said he is tapering off his dose as mentally he feels stable... I was slightly shocked and I’m worried about the side-effects for long term. He seemed so perfect for marriage, but this really bothered me a lot. Does anyone of you know someone who is living a healthy life even being on antidepressants? Is antidepressants an addiction? How should I deal with it..,
Not an addiction. You should have known in past 2 months about his behavior, mood fluctuations etc. Does he drink a lot, do drugs etc? Or, does he go to gym, yoga etc regularly and enjoys personal relationships? Please do not base your decisions based on anti-depressant. Believe in your intuition. A good human often being is difficult to find. If you found someone, keep them. Dietary alternatives to antidepressants exist. No long term side effects except reduction in sexual drive in some cases.
Being on antidepressants is not a bad thing. He realizes he has a mental health issue and is dealing with it hopefully under the guidance of a psychiatrist and some sort of therapist. Tapering off his dose without the blessing of those experts is a bright red flag. The thing about mental illness is that with the proper treatment, you feel fine and decide to stop that treatment, which may cause him to slide back into a bad place. I would fear him trying to stop his treatment more than the treatment itself.
Yes! To be very honest I don’t want to lose him either.. he doesn’t drink or do drugs. He enjoys time with me & never sensed anything abusive. Except he is touchy about few things and gets conscious about it quickly to which his reaction is odd.. I need to talk more about it with him & yes his sexual drive is avg not high not or low either...
Love is Blind and it puts blinders on us. Guess what, you are at the right place to talk about this serious topic. Let us know how the saga continues.
Is he going to therapy? That’s the best way he can really get better in the long term. Mental health issues are very common and you shouldn’t dislike him for that, especially if he’s under control. The thing is that drugs, for how necessary they are in certain cases, don’t cure a disease, but they only treat it. Only regular therapy should help him get better - and it will take years of weekly meetings.
Some antidepressants have awful permanent side effects, but it really depends on the specific drug. Many are almost completely safe. Taking antidepressants is a lot more common than you think. Mental illness is more of a spectrum than a binary thing, and with treatment many people can go completely back to normal. As for addiction, it depends what you mean by “addiction”. SSRIs (a class of antidepressants) are very physically addictive. That is, the effects of stopping without tapering can be really awful. However, (the vast majority of) antidepressants won’t make you feel high and aren’t easily abusable like opiates or stimulants are.
Support him to a healthy lifestyle and be understanding. If they go away from a healthy lifestyle you can try to help them get back on track. Source: my best friend and one ex were depressed
What antidepressant? It can be really addicting. I've seen ppl have a really hard time getting off of it. It's not easy .Plus it also affects the libido so i'd say stay away or tread very carefully!
You are going to hate me - walk away and save yourself trouble and find someone new. You would put a lot of effort to love and support and may not get back enough. If you really want to tackle this, you need to find what’s the issue and explore ways to support. It could be a long road ahead and other side effects would be visible soon. Good luck!
I agree with this too
You should treat it as if he was taking pills for any other illness. Yes, plenty of people take them and are living perfectly rad lives.
Anti depressants, when used to treat an illness, is like any other chronic or seasonal illness medication. They help you live a healthy life. I'd suggest becoming more familiar with the literature around depression and/or partner support groups.