YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Hi all. Sorry that this is long.

My med use up to now is pretty basic. Basically, 300Mg buproprion a day. That's it, and it's been great.

Recently, I developed some unrelated digestive issues. Lots of coughing, clearing of throat, not able to finish meals due to quickly feeling full, burping, etc. No heartburn or anything obviously reflux-related, but my doc thought we should treat it as reflux to begin with, so we started omeprazole. The coughing and clearing of throat got worse and worse, sometimes to the point where I was bent over a sink for 10-15 minutes hacking and hacking trying to dislodge this non-existent crud in my upper throat. It was driving me insane (literally.) One night, I was hacking into the kitchen sink and, looking over, saw my cooking knives and thought seriously just how preferable it would be to just open my arms into the sink and be done with it.

I shared this with my doctor and, while he adjusted my reflux meds to something that works on esophageal spams (10 Mg metoclopramide, which seems to work a little), he also put me on a small (5Mg/day) dose of diazepam to ease the super-anxiety and tension for just a week. And, wow, what a change!

I'd never taken the stuff in my life and I was suddenly a new person. Open, personable, and able to go out in public. Even my wife noticed the difference in my. It was like a window being opened in me. I was actually, dare I say it...Happy! So, we decided to extend my prescription and try it every day for the next couple of months

Now, I'm someone who watches very closely my reactions to drugs, and I'm beginning to wonder about the diazepam. I've noted, oddly, an occasional rise in anger. No outbursts (well, at least not toward people. Even before the diazepam, I was already prone to hitting myself when really angry) but certainly an unsettled feeling.

I'm scared that the diazepam is, ironically, putting me in such contact with my feelings and emotions that I'm also more prone to angry outbursts. I know I need to talk to my doc about this, but I also don't want to lose this amazing feeling of being alive (after 50+ years of being dead to the world.) Has anyone else had similar effects with diazepam and found anything else that would bring out the happiness without the anger?

Thanks!

There is a time for righteous anger, and there are events in life that the proper response is anger.

Two questions:

1. Are you getting angry for no reason?

2. Are you getting angrier than you normally would?

Two questions:

1. Are you getting angry for no reason?

2. Are you getting angrier than you normally would?

Well...Even with the buproprion, I've always been an angry person. Hitting myself, for instance, and always with a black chip on my shoulder. I wouldn't say I'm getting angry for no reason, either. But, it's always been the little, insignificant things that set me off. So...To answer Q1...No.

Angrier than normal? That's a harder one. With the diazepam, my mood has been amazingly elevated, so, maybe it's a mater of relativity? If I was my regular depressed self, the bursts of anger would seem to be "normal." But, now that my operating level has been boosted, any outbursts of anger seem to be so much more scary, even though they might actually be the same as always? Does that make sense?

Yes, I think that makes sense.

First up, congratulations on keeping after this. I am glad you are finding relief and improvement. You deserve it.

If I may ask a question fairly bluntly: do you understand yourself (ie your new self) enough to know how much anger is too much?

I say this not to be contrary, but to wonder if you know the limits/bounds of what is healthy anger and what is the medication talking.

oak wrote:Yes, I think that makes sense.

First up, congratulations on keeping after this. I am glad you are finding relief and improvement. You deserve it.

If I may ask a question fairly bluntly: do you understand yourself (ie your new self) enough to know how much anger is too much?

I say this not to be contrary, but to wonder if you know the limits/bounds of what is healthy anger and what is the medication talking.

That's a very good question. I understand my normally-medicated self quite well. I've been clinically depressed all my life and medicated with buproprion for about half that time. I know that anger level quite well. It's pretty much been my normal for over fifty years.

I think I'm still coming to grips with this new me. I literally have no life experience with this level of clarity and openness. There's definitely a slight runaway train aspect to this that I need to work at coming to grips with, and I'm definitely working with my therapist on it. Of course, there's also all the other depression trainwreck we're woring on, so it's a huge mishmash.

The biggest question I'm dealing with is "Is this what reality is like for everyone, or am I experiencing some kind of amplified reality that, in turn, amplifies the normal anger?" It must seem strange to some people when I say I have no concept of a non-severely-depressed reality, but I really don't. When I took that first diazepam, it was as if my entire being was opened-up and a warm summer breeze started blowing through me. It was utterly transforming. My first thought was "Is this how everone else has been feeling all these years?" And, then, I started crying for all those years of my life lost to the black numbness of my depression.

To answer your question...yes...I believe I have a good handle on the anger vs. med question. The little thing that set me off today was pretty typical in terms of the things that get to me...maybe even a little more so. My response was "normal." Grief. Calling myself stupid. Thinking "Of course, this happened. It's me." And, then, I started hitting myself. That's my usual buproprion-only reaction these days (without it, I would have probably put a hole through a wall or something.)

The big difference was the drop from my new diazepam normal to the anger outburst. It was steep. A posititve was that I was better able to process what was going down and get a better grip on it. My head was still racing a million miles an hour, but I could see some small bit of light beyond the blackness, so that was an improvement. I need to better handle that initial drop.

I suppose this is a good point to mention that, yes, I definitely know diazepam and it's fellow benzos are highly addictive. This is what prompted part of my initial post, asking if anyone had experience with anything less addictive that could give me the same uplift that the diazepam does. >insert argument for medical marijuana here, but I live in Indiana<

Does this help answer your question? I got to rambling a bit there.