My Brain on Wellbutrin

For the past month, I've found it increasingly difficult to get out of bed. I've also had difficulty focusing on tasks; something as minor as sending out an email sometimes paralyzes me. I was bitten by a deer tick around a month ago and thought maybe I was coming down with lyme disease, then as time went on I began thinking maybe I'd just become depressed, although I've never had this sort of depression before.

My mood started changing for no apparent reason. I'd suddenly be anxious, suddenly become hostile, then suddenly feel incredibly happy. I couldn't control these mood swings any more than I could feel like getting out of bed in the morning. Last week I finally realized what was causing this. About six weeks ago I began taking Wellbutrin to help me stop smoking, and what I was experiencing was my brain on Wellbutrin.

I tried Wellbutrin a little over a year ago, and in the month I took it my only side effect was insomnia. In fact, the insomnia was the reason I stopped. When I decided to take it again, I figured I'd have some trouble sleeping for a month or two, but that was a small price to pay for the health benefits of becoming smoke-free. When, after a couple of weeks, I didn't experience sleeplessness, I just thought I was lucky and side-effect free. When I started feeling exhausted I attributed it to the tick bite, figuring it was early lyme that just didn't show up in the blood test, and that when I go back to the doctor next week I'd test positive.

I've never before felt helpless in the face of my own emotions. When I read Darkness Visible years ago I thought, "How awful. I can't imagine something coming upon you like that." Unfortunately, I now can imagine what Styron went through. Each day I became a little more tired, each day became a little bit harder on me. Then last week I found myself at the grocery store suddenly incredibly anxious: I'd been out of the house for two hours. I needed more than anything to get home, to get into bed, to get myself away from my own life. That's when I read up on all Wellbutrin's possible side effects, and decided it was time to stop taking my daily dose.

Some good has come out of this. I've greatly reduced my nicotine intake. Despite my lethargy I've lost a bit of weight. If I weren't depressed I'd probably feel great. Hopefully I'll be back to my old self in about a week, when the medication has worked its way out of my blood. In the meantime I've learned two lessons. First, rely on willpower if at all possible and avoid medications you don't need. Second, be glad it wasn't Chantix.