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SSRIs are a whole category of drugs that are supposed to fight anxiety and depression.
They supposedly work by increasing the amount of serotonin that stays in the brain.
Whether they do this or not — who really knows?
But what I want to talk about is the effects that SSRIs have on relationship satisfaction.
The article talks about three different phases of a relationship.
It also looks at SSRIs affect each of the three relationship phases.
The first phase is attraction where we start to become attracted to someone.
The second phase is lust where we become sexually attracted them and want to go to bed with them.
In the third phase the attachment where the love feelings deepen into a long-term love feeling.
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This is when the feeling develops that potentially can last for the rest of one’s life.
So the article then talks about how SSRIs affect each of the three phases of the relationship.
SSRIs often result in a feeling of apathy.
They remove the high reward feelings of love.
Some patients say that they cannot fall in love at all while taking a SSRI.
This study seems to bear that out.
this over all lack of emotional stimulation may produce a blandness that overwhelms the romantic relationship.
Sexually speaking, SSRIs can cause delayed ejaculation.
Or they can make it difficult to get an erection and ejaculate at all.
73% of participants in one study experienced at least one sexual side effect.
That Falling-in-Love stage is what the study calls attraction and lust stage.
SSRIs can be a huge roadblock to this stage.
SSRIs result in elevated serotonin levels, at the expense of lower dopamine levels.
The lower dopamine then lowers oxytocin levels.
The combination of low oxytocin and low dopamine is very toxic to building powerful love relationships.
lower levels of dopamine may decrease relationship satisfaction.
To sum up, SSRIs are almost an anti-love drug.
All efforts should be made to avoid taking them.
I’m not telling you just to stop taking them (or any other medication) without talking to your doctor.
Some medications have side effects if you quit them too quickly.
And SSRIs are definitely not something to quit cold turkey.
But given a choice, there are many other medications and supplements that can assist in depression and anxiety.
You should try these out before trying SSRIs.
