SSRIs and sexual addiction

I would see a link between depression and inappropriate content viewing/masturbation in some cases. Although, there are probably those who socialize well who view inappropriate content.

I would be careful with any medication or see it as a last resort though. Also, some anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medication might cause performance issues for men. So, if you do meet someone and marry, try to go off the medication. God bless.

dms1972 said:

I am of the opinion that if this option is available, people who struggle with breaking free from masturbating , looking at inappropriate content etc. should avail themselves of it, often there may be a depressive condition linked with habitual looking at inappropriate content that needs medication anyway.

What do others think?

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I also think medication should be a last resort.

There are clear detrimental effects which this content has on the sex drive and, also, one's resistance to (forgive the crudeness) stimulation. This material also decreases T-levels, sperm count, etc. It's pure psychological torture to do this to oneself.

The addiction hundreds of thousands of people are struggling with is serious business and it would instantly be labeled a public healthcare crisis if a digestible substance was producing these results.

I would be careful labeling something "sexual addiction" just because it's religiously proscribed. The mental health profession as a whole does not recognize sex-addiction as a real category. Making people feel ashamed of their sexuality also is not helpful to a persons long-term relationships.

I think your therapist is correct in focusing on a lack of social contact as the real problem.

Many psycoactive drugs like depression meds list "sexual side effects" as known issues.

Did you ever notice they are NOT specific WHAT side effects? For most, it will seriously diminish libido. But for a minority, it will run the libido thru the roof. And no one can tell which way it will go with any individual.

Nothing you have described personally would necessarily warrant using a chemical like an SSRI, and it could be potentially unethical for a doctor to perscribe that for those reasons. There's a big difference between casually viewing inappropriate contentography, and paraphilias that are typically treated with SSRI's (like exhibitionism). One is generally a legal activity, the other is not and can land you in serious jail time and being labelled as a sex offender in many states.

My experience with SSRIs suggests it would diminish drives, but it didn't help me with my addictions at all.

No question it did help me with depression, but oh the price I paid. I was on low dose SSRIs for more than a decade. The good news was I didn't get deep depression anymore. But I couldn't experience normal emotional states or really do any work on normalizing my drives for food or sex or anything else to which I showed addictive propensities. It was like being on hold...

Worse, the side effects as I came off the drug were really unpleasant. Almost as bad as the DDTs I got when I quit drinking. I experienced such frightening mood swings as I came off the drug and had to relearn controlling my emotional state. It took months to begin to feel like I had some level of control.

Never say never, but I will go through a great deal of pain before even entertaining the notion of taking SSRIs again. It will have to be something close to death or medication before I will seriously consider it. And that even knowing how effectively it controlled my depression.

You can look up serotonin withdrawal syndrome or antidepressant discontinuation syndrome for better explanations than I can provide.

The affect SSRIs had on me was immediate and profound. It was like putting a governor on my emotional state. For more than ten years I didn't experience extremes of sadness or joy. I tried to quit the drug 3 or 4 times, each time I found myself unable to function normally. I would either slip into deep depression or behave so erratically that I had to go back on the drug for the sake of my family.

With God's help, and some unconventional therapy methods, I finally found the strength to be rid of this plague I hope for good. When I stopped the drug I experienced extreme mood swings, dizziness, nausea, and great difficulty concentrating and remembering things. The mood swings and dizziness lasted for months.

Once the drug was out of my system I found myself right back where I started emotionally. I had to learn to deal with unpredictable emotional states complicated by extremes of emotion amplified by the change in brain chemistry. But this time, God has healed my depression. I cried a lot, which was a little embarrassing, but it was tears of joy and happiness because I was free to feel everything again.

I have quite a bit of personal experience with SSRI and an SSNRI. I also am a recovering addict. Though I amnot specifically a sex addict, the brain mechanism that produces addiction is the same and yes, addiction is a physical makady, not a character defect or lack of "will power." It has to d with the "reward center" or "reward system" of the brain.

In a nutshell, when you do activities that ensure our species survival like eat, sleep, have sex, etc, you "feel good" from a release of dopamine. This dopamine release is there literally to make you want to to the activity (eat etc,) again. Addiction happens when this reward system gets hijacked by particular behavior. The dopamine release experienced by the addict signals the brain that it is an activity that is required for your survival so you "crave" it, similar to being hungry, thirsty or knowing you need a nap. The more often the dopamine is released from the addictive activity, the more you will crave the dopamine release related to that activity.

With that inimd, people who suffer from depression are prime candidates for addictive behavior because a dopamine release not only is satisfying due to the behavior, but it also is a short reprieve from the depressive symptoms which is a lack of "feel good chemicals" in the brain like serotonin, dopamine, and others.

Knowing that, as prescribers are doing their assessment of symptoms, if someone shows a propensity toward some kindof addiction, seual orotherwise, they will also screen for depressive symptoms which can be similar. Behaviors like being withdrawn, isolating, sleep disturbance, feelings ofguilt and.or low self worth among others are present in both addiction and depression so many prescribers will prescribe a SSRI or another antidepressant to treat those symptoms.

In my personal experience which has nothing to do with any statistical data, the SSRI that I was prescribed all but killed my sex drive. My sexual function was possible but not to any satisfactory degree. My actual testosterone count also went down which made things worse. I surely was no sex addict before but I was at least interested in women. On the meds, I not only lost my desire to pursue sex with a woman, inappropriate content became gross, I couldn't touch myself sexually and I even lost my desire to date. I became totally asexual. My case is extreme and could have been exacerbated by the depression itself. I ended up on testosterone replacement which allowed me to regain some energy and I did become a bit more outgoing.

Hope all this is helpful. It's a lot to read. The main thing to remember is that everybody is different so what happened to me could be totally different for you. Just educate yourself on all the pros and cons, find out ALL the side effects, talk with your doctor and have questions already prepared when you go in and bring up all of your concerns. In the USA, the medical culture is controlled by the drug companies so the doctors want to write a prescription for everything. Always ask if there are any vitamins or supplements you can take and what kind of food you should or shouldn't eat to help your condition, get 2nd and 3rd opinions, and see a highly recommended Eastern medicine or natural health professional as well for alternatives to pills if you don't like side effects r just want to start somewhere else before taking possibly toxic pills that alter your brain's chemistry.

The funny thing about psyche meds is that they don't actually know why they work as in what is making the change happen to you. Like most drugs they can explain what or why the drug is affecting certain cells a certain way. They just know it makes X happen in your brain but not why or how. It's mostly trial and error. Different SSEIs affect different people in different ways. Some people take Prozac and it works like a miracle, some people get suicidal (a small number but still you see how different it can be for people)

May God bless you on your quest for information concerning self improvement. Ipray someone is helped by this testimony.