Have you ever read "Listening to Prozac"? I recommend it. Very interesting book by a practicing psychiatrist who discusses how different drugs affect the personality, and how the personality is hard-wired differently in different people. I took anti-depressants for a while a few years ago when I was going through a very tough time. I did not like the side effects of Zoloft, which is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) like Prozac. It made me less depressed almost immediately. I sat up in bed the night after I took it and said "This is different. This is better." (I am a so-called "fast responder.") I was also more focused, more on-task, I have posted before that I am kinda ADD and scattered. But I did not like the fact that it made it totally, and I mean totally, impossible for me to come. I prefer feeling suicidal, thank you. Anyway, once I realized that it was chemical, the depression didn't bother me so much and I got over it. Once in a while I bum a Zoloft off my mother, who takes it all the time, as do my brother and sisters. One will do me. Haven't had one in months.
Funny, when I was taking it regularly, my husband and I got along much better. I am cranky and irritable much of the time, and the Zoloft stopped that. But I don't mind being cranky and irritable, it's not something I'd take medicine for.
I mentioned a few weeks ago research on personality by Cloninger, but have yet to find anything on the web, much less one of the personality tests. I do have photocopies of a few of the tests from psychiatric journals - taken a few years ago, don't know what I would score now.
Briefly, I scored much lower than I would have expected on "Harm Avoidance," 26%. I scored 100% in "Persistance," 95% in "Self-directedness," 93% in "Cooperativeness," 73% in "Self-transcendence," 65% in "Novelty-seeking," and 54% in "Reward-dependence."
I just saw a footnote that explains that "Novelty seeking" includes exploratory excitability, impulsiveness, extravagance and disorderliness; "Harm-avoidance" includes anticipatory worry, fear of uncertainty, shyness with strangers, and fatigability; "Reward-dependence" includes sentimentality, attachment, and dependence; "Self-directedness" includes responsibility, purposefulness, resourcefulness, self-acceptance and congruent second nature; "Cooperativeness" includes social acceptance, empathy, helpfulness, compassion, and principled; "Self-transcendence" includes self-forgetfulness, transpersonal identification and spiritual acceptance. |
