I read an article recently about the fairly new weight loss drugs which produce rapid weight loss and at the moment are seen as the answer to our nation’s obesity crisis (and elsewhere in the world where American fast food influence and poverty have driven many people to consume cheap high calorie food over the years).

The article I read was about a very interesting mental health phenomenon which has afflicted many of those whose size has been reduced and are now slim, no longer obese members of society.

The result for many now slim people is that they feel depressed with a loss of identity, the one they had learnt almost to love as obese people.

Being obese had been familiar to them. They had built their lives and identities around being overweight, trying to lose weight, feeling guilty but enjoying the comfort of food. Their social and work lives if they were able to work, were pretty much defined by being overweight. They didn’t like it and desperately wanted to be a normal weight but that was part of their daily struggle and who they were.

Now slim, they had lost all that and had to behave in totally the opposite way. Their bodies and mind set were alien to them.

I have felt a similar experience when antidepressants have worked and a lifelong insomniac and low mood person suddenly became a cheerful, “Who cares if I don’t sleep” person.

I found it terribly difficult to adapt. I felt tense and kept thinking it would all come back. I wasn’t as nice to people as my self-confidence had rocketed and I was on a high. I actually think my strong reaction to feeling happy every day in the long run stopped the antidepressants working. It was almost a relief! How silly and irrational is that?!

Of course I was devasted in one way when my insomnia returned and I felt low again. When “normal” (for me) life resumed.

I am wondering if others here have experienced this and how they dealt with such a radical life change brought on by prescribed drugs or maybe giving up alcohol for instance or an illegal drug habit?

Julia 

A Moodscope member