SSRIs may not help
The statistical analysis confirmed what a quick look at the numbers suggests: The antidepressant didn't add anything to the benefits of the mood stabilizer. In fact, the people taking only a mood stabilizer plus placebo did a little better than the people who took an antidepressant plus a mood stabilizer.
Mary, a middle-aged woman living in Massachusetts who has bipolar disorder, says that the mood stabilizer Lamictal keeps her from spinning off into manic episodes. A low dose of Zoloft keeps depression at bay, and she takes a benzodiazepine tranquilizer occasionally. But Mary faces a big pitfall: "I do periodically miss my old life, with its creative, productive highs. I have thoughts like, 'How can I get back there?'"
Sometimes she convinces herself that she can go off her meds, and that strategy has landed her in the hospital several times because she felt strong suicidal impulses. The last time she went off her medications, in early 2007, she slid into a crisis so fast "that even I didn't see it coming," she says. "I went running to the hospital because I felt that I might kill myself. I can't do that to my family."
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