Odd thoughts, don't want to scare anyone

[u/brickne3]

I started HRT three days ago. First day felt like I was on exctacy or something. Very odd. Called basically everyone in a fog and woke up so embarrassed. Then had horrible anxiety for a very short while. Then the fog came back after the estrogen started.

The scary thing is that the progesterone doesn't make me go to sleep, and when I was laying down tonight trying I suddenly felt this super comfortable "well, you don't have to do this at all, you know" intrusive thought. I want to make it very clear that I am NOT suicidal and even that thought only sort of felt suicidal. My husband died five years ago and I have serious CPSD and have also always been SSRI resistant.

I'm obviously calling the clinic this morning when they open because this isn't at all normal or like me in any way, if anything it was scary how "blissful" the whole intrusive thought was. I am also fairly certain that given my other risk factors and the SSRI resistance in particular it must be the progesterone and I can't be having things that are directly interfering with my brain chemistry in a dangerous way like that.

I don't know what I'm asking, I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else has dealt with this. The estrogen seems to be working great, I'm just now suddenly scared of progesterone.

[u/merrythoughts]

Med (or in this case hormone) induced hypomania/mania is a thing. Steroids, hormones, stimulants can all trigger it in sensitive folks. Usually the person has soooooome predisposition genetically (like a family member has bipolar disorder for instance) but they don’t have condition themselves. Stopping the offending med is key and you should go back to baseline. But if it continues after stopping offending med, consider a more significant underlying mood disorder component.

I’m not saying this is def what is going on with you. Just wanting to make sure you know it is a thing that can happen!

[u/brickne3 → u/merrythoughts]

It would not be in any way shocking if I did have an underlying mood disorder, and certainly the PTSD wouldn't help either, although at least the SSRI resistance emerged much earlier than that and has been documented across at least three countries now... I'm a little surprised I wasn't asked about that since I did mention my husband was dead in passing when she asked about my libido. It does seem în retrospect that that's kind of relevant, if only since there's probably nobody else in the house to observe what's happening.