Wellbutrin Caused Two Suicide Attempts

My 22 year old son was given Bupropion on April 4, 2023 and he killed himself on April 13.

There are many stories of how Bupropion/Wellbutrin/Zyban created suicidal thoughts that grew into compulsion.

There are people out there who survived this. These people are the key to fighting this problem.

If you were taken to the brink of suicide by Bupropion/Wellbutrin/Zyban and survived, please speak up. You can help save others from this evil fate.

My son attempted suicide and was started on Wellbutrin and then the generic version. He has been taking it for 2 months and 2 days ago the Dr. increased his dose to 300mg/ 24hr. He was crying for over an hour today and says he feels more depressed and suicidal than he did before attempting suicide. He is 17 years old, almost 18. Me and my husband are on constant suicide watch and are getting almost no sleep. The whole family is stressed out waiting for a bomb to go off, ie, my son hurting himself again. It is really horrible, but he is still alive, so I'm trying to get the Dr. to take him off of Wellbutrin.

I am a 17 year old female who is a junior in high school. I have been diagnosed with PTSD, Bipolar disorder, adhd, anxiety, and depression. Yes It's a lot, my dad's side of the family had a bunch of mental disorders, so go figure. I started taking 150 mg of Wellbutrin (extended release ) about two months ago and I am so thankful that i am not alone in this battle. I started to feel hopeless for no reason, my anxiety got so much worse, and i started wanting to self harm again. (i had in the past via cutting) and i even thought about taking my whole bottle of pills so i wouldn't be a bother anymore. I even poured them into my hand and just stared at them. It was such a casual feeling and It scares me because i feel suicidal more and more every day.

I began a prescription for Wellbutrin 8 days ago. My story is similar to the ones presented in this forum, in that last night I woke up from an afternoon nap (it was a blizzard outside and I decided to sleep). I woke up from the nap feeling different, and within hours of waking up, I spiralled into a deep depression and I was having violent suicidal thoughts. My boyfriend was over for the weekend, and we had been having a wonderful, peaceful weekend, so there was no precursor to this suicidal ideation. I went on the drug because I suffer from PTSD symptoms, not because I was depressed. I am going off it cold turkey tomorrow: I had a friend (a trauma therapist) in Calgary that also experienced suicidal thoughts while taking Wellbutrin.. he told me many years ago that the thoughts appeared suddenly and they were so brutally clear in their aim to eradicate one's life that he stopped the drug immediately. I almost lost my partner last night and my life.. the only thing that was new was the drug; it seems to be deadly to people suffering from PTSD and other anxiety or stress disorders. Does anyone share a similar experience with this drug and PTSD?

I realized early on that Wellbutrin wasn't for me. After being on it for 1 week I got off it. Like everyone else, hopelessness was overpowering. It may work for some just not me. Also realize this drug is used in other drugs like appetite suppressants and quitting smoking drugs. BE CAREFUL! If it has affected you before it will again in these other forms.

My son is 18 years old. He started welbutrin at a lower dose which eventually increased over time. He turned 18 in November 2015. He was admitted a week before his 18th birthday to a psychiatric hospital vountarilly. He was feeling suicidal and asked for help. He was released the day before his 18th birthday. The week following his release, he had sever ideation. He withdrew all of his money from the bank and made a video ad envelopes with money for family members. He thankfully did not follow through but instead, reached out to us. Things seemed ok untill February 5th, 2016. By the grace of god, my sister reluctanty came over to our home. Pretty late. She wasnt up to coming over but ended up coming over anyhow. While talking, she noticed a post on Twitter from my son. He mentioned taking pills. I run upstairs and he opened the door. I asked if anything was wrong. He admitted to taking nearly 60 pills of wellbutrin extended release pills. I immediately called 911. He seemed calm at first. Ambulance arrived 8 mins later and transported him to the hospital. He began to hallucinate. The er nurse assured me that things would start improving around 4am. It was 12am at this point. It didnt make sense since they were extended release tabs. At 4:03am he began vomiting. At 4:30 am he went into a tonic seizure. It was horrifying! They explained he was vomiting while seizing so placed a breathing tube for caution. He was moved to icu. When i was able to see him, I realized we were in the cardiac icu unit. They explained there was no room in the regular icu so thats why he was placed there. He was in a medically induced coma. They told me he would likey be in a coma for 2-3 days per poison control. 72 hours and the drug should be out of his system. He however, started waking up and hallucinating continuously. They decided to take him off oxygen less than 24 hours later. It was about 12 hours after the initial seizure. I didnt feel rigt about it. At about 7pm, he started seizing following cardiac arrest. His heart stopped! They proceded cpr continuously to no avail, one nurse took charge and took over. 8 mins later she got a pulse and another breathing tube was in place. He continued to seize3 additional times. My son died for 8 mins and by the grace of god, was revived. He remained on life support for 2 additional days. They attempted removing the tube again but i pleaded aginst it. They agreed and he was taken off at the 72 hour mark. Remarkably, he did well. No brain damage! Memory loss and lost of train of thougt but alive! He was released to psychiatric care by order of the court. He was there aproximately 9 days. His recovery was noted as miraculous. Hes back at school and living day to day. I know this will be a long battle. Im hopeful things will look up. He does not want medication as he feels it made his ideation worse. For now, therapy is our only outlet. Im scared and completely on edge. I amna single mother of four and this fear is constant. Any advice is very appreciated. My heart is broken in two. I want so badly to take this pain for him. Please help

I'm putting my full name in case somebody wants to contact me on Facebook. Something needs to be done about this drug. I believe when it's made correctly it works and I've taken it before with good results. The problem is in the generics. I took it for almost a year before I got a bad one and I knew it right away. I quit taking it. A couple years later I tried it again. I realized it wasn't releasing right after a couple months. Google generic wellbutrin. It's known for not being right. Consumer labs did the testing to prove it to the FDA. It still took the FDA years to pull the higher doses but they left the lower ones . It's the way the generics are not being tested anymore.
I tried a different generic brand of Wellbutrin with horrible results. What the Wellbutrin did to me was make me very sick at my stomach, unable to eat no appetite, diarrhea every morning. Something was physically wrong! I started waking up feeling very very scared. This is more than normal anxiety. I started being too scared to go anywhere by myself. It's almost like a terror. I would have tremors and shakes . Then came the suicidal thoughts. Thoughts that I couldn't control. I understand why people commit suicide on this drug. The thoughts are different from feeling bad about something and not wanting to live this is almost like it physically changes your brain. As the medicine was wearing off I would start to come out of the thoughts but at the time you're in it all you want to do is die. What is strange and why I didn't catch it right away is I had the exact same symptoms on generic Effexor. I believe is something in the fillers or something in the way they're made. I even had seizure like episodes on both of these that stopped when I stopped taking them.
I took the Wellbutrin for 5 months. I still had the diarrhea and was sick and couldn't eat for 9 months. I'm still scared and afraid to leave my house by myself. I still have the suicidal thoughts even though I haven't taken it for months. Did I mention the cognitive functioning? It does something to your brain where you can't think right, you lose your memory ,you can't do things like you use to. It's like taking poison! This is not the way this medication is supposed to work and I took the brand name for years and it was ok. There's something about the generics.
If you still have your pills you can send them to consumer labs to be tested. That's what I'm going to do.

I think Welbutrin works great and I hope they don't take it off the market. The only thing I would advise is, switch to decaf coffee. If you take in much caffeine while using Welbutrin, it will get you wound up and nervous. But otherwise, I love it.

Help me please! I was put on Wellbutrin XL 150 about 3 weeks ago. I woke up 2 weeks after taking it with the worst anxiety I have felt since I was in my 20's. (Now52) My doctor stopped it abruptly and prescribed up to 4mg of Klonopin with Ativan for extreme attacks. I've been off of it for 6 days now and I'm completely hopeless, cannot see any future and the medication does not touch the anxiety. The suicidal intrusive thoughts are becoming stronger every day and I'm scared to death that I will act on them very soon. I'm saddened for my husband and my 17 yr old son because they'll never understand why I did it. I'm also saddened that this drug took away my ability to watch my son start college, and for my husband and I to grow old together. It's not casual feelings of suicide. They're haunting and tormenting with me feeling like I'm losing the battle. Can anyone tell me that these feelings will end? Please?