Can antidepressants numb love?
Researchers have asked whether SSRIs blunt romantic love. The evidence is mixed, and some people say lost feelings stayed after stopping, as part of PSSD.
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Researchers have asked for about 20 years whether SSRI antidepressants can blunt romantic love, and the few studies disagree. Some people say their feelings for a partner, or their ability to fall in love, stayed flat after they stopped, alongside other symptoms of post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD).
Losing feelings for someone you love is easy to blame on the relationship. If the medicine plays a part, it helps to know that before ending one.
The story in 3 lines
- In 2007 two US researchers proposed a hypothesis: serotonin-raising antidepressants may weaken romantic love (chapter).
- Two studies since disagree, and the larger one only asked people in love (2025 survey).
- The 2022 criteria for PSSD list emotional numbing among the symptoms that can continue after stopping. We found no study of how often it affects romantic feelings (PubMed search, October 2026; criteria).
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Before Prozac, Katie says, she “experienced romance and other emotions easily”. She took it for about three years from the age of 21.
Afterwards she noticed she wasn’t developing any crushes. “I have tried to have relationships several times as an adult,” she says, “but it doesn’t work because of PSSD.” She has lived with it for about 14 years.
Can antidepressants stop you feeling in love?
It hasn’t been settled. The idea began as a hypothesis. In a 2007 book chapter, the anthropologist Helen Fisher and the psychiatrist J. Anderson Thomson proposed that people on these medicines “can potentially jeopardize not only their sex drive” but also romantic love and attachment to a partner. They first put the idea to a psychiatry meeting in 2004.
Their reasoning came from brain research. Being in love is linked with dopamine, the brain’s reward chemical, they wrote. Raising serotonin, which is what SSRIs do, can damp dopamine down. So, they argued, a medicine that lowers sex drive may also quieten love.
They gave examples. A student on an SSRI said, “I have not been as much in love with my boyfriend.” Her dose had just been raised. A man wrote to a newspaper that his romantic feelings for his wife had dropped sharply on the medicine.
In the cases where the medicine was stopped or changed, the feelings came back. The chapter doesn’t mention anyone whose feelings stayed flat after stopping.
Has anyone tested whether SSRIs dull love?
Two studies have looked, and they point in different directions. A 2014 study in Pisa asked 192 people who had taken an SSRI or a tricyclic antidepressant for at least six months about sex, attachment and love. The authors found that SSRIs affected feelings of love and attachment towards a partner, especially in men.
A 2025 survey of young adults found no link. People taking an SSRI reported love about as intense as people who weren’t.
The survey has a catch. As the paper’s title says, everyone in it was in love at the time. People who had lost the feeling weren’t part of the sample.
SSRIs and romantic love: the research so far
Can lost romantic feelings last after stopping?
In Fisher and Thomson’s examples, people who stopped or changed the medicine got their feelings back. For some people with PSSD, like Katie, the loss has lasted years after stopping. Nobody knows yet who will be affected, or whether it will ease.
The UK leaflet for sertraline says sexual problems have, in some cases, “continued after stopping treatment”. The 2022 criteria for PSSD add emotional numbing to the symptoms that can come with it. They say emotional and genital numbing commonly go together.
Nick, whose girlfriend stood by him, says he can still show emotions on his face. “But I don’t feel it,” he says. Victoria, who took Lexapro for about two weeks and then trazodone, lists “no romantic feeling, no attraction” among her symptoms today.
What can I do?
These medicines help many people. If you have side effects, that’s a decision for you and your prescriber. Don’t stop suddenly.
If your feelings for a partner have faded since starting a medicine, or haven’t returned since stopping, say so at your next appointment. Use your own words, such as “I love her but I can’t feel it”. Give your dates: “Sertraline 50 mg from January 2023, last tablet March 2024.”
If you’re in a relationship, telling your partner what has changed may stop it being read as a verdict on them.
Report it: it helps everyone
A doctor's note helps you. A report to the medicines regulator helps everyone else: it is how patterns get noticed.
- No proof needed. A suspicion is enough, even years after stopping.
- Where: the Yellow Card scheme in the UK, MedWatch in the US.
- Use the right words. If symptoms continued after stopping, write Post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (MedDRA 10086208).
What else do people ask?
Do SSRIs always affect love? No. In the 2025 survey, young adults on SSRIs who were in love reported it about as intensely as the others. Fisher and Thomson also wrote that these medicines can help with problems that strain relationships.
Could it be the depression? It can be. Depression can drain the warmth out of a relationship, and feeling flat on the tablets, called emotional blunting, is a known side effect. Timing is one clue: Katie says that even at her lowest point before Prozac, she “still had feelings”. See PSSD or depression?
Is it just a low sex drive? Not always. Sex drive, falling in love and feeling attached to a long-term partner are different things, though they overlap. Katie describes losing several at once. Our article on no sex drive after stopping antidepressants covers the sexual side.
Katie says she remembers what it’s like to have sexual feelings, but she can’t reach them any more. Read her story, and what is known about PSSD.
Sources
- Fisher HE, Thomson JA Jr. Lust, romance, attachment: do the side effects of serotonin-enhancing antidepressants jeopardize romantic love, marriage, and fertility? Chapter 10 in: Platek SM, Keenan JP, Shackelford TK (eds). Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007: 245–283. The authors first presented the idea at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting in May 2004. Case reports (pp. 257, 258, 267–268) include a letter to the New York Times (Frankel, 2004). The chapter also notes that under some circumstances these medicines might strengthen attachment (p. 262).
- Marazziti D, Akiskal HS, Udo M, et al. Dimorphic changes of some features of loving relationships during long-term use of antidepressants in depressed outpatients. Journal of Affective Disorders, 2014; 166: 151–155. 192 outpatients with mild or moderate depression, on one antidepressant (an SSRI or a tricyclic) for at least six months and in a relationship; “Sex, Attachment, Love” questionnaire.
- Bode A, Kowal M, Cannas Aghedu F, Kavanagh PS. SSRI use is not associated with the intensity of romantic love, obsessive thinking about a loved one, commitment, or sexual frequency in a sample of young adults experiencing romantic love. Journal of Affective Disorders, 2025; 375: 472–477. 810 young adults from the Romantic Love Survey 2022, all experiencing romantic love at the time. Described here from its title and abstract only; we could not open the full text.
- Healy D, Bahrick A, Bak M, et al. Diagnostic criteria for enduring sexual dysfunction after treatment with antidepressants, finasteride and isotretinoin. International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, 2022; 33(1): 65–76. Emotional numbing is listed as an ancillary non-sexual symptom.
- Lustral (sertraline), patient leaflet, Electronic Medicines Compendium, last revised December 2025. Section 2, “Sexual problems”.
- MedDRA term Post-SSRI sexual dysfunction, code 10086208.
- Moral Medicine interviews on YouTube: Katie (May 2026) and Nick (30 May 2023). Victoria’s words are from her Moral Medicine interview, on her story page.
This information does not replace medical advice. Talk to your doctor before you make any decision about your treatment.
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