Before Starting Antidepressants, Please Think Again

The month of May is Mental Health Awareness month and thus is it a good opportunity for me to share what I have learned about antidepressants and how they often frequently worsen the symptoms associated with mental health. You read that right. Many years ago, during a difficult period of my life, I was prescribed by a general practitioner an antidepressant that falls into the category of an SSRI (Selected Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitor). From that time until the time I was able at long last to get off of them many years later, my symptoms over time had gotten worse. My anxiety increased; my sleeplessness became more acute; my general comportment vacillated between lethargy and panic. In time and after undertaking my own research, I began to suspect that my symptoms were not due to a worsening depression but were being worsened by the medication itself.

Having been free of antidepressants for a year and a half, I know now that was true. I feel altogether better and the debilitating anxiety and crippling insomnia have all but disappeared. Yet getting to this place of reclaimed wholeness has proven to be one of the most difficult struggles of my life — far worse than anything I experienced during the stressful passage that prompted the initiation of medication in the first place. That is because these drugs (SSRIs) have been proven to be more difficult to discontinue than heroin. There is no shortage of medical and anecdotal documentation attesting to it. The reason for this difficulty isn’t addiction per se, in the way that heroin is an addiction. The reason is because of physical changes that occur in the brain because of these medications and the difficulty the brain encounters when the drugs are removed.

Over this month I plan to post about my journey to be free of them as well as about the dangers of antidepressants, generally, all with the hope that any of you are considering taking them will think again. I also hope that those who are on them already, but whose depression symptoms are not resolved or may have worsened, might consider trying to taper off of them. It can be done — but it will take a long time and must be undertaken in very small increments. (I have written a short book about how to navigate this journey and begin a successful taper, which you can get on Amazon or as an ebook.) 

How the Age of Antidepressants Began

It has been three decades since the FDA approved Prozac (in 1987) and the data is only now beginning to register meaningfully about how dangerous antidepressant drugs can be. After the surge of prescriptions that leaves, to date, approximately 32,000,000 Americans dependent upon these drugs, only now are the long-term injurious effects being recognized. This can be noted increased prevalence of “black box” warnings attached to the literature accompanying these medications(and frequently revised). Moreover, the medical community has been slow to redress these hazards and the pharmaceutical companies have been found to be complicit in skewing the data.

It is my contention that the over-prescribing of antidepressants, their debilitating effects, and the trauma associated with getting off of them have created a major health crisis in this country that is vastly under-reported. Yet the case can be made (and has been) that these drugs play a significant role in social pathologies such as the rise in rampage shootings, bizarre homicides and suicides.

This topic encompasses an area of great need that is little understood and widely neglected. Ultimately, it is my desire that this site can serve as a portent of hope for the countless, hidden, hurting and desperate people who have found themselves in the same predicament I confronted, having been broadsided by the damaging effects of the drugs themselves coupled with the harrowing struggle to be free of them. My account testifies that discontinuation of these drugs can be realized and wholeness restored. But the patient needs to work very hard over a long time, organizing one’s life and physical health before undertaking the what can sometimes become a harrowing journey, such as that which I recount in upcoming posts throughout the month of May.