Increased use of psychotropic drugs for depression is causing health nightmare
Having taken antidepressants prescribed for depression and anxiety for more than 30 years I feel I must write in response to David Walsh’s article, “Not wrong to take pills for depression– some need them ”(17 October).
I wasone of those people convinced I neededto take antidepressants but I did have my niggling doubts. With every passing year it seemed strange to me that a drug designed to help people with depression was actually making me feel worse. I recall going back and forth to my GP with increasing concerns over side effect- related health problems. I didn’ t like that I was cognitively impaired, over weight, fatigued beyond belief and debilitated by gastro-intestinal problems that required further medication. Anytime I forgot to pickup my prescription I would end up in a terrible state of anxiety. It was horrifying to realise that all of the assurances I’d been given about antidepressants not causing dependence were in fact untrue.
I tapered off my antidepressant in 2011 but my experience has been one of prolonged torture, something I hadn’t properly anticipated from reading the drug literature. The very symptoms that anti depress ants are said to“cure” are manifold in withdrawal – severe anxiety, panic attacks, depression, insomnia and akathisia or severe restless - ness which can drive people to contemplate suicide as it did in myself. Whether due to ignorance or denial my doctors haven’t been willing to accede that my protracted withdrawal experience has anything to do with coming off antidepressants – they see it as evidence of relapse. My only resource for information has come from talking to others in similar circumstances online.
There are no known biological causes for depression and yet countless numbers of us are persuaded to take mindaltering psychotropic drugs with apparently little concern for the long- term consequences. No one apparently wants to hear that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors ( SSRI) can cause sexual dysfunction that might be permanent or that SSRI withdrawal can be protracted and severe. I am thankful we are starting to see the demi seof the chemical imbalance myth but I wonder why we aren’t more concerned that our increased use of prescribed psychotropic drugs has led to an explosion in the number of chronically ill patients on lifelong disability.
ALYNE DUTHIE Balnellan Road, Braemar