A new study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders Reports sheds light on the profound and often devastating effects of antidepressant withdrawal. Led by Joanna Moncrieff of University College London, the research found that 80% of participants withdrawing from antidepressants experienced moderate to severe impacts on their lives, including disrupted work, strained relationships, and even the loss of jobs. Alarmingly, 40% of participants reported symptoms lasting more than two years, while 25% were unable to stop taking antidepressants altogether.
The findings reignite an ongoing debate in psychiatry about the nature of antidepressant withdrawal. Critics have long argued that post-withdrawal symptoms are often mistaken for a relapse of underlying conditions, but this study challenges that narrative by introducing the Discriminatory Antidepressant Withdrawal Symptom Scale (DAWSS). The DAWSS identifies 15 symptoms that are most likely caused by antidepressant withdrawal rather than pre-existing mental health issues.
As the authors note:
“Half the participants in our study who had stopped antidepressants had experienced withdrawal symptoms that lasted for over a year, around a third for more than two years and 10% for more than five years. Impairment of the ability to work was common, including having to reduce hours, take sick leave or stop work altogether. Family and relationship problems and having to give up social activities were also frequently reported. Free text answers revealed that some people had suffered significant disability and distress.”
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The current research had three aims. First, to examine the symptoms, duration, severity, and consequences of antidepressant withdrawal. Second, to identify symptoms that are most likely to be caused by withdrawing from antidepressants rather than an underlying condition. Third, to investigate predictors of difficult withdrawal experiences.
The authors used data collected by the “International Online Survey of Members of Peer Support Groups about their Experiences of Withdrawing from Antidepressants”. To be included in the study, participants had to be members of the online peer support groups where the survey was distributed and at least 18 years old. Additionally, participants had to have some experience withdrawing from antidepressants. Some participants had successfully withdrawn, some had attempted but were unable to stop, and some were in the process of trying to halt antidepressant use. The current research included data from 1148 participants.
The survey used in the current research asked about medication use, why the participant wanted to stop taking antidepressants, what symptoms they had before using antidepressants, what withdrawal symptoms they experienced, and how their lives were affected by withdrawal. Participants were presented with a list of 31 symptoms associated with antidepressant withdrawal in past research and asked which ones they experienced during their withdrawal. Participants were then asked to indicate if each of the symptoms they experienced during withdrawal was a new onset or if the symptoms were present before withdrawal.
53.3% of participants were from the US (34.6%) or the UK (18.7%). The majority of participants were white (92.3%), female (80.1%), and college-educated (63%). 77.2% of participants had been taking an antidepressant for more than a year before attempting withdrawal. 64.4% had been taking these drugs for more than two years and 43.6% for more than five years. 51.5% of respondents were in the process of attempting to withdraw from antidepressants, 50.1% had successfully withdrawn from an antidepressant in the past, and 26.3% had tried to withdraw in the past unsuccessfully. 50.2% indicated that antidepressants had helped with their initial problem, 29.7% said the antidepressants did not help, and 20.1% said they were not sure if the drugs had helped or not.
The overwhelming majority of participants (98.2%) reported experiencing withdrawal symptoms when attempting to stop using antidepressants. Among participants who had successfully withdrawn from antidepressants, 49.5% had withdrawal symptoms for more than a year, 32.2% experienced these symptoms for more than two years, and 10.7% for more than five years.
Withdrawal Consequences
80% of participants reported that their lives were at least moderately affected by withdrawal symptoms, including 61.1% indicating severe negative consequences of withdrawal. These negative consequences included a reduction of social activities (68.9%), impaired functioning at work (55.7%), reducing work time or responsibilities (33.1%), taking sick leave (26.8%), losing a job or stopping work altogether (21.6%), breakdown of a relationship (25.3%), and problems with close friends and family (40.9%). Some participants used strong language to describe the consequences of antidepressant withdrawal, including “ruined my life and still is”, “made my life hell”, and “total life breakdown.”
Withdrawal Symptoms
The most common symptoms reported to have started or increased in severity after withdrawal from antidepressants were anxiety (reported by 93.5% of participants), fatigue (93.2%), impaired concentration (93%), and worsened mood (92.5%). More than 80% of participants reported new onset or increased severity of agitation, dizziness, insomnia, memory problems, irritability, bouts of crying, and mood swings. More than 70% reported increased sensitivity, anger, depersonalization, headache, “brain zaps,” emotional numbing, muscular problems, gait and coordination problems, diarrhea, vivid dreams, palpitations, vertigo, and nausea. More than 60% reported reduced libido, akathisia, feeling suicidal, and tinnitus. Elevated mood (31.5%), vomiting (28.8%), and psychotic symptoms (25.7%) were reported by more than a quarter of participants.
The mean number of symptoms reported before starting antidepressants was eight. The mean number of new or increased symptoms after withdrawing from antidepressants was 19.1. The mean score of symptom severity before starting antidepressants was 15.3 (out of 93). The mean score of severity of symptoms after withdrawal from antidepressants was 48.8 (out of 93). Before starting antidepressants, 29.6% of participants reported suicidal thoughts or attempts, but after withdrawal from antidepressants, that increased to 60.7%.
Discriminatory Antidepressant Withdrawal Symptom Scale
The authors identified 15 withdrawal symptoms as most associated with withdrawal and least likely to be caused by an underlying condition. Those symptoms include: “brain zaps”, akathisia, dizziness, vomiting, vertigo, nausea, gait and coordination problems, increased sensitivity to light and noise, tinnitus, psychotic symptoms, diarrhea, muscular issues, palpitations, vivid dreams, and memory problems. The authors propose measuring the presence and severity of these symptoms before starting antidepressants. After stopping them as a measure of withdrawal severity, they call the Discriminatory Antidepressant Withdrawal Symptom Scale.
Predictors of Withdrawal Severity and Duration
The authors identified several factors associated with increased severity of withdrawal. Men reported more difficult withdrawal experiences in the current research. Older age was associated with more severe withdrawal symptoms. Taking antidepressants that past research had labeled as high risk of withdrawal (SNRIs and paroxetine) was also associated with more severe withdrawal. Older age, longer duration of antidepressant use, and not being prescribed other drugs were all factors related to withdrawal symptoms being present for longer durations. The authors note that the severity, impact, and duration of withdrawal were similar for participants, whether they were prescribed antidepressants for physical or mental health issues.
The authors acknowledge several limitations to the current research. The participants were recruited from online support forums for withdrawing from antidepressants. This could result in a sample with especially bad experiences using and/or withdrawing from these drugs. The sample was primarily white, female, and college-educated. Men, non-white ethnicities, and people without a college education were likely underrepresented in the current research. The duration of withdrawal was likely underestimated as many participants were currently in the withdrawal process.
The authors conclude:
“Our findings point to the existence of a genuine withdrawal syndrome associated with antidepressants, which can cause severe symptoms, be long-lasting, and have a profound impact on peopleâs lives. The DAWSS scale might help to distinguish withdrawal from relapse of the underlying condition but should not be considered adequate to exclude a diagnosis of withdrawal as it excludes some of the most common withdrawal symptoms. Health professionals need to be aware of the potential significance of antidepressant withdrawal to support people with clinical decision-making and during the process of withdrawal itself.”
Many experts have expressed concern over the medically-induced harm of antidepressant withdrawal. Past research has found that withdrawal symptoms are common for people who stop taking antidepressants. One case study linked antidepressant withdrawal with a suicide attempt. Antidepressant withdrawal being misdiagnosed as an underlying mental health issue is common, with one piece of research finding that about 66% of service users experiencing antidepressant withdrawal were misdiagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. Slow tapering of antidepressants is the safest way to discontinue these drugs.
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Moncrieff, J., Read, J., & Horowitz, M. A. (2024). The nature and impact of antidepressant withdrawal symptoms and proposal of the discriminatory antidepressant withdrawal symptoms scale (DAWSS). Journal of Affective Disorders Reports, 16, 100765. (Link)
Time and time again these drugs and other harmful ‘treatment’s are pushed on the public by a psychiatry desperate to be taken seriously. Yet all we see is that the harms get worse with each ignorant iteration of this industry, cultural disorder. – Try Owen Whooley’s on the heels of ignorance, or Desperate remedies by Andrew Scull and many others
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A) this isn’t news at all, and B) correlation isn’t even proof of causality, so such studies merely suggest all these negative consequences are related to PEOPLE who come off antidepressants, and those people are the same kind of people who adhere to them in the first place, and without understanding those people, their (false) expectations about the drugs and false beliefs about themselves and their society, are themselves confounding factors in the study. You just have to study the human being as a whole if you want a true and penetrating understanding of the problems human beings, and by extension society, faces. This is a new understanding that is dawning on us in so many ways, and makes the scientific rationalism of yesterday resemble not merely the dark ages, but the powerfully destructive dark ages. And in light of the gravity of all the issues that concern MIA and all those issues that destroy our world, posting articles showing yet more such results from an antidepressant study is without interest or importance, so therefore is, to be quite frank, boring. Boring articles are a threat to your readership, which ought to be a concern if you believe in the venture of raising awareness about the issue of an enormous and intellectually bankrupt lie that has destroyed millions of lives and is damaging all of our brains through the lies and propaganda of the industry and the drugs they serve up to about 1 billion human beings on a daily basis.
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That would be the story of the last twenty years of my life. For me there were cascading and increasing consequences because of some bad decisions (withdrawal of course didn’t help there) and some incredibly bad luck, like becoming dependent during withdrawal on a therapist who turned out to be first manipulative (which I could not see…withdrawal again) and then in the end flat out abusive when I ran out of money to pay him.
I will never forget the day, in the middle of withdrawal, when I read something online, an addiction counselor, saying SSRIs are worse than heroin to get off of because it just goes on and on. That was in the days when almost no one knew about this. I happened to run into a friend who’s an addiction counselor. He didn’t blink. “Oh yeah, everyone in my business knows that. And it’s even worse, because there’s no acceptable narrative, they’re just medicine some nice doctor gave you.” Exactly.
Endless thanks to Joanna Moncrief for working so hard to set the record straight.
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Been on them for 30 years hope now I will be able to taper off them .
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It took me 4: years of hell. This is the most worthless drug out there. After a couple months nothing . Now addicted so you keep taking to prevent withdrawal and to keep going. A pharmacist told me it ruin my heart, I went back and psych said she a liar. I asked 3 times. I left And never returned.
Astonishing ,
Pharmacist said they have no peer review and yet the junk keeps going . They lie .
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I would be included in the “66% of service users experiencing antidepressant withdrawal [who] were misdiagnosed with a psychiatric disorder.” That’s an unacceptably high misdiagnosis rate, IMHO.
And brain zaps are not cured, with more anticholinergic drugs. I’m now on 23 years and counting, with brain zaps.
My doctor was kind of funny, however, when I told him about how I could now largely control the brain zaps in my waking hours, and brain zap away a headache in a NY second. He called them “neuro-protective.” I smiled, but thought glorifying iatrogenic harm (that he’d confessed he couldn’t fix) was not really appropriate.
But I do also thank Joanna Moncrieff and John Read for all their truthful reporting.
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Thankfully another study validating mine and so many other individuals horrific experience of trying to withdraw from an SSRi. It really is beyond belief how these experiences are often misdiagnosedâŚ
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They make a living pushing these pills. So why I they even going to entertain the thought of them being addictive. Psychiatrists would not make any money and their profession be gone.
Plus, over the summer last year of heard of a young man that taken off of Klonopin. He suffered from a grand male seizure and died.
Heard the psych world said he had an underlying disorder that caused it .
Pathetic . It states in plain text this happens.
The problem psychiatry there no peer review nor no one oversee ing it . Attorneys say it worthless to take a mal practice suit to court. There fifteen there claiming the person had another relapse or a new mental disorder .
They basically can ruin your life.
I personally totally regret visiting one. I had PTSD
I think they a both of power freaks
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This is very important information. Drug withdrawal symptoms experienced after stopping antidepressants. . In fact, it explains everything to us. Psychiatric drugs do not and cannot treat mental illnesses. They cannot treat something that is not in the brain. (Mental and mental illnesses are spiritual) What psychiatric drugs do best is chemically damage the human brain. The greatest benefit of psychiatric drugs is to the DSM, Psychiatry and pharmaceutical companies. (Preservation of revolving door capital) None of the psychiatric drugs are of any benefit to the patients (who use them). On the contrary, they are very harmful. Psychiatric drugs numb the brain due to the chemicals. It works just like illegal street drugs. (Psychiatric medications are, in fact, legal ‘street’ drugs. ) This brain numbness causes a ‘positive effect’ on the patient. The patient becomes calm. However, when chemicals are taken continuously, the brain becomes accustomed to it. (It becomes addicted. ) And slowly, chemical damage (brain damage) begins to occur in the brain. When a patient wants to stop taking a drug, their brain chemicals oppose it. They go into shock. They experience drug withdrawal symptoms. However, the patient still thinks it is beneficial. He continues to use psychiatric medication. Usually after months/years of medication use, the brain almost stops. (Chemical brain damage. ) Natural psychological problems become permanent due to chemicals. (Permanent mental illnesses occur. ) In summary. . Psychiatric drugs transform natural psychological problems (chemically induced) into permanent mental illnesses. First, permanent chemically induced brain damage occurs. (Chemical lobotomy) Then, natural psychological problems become permanent. This is what causes people who are in mental hospitals today (who have to stay until they die) to become like this. Psychiatric drugs are chemical lobotomy. It is the chemical version of the frontal lobotomy. Today, chemical lobotomies are silently performed in mental hospitals and even in homes (widespread use of psychiatric drugs), but no one is even aware of it. You may think that millions of people using psychiatric drugs have somehow been subjected to chemical lobotomy. This grave issue should be addressed first. Best regards. .
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I totally Agree
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What makes psychiatry think its drugs aren’t addictive? Fear of having to admit that most of them are drug pushers.
The next time a psychiatrist says withdrawal is relapse of an “illness” tell them to prove it.
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My son was prescribed Lexapro by a doctor who knew he was 18 and unstable in employment and mental health. She never discussed withdrawal. When he left a job and no longer had health insurance, he quit taking the lexapro cold turkey. One month later he was in a high speed chase with police (for no reason, no drugs no warrants no criminal activity). He said he was afraid they were going to kill him and that he was hallucinating paranoid delusions. He has suffered huge consequences and his future is altered forever. The judge of course did not care to entertain any other idea except to place my son under requirements for âmental healthâ where he must remain compliant with the same profession who haphazardly prescribed this poison to him in the first place.
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Oh my. I am so so sorry to hear this. You can see above what happened to me. Not the same but similarly harmful. Just today, my physician’s assistant tried to get me to take SSRIs because I’m having some anxiety at times. I told him briefly what had happened to me and he blew right past it as if I’d said nothing. These idiots do so much harm. Anyway, I’m terribly sorry abut your son and hope he’s on the mend. He’s lucky to have you!
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Thank you. This is so helpful.
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In my addiction literature, there is a concept that being “distrustful of others” is one of the tell-tale signs common to most addicts (right along with rationalization, justification, denial, dereliction, degradation, isolation, et. al.). Being unable to quit the habit of taking anti-depressants sure reminds me of addiction. It must be admitted, however, that trusting someone who has just betrayed us is difficult indeed. Having a license to distribute SSRIs does not relieve one of the responsibility to be accountable for any harm done (when someone is in worse condition after treatment than they were prior to treatment, that person has been harmed… In this case, by their prescriber) No amount of research is going to force these powerful people to come out of denial. But, there’s good news and bad news… The good news is that there is hope and that help is on the way… The bad news is that we are that hope and we are that help (but we’re having the necessary conversations to educate ourselves and experience healing). It’s easy to fall into despair, but let’s not live there any more than we absolutely have to… When we get the help we need, we’ll be available to help others avoid the same mistakes that we’ve made. Let’s remember, at one time we didn’t have any choice except to trust others who were just as uninformed as we sadly are… Without our voice in this conversation, others will have no option except to fall into the same trap that we barely escaped – Think about that. The only alternative is to continue down the road of pathologizing the distresses that go hand-in-hand with being human. We’ve gone from being helpless to having something vital to contribute… Sharing our experience can make a big difference… We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to each other.
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For 4 years I couldn’t function are get out of bed. I had major depression. I was even hearing voices. I was put on Prozac and it gave me my life back.
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Thank You, Denise… Often in my excited state – when I’m trying to express my truth, I’m neglectful of the many (majority)? of patients for whom SSRIs, provide the relief which they were seeking. I’m glad you got your life back. I truly am (and I wish you the very best)
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Has anyone told you the anti depressants are addictive, Denise
They definitely deny it, but it real.
Also. All the school shooters were taken anti depressants. Lots do not know this.
This is how dangerous they are.
Grassroots found this out and did not stay on the web long
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I’m glad you found relief. I wonder if you could share whether you in your past or your parents before you were born had been exposed to psychotropic drugs.
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