Withdrawal Page

Mark Horowitz and David Taylor provide advice on how to tell the difference between antidepressant withdrawal and depression relapse.

As I see it this website is about filling the gaping hole in the official literature on mental health problems and their treatment. Since these problems were declared to be diseases, ‘just like any other’, academic papers present them as if they were simply technical glitches in the way the brain or mind works. They can be identified by ticking a few boxes, and easily treated by tweaking the corresponding defect with a drug or a few sessions of quick-fix therapy. What it is like to experience these problems and their treatments is nowhere to be found. Yet in post after post on this site among others, we hear about the harm produced by drugs that are prescribed for mental health problems.

In the 1950s, when the drugs we now call ‘antipsychotics’ first came along, psychiatrists recognised that they were toxic substances that happened to have the ability to suppress thoughts and emotions without simply putting people to sleep in the way the old sedatives did. The mental restriction the drugs produced was noted to be part of a general state of physical and mental inhibition that at extremes resembled Parkinson’s disease. Early psychiatrists didn’t doubt that this state of neurological suppression was potentially damaging to the brain.

Despite safety concerns, a new study reveals that there has been no change in the use of benzodiazepines in the elderly from 2001 to 2010.

If I thought that it was possible, I would have opened a string of clinics all over the country to help get people off of antidepressants.  Unfortunately, the problems that sometimes occur when people try to stop an SSRI antidepressant are much more severe and long-lasting than the medical profession acknowledges, and there is no antidote to these problems. The truth is, giving people information about taking antidepressants is like giving information to people who are enroute to a casino; they go because they hear that some people win (at least for a time), but the losers are the ones who ultimately pay for it all — and the odds are not in their favor.

To those who are still suffering, it gets better. Indeed, I do not consider myself ill anymore. I consider myself HEALING, which is a vibrant state of movement and change. My limitations do not mean that I am sick. Learning to make boundaries for my well-being has been one of the healthiest things I’ve learned to do. Deeply respecting the needs of this body/temple is one of the most wonderful achievements of WELLNESS.

Support for anyone living with Akathisia. Akathisia is a state of agitation, distress, and restlessness which may arise as a side effect of taking or withdrawing from certain medications.

Confronting existential anxiety through “Basal Exposure Therapy” shows promising results in people withdrawing from psychotropic drugs.

Tapering should be tailored and adjusted to the patient, slowed and more hyperbolic in people who have severe and longstanding reactions.

Depressed elderly people are more likely to suffer heart disease not because of their depression, but apparently due to antidepressant drugs.

The Benzodiazepine Withdrawal Support Site is a place to learn about benzodiazepine side effects, tolerance, dependency, addiction, withdrawal symptoms and protracted withdrawal syndrome. The...

Protracted Withdrawal Syndrome characterized by long-term adverse experiences after coming off of antidepressants.

Research on 966 mother-child pairs from the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment (CHARGE) Study finds that prenatal SSRI exposure was nearly 3...

A new study reveals that withdrawal symptoms from antidepressants can last years, disrupting lives and relationships.

The conventional wisdom is that antidepressant medications are effective and safe. However, the scientific literature shows that the conventional wisdom is flawed. While all prescription medications have side effects, antidepressant medications appear to do more harm than good as treatments for depression.

The use by mothers of any of four major classes of psychiatric medications during pregnancy significantly raises the risk that their babies will be born with low birth weights and will need to be hospitalized.

W-BAD is the official website for World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day, an international campaign to raise global awareness about iatrogenic benzodiazepine dependence and the dangers of...

This week the drug monitoring and patients' rights website, RxISK, launched the Centre for Medication Withdrawal, a page dedicated to establishing what causes dependence and how to treat it.

The ocean’s waves are constant and unchangeable, bound by earth and gravity; for a long time I believed life was this way, too—that who I was and how I felt and what I believed about myself were all bound by some invisible force that would always keep me trapped in a perpetual state of agonizing being. What a beautiful thing to know that after so many years of believing this, I’ve proven myself wrong.

Recovery Road provides self-help information, coping tools and other resources for individuals affected by withdrawal and dependency on sleeping pills, other benzodiazepine tranquillisers, Z-drugs and antidepressants,...

Over 70% of schizophrenia patients who are "treatment resistant" have apparently developed dopamine supersensitivity psychosis from long-term use of antipsychotic medications.

Stronger warnings on the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors are being incorporated into the prescribing information for ADHD drugs in Canada.

Neuroleptic Drugs and Violence by Catherine Clarke SRN, SCM, MSSCH, MBChA. and Jan Evans MCSP. Grad Dip Phys.

Brooke Siem discusses her experiences of being medicated with antidepressants as a teenager, her withdrawal from a cocktail of psychiatric drugs and her debut memoir, May Cause Side Effects.

A 2013 film by Daniel Mackler. "In June of 2012, twenty-three people came together to discuss the subject of coming off psychiatric drugs. We...