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As a teenager, I went for a brief session of counselling for depression due to low self-esteem. Along with counselling, the psychiatrist also prescribed an anti
by webmobdev 8y ago
As a teenager, I went for a brief session of counselling for depression due to low self-esteem. Along with counselling, the psychiatrist also prescribed an anti-depressant for me.
At that age, I used to believe that anti-depressants don't work and were just marketing bullshit. And that therapy through counselling was the only effective way to treat psychological issue as the "human mind was very powerful". But I took the anti-depressants. So, even though the anti-depressants worked and made me feel real good, I attributed that to the "good counselling" received that helped me resolve many issues. And so one day, I stopped taking it without telling the doctor.
The next session, I mentioned to him that I had stopped taking it as I felt it didn't seem to have any effect on me and I didn't need it. A look of concern flashed on the doctor's face as he enquired when I stopped taking it. He mentioned this particular anti-depressant shouldn't be stopped suddenly and needed to be slowly tapered off, but I dismissed his concern that since it wasn't working for me there was nothing to worry.
To make a long story short - after that session I suddenly crashed and went into a deep depression, and even quit counselling. It was only later, after a long time when I resumed counselling that I realised what had gone wrong with me - you can't quit some anti-depressants cold turkey.
- castle-bravo 8y agoWhat astounds me is that dependence-forming drugs are handed out without any effort to educate the user (often a child) about possible risks.
- plants 8y agoAnecdotally, I have seen the same thing with anti-anxiety medication. Not sure what medication it was exactly, but some folks that are close to me have had a much higher incidence of panic attacks when they abruptly stopped taking their medication. Same deal - they thought they were fine, then a week or so later, it was just panic attack after panic attack until they refilled their prescription.
- Pharmakon 8y agoMost anxiolytics are benzodiazepines, and quitting cold turkey can quite literally kill you, especially if you’ve been on a significant dose over time. These drugs raise your seizure threshold, but rapidly quitting creates a backlash of lowered seizure threshold, and you can have far worse outcomes than just rebound anxiety.
- Engineering-MD 8y agoBenzodiazepine withdrawal can be unpleasant, but is very unlikely to kill. As far as I am aware, there is only one case of benzodiazepine withdrawal related death (which is not certain in any case).
- notme77 8y agoPlease google "Ashton Manual" The process you're describing is well understood. What your folks are experiencing is extremely common. The Ashton Manual not only describes the process, but also details procedures for mitigating withdrawal-crash-relapse cycling. I'm not a Doctor. The author has solid medical and research credentials along with decades of experience specifically treating and studying benzo addiction. The manual is published by a public research university and has withstood many years of scrutiny.