June 16, 2005

Coming off anti-depressants can be tough, writes Sarah Clayton.

Look around, and every fifth person you see will at some time in their life suffer clinical depression. We are practically a species within a species. We could have scientific names such as Melancholia sapiens or Homo horizontus.

Television naturalists could do a documentary on the depressed, watching us as we lie in our messy habitats, devoid of the urge to graze and bereft of all mating and courtship activity. Anything other than remaining in bed/on the sofa/confined to the house is simply too frightening and unnerving a prospect. Living gets all a bit too much.

My depression erupted suddenly after a holiday in Spain with a group of university friends. I had been down for a while, feeling disappointed with my 2.1 degree rather than the gold standard I first sought, bored with the daily grind, wishing there was something more and dwelling on the past. A good holiday seemed like the answer. I pressured myself to have the obligatory wonderful time, but once away I felt despair, apathy and a lack of motivation.

I booked an appointment with my doctor on my return and I was prescribed paroxetine, a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. I thankfully experienced an improvement after about a month. Friends who had taken SSRIs were very supportive.

As my confidence increased I began to feel like my old self, much more energised and even accepting party invites again, when only a few months before the idea of any enforced fun was enough to make me break out in a sweat. After six months I was ready to come off the tablets.

Despite the claims that SSRIs are not addictive, I quickly found that withdrawal from the happy pills threw me into mood swings. It was so discouraging and frustrating to feel like this again, it was as if I'd been pushed back to the starting line.

Anxiety and a return of depressive thoughts are common side effects when withdrawing from these drugs; this is a frightening enough prospect when you have prior knowledge that it might happen, but many aren't warned.

In Britain, the mental health charity Mind and the BBC carried out a survey of 239 people in 2003. Of the 55 per cent who asked their doctor about side effects of Seroxat (a branded form of paroxetine), 31 per cent had been told there was none, 39 per cent that it was not addictive. Manufacturers maintain there is no reliable scientific evidence that paroxetine or other drugs of its class are addictive.

For the time being I shove the tempting white tablets to the bottom of the drawer, knowing that symptoms of withdrawal are not meant to last more than a few weeks. However, a couple of weeks seems like forever when you are struggling with feelings of nausea, dizziness and emotional turmoil.

The Guardian