It was frightening to struggle with antidepressants, but now I know there is another way

an article by Rachel Kelly for the New Statesman


PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

My argument is not to ignore medication in treating depression, but I would have rather avoided the side effects and the feeling I had to rely on pills over a long period.

Some use scissors. Others prefer a sharp knife. My own weapon of choice was a nail clipper.

Over the six months or so that I took to come off antidepressants, I found that the easiest way to halve and then quarter the pills was to raid the bathroom cabinet. My bedside table became a small pharmaceutical workshop. Eventually, there was nothing but white powder, which I would suck up with a straw when no one was around to avoid looking like a drug addict.

Ironically, I used other drugs, chiefly tranquillisers, to ease the process and reduce the anxiety of withdrawing from antidepressants. Using drugs to come off other pills was not ideal, but it was the way I managed a frightening period. I was terrified that I might fall ill again without medication.

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