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The first time I tried to come off venlafaxine, a common antidepressant which I had been taking for more than a decade, it didn\u2019t go well. I was living in the United States at the time with no medical insurance and, therefore, no regular access to a doctor. Nevertheless, I did it by the book, tapering down over several months \u2013 from 75mg, to 50mg, to 25mg, to zero.<\/p>\n
Newly liberated, on my first drug-free day, I sat down to write an email. With a growing sense of panic, I realised that all I could type was nonsense. No matter how hard I concentrated, my screen would fill with only a string of jumbled characters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be dramatic,\u201d I said to my husband, \u201cbut I think I\u2019m having a stroke.\u201d He told me to take the pill again. I did. Half an hour later, I was fine.<\/p>\n
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About 5 million Australians are being prescribed medications for mental health.Getty Images<\/p>\n
Losing control of your mental faculties is a frightening experience, but my temporary distress was quickly replaced by a more frightening realisation: if I couldn\u2019t get off them, that meant the drugs were now in control.<\/p>\n
A few months ago, having returned to Australia from the US, I decided to try again. Although I now had access to a GP (a luxury in America), the withdrawals have been horrendous, arguably worse than the original symptoms for which they were prescribed.<\/p>\n
Related Article Mercifully, the confusion did not return; however, I have experienced daily \u201cbrain zaps\u201d, humiliating crying fits, constant nauseating anxiety and, most distressingly, what I can only describe as the sensation, at seemingly random intervals, of a trapdoor opening to plunge me into a bottomless pit of despair \u2013 a terrifying netherworld in which I am a failure and a terrible person who would save the world and myself a great deal of pain and embarrassment by simply ending my life.<\/p>\n I believe that my deeply unpleasant experience is more common than many realise, a suspicion supported by a feature in this masthead<\/a> that profiled misdiagnosed users of antidepressants and highlighted growing calls from professional bodies to better regulate their use. Five million Australians are now on mental health-related prescriptions \u2013 an exponential growth in the past decade.<\/p>\n The ubiquity of antidepressants has recently found the attention of American Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He\u2019s just announced a campaign to wean that nation\u2019s citizens off what he believes to be a reliance on psychiatric drugs<\/a>. Among other measures, he has proposed the creation of a technical expert panel to develop clinical guidelines for de-prescribing.<\/p>\n It is not often I find myself agreeing with a member of the Trump administration, let alone an anti-vax conspiracist who, according to his daughter, once cut off the head of a dead whale with a chainsaw<\/a>. However, I am forced to admit that I think his call to more closely regulate the use of these drugs and renew an emphasis on their essentially temporary nature is perfectly reasonable.<\/p>\n Related Article There are people who need antidepressants. I did and might still. Honestly, it\u2019s too soon for me to know how I will function without them. However, I believe it\u2019s important to examine their use within the contexts of a health system that devalues treatments such as talk therapy and, more broadly, a global economy that often seems to be the source of much of our mental distress. Housing costs, the perniciously enervating effects of social media, the spectre of AI-driven mass redundancies: being depressed right now seems less like a malfunction and more a perfectly reasonable state for any thinking person.<\/p>\n The official medical response to RFK\u2019s initiatives has been telling. Asked to comment, American Psychiatric Association president Theresa Miskimen Rivera told National Public Radio: \u201cIt really is an oversimplification. And it really ignores the larger reality, which is that too many patients really cannot access timely, comprehensive care that is much needed for our nation.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words: people can\u2019t access mental healthcare, so they get drugs because it\u2019s all that\u2019s on offer. Her position is pragmatic and rooted in empathy, but it is, necessarily, shaped by the demands of a healthcare system that has been almost completely subsumed by commercial interests.<\/p>\n Living in the US for almost a decade, I saw in brutal detail what happens when medicine is outsourced to insurance and drug companies. I have stories most Australians struggle to believe. Right now, Donald Trump is using tariffs to try to destroy Australia\u2019s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, our health system\u2019s first line of defence against profit-motive healthcare. It\u2019s a despicable move that will only strain an already stretched system, but guess who\u2019s lobbying him to do it? The same companies that make my antidepressants! I\u2019d say it\u2019s depressing, but I\u2019m not sure how much lower I can go.<\/p>\n Related Article The first time I tried antidepressants was in the \u201990s, at university. I remember being taken aback when the campus doctor reached into a cupboard and handed me a packet of Zoloft as if it were Panadol. \u201cTry these,\u201d she said, using a Zoloft-branded pen to write the script for the next three months.<\/p>\n Thirty years later, in a post-COVID world, this cosy relationship between medical professionals and drug providers has come back to bite us in the form of a widespread public distrust of official health channels, exemplified by the anti-vax movement.<\/p>\n We think of anti-vaxxers, often quite rightly, as crazy. However, their foundational supposition \u2013 that so-called Big Pharma consists of companies that value their bottom line more than people\u2019s health \u2013 is not wrong. From this angle, their suspicion seems less a paranoid delusion and more an extreme but logical conclusion of individuals trapped within a health system hopelessly corrupted by the demands an unbridled free market.<\/p>\n I do not share the conspiratorial fantasies of the online \u201cwellness\u201d movement, many of whose proponents have never actually been unwell. I would not suggest anyone currently taking antidepressants stop their medication without medical supervision. But these and other mood-altering drugs appear to be capitalism\u2019s mechanistic and dispassionate response to a deeply human pain, which too often makes the medicines a symptom of the very problems they claim to cure.<\/p>\n Brendan Shanahan is a freelance writer.<\/p>\n Lifeline: 13 11 14<\/p>\n Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. 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