Surviving Antidepressants: Surviving Antidepressants

SurvivingAntidepressants.org provides volunteer peer support for antidepressant withdrawal, while tapering off and after you quit.

While some people may be able to quickly stop taking psychiatric medications without serious withdrawal symptoms, others cannot. Slowing the taper may reduce the severity of antidepressant withdrawal symptoms. Gradual weaning can take many months and much patience. If you are tapering or thinking of getting off antidepressants, visit our Tapering forum for information.

For a minority, antidepressant withdrawal symptoms may continue after stopping medication, for weeks, months, or years. This can be distressing, debilitating, and even disabling. Those who quit without tapering off ("cold turkey") or taper too quickly are more likely to develop prolonged withdrawal syndrome.

If you are suffering from antidepressant withdrawal syndrome, join us for peer support while you recover.

Tapering off the medication is the only known way to reduce the risk of prolonged withdrawal syndrome. Don't risk the integrity of your nervous system -- do not suddenly stop taking any psychiatric medication.

Pertinent Discussions:
Tapering multiple psych drugs? Taper the antidepressant first

This site does not offer medical advice. For medical advice, consult a trusted medical caregiver. Surviving Antidepressants is entirely volunteer and supported by member donations. It is not affiliated with or funded by any medical or religious organization.

This site was started in March 2011. Altostrata is the site administrator and owner. She runs the site with the help of several assistant administrators and moderators.

We are all volunteers. The site is funded by contributions from its members and guests.

Many of the charter members had been participants for years in other antidepressant withdrawal forums.

SurvivingAntidepressants.org was started with these intentions:

- To provide ongoing support and information for people tapering from antidepressants and those suffering from the ignored iatrogenic condition of prolonged withdrawal syndrome.

- To offer good information about tapering and withdrawal syndrome, usually with some kind of scientific research base, rather than the usual messy mixture of myths and truths found on the Internet.

- To collect case histories of tapering and iatrogenic damage (see the Introductions and Updates forum) attempting to follow people through the recovery process. These case histories are absolutely essential to informed interested physicians and find effective treatments for withdrawal syndrome, reform psychiatry, and change medicine.

We follow a harm reduction philosophy in that tapering or recovery be tailored to the individual to minimize discomfort and symptoms. In tapering, 10% reduction per month is recommended as a starting point, to be speeded up or slowed down as the individual can tolerate. The decision to discontinue or resume medication is entirely the individual's.

It is the fondest hope of all of us that, in time, we'll all recover, many fewer people will be suffering from adverse reactions and iatrogenic damage from psychiatric drugs, and this site will have done its job.