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Cheers, everyone First – english is not my native language, so forgive me, if it's a bit clumsy. Second – this story may be long. I feel like sharing, yet I'll try to make it short. Everything began 11 years ago, when – after a great deal of trauma – I was diagnosed with obssesive compulsion disorder. Diagnosis itself felt wright – my fears, obssesions and rituals were getting stronger every day. Soon, I was beginning to lost it. Psychiatrist prescripted SSRI meds – sertraline, to be specific. It was pain. I reached the dose of 120 mg a day, as she ordered – I wasn't sleeping whole nights, wasn't eating almost anything (but still got fat) and my feelings and emotions were lost completely – what was left of me was a complete cyborg. Inabillity to sleep and eat made me going mad, my shrink, however, didn't see any problem. After a half a year, I showed her my middle finger and cease the treatment. I felt great for about a year – then obssesion came back, stronger than ever. This time, a proffesor psychiatrist came with paroxetine. Let me make this clear – paroxetine did help me. My obssesions were gone. I became calm, reasonable, able to deal with emotions like grief or anger quickly. In time, however, I grew more and more disturbed about the therapy. I mean – what about my personality? Which part of that is artificial? What kind of person would I be without drugs? Why other people mostly seem a bother to me and why I lost any kind of interest in any kind of love life? Why I'm getting more and more surly and bitter? My proffesor answers were another drugs only, to which I refused. This year, when six years of paroxetine were coming to pass, I withdraw it. I thought reducing the dose slowly will do. At first, I felt better. Everything was so vivid, so lively; I was becoming nicer to people. All this didin't last long, though. At first, I became nervous. Everything started to seem difficult, I felt like I had to much to attend to. That deepend into depression so deep, I quickly started to think about suicide, which eventually made me to come back to my treatment. This time, side effects decided to say hi. Afer two days on one pill, I suddenly started to run around house in cricle with suicide thoughts so intense, it was like someone grabbed me, shaking my arms and screaming „Do it! Do it! Do it!” I almost tried. I made it through next few days on benzodiazepine. Then, paroxetine kicked in without any more events. I've put myself together, yet I was confused – I mean, what the hell happened? I've never had such depression, where did it come from? My main problem were obssesions. I started to wonder – what if paroxetine actually did all this and now I'm allowing fox to guard henhouse? My decision to have a closer look on this brought me to book „Deadly Medicine and Organised Denial” by prof. Peter Gøtzsche (to those who haven't read it already – it's a book everyone should read). I read that paroxetine – and other SSRI meds – actually cause depression which shows up in the withdrawal syndrome due to disrupting brain biochemistry and that withdrawing after more than few weeks of treatment can be very hard. Sudden suicide thoughts, according to this book, are quite popular side effects of paroxetine syndrome. So many people, I was thinking. So many people did commit suicide, many of them slaughtered their families first. I was furious and quite dispaired, feeling like I'm gonna claw my doctor's eyes out. Who the hell allowed this **** to be on market? Why my god damn shrink is keeping my on this crap for years? I've felt like a freaking junkie. On the other hand though – after I calmed down – I've felt some kind of new strenght. Withdrawing became my top priority. I'm now aware what happened and what is next. I know it may be hard, but I'm not losing optimism, until I still have at least some part of my brain intact (and liver, and kidneys, et cetera...). Like I said, I got this site address from prof. Gøtzsche and here I am. On the next appointment, I'm gonna have a little chit-chat with my doctor. If he won't be willing to assist me on my way to withdrawal, I'll find a doctor who will. I've already reduced the dose from 40 to 30 mg and I'm aiming to reduce it more to 20 mg (this is by approval from my current doctor). And then... well. No matter how much time will it take, I'm gonna be free one day. (Anyone who thinks deserves beer after reading all this, leave me a note ).