I have had one case of severe depression in my lifetime, lasting about three years and caused by distressing family circumstances. During this time, my doctor prescribed the anti-depressant, Seroxat. If I had felt normal, I would have refused to put such a drug into my body but since I was so down I didn’t really care so I took the medication. Being on anti-depressants felt like being hungover permanently. I felt sick, dizzy and uncoordinated. I was walking into walls by mistake, I was sedated and kept falling asleep during the day when I was supposed to be caring for my children and very often I couldn’t get up even when I wanted to. My hands were shaking all the time as if I were an alcoholic and my ability to think disappeared.
I would sit down at my computer to type an email and then go completely blank and forget what I was supposed to write. For a writer whose living is made from writing, this was very problematic. I could see how anti-depressants could work at stopping depression. I was stumbling around in such a haze that it was impossible to feel anything. You have to have emotion to have depression. You have to have reasoning processes to think "I feel upset today". The drug took all that away from me. I couldn’t think clearly enough to be sad or cry. I just wanted to sleep or to sit in front of the TV because that required no thought or action. In essence, it took the "me" away from myself and I’m not sure being robbed of personality is really an acceptable sacrifice to make in exchange for stopping depression.
I went back to the doctor and he reduced the dose and told me to take it in the evening instead so that I would be sedated at night rather than in the day. This only made a minimal difference to my levels of wakefulness - all my other symptoms remained. It was reduced again, still with no difference and I couldn’t come off the drug because the doctor now told me it was addictive and stopping it suddenly was dangerous, something he had neglected to tell me when he prescribed the drug.
Several weeks later and after receiving dire warnings of what would happen to me if I stopped taking the drug without medical supervision, and still feeling sick and dizzy and forgetful, I wanted to know why something that was supposed to help me was making me feel so ill. So I decided to look at the prescribing information on the internet and found that not only were all my symptoms of nausea, dizziness, tremor and confusion were listed, with the exception of sedation, but that the drug could actually cause depression and even suicide! The manufacturer’s data stated:
"Psychiatric disorders
Common: somnolence, insomnia, agitation, abnormal dreams (including nightmares).
Uncommon: confusion, hallucinations.
Rare: manic reactions, anxiety, depersonalization, panic attacks, akathisia.
Frequency not known: suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior.
Cases of suicidal ideation and suicidal behaviors have been reported during paroxetine therapy or early after treatment discontinuation."
That got me wondering whether this agitation, nightmares, confusion, hallucinations and "depersonalization" might lead to someone committing murder so I looked that up too and was shocked to find that there are many cases of murder and even murder/suicide incidences that have occurred due to taking an anti-depressant of any variety. Here are two of the stories that I found:
Mother on Anti-Depressants Shot Twin Sons
Leslie Demeniuk shot both her twin sons in the head just two days after her prescription for anti-depressants was changed. She had taken anti-depressants following the break up of her marriage. The break up was amicable and she was still friends with her ex-husband, had custody of the boys and a new boyfriend. The boyfriend testified that immediately after taking anti-depressants, her behavior changed and she became violent for no reason. She punched him in the face the night before she shot her sons, in a completely unprovoked act of violence. In this case the jury did not believe the insanity plea and Leslie was imprisoned.
Man Kills Wife, Daughter, Granddaughter and Self - Drug Company Held Liable
60-year-old Donald Schell had been taking Paxil for only 48 hours when he killed himself, his wife and his daughter and granddaughter. The plaintiff’s lawyers had previously filed hundreds of cases against the manufacturers of three types of anti-depressants, all but three of the cases were either settled out of court or dismissed. This is because of the alleged benefit from anti-depressants on the lives of depressed people was considered to be too great to allow such adverse publicity.
Schell’s case was the first to directly hold the pharmaceutical company responsible. They were ordered to pay $6.4 million to the relatives.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) work by preventing the brain from re-absorbing serotonin, a chemical that controls mood, sleep and appetite. Any drug that is designed to affect the brain so directly can obviously cause changes in mood and behavior, yet at the time, GlaxoSmithKline’s product information contained no warnings about the potential of the drug to cause aggression and violent tendencies and this is why they were held accountable for the murders and suicide.
I decided to stop poisoning myself with Seroxat and my doctor gradually reduced it until I could stop. I wanted my children to have their mother back the way she was before she started on SSRIs.
How did I get over depression? It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t quick but I leaned on my friends. If I had a really bad day they’d come over and be with me. I forced myself to go out at least once a day so I would have fresh air and exercise, and I hired a life coach. Life coaching is an innovative form of counseling that is goal orientated. Unlike basic counseling, the life coach would make suggestions of how I could deal with a situation and with these instructions, I no longer felt like I was floating in a sea of problems. I was actively doing something to help myself.
As I became less depressed I became more independent and stopped relying on friends quite as much. I started doing a college course and eventually began working again. Now I am totally free of depression and I didn’t need any drug to get me there. If I had continued on the anti-depressants, I might have ended up another sad statistic in the newspaper.
Sources: EMC Medicines - http://www.medicines.org.uk/EMC/medicine/2057/SPC/Seroxat++10mg%2c+20mg%2c+30mg+tablets%2c+20mg+10ml+oral+suspension/#CLINICAL_PRECAUTIONS
Jacksonville News - http://www.news4jax.com/news/5955432/detail.html
http://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/media/ssri/Paxil_murder.htm
Joanna is a freelance health writer for The Mother magazine and Suite 101 with a column on infertility, http://infertility.suite101.com/. She is author of the book, 'Breast Milk: A Natural Immunisation,' and co-author of an educational resource on disabled parenting, in addition to running a charity for people damaged by vaccines or medical mistakes.