Charlotte's story: 7 years on antidepressants

Years on citalopram, then stopping

Charlotte took citalopram for years. She says there were no meaningful formal reviews of it in that time. She began to take it inconsistently, and then stopped completely.

About three weeks later, she says, she had her first panic attack, with severe rumination, racing thoughts and overwhelming anxiety. Moral Medicine describes what she went through as severe antidepressant withdrawal and psychiatric destabilisation.

She says those symptoms eased at first when she went back on citalopram, but that within weeks she developed severe agitation, insomnia, night terrors, diarrhoea, trembling and akathisia, an intense inner restlessness.

What followed for Charlotte

She describes a long period of changes to her medicines and worsening psychiatric symptoms. She says she had profound cognitive impairment, could not work or care for her children, and was eventually admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

In the interview she talks about how quickly she lost the ability to function, and how hard it was to understand what was happening to her. She talks about seeking help through withdrawal and repeated changes of medicine, and about what it did to her sense of who she is, her family life, her career and her trust in her own mind and body.

Moral Medicine says Charlotte has since improved significantly and is rebuilding her life: she is caring for her children again, returning to everyday activities and preparing to go back to work. It adds that she still lives with a fear of relapse.

Thank you to Charlotte for telling this story. This interview was recorded by Moral Medicine, who have filmed more than ninety of these conversations.

If this is your story and you would rather it was not here, write to contact@sidefxhub.com. We will take the page down within 48 hours, and you do not have to tell us why.